by C. C. Ekeke
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
C.C. Ekeke is a California native by way of Georgia via Missouri, spending his childhood on a steady diet of sci-fi movies and television shows, as well as superhero comic books. It was in college studying for a degree in advertising that he stumbled across a desire to write books. You can find him occasionally navigating the globe like Waldo (minus the red-striped sweater) or on www.ccekeke.com.
Age of Heroes is Ekeke’s fifth full-length novel.
Rupert’s Speech
His study, dimly lit by a laptop’s glow, was as quiet as a tomb—save the hum of jet engines.
Rupert Champion reclined in his chair, wearing a grey Cambridge t-shirt and black pajama pants. He savored the silence, which had alluded him for days.
Small wonder there, Rupert frowned, with what happened in the States.
Sadness hung heavily over the entire Champion family on board their Goldeneye private jet. Traveling to San Miguel for a funeral would do that. Making the situation grimmer, Rupert was tasked with speaking at the service.
Not just any speech, he fretted, running his fingers through thick waves of auburn hair with silvery streaks. My speech is closing the services.
Rupert glared in contempt at his new archnemesis, the blank Word doc that he had opened up over two hours ago. He and his family, the Champions, had faced villains hell-bent on world domination and monsters of imaginable power. Rupert had cracked insolvable equations, thanks to his vast intellect and countless PhDs. Hell, Rupert could punch through solid steel walls with his plasma optic blasts.
Yet one funeral speech left him mortified beyond reason. Rupert couldn’t think of a single bloody word to write to make his speech stand out.
He could’ve really used his elder brother’s advice. But Saul Champion, aka Barricade, was staying home with the UK’s other major superhero team, the United, to keep their homeland safe.
Rupert typed a few commands into his laptop, and the document vanished, replaced by three screens from different rooms on the jet.
On the top left were his precious twin daughters, Megara and Amanda, also known as “Mega and Mercury.” Both were essentially clones of their mother, bronze-skinned: long and lazy black curls. The only resemblance to Rupert were their eyes, hooded and blue like the Aegean Sea. The twenty-year-olds sat against a wall in their room wearing matching black and red-polka-dotted pajamas. They looked to be in deep, spirited conversation, probably about some political issue. The twins took after Rupert in terms of brains. As long as Megara and Amanda had each other, he knew nothing could bother them. Rupert smiled.
In the middle screen was Lawrence, aka Spartan, his firstborn. He sat alone, a stocky figure with his mother’s black wavy hair yet Rupert’s average height and pale complexion, poring over the book Hard Road to Justice by Justice Jones. Lawrence had always needed Rupert and his wife the most amongst their children. It pleased Rupert immensely to see the resolute man he’d become.
On the lower right-hand screen was Connor, aka Sirocco, his youngest. The teenager sat cross-legged playing videogames in front of some giant flat-screen. Like his sisters, he thankfully inherited his mother’s height, standing at a lanky six-foot-two. But the sharp nose and deep-set blue eyes were all Rupert. The seventeen-year-old had barely said a word since the news of Titan’s death had broken.
Titan was his hero, Rupert mused.
He would talk to Connor later but didn’t know when.
The entrance to his study slid open with a hiss.
Rupert pressed a button to minimize the video feeds, then turned to face his gorgeous wife. Cassandra Champion was the powerhouse of the Champion family. Born in Greece and raised in Lancashire, mother of their children, and Rupert’s crime-fighting partner for over two decades.
In a simple tank top and pajama pants, the bronzed and statuesque woman codenamed Amazon resembled a warrior goddess. “Ay up, Rupe,” she greeted in a thick Lancashire accent.
“Evening, lovely,” Rupert replied, then grasped that it was evening in London now, and they were about five hours into their flight. “Wait, where are we passing over now?”
Cassandra drew closer, scratching the tumble of black curls spilling down her shoulder. “North Pole, I think.”
“Then good afternoon,” he amended with a grin.
She beamed back with a loving eye roll at his scientific preciseness, faint age lines forming around her mouth and almond-shaped eyes. In Rupert’s opinion, those only enhanced her beauty.
