“I agree,” says Hippie.
“Are you ready to go? I would think the sooner the better.”
The Hippie doesn’t say anything. I can see him fighting himself, and I’m uncertain if he’s going with me or if he’s leaving me here on my own.
“I don’t believe you,” I say. “It’s not possible for them to become younger.”
“That’s easy for you to say because your you’re young and you think you know everything, but I’m not so certain any longer. The longer I’ve been walking these streets the less I know. There’s always something out there that challenges my thinking.”
“You don’t sound like the Hippie I know. Are you sure you’re him?”
“Maybe it’s because I’ve died and now I’m back from the grave.” He laughs to himself and says, “Nope, I’m not sure who I am anymore, but I know I am going with you and Spike down there to help find them. After that I’m not sure what I’m going to do.”
“Thanks Hippie,” I’m sure he hears me but he doesn’t say anything back to me. I ask, “Are you ready?” I end up following Hippie because he has the flashlight, and also because he takes the initiative to lead. I’m not sure where I’m going, but the Hippie has no hesitation. He leads us to a wing of the old theatre, and he stops when he reaches a hole in the floor. He gets on his knees, and shines the flashlight around in the hole. Cobwebs and dust are common throughout the rest of the theatre, but here there are no cobwebs and I can see a lack of dust. “It’s here. They are down here,” says the Hippie. He gets ready to climb down into the hole, and that’s when we hear the music.
It was so long ago, but I’m certain it’s the same song I heard the last time I was inside of this theatre. The song stops the Hippie, and he doesn’t enter the hole in the theatre’s floor. “I think they’re expecting us,” he says. “So much for surprising them.”
I see the Hippie do something I wasn’t expecting; he pulls a pistol out of the Navy jacket he always wears. He looks over at me to see my reaction, and when he sees the surprised look on my face he says, “This reminds me of the old days, when I’d have to crawl into rat holes like this all of the time.”
I say, “There’s a good chance my brother’s down there. I’m hoping no one gets hurt or killed tonight.”
“It’s my experience that it never happens when it’s time to go rat hunting.”
“He’s still my brother. I still have to try to get him out of there.”
“Dude, I understand, but the Beat and the Black Shirt don’t play fair, and they will try to kill us if they can. You know killing makes the two of them very happy.”
I stick to my point and say, “Rudy is my brother, and my grandmother won’t forgive me if I don’t do everything to protect him.”
The Hippie smiles and says, “He’s your brother. I understand you want to do everything you can to help him.”
I still have my pistol, but it isn’t in my hand. The Tomcat is still a tattoo, and I know I need to keep Rudy and Daphnia as safe as I can and I don’t want to make it real. I’m not afraid to use it, but I have to try and make sure the two of them don’t come to any harm.
I had always heard of trapdoors in theatres, but before I move to go inside, the Hippie surprises me again when he states, “It’s so tight because it’s not a trap door. It’s a star-trap. It’s to get actors on stage fast from below. A trapdoor has stairs, but not a star-trap. There’s a platform with springs. They’re no longer used because they weren’t safe. If the stage-operator doesn’t move mechanism fast enough the actor could fall back through the floor.”
I’m surprised by Hippie’s theatre knowledge, and I grimace when I think about what could be down there and ask, “How did you know that?”
“Hey, I used to do a little bit of acting on the side. I was an extra on some TV shows, but sometimes I got to be on stage. You have to remember there was a time when I was in demand.”
I look at him and think maybe he will start speaking Latin. Or tell me his knowledge of physics and how he had once been recruited by NASA.
“What? I know it’s strange, but there was a time when the public couldn’t get enough heroes in the past. We were on TV commercials, magazine ads, and even asked to throw out the first pitch at ball games.”
I start to climb down in the star-trap, and I stop myself from going any farther. I ask, “What about Spike?”
“It’s not too deep. I can hand him down to you. Go on…between the two of us I think he’ll be okay to go through.”
The Hippie is wrong. Spike isn’t going to make it through. It is much easier for a man to squeeze through, but when it comes to my dog there is no way to get Spike through this hole. I return Spike back to a tattoo on his place on my chest.
