“But how am I supposed to get down to the ground without breaking my neck?” I had protested to one of the test proctors as he was about to push me out the open airplane door. He was a Hero named Big Ben. I would never forget how his big teeth looked like yellow Chiclets in his oversized mouth when he grinned at me.
“If you’re good enough to become a licensed Hero, you’ll figure it out,” he had rumbled back at me over the roar of the wind from the open airplane door. He had shrugged unsympathetically. “And if you’re not good enough, then it was nice knowing you.” He had then unceremoniously pushed me out of the airplane. Thanks to Big Ben’s super strength, him shoving me out had been as easy for him as flicking away an ant. God knew I did not want to jump voluntarily. Pushy bastard.
I had survived that fall thanks to a creative use of my powers. Though I was relieved when I got to the ground with all of my body parts intact, I was also as mad as a wet hornet. I had charged up to another of the test proctors, a Hero named Comet. I wanted to take a swing at him, but I knew that would get me kicked out of the Hero Trials for sure. I had worked too hard for too long to have a chance to stand for the Trials to blow it all in a fit of anger.
“What’s the big idea pushing us out of an airplane without a parachute?” I had demanded instead. “You trying to get us killed?”
“Listen kid,” Comet had said, “being a Hero ain’t playing patty-cake.” His eyes had danced with amusement behind his red mask at my obvious anger. “It’s a big, bad, dangerous world out there. What are you going to say if a supervillain throws you out of a plane? ‘Emperor Evil, I get you’re trying to take over the world, but throwing me out of a plane without a way down is a bridge too far. It just isn’t cricket. Be a good scout and hand me a parachute.’” Comet had shaken his head at me, still amused. “Getting thrown out of an airplane without a chute is hardly the worst thing a Hero might have to deal with. If you mess one of those things up while wearing a cape, you won’t get a do-over. When a Hero screws up, he can get himself killed. Or worse, get an innocent person killed. You best learn that now and know it as thoroughly as you know your own name. We don’t want to give a Hero’s license to someone who is not equipped to deal with the real world and what crazy thing it might throw at him. We want tough, resourceful sons of bitches who, when they get thrown out of a plane without a parachute, figure out a way to build one on the way down.”
That was why I had leapt off of the cliff after Antaeus without a moment’s hesitation: I was a Hero, and if a Hero needed to, he would jump out of a plane without a parachute and figure out how to build one on the way down. Plus, Antaeus had been right about me. Heroes were not killers. Sure I had killed before in self-defense and in defense of innocents, but letting Antaeus fall to his death was neither of those things. In addition to all that, Antaeus still had the information I needed, and he would be quite unable very shortly to share that information. Death had a nasty habit of silencing one’s tongue.
I did not think about the skydiving portion of the Hero Trials as I plunged down towards the lake after Antaeus, nor did I think about the countless hours I had spent studying math and physics in preparation for the Trials. Nonetheless, all that preparation and training came in handy as the rushing wind in my face made it hard to breathe. I knew the terminal velocity of a man with his arms and legs outstretched was about one hundred and twenty miles per hour, though it would take about fifteen seconds or so from a fall for him to hit that top speed. Antaeus definitely had his arms and legs outstretched. He was flailing them about in a mad panic, probably trying to figure out how to fly on the, well, fly. I could not see him because the fog was too thick. But, I could “see” him, in a manner of speaking, with my powers. Not only could I manipulate water, but I could sense its presence as well. About sixty percent of the human body was water. The water signature of Antaeus’ body stood out like a neon sign in my mind’s eye thanks to my powers.
One hundred and twenty miles per hour was one hundred and seventy-six feet per second. If the cliff was as high as I thought it was, it would take Antaeus—and now, unfortunately, me—around fifteen seconds to hit the water. It might be enough time for me to pull off the idea that had flashed through my mind. It would have to be.
Those facts and figures danced through my head as I fell. The air rushing past me whistled in my ears so loudly it sounded like a scream. Part of me wanted to scream too. But I did not have time to freak out. Panic has killed more Heroes than any supervillain has. Just as I did not want to kill Antaeus, I did not want to get myself killed either. Both of us would soon be dead if I was not able to pull off what I had in mind.
