Sentinels: The Omega Superhero Book Three (Omega Superhero Series 3)

by Darius Brasher

  “Assuming it’s in the form of a cape. Assuming it’s here. And, assuming it really exists and wasn’t made up by the Sentinels to send you on a wild goose chase for reasons we don’t understand.”

  “Well, aren’t you a ray of sunshine and optimism today.”

  “Being told that the guy you routinely crush in chess, Civilization, and Call of Duty is possessed by some eternal, world-saving incubus makes me skeptical. Call me crazy.”

  I put the cape back on the last mannequin. I was plenty skeptical myself, but that did not mean I would stop looking for a way to fight back against the Sentinels. “C’mon,” I said, moving away from the mannequins, “there are plenty of other places to look before we throw in the towel.”

  Isaac followed. “Since the capes are apparently a no-go, what should we be looking for? Something in a case that reads ‘Break glass in the event of the Sentinels trying to kill you?’”

  “Heck if I know. I’m hoping we’ll know it when we see it.”

  We started to systemically search the contents of The Mountain. It was hard to shake the feeling we were doing something profane by going through a dead man’s things. I felt like a tour guide as I told Isaac what each item represented in the history of Avatar’s adventures. Though Isaac knew of Avatar—who didn’t?—he was not the Avatar fanboy that I was.

  The first thing we ran across that stumped me as to what it was was in the far corner of the cavern from where we came through the portal at. It was a cube-shaped enclosure made of thick, almost transparent glass on four of its sides. Its back wall and floor were the cavern’s rock face. The enclosure was big enough to comfortably contain several people. It was completely empty. Its only opening was a door-shaped hole in one of the cube’s clear sides. A gold-colored round switch that looked like a dimmer switch was mounted on the enclosure by the door.

  I tapped experimentally on a clear wall of the enclosure with a knuckle. It felt as solid as a rock. “Could this thing be it?” I asked.

  “What do I look like, the Omega whisperer?” Isaac said. “Hell if I know.”

  Feeling like a guinea pig with a death wish, I stepped into the enclosure through its door. Nothing happened. I felt the same as I always did, except for more frustrated. So much nothing was happening, I would have been more surprised had something happened.

  “You want me to hit the switch?” Isaac asked from the other side of the enclosure.

  I sighed in resignation. I steeled myself. “Sure. If this thing happens to be a gas chamber, I bequeath to you what little remains in my bank account.”

  “I’ll try to not spend it all in one place. Here goes.” Isaac pressed down on the switch.

  This time, something actually did happen: the door I had walked through soundlessly shrank in on itself and then disappeared, like an ameba twisting itself into a different shape. The opening I had stepped through was now filled with the same nearly transparent material that surrounded me. I immediately felt different, and not in a good way. The slight burning sensation I had felt in my hands ever since my powers manifested was gone. I had grown so accustomed to the feeling over the years that it being gone was very disconcerting. I felt naked and vulnerable, as if I had been stripped of my clothes in the middle of a crowd of people. I had experienced this feeling only once before, during the Trials when Hacker’s powers and mine had been nullified on the planet Hephaestus.

  I lifted my hands slightly and tried to pick myself off the ground with my powers. I did not budge. What had become as second nature to me as breathing now felt impossible.

  “Can you hear me?” I said to Isaac, trying to keep the panic of being without my powers out of my voice. I would have given my left nut to be rid of my powers when I first got them. What a difference a few years could make.

  “Clear as a bell,” he said, the look on his face indicating he was surprised as I was that he could hear me through the thick but nearly transparent walls. It was as if thin air rather than the thick material separated us.

  “I think being in here has shut my powers off. Hit the switch again.”

  Isaac did so. As if by magic, the door dilated open again. The burning in my hands resumed. I levitated slightly off the ground. I was relieved to see my powers were back. I was so used to them, the thought of losing them was like losing an arm or a leg.

  I used my telekinetic touch to probe the enclosure’s clear material. Whatever it was made of, it was dense, denser than even the solid rock that was the cube’s floor and back wall. I doubted a jackhammer could even scratch the clear material.

