Without a second thought, electricity rushed into my arm. The moment in entered the sleeve, the aluminum conductors took over all the way into the glove. I couldn’t explain it, even if I wanted to. The finite control the energy was giving me was nothing like the unruly Stormfall energy I’d known before. I snapped my hand closed and the dark blue energy immediately took the shape of a long, thin sword. Extending out at about three feet, I marveled at the way the sword stayed stable.
Wilson cheered me on. “Don’t just look at it, give it a swing or two.”
That I did. It was like jabbing and parrying with a real weapon in my hand. After a few swings, I opened my fist up and the energy retreated back into the sleeve, ready to be called into action again. “Amazing,” I whispered as I pulled it out and back into my body. “Truly amazing.”
“If you think that rocks, wait until you see what’s next.”
****
Hours had passed by, but we were finished. We each took a step back to marvel at the suit we’d put together. “Wilson, I don’t even know where to begin.”
“Don’t thank me, man. Without your engineering skills and insight, most of this stuff would be useless junk.”
Two black, rubber soled leather boots started the suit. The durable, synthetic fiber pants were lined on the interior with steel cabling. Wilson suggested that in case Berkheimer brought back the K9 unit. The pants would be resistant to dog bites. The belt was the next thing in our case, and this may have been the coolest one I ever owned. There were four snaps on the belt, one for the front and the three others, which housed different offensive and defensive capabilities: one had a high-pitched wail, one dispensed smoke, and the final one initiated a self-destruct option.
“That self-destruct is no joke,” Wilson warned me.
I took his word for that.
The final two pieces were probably my favorite. The upper body suit comprised of us attaching the glove and sleeve to a gunmetal gray chest protector Wilson had started developing for the government, until the project became too expensive. The polyester material had a hidden surprise. The fibers were coated with Nitinol, a nickel-based alloy that reacted to electricity. The moment I felt I was vulnerable, if my negative energy flowed into the suit, the material would stiffen up to the point it was bullet proof. It took a lot less energy to power the Nitinol than it did to keep up the electric field I could create.
The non-badass sleeve side of the tunic was a simple short sleeve that accented the gunmetal color, which made the black of the intimidating side even more so.
To top things off, we fabricated a hood that attached to the neck of the tunic. With two clips at the point of it, my old copper mask could then just snap in, giving me some extra protection from it falling off my face during combat. All and all, this was by far the best suit I’d ever had.
“The Negative Man’s back in business,” I told Wilson, shaking his hand.
“Something tells me in that underwater laboratory my dad and his friends once broke into, yeah, something tells me our designs will get a very good test there.”
He was thinking about Adam Morales, too. “While I’m down there, can you do me a favor, strictly off books?”
His eyebrow lifted just a bit. “You know how much I like my covert projects.”
I walked over to my bag and pulled out the schematics Whisnant left behind. After my conversation with Father Reigart, I was more convinced today than I had been that Whisnant’s plan was a bad one. Still, I thought it did have some uses.
I handed the blue prints to Wilson. “Is this some sort of atmospheric charge distribution plan?”
“Along those lines, yes.”
He studied it for a moment. “For starters, whoever designed this had no care for the person who’d be charging it. This thing is lethal.”
I’d come to the same conclusion. “What else do you notice?” I asked.
Wilson laid it down on the table. “You know the answer to that, Jericho.” He looked back for a moment before making eye contact. “If you use that thing, you’ll die and whatever supers survive the charges blasted into the sky, they’ll be powerless.”
Good, he’d passed the test. “I need you to make this thing safe for me to use and to make it where it can be pinpointed at just one spot, not a mass pandemic.”
If he had any reservations about my request, he didn’t share them with me. “I make no promises, but I’ll see what I can do.”
Chapter 13 –
Sunday Night; Dungeon Bay
“The last time me and you were here, bro, you killed me.”
Not that I needed a reminder of that, but it wasn’t a lie, either. “Apparently, I didn’t kill you enough, you’re still annoying me.”
Erin’s laugh rumbled across the black and choppy waters. “Dude, this is going to suck. Last time I was down there, that Adam guy, he kicked my ass pretty good.”
The idea of breaking back into an underwater secret laboratory seemed crazy to me, but then Old Rich was crazy. Hell, he was probably the sanest of us all, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t crazy. He was leaning up against the SUV door as Erin and I looked down. “The sooner you boys go, the quicker you come home.”
“Easy for the guy who’s just the driver to say,” I chimed in.
“If I thought I’d be of any help, I’d be going.”
That was the God’s honest truth. However, from the stories that Andy and Wade told, along with Rich’s firsthand account, the two of us were the best bets to get the job done.
I did have one last question for him. “Why did we not tell Kyle about this? He could’ve helped.”
“The kid means well, but I don’t know that he would’ve gone along,” Rich surmised. “Come help us get the blood from a very dangerous super so we can help free him. Nah, I think it’s best if we just kept this in house, with the group that is.”
Try as I might, I couldn’t fault his logic. Kyle would say something along those lines if presented with this problem. “Okay, well let’s do this.”
