Alpha Prime brought the SUV down in a deserted, unkempt parking lot that had riotous weeds sprouting up through numerous cracks in its surface. Looking around, it became obvious almost at once that we were in a deserted area of town: boarded-up buildings, streets in a state of utter disrepair, huge swaths of vacant land littered with rubble where structures had been torn down.
All in all, it looked like a bombed-out war zone. Urban blight at its finest.
Alpha Prime actually held the vehicle aloft just a few inches from the parking lot surface, making me think that perhaps he felt actual contact with the ground here would soil his tires or something.
“Hey, Einstein,” he shouted from above me. “You want to turn the engine off?”
For a second I didn’t know what he was talking about, and then it struck me that, even though I hadn’t been driving, the SUV was still cranked up. I switched it into park and then turned the engine off. A moment later, my father set the vehicle gently on the ground before floating down beside my door.
I stepped out of the car, not even trying to hide my excitement. I didn’t even know what was going on here, but just getting to tag along on a real mission had my blood pumping.
“So,” I said, practically rubbing my hands in anticipation, “what are we doing here?”
“You see that highway over there?” Alpha Prime asked, pointing.
I looked in the direction indicated. About half a mile away, I could see what appeared to be a deserted stretch of highway, including an overpass, although the area – like much of the neighborhood we were in – was dimly lit. In fact, the primary source of light in closest proximity to us was the SUV’s automatic headlights, and even those winked off after a few seconds, as if afraid to draw attention in our current surroundings.
“I see it,” I said, telescoping my vision and switching over to the infrared at the same time. “I also see some construction equipment – a bulldozer, a backhoe and some others.”
“They’re working on the highway, extending a portion of it to this part of the city. The hope is that ease of transit – among other things – will make the area attractive again to businesses and residents.”
“Good luck with that,” I scoffed. “You’ll have better luck teaching a fish to ride a bike.”
Alpha Prime ignored my comment. “There was supposed to be a construction crew out here tonight working on the highway, but the police received an anonymous call saying there was a bomb on that overpass. They checked it out, confirmed there was a device, set up a perimeter, and then sent for me.”
“Perimeter?” I asked. I looked around and noticed about a half-dozen sets of flashing red-and-blue lights, all spaced equidistant from the overpass. (Thankfully, their sirens weren’t on.)
“Yes, a three-mile radius,” my father said, pointing out the squad cars. “That puts them a little farther out than us. I’m surprised you didn’t notice them before.”
I didn’t say anything. In truth, however, I had actually seen the flashing lights when my father was transporting the SUV here, but didn’t assign any special significance to them at the time. Since the mayor had recently threatened to fix the city’s budget problems by furloughing government employees (including cops and firemen), I had just assumed that they were all doing their part to raise revenue by issuing traffic tickets.
“If it’s just a bomb,” I finally said, “why do they need you? Why can’t the bomb squad take care of it?”
“Well, it was identified as a bomb by whoever initially called the police, and they think that’s what it is. But it doesn’t look like a conventional device, so no one knew what to do with it.”
“And that’s why they called you.”
“Correct.”
“Okay, so what do we do now?”
“Actually, ‘we’ don’t do anything. You’re going to wait in the car – where it’s safe – while I check things out.”
“But–”
“No ‘buts,’” he said adamantly. “Look, I know that you’ve got an awesome power set and that you’ve been holding your own against formidable supers for years now, but I’m only just getting a chance to be a parent to you. A father. That means I’m probably more protective than I need to be, but I can’t help it. Even with you being part of the Alpha League’s teen affiliate, it’s going to take time for me to adjust to the thought of you willingly putting yourself in harm’s way.”
My natural inclination was to continue protesting, but I could sense the sincerity of his emotions, which included a healthy dollop of anxiety with respect to me.
“Alright,” I said. “I’ll just hang out here and watch the show from the cheap seats.”
“Thank you,” he said in obvious relief. Then he flew towards the overpass while I climbed back into the SUV.
