"Water, Water, Not Everywhere"

 



Part One: "Miss Direction"

Ryanna said, "Daddy?"

Jon said, "Yes Anna" and spun around to see his daughter in a form-fitting, royal blue body suit with a plunging neckline.  She was wearing an extremely short shirt over it.  The skirt was trimmed by a simple yellow belt that accentuated her slender waist. The belt gently rounded down in front forming a gentle "V" shape that guided the eye downward to where the slightest breeze would reveal the bottom part of the body suit. Her only other accessory was a pair of pearl ear-rings that could occasionally be seen behind her almost shoulder length blonde hair. Her lips were a bright red and her eyes were deeply shadowed. When Jon was at last able to get his dropped jaw back in action, he said, "What is this? Halloween?"

Ryanna said, "No, Daddy, this is my flying suit." She took off her wig revealing that her long, red hair had been tightly braided and pulled back into a bun. Her lips faded to their normal pale color and the shadows over her eyes faded. "You told me that you didn't want people seeing me flying so I got a disguise like Clark wears."

Jonathan stammered, "But that skirt is so short and the top is cut kind of low and it's all kind of ... tight. How do you even breathe wearing that?"

Ryanna said, "It's not that tight and I don't have to breathe. Tight stuff doesn't get damaged when I'm in action. Loose stuff would tear off and leave me naked. The other features are designed to keep people from looking too close at my face. It's called misdirection."

Jonathan said, "Well they won't miss much when they look in your direction."

Ryanna said, "Daddy, does it make me look like a bad person? You told me not to judge people by how they look or dress."

Jonathan said, "Hey! How about a long cape that you can wrap around yourself!"

Ryanna looked disgusted, "Dad, the cape thing has been done to death. Batman wraps his around himself. If I did that then people would be looking at my face and I'd have to get a cowl or something. I don't want to frighten people, I want to be someone who helps and comforts them. Besides, the back doesn't show that much that I need to cover up." Ryanna turned around for her Dad and Jon found out that the back plunged too -- and that the skirt didn't make it quite all the way over Ryanna's back side. Ryanna gave her father an over the shoulder, Betty Gable look and she saw that he was blushing.  “Dad!  I almost got the thong cut version.  People wear less than this on the beach.”

Jon said, "ANNA! OH, MY ...! Look. Just go into the house and show that outfit to your Mom. If it's OK with her, it's OK with me."

Ryanna rushed up to her Dad, hugged him, kissed him on the cheek and said, "Thanks Dad! Mom already said that it was OK with her if it was OK with you!" Ryanna put the wig back on and controlled her blood flow to change her facial color. "Dad, I'm going away on a road trip for a few days."

Jon said, "Whoa, whoa, whoa! Where are you going?"

Ryanna answered, "Roger Carter gave me a report about how the lack of a good water supply is affecting people. He also gave me a report of how the North Atlantic is getting dangerous for shipping. I thought I try fixing some things myself instead of having NuStart pay for it. I have a plan and I think it will be pretty easy. Otherwise, I'm going to have to have NuStart begin building the mini-generators and water desalination plants I designed."

Jon pointed at Ryanna's bare feet and said, "Don't forget your shoes."

Ryanna said, "I'm not going to mess up my Sunday shoes. I was going to get boots like Clark's but they are expensive. Besides I like how things feel between my toes."

Jon pulled Ryanna close and gave her a big hug. He said softly, "Be safe. I don't like it when you're gone, so come home soon."

Ryanna said, "Bye-bye, Daddy." She ran into the house and came out a minute later with her Winnie the Pooh back pack on. A split second later she was high overhead and waving good-bye.

Martha stepped out on the back porch a minute later and yelled to her husband, "JONATHAN KENT, I CAN NOT believe that you let your daughter go out in public like that!"

Jonathan Kent just shook his head. It can be tough being the only man in a house with 2 women -- especially these two women, but he wouldn't trade places with anyone in the world.

