New Age of Heroes 1: The League of Protectors - Dawn of a New Age (10 page)

“That freak a
friend of yours?” Agent Mallory asked sarcastically.

“His name is
Christopher Hagan,” Jason said.

“He was one
of the first Post Humans I battled and turned over to G.U.A.R.D. He
was foolish enough to try and break into Shaw Enterprises while I was
there.”

Jason stepped
forward to confront Christopher Hagan.

“You remember
me?” Christopher shouted.

“How could I
forget?” Jason replied.

“Good!”
Christopher smiled and then charged forward.

Jason showed no
fear as Christopher charged towards him. In fact, Jason stood
perfectly still awaiting Christopher’s attack.

Agent Mallory had
his sights locked on Christopher. For his own personal well being,
Agent Mallory wanted nothing more than to see Jason take Christopher
Hagan out. Agent Mallory didn’t like the idea of being left
alone with the prisoners one bit. He stood there praying that Jason
would be able to defeat Christopher.

Christopher got
within striking distance and hurled a heavy punch towards Jason’s
face. Jason stood still and caught Christopher’s fist with
relative ease. He twisted Christopher’s arm, similar to how he
did Agent Mallory's. Jason’s strength and forcefulness brought
Christopher to his knees. He gave the troubled prisoner an elbow to
the face and watched as Christopher fell flat to the ground.

“Seriously?
Is that all you got?” Erik called out, doing his best to
antagonize Christopher and get him angrier. “I mean seriously,
I go through all this trouble to get you guys out of here and you let
this traitor take you down?”

Christopher stood
up, turned and faced Erik. “You're next boy!” Christopher
shouted.

Erik did not seem
the least bit concerned. Jason couldn't tell if it was just sheer
arrogance or if the young man actually had reason to be so confident
in himself. Christopher turned his attention back to Jason and threw
another strong punch at him. This time Jason allowed the punch to
make contact. The heavy handed Christopher’s punch made contact
with Jason’s ribs, but did very little damage. Jason’s
dense body structure strongly decreased the possibilities of him
getting hurt.

Frustrated,
Christopher took a wild an undisciplined approach in his conquest to
defeating Jason. This was a strategy that had very little effect. In
the corner of Jason’s eyes he saw the fear on Agent Mallory’s
face. Jason reminded himself that there were many other prisoners
left to deal with and he would need to conserve all the energy he
had.

Jason took the
offensive and nailed Christopher with a strong punch to the ribs.
Christopher left himself wide open for Jason to easily counter his
attacks. He was big and strong but lacked discipline and skill.

Jason was big and
strong but had both supreme discipline and skill. Although the two
men had muscular builds, the match was very lopsided.

Jason had
Christopher wheeling. Jason shifted his position and placed himself
in a boxing stance. He delivered a series of closed fist punches to
the face. Each punch felt like Christopher was being hit by heavy
dumbbells. Blood poured from Christopher’s face with each
crushing blow. Erik shook his head disgustedly as he watched Jason
work Christopher over with ease. Erik thought for certain that the
incarcerated prisoner would've posed more of a challenger, but Jason
was instead living up to his reputation.

Luckily for Erik,
seeing Jason beating wasn't vital to his plans. This was more so
entertainment. A distraction until the next part of his plan was
ready to be executed. Jason delivered one final punch that ended the
fight. Actually it was a combo punch. He hit Christopher with a
closed fist straight arm jab to the face and followed it with an
elbow punch that rendered Christopher unconscious. The prisoners
looked down at the unconscious man and began to have second thoughts
of whether challenging Jason was a good idea or not.

“Get the
machine back online now!” Agent Hardine shouted to Garrett and
the other technicians. He knew by now that the inhibitor fields had
fail and that the prisoners would be regaining their abilities at any
time now.

Garrett and the
others furiously pressed on the keys trying to get the system back up
and running. He was sweating heavily as the pressure was building.

“What is it?
What’s the problem?” Agent Hardine asked.

