by Greg Logan
“Sounded like it came from the newsroom,” she said.
There was another crashing sound, and the floor shook and Jake’s coffee flipped over and created a river along the table top. Then the room went dark, and a moment later emergency lights came on. A woman screamed from the corridor and a man called for help. Another crashing sound, and the floor shook again.
Jake was on his feet.
“Stay here,” he said to her, and ran into the corridor.
She shook her head. “Ever the boy scout.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
People were running from the newsroom in panic. Jake hurried past them and through the doorway, and was met with a fist striking him in the side of his jaw with the power of a pile driver.
Jake was carried by the impact through the air and into the wall, and through the bricks and mortar and out beyond the building, where he fell to the street four floors below.
He crashed into the pavement, a shower of bricks and debris raining down on top of him.
He had still been powered-up from his entrance into the building, crashing through a window in the same wall he had just crashed through on his way out. But he had powered-up enough to do what he had to do, and no more. The fist had struck him with power that football player at the bar could only dream of, and Jake hadn’t been prepared for it.
He rose to his knees and found the world was spinning. Blood was running from his nose and ear, and the side of his head where the fist had struck him was numb.
Two guards stood outside the door of the warehouse at 4732 Commons Drive. They were wearing dark, pinstriped suits. Their trench coats had been discarded because the day had turned off warm for November. Five black Chevy Impalas were parked beside the warehouse.
One guard pulled a cigarette from a pack in his shirt pocket, and with a Bic lighter he brought the cigarette to life. The other was pacing about, a cigarette already in his mouth.
“Y’know,” one said. “I can’t wait until this assignment is over.”
A voice from the street said, “Now, boys, that’s a lousy attitude to take.”
Their heads snapped around. Scott Tempest was standing there, in front of the line of cars. They hadn’t seen him approach. He was just suddenly there. Neither agent had actually met him, but they had seen photographs of him.
Tempest continued, “I would hate for Agent Tompkins to find out about this. He’s such a dedicated man, you know.”
Scott was dressed in a gray jumpsuit, with a wide belt containing pouches, reminding the agents of a grenade belt. A thick band was around his left wrist.
“Stop right there, Professor,” one of them said, reaching into his jacket for his pistol.
“No, I don’t think so,” Scott said. “I think what I’m going to do is walk right in there, and I don’t think you’re going to stop me.”
Scott tossed a small sphere, not two inches in diameter, which landed on the pavement at the feet of one of the agents. The agent took an involuntary step backward as the ball rolled to a stop. Scott then pressed a button on his wrist band and the two guards found they suddenly couldn’t move. Like living statues.
“Neural repressor field,” Scott said. “Wonderful thing, ain’t it? You see, it could easily kill, but I programmed it to allow you enough control to breathe. And just to be humane, I’m allowing you to be able to move your eyes and to blink, and to swallow so you won’t drool. Kind, don’t you think?”
Scott walked past them toward the door. “Of course, it’s not affecting me because I programmed it to ignore my own brain patterns. Amazing what you can do with just the right computer. And just in case the eggheads at any think tank the Secretary has tries to duplicate this technology, it doesn’t work on Jake Calder. The famous Captain Courageous. So, tell them not to even waste their time trying to figure it out.”
Mandy heard a large crashing sound and the building shook again. She left her table in the cafeteria and ran to the newsroom, and found a gaping hole in the outer wall. She had the sinking feeling Jake had left through that hole, and it hadn’t been voluntary.
A man was standing in the center of the room. He was large, as in football player-large. He wore a jumpsuit of spandex. It was bumble bee yellow, with the black silhouette of a fist on his chest. He wore black boots that rose to his knees, and black gloves extended almost to his elbows. A black hood covered most of his face, leaving only his nose and mouth exposed.
“Who the hell are you?” she asked.
“I call myself Power Man,” he said.
She couldn’t stop a brow from rising. “You missed Dragon Con by about two months and five states, buddy.”
“I’m here to prove I’m more powerful than your Captain Courageous. I’m the most powerful man on the face of the Earth. I thought I might be able to find him here.”
“Wait, you mean, you’re for real?”
“As real as it gets. Are you Kimberly Stratton?”
“When I have to be.” Her brow was still raised.
“When I’m done wiping the streets with him, then you can write a story on me. I want lots of publicity. I’m number one.”
“All right, all right,” she said, thinking fast. “Okay, so let’s say you can beat Jake. Captain Courageous. Then what?”
“Then I hire myself out. The Army. Maybe Hollywood. I can go into wrestling.”
She would have been laughing if this clown in the comic book costume hadn’t just knocked Jake Calder clean out of the building.
“Look,” she said. “You can’t just go around..,” she had to admit, she was having a little trouble finding the words. Nothing in life had prepared her for a moment like this, “knocking people out of buildings.”
“Why not?”
“Well..,” she was grasping. “Well, there are laws, for one thing. And our insurance is going to go way up.”
The clown in yellow and black who called himself Power Man shook his head. “You people think so small. I’m a superhero. And I’m here to prove it.”
He went to the window, and looked down. “I see he’s still conscious.”
