Superhero (An Action Thriller) Read online

  Another few minutes of flight and he was over where he wanted to be: marker twenty-one. He landed hard by the side of the road, clouds of sand and dirt wafting around him as he kept still and allowed them to settle. When everything had quieted, he glanced up and stood. The suit seemed to move in the light of the moon, to contort as if it had life inside it as well.

  Darkness was nearly absolute with the exception of the light of the moon. Although the little light there was illuminated the area for him much more than it should have, he could spend years looking for disturbances in the dirt and wouldn’t be able to find the spot even in the daytime.

  Glancing around at the desert floor, he looked for footprints though he knew it’d probably been weeks since the Myrs had been out here and none would be found.

  “KNEEL.”

  The voice was coming more frequently now. It still sent a small shock through him each time it spoke, but Jack was growing accustomed. He was growing accustomed to a lot of things that he never imagined he would.

  He knelt down, placing one hand on the dirt. Images began to race through his mind. He saw people here not long ago, burying something near the mountains. The device was encased in smooth metal and it was lowered by crane deep below the ground and then covered with dirt. But the images were just splinters, not enough to even see who he was looking at clearly. Without any navigation, he would never be able to find it.

  “Holy shit.”

  Jack looked up to see two men with dreadlocks standing ten feet away from him. They were armed but held cigarettes in their hands, and by the look of absolute surprise on their faces, Jack guessed they hadn’t been expecting him.

  “PATROLS.”

  The two men glanced at each other and then back to Jack. “Yo,” one of them said, “you in the wrong place, homie.”

  Assault rifles, Kalashnikovs, were flipped up and the men began to fire. But they were bound to hit empty space before they had even pulled their triggers. Jack was high now, at least five stories above them, looking down at the small pinpoints of light that flashed at the ends of the barrels. These men were young and he pitied them. Rather than landing on them, he landed on their weapons, one foot on each.

  The rifles fell and Jack easily crushed them. The two men didn’t move.

  “I want to know where it’s buried,” Jack said.

  “Fuck you, man,” one of the men said and flicked his cigarette at him.

  “KILL THEM.”

  “No,” Jack said.

  “KILL THEM.”

  Jack backed away from the men, his eyes locked onto them.

  “YOU WILL KILL THEM.”

  The voice seemed to scream and it made Jack’s ears hurt. His hands covered his ears to no avail.

  “YOU WILL KILL.”

  “I won’t!”

  The men looked at each other again and then turned and sprinted away as fast as they could. Jack leapt after them and then pulled himself back, as if an invisible hand had grabbed him and held him in place.

  “TAKE THEM.”

  “No, I won’t.”

  Waves of pain radiated through his head. Blinding him until he fell on his knees. The pain affected every inch of his body and he realized the suit was constricting around him. He screamed, staring up at the sky as he put his hands on the mask and pulled. It clung to his cheeks but he managed to rip it, and clumps of hair, away.

  The pain lessened though he was out of breath and felt bile in his throat. It pushed itself forward and he vomited into the dirt.

  “I won’t do it,” he said, out of breath. “I won’t do it.”

  “YES, YOU WILL.”

  CHAPTER 38

  Jack showered until there wasn’t any more hot water. He scrubbed himself with a luffa and used fragranced soap before he shaved and clipped his nails. When he was through, he came out to the bedroom in a towel and stared at the black, scaly suit neatly folded on his bed.

  A certain appeal emanated from it. Something akin to looking at a magnificent painting or an unusual statue. He ran his hand along it, feeling the rough edges of the scales, and wondered who exactly had worn it before him.

  He thought about simply throwing it away. Of finding a dump and stuffing it into a bag of garbage that couldn’t be found. But something about it told him he couldn’t do that. It was special somehow, more than an inanimate object should be.

  “You okay?”

  He glanced up to see Heidi at the door. She was wearing a casual dress, something he hadn’t seen before since she seemed to prefer business suits.

  “I’m fine. Did you go shopping again?”

  “Yeah,” she said bashfully, “sorry.”

  “No, it’s fine. I gave you that credit card for a reason. It looks good on you.”

  She cleared her throat as if embarrassed and stepped inside the room. She sat down on the bed next to the suit. “It’s quite beautiful, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah. It draws you in like a magnet. I can’t stop looking at it. Did you happen to see…”

  “Who wore it before you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Not directly. But my father did. He said they looked a lot like us. Hominid. But breathing wasn’t their only means of obtaining oxygen. He told me they also used a type of photosynthesis. Something to do with the way these suits work.”

  He sat down next to her. “How do they work?”

  “Honestly, Jack, they’re untestable. They can’t be cut or burnt or torn in anyway. Underneath an atomic force microscope, the most powerful one in this hemisphere, the atoms appear bonded in a way that doesn’t coincide with the periodic table or the modern understanding of the atom. There were no electrons in orbit around the nucleus. Everything was packed tightly together. I have a hunch, though, that something happens when the suit interacts with a live specimen. We tried some experiments on rodents but nothing occurred. I think it needs consciousness. Through some unknown mechanism, the suit amplifies and adapts to the consciousness of the user.”

