He slammed my head hard into the unforgiving concrete of the prison wall. I saw stars and nearly fell over. “What the hell was that for?!”
He looked a bit disappointed. “I read somewhere that both pain and whacks to the head could jog a person’s memory.” Rich laid back in his bed and propped his feet up. “It was worth a shot.”
I jumped up to the top bunk. The idea was to lay low for a bit. Wade still had a few things he needed to pull off to get that cloned ID card. “What were you doing while I was making a fool of myself this morning?”
“What I do best, getting information.” He sort of chuckled to himself. “A few of the guards in here don’t like the new warden, Porterhouse, at all.” Even before I could ask why that was important, he went on. “The guard that dragged you away from the camera, Bailey, he could’ve done much worse.”
Considering one had trapped me in the cell block with Frosty and his goons, I could believe it. “With Porterhouse wanting me out of the picture, how can you be so sure of the information you collect?”
His head slipped out from his bunk. He was pointing at his temple. “You don’t survive the bad side of Pacific Station and then Black Lagoon without having the common sense to know who’s bullshitting you and who’s dropping the truth.” It was times like this that the amount of time Old Rich had been in the slammer stuck out. “Bailey thinks Porterhouse is ramping up for one more take at you. We maybe have one, two days tops to get you out of here.”
I didn’t say anything. Rich took my silence as an opportunity to add on. “That is, unless The Negative Man can come back.”
Tired of hearing about my alter ego that had abandoned me here, “I know you mean well, but it’s not happening. Maybe a few little sparks here and there,” I made exaggerated hand motions to go along with it. “If I don’t remember my sins, maybe it’s for the best.”
For the first time since he’d kind of taken me under his wing, Old Rich looked defeated. “I can’t make you remember. I can’t make you want to remember, either.” His head slid out of view. “If you’re cool with being the victim for the rest of your days, that’s on you.”
He added, quieter, but still loud enough for me to hear, “A better way to forgive your sins isn’t to forget. It’s to remember and do better.”
We didn’t talk much the rest of the day. Even dinner was a quiet affair with Andy and Wade realizing that something was amiss. Wade finished cloning the card, which was good, yet where there was good, there oftentimes was bad to go with it. “I hate to rush things, Rich.”
“I know you do. What’s the problem?”
“That guard, Bailey, he gave me ten minutes by myself in the library. With no eyes around, I was able to break the encryption of Porterhouses’s email.” He brought his head closer to the group. “We all thought we had some time. The hit is going down tonight, after midnight.”
Rich slammed his fist on the table. “Somehow, someway, Porterhouse is on to us.” The clock read ten minutes until six. “Everything’s in place, but I got a sneaking feeling we’re going to have to fight our way to freedom.” Then he looked at me. “The three of us aren’t about to put our necks on the line unless you’re in it. And when I say in it, you know what I’m talking about.”
I knew exactly what he meant. “I’m in it.”
Rich got up and pulled me up with him. “We’ve got less than six hours to awake the super inside you. If we don’t, we’re probably dead.”
Chapter 7 –
Monday Evening; Cell Block A Twenty-Two
We were out of time. I knew we were out of time because all the lights in the prison went dead, leaving us in total darkness. That’s when all hell broke loose.
I was quickly pulled from my cell and separated from Rich. Whoever had a hold of me was strong. With their fingers digging into my shoulders, they continued to drag me through the cell block, towards the exit door. Along my forced journey, I heard the sounds of punches and other various strikes. Bedlam was breaking out and I figured there was no one we could turn to. As soon as we exited the cell block, in the low light of the emergency lamps, I realized it was two guards who had me.
Without a word, they tossed me up against the cement wall and began waylaying into my ribs with their fists. I wasn’t even fighting back. That didn’t stop them – the only thing that did was when I fell to the ground, coughing up blood. The fists stopped, just a small chuckle before they picked me back up again and we started off on another adventure together.
