Cate Collins finished typing, tore the page from the typewriter and held the three pages in the air, shouting, "Copy!"
"Yes, Miss Collins!" Ken, the copy boy yelled, snatching the pages from her fingers, and he ran to deliver them to Mr. Kyle, the City Editor. Cate sat back, her hands behind her head, and took a deep breath. This one was sure to make the front page, and maybe even get her that Katzenburg Award for Journalistic Achievement.
Cate's career had exploded with the arrival of Action Guy, the masked marvel smashing the gambling rackets on the East Side. She had been investigating them herself, and had been caught eavesdropping on Moe Johnson, who led the rackets. She had been tied up in a warehouse when Action Guy crashed through the door, his form fitting blue shirt highlighting his rippling musculature, his tight brown trousers displaying his bulging thighs, and (Cate felt her temperature rise) other bulges. He wore knee-high brown boots, and most exotic of all, a cowl that covered his head and most of his face, hiding his identity.
He had moved through the thugs, powerful fists smashing into their jaws and midsections, taking them out with seeming ease. And then he had lifted Cate to her feet and pulled on the ropes that bound her, breaking them and letting them fall to the cement around her feet.
"Don't worry, Miss Collins," Action Guy had said as she stared at him with awe. "You don't need to worry about these guys anymore." His voice had been deep and his attitude supremely confident. Over the following six months, Cate had been thrown into dangerous situations on a regular basis in the course of her job as a reporter for the Sun Standard. And always, at the very last minute, Action Guy had appeared to save the day.
Cate knew that Action Guy had stolen her heart. No other man made her feel weak in the knees and dizzy the way that he did. That's not to say that Cate didn't have her admirers. There were a dozen guys at any time who were vying for her attention and affections, case in point, Dan Forest, the Private Investigator. Forest was tall and well built, but he wore shabby suits and a beat up old hat. His personality was far removed from Action Guy's, being a lazy man, always late to the scene.
She had to admit that he was handsome, and she might have even given him a whirl, if Action Guy hadn't shown up and stolen her heart. She remembered her first encounter with Action Guy, with his rippling muscles and the beating he gave to those thugs. The way he'd lifted her with ease and snapped her bonds. The mysterious masked man could have done anything...
She lit a cigarette and blew out smoke in an unsteady stream, trying to calm her nerves, when Dan Forest appeared behind her and said, "That's bad for you, you know," in his soft, almost effeminate voice.
"Yeah, sure," Cate said, jumping to her feet. "I'll see you around, Forest," she said, putting her hat atop her head and snatching up her purse. "I'm working a story!" Cate hurried the the elevator and saw Forest hurrying to join her as the elevator doors closed.
Cate had been a reporter for the Sun Standard for two years before her encounter with Action Guy, and had written many stories about flower shows, parades, and other human interest puff pieces. She knew, and she knew it was well rumored, that she had gotten her job at the paper because, during her interview, she'd crossed her long sexy legs at the exact moment that Stanley Moore, the publisher, had walked into the room. Once he had seen the gorgeous face, full figure, and legs of Cate Collins, he'd turned to Ellery Kyle and said, "Hire the girl!" Only Kyle and Collins knew that Moore had thought she was applying for a secretarial position, but it didn't matter now. She'd gotten hired as a reporter, and with the coming of Action Guy she had become an ace reporter, her byline appearing frequently on the front page.
Cate hurried to the twenty-four hour diner she'd been tipped to and waited outside, trying to be inconspicuous. Never mind that a brunette with a pretty face and gams that went on forever could never really be inconspicuous. After a few minutes, a big ape of a man left the diner, putting a gray hat on his misshapen bald head. He was huge, at least six-eight, and close to three hundred pounds of hard muscle. Cate had recognized him at once as Breaker Moran, a thug who had done time for assault and racketeering. They said he liked to break legs, hence his nickname, and that he was currently working for a criminal mastermind known as Professor Pain. And since Cate had been trying to run down this Professor Pain, she needed to follow anyone who might lead her to him.
Giving Moran a half block lead, Cate fell in behind him. Two blocks later she had to let his lead grow, for he had gone down an alley, and she would have exposed herself if she hadn't waited until he had turned a corner. Cate hurried after him and then for another six blocks, when he when into another alley.
Cate peered carefully around the corner and found it deserted. She scanned the empty alley for another moment, to be sure, and then hurried after him, looking for anywhere that he might have entered one of the tall buildings that surrounded her. "Aha!" she thought, triumph putting a smug grin on her lips. There was a door there, under a sign that said 'Moonlight Garage'. There was no garage anywhere around here, Cate knew.
She crept up to the door and tried the knob, and the door opened. It was very dark inside, and she didn't want the light from the doorway to give her away, so Cate hopped inside and closed the door behind her. The door made a curious cracking noise when it closed, like a steel bolt firing into place, and Cate tried to open it again. The handle turned easily, but no amount of pushing would budge the locked door.
Cate felt around her purse for the box of matches she kept, and she felt her heart race, wondering if she'd find a good hiding place before someone found her. Finding the box of matches, Cate lit one just as a pair of iron-hard arms wrapped around her and lifted her feet from the floor. Shouting, she felt the floor give way and the same feeling in her stomach that she got from the elevator at the paper.
They descended into a large room filled with scientific equipment, including the prerequisite V-shaped metal poles that had electricity arcing between them like captured lightning. Her captor set her atop a platform and released her, but as Cate made to run, she found that she couldn't move a muscle!
Her eyes swept the large laboratory, and she saw that in the far corner, next to some gymnasium equipment, stood the massive form of Breaker Moran, who had removed his jacket, shirt and hat. He wore a sleeveless undershirt and gray trousers, and leaned on a leather covered piece of equipment, watching her. Across the room from him, standing at an advanced control panel of some sort, with gauges with needles in motion, blinking lights, and large toggle switches, was none other than Professor Pain himself. He stood only four foot-five, and had a thin, frail body. His bulbous head was hairless, save for a thin black mustache and goatee, and he wore big, thick goggles. We wore a white smock, like doctor or dentist, and black trousers.
From behind her stepped a woman that Cate recognized immediately. Standing six foot two and then wearing six inches of heel, was the powerfully muscled Gretyl, the Titanic Teuton! Or was it Teutonic Titan? She wore her uniform of a tight black leather corset with silvery metal bands encircling her mammoth breasts, a shamelessly short black pleated skirt over fishnet tights, and her previously mentioned high heeled leather boots. She had a mannish face with large blue eyes, and her hair was golden and long, gathered into two braids that were wound on the sides of her head. It was rumored that she could bend steel in her hands and was bullet proof.
"Release me at once!" Cate shouted at Professor Pain, and he hobbled over to her, walking with a strange gait. He regarded her momentarily and then spoke quietly with Gretyl.
