Sam leaned forward. “Wait, what? No. How? What? You’re not serious?” he babbled. “In? Like… in in?”
“Like all the way in,” Chuck confirmed.
Sam let out a shrill giggle of panic. “No. That’s not… That’s ridiculous. I have a job. A life. A family.”
“Your kid comes to stay with you a couple of nights a month. Let’s not oversell it,” said Chuck.
“That’s still a family!” Sam insisted. “It’s still my life.”
Chuck cracked his neck. He looked to a spot on the wall as if seeking confirmation from someone hidden there. If he was, then he got what he was looking for.
“We’ve found ourselves in a situation,” he said. “A grave one.”
“Sorry to hear that. Honestly,” said Sam. “But I’m sure the Justice Platoon can deal with it. You said it yourself—Doc Mighty, greatest hero on Earth. Give him a call, tell him what’s what, he’ll have you fixed up by lunchtime.”
He frowned as a thought occurred. “Actually, what time even is it? Is it still Friday?”
“It’s the same time it always is,” Randy growled, slamming a fist down on the tabletop. “Time for justice.”
He looked at his watch.
“And also just after ten-thirty.”
“Friday night?” asked Anna.
Randy studied the watch again. “I don’t know. It doesn’t tell me that. That’s not how watches work.”
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure some of them do,” Anna pointed out.
“Saturday morning,” said Chuck. “You slept through the night.”
“Not me. I never sleep,” Randy growled.
Anna flicked her gaze his way. “Jesus. Is that healthy?”
“It increases my risk of certain cancers,” Randy admitted. “But that’s a small price to pay for crushing injustice.”
“Whatever,” said Sam, leaning forward to physically cut off their conversation. “The point is, whatever your situation, Doc Mighty, or Su Man Chu, or Brown Thunder, or one of those guys will be able to help you. We don’t have to get involved. I’m not getting involved.”
He stood, nodding to Anna and Randy as he extracted himself from between the chair and table. “Uh, nice to see you both again. Let’s do it again sometime. But, like, a long way off in the future. Like, waaaay down the line,” he said. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to head back to reality and try to salvage the rest of the weekend with my son.”
Chuck watched him head for the door. “Sam,” he said, but he made no move to block his path.
“Seriously, it’s been great, but I’m leaving now,” Sam insisted, his heart buzzing in his chest as he hurried for the exit. “Good luck with everything. If you could just let me out…”
Chuck shrugged. “It isn’t locked,” he said, making no attempt to hide his disappointment.
“Great!” said Sam. “That’s… unexpected, but great.”
There was a bar across the door like the handle of a fire escape. He pushed down on it and the door swung open.
A howling vortex of ice and snow raged against him, soaking his shirt, freezing his eyebrows, and turning his nipples diamond-hard. The force of the wind shoved him back into the room, but not before he caught a glimpse of a brooding purple sky filled with ribbons of rippling green light.
Sam staggered backward, his whole body vibrating from the sudden cold. His lungs burned. The lids of one eye had frozen together. He was suddenly filled with a desperate, near-overwhelming urge to urinate.
“What the hell is…? Where are we?” he managed to wheeze between body-wracking shudders.
Chuck leaned outside and pulled the door over. The howling wind was suddenly silenced, although the floor around the doorway remained carpeted with fluffy white flakes of snow.
“We’re somewhere north of the Arctic Circle,” Chuck explained, dusting some snowflakes off the front of his suit. “Near Doc Mighty’s Sanctuary of Me-Time.”
Sam prised his frozen eyelids apart, swiveled his eyes around to check if they were both still working, then finally processed what Chuck had said.
“What? No. The Sanctuary’s in the Caribbean.”
“Not anymore. Some developer built a hotel right next door a few years back, so he moved it.”
“To the Arctic?” said Anna. “That seems kind of…”
“Hardcore!” said Randy.
“I was going to say ‘stupid.’ I mean, the Arctic? That’s insane.”
Chuck shrugged, still working to fasten the door. “What can I say? The man liked his me time.”
