Queen of the Concrete Jungle Ch. 03

A woman with a Death Wish, she's a female Equalizer.

Continued from Chapter 2:

Indeed, Laura Lion is a fighter. Indeed, she's a phenomenal woman. Taking her retribution out on them, it's true that she hunts bad men, criminals, and men who use, abuse, and hurt women.

Only, instead of turning them over to the police for arrest, to the district attorney for prosecution, and to the judge and jury for trial and hopefully conviction, she's the police, the prosecutor, the judge, the jury, and the executioner. The last salvation for women, she shows no mercy to men, bad men. If your thing is crime, especially if your thing is abusing women, trust me, you don't want Laura Lion after you.

Tired of watching criminals walk free in a court of law on a technicality of law, taking it upon herself to do the right thing, she has her own way of dealing with criminals. She has her own way of deterring crime. Having zero tolerance and a zero-recidivism rate, she has her own way of making sure that criminals don't repeat their crime against innocent women again. She's quick to take the challenge on the behalf of weak and submissive women who can't defend themselves. With her intolerance towards abusive men, she's always ready to fight the good fight.

All throughout history, from the Crusades, to the War of the Roses, to revolutions, civil wars, and world wars, no matter which country, tired of being used and abused, people are always ready to fight the good fight. When the chips are down and it's either you or me, from kings and queens, to knights in shining armor, to peasants with pitchforks, when enough is enough, we're all ready to do battle. Prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice, the American way, we're all ready to die for the cause.

We all have a bit of Laura Lion within us. Yet, with us living in civil societies with laws, just because your sister is raped and/or your mother is murdered is still no reason for you to take the law in your own hands. It's against the law for you to avenge them by seeking your revenge.

Chances are, even if you avenge your sister and/or your mother, you'd be no better than the monster who murder them. With the laws written against you and with you now deemed a murderer, you'll go to jail. Besides, that's Laura's job. Leave the vengeance to her. Leaving no trace or evidence, she has a way of taking care of those who need her form of quick justice.

Chapter 3:

From the Sermon on the Mount in the New Testament, in the Gospel of Mathew, chapter 5, an alternative to an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth was preached by Jesus. Instead, of seeking revenge for bad deeds done, He, our God Almighty, encouraged that we turn the other cheek. Alas, with her not very religious, when it comes to women being used, abused, and beaten, Laura doesn't subscribe to what Jesus said when confronted by the evil that bad men do. Always ready to do battle with good versus evil, with good on her side, unlike God Almighty, she'll never turn the other cheek.

She's out to get even by righting wrongs. She's out for vengeance. She's out to get her pound of flesh. She's out to turn the tables that have been turned against helpless, innocent women for centuries. She's out to evoke revenge for all the bad things that men do, have done, and continue to do to women. Ready to dole out her form of retribution, she's ready to sacrifice her safety and her body for your mother, your sister, your aunt, your cousin, your mother-in-law, your sister-in-law, and/or for any female stranger who needs her help.

In the way of King Solomon, as his personal objective of reciprocal justice in Judaism believed, an eye for an eye was his preferred law of retaliation. Subscribing to that way of justice, Laura believed that, too. Much in the way of a King or a Queen, quick to serve her sentence, with her sense of self-righteousness, she had no compunction in taking the law in her own hands. Ready to do battle wherever and with whoever, without fear of retaliation from them, she was tired of criminals doing whatever they wanted to do to whomever they wanted to do it, especially to women.

Yet, with her not totally innocent, with her no goody-two-shoes, Laura adhered to an immoral and illegal, personal code of her own. A volition of preferred revenge, using their immoral and illegal behavior as her retaliation example against them, she played by the rules of criminals to teach them a lesson that they'd not only understand but also that they'd never soon forget. As part of their forced rehabilitation, she disciplined them and humiliated them. Totally embarrassing, demoralizing, and emasculating, no bad man wanted to be disciplined and humiliated, especially by a woman, and a very petite woman at that.

