How I felt must have been evident on my face. The Old Man let out a long breath.
“I’m not saying all this to hurt your feelings or to upset you. I love you, Isaac, and Neha like you are the children I never had. You’re a great guy, and I’m proud to know you. Your parents did a fantastic job in raising you. I wish I had known them too. They succeeding in producing a very nice young man. And that’s the problem—I fear you’re too nice. Too nice for the task of being a Hero, maybe. You were literally an altar boy in the Catholic church for how many years? Three?”
It was four, actually, but I didn’t trust myself to correct him without starting to cry.
The Old Man didn’t seem to expect an answer since he kept talking. “That kind of indoctrination is not easily shed. Hell, some of it shouldn’t be shed. A lot of what the Catholic church and other churches teach is a sound way to live in a civilized society. In a civilized society, it’s hard to go wrong with the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. But Heroes don’t live in a civilized society. We live in a world of often savage, godlike beings, some of whom are as likely to incinerate you as they are to look at you. Hell, some of them incinerate you by looking at you. In our world, we often have to do unto others before they can do unto us. My job is not to make sure you’re nice. My job is to make sure you’re a tough sonofabitch who can stand up against all the forces of evil and chaos in the world without getting yourself or someone else killed.
“There’s a saying almost as old as the Hero Act: Good men don’t make great Heroes. I’m not saying nice guys finish last, but nice Heroes do tend to wind up dead. Assuming they get to be Heroes in the first place. After all, the Trials have a high mortality rate. That is as it should be. It is better to find out that a potential Hero doesn’t have what it takes in the Trials than to find out in the real world when the lives of countless others are at stake.”
The Old Man finally paused. It took me moment to find my voice. I felt like my entire world—everything I had worked so hard for the past few years—was crumbling around me.
“Are you saying you’re not going to let me stand for the Trials?” I finally managed to get out. I wouldn’t be allowed to participate in the Trials without the Old Man’s recommendation.
The Old Man let out another long breath.
“No. No, I’m not saying that. I didn’t say anything before now about whether I would let you and the others stand for the Trials because I was concerned about you and what we’ve been discussing. I’ll let you stand for the Trials. There’s not much more I can teach you. The thing I fear you lack isn’t something that can be taught, anyway—you either have it, or you don’t. You’ve become proficient enough in the use of your powers that engaging in the Trials won’t be an automatic death sentence for you. You might even be able to pass them and get your Hero’s license. What worries me is if you continue the way you have, doing things like you did in the bank, you won’t have a long life as a Hero. You’ve seen the statistics. You know we Heroes tend to not have long lifespans. Old Heroes like me are the exception to the rule. What we do is too dangerous for most of us to live long enough to retire to our rocking chairs and die peacefully in our sleep.
“Plus, I fear it will be a blow to Isaac’s and Neha’s morale if I don’t let you stand for the Trials with them. The three of you are thick as thieves. You and Neha especially. I know you two are sleeping together. Don’t look shocked. This is a big house, but it’s not that big. I’m old, but I’m not blind; I’d have to be blind to not notice how one of you is always sneaking into or out of the other’s bedroom in the middle of the night. I didn’t say anything before because you’re both adults and your nocturnal activities didn’t seem to adversely impact your training.
“So yes, I’ll let you stand for the Trials along with the others. But, in light of my concerns, I’d ask you to think long and hard about if you really want to become a Hero. You’re young, healthy, and smart. With all that and the discipline your Heroic training has instilled in you, the whole world is your oyster. You can do anything with your life. You could buy your father’s farm back and take up farming again. Lord knows the world is not lacking in mouths to feed. If that doesn’t suit you, you can start some other business. I know you have a bunch of money saved up that can be your initial capital. Plus, I’ll help you with seed money. Or, you could go back to college, finish your degree, and then maybe follow that up with grad school. You could become a teacher, a doctor, a lawyer, an engineer, any number of things that don’t involve you getting punched in the face by supervillains. Find a nice, normal girl to settle down with and have a bunch of babies and a good, long life.”