Still shivering, Sam returned to his seat. He appeared to be nodding, although that might just have been the convulsions. “Th-that’s true,” he said, through chattering teeth. His brow furrowed, making tiny ice crystals fall from his eyebrows. “Wait. ‘Liked?’ What do you mean, ‘he liked’ it?”
There was a clunk as Chuck finally managed to seal the door. He inhaled slowly, still facing away from the table. When he finally did turn, his expression made fear coil like a snake in Sam’s gut.
“What I am about to show you is so far above Top Secret it’s practically in orbit,” he said. “There are three people who have seen the footage you are about to see. Me, the communications operative who first received the transmission, and the President.”
“The President of what?” Randy asked.
Chuck’s eyes closed for a fraction of a second longer than a standard blink. “Of the United States.”
“Thought so. Makes sense,” said Randy, nodding sagely. “But it’s always best to check.”
“What footage?” asked Sam.
Chuck gestured to one of the featureless white walls. It illuminated with a faint glow as if being lit from behind. “See for yourself,” he said. He straddled the one remaining chair and leaned his arms across the back of it. The light from the wall-screen reflected in his icy blue eyes. “But you might want to go ahead and brace yourselves.”
Chapter Six
“This is … tsskt … bsorbo, aboard the Justice Platoon’s … fzzzrk … ttle station.”
Only the top half of Absorbo’s head was visible down near the bottom of the screen, rotated at an angle that suggested either he or the camera had been knocked off-kilter. A chunk of debris around the size of a grapefruit drifted lazily behind him, and those seeing the footage for the first time realized the station’s artificial gravity must have been compromised.
“We are under attack. We don’t know how, but … tssshkt … from nowhere … brssst … more powerful than anything we’ve ever …”
Interference flickered across the image, painting it with a zig-zag of jagged lines and pixels, and turning the audio into a series of squeals and static hisses.
When the image cleared again, several other items had drifted into shot behind Absorbo. One of them made Sam, Anna, and Randy gasp, swear loudly, and dramatically punch a fist into the opposite palm respectively.
It was Doc Mighty. Specifically, it was the dead body of Doc Mighty, drifting limply across the background like a discarded rag doll.
It took Sam a few seconds to conclude for sure that this was, in fact, Doc Mighty. He wasn’t used to seeing his former mentor’s face like that—eyes wide in horror, mouth twisted into a grimace of pain. His deadness was quicker to establish. Even Earth’s mightiest champion couldn’t come back from the gaping hole that had been burned all the way through his invulnerable torso.
Or his once-thought invulnerable torso, Sam supposed, because current evidence quite firmly suggested otherwise.
“Is that…?” asked Anna.
“I’m afraid so,” Chuck confirmed.
Anna’s mouth tried out a few different responses, before settling on the simple, elegant, “Oh fuck.”
Sam realized he’d been so fixated on Doc Mighty that he’d stopped listening to Absorbo. He could still only see the top half of the superhero’s face, but even that small section was a portrait of absolute terror.
“…coming. We
couldn’t stop him,” he babbled, tears filling his eyes. “We couldn’t…”
From somewhere off-screen there came the sound of rending metal. Absorbo’s head snapped in the direction of the noise, giving those watching a view right up his nose.
Randy whistled quietly below his breath. “He is Blair Witching the shit out of this thing,” he remarked.
Absorbo’s voice became a rising squeal of panic. “No, no, no, no, please! Please!”
He turned back to the camera. “I’m sorry! I’m sor—”
There was a flurry of movement, too fast for the camera to capture anything but the vaguest blur. What they could see of Absorbo’s face took on an expression that bordered on indignant, then the top of his head drifted upward, filling the screen. The bottom of his head did not. Sam’s stomach tightened and he had to swallow down the rising nausea as Absorbo’s eyeballs, sinuses, and brain all flopped out of his cranium and floated off to join the rest of the station’s debris.
For just the briefest moment, a shadow passed across the camera. The screen turned dark, then became nothing but a faintly glowing wall again.
Nobody said a word. Not at first. There were no words, Sam thought. None that could accurately describe the enormity of what they’d just witnessed.
