Powerhouse Hard Pressed

by Adam Graham

  Joanie ambushed Derrick with a hug. She released the stiff tween boy who didn’t hug her back. “Well, you’re still a hero to me.”

  “To me, too.” Naomi squeezed her red-faced baby boy tight.

  When had the days of needing to kneel to be on his level vanished? Would her little hero’s father still be alive when she had to stand on tiptoe to straighten out Derrick’s graduation cap?

  Chapter 22

  The Tea Time Battle

  Powerhouse sat up as the army jeep passed into Fort Lewis and stopped in front of a brown brick building. It looked like a giant, rectangular hot dog.

  Colonel Snyder turned around. “How’s the head?”

  “I’m hungry but much better. Thanks.” Powerhouse got out of the jeep and followed Snyder and the driver inside the hot dog. It buzzed with military officers and scientific gizmos.

  Colonel Snyder reached into a cabinet under a white counter, grabbed a visitor’s badge, and handed it to Powerhouse. “Snap this on.” Colonel Snyder picked up a clipboard and started filling out a form. “Since you don’t want us to analyze your John Hancock, I’ll take care of the signature.”

  “Thanks.” Powerhouse snapped on the badge.

  Colonel Snyder slapped the clipboard down on the counter, strode to an elevator, and pressed the down button. The doors opened and he waved for Powerhouse to enter. “After you.”

  Powerhouse got in. Colonel Snyder joined him and pressed a control panel button for a basement level. Powerhouse peeked sideways at the cool Nick Fury eye patch. “Can I ask how you lost it?”

  “Lost what?”

  “Um, your eye.”

  “Huh? Oh, no.” Colonel Snyder laughed and touched the patch. “This is for a lazy eye. I only have six weeks left before the docs will let me use my good eye again.”

  So this wasn’t a real life Nick Fury? Darn.

  The elevator lurched to a halt. The doors opened. Powerhouse walked out and smiled at a familiar Latino face. “Half Brain!”

  “Yeah?” Half Brain shrugged. He wore a white sweatshirt with half a brain on it, jeans, and a lab coat. Despite being in his mid-twenties, he had a bad outbreak of acne.

  Powerhouse beamed. “It’s been too long since we last battled the forces of terror together. I wrote, but my letters were all returned to sender.”

  “Seriously?” Half Brain raised his right eyebrow as he smirked. “Dude, where would you mail them to me?”

  “Half Brain, the Sewer, New York, New York.”

  “Que?” Half Brain blinked.

  Powerhouse rubbed his helmet. “Guess I needed a zip code.”

  “Uh . . . yeah. A couple other things, too.”

  Colonel Snyder cleared his throat. “The United States Army sought out Half Brain’s services at the advice of an operative code named Pee Wee.”

  Half Brain sneered. “I almost didn’t come because I was recommended by someone called Pee Wee. I put that aside. Mister Manners is a danger to everyone on Earth—and under it.”

  Colonel Snyder patted Half Brain’s shoulder paternally. “Share what you’ve uncovered with Powerhouse.”

  “Sure.” Half Brain led them over to a flat screen computer monitor that looked like a wide screen HD TV. “With the use of satellite technology, we’ve learned quite a bit about Mister Manners’ power.” Half Brain clicked a mouse, and the screen portrayed a blur of reds, oranges, and yellows. “It’s solar in nature, but it draws from proximity to the sun rather than from sunlight. He’s adding energy all the time.”

  Powerhouse swallowed. That wasn’t good. “It explains a bit.”

  “I’m sure.” Half Brain clicked again. A 3D hologram of Mister Manners seemed to pop right out of the fancy computer screen. “He has a battery on his back that absorbs and stores this energy. During his battle with you and your robots at Safeco Field, you weakened it. You would’ve had him, if he hadn’t run like a coward.”

  Powerhouse groaned. “Instead, he recharged and returned stronger than ever.”

  “Yeah, well, thankfully, you got in that one really good punch. You knocked him all the way to Vancouver, Washington.”

  “Hey!” Powerhouse beamed. “That’s only ten miles off from Portland. Uh, that’s where she’d tried to send him.”

