The Invincibles

by Michael McNichols

  Nightshadow jumped away in time. He smashed out through a window the flames had smudged dark ashy blue, but the force of the blast threw him across the street. He crashed down hard on top of a mini-van’s windshield. His head bashed against it, and cracks spider-webbed through the glass. Rolling over, he hit the sidewalk like a sack of smoking, overcooked meat.

  Dazed and groggy, he gazed up at Hyperman ripping down out of the sky and blowing a massive gushing breath that put out the fire. As Salome City’s citizens crawled out of the woodwork to stare at the spectacle and cheer on the big hero, Nightshadow managed to slither over to the nearest manhole cover.

  ***

  He hobbled through the putrid, stomach-turning sewers to his lair beneath State Street, a smaller, more cramped version of the Triangle Park one. Naturally, Hyperman, the six-foot-tall super-god with inhumanly perfect abs and flawless, eternally youthful good looks, was waiting for him there. Despite the new enhancements Nightshadow had made to the lair, Hyperman had still easily bypassed all the security safeguards.

  Seeing Nightshadow, Hyperman frowned. “You smell like charred meat,” he said.

  “Feel like it too,” Nightshadow muttered. He tore off his mask and began stripping off his sweaty, fire-scorched wing-suit, tossing its ruined components down into a trash chute. Now clad only in the black bodysuit he wore beneath his wing-suit, he collapsed down into a chair in front of his main supercomputer.

  He rolled his head back and took a deep, controlled breath. Burns and bruises ached across his entire body. His skin felt hot and itchy. A massive, light-dimming headache exploded against the insides of his skull. The grimace tightening across Hyperman’s face told Nightshadow he looked worse than he felt. However, Nightshadow had already begun locking all the pain away into a box deep inside his mind. That would hold off all his agony for now and allow him to function.

  “You need medical help,” Hyperman said. “Don’t worry. I’m like a whole hospital. In fact, I’m like every hospital put together.”

  Nightshadow held up a hand. “First things first,” he gruffly said. “Did you find Pyro?”

  “Yeah, they’re sending him to a hospital, then shipping him off to Havensgate Institute. How’d you know he survived?”

  “His kind usually does.”

  Stretching, Nightshadow heard far too many old, worn joints crack. “I’m assuming you took care of the fires and kept all the bystanders safe until the city authorities got their emergency fire crews out there?” he asked.

  “I did,” Hyperman answered. “There were no casualties. In fact, you were hurt far worse than anyone else.” He paused. “You know, you could have asked for help. I’d have heard you no matter where I was in the world.”

  “We’re not always out on missions for the Invincibles together,” Nightshadow replied. “You have your work, and I have mine. If we can help each other out occasionally, that’s fine, but we can’t depend on each other always being available. We never know if you’re going to be somewhere in outer space or if I’m deep undercover and can’t resurface.”

  “A fair point, I suppose.”

  “Anyway, Cal, you obviously flew here for a reason, and it wasn’t Pyro.”

  Hearing his human name made Hyperman wince. A half-grin curled up the side of Nightshadow’s mouth. Even Hyperman needed to be reminded every once in a while that he had a regular life and bills to pay like everybody else, even if he didn’t like it much.

  “Well, um, see, there’s this girl,” Hyperman said.

  “A girl?” Nightshadow asked.

  “Yeah, I like her, but this is the thing. She’s dating me as Cal, but she doesn’t know that I’m Hyperman. In fact, she doesn’t even like Hyperman!”

  “Not everyone in the world adores you.”

  “I know! But she’s against all of us! Every superhero and vigilante! I have to know why!”

  “What makes you think there’s a specific reason?”

  “Come on! We’ve been at this too long. Something had to have happened to her. A family member or friend might have been killed during a battle. Maybe no one was there to save them from a mugging or space invasion. It’s something like that. It has to be!”

  Nightshadow cradled his hands together. “So you want me to investigate her for you?” he asked.

  Hyperman nodded. “Just to see if something like that happened to her.”

  “If there’s anything actually to this, what makes you think I’ll find something when you couldn’t?”

  “You’re you.”