“Wow,” said Randy. “That was some full-on crazy shit. Good thing it’s not real.”
“It’s real,” said Chuck.
Randy pointed to the wall where the images had just been displayed. “What is? That?” he asked. “That was real?”
Chuck nodded.
“That was real? What we just watched? With Absorbo? That wasn’t a movie? It was real?” asked Randy. “That’s what you’re telling me right now?”
“Yes!” Sam snapped. “That’s what he’s telling you! It’s real! Absorbo was just murdered. Doc Mighty is…”
The word wouldn’t come. It couldn’t. It was too ridiculous an idea. Too unbelievable. Doc Mighty was invincible. Immortal.
“Dead,” said Chuck, and the enormity of the word seemed to expand to fill the room. “He’s dead. They’re all dead. The whole Justice Platoon.”
“When?” asked Anna. “When was this sent?”
“Four days ago,” said Chuck. “Came through on a secure encrypted channel only the Platoon has access to. Had access to.”
Sam shook his head. “Wait, wait. Four days ago? Then it can’t be real. I saw Doc Mighty on TV yesterday. He was fighting Morruks.”
“That was us,” said Chuck.
“What do you mean?” asked Sam.
“I mean we staged it. That was us.”
“Jesus, is there anyone who’s not you?” asked Anna. “Why would you stage it?”
Chuck shrugged. “To avoid panic. To stop all those asshole would-be supervillains out there getting ideas. We used some old footage, some CGI, a couple of actors, spliced it together and gave it to the media. Malone—the reporter—she owed us one, so we brought her in, too. Told her the Justice Platoon were off somewhere on a mission, and this was just to head-off any panic.”
“Stay in school,” Sam muttered. “I knew that was old.”
Chuck nodded. “One of the benefits of having a superhero who doesn’t age, we’ve got a lot of archive footage to work with.”
“But they’ll figure it out,” said Anna. “People aren’t idiots. They’ll figure out that something’s wrong.”
“You have a higher opinion of people than I do,” said Chuck. “But yes, ultimately we can’t keep it up forever. Luckily, we don’t have to.”
Sam and Anna exchanged puzzled looks. “Why not?” Sam asked.
“We tracked whatever it was that took out the Platoon’s space station. We didn’t get a lot of readings from it, but those we did get suggest it’s more powerful than almost anything we’ve encountered before,” Chuck said.
“Great, so it’s going to wipe out the planet before anyone notices the Justice Platoon are all dead?” said Anna. “I’m not sure that qualifies for a ‘luckily.’”
“That’s not the lucky part,” Chuck told her. “After it killed the Justice Platoon, the… space entity vanished. We’ve got no readings of it anywhere. Far as we can tell, it’s gone. That thing, whatever it was, isn’t our problem.”
“It killed Doc Mighty,” Sam pointed out. “That feels like a problem.”
Chuck conceded the point with a nod of his enormous head. “It’s not our immediate problem,” he corrected. “Once the Platoon’s rogues gallery of villains gets wind of this—and they will, if they haven’t already—then they’re going to start slicing up the world however they see fit. We’ll be knee deep in killer robots, fish-men, and Christ knows what else before we can find our own asses.”
He straightened and fixed each of them with a solemn look in turn. “Which is where you come in.”
“Alright! Butterfly King is all the way in!” announced Randy in his guttural rumble. He pushed his goggles up onto his forehead and narrowed his eyes. “Although, quick question. In what?”
“The Sidekicks Initiative was set up in case of this exact scenario,” said Chuck. He looked up to the ceiling for a moment, like he was recalling some long-forgotten memory. “We feared there might come a day when the whole world was in danger and we found ourselves all out of superheroes. The Justice Platoon were the best we had. The best there’s ever been. The strongest, the smartest, the fastest…”
“The most absorbent…” added Anna.
Chuck fixed her with a glare. “He was a good man. He died trying to warn us.”
Anna shifted awkwardly in her seat. “Sorry,” she mumbled. “Force of habit.”
