Superhero (An Action Thriller) Page 18

  “He’s done for now,” Reese said. “You guys can sleep in the house. Follow me.”

  The two men walked in front, Veronica behind them. Reese grabbed her before they left the barn and pressed her against the wall. She gasped and slapped him before pushing him away.

  “Relax,” he said. “If I wanted that, I would’ve had it already.”

  “Then what do you want?”

  Reese glanced out the barn door. The two men were still walking toward the farmhouse, oblivious to the fact that they were missing Veronica.

  “I want to stop him.”

  She was quiet a moment. “Why?”

  “That doesn’t matter. But I need you to help me.”

  “How?”

  “I’ll let you know. For now, don’t piss him off.”

  He walked out past her, leaving her staring into an empty barn. She exhaled, and followed him.

  CHAPTER 52

  Jack stood at the bars, watching a guard bring in food. The massive door had a slit halfway down. Someone would come inside the cell area, the door would be locked remotely, and food would be passed to him through the slit and then distributed to the other inmates. The guard came to his cell and stared at him, smiling. He lifted his tray of food and tilted it, the food and cup of water spilling to the floor.

  “I WILL KILL YOU FIRST.”

  The guard unconsciously took a step back. He didn’t say anything. Just moved on to the next cell.

  When he was through, Jack placed his hands on the smooth metal bars. He could feel the hum of electricity running through them. He began bending them slightly and the hum increased until he could feel the charge pulsating in his hands.

  The door opened and Colonel Finley walked in. He stopped when he saw that Jack was standing. The two men glared at each other before Finley walked over in front of him, his hands behind his back to show Jack he wasn’t afraid of him.

  “What’s going to happen to the old man?” Jack asked.

  “It doesn’t matter. He’s dying. Everyone in here is dying. Except you. And except Agamemnon. Why is that, Jack? Why are you two the only ones that aren’t in a state of degeneration?”

  “My mom always said I was special.”

  Finley smirked. “Keep that sense of humor. You’ll need it down here. The walls can start closing in pretty quick.”

  Finley turned and began to walk away before Jack said, “I’m a citizen. You can’t do this to me. I want a lawyer.”

  Finley laughed. “You haven’t been paying much attention these last ten years have you? You don’t have the right to an attorney. You have the right to food and water, and that’s about it.” He walked out the door. “Keep joking, Jack. And you might live long enough to get out of this place.”

  Jack lay on his cot. As there were no windows, he couldn’t tell what time of day it was. Two meals had come since Finley’s visit and he guessed it was probably sometime around four in the morning.

  He sat up and stared at the bars. He could break through them and, according to Heidi, would not be injured. Finley had to know this. So why let him stay here and give him the chance to escape? Was it just so Habib could get information from him? But the old man was gone now. Why not move him somewhere he couldn’t get out of?

  Jack rose from the cot. The questions would have to wait until later. He walked to the bars and placed his hands on them. In one, swift motion, he bent two of them as wide as they would go. An electrical burst went off like a bomb. It knocked him back across the cell and he landed on his stomach. He looked down and saw that he had caught himself by his fingertips. He rose again, and walked back to the bars.

  Bending two more, he was able to fit through and was in the outside corridor. He had no doubt now: they wanted him to escape.

  Jack walked to the front entrance and then turned, remembering that there were others here. He walked to the first cell. It was empty. As was the second, and the third, and every one he checked. He had been the only one down here.

  He stood frozen: had the voices been fake?

  He pushed it out of his mind and went to the door. Though it was thick metal, it was hinged. He tore off the hinges as if tearing through a cake and gently removed the door.

  The outside corridor was dimly lit and ran down in both directions. Jack began to go left when the voice said, “NO THE OTHER WAY.”

  Jack turned around and went down the hall. He could feel something, though he wasn’t sure what it was. Almost like a tugging in his gut, making him walk in a certain direction. At the end of the hallway he found several rooms. They looked like storage rooms. Hung up like dirty laundry in one, was his suit.

  Jack went over and touched it, running his hand along the edges. He pulled it down, staring at it. He was drawn to it somehow and it made him uneasy. But the rags he’d been given to wear weren’t suitable for the cold temperatures of the desert at night. He slipped on the suit, and pulled the mask over his head.

  A rush of adrenaline coursed through him. He lifted his hands, looking into his palms, and felt the sheer currents of power. He ran.

  The sprint was so fast, he was up to the next floor in a few seconds. A guard patrolled this floor but his back was turned. Jack slammed into him, knocking him unconscious, and came to a set of elevators. He could see a scanner underneath the call button, and he went back to snatch the guard’s ID card. Once scanned, the elevator opened. He thought a moment, and then threw the ID card into the elevator and pushed for the top floor.

  Jack ran down the hallway, checking every room. There wasn’t a chance in hell that this place didn’t have an emergency exit. Not a government facility, no matter how secretly it was kept.

  Off to the side of the corridor near some offices, he found one. Jack leapt up the stairs until he was on the top floor. When he opened the door, a rifle was thrust into his face.

  At least a dozen men stood with automatic rifles pointed at him. The laser scopes bouncing around his throat and forehead. Finley stood behind them, sucking on a cigar.