Garrett looked at
the technicians and then at the computer with confusion. “I
can’t, I can’t get the system online. My commands are
being overwritten and ignored.”

Agent Hardine gave
him a suspicious look. The other technicians confirmed that they too
couldn’t get the systems back online. “I thought you had
the ability to communicate and control electronics?”

Garrett stared at
the screen.

“Well?”
Agent Hardine said.

“I do, but
something else is influencing the system. Something else is
controlling them, preventing me from talking to it.”

Agent Hardine took
the safety off his gun and headed for the door.

“Wait! Where
are you going?” Garrett shouted.

Agent Hardine
turned back around. “I don’t have time to wait for you to
get the system back online. Those cells are going to open and some
pretty pissed off Post Humans are going to come out. I’ve got
to get down there and help out!” Agent Hardine left the room.

“What about
me?!” Garrett shouted.

“What about
you? You're the tech genius. You're the one that talks to
electronics. So figure something out and get this system back
online!”

The agent ran to
the elevator and pressed the button to activate the doors. He cursed
to himself remembering that the power was down and he would have to
manually make his way to the prison quarters.

Garrett checked his
cell phone for a signal. It didn’t come to a surprise to him
that he wasn’t able to get a signal. He turned his attention
back to the screen and cracked his knuckles. Someone or something was
engaging in a cyber war with him. This was his world and he refused
to let someone best him in his own field.

Several security
teams were already en route. Agent Hardine quickly assembled an
escort team to guard the technicians who were manually trying to
power back up the Inhibitor field.

It was his belief
that if they were unable to get it back online through means of
technology, then doing it manually was their next best option. The
escort team quickly took off to complete their task. Agent Hardine
and the rest of the security teams continued up the stairs towards
the prison quarters.

“There is no
way we’re going to be able to contain 214 prisoners if they’ve
got their abilities back!” one of the security guards said.

Agent Hardine
forgot these weren’t his men. These men weren’t out in
the field battling Post Humans. Sure, they had training, but they
hadn’t been out there in the field. They hadn’t
experienced battling a Post Human before he or she was under the
influence of the Inhibitor.

“We’ll
be fine. We’ve got bullets and inhibitor darts. Both of those
will work well.”Agent Hardine replied confidently.

“Some of
these guys aren’t effected by bullets!” one of the
security guards said.

“That’s
what the inhibitor darts are for. Now no more talking, we’ve
got a job to do. We’ve have to contain this facility!”

It took seven Post
Humans to pin Jason Shaw down. Even with the seven of them it took
all of their strength to keep him down. Agent Mallory was already
bogged down by the prisoners and was in bad shape. He did
successfully kill two of them before the prisoners overpowered him.

Their immediate
reaction was to kill Agent Mallory, but Erik ordered them not to.
Even though he had no authority over any of them, no one questioned
his request. For now, Erik was the one that had somehow gotten their
cells to open. He was the one that seemed to have a plan, and for
that reason, the prisoners were going to listen to him. Erik assured
them he had a plan for getting off the island, so until they were
off, they were all going to follow his lead.

Agent Mallory
watched nervously as Jason struggled to free himself. Jason fought
and fought, and finally freed his hands. With a massive push, the
prisoners pinning him down went flying through the air. Jason jumped
back to his feet while the next wave of prisoners went after him.
While he had his back turned fighting the group of prisoners, another
prisoner shot off some form of energy in his direction. Jason was too
busy battling what seemed like a never ending group of Post Humans to
notice the energy being hurled at him.

“Look out!”
Agent Mallory shouted noticing the energy rapidly approaching Jason.

When Jason turned
around there was no energy coming towards him. Instead all he saw was
a ball of ice hitting the ground.

“Looked like
you could use some help,” Jackson Prescott shouted playfully.
Jason was certainly glad to see him.

Shayne Tucker
intercepted an energy projectile heading Jackson's way with a ball of
fire.

“Looks like
you need to pay more attention.” Shayne said to Jackson.

