Hero Force United Boxed Set 1

by Baron Sord

  “Something wrong?” Clifton asked.

  “No. Why?” I asked with irritation.

  “You look like someone just kicked you in the balls.”

  I heaved a sigh. That was essentially accurate.

  He said, “Was it Stazia doing the kicking?”

  I smirked, “It’s complicated.”

  “That answer will only get you so far. You’re gonna haveta tell me and Rene sooner or later.”

  “How about later?” I said sarcastically. “Much later.”

  Clifton shrugged. “Choice is yours. Don’t wait too long.” He turned to go.

  “Was that a threat?” I said angrily.

  He turned around and frowned, “Hey, man. You’ve got—” he leaned forward and whispered so quietly only I could hear him, “—you’ve got the hottest babe who ever worked here giving you boob pics. The least you could do is tell me and Rene what happened. Just sayin’.”

  I sighed, “Okay. Once I figure things out, I’ll let you know.”

  Clifton smirked, “If you wait until the wedding to tell us, you can kiss my hairy ball bag. That is a threat. Be reader to pucker up.”

  “Wedding? What wedding?”

  “Yours and Stazia’s, dimwit.” He winked and walked back to his cube.

  At least he was rooting for me in his usual Clifton way.

  —: o o o :—

  Tuesday morning at work, I texted Stazia from my cube:

  Did you get my text yesterday? If not, I’m sorry. Can I apologize in person?

  Then I waited.

  She never replied.

  Around 4 o’clock, Clifton confirmed she was in her office talking to two other women who worked in sales — in other words, not clients of Stazia’s — and the three of them had been giggling about something that didn’t sound work-related to Clifton. Meaning, Stazia was still in town and in the office, and she had more than enough free time to respond to my text request with a simple yes or no answer. But she wouldn’t even do that.

  Had abandoning her at her place made her that angry?

  Was she not even willing to hear my apology?

  Clifton said, “Go talk to her.”

  I said, “I can’t. I told you that yesterday.”

  “You must’ve really pissed her off.”

  “Clearly,” I groaned.

  “You didn’t…” he lowered his voice to a whisper, “…fuck her then do something stupid to screw it up, did you?”

  “I wish,” I sighed.

  “Wait, which did you do?”

  I scowled, “Only the screwing up part.”

  “But no screwing?”

  “No,” I shook my head.

  “Hmm.” He looked around thoughtfully then said, “Maybe that’s why she’s mad.”

  I simply glared at Clifton because he was right.

  He said, “Go talk to her.”

  I did not.

  Tuesday evening, I drove home with a sad scowl on my face.

  Easy come, easy go, right?

  Didn’t make it any easier to let someone like Stazia go.

  —: o o o :—

  On Wednesday, things with Stazia blew up in my face.

  That morning, I texted her another apology.

  Got no reply.

  That afternoon, I again sent Clifton out to check if she was in her office.

  When he returned, he confirmed she was there, alone and working at her computer.

  “Go talk to her,” Clifton encouraged.

  I considered it. Doing so would surely raise the suspicions of her coworkers, which I had promised not to do.

  “No,” I shook my head. “It wouldn’t be right.”

  “Screw right. You want to screw her, right?” Clifton snickered at his own wordplay.

  Suddenly, my Robot phone buzzed in my pocket.

  Clifton heard it and said, “Is that her?”

  I yanked my phone out of my pocket to check the text.

  Stazia Wilcox: People are talking. You need to stop sending your little minion to spy on me.

  Looking at the text, I couldn’t decide how angry it was. But I was desperate to explain myself to Stazia and find out what she meant by “People are talking.”

  Clifton said, “What’s it say?”

  I grumbled, “She’s onto you.”

  He smirked, “I wish she was. What’d she say?”

  “Not on you. I mean, she knows you’re spying on her. It sounds like other people do too.”

  “Bullshit,” he snorted. “I walk through sales every day checking out hotties on the sly. Why would anyone notice now?”

  “I don’t know, but she did. I need you to please stop walking past her office.”

