Lee shrugged. “I have writer’s block,” he admitted. “It was easy talking about Slaughter and just how enraged I was when I discovered...well, you know. But writing in more general terms? I write a couple of pages, and then I throw them away as trash.”
He shook his head. “You’d better come inside,” he said. “I make a mean cup of coffee, if I say so myself.”
Chester followed him into the small hut and was surprised to see that it was reasonably comfortable, large enough for a dozen people to share without becoming too cramped. A single small generator humming in the background provided power for a cooker and the lamps hanging from the ceiling, as well as a computer and television. The wastepaper bin was surrounded by crumbled pieces of paper that had been thrown there with great force.
“This isn't a social call,” Chester admitted, as Lee passed him a cup of coffee. “I’m afraid I have serious business to discuss.”
“I thought as much,” Lee said, dryly. “You do realise that I have no intention of returning to the SDI?”
Chester nodded, slowly. “I know,” he said. Lee’s memoirs had made shocking reading for an American public that preferred to believe that the government was always above reproach. As the first true superhero, the man who had saved countless lives in New York and across the globe, his word carried weight. The CIA’s reputation certainly hadn’t survived what Lee had told the world. “But things may be getting out of hand.”
Lee sipped his own coffee, thoughtfully. “Hope,” he said. It wasn't a question. “I do hear the news from time to time.”
“He’s...convinced that he can smash his way to forcing the world to behave,” Chester said, flatly. Lee had once been cleared for everything, but now...Chester hadn't bothered to ask permission to talk with him, knowing that it might not be granted. “Two days ago, his force raided Libya, killed the dictator and left the country in chaos. Right now, they’re killing each other over petty disputes or fleeing the country into a Europe that isn't proving welcoming.”
“Hope always was something of an idealist,” Lee said, after a moment. “I only knew him for a brief while, but he kept saying that we had the power to change the world for the better and that we should use that power. He probably got his powers too early...he that is not a socialist at twenty, as the saying goes.”
Chester nodded. He who was not a socialist at twenty, according to someone whose name he couldn't recall, had no heart. But if they were still a socialist at thirty, they had no brain.
“You have to understand how maddening it was, at times, not to intervene,” Lee admitted, slowly. “I knew that there were more sins in this world than I could handle. And yet...what would happen after I intervened? Even when I meddled on a small scale, the results weren't always what I wanted to happen.”
Chester lifted an eyebrow.
“I killed a woman who was abusing her children,” Lee elaborated, grimly. “The children still loved her, and they hated me. I believe they joined Pure Humanity in the end.”
He shook his head. “Hope has bitten off more than he can chew,” he said, flatly. “I don’t dispute that something had to be done about the Congo, but salvaging as much as possible from the wreckage would be a very long term project. He should have asked for help from us before launching his operation.”
“Help won’t be forthcoming,” Chester said. “Whatever Hope had in mind when he launched his operation, he upset the balance of the world. And then hitting Libya only convinced others that he was a threat that had to be stopped.”
Lee nodded, thoughtfully. “Have you thought about defying the rest of the world and sending aid to the Congo anyway?”
“Congress wouldn't stand for it,” Chester said. “Right now, lobbyists from a dozen corporations are busy convincing Congressmen that if they don’t prevent aid from being sent without certain preconditions being met, they won’t get any more campaign contributions for the 2016 elections. And then there’s the religious nuts who think that superhumans made deals with the devil, or are devils...and then there are the people who think that it’s all part of a superhuman plot to take over the world. Even if the President burns all of his remaining political capital, it's unlikely that Congress will accept it.”
He shook his head. “Besides, you know how antsy the public is about taking casualties in foreign wars,” he added. “One dead soldier, and they will start demanding that we pull out before someone else breaks a fingernail.”
“I always thought that that was just the elites,” Lee said. “The average American would understand, if the justification for the operation was put clearly and the soldiers properly equipped for their role.”
“I think that Bill Jefferson is trying to put together a consensus in the UN that would allow some peacekeepers to be sent,” Chester said, “but that won’t move unless Hope agrees to the preconditions. And I doubt that he will.”
“He never saw the value of compromise,” Lee agreed. “What sort of preconditions do they have in mind?”
“Contracts were signed with the warlords for mining in the Congo,” Chester said. Lee was shaking his head before he finished. “They want those contracts honoured, without having to pay another round of massive bribes.”
“I can’t see Hope going for that one,” Lee said. “He’d want to make sure that the people sitting on top of the mineral mountain received a major share in the profits—and make sure that they actually get invested effectively. Pity he doesn't have a major vice of his own, or there’d be a lever someone could use to convince him to change his mind.”
Chester shrugged. “Our best psychologists say that Hope is likely to lash out, time and time again,” he said. “We may need your help.”
