Material sucked in from the other side of the hole continued to pound me. I struggled and strained, bringing my head increasingly closer to the hole. My muscles were on fire. They began to shudder. I was grateful the Academy had emphasized the importance of a Hero being in shape. Scrawny me never would have been able to pull himself up against the force that pulled at me. Not scrawny me was having a hard enough time doing it.
Finally, my head broke through the surface of the hole. My eyes were out of the hole. I was back on Greene Street. Though the day was still overcast, it was blindingly bright out here compared to how dark it had been in the hole. Straining, my body crept out of the hole bit by bit. My ears passed through the surface of the hole. Sound again. A cacophony of noise compared to the tomblike silence I had just left. Debris still pounded into me, bouncing off my shield and then into the hole. The parts of the street closest to the hole had been swept clean by the pulling force the hole generated, like the world’s most thorough street sweeper had come along and worked his magic. Things outside of a maybe one hundred feet radius from the hole seemed to not be affected at all by it. Items within that radius but not super close to the hole were being pulled toward it, faster and faster the closer they got. The tires of a nearby hatchback squealed in protest as the small red car was dragged closer and closer to the hole.
Still straining mightily, I pulled myself out of the hole until I was free of it from the chest up. Suddenly, maddeningly, I hit the metaphorical wall. I stopped moving. My arms and shoulders shook like they were at ground zero of an earthquake. I was completely spent. As hard as I tried, I could not pull myself out further even the slightest bit. It was like trying to squeeze out one last bench press at the gym, but not being able to lift the barbell off your chest because your muscles were too fatigued.
At the gym, Isaac would be there to spot me, helping me lift the weight. He was not here to help me now. No one was.
A scream of pain and frustration escaped my lips. The part of my body that hung outside the hole started to creep incrementally back inside it despite my struggles. The icy hand of fear closed tighter around my feverishly beating heart. I knew that if I slipped back into the hole I would not have the strength or endurance to pull myself out again.
Part of a thick wooden sign zoomed over my head. The hole’s pull must have dislodged it from a nearby business. The sign fragment smacked against the hole lengthwise, with the sign’s length extending past the hole’s circumference, covering the hole completely above where I struggled. Wood cracked in my ears as the hole pulled insistently on the stuck sign. It was almost imperceptible, but I felt a slight decrease of the intensity of the hole’s pull on me.
Hope blazed like a rekindled fire within me. I pulled out several inches further.
Then, with loud popping sounds, the wood broke. The fragmented pieces were immediately sucked into the hole, uncovering it. I was jerked partially back into the hole, as if a giant had grabbed my legs and yanked me. While my head, neck, and shoulders were still free, I had lost all the progress I had made while the sign had been in place, plus more. One step forward, three steps back. The fire of my hope died down.
Died down, but it did not completely extinguish. I did not know why the sign partially covering the hole had the effect it did, but it most definitely had one. It gave me an idea.
I still had an iron grip on the sides of the hole. I risked moving my left hand slightly, activating my powers with the movement. My lessened grip on the hole made me slip further into it. Only my head was free now. I hoped the sacrifice was worth it.
I ripped the driver’s side door off the red hatchback with my powers. I let the pull from the hole do the rest. I was too busy trying to not be swallowed by the hole like an ant being washed down a kitchen sink.
The door, free of the far heavier car, hurtled toward me like a bat out of hell. Right before it hit, I gave the spinning door a slight nudge with my powers to make sure it did not ram into me.
The door slammed into the hole above me with a crash and the shattering of glass. The glass was immediately sucked into the hole. The hard part of the door below the now empty window frame crinkled, shrieking in protest. But, it held. It partially blocked the hole. I felt the same lessening of the hole’s tug that I had felt with the wooden sign.
Quickly, before the last of my strength drained away or before the door yielded to the hole’s pull, I pulled myself almost completely free. I did not pull all the way out. I suspected if I did, I would simply be sucked right back in.