  “Now how did I know you’d try that?”

  “You read my horoscope, didn’t you?” Jack said.

  Finley took out the cigar and with the back of the same hand wiped a bit of drool that was hanging on his lip. “I never liked humor much.”

  Jack glanced to the men. Their faces were stern, but he could sense fear underneath him. They were simply following orders they weren’t sure they wanted to follow.

  “You’d kill an unarmed man?” Jack asked.

  “Son, there is not a damned thing I wouldn’t do for the safety of my country. You got that? I’d be a dictator, a rapist, a murderer, whatever I needed to be.”

  “Maybe you’re okay with being a murderer, but I bet these young kids aren’t.” Finley looked to his men as if noticing them for the first time. “You’re about to make murderers of them all, Colonel. I don’t know what type of leader that would sit well with.”

  Finley’s jaw clenched and he threw the cigar to the floor. “Kill him.”

  Before the words were out of his mouth, Jack wasn’t there anymore.

  Jack had leapt into air and the soldiers didn’t look up. Glancing around them, they thought he had leapt off the side of the building.

  When the Dragon landed, breaking two of the soldier’s backs, his feet pounded on the floor with such force that it began to collapse. The Dragon flipped backward away from the rippling effects of what had just occurred. One of the soldiers fired at point-blank range at the Dragon’s face. Sparks flew off the mask in a barrage of violence as the Dragon walked toward the solider and snapped away his rifle, breaking it in half. He struck the soldier with an open palm against the chest, sending him off his feet.

  He flipped around and kicked one of the other soldiers before spinning and knocking him off his feet. Another came at him with a knife. The Dragon twisted the man’s wrist as if he were wringing out a wet towel, flipped him onto his back, and knocked him unconscious with a kick to his jaw. He turned to Finl
ey when he felt burning in his shoulder that nearly brought him to his knees.

  Finley stood with his pistol held out, smoke drizzling out of the barrel. He turned to the one soldier still standing and said, “Pick ‘em up and go inside.”

  Jack noticed blood coming down over his suit. A small hole adorned the shoulder and the pain was so intense he felt like ripping off the suit.

  “You’re fine,” Finley said. “It’s a bullet made from whatever metal was on that damn ship. It’s the only thing we’ve found that can tear into that suit.”

  “Why didn’t you just kill me?”

  “I don’t want to kill you, Jack. If I wanted to kill you I would’ve shot you in your sleep while I had you in that cell.” He lowered the weapon and holstered it. “I want something else.”

  “What?”

  “My superiors think you’re just as deadly as Agamemnon. That’s why I had marching orders to capture you. I don’t think you are as deadly, though. In fact, I think you and I have the same goals.”

  “Like what?”

  “I want to stop him, Jack. I want him dead. I can’t do it myself. They don’t want me anywhere near the city. They think it’ll look like an occupation. I had orders to go in and get you and that’s it. They won’t approve of going after Agamemnon because they think there’ll be too much collateral damage. I think they’re right. But you can go after him.” Finley pulled out a slip of paper from his pocket and handed it to Jack. “He’s on a farm about eight hours from here.”

  Jack felt his arm on fire and then pain shot up his neck and into his head. The slug tumbled out of the wound and fell to the surface of the roof as the bleeding slowed and then stopped.

  “See, I told you you’d be fine.”

  “What’ve you done to me?”

  Finley shrugged. “For that, you’re going to have to talk to the doc. Unfortunately, she escaped last night. My guess is she’s headed the same place you are.” Finley looked off in the distance and then back to him. “She’s not who she says she is, Jack. I’m not totally sure who she really is, but I don’t think a simple scientist is it. She took out two of my men getting away.”

  Jack watched as the suit began to patch itself over the hole.

  “Amazing, isn’t it? Think of the potential applications of this material.” Finley shook his head. “They closed us down years ago. They research medicines in lab rats out here now.”

  “I don’t understand why you’re helping me.”

  “Enemy of my enemy. It had to look like you escaped, at least at first glance. Eventually they’ll interview the men and find out that’s not what happened, but I can deal with that later. Besides, they’ll all testify that I gave the order to kill you.”

  Jack lifted his arm, noticing that the pain was gone. “What if I don’t want to go after him?”

  “I got a proposition for you: you take him out, I leave you alone. I destroy your files. Or hand them to you, whatever you want. That’s what you get in exchange: your freedom.”

  Jack looked at the slip of paper with the address. He crumpled it in his hand as he brushed past Finley and moved toward the edge of the roof. Finley shouted, “And Jack? Not injured, dead. If he isn’t dead, our deal’s off.”

  Jack nodded and leapt. Within a minute, he was soaring through the cool air of the desert in early morning.

  CHAPTER 53

  Veronica sat inside the house in the living room. She had attempted to go outside, mostly to scope out any means of escape, but the way the men stared at her made her uncomfortable and she went back in.

  Dillon sat in a recliner smoking a cigarette and her sound guy, Mario, was passed out in the bedroom next door.

  “Don’t suppose they have cold beer here,” Dillon said.

  “Maybe now’s not the best time to get drunk.”