  “Hell no!” Clifton whispered. “The best babes at YouDoIt all sit outside Stazia’s office! You’re not taking that away from me!”

  “Fine. Then stop looking at her.”

  “No way, Doug! I always look at her!”

  “Work with me here, Clifton. Just don’t look at her for at least a week. Please.”

  He grumbled, “Okay. One week. But that’s it. You are such a buzzkill, Doug.” He turned and walked out of my cube.

  I looked at my phone and reread the text thread with Stazia.

  After thinking for a moment, I texted: He’s not spying. He walks through your department every day.

  Stazia Wilcox: So he can spy on me?

  I could sense she was getting irritated. I had to chose my next words carefully.

  Me: No, he does it to stretch his legs. I guess maybe you never noticed before.

  Now I was lying in my texts, which meant leaving a record of my lies. What would I do next? Lie on the witness stand after swearing on a bible to tell the truth? Suffice it to say, my super powers were turning me into a very deceptive person. I wasn’t sure if I liked that fact. Then again, being deceptive made me perfect for my neighbor Vanessa, aka Yoga Angelina. That was sarcasm.

  On my phone, the dots danced next to Stazia’s name at the bottom of the thread.

  Stopped.

  Danced again.

  Stopped.

  I considered texting something else, like suggesting we talk about this in person over dinner or something.

  Stazia Wilcox: This was a mistake. This needs to stop.

  I quickly fired off: What? The spying?

  Stazia Wilcox: No. You and me.

  My chest seized. I texted quickly: You mean us texting at work? Do you want to talk later? Over dinner maybe?

  Stazia Wilcox: No. I don’t want to talk at all.

  Oh no.

  Stazia Wilcox: You’re nice

  That was good.

  Stazia Wilcox: Dancing dots.

  I waited nervously.

  Stazia Wilcox: But please stop texting me

  Stazia Wilcox: Don’t call either

  Stazia Wilcox: Forget we met.

  Horrified, I frantically fired off a series of texts in desperation.

  Me: I’m really sorry about this.

  Me: If you’d just let me explain.

  Me: In person. Please.

  Me: I have a good reason.

  Me: If you just let me tell you in person, it’ll all make sense.

  Me: Please, Stazia.

  Me: I swear. There’s a good reason for everything.

  I typed Please one last time and was about to hit send, then hesitated because I already sounded pathetic and didn’t want to make things worse, even though it was probably too late for that.

  Stazia Wilcox: Dancing dots…

  Stazia Wilcox: more dots…

  And then…

  The dots stopped.

  I stared at my phone for 15 minutes without looking away, waiting for more dancing dots.

  Wishing for more dots.

  They never reappeared.

  For the next 2 hours, I left my phone out on my desk where I could check it every 2 minutes by glancing at it, which I did. I also mentally kicked myself every 30 seconds for texting the wrong thing. If on
ly I had texted this instead of that, so on and so forth. I knew kicking myself wouldn’t help matters, but I did it anyway.

  No surprise, Stazia never replied.

  She was obviously done with me.

  It made perfect sense. Last Saturday, I had blown her off.

  Now she was blowing me off.

  And that meant I wasn’t getting blown by her or anybody else for the foreseeable future.

  This superhero business wasn’t working out nearly as well as I had hoped.

  At the end of the workday, I slid my phone in my pocket with a disappointed grimace and limped out to the parking lot like a three legged dog with two broken legs and one completely broken heart.

  —: Chapter 47 :—

  I didn’t know it at the time, but screwing up things with Stazia would soon be the least of my regrets.

  Turned out, the consequences of my recent heroics saving lives were about to bite me in the ass in a big bad way. We’re not talking dog bite. Were talking sitting-on-a-bear-trap-with-your-pants-down bite.

  I never saw it coming.

  The other thing I didn’t see coming was that I would soon bump into Kristy, and she wouldn’t be wearing her Lady Liberty costume when I did. In fact, she wouldn’t be wearing much of anything at all.

