The Broken Ones [Book 1]

by David Jobe

  Drew did not know her name, much as she was not privy to the name of the person guiding Golem. In fact, Drew took great pains to keep even his age from those he contacted with Golem. Though he was eleven, had a higher intellect than the rest of the eleven-year-olds that he knew. He read at a high school level, and his comprehension was at an equal level. The various tests that the schools had run considered him a genius. His father insisted that he was book smart, but lacked the street smarts. This continued to be something his father remained determined to teach Drew.

  The woman had asked to be called "Miss Fire." In her online conversations with him, she was forthcoming with her secrets. The anonymity of online allowed Drew to pose as an adult. She admitted that her powers was acquired within the month and that the name a clever play on words. She still struggled with how to wield her newfound powers in the proper manner. She explained that she could summon a fireball from her eyes, but sometimes the size or power of the ball faltered. She stated that she had never had the fireball fail, but sometimes it was not as powerful as she intended. She had looked for assistance in a robbery. She needed a strong man to assist her. To her credit, when she first met the creation called Golem, she looked at him, smiled and nodded. That settled it. Now, weeks later, they were walking the halls of a popular mall after closing with the intent to rob one of the stores.

  Miss Fire stopped, swinging around on high heels. She pulled away strands of curly red hair to peer at him with eyes gone purple with the power. "Must you be so noisy? It is a wonder the guards haven't been alerted to us by now with that racket you are making."

  "Golem doesn't sneak." The massive creation shook its shoulders and a layer of dirt rattled to the floor. Drew was one of the few people he had heard of having a power longer than a year. Most of the others began cropping up within the last two months. He still worked on learning how to control his creation. As time wore on, his connection with the creation became weaker and weaker. Like a snake shedding its skin, Golem would begin to lose a layer of dirt in regular intervals. After two hours, the connection would snap like a rubber band pulled too far and his creation would crumble. He was an hour in and he could feel the sweat beading on his brow.

  "Golem is too heavy to tread lightly." Drew began having Golem speak in the third person because it amused him to no end. Plus, he had read somewhere that people tended to discount the intelligence of people who spoke in the third person. Thinking that they were mentally impaired in some fashion.

  “That sounds like an excuse, and a bad one at that,” she snapped back, folding her arms over a slender chest. "I have seen heavy people with the ability to walk silently." Her purple eyes glowed just a hint.

  Golem read online from somebody that had worked with Miss Fire that when her eyes started to glow, it was an indication that she was angry. Miss Fire had a temper, and when she lost her cool, she started throwing fireballs. Drew was unafraid. Should Miss Fire lose her cool and begin blasting fireballs at Golem, they would scorch dirt. If they were powerful enough to destroy, only this creation of Golem would be destroyed. Drew would raise another one from another patch of dirt and be none the worse for wear.

  "You're wasting Golem's time,” he informed her in his voice like gravel.

  “And you shed worse than a dog,” she growled. Her eyes glowed even more.

  "Miss Fire asked for Golem's help,” he informed her. "Say the word and Golem is gone. Otherwise, keep moving." The truth was that Drew began to grow tired of the woman's uncontrollable mood swings. He was a hair’s width away from calling it and returning to his video games. Right now, Drew's body lounged motionless in the chair, a slack-jawed stare directed at the television before him. Somewhere, Drew knew that SpongeBob was on the television, yammering on about some idiocy. His mother hated the show, and in truth he understood why. Nevertheless, he used this time to focus his attention on the actions of his creations. Though he could hear SpongeBob laughing at Patrick's antics in the back of his mind like elevator music, his mind was focused on the mall a few miles away and the woman glaring at his creation.

  Miss Fire frowned, her brow furrowing, and Drew knew he had won. “Fine, but let’s hurry before your stomping brings in the National Guard.” She turned and walked away.

  They moved for some time, walking the darkened halls toward the jewelry story they intended to rob. Just as they neared the gate in question, Golem placed a malformed hand on the woman's shoulder. "Camera,” he said, gesturing beyond the gate. "Time to put on your mask."

