Hero Force United Boxed Set 1

by Baron Sord

  Another car lurched away in response to the first, almost jamming itself under the trailer of an 18-wheeler.

  For another tense second, Kristy waited for total disaster to strike as she continued her helpless slide.

  Highway Patrol sirens whined behind her.

  Somehow, disaster didn’t hit.

  Somehow, all cars avoided tragedy, some continuing on, others slowing to a stop so the drivers could gather their wits.

  Then disaster did strike—

  CHOOM!

  Tragedy up ahead.

  Kristy’s dad’s beloved Ninja shot across the road, colliding with the massive concrete column of an overhead overpass that curved across the 710.

  The dead bike kicked up a cloud of dirt at the base of the column.

  Kristy was still sliding along at 20mph or more when she finally got her feet under her and started sprinting at incredible speed along the freeway, cutting across the cautious traffic, jumping over cars, doing anything she could to reach the Ninja faster.

  “Daddyeeeeeeee!” she screamed.

  Kristy caught up to its final resting place.

  She fell to her knees in the dirt and sobbed.

  Draped her arms over the H2R and cried as hard as she had over her dad’s casket the day they’d lowered him into the ground.

  Now, his beloved bike was utterly destroyed.

  Kristy cried, and cried, and cried.

  The last living piece of her father…

  Gone.

  And somewhere, not far from this very spot, a gospel church was getting shot up in a drive-by shooting.

  All Kristy could do was cry.

  —: o o o :—

  The sirens wailed.

  Reds and blues flashed.

  The Highway Patrol cars pulled up behind where Kristy mourned over her dad’s dead Ninja.

  Kristy got up to go.

  Stopped.

  Oh no!

  Her phone!

  What’d happened to it during the crash?!

  It must’ve gone flying off with everything else!

  No, no, no!

  If the Highway Patrol found it somewhere on the freeway they could trace it back to her easy!

  “MA’AM! GET DOWN ON YOUR KNEES AND PUT YOUR HANDS IN THE AIR!” an officer shouted over the patrol car’s PA speaker.

  Frantic, Kristy searched around the remains of the motorcycle in the dirt. Broken bike parts where strewn everywhere. Any of them could be her phone. Or it could be a half mile back. There was no way to know and there wasn’t time to search.

  “MA’AM! I ORDER YOU TO GET DOWN ON THE GROUND IMMEDIATELY!”

  Kristy didn’t see her phone anywhere.

  She had to go.

  Rested her palm gently on the gas tank one final time and offered a silent prayer of apology to her dad.

  Felt her phone.

  Still zipped inside the pouch strapped to the tank!

  Kristy ripped the zipper off and pulled it out.

  Thank you, Daddy.

  Phone in hand, she sprinted across the grass under the overpass that ran parallel to the 710, running at least three times faster than the officers behind her. With the slower ones, it was more like four.

  She jumped a car passing along another narrow road. More grass, a chainlink fence, up a short hill to a cinderblock wall. She had no idea what was on the other side of that wall, but she jumped anyway.

  On her way over, she saw a long concrete slope below.

  Landed and ran.

  Found herself in the wide concrete channel of the LA River. Calling it a river was misleading. During the dry summer months like now, it contained mostly industrial runoff and sewage. That was confined to the narrow center channel. The rest of it was dry on both sides.

  Concrete for miles in both directions.

  She’d be a sitting duck here in the river.

  So she ran across the flat bottom and jumped the 25 foot center channel like she was hopping over a gap in the floorboards.

  The officers would never get across that without a bridge.

  She continued across to the far upslope, ran up that, jumped another cinderblock wall, sailed over a paved bike path, landed, and ran down a grass slope that terminated behind a really long concrete building.

  Kristy had no idea where she was.

  Checked her phone.

  Ruined.

  She’d have to find her way home from the middle of Los Angeles without a map app.