Having a one-hundred-percent success rate, those criminals who Laura caught and disciplined, have never committed another crime. Instead of continuing in their criminal ways, she put the fear of God in them. Fearing what she'd do to them next, if she caught them abusing another defenseless woman again, fearing that she'd do worst to them than she had already done to others, as if suddenly finding religion, they now walk the straight and narrow. With some getting jobs and others reenrolled in school, with her making a positive influence on their lives, they've turned their lives around because of her.

Instead of stopping their violent behavior, instead of turning their lives around, her defeating them made them angrier. Her beating them made them meaner. They were the ones who were unable to rehabilitate themselves. They were the ones that a good beating wouldn't save them.

Instead, of a good beating changing their lives, especially a beating from a little woman, a good beating made them want revenge. A good beating made them want to get even. Now, instead of conforming and mending their ways, they wanted their pound of flesh. They wanted their eye for an eye.

They wanted to abduct her, strip off her naked, and gangbang rape her. Yet, good luck with that. She wasn't about to allow any man or group of men to take advantage of her in the way that they murdered her father, and raped and murdered her mother. After that tragedy, she may have been somewhat tolerant before, but she was no longer tolerant now.

With her having the routine and the instincts of a jungle cat, sleeping during the day and prowling the city streets at night, she went where the crime is and where the criminals are hiding in the shadows. Where most others would avoid bad neighborhoods, especially at night, she thrived on the criminal element being there. Always finding someone doing bad things, she was never disappointed by human nature of men doing stupid and monstrous things to women.

# # #

An unassuming, average female, with nothing special about her, a 5'4" tall, 120-pound woman, with men thinking that she's a helpless female and a weak woman, she used men's underestimation of her to her advantage. She surprised them with her martial arts fighting skills. When that wasn't enough, she surprised them with her superhuman acts of strength.

As if she was suddenly invisible, hiding in plain sight, with so very many women physically looking like her in height, weight, size, and dimensions, Laura had the unique ability to disappear within a crowd of women. Unless a government drone was to take a heat signature from her within a crowd of women, the infrared heat that radiates from an object or from a human, they wouldn't know that she was different from other humans. With her unique ability to hide within a crowd of women, oblivious to her advancing, most men never see her coming.

Genetically altered by her father, as if she was nuclear, with her aura glowing brilliant yellow, orange, and red, Laura's heat signature was much brighter than other humans. As if she was a walking, talking, and thinking neutron star composed of high-density neutrons, hidden from the naked eye, she was internally super bright. Indeed, a human version of the String Theory, she's a neutron human before becoming a supernova human and turning into a human black hole ready to suck in criminals who plot and plan their crimes against women.

Highly magnetic when she wanted to be and needed to be, she could magnetically attract knives, guns, bullets, and car keys from the hands and pockets of criminals before being used against her. As if she was Master Po, Grasshopper's master from Kung Fu, she was highly sensitive to her surroundings. She could sense things, feel things, hear things, and see things that others would be oblivious to sensing, feeling, hearing, and seeing.

She didn't have Superman's X-ray vision, but as if blind she had a sixth sense. Giving her the ability and the time to react to defend herself, Laura had the unique, superhuman ability to respond to changes in her surrounding atmosphere before things happened. Because she could perceive changes in the air around her, she didn't have to see a bat to know to duck before being hit by it because a bat was being swung at her. She didn't have to see the knife thrown at her to know to sidestep because a knife was coming her way.

A dead giveaway that she was special, was worth talking to, and physically and mentally examine, knowing that she'd be detected and stopped, she avoided surveillance cameras, especially those with facial recognition software. Known to have that type of software, she avoided entering government buildings. Never going through a security checkpoint at the airport, the courthouse, or any high security building, instead, she drove, took a bus, the train, or hired a private plane to take her wherever she wanted and needed to go.

The only ones who knew who she was and what she could do to them were criminals. Criminals weren't about to blab to the police that some petite woman beat the crap out of them. Besides, with them getting away with their crime but for a beating from Laura Lion, at least they stayed out of jail. A far as Laura was concerned, as long as they turned their lives around and behaved themselves, unless they returned to their old ways of abusing women, they'd never see the likes of Laura Lion again.

