“If I hadn’t sent her after The Sister Sect they would never have manipulated her into believing this was her divine right. It was my call. I believed her magic would be the best weapon against theirs. I could have called down fire from the heavens and rained justice upon them. But instead, I sent her and The Pentacle. One died, and the other should have.”
Ernest stood and mustered the courage to go and sit at the broken table with the broken superhero.
“Every event is seen from multiple viewpoints,” Ernest said. “You see things from up above, but I've seen them from below.”
He took a deep breath, almost losing his nerve. He now had the undivided attention of the most powerful person on the planet.
“Three years ago you changed my life,” Ernest said. “I was shopping with my granddaughter. You know, my daughter, she's not around much. Tell you the truth, she ain't been too kind to my wife and me, but she did give me my precious Marie, my granddaughter. That day I was carrying Marie through the grocery store parking lot when shrapnel of all kinds began to pelt the asphalt around us. I was hit in the leg by something blunt and I dropped her. She was only two years old. The cry she let out echoes in my mind to this day.”
The hero’s demeanor changed.
“I remember that day. Gorgatron.”
“You don't remember it the way I do. I heard the ground rumbling—shaking violently. I looked up to see Gorgatron in the distance, his giant metal feet smashing everything in their path—just like Salem’s monster today. He was kicking as he went, which accounted for the debris that threatened us with each step. The stuff must have traveled airborne for a mile. Even at that distance, he was huge.”
“I was terrified. Petrified. I'm ashamed to admit that in that moment, I couldn’t even make myself move enough to scoop up my granddaughter. Through blurred vision, I saw you, Salem and The Whistler. It wasn’t Salem that stopped that semi from crashing down on top of us. It was you. It wasn’t Salem that scooped me and my precious little baby girl up and flew us to safety. It was you. It wasn’t Salem that stopped that maniac from destroying the city that day. It was you.”
Ernest was standing now. His passion grew with each word.
“Tonight, it wasn’t you that called the demon spawn from the depths of hell, it was Salem. Nor were you the one who built that monstrosity! Salem drew lines in the sand and she was the one responsible for all those deaths.”
Ernest pointed a finger at The Royal. Knowing now that the man couldn’t see him made the janitor feel like it was an awkward move to make.
“I don't know what all you're responsible for in this world, what darkness might have befallen this world in response to your light. But I do know this. You are responsible for all those who lived tonight. Maybe some of the dead are on you, but all of the living are. Every last one of them.”
He was breathing heavily. His emotions always got the best of him when he talked about his granddaughter.
“You think your work is meaningless? My granddaughter thinks otherwise. I think otherwise.”
A tear fell from the reddening eyes of the most powerful man on the planet.
“But what do I know?” the janitor said as he stooped down and began cleaning up broken pieces of the table, “In the end… I’m just the guy who picks up the trash.”
A Word from Aaron Hall & Steve Beaulieu
Thank you so much for reading our story. We hope you’ll mention it when you review this book.
We met at church and decided to team up when we realized that each of us had strengths to compliment the other’s weaknesses. You might say we complete each other! Please don’t say that.
We love writing and we love Science Fiction. Really…we love anything that tells a good story. We are both huge movie buffs as well as complete nerds. Everything ranging from Aaron’s Steam account boasting over 700 games to Steve’s thousands of comic books, we just can’t get enough of everything you do while living in your mother’s basement. Unfortunately for both of us, Texas doesn’t have basements and neither of us live with mom.
Aaron Hall was born in 1981 in Fort Worth, Texas. He has spent a majority of his life writing, finding a love of creating fiction at an early age. After spending a decade as community journalist, Aaron now works in communications for his hometown municipal government. He loves spending time with family and friends, watching TV and movies, and above all else, his savior and lord, Jesus Christ.
Steve Beaulieu was born in 1984 in East Hartford, CT. Having spent most of his life in Palm Beach County, Florida, he and his wife moved to Fort Worth, TX in 2012. He works as a Pastor and Graphic Artist and loves comic books, fantasy and science fiction novels.
He married the love of his life in 2005 and he fathered his first child in 2014, Oliver Paul Beaulieu. His namesake, two of Steve’s favorite fictional characters, Oliver Twist and The Green Arrow, Oliver Queen. His second child is due July 30th, but Steve secretly hopes she will be born a day late so she can share her birthday with Harry Potter.
You should check out our story Villain For A Day in the sister anthology to this volume World Domination: A Supervillain Anthology. You might also like our full length novel Brother Dust: The Resurgence. We consider it a superhero story, even though Brother Dust wears a cloak instead of a cape. It started out as a comic book. You can see some pictures of that here.
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PHOTO OP
BY CHRISTOPHER J. VALIN
PHOTO OP
BY CHRISTOPHER J. VALIN
Falling.
He felt like he was always falling.
For most people, this would be the most terrifying moment of their lives—being thrown off the top of a building and watching the street rush up at an incredible speed. It would probably also be the last thing they ever saw.
