by Adam Graham
Mitch Farrow sat in his hotel room, taking a long drag on a cigarette.
A dagger ripped the cigarette out of his hand and pinned it to the wall.
Miss Invisible appeared before him. “I believe this is a no smoking room.”
Farrow grimaced. “I bet they’re not fans of knife throwing either.”
“I was just returning it. Your men left it in my room. Apparently, they thought I’d be overcome by the news story and having my room trashed and left that tantō for my convenience, thinking I’m Japanese and would want one to fall on. My parents were born in Korea—and I was born in Oakland.”
Farrow grimaced. That idiocy was what he got for hiring rent-a-hoods. “I assure you I had nothing to do with that knife.”
“Sure, it was a free service they threw in.” She waved. “Don’t patronize me. I also know the story came from you. Turns out the New York Inquirer is owned by Golden Press Limited, a subsidiary of Dorado Incorporated. I also know you were behind that trick of putting my revealing picture on the jumbotron.”
Mitch swallowed. “Not much in terms of objective evidence.”
“This is.” She pulled out a digital camera and pressed a play button.
A video of Mitch on the phone appeared on the camera’s tiny view screen. His voice was blackmailing the Reverend.
Miss Invisible whipped it away. “I went to LA and spoke to Reverend Graystone and his daughter. She’d already told her groom about the mistake you were holding over her father’s head. Tomorrow, he’ll retract his statements against me. At his next crusade, his daughter and I will share how God has pardoned our past errors and turned our lives around. If you condemn the Reverend’s daughter before then, he’ll report your extortion to the authorities, and I’ll tell the media about your sockpuppeting game online.”
Mitch clapped his hands. “How did you get the video?”
She disappeared. “Like that.” She reappeared.
Duh. Mitch rubbed his hands together. “I could sue you for invasion of privacy.”
“Likewise.” She stared him down. “Bring it on.”
Why did she have to see through his bluff? He chuckled. “Okay, okay. I’ll leave the reverend’s daughter alone. One thing I don’t get, though. You could’ve vindicated yourself, exposed me to the press, and gotten vengeance on that hypocritical preacher who trashed you trying to protect his reputation along with his daughter’s marriage.”
She stopped cold. “I was tempted, but someone reminded me of who I am. I realized that would be just what your boss wanted.”
How could she know about the Rezellians? He coughed. “What boss are you talking about? I’m the CEO of Dorado Incorporated.”
“You serve the devil, the accuser of the brethren, whether you know it or not. I could’ve destroyed that man and his ministry for one fearful mistake, but I’d be serving your purposes, which is hurting him and his daughter.”
Sheesh, she was as bad as his mother. Farrow laughed. “I’ll be sure to tell Lucifer you said ‘hi’ at the next company picnic.”
“If I hear about you blackmailing anyone else, I will have to deal with it.” She turned on her heels and left.
Guess he’d never have to worry about that one figuring out who he was really working for. She’d misattribute any evidence of the Rezellians’ existence to the devil.
His cell phone rang. "Hello."
Kelli Michaels let off a stream of profanities. "You had no business putting that headline on my piece or rewriting the lead paragraph. Who do you think you are?"
"I think I'm CEO of a corporation that runs newspapers and I believe you are working in a very challenging industry where jobs aren't easy to come by."
"I'm aware of that, Farrow, but you have stepped way over the line. You own the parent company of the paper and you used to work on the Paper, but you're not an editor, and even if you were, what you said was a violation of my promise to Powerhouse to quote him correctly."
"He's a danger to democracy."
"That doesn't matter. I gave him my word, and if I don't have credibility, I don't have anything, and I might as well go teach English, and maybe I will."
"Just calm down."
"I will. I'm not ready to change careers yet." Goodbye.
She was gone.
Mitch lit a cigarette. He could push reporters only so far, and Kelli was right. He'd have gone too far. He would have quit if someone corporate bigwig had pulled the garbage he just did. He'd blundered. But what could he do now?