  “You know what I think this is?” I said. “I think it’s a Metahuman holding cell.”

  “You mean Avatar had his own personal mini-MetaHold? I don’t know whether to be impressed or appalled. How often do you suppose he used this thing on somebody?”

  “I have no idea. If he kept someone in here, I’m guessing he didn’t do it for long. There’s obviously no toilet, running water, or food in here.”

  After playing around with the enclosure for a while, we determined that fresh air got inside it even when the door was closed, though we couldn’t figure out how. Pressing and depressing the switch turned the Metahuman dampening field inside the enclosure on and off; turning the knob of the switch controlled the size of the door, from it being a tiny fist-sized opening to it being a full-sized door. But, as interesting as the enclosure and how its technology might work was, fooling around with it was not bringing us closer to finding the Omega weapon. We moved on to examine other items in the cavern.

  “What the heck is this thing?” Isaac demanded in front of one of them. “It looks like the Washington Monument’s biracial little brother.”

  “This?” I said absentmindedly, my concentration on where I would hide a cape if I were Avatar. By this time, we had searched most of the cavern. Maybe we’d try the remains of the V’Loth mothership next, which was suspended from the cavern’s ceiling from struts directly above us. “This is the neutronium spear Star Czar threw at Avatar years ago.” Isaac was right—the object did look more like an obelisk like the Washington Monument than like the spear Star Czar had called it. Dull black in color, its point came up to about as high as my chin. Its base which rested flat on the cavern’s smooth rock floor was slightly bigger than an extra-large pizza box.

  “Neutronium?” Isaac frowned. “What’s that?”

  If I hadn’t been so distracted with thoughts of the Omega weapon, I would have been more smug about knowing something Isaac didn’t. He had graduated from the Academy second in our class, right behind Neha. He usually schooled me on things, not vice versa. “It’s composed solely of neutrons. Highly dense and once thought to only exist inside of neutron stars, it’s the heaviest substance known to man. Avatar with his Omega-level super strength was said to be the only person who could pick this neutronium spear up. Well, other than Star Czar, but that’s just because his powers allowed him to create and control neutronium. Since Star Czar is dead like Avatar, I imagine the neutronium spear will sit here undisturbed for millennia until the earth swallows this mountain again.” I pointed upwards impatiently. “We’re wasting time. Come on, let’s check inside the V’Loth spaceship.”

  I launched myself into the air, coming to a stop abreast the gaping hole in the side of the V’Loth mothership. Isaac joined me in the form of a large golden-hued eagle that glowed faintly. His wings beat powerfully in the air as he hovered next to me. I did not know what this creature was, but I did not have the encyclopedic knowledge of mythological creatures Isaac did.

  The original V’Loth mothership had been smashed to pieces when Omega Man had killed the alien queen inside. The pieces that remained of it had been assembled together up here like a giant jigsaw puzzle, with the pieces held in place by thick cables that extended from the cavern’s ceiling. About the length of an eighteen-wheeled truck, the spaceship looked like a stereotypical UFO, as if a giant silver pie pan had been flipped over and welded on top of another one. Scientists s
peculated that this iconic UFO shape was associated with aliens even before the V’Loths’ arrival in the 1960s because the V’Loths had visited Earth before at some point in man’s distant history. I didn’t have any thoughts on the subject. I was a Hero, not an astrobiologist. Between botching the situation with Hannah and my apparent inability to find the Omega weapon, I had not been doing such a hot job of merely being a Hero lately. I had no business speculating on the origins of the UFO trope. I needed to stay in my lane.

  We entered the spaceship through the hole on its side. The inside of it was mostly empty space, except for a few large pieces of equipment. I could not even begin to guess at their purpose. Perhaps the ship had been stripped mostly clean over the years. Or, maybe the V’Loths simply traveled light. I had no idea and, frankly, didn’t care.

  With Isaac still in his bird form, together we searched what little remained in the spaceship as carefully as we could. If the Omega weapon was hidden up here, we sure as heck did not recognize it as such.

