We arrived in front of a closed shiny silver door that most definitely did not belong in the past. It looked more like it belonged in Star Trek than in Downton Abbey. A glass panel was next to the door. It was like the panel that had scanned my palm print outside. Pearce put his hand on the panel. It glowed green. The silver door dilated. Following Pearce, I stepped from the past into the future.
“Welcome to the Situation Room, Mr. Lord,” Pearce said. If I had not been a hard-nosed detective who was trying to act like nothing impressed him, my jaw might have dropped. The cavernous room looked like the set of a science fiction movie. Everything in it seemed to be made of thick glass and the same kind of shiny metal the door I had just walked through was made of. The room itself was not what impressed me the most, though, although it was plenty impressive. What almost made my jaw drop was the fact that all the Sentinels were here. When I had been told the Sentinels wanted to meet with me, I had expected to see one of them, two of them at the most. As the Sentinels were always busy fighting supervillains and maintaining national and sometimes global security, it was very rare for all the Sentinels to be at the same place at the same time. Whatever the reason was for the Sentinels to summon me, it clearly was a very big deal.
No, that was not right. Avatar was not here. I was so overwhelmed by the fact I was in the presence of the other Sentinels that I did not notice his absence at first. Once I did notice it, my mind latched onto it as the giant elephant in the room. Or rather, the giant elephant not in the room. He was very conspicuous in his absence. Why would all of the Sentinels assemble to meet with me except Avatar? Maybe he was off saving the world again. It still would have been nice to see him again. Though I was thrilled to be here, meeting the Sentinels without Avatar was like meeting the Beatles without John Lennon and Paul McCartney.
“He’s here Seer,” Doppelgänger said. His voice was deep and gruff. “Get over here so we can get this over with.”
Doppelgänger was seated with Ninja, Millennium, and Mechano at a transparent glass table in the center of the huge room. The table was a heptagon, with tall silver-colored chairs positioned at each of the seven sides of the table for each Sentinel. A large golden “S” was stenciled in the center of the table. On the front and back of each chair’s headrest was an emblem representing the Hero who sat in it: a black and white splotch that looked like a Rorschach test for Doppelgänger; an upright katana with a slight reddish glow around the blade for Ninja; a large metal nut with a yellow lightning bolt passing through it for Mechano; an hourglass with most of the brown sand in the upper hemisphere of the glass for Millennium; a large, wide-open eye with what looked like rays of energy extending from it for Seer; and, a simple, blood red, capital “A” for Avatar. The seventh chair was draped with a crimson red cloth from head to toe. I surmised that chair represented Lady Justice’s former position on the team. According to Sentinel tradition, her chair was to be covered as a mark of shame until she was replaced on the team by a new Hero.
Across from the table on the far side of the room was a bank of computer monitors that rose to the high ceiling. Images from around the world flickered on the dozens of monitors. Below the monitors was a semicircle of flashing lights, data pads, and controls, like something you would imagine was at the helm of a spaceship. A tall but slim figure floated a couple of feet off the ground in front of that semicircle. I had seen the figure often enough on television to know it was Seer. She wore a robe that looked like something you would find a monk in, at least as far as the shape of it was concerned. The robe shimmered and flickered subtly, switching to every color of the rainbow like a chameleon on acid. The robe, while not transparent, was certainly translucent, giving tantalizing half-glimpses of Seer’s slender yet feminine body underneath. A thick silver helmet that was the same color of the other silver metal in the room was on Seer’s head. Thick metal cables ran from the back of the helmet to the console in front of her. The cables moved and writhed as if they were alive, like the tentacles of an octopus. With the helmet on her head, Seer looked like a futuristic Medusa.