The rushing wind stung my eyes, making them water. I closed them since I could not see Antaeus anyway through the dense fog. I was still locked onto him with my powers. I was pointed straight down, head first. My legs were together, and my arms were tightly at my sides to decrease my body’s wind resistance, just as I had been taught in skydiving practice during the Trials years before. Thanks to my lower wind resistance, my rate of descent was faster than that of Antaeus’ flailing body. The lock I had on his body’s water signature told me I was closing the gap between us.
In less time than it takes to talk about it, I was close enough to Antaeus to reach out and touch him. This close, even over the rushing of the wind, I could hear him screaming. I felt his pain. I kind of wanted to scream too. Instead, I spread my limbs out a bit to catch more air and slow myself down a tad. I matched Antaeus’ velocity. We hurtled together towards the surface of the lake. I tracked the water’s surface with my powers. If I did not time this just right, we would break our necks and probably everything else. It would be rest in peace for Truman Lord and his cliff diving buddy Antaeus.
Though my life did not flash before my eyes as the surface of the water rushed up to greet us in its deadly embrace, it did run through my mind who would show up for my funeral. My girlfriend Ginny Southland, certainly; my friend and superpowered companion Shadow, probably; maybe a few others. It was strange the things that went through your mind when you were staring the Grim Reaper straight in his bony, soulless eyes.
Now! I thought right as we were about to hit the water. I pushed down on the water’s surface with my powers, making the water we were about to hit curve inward like a concave lens. I continued to do this as we plummeted into the lake, making it so we never actually touched the water. Once in the lake, Antaeus and I were in a sphere of air dropping down through the water. It was as if a huge ball had been dropped into the water from a great height, with Antaeus and me in the middle of it.
The momentum of our fall carried us deep under the water’s surface. Antaeus was still screaming. If he were more coherent, he would realize he probably was not going to die. Maybe he thought he was already dead and rocketing down towards Hell. People have believed stranger things. It would serve that butt-kicking, teleporting bastard right.
Finally, the bubble of air we were in slowed its descent to the point where it stopped moving downward. A school of fish swam in our direction. It then suddenly darted away, spooked. The fish had probably never seen two men in a bubble of air in their watery domain before. They probably had thought such a thing was not possible. I had taught them differently. I had schooled a school. I wanted to mention that fact to Antaeus, but he was still screaming his fool head off. I hated to waste good puns on inattentive supervillains.
The large bubble of air we were in started to creep upwards, like an elevator car slowly starting to ascend. Antaeus stopped screaming at that point. Thank God. It took a great deal of mental effort for me to do what I was doing with my powers, and the racket he had been making was distracting. Not to mention annoying. I had been tempted to pull out my gun and shoot him. It would have been a shame to have risked my neck to save his life, only to wind up shooting and killing him anyway.
Antaeus was lying partially on top of me in the bubble as we slowly rose through the water. I pushed him off of me. The fact I had saved his l
ife did not mean I was going to be his pillow too. Presumptuous bastard.
“Are you doing this?” Antaeus said to me, having calmed down somewhat. His eyes were as wide as if he had seen a ghost.
“Who else?” I asked. “Aquaman? Aquaman’s not real.”
We finally got to the water’s surface. I let the bubble I had been maintaining pop open, leaving Antaeus and I treading water. The water was freezing. I had not thought to put a wet suit on under my clothes when I had dressed that morning. Maybe next time. I heated the water around me and Antaeus a bit. Who needed a wet suit when you had superpowers?
“Before we were so rudely interrupted by your fall,” I said, “you were going to tell me who hired you to teleport into MetaHold.” Antaeus just glared at me for a moment, sputtering and gasping. Then he turned to start frantically swimming towards the shore.
So much for his earlier promise to tell.
I exerted my powers, pulling Antaeus under the water. He sank like a stone. I held him there for a while, not long enough to hurt him, but long enough to let him know I meant business. After a sufficiently fear-inducing time, I let him come to the surface. His head broke the water’s surface with a splash. He coughed and wheezed, spitting out water.
