Superhero (17 page)

“Yo,” Kevin said, looking at Jack, “yo, I know you. You that guy I saw on TV that Agamemnon kicked the shit out of.”

William said, “Show him your legs, Jack.”

Jack pulled up his pant leg, revealing the gleaming metal underneath.

“See,” William continued, “we all have an incentive to see your boss go down.”

Kevin exhaled and looked to William. “Yo I need guarantees. You gotta get me in witness protection, me and my girl. And then I wanna be deported.”

“Tell us what you got and I’ll see what I can do.”

Kevin shook his head. “I ain’t new to cops. You guys are allowed to lie and cheat. I ain’t givin’ shit until I get guarantees.” He pointed to the camera. “On tape.”

“Kevin, the LAPD has limited resources for this type of thing but I will do everything in my power to make it happen.”

“No good, holmes.”

Jack stepped forward. “LAPD may not have the juice but the DEA does. I’m former DEA. I can make a few calls if what you tell me is worth it. I can guarantee you I can make it happen.”

Kevin’s eyes locked with his for a moment. “Aight, aight. You got a deal, holmes.”

William began, “So let’s take it from the top. How’d you get involved in the Myrs?”

“Nah, forget that. I’ll tell you somethin’ you need to know right now. Agamemnon, that dude’s crazy. He ain’t into money like the rest of us. He’s happy livin’ in his warehouse. But what he does want is a weapon. And he got it.”

“What kind of weapon?”

“WMD, man. The shit your government was lookin’ for in Iraq. He got one.”

William paused. “You telling me that your little rink-a-dink gang got hold of a nuclear weapon?”

“I don’t know what it is, man. But it’s massive. People been sayin’ it can take out the whole city. Yo, I ain’t into that. I got in this game to make green. My girl’s got my baby on the way. I just wanna take care of ‘em, you know?”

William leaned back in his chair. “Wait here a minute.”

As the two men went to leave, Kevin said, “And I know where it is. But you don’t know until I’m in another city in witness protection.”

William nodded and walked out. Once they were out in the hall, he said, “You believe him?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. I just feel he’s telling the truth.”

William ran his hand through his hair. “Well we gotta get Homeland Security out here. They can call everyone else. At least they can actually give him his witness protection.”

“You do that. I want five minutes alone with him.”

“For what?”

“Just to talk.”

“Jack, this man may have information that could save millions of lives. I don’t want any rough housing.”

“Nothing like that. Just five minutes.”

William folded his arms and leaned against the wall. “Five minutes. I’m gonna go place the calls and I’ll be back.”

Jack walked into the room and heard a voice: “REVEAL US.”

It was so loud he whipped around him, making sure no one was yelling in his ear. All he could hear were William’s footsteps as he walked away down the hall.

As Jack shut the door behind him, Kevin watched as he pulled the cord out from the video camera and pulled the chair up next to him, where they could whisper.

“Kevin, Homeland Security is on their way. They will give you everything that you want. A new life. But we both know how government works. They won’t be able to stop this in time. You know and I know, Agamemnon is too powerful and too smart for them. But I can stop him. I know where he is, where the warehouse is, but I don’t think he would keep a device like that where he could be raided. He would hide it somewhere. I just need to know where.”

“Yo, I already told you. I ain’t sayin’ shit until I’m in witness protection.”

Jack’s eyes flashed green. They were bright enough that they blinded Kevin and he closed his eyes and had to look away.

“Shit!”

“YOU WILL TELL US WHERE IT IS.”

Kevin looked to him, he was trembling now. Something in Jack’s eyes. But all Jack could see was a green trim around his field of vision.

“What are you?”

“Tell me now, Kevin.”

Kevin looked to the camera and then back. He leaned farther away, as if afraid Jack would bite him, and said, “It’s buried in the desert.”

“The Mojave?”

“Yeah.”

Kevin was answering but he wasn’t blinking. His eyes were locked to Jack’s and his face had slackened, like he was under the influence of a narcotic.

“Where?”

“I ain’t actually seen it. It’s by highway marker twenty-one. That’s what I heard. Buried in the dirt out there under a bunch of rocks.”

