Wednesday Night; West Avenue Alleyway
We hadn’t even gotten to the part about Victory being a super yet and I was in a state of shock. Not much gets my attention, but Erin’s story from the moment I fried him and kicked him into the harsh waters of Dungeon Bay to his transformation into the latest version of Titan had been tough to listen to. “Do you know what it is like, being stuck with needles and pumped of something so toxic it burns every inch of your body?”
My mind went back to my time as a lab rat. It hadn’t been a pleasant experience, but I had Ellison Staley to lean on. I couldn’t imagine having to endure something like that without a friend or someone who just gave a damn to help. “I have my own experiences being a freak on display. Just not what you went through.”
“The worst of it is, I’m still alive. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve wanted to die, wanted the pain to end.” I was at the same point. I was ready for my final reckoning. “But then I find out things, some really scary, awful things. Turns out you’re the only person who can help.”
“My help,” I laughed it off. “Once the Victory problem is taken care of, there won’t be a me to offer any help around.”
The implication of my words didn’t go by Erin unnoticed. “When did you become suicidal?”
“That’s such a strong word. I like to think that my usefulness and place on this world have run its course.”
He crossed his arms. “Whatever, dude. The Victory problem is what we need help with. Your plan back at the hotel, yeah that was doomed to fail.”
This conversation was getting me to an annoyed place really quick. “Cut the crap, Erin. What’s Victory’s deal?”
There was a distinct feeling out process going on, but I had ended that quickly. The ramifications could’ve ended up in a fight or with Erin just leaving me hanging. Instead, “As I said, he’s a super. He’s got some sort of mind manipulation power that his crazed doctor, Jeremiah Presley, successfully synched into the Titan formula. His prized team, we’re extensions of his psyche.”
“You’re saying he can control people?” That wasn’t good. “How the hell did he know about tonight’s plan?”
“A girl named Becky Walker tried to use her powers on him. All that did was reveal who she and Kyle Wonderton were to him and her intentions of working with you. That’s why you ran into Wraith and me tonight.”
Wraith? That sounded just as dumb as two other codenames I’d heard very recently. “Let me guess, Blade and Abaddon are on this team, too?”
“Pappas and Krummel,” Erin used their real names. “Yeah, those two guys are a part, too.” He ticked off the rest of the roster, “There’s Zed Wilson and Heather Adams as well.”
“Heather – Heather Adams?”
“Yeah, she’s some crazed lady who blows stuff up using cell phones.”
Like the flow of memories that happened when I was confronted by Porterhouse, another surge hit me. Everything from the initial flirting on the random trips on the elevator together at Wonder-Tech, to the fact I turned her into a super by mistake, everything about Heather Adams came back to me. That beautiful smile she greeted me with, her impossibly long legs that always caught my attention, even her semi-unhinged personality as Detonate.
And the most important thing came back to me. She was the woman I loved.
My head shot up. “Where is Heather?”
“Don’t know, man. Sometimes we’re tasked together and other times we’re off on our own little missions.” Erin’s face was beginning to flush. “I don’t have much more time, Jericho.”
“What do you mean?”
“General Whisnant, he gave me a way to fight off the control of the Titan formula in short bursts. If I’m gone too long, Victory will get suspicious.”
I had so many questions. I needed to see Heather again. I also didn’t want to be around when whatever suppression agent Erin was using wore off. I didn’t necessarily relish another fight with a Titan, especially when I didn’t have my suit on. “If Kyle and Becky are compromised, as well as the agenda to get me to kill him, what options do we have?”
“Wait until the night of the debate.” He was straining to keep it together. “Whisnant, he has a plan. I’ll… explain more… later.”
As beads of sweat formed on his forehead, I took this as my sign to leave. “Erin, for what it’s worth, I never wanted this for you. For that, I apologize.”
I took off, running into the streets as my former friend began to fade away and the Titan started to reappear.