  “Telepathy.”

  “Maybe. I don’t know. It could be as simple as adapting to electric stimuli from the frontal cortex and cardiovascular system. I just don’t know. I didn’t have long enough with it before it was taken…before my bosses deemed other matters a higher priority.”

  Jack’s hand inadvertently brushed hers. It felt soft. Though she was older, she was certainly attractive. He looked into her eyes as she glanced away. Softly taking her around the waist, he leaned in to kiss her.

  She placed both hands up on his chest and pushed him back. “No, Jack. Not like that.”

  “I thought I felt something between us.”

  “There is. I care for you. But not like that.” She stood up. “I bought a lot of dresses. I’d like to show them to you and get your opinion,” she said, changing the subject. When he didn’t respond she chuckled and said, “I’m sorry, it’s just that I haven’t had the money to spend on myself in a while.”

  “No, it’s fine. I’d love to see your dresses.”

  As she left he rose and went into his closet and picked up a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. He flipped on the television mounted on the wall in the bedroom and sat on the bed, flipping through channels until he got to the news. He stopped there to see if there was any mention of him. As he was about to change to something else, he saw the blond woman that had reported on the Dragon before.

  Then he saw something that he hadn’t expected: himself. The Dragon landed on an empty stretch of desert, glancing at the minivan passing by before leaping into the air and out of sight.

  When they cut away from the clip, Jack looked to the suit. He picked it up, feeling it a while, the memory of what happened in the desert fresh in his mind. But he put it on anyway and opened the bedroom window, leaping out and into the night.

  Veronica Gables sat on her patio overlooking Glenwood Avenue. Cars zipped past underneath though it was getting late. That was one thing the realtor hadn’t told her about this condo: it was in a district filled
with college students that went to UCLA, USC, and the several community colleges around. Constant parties kept her up late into the night. But in a way, she didn’t mind. It took her back to her own college days at the University of Arizona.

  She sat in a chair and crossed her legs. Next to her on a glass table was a vodka and tonic, which she sipped from slowly.

  “You know alcohol’s been proven to kill brain cells.”

  She jumped and gasped, spilling the drink on the table. To her right, perched on the balcony like a monkey, was a man, or something in the shape of a man, shiny and black with white over the eyes.

  “Who the…wait. I know you.”

  “It seems the whole world knows me now, thanks to you.”

  “Kids and their cell phones,” she said, reaching for the canister of mace in her purse.

  “Mace won’t do anything but if it makes you feel better, you can hold it.”

  “How did y—”

  “I’m here to ask you a favor.”

  “Me? And what’s that?”

  “I need you not to air anything else about me.”

  “I can’t promise that,” she said. “You’re big news. People love successful vigilantes.”

  “Something very big is happening that I’m trying to track down. You’ll make it much more difficult for me if everyone sees me coming.”

  “Big how?”

  The figure stood on the railing and began walking along its edge with perfect balance, as if he were walking on solid ground. He hopped off and leaned against it.

  “I tell you something, you tell me something,” he said.

  “Okay. What’dya want to know?”

  “Agamemnon and the Myrs. Everything you know about them. I’m sure you’ve got sources I could never have.”

  “Deal. I’ll get you a file. Now for me: what’s happening that’s so big you have to be kept a secret?”

  “The Myrs have smuggled a weapon into the Mojave that they want to use on the city. I don’t know what kind of weapon yet, but it could be a nuclear or chemical device.”

  She was silent a moment. “They’re a street gang. They don’t have the power to do that.”

  “They’ve done it. I’ll find out where it is, but for now, no more stories about me.” He jumped up on the railing and turned, facing the street below. “I’ll be back for my file tomorrow night.”

  “Wait, what’s your name?”

  “Dragon is fine.”

  He leapt off the edge, gliding down like a bird. Pushing with his feet off an adjacent building, he flipped into a ball and spun before landing on the pavement below. One jump, and he was gone.

  Veronica stood at the railing, trying to see him but he had already disappeared. Her heart was racing. He would be back tomorrow night. She ran inside; she had to prepare.

  CHAPTER 39

  Reese Stillman put on a Kevlar vest and loaded his shotgun in the back of the van. Six men around him did the same. The bank was just outside their blackened windows, about to open for the day’s business. For some reason, most bank robberies occurred near closing. Agamemnon had ordered that their robberies only occur during opening.

  Reese checked his watch and everyone did the same. Another six minutes before opening time. He observed as one of his men snorted a line of meth off the back of his wrist. Reese was glaring at him when the man offered him some.

  “That’s stupid, yo. You’re gonna get your head blown off gettin’ high before a job.”

  The man shrugged and snorted another line. The van was hot and the air conditioning didn’t reach the back. He would have to remember to bring a block of dry ice with him next time to make sure they kept cool.

  The van doors slid open as the driver glanced at all of them and then climbed back into the driver’s seat. Reese went to put on a mask. He was the only one. Agamemnon said they had nothing to hide from, but the mask gave him strength and he felt people were frightened more easily when they couldn’t see their attacker.