This one didn’t stop until we got to an office a few stories up that was labeled ‘Warden.’ One of my assailants knocked twice and a voice from the other side said, “Proceed.”
The other guard opened the door and they tossed me inside. Still on the ground, the door shut just as quickly and the sound of a bolt lock slid into place. As I got up, I saw the pudgy face of Warden Brandon Porterhouse. His small beady eyes had the look of someone who just won the lottery or something. Behind him was a window; moonlight shined in through the glass and cast the man in front of me in a weird glow. Porterhouse loved this.
“Sit down, Jericho.” I was about to tell him to screw off when I heard the cock of a gun. He brought it up from beneath his desk and pointed it at me. “Now, please. I won’t be asking a second time.”
Seeing there was little choice, I did as I was told. “Why are you doing this?”
There was only anger from this man – no wait, anger and resentment. “For over three years I had to keep you alive. You, the worst of the worst!” he shouted. “And all because some suit back east wanted to see if you’d ever return to what you were.”
What he said wasn’t making any sense to me. “If I was such a bad guy, why would anyone want me to return to normal?”
Waving his gun with annoyance, “Hell if I know and I don’t care anymore. When you woke up this pathetic shell,” he snarled at me, “I was delighted to report back that you were broken. A few days later, I was given the execution order. That made it all worthwhile.”
This was the end of the line. As I sat there, I was about to be killed for things I didn’t even remember! I gripped the arms of the chair, hard. The bullet would be coming any moment.
But it didn’t. Porterhouse kept yammering. “What pisses me off the most is you don’t even remember! You sit there, with this blank, duh, expression and don’t even know why you’re about to die.”
“Enlighten me,” I answered.
He was taken aback by this. “So you can revel in your former glory?”
“If I’m about to die, I want to know why.”
Porterhouse seemed to ponder my request. Outside the warden’s office, the sounds of mayhem were starting to reach our ears. His head perked up a bit. “You’re not getting out of here alive, so I guess I can tell you why you’re guilty, Negative Man.” The added last words were harsh. Yet the way he said it, something deep inside of me resonated.
I pushed myself back against the chair and bit down on my lower lip. I didn’t want anything to happen, not yet. Porterhouse was too consumed with hate to even see my reaction. He spoke again, this time softer. “I was a detective under Chief Grimes when you came back. With The Dark Lion dead, the burden of the super menace fell back to us. You and your kind were our problems again.”
A face popped into my head, an older man with strong features shrouded in this yellowish haze. “The Dark Lion, was he a hero?”
“None of you freaks are heroes!” Huffing and puffing, he had to calm down. “He was just the least problematic and Grimes seemed to like him. He made our lives easier in some ways.”
Two shots were fired outside the office. Over a comm, I heard a guard say, “Two more prisoners down! Keep them moving towards the yard.”
It was setting up to be a slaughter. I was going to die because of a prison riot and Porterhouse will claim he had no choice. He’d go down a hero, more than likely. “Killing a super, that’s not the reason you want me dead so bad, is it?”
�
�Our shifts became long and it took its toll. My wife left me, took the damn dog, too. Two of my friends were killed by wannabe villains who couldn’t control their powers.” Two deep breathes. “That’s when Grimes got me this assignment, right before you killed him.”
Another image came to me. I was on the street, with the cops in front of me. There was something on my arm, I used it to kill the grizzled man in the middle. The memory faded.
“Not even a week after my start here did your comatose ass appear at my doorstep. To make matters worse, that stupid jerk Reigart was more worried about your wellbeing than anyone else’s.” He slammed his fist on to his desk. “You, a murderer, a cop killer, the devil incarnate! But no, he could care less about how the families of those uniformed men were doing. Nope, he came here and watched over you.”
I swallowed hard. “I didn’t ask for that.”
