Superhero (23 page)

“You’re fine,” Finley said. “It’s a bullet made from whatever metal was on that damn ship. It’s the only thing we’ve found that can tear into that suit.”

“Why didn’t you just kill me?”

“I don’t want to kill you, Jack. If I wanted to kill you I would’ve shot you in your sleep while I had you in that cell.” He lowered the weapon and holstered it. “I want something else.”

“What?”

“My superiors think you’re just as deadly as Agamemnon. That’s why I had marching orders to capture you. I don’t think you are as deadly, though. In fact, I think you and I have the same goals.”

“Like what?”

“I want to stop him, Jack. I want him dead. I can’t do it myself. They don’t want me anywhere near the city. They think it’ll look like an occupation. I had orders to go in and get you and that’s it. They won’t approve of going after Agamemnon because they think there’ll be too much collateral damage. I think they’re right. But you can go after him.” Finley pulled out a slip of paper from his pocket and handed it to Jack. “He’s on a farm about eight hours from here.”

Jack felt his arm on fire and then pain shot up his neck and into his head. The slug tumbled out of the wound and fell to the surface of the roof as the bleeding slowed and then stopped.

“See, I told you you’d be fine.”

“What’ve you done to me?”

Finley shrugged. “For that, you’re going to have to talk to the doc. Unfortunately, she escaped last night. My guess is she’s headed the same place you are.” Finley looked off in the distance and then back to him. “She’s not who she says she is, Jack. I’m not totally sure who she really is, but I don’t think a simple scientist is it. She took out two of my men getting away.”

Jack watched as the suit began to patch itself over the hole.

“Amazing, isn’t it? Think of the potential applications of this material.” Finley shook his head. “They closed us down years ago. They research medicines in lab rats out here now.”

“I don’t understand why you’re helping me.”

“Enemy of my enemy. It had to look like you escaped, at least at first glance. Eventually they’ll interview the men and find out that’s not what happened, but I can deal with that later. Besides, they’ll all testify that I gave the order to kill you.”

Jack lifted his arm, noticing that the pain was gone. “What if I don’t want to go after him?”

“I got a proposition for you: you take him out, I leave you alone. I destroy your files. Or hand them to you, whatever you want. That’s what you get in exchange: your freedom.”

Jack looked at the slip of paper with the address. He crumpled it in his hand as he brushed past Finley and moved toward the edge of the roof. Finley shouted, “And Jack? Not injured, dead. If he isn’t dead, our deal’s off.”

Jack nodded and leapt. Within a minute, he was soaring through the cool air of the desert in early morning.

CHAPTER 53

Veronica sat inside the house in the living room. She had attempted to go outside, mostly to scope out any means of escape, but the way the men stared at her made her uncomfortable and she went back in.

Dillon sat in a recliner smoking a cigarette and her sound guy, Mario, was passed out in the bedroom next door.

“Don’t suppose they have cold beer here,” Dillon said.

“Maybe now’s not the best time to get drunk.”

“Who said anything about drunk?”

The door behind them opened and footsteps sounded in the hallway as the man that had been showing them around earlier walked in. He checked the bedroom and then came back to the living room.

“He’s leaving for an hour,” he said. “As soon as he does, we need to get that bomb and get the hell outta here.”

“Is that what it is?” she asked. “A bomb?”

“Yeah, I don’t know what kind, though. But it can supposedly take out the city.”

“What’re we leaving in?”

“There’s a truck parked near the stables. I’m gonna pull up outside the barn and I need you guys to help me lift it.”

“Then what?” Dillon said.

“I don’t know. But he won’t have it anymore.” He looked around. “Gimme ten minutes and then come out to the barn.”

As he left, Veronica stood up and went to the window. She could see at least half a dozen men outside. A couple of them had rifles slung on their shoulders.

“They could shoot us before we ever got outta here,” Dillon said. “Maybe we should just hang out?”

She shook her head. “I think they’re going to anyway, once he’s done with us. We need to make a run for it.”

Dillon exhaled loudly as he put the cigarette out on the arm of the chair. “I sure as hell didn’t sign up for this when I picked up that camera.”