  “She who?”

  Oops. Kelli didn’t want him to tell. “Never mind.”

  “Right.” Half Brain pressed a button and a map of Eastern Washington appeared. “He’s in this area, somewhere up in the woods. I doubt he’ll be coming back for a day or so. The shock lessened his reserves and he tends to attack at full strength.”

  “So you’re saying he’s strong.”

  Half Brain sighed. “And he’s getting stronger.”

  “It’s not acceptable.” Colonel Snyder pursed his lips. “If we don’t stop him soon, he’ll become undefeatable and actually conquer the world.”

  “We’re a little late already. According to my calculations, it’d take a forty kiloton bomb to take him out now.”

  “What’s that mean?” Powerhouse scratched his helmet.

  Half Brain crossed his arms. “Ever hear of Hiroshima?”

  “Yeah, but what’s the Mariners’ shortstop have to do with—oh wait. Did you mean the city the U.S. bombed in Japan during World War II?”

  “Correct on the second try.” Half Brain narrowed his eyes. “The atom bomb we dropped on Hiroshima was twenty kilotons.”

  Wait, that meant . . . Powerhouse gasped and whirled to stare Colonel Snyder in the eyes. “You’re going to drop a nuke?”

  “Help us avoid it. You’re the most powerful person on Earth besides him. We need your power to make our next-to-last resort work.”

  “For real.” Half Brain snickered. “Agent Pee Wee provided us designs for a material that is supposed to stop Manners from absorbing power from the sun. I don’t know how it works, but it appears to do the job. I’ve built a device that can remotely drain his battery.”

  “So you can knock him out.” Powerhouse cocked his helmet. “Then why do you need me?”

  “I can’t drain him fully, so he’d still be stronger than anyone else we could throw at him. In addition, he can fly up through the roof and break through the material and start absorbing energy again. I have two suggestions for you. First, reinforce the structure with one of your force fields. Second, take him down and knock him out if he’s not at full power.”

  Colonel Snyder squeezed Powerhouse’s shoulder. “If you fail, the result will be the detonation of an atom bomb twice as devastating as Hiroshima’s.”

  But no pressure. Powerhouse slapped his hand into his fist. Lord, I’m really going to need your help on this one. “Gentlemen, I’m in.”

  “Very good. Now, do me a favor and stay off the streets of Seattle. Rest until the battle with Mister Manners.” Colonel Snyder set his watch. “Today is Tuesday, so I need you to be in London at 6 am Seattle Time on Thursday. That is 3 pm London Time.”

  “Why will I be in London?”

  “What else?” Colonel Snyder smiled like a Cheshire Cat. “For tea.”

  “What?” Dave stormed out of the house toward the van. “We’re going to definitely give those people a piece of our minds.”

  Naomi caught up, clutching her purse. “I’ll drive. You’re too mad.”

  “You mean you’re not?”

  “I’ve had two hours to get used to it.” She got in the minivan’s driver’s seat.

  Dave hopped in the passenger side. “Here I’m protecting Seattle, and I can’t even protect my own kid from that little monster.”

  “It’ll be okay.” Naomi removed her hand from her purse, folded both of her hands in her lap, and swallowed. “We’ll have a talk like reasonable adults, and they’ll get their kid to stop being a bully and seek non-violent solutions.”

  “And if that doesn’t work?”

  “I’ll knock them into next week.” Naomi flashed him a grin. “You’ve got to rest up for your tea party.”

  They
pulled up outside the house.

  Dave’s superhearing caught a child’s distant scream. “Stop it!” The child added the adult sort of colorful language. “You’re going to kill me!”

  What was going on? Dave listened more intently.

  A slurred, husky voice answered, “Shut up, wimp. I’m not stoppin’ til you learn respect.”

  “What is it?” Naomi asked.

  Dave shushed her with a finger to his lips. He stepped out of the car, hid behind the house, and changed into Powerhouse. He superimagined a video recorder onto his cell phone and gave it a Bluetooth eye piece. No one had invented it yet as far as he knew. A red light blinked in the upper corner of his vision. It stayed as he used his X-ray vision.

