Corruption Is Just Another Change o

Sue Storm didn't believe in the stereotype of the bored housewife. Even if she weren't a superpowered celebrity sitting on the boards of half a dozen charities, she had plenty to do as a wife and mother. Her daughter was a six-year-old super-genius with the emotional maturity of... a six-year-old. Her son could create universes, but wasn't very good at it yet. Her husband stretched himself too thin for a living. And then there was her brother and Ben, who needed so much help from time to time that she might as well have four kids.

She kept busy.

So much so, that when she found herself deep in Friday evening with no aliens invading, no ancient evils resurrecting, no board meetings, no experiments, no expeditions, no family dinners, nonothing—she didn't know quite what to do with herself.

She asked around.

Reed: I'll be checking the gain constant of the isometric senso-barometer to make sure it's scanning in centimeters instead of inches, which could throw off the entire process of discerning the amount of gaseous molecules in the Planck room and thus, make the entire experiment about as useful as a an iPad at 30,000 feet.

Ben: Sorry, no can do kiddo, the munchkins got me promisin' to take 'em around the old Avengers mansion. Think it's haunted. You wouldn't be interested in none of that...

Johnny: Someone tweeted to ask what happened if I farted when I was flaming. I'm not saying I'm gonna be all evening, but it could take a while.

Reed: ...which is, of course, where the LCD begins to completely break down. That said, it would be an interesting application of electronic ink, if done with the proper amount of plasma, to simply 'write down' whatever information needed to be conveyed in a rudimentary fashion...

The inner circle of her life exhausted, Sue turned to her phone's contact list. She considered calling Namor, but dismissed the thought with the same rationale as always. T'Challa was another possibility, but his split with Ororo was too raw and she didn't want to take sides so early on. She-Hulk, perhaps. Now there was a woman who knew how to have a good time. It was literally in her blood, for goodness' sake!

As Sue dialed Jen's number on her iPhone—she kept it as one of the few anchors of reality in Reed's Baxter Building wonderland—she switched the nearest wall segment to mirror—case in point. It dialed and she took a moment to note how her unstable molecule costume flattered her. She'd been wearing it to lounge in, as lazily as a pair of worn pajamas, and because quiet evenings had a habit of attracting supervillains. She didn't want to get caught fighting the Mad Thinker in a Snuggie.

Whatever the reason, the spandex-like covering framed her body well, coating her athletically firm limbs and abdomen as if in smooth paint, while seeming to strain over her full cleavage and backside—the lingering weight of her few pregnancies. She vacillated between abhorring the extra load she was carrying and enjoying the effect it made. With the right posture, the costume was downright pornographic. If she weren't wearing underwear—conservativeunderwear, at that...

How long had it been since she and Reed had used the bedroom for more than sleeping and half-awake experiments?

Jen picked up, silencing her frisky musing. She was in Hulk mode—a good sign, since she never went clubbing as nebbish Jennifer Walters—and as usual, the good cheer she spoke with more than balanced out how intimidating her baritone voice could be. "Sue? Holy moses, Sue, you haven't called in forever. I thought Terrax would have to attack before we'd get back together."

"No such luck," Sue replied, already smiling. "I'm too bored for Scandal. Tell me you've got something cooking."

"Just a quiet get-together with friends." Jen had always been a poor liar. Sue imagined the 'quiet get-together' involving twenty reserve Avengers and Tony Stark's wine cellar.

"Room for one more?"

"You, me, and Janet makes three."

Sue silently punched the air. Janet van Dyne, the winsome Wasp. That sounded like just the thing for her doldrums.

"But, really," Jen's voice turned skittish, "I don't know if it's your scene. We're going a little off the beaten track on this one."

"Bring it!" Sue said readily. "I am justthatbored."

"Not kidding here, Sue. I do not want to land on the cover of the Daily Bugle doinganyof this. So if you're in, I will not be holding your hand."

"Jen, I've had two kids and they're both mutants. Trust me, I don't shock easily."

"Alright, we'll pick you up." Jen's voice turned on a dime, back to wine coolers and boys. "And Sue? Dress like you're not married."

***

Usually, Sue just went with her costume. In Paris, it was considered haute culture. Or, if she didn't want to bother with unstable molecules where the sun didn't shine, she had an endorsement deal with J.C. Penney that kept her in sensible everything all eight days of the week. And, if an effort was really called for, she could always bring the glamour.

