Better to Die a Hero Page 11

  “I have been having some bizarre dreams,” Steve added, “but if they have any precognitive power at all it’s a total waste.”

  “Why would it be a total waste?” Nora asked.

  “The symbolisms are so bizarre,” Steve replied, “it would take Sigmund Freud a year to analyze any sense from them.”

  “If we’re going to be a team,” Bryan said, “we need to know each other’s abilities.” An unmistakable tone of leadership entered his voice. “So, Déjà vu have you discovered anything new about how your power works?”

  “I found out I can cause it to happen any time I want to, just by concentrating. Like at school yesterday, I’m sitting at my desk watching people come into class, I triggered it as people are coming through the door and it’s like I know who’s going to walk through the door next. Oh! Oh! I should tell you if I do it like three times right in a row, I go cross-eyed, get a headache and I can’t do it for a while. But if I do it like once every minute, I’m okay.”

  “Man, that is so cool,” Bryan rubbed his chin. “But sometimes it seems like it works without you even trying.”

  “When I’m scared I think I trigger it just out of sheer panic.”

  “Oh, damn,” Steve broke in, “I thought it would kick in and sense danger on its own.”

  “It doesn’t sound like it,” Bryan said, “but this isn’t bad. So you’re in a fight with your arch enemy and several times during the fight you know his moves before he makes them.”

  “Really, you only need to do it once to take out your nemesis,” Steve said.

  “Theoretically,” Bryan lisped.

  “You guys are thinking about this stuff way too much,” Nora said.

  “Hey, it’s like I told you,” Steve said, “This is what we do.”

  Nora glanced suspiciously at the two fantasy buffs. “You guys know there are no enemies or nemesis out there?”

  “Yeah, we know. No super-villains, they don’t exist,” Steve said, “but Bryan’s working on a list of possible substitute candidates.”

  Nora grinned uneasily. “Well okay, I think?”

  “That’s great, were learning a lot here.” Bryan nodded positively and looked Nora’s direction. “If you could do some more practicing and get a better idea of your limits that would be great.”

  “Okay,” Nora said hesitatingly. A glance in Steve’s direction caught a small understanding nod that said to her, just play along.

  “Damn,” Bryan said, “That is one useful power. Man, I hope I develop some kind of sixth sense.”

  “What kind of psychic power would you like?” Steve asked.

  Bryan answered in the southern draw of an ex-President. “One that helps me get babes.” He stood up and walked toward the backside of a shed. “This water is going right through me. I’ll be right back and then we can go put on a show Brooklyn will never forget.”

  Out of sight from his friends, Bryan withdrew an aspirin bottle from the pocket he’d sewn to the inside of his heart boxers. He licked his forefinger, dipped it and sucked the gritty substance into his mouth. Upping his dosage from one to three times a day had allowed his jumping ability to surpass both Steve and Nora’s. If he were to lead this group, he would have to be the strongest and the fastest. The smartest, well, he’d had that covered from day one. If the powder had the ability to develop a sixth sense in Nora, then maybe it would for him also. He probably wasn’t as prone to psychic abilities as she was, so it would take a higher dosage. Six doses a day to develop a sixth sense. He liked the way that sounded. A bit of blood in the urine was a small price to pay to be a protector of the innocent.

  * * *

  New York Journal:

  “Hello, I’m Michelle O’Donnell and welcome to tonight’s edition of New York Journal. Tonight’s top story, could it be true, superheroes in New York? Our own people said it was a hoax. Independent experts across the country label the videotape a phony. Then something unbelievable happened around 7:00 p.m. yesterday in the Brooklyn business district. An amazing event witnesses by hundreds of people. Up from a previous count of two, three costumed individuals bopped, hopped and bounced their way around the busy Brooklyn business district. Literally, hundreds of eyewitness reports are coming in all confirming the existence of individuals that can leap off and jump up buildings several stories in height. New York Journal has been told all state, county and city employees that witnessed the spectacle have been directed to submit detailed reports of what they saw to their supervisors. No pictures or videotapes of yesterdays bounce across Brooklyn have surfaced, but if they exist, you can bet their owners are holding out for the highest bidder. Here in the studio tonight we have with us Dr. Bill Jones, a technology consultant for one of Americas top software development companies. Let me start by asking, Dr. Jones, what is a technology consultant?”