Now that I was out of the hole further, I could shift my grip more easily without risking plunging all the way into the hole. I moved my left hand, again activating my powers. This time I picked up the entire hatchback that was inexorably being dragged toward the hole. Its tires cleared the ground. Now airborne, free of the ground’s resistance, the car shot toward me like it had been launched from a catapult.
Right when the car was about to slam into me, I yanked myself the rest of the way free of the hole. The underside of the rocketing car grazed me as it zoomed over me. The car smashed into the hole with a crash, like it had driven into a brick wall.
The pull from the hole instantly lessened. I fell to the ground. I released my personal shield, not because I wanted to, but because exhaustion and pain forced me to. My hands were cramping up after holding onto the edges of the hole for dear life. My arms felt like wet noodles set on fire.
I was underneath the car, which was suspended in midair. Loud crunching sounds assailed my ears as the hole sucked on the car like someone trying to suck an ice cube up through a straw. The front end of the car twisted, compressed, and partially disappeared into the hole, mangled by the force exerted on it. Glass and gasoline rained down on me. It was like being pelted by hail and drenched by a thunderstorm in a twisted nightmare. The gas got into my mouth and nose. I rolled out of the way, sputtering and choking.
The car shuddered, then stopped advancing into the hole. Though there was still the sound of metal and plastic snapping, twisting and deforming, for now the car had plugged the hole, like a misshapen stopper shoved down the mouth of a drain. The car hung from the hole like a giant dart from a too small dartboard. The pull from the hole stopped, or at least it stopped pulling on everything except the car that was embedded in it.
My chest heaved with exhaustion and relief as I blinked gas out of my eyes. Unfortunately, this was not over. I still had three of the Revengers to deal with. The only things I wanted to deal with were a deep tissue massage to get the kinks out of my arms and shoulders, then a shower and a nap. You can’t always get what you want.
CHAPTER 11
I dragged myself to my feet. My arms and shoulders felt like lead weights nailed onto my torso with barbed spikes. The pain and the inability to easily move my arms told me I likely had torn muscles. Better torn muscles and alive than untorn muscles and dead, though.
I turned to face the remaining Revengers. They were further down the street, out of the range of the hellish hole. The perfect name for the thing then hit me: the hellhole. I was slow sometimes. No surprise I hadn’t come up with a good catchphrase yet.
My eyes burned from the gasoline. My vision was blurry. I was lightheaded from overexertion and gas fumes. The Revengers’ costumes were indistinct smears of garish colors.
“That all you got?” I called out to them. It was false bravado. My aching body belied my words. I was stalling, hoping to catch my breath before I was attacked again. My earlier cockiness had been knocked—no, sucked—right out of me by the hellhole. Wonderfully clever name, that. If my Omega merchandise money ever runs low, I can get a side gig naming supervillain phenomena, I thought. Then I thought that pain, exhaustion, and relief had made me slightly delirious.
I blinked hard. My vision started to clear. The time on the bank clock down the street told me I had been struggling with the hellhole for only a couple of minutes. It had seemed far longer than that. Time dripped like molasses in winter when you
weren’t having fun. I just invented that. First hellhole, now this. I was on a roll.
Doctor Alchemy, Elemental Man, and Iceburn were not alone. Four women and three men were on their knees, facing me, in front of the Rogues. I had a flashback from the hostages Amok had taken. Iceburn casually tossed a fireball back and forth between his hands like he was eager to play catch. I for one had no interest in playing. Neither did the people on their knees if the stricken and frightened looks on their faces were any indication. A little black girl wailed in fear, her arms wrapped around the neck of her kneeling mother. Her mother tried in vain to comfort her. It wasn’t hard to figure out the Rogues had grabbed these people when I had dropped my force field that had cordoned the bystanders off. I bet these bystanders-turned-hostages wished they had run away when they had a chance instead of sticking around to gawk. I certainly wished they had.
“Submit Omega, or we will execute these people,” Doctor Alchemy intoned in his heavily accented English. Both tubes from his gauntlets pointed at the kneeling people. If the situation weren’t so screwed up, I might have been flattered the Rogues had thought there was a decent chance I would escape the hellhole. Why else take hostages?
