“Or if he has the Omega weapon,” Seer interjected.
“Unless he has the Omega weapon,” Mechano agreed. He sounded irritated at being interrupted. “I was getting to that.”
“What in the world is an ‘Omega weapon’?” I demanded. Oh goody, more surprises. My mind was already awhirl as it was.
“Legend has it that the first host of the Omega spirit infused part of the spirit into a weapon that can help each new Omega host fulfill his mission of protecting mankind,” Mechano said. “I have no idea if the legend is true. Nonetheless, the weapon is real enough. It takes different forms depending on the Omega host who wields it. In King Arthur’s case, it was Excalibur; with Hercules, it was the impenetrable lion pelt he draped around his shoulders; with Rama it was his bow; and with Beowulf it was his sword Nægling. Omega Man wore it as the clasp with the omega symbol on it that fastened his cape around his neck. With Avatar, it was his cape itself. The Omega weapon augments the Metahuman power of its wielder. Any Meta can use the weapon, but it is particularly potent when it is coupled with the Omega-level power of the Omega host. To go back to my bodybuilding analogy, the Omega weapon is to a Meta what the most potent of steroids is to a bodybuilder.” Mechano paused. “Since you came here already knowing you are Omega, do you also know where the Omega weapon is?”
The eagerness in Mechano’s voice was obvious. Even if I did know where this so-called Omega weapon was, I sure as hell wouldn’t pass that knowledge on to the guy who had tried to kill me.
“I have no idea. Never even heard of it until now,” I said honestly.
Mechano sighed and turned his head slightly to Seer. “Alas, it appears that he is telling the truth.” Being spoken of in the third person when I was standing right in front of someone was my all-time favorite thing. “A shame. Think of what we could accomplish with access to the Omega weapon.”
“Obviously Avatar hid it somewhere,” Seer said to him. “The cape we buried him in was just an ordinary cape and not the weapon. Now that we have the boy, we’ll redouble our efforts to locate it. If the weapon did not somehow nullify my precognition, we would have found it already.” Ooops, I was wrong. Being spoken of in the third person was only my second favorite thing. Being referred to as “boy” was my favorite thing.
“Why would the Omega spirit pick me?” I asked, changing the subject before I lost both my temper and my chance to get answers to the questions I’ve had for so long.
“The criteria the Omega spirit has for picking a new host is unclear to us. If there is any rhyme or reason to whom it selects, we can’t decipher it.” Seer said. “It going from Omega Man to Avatar made sense. After all, even before becoming a vessel for the Omega spirit, Avatar was an experienced Hero. However, why it would go from someone like Avatar to an inexperienced farm boy is . . . puzzling.” I found it puzzling too, but it was still hard not to be insulted by her tone. “Especially at a time such as this,” she added gravely.
“A time such as this?” Maybe being ominous was another of Seer’s superpowers. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Seer’s eyes suddenly seemed to burn with a white-hot flame. “Darkness is coming. Good and evil will soon clash. The fate of the world itself is in the balance. Though much is hidden from me by forces not even I understand, I can foresee bits and pieces of the coming reckoning, like a gathering storm viewed through a dirty windowpane. Millennium and his mystic arts agree with my assessment. There have been signs of the coming conflict for decades, but they now indicate the battle is imminent. The carrier of the Omega spirit holds the key to either victory or defeat. For years we had assumed Avatar would be the carrier at the time of the great reckoning.” Her voice turned bitter. “Until his unexpected naivete got him killed. Now, you have the Omega spirit.” She sounded less than enthused about that fact. Truth be told, I wasn’t wild about it myself.
Why me? I thought. Though I knew I sounded like a broken record thinking that same question over and over, if there ever was a time for it to be asked, it was when you found out people expected you to save the world. How was I supposed to save the world? I couldn’t even save Hannah or find Antonio.