  To make matters worse, her costume was shredded down to a web of blue and red fabric barely holding on. Her sports bra and panties underneath weren’t doing any better. With a little strategic arrangement, she could make a nearly-nonexistent string bikini out of what remained, the kind of gratuitously skimpy bikini women never actually wore to the beach, only on stage at strip clubs or for cheesecake photo shoots.

  But she didn’t have time for strategic arrangement.

  Her boobs were basically hanging out.

  So be it.

  Her flat-soled riding boots, gloves, and racing knee pads were in slightly better condition, but were badly battered.

  So was she.

  She was sore all over.

  Her Lady Liberty costume was nothing like a full set of racing leathers. Her thin skintight costume was not meant for high-speed asphalt slides, and had offered no protection. Thank goodness her super-skin was plenty protective. If not for that, she’d by lying in the road possibly dead after a crash like that. If not dead, then close, moaning in extreme pain, patches of skin torn completely off in bloody hunks all over her body as she bled out.

  None of that happened, because super powers.

  She was still really sore, felt abrasion hot spots everywhere except her face and head. Thank goodness she’d been wearing her full-face Stars & Stripes helmet. She took it off to inspect it.

  “Wow,” she muttered.

  It was so scraped up, you couldn’t even see the red, white, and blue graphics hardly anywhere.

  “That could’ve been my face,” she shivered.

  She was super-tough, but she wasn’t Superwoman.

  Lesson learned.

  She wasn’t invulnerable.

  Neither was her dad’s Ninja.

  “Oh, Dad,” she whimpered out loud. “I’m so sorry.”

  That motorcycle was irreplaceable because it was her dad’s.

  And because it cost $50,000.

  She couldn’t afford to replace it even if she wanted to. It’d take years to save up that kind of money. That might be for the best.

  The Ninja could’ve killed someone tonight.

  Lucky for her it hadn’t.

  But those drive-by shooters probably had killed people at that gospel church. Kristy didn’t think the police had stopped it. How could they? Kristy’d seen the Disaster Vision already, and they’d been chasing her, not the driver-by shooters.

  It was a sad, sad tragedy.

  Kristy wanted to cry again.

  From here on out, she’d play it safe and stick to her Audi. She’d hope that Disaster Vision gave her enough advance warning to avoid a repeat of tonight. Talk about a disaster.

  Those poor people dead!

  And her dad’s poor Ninja!

  What if she just stayed closer to Oceanside?

  Helped people who weren’t so far away?

  No, far away people needed help too!

  This was so frustrating!

  Ugh!

  Whatever she did, she couldn’t drive her Audi anywhere until she made the 70 or 80 mile journey back to Oceanside where it was parked.

  On foot.

  Now it was time to do what every superheroine did at a time like this.

  Put one in front of the other.

  —: o o o :—

  Helmet on, Kristy trotted around from behind the mammoth concrete building into an industrial park. Lots of big boxy buildings. It was pretty dead on a Saturday evening. She kept going. Crossed Rosecrans Avenue, which did have traffic. It wasn�
��t that late, not for LA. Beyond, there was less traffic in the neighborhood of small houses, but lots and lots of parked cars and iron fences around every yard.

  Kristy had never been to this part of LA before, but it looked like all the rest.

  Good thing she knew the general direction back home based on freeways.

  Overhead, a police helicopter thumped past.

  They were already looking for her.

  Or not.

  You never knew in LA. Police helicopters were everywhere all the time.

  Either way, Kristy knew she had to move quickly.

  She sped up her jog to a fast run.

  Exited the neighborhood to a busier street.

  “How much, baby?!” some man shouted as Kristy ran by on the sidewalk, only he said it like, “Babaaaah?!” He also leered at her half-naked ass as she passed.

  “More than you have!” Kristy shouted back and kept going.

  A block later, another man drooled.

  Kristy covered her boobs with one arm.

  He said, “Can I see the rest?”

  “You can see this!” Kristy flipped him off without looking back.

  The drooler laughed, “Will you marry me?!”