  “A technology consultant studies technology trends. What technologies are now coming to market, what technologies will be coming to market five, ten, fifteen years from now. What companies will bring these new technologies to market and in my case what kinds of software support these technologies will need.”

  “You have a PhD in physics and you hold two masters degrees in engineering. Why aren’t you working for NASA?”

  “I did work for NASA briefly, but the truth is Michelle, the private market pays better.”

  “I see. So what technology are these people using to make these incredible jumps? Is it this exoskeleton I keep hearing about?”

  “Before I get to the exoskeleton let me address the cable and winch theory I’ve heard discussion about. First, I should say that I’ve read several of the detailed eyewitness testimonies and I think we can say that harnesses and cables are not being used. There is no trail of cables hanging from the buildings in Brooklyn and not a single person saw these individuals hook up and get hoisted by a cable. As for exoskeleton technology, there is some bulky technology that could allow a person to jump maybe twice the average length, but its large leg devices, similar to a large and advanced pogo stick, would be easy to spot. The eyewitness reports have these three people in tight clothes. No exoskeleton technology exists that could be built into clothes undetected and give the user the abilities these people are displaying. That technology is a hundred or more years away.”

  “Could this exoskeleton have been developed in a secret lab that the government and public aren’t aware of?”

  “I don’t think so Michelle. It would take a staff of dozens of specialized scientists, engineers, machinists and billions of dollars. Contrary to popular belief, you can’t keep that sort of thing secret. It’s impossible anyway, the support technologies such as special metals and super strength plastics don’t exist yet. And this holds true for other possible scientific explanations such as genetic engineering. There is no secret genetic research taking place, except maybe in Russia. And again human science is a hundred years from any genetic engineering break through that could produce these types of abilities in humans.”

  “So what is your best guess as to how these people are doing it?”

  “Let me say that there are no technologies being developed today that could account for the abilities these people have displayed. I believe this is found technology. What I mean by that is that these people are utilizing a fully developed technology not of their own making, a technology that has no correlation with man’s current scientific level.”

  “If not from current human technologies then where did it come from?”

  “I believe the only logical explanation is… it is extraterrestrial.”

  “Thank you for your insight Dr. Jones. The day before yesterday a lot of people would have dismissed that explanation. However, after you watch a person jump off a building, leap over several moving cars and then jump up to the roof of your favorite restaurant, you learn to keep an open mind.”

  CHAPTER 10

  Bryan crouched in the shadows of a Harlem rooftop reveling in the excitement he and his friends evoked a few nights
back. Talking heads monopolized the channels with analysis upon analysis of the superhero phenomenon that was of his making. He pictured himself in the quest seat being interviewed, all ears hanging on his every word.

  Yes, I believe their heightened abilities stem from an ancient aphrodisiac found in an old west collection. He chuckled at his own thoughts. No one had even come close to the truth, a few in the right neighborhood, maybe.

  He flexed his bicep, ran a hand over the hard muscle, then back over his triceps and up around his newly enhanced shoulder. Only vicariously had he experienced this kind of muscularity, mainly through the characters he ran during role-playing. The size and definition inflating the once slack costume pleased him. Never in a million years did the formerly gaunt teenager believe he would possess the kind of body he so envied in others, be they flesh and blood or characters existing in his mind, living out the consequences of gaming dice. The sheer magnitude of strength, that carried his improved body up one side of a building and down the other, induced a mental high that rivaled spiritual awakening.

  Dear God, I love the strength. I must be extraordinarily special in your eyes to receive such a gift.