The giant stepped out of the barn. She could see him speaking with someone before walking away, and then leaping so high in the air she couldn’t see him anymore.

“Me neither, Dillon.”

After waking Mario, the three of them slipped out the backdoor and made their way to the barn. The men that had been outside weren’t there anymore and the farm was quiet. Veronica stopped for a moment and listened.

“What?” Dillon said.

“I don’t hear a truck.”

A thunderous crash as Reese Stillman’s body exploded out of the barn, tumbling head over feet until it hit the side of the house and bounced off. Veronica could see that his head had been twisted in the opposite direction, his face lifelessly staring out over his back.

The giant crashed through the barn after him. Unsatisfied, he leapt into the air and stomped down on the corpse, blood and gore spattering over him and the house.

“I took him in,” the giant said, “and this is how he repays me.” He turned toward Veronica. “It was perhaps a mistake to bring you here.”

The giant approached them. Dillon grabbed Veronica’s arm. “Run!”

Sprinting, she felt the soft dirt underneath her feet rumble as the giant jumped and landed in front of them. With one swipe of his arm, she saw Mario fly through the air. The giant grabbed Dillon and lifted him. He crushed his ribs, the sound of crackling bones echoing in the air.

“No!” she screamed.

The giant dropped his body in front of her. He reached for her, his massive hand coming over her neck.

“Police!”

Gunshots rang out as one of the slugs hit the giant in the exposed flesh of his face. He grunted and let her go. Veronica saw a single man crouched behind some empty crates. He fired again, hitting the giant in the head.

“Run! Get away now.”

Veronica ran. She didn’t look back as she sprinted through the barn. A blue pick-up truck was parked in back and she jumped in. There were no keys. She got out and ran to Reese Stillman’s body.

Revulsion filled her body as she stared at Reese’s gray face. She leaned down and ruffled through his pockets. In the right front pocket of his jeans, she found some keys. As she stood to run back to the truck, she saw that she was standing in a massive shadow.

“My my, said the spider to the fly.”

She stood up. “I just want to go home.”

“Are you certain? Your home will not be there shortly.”

CHAPTER 54

Jack glided through the sky as the sun broke over the horizon. It was early morning and he was over the Mojave, stretches of empty desert laid out in front of him. The pain in his shoulder had completely vanished. He was growing more powerful; he could feel it. He wondered how long it would last.

Beginning to descend, he landed on a series of rocks near a small gorge. It was so quiet and peaceful, he sat down, letting the strain in his legs leave his body. A stream flowed at the bottom of the gorge and he watched the glistening water in the sunlight. He had noticed that his suit began to move with exposure to the sun. It began to thicken itself. Shock at its movements had faded long ago and now he just watched with curiosity.

He stood and began sprinting, leaping in the air with several small successive jumps before catapulting himself into the sky.

Veronica sat inside the barn as the giant worked on the device. The men had come back and were wandering around outside. Many of them glancing in and staring at her before moving on.

“They haven’t seen a woman in weeks,” he said. “Of course, that has no ill effects on a gentleman such as myself. But these boys, I believe they would gladly kill each other for a few minutes alone with you. Men are no different from beasts in that way.”

“They’re just kids. The oldest one I saw couldn’t be older than twenty. They don’t know what they’re doing.”

“And who better to use as raw materials? They will do anything that I ask simply because I have asked it.”

The giant adjusted his helmet. A noxious gas sprayed out from the bottom near the chin until he clicked it back into place.

“What happened to you?”

“I am the next step in evolution. I am to you, what you are to an ape. And I will drag your species into the next leap kicking and screaming.”

“I don’t understand.”

“No, you wouldn’t.”

He reconnected several cords to the sphere and then called out to his men, “It is ready.”

They piled into the barn and used a forklift to take the device to the back. A van was waiting and the device was strapped securely into it. Four men climbed into the van. The driver looked to the giant.

“Go, brother,” Agamemnon said, “and cleanse this city.”

The driver nodded and flipped on sunglasses before pulling away. The giant turned to her and was quiet a long time.