But this didn't call for her to be Jackie Kennedy reborn. This was asking for slutty. And it'd been a while, but Sue knew she could do slutty.

Back in her college days, and especially to get Reed's attention, she'd favored tight shirts with no bra and jean cut-offs, but there was no getting around that she was deep into her thirties. Sue didn't know how feminist it was, but she detested women who couldn't dress their age. It wasn't that hard to get the desired effect without pretending to still be a snot-nosed twenty-one-year-old.

Going deep into her closet, she found a minidress that had virtually no back, just a halter choker with chain-like straps going to the bodice and the waist-level dip that showed off about every vertebra in her spine. It was blue, of course. Whatever club they ended up at, Sue would enjoy the dissonance people would have seeing the fabulous Invisible Woman getting her drink on.

A decadent set of high heels, along with the lace lingerie she wore beneath, finished the ensemble. She looked and felt sexy, literally from the ground up. More than that, Sue feltdangerous.

She wondered what Reed would say if he could see her now. But, as the elevator carried her down, Sue thought with some dark amusement that he wouldn't get the chance.

***

The evening was dark and surprisingly quiet, most people staying home after the symbiote invasion of the past week, which the Avengers had routed. Jen's green F-150 pulled to the curb—another endorsement deal. Bruce Banner had only signed on because he'd been persuaded it was a boon to American workers, and then had quickly traded it to his cousin. She was equally worried about air quality, but it or an SUV were the only things that could carry her when she'd Hulked out, and as she put it, "it's Glamazon, not soccer mom."

When the passenger door was kicked open for Sue, she saw her friends hadn't gotten the memo about classily dressing down. Janet wore leather pants so tight they could've been mistaken for last week's symbiotes, with a blouse tied off over her belly button ring so that only half of the Japanese art print on the front was showed off. It made Sue feel like she was watching a kung-fu movie with crappy projection.

Jen, meanwhile, had been forced to scrap another of her conservative office outfits and was getting good value for money by wearing it to rags. The jacket was gone, and the metallic gray blouse had lost most of the buttons, only two silkily bridging the space where a bra would go. Her knee-length wool skirt had taken a slit up the side all the way to her panties, which was far too artful not to be on purpose.

Still, if she were in college, Sue would've taken either of them back to her dorm as soon as she had two drinks in her. So, mission accomplished there.

"Sue, you lookgreat!" In the driver's seat, Janet's petite body was swallowed up behind the statuesque musculature of Jen Walters. "I'll even forgive you for not wearing one of my designs."

"Ignore her, she's doing Oprah next week," Jen advised.

Sue gave her the obligatory kiss on the cheek before throwing open the side-door. "So where are we headed?"

Jen opened her mouth, but Janet beat her to the punch. "Show, don't tell, Shulkie!" Her smile became a little plastic as she faced Jen. "She's cool, right?"

"Of course!"

"I am," Sue assured her, feeling like she was sneaking a cig with the girls back in high school.

"Just checking. The woman's breast-fed, after all." With Sue now in the backseat, Janet hit the gas without even waiting for her to buckle her seatbelt.

***

After a half-hour where Janet drove like they were being chased, they arrived in a part of New York Sue didn't recognize, far from her beloved island. Both sides of the street were construction sites; the tallest building on the block was the parking garage they left the pick-up in.

Behind the parking garage, the fenced-in backalley curved to avoid a subway entrance in its midst like a mosquito in amber. Jen and Janet practically skipped down the steps, while Sue lingered at the head. "I swear to God, if all this build-up is just for some Kabbalah thing..." She followed them down.

Underground, the subway platform was cool and had the stale smell of recycled air.AC, Sue thought,thank Christ. It looked abandoned, but also clean. There was no graffiti, no trash, no ads—nothing. It was like they'd stepped into a scale-model of a subway station instead of the real thing.

"What is this place?" Sue asked in wonder, noting that the light didn't come from flickering, glaring fluorescents, but from lanterns in wall-scones. The illumination was soft and gentle.

"It used to serve the AB line, but they closed that after a downed Sentinel caved in half a mile of tunnel," Jen explained. "Now the Mistress owns it."

"The who?"