  I let you guess where I bumped into her.

  It may or may not have been her place of work.

  Do you need another hint?

  Okay, it starts with an F and there’s a c-k near the end.

  Now you’re getting it.

  The question was, what would I be getting when I saw her at the F, C, K place?

  Start guessing.

  —: o o o :—

  “Dude! I got a present for you!” Arnold said late Wednesday night as I walked into the main house well past midnight. He was still on crutches, but getting better every day.

  “Why are you still awake?”

  “So I can give you your present, duh!”

  I smirked, “Is it Lady Liberty?”

  “Ah ha ha ha. You wish.”

  “It’s not Stazia, is it?”

  “Do you want it to be?” he said coyly.

  “Uhhh…” I chuckled uncertainly.

  “What if I told you Stazia is waiting naked in your bed in the guest house right now?”

  “Is she?” I gasped. “I didn’t see her Mustang outside.” I hadn’t yet told him what had happened at work with her today because I didn’t want to rehash it. “You better not be fucking with me, Arn. I’m not in the mood for any fucking.”

  “That’s what the ladies are all saying,” Arnold chortled.

  I glared at him.

  He said, “Okay, I’m fucking with you. Don’t worry, it’s better than Stazia.”

  I smirked, “So it is Lady Liberty?”

  He groaned, “No, man. It’s not a girl.”

  “Oh,” I said, genuinely disappointed.

  “Trust me, you’re gonna love it. Wait’ll you see it.”

  “Okay, hold on,” I sighed. “I need a snack first.” I had been out for a long evening of saving lives all over San Diego on my own, while trying to avoid thinking about Stazia, which was impossible, of course. I went to the kitchen and drank an entire gallon of milk in what seemed like one long swallow.

  Arnold crutched into the kitchen and chuckled, “We need to buy you your own cow.”

  “Tell me about it. If only I could afford one. Wait, did you get me a cow?”

  “No. Better.”

  “Did you install a propane tank and hook up the fire coffin?”

  “Working on it,” he chuckled.

  “Wait, is that the present? A propane tank? You can’t pay for that! I owe you too much for groceries and gas already.”

  “Would you relax? I didn’t buy a new tank. Check this out.” He crutched back to the living room and pointed to a gift-wrapped box on the coffee table.

  “What is it?”

  “A present, dummy. Open it.”

  I sat down and peeled the wrapping paper off. “A GoPro and a head strap mount? I’m assuming this is for me to wear?”

  “Endorsements, baby! Freaking endorsements.”

  “Am I supposed to video me saving people? Isn’t that invasive? Do people want to be caught on camera in their most vulnerable moments?”

  “No, Doug! I’ve been thinking about this for days. All you have to do is go out alone and do your Masked Jumper routine.”

  “What about Wildfire?”

  “We’ll worry about that later. You can do Masked Jumper stuff pretty much whenever. You don’t even need to hook up the fire coffin.”

  “I don’t have time, Arnold.”

  “You do now.”

  “No, I need to eat then sleep. I’m exhausted and I have work in the morning.”

  “This’ll take five minutes. I already have the camera set up.”

  “How? I haven’t even opened the box.”

  “I ordered two. You know you’re going to break one or melt it eventually.” He pulled out a second strap and camera from under a pillow on the couch. “All you have to do is put this on and go record for 5 minutes.”

  “Record what? I can’t think right now, Arnold.”

  “This’ll only take 5 minutes. I promise.”

  I sighed, “Okay, what?”

  —: o o o :—

  After Arnold explained his idea, he practically kicked me out of the house to go do it.

  Luckily, I didn’t have to drive anywhere. I walked a few blocks from the house and put my ninja mask on and strapped the camera over it. I turned the camera on and jogged to the west entrance of Balboa Park on 6th Avenue, a street called El Prado.

  This late at night on a Wednesday, the city streets were abandoned.

