Two Percent Power (Book 1): Delivering Justice

by Brian Manning

  “Yeah, we’ve met. I’m hoping I get to meet Relaxation next.”

  “This is all just some game to you isn’t it?” Sight asked. His eyebrows darted down into a sharp V. He circled Patrick with his hands clasped behind his back, still staring daggers.

  Patrick shifted his stance to track and match Sight’s angle. When the mastermind stopped, he was standing next to Tension. The size difference, both in height and width, was astonishing. Patrick raced through any and every option and dirty tactic in his playbook for how he would take down the threat.

  “Well, since you seem to think we’re just playing, let me put a stop to that,” Sight motioned towards Patrick with a lazy wiping gesture.

  Tension thundered in and lifted Patrick up by the neck. A thumb as thick as his own wrist wrapped around one side of his neck, while two of the brute’s other fingers wrapped around the other side. His ring finger and pinky didn’t have enough room to fit, draping across Patrick’s shoulder. He struggled to break free, holding on to the powerful vise to keep most of his weight from pulling on his neck.

  “Game over, son. This isn’t going to end the way you planned it. Was I supposed to be impressed by some guy that barges in here hurling two percent milk?” Sight continued his laps while lecturing. “Well it looks like you’re down to two percent power now. You thought your little league team, your Bad News Bears, could stop what I have been building for years now? Your band of Internet sensations had some strange notion that you would be able to stand up to the might of my vision? My Visionaries?”

  Patrick’s world was growing fuzzy. His mind reached out in desperation for something he could use to break free. He felt a small tingling. Something moving around him, matching i’s pace with Sight. The sensation was growing, and was at its strongest as the Visionary leader stepped back into Patrick’s line of sight, and stood at Tension’s side.

  “The game was over before it started. You have no idea of the scope of this whole operation. You think you’ve won, but it’s already too late.” Sight cocked his head to one side, and lifted his chin. His hands rose to either side, palms up in a cocky gesture asking what now? “I’ve already won. The city is already mine.”

  Patrick released his grip on Tension’s paw with his right hand and grasped the air. In his mind’s eye, he was reaching out to pluck the tingling sensation from its current location. He could feel something locked in his grip, as he yanked his fist up.

  Sight gurgled and wretched, as a murky beige substance spilled out from his nose and mouth floating in the air. He dropped to all fours, continuing to empty the rest of his stomach’s contents onto his expensive rug.

  Patrick shifted his full attention to the liquid orb, feeling it compress, as the darker colored fluids sluiced off, leaving only a tightly compacted pure white marble. Tension’s grip grew lax as he turned to check on his boss. It was the opening that Patrick needed. He threw a hook with his hand and fired the ball into the soft fleshy spot just below the mountain man’s ear.

  The blow was rewarded with a bass rich howl, as the large ham hand released its grip fully. Patrick crumpled to the floor, but didn’t lose his focus on the white liquid. If this was still in his stomach, that meant there had to be more around here. He whipped his head to one side and immediately spotted a mini refrigerator, next to a collection of alcohol. Even before he reached the corner where the bar was set up, he could feel something inside. The door jerked open, as a half empty quart-sized carton slid across the floor, or half full in this case.

  “Game over you say? I think we’re in overtime now.”

  Patrick was rubbing the soreness out his neck and shoulder, as he made a show of bringing the carton up, and splitting it in half with shimmering white liquid blades, peeling themselves out of the container.

  Tension rose back to his feet with fire in his eyes. Before he could close the gap, Patrick shot a beam forward, aiming for the throat. The big man’s forearms came up, crossed in front of his head and chest. The milk splintered away, splashing to either side on impact. He pulled the milk back, and attempted to cut the tree trunk legs out from under his foe. Again, it splashed harmlessly to the floor. How much does this guy weigh? Patrick thought to himself again.