He glanced to Mandy. “I’ll be right back,” and he jumped out through the hole he had made in the wall.
“What do we do?” a man asked from one side.
“Call nine-one-one. Get the police. The Army. Someone.” As she spoke, she was crossing the room to her desk.
“And what are you doing?” the man asked.
She removed her laptop from the docking station. “I’m going downstairs. You don’t often get two stories of a lifetime in the same week.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Scott stepped past the nullified agents to the door. It was locked. No surprise there. He produced from his belt a small device, shaped like pen. He held it a couple inches from the keyhole and thumbed a membrane button. There was a barely audible hum of energy and the tumblers inside the lock clicked.
Scott opened the door and five agents at a table rose to their feet. Most had their jackets off and their ties loosened. Strapped about the torso of each was a shoulder holster.
Before a word could be said, Scott had produced another spherical object and was tossing it at them. As it bounced and rolled along the floor at their feet, Scott pressed the button on his wristband and they became as motionless as the guards outside.
“Nullifier field,” Scott said. “Don’t leave home without one.”
Jake pressed the open-comm button on his wristband and found it was broken. No wonder. He had just been knocked through a brick wall and had fallen four floors to the ground.
Then, a pair of black boots landed on the pavement in front of him. Jake followed the black boots up the length of yellow to the mask.
“What the hell are you?” Jake asked.
“I’m the man who’s going to punch your lights out. I’m Power Man.”
Jake got to his feet, staggering a bit. “Wait-a-minute. What kind of name is Power Man?”
The man shrugged his huge shou
lders. “It’s what I call myself.”
“And what gripe do you have with me?”
“None, really. Other than I can prove myself by beating you.”
Jake now had his balance. He wiped the blood away from his face with the back of one sleeve, and flipped the mental power-up button as he spoke. “What do you really want to prove? How strong and tough you are? You could do that just by putting on a demonstration. Show how many pounds you can lift.”
Power Man shook his head. “Not dramatic enough. I’ve been waiting for an opportunity to really make the news and you gave it to me. I read about you in yesterday’s Press Herald. Gave me a great idea.”
“Where’d you get the power, Power Man? I mean, you’re as strong as an ox. More so, really.” Not that Jake really cared. He was just stalling for time while he powered-up.
He found he was feeling much better already. The damage the side of his jaw had taken from the punch was now fading and the bleeding from his nose and ear had fully stopped. The air was taking on the strange quality it did when he powered-up to the point that he no longer needed oxygen. The pavement underfoot was now feeling brittle, and he felt like the very gravity of the planet had lightened up drastically.
Jake said, “I came by my power through a freak accident. How about you? Were you born with it?”
“It doesn’t matter how I came by it. I’ll tell all that to the Stratton woman. She’s going to give me an interview after this fight is over. Maybe want to spend the weekend with me.”
“What are your limitations? I mean, like, can you stop a train?”
“Easy. I done it before. I just stood on the tracks once, down in Louisiana when I was a boy, and braced myself and knocked a train clean off the rails. And I’ve held back a bulldozer more than once. I can do that without even raising a sweat.”
“You going to give Ms. Stratton all the details in that interview?”
“Yep. Once this fight’s over.”
“I think it’s just about over, now. One thing you have to learn is how your opponent’s powers work, if you’re going to be a bonafide super villain.”
“Oh, I’m not a super villain. I’m a super hero.”
“I don’t know, Power. I’m not sure I can agree with that. After all, you’re the one who started this fight. You went into a public place and hit me with a sucker punch, knocking me clear out of the building. A lot of people could have been hurt, there in the building and down here on the street.”
“Gee, I didn’t think of that.”
“Now, granted, I did crash into the place through the window because I was pissed off, and that was irresponsible. I’ll admit it. I sent broken glass flying and someone could have gotten hurt.”
Mandy stood on the sidewalk, barely within hearing distance. Her laptop was open and balancing on the hood of a car, and she was madly typing away. Beside her, a news photographer was focusing on Jake and the man in black and yellow, snapping photo after photo.
Jake was saying, “Now, before you fight someone, you really have to learn how their powers work and what their limitations are. Like me, for instance. You knocked me not only off my feet, but clean out of the building. You think you can hit me that hard again?”
“Oh, yeah. Easy. Even harder.”
“And what do you think it will do?”
“Knock you clean over the buildings across the street.”
“Why don’t you give it a try?”
Power Man drove a fist into Jake’s jaw, grunting with the strain. His fist collided with a concussion that rattled the windows and made Mandy take an involuntary step backward. The laptop slid off the car’s hood and crashed to the pavement. But Jake hadn’t been moved.
“Uh-oh,” Power Man said.
“Now, I’m going to hit you,” Jake said.
Power Man closed his eyes as Jake’s fist connected.
Power Man was knocked off of his feet and went sliding on his back, digging a furrow in the pavement, and into the parking lot beside the Press Herald building. One car was upended, and then a second, before Power Man came to a stop by crashing through a concrete wall. When the dust settled, only his feet were visible through the hole in the wall. He didn’t get up.