 

 

 

Part Two:  “Bear Back Riding”

 

 

Soon Ryanna was over Canada and heading for the Artic Circle.  She was taking the scenic route.  She landed for a while to wiggle her toes in the deep snow and watch a pair of polar bear cubs play under their mother’s watchful eye.  Then she heard the helicopter.  The bears heard it to and ran off.  The helicopter followed.  A man in the helicopter was leaning out and aiming a rifle at the adult bear.  He began shooting and struck the bear twice.  Ryanna had not acted because she couldn’t believe what she was seeing.  The shooter felt his hands burn as the rifle barrel turned red hot then white.  The helicopter began to experience severe turbulence and turned back for its home base.  Ryanna ran up to the bear and tried to calm it but it was in a mad frenzy and saw Ryanna only as a threat to her and her cubs.  Ryanna jumped onto the bear’s back and flung her arms around its neck while probing for an artery to hold closed to make the bear pass out.  Even with the aid of her X-ray vision, it wasn’t nearly as easy as Spock made it look on TV.  When the bear finally collapsed, Ryanna looked through her backpack for something metal and found a spoon she had brought with her.  She formed the spoon into a long pair of tweezers and, guided by her X-ray vision, found and removed the bullets.  She cauterized the wounds with her heat vision.  She thought about using her skirt to make a bandage but decided it wouldn’t be necessary.  She made a mental note to bring bandages next time so she could keep her clothing budget in line.  Maybe a cape with a pouch wouldn’t be such a bad idea after all -- or maybe a utility belt.  Then again, she could go almost anywhere in the world relatively quickly and get whatever she might need with her NuStart credit card.  Ryanna went to a nearby lake and jumped in.  She returned with arms full of fish for the bears to eat while mama bear was getting better.  She sat in the snow and played with the cubs while waiting for the mother to wake up.  She told the bears the story of Goldilocks while they ate their fish. She also told them of her good friend Fforde and showed them the picture of Pooh Bear on her backpack and told them his story.  Then Ryanna glanced down, noticed something and was embarrassed.  She was aware of the cold and it didn’t bother her – but it did affect her.  She would have to ask her Mom what to do about this before her next outing.  When the adult bear woke up and Ryanna saw that the bear was OK, she tracked down the helicopter and made sure it wouldn’t be making any more flights for a while.  That being done, she resumed her mission.

 

 

 

 

Part Three:  “Field Trip”

 

It had been the worse year in decades for ships using the North Atlantic.  The number of icebergs was unprecedented.  Ryanna wanted to try “petting two doggies with one stroke” (she had no intention of killing birds with stones or anything else).  She got the idea for her mission from an old TV series starring Andy Griffith that she had seen on TV Land.  Ryanna would lift an iceberg into space and let the Earth help her reach her destination by rotating under her.  She had targeted drought areas in Africa and the Middle East.  She would land the icebergs near a town as a temporary supply of fresh water.  She chuckled to think how the appearance of inland icebergs would be reported on the news.  Superman would probably get the credit or blame.  She didn’t care as long as the people who needed some water got it.  She made trip after trip until the shipping lanes were cleared of any iceberg hazard.  She only paused occasionally to watch some whales or dolphins or a passing mermaid.  She found the mermaids fascinating until she remembered that Clark had wanted to marry one of them, then she got busy again so that she wouldn’t have to think about how she kept getting over looked by Clark when she was the obvious (and only logical) choice.

 

