The Hade War

by Luke Carlisle

  Greyfall did not answer. Jessen sighed and placed both hands onto Gary's body and concentrated.

  “What are you doing Hade?” Greyfall asked.

  Jessen ignored Greyfall and closed his eyes. Hand hands began to glow. The light began to flow into Gary’s mutilated body, getting stronger and stronger until it spread all over him. Greyfall watched in silence as Gary’s body began to vibrate, the light getting stronger and stronger. Smoke began to rise from the corpse then in an instant there was a flash and the body was gone, leaving nothing but ash on the floor of Jessen’s kitchen. Jessen stood up and stood back.

  “Open up! We will not ask again!” the police man yelled.

  “Take your top off!” Jessen instructed Greyfall. “Sit on the couch.”

  Greyfall did not argue. He immediately took of his jacket and shirt then sat down. Jessen quickly grabbed his brush and swept the ashes into a pile and the foot of the bin in his kitchen. He quickly surveyed the rest of the apartment and, satisfied that nothing else was wrong, opened the door to the four police men outside.

  “Yeah what’s wrong?” Jessen asked. “A disturbance?”

  “Your neighbours heard yelling and screaming. Said it sounded like someone being thrown around in here,” the police man answered. “What was going on?”

  “Uh… well…” Jessen stood aside and gestured towards Greyfall, topless and sitting on the sofa. “Yunno…”

  The police man looked at Greyfall then to Jessen. “What’s the smell?”

  Jessen fumbled for an answer. “Um… oils… sensual oils… from Thailand.”

  The policeman stared at Jessen with a blank expression on his face for several seconds then looked around the apartment once more.

  “You two have a good day. Keep the noise down. Don’t hurt yourselves.” With that he and his three colleagues turned and walked away down the hall. Jessen sighed deeply.

  “I do not understand what just happened,” said Greyfall.

  “Why do this?” Jessen ignored Greyfall. “How do we even stand a chance of surviving? What’s stopping this Mastadon guy whizzing over and taking out this building too with us in it? Or at work tomorrow or at the grocery store?!”

  “I agree Hade. We must be on our guard. We should pack up and leave this place.”

  “There’s not much to pack up but I think you are right. I think we should go back to Manning and Israel's.”

  “I agree.”

  Jessen put his face in his hands.

  “This is so crazy,” he said defeated.

  “It will be alright Jessen,” Greyfall reassured.

  Jessen felt himself welling up upon hearing Greyfall say his first name. Until now he had only been ‘Hade’.

  Daniel stood on the roof of the building overlooking the rooftops of New Belfast. The sun was rising. Before him stood the dark figure of Nagra. Standing at six feet tall, draped in torn and ragged black rags with pale skin and long black hair, Daniel had to admit to himself that he felt a small amount of fear looking at him.

  “What do you want Nagra?” Daniel asked.

  Nagra simply gave a menacing smile and Daniel’s body once again flared up in flames. Daniel screamed in agony and wriggled on the ground for several moments. Suddenly he bolted upright and flew at Nagra at full speed, catching him off guard. The flames immediately disappeared as Daniel flew off the edge of the building with his arms wrapped around Nagra. The two men fell storey after storey as the ground got closer and closer. At ground level Nagra suddenly exploded into a flock of black birds, scattering for several moments then congregating into a swarm to fly away across the city. Daniel flew high into the air, rocketing away as fast as he could.

  The next morning, having abandoned the apartment, Jessen and Greyfall sat in the park eating their breakfast and drinking coffee before work. They discussed their powers, Greyfall’s world, Jessen’s family and inevitably the mission of taking down Vincent Kennedy.

  Manning was hopping on and off buses all over New Belfast going into diners, apartments, the New Belfast Zoo, department stores, hospitals and alley ways.