“Who gives a damn?! You were given it!” He pointed the gun at me, his arm a little unsteady, but the barrel never left the general area of my face. “Today that all changes. Today, Jericho Staley, The Negative Man, whatever the hell you call yourself, you will be dead.”
The gun discharged the bullet. It was headed straight for me, right for my forehead. I closed my eyes and reached for something; a power I knew was there. How, I didn’t know, I just knew I always had it. A crackling sound buzzed like angry bees all around me and when I opened my eyes, blue electricity formed a shell around me, protecting me from the bullet that was meant to kill me. Blurred by the ‘shield’ I created, I could just make out enough of Porterhouse to see his eyes bugging out of his head.
“No!” He fired two more shots, both eaten up by the electric field. “Damnit no!” He emptied the rest of his clip, but nothing happened to me. He threw his gun at me in frustration, but even that was destroyed by the power. “You are nothing but a monster!”
His yelling the word monster triggered one last repressed memory. I knew this man, Dr. Staley, or as I called him, Dad. He was talking to a younger version of me, no more than seven or eight and reassuring me that I wasn’t a problem. Then the kindly face of Dr. Ellison Staley faded, replaced with the dead one I came home to, killed by his former friend Dr. Leonard Cooper. The anger that caused, that was the spark that gave birth to The Negative Man!
I was The Negative Man!
The force field came down. I was no longer a prisoner of my own mind. Titan, the Stormfall, Wonderton’s son, Kyle – everything was back. The pathetic oaf in front of me knew it, too. “Please, don’t kill me!” he begged.
Funny, just a few moments ago, it was he with the gun ready to kill me without a second thought. The power was transferred to me. “I’m not going to kill you, Porterhouse.”
“What? Why?”
Sparing people wasn’t something I did often, but when I did, gratitude was usually the reciprocation. “Without you, I’d still be the clueless and helpless guy you toyed with.” I held my hand out in front of me. Raw energy danced across it. It was different than I remembered. Could I have been altered because of the Stormfall? “Yet here I am, with a new lease on life.” The energy raced towards the door and blew it off its hinges.
On the other side, two guards rushed in, with their weapons pointed up. They never made it through the threshold of the door before they were sent to meet their maker. “Porterhouse,” I turned back to my captive. “There’s one thing you should know about me.”
He looked scared to ask anything. “What’s that?”
“I’m a liar.” With that, I formed an electron grenade in my hand, tossing it in his direction. I smiled to myself as I left the office and I heard the screams of a man being fried to death. I was back.
Chapter 8 –
Monday Evening; Wonder-Tech Tower
**Kyle**
“There are no confirmations yet, but according to our source in the PSPD, a riot has broken out at Black Lagoon Penitentiary. The state of the art prison has been rumored to be where Jericho Staley, AKA The Negative Man, is located,” Holly Hasset, TV45’s field reporter told the watching audience.
I gave a dark look over to Becky, the source of that rumor. She had Jenkins send an anonymous email to the news stations when it became clear that Jericho was, in fact, awake. “The people deserve to know where he is,” she reasoned with me after the tip had been sent.
That had been a few days ago. Today, there was a riot going on and information seemed to be very limited. I pushed the mouse on Jenkins’s laptop, waking him out of his virtual sleep. “Phil, can you break into Black Lagoon’s files and get me something?”
The digital face of the former Ace, Clubs, yawned. “Of course, Kyle. But why do you care?” he asked.
Why did I care? Maybe it was because he saved my life that night. The Stormfall strike destined for me was absorbed by him. I should’ve been dead, obliterated into a million particles. “It doesn’t matter. Just get me some good intel on what the hell is happening up there.”
He disappeared, heading off into the information void that he was so good at combing through. Meanwhile, that left me with the disapproving stare of Becky. “You’re not planning on going up there, are you?”
“What if I am?”
“He’s a bad man, a dangerous man!” She practically fell forward with her indignation. “Just because you feel you owe him a life debt doesn’t mean I’m going to allow you to cash it in.” The second part was said with a bit less crassness and a bit more caring.