  Tension trudged forth, shaking the ground with thunderous steps. Patrick snatched a bottle off of the mini bar and threw it at the man’s head. When the beastly forearms rose up to protect his face again, Patrick willed the milk back onto a solid sphere, and pulled it towards the back of Tension’s head. There was a loud thwack, as the once liquid cue ball slammed into the thick skull. The big man staggered leaning forward as Patrick turned his body and drove a spinning back kick into the oversized face. His heel dug into the bridge of Tension’s nose, rewarding Patrick with an audible wet crunch. Two crimson rivulets poured from the man’s nostrils, getting lost in his beard.

  The brute rose back up to his full height, and wiped the excess blood from his nose with one hand, giving it a passing glance before continuing his approach. Patrick’s jaw hung open, wondering how much more this guy was going to take. He had already landed a few solid blows and inflicted some damage. Instead of fear filling his thoughts, it was more like frustration. The kind of frustration you get when you realize how tedious a task is going to be. He looked at the red smear across the lower half of the granite masked man, and only one thought popped into his mind.

  “If it bleeds…” He said, as he stepped back into his fighting stance. “We can kill it.”

  The two combatants tangled in a display of clear opposites. Tension’s massive bulk limited his speed, and made it difficult to react, and adjust to his smaller opponent’s movements. Patrick’s mobility and super power gave him the advantage of dictating the pace and range of the fight. There were a couple of close calls, as Patrick narrowly avoided getting pasted into the drywall, or smeared across the floor by Tension’s gargantuan hands and feet. But the battle played out within a set pattern, a rhythm of attack and counter attack.

  Patrick struck at exposed soft tissue, or joints, forcing his foe to try and anticipate where the blow would land. Using his feet, knees, elbows, and of course, his scavenged pint of half and half, Patrick was peppering the beast with powerful precise strikes, upsetting his foe’s balance. Each strike chipped away at Tension’s ferocity and what little speed he had left.

  Sight could see the frustration twisting his bodyguard’s facial expressions into a mask of fatigue and anger. The mastermind, knowing the fight was over, scrambled to his feet to flee through the busted doorway. Patrick mentally pulled the sphere apart, like taffy, and flung half of it low in an attempt to stop Sight’s escape. It wrapped around his legs, gathering much of the flowing fabric of the robe as well. With a thought, Patrick constricted the white bindings like shrinking rubber.

  Tension propped himself up onto one knee, trying to stand, but it gave Patrick the angle he needed to finish the fight. With a short hop, he drove his knee upward, hammering Tension’s once powerful jaw. The blow of the knee strike rattled Tension’s thick skull. He keeled forward collapsing in a heap and cracking the floor at Patrick’s feet.

  “Seriously, how much does this guy weigh?” Patrick was rubbing his leg where his knee struck Tension’s jawbone.

  Sight was crawling along the floor as Patrick neared. He pulled the helpless villain back by the binding around his legs. Patrick reached down and grabbed Sight by the lapels of his robe. He lifted the man up and pinned his back to the wall. Patrick stood a few inches shorter than the Visionary leader, so the move lacked the Batman quality he had hoped for.

  “What are you planning? Is there something else in motion that we need to know about? A bomb? A kidnapping?”

  Sight’s eyes fell, staring through Patrick to the floor behind him. “I just…wanted to watch over them.” He continued the explanation, telling Patrick about his vision, and the machine he was building. The files for his whole plan were in the office, on the hard drives of his computer.

  Pa
trick released his grip on the robes, letting Sight slump to the floor. “That’s messed up, man.”

  “It’s kinda pathetic, too,” Boost said, as he ducked his head into the room. “He was singing his tune before you even had a chance to rough him up.” He leaned on the cracked door jamb, looking like he was the one that flew through the door that was once there. A trickle of blood dripped from his nose and one corner of his mouth. The jacket he wore was torn with one sleeve shredded.

  “You look rough, Boost,” Patrick said.

  “Oh, I do? I thought I was looking into a mirror when I stepped in here.”