“I’ll ask the question again: Who hired you? If you refuse to answer again, we’ll find out if you can learn to breathe underwater.”
Still coughing, Antaeus shook his head. “He’ll kill me if I tell. You don’t know who you’re dealing with,” he said. His voice was hoarse.
“And I’ll kill you if you don’t tell. Which is worse, the devil in front of you, or the devil who’s nowhere around?”
Antaeus shook his head some more, looking scared. Stubborn. I pulled him under water again with my powers. I held him under as long as I dared. Despite my threats, I had no intention of killing him.
Antaeus gasped and wheezed again when I let him back up.
“Okay, okay, you win,” he said, coughing. “The Spider hired me to break into MetaHold to siphon off some of Chaos’ energy.”
The Spider. I recognized the name. It had come up before earlier in my investigation of the murder case I was working on.
“This Spider fella got a real name?” I asked. “And don’t say Itsy Bitsy.” After noisily sucking in more air, Antaeus told me The Spider’s real name. I was so shocked by The Spider’s identity I almost pulled Antaeus underwater again.
By that point, Antaeus was so exhausted from fear and oxygen deprivation that he was in no condition to swim. I dragged him behind me as I swam to shore. I deposited him on the small beach. He proceeded to writhe in the sand and cough up water. I was cold and wet. I used my powers to dry myself more thoroughly and effectively than the world’s best hair dryer. I looked down at Antaeus. I was tempted to not do the same for him. The jerk had kicked me in the butt after all. Whoever in the Bible had advised people to turn the other cheek to their enemies had clearly never dealt with supervillains. If I had done that with Antaeus, I had little doubt he would have immediately kicked me in the other butt cheek. Finally I relented and dried Antaeus off with my powers as well.
I stood over Antaeus. Once he sufficiently recovered, I planned to wring out of him further details about him breaking into MetaHold at the request of The Spider. As I looked down at Antaeus, I thought about what Comet had said to me all those years before. He had been right: a Hero had to be prepared to deal with whatever curveball life threw at him. I had, once again, succeeded in building my parachute on the way down.
The Spider was a very powerful man. I would need more than just a parachute to deal with him. It was a shame the Trials had taught me nothing about building a nuclear bomb. That might have been enough to do the trick against a man like The Spider.
Maybe. I was not sure.
CHAPTER 3
The murder case I was working on all began when I was summoned to meet with the Earth’s most powerful Heroes weeks before my run-in with Antaeus.
I was as excited as the night I lost my virginity when I pulled into the parking lot of the Sentinels’ compound on the outskirts of Astor City, Maryland. It was not every day I had an appointment to meet with the Earth’s most powerful superheroes. I hoped I would not be disappointed by the encounter. It was a shame the girl I had lost my virginity to could not say the same.
I had gotten a call the day before requesting I meet with the Sentinels. The administrative assistant I had spoken to said she did not know why the Sentinels wanted to meet with me, only that they wanted to see me as soon as possible. Perhaps news of my daring exploits had reached the Sentinels’ ears. Perhaps they wanted to meet with me to offer me the vacant spot in their seven-person roster. Perhaps they had decided they could no longer limp along as an organization without me in their ranks, fighting for truth and justice alongside of them. And, perhaps pigs would sprout wings and people would start calling them pigeons.
No, I did not really think the Sentinels planned on making me a member. Though I had a healthy self-regard—some said I was arrogant, but what did those insulting bastards know?—I was under no illusions about my place in the licensed Hero hierarchy. There were Heroes like the Sentinels who wrestled with aliens who planned to enslave humanity, thwarted supervillains who craved world domination, and dealt with planetary issues. Then there were Heroes like me. Heroes like me dealt with street crime, thieves, pimps, murderers, and assassins. If I was confronted with an alien, I might poop my pants. Not solely out of fear, but also out of self-preservation. Aliens were known to have an affinity for anal probes. Perhaps underwear full of Heroic waste might dissuade them. Filthy buggers.