“That is why I turned the nanites against you and used that explosive during the Trials, Mr. Conley,” Mechano interjected. “Whoever has the Omega spirit is the key to the coming conflict. We had to make sure you were up to the task. You can understand our concern. When we first became aware of you, you were but a naive child, living in a backwater, getting an indifferent education at a third-rate school. Or so we thought at the time. It turns out that you are more resourceful and worthy of the Omega spirit than we had at first supposed.”
My mind raced. I connected the dots. “And if I did not survive your attacks, the Omega spirit would pass to someone else. Perhaps someone more worthy, at least in your eyes,” I added bitterly. I could hardly believe my ears. These ruthless people were the ones I had so admired ever since I was a kid? This was like finding out that not only was Santa not a jolly old elf, but he had a nasty habit of climbing down the chimney, stealing all your presents, molesting your mother, and poisoning the cookies and milk.
My face grew hot as I realized the truth. The Trials were not the first time someone had tried to kill me. “You’re the ones who hired Iceburn to kill me, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” Mechano admitted flatly. There was no trace of shame in his voice. “Decades ago I designed the Guild’s computer system. I left in it backdoors permitting me access without alerting the Guild’s computer personnel. Knowing the Omega spirit would seek another host after Avatar’s death, I used my backdoor access to have the Guild’s Metahuman Registry computers alert me when the Department of Metahuman Affairs registered a new Omega-level Meta. Since Omega-levels are so rare and since your powers manifested so soon after Avatar’s death, we knew you had to be the new Omega host when you registered with the DMA. After we examined your background, we were concerned that you were too young, inexperienced, and unsophisticated to be the vessel for the Omega spirit in this most critical of times. Through intermediaries, we dispatched Iceburn to kill you. We are gratified to see he was not successful.”
“That murderer killed my father.” It was all I could do to not launch myself at Mechano and tear him apart piece by piece. I was so mad I shook.
“An unfortunate incident,” Mechano said. “One we deeply regret. You were the target, not your father. He was collateral damage. As were the eleven people who died in the fire Iceburn set to lure you and the other trainees out of Hero Academy.”
“Collateral damage?” I repeated the words bitterly. To have Dad’s and all those others’ lives reduced to two words was a slap in the face. “And the bomb that girl slipped into my pocket in the bank in D.C.? That was you too, wasn’t it?”
“It was.”
“And you and Millennium went along with all this?” I demanded angrily of Seer.
“We did,” she said. The casualness with which these so-called Heroes admitted to murder and attempted murder was both shocking and dismaying.
I said, “What of the other Sentinels? Were they aboard the let’s-kill-Theo train too?”
“No,” Mechano said. “They know nothing of the steps we took regarding you. The other three are far too idealistic to have acquiesced had we told them. They are often woefully unwilling to do what needs to be done to accomplish the greater good. That is why they are not here tonight. Over a month ago Seer’s precognition alerted her you would be coming tonight. In addition to deactivating most of the mansion’s defenses and dismissing our security detail to let you come to us tonight unmolested, we made sure Tank, Ninja and Doppelganger were out of the country for the next few days so the three of us could speak to you privately. They are in Peru, finally putting an end to the Puma regime there now that we have a United Nations resolution giving us legal justification to intercede. You should be flattered. It took quite a bit of string-pulling at the UN to get the resolution passed in advance of your visit.”<
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I felt more and more like a pawn in an elaborate chess game the existence of which I had once been happily ignorant of.
“Tank, Ninja and Doppelganger are of little consequence, anyway,” Mechano added. “Now that Avatar is gone, the people in this room are the Sentinels.” Mechano’s arrogant voice turned disdainful. “The others are little more than our lackeys, whether they admit that to themselves or not. With me and my wealth and inventions, Millennium with his raw power, and Seer with her precognition that lets us prepare for threats on the horizon, we are the only members of this team who matter. With me as the first among equals, of course. Now that Avatar is dead, I am the driving force behind the Sentinels. You have heard of the Golden Rule? It is ‘He who has the gold makes the rules.’ Despite Millennium’s and Seer’s considerable abilities, my wealth is what keeps the Sentinels going. That means I am in charge, despite the fact Seer holds the title of chairwoman.” Seer shifted in her seat, visibly irritated by Mechano’s smugness. If Mechano noticed, he didn’t seem to care.