  Kristy had to laugh at that.

  At a red light, a car window rolled down, a puff of thick sweet smoke rolled out on the wings of the bumping bass beat coming from inside. The driver said in a slithering voice, “You need a ride, sugar?” His eyes said ride meant kidnap, rape, murder, throw body in LA River.

  Kristy rolled her eyes inside her helmet and ran on.

  Waiting to cross at a crosswalk, a group of young women.

  One said sincerely, “Nice outfit… puta.”

  The others laughed, “Puta sucia!”

  Kristy ignored them, kept going.

  Passed some parks with those tall skeletal electrical towers running right over the playgrounds and fields. Next, the Paramount Swap Meet residing on the sweeping asphalt grounds of some old drive-in movie theater complex with multiple screens still standing. Did they still show movies at night? She couldn’t tell from behind the screen.

  A massive trucking distribution center for Ralphs and Food4Less.

  More houses.

  Endless heavy industry and railroad tracks crammed between neighborhoods. Sprawling forge works, machine shops, print shops, siding fabrication, industrial coatings, plastics manufacturing, and a gigantic oil-refinery smack dab in the middle of it all. But hey, it was behind a screen of trees and a tall wall blocking your view so you’d never know it was in your backyard. The only reason Kristy saw it was because she ran past the interminable wall for so long, she decided to stop and hop on top long enough to take a peak.

  Yup, oil refinery.

  Next to schools and grocery stores and trailer parks.

  Shaking her head, she kept going. She knew not everyone had the luxury of choosing where they lived because she often didn’t, but couldn’t the city get rid of the oil refinery or something? That was political stuff Kristy knew nothing about. She imagined money changing hands between fat men smoking cigars in gloomy back rooms, but that was TV. What if it wasn’t? What if stuff like that really happened? She didn’t know. It could be true.

  If it was, what if Lady Liberty got really big one day, and Kristy got elected president? She’d do something about the stupid oil refinery and the fat cigar smokers. Make them tear it down and put in solar panels or something. And stop smoking effing cigars! Talk about air pollution! Ew!

  First, she had to get home.

  She hadn’t heard any police helicopters too close to where she was, but some of the police had to be following her, and obviously everyone was noticing her running around basically naked with a helmet on her head. She needed a less obvious disguise.

  Where to get one?

  Hmm.

  Keep running until the answer presented itself.

  Countless houses and stores later—

  There!

  Exactly what Kristy needed.

  Ross Dress for Less.

  Guess what?

  Open till 11:00pm!

  It wasn’t any later than 9 or 10 at this point.

  Kristy ran inside.

  Everyone stared at her because Saturday night was shopping night, obviously, and it was bad form to wear your motorcycle helmet while trying on dresses over your nonexistent Bikini Slut costume.

  Kristy went straight to women’s clothes. Found a basic black hoodie and basic black yoga pants. Pulled them over her shredded costume. Ripped the tags off. Went up to the register. Waited in line while everyone tittered and stared at her and her helmet. Handed the tags to the cashier to scan. Paid cash with the emergency money she kept in the pocket she’d sewn into her sports bra’s under-elastic a long time ago. That part hadn’t been scraped off by the road rash. Her super-boobs had protected it. Ha!

  “Can I get a bag, please?” Kristy asked the cashier, her voice muted inside her helmet.

  Confused, the cashier said, “But you’re wearing everything.”

  “I know, but please? The biggest bag you’ve got.”

  The cashier handed Kristy the biggest one.

  “Better make it two.”

  The cashier shrugged, offered it.

  “Thank you!” Kristy smiled.

  Bags folded under her arm, Kristy walked outside fully dressed.

  Much better.

  Not far from the Ross, Kristy found a long tract of land dotted with dried weedy grass and running between houses on one side and stores on the other. The tall concrete walls of the store-backs were covered in graffiti, as were the cinderblock walls behind the houses. More skeletal electrical towers overhead ran the length of the long dirt tract. Nobody came back here except to tag walls. Tagging meant no cameras. Probably.