Lee looked at him for a long moment. “You know as well as I do why I left the world behind,” he said. “Even if the SDI wanted me back, I’m not sure that I would want to go back. Besides, there’s another Fireman now.”
“You were the first real superhero,” Chester said. “We may need someone with your stature to stand up and tell Hope to stop.”
“Right,” Lee said. “Do you believe that Hope will listen to me?”
Chester didn't know for sure, but there weren't many other ideas. Lee had been the second superhuman discovered, the first to spark in America. As a former fireman in New York, he’d donned a bright costume, christened himself Fireman and set out to save as many lives as he could. Later, he'd joined and led the first American superhuman team, one of the few teams that had truly lived up to its claims.
And then the CIA had unleashed Slaughter on Latin America, and Lee’s faith in his government had been irreparably shattered.
He’d flown south, located Slaughter, and beaten him to death in full view of the watching TV cameras. Afterwards, he’d told the newsmen everything he knew, starting with the fact that Slaughter should have been inside a specially-designed prison for superhuman criminals. But the CIA had offered him his freedom in exchange for working for them, an offer that Slaughter had been in no position to refuse. He’d left a trail of murder, rape and destruction as he’d walked south, daring the locals to stop him. In the end, Fireman had had to stop him permanently.
The CIA had been gutted in the aftermath of the debacle. Congress, desperate to avoid any traces of the blame falling on them, had savaged the CIA. The analysts who’d come up with the whole plan were sacked, tried, and put in prison, but it hadn't been enough to repair the CIA’s reputation. It was a minor miracle that it hadn't been disbanded completely and replaced by something new; even so, the SDI had taken responsibility for superhuman affairs from the CIA and gone on to do a better job. And Fireman, having resigned from the team, had vanished into the countryside and never been seen in public again.
“I think that there aren't many people who can convince his followers to listen,” Chester said, quietly. “This is getting out of hand.”
“One of my relatives was black,” Lee said. Chester blinked at the odd statement, but said nothing, content
to wait for Lee to come to the point. “She had family over in Sudan, family who were at risk from the chaos gripping the country. I remember her telling us tales of a girl who had burned down her entire village when they tried to kill her for some imaginary offence. No one believed a word of it.
“And then I fell off a building that had caught fire and discovered that I could fly,” Lee added. He chuckled, humourlessly. “They used to think that fire triggered superhuman abilities, somehow. There were a dozen organisations that used flamethrowers in the hopes of triggering an inner superhero. And hundreds of people got burned; I don’t think they created a single superhuman.”
Chester nodded. The companies that promised to put someone in a position where they were bound to spark into superhumanity were still in existence, their methods growing ever more sophisticated as their knowledge improved. But, outside of Dr. Death’s research program in South Africa—which killed two-thirds of its victims, not counting the superhumans who had to die to give up their organs—no one had come up with a genuine process for bestowing superhumanity. It was a matter of luck rather than anything else, although genetics must play a part. Marvin Lofting had had kids, and they had developed powers of their own.
Lee smiled, coldly. “The world changed the moment people started developing superhuman abilities,” he said. “I think we spent the last thirty years closing our eyes to that single fact, you know. We put superhumans in teams intended to bind them to Uncle Sam—the other nations did the same with their own—in the hopes of avoiding the simple fact that controlling superhumans was easier said than done. Are they still compromising justice to deal with rogue superhumans?”
“I’m afraid so,” Chester admitted. Secret courts were hardly constitutional. But if the Young Stars had wanted a public fight, it would have torn open the facade of control surrounding superhumanity. And no one knew what would happen after that. “You know as well as I do that there isn't any choice.”
“Keep telling yourself that,” Lee said, ruefully. “I did...
“And then they used Slaughter as a Person of Mass Destruction,” he added, a moment later. “Can we really trust those who work in the shadows, who classify everything they do and use threats, force and bribes to hide it when it surfaces into the open? I used to believe in my country, right or wrong, but how can I believe when my country authorises such acts and then hides them from the population? When does protecting National Security become covering up misdeeds and outright mistakes?”
Chester shook his head. “I don’t blame you for being bitter,” he said, finally. “And I would understand if you refused to return to the SDI as a full-time operative. But we need your help with the Hope situation.”
“And there’s Hope, hiding nothing,” Lee said, almost as if he hadn't heard a word. “He kills the Colonel on live television just to make the point that he isn't hiding anything. Even when he fucks up, it’s public. Does that make him inherently more trustworthy than a government that hides everything from the taxpayers, the people it is supposed to be accountable to?”
Chester sighed. “Do you think that the general public would be happier knowing everything I know? Really?”
Lee lifted one eyebrow, inviting him to continue.