  Nightshadow sighed. “Okay,” he muttered. “I’ll see if I can make time for it, but I need a favor in return.”

  “Name it,” Hyperman replied.

  Nightshadow spun around in his chair and hit the supercomputer’s wide built-in keyboard. The big window-sized screen brightened and showed a balding, gray-haired, frumpy little toad of a man. His personal information scrolled down to the side of his picture.

  “Doc Lethe,” Hyperman said, standing over Nightshadow. They both bathed in the screen’s hazy glow. “It’s been, what? Nine years? He was a mad scientist type, right? Liked to play around with people’s memories?”

  Nightshadow nodded. “He turned in state’s evidence on the Razor Twins, and S.I.L.E.N.T. put him in their witness protection program.”

  “We haven’t heard from him since,” Hyperman said. “Maybe he’s cleaned up his act.”

  “Or maybe not,” Nightshadow replied. “I found some of his equipment down in the Death Reaper’s hole. I think the Reaper might have used it to alter those children somehow.”

  Hyperman’s voice grew quiet and distant. “Those poor kids. We really failed them, didn’t we?”

  “There could be more of them out there needing our help,” Nightshadow said. “We have to find them.”

  “Are you sure there’s more?” Hyperman asked. “The Death Reaper could have been lying and neither of us have found anything yet.”

  “We have to investigate all possibilities.”

  “Of course. Have you tracked Lethe down yet?”

  “That’s the problem. I have access to S.I.L.E.N.T.’s systems, the FBI’s, Interpol’s, and every police station and law enforcement agency in the world, but I can’t find a trace of him anywhere.”

  “You think he might have done something to the memories of the people who were involved in hiding him away? And that he got into their systems, too, and erased the data?”

  “It’d fit his modus operandi.”

  “What do you want me to do then? Scan the whole world and find him?”

  “If possible, yes.”

  Hyperman chuckled and shrugged. “Okay. Shouldn’t be too hard, but first things first. Let’s get you bandaged up.”

  ***

  Nightshadow had fixed up multiple stab and bullet wounds. He knew his medications and antibiotics. A couple of times, he had even performed battlefield surgery on fallen superheroes. Most nights, he tended to his own injuries and got by well enough. Nonetheless, Hyperman’s medical expertise put him to shame.

  Hyperman jetted off all across the world, bringing back and mixing together burn salves Nightshadow had never even heard of before. When applied to his sensitive, fire-lashed skin, the salve at first stung, but soon coolly caressed his burns and soothed the pain. Next, Hyperman stitched and bandaged him up. It seemed as if Nightshadow simply blinked, and suddenly, all his wounds had miraculously closed and stitched themselves up, and bandages had grown over his skin. Sitting up on the folded out plank in his lair’s medical station, Nightshadow grumbled, “Thanks.”

  “Don’t mention it,” Hyperman said, towering over him and practically glowing in the lair’s dim light. “I’d also tell you to get some rest, but I know you too well.”

  “While you were out flying all over the world, did you look for Lethe?”

  “I’ll do it now.”

  His hands grasped behind his back, Hyperman peered up, moving his eyes this way and that.

 
“What do you see?” Nightshadow asked.

  Hyperman grinned. “A couple of nuns getting changed and a dominatrix in a Nightshadow outfit.”

  Despite himself, Nightshadow laughed. Smiling, Hyperman levitated up a few feet into the air. “I need to take to the air,” he said. “I’ll have a better vantage point from up there.”

  He zoomed off and Nightshadow stared after him. Much as he tried, he couldn’t dislike Hyperman. Like anyone else, he wished he could fly and never grow old, but wasn’t jealous. He was who he was and worked with what he had, same as Hyperman. Besides, even with all his power, Hyperman used it responsibly and almost always thought of others before himself. He’d never given off even the slightest hint of crossing the line either, though it’d be easy for him and exceedingly difficult for anyone to punish him for it. He had a code of honor and conduct that he adhered to and Nightshadow respected him for it.