Ryanna was in Afghanistan delivering an iceberg when she heard a woman screaming.  Three men were holding the woman and she was fighting fiercely to get free.  Ryanna was glad that she had learned so many languages because she might have misinterpreted what was happening.  She looked around and saw an area that was posted with danger signs.  A small child was walking through a field full of land mines to retrieve a ball.  The men knew the woman would more than likely die if she followed the child.  The child would most certainly be dead in a few moments.  Ryanna raced up to the edge of the field.  People began shouted for her to stay back.  The crowd watched as Ryanna floated vertically about 8 inches above the ground.  She drifted to the child and picked him up.  He struggled against her until she retrieved the ball as well.  She returned the contented child to ten feet beyond the mine field, touched her bare feet back on the ground, pointed the child in the direction of his mother and let him go with a pat on the backside to hurry him on his way.  Ryanna smiled at the woman but the woman and the rest of he crowd were too shocked by what they saw to react.  Ryanna turned and walked back to the field looking at ground around her.  As she entered the field again, the crowd came to their senses and began shouting warnings, but almost immediately a mine went off and then 2 others.  The crowd screamed, but as the dust settled and shifted, they saw Ryanna walking the field, tripping one mine after the other.  As Ryanna moved faster and faster, the explosions grew closer together until all that could be heard was a terrible roar and all that could be seen was a wall of dust.  Finally, the explosions stopped and a dusty Ryanna walked out of the field.  She looked at herself and did a quick spin to shake off the dirt.  Then she pulled the warning signs out of the ground.  She walked towards the crowd and found a man who didn’t run from her.  In his native tongue, Ryanna said, “This is un-acceptable!  The earth is for giving life and nurturing growth, not taking life.  Please, kind Sir, direct me to other fields like this.”  The man pointed in the direction away from town and said, “Goddess, many lie in that direction.  Look for the signs.”  Ryanna giggled and said, “I’m not a goddess.  I’m just a girl with thick skin.  Thank you.”  She was practically done with her water mission and she wanted to go home, but there were many mines.  As see looked at the crowd, she saw many children missing limbs.  There was much for her to do.  Ryanna flew home for supper and explained to her parents why she would be gone longer than expected.  They didn’t have the heart to tell her, “No.”  For the next couple weeks, Ryanna strode across the fields so others could plow them later without fear.

 

While in the fields, Ryanna had time to think, so she saved many of the mines.  When she at last returned home, she reworked the mechanisms.  She spent a night away delivering her presents.  The day after, there was a high level terrorist alert that was called off by noon.  The families of many US Congressmen had stepped on land mines on their property.  The children and spouses of members of Congress and many Congressmen themselves were victims.  The mines had sprayed them with a vegetable-based red dye that was hard to wash off.  When servicemen were dispatched to dig up the mines, they found that they had notes attached with the names of companies making mines and the methods by which the mines maimed and killed.  The note also reminded them that the US refused to sign a treaty banning such weapons.  Ryanna watched the news reports hoping that her country would have the moral decency to at last support a ban against the use of land mines.  While waiting, she saw the follow up report on the inland icebergs.  Many of them had been claimed by warlords as their private property and were guarded by patrols with machine guns.  Ryanna’s simple method hadn’t been very successful.  At least some people benefited for a time and the North Atlantic was safer to navigate.  She called Gabe Sullivan, told him that Project Water Works was a go and asked him to place orders to get the water desalination plant components on order.

 

 

Part Four:  “One Million Fountains”

 

Ryanna had designed a tiny power generator to run her desalination plants.  The processes she used were highly advanced and amazingly simple.  The only large parts in the system were the massive water supply pumps.  Of course, there were also miles and miles of pipes to run.  Even for a super girl, this would be a grueling job.  She farmed out the components so that no one would have the entire workings of the generators or pumps.  It would be her job to dig the underground caverns, transport and assemble the modules, and run the pipes.  Where she could, she avoided laying pipe by burning through solid rock with her heat vision to make water channels.  NuStart sub-contracted too many small shops in need of work.  While fabrication was under way, Ryanna was digging far below ground – too far for traditional mining equipment to reach.  The idea was to locate the water desalination plants too far below ground to be reached or destroyed by people trying to undermine her efforts.  In total, there would be one million pipes emerging from the ground.  The outlets would be in areas desperately needing a supply of clean, fresh water.  The pipes would not reflect the location of the underground reservoirs.  If one pipe was destroyed or fouled, Ryanna would drive another pipe into the earth as easily as a normal person might put a straw into a bottle of pop.  The goal was to make too many outlets in any given region for any one person or group to control.  This would be a huge and expensive job and it would only help to a small degree if it worked.  But Ryanna hoped it would set an example to the world.  As Ryanna dug the caves, she mined and sold any minerals she could to help offset the cost of the project.  Finally, the day came when the components were complete and Ryanna began transporting the modules, assembling them and joining them to the underground pipelines she had created.  She then dug channels to the ocean which flooded the chambers.  Immediately, fresh water began to be produced.  Day after day, Ryanna blasted holes through the earth to her pipelines below.  One by one, she drove the connecting pipes to the water delivery system below.  Many communities built public fountains around the fresh water outlets.  Some were destroyed.  Some were ignored.  Some were capped off.  But Ryanna had made the effort.