Jack leaned back in his chair, the green trim around his vision disappearing. Kevin blinked furiously as if he had just woken up.

Jack stood, and walked out of the room. Wondering as much as Kevin what had just happened.

CHAPTER 37

The Mojave Desert covers a massive portion of the Southwestern United States. While most of the desert is uninhabited, and in some cases, uninhabitable, a fair number of cities, including Las Vegas, can be found inside its boundaries. Its true characteristics, other than the heat, are Joshua Trees and the mountain ranges that zig-zag across the rugged landscape.

Night had fallen long ago as Jack Kane flew through the air over the empty desert. He had perfected his jumps over the last few days to the point that they were nearing flight.

He was in his suit now, gliding high above the desert floor, glancing at the lights of the occasional passing car below. But primarily he kept his eyes glued to the stars. Glittering fragments of glass thrown on a reflective surface, Jack thought. He had never seen anything so beautiful. Except maybe…Autumn. The sweet girl that his sister had allowed him to see yesterday. The scar had begun to heal but it was noticeable, coming up out of her shirt onto the base of her throat. It wasn’t something she was going to be able to hide, probably even in adulthood. It pained Jack to see it and know he was responsible. Rage built inside him as he thought about it and he almost didn’t notice that he was descending.

He landed hard on the ground and looked up just in time to see a minivan go by. He sprinted again and jumped several times, building momentum each time, until he launched himself high into the air, feeling like he could touch the stars.

Another few minutes of flight and he was over where he wanted to be: marker twenty-one. He landed hard by the side of the road, clouds of sand and dirt wafting around him as he kept still and allowed them to settle. When everything had quieted, he glanced up and stood. The suit seemed to move in the light of the moon, to contort as if it had life inside it as well.

Darkness was nearly absolute with the exception of the light of the moon. Although the little light there was illuminated the area for him much more than it should have, he could spend years looking for disturbances in the dirt and wouldn’t be able to find the spot even in the daytime.

Glancing around at the desert floor, he looked for footprints though he knew it’d probably been weeks since the Myrs had been out here and none would be found.

“KNEEL.”

The voice was coming more frequently now. It still sent a small shock through him each time it spoke, but Jack was growing accustomed. He was growing accustomed to a lot of things that he never imagined he would.

He knelt down, placing one hand on the dirt. Images began to race through his mind. He saw people here not long ago, burying something near the mountains. The device was encased in smooth metal and it was lowered by crane deep below the ground and then covered with dirt. But the images were just splinters, not enough to even see who he was looking at clearly. Without any navigation, he would never be able to find it.

“Holy shit.”

Jack looked up to see two men with dreadlocks standing ten feet away from him. They were armed but held cigarettes in their hands, and by the look of absolute surprise on their faces, Jack guessed they hadn’t been expecting him.

“PATROLS.”

The two men glanced at each other and then back to Jack. “Yo,” one of them said, “you in the wrong place, homie.”

Assault rifles, Kalashnikovs, were flipped up and the men began to fire. But they were bound to hit empty space before they had even pulled their triggers. Jack was high now, at least five stories above them, looking down at the small pinpoints of light that flashed at the ends of the barrels. These men were young and he pitied them. Rather than landing on them, he landed on their weapons, one foot on each.

The rifles fell and Jack easily crushed them. The two men didn’t move.

“I want to know where it’s buried,” Jack said.

“Fuck you, man,” one of the men said and flicked his cigarette at him.

“KILL THEM.”

“No,” Jack said.

“KILL THEM.”

Jack backed away from the men, his eyes locked onto them.

“YOU WILL KILL THEM.”

The voice seemed to scream and it made Jack’s ears hurt. His hands covered his ears to no avail.

“YOU WILL KILL.”

“I won’t!”

The men looked at each other again and then turned and sprinted away as fast as they could. Jack leapt after them and then pulled himself back, as if an invisible hand had grabbed him and held him in place.

“TAKE THEM.”

“No, I won’t.”

Waves of pain radiated through his head. Blinding him until he fell on his knees. The pain affected every inch of his body and he realized the suit was constricting around him. He screamed, staring up at the sky as he put his hands on the mask and pulled. It clung to his cheeks but he managed to rip it, and clumps of hair, away.