For Franklin Douglas III, it was just another day at his second job. His heart wasn’t even racing as he shot his grappler at the building across the street. He knew better than to tighten up as the line went taut. He hated that part: the jolt as he went from falling straight down to swinging across the street hurt more than being hit with a crowbar (and, yes, he knew very well what that felt like). The only thing worse was slamming into the side of the building, even though his black body armor would absorb a lot of the impact. Which is why he aimed for a window that he might be able to reach at his current trajectory.
But it wasn’t quite right. He’d have to release his grip and time it perfectly. If not, he’d strike the brick wall so hard it might knock him unconscious, and then he’d finish his fall anyway and be just as dead.
He released the line and wrapped his cape around himself just as he dropped a few feet and crashed through the big plate window like a wrecking ball.
Ow. Why did that hurt so much? It never used to hurt so much.
He tucked into a roll, barely registering the screams of the office workers whose day had just become a thousand times more exciting. He couldn’t help a small grin at the thought. Talk about terrifying moments.
Back on his feet in a second, he looked around to get his bearings. Yes, he recognized this building. In fact, he owned it. But it had been a while since he’d been inside.
And these were his employees. Not that it mattered. He would need to keep them safe either way. But there was something about the personal connection to the situation that made it more stressful for him.
“Everyone clear out.” He felt his gravelly voice rumble in this throat. When the armor came on, the less-recognizable voice came out. And it was one of the few things that had actually become easier to pull off over the years. Probably because he’d fried out his vocal cords.
Nobody moved, far too shocked by and interested in what was happening at their normally-boring place of employment. All of them were wide-eyed, some of them slack-jawed, but none was the least bit interested in leaving.
Time for his extra-commanding tone. “Now!”
This time, they complied and started for the eleva
tor. Most had never seen The Black Harrier in person, but they knew enough about him to understand you did what he said. As the office drones grabbed their cell phones, purses, and laptops, he kept his head down and turned away. The chances of one of them recognizing their billionaire boss in a mask and costume were slim, but not impossible. Plus, it only took one cell phone pic and instant internet facial recognition software to blow his secret identity.
That was definitely a headache he didn’t need. He’d kept it a secret for two decades, and he wasn’t about to ruin it now. Sometimes he wished for a simpler time. He bet the old WWII heroes like Eaglestar and the Bombardier never had to think about this stuff.
Harrier turned to make sure the last of the workers had left the room. Just then, a flash bounced off his mask. Someone was taking a photo. A young, blonde woman who had been sitting at the desk closest to the smashed window rushed out the door to the elevators.
He’d have to do something about that immediately. This was just one of the many reasons he rarely went out in daylight—too many civilians getting in the way. But it wasn’t like the assassin he was dealing with, Deadeye, was going to wait until it was convenient for Harrier before attempting a hit on the mayor.
Maintaining his dual identity would be the least of his problems if Deadeye followed him in and started shooting up the place with all those civilians around. He scanned the building across the street to make sure, using the special equipment in his lenses. No sign of him. Could he have gotten lucky? Maybe Deadeye had—
SMASH! Of course he hadn’t. The villain came through another window and fired two pistols at Harrier simultaneously while spinning through the air. He’d seen something like it done with special effects in movies, but this hitman was the only one he’d ever seen pull it off in real life.
Luckily, a move like that threw off even Deadeye’s normally impeccable aim. A couple of bullets pinged off of Harrier’s helmet, but if they had been direct hits, the type of projectiles the super-assassin used would have gone right through.
Dammit, he needed to get downstairs. The clock was ticking, and the young woman probably wouldn’t wait long to post that photo.
Harrier calculated how long it would take for the elevator to get down to the parking garage. It was underground, so hopefully there wouldn’t be a signal if she tried it from there.
BLAM! Another shot from Deadeye reminded him that he had other pressing matters to attend to as he dove behind the reception counter.
But what if she tried to post it from the elevator? There wasn’t much he could do about that. He just had to hope she wouldn’t be that quick and get down there as soon as possible.
The problems of the modern-day masked crimefighter.
He vaulted over the counter, jumped over a desk, and covered the distance to Deadeye in a couple of seconds. Not as fast as he would have in the old days, but not too shabby, either. Deadeye was an extraordinary hand-to-hand combatant, but Harrier’s chance of surviving a melee fight with him far exceeded his chances of living with the assassin shooting at him.
The villain drew his sword and swung it so quickly that it was a blur, but Harrier was still able to block it with his bracer. The metal-on-metal sparked as they repeated the dance several more times before Harrier was finally able to knock the long blade from his hand. A decade ago, he would have had Deadeye unarmed and unconscious by now. Now he was having to work a lot harder.
The assassin’s foot shot up at his face, but he was just able to avoid it with a back flip. Harrier felt a twinge in his lower back as he swung his body upward and back onto his feet. For a moment, all he could think about was the relief of sitting in the hot tub in his penthouse back at Douglas Tower.
Focus! What the hell was wrong with him? Harrier hoped his mind wasn’t starting to go as well as his body. What do they call it? Early-onset…something. He’d certainly sustained enough concussions over the years to have something like that happen.