I was completely taken aback by what the Old Man was telling me.
“But you’re the one who talked me into training to be a Hero in the first place,” I sputtered. “You said it was too dangerous for me and those around me for an Omega-level Meta to wander around the world untrained. Now that I’ve worked my butt off to get to where I am, you’re telling me to not become a Hero?”
“I’m not telling you to not become a Hero. I’m telling you to think long and hard about whether it’s something you really want as I have concerns you’re not entirely suited for it. As for what I said when we first met, I said it was dangerous for an Omega-level Meta to be untrained because there are people in the world who would either view you as a threat or try to exploit you. Now, you’re trained and have control over your powers. If you decide to have a normal life and someone like Iceburn comes along again and attacks you, you now would be able to take care of the threat. Even though you’re not supposed to use your powers as an unlicensed Meta, the law carves out an exception for that when you’re acting in self-defense.”
The Old Man abruptly stood.
“Maybe I should have waited until you had fully recovered to spring all this on you. But, you know how I feel about these situations: if there’s something unpleasant to do, it’s best to do it immediately. It hurts more to pull a bandage off slowly than it does to rip it off all at once. Besides, Hippocrates tells me you need to stay in bed here in the infirmary a few more days to fully recover. While you’re here, think about what I’ve said. Let me know what you decide to do.”
The Old Man walked out of the infirmary. I stared at his retreating back in shock, hurt, and disbelief.
The Old Man didn’t think I was good enough to be a Hero. No, quite the opposite, actually. He thought I was too good to be a Hero. That I wasn’t tough enough. That I wasn’t ruthless enough. Isaac and Neha were, but I wasn’t.
Despite the drugs I was on, I felt my initial hurt turn into anger.
Well, screw that! Like Isaac and Neha, hadn’t I worked my fingers to the bone to graduate from Hero Academy? Hadn’t I worked just as hard as they at being a Hero’s Apprentice? Yeah, maybe I hadn’t graduated at the top of our Academy class the way they had, but I hadn’t graduated at the bottom of it, either. What did class standing matter anyway? Robert E. Lee had graduated second in his West Point class; Ulysses S. Grant had graduated in the bottom half of his. And yet, during the U.S. Civil War, Grant was the one who gave Lee a thorough shellacking where it counted, on the battlefield.
Hadn’t I been the one to single-handedly foil that bank robbery in Chinatown? I had shot the robbers with their own bullets, for chrissakes. Wasn’t I the one who misled the Old Man and my friends so I could alone take down Iceburn, the assassin to the Metahuman stars? Wasn’t I the one who had avenged my father by crippling Iceburn?
On the other hand, wasn’t I also the one who lay flat on his back because I had stupidly let Blondie get too close to me? I was also the guy who, when he saw Iceburn floating over my Dad’s burning mobile home, naively assumed Iceburn was a Hero and asked him for help. I was the guy who had let Iceburn blindside me the last time I had fought him because I was too busy chatting with an old lady whose tire I had stopped to change. I was the guy who, just a month or so ago, had let himself get sucker-punched by a Little Person beca
use I had discounted him as a potential threat. It turned out he was the Rogue known as Mighty Mini. He had punched me right through a brick wall. If I hadn’t had my force field up, the Old Man and my fellow Apprentices would have had to collect my remains with an eyedropper and tweezers.
The more I thought about it, the more I realized there had been threats I had discounted and opportunities to end fights I had missed while I was an Apprentice because I did tend to see the best in people. I did tend to give people the benefit of the doubt. I did tend to take people at face-value. The problem was, there were some people who did not have anything good in them to really see; there were people who did not deserve the benefit of the doubt. I knew that intellectually, but I hadn’t seemed to absorb that fact in my gut so that I operated on that assumption as a matter of course when I was out in the field as an Apprentice.