Thanks to my knowledge of the Sentinels, I knew the complex monitoring system Seer was in front of was known as Sentry. Designed by Mechano, it drew from satellite images and video feeds from around the world to help keep the Sentinels aware of potential threats they needed to deal with. Though the information Sentry drew upon was supposedly in the public domain, I noticed that many of the images were from places that surely were not in the public domain. One of the monitors showed the President of the Russian Federation having a meeting with several advisers in the Kremlin. The closed captioning that ran at the bottom of the screen indicating the men were discussing invading a territory under Chinese control. On another screen, the President of the United States was having a meeting of a quite different sort in the Oval Office on top of the Resolute desk with a woman who clearly was not the First Lady. It was easy to tell because she did not have any clothes on.
I wondered how in the world the Sentinels were getting this footage. Knowledge was power. Thanks to Sentry, the Sentinels clearly had knowledge most people were not privy to. A Latin phrase I had read before sprang to mind: “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?” It meant “Who will guard the guards themselves?” Thought I hated to admit it, my brief glimpse at Sentry made me think that maybe the people who believed Heroes had too much power kind of had a point. After I left the mansion, perhaps I would go join the picket line of protesters outside. If I kept quiet about being a Hero, maybe one of the picketers would lend me a sign.
At Doppelgänger’s words, the metal helmet on Seer’s head levitated up off of her. The monitors flicked off. It was a shame. I kind of wanted to see how the President’s meeting with that naked women turned out. I hated to start something without sticking around to see the climax. In this case, I suspected the climax would be literal. Seer then turned in midair and quickly and effortlessly floated like a balloon to her empty chair at the table. She descended into it as daintily as a dragonfly landing on a leaf.
Pearce directed me to have a seat in Avatar’s chair, which was directly across from Seer’s. I hesitated. It was like being invited to sit in the Queen of England’s throne.
“Are you sure?” I said to Pearce.
“Quite,” he said firmly, but with the same hint of the sadness I had detected before. “Master Avatar will not be joining us.”
I sat, feeling a tremor of excitement once I settled in. I was sitting in the seat of the most powerful Hero alive. I wanted to memorialize the moment with a picture. But, asking one of the Sentinels to snap a picture of me seemed a bit too fanboyish. Like that baseball player playing in the World Series for the first time, I still was trying to act like I had been in this situation before. That did not change the fact I was excited as a puppy allowed up on the couch for the first time.
Pearce stepped back a bit once I was seated. He stood behind me. Despite his age, his carriage was as stiff as that of the most conscientious soldier. His eyes were alert. Perhaps he was afraid I would steal something. If so, he did not need to worry: stealing something would have been beneath my Heroic dignity. On the other hand, how often would I get the chance to be inside the Sentinels’ mansion? The woman I had seen on the Sentry monitor clearly was getting a memento from her visit to the Oval Office. Why couldn’t I also get a memento from this historic place? I would have liked a less sticky memento than the woman was getting, though. Why was I suddenly craving hot dogs?
The Sentinels all stared at me wordlessly. Or, at least it felt like they were staring at me. Only Ninja’s and Seer’s eyes were actually visible. I stared right back at them, carefully memorizing what each of them looked like up close. I did not meet living legends every day.
Seer’s face was unobscured by a mask. Her face was unlined, making it appear slightly childlike. Her eyes were anything but childlike. They were the eyes of someone not just old, but ancient. Her pupils and irises were milky white. Though she was looking at me, it felt li
ke she was looking through me, seeing things no one else could see. Perhaps she was at that. I knew Seer had some precognitive abilities, though I had no idea of their limits or how they worked. I did know, though, that her precognition made her a real fiend in battle. I had seen footage of her where she stepped out of the way of attacks, as if she saw them before they were launched. In addition to her precognition, Seer was an empath and a powerful telekinetic. She had been known to pick up and throw buildings with her mind as readily as a child picking up and throwing a ball. Her slim, almost adolescent-looking, frame belied the power she possessed.