  Israel stood in front of a mirror examining his new combat suit Manning had designed for him. The interlocking pads allowed for manoeuvrability yet proved effective against strong blows. A solid impact like a fist or a wall would be of little worry, but a small area of pressure provided by the likes of a bullet or a knife stood a reasonable chance of piercing through into Israel’s body. He stood and practiced firing his wrist coils.

  As the day went on Jessen and Greyfall both went to work a shift in the Fordway hotel. Miguel kept asking Jessen about Greyfall, or ‘Dave’ as he knew him. Jessen simply passed him off as a friend who had moved to New Belfast recently and needed a hand settling in.

  “I wouldn’t mind Mastadon coming and rampaging through this place,” he joked with Greyfall.

  Israel woke up from an afternoon rest and started his usual exercise routine. It wasn’t one of press ups or meditation. It started with coffee and in the case of this afternoon, some pain killers.

  “Jessen packs one hell a blast,” he thought to himself as he left his room for the main hub of the hideout. Manning was sitting in the sofa watching the television. Having known Manning his entire life, he knew the look on his face was one of concern.

  “What’s wrong-“ Israel started but Manning gestured him to be silent then pointed to the TV. The news channel was reporting a collapsed building at 104 Beech Street. There were no injuries or missing persons.

  “What the hell?” Israel exclaimed as they listened to the report.

  “…almost human from the wreckage, it shows signs of something hitting it hard and fast. It’s footprints lead off eastward but…”

  “Mastadon,” Israel said.

  “Mastadon,” Manning repeated.

  “They… were they listening?! Do you think Jessen or Greyfall were bugged?!”

  Manning didn’t look away from the TV.

  “I think they perfected Alicia,” Manning said.

  Israel looked back at the news report.

  “How can we know for sure?” he asked as Manning reached for the remote. Hitting rewind the news report worked its way backwards until it reached the previous story. The tagline read. ‘Intern of Vincent Kennedy found murdered.’

  “What?!” Israel said aloud as he stared at the TV.

  “The body of Alicia Graham was found several blocks away from the Skyborn building in an alleyway behind the ONM tower. She had obviously been attacked and suffered several fatal lacerations. Though there are no suspects, police believe that members of the super powered community might have been behind the attack…”

  “What do you… Manning what do you think happened?” Israel asked.

  “I reckon I can guess exactly what happened,” Manning answered. “Alicia heard every word last night. Which means so did Kennedy. Our decoy address gets destroyed and Alicia ends up dead in an alley. My guess… my guess is she did it herself.”

  Israel had to take a moment to make sense of all this.

  “You think she killed herself?”

  “The girl found out that her entire life was a lie. She found out that she is responsible for the capture, torture and deaths of many, many people, including kids… babies.”

  Manning looked up at Israel, a tear in his eye.

  “If it were me? I’d had jumped of the damn roof… and shot myself in the face on the way down.”

  High atop the Skyborn building Vincent Kennedy entered his science labs and was greeted by one of his top researchers.

  “Any results today Frederick?” asked Kennedy.

  “Yes though unfortunately not good ones. He simply doesn’t contain enough power sir,” Frederick replied.

  “Shame. Where is he? Take me to him.”

  “Yes sir, he’s in the recovery room.”

  The recovery room had several beds in it with a mixture of dead, dying or suffering patients who wished for death. These were some of the e
xperiments Vincent had his scientist working on every day. Vincent walked over to the patient at the very end of a row to inspect him with Frederick.

  “Will he recover?” Vincent asked.

  “Yes, we think he should make a full recovery although he will be in a weakened state for some time.”

  “You are positive he cannot contribute to the Masterpiece? He can’t even help with binding the powers?”

  “From our research we believe his charge isn’t strong enough. It’s up to you if you want us to keep trying.”

  “Toss him,” Kennedy ordered heartlessly.

  “Yes sir.”

  Later that day Deadvolt was hauled out of the back of a van and thrown unconscious into a garbage pile in an alley way at the other end of the city.