Of course, I wasn’t happy with this turn of events. Being in danger was almost the last thing anyone had to worry about with me – especially with my abilities. But it wasn’t worth getting into an argument about, particularly when we’d been getting along so well thus far. Besides, with my vision telescoped, it would be like I was in the middle of everything anyway.
I watched as Alpha Prime approached the highway. When he got close, he went from flying horizontally to a vertical position. Even then, however, his feet didn’t touch the ground, but that was normal for him. Rather than stride anywhere, my father had a tendency to float from place to place when he wasn’t in a rush – just another sign of his preeminence. More than one late-night talk show host had joked about his legs being stuck together, or atrophying from lack of use.
Cape rippling slightly in the nighttime breeze, Alpha Prime drifted beneath the overpass. Head up, he scanned the underside of the roadway, apparently looking for the bomb. Presumably he found it, because after a few seconds he stopped gliding parallel to the ground and floated up, hand reaching for something. Unfortunately, whatever it was he was trying to grab, he never got a chance to touch it, because all of a sudden – with a thunderous roar – the overpass collapsed on top of him.
My first thought was that he had inadvertently set off the bomb. However, although it was indeed loud (a normal person in close proximity would have certainly had their eardrums shattered), it hadn’t sounded quite like an explosion. Rather than the short, dull flat sound I would have expected based on my own experience, this was more like a giant hammer striking an equally gigantic nail, leaving a sharp pinging sound reverberating through the atmosphere.
Beyond that, though, it bore just about all the earmarks of a traditional bomb. A monstrous cloud of dust billowed out from where the overpass had been, enveloping everything within five hundred feet. The ground shook maddeningly for a moment, like Mother Earth was a wild bronco trying to throw off a determined rider, and the SUV was actually tossed two feet into the air before slamming back down with a massive jolt as debris rained down around it.
Two nearby buildings collapsed under the force of the tremors, and I could only imagine their owners thinking that Christmas had come early this year with what they’d save in demolition costs. A third building, a deserted tenement with excessive fire damage, began leaning dangerously to the side with an ominous creak of metal and stone, but somehow remained standing, looking like the Tower of Pisa’s crackhead brother.
Still in the SUV, I scanned the area where the device had gone off, desperate for any sign of my father, my infrared vision allowing me to see through the dust. The overpass was gone, smashed down like a gargantuan foot stomping a bug. Shattered chunks of concrete in all shapes and sizes lay around, many with jagged pieces of rebar sticking out of them
Although Alpha Prime was considered to be invulnerable and had been to known to survive much worse than this, I still couldn’t help feeling apprehensive for his well-being. I was just about to go into action when I saw some of the rubble on the ground shift, and a moment later my father stood up, concrete and debris rolling off him. Smiling in relief, I let out a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding.
Alpha Prime floated about a foot up into the air, then spun madly for a few seconds, like a ballerina doing a pirouette. I initially thought this was just to shake the debris from his costume, but his motion also had the effect of dissipating the dust cloud that had formed. In a few moments, it was gone, blown away by my father’s actions.
Alpha Prime looked around, seeming to assess the damage and taking stock of the situation. However, with the bomb having detonated, there really wasn’t much more for him to do. Needless to say, it was a rather anticlimactic end to this adventure, and I was saying as much to myself when I saw something out of the corner of my eye.
Behind my father’s back, the darkness seemed to shimmer and come alive with a soft, barely noticeable incandescence. It was an obscure, shapeless blob at first, big enough to wrap around a hippo and with edges that undulated almost rhythmically. I was so fascinated that it didn’t immediately register that what I was seeing might constitute a danger. That all changed when the blob suddenly coalesced into forms I recognized.
My father’s head jerked in my direction – evidence that he had heard me. Heeding my warning, he was in the process of turning around when something like a laser bolt struck him, sending him flying face-first into a circular pillar of concrete that supported the highway.