"Later," Janet piped up. She was digging into her handbag for something, which turned out to be an unremarkable-looking white card. With a flourish, it was waved in front of an empty poster space.

From down the empty subway tunnel came the slightest of electronic sighs.

Sue crossed her arms the way she did when Val was fibbing about anything from who erased Adventure Time from the Tivo to where Dr. Doom was at the moment. "I thought you said the tunnel was caved in."

"Part of it," Jen assured her. "Our stop's way before you can even see the rubble."

"Which actually comes in handy." Janet was now carefully replacing the card in her purse. It became clear to Sue that it actually had a special slot to go into. "Keeps curious eyes away."

"And what would curious eyes be looking for?"

Janet excitedly took Sue's arm. "You'll see!" she promised.

Jen took Sue's other arm, which gave her the odd impression of being frog-marched to whatever the evening held. The electric sighing was getting more intense, without actually seeming to get closer. Nonetheless, in a few seconds, something that looked a great deal like the pods from Logan's Run arrived at the station. Sue was about to comment on the similarity when she remembered when the movie had come on, and bit her tongue to avoid looking too old.

Feeling a bit Dorothy circa Oz—that, thankfully, she only knew from home video—she went arm in arm with the other heroines. Inside, Sue took back the comparison. Unlike the clunky sperm-mobiles in Logan's Run, this interior was as smooth and contoured as a luxury sedan, with comfortable reclining seats and recesses for everything from cups to bags. There were no controls, though, none of the buttons Sue had come to expect from moving vehicles. They simply sat down and the tram whooshed back the way it had come. Sue jumped a little at the unusual experience of going backward, facing the subway 'ghost town' as it receded into the distance.

The tram moved fast, with no obvious inertia to jostle them. Repulsor technology, Sue guessed. Expensive, but not prohibitively so. More of a cute toy than the egotistical bleeding-edge tech of a supervillain lair. That was a little assuring.

"So... 'the Mistress'?" Sue prompted Jen.

Jen gave her a giggly look, the big blabbermouth, and though Janet gaveherthe evil eye, She-Hulk spilled. "Well, sometime in the sixties the city tried building a luxury subway station, accessible only by elevator. It tanked, but a while ago, the Lizard shacked up there. After Spider-Man hauled him up, the mayor realized the place might be worth something and put it up for sale like any other real estate. Andshebought it."

"Who?" Sue insisted.

"You'll judge," Janet said warningly, once more cutting off Jen. "Better to meet her... in her natural environment. If you do meet her. If we're that lucky."

Sue rolled her eyes at all the secrecy. "As long as it's not a future me or a future kid of mine or anyone from the future..."

"It's not."

"But she's been to the future!" Jen teased.

"Shush!" Janet replied.

Jen laughed. The platform had disappeared from sight, leaving the tram stranded in darkness. With the repulsor technology, there was no sign they were moving, either. The only light came from a blue ambiance generated by the tram itself. It didn't extend more than a few inches past the windshield. Stranded in darkness, Sue thought again, turning the phrase over in her head. Like they were waiting for something instead of traveling somewhere. She thought of turning something invisible, just to be active.

"Anyway," Jen said, "shebought the station, furnished it, and made it her own private...ourprivate... place. You can only get to it by this tunnel, and of course, no one knows it's down here. It's... it's just the best, Sue, really."

"Alright, alright." Sue put her hands up. "Don't oversell it. I've been to the Microverse, so if this is just some rave, I'm not going to be too impressed."

Now Janet laughed, a tad too mockingly for Sue's tastes.

Jen smoothed things over with a sweet smile at Sue and a grimace at Janet. "I'm not trying to sell you on this, it's just..." Jen was so nervous, she actually shrunk a little, turning a lighter shade of green. "It's a lot to take in. Promise you won't freak out? You'll give it just a teensy-weensy chance?"

"Yes, yes, of course," Sue nodded, laughing herself. What were they getting her into, an orgy? No, Jen would never share so many men.

The tram came to a stop without Sue realizing it. But somehow, both Jen and Janet knew to disembark. Sue wondered at that. Had they made the trip enough times to clock it? That seemed unlikely, given their busy schedules, and no club could appeal to themthatmuch. Shelving the thought, Sue followed them out of the tram and gasped.