Fournier had accused him of being blinded by his alleged bias against Powerhouse. That was the silly mad scientist’s own blind ambition. He’d already favored stopping the “biased” non-violent attacks on Powerhouse and returning to the “unbiased” attempts to kill him. Really, Fournier was just afraid of losing his staff position’s steady paycheck.
Then again, maybe Fournier sort of did have a point. It might be most effective to create cynicism in arenas where Powerhouse couldn’t get in the way and simply ignore the idiot. If the media didn’t cover it, it might as well not have happened.
Yeah, Plan C should work.
Chapter 10
Six Months Later
Mitch Farrow sat at his desk. He stared at the black keyboard and glanced at his Outlook calendar. He had half an hour.
He opened up a Word Processor and began to type in his new journal.
The one thing I hate about this job is the lack of time to write. Maybe I can make sense of my failures this way.
On my main front, I’m doing well. I’m building cynicism like you wouldn’t believe in the vast universe of the media. Not a single Christian pillar of the community commits an indiscretion or gets arrested without it becoming national news, while failures by others get relegated to the back page.
We’re doing even better in fictional media where we can undermine institutions without worrying about facts at all. I can feel more and more people becoming cynics every day.
Politics is fantastic, but I can’t take credit for that. My predecessor had things already running smoothly there. We have more idiotic laws passed now than ever before, making people think on some level that this whole democracy thing isn’t working out. The most beautiful thing of all is we’ve managed some classic corruption scandals. With one part of the organization, we give some business owners and underworld figures the idea to bribe politicians. With our media group, we expose the bribery and the result is more cynicism.
In addition, our sales of illegal drugs are up in most parts of the world. People are buying more and more heroin, pot, cocaine, and meth to escape this awful world, making their minds more easy to manipulate and control.
Mitch sucked in a deep breath and stopped typing. The buyers included thousands of kids. He swallowed. It was for a greater cause and a better world.
He clicked on an image of Rosie on his desktop and stared into her green eyes. Yeah, other parents’ Rosies were dying for something far greater, but he’d better get back to writing before he was interrupted.
The biggest, fattest exception is Powerhouse. Unfortunately, things have not quite gone according to plan. I’ve had to settle for denying him any organized crime to limit his appearances on the news. I was able to put the kibosh on efforts to get him named Time Magazine’s Person of the Year and kept him off network news with the exception of one appearance on 60 Minutes and have managed to kill attempts by Blue Cat Comics to get him a movie or his own TV show. The shameless publicity hound still manages to worm his way on to the local news at least once a week, on an evil station I can’t control, and he’s had national coverage on a few of the cable networks.
His reputation remains untarnished in the community and with the corrupt police system. He’s always had the Seattle Chief of Police on his side, but the love affair between him and the cops has become sickening.
Farrow’s office phone rang. He picked it up.
A female voice on the line said, “This is Tammy Warden, Vice-President of
Equipment. We’re in a crisis and I have to talk to you.”
A CEO’s work is never done. “One moment.”
Farrow saved his file on a secure drive and closed the document. “Continue.”
In the break room at police headquarters, Powerhouse sat along with several out-of-uniform cops with their heads bowed as Sergeant Jay Watts prayed.
The sergeant concluded. “Amen. All right, let’s get ready for roll call.”
Powerhouse rose from his padded Titanium chair, superimagined it shrunk to the size of a thumb drive, and stowed it and his compact bible in his inner pocket.
Sergeant Watts smiled. “I heard you could memorize books by touching them. Do you have the entire Bible memorized?”
Powerhouse shook his head. “If I used that power on the Bible, then it wouldn’t be special when I read it.”
“I know a few thousand Sunday School teachers who would disagree.”
“Outside of superpowers, I’ve never been good at memorization. Even in school, I couldn’t keep straight the preamble to the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. Grandpa had to help me untangle them.”