  She nodded thankfully and began adjusting a homemade mask. Made in the same thin leather as her outfit, it slipped up over her mouth and nose and left her eyes peeking out from the shadows of her hair. "I tried this once with goggles, but my power went haywire through them. I doubt I could even wear glasses."

  "Golem thinks you look like a hot ninja." Blocks away, Drew chuckled. Much like online avatars, he could speak his mind because it wasn't him standing before the woman.

  She raised a brow to him, but the curves under her mask indicated a smile. "Sir Golem, would you mind getting the door for a lady?"

  "Did you invite one?" Golem's head cast around looking for a third party.

  "You aren't funny."

  "Golem thinks so,” the huge creation let out a low rumbling chuckle. Turning to face the gate he gazed at it, measuring the strength behind it.

  "When you rip it open, the alarms will sound. We will have to be quick."

  "You will have to be quick." Golem reached out and one hand grasped the bars and yanked. Instead of the gate ripping open, the hinges squealed and broke. With the disgusted look of a Muppet, Golem tossed the gate down the hallway, watching as it gouged marble with each bounce. With the other hand, he pressed on the glass storefront until it shattered under the pressure.

  Just as Miss Fire had said, the alarms began with ferocity. "I am on it!" Miss Fire lunged into the storefront, through the shattered glass portal.

  Golem kept an eye on the hallway, standing still as a statue.

  Something crashed through Drew's attention. His mother screamed from the other room. Something about dinner. Golem went still, kept together by the boy’s will alone.

  "What, Mother?!" His head began to hurt trying to keep Golem from collapsing into the dirt. His first heist and he risked the danger of turning into a flake.

  "What're you doing?" His mother called from the other room.

  "Watching SpongeBob!" The connection wavered.

  "That show will rot your brain, my little genius."

  "Lucky for me I can decide which part it rots. Right now it is working on what we had for dinner last night,” Drew smirked, though sweat dripped into his eyes.

  "One day your smart mouth is going to get you into trouble!"

  "Sooner than you think if you don't hurry up,” he muttered. "Did you need something?"

  "Are you hungry?"

  "Is it left-overs?"

  "I should spank you!"

  "I am not hungry!"

  He was back with Miss Fire, his head pounding from the strain.

  "Golem!" Miss Fire stood before him, a large bag of loot thrown over her shoulder. "You there?"

  "Just watching the hallway,” he lied.

  "Really?" She jerked a finger over her shoulder to point out the two security guards rushing down the hallway with guns drawn. "Are those hallucinations then?"

  Golem frowned, but said nothing. He stepped around Miss Fire and scooped up a bench. "Time for Golem to earn his share." He threw the bench down the hallway, clipping one guard in the right shoulder and spinning him into a nearby wall. The other dodged, but slid to a stop behind a raised platform that sported a tree planted in the middle of it.

  The clipped security guard braced himself against the wall and started firing. A bullet slammed into Golem's face, burying itself within the dense dirt.

  Golem turned his head to verify that Miss Fire had taken cover behind his large body. As he did, another bullet slammed into where h
is ear should have been. "What happened to henchmen being horrible shots?" he growled.

  Behind him, Miss Fire chuckled and whispered, "We are the bad guys, Golem."

  "Oh, yeah,” Golem laughed and turned to face the spray of bullets. "Golem prefers that." He scooped up another bench, but this time snapped it in half and ripped away one of the sharp boards. "Find cover,” he warned Miss Fire as he launched himself toward the first security guard. Bullets slammed into his body with each step, both from the guard he careened for and the one who had opted to stay hidden behind the tree. Each bullet punched a dime sized hole in him that closed around the wound without Drew needing to command it do so. They would have been better trying to blow off his limbs. All they were doing was adding to his mass.

  He was upon the first security guard just as the man's gun clicked empty. Panic spread across his face in that instant, right before Golem hit him across the head with the broken wood plank. The man's head snapped violently to the side throwing him into the wall and bouncing his head off of it. The gun fell to the floor, followed by the man himself.

  Golem turned to face the other guard, just as the man slammed a second clip into his own gun. This time, Golem moved with slow deliberate steps, grinning with his large maw.