Erin went Titan on me and wrapped me up. The two of us blasted into the cold water and dived down to depths that I’d personally be good with never going again. The ride seemed to last longer than what it actually did; before I knew it, we were inside some antechamber. Blowers automatically kicked on, drying us from all the seawater that clung to our suits.
Titan was no longer standing beside me. Erin had gotten really good with his control. “I brought us to another part of the facility. Hopefully coming in a more direct route, we’ll be able to avoid any unpleasantries.”
That didn’t sound wonderful. “So, this is where you ended up?”
“Yep.” He unlocked the hatch and we entered Dungeon Bay. With flickering lights, abandoned equipment in ruins, and the musky smell caused by salt water leaking in, this place had all the makings of a great setting for one of those slasher films.
Or maybe even a secret dungeon in the latest video game craze.
We walked across a catwalk that overlooked an area that just reeked of human testing. “Those test tubes, did Victory use those for the Titan serum?”
Erin didn’t even look. “A lot of men died in here. I heard their screams, man. That stuff still haunts me to this day.”
We walked down deeper, into another area that looked more like a control room. Broken computer parts were scattered on the floor, screens with cracks in them and discolored by moisture. I kept following Erin until we reached an elevator.
“Let’s see if this thing still works.” He pressed the down button, but nothing happened. “You mind opening that panel there and lending us some juice?”
The steel breaker panel was right off to the left. I opened it up and saw the problem. Most of the breakers were corroded behind belief. “Let’s see here.” I stuck my exposed finger into a port below the last breaker and gave it a jolt. The grinding of gears broke the silence and a dull red light came on in the elevator. “I think we’re fixed.”
When the lift reached
our location, the doors creaked open, not really giving me the warm and fuzzy feels. Either way, we stepped on and Erin pushed the last button at the button on the panel.
“Do you think we’re redeemable?” he asked as the doors closed and we descended down.
I wasn’t expecting a philosophical discussion on my way to face a highly dangerous super. “Why are you asking that?”
He rested against the rust spotted back wall of the elevator. “We both have done some pretty bad things in our lives, bro. First it was me helping those two years ago steal a plutonium core, then all the shit Victory had me do.”
“And we don’t even need to do over all my indiscretions,” I added in.
“We’re no angels, Jericho. Still, I’d like to think at the end of it all, we’ve done more right than wrong.”
Maybe Erin had, but me? No. Even in my quest to make the world a better place (through fear and power, mind you), I’d done things that I could never take back. I killed, tortured, and worse to a great many people. Did I feel remorse for my actions? I’d like to tell you I did. What I felt was more along the lines of wishing I’d done just a few things different. Guys like Harvey Grimes and Brandon Porterhouse deserved their fates. No, I wasn’t all that great of a person—I’d kill both of them again.
“Not going to answer that?”
I looked up and saw he was smirking at me. “What’s done is done. At the end of all these messes we seemed to have fallen in, maybe I’ll give you an answer to that.”
“Fair enough.” The gears stopped grinding and we jerked to a stop. “You ready to meet Adam?” Erin asked.
“Not really, but here goes.”
The doors needed to be pried open this time. Upon exit, I realized we’d left the mad scientist’s lair and entered into the home of the beast. The stuff that had been left down here, computers, medical equipment, even restraining tables, had been destroyed.
As soon as my boot touched down in the room we’d been dropped off at, a low snarl became audible. Whatever was in here with us was telling Erin and I to get the hell out. God, I hoped Wilson’s chest protector worked. I sent a charge into the material, locking it up as the threat of attack was imminent.
“Yo, Adam,” Erin hollered. What the hell was he thinking?! “It’s me, Erin. We’re here to help.”
Something, I couldn’t call it a man, appeared out of the darkened corner of the room. Wild brown hair rested on top of his head, two red eyes glared at us, and a hulking body that was sort of wrapped in bandages moved up and down as his open maw breathed in quite heavily.
“Adam, what has that poison been doing to you?”
The creature didn’t respond. As fear was digging into my stomach, the one thing I did feel a bit of relief at was it hadn’t attacked, yet. “Erin, tell me this isn’t some sort of new revelation.”
“I wish I could. He didn’t look nearly this monster-like last time.”
Great, just great. I couldn’t get the easy assignment, no. I had to get the one where whatever substance Victory and his team of evil geniuses created made him even more inhuman. “Tell me you think you can get through to him.”
Erin took a very slow step forward. Morales hissed a bit, yet still didn’t attack. “We’re keeping our promise, man. If we can get some blood, we’re going to try and create a cure for the poison.”
The creature’s red eyes focused on his left arm. From out of one bandage came a tube, filled with a lime green substance. The one eye started twitching.
“Erin, I don’t think that’s a good sign,” I warned him.
“It’s cool, Jericho. We just need to—”
Whatever sage advice he was going to give became moot. Adam lashed out with an arm and Erin’s body took the full brunt of the blow. He hadn’t even changed into his Titan form, so I watched on in horror as his unconscious form landed hard on the floor and skidded to a stop into a pile of broken machines.
Morales roared in his defeat of foe number one.
Electricity filled my hand and the dark blue force took the shape of an ax. I felt like a Viking marauder, ready to go to war with a mythological monster. “You’re going to have to do better than that if you want to put me down.”