If I were at one hundred percent, I could have whisked the hostages to safety with my powers. But thanks to the hellhole, I was far from one hundred percent. It was a supreme effort to move my arms and hands, and I needed the latter to use my powers. If I tried to use them to save the hostages, the Rogues would likely kill the kneelers before I barely moved.
On the other hand, if I surrendered, then what? Iceburn had said the Rogues were here to kill me. I took him at his word. As my conversation with Angel had made me realize, I was not afraid of death. I was however afraid of more people dying because of me. Not only the hostages, but also everyone else in the world if the major crisis the world faced the Sentinels had warned me about was true. If I surrendered to the Revengers and they killed me, what would happen to the world when the crisis hit and I was not around? My death would mean the Omega spirit would pass to someone else. What if that person was not ready to face the crisis? Hell, I didn’t know if I was ready, and I had been struggling these past couple of years to get ready. Because of what was at stake, maybe my life was simply too valuable to give up in exchange for the lives of a handful of others. Weren’t the lives of the many far more important than the lives of the few?
What if I surrendered and the Rogues killed the hostages anyway? And maybe, with me out of the way, they would not stop with just the hostages. There were far too many potential victims still on the street and looking out the windows of nearby buildings, watching the show. On the other hand, despite how crazy and homicidal Doctor Alchemy was, he had the reputation of being a man of his word.
“Shit,” Elemental Man said, “the asshole is taking too long.” He gestured upward, like a stage magician performing a feat of levitation. The asphalt under the mother and her crying child split open like an overheated hot dog. As I watched in horror, dirt from underneath the street rose, crawling up over the mother and child like an army of advancing ants. In seconds, they were completely covered. Their screams were cut off as if a switch had been flipped. The resulting mound of earth bore only a vague resemblance to two human beings, like a bad sculptor had amateurishly fashioned a girl and woman out of dirt.
“How long can the average person survive without air?” Elemental Man called out to me. “What’s your precious Heroic training telling you? A few minutes without brain damage if you’re calm and you’ve prepared yourself for the lack of oxygen. A lot less if you’re not. My guess is these dumb cunts only have seconds.” I wanted to wipe the smugness off his pretty boy face with a tire iron.
“You’ll free the woman and the girl if I surrender? And you’ll let everyone else go too?” I asked. My mind raced. There had to be a way out of this mess. I had been trained to believe there was a way out of any predicament, no matter how bleak it seemed. I just had to find it.
“Sure,” Elemental Man said. I would sooner trust a spitting cobra.
“You have my word,” Doctor Alchemy said. Him I believed more.
My mind groped for a solution that did not involve me or anyone else dying. It came up empty. I suddenly felt as deflated as a flat tire. It rankled to give myself up, especially to this lot: a rapist, my father’s killer, and a homicidal maniac. But what choice did I have? Maybe it was true that the lives of the many were more important than the lives of the few, but I simply could not bear the thought of people dying because of me. Not again. Dad, Neha, Hannah . . . too many had died because of me already.
“Alright, I surrender,” I said. I felt lower than a flea, and about as Heroic.
“Put your arms over your head, with your hands pressed together,” Doctor Alchemy ordered. “If you so much as twitch a finger, everyone dies.”
I did as he commanded. I moved slowly, both because my arms and shoulders were still on fire and because I was looking for an opportunity to get myself and everyone else out of this mess. Once my hands were over my head, Doctor Alchemy moved his hands away from the hostages, pointing them at me instead. Two projectiles shot out of the tubes attached to his gauntlets. It took every ounce of willpower to ignore my training and resist the instinct to move out of the way.
The projectiles hit my hands and exploded on impact. A black foam spread around my hands, wrapping around them like a boa constrictor. The foam hardened. In mere seconds, I could not do so much as wiggle my fingers. My fingers and hands were completely immobilized.