There were three of them, three figures that had appeared out of the shimmering darkness I had previously noted. They were all male, and dressed in dark bodysuits. With one look at their heavily-muscled frames, I knew that each of them had to have super strength. (Not to mention the fact that they were purposely engaging Alpha Prime in a fight – a bad move for anyone unable to lift a supertanker.)
I recognized one of them – a seven-foot brute with blond hair that had been buzz-cut military-style. Built like a block of granite and with a head that seemed too small for his body (and brains to match), he went by the name Imo. It was supposed to be short for “Immovable Object,” so one would think that he’d have chosen the name “Io,” but the last person who brought that to his attention won a free trip to the emergency room, along with shattered ribs and a broken jaw.
The second guy had an odd appearance. Although nearly as tall as my father, he was extremely rotund, almost round, in fact. His face and the other exposed areas of his skin had grooves, ribs, and dimples like a tire – as if he’d been run over by a tractor-trailer, with the wheels leaving impressions on his skin. He wasn’t anyone I’d ever run across before (no pun intended), but I knew him by reputation. He went by the name Retread Fred, and as a result of a hi-tech lab accident, his body was formed of some kind of futuristic, vulcanized rubber and steel. His skin was purportedly impenetrable.
The last member of the landing party was someone I hadn’t seen before and couldn’t pin a name to. He was about my height, but so heavily muscled you would have thought he started lifting weights in the womb. He also had long, dark hair that came to the middle of his back, so luxurious that most women would have envied it.
Each of the three carried the same type of weapon: a two-foot length of metal with a heavy, rounded ended – like a mace or a morningstar, except that the end of their weapons glowed with a red light. They also radiated a certain menace that I couldn’t help picking up on, but you didn’t need any special powers to figure out that these guys were dangerous.
The three fanned out, totally focused on Alpha Prime as he stepped back from the now-cracked pillar. I doubted that he was seriously injured. (There wasn’t much that could hurt the world’s greatest superhero.) He turned around to get a look at who had attacked him.
By now his three assailants had taken up triangular positions around Alpha Prime – Retread Fred in front, and the other two on either side. Retread Fred held up his mace and pointed it in my father’s direction; another short beam of light lanced out, striking Alpha Prime in the mid-section. Obviously, these weren’t ordinary weapons.
My father frowned slightly, but didn’t otherwise react. Retread Fred pointed his mace again, and this time, instead of just a short laser bolt, a continuous ray of light blasted out. Alpha Prime braced himself as the laser beam struck him. Like before, I didn’t think this was likely to hurt him, so I was surprised to see him grimace slightly in pain. Still, when I reached for him empathically, I didn’t get the sense that he was in any real danger so I stayed put.
While my father’s attention was focused on Retread Fred, Imo rushed in from the side. He didn’t have super speed, but was far faster than a normal human being. As he approached Alpha Prime, Imo shifted his mace into a two-handed grip above his shoulder, like a baseball player getting ready to knock one out of the park.
When he got close, Imo swung for the fences, with Alpha Prime’s face poised to connect with the glowing head of his weapon. The mace whistled through the air, swung with a speed, power, and ferocity that almost defied belief, its glowing head tracing an arc of ruby light through the air. Even as strong as he was, I couldn’t help but think that my father’s head would be taken off if the blow connected.
At the last second, his hand moving impossibly fast, Alpha Prime reached up and grabbed the head of the mace, halting its momentum less than an inch from his nose. Still frowning from the assault being waged upon him by Retread Fred, my father snapped his head in Imo’s direction. On his part, Imo didn’t just seem surprised that his attack had failed; he looked almost catatonic.
The red glow of Imo’s mace intensified, and wisps of smoke began rising up where Alpha Prime gripped it. However, if it was harming him to any degree, my father did a great job of masking it. Imo, seeming to come to his senses, tugged frantically at his weapon, trying to release it from Alpha Prime’s grip. It was almost comical, like watching a toddler engaging in a tug-of-war with an adult.