  Patrick wasn’t sure what he looked like, but he felt like he fell asleep doing a headstand. His neck was stiff and sore, and the pounding in his temples was getting worse. He saw that one of his own sleeves was ripped down the back, with the tubing disconnected from his cuff. Droplets of blood fell from his fingertips, tracing a path all the way up to a laceration on his elbow. “Is that where it’s coming from?”

  Boost looked over at Tension’s unconscious form, snoring as he drew deep breaths. “Who’s Sleeping Beauty? I see you haven’t lost your touch to entertain. You need to work on your charisma.”

  Patrick chuckled. “Where’s Deadeye?”

  Boost kept his eyes fixed on the big man snoozing in the middle of the room. “She, uh, got away. Yeah, we kind of caught the tail end of your fight, when the camera turned back on. She took off when you dropped Bluto here. I had her on the ropes, too. It was only a matter of time.”

  Patrick held the door open for Boost, who had Sight draped across his shoulders, hands and feet bound by the chains adorning his costume. The forecourt of the Watchtower was packed. The group outside cheered as the two heroes exited the building with the Visionary’s leader captured. There were police cars surrounding the building, with officers arresting all of the soldiers still left standing.

  “What did we miss?” Patrick asked.

  Black Paralysis was supporting Speetah’s weight, as they approached. Beat Boxer and H2Grow stood up from the lip of the fountain where they were seated, and walked over. Manerpillar was helping the police to secure Man-vil, swapping out his ectoplasmic webbing for steel shackles and chains.

  “We did it!” Beat Boxer was practically skipping around the team, a broad smile plastered on her face.

  Speetah made her way, limping to Boost and rubbed a thumb along his bruised jawline. “I see you two had the easier fight.”

  Patrick rubbed a hand on the back of his neck, “Yeah, I guess we did. When did the cops show up?”

  “Not too long ago,” Nolan said.

  “Not soon enough,” Abby added.

  “They showed up once the fight died down,” Black Paralysis said. “Once Manny took Man-vil out of the fight, most of the remaining Visionaries decided there wasn’t going to be a parade in their honor and split. The police are rounding up as many as they can.”

  “We’ve got one more for them,” Boost dumped Sight to the pavement.

  Patrick spoke with one of the officers about how this was all intended to play out. He told them about Sight’s plans, and all of the evidence in the computers upstairs. He also let them know about Tension, unconscious in Sight’s office, and about Deadeye escaping. The official stance of the police officers on the scene was that Patrick and his friends were going to be rounded up for questioning, being costumed vigilantes and all. However, they added that there was a ton of cleanup still in progress, so if the mysterious vigilantes happened to wander off and forget to turn themselves in, it was going to be next to impossible to track them down.

  CHAPTER

  27

  “So what was his plan?” Trevor asked.

  The heroes had all gathered at a bar and grill centrally located to where they each lived. It was the same bar and grill Patrick spent a few nights a week serving tables. The events of the previous day behind them and all of their wounds tended to, they all wore normal, everyday, non-heroic street clothes and sat around a long table laughing and sharing appetizers.

  “He wanted to watch over the city. He thought of all of us as his flock, and his goal was to keep an eye on everybody,” Patrick said.

  “That’s like a whole new level of creepy,” Abigail said.

  “What was he building?” Nolan asked. “Was he trying to tap into traffic cameras or something?”

  “He had some kind of device that enhanced his powers. Something that would let him see through anyone’s eyes within range of the device,” Patrick said.

  “He had powers? I thought it was just a network of weasels ratting each other out,” Nolan said.

  Graham pulled a five dollar bill from his wallet and handed it over to Trevor.

  “This from the guy that thought Tension just lifted a lot of weights,” Crystal said.

  “It was all just some crazy power trip, so he could turn himself into Big Brother, while we all hang out in Oceania,” Sean said.

  Trevor shook his head. “I’m not so sure I dig that code name anymore.”

  Crystal pointed a fork toward the center of the table, “It’s not all that much different from what we were doing with the drones. Spying on the neighborhood, and zooming in on anything that caught our eye.”