  We were running out of places to look in the cavern. I was beyond frustrated. Maybe Isaac was right—maybe the Omega weapon was not here. Maybe it didn’t exist at all, and the Sentinels had been lying to me. I certainly would not put it past them.

  We exited the spaceship from the same hole we had entered it from. I hovered in the air for a few moments, trying to think of something we might have missed. Isaac flapped in the air next to me. Suddenly, he let out a squawk. It sounded like a squawk of excitement. It just as easily could have been him saying “I really wanna poop on a car right now.” Just like I wasn’t an astrobiologist, I wasn’t an ornithologist either.

  Isaac dove toward the cavern floor as if his eagle form was about to kill a mouse. Curious as to what he was making a fuss about, I too descended. By the time I landed near the neutronium spear, Isaac had already transformed into his normal self. He was on one knee next to the black obelisk.

  “What kind of eagle was that?” I asked.

  “Aetos Dios,” he said absentmindedly, preoccupied by whatever he was looking at. His finger traced a pattern on the floor next to the obelisk.

  “In English. I’m not bilingual.”

  He looked up. “Huh? Oh. It means Eagle of Zeus. And guess what my eagle eyes spotted from up above?”

  “My impatience?” I was in no mood for guessing games.

  “No. I saw an indentation in the rock floor next to the neutronium spear. It’s hard to see it with human eyes, but you can feel it. Come here. Give me your hand. See?” Isaac guided my hand up, across, and then down again, like it was the planchette on a Ouija board. I knew what a planchette was, but not how to find the Omega weapon. Marvelous.

  Isaac was right—there was a big square indentation in the surface of the rock next to the neutronium spear. I couldn’t see it, but I could feel it.

  “So the floor is not as perfectly smooth as it looks,” I said. “I don’t get why you’re so excited.”

  Isaac shook his head at me. “I think Mechano’s energy blast cooked your brains a little. The indentation on the floor is square, and seems to be about the same size as the base of the spear. If the spear is as heavy as you say it is, it could’ve caused the indentation in the floor. It’s as if Avatar moved it from where it left this indentation to where it rests now.”

  “So Avatar moved the spear. I still don’t get why you’re making a federal case out of it.”

  “Don’t you see? If Avatar is the only person who can lift this thing, maybe he moved it because he hid something under it. Something like the Omega weapon.”

  I was dubious. “You’re making a mighty big deal over Avatar moving the spear a couple of feet. Maybe he simply thought the cavern’s feng shui was better with the spear here.”

  “Well, there’s one way to find out.” Isaac moved over to the spear and got on both knees in front of it. His body glowed slightly as it always did when he underwent a transformation. His body became translucent. He had assumed his ghost form, something I had seen him do many times before. He shoved his hand down toward the base of the neutronium spear. Part of his arm sank through the floor as if the floor was made of air instead of solid rock.

  His face grew excited. “There’s a small cavity in the floor right underneath the spear. Something’s in here. I can’t touch it like this, of course, but I know it’s there. A solid feels different when my hand passes through it than empty space does.”

  I was getting excited too. “Can you pull it out?”

  Isaac retracted his arm. He was empty-handed. His body became solid again. “I can’t go solid while I’m phased through something.”

  “What would happen if you tried?”

  “Two solids trying to occupy the same space at the same time?” Isaac put his fists together, then spread them out while making an exploding sound. “A massive explosion would happen, flavored with bits of Isaac. You wouldn’t be around to enjoy the fireworks display as the blast would likely kill you too.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  “Yeah, oh.”

  I was now as disappointed as I had been excited moments before. What had Avatar hidden under the neutronium spear if not the Omega weapon? If Isaac couldn’t phase it out, it might as well be on the far side of the moon for all the good it would do us under the impossibly heavy obelisk. If the Omega weapon really had been stashed under the obelisk, it was so close, and yet still so far away.

  Isaac squatted down a bit with his legs straddling the spear. He wrapped his arms around it.

  “What in the world are you doing?” I asked.