  A large muscular man was beating a fat boy about the size of James with a two by four across his backside and back. Welts covered the boy’s posterior.

  Powerhouse snarled. He flew through the window shattering glass all over the living room, ripped the big man off the boy, and threw the abuser to the floor. “Enough!” He snatched up the two-by-four and snapped it in two. “You want to take me on?”

  The man cowered and stepped back. “Mind your own business!” He added a curse word. “Why are you teaching this boy it’s okay to disrespect me when you should be out teaching respect to that Mister Manners?”

  Powerhouse glared. “Half the villains I fought would never do something like this to any child, let alone their own.”

  “Give me some credit.” The man sneered. “This piece of trash wasn’t my mistake. He comes with the worthless garbage who also needs to learn to respect a man.”

  The kid snorted and rolled his eyes, shrugging. “I don’t have a dad. This jerk is just another loser boyfriend that my mom drug in.”

  Powerhouse tilted his head to the right. “What’s your name, son?”

  “Jordan.” He stared at his muddy shoes. “Reno.”

  The next day, Powerhouse clung to social services building’s roof. He’d changed his costume’s color to blend in with the brownish gray roof. He looked through into the conference room with his X-ray vision.

  The boy, his mother, and a social worker were around the table. Jordan’s mom wrung her hands. “I had no idea he was doing that to Jordan.”

  The social worker nodded. “You need to be careful. The prosecutor will be seeking a suspended sentence with counseling for his anger management issues. This department says your child may not remain in his care. If you want to keep your son, we need to be confident we can trust you not to let your partner back in the house or to have any other kind of contact with your child. We advise seeking a restraining order.”

  Powerhouse snorted. They called that justice?

  Jordan’s mom sighed. “We’ll do that.”

  “Thank you, miss. You’ll be contacted if you need to testify.”

  “I better get him to school.” Jordan’s mom led him out of the office and down to their car. She growled. “Why do you always ruin everything for me?”

  Powerhouse frowned. She sounded just like his mom.

  The school let out as Powerhouse flew over it. He pulled his toy airship out of his pocket and flung it overhead. Its cloaking came on as it grew to full size. He looked for Jordan and swooped down. “Hey, man.”

  Jordan half looked-up and stiffened. “What do you want?”

  “You want a ride?”

  “To where?”

  “Wherever you’d like.”

  He snorted. “China.”

  Powerhouse grabbed the kid by his underarms and flew up into the air.

  Jordan shouted. “What are you doing?”

  “Granting your request.” He flew into his airship’s cockpit, set Jordan down in the navigator’s chair, and put in coordinates for China. “We’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

  Jordan gasped. “I was being sarcastic, you dork. I don’t want to go anywhere with some metal-clad do-gooder.”

  “You know I saved you last night.”

  “From Wayne. Big deal. Mom will have somebody new tonight to make my life a living hell for however long he sticks around.”

  Powerhouse clucked. “I remember how tough it can be without a real dad. Mine died when I was four.”

  Jordan glared. “You at least knew who he was.”

  “I also knew my mother didn’t like me. She never let a day go by without letting me know that I was keeping her from landing her Prince Charming. I was a big annoying disappointing obligation. Everything would have been perfect for her if she'd been a childless widow." He swallowed. "After my grandfather died, she got drunk on the anniversary of my dad's death, and if I didn't think to get out of the house first-" He shook his head. How could it be so hard after all these years.

  Jordan finished. "You wouldn't go to school the next day."

  Powerhouse nodded.

  " I never knew that about you. I read a couple comic books I-uh-bought from the store and didn’t see that.”

  “I have a secret identity I need to protect. I’m telling you because you need to know that I do get it. Life isn’t always going to be like this.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “There are a lot of jerks and crooks out there, but there also some good people in this world. People who’ll love you like God loves you.”

  Jordan chortled. “Good people don’t care about me. God sure doesn’t.”

  “How do you know? Have you ever given them a chance?”

  He pointed his finger in Powerhouse’s chest. “If you ain’t good enough for your mother to love, you ain’t good enough for nobody to love you.”

