by Kevin Rau
We landed at a chaotic scene. Dozens of people milled around talking with one another. Psycom stood out in his costume, talking with some officials. A fireman pointed at the two of us.
We approached them, looking over the scene as we walked. The locomotive still touched the tracks, but half of it sat at an angle on the ground. The back wheels had sunk into the earth. The train cars zig zagged behind it, only a few were still on the tracks. The entire train assembly had perhaps twenty cars. A few were on their sides or at an angle.
A pile of dirt and grass erupted upwards in front of us, and a towering figure made purely of dirt and rock stood before us. It had a rough head shape, and arms, but the lower body was merely a large cone or mound of earth. It shouted in a gravelly voice, “Muckman is here!”
We walked around him. It ... he ... looked at us and yelled, “I is Muckman!”
Rael and I looked at each other. I shrugged and called out, “Greetings, Muckman! I'm Spartan, this is Black Tiger.”
He yelled again, “I is Muckman!”
“You, ah, mentioned that.”
“Muckman help here!”
Well, he sounds enthusiastic.
Psycom and the others walked over to us. “Hey guys, I'm Psycom.”
Rael nodded at him. “Spartan, Black Tiger.”
Psycom said, “I can't lift a train car, but I could lift some of the cargo inside, or help stabilize to minimize damage.”
Rael said, “I could help with that part as well. Spartan's the strong one.”
Psycom said loudly, “Hey Muckman! We need your help!”
“Muckman is here!”
“Yes, yes, we know that, you rockhead. You can make dirt hard, right? Strong ground?”
“Muckman makes dirt strong!”
Okay, I'm beginning to think Muckman is missing a digit of I.Q. or something.
The officials with Psycom introduced themselves. There was a train expert, someone from the train company, a police lieutenant, and an FBI agent.
I asked, “So ... anyone know how much the locomotive weighs?”
The train expert said, “This one weighs about 750,000 pounds.”
Rael coughed. “Holy shit.”
I said, “Sooo, I guess I find out how strong I am now, right?”
They all stared at me. Psycom said, “You figure you can lift it solo? We'd planned on waiting for three or so bricks to show up.”
I said, “There's only one way to find out, right guys? If I fail, we wait for others to work with.”
The police lieutenant said, “Or you get a hernia.”
I said, “Psycom, you were thinking to have Muckman….”
Muckman yelled, “Muckman is here!”
I continued, “have him make the dirt hard enough for me to stand on while moving it?”
“Exactly.”
Rael looked at Muckman and shook his head. “Wow. Is he for real?”
“Let's try this.” We all walked over to the locomotive. The tracks by it were fine; it had passed the damaged area.
Psycom yelled, “Muckman! Make the ground hard right here. Hard dirt! Strong dirt!”
“Muckman makes hard dirt!” He surged over to the area, not really walking, but rather flowing as he traversed the distance.
We watched him move over there, unsure if he was really doing anything. We all looked at each other, shrugged, and the train expert helped pick out the best spot to lift from. He said, “You really don't have to lift the entire locomotive. The front wheels are on the tracks. If you are careful about that, you could just shift the back over to the tracks.”
I said, “Excellent. Sounds easy enough. Just like deadlifts. Kind of.” I clapped my hands together, a small boom sounded and air blew rapidly from them. I shrugged, “Sorry guys.”
I grabbed where the expert pointed out and worked out solid footing to lift from my legs as much as possible. It didn't want to budge. I stepped back and drew in a few deep breaths. I stepped up and grabbed the heavy bar again. I imagined this to be a weight competition, and threw my entire body into the lift. It didn’t move. No! I am so not done yet. I gripped the bar tighter, my mouth in a snarl. I stared at the bar, feeling anger building in me. I flexed my entire body and tried to lift again. I growled and threw my back into it. Adrenaline rushed through me, and energy erupted through my body. I could see shadows, my face was glowing yellowish. The energy flowing through me felt like I’d been hit with a raw injection of adrenaline. The train lifted off the ground. I screamed, “Yeah!” Every time I breathed, some kind of energy came out of my nose and mouth.
I heard one of the men say, “Holy shit, that's impressive.”
The ground held firm; Muckman must have done something or I’d have sunk into the dirt.
I slowly walked forward and sideways toward the tracks. The energy pouring through my body seeped through the costume, causing a nimbus of energy and light around me.
Muckman yelled, “Muckman help yellow guy, go yellow guy!” He then went back to mumbling something; it always included his own name. He sounded like a comedian mocking someone less fortunate. I kept hearing snippets of “Muckman … muck … muck … Muckman!”
I finally set the locomotive on the tracks with a loud clanking noise. I couldn't help but flex from the feeling of power and strength. Clapping erupted from the area. I stopped flexing. I'd forgotten about the others standing around in the area.
Rael looked up at me. “Dude, your glasses are backlit with that energy you’re putting out. Very cool looking.”
Psycom said, “Wow, nice work. I don't recall seeing a brick glow like that before, though plenty of blasters do it.”
I roared, “Yeah, baby! Let’s get the next one on the tracks.”
Psycom yelled, “Muckman! We need you back here now.”
“Muck … muck … Muckman is here!”
We walked back to the first rail car. After Rael and Psycom entered it, to help stabilize the freight. I grabbed where the train expert pointed next. It was much lighter than the locomotive. I put my back into lifting it and my strange energy flowed over the car. The entire thing lifted off the ground; all the weight was somehow shifted to where I held it.