A superhero team like the Sentinels offering me membership would be like a major league baseball team drafting a junior high school player. Honestly, I did not know why they wanted to meet with me. But, a licensed Hero receiving a summons from the Sentinels was like a Congressman getting an invitation to the White House from the President, or a Catholic an invitation to the Vatican from the Pope. One simply did not say no. Not that I had been inclined to do so. The Sentinels had been around almost as long as there had been licensed Heroes. The team was formed shortly after the passage of the Hero Act of 1945. I had been a Sentinels fanboy for as long as I could remember, even before my Metahuman powers first manifested themselves when I was a teenager. Avatar, one of the most powerful of all licensed Heroes and one of the founding members of the Sentinels, had been a boyhood hero of mine and one of the principal reasons I pursued my Hero’s license. Heck, he still was a hero of mine. He was the living embodiment of everything a Hero and a person ought to be. He had an unusually long lifespan—it was widely speculated he was immortal—and he still was on the Sentinels. He currently served as the team’s chairman.
I was not alone in thinking of Avatar as an idol. Generations of Apprentice Heroes and trainees in Hero school had been taught to ask themselves one simple question if they found themselves in a tough spot and did not know which way to turn: “What would Avatar do?” or WWAD. I respected the heck out of Avatar, but WWAD? Really? I had heard that some young Heroes-in-training had started referring to screwing up something royally as “blowing your WWAD.” It proved that not all sayings should be shortened into acronyms.
I got out of my car. Though the teeming metropolis that was Astor City was just a short drive away, thick trees surrounded the parking lot, as if someone had plopped a parking lot down in the middle of a forest. That was not far from the truth. The Sentinels property constituted one of the largest urban forests in the country. I glanced at my watch. It was a little after 10:15 a.m. My appointment was at 11 a.m. I had deliberately arrived early so I could walk around the part of the Sentinels’ mansion grounds which were open to the public. It had been years since I had done so despite the fact I was a Sentinels’ fanboy. I would not be alone. The parking lot was already pretty crowded.
I opened the back door of my car. I drove a Nissan Altima. A lot of my fellow Heroes drove special, custom-designed vehicles, but I
was not a conventional superhero. I did not wear a costume, a cape, a mask, and I did not go by an alias. And, I did not drive a tricked out superhero vehicle. If I did, want would I call it? The Aquamobile? The Water Whizzer? It was hard to strike fear into the hearts of criminals when they were laughing at the name of your ride.
I reached into the car and pulled out my suit jacket and put it on. Perhaps my car was not much to look at, but I was. When meeting one’s idols, it pays to look one’s best. I was dressed in my best suit, a dark blue, three button number that brought out the color of my eyes, complemented my polished dark brown dress shoes and matching leather belt, and concealed my shoulder holster containing my favorite nine millimeter gun. Nothing but the best for the Sentinels. I had considered wearing my ceremonial cape, the one the Heroes’ Guild awarded to all Heroes who successfully completed the Trials. But, the darned thing was buried somewhere in the back of my closet, wrinkled, and probably moth-eaten. Also, since I had not worn it since my Hero swearing-in ceremony years before, I’d probably trip over the damned thing. What kind of impression would that make on the Sentinels? They would dub me Truman the Tripper, whose crime-fighting tactic was to make supervillains laugh themselves to death. Besides, the flowing white cape fringed with red did not match my suit.
To complete my dashing private eye look, I put on my hat, a dark fedora. The fedora was creased along the crown and pinched just so on the front and on the sides. Rakish. I had picked the fedora up a few months ago at a haberdasher just a few blocks from my downtown Astor City office. The lady who had sold it to me had said the fedora made me look debonair with a hint of danger. That was just the way a private eye who was also a superhero ought to look. With the hat on, I thought I looked a bit like Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca. The last time I had worn it, I caught a young raven-haired woman checking me out. I had looked back at her and said, “Here’s looking at you, kid.” She had just stared back at me blankly. No one watched the classics anymore.
Superhero Detective Series (Book 4): Hunted Page 2