I lower myself down, and I have placed the flashlight in my pocket so I can use both of my hands to lower myself. The Hippie is right. It’s not too far down, and my feet land on a platform which is five feet lower than the stage. I get the Hippie’s light out of my pocket and shine it around. There’s a set of stairs which lead down another ten feet to another wooden floor. I turn back around to the hole and I see the Hippie’s feet poking through waiting for me to help him down. I lace my fingers together and give as much of my support as I can. It only takes a few more seconds to lower the old hero down and another second or two to get us down to the even lower floor. I’m about to change Spike back when it happens.
There’s a dagger thrown at us. It misses the two of us, and I’m surprised because it came out of nowhere. I dive to the ground as fast as I can. I turn off the flashlight. I know it’s the Black Shirt who is out there, and he I know he won’t miss again.
It’s dark, but I have someone with me who can help. I touch Spike and in a few seconds he takes shape next to me. The dog senses the danger and I pull him close to me. He wants to go forward, but I don’t need my dog to take a hit from another one of the Black Shirt’s daggers. I’m waiting for the Black Shirt to make a sound.
But it’s not the Black Shirt who makes the first sound. It’s the Hippie. He’s still behind me, and I don’t know why he’s moving.
Old Hippie laughs. He says to the Black Shirt, “You and the Beat have already killed me once. Isn’t there a double jeopardy or something? I don’t think you should be able to kill me again.”
I’m even more surprised when I hear another man laugh. It’s the Black Shirt. I’ve never heard the man speak before and he says, “Ja, maybe, tonight one of my blades will finally get lucky and kill you for a second time.”
His voice has a thick German accent and it’s higher than the Beat’s. It doesn’t fit the big man’s body, and hearing him speak it even puts a smile on my face. And that’s enough for me.
I have another tattoo I want to use instead on the Black Shirt. It’s my snake and I’m hoping she can get close enough to the villain after I throw her. I make a quick toss, and she lands on the villain. She starts to squeeze him.
It’s time for me to attack. I get up and rush the Black Shirt. I’m taking my chances from moving out of my safe spot towards him. When I get to him, my snake has wrapped himself around one of the man’s legs. If she kept up her attack it wouldn’t kill him. It was painful, and I didn’t begrudge the man for screaming because I would’ve screamed too. She can put down a great deal of pressure. The Black Shirt had one of his daggers in his hand, and he’s ready to cut her off of his leg. I kick the hand holding the dagger, and the knife flies out of his hand. I kick him again. The toes of my boot lands against his head. It’s the right spot, and I knock him out.
Hippie must’ve been following me because he’s standing behind me and says, “That was impressive. You’ve defeated a super villain.”
I’m surprised, and I reach down to take a look at the Black Shirt. He’s out cold, and I don’t think he’ll be waking up anytime soon. He’s younger than me. I look at him and shake my head. This guy wasn’t eighty years old, and I don’t care what Hippie had said to me earlier about them havin
g found a way to get younger. I want to take a look at the small wire protruding out of his neck.
I say, “It’s too bad we don’t have anything to keep him tied up so we can keep going.”
The Hippie reaches into his coat and pulls out a couple of zip ties. He smiles and moves over to the leather clad villain and says, “We don’t need him waking up anytime soon, and causing us more trouble, do we? I’m going to take off his belt full of those nasty daggers too.”
I remove my snake from his leg. She relaxes her grip on him. If I would have let her she would’ve squeezed the life out of him. I’ll have to give her something else to eat later on. I turn her back into a tattoo, and I’m thankful she wanted to go hunting tonight. The music we heard earlier has stopped. I say, “I’m tired of this game.”
“Downer man, this is eating you up,” says the Hippie. After he makes sure the Black Shirt’s bonds around his wrists are secure, he stands up and looks at the man’s face again.
“For once, I want to decide how I’m going to act.”
The Old Hippie takes the remaining daggers off of the villain’s belt. He puts a few of them in his jacket pocket, and then he shines the flashlight at the Black Shirt’s neck. “There’s the wire, and it’s in his neck, yuck.”