Scott tried a door at the back of the room, finding it unlocked.
Two men sat at a table. One was Agent Tompkins—Scott had met him before. He was maybe fifty, with hair that was receding at each corner of his hairline to give him a severe, Transylvania-style widow’s peak. His jacket was off. With him was a younger man Scott recognized as Agent Kincaid.
April was sitting in a chair, with her wrists lashed to the chair arms with plastic zip ties. Her head was listing to one side and her eyes were shut. He saw no signs of bruising, so his first guess was she was drugged. He had no doubt someone like Tompkins, detaining a prisoner without due process and behind the backs of the American people, wouldn’t hesitate to get invasive with his interrogation, but April was fully dressed in a jogging suit. Scott figured they hadn’t yet begun whatever they had been planning to do to her.
“Tempest,” Tompkins said, getting to his feet. “What are you doing here?”
“The fact that you’re surprised to see me shows this is truly not a level playing field.” Scott strode over to April.
“Now, what’s that supposed to mean? And what’s that strange outfit you’re wearing? How’d you get in here, anyway? Past my men?”
“They’re incapacitated at the moment. But don’t worry. They’re not harmed. If, however, you’ve harmed April in any way,” Scott turned to look at him, “I’ll introduce you to a new definition of the word harm.”
“Now, look, Doctor Tempest.” Tompkins resumed his usual way of speaking to Scott, which was that of a superior making a visible effort not to be condescending, but who, as a result, was. “I am sure we can overlook this breach of conduct on your part. Why don’t you return to your lab, and..,”
“What did you give her?”
Tompkins drew a breath, his patience becoming quickly exhausted. “We gave her sodium pen. She’s being interrogated. There has been a breach of security, and we have to learn just who knows what.”
“You like that word breach, don’t you?” Scott gave April’s face a light tap. “Come on, April. Wake up. We’re getting out of here.”
“Doctor Tempest,” Tompkins said. “I have to ask you to step away from the prisoner. She is in federal custody.”
Scott ignored him and tapped April’s face again, and she turned her head back and forth and muttered something he couldn’t quite make out.
He said, “April, you have to wake up.”
“Doctor Tempest?” she asked in a weak voice. “Is that you?”
Tompkins said, “Kincaid, go out to the other room and get Phillips and Martin. They’ll be placing Doctor Tempest under arrest.”
Kincaid rose to his feet and stepped out through the door Scott had used to enter the room.
Scott produced a Swiss Army knife from his belt and cut the zip ties binding her wrists to the chair.
“I’m warning you,” Tompkins said. “Stop what you are doing or there’ll be dire consequences.”
“Did you really just say dire?”
“You think this is funny? You think this is some sort of college prank?”
Scott helped April to her feet, but her knees were wobbly. Scott draped an arm across her back and partially lifted her, which was all that kept her from falling to the floor.
“I’m drunk,” she said. “Am I drunk?”
“No, you’re drugged,” Scott said.
“Cool.”
Tompkins looked over his shoulder to the doorway. “Kincaid! Get in here! What’s keeping you?”
“Oh,” Scott said. “It’s not his fault. He must have stepped into the nullifier field. He won’t be able to do anything but stand there and blink for a few minutes, until April and I leave.”
Tompkins drew his pistol. “I’m not allowing either of you to leave.”
Scott said, “It will have to wait.” To Kincaid, he said, “Go ahead. Shoot.”
Tompkins aimed his pistol, a forty-five automatic, directly at Scott. “Don’t make me have to, son.”
“I’m not your son. If I were, I’d be a glorified neanderthal, like yourself. Now pull the trigger. I want you to see just how futile it is.”
Tompkins aimed at a leg. He didn’t want to kill Tempest, just to incapacitate him. He fired. There was a spark two feet in front of Scott, like a fly being caught in a bug zapper.
“Force field,” Scott said. “Oh, I forgot to give you guys the schematics for that, didn’t I? In fact, I think I forgot to tell you about it at all. Same goes for the brain-wave nullifier field. Oh, well. Slipped my mind, I guess.”
“You can’t get away with this.”
“Actually, I think we can. Because, you see, I have actually thought this out to the nth degree. And don’t forget, I’m smarter than you. A lot, lot smarter. Way smarter.”
April looked to Tompkins. “He is, you know.”
Tompkins said, “You might be able to get past me, but we’ll find you.”
“I highly doubt that.” Scott raised his arm with the wristband and was about to speak into it, then redirected his attention back to Tompkins. “Oh, you know the schematics to the theoretical teleporter I gave you guys? The schematics are simply gibberish, but the teleporter is more than just theoretical. I have a working model.”
“We’ll go to your lab and find it.”
Scott smiled and shook his head with amazement. “You are really little more than a caveman, you know that? All of you. Cavemen, playing dress-up. The teleporter is not a device, you idiot, it’s an energy field, generated by something called a photonic computer. Something you couldn’t even conceive of. And yes, I failed to give you guys the schematics for that, too.”
He raised the wrist band again, “Now, I get to say something I have always wanted to say.”
“And what the hell is that?”