  “Who said anything about drunk?”

  The door behind them opened and footsteps sounded in the hallway as the man that had been showing them around earlier walked in. He checked the bedroom and then came back to the living room.

  “He’s leaving for an hour,” he said. “As soon as he does, we need to get that bomb and get the hell outta here.”

  “Is that what it is?” she asked. “A bomb?”

  “Yeah, I don’t know what kind, though. But it can supposedly take out the city.”

  “What’re we leaving in?”

  “There’s a truck parked near the stables. I’m gonna pull up outside the barn and I need you guys to help me lift it.”

  “Then what?” Dillon said.

  “I don’t know. But he won’t have it anymore.” He looked around. “Gimme ten minutes and then come out to the barn.”

  As he left, Veronica stood up and went to the window. She could see at least half a dozen men outside. A couple of them had rifles slung on their shoulders.

  “They could shoot us before we ever got outta here,” Dillon said. “Maybe we should just hang out?”

  She shook her head. “I think they’re going to anyway, once he’s done with us. We need to make a run for it.”

  Dillon exhaled loudly as he put the cigarette out on the arm of the chair. “I sure as hell didn’t sign up for this when I picked up that camera.”

  The giant stepped out of the barn. She could see him speaking with someone before walking away, and then leaping so high in the air she couldn’t see him anymore.

  “Me neither, Dillon.”

  After waking Mario, the three of them slipped out the backdoor and made their way to the barn. The men that had been outside weren’t there anymore and the farm was quiet. Veronica stopped for a moment and listened.

  “What?” Dillon said.

  “I don’t hear a truck.”

  A thunderous crash as Reese Stillman’s body exploded out of the barn, tumbling head over feet until it hit the side of the house and bounced off. Veronica could see that his head had been twisted in the opposite direction, his face lifelessly staring out over his back.

  The giant crashed through the barn after him. Unsatisfied, he leapt into the air and stomped down on the corpse, blood and gore spattering over him and the house.

  “I took him in,” the giant said, “and this is how he repays me.” He turned toward Veronica. “It was perhaps a mistake to bring you here.”

  The giant approached them. Dillon grabbed Veronica’s arm. “Run!”

  Sprinting, she felt the soft dirt underneath her feet rumble as the giant jumped and landed in front of them. With one swipe of his arm, she saw Mario fly through the air. The giant grabbed Dillon and lifted him. He crushed his ribs, the sound of crackling bones echoing in the air.

  “No!” she screamed.

  The giant dropped his body in front of her. He reached for her, his massive hand coming over her neck.

  “Police!”

  Gunshots rang out as one of the slugs hit the giant in the exposed flesh of his face. He grunted and let her go. Veronica saw a single man crouched behind some empty crates. He fired again, hitting the giant in the head.

  “Run! Get away now.”

  Veronica ran. She didn’t look back as she sprinted through the barn. A blue pick-up truck was parked in back and she jumped in. There were no keys. She got out and ran to Reese Stillman’s body.

  Revulsion filled her body as she stared at Reese’s gray face. She leaned down and ruffled through his pockets. In the right front pocket of his jeans, she found some keys. As she stood to run back to the truck, she saw that she was standing in a massive shadow.

  “My my, said the spider to the fly.”

  She stood up. “I just want to go home.”

  “Are you certain? Your home will not be there shortly.”

  CHAPTER 54

  Jack glided through the sky as the sun broke over the horizon. It was early morning and he was over the Mojave, stretches of empty desert laid out in front of him. The pain in his shoulder had completely vanished. He was growing more powerful; he could feel it. He wondered how long it would last
.

  Beginning to descend, he landed on a series of rocks near a small gorge. It was so quiet and peaceful, he sat down, letting the strain in his legs leave his body. A stream flowed at the bottom of the gorge and he watched the glistening water in the sunlight. He had noticed that his suit began to move with exposure to the sun. It began to thicken itself. Shock at its movements had faded long ago and now he just watched with curiosity.

  He stood and began sprinting, leaping in the air with several small successive jumps before catapulting himself into the sky.

  Veronica sat inside the barn as the giant worked on the device. The men had come back and were wandering around outside. Many of them glancing in and staring at her before moving on.

  “They haven’t seen a woman in weeks,” he said. “Of course, that has no ill effects on a gentleman such as myself. But these boys, I believe they would gladly kill each other for a few minutes alone with you. Men are no different from beasts in that way.”

  “They’re just kids. The oldest one I saw couldn’t be older than twenty. They don’t know what they’re doing.”

  “And who better to use as raw materials? They will do anything that I ask simply because I have asked it.”

  The giant adjusted his helmet. A noxious gas sprayed out from the bottom near the chin until he clicked it back into place.

  “What happened to you?”

  “I am the next step in evolution. I am to you, what you are to an ape. And I will drag your species into the next leap kicking and screaming.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “No, you wouldn’t.”

  He reconnected several cords to the sphere and then called out to his men, “It is ready.”

  They piled into the barn and used a forklift to take the device to the back. A van was waiting and the device was strapped securely into it. Four men climbed into the van. The driver looked to the giant.