Blackjack Messiah

by Ben Bequer

  “Hey, Annit.”

  “Dale, how are you?”

  “Adjusting.”

  “Good to hear,” she said. “Do you have a moment?”

  “Now’s as good a time as any.”

  I walked outside and picked up two of the full grocery bags with one hand, debating whether to try to wedge the phone into my neck and hold it that way. I figured the worst that could happen was that it fell, and nestled the smartphone against my cheek, pressing it against my raised shoulder.

  The weight of the bags wasn’t the problem, it was my grip on the paper handles that slipped with every step. I hurried the last few yards so I could dump everything on the counter. As I reached the kitchen, the phone fell, clattering across the hardwood floor, then one of the bags started to rip. I made it to the counter as the bag tore to pieces, spilling everything on the polished marble. I looked around for the phone and found it behind me under the couch.

  I picked it up, “I have time, Annit. Hit me.”

  She updated me on everything that was going on with Bubu and our growing company. It was her opinion that we find a new, more professional CEO, and run the thing like an international corporation, with a board and everything. I got the feeling that she didn’t like Bubu’s grifting but, knowing how close he and I were, she was trying to poison the well little by little. She had a point. The business was limited to Romania, where all of Bubu’s construction contacts were, and she wanted to expand our horizons.

  “There is one more thing,” she said near the end of our chat. “I had a call from an old friend who’s with the Swiss government. She’s in financial services. I wouldn’t mention it except for the fact that she’s with the investigation division. And she had my number here in London.”

  “Oh,” I said, not liking where she was going.

  “Yes,” she went on. “It’s not good. She was asking where I was, where I was living. I got the feeling that they were looking for me. So I called my neighbors back home and they said that someone had gone into my flat a few days ago and left with some papers.”

  “What did you have at home?”

  “Personal things, nothing work-related.”

  “And this friend was warning you?”

  Annit laughed, “Oh, no. Sverri’s a total bitch. I hate her. We dated back in college and even back then she was a manipulative piece of shit. As soon as she called, I knew something was wrong.”

  I opened up the third beer of our conversation, “Maybe it’s time for a long vacation.”

  “I’m thinking the same thing,” she said. “I only say it because Bubu was telling me that he was having trouble with some of his people in Romania. I didn’t think to ask him about it at the time, but now it’s two things in a row.”

  “Then get lost,” I said. “Don’t even tell me where you go. You have enough cash?”

  “I do,” she said. “You think something’s wrong? I was kidding myself for feeling paranoid.”

  “No such thing as coincidence. Disappear, and don’t come back until you get the all clear. Don’t even get a hold of Bubu, I’ll take care of that.”

  “Okay, what about you?”

  I laughed, “I’m already undercover.”

  I worked out for an hour, doing mostly body weight stuff. There were no gyms in the regular world for guys who can bench press a tank. There were machines designed for really strong guys, but I was in another whole category. Nonetheless, Superdynamic’s people threw together a body weight, Yoga workout that was amazing and usually left me sweating and exhausted. After the workout, I showered again and went downstairs, dialing one of the numbers he had left on a notepad for me.

  “Brandt residence,” answered one of the girls, probably the oldest one.

  “Hi there,” I said, using a voice that surprised me, far too condescending even for a small kid.

  “Who is this?”

  “It’s Gary,” I said, still not used to the cover name. “Is your dad there?”

  “Are you really living in my dad’s house?” she asked, and from her tone, I realized it was the smaller one.

  “Yes, I am.”

  The girl chuckled.

  “You’re very tall.”

  “Is your dad there?”

  “Do you play basketball?”

  I scratched my head, reaching into the fridge for a bottle of orange juice.

  “What is your name?”

  “I’m not supposed to tell,” she said.

  “Can’t talk to strangers?”

  She didn’t answer, but it sounded like she was shaking her head over the phone.

  “I’m not a stranger,” I said. “Not really.”