The Asiatic eyes of Ninja bore into me behind her mask. She looked the way you would think a woman named Ninja would look: namely, she wore black clothing that obscured every part of her body except her eyes. I had the impression that, if Ninja remained perfectly still, she would blend into her surroundings. She had a sheathed katana strapped to her back, and pouches at her belt that contained darts, blowguns, and throwing stars, among other things. I did not remember her and me exchanging two words when we had gone through the Trials together years before. I, like everyone else going through the Trials, had been too busy being dumped out of airplanes without a parachute and surviving other fiendish scenarios. I had not had the time for a lot of idle chitchat.
Ninja was widely considered to be the preeminent martial artist in the world. That was not her Metahuman power, though. She had gotten to be such an accomplished martial artist through single-minded devotion, hard work, and training. Her Metahuman powers were twofold. One, she could sense the weakness of any opponent or object. Two, she could surround her weapons with a field that allowed them to cut through any substance. Watching her cut in half a thick stone pillar with a single swipe of her sword during the Hero Trials was not a sight I would ever forget. If she ever got tired of being a Hero, she could be the world’s greatest sous-chef. She would prove to be mighty hard on cutting boards, though.
Doppelgänger’s face was pointed towards me. I could feel him looking at me, but I could not see him looking at me. The same fabric that covered his big muscular body like a second skin also covered his head completely, obscuring his features. I did not know how he was able to breathe. Maybe he did not need to. His costume was off-white, with black blotches of different sizes and shapes that swirled about on his form while you looked at him. His costume made me think of what the night sky would look like if space were white, stars were black, and they moved around like fireflies. Doppelgänger had the ability to assume the form and powers of anyone he touched. I would be sure to not shake hands with him. One of me was more than the world could stand. Two would be overkill.
The single lens of Mechano’s long, thin, rectangular eye glowed down at me. It was disconcerting, like being bathed in the glow of the headlights of a car that had thoughts and feelings about you. Mechano was the only Sentinel the public and I knew the real name of. His name was Jeffrey Cole. The media often referred to him as The Mechanical Man, and for good reason. Cole was a cyborg. Actually, maybe he was a robot. It was a subject of endless debate as to what Mechano should most accurately be described as. I was a gumshoe and professional butt-kicker, not a roboticist, so hell if I knew. I barely knew how to use my cell phone without cutting myself. What I did know was that Cole’s Metahuman power was to download his consciousness into mechanical receptacles. Cole’s human body was long dead. The robot body that currently housed Cole’s consciousness was the third of its kind and, supposedly, the most powerful version so far. The almost seven feet tall robot was super strong and had sensors that allowed it to sense things no human body could detect, such as things on a microscopic level and the entire electromagnetic spectrum. Also, through that red rectangular cyclops eye Mechano was looking at me through, he could emit a concussive blast. It had been recorded slicing jumbo jets in two. The knowledge of what that single mechanical eye was capable of made being the focus of its attention even more disconcerting than it otherwise would have been. I suppressed the urge to ask Mechano if his favorite type of music was heavy metal. Now was not the time to make robot jokes.
The robot forms that housed Cole’s consciousness had been designed and built by him. The man was a mechanical and electronics genius, though it was not known whether that aptitude was a facet of his Metahuman powers. Regardless of whether his genius was Meta-based or not, Cole held more patents for various inventions than any other person in world history. Almost all of the futuristic tech the Sentinels used was designed by him. Additionally, the Sentinels’ considerable expenses were partially underwritten by Cole. The royalties he raked in for his various inventions were immense. That was fortunate. Maintaining the Sentinels’ mansion and all the various forms of transportation the Sentinels used to hop around the world was not cheap.
As jarring as it was to be stared at by a robot like Mechano, it was Millennium’s gaze and presence that was the most off-putting. Thanks to my hydrokinetic powers, I was always conscious of when people were around because I could sense the water content of their bodies. Since Mechano was a sentient machine, I of course did not expect to detect a water signature from him. I could not detect a water signature from Millennium either, though. Whatever Millennium’s body was made of, it certainly was not water based. The fact made me vaguely uncomfortable.