This wasn’t her decision to make. “I know your feelings. I just want you to respect mine.”
“When we decided to become more than friends, your well-being became my concern.” I knew what I was asking her to do it wasn’t fair. “Sometimes I wish you didn’t always have to play the hero.”
Grabbing my dad’s cloak off the table, “You encouraged me to take up his mantle. I don’t get to pick and choose who I save. We either take all threats seriously or we should hang it up.”
There was a snappy retort coming, only to be stopped with Jenkins reappearing. “We should’ve looked into Black Lagoon sooner.”
“Why would we look into the prison?”
His face defragmented for a moment before coming back in again. “Porterhouse, the warden appointed by former Chief Grimes, he’s as dirty as used toilet paper.” His face disappeared and a number of emails and other documents popped up. “He’s been collecting money from an unnamed source for some time for various updates on Jericho. The last email exchange, well it was basically a warrant of execution.”
I grabbed the laptop and began reading all the email correspondences. Whoever was emailing Porterhouse wanted constant updates of Jericho’s condition. The tone of the emails changed after Porterhouse gave an update that basically said The Negative Man was never coming back. After a quick exchange asking if he was sure, the unknown man offered a large sum of money to make Jericho disappear, forever.
There was no option in the matter. “I’m going. Porterhouse has to answer for these crimes.”
Becky grabbed me by the shoulders. “Walking into Black Lagoon right now is a suicide mission,” she pleaded. “Let the police handle this.”
“Chief Woods has issued a perimeter check, but nothing more.” Phil pulled up Woods’ orders. “Even he doesn’t want his officers going in right now.”
That was enough for me. “I’m going to call Lattimore and let him know The Morning Lynx is going in.” I added, “That way someone will know in case anything should happen.”
Becky didn’t look pleased. She hadn’t had a chance to vet Lattimore yet. Becky was like a human lie detector – the only person to fool her was a super by the name of Diana Krummel. She’d become a monster known as Titan and due to the unique condition, was able to stay under the radar.
Unfortunately, Becky wasn’t quite ready for field work. She had a basic sense of self-defense, yet lacked in confidence to use it. A place like a rioting prison was nowhere for her to go. “I don’t like this, Kyle.”
That wa
sn’t going to change with any more debate. “If I let him die, what kind of hero would I be?”
She didn’t say anything, but the look in her eyes said, ‘go.’ I grabbed my suit and raced out into the night.
****
Even from this vantage point, the prison was in a bad way. I had deduced the only way for this to happen was if the warden himself gave the order to free all the prisoners. Porterhouse needed to be brought in, before he caused any more problems.
I was positioned in the shadows, just out of sight from the cops not even ten feet from me. The intimidating scene of the prison loomed over all of us; an island of doom and death surrounded by a bottomless moat. It sounded like something out of medieval history.
One of the cops closest to me echoed my sentiment. “Even if we wanted to get in there and do something, how would we?”
“There’s only one way in and out, through the front door,” his partner answered. “We’d be walking into an ambush point.”
The partner was right. The situation was dire and there was no real way to get into Black Lagoon. I wasn’t about to give up, not yet. I left my position and under the cover of night, got closer to the prison entrance. Police Chief Brad Woods had set up a command center and not too far from him was Lattimore. I pulled out my phone and shot him a quick text. When he received it, he looked up and searched the area until we made eye contact. He excused himself and quickly ran over. “I was wondering where you were.”
“Is there any way to get in?”
Gunshots began to ring out from inside the prison. “Hell no! It’s a bloody war zone in there.”
It certainly was escalating. Someone needed to go in though and restore the peace. “I’m not part of the PSPD – tell Woods I’ll go in. No one needs to follow.”
Lattimore looked at me like I was crazy. “You go in there, you’re not coming out alive.” His confidence was inspiring. “I’m just telling you my personal opinion.”
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