  “No, but you have weird hair.”

  I struggled in my mind to recall their names. I learned them yesterday, but it felt like a lifetime. “Marina?” I said.

  She giggled. “That’s my sister.”

  I tried to remember the other one, but the name eluded me.

  “You don’t remember my name, do you?”

  “I don’t.”

  “I’m not telling you. Oh wait,” she said and started talking to someone, cuffing the phone to her chest. Then there was a struggle and the empty sound of the phone changing hands.

  “Gary?” It was Powermaster.

  “Hey,” I said. “Your girl is cute.”

  He laughed, “Yeah, tough cookie. Lot like her mother. So you get some rest?”

  “Feel like Rip Van Winkle,” I said.

  Terry laughed again. “We went over last night with some food, but you were passed out.”

  “Over here?” I said, suddenly paranoid at the idea of him walking around the place while I slept. I hadn’t checked the footage, only confirmed the cams were working. Sloppy.

  “Yeah, the girls were worried that you might be hungry. Kari was freaking out because of how loud you snore, man.”

  I let him talk, not sure how to react.

  “Anyway, I’m headed out to the HQ in a bit if you want to ride along. If you need more downtime to get over the jetlag, that’s cool too. We’ve got very little going on today.”

  “Uh. I’ll come. Let me get ready.”

  Powermaster cuffed the phone as one of the girls talked to him.

  “Oh yeah,” he said coming back. “Say, do you want to have some breakfast? It’s just eggs and bacon.”

  Again, I wasn’t sure what to do or say. I felt like a rat, nibbling at the cheese on the trap.

  “I don’t know,” I said, but it was a feeble attempt, and he bowled over me.

  “Are you hungry?”

  I wanted to say no, make my own damned food, and be left alone, but I was starving and his food was ready. “Yeah.”

  “Then get over here,” he said. “And you better hurry.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Time For Some Hard Truths

  I walked over, and the leg only complained when I changed elevation. The door was cracked when I reached it. The aroma of bacon and eggs welcomed me, one of the small pleasures that justified getting out of the bed in the morning. One of the girls barred my entry, staring through the crack, closing the door until only her eye was visible. It was the little one, Karina. She flashed me a bashful grin.

  “Karina,” I said, and her smile widened.

  “You need to shave,” she said.

  I didn’t realize I was rubbing my chin until I felt the short growth there. It was also white. “I’m trying to grow a beard.”

  She played with the door, swinging it open and closed, but not wide enough for me to get in. “You have a beard,” she said. “It looks ugly.”

  “You don’t like it?”

  She shook her head. “You have girl’s hair. Why is it white?”

  “Because I’m two hundred years old. How old are you?”

  Karina smiled.

  “Eight?”

  “Are you going to let me in?”

  Her eyes turned to leery slits. “You’re not that old.”

  Just then P
owermaster got to the door, shoving his daughter aside gently. “Hey,” he said, a wide smile playing on his face. “Just in time. Come on.”

  After breakfast, Powermaster and I drove to the office. That’s what he called work, so I figured his family didn't suspect he was a super. Esther had a suspicious air about her every time she looked at me, though. Powermaster could pass for an accountant or whatever he wanted to, I was so big, it kind of limited the things I could realistically do.

  "You don’t look very comfortable," Terry said as we drove.

  The minivan wasn’t designed to accommodate the amount of legroom I required. The seat was as far back as it could go, and it still felt like my legs were pressed against my chest. Not that I would give Powermaster the satisfaction. “I’m okay,” I said with a nod.

  “The leg alright?”

  “You noticed?”

  “Hard not to,” he said. “I also read the after action report. Crazy thing. Will it be a problem?”

  “I’ll be alright.”

  “Dixie’s powers have healing properties. If you’re comfortable with it, I’m sure she wouldn’t mind trying.”

  I sneered internally, and I think he caught the vibe because he said, “I saw you looking at my pictures back home.”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “That was Ally, my wife,” he said. “The woman in BDU’s in the pictures.”

