The Invincibles

by Michael McNichols

  “No, none of that, but…but it does sound ridiculous. It’s true though. I can prove it, and it will probably blow your mind.”

  “Really? You have some awesome explanation for all this? Well, now I’m curious. What is it?”

  “Well, you see…I’m…I’m Hyperman.”

  Lindsey scoffed. “Oh fuck you and your ‘I’m Hyperman’ shit! I’m supposed to believe that? Get out and leave my spare keys behind.”

  He gulped. “I’m not kidding. I’m Hyperman and I was fighting the devil on another planet with some space angels.”

  “You should have just told me you were doing drugs.”

  Sighing, he whipped around into a little whirlwind, vibrating all his molecules to change his clothes, hair, and musculature. He stood revealed before her, shining and divine, his posture perfect and his muscles impressively cut and tight. Smooth, handsome features realigned his face and his hair spiked up, flashy-blond and bright. Setting his hands on his hips and striking a heroic pose, he beamed out a confident smile.

  Lindsey screamed and recoiled. She scrambled back into a corner of her couch. Anxious, terrified sweat broke out across her forehead and she coiled up into a tense, quivering little ball.

  “Wh-What do you want?” she cried out. “What did you do to Cal?”

  “Lindsey, I am Cal,” he said, reaching for her.

  “STAY AWAY!” she screeched and wept hysterically. Her body shuddered and heaved. Hyperman put up his hands and slowly backed a few paces away.

  “I’m the same person you’ve known for months, Lindsey,” he said. “I’m still your friend. There’s…there’s just more to me and my life.”

  “You lied to me!” she shrieked.

  “No, I just couldn’t tell you everything! Not at the time! But I’m telling you now! I’m trusting you! Don’t you see how important this is to me?”

  “You’re not human! You were using me for something! I’m an experiment…or…or some kind of pet to you!”

  “Of course not! Look, I know you have issues with superheroes, but you know me! You know me as Cal! You know you can count on me for anything!”

  “You’re going to get me killed! The city will fall on me or a mutant will come and eat me, and all these people will hate me just because I know you!”

  “No! I’d never let all that happen!”

  “You can’t stop it!”

  “YES! I CAN!”

  The force of his shout flipped the couch over, battering it upside down against the wall and leaving holes in the plaster. Lindsey flew back and banged against the wall. She thudded down to the floor underneath the couch and moaned.

  The shock of what he’d done froze Hyperman in place. How could he have done this to Lindsey? His sweet, lovable Lindsey! A hyper-scan showed that she was a little scuffed up, but otherwise, fine. Badly shaken up, but all right. Biting his lip, he meekly called out her name.

  “Just…just leave me alone!” she whimpered.

  He wanted to go to her and make everything better. He yearned to hold and comfort her. He would and could do anything for her. Whatever it took, he would do. Yet, his shame stopped him. It burned across his face and sank deep into his shoulders, feeling like a gigantic weight that threatened to drag even him down.

  She wanted nothing to do with him now. He’d shown her that he was every bit the monster she’d feared he actually was. The longer he stayed here, the more afraid she’d become. He couldn’t stand it. She looked at him with fear and confusion, and he couldn’t stand that. He’d only ever offered her love. He’d show her though. He’d show everyone in the end, and he and Lindsey would be together. He believed it with every fiber of his being.

  He hyper-sped away out the back door, leaving her spare keys behind on the kitchen table.

  Chapter 16: REAPER CHILD

  Feeling light-headed and sick, Nightshadow slumped down against the wall. Hot, tight tension stiffened his shoulders and chest. The world hazed before him as if it weren’t real.

  Piper cackled and gleefully clapped her hands together. “Yep!” she said. “We know EVERYTHING about you, Mister Big Superhero Man! All your names and homes and secret identities! We knew exactly how to play you!”

  It hurt Nightshadow even to breathe. His head throbbed and his chest ached. His mouth cracked hesitantly open. “H-H-How?”

  “How? HOW? How did you, the master detective, never figure out who I REALLY am? Because you didn’t want to! Because we’re ALL over! The Reapers run this whole damn world! You never thought there was just one, did ya? Of course not!”

