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Several people have asked about our stolen key to the city of Worcester.
The real story is quite boring. Sorry. But, it’s true.

So, I am substituting a story from the old comic book my wife and I used to
produce. For the very, very few people who ever read it, this would have
happened in the middle of issue #2 after the giant robot is defeated, but
before the AOF starts to work together…
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The battle in the small park behind city hall of the city of Worcester had
been fairly short, but the damage significant.
Exactly where the ninety foot tall robot that had stomped its way to the
center of the city had come from was not clear. The trail of wreckage led
back to a warehouse on the south side of town, but determining who owned it
and who had been using it was lost in a complex shell game of corporate
holdings.
The only thing clear was the person listed as the owner was completely
clueless about the subject.

The damage to the city was hardly noticed by the media or the inhabitants
because of what the giant robot attack had accomplished.
There had been rumors for years that strange people live in the Worcester
area. People who could fly, lift cars, or move too fast to be seen.
Most of these stories were connected with disasters in the city that
destroyed buildings and left people dead.
The general feeling was that the weird stories were part of some government
cover up of military research going on in the city.

No longer.
When the robot stomped into down town, hundreds of people had seen the
flying people who came out to fight it.
Some folks still had doubts. People with superpowers couldn’t really
exist. It must be some hoax or publicity stunt.
But, the folks who had been near city hall that afternoon had no doubts.
There were people out there that could do these things only told in stories
before.

The mayor of Worcester was quick to capitalize on this interest in the
people. There was one known “super hero” in Worcester in 1983, and
everyone knew it. He had also been seen fighting the giant robot and that
was the key to linking the city with the event that had captured the
imagination of the city.

On the front steps of City Hall, the mayor stood with the ROTC teacher from
Holy Cross. A sea of reporters and onlookers watched from the wide
sidewalk in front of them.
Colonel Hart was in his Air Force uniform and had several people from Holy
Cross with him. One young woman was wearing a strange outfit of black
material that covered her face, but stood behind the other people mostly
out of sight.

“Colonel John Hart, the city of Worcester would like to thank you for your
service in the disaster that struck our fair city,” the mayor said.
“You’ve really earned your nickname of ‘Captain Fantastic’!
“Please accept from us the key to this great city.”
As the colonel stepped forward as the mayor held out the plaque with the
large golden key on it.

A crackle of lightning shot out of the blue sky and sparked across the
ground in front of the mayor.
“Hold it!” A deep voice shouted.
Two men dropped out of the sky. One was huge, more than 7 feet tall, built
like the best bodybuilder. His dark skin offset his grey tight fitting
uniform.
The other was also tall, but nowhere near the size of the other. He was
covered in sparking, shifting bits of color that moved back and forth
across him.

“Why is he getting this recognition?” the shorter of the two asked. “I
blasted that robot with a lightning bolt before Dynamo ripped its leg off.”
“That’s right,” the huge one said in a very deep voice. “And, there was
that guy in armor shooting lasers too.”
“We hope to recognize everyone,” the mayor said, backing away from the two
men hovering in front of him.
“Good,” the shorter one said.
“Yoink!” the big one said and grabbed the plaque with the key to the city
out of the hands of the mayor.
“Thank you very much!” the other said to the crowd as they started lifting
off into the air.

Suddenly, the women in black who had been at the back of the crowd blurred
into motion shooting across the stairs and leaping into the air onto the
large flying man. Before he could react she had grabbed the plaque out of
his hands and leapt back to the ground.

“Nice try,” the other one said and held out his hand.
The key on the plaque rotated to face him as the woman held onto the wood.
It continued towards the man, lifting her off of the ground.
Everyone in the crowd felt all items of metal they had become drawn towards
the hovering man. Soon a cloud of pens, keys and cameras circled around
him in the air.
The woman continued to hold onto the plaque joining the orbit of metal
objects.
Finally the key broke off of the wood plaque and she dropped back down to
the ground still holding the now empty wood.
With a laugh, the two men once more began rising in the sky.

“We’re stronger together than apart,” a voice said. All eyes turned to
Colonel Hart now holding the mayor’s microphone. “Don’t fight this, join
us.”
The two men stopped rising and turned back to ‘Captain Fantasic’.
“Why should we join you?” the big man asked. “Maybe you should be joining
us!”
The eyes of everyone in the crowd shifted back to Hart.
“Well, you two are technically illegal vigilantes, where as I work for the
government and can get us official approval.”
The two men in the air looked at each other.

“We’ll think it over,” the bigger one said. “We’ll let you know what we
think.”
“But either way, we’re keeping this key,” the other one said.
They both shot into the air and disappeared.

The crowd went wild.
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OK, the real story is that at the museum where a bunch of us used to work
the key was found sitting in an old store room and was going to be thrown
away.
My wife said “A giant gold key could be a useful prop for our sword troupe”
and brought it home rather than throw it in the dumpster.

If I were you, I’d stick with the super hero story.
And, just for reference, the lecture I went to last night at Holy Cross was
at the “Hart Center”.
I didn’t know they had named a building for Captain Fantastic. Nice of
them to do that…