Jason smiled. He
felt much better now seeing Shayne and Jackson. The prisoners
consolidated their numbers and moved to one side of the room. Even
with Shayne and Jackson around Jason and Agent Mallory were still
severely outnumbered.

“Is Jessica
here with you?” Jason asked curiously.

“No,”
Jackson replied.

“She's still
overseas,” Shayne added.

“Oh, so you
guys got here by ship?” Jason asked.

Shayne looked at
Jackson with an annoyed look on his face. “Jackson here parked
the jet while it was still in stealth mode and somehow misplaced the
keys.”

Jason looked at
Jackson in complete bafflement. “Do you have any idea how much
that ship cost? How does something like that even happen?”
Jason didn't even bother waiting for a reply because he knew nothing
Jackson could say would be able to justify losing a ship.

“It's cool,
we'll just pick up a spare pair of keys and uncloak the jet once were
done here,” Jackson replied. Jason looked over towards Shayne
who tried his best at that moment to disassociate himself from his
best friend. “If Jessica didn’t fly you guys here and you
didn’t have the jet, how did you get here?” Jason asked.

Jackson looked over
at Shayne and smiled proudly.

“Apparently,
Shayne can run so fast now, that he can run on water!”

Agent Mallory
looked at Shayne nervously. It seemed like every day the abilities of
Post Humans were becoming even more unbelievable.

“How in the
world can you do that?” Jason asked, but didn't really expect
an answer. Shayne however had one for him.

“Water has
surface tension that makes water droplets round. I can move at such a
fast rate that I don’t have enough time to sink.”

For a second, Jason
was surprised Shayne had an answer, then he remembered how incredibly
smart Shayne was.

“You guys can
talk about all this science crap later. Right now we need to figure
out how we’re going to survive this,” Agent Mallory said
sharply.

One of the Post
Humans with superior hearing heard the sounds of footsteps
approaching; he informed Erik the security guards were on their way.
Erik took a few steps towards Jason and company. Jason stood tall
ready to deal with whatever Erik had for him.

“Well, this
has been fun. We’ll do it again real soon, of that you can be
sure! Today was just the beginning. Soon our kind will claim this
world as our own. The time will come when you League members must
choose a side. War is upon us and it's a war the human race can't
win. Choose your side wisely!”

Seconds later Agent
Hardine and the assembled security teams busted through the doors and
aimed their weapons at the prisoners. “Don't move!” the
agent shouted.

Erik Masters looked
at the agent and smiled. “Now!” he shouted.

The room was
suddenly filled with a light that shined brighter than the sun.
Everyone inside immediately closed their eyes to prevent themselves
from being blinded by the brightness. When the members of the League
of Protectors and the agents of G.U.A.R.D opened their eyes, to their
surprise, every prisoner inside that room had vanished.

10

Holding
Cell

Agent Baker
escorted Lowry Holston and Gary Jenkins out of the G.UA.R.D armored
truck. They were still in Chicago and it would be a day or two before
the prisoners would be transferred to the island. Since the breakout
that saw over two hundred Post Humans escape imprisonment, prisons
around the world had to make special accommodations for any Post
Human captured.

Shaw Enterprises
were rapidly producing large quantities of inhibitors to accommodate
these human prisons that Post Humans were once again finding
themselves locked up in. Meanwhile, Jason Shaw, Garrett Blake and
Commander Sullivan were working vigorously to figure out exactly how
the breach into G.U.A.R.D systems occurred and who was responsible
for it.

The three men
worked together and oversaw every upgrade that was being made to the
facility. The prison outbreak left the public fearing for their
safety. To make matters worse, there was no trace of the prisoners.
It was as if they just vanished off the face of Earth. The Chicago
prison was nothing like the one on the island though. It was
basically a holding cell until the appropriate accommodations could
be made for new prisoners on the island.

The staff consisted
of a dozen officers working twelve hour shifts each day. There were
three individuals at this particular prison that had abilities. There
wasn't an inhibitor field to keep the Post Humans at bay, so the
officers had to rely on daily injections to do the trick.