“He sounds like a cool guy.”
“Yep.” Though, he’d best me careful not to reveal too much of his past for Sergeant Watts’ safety. “I better get some coffee.” Powerhouse strode across the break room to the kitchenette’s coffee pot.
A rookie cop stared in the cupboard and laughed. “Okay, who’s got the Powerhouse coffee mug?”
“I do.” Powerhouse grabbed the mug and filled it up at the coffee machine.
The rookie cop squinted. “He’s got his own coffee cup?”
Sergeant Watts raised his right eyebrow. “You want him to pour it in his hands?”
Powerhouse grabbed his cup with his left hand and extended his right. “My name’s Powerhouse.” He glanced at his name. “Good to meet you, Officer Lathrup.”
“Likewise, I guess.” Lathrup shook Powerhouse’s hand weakly.
Watts said, “Powerhouse is kind of a mascot. Plus he brings the coffee. We have the best coffee of any police station in the country. Where do you get that from?”
“It was picked fresh in Panama this morning.”
“He also brings us donuts a ‘friend’ baked. You guys ought to sell them.”
Why did Watts say friend so weird? “I’ll let Big Gray know.”
Lathrup snorted and laughed.
Cheeks pink, Watts coughed. “Sorry, Powerhouse. I thought your source was a wife or girlfriend, not a literal friend that’s a brawny superhero.”
“It’s okay.” Powerhouse shrugged. “I thought his choice of hobbies was weird at first, but he noticed and got so mad, he called me an ‘insecure drone.’ Um, his race has two kinds of men. Big Gray is a Champion, which is like a worker bee, only they’re male and their births are extremely rare. They live for thousands of years to make up for it. Drones are the reproductive males. They’re stupid, violent, have weak hearts, and tend to die young. Only Champions have superpowers.”
“So their civilization is a game of super-cops and ordinary robbers?”
“Sort of.” Powerhouse finished his coffee. “I’ve got to go say hello to the chief. See you around.” Powerhouse dashed down the corridor with detectives buzzing about.
A female, Vietnamese detective slapped him on the shoulder. “How’s it going?”
“Going good, Detective Huang.”
“Just wanted to let you know Ted Damon cracked and gave us the supplier. We would have never caught him without you. Keep up the good work.”
“Thanks. You, too.” He made it to the chief’s office and knocked.
“Come in!”
Powerhouse entered the chief’s office. “Good morning Chief.”
Chief Stone Bachmann smiled. “Morning, Powerhouse. These meetings are so much easier now that you’ve started using the door.”
“Kind of retro 1960s Batman, but I guess it works better outside of a cartoon. At least you don’t say ‘Sure ‘n begorah.’ Do you have my report together?”
“Sure.” The chief pulled out a printout. “Narcotics says there’s some drug dealers working around the waterfront. They want you to stay away from it so they can follow the dealer back to the source.”
“I’ll keep an eye on them from a safe distance, in case something goes wrong.”
“Make sure you’re not seen if you insist, but I’d appreciate your help elsewhere. We’ve had a series of burglaries up in Green Lake and Meridian. Usually daytime stuff. Other than that, just continue on as usual.”
Powerhouse nodded. “Will do.”
“Do you have any plans for lunch?”
“I may stop at a Chinese place.” A few trips through the buffet would fill his immense caloric needs.
“Why don’t you come with me to the Seattle Press Club?”
“Same reason Daniel didn’t volunteer to go the lion’s den.”
“I have it on good authority that you’ll be welcome. It’ll be my treat.”
Powerhouse smiled. “I’ve never been able to turn down a free lunch.”
Major Speed lay in his hospital bed at his current prison. A five-foot-tall robot with circular hands wheeled to his IV stand and replaced the plastic bag of fluids.
Violent images splashed on the TV screen. Major Speed flinched and turned his head toward the IV drip. Wow, that was the first he’d managed to turn his head away. That was what the fools got for trusting in their machines. The robot exercised his arms and legs.