The pain lessened though he was out of breath and felt bile in his throat. It pushed itself forward and he vomited into the dirt.

“I won’t do it,” he said, out of breath. “I won’t do it.”

“YES, YOU WILL.”

CHAPTER 38

Jack showered until there wasn’t any more hot water. He scrubbed himself with a luffa and used fragranced soap before he shaved and clipped his nails. When he was through, he came out to the bedroom in a towel and stared at the black, scaly suit neatly folded on his bed.

A certain appeal emanated from it. Something akin to looking at a magnificent painting or an unusual statue. He ran his hand along it, feeling the rough edges of the scales, and wondered who exactly had worn it before him.

He thought about simply throwing it away. Of finding a dump and stuffing it into a bag of garbage that couldn’t be found. But something about it told him he couldn’t do that. It was special somehow, more  than an inanimate object should be.

“You okay?”

He glanced up to see Heidi at the door. She was wearing a casual dress, something he hadn’t seen before since she seemed to prefer business suits.

“I’m fine. Did you go shopping again?”

“Yeah,” she said bashfully, “sorry.”

“No, it’s fine. I gave you that credit card for a reason. It looks good on you.”

She cleared her throat as if embarrassed and stepped inside the room. She sat down on the bed next to the suit. “It’s quite beautiful, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. It draws you in like a magnet. I can’t stop looking at it. Did you happen to see…”

“Who wore it before you?”

“Yes.”

“Not directly. But my father did. He said they looked a lot like us. Hominid. But breathing wasn’t their only means of obtaining oxygen. He told me they also used a type of photosynthesis. Something to do with the way these suits work.”

He sat down next to her. “How do they work?”

“Honestly, Jack, they’re untestable. They can’t be cut or burnt or torn in anyway. Underneath an atomic force microscope, the most powerful one in this hemisphere, the atoms appear bonded in a way that doesn’t coincide with the periodic table or the modern understanding of the atom. There were no electrons in orbit around the nucleus. Everything was packed tightly together. I have a hunch, though, that something happens when the suit interacts with a live specimen. We tried some experiments on rodents but nothing occurred. I think it needs consciousness. Through some unknown mechanism, the suit amplifies and adapts to the consciousness of the user.”

“Telepathy.”

“Maybe. I don’t know. It could be as simple as adapting to electric stimuli from the frontal cortex and cardiovascular system. I just don’t know. I didn’t have long enough with it before it was taken…before my bosses deemed other matters a higher priority.”

Jack’s hand inadvertently brushed hers. It felt soft. Though she was older, she was certainly attractive. He looked into her eyes as she glanced away. Softly taking her around the waist, he leaned in to kiss her.

She placed both hands up on his chest and pushed him back. “No, Jack. Not like that.”

“I thought I felt something between us.”

“There is. I care for you. But not like that.” She stood up. “I bought a lot of dresses. I’d like to show them to you and get your opinion,” she said, changing the subject. When he didn’t respond she chuckled and said, “I’m sorry, it’s just that I haven’t had the money to spend on myself in a while.”

“No, it’s fine. I’d love to see your dresses.”

As she left he rose and went into his closet and picked up a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. He flipped on the television mounted on the wall in the bedroom and sat on the bed, flipping through channels until he got to the news. He stopped there to see if there was any mention of him. As he was about to change to something else, he saw the blond woman that had reported on the Dragon before.

Then he saw something that he hadn’t expected: himself. The Dragon landed on an empty stretch of desert, glancing at the minivan passing by before leaping into the air and out of sight.

When they cut away from the clip, Jack looked to the suit. He picked it up, feeling it a while, the memory of what happened in the desert fresh in his mind. But he put it on anyway and opened the bedroom window, leaping out and into the night.

Veronica Gables sat on her patio overlooking Glenwood Avenue. Cars zipped past underneath though it was getting late. That was one thing the realtor hadn’t told her about this condo: it was in a district filled with college students that went to UCLA, USC, and the several community colleges around. Constant parties kept her up late into the night. But in a way, she didn’t mind. It took her back to her own college days at the University of Arizona.