  “I see,” I said, looking out the window, wishing for a quiet ride.

  “She passed…almost three years ago,” he said, a strange grin spreading across his face. “That was the first reason moved back here. Want to know what the other thing was?”

  I shrugged.

  “You,” he said.

  “What?”

  He nodded. “I wanted to tell you the other night, but you know with the kids and all that…”

  “What did I do to you?”

  “New York,” he said, making it sound like a question, but of course I remembered our first meeting. “Hashima, too, but it was really what happened in New York that sealed it. I’m telling you this so you don’t feel weirded out by me.”

  “Hashima?”

  “I was there, or did you forget? Losing Apogee, and the fact that it was my fault...that didn’t sit too well with me, so I talked my way onto Epic’s team.”

  I blinked, still not sure where he was going. I didn’t even remember seeing him there. My time working for Retcon had gotten fuzzy since I got out of Utopia. Nobody wanted to say it was a side-effect of the mind prison, but, y’know, mind prison.

  “Anyway, after what happened in New York, I had a lot to think about. I mean, if I had tried to stop you there, I probably wouldn’t be here.”

  I didn’t want to admit how beat I was at the time, how easy it would have been for him to take me down, so I just let him go on.

  “I’ll admit, it was hard to take,” he said. “I had a lot of sleepless nights, especially in those days before Apogee surfaced. It’s hard to rationalize the idea that...I mean, I was scared. I was a coward.”

  “Nah, it’s-“

  “You don’t understand,” he said. “It was a good thing. In the end, that is. Apogee was fine, you turned out fine, and I got my head straight. I can admit it now: after Ally died, I was a little too gung-ho. Imagine me against that robot thing, Mr. Haha? Or that guy Zundergrub.”

  I didn’t need to imagine, Powermaster would be dead.

  “I got lucky, you see? And so did Apogee. But the important part was I saw things as they were. I have these abilities, maybe God gave them to me, maybe it was some other power. I don’t know. But I have to use them to help people. I know that now. It’s my calling in life, what I was meant to do.”

  He laughed.

  “You have to understand that before I had my powers, I bounced around a lot. I did car sales, phone sales. In college, I had five different majors. I was a mess, man. You know how some people have a vision of their lives from when they’re, like, ten years old? Karina is like that. She wants to be like her mom, an Army captain. And that’s cool, you know? I’m going to encourage that as much as I can…but for me? I never knew what I wanted.”

  I started feeling ill, being the guy that ruined his dream, the guy that stomped all over it without even a word.

  “And having powers gave me a purpose,” he went on. “But meeting you was such a…a learning experience. Yeah, that’s what I’d call it.”

  We pulled into the parking lot of a fire station and he parked but didn’t turn off the car.

  “See, there’s a time and a place for everyone. Like you. Look at you. You were there in D.C. to face off against Lord Mighty, and you saved this country, man. Same with Brutal. If not for you, a lot of people die. No one else could have done what you did.”

  I didn’t want to tell him that maybe five or six guys could have done the same thing, but his point was valid. I was there, they weren’t.

  “And look at you now,” he said, ebullient. “I mean, did you think you’d be where you are considering where you started?”

  I shrugged, not sure where the conversation was going. Better to leave the shields up, ready for the backstab I knew was coming.

  “Anyway, I learned from that experience. I can be a hero too. But I owe it to my girls to be there for them. So now I’m out here. We don’t face off against crazy doctors that make fifty-foot tall demon constructs, or alien invasions. No, things are quiet out here, and my team and I are more than enough to handle things.”

  “I see,” I said.

  “All I did was amend the dream. Instead of being an A-lister like you, or Superdynamic, I’m out here, still doing my thing. And at the end of the day, I can still go home and be a dad to my two girls.”

  “And you’re thankful?”