  When I was reasonably confident no one was watching, I walked onto El Prado and started running. It took only a few seconds to reach my top speed, which seemed to be getting faster. If I had to guess, I’d been hitting 60mph (96kph) on a regular basis for the past few days. I couldn’t sustain it more than 20 or 30 seconds, but that was fast enough to chase cheetahs. And I could sustain 40mph for minutes at a time. Cheetahs couldn’t do that. Race horses barely could.

  As my feet hammered the asphalt, I blazed past Sefton Plaza, which was a brick-laid intersection near the Lawn Bowling Club and the dog park. When I crossed over the arched Cabrillo Bridge that traversed the 163 freeway below, I glanced left and right to give the camera a sense of location and elevation. The bridge soared 120 feet above the freeway. I hoped I wasn’t bouncing too much for the GoPro to get good video in the darkness.

  I also glanced down at my flashing feet and arms so people would know I was running and not riding on a motorcycle or on top of a car.

  I was closing fast on the archway that led through the San Diego Museum of Man building in the California Quadrangle. The old structure resembled a Spanish mission church with a big dome and tall tower.

  The arch over the road was two stories high and formed a short tunnel that led to the courtyard of the church area. I jumped and landed easily on the 30 foot roof above the arch. Ran along it toward the dome. Jumped onto one of the four smaller arched tile roofs just below the dome. Paused long enough to video the courtyard three stories below, then turned to video the top of the dome, which was another two stories above me.

  Jumped up and touched down gently on the very top of the curving dome. I took note of the intricate and colorful glass tiles. Didn’t want to break any.

  At the apex of the dome, I grabbed onto the side of the small windowed turret tower and hopped up to the top of it. The turret roof had a spire, so I grabbed on like I was Spider-Man or Spawn and did a slow 360, videoing the entire park, including The Old Globe (a period-accurate Shakespearean theater), the Museum of Art, the Spreckels Organ Pavilion (outdoor organ concerts daily), and the Model Railroad Museum (every diehard railfan’s favorite destination when visiting the park).

  Then I looked up at the California Tower, which climbed s
kyward above the dome. From where I stood on the dome tower, the jump up was only another 75 feet of vertical — plus 50 feet of horizontal.

  I could easily do that in one go.

  Then I realized jumping might be bad for the little turret tower where I stood. It wasn’t engineered to withstand the kind of force required to launch my 300 pounds across 50 feet of horizontal. 75 feet vertically, maybe, but definitely not 50 horizontal. And yes, I’d eaten back 15 pounds of muscle in the past 5 days, which was consistent with my prior observations. At any rate, were I to jump from here, I might accidentally knock the entire turret off the dome and send it crashing to the ground below.

  Best not to try.

  So I hopped off the turret and landed gently on the main dome. Sat down and slid down its curved tiled surface (only a slightly bumpy ride), and plummeted another hundred feet to the asphalt in the courtyard below.

  Talk about base jumping.

  From the courtyard, I did a slow tilt up with the GoPro to capture the California Tower from bottom to top, recording a continuous shot from the elaborately carved arched entrance to the soaring top.

  Could I jump 200 feet of vertical?

  I had never tried.

  But I felt as strong as ever.

  I squatted, ready to jump, and—

  BAM!

  Shoot upward with all my strength.

  As my vertical acceleration slowed, I started to worry I wasn’t going to make it.

  Nope.

  Landed perfectly.

  Right on the tip-top of the California Tower.

  200 foot vertical leap, baby!

  Somebody call the Olympics! No, Nike. Or maybe Adidas, or Gatorade, or Reebok, or Under Armour! No, call them all! Talk about endorsements! It would be a fricking bidding war! Okay, maybe I was getting ahead of myself, but I still couldn’t wait to tell Arnold. He’d be ecstatic.

  I did another slow 360 of the San Diego night skyline beyond the park. Got a perfect shot of the skyscrapers downtown, the bay, the airport, everything.

  What a view.

  Fricking incredible.

  I could’ve stayed up here for hours enjoying the twinkling city lights, but my stomach was rumbling, so I leapt off the tower and slammed down in the courtyard 200 feet below.