 

As she was finishing the job, Ryanna hoped that Roger Carter had something good on his “to fix” list next time because she didn’t want to be bored.  She smiled at the thought of Roger and how he had never put his name on any of the hundred “needs help” lists he had given her since she hired him.   “Well,” she said to herself as she drove home the last pipe, “I’d better get home.  Somebody has to feed the chickens.”

 

 

THE END

 

 

 

===================

 

 

Original Costume Description for “Water, Water, Not Everywhere”:

 

Ryanna said, "Daddy?"

Jon said, "Yes Anna" and spun around to see his daughter in a short, form-fitting, royal blue dress with a plunging neckline. The dress was accessorized by a simple yellow belt that accentuated her slender waist. The belt gently rounded down in front forming a gentle "V" shape that guided the eye downward to where the slightest breeze would reveal bright red briefs below the skirt. Her only other accessory was a pair of pearl ear-rings that could occasionally be seen behind her almost shoulder length blonde hair. Her lips were a bright red and her eyes were deeply shadowed. When Jon was at last able to get his dropped jaw back in action, he said, "What is this? Halloween?"

Ryanna said, "No, Daddy, this is my flying suit." She took off her wig revealing that her long, red hair had been tightly braided and pulled back into a bun. Her lips faded to their normal pale color and the shadows over her eyes faded. "You told me that you didn't want people seeing me flying so I got a disguise like Clark wears."

Jonathan stammered, "But that skirt is so short and the top is cut kind of low and it's all kind of ... tight. How do you even breathe in that?"

Ryanna said, "It's not that tight and I don't have to breathe. Tight stuff doesn't get damaged when I'm in action. Loose stuff would tear off and leave me naked. The other features are designed to keep people from looking too close at my face. It's called mis-direction."

Jonathan said, "Well they won't miss much when they look in your direction."

Ryanna said, "Daddy, does it make me look like a bad person? You told me not to judge people by how they look or dress."

Jonathan said, "Hey! How about a long cape that you can wrap around yourself!"

Ryanna looked disgusted, "Dad, the cape thing has been done to death. Batman wraps his around himself. If I did that then people would be looking at my face and I’d have to get a cowl or something. I don't want to frighten people, I want to be someone who helps and comforts them. Besides, the back doesn't show that much that I need to cover up." Ryanna turned around for her Dad and Jon found out that the back plunged too -- and that the skirt didn't make it quite all the way over Ryanna's back side. Ryanna gave her father an over the shoulder, Betty Gable look and she saw that he was blushing.

 

 

===============================================================

 

 

Story Notes:

 

 

Here's a sneak peak at a story that is 3rd in line. I don't like keeping people hanging on for the end of a story but it's too late for me to start the next stories that are unusually long for me. I started to do a lead-in to the next story and it somehow became 11 handwritten pages long -- without even being finished. The bigger story that it leads in to is only 10 hand-written pages complete. The first will be Ryanna's first face-off with a criminal with a less than desirable outcome -- but with a special guest star from Smallville. Think blonde and popular. No, not Whitney. The next story I didn't want to give away but the pre-mature Christmas one kind of spoiled it already. Martha gets cancer. That is one of the reasons Ryanna wants her Grandfather home for Christmas. Also in that story, Jon gets "bed-ridden" and ridden and ridden. The sneak peak here is from a story where Ryanna goes on a mission to help make the world a little better place. Because she might be seen while she's doing what she intends to do, she takes a clue from Clark and gets a costume. It's not quite the traditional Supergirl costume, but Ryanna isn't your typical Supergirl either.

The title was going to be "Road Trip" but now I'm leaning towards "Water, Water, Not Everywhere." I've been trying to figure out why Jon calls Ryanna "Anna." He's the only one that calls her that. I think it is part of a special Father-Daughter bond but it may also be an "in joke" that they haven't shared with me yet.