  The guard knelt and took aim. Determined eyes stared down the top of the barrel at him. The guard fired.

  Drew's vision wavered for a moment, making his eyes become strained and blurry. The man had shot Golem in the eye! Another bark of the gun and the vision blurred again. He must have hit the other eye!

  "Why can't you be like every other Stormtrooper!" Golem yelled. Drew's vision began to return and as it did, he could see that the second security guard wasn't aiming at him anymore.

  The guard lay on the floor, blood pooling from around his neck. Standing over him was Miss Fire with a long blade that dripped blood.

  "You killed him?" Golem asked.

  Miss Fire tilted her head at him, the question showing in her eyes. She pointed the bloody blade to the security guard behind Golem. The one he had knocked unconscious. He turned to look at the guard again and found that the guard's neck turned at an impossible angle. His blow hadn't just knocked him unconscious. It had broken his neck.

  Golem had killed someone. Drew had killed someone.

  In the heavy silence that followed, he did not hear her come up to him, but when Miss Fire spoke, she did so in a soft tone, "We are the bad guys, Golem." She patted his arm with her free hand. "And we aren't done." She raised her bloody knife to point at a set of glass doors that lead to the outside world. "Dollars to donuts, those guards called the police, if the alarm didn't trigger the call. Odds are by the time we make the truck, there will be police."

  Golem looked from the glass doors that led to freedom, back to the corpse he had created. He followed behind Miss Fire.

  Chapter Three

  The insistent beeping woke him from his sleep. Eyes still closed, he tried to puzzle out the source of the beeping. Had he set the alarm? No, it wasn’t the sound of the alarm. That was a different annoying noise. This was more of a steady repetitive beeping that reminded him more of that day he spent working at a burger joint.

  “Fries are done,” he told the empty room. Moaning, he rolled over and looked at the clock sitting by his bed. One in the morning. What could possibly be beeping at one in the morning? Finally, he rolled into a sitting position and looked around the room. “Lights,” he said aloud, and the room illuminated at his command. “Better than the clapper,” he chuckled to himself. The room displayed a medley of shining objects and dark furniture.

  His name was Machiavelli Patton, and ever since he was a child, he had dreamed of becoming a superhero. He had grown up on the shows as a kid, thumbed through every two-bit rag that hinted at super powers. Somewhere in this room were x-ray glasses he had bought from the back of his first comic book. They didn’t work, but he didn’t care. He kept intending to put them on display at some point, like a trophy, but he had never gotten around to it.

  His father, Jesuit Patton, was a world famous “idea man” and had amassed a considerable amount of wealth. Jesuit was the mind behind quite a few inventions that helped make the world a better place to live. He had even managed to grace the cover of Time magazine after he introduced a new way to grow wheat in the dry climates of Africa. Though it was still years before it was mass produced, Jesuit had a keen enough mind to see it for a large lump sum and let the buyers funnel in the extra money to make the venture worth the effort. That was how his father worked. He would invent something and then sell it. He never had an issue with finding willing buyers. He cared less about the applications of what he built and more about the thrill of creating something.

  Jesuit's wealth was apparent in Mac's room. Every bit of new age technology was strewn about the room with less care than they should have been. The top of the line gaming systems lay like dried out spiders on the floor in front of a massive television. Speakers that climbed from the floor to the ceiling flanked either side of the television and sat opposite the large room, devoid of any wiring between the sets.

  Mac swept aside long, red, curly hair from his eyes and peered around his room. There, the sound came from the huge plasma display mounted on the west wall of his room.

  “Computer,” he spoke aloud, stepping from his bed, and floating through the air to the screen, “Monitor,” he instructed, staring at the large seventy-inch screen. The screen flashed to life, dissolving into an aerial map of the city. “Somebody is in the North Side Mall,” he mused aloud. “Could be that this is our chance.”

  He floated over to his workbench of stainless steel and punched a few buttons into the keyboard embedded within it. On a shelf above the bench, a small police scanner flared to life, belting out police chatter.