It was fast, I’d give Adam that. He lunged at me with his ogre arms, missing as I dissolved into pure energy and entered the still working backup lines above us. I dropped down behind him and slammed the electron-charged ax into his back. His molted skin immediately turned black from the electric burns.
Unfortunately, all that did was make him even madder. He horse-kicked backwards and the flat of his foot connected with the chest plate. The material held, but my off-balance position from the strike made sure that I fell down and rolled away. The brute strength and the force made being punched by a Titan seem like child’s play.
Morales, weary of this new foe, didn’t advance. As I got back to my feet, he kept looking at me, murderous thoughts firing off in that brain of his. “I’m getting your blood, pal, one way or another,” I told him.
A devilish smile cracked his insane feature. He didn’t speak, but the expression said it all: You can try, but I’m going to kill you.
Chapter 14 –
Sunday Evening; Dungeon Bay Research Facility
A massive blow took out one of the few standing computer consoles that I had taken refuge behind to gather my breath. I quickly reinserted myself into the power lines above us to get away. The constant switching between my electron particle state and my physical one, well that was starting to take a toll on me. Physically and mentally.
I stayed put for a moment, trying to find a weakness with Morales. Rich told me that eventually, when all the poison had been used up, he’d go back to normal until it could refill itself. I didn’t have a watch or a phone on me, but it seemed like we’d been going at it for some time and he wasn’t any closer to losing his monsterish edge.
It didn’t help that Erin was still out of it, too. Each time I’d try to go over and check on him, Morales blocked the path. His intellect in this state was very high.
Staying here forever wasn’t an option. Think, Jericho, think, I scolded myself. I had to have some advantage over this creature. Maybe Wilson’s upgrades to my suit would do the trick! It was time to find out just how sensitive this thing’s ears were.
I rushed forward and sprang out of the electric lines a good ten feet away. Morales turned on me and charged. As he closed in, I unlocked the first clasp and gritted my teeth. An ear deafening howl erupted from the device and it became free. Oh God! The noise was terrible. The effect it had on me was nowhere near how bad Morales was taking it.
The creature buckled at the knees and was rolling around, thriving in pain. When I could take it no longer, I snapped the device back in and locked the clasp. The ringing inside my ears was painful, but I could still walk. I stumbled over to the beast and drove my elbow into his face. The soft cartilage of his nose broke and blood began to pour out. With one of the small glass tubes I had on me, I scooped up some of the toxic substance and put the stopper on.
“Sorry I had to do that, but dying wasn’t part of my plan today.”
I left the beast alone and finally got over to Erin. I pushed him a bit with my foot. “Wake up, sleeping beauty. It’s time to go home.”
A dull moan came from him before his eyes opened. He reached up and I helped him to his feet. “Holy hell, my ribs are killing me,” he complained.
“Yeah, walk it off. I’m the one who had to get this,” I said as I held up the blood, “by myself.”
The two of us began to cover ground to get back to the elevator. It looked like we were in the clear, that is until an old desk flew through the air and slammed into the elevator doors. “Ahh damnit,” I mumbled.
Adam seemed to have recovered from the noise assault.
“Dude, he’s not back to himself? How did you get his blood?”
“Don’t you see the crap running out of his nose?” I fired back.
As the
beast began to get riled up again, I unlocked the clasp, ready to make his life miserable again, no matter the cost to my own hearing. However, Morales had other plans. He rushed forward just as I was about to turn this party up to eleven. As my thumb almost activated it, Morales flung his body into me. The way we collided actually pushed the device back into the latch and crushed my hand against body and the jagged piece of metal we struck. Almost instantly, the feeling in my hand was gone.
Erin, in full blown Titan mode, stormed over and grabbed Morales, tossing me off me. “It’s about time you became useful.”
The organic and mechanical super followed the beast to his landing spot and started raining down punches. Morales fought back, catching a left hook in his own hand and sending his knee into Titan’s midsection.
My real hand was currently useless, but my new robo-hand was operating at one hundred percent. Going with a long sword this time, I rejoined the action. I slashed it across his back, trying to get his attention. It worked.
“I’m not done with you yet, ugly.”
Big mistake; Morales laid into me with one of his mutant fists. If not for the fine work of one Wilson Fetts, I probably would’ve been broken in half. The tunic was fully charged and the Nitinol absorbed the worst of it. Still, just the brute force he generated would leave a large bruise and probably an inability to walk tomorrow.
Titan Erin jumped on his back. The positive, proton charged energy that a Titan-based super used counteracted my own. The static in the air from the two sets of opposite charges reacting started to created arcs of electricity. As mine intercepted his, they washed over Adam Morales. Seeing what Erin was trying to accomplish, I began letting out more and more. The flow of Stormfall that was always just under the surface roared forward like a wave.
Moments later, the monster we’d been fighting slumped over and began to return to his ordinary, human form. It was a bit uncomfortable to watch as his bones popped back into place. Adam Morales, the man, was so emaciated that he couldn’t even stand once the transformation was complete.
The Negative Man: Twilight Days (Pacific Station Vigilante Book 4) Page 12