“What’s going on. Can you tell by looking at it?”
“I don’t know, man. There’s something else underneath his skin, and your eyes are better than mine. Come and take a look.
I bend down, and there’s a mark behind his right ear. I ask for the flashlight back so I can illuminate the area better. I know a thing or two about tattoos, but it isn’t one. It’s was darker than a tattoo’s ink. I wanted to say it’s black, but to my eyes it almost seems darker. The mark under the man’s skin is in the shape of a rectangle. I keep looking at it until I see it clearer. I say, “It’s not a tattoos. It’s a microchip. Do you have a pocket knife or something I could use to dig it out of there?”
The Hippie reaches for the Black Shirt and removes one of the villain’s daggers. He looks at it and hands the knife to me.
I smile at him as I take it, “Thanks.” The blade of the dagger is big, but the tip of the knife is fine. I go to the bottom edge of the chip on the villain’s neck, but I’m not having too much luck, and I don’t want to damage it with the big blade. I take a deep breath, and let the air back out of my lungs. When I finish, I stop and listen to everything around me. I can’t even hear the Hippie’s breath. It is quiet, and I continue the attack on the chip in the Black Shirt’s neck. I’m thankful he hasn’t woken up. I didn’t want to perform my minor surgery with him awake, but asleep or awake I’m going to remove the chip.
This time I attacked attack the chip a couple of millimeters wider than I had the first time. The tip of the blade digs into the man’s skin. The wound had time to bleed out of the cut I had made. It doesn’t matter because I had done it right this time, and I had made the right incision, and I start to pry it out.
“Be careful, we need to keep it in good shape,” says the Hippie.
I don’t say anything. I’m concentrating on what I am doing. Now it is ready to come out, and I get just a little bit more of the knife underneath it. It makes a sucking sound as I lift it out, and I’m surprised to see it also has a long tail attached to it. I get it out far enough where a knife is no longer helpful. It’s finally out, and my first surgery is complete. I think my patient will live. There are some more drops of blood but I keep pressure on it, and the bleeding soon stops.
I hand the weird chip over to the Hippie. He studies it and doesn’t say anything, and then he places it in his pocket. Maybe if the two of us get out of here we can get back to Smitty at the Corps’ headquarters. Some of the techs can figure it out, but until then there’s nothing else we can do with it.
I look back at the Black Shirt and he looks different to me. I’m not sure what has changed about him, but it’s something. “Hey Hippie, take a look at Sleeping Beauty. What’s different about him?”
“I don’t know…he looks more tired, but I don’t know, Dude. We got to get going. There are still others we have to deal with tonight…and we have already taken too long tonight. What about Spike?”
“Is he looking older, or is it just me?”
“The miracle of the computer age is no longer his friend, and now time is catching up with him. We all are going to die, and there’s no way around it.” The Hippie says, “Before I became a peace lover, a hippie, I was in the war. I almost died in Vietnam every day. I was a tunnel rat. A good one too.” He starts to walk away from me.
We leave the Black Shirt to his fate and father time. I follow Hippie. He finds another staircase going down. We go deeper into this labyrinth underneath the stage of the old Vogue theatre.
It doesn’t take too long for the Hippie to find everyone we’re looking for, but now it’s a place that holds all our enemies including my brother.
“Look who has showed up, we are expecting you,” says the Beat sitting at the center of an old wooden table. On one side of the man is my brother, Rudy, and sitting next to him on the other side is Daphnia. I think she looks even prettier than before when she was in our squad. While she glows and is radiant, there’s also something sad about her sitting here next to the Beat and my brother.
“You’ve made it past the Black Shirt…that’s impressive. Have you killed him?” I’m tired of listening to the Beat. He continues, “Embrace a change in your life. It only takes a little surgery and you can always be forever young.”
“What did he say?” asks the Hippie. “Don’t listen to him, Val.”
I ask, “What do you want from me? What are you offering me?
It’s Rudy who speaks and I’m surprised because I’m not expecting him to talk around the Beat. “You know what he’s asking. You aren’t dumb, and you don’t have to be rude. Think about it, brother.”