  “Yeah, but he was doing it to control everyone. Plus, he was on the verge of having the ability to have eyes everywhere,” Patrick said.

  “No different in my book. If we had the resources, we would have picked up a few more drones and improved their video quality. At one point, we had a web of automated spies, flying patters over the streets and archiving the footage. Always watching.”

  Patrick contemplated what Crystal was saying.

  “I’m not saying we ditch the drones altogether,” she added. “Only that we use them as support when we’re out there risking our lives to help others. Eyes in the sky. There has to be a better way to keep our eyes and ears open for trouble.

  “Yeah. Maybe something like a neighborhood watch,” Manny said. “With a hotline they can call.”

  “Or something online,” Trevor said. “I’m sure I can whip something up. Maybe use some apps to help keep the people in touch with their mobile phones. Give them a piece of mind that their concerns are not being ignored.”

  Patrick nodded in agreement. “Yeah, sounds pretty good to me. All this eagle eye stuff was just something I used just to convince myself that we were protecting the city. I told myself that more drones meant more effective protection. I guess it’s kind of ironic that I wasn’t seeing the big picture of how we were heading the wrong direction. I guess we all know better now.”

  “And knowing is half the battle,” Sean said in a stoic, patriotic tone.

  “That’s just bad,” Crystal said, patting his arm and resting a cheek on his shoulder.

  “When did all this happen?” Graham asked, pointing a finger back and forth at them.

  Sean just shrugged, “The heat of battle I guess?”

  Crystal sat upright smiling and smacked his arm with a lazy backhand. “There’s nothing going on here. I just had a little too much to drink.”

  “That’s ice water,” Graham raised an eyebrow and smirked.

  Just then a small team of servers brought out platters with food and soft drink refills. One by one, the entrees were placed in front of each person at the table, as empty glasses were swapped out for full ones.

  “Can I get you some more milk?” the young server asked.

  “Oh, no thanks. One is my limit. I’ve got to drive home after this.”

  The collective groan transitioned to laughter, and more talking late into the evening.

  CHAPTER

  28

  The dim bulb in the old lamp carved a patch of yellow illumination out of the dark room. A table covered in stains, dents, and scratches poked a corner in the small circle of light. The massive bulk of a musclebound man stood and looked out the window. He blocked off the light trying to make its way into the apartment from outside, as rain drops peppe
red the glass with a staccato tapping. A newspaper sat folded with the headline declaring “Criminal Mastermind Apprehended in Daring Daylight Brawl.”

  A second man approached the table. His thick calloused hand stretched out, snatching the paper. “Is this the guy?”

  “Yeah, that’s him,” The man at the window said. He stood, contemplating their next move. Sight had invited the two monstrous men to join his Visionaries and help take over the city. During their travels, the city's heroes had banded together and took the super villain down.

  The first man's broad shoulders were hunched, as he rubbed his palms together. His thick neck started at his ears and flared out like a triangle. Even underneath the faded ratty sweatshirt, his muscles rippled through, built for inflicting damage. The man was power personified.

  The second man's build was equally broad and just as muscular, lacking only the chiseled tone of the behemoth at the window. His heavy combat boots clomped on the bare scratched up linoleum as he walked over to the first.

  The first man glanced over his shoulder. “Is the stash safe?”

  “Safe enough.”

  They spoke in deep, low rumbling tones. Their voices were rocks tumbling across a hard wood surface.

  “Good. Let’s spread the word. We’ll need to gather our strength and organize.”

  “Are we springing the brainiac?” The second man asked.

  “No. Not yet. First we rebuild his army and go to war.” He turned to face the other man. “These so-called heroes have no idea what's coming. Armageddon has arrived, brother.”

  They clasped hands, slamming their palms together, sending out a sharp crack that shook the air around them. A smile stretched across their mouths as the tension in their arms drove the veins and muscle striations to the surface.

  Thank you for reading!

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