The station they'd arrived at was a stunning tribute to Jet Age architecture, a rounded lobby that bore a resemblance to a Pan Am terminal, but with a stunning mural of sea life where the windows might've been. It extended all around the lobby, even into the far wall beyond the tracks—a cheeky reminder of being below sea level. The floor itself was mostly vacant of the seating arrangement Sue would've expected, with merely a few stone benches scattered about at oblique angles. It was more like a galleria than the 'people warehouses' Sue loathed in public transportation.

And that was just the first stop. A staircase led deeper inside.

Jen took the lead, cheerfully playing tour guide. Sue's eyes were unconsciously drawn to her swaying ass. It was sashaying enough to draw even a married woman's attention, and when Sue remembered herself and looked away, she was shocked to find Janet being equally 'appreciative.' Noticing being noticed, the Wasp gave her a conspiratorial smile.

"Of course, this was never meant to bejusta platform. There were going to be stores, a library, a theater, apool," Jen rattled on, oblivious. Though she'd regained her height, her inner nerd was still obvious. "Those, the Mistress took out. Instead... well..."

"Therein lies the rub," Janet breathed anxiously.

At the bottom of the stairs, the light darkened from the lobby's comfortable glow to a more intimate, evening illumination. Shuddered wall-scones barely dipped light into a wide hallway. Again, Sue was impressed. Plush carpet, wood paneling, even end tables bearing flowers at appropriate junctions. All very dark, very brooding and Jungian—the only real lightness was from the flowers, white roses that seemed to spectrally linger even as they walked past them.

It was like stepping into a tastefully appointed English manor, albeit one that was far more Mr. Rochester than Jane Austen. It was also strikingly... sexual. Though the paintings on the walls were of woodland scenes—nymphs and satyrs frolicking—there was an obvious sensuality to all the gazing and posing that bled into the atmosphere. Even Jen and Janet were in on the act, no longer giggling and strutting about, but simply breathing heavily as they led Sue about. She wondered what all the damn fuss was really about. A burlesque show, maybe? She wasn't an ingénue—if it was a mutant act, she could imagine things getting well and truly feisty.

As they walked, they only passed two other people. Sue thought it was one—a tall woman almost entirely covered by a cloak in the style of Red Riding Hood and a lace mask. Her gait parted the cloak as she went, revealing she was nude except for her high heels. And the muscular thighs put Sue strongly in mind of Ms. Marvel (Captain Marvel now, Sue reminded herself absurdly).

That didn't shock Sue—at least, it wasn't the part that shocked Sue the greatest. It was when she noticed the leash clenched in the woman's hand, and her eyes followed it to a naked man trailing behind her on all fours. Sue didn't register anything about him except that he was generously endowed. She could tell because at that moment, he was fully erect.

In a moment, they were out of sight and Sue didn't dare turn her head for a second glance. She was so surprised she didn't even say a word. Neither did Jen or Janet. But they exchanged knowing glances, and when they looked back at Sue, it was with the same aura of something being plotted.

Ahead, double doors were sprawled open. They led into a grand ballroom—at least, something that might've been one, once. Now its marble floor was covered almost from wall to wall with lengthy rugs. The walls were veiled by heavy crimson curtains. Chairs and tables huddled about like shadows, rare specimens with discrete distance between them. They were arranged in a loose constellation around a stage of about ten feet in diameter. The stagelights that ringed it were the only direct light in the room.

They revealed a harness, set up like a large tripod to dangle a woman upside-down, three feet above the floor. She was bound from head to toe in leather that resembled a straitjacket and paint at the same time, smothering her skin right up to the eyeballs. It was all black except for the ball gag in her mouth, which was an offensive chrome, and the wave of green hair that fell from the open bondage hood. And as she struggled in place, a microphone in the gag broadcast her muffled groans and sighs, some program or DJ slowing it down and turning it up and amping the bass so it became a kind of music, playing over the whole scene in a dreamy chorus.

Two more people in Red Riding Hood cloaks were on stage. They beat the bound woman with cats-o'-nine-tails, each stinging hit drawing a smattering of applause from the audience and a renewed writhing from the woman.

Jen looked back at Sue with a shit-eating grin, and saw that she was stricken. "Don't worry, Lorna signs up for that every night..."

Janet hit her, which Jen barely felt and so barely acknowledged. "No names, dummy! We shouldn't even be in our street clothes..."