  She double-bagged the Ross bags. Pulled her helmet off. Pulled off her masquerade mask and put it in the helmet. Put both in the bags. Re-tied her hair in a bun. Now she looked vaguely normal.

  Time to walk the other 70 miles home.

  Kristy slung the bag over her shoulder like a hobo in a hoodie and started her journey. Would you believe over a hundred guys in cars pulled up alongside to offer her a ride whenever she was near a street?

  It was true.

  A hundred.

  She turned them all down.

  She wanted to be alone with her thoughts.

  So many people had died tonight.

  The Ninja too.

  So sad.

  Sorry, Dad.

  —: o o o :—

  18 hours later, Kristy finally made it to Oceanside.

  It would’ve gone far quicker if she hadn’t stopped to help people here and there along the way. Disaster Vision kept guiding her toward trouble. Kristy handled whatever she could get to on foot.

  She also stopped tons of times at various gas stations or stores to buy water or snacks, and she also bought a paper map at one gas station so she didn’t have to keep asking directions every two minutes.

  Basically, it took forever.

  The only bonus?

  No boot blisters from jogging 70 miles in leather riding boots.

  Go, super-powers!

  It was way past lunch time when she walked into her apartment and left the front door and screen door open to let in air. She went around opening every window. She was super hot from hours and hours of running. She was also starving. She’d run out of emergency cash hours ago.

  With her smart phone broken, she went and knocked next door and borrowed Wade’s phone to order pizzas.

  That done, she drank ten glasses of water before dropping onto her couch with a smiling sigh and waited for food to arrive.

  She’d made it.

  What an effing night. And half a day.

  It was two in the afternoon already!

  Eh.

  She couldn’t complain.

  When you had a beach apartment in San Diego and your health, there wasn’t anything to complain about, right? Toward
the end, before lung cancer’d taken her dad, he’d always been telling Kristy not to take her health for granted. She hadn’t ever since. His death’d inspired her to start her first work on the Lady Liberty comic back when.

  The other bad news, other than the tragedy at the gospel church and loss of her dad’s Ninja last night?

  Yet another Saturday night of missed tips at Flashbacks.

  She had to make money somehow.

  Kristy’s first thought was to jump onto her Cintiq and work on the Lady Liberty comic now so she could get it to the printers sooner rather than later, but she was too effing hungry to concentrate.

  Food first.

  Pay bills later.

  While she waited for her pizzas, she climbed out of her Ross clothes and ruined costume and got into her comfies. When the pizzas arrived, she chowed through them super fast. Finished, empty pizza boxes covered the kitchen table and she sat back with a yawn and stretched her arms over her head.

  Time for sleep.

  As she was drifting off in her bedroom, Mischief trotted into the room, hopped on Kristy’s mattress, and curled up cuddling against her thigh.

  “Missy,” Kristy cooed and started petting the cat. “Did you miss Auntie Kristy?”

  Mischief purred.

  Eventually, they fell asleep together.

  —: Chapter 40 :—

  I couldn’t bring myself to tell Arnold about killing Miguel and Javier on Saturday night.

  He already knew about Ice Statue and Karambit Kayhill, but I wasn’t ready to tell him about the two newest. My guilt wouldn’t let me. On the one hand, I liked that killing wasn’t getting any easier for me. Correction, the physical act was, which was why Miguel and Javier were dead. I meant on an emotional level. My nagging guilt and persistent remorse meant I wasn’t turning into a sociopath. On the other hand, I hated that I kept killing people. It was not a trend I wanted to continue.

  While hiding my murdering ways from the world, and with no awareness of the water slowly coming to a boil around me, I worked to keep my bills under control by clocking in at YouDoIt every Monday through Friday like a good little worker bee. I sat diligently at my desk each and every day from 9:00am to 6:00pm, doing my best to ignore the distress calls I heard loud and clear.