It was good to hear the rest of the Sentinels weren’t sociopathic killers. Three of them were bad enough.
“Why would you tell me all this stuff?” I asked. I was in shocked disbelief. Not only was I carrying around some ancient spirit, but three of the most admired Heroes in existence were killers. With a man as inventive as Edison, as rich as Croesus, and as diabolical as Vlad the Impaler as their ringleader. The blasé way they had recounted their misdeeds made me think this wasn’t the first time they had done things no Hero had any business doing.
“We want you to trust us, Mr. Conley,” Mechano said in answer to my question. Yeah, good luck with that, I thought. “We are being forthright with you about what we have done because we do not want there to be any secrets between us. We want you to join us. Here, as a member of the Sentinels. You would be the youngest Sentinel in history. Consider the honor of it. You will be famous, respected all around the world, at an age where you cannot even legally drink in some states. You will be paid handsomely, of course, more money than you have ever seen before. You could move out of that rathole you live in.
“We left Avatar’s spot on the roster vacant all these years in the hopes you would one day prove your worthiness to fill it. The fact you survived the challenges we threw at you and made your way here shows that you are worthy. Worthy, but not yet ready for the crisis that is on the horizon. As Seer said, the greatest threat the world has ever known grows closer. The world needs you to be ready for it. And you need us to help you become ready. We can help you find the Omega weapon. We can help you reach your full potential. We can help you become the world’s champion. We can help you be the Hero you were meant to be. The Hero the world needs you to be.”
“Are you insane?” I couldn’t stop myself from yelling. “You killed my father. You tried to kill me. You’re just a bunch of murderous thugs! And now you want me to forget about all that and train under you? For what? Because of some save the world fairy tale you might have made up to trick me? Because of fame? Money? You want me to betray the memory of my father for thirty pieces of silver?”
Mechano’s clenched fist hit the table. The blow was so hard I felt the vibration of the impact through the floor. As one of the world’s richest men and a Sentinel, he likely wasn’t used to someone speaking to him in any way other than worshipfully.
“We did what we had to do,” Mechano exclaimed in a raised voice. “There are forces afoot in the world that would annihilate every man, woman and child if they had the means to do so. Chaos, Doctor Alchemy, and others you likely have not even heard of would set fire to the world just to watch it burn. The Sentinels stand against them. We will continue to do what it takes to safeguard the world and the people in it. Even if it means killing a thousand fathers. The lives of the many outweigh the lives of the few.”
Mechano stopped, perhaps composing himself. With his unmoving inhuman face, it was impossible to tell. I hated him at that moment more than I have hated anyone or anything.
Mechano continued in a more measured tone. “The world needs a champion, not a semi-literate scared boy afraid of his own shadow who had barely stepped foot off his family’s scraggly farm. Because of what we did, what we needed to do, you stand here, a licensed Hero. If we hadn’t taken the decisive actions we did, you would still be living in the boondocks, pulling up weeds and picking ticks out of your belly button.”
Despite his insulting tone, I had to admit he had me there. I never wanted to be a superhero, even after my powers manifested. If Iceburn killing Dad hadn’t provided the catalyst for me to pursue Heroic training, I likely would still be in South Carolina, as far from the world of Heroes and Rogues as imaginable, cowering from bullies and trying to figure out how to get girls to like me.
If it was true that the world faced some huge threat and that the host of the Omega spirit was the key to combating it, then either killing me to make way for a more likely world-saver or forcing me to step up and prove my capacity to be that world-saver had a certain ruthless, icy logic to it. Viewed through that prism, I could understand why the Sentinels had acted as they had.