Though he was smaller than I, something about Millennium was so imposing and intimidating that he seemed like a much larger man than the slim, almost skinny, man he in fact was. He wore a light brown shiny metal helmet. It was a large, flat-topped cylinder with tiny openings for eye sockets and no openings anywhere else. Instead of eyes being visible in those openings, there was darkness. Looking at Millennium’s eyes was what I imagine staring into a black hole was like. He wore gloves, boots, a belt, and a thick cape that all matched the color of his helmet. The loose fitting outfit that covered every inch of the rest of his body was a royal blue.
Millennium was known as the Thousand Year Man, hence his code name. Rumor had it his body was frozen in time, incapable of aging or changing until he had lived for a thousand years, at which point he would finally die. Though I knew Millennium had been a founding member of the Sentinels back in the 1940s, I had no idea how old Millennium currently was. His powers were allegedly magically based, his Metahuman ability allowing him to tap into the mystical plane. I say “allegedly” because it had been my experience that what people often termed “magic” always had a foundation in natural phenomena they could not understand and that they therefore called magic. As the science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke once said, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
In short, I did not believe in magic. Maybe magic did not believe in me, either. Maybe that was why Millennium was looking at me so hard with his black hole eyes: namely, he could not believe what he was seeing. Then again, maybe he and the rest of the Sentinels were looking at me so hard because never before had they seen a superhero so fashionably turned out as I was. I wished I had not surrendered my hat to Pearce. My dashing Hero look was incomplete.
“If you all are wondering what I look like with a fedora on, rest assured you would not be disappointed,” I said, breaking the quiet of our mutual stare-off.
Silence. I was not deterred. If at first you don’t succeed in making conversation, try, try again.
“I’m pretty excited to meet you all,” I said. “Are you excited to meet me too?”
“No,” Doppelgänger said in his low, gruff voice from his seat on my left. And to think I had planned to send them all handwritten thank-you notes once I had left. I mentally struck Doppelgänger from the recipient list.
“There’s no need to be rude,” Ninja said, shooting Doppelgänger a look from across the table. She had not lost the hint of a Japanese accent she had still had the last time I had seen her. Doppelgänger’s head turned to face Ninja. They glared at each other. Then Doppelgänger let out a loud snort. He shook his head a bit, sat back in his chair, and folded his thick arms ac
ross his barrel chest. The exchange between the two and their body language made me think that all was not harmonious in the ranks of the Sentinels as the public was always led to believe. Everyone was tense. Well, at least Seer, Doppelgänger, Ninja, and Pearce were. God alone could tell whether or not Mechano and Millennium were, and maybe even He was not sure.
Ninja’s gaze returned to me.
“I’m sorry about my teammate, Truman,” Ninja said. “This has been a trying time for us Sentinels.”
“Why is that?” I asked.
“We will get to that in due time, Mr. Lord,” Seer said. Her clear, rich, commanding voice was in stark contrast to her almost frail appearance. She was the vice chairwoman of the Sentinels, and ran meetings in Avatar’s absence. Her milky white eyes almost seemed to glow in her face. Having her look at me while simultaneously seeming to look through me was creeping me out. As far as I knew, Seer did not possess x-ray vision. Even so, I found myself wishing I had worn more expensive underwear. Just in case.
“I assume we are all familiar to you, Mr. Lord. I trust introductions are not necessary,” Seer said. She did not say it with arrogance. The Sentinels were household names. I would have had to have been born yesterday to not know who everyone was.
“I know who everyone is,” I said. “What I don’t know is why you asked me to come here today. Do you want me to join up? Perhaps give the team more of a stylish flair?” Doppelgänger snorted at my words. Ninja glared at him again. Even Seer frowned slightly at him. Her face was so unlined that expressions looked foreign on it, as if they did not belong there.
“No, we did not ask you here to join the team,” Seer said. “We asked you here on a matter of some delicacy. You have a reputation for making quips and wisecracks. I trust that will not prevent you from treating a grave matter with the seriousness it deserves.”
Superhero Detective Series (Book 4): Hunted Page 5