“I’m afraid I must leave. You will find the company of my men uncomfortable. If you wish to leave, I suggest you begin running now.”

She wasn’t sure if he was serious but she looked out the barn and saw several men glaring at her as they smoked cigarettes on a bench. She looked to the giant again before she ran out of the barn as quickly as she could. She could hear laughter behind her and the footfalls of several men as she sprinted straight into the desert.

She got off the farm and nearly onto the dirt road before the men overtook her. They pounced on her, laughing, forcing her down to the ground. One man held her arms down behind her head as two took her legs and spread them apart. She screamed and it made them laugh even more.

One of them, a large man covered in tattoos, stripped down nude. He took a final puff of a cigarette that was dangling from his mouth and flicked it onto the ground.

“We gonna have fun, darlin’.”

He knelt down, tearing at her pants until he pulled them off. Veronica closed her eyes and screamed so loudly she hurt her throat, but the men didn’t stop.

She felt a vibration in the ground. It sounded as if it had travelled from a distance and then faded. Suddenly, the ground shook so violently that the men stopped and were quiet. She opened her eyes.

Next to her crouched a figure she knew, his black suit slick and wet in the sunlight. Only his head moved as he looked up to the men.

“LET HER GO.”

For what seemed like a long while but was no more than a second or two, the men didn’t move. Then one of them reached for the revolver tucked in his waistband.

The Dragon flipped over his head, grabbing him by the chin with one hand, and tossed the man over his shoulder as he landed. Another man swung at him and he easily moved out of the way of several blows before kicking down into his thigh, snapping his femur. The man fell to his knees as Jack struck him in the throat and then shattered his jaw with an elbow.

Two of the men scattered and ran but the last one held up a Ruger. He was nude and his hand was trembling as Jack turned to him.

“What the hell are you?” the man said.

“I don’t know. But I’m here for you.”

The man fired and the slug bounced off the Dragon’s chest and landed in the soft dirt. Firing the rest of the rounds until a dry click, the man threw the gun and began to run. The Dragon sprinted past him and swept out his legs. He placed his heel down on his throat, pressing down so hard the man was immobile.

“Where’s Agamemnon?”

The man spit, “Farm…at the farm.”

Jack let him up. He spit and coughed and got to his knees. Jack turned to Veronica who was crying and covering herself with her torn clothing. He knelt beside her but didn’t touch her. Slowly, he put his arm around her, and helped her to her feet.

“I’m getting you to a hospital,” he said.

“No…no,” she said, wiping away her tears, “no. I’m fine. I’m fine. He’s at the farm. You have to stop him. He’s got a bomb. I don’t know what it is. It looked like it could be nuclear.”

Jack looked to the old farmhouse. He could hear the wind chimes on the front porch and see some chickens in a coup nearby. Just outside the coup there was some movement and he saw William Yates stand up and wipe his mouth, one hand to his head, trying to stop the bleeding from a wound.

William saw them and limped over.

“The bastard hits like a mule,” William said.

“Is your car nearby?”

He nodded.

“Take her and get outta here.”

“What’re you gonna do?”

“I have to stop him.”

“Jack, what’re you nuts? He’s like a tank. Let’s call it in.”

“You do that,” he said, brushing past him.

CHAPTER 55

Jack stood in the middle of the farm, between the house and the barn. Farms had always held a creepy fascination for him. As a child, he used to fear going to them. A tingle in his belly told him that he still had an association of fear mingled with his image of them.

He could hear someone in the barn. Silently he jumped to the roof and walked across to the back. Flipping into a second-floor window, he landed on loose piles of hay. The floorboards creaked as he walked and came to an opening in the floor. He knelt and looked down. It was empty except for a large machine buzzing against one of the walls.

He dropped down and landed without a sound. He walked to the machine. It appeared like a super-computer and a list of diagnostics flashed green on a black monitor. Behind him, he heard the soft whisper of air.

He turned just as the car slammed into his body and sent him reeling through the barn’s wall onto the dirt outside. Agamemnon leapt at him and he barely rolled out of the way as the small sedan he was wielding like a sword crashed down in the space he had just been in.