  Still, in the world they lived in, things happened. People, even Hyperman, got put under mind control or magic spells. Their alternate reality counterparts came crashing through time and space. Sometimes, somebody duplicated or stole their powers. Also, the possibility existed that one day Hyperman might lose control of himself. Hyperman didn’t know where he had come from or what he was capable of achieving or evolving into.

  Back in 1939, he claimed to have simply woken up as a cold, shivering boy in a field with no idea how he’d gotten there. The local town doctor found him and raised him as best he could on his own, but Cal was still discovering new things about himself and his hyper-powers every day. One morning, he might simply wake up and his powers might be too much for him, and they’d destroy the planet. His parents might come to Earth for their son and want to raze the whole planet for not falling down and worshipping them. His race might have all-powerful enemies who eventually track him down and put all of humanity in the crossfire. There were too many “what-if’s,” so Nightshadow kept an eye on Cal and every other super-being who might prove to be trouble, whether they wanted to be or not.

  ***

  Stiffly, Nightshadow meandered over to his supercomputer and sat down before it. He hit the keyboard and went through Doc Lethe’s background information again. While he was reading, Hyperman reappeared next to him, abruptly enough to give anybody else in the world a heart attack. Nightshadow, however, calmly sat back in his chair. He had grown used to Hyperman flashing in and out of rooms in the blink of an eye years ago.

  “Well?” he asked.

  Hyperman pursed his lips. “It bothers you, doesn’t it? Needing me to do this for you? You like doing the legwork yourself. You like doing things the hard way.”

  “I like being thorough.”

  “Well, I found him over in Dawnson. He’s at home watching the Food Network. Before you ask, I scanned his entire house. I didn’t see anything incriminating or suspicious. I’d have questioned him myself, but he was just this old frail man. I’d have felt like a bully.”

  “I’ll take that into consideration when I interrogate him.”

  Nightshadow pressed a button on his supercomputer console. Off to the side, a vault door cracked open and a spare wing-suit on a hook with a utility belt slid down.

  Hyperman sighed. “Of course, you want to go right now, despite all your injuries.”

  “My investigation can’t wait,” Nightshadow replied. “None of them ever can.”

  “Fine, but I want to go with.”

  “Very well. You can be the good cop.”

  Suddenly, Hyperman squinted his eyes and perked up his ears.

  “What?” Nightshadow asked.

  “Puerto Rico is sinking into the ocean!” Hyperman answered.

  “The Subterraneans?”

  “Sounds like them.”

  “Go. They need you.”

  “What about you?”

  “Drop me off. I’ll be fine.”

  “Fine, but be careful and keep your cool. I didn’t get much of a sinister vibe off him. Remember, I can see auras. Yours is still kind of murky by the way, but his was pretty clean. Lethe might really have turned over a new leaf in his old age. Maybe he only erased all his tracks because he wants to be left alone.”

  “The Death Reaper had his tech, Cal. I have to know why.”

  ***

  One brief stomach-sickening, world-spinning whirl later, Hyperman set Nightshadow down onto a hotel rooftop and whooshed back off into the cloudy black sky. Nightshadow took a moment to reorient himself.

  A small city splayed out before him. Three bridges spanned the sparkling, night-blackened Ohio River into Dawnson, Kentucky. A few skyscrapers packed into the downtown area. Smaller, art deco-designed buildings spread out from there across the sloping, forest-strewn streets. Switching his mask’s lens to binocular vision, Nightshadow glanced a few doors down to Doc Lethe’s green-shingled house. Trimmed bushes surrounded the property, and a black gravel driveway slumped down onto the main road. Lights haloed out of the living room and second floor windows.

  Spreading his suit’s wings, Nightshadow took to the wind, gliding down to the backyard and landing softly on the cobblestone patio. The motion detector light flashed on, and several dogs in neighboring yards barked. A tightly knotted bag of garbage spilled over near the door. Unconcerned, Nightshadow stepped over the trash bag, tried the back door, and found it open.

  The kitchen featured new appliances and an off-white tiled floor. All across the house, small bookshelves clung to the walls. Tasteful furniture and art livened up the dusty, dreary old place. In the living room, a wide flat-screened TV played a show detailing the finer points of grilling chicken.