Yet again, I’m surprised by him, and I want to speak but I can see out the corner of my eye that Daphnia is laughing at me. She says to me, “I already had the surgery…and I was surprised how easy it was. I’m going to be beautiful forever.”
I say back to her, “It costs too much. It cost you your soul, and all of us in the Corps have to pay your butcher’s bill.” She doesn’t say anything to me, but it’s my little brother who wants to speak again. I don’t let him talk and I cut him off by asking, “What price did you pay for becoming a traitor?”
“I never took the oath…I still was just a recruit when I left,” says Rudy turning himself completely in my direction. I can tell he’s mad.
“I don’t know what they offered you, but it can’t be worth more than the respect of your family,” I say. “What will grandmother think when she has found out what you’ve done? The Auxiliary Corps won’t care. They’ll consider you to be rogue and they will hunt you down until they kill you or put you in jail.”
“They can try, but they will fail. I took everything into account, big brother,” he says. “I’m safer here than I would be anyplace else.”
“What made you leave? Go against the Corps?” I ask.
Rudy turns away from me into his original position in his chair. He doesn’t want to tell me the reason why he left. I know him well enough to leave him alone when he gets this way because he’s too stubborn sometimes.
It’s the Beat who speaks up next and he decides to give me the answer I’m looking for, “He did it for your grandmother. He wants her to be young again, and he never wants her to die. But there’s a catch and we haven’t agreed to the deal yet.”
I look at Rudy and say, “Grandmother would never agree to this. You have to be stupid if you think you can talk her into your hare-brain scheme. It doesn’t matter what you offer, she is not going to follow along.”
The Beat says, “The deal isn’t complete. Your brother needs you to come over to our side too. If you don’t then there’s no deal. He’s not getting the surgery he wants for the old lady.” He puts a wicked smile on his face and continues,
“Without you there’s no deal. Unless you want to let your grandmother die someday. You won’t save her because you’re selfish.” The Beat takes his right hand and make a motion as he speaks, “Don’t you think you are a wee bit on the selfish side? Maybe you want to see to her get old, sick, and die.”
I hate this guy. He’s right. I didn’t want to have my grandmother to get any older, and I didn’t want her to die. Was he right? Was I being selfish? Trying to hide how bad I’m feeling about what he has said to me, I say, “I almost liked you better when you were trying to kill me instead of you being a boring salesman.”
Hippie turns to me and says, “Val, we have to either fight or go. The longer we stay here the more trouble we are going to be in.” When he stops speaking he looks closely at my face and asks, “You aren’t considering this? Are you?”
“Think about what he’s saying.”
“Shut up,” says the Beat to Hippie. “I’m offering it to the boy, but for you, there’s nothing. There’s only death for you.”
The Hippie laughs, and then he quotes one of his favorite movies. “You know what you get for the second prize… it’s a set of steak knives! You know what the third prize guy gets, he gets nothing, he gets nothing… he gets fired! Because you don’t know how to close. You don’t know how to take it. Are you man enough to take it?”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” says the Beat, not knowing what the Hippie is referring to. “Why don’t you be quiet, old man, and I’ll deal with you in a moment? Or maybe I’ll let one of your former friends to deal with you.”
Daphnia speaks up and says, “You’re wasting your time. We need to take them out now.” She gets up, but the Beat holds up his hand. He gives her a signal to stay calm. She obeys. She has a disappointed look on her face. I know what else she’s feeling. I also wish Smokey was here. I want his help, and I wished I had sought him out when I got myself into this mess.
The Hippie speaks up again, and I know what he’s doing. He’s trying to start the fight now, but he’s the Old Hippie, and I know he won’t start a fight but he always reacts to one. “Let’s get this over with. There was a time when you would fight me on sight, but isn’t there any hatred left. Am I still your nemesis? Or are you afraid to fight me?”
Auxiliary Hero Corps: Collection of books one, two, and three in the Auxiliary Hero Corps series. (Superheroes Of The Hero Union Corps) Page 13