The first thing that surprised me was that I was not dead. I had assumed Doctor Alchemy would hit me with flesh-eating acid or something equally deadly and painful. Other than the initial sharp sting of the projectiles hitting my hands, my hands did not even hurt. Well, they did not hurt any more than they already had thanks to the hellhole.
The second thing that surprised me was that I was not able to use my powers. I could not activate them without moving my hands. As far as I had been aware, only I, Isaac, Neha, Athena, and the Old Man had known that. How in the world did Doctor Alchemy know?
“I surrendered like you asked,” I said. “Now release the two you buried.”
“Fuck you,” Elemental Man said. Same old Hitler’s Youth, as dishonest as the day was long. I started striding toward him. I wasn’t the martial artist that Ninja was, but I had studied some savate. I would kick the crap out of Elemental Man until he freed his earth-bound prisoners.
Doctor Alchemy put his hand up for me to stop. “Let them go,” he said to Elemental Man.
“Why? You’ve neutralized golden boy’s powers already. There’s nothing he can do to us. Let those two suffocate. It’s just a nigger bitch and her crotch spawn. They don’t matter. The world will be better off without them.”
Doctor Alchemy lifted his arm again, pointing the barrel of his gauntlet at Elemental Man’s head. He said, “I gave my word. Let them go. I will not tell you again.”
Elemental Man eyed Doctor Alchemy’s gauntlet sullenly and nervously.
“Fine,” Elemental Man said, sounding like a petulant child. He lifted his hands again in the direction of the buried mother and child. The dirt covering them fell away like iron filings from an electromagnet that had lost its power. The uncovered woman blinked furiously and gasped loudly, hyperventilating. She clutched her child closer. As for the kid, she looked around with wide eyes, too shocked to start crying again.
“Go,” Doctor Alchemy said to the hostages. Unlike Elemental Man, they did not have to be told twice. They scrambled to their feet and took off running. No one bothered to help up the mother, who was still freaking out. It took a helping—dare I say gentle?—hand from Doctor Alchemy to get her to her feet. She staggered after the others, carrying her shocked child.
Oh Omega, thank you so much for saving us from certain death! Now we’ll return the favor and rush to your assistance. Said no one ever. The fleeing hostages were no different. They did not give me so much as a ba
ckward glance. You’re welcome, I thought bitterly.
Iceburn, Elemental Man, and Doctor Alchemy walked toward me. This must be what it was like to face an advancing firing line. I could run, and thought about it. But without my powers, I would not get further than a couple of steps before one of these Rogues cut me down. Besides, if someone was going to kill me, I was going to die facing him, not with my back to him. So, I stayed right where I was. On the upside, maybe I could break a bone or two with a couple of well-placed kicks before they killed me. The fact I had surrendered did not mean I was going to meekly submit to my fate like a lamb to the slaughter.
In the movies, a hero facing certain death has a quip at the ready. My mouth was dry, my brain empty. All my quips seemed to be out of stock. Like catchphrases, I guess I was no good at them.
The Revengers surrounded me. Iceburn was about my height; the other two were much taller than I. They were close enough for me to smell Elemental Man’s cologne. Who wore cologne to a Metahuman battle? The god-king of the pretty boy racist douchebags, that’s who. He was to my side, closer to me than the other two. Arrogant and over-confident as ever. I eyed him with my peripheral vision. If my arms were fully functional, even with my hands bound, I was certain I could crush his windpipe with an elbow strike. Since they were not fully functional, I was fairly sure I could instead break his fibula with a well-placed kick. It would not kill him like a crushed windpipe might, but it would hurt like hell. I would take what I could get. Ever since Isaac had become my best friend, I had been especially sensitive to the use of the N-word. Not that I had been thrilled about it before Isaac had come along. Maybe a broken leg would teach Elemental Man to stop calling black people names, though I doubted it. It sure would make me feel better, though. I would be dead before I could turn my attention to the other two, but at least I would go down swinging. Kicking. Whatever.
Rogues: The Omega Superhero Book Four (Omega Superhero Series 4) Page 11