  She licked the side of Wally’s decapitated, decomposing head and laughed hoarsely and hauntingly, somehow sounding exactly like HIM.

  “That thing with Doc Lethe?” she said. “Classic, right? You thought that’s how we make people into little, little reaper children? HAH! We’re all ALREADY reaper children, baby! We’re born this way!”

  She chomped down her teeth. “Simply delicious, wasn’t I? The perfect pretty, witless girl? Piper? An idiot’s name! Who else would put up with all your absences and shitty moods and age and scars? Well, I will admit, I did like the freaky, twisted things we did in bed. I even had to try a few of our little tricks out with Wally, Teresa, Paula, and James, and everyone else! They were all too dead to say no!”

  Snickering, she tossed Wally’s head aside. It rolled down off the bed and across the floor, clumping to a stop against the far wall and spilling out its flowers. She purred and reached down to undo her laces. She kicked her boots off to show her taunting, tight legs. Next, she slowly unbuttoned and slipped off her willowy Nazi uniform, revealing the lacy black lingerie she’d been wearing underneath and her smooth, silky-pale flesh. She pulled the golden-red necklace she still wore up to her mouth and kissed it.

  After stretching out cat-like on all fours, she proceeded to crawl down off the bed and across the floor toward Nightshadow. He remained motionless, paralyzed by shock, and stared at her necklace as it swayed hypnotically back and forth above her small, supple cleavage. It flamed and sparkled gold, red, and white, reminding him far too much of the mind-fires Phoenix Bright had tried burning him with not long ago.

  She wormed up to him, caressing his chest, kissing her way up his neck, and probing his ear with her snake-like tongue. He twitched and flinched at her cold, wet touch. His limbs felt too heavy to move, and he was still having trouble processing all of this. Her hand snared his groin and gave it a good, hard twist. He grunted in pain and she giggled.

  “So what next?” she cooed, throwing her arms around him and cuddling right up onto his lap. “Do I tell EVERYONE who you really are and out ALL your secret identities? Steal all your money? Maybe I can take some of your equipment and run around as Lady Nightshadow? Or frame you for mass murder! That’s always fun! But snack-time comes before playtime, honey! I know you want another taste. I can FEEL it!”

  Her hand tightened around his groin, and he hated it, but he’d become hard.

  “Don’t worry,” she breathed into his ear. “You can always claim that I raped you.”

  She forced her vile-tasting mouth onto his, cramming her hot, dirty tongue down his throat and thrashing it around. As she did so, her necklace rubbed up against the side of his throat. At her touch, his entire body clenched up. He couldn’t move or react. He could barely think with the cloudy, hurtful fugue overtaking his head.

  What could he do to her? What did he dare do to her? Could he somehow subdue her and keep her drugged up and locked away somewhere? Then what? Did he try to futilely redeem and reform her? Or she would she have her way with him and slip away? Then she and him could fight for the rest of his life, putting so many lives at risk as their deadly game played on and on. No, he had to end this. He couldn’t risk any more lives and couldn’t let her run free or have any chance to terrorize him, the city, or anyone else.

  As if of their own accord, his hands snatched her by the head and gave it a good, hard twist, audibly snapping her neck. She gasped and
collapsed down onto him. He let her lay there and reached around her neck to unhook her necklace. He held it up to the light to see it better. Remembering how happy he thought it’d make her when he bought it caused him to tear up. He squeezed his hand around it and, snarling, hurled it across the room where it hit the wall and left a mark.

  He laid her down across his lap like a broken doll and stared into her dull, lifeless eyes. He began stroking her hair, trying to pretend she was someone else.

  ***

  At some point, he must have tromped up to call S.I.L.E.N.T. and returned to sit back down against the wall and take her into his arms again. He simply didn’t remember doing it or anything other than rocking her gently back and forth.

  Nonetheless, S.I.L.E.N.T. agents appeared, cleaning up and investigating the crime scene. He overheard them chattering about blocking off the whole street and covering up any trace of the vigilante Nightshadow’s involvement. They asked him a few questions and he apparently garbled some nonsense to answer them.