“With the Platoon out there doing their thing, the other heroes kind of faded away. Retired, mostly, although a few got sloppy while trying to prove something to themselves and ended up worm food.”
“Worm Master!” spat Randy, banging a fist on the table. “That twisted fiend!”
Chuck sighed. “It’s a figure of speech. I meant they got themselves killed and we buried their dead bodies in the ground,” he explained. “Also, who the fuck is Worm Master?”
Randy shrugged. “I don’t know. I just assumed when you said… I mean, there’s probably a Worm Master, right? That sounds like a thing someone might be.”
“Says the Butterfly Kid,” Anna replied.
“Butterfly King,” Randy snarled.
“Right. Is that, like, a purely ceremonial title, or do you have royal duties you have to fulfill?” probed Anna. “Asking for a friend.”
She looked at Chuck. “Also, any chance that this place has a mini-bar? This hangover is really starting to kick my ass, and I’d like to head it off if, if that’s OK with everyone?”
“Guys. Please,” said Sam. “I’m trying to listen here.”
“You ass-kissing son of a bitch,” Randy growled.
Sam shot him a look of annoyance but said nothing.
“So, when the chips are down and the world’s all out of heroes, who do we turn to?” Chuck asked.
“Villains!” guessed Randy.
“No, Randy. That would be insanity. We want to stop the villains. That’s literally the whole point of the conversation we’re having right now,” said Chuck. “No, we turn to the sidekicks. You guys.”
Randy let out a long, protracted gasp of excitement as he got to his feet. “At last, the apprentice has become the master!” he growled. “Finally! I’ve been waiting for this moment my whole life!”
Anna puffed out her cheeks. She also stood, then jabbed a thumb in the direction of the door. “I think I’ll take my chances outside. Which way’s civilization? I’m guessing south?”
“I’m with her,” Sam said. Everyone else was on their feet, so he felt like he probably should be, too. “We’re not heroes. We’re not anything.”
“Speak for yourself,” Randy hissed. “Butterfly King is someone—he’s Butterfly King!”
“Great, now he’s talking about himself in third person,” said Anna. “That’s de
finitely my cue to leave.”
Chuck’s broad forehead pulled into a scowl of annoyance. “Did you listen to anything I said? Did you see that footage?”
“We saw it,” said Sam. “And we—I mean, I can’t speak for both of us—but I appreciate you thinking of us. That’s a vote of confidence I really needed right now.” He shook his head and smiled ruefully. “But I can’t help you.”
Chuck exhaled slowly through his nose, deliberately ignoring the hand Sam had held out for him to shake. “You used to stand for something, kid.”
“We were a fad,” Sam said. “We were a gimmick designed to sell more comics and merchandise, that’s all.”
“Bullshit,” Randy spat. “We were an integral part of the whole hero industry. Our mentors trusted us with their very lives!”
“We were a sales tool,” Sam told him. “I mean, the world’s greatest heroes all taking orphans into their care and training them to fight criminals? Back then, that was PR gold.”
“Nowadays, they’d be looking at a custodial sentence for reckless endangerment of a minor,” said Anna. “And rightly so, I might add.”
Chuck blocked the door, although they had made no serious move toward it yet. “So, what? The world can just go to Hell, is that what you’re saying? You’ll just stand aside and let an army of supervillains do what they want? Take what they want? Hurt who they want? You’d be happy with that, would you?”
“No, of course we wouldn’t be happy,” Sam protested. “But there’s a big difference between being unhappy about something and being able to do something about it! What about the police? The military? Call those guys.”
“Pah!” spat Randy. “How can some poor hick cop hope to stop someone like Worm Master?”
Chuck sighed. “There is no Worm Master, Randy. Let it go.”
“I meant metaphorically. I was using him as an example, that’s all. I didn’t mean they’d be standing up against an actual Worm Master,” Randy clarified. His eyes narrowed into angry slits as his voice became a rasping whisper. “That son of a bitch is mine.”
“I hate to say it, but Randy’s right,” Chuck said. “Cops and the military aren’t trained to take on superpowered criminals. You three are.”
The Sidekicks Initiative Page 5