Maybe, just maybe, you could take the boy out of the Catholic church and off the small Southern farm, but you couldn’t take the church or the farm out of the boy.
As I continued to recuperate over the next few days, all I did was to continue thinking about what the Old Man had said to me. All that thinking time made me drag out and take a hard look at why I wanted to become a Hero.
Initially, when I first discovered my powers, I had no interest in using them or in becoming a Hero. It was too scary and too dangerous, I had thought. Well, I had certainly been right about it being scary and dangerous: the fact I lay partially immobilized in the infirmary was ample proof of that. But then, Iceburn had attacked me and killed Dad. I had been powerless to stop him. That was when I realized I had to get training in order to track Iceburn down and avenge my father. I had defeated Iceburn, but I still needed to figure out who had hired him so I could bring them to justice for all the deaths Iceburn caused while trying to get at me. But in the process of training and defeating Iceburn, I realized I wanted to become a Hero not merely to seek vengeance, but also because the people I loved and admired—the Old Man, Neha, Isaac, and the other Metas I had met at the Academy—were either Heroes or on the path to become Heroes. Metas like Isaac and Neha were my family. They were the only family I had since both my parents were dead and I had no siblings.
And, even though being a Hero was dangerous, it was often fun too. Heck, maybe it was fun because of the danger. I had gone rock-climbing with Isaac and Neha a couple of times, and I couldn’t imagine it would’ve been any fun at all if we had been merely a couple of feet off the ground instead of high up on the face of a cliff as we had been. Maybe, like rock-climbing, the danger inherent in being a Hero was what made it fun.
Plus I got to help people as a Hero. Helping people as a Hero’s Apprentice had brought me a joy that far exceeded what I ever would had expected. Wasn’t it Dickens who had said “No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another”?
Was seeking justice for my Dad, helping people, and having a place where I belonged enough of a justification for continuing to risk my neck to be a Hero? If the Old Man was right and my lack of ruthlessness might put others in danger, were my desires enough of a justification for me to risk the necks of the members of the public I was supposed to protect?
The Old Man was right—it was a big world out there. If I chose to not be a Hero, I could do just about anything. The world could be my oyster. I had money saved up, more money than I ever would have imagined having just a few years ago. Plus the Old Man said he would loan or give me more if I needed it. Even more important than having money, my Heroic training had taught me I could do anything I set my mind to as long as I worked at it. I had learned there were two keys to success: setting a goal, and then working like a dog to achieve it. If there was one thing I had learned about myself during Hero training, it was that I was capable of hard work, more so than I ever would have imagined back when I lived on Dad’s farm. And I had worked plenty hard there.
Plus, I could count on one hand the girls I had kissed. I could count on finger the girls I had slept with. I had plenty of fingers and toes left, so there was a lot of catching up to do. Before I had started my Heroic training, my lack of success with girls had been because I was poor, I dressed like a homeless person, and I lacked confidence. Especially because I lacked confidence. Well, that and the fact I had looked like an anemic string bean. Girls tended to not get all dewy-eyed over guys who could fit into their clothes with plenty of room to spare.
Now I was far more confident. And, while I certainly didn’t have the Old Man’s physique, I now was bigger and stronger than I had ever been in my life. I had accomplished that by eating like a hog trying to put on muscle mass and by working out like my life depended on it because, often, it would.
Now that I was a richer, stronger, and more confident version of my old self, I could catch up on lost time with girls if I stopped trying to become a Hero. Almost every time I was around a group of people, I saw so many pretty girls I felt like a hungry man at an all-you-can-eat buffet. The problem was being an Apprentice was a jealous mistress who had me on a strict diet; I barely had time to look at all the delectables at the buffet, much less put them on my plate. If I stopped my Heroic training, I could date around for a while, and sow my pent-up wild oats. Well, the ones Neha and I hadn’t already sown together. I was a healthy 20-year-old man; I had plenty of unsown oats left. Then, once I had gotten tired of single life, I could settle down with a nice girl, someone who would be the kind of mother my Mom had been to me before she had passed away from cancer. I definitely wanted to have kids. I dreamed of one day passing on many of the life lessons my Dad had passed on to me.