  Paul Wrath materialized, crouching down next to him on his rickety old knees, gently asking him to set her aside and come with him. Nightshadow numbly shook his head. He couldn’t let her go, not now. He still half-expected her to sit back up and rip at his throat with her teeth or laugh maniacally or…or go back to pretending to be Piper again.

  Eventually, Wrath gave up and hunkered away, but Danny padded into the room. His lanky, dark hair swooped down over his youthful, unwrinkled, and sun-red tanned face. After asking the agents to give them some space, he knelt and put his hand on Nightshadow’s shoulder.

  “She’s gone, Night,” he softly said.

  “She was never really here,” Nightshadow replied, tracing his fingers across her scarred skull-face.

  “You can’t blame yourself for this,” Danny said. “She was killing all of those poor people while you were halfway across the world! You couldn’t have done anything! And…and what happened here…it was self-defense! You were only protecting yourself!”

  Nightshadow vaguely recalled the agents interpreting his vague mumblings to mean that he’d had to kill Piper to save himself, but didn’t care about any of that. What was a murder stacked up on top of all the deaths he was responsible for one way or another? He tried to remember the names and faces of all Piper’s victims, the people he’d worked and lived with here, but they only came up as a massive blur right now.

  “This wasn’t your fault, Night,” Danny said. “Yes, she targeted all the people here because you knew them, but you can’t control the actions of a psychopath and at least she won’t be able to hurt anyone else. It’s a horrible thing, trust me, I know, but that’s why we put on our masks and do what we do. We avenge people like this and make sure there are fewer victims in the world. That’s why we have to stay strong…even…even when something like this happens. The world needs us. It needs us to help stop more horrible things like this from happening.”

  Nightshadow peered up at Danny and, for the first time, saw him as an adult, man, and equal.

  “I look at all this, Night,” Danny said, “and I want to vomit and hide from the world. This is killing! This is madness! We can’t add to it, no matter what! We need to be better. I need to be better. I…I still miss Carly. It hurts me just to think about her, but we have to do things the right way to make all our losses and tragedies mean something. Otherwise, we’re just piling up more losses and tragedies. We’re going to make mistakes, sure. With our line of work, it’s inevitable. There’s always going to be a lot of questions, but we can’t just give in if it becomes too hard. We have to face tragedy and pain…and…and death and grief! We do it so other people don’t have to and we all need help, Night, even you. So let me help you now and then you can help me again on something else like you always have.”

  Nightshadow closed his eyes and took a breath. After having a moment, he reached down with his fingers and closed Piper’s eyes. He gently picked her up off his lap and set her cold, stiffening body down to the floor for the S.I.L.E.N.T. agents to swarm over and examine. Taking Danny’s hand, he mounted shakily back up to his feet and let his friend guide him out of the room. Though tempted, he refused to look back.

  Out in the trashed corridor, agents photographed and analyzed the blood, dirt, and dust. Several stopped to gape at them, but Danny walked Nightshadow down past them to the elevators, which seemed to be working again. He hit the button, and the elevator dinged before its doors split open. Danny and Nightshadow stepped inside.

  “My lair,” Nightshadow said as the elevator car descended. “Can you get me to my Triangle Park lair?”

  “Sure,” Danny replied. “In fact, I think it’s a good idea for you to get out of here. Wrath’s people have it covered here anyway.”

  “Yes, they do, but we need to talk about the MorsWorld heist. We need to have it done sooner rather than later. We don’t know when Hyperman will come back. Hell, he might already be back, so we need to be ready. Did you start your training for the job yet?”

  “Yeah, I don’t have much else to do all day. It’s actually pretty intense.”

  “Good. I’ll put together a list of MorsWorld locations you, the Answer, and the other S.I.L.E.N.T. agents need to hit. You’ll need your strike force teams to sweep in and out like you were never there. We’ll probably need to set up a few distractions too, so nobody realizes what’s actually going on. Maybe we could cause some stock market trouble, a fire, a power outage, or have Gilgamesh wrestle a golem. We’ll think of something else. No matter what it is, MorsWorld won’t report any of the thefts. They won’t want to go public about what they’re missing and what they were doing with it.”

  “Are…are you coming along on the missions too?”

  “No, you and the Answer have just the right skills and powers for this. I’d only slow you down, but that doesn’t mean I can’t plan the whole thing out for you.”