It made no sense. If the Pharaoh hated him so much, he wanted to make him suffer, why make sure his body didn’t atrophy? Was this a Psy-Ops trick?
The robot finished its routine and left.
Major Speed took his right and moved toward his left arm. If he could reach the IV, he could speed up his metabolism and get this poison out of his system.
He moved his left hand as far as his right side before it got too heavy and fell limp. He sighed. Don’t worry about it, Speed. Every day, you’re getting closer.
Mitch walked back into his office and wiped his brow. He opened his desk drawer, pulled out a flask, and took a swig of whiskey. Couldn’t anything at this company be done without him?
He reopened his document and stretched his fingers. Now to get back to writing.
The landline on his desk rang. He picked up the receiver. “Farrow speaking.”
A boisterous voice came. “Hi, it’s John McPherson, chairman of the Seattle Press Club.”
“I know who you are. What do you want?”
“Will you be at our lunch today?”
“Of course.” Just like he’d made every other lunch.
“We’re giving an award for Civic Achievement, and we were wondering if you’d be willing to present it. The person we had lined up got stomach flu, and she couldn’t make it. Don’t worry, we’ve got a great introduction already written.”
“Fine, not a problem.” Good to keep up appearances.
“Do you want to know who it is?”
Farrow rolled his eyes. “No, I’ve got to go. I’m sure it’s someone who deserves it.” Mitch slammed the phone down. He had maybe fifteen minutes to write and that joker wanted to keep him on the line with details about a dumb award. Now where was he?
Oh yeah. Mitch began to type:
I’ve tried to use the media to draw Powerhouse into controversial issues, tried to get him to take partisan political stances. I’ve used the editorial page of my puppet paper, The Seattle Guardian, to try and pick fights with him in the media. Yet he always seems to wrangle out of it. It’s as if he has help.
The intercom buzzed.
Mitch cursed and picked pressed the button. “What?”
His secretary’s voice said, “Sir, Mr. Yamamoto is here early. He says he’s got something urgent to discuss before the rest of the delegation arrives.”
Farrow sighed then saved and closed the document. “Send him in.”
Powerhouse sat on top of a l
arge brown building, talking with his press advisor on his cell phone. “I don’t think the Chief would set a trap for me, but why go there? Reporters don’t like me.”
“You forgot about me.” Murphy laughed. “I’m a reporter. The guy who doesn’t like you is Mitch Farrow. There are many of us at the newspaper who disagree with his orders, not to mention radio and television people. They’re giving an award out today for Civic Achievement, and my sources say you won.”
“They ought to give it to the foundation and all the ministers as well as the board and the Powerhouse squad. I would’ve been in trouble without all your help.”
“When they given an award to you, they’re also awarding it to everyone who works for you, and you’re expected to thank them all in your acceptance speech. I’ve already got your speech written. However, we do have something to discuss.”
“What?”
“Chief thing is your political ambitions.”
Powerhouse narrowed his eyes. “I don’t have any.”
“That’s the problem, PH. We have to find a way to say that they’ll buy. If they can so much as superimagine wiggle room into your speech, the article that will run in the Guardian will say, ‘Powerhouse Leaves Door Open to Presidential Run.’”
Yuck. Powerhouse winced. “Yeah, definitely don’t want that.”
“All right, let’s do a mock question and answer. Powerhouse, do you plan on running for Mayor, Governor, or President in the upcoming election?”
“No way! I’m absolutely, completely, one hundred percent opposed to running for office at any point before or after my death.”
“Are you sure there’s no way you could be persuaded to change your mind?”
“None whatsoever.”
“What if the Penguin were to run for office?”
“I’d support Batman.”
Murphy’s voice smiled. “But Batman isn’t real.”
“Neither is the Penguin.”
Murphy laughed. “You’ll do fine, PH.”