****
The guys were waiting for me outside of gl-O-bal, still in the van. As I came up the street, I signaled for them to follow me. I wouldn’t feel safe until we were in the sub-basement and the polarity lock was back in place. The moment I placed the lock on the elevator door, I slumped over. “Well, that went awful.”
“It’s all over the news, Jericho.” Wade was shaking his head. “Two supers breaking into Victory’s suite in order to assassinate him. What the hell happened?”
I took a moment to fill them in on the confrontation with the girl named Wraith and then with Erin in the back alley. Upon hearing that Victory was a super and he was on to our scheme, Rick sighed in defeat. “What can we do now? If the guy has a way to stay one step ahead –”
“Not to mention he had a super death squad out there,” Andy tossed out there.
“And a super death squad, we’re out of options. The safest thing to do would be to leave the city and reestablish ourselves under new aliases.”
That wasn’t a route I was willing to take. “I don’t blame you three at all for bouncing. This was never your fight.” I went over to the table and picked up my new mask. This was my new identity. “For me, this is the path I’ve chosen, no matter what the end result might bring.”
“You’re staying?”
“Yeah Rich, I’m staying.”
He shook his head as he leaned up against my toolbox. “Damnit Jericho. If you’re hell-bound in seeing this through, then we’ll provide whatever assistance we can. A crew never turns their back on another in need.”
“Cheers!” I wasn’t surprised Andy was happy to stay. The man loved a good fight and we were barking up the tree for one.
Wade was in the process of hooking up a tablet (where that came from, only he would know) to my internet connection. “You said this Erin Cieslik told you to wait until the debate to do something, on a General Davy Whisnant’s orders, correct?”
“Pretty much.”
“This Whisnant guy has a pretty colorful history. A three star general, he’s overseen numerous off the book op’s, including the failure with the plutonium core some years back.” I was used to this by now. The set up was about to give way to some information Wade dug up. “I know all this because his name has been in several documents I’ve had the privilege to look at.”
Rich’s patience levels were shorter than mine. “Get to the point, Wade.”
“After the plutonium near disaster, Whisnant began stepping away from the more active duties of a general and soon became more of a figure head. A guy like him, he’s seen it all so I imagine this whole being sidelined thing hurts his ego. Putting my tinfoil hat on, I think Whisnant is looking to get rid of Victory and Jericho all at once. This reeks of a set-up.”
Andy of all people had the puzzle pieces together before anyone else could sum it up. “Whisnant uses Victory as a sacrifice of sorts to remove Jericho from the board. He’s not only a hero, but he probably steps into the presidential race. He’d be a shoe-in to win.”
I didn’t care about politics. I only cared about my revenge. And Heather. I hadn’t mentioned her to the boys. That was my business to attend. Though if Erin was right that each of the six was basically an extension of Victory, would there even be a Heather for me to find?
The three of them were staring at me. Apparently I missed something. “It might be a set up or it might not be. The debate is on Friday, barring a drop out from Morales, and wit
h little else to go on, it’s our best lead. Until then, let’s all just get some rest and prepare.” With that failed attempt on Victory, I just had a bad feeling we weren’t out of the woods ourselves. Something bad was approaching, I just knew it.
Chapter 28 –
Thursday Morning; gl-O-bal Innovations
The rest of the guys were still sleeping when a noise above woke me up. Something was ramming the elevator. I put on my mask and gauntlet, irritated at being awoken. Not in the mood for someone to come barging into my home, I undid the polarity lock and hit the first floor button. When the doors opened, I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me. Sliding off my mask, “Heather?”
She looked just how I pictured, in my dreams and the memories that returned to me. She was holding a phone in her hand with goggles over her eyes. The goggles I made her.
Sliding them up, revealing her eyes, “Jericho, I’m so sorry.”
What could she be sorry for? “I was going to come and look for you today. I’ve missed you so much.”