  “Wait,” Danny said. “Hang on one minute. Don’t you need some time after what you’ve just been through?”

  Nightshadow straightened up and felt much more like himself. “We might not have time,” he said, “and I can get by. I always do.”

  Chapter 17: HYPERWORLD

  Hyperman stood in another enormous MorsWorld lab. This installation lurked within the underwater caverns off the New Daedalus coast. Pristine mirror-chrome coated the walls, floor, and ceiling. Thick ultra-glass partitions separated different chambers that piled high with different synthesized types of Diatomite-x. Golden, glittering bricks stacked up. Black, shiny muck slopped down into a mess. Lava-red liquid steamed up a set of beakers. Acidic-yellow fogged up a vat.

  Long ago, the gold would have poisoned and killed Hyperman. Black would have made him comatose. Red took his powers. Yellow gave him a heart attack. Every new color and flavor of Diatomite-x presented another deadly possibility.

  But that was then. This was now.

  “You’re not feeling anything at all?” Mors asked.

  Wearing an expensive blackish-blue suit with a lab coat thrown over it, he drifted back and forth from each Diatomite-x sample, checking the readings on the instruments. He’d shaved his chin and tied back his hair, and looked much cleaner and neater than he had in days. Throwing himself into some work had done a lot of good for him.

  “I told you,” Hyperman said. “I can feel the Diatomite-x trying to affect me, but it’s not doing much. It feels like an itch or sunburn, and, yes, I had to look up what they feel like since I’ve never experienced either. Whatever the Diatomite-x is doing, I can take it. My body’s adapted. Granted, this is all synthesized and not as powerful or unpredictable as natural Diatomite-x, but that hasn’t really affected me in years either.”

  “Even all these different samples together in one place doesn’t bother you in any way?” Mors asked.

  Hyperman shrugged. “Maybe an even more massive amount in one place would do something to me, but I don’t think anyone putting all that together is very likely.”

 
Though he’d studied Diatomite-x for years because of its effects on him, Hyperman had needed Mors’s research to at last understand why it held such power over him. He’d been able to see what it was truly made from. It came from the ship, his ship, his home and mother.

  The ship had lived for so long by cutting away its cancerous parts and re-growing them. Those discarded cancerous bits floated and flared up all throughout space, mutating into different kinds of Diatomite-x. Some of that Diatomite-x eventually found its way to Earth, which was no coincidence. No; Hyperman, Mors, and Diatomite-x had all been interconnected for years and the great work before them now was why. This was the destiny the universe needed them to fulfill.

  Having performed all the necessary calculations, Hyperman and Mors knew which areas of the world to coat with what combinations of Diatomite-x to produce the best results. Hyperman himself would plant the Diatomite-x bombs all over and set off the explosions with his eye-blasts all at once. He insisted on doing all that personally to ensure everything went smoothly.

  He imagined the explosions causing a strange, rainbow-hued haze to cover the world, and everyone would react in shock and panic, but have no choice but to breathe it all in. Over the course of the next few hours, they’d mutate gracefully and soon develop a variety of super-powers.

  No matter what kinds of powers they had, Hyperman intended to be there to help people adjust to their new abilities. Should anyone try abusing their new powers, he’d step in to admonish and correct them. He was counting on the world’s other superheroes to lend a hand doing this too. Even if they disagreed with his decisions at first, they’d come around once they saw the wonderful new world he’d created. If they didn’t agree after that, they wouldn’t have much choice. The world would be what it was, and they’d have to make do.

  Of course, he couldn’t expose any of the world’s other super-beings to the Diatomite-x. The fact that they already had powers would make the results too unpredictable and potentially combustible. They could become even more powerful, nuclear, and dangerous than they already were. Even someone like Mutagen who had lost their powers couldn’t be exposed. He still had altered genetics, and more Diatomite-x might turn him into something far, far worse than what he was before. Therefore, Hyperman needed to carry them and all the super-villains in the world (Mors actually kept track of them) off to the isolated, impenetrable cells MorsWorld had been building underground and off-world for years. Being confined would keep them safe and out of the way for the duration of the transformation.