In his wife’s presence, he couldn’t help sometimes growing aware of his average height, his spare build, and run-of-the-mill features. Even after all these years together, he still couldn’t fathom how he’d gotten so lucky.
“How’s the speech going, luv?”
Rupert grimaced. “Nowhere,” he grunted.
“That bad, eh?” Cassandra leaned against his desk with a sympathetic look.
“Pretty much.” He pushed up from his seat and paced. This had been a very thickheaded idea for someone who could usually make thickheaded ideas work in his favor. But those ideas were usually in the realm of superheroics or science. “Why’d they ask me to write this?” Rupert jabbed an accusing finger at his computer screen.
Cassandra folded her arms and watched him. “Because you’re kind of an elder statesman amongst superheroes, and he was your friend,” she said. Over the years, her serenity and sound advice for him was more of her superpower than her actual super-strength.
“Titan and I weren’t close friends. In fact, I don’t think he had any close friends.”
“December,” Cassandra pointed out immediately.
Rupert laughed. “Fair enough. I’d have called bullocks if you’d said Sentinel.” Sentinel’s deification of Titan was a subject of open ridicule in the superhero world. This adoration always trumped any affection that Sentinel had for his gorgeous fiancée, Seraph.
Cassandra’s next suggestion brought him out of his perverse musings. “Lady Liberty.”
“Those two were shagging on and off for years,” Rupert countered, “and she’s already giving a speech at the beginning.”
“Geist?”
Rupert recoiled. Any mention of San Miguel’s infamous vigilante had that effect on him. “Fine, another one,” he grudgingly admitted, “but do you want that nutter speaking in public?”
Cassandra frowned. “Good point. Justice Jones?”
“Yes, they were close,” Rupert acknowledged with a sigh. “It’s just…he’s the greatest superhero of our time. How do I cover all his accomplishments and attributes while keeping my speech under a week’s length?”
“Then don’t make it a week long,” Cassandra answered, spacing out each word as if addressing a lackwit.
Rupert scowled. “Clearly, luv.”
Cassandra took his face in her hands, looking him in the eyes with a loving and searching expression. “What did you admire the most about Titan? The man behind the hero?”
Rupert could easily answer that. “Well—”
“Don’t tell me, genius!” she chided. “Write it down.” Cassandra kissed his mouth.
After a few lingering, blissful moments, she pulled back, flushed and smiling. Rupert’s own cheeks burned. With a renewed purpose, he turned back to his desk to write his funeral speech for Titan.
Bloody hell. The realization sucker-punched him in the gut.
Titan was dead, three words Rupert Champion never thought he’d hear.
“Still can’t believe he’s gone,” he murmured. “Thought Titan would outlive us all.”
Cassandra reached out, wrapping him in a firm embrace. “Me too Rupe.”
After his wife left, Rupert wrote three-quarters of a speech extoling Titan’s superheroics upon their first meeting back in 1998. The battle they’d fought together against the Lethal Alliance and the Super Soviets had been grand. Thousands of lives were saved, and Titan had proved his mettle in Rupert’s eyes that day.
Reading the speech again, Ruper
t almost retched. Every other speaker at Titan’s funeral would have a different variation of the same thing—Titan was a great superhero.
“Utter crap,” he hissed and deleted it all. Now he was back to staring at a blank Word document.
The ringing of his plane’s SATCOM phone was a welcome distraction. He crossed the study in two strides to answer. Rupert hesitated when the Caller ID read as “Unknown,” but he clicked the speaker button to take it anyway. “Hello?”
“Champion,” the caller answered.
Rupert frowned, recognizing the brusque, almost snarling voice. “How did you get this number?” he demanded.
“Not important,” the voice continued rudely. “Let’s talk.”
Rupert could think of nothing he wanted to discuss with Geist. “About?” He began counting the seconds until this call ended.
“Titan’s killer,” Geist replied as if this was obvious.