From inside the car Rael yelled, “Holy crap, what are you doing?” I walked over to the tracks and carefully set the wheels on it. My body felt so juiced, I could have thrown the car rather than set it down.
The remaining rail cars went smoothly, each of them being only a fraction of the weight of the locomotive. Over and over, my energy caused yellow energy to cascade around the car to my hands, and I outright carried each one to the tracks. Reddish light bathed the area in front of me as whatever light my eyes generated passed through the red glasses.
Muckman, with some prodding, kept the ground hard for me. Psycom and Rael helped shift them and stabilize freight while I moved the rail cars. Psycom righted as much freight as possible that toppled in the cars both during the crash and moving of the cars. His telekinesis worked wonders regardless of the shape or size of freight.
Within an hour, we had the train back on the tracks, and repair engineers were partially finished with replacing the damaged section of track. These emergency repair crews were fast. They had called in a specialty repair super as well, she appeared to have the ability to reshape objects.
The adrenaline-like energy continued to rage through my system. I dropped to one knee and worked at calming down. The energy had kept me in a hyped up state, or vice versa, I wasn’t sure which. I felt the adrenaline calming, and the ground near me stopped glowing. My stomach growled as I realized I was hungry.
Someone walked up in front of me; it was the official from the train company. He leaned over slightly and put his hand on my shoulder. “Thank you, Spartan. You helped prevent a lot of delays and costs.”
I nodded to him. “Glad to help, sir.”
Agent Carson from H.E.R.O. approached and obtained the officia
l story of who did what. He mentioned that he'd entered us into the system during a break. He anticipated that we'd be busy again prior to Monday.
I asked, “Is there any information yet on the mutants that attacked the hospital? There are still all of the kidnap victims that we need to recover.”
Agent Carson replied, “Not much. They kidnapped mutants and killed the new supers that looked normal. They came in through the windows, so security cameras didn’t even get a good shot at them. As for the few mutants in lockup, those that are willing or able to speak are mainly doing it just to curse us. Others are under sedation due to their danger level. They grabbed some of their own before they fled, so we don’t have many.”
I said, “Let us help with the investigation. Our partner, Psystar, might be able to pull some information out of the mutants in lockup. Help us get in to interrogate them.”
Agent Carson nodded, “Yeah, she’s a telepath. That could work. All right, meet me at 9 P.M. at the county jail. Since I’ve got you in the H.E.R.O. system now we shouldn’t have problems.”
Rael said, “Awesome, we might be able to save some of these people after all.”
Agent Carson stared at him. “If they took the new mutants off sedation, and put them in a room with a normal person…. I fear that a good chunk of them may be lost to us already. Very few supers that have the extreme mutations, and who have attacked a human out of hunger emotionally or mentally survive that experience. It does something to them. It’s why so few supers that we call ‘mutants’ are part of normal society. We’re also getting reports of people being kidnapped by mutants….”
Rael said, “All the more reason to hurry on this then.”
Agent Carson nodded. “Good point. I’ll push it through and meet you at the county jail.” He turned and walked off without shaking our hands right when I was about to step forward to do it. I shook my head. People just aren’t polite, or are they afraid we’ll crush them or claw them?
We spent another fifteen minutes talking with the various officials and shaking hands. Hunger pangs struck repeatedly. That energy must take something out of me that I need to eat for. News crews that arrived while we still moved the cars were interviewing people.
A few of the officials spoke to various news stations. One woman reporter and her camera man made their way to us and introduced themselves.
The woman, a pretty brunette with long hair said, “News 5 reporting on scene with Taresa Budde. We're at the rail disaster scene as crews prepare to wrap up and head home. Who are you gentleman?”
I said, “I'm Spartan.”
Rael said, “I'm Black Tiger.”
She said, “We've not seen you at crime scenes before, are you new heroes, or have you recently moved to Metrocity?”
I said, “We're new heroes.”
She said, “Spartan, did you put the locomotive back on the tracks by yourself?”
He said, “No, ma'am. Muckman hardened the ground to provide a solid footing. Besides that, we may have shown up to move the train back onto the tracks, but these men were here well before us assessing the situation and working on it.”
Taresa said, “So, you are claiming you didn't do much?”
I said, “Exactly. We showed up, lift some things, and leave. It seems to me that we have the easy job.”
She said, “You do realize that if you, Black Tiger, Psycom, and Muckman weren't here to re-rail the train that some massive equipment would have had to be brought here to do it? It would have cost tens of thousands of dollars at the least for the special equipment and all the manpower. Add to that the damage to the surroundings that the equipment would have caused, the delays, and the inability to use the tracks would have cost the train company and possibly the public thousands more?”
I looked thoughtful, “No, I can't say as I'd looked at it that way.”
She said, “I notice that the two of you tend to stick together, are you a team?”
I said, “We are, along with a third who isn't here right now.”
I would have liked to ham it up for a while, but I wanted to get back to Stephanie. “Excuse us, Ms. Budde, but we do have other obligations to attend to.”
Taresa said, “Thank you for speaking with me, Spartan and Black Tiger.”
I stepped forward to shake her hand. She obviously wasn't used to that. Rael followed my lead or it would have looked odd. Then I grabbed him and we leapt off. It took a few minutes longer on the way back to the hospital. I didn't want to damage anything on the way.
Chapter 31 – Mental Fatigue
Rael's Perspective