On the other hand, the Sentinels had taken the same Hero’s Oath that I had. I was certain I’d remember if the words “feel free to murder in pursuit of the greater good” were in the Oath. I would never do what they had done. Isaac, Neha, the Old Man, Athena . . . no Hero I respected would. The bloodthirsty way the Trials had been conducted had made me suspect there was something rotten in the world of Heroes, and the callous behavior of these three Heroic paragons confirmed it. The Sentinels were so focused on the big picture that they seemed to have lost all sense of right and wrong. In pursuit of protecting mankind, they had lost sight of protecting individual men.
Mechano steepled his metal fingers in front of himself. It was an odd mannerism coming from a robot. “Allow me to sweeten the pot of joining us a little. Millennium is an Omega-level Meta like you, only in his case because he had the good fortune to be born with the right and exceedingly rare combination of genetics instead of because he is infused with the Omega spirit. Among his many other talents is the ability to time travel. If you cooperate with us in averting the coming threat, after it is all over he can take you back in time. You can save the life of your father.” His words confirmed my earlier suspicions—the Sentinels had led me through the mansion so I would be sure to see the stuffed saber-toothed tiger and the short-faced bear. They had been setting me up to believe time travel was possible.
“How do I know you’re not lying to me?” I asked, hopeful despite myself at the possibility of saving Dad’s life.
“Because we have been so forthcoming to you about what we have done to you and your family. Why would we suddenly start lying to you now? You can trust us.”
Hah! I trusted these murderers as much as I would a nest of rattlesnakes. Less actually, since rattlesnakes only struck when they were hunting or defending themselves. These three vipers used violence as a tool of manipulation. “How about we save my father first, and then the world second?” I suggested.
“No,” Mechano said firmly. “To be frank, the prospect of saving your father is a carrot to ensure your compliance with our wishes. Without it, you are likely to pretend to comply, gather evidence against us, and report us to the Guild at the earliest opportunity.”
“What’s to stop me from reporting you to the Guild right this instant?”
“You have no proof of the things we have told you today. I scanned you quite thoroughly when you came in. You are not concealing any recording devices. Iceburn, the blonde woman in the Washington bank, Brown Recluse—all were hired through a string of intermediaries and third parties. Even if they told the Guild everything they knew, the trail would never lead back to us. We have been Heroes at the highest levels for a long time. I can assure you we were quite careful to cover our tracks. In short, if you report what we have told you today to the Guild, it would be your word against ours. The word of a young m
an who just recently donned his cape versus the word of three of the preeminent Heroes in the world?” Mechano’s voice was amused.
“Put yourself in the shoes of the Guild’s investigation unit. Whom would you believe? The Guild will conclude that you’re defaming the good name of three respected Heroes and punish you instead. You might even lose your license over it. You certainly will if I anonymously provide evidence to the Guild that you cheated during the Trials. Yes, of course I know all about that. As I said before, Hacker is quite good, but not good enough to completely shield from me what she accomplished when she went rooting around in Overlord’s system. Not only would you lose your license, but Hacker and Myth would as well. They might even go to jail over it. Cheating to obtain a Hero’s license is a very serious matter and a crime. You would ruin their lives as well as your own.
“With that said, I cannot help but add that I admire how you handled that supposedly no-win situation to give both you and your friend a chance to get your licenses. It reminds me of something I might do.” I supposed he meant it as a compliment, but he couldn’t have insulted me more had he tried. I didn’t want to be like this metallic dirtbag in any way, shape, or form.
“What do you say, Mr. Conley?” Mechano asked. “Join us. Together, we will save the world. And then your father.”
“And if I refuse?”
“Regrettably, I have to admit that we cannot take no for an answer. The stakes are simply too high. Not only for the world, but for you and your friends. If you do not cooperate, I can assure you it will not go well for either you or them. Though we would prefer to deal with you as you are now a known quantity, we will deal with your successor host to the Omega spirit if we must.”
Omega Superhero Box Set Page 68