Rupert stopped pacing. Of course, Geist’s idea of small talk involved serial killers. Time to shut this conversation down. “There’s nothing to discuss. Lord Borealis is Titan’s killer.” The less that Rupert thought about Titan’s greatest foe and murderer, the better. That man was lower than pond scum, especially after Titan helped him get an early release from prison. Rupert shivered with anger.
“Looks that way,” Geist answered. His tone sounded more suspicious than usual.
“What do you mean?”
“I never trusted Borealis,” Geist growled low in his throat, “but after his release from prison, Titan believed him reformed. Befriended him, even.” The vigilante paused, sucking in a long and weary breath. "Borealis seemed settled into his new life. Why strike now? Makes no sense.”
Rupert inhaled deeply before verbalizing what Geist had implied. “You think someone else killed Titan and framed Lord Borealis?”
“Yes. Keep up.” Geist’s snarling annoyance dominating the study. “What if someone used Borealis’s criminal history and made it look like he killed Titan? Mimicked his energy signature and all the hallmarks of his past crimes?”
Rupert put both hands on his head in disbelief. “Borealis was caught red-handed with Titan’s blood on one of his shirts. He killed Titan.” The facts were indisputable. Maybe this was Geist’s way of coping with Titan’s death. Either way, Rupert’s patience for this debate had thinned. “And you have the cheek to call me with this rubbish, as I’m heading to Titan’s funeral with my family!”
“All the more reason I need your help now,” Geist demanded, unfazed by Rupert’s indignation. “Titan’s death looked sloppy and obvious. Borealis isn’t subtle…but never sloppy.”
“Maybe the case seems so sloppy and obvious because Lord Borealis is GUILTY.” Rupert didn’t bother keeping his cool. Why am I sparring with some street-level hoodlum who murders felons and calls it justice? “Maybe he played a long con until Titan lowered his guard,” he continued. “Or maybe he got drunk, reminisced over the good old days of villainy, and wanted to go out in a blaze of glory.”
“Or Borealis was framed,” Geist threw back. The undercurrent of anger in his threatening growl might have chilled Rupert to the bone if he hadn’t been so piqued. “I hate Borealis as much as you. But Titan had other enemies who wanted him dead—”
“NO,” Rupert shouted, chopping down both hands to cut off this insanity. “I will not entertain your demented conspiracy theories anymore. Goodbye, Geist.” Not waiting for a reply, Rupert slammed his hand on the room’s comm console, ending the call.
He slumped heavily into his seat, breathing hard. That was ill done, he realized after regaining some calm. Still, everything about Geist—his brutal methods, his nihilism, his absurd rasping voice, his body count—repulsed Rupert.
He rubbed at his face. To his surprise, his fingers came away wet with tears. “Why did Titan let that crazed Neanderthal operate so freely?” he asked. Rupert supposed it was the same reason why Titan befriended a supposedly reformed Lord Borealis despite his past crimes. Titan had always been generous, sometimes to a fault.
That big heart got him killed. Sharp grief spasmed through Rupert. Tears were leaking down his cheeks…
And in the depths of that dark well, a notion hit him. He sat bolt upright. “Are you bloody kidding me?” Whenever a promising idea struck him, it usually smashed any other priorities to pieces until he’d seen it through.
This time, Rupert’s spark of inspiration devoured his grief. But I’ll need some help, he realized, wiping away his tears and springing from his seat.
A few minutes later, he stood outside Connor’s door. “Con, its Dad. Can I come in?” he had to shout over whatever video game violence was blaring behind that door.
Silence followed soon after, proceeded by a muted huff of frustration before the youngest Champion spoke. “Yeah, sure.”
Rupert pushed the door open to find his son exactly where he’d been on the video feed, parked cross-legged on his bed in front of the flat-screen. Whatever apocalyptic shooter game he’d been playing was paused.
Connor’s bedroom was bedecked with posters that included the Extreme Teens, Missy Magnificent before her fall from grace, and that popstar, L.U.N.A.
Rupert didn’t miss the three Titan posters. Each displayed the late hero with determined expressions, either rocketing into the heavens or with hands on hips.