  Dude, he remembered that feeling. Powerhouse squeezed the boy’s shoulders. “I know how that feels. It reeks. You shouldn’t have to be ‘good enough’ for her to love you. She just should, and it’s not your fault that she doesn’t. Others will love you as you are. You could ask Dave Johnson to take you to church. I’m sure he would.”

  “After I’d been chasing his wimpy little son around? Yeah, right.”

  “The Johnson family has started practicing this strange thing called grace. That’s where we get kindness we don’t deserve and a chance to put our mistakes behind us and start over fresh. It’s something I’ve learned about in church. It’s a good place.” He superimagined the phone number of Randy and Carmella Carmichael on a card. “Here’s another pair of good, safe adults you could trust.”

  “Thanks.” Jordan took the card. He glanced at it and stuffed it in his pocket. “You know I’m not going to use it.”

  At least the kid was honest. “Keep it in case you someday find you need it. But one other thing?”

  The boy rolled his eyes. “What?”

  “Having been hurt doesn’t mean you can hurt other people.”

  “Whatever.” Jordan grunted.

  Some time later, the computer said, “We have reached China.”

  Powerhouse turned on the view screen. “Behold, the great wall of China. According to the computer, this wall is more than 13,000 miles long.”

  Jordan rolled his eyes. “If I want to look at a wall, I can do it at home and read Walking Dead after I do it.”

  Powerhouse said to the computer, “Set course for Bryerton.”

  His comics didn’t even include Powerhouse having a secret identity to protect his real one. He’d have to be careful, but maybe it was time to open things up, if it’d help somebody.

  Dave Johnson held a glass of iced tea as he sat in his recliner. Beside him, Derrick sat on the couch. The boy lowered his head. “Does that mean I shouldn’t have hit him?”

  “When someone’s being hurt, you have to take action regardless of the reason it’s happening. For instance, it won’t do me any good to waste time trying to figure out what made Mister Manners who is. I simply need to stop him before he hurts someone else.” Dave sipped his iced tea.

  Derrick smiled. “Thanks.”

  “Do pray for Jordan, though.”

  “So you pray for Mister Manners?”

  D
ave laughed. “I never thought of applying the whole ‘pray for your enemies’ thing to supervillains, but it probably does.”

  “Okay, I’ll pray for Mister Manners.” Derrick grinned. “Lord, please help Mister Manners to learn humility by allowing my dad to kick his butt.”

  Dave burst out laughing.

  Powerhouse flew through London. The sun beamed directly overhead. Below, cars and double-decker buses traveled on the wrong side of the road.

  Dude, it was mid-afternoon. So why did it feel like the wee hours of the morning? Guess his body was still on Seattle time. He flew past Big Ben. Funny. He’d seen it destroyed in that documentary Naomi was watching. He slapped his helmet. Oh that hadn’t been a documentary, that had been an episode of Doctor Who.

  He turned aside from the main roads below and soared over rows of townhouses until he came to a warehouse district.

  A balding, red-haired man caught his eye. Wow, aside from the hair, that guy was a dead-ringer for Agent Polk.

  The guy he was staring at waved at him.

  Powerhouse landed and bit his lip. “Sorry, um . . .”

  “No problem.” The balding man spoke with a thick Scottish brogue. He extended his badge. “I’m Agent in Charge Paul Polk of MI5.”

  Powerhouse gasped. “You look just like a friend of mine named Polk.”

  “That’s a common enough name.”

  Life could be so unrealistic. Powerhouse sighed. “Sorry, but my comic book writer will change your name and alter your appearance. Nobody would believe two guys named Agent Polk exist and look so much a like.”

  Scottish Polk growled. “Stop wasting time with blather. Mister Manners will be here any minute. Come on.”

  “Right away, Agent Polk.”

  “That’s Agent in Charge Polk.” Scottish Polk led Powerhouse inside.

  The room had dim lighting and its two visible walls had black wallpaper. A stereo played classical music. A small table bore tea, shortbread cookies, fruit salad, jams, butter, and Lavender-scented pastries. Zolgron had made some once. What were they called again? Oh yeah, scones.