  The men jumped out and sprinted for the bank entrance just as a woman was walking away from the doors after unlocking them. Reese was the first in. He tossed the canisters of gas and they clinked as they rolled across the floor and filled the space with gray smoke.

  “Everyone down!”

  Employees screamed as Reese’s men ran behind the counter, one of them grabbing a teller and slamming her head down across the counter. Reese went to the largest office, finding a woman in a business suit.

  “Up,” he said, pointing the weapon at her. As she stood, he saw her belly: she was pregnant.

  “Please,” she said, “don’t hurt me.”

  “Do what we say and you won’t get hurt. Grab your keys and come with me.”

  He had her walk in front of him as they made their way to the safe. He checked his watch: they had a good four minutes before the first LAPD unit responded. Still, he wished they had dug a tunnel like the last one. But the amount of work that had gone into that added an extra three days to the job. The main thing Agamemnon didn’t want to waste was time.

  They walked to the safe, whose thick steel door spanned from floor to ceiling. Reese placed the barrel against her ribs, just to make sure she felt its presence.

  “Open.”

  She fumbled with keys until one slid into the lock. A light on the door turned from red to green and the woman dialed in a code. The door clicked open.

  Reese moved her out of the way, revealing a safe stacked with neatly pressed and bound cash. He stood aside as four of his men ran in and began filling garbage bags. One stood by the hostages, smoking a cigarette. The one that had snorted meth. He was sweating and pale.

  “You all right?” Reese said, walking next to him.

  “Fine,” the man said without looking at him. “I’m fine.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Hey!” the man screamed, holding up his weapon to the pregnant woman. “Don’t fucking move!”

  The woman screamed, tears beginning to flow down her cheeks as she held up her hands.

  “She wasn’t doing anything, man,” Reese said. “Relax. We’re almost out.”

  “She was moving.”

  The first man ran out of the safe and to the van. Reese checked his watch: they had a good minute and a half. Plenty of time.

  The man next to him yelled, “I told you, don’t fucking move!”

  Panic gripped the pregnant woman. She was getting hysterical. She looked to the front entrance where the other man had just run.

  “No!” Reese shouted.

  The woman ran for it. As she rounded the corner, the man next to Reese fired. The woman flew against the wall and hit the ground, staring up to the ceiling in silence.

  Reese spun the man around and swung with the butt of his shotgun, fracturing his jaw. The man flew off his feet and onto his back, his weapon falling limply to the floor. Reese ran over to the woman. He felt for a pulse but it was too late.

  “That’s it man, let’s go. Hey, let’s go.”

  Reese felt hands lift him to his feet and guide him out of the bank. His vision felt dulled and he had trouble thinking. He didn’t even notice that someone had pushed him inside the van as tires screeched and his men hollered and slapped each other’s backs.

  Reese felt emotion choking him. He twisted away from his men so they couldn’t see and got his sunglasses off the van’s floor. Placing them on, he stared out the windows as someone counted the cash. Some of it had been spattered in droplets of blood but the man counting didn’t seem to notice.

  They turned a corner, heading back to the old plant when they heard something hit their van. At first they thought they’d been in an accident, but Reese could see that they were still moving forward in the lane. The men all stopped what they were doing as they heard another noise: footsteps. Coming from the roof of the van.

  One of the men lifted his weapon and fired. The sound was bassed and loud and it made Reese’s ears ring to the point that he couldn’t hear anything anymore. Th
e other men began to fire and Reese held his hands to his ears.

  The gunfire stopped and the men sat quietly. The driver kept going for some reason. Reese went to the front to tell him to pull over and saw that no one was in the driver’s seat, the door open and swinging wildly.

  “Shit!”

  The van hit the railing on the side of the road and swung back the other way, slamming into a Honda before spinning nearly all the way around and stopping in the middle of the road. Everyone had been thrown around and two men were outside on the pavement. Reese blinked a few times and saw that he was on his back across the passenger seat. He sat up. The money had been scattered over the van and was drifting on the wind outside.

  One of his men sat up and grabbed his shotgun, making his way outside with a garbage bag full of cash in the other hand.

  Reese saw a black arm come down from the roof of the van. It grabbed the man by the chest and flipped him up into the air so high Reese couldn’t see him for a moment before he crashed back down in the middle of the street.

  Reese waited and listened. He could hear sirens; there wasn’t much time. He took a deep breath, shouted as if he were going into battle, and leapt out of the van onto his back, the shotgun aimed at the sky. He hit nothing but air.

  He got to his feet and began to run. The man that had been thrown through the air was unconscious so Reese grabbed his bag of cash and sprinted down the road. A Lexus slammed on its brakes, screeching to a stop, to avoid hitting him. He pointed the shotgun through the driver’s side door and the woman inside froze. She didn’t scream or call for help, just sat motionless, staring at the shotgun’s barrel.

  Reese opened the door and pulled her out by the arm. He jumped into the driver’s seat and as soon as he hit the accelerator he heard a noise. Something akin to a heavy object falling through the air.

  It seemed to him like the car had exploded. The front end was flattened like a pancake and the rear end went up to the sky. The car was nearly vertical when Reese noticed the figure crouched on the hood of his car.