  With the lights and TV on, Nightshadow knew Lethe had to be home, but he wasn’t downstairs. Quickly and quietly, Nightshadow stalked upstairs to the second floor and down a short hallway. The door to a small bedroom hung open. On the wall, a black-and-white poster depicting Einstein with E=MC2 printed across the bottom hung above a small bed with a quilt spread over it. Across from it on a short sofa, Lethe lay motionlessly. His arms and legs draped over the cushions and shock had paled his weathered, wrinkled face. Veins showed in his bulging, lightless eyes. A messy, sticky gray substance foamed out of his mouth and nostrils.

  Though he was clearly dead, Lethe’s body was still warm, meaning he had only died minutes ago. Offhand, Nightshadow guessed the cause of death to be suffocation or poisoning by whatever substance was leaking out of his orifices. Pinching a bit of it, Nightshadow planted the sample in a small plastic bag he took out of his utility belt and held it up to the light.

  Yes, it did resemble webbing.

  After securing the sample in a utility belt pouch, Nightshadow searched the room for any other clues, but found nothing. There were no marks, fingerprints, signs of a struggle, or any indication other than the webbing that anyone else had even been here. He’d have to check the rest of the house, but doubted he’d find anything.

  The killer must have completely surprised and overwhelmed Lethe, not that the old man could have put up much of a fight. The killer had to have been damn fast too, given his window of opportunity seemed to have been the timeframe between Hyperman finding Lethe here and then dropping Nightshadow off thirteen minutes later. It took three minutes for someone to suffocate, and brain death occurred at the six-minute mark. So it had taken the killer only seven minutes to sneak off without leaving a trace behind him, and Nightshadow doubted he could catch up to him, not with the speed at which he obviously moved. Not many people could sneak around with Hyperman scanning the area, either. That kind of stealth and speed, plus the webbing, narrowed the list of suspects down considerably. Nightshadow didn’t want to believe it though. He hoped this was some kind of frame up and that the Spider-Specter wasn’t responsible.

  Nightshadow glanced down at Lethe’s white-haired, heavy-hipped body and wondered if he should even feel sorry for the retired super-criminal who had violated so many people’s memories. Nonetheless, he reached down and closed Lethe’s eyes.

  Chapter 5
: ON HIGH

  Hyperman sat at home with his computer nestled on his lap and stared at a blank computer screen. The balcony doors swung open and a caressingly warm wind ghosted in. Blimps and biplanes darted around in a gorgeous blue sky. His hyper-vision showed him boat races in the bay and an amusement park crowding around the Ferris wheel at the docks. Parades filled the streets below with revelers blowing horns and toasting drinks. People piled onto their balconies and rooftops, cracking open beers and firing up their grills.

  Lindsey left him message after message on his new phone, begging him to come out and play for Founder’s Day, the city’s official spring kick-off. He kept putting her off, claiming he had some work to catch up on first. However, he’d finished up all his web design projects for the month well ahead of schedule. He’d also finally beaten back the Subterranean invasion after days of underground fighting followed by tense negotiations. After all that, he definitely thought he deserved a holiday, but he’d promised himself he’d finally start banging out this novel.

  Yet, now that he was sitting here, primed and ready to write, nothing came to him. No stories, characters, or situations or anything. He drew a massive blank, and his mind and hyper-senses drifted. He saw smiling piss-happy drunks throwing Frisbees and playing ball everywhere, heard music from all the concerts in the parks, and even tasted the fizzle from every opened beer.

  Two pages! Come on! He only wanted to write two pages! They didn’t even have to be good. They just needed to be a start. Still, even after trying to concentrate, he had nothing. The minutes toiled agonizingly on. Every now and then, he’d write a few lines, but almost immediately erase them. The words sounded hollow and clunky. The characters never came to life. The dialogue seemed forced and clichéd. With his hyper-speed, he could have written entire libraries of work by now, but nothing he’d typed out pleased him enough to keep on the page, which drove him mad with frustration. He’d seen and done incredible things all across the universe. He’d traveled through time and fought gods, demons, and monsters. How could he not have anything to write about?