That’s when I noticed the phone in her hand was blinking. She’d been lobbing explosive devices at the door. “After Liberation Day, I fell into a depression, a really dark place. I made some very bad choices and got mixed up in stuff I shouldn’t have. I became the monster I feared I would.”
“Heather, if you put the explosive down, we can talk about this.”
“I can’t. This is his will. There’s a reason Blade calls Victory the one true power. He controls us, tells us what we need to do.” It was breaking my heart to see her in such a state. Even I could see whatever fight she originally had was gone. She was in complete compliance mode. “He loves the fact he’s ordered me here to kill you. This is Victory’s ultimate conquest.”
She lobbed the cell phone at me. I had just enough time to pull my mask down and cover about the front half of my body in an electric shell. Most of the explosion was absorbed, but I still was hit with some of the debris. Something sharp sank into the back of my calf.
I pulled out the piece of rusty rebar. Great, I’d need a tetanus shot after everything was finished. Plus, I’d just stitched myself up from Wraith’s knife to the ribs! “Heather, there has to be another way. I don’t want to fight you.”
I was close enough to the elevator to put the polarity lock on it from the top. I knew the sounds of the explosion would wake the guys and this wasn’t their fight. No, they’d just end up becoming casualties and no one needed that on them. Heather didn’t even raise an eye to what I did. No, she just kept coming forward.
“That’s why this is the perfect plan. He knows you won’t. You have to stop thinking of me as someone worth saving and do what must be done!”
The way she shouted, it was alarming. Heather was pulling out another phone and there was little I could do. Well, there was one choice – one I hoped I’d never have to make. I fired up the complete energy shield and ran right at her. The two of us fell out of the doors and on to the street. The sun hadn’t even come up yet and there was no traffic to be seen.
The phone spun away from her and I blew it up with a quick blast. Both of us were back on our feet at the same time. “Please, end this for me, Jericho. It’s the only way,” Heather pleaded with me. She reached down and grabbed another phone off her utility belt. “If you don’t, I won’t stop trying to kill you.”
What had Victory done to her? “You know I can’t.” She’d been my hope, my one reason for maybe not going through my plan of removing myself from the equation. Looking at her now, my inner disgust for this world and everything it represented reached new lows. “If you force me to do this, I’ll never forgive myself.”
My eyes drifted up. On the rooftop of the building across the street were five figures. It was the rest of Victory’s death squad. They were here, watching the pain the two of us were going through in this fight. Curse them! As much as I wanted to attack, Heather required my full attention with her abilities. Another cell phone bomb was coming my way. There was less oomph on this one, giving me time to blow it up before it got too close. Her heart wasn’t in this.
The two of us stood across from each other, rays of sun light just beginning to creep up over the horizon. The light began to show subtle details with Heather that the darkness had covered up. There was no fire in her eyes for instance. Also, on her exposed forearms, there were quite a few needle marks. The Titan injections – each needle mark was red and looked infected.
“This is taking too long.”
Suddenly we were joined by five other people. A tall, muscular bald man wearing a mechanics shirt with ‘Zed’ embroidered on it was the one who’d complained about this taking too long. He stepped up beside Heather. “You know what he told us. If you couldn’t finish the job, then our ‘friend’ would be called on.”
“Six on one, that seems hardly fair.” I suggested.
Blade was jumping up and down behind the man named Zed. “I’ll take him! I had him dead to rights last time!”
“No,” Zed commanded. “All of you had a chance to finish the job and yet here he still stands. At least Wraith was successful in abducting priority number one.”
He was referring to Adam Morales, the vice president’s husband. “Kidnapping’s never really been my thing. What’s your boss planning to do to him?”
“That’s none of your concern.” He signaled with his hand and Erin, or rather the new and improved Titan moved forward. “Armageddon,” hmm even Cieslik had a nerdy code name, “prepare for the merger.”