Connor’s dark eyes were like bottomless blue pits, watching without expression as his father entered.
He’s grown into a handsome, well-built lad, Rupert marveled. Still, Connor would always be his baby. Sometimes Rupert wished he had telepathy to know what his son was thinking, be a more attuned parent.
“How are you, lad?” Rupert waved awkwardly.
Connor gave a shrug of typical teenage indifference. “Okay, I guess.”
“Had a question.” Rupert almost asked the boy how he was dealing with Titan’s passing but knew he would get more shrugging indifference. Connor was like his mother, never wanting to appear too weak. So Rupert tried a different approach, to get into his son’s head and gather more data for his spark of inspiration.
“Remember that time we were in the States about five years ago,” he sat beside his son, “when Titan asked to borrow the jet?”
Connor straightened and gave his father a wary look. “Yeah. He needed to deliver a bunch of gifts.” He scrunched his forehead in thought. “Forgot where.”
The answer popped into Rupert’s head. “That juvenile detention center in Texas.” He pointed with excited emphasis.
Father and son were soon recounting the story to each other in a spirted exchange, their smiles coming easily as the memories became clear as day. That had been after Connor officially joined the Champions. They'd been in Boston as part of an America tour promoting his addition in mid-summer when Rupert received Titan’s call.
“Can I ask you a favor?” Titan had asked after they’d exchanged greetings and chitchat.
“Of course, man,” Rupert had agreed, baffled by what the Almighty Titan could ever need from him.
Titan laughed his big, booming laugh. “I need your jet for a few hours tomorrow.”
The request had been odd, given how Titan could fly at supersonic speeds, but Rupert agreed.
Titan had come to them in early morning, somehow slipping past the mob of paparazzi outside their hotel in full costume. Just like past meetings, he had been as towering physically as he was in personality. Cassandra had been charmed as usual, Connor had found his new hero, and the twins were in love. Then two trucks rumbled up to their hotel’s loading docks, filled with iPads, laptops, and other consumer electronics.
“I can’t really fly all those over myself.” Titan had shrugged those massive shoulders.
After the plane had been loaded up, there was only really room for Rupert, Connor, and Titan, which had been okay. Cassandra and the twins went off for a spa day on Newbury Street, and Lawrence wanted to explore some place in Cape Cod called Provincetown.
The trip was quick, ov
er to some juvenile detention in Jasper, some hot-as-balls city in Texas. Rupert would never forget what happened next.
Hundreds of angry and hardened delinquents lit up like Christmas trees the moment that Titan entered the auditorium. No cameras or press were allowed, though Connor had taken many pictures of Titan with whoever asked.
Connor had been so awestruck that day.
Of course, Titan made many public appearances and gave his time to countless charities.
But Rupert had never forgotten watching Titan up close with these wayward youths. He was a god to them, yet never did the man seem bothered speaking with any adolescent who approached. The electronics he’d given the teens were loaded with educational software catered to each juvenile’s interests.
“This place, and this time in your lives isn’t the end,” Titan had told the near 300 youngsters in iron tones. “All I can do is offer some cool toys and an olive branch. If you want a future beyond these walls, then fight for it.”
Everyone was on their feet applauding after he’d finished, even Rupert and Connor. It was another example of Titan’s generosity and him using his fame to help those less fortunate.
By the time Rupert and Connor had recounted every detail they could remember from that day, Rupert found himself near tears again. Connor’s eyes were glistening as well, but the boy shrugged it off with his usual teenage bravado.
“Thank you, Con.” He leaned over and kissed his son’s forehead. “Get some rest.”
Rupert then powerwalked down the narrow airplane hallways back to his study, almost colliding with his eldest son.
“Dad, wha—?” Lawrence blurted out, dodging his father’s charge.
“Sorry!” he called out. “Inspiration’s calling!”
Once Rupert locked the door to his study, he parked himself in front of his laptop.
“I know what to say.” He began writing his speech anew.
Less than an hour later, Rupert’s speech was completed to his satisfaction.