  “To you,” he said. “Specifically to you. I know it’s weird, Blackjack. But If I hadn’t run into you, had what happened happen, I might not be here. Ally died,” he paused, looking at the roof of the car as he thought. “This August it makes three years.”

  “How did she die?” I said. “If you don’t mind my asking.”

  He smiled, it happened anytime he thought or talked about her.

  “A roadside bomb caught her convoy. She was a logistics officer in Afghanistan. Ally actually survived another bomb on an earlier tour. It’s crazy. This one was apparently pretty big. Six guys from her unit died too.”

  “I’m sorry about that,” I said.

  He nodded, the smile frozen on his face.

  “She was the bravest person I’ve ever met, but now that it’s just me, and I’ve got to watch out for the girls, I can’t take those risks,” he said, turning off the van and getting out. He came around the car and walked me toward the front door of the firehouse, his hand on my shoulder.

  “I just want you to understand where I’m coming from,” he said. “I know it’s a scary world you’re walking into, but you should know that you have friends out here.”

  I stopped.

  “I thought you were…” I paused, not sure how to parse it. “You know, you were trying to get back at me for what happened. Superdynamic said you volunteered, and I thought that could only mean one thing.”

  He chuckled, “I figured.”

  “Sorry I’ve been a dick so far,” I said. “Villain brain.”

  Terry shook his head. “We got a long way to go, Shadowshaft,” he said. “I can’t wait for you to meet the guys.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The Kansas City All-Stars

  A long tirade of expletives assaulted my ears as we entered the firehouse, with at least twelve “fucks” per sentence. A reception desk separated the waiting area from the inner bowels of the headquarters. Nobody sat behind the desk, and Powermaster’s face wrinkled in distaste as another explosion of foul language rained on us from the second floor.

  Past the waiting area was a small office with a desktop computer, and stairs leading up beside a large set of double doors that led to the garage. Peering through win
dows inset on the doors, I saw a pair of boxy looking black vans similar to what UPS used. They were big but seemed damn near tiny in a space meant to house fire engines.

  “Motherfucking cum-tasting, pole-sucking, fucking bitch-ass AIDS-faggot face, mother-shitting asshole-licking cunts!”

  We reached a landing at the top of the stairs, and Powermaster saw the look on my face. “That’s Bajeera,” he said. “Just don’t take him too seriously.”

  “Okay,” I said, chuckling.

  The stairs opened to a wide living room, with a full-sized pool table, a half-court basketball court – thanks to the vaulted ceilings – and a television area with several couches. The origin point of all the cursing was a big guy sitting in front of the television with his back to us. He held a game controller with one hand, pointing the other one at the TV, yelling into the microphone.

  “Bajeera!” Powermaster said and the yelling ceased.

  “What?” the guy said, turning to face us. He was as tall as I was and bulky like I had been, maybe even bigger. He wore a purple tank top, his huge arms covered in colorful tattoos, and a pair of white sweatpants that matched the unlaced sneakers on his feet.

  “Come meet the new guy,” Terry said, motioning to me.

  Despite his musculature, his face was still rather gaunt, with a long, crooked nose, short shaved black hair and several days of stubble. “I’m busy,” he said.

  “What on?” I asked, looking past him at the screen on the TV.

  “Some twelve-year-old BITCH,” he accentuated the word into his headset. “Is fucking cheating online. I’m telling him I’m going to go fuck his mom and his dad in the-“

  Terry shrugged at Bajeera, arms wide, and the big guy paused. It should have been a tense moment, but Terry had such a genial, calming way about him that it felt more like two friends coming to an accord. Tossing the controller and headset aside, he came around the couch, hand extended.

  “Damn,” he said taking my hand. “That’s how the big boys shake. I’m Bajeera Khan. Super name’s Invictus.”

  “I’m Gary Nesbit,” I said. “Shadowshaft.”

  He winced, “That’s an unfortunate name, dude. If I can give you some advice, find something less ‘penal’. Is that even a word? Dick-like?”