  “Shots fired. Guards down. Something coming to the window. What is that thing? Is this a joke? What is that?” the voices were all talking over each other so it remained impossible to tell what one alone said. Whatever the police were facing, it was no run-of-the-mill burglar, and that is just what Mac had hoped.

  “Showtime!” he shouted in triumph to an empty house.

  He floated over to the marble nightstand and scooped up his phone. With a long press of his finger on the one button, he was rewarded by the sound of the phone dialing the preprogrammed number. The phone rang and rang, and just when Mac thought that the phone would go to voicemail, a small voice answered.

  “Hello.”

  “Kitten. It’s Mac,” Mac said, still eyeing the blinking red spiral that appeared over the North Side Mall.

  “I know,” Kitten grumped, “You don’t have to be rich to have caller id these days. And you can use my actual name when you call me.”

  Mac chuckled, “Allison, I think we finally, have our chance to make ourselves known,” he said into his phone.

  “It’s one in the morning,” Allison countered.

  “Evil never sleeps,” Mac offered. “I am going, with or without you. Are you coming?”

  There was a long moment of silence as he could tell she mulled it over or perhaps she had fallen back to sleep. Neither would have surprised him. “Ali?”

  “Yeah, pick me up on your way in. I have to get dressed.” He could hear a yawn as she spoke.

  “What are you wearing now?” Mac asked before he could stop himself.

  “Funny,” Allison replied.

  Mac was quiet for a minute. The ironic part was that he did want to know what she was wearing, if anything. The thing about Allison was that she was unbelievably hot. Well, to Mac, at least. They was friends since long before either one of them began to understand the true differences between boys and girls and they had remained friends when the changes of puberty had swept in and forever changed how Mac looked at the world. He was unbelievably attracted to Allison, but he had no way of asking or implying without risking the partnership that the two of them had created after he had discovered his secret powers.

 
; “Are you wearing anything?” Mac finally asked in a hushed tone.

  “I’m hanging up now, ‘kay,” she said, and did just that.

  Mac floated there, his feet just a few inches above the floor, pondering how that conversation could have gone better. He needed to tone down the pervy habits if he planned to ever get her to like him in that way. As it was, he had one huge strike. Mac floated over to the mirror and took a good look at the strike against him. He was fat. The doctors had called it “Morbidly Obese.” Mac began to refer to it as his “M.O.” like Motis Operandi. Mac has always been a chubby dude, despite his father's numerous attempts to find ways to defeat it. Mac just preferred past times that required his mind, and not his body. After the "accident" that had led to Mac discovering he could levitate, his walking suffered all the more. When no one could see, he would instead float to where he wanted to go. It taxed him less than walking.

  He secretly longed for the day that he could be thin and muscular like all of his mentors in the comic books. That took a great deal of work or some scientific genius that he did not have. Granted, Mac was smart, but not in some of the areas that counted the most. Sighing, he floated away from the mirror and went to his closet.

  “Time to get suited up,” he said in a soft and sad tone.

  Mac had thought long and hard about what his first appearance would entail. No, one in the real world had ever seen a superhero, except on television and in movies. Mac intended to step on center stage for the world and prove that there were real superheroes out there. The trouble remained that he had to make a startling and breathtaking appearance, and his overweight body was not going to be helpful in that respect. While most superheroes adorned themselves in bright happy colors that let the world know they were good, Mac had decided that he could not do that. No, he went with Symbiotic Spiderman black, with some white. Black remained a slimming color, and Mac knew that to make a grand appearance, he had to play down his weight as much as possible. He had even considered wearing some sort of girdle to hold the fat in check, but he knew that he needed to be able to move more than look good. He hoped that in the end, they would talk more about his heroic actions than his flabby appearance. He scooped up the black jeans and shirt from his closet and rushed to get dressed. Then he slid some black combat boots over them and laced them tight. Finally, he threw on the black and white mask that he had made to cover most of his face. It went from the line of his hair all the way over his nose and just above his lip. He wondered how effective it would be at hiding who he was. After all, a fat guy with bright red hair full of curls isn’t going to be exactly commonplace out there in the world. He sat there for a minute on the edge of his bed considering what he was about to do. Could he make this work? Would he get laughed at worse than when he was in high school?