# # #

The last thing she wanted was for some secret, government agency with initials and/or with an acronym for a name to detain her, confine her, and even imprison her. Hiding in the shadows, she didn't want anyone to know that someone like here existed. She didn't want anyone to know that she was her father's secret pet project, his experimental dummy that he used to test his genetic coding.

If anyone knew that a superhuman with her crazy, mad, fighting abilities was out there, she'd never have any peace. She'd be hunted. As if she was Ruby Rose as Ares in John Wick 2, people would want to challenge her to a fight.

The press and autograph seekers would hound her. People would follow her. The military would want her for secret, stealth missions. Rich, old, white men would want her as their personal bodyguard and for sex. For her own safety and personal protection, it was best for her to remain anonymous and safely hidden in the shadows.

Before his untimely death, it was bad enough that the government owned her father's inventions and work. It was bad enough that the government controlled her father's life. With him never his own man, she vowed they'd never do that to herself.

Strong and silent, with them never seeing her coming, she needed to be her own woman. She needed to do things her way. She needed to set things right, she needed to protect women. She needed to seek revenge for women who couldn't avenge themselves.

Never wearing high heels to make her look taller and more intimidating to men, she didn't wear short skirts and/or low-cut tops to make her look sexier either. Whereas most women want to be noticed, she didn't want to be noticed. Wanting to remain hidden within the shadows, she wanted to remain anonymously invisible.

With her looking like so very many other women, she wanted to remain just another woman in the crowd. She'd rather be forgettable than memorable. She didn't want anyone recalling who she was and/or what she looked like.

Always wearing her Nike Zoom, Pegasus 35 Turbo, running sneakers, she used her small statue to her advantage and to the criminals' disadvantage. Stronger than steel and having more stretch than elastic, as if she was a reincarnation of Jack LaLanne's wife, Elaine LaLanne, when going out late at night, she wore a body conforming, one-piece, jumpsuit made of synthetic silk. Her synthetic, silk bodysuit was easier for her to move around in and for her to run faster and jump higher.

# # #

Laura's late father, Dr. Larry Lion, a noted biologist, received his bachelor's, master's, and Ph.D. degrees from MIT, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Had his research work in genetic, DNA restructuring been made public, he would, no doubt, have won a Nobel Prize in chemistry. Yet, with his work the property of the United States government and deemed top secret, under penalties of the law, and unless he wanted to go to prison for the rest of his life, he could never make his work public.

Once finding out about his murder, the FBI, Homeland Security, NSA, CIA, and DIA swooped in and took his files, his computer, and his cellphones. Not wanting to leave his research behind, they didn't want anyone to duplicate whatever it was he was working on. Only, hidden from them, even they didn't know about his superhuman experiment. They didn't know about his daughter, Laura. Had they known, no doubt, they would have taken her, too.

Away from the crowded, residential neighborhoods, he worked his life in one of those drab, windowless, unnoticed, concrete buildings that Cambridge has in abundance. In case there was an explosion, and away from the prying eyes of those spies using thermal imaging cameras and supersensitive microphones, incased in lead as if working in a bank vault, most of his work was secretly done five stories, belowground level.

Protected by armed guards and every aspect of modern-day security, needing a fingerprint and an eye photo to even enter the building, if anyone wondered what goes on there, away from prying eyes, it was none of anyone's business. Top secret, and with invasive cameras scanning the interior as well as the exterior everywhere, the locked down facility was highly classified. The military paid companies in Cambridge who employed dozens of genius scientists, physicists, chemists, biologists, microbiologists, botanists, and research workers to invent the next, best thing and/or the next, best destructive weapon.

Cambridge, Massachusetts, the home of Harvard University and MIT, holds the most patents and is credited for having the most technological inventions and medical advances, by far, in the world. Living a dull and uneventful life, Dr. Lion was one of those talented, innocuous, and unnoticed scientists. Carrying a briefcase, he wore a suit to work as if he worked in Boston's, financial district. No one would give him a second look. No one would think him a mad scientist.