Maybe he wasn’t going to be able to beat this guy hand-to-hand like he always had in the past. He reached around to the back of his belt under his cape and grabbed his second grappler. As Deadeye leapt for his fallen sword, Harrier aimed his grappler at him and shot. As soon as it connected with the killer’s armor, he braced himself against the foot of a desk and hit the button to retract the super-strong cable. The super-villain was yanked toward him at lightning speed.
Just as Deadeye was about to collide with him, Harrier put all of his strength into a roundhouse kick and connected with his chin. The assassin went down hard, and Harrier wondered if maybe he had broken the man’s neck.
Then he wondered if maybe that would be a good thing.
He should get the police and an ambulance over here immediately, but he had bigger fish to fry at the moment. He checked Deadeye’s pulse to make sure he was still alive, then left him there, hoping he’d remain unconscious long enough for the cops to get him.
Harrier surveyed the glass-covered desk of the woman who had taken the photo and found a name: Danielle Taylor. He only hoped she was too busy running away from being potential collateral damage to start posting his face all over the internet immediately.
He disconnected the grappler from Deadeye and attached the line to a giant file cabinet. Taking one last look back at the assassin, he dove out the broken window and rappelled down the building as quickly as he could.
• • •
“Excuse me, but can you tell me what’s going on?” Frank was sporting an expensive suit as he entered the parking garage from the street. Over the years, he had managed to turn the restroom stall quick-change into an art form. Another notch in the plus column of having years of experience on the job.
In the negative column, he wasn’t able to slow down his heart rate and breathe normally when recovering from a battle as fast as he used to. He hoped she wouldn’t notice how out of breath he was.
Danielle was running for her car, and seemed annoyed at the question until she turned and realized who was speaking to her. “Oh…uh…Mr. Douglas.”
Frank smiled at her. Always helpful to be a wealthy celebrity in these situations. “It’s just that it would be nice to know why my employees are all fleeing the premises in the middle of the workday.” Of course, he had already received three calls from building security, but she didn’t know that.
Danielle stared as if she had been asked a question by a famous movie star. “Sorry, I’m a little flustered. You won’t believe what happened upstairs. We were just sitting there working, and—and then, there was this huge crash.” Her eyes went wide as she described the scene. “And you wouldn’t believe who fell through the window…”
Frank raised an eyebrow and waited, then realized he was actually expected to answer. “Who?”
“The Black Harrier himself!” She said it as if she expected Frank’s head to explode when he heard the name.
He wasn’t sure which was more difficult: trying to feign surprise or attempting to hide his annoyance. He summoned his years of practice at playing the shallow playboy. “Wow…that’s—that’s just crazy.”
“I know! I was, like, what the fu—sorry! WTF? OMG!”
“Yes, I’m sure you were.”
“And…” Danielle smiled and looked around like she was privy to the most exciting secret in history. “I even got a photo.” She pulled her phone out of her purse, expertly tapping and swiping the screen with her thumb. “Check it out.”
Danielle handed the phone to Frank and he looked at the picture that filled the screen. Yeah, it was his alter ego all right. He pulled his fingers apart on the screen and zoomed in. He hadn’t had time to put his contacts in, and without the lenses in his mask, his eyes weren’t so great any more.
Uh oh. The photo was nice and clear, too.
Between running a few companies, maintaining a playboy cover story, training a sidekick, practicing martial arts, staying in peak physical shape, and—oh, yeah—fighting bad guys as The Black Harrier, Frank wasn’t exactly a s
mart phone expert. But he knew how to delete a picture, and he did it as quickly and covertly as possible.
“Oops.” He had the airhead routine mastered from all those dates he had to cut short when duty called. “Not sure what I did there.”
Danielle grabbed the phone back and her smile faded as she looked at the screen and started swiping around. “Oh, no. I think you deleted it.”
“Really? Oh, geez, I’m so sorry. I’m no good with new technology.” He flashed her his sparkling smile and tried to pour on the old Douglas charm to distract her. “I’m sure I can make it up to you someh—“
“Don’t worry about it, Mr. Douglas. My dad does that kind of stuff all the time. But all my pics get uploaded to the cloud automatically, so I’ll just download it when I get home.”
Ouch. “Right. The cloud. Of course.”
“Well, it was nice meeting you, sir.” Sir? Do I seem that old to her?
“Uh… yeah. Nice meeting you as well.” Frank clenched his fists as she hopped in her car and joined the parade of vehicles attempting to leave the parking garage all at the same time.
He pulled out his own phone and dialed. “Yeah. I’m going to need some help with something.”
• • •
As he sped through the city streets, Harrier didn’t think he’d have time to head back to his secret headquarters atop the city’s tallest building, the Aerie. But he hoped his young sidekick was already working at the terminal to the giant supercomputer he had there, since that seemed to be his favorite pastime.
His sidekick was the opposite of him in so many ways. With his red body armor and shock of blonde hair sticking out from the top of his mask, the teenager stood in stark contrast to his mentor’s black costume and dark demeanor. He was always surprised they weren’t more alike, considering…well, he didn’t like thinking about that. Suffice to say, they were much more different than similar.
It's A Bird! It's A Plane! Page 12