What it boiled down to was a simple question: What did I really want?
Did I want a normal and safe life? Or, the dangerous and exciting life of a Hero? Then again, how safe was a normal life anyway? No one got out of life alive. Life was a fatal condition.
While I wrestled with these thoughts as I healed, the words from Robert Frost’s poem The Road Not Taken kept coming to mind:
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both,
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth . . . .
***
Shortly after the doctors pronounced me well enough to leave the infirmary, I went in search of the Old Man. Other than having to wear sunglasses in bright sunlight until my vision went back to normal and a slight ringing in my ears, I felt fine. Other than a bit of skin discoloration on my face, I looked fine.
I found the Old Man sitting behind the desk of his office. He looked up when I knocked on his open door.
“You’re up and around again,” he said, looking pleased.
“I am.” I stepped inside and stood in front of his desk.
“I’ve been giving a lot of thought about what you said earlier. About how you don’t know if I have what it takes to be a Hero.”
“Good.”
“You understand that I have nothing but respect for you and your opinion, and that I appreciate everything you’ve done for me and taught me. You’re a father figure to me.”
“I appreciate you saying that.”
“So I’ve come to tell you what I think about your concerns.”
“Well?”
“Well, my father was killed by a supervillain when I was seventeen. I watched his body burn. Then I beat the crap out of the man who had done that to him. My mother was killed by brain cancer when I was twelve. While I watched her slowly waste away for years, I learned to sew, cook, clean, and take care of the house. At first, I did it so Mom wouldn’t have to. Later, I did it because she couldn’t. I cleaned her, too, when her rotting brain made her lose control of her bladder and bowels. I did all that while going to school full-time and while helping Dad in the fields.
“And you say I’m not tough enough to become a Hero?”
I paused. I jabbed a finger at him.
“Well, I say fuck you. I will
become a Hero. Or die trying.”
I turned around and walked out. I didn’t slam the door behind me.
But I wanted to.
CHAPTER 4
The same day I told the Old Man I would continue to try to become a Hero, he told us Apprentices he would permit us to participate in this year’s Trials.
Isaac and Neha were excited. I wasn’t at all. Thanks to my earlier conversation with the Old Man, I knew he had planned to certify their entries into the Trials and that I was the reason he had not already told them. I felt like the red-headed stepchild who was only getting a Christmas present because his more favored siblings had gotten some and it would’ve been rude to not give him one too.
“Why so glum, chum?” Isaac asked as he, Neha, and I rehydrated after a hard workout late that afternoon. We were supposed to go out on patrol with the Old Man tonight. Normally I looked forward to patrol as it made me feel like a full-fledged Hero. Today I dreaded it. Isaac said, “We’re going to compete in the Trials. We’ve been working toward this moment for years. You’d think you’d be thrilled. Instead, you look like someone drowned your puppy.”
“I’m just tired. Being laid up in the infirmary must’ve really taken the starch out of me,” I said, lying. Though this was my first workout since the bank robbery, physically I felt fine. Tired from the workout, but fine. Emotionally was a different story. But, I had no intention of sharing what the Old Man and I had discussed. I was both embarrassed by and ashamed of the fact the Old Man did not believe in me.
“Well, perk up. Soon, we’ll be fully licensed Heroes.” Isaac suddenly smiled. “Or at least I’ll be. You two I’m not too sure about. But don’t worry: if you flunk the Trials, I’ll take you on as my Apprentices until you can take a stab at the Trials again the following year. Assuming I let you take them, that is. You might be too busy scrubbing my floors. An important licensed Hero like I’ll be can’t be expected to clean his own floors. It’s undignified.”
The Omega Superhero (Book 2): Trials Page 3