A prerequisite of him working there, he took a decontamination shower before starting work for fear of him bringing a foreign organism to work. He took another decontamination shower before leaving work, for fear of bringing a foreign organism home. He never entered or left the building wearing his lab coat or his hazmat suit.

Cloaked in secrecy, he was as evasive about what he did for work as he was in telling anyone where he worked. If word got out what he was working on now, his life and/or the life of his family may be in danger. Other than the love that he had for his wife, and the dedication to his work, the one joy in his life was the pride that he had for his superhuman daughter.

Any number of countries would pay a premium price for him and for his research. Any number of countries would pay dearly to take his daughter in their custody to study her and replicate her. With her still a work in progress, it was just a fluke that a couple of thieves murdered him and prematurely ruined the development of her. There was no telling how far he would have taken his daughter. Maybe, he could have made her skin impervious to bullets. Maybe, he could have made her fly.

As his way of avoiding the long wait of having to write research papers and wait for government approval for testing his experiments, Laura, Dr. Lion's daughter, was his voluntary, human guinea pig. Testing internal and external concoctions that he secretly created and worked on in his lab, he wanted to see how his daughter would react to them. Careful not to harm her, make her ill, poison her, expose her to radiation, and/or kill her, he tested his experiments on animals first.

What he found, quite by accident, was that he could change the genetic makeup of his daughter and of anyone, for that matter. Playing God by adding more of this gene and less of that gene, as if he was Dr. Frankenstein incarnate, he could make her run faster and longer. He could make her dive deeper and remain submerged longer. He could make her jump farther and higher. He could make her stronger and live longer while looking younger.

Hard to believe but, as if he was Marvel Comics Bruce Banner, the creator of the Hulk, when he genetically altered his daughter, he created a human monster. Only, not a monster on the outside, she was a monster, a genetic incarnation, on the inside. As if she was Bruce Willis in Unbreakable, without hurting herself or her bones, she could lift as much weight as an Icelandic strongman who outweighed her by 300 pounds. She had the strength to shotput a two-hundred-pound man fifty feet with force through the air.

# # #

One day, when she was defending a woman being physically and emotionally threatened by a man, his friend emerged from out of nowhere and snuck up behind her. Seldom caught by surprised, she was preoccupied with helping the woman. With the first man working in conjunction with the second man, they may have hurt her. Fortunately for her, a good Samaritan, an elderly man who was sweeping his sidewalk while watching it all unfolding, moved behind the second man approaching her from behind and hit him with his broom.

"Get away from her," he shouted warning Laura in the process.

Plenty enough warning for her to take action, knocking the man unconscious with a single blow, she sucker-punched the man with an uppercut to his jaw. Before she could offer further assistance to the woman, the woman and the man's friend had left. No doubt, a woman who was so petite had frightened them and caused them to run away.

She looked at the man who had helped her by hitting her potential assailant with his broom. Feeling bad for him, he was in obvious pain and discomfort. Stooped over, he walked with a noticeable limp. Obviously, because of his medical conditions, he looked older than he assuredly was.

"What's wrong with you? What are you walking like that?"

He shrugged.

"Arthritis. I have it in both shoulders, my lower back, my hips, and in my knees," he said. "There's nothing I can do. I don't have the money for back and shoulder surgery. I can't afford knee and hip replacement. Instead, I take as much pain medication as I'm allowed without becoming addicted," he said with a shrug.

She smiled at the man with understanding.

"I can help you with your pain," she said. A power she didn't know she had until she recently discovered when rubbing her sore arm, she had a special kind of heeling aura. "Remove your shirt," she said while rubbing her hands together.

Then, once his shirt was off, applying pressure as if giving him a deep tissue massage, she rubbed his shoulders and lower back with her left hand, only with her left hand.

"The pain is gone from my shoulders and my back. I can move my arms. I don't believe this. Thank you," he said looking at her as stunned as he was shocked.