  A sharp pop interrupted the night as the cap flew high off the half-empty medicine bottle. Using only two fingers, Bryan snatched it out of mid flight.

  “All part of being cool.”

  He pulled down the ski mask and wet his finger. The time had arrived for a quick dip into the powder for Thursday’s dosage number six. Or was it Friday’s dosage number one. It didn’t matter. The only thing of importance—real crime fighting would soon commence. Sneaking out of the house was easy. Sneaking back in might pose a problem and the simplest solution would have been to stay the night at Steve’s. That, however, was not an option. Tonight he needed to patrol on his own, free from the other two and their lack of enthusiasm. They had no real intentions of making a difference, but tonight a difference would come about and heads were going to get busted.

  “Leadership by example,” he said aloud.

  His own head would be on the chopping block come morning, if his dad caught him sneaking in. That was okay. The responsibility bestowed upon him far outweighed the consequences.

  At times sadness filtered through his elation, perpetuated by his best friend’s absence and he did wish Steve were there to share the glory, but his friend’s pacifistic attitude made that impossible. A few victorious encounters with the New York criminal element and his team would come around.

  Bryan sprang from the shadows zigzagging through the maze of rooftop protrusions, stealth now his top priority. Low leaps and soft landing replaced the high bounces. Being noticed no longer an objective, black gym shorts substituted for white boxers. Minus the extravagant leaps, his low tumbling and long stride carried him across city blocks in record time. Around a large obstruction he weaved, then over a smaller one he leapt landing firm but quiet, barely slowing to peer over a ledge or down the bowels of an alley for signs of transgression. Like the first night on the powder, adrenaline energized every inch of his body and sharpened his senses to superhuman proportions. A tight-jawed grimace cancelled out his jovial smile. He started grinding his teeth. Bryan halted and spun back to the ledge. A boy, around the age ten or eleven, sat on the hood of a parked car.

  This kid should be at home in bed on a school night, he thought.

  A car pulled up next to the kid and an exchange proceeded between the boy and a passenger in the back. The car pulled away and a man came out from a doorway. The man crossed the sidewalk and took something from the kid, then disappeared back into the doorway.

  “Using a kid to sell drugs, not good,” Bryan whispered through clenched teeth. He hopped up and squatted on the ledge. Knees pinned to his chest, long arms wrapped around his legs, he rocked smoothly on the ledge with unshakable balance, almost forgetting how insignificant his physical prowess measured just weeks earlier. Already fading were the memories of clumsy falls and collisions he so skillfully covered up with humor. The back pain, neck aches and sore shoulders seemed like an affliction long since recovered.

  Once again, his attention shifted from the street below to the arms enveloping his body. His perched position drew the flannel material of his costume taut around his ever-growing arms. The shape long and well defined, not bulbous like Steve’s, put a smile back on the young man’s face. His friend was right about one thing; the powder had to be affecting the muscle directly. There was more going on than a telekinetic phenomenon. These midnight patrols primarily worked the legs and yet his arms and shoulders were developing at a remarkable rate. He rocked forward, the steel like cords of his thighs dug into his solid chest—he was power.

  In his mind’s eye, he visualized how good a flowing cape would look right about now and he vowed to get a replacement. He could go back to his white and red boxers, because the cape would camouflage his location. Maybe he could rig a utility belt to carry a canteen and supplies and ditch the backpack. Thinking himself much like a stone gargoyle perched on the ledge, watching over the innocent, he turned his attention back to the street below.

  The next few minutes Bryan choreographed the confrontation destined to occur the next time the drug dealer emerged from the doorway. A few of the harsher engagements left the criminal minus a head and sometimes an arm or two. He indulged in these fantasies, but knew he’d not carry them out. They were merely a cathartic exercise meant to purge the anger that swelled within him.

  Tonight’s prescribed medicine—a good beating to show a low life the error of his ways. He’d have preferred to foil a mugging, but drug-dealing scum would suffice.