Erin moved into a position right behind Zed. Then the strangest thing happened. Zed and Erin began melting into one person – or thing? Zed’s appearance began to take on the more mechanical look of the Titan he was assimilating with. He also grew about six inches, making him almost a good foot taller than I was. I wish that was the worst part. A shoulder mounted gun was aimed right at me. The weird, morphed face of Zed/Erin smiled creepily. “Together,” the voice even sounded like two people talking at once, “we are stronger!”
I put my force field up in anticipation of a blast. Good thing too; he tried to light me up in the morning sunlight. I had to hold on tight as the power of the blasts were greater than they’d ever been – including the original super Titan, Diana’s. When they stopped, I took a deep breath and relaxed. As my shield fell, there was a look of agitation on Titan-Zed’s face.
Wraith walked over to him, followed by Blade, Kim, and Heather. Surrounding Titan-Zed, “Victory synched us all together. With my power of absorption, we can become one – the perfect super.”
It was horrifying to watch as one by one, each member of the group gradually formed with the main body containing Zed. Wraith was first and Titan-Zed’s hair grew out, long and white. Blade was next and the creature’s one arm turned into a sword that looked an awful lot like the one Blade carried.
Kim was next and found long spikes burst through the first of the hand that was still there. Finally Heather began to disappear. Her eyes were locked on mine, and as her face sank away, she mouthed the words, “I’m sorry,” to me. Once she was fully incorporated into it, a red half sphere emerged in the chest. There was something very wrong about it. This had to be an explosive of some kind.
Titan-Zed’s voice now composed of six unique pitches instead of two. “Jericho Staley, you have been sentenced to death.”
The voice alone could unnerve the bravest of souls. “Haven’t you heard, I’ve been pardoned?”
It moved forward, little tremors unleashed with each step that hit the pavement. The arrival of Titan-Zed hadn’t gone unnoticed with the citizens of the city. Cars, probably with early morning commuters trying to get to work, had all stopped, forming a perimeter around us. I could hear hastily made phone calls to loved ones and emergency services. With that sword in play, probably amplified, too, I was most likely trapped.
I tried to reignite my energy shield, ready for an onslaught. Just as I expected – it was ripped off of me and into Blade’s sword. “Damnit!”
“Time to die,” it proclaimed and the shoulder gun fired once more, sending a cluster of glowing white energy orbs towards me.
Chapter 29 –
Thursday Morning; Wonder-Tech Tower
**Kyle Wonderton**
I looked over at my clock, not believing it was three thirty in the morning. I hadn’t been able to sleep, not since the call just before midnight that Angela Morales was pulling out of the debate and the presidential election with the kidnapping of her husband, Adam. It was an obvious move. How could one be expected to concentrate on the highest position in the country when their loved one was missing?
That should’ve meant the end of my security detail and a way to distance myself from Victory. Unfortunately, word on the street according to my police partner Parker Lattimore was that her vice president pick would be stepping in to take her spot. This was unexpected and a bit worrisome. I had Phil running every search possible to get me a lead on who that could be.
Meanwhile, Becky was reviewing hotel footage Phil pulled for us that showed Jericho’s failed attempt on Victory at the Saltwater. It didn’t take too long to see the set up. The super who’d been responsible for abducting Adam was lying in wait. Jericho shielded his buddies out and eventually took her down, only to be attacked by the Titan like monster we’d seen. From there, the two of them left the hotel in a rather violent manner. Just minutes later, Victory showed up and winked at the camera. I swore up and down he was taunting us.
Becky hit pause yet again. “From what I’ve seen and the digital footprints Phil found in the hotels servers, this seemed like a pretty fool proof plan. How did Victory know?”
How indeed. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned in watching him since he’s arrived, he’s a master manipulator. Seems appropriate given that he’s a super, too.” With his public rebuke of us, the fact he was one only made my anger grow. “If only his power was just hypocrisy.”
Becky snorted, which was always cute. “All joking aside, if Victory can stay one step ahead of Jericho, that’s serious.” She was right about that. “Even in his current state, he’s proven to be a master planner and tactician.”
The Negative Man_Legends Can Die Page 18