“Maybe we should start with the fact that any Level 5 superhuman who decides to be a bad boy is going to do a hell of a lot of damage before he gets stopped, if he gets stopped,” Chester said. “Do you think that the general public would be happier knowing that? Or that the only ways we have to stop him involve using another superhuman, which can cause earth tremors that can be picked up around the world as well as massive property damage, or a nuclear weapon in the middle of one of our cities? Maybe we should tell the public that they’re all rated as expendable if a Level 5 decides to hide among them. I’m sure that wouldn't lead to rioting in the streets.
“Or we could point out that we don’t have a good way of checking for telepathy unless the telepath decides to cooperate,” he added. “You remember as well as I do the hearings Congress had when telepathy was first proven to exist. I was there when you argued that telepaths should be held to the same standards as other superhumans, even though their powers were far more...intrusive than any other superhuman ability. There may be laws against telepathic blackmail, but actually proving that it took place isn't easy. And a newly-sparked telepath may read every mind in the area before gaining control of his powers, if he ever does gain control of his powers.
“Or maybe we should talk about the monsters in the Pit? There’s the madman with superhuman strength who killed nearly a hundred black folks because he was convinced that they were all suffering under the Curse of Ham. Or the woman who could manipulate ice and killed the three wealthy men she’d married before we finally figured out how to prove that the fatal seizures they’d suffered were anything but natural. What about the telepath who is so powerful that people are nothing more than puppets to him, and so mad that he doesn't even understand the difference between reality and his imagination? Or the person who can seed himself into another person’s mind and take over his body? Or the woman whose body is a living incubator for disease, diseases that don’t even have a cure? I’m sure the general public would be happier knowing that they exist. And for everyone we know about, there are some we don’t. We still don’t know who was responsible for manipulating a number of bank employees into opening up a safe and handing over the cash, before vanishing into the shadows. Would you like to tell the general public that, too...?
“And then there’s the super-soldiers the Soviet Union trained who went underground when Russia started to collapse into a pariah state. We don’t know where half of them ended up, but it wasn't anywhere good. Or we could tell them about the super powered fundamentalist who tore up Saudi Arabia because the House of Saud weren't fanatical enough for him. Or we could mention the slight fact that Iraq has been serving as a clearing house for an alarming number of mutants and also controls a large chunk of the Earth’s oil reserves...”
Lee held up a hand. “You’ve made your point,” he said. “Although I do think that there’s a difference between not telling people important facts and lying to cover up your own failings.”
Chester smiled. “Our successes are never public because that’s how we know they’re successes,” he said, ruefully. He glanced at his watch. “I’d love to stay and talk about old times, but I need to know where you stand.”
Lee considered it. “Where I stand is where I always stood: superhumans are human too, not something different from the rest of the human race. If you want me to stand up and tell Hope that he’s going too far, I will. I don’t think he will listen to me.”
“It has to be tried,” Chester said. “Sooner or later, someone is going to try something against him, and then the shit will really hit the fan.”
“You mean that the government will try something,” Lee said. He wouldn't have been fooled by Chester’s casual tone. “I remember those games from when I wore the spandex. Just remind the government, from me, that an idealist can cause more damage than someone willing to work for what he wants who has the patience to do it properly.”
Chester nodded, walked outside and tapped his cell phone, calling for Jumper to come pick him up. There were several others he wanted to visit before time ran out. By now, the assassin should be in place, ready to deal with Hope. And if it failed...?
He’d been working for the government ever since he'd graduated from college, first as an intelligence spook and then as a caretaker for Team Omega. And yet he’d never felt as if they were losing control before, even when dealing with Level 5 superhumans. But Hope had changed all of the rules.
Who knew where the pieces would fall if things went badly wrong?
Chapter Thirty-One
“Are you telling us that the world will see many more such interventions?”
“Yes,” Hope said, as patiently as he could. The attack on Tripoli and the death of one of the world’s most notorious dictat
ors had brought a new flood of reporters into the Congo, all intent on demanding answers about what he intended to do next. And some of the questions they asked were utterly insane. “This is a very bad time to brutalise your own people, spread terrorism beyond your borders and generally repress everyone who disagrees with you.”
He stared down at the reporters. “I intend to ensure that this project works and that the people of the Congo have a chance to build new lives for themselves without interference from outside,” he continued. “I led the strike against Libya in response to discovering that Libya had been shipping money, weapons and supplies into the Congo to make life unpleasant for the local population. The evidence we extracted from their agent’s head proved that the decision to meddle came directly from the Colonel himself. I executed the Colonel to make it clear that such interference would not be tolerated.”
Another reporter jumped up, waving her hand in the air. “Ah, Mr. Hope...in an interview yesterday morning, Jennifer Horton claimed that your intervention had actually prevented the distribution of aid to Africa, as well as raising the spectre of Libya also requiring such assistance,” she said. “How would you respond to her statement?”
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