  The boy could see patterns of cause and effect emerging and this gift was not happenstance. Far from random, it was becoming clear that it was God’s will that the powder found its way to him. A few years in college would unlock the powder’s secrets and then a super team, handpicked to receive the gift, would set forth and under his guidance they would change the world. God needed the powder to fall into the right hands and it did, for he would make best use of it.

  Bryan snapped to attention like a hawk spotting a meal. A human shadow reached out from the doorway and stretched across the sidewalk. Bryan’s lean forward should have sent him toppling off the ledge, but he stuck solid. The man caught up with his shadow at the front of the car, across from where the boy sat. A switch triggered deep within his brain and dislodged him from the ledge. It was as if his body was an electromagnet and his mind pushed a button killing the current. He fell comfortably forward, completing several tight summersaults on the way down. His noisy landing cut the dealer off from the building’s entrance.

  “Surprise!” Bryan said.

  The man jumped, spun out of control, arms flailing, and his butt landing on the car hood. Bryan gave the dealer no time to recuperate. He pulled him off the car. The man was no longer a man, but a rag doll flung and shaken at the end of its captor’s long reach. Bryan grunted, spinning with all his might and propelled the flailing hood at the nearest brick wall. Without hesitation, Bryan sprang up concrete stairs to the doorway. A hand holding a revolver emerged from the darkness. The threat moved in slow motion measured by his perceptions. Bryan grabbed the wrist and in one explosive move, bent the exposed forearm around the door. The gunman’s scream didn’t dampen the sound of snapping bone. Jagged radius and ulna cut through flesh finding the open air. The silver pistol fell. An iron grip on the broken arm, the teenager leapt backward catapulting the assailant from the doorway, across the sidewalk into the window of the car parked below. The sound of breaking glass excited Bryan, but he defied the temptation to look back, instead jumping into the dimness of the building’s interior. Crouched low, legs spread wide, he spun several times ready to take out a third opponent. He found emptiness.

  He stood straight, adjusted his goggles and walked tall out on to the street, chest out, chin high. His once concave chest now sported pectorals. A perfect toss of the second man left the criminal’s ass hanging out the car
window.

  The first man, lying at the base of the wall, oozed a pool of blood that to Bryan’s surprise didn’t look red under the midnight lighting, but rather the darkest burgundy—close to black. At the proper angle, streetlights and lit windows reflected in the growing puddle.

  “Damn it,” Bryan said, looking around. He’d had a speech about the evils of drugs prepared and the boy was no were in sight.

  * * *

  Steve discerned a rhythm hidden in the chaos of slamming locker doors and stayed in time with an energetic slam of his own. The familiar end-of-school-day smile crossed his face. He wasn’t sure what made him the happiest, the buzz around school about the new superheroes or tonight’s “patrol” as Bryan called it. Really, the best reason to smile was because of a beautiful girl named Nora. The negative self talk usually echoing in his head—I’m too fat to be liked, I’m too stupid to be interesting—was uncharacteristically absent and gave yet another reason to smile. Anticipation built as the weekend drew closer and the possibilities of his first make out session with Nora grew stronger.

  Down deep past the noise and confusion clouding his thoughts, he knew she liked him. How much did she like him, did she love him and all other particulars didn’t matter. After completing those first superhuman feats of strength and experiencing the raw power electrifying his body, he thought nothing else on earth could make him feel as elated. He couldn’t have been more wrong. The very thought of passionately kissing the girl he loved assured him of that.

  A lot of pressure that first kiss, he thought, it has to be perfect.

  The only time they’d be alone over the weekend is if Bryan took off unaccompanied for a while. That shouldn’t be a problem. He’d give his friend a signal when the time seemed right, something they’d agree on beforehand. Maybe he’d bring along a coat hanger and drape it from his belt. Whatever the sign, it best be before they got too sweaty. That meant early in the patrol. He’d probably kiss off a lot of her cat makeup, but what the hell. Steve exited the school.