  Chapter 9

  The elevator doors opened. Jessen and Greyfall walked out into the hallway carrying their large luggage bags and immediately stopped. Looking around them they knew they were in the wrong place.

  “Top floor right?” asked Jessen. Greyfall nodded and the two got back into the elevator.

  “Maybe it’s one down.” Jessen pressed the button for the next floor down. When the elevator doors opened again they were met with the same confusion.

  “Uh… maybe we are in the wrong building,” Jessen suggested.

  “I really don’t think so. We are most definitely in the right place,” Greyfall answered. “Let’s go back down.”

  The two men went back into the elevator and pushed the bottom for the ground floor. When the doors opened this time Israel was standing in the lobby of the building waiting for them.

  “Oh hey man, what’s the deal here?” Jessen asked.

  Israel said nothing but entered the elevator and as far as Jessen could tell, he simply pushed the button for the top floor, the same as he had tried earlier. This time when the doors opened the three men were looking into Israel and Manning's hideout.

  “Uh…ok,” Jessen said, obviously confused.

  “You aren’t ten stories up, you’re two stories down,” Israel explained. “The button reads your fingerprint.”

  “A clever idea,” Greyfall approved as the three men entered the hideout.

  “So what are you guys doing here?” Israel asked.

  “They came to my apartment. Killed my landlord. We need a place to stay,” Jessen answered.

  Israel sighed. “Manning will love this,” he replied sarcastically. “But yeah I guess it makes sense if we’re all in the one place. You guys have jobs right? You’ll be out and about a lot of the time?”

  “Yeah. Where is Manning?” Jessen asked.

  “He’s been coming and going a lot for the last couple of days. He’s enlisting as much help as he can for when we go after Kennedy,” Israel answered.

  “Great. Do you know how many of us there will be?” Jessen asked.

  “It’s hard to tell. Not many of them are prepared to risk their lives and not many of them give an answer either way. We’re hopeful with a few days wait that they will come round to it. But some of them seem to be living perfectly happy lives in secret with their families.”

  “I wonder what that’s like,” Jessen said sarcastically.

  “No family Jessen?” Israel asked, opening the fridge.

  “None worth talking about,” Jessen replied.

  The three men sat on the sofas and began to tell each of their own stories.

  Ronan grunted and heaved the dumbbells above his head for what must have been the hundredth time. His gym work outs were more for him to be seen rather than for actual exercise. He didn’t need it but still he did it to socialise with the other NCW wrestlers. The gym was right in the middle of New Belfast on the ground floor and had a large wall of windows looking out onto the street so that fans could get a buzz from seeing their heroes work out on their way to work. Sol thought it would be a good idea for the fans too young or too broke to go to the live shows to be able to see the wrestlers on a regular basis through the window. The NCW writers would occasionally use the gym as a stage to act out some mid week story lines that only a small handful of fans would see, some of which would make it online via people shooting on their phone, some would only be seen be a fortunate few fans. It was a free and easy way to help build up excitement for upcoming shows. Today also happened to be one of those days. It was a simple one today. One of the wrestlers casually walked past Ronan who was standing at a mirror with his dumbbells and quietly told him it was about to start. Ronan lifted the weights several more times then placed them back on the rack. There were about a dozen kids watching through the window and several adults, some of whom were taking pictures and videos. Suddenly a fight broke out towards the back of the gym and people started to scatter. Ronan glanced over to the window were the onlookers were visibly getting excited. Several of the wrestlers were involved in the brawl and right in the middle of it trying to keep the peace and pulling the guys away from each other was the masked luchador Santos. Ronan ran in to break it all up and took a knock to the head which sent him flying into the water cooler which fell and spilled everywhere.

  “Now,” someone at the side instructed and immediately all of the brawlers scattered except for Santos and Ronan who was back on his feet. The two men approached each other and stood face to face, Ronan having to drop his chin to his chest to be able to look straight at Santos.