Unfortunately for Imo, Alpha Prime seemed to tire of the game after a few seconds. He yanked on the mace, jerking Imo off his feet. At the same time, the guy with the long mane of hair rushed into the fray.
As Imo flew towards him, Alpha Prime headbutted him, sending the big man soaring backwards. Surprisingly, Imo actually cleared the rubble from the collapse of the overpass before hitting the ground like a block of granite; he then skidded for another twenty feet, plowing up pavement along the way.
Without hesitating, my father casually flipped Imo’s mace – which he still held – in the air so that he now gripped it by the proper end. Ignoring whatever discomfort he felt from the laser beam that was still focused on him, he flung the weapon towards Retread Fred. It struck the tire-faced fiend square on the nose, snapping his head back slightly (and apparently breaking his concentration, since the ray of light that had been trained on my father winked out).
Retread Fred’s face seemed to collapse inward, folding under the force of the mace as it hit. Like a balloon being squeezed between someone’s hands, his cheeks and jaws spread out symmetrically to an almost impossible degree, as if under enormous pressure. In truth, seeing how his face seemed to expand after being hit, I half-expected his head to burst. To my great surprise, however, the mace’s forward progress appeared to get checked, and its assault on poor Fred’s visage ground to a halt. Moreover, Retread Fred’s face began to resume its natural (for him) shape and appearance, pushing the mace back out.
Almost immediately, I realized what had happened. What I had assumed was Retread Fred’s face getting mangled by the mace was actually his head absorbing the force of the weapon’s impact. It wasn’t exactly proof of the rumor that his body was impenetrable, but it was obvious that his rubberized frame could take a lot of punishment.
As I was reaching this conclusion, Fred’s features resumed their original positions of repose when his nose finally popped back out, sending the mace sailing through the air in a lazy arc. Retread Fred shook his head groggily for a second but looked none the worse for wear, the only evidence of what he’d just experienced being a few wobbly steps backwards that he took.
To th
e extent that my father felt any satisfaction in the way he’d handled Imo and Retread Fred, he had no opportunity to gloat. The longhaired guy was on him the next second, attacking from a direction that put his back to me and swinging his mace with the expertise of a medieval knight. Unlike Imo, however, his blow actually connected – a mighty swing to Alpha Prime’s abdomen that made my father double over. This was enough to make me sit up and take notice.
I’d seen dozens of clips of Alpha Prime being struck by metal – projectiles, clubs (much like the maces in our current encounter), etc. The result was invariably the same: the metal always proved to be the less durable material, with bullets bouncing away deformed, clubs bending, and so on. Thus, I had anticipated something similar here, but the mace that had hit Alpha Prime appeared undamaged. The fact that these weapons actually seemed capable of inflicting pain on my father meant that they were even more unusual than I had suspected.
The guy with the mane swung again, this time bringing the mace down from overhead while Alpha Prime was still bent over. The weapon struck my father between the shoulder blades, knocking him to his hands and knees. Before his longhaired attacker could swing again, Alpha Prime’s fist shot out like a cannon, striking the inside of his assailant’s right knee and wrenching it painfully to the side. His attacker went down to one knee, grunting in agony, as the leg collapsed.
Alpha Prime rose up and cocked his fist back, preparing to hit the longhaired man before he could recover. Before he could swing, however, his attacker’s head seemed to come alive, sprouting a dozen boneless limbs that squirmed and writhed madly, like an octopus touching the third rail of a subway station.
The man’s back was still to me, and it took me a second to realize that the wildly wriggling mass on his head was actually his hair, moving as if it were a living thing. And in front of the man, arm still drawn back to throw a punch, Alpha Prime stood as if frozen – like someone had turned him into a statue.
He was still in that position when, a moment later, Imo and Retread Fred, maces in hand, rushed in and started pummeling him with their weapons. While his comrades attacked my father, the third man slowly came to his feet, his gaze never seeming to waver from Alpha Prime’s face.
The Kid Sensation Series Box Set Page 42