  “Since the EZ Keep clerk isn’t handy, I’m making love to the neutronium spear,” he said. “What’s it look like I’m doing? Try to pick this damned thing up, of course.” He heaved up. Well, he tried to. Despite Isaac straining against it, the spear didn’t move so much as a millimeter.

  “Weren’t you listening before when I told you Avatar is the only one strong enough to move it?”

  Isaac continued to strain. The cords stood out on his neck. After struggling vainly, he gave up. “The Hero Hags website says I have my powers because I’m half-demon. It also says that naked you look like a human tripod. The fact urban legend says something, that doesn’t mean it’s true. I’ll try again, only I’ll kick the horsepower up some.” Isaac’s form shimmered again, becoming larger and more imposing. A huge, bare-chested, burly man with a black bull’s horned head took Isaac’s place. He had turned into the Minotaur, one of Isaac’s forms that had super strength.

  I would have said that Isaac was full of bull if he really thought he could lift the obelisk even in his Minotaur form, but making puns did not seem terribly helpful. Since lighting a candle was more useful than cursing the darkness, I said “I’ll help,” as Isaac squatted down around the obelisk again. I extended my hands, latching onto the obelisk with my powers. “We’ll lift together on three.”

  On the count of three, the muscles of Isaac’s Minotaur form rippled dramatically, like a bodybuilder doing a clean and press with a loaded barbell. He grunted and snorted like a bull fighting a matador as he heaved on the spear. I too tried to lift it with my powers, envisioning it as a thimble I was trying to pluck off someone’s thumb.

  To be honest, my heart wasn’t entirely in the effort. I had already done a quick calculation of how much the spear weighed by taking how much a cubic inch of neutronium was said to weigh and doing a rough extrapolation from that based on how big the spear was. The answer had so many zeroes I thought we wouldn’t be able to lift the spear even if we had a few dozen Heroes here to help us.

  It gave me no pleasure to see that I was right. Despite us straining to lift it, the neutronium spear did not budge even the tiniest bit. We did not come up with an answer to that classic paradox of what happens when an unstoppable force is met with an immovable object because, though we seemed to have found an immovable object, Isaac and I combined were hardly an unstoppable force.

  Isaac gave up. He fell backwards to the floor, transf
orming back into his human form as he sprawled there. His chest heaved; his face was red. I lowered my arms and also desisted. I sat down heavily on the hard floor. I felt the way Isaac looked.

  “If Avatar hid his diary under this thing and not the Omega weapon, I’m going to be awfully pissed,” Isaac gasped.

  “Not that we’re likely to find out.”

  “I’ve lifted a locomotive in my Minotaur form, but the neutronium spear might as well have laughed at our combined efforts. What was it Archimedes said? ‘Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world.’ I defy that old fraud to move this thing. It goes to show that just because you’re dead and distinguished, it doesn’t mean you know what in the heck you’re talking about.”

  I stood up so abruptly that I got light-headed.

  I said, “Maybe you were right about Mechano having cooked my brain. Good God, I’m stupid.”

  “And you’re just now realizing it? To what do those of us who’ve know it for a while owe this epiphany?”

  “You’re stupid too for not having thought of it either,” I said. “We don’t need to be strong enough to pick the spear up. We just need to lever it over so we expose whatever is buried in the cavity underneath it.”

  Isaac thought about that for a moment. Then he stood up and brushed his hands off. Still breathing hard, he looked disgusted. “As much as it pains me to admit it, you’re right—I am stupid for not having thought of it. As soon as I catch my breath, we’ll try again.”

  I let out a long breath and ran a hand over my head. I was sweating, from both exertion and my Mechano-induced injuries.

  “No, we won’t try again,” I said. “I need to try by myself. You’ll just be in the way.”

  Isaac blinked. “Excuse me?”

  “That sounded harsher than I meant it to. I just mean that I really have to let loose if I’m going to even come close to tipping the spear over. If I’m worrying about not crushing you in the process, I’m not going to be able to apply maximum pressure.”