  On the outside the fans were starting to lose it, each one cheering for their favourite wrestler in this rivalry. They could see the two men talking while starring coldly into each others eyes but all they could hear was the noise of the city outside. The mood on the inside was different.

  “Nah man, it’s the one on 75th street. I’ll send you a link to their website,” said Santos still with a scowl on his face.

  “Thanks, I would appreciate that. I need a really tough mattress,” Ronan said through gritted teeth.

  “Yeah this place is the best. Worked for me anyway.”

  “Ok guys!” someone yelled from the side.

  The two men stared at each other in silence for several more seconds then both turned and walked away. The scene cleared and a janitor came to mop up the spilled water.

  Outside the kids were cheering on the wrestlers, urging them to fight. Ronan walked back to were he was working out to collect his towel and water bottle. He glanced up at the window quickly to see what size of an audience they had drawn. One onlooker caught his gaze and stopped him in his tracks for a second.

  Swearing to himself Ronan picked up his things and walked quickly out of the gym.

  The three men reclined on the sofas with a baseball game on the TV and beers in hand. Jessen had shared all there was to share about his upbringing, his parents, his running away from home and everything since. Greyfall could only really share the same details he had before when Manning and Daniel were there too. Israel listened and began to explain why he and Manning were so close.

  “My parents died when I was a baby. Manning was a friend of theirs. He took it upon himself to adopt me and raise me. But I guess this was at the same time he left Kennedy and had to go into hiding. He’s taught me about science, made me learn combat skills, developed my suit and wrist coils…”

  “Yeah those things are badass,” Jessen interrupted. “How do they work?”

  “There are several wires to choose from. A blunted end for impact, grapple for… yunno, grappling and swinging on stuff and a spear end. The coils react to specific wrist and hand movements and release the one I want depending on the movement.”

  “Interesting. Do you ever release the wrong one?” Greyfall asked.

  “At the start it was more a problem trying to get any of them to come out at all. The wrist and hand movements required are so specific that it was hard to get any of them to work. The movements are also different enough that by the time I had them mastered there wasn’t really any risk of the wrong one coming out. I can control how long a wire fires too.” Israel explained.

  “Can I try the
m?” Jessen asked.

  “No point. They will only work on me,” Israel answered.

  “Lame.”

  “Don’t see what you’re upset about. You’re a walking laser gun. Did you know you might have a permanent forcefield at your disposal?”

  “What do you mean?” Jessen asked.

  “Yeah, Manning’s been examining your blood. Both of you. He thinks you should be able to emit that power of yours from all over your body. He reckons as well as being able to shoot it outward you should be able to hold it, contain it around your body like a forcefield.”

  “Wow. Awesome.” Jessen looked to Greyfall. “But I would be wary of even trying that. In a different world I explode like a nuke.”

  Greyfall looked to Jessen, impressed at his concern.

  “Of course that is a concern. You’ve probably come along a lot more that you realise though Jessen. From what you have demonstrated and from what you have said, you seem to be gaining control of your powers at an incredible rate.”

  “It’s weird. It’s a cliche thing to say but it feels like I’ve always known it was there yunno? Like I’m not just learning this whole new thing but I’m rediscovering how to do it. Does that make sense?”

  “I get you yeah,” Israel answered.

  “It’s like… some times I’ll learn a song on my guitar and play it over and over again for about a week. Then I’ll stop and forget about that song and several months later it will pop into my head that I used to know how to play it. I’ll pick up my guitar and it only take me a minute or two to remember how to play it. It’s like that with these powers. What about your kung fu fighting or whatever it is?”

  “It’s kind of a mixture of a few types of martial arts,” said Israel.

  “Did Manning train you… when he was a younger man?” asked Greyfall.

  “Yeah like on the rooftops overlooking the city at night? All the while having flashbacks of your parents and practicing throwing knives at photos of Kennedy in an abandoned warehouse where dummies fall from the roof at random times for you the hit with throwing stars before they hit the floor?” Jessen asked excitedly. Israel just stared at him.