Enhanced

by Cosca, Paul

  We move on to the next costume. Black pants, flowing black shirt. Black cape and black eye mask. Coiled next to it is a long, black bullwhip.

  Chicago was next. Chicago...it’s a little rougher. A little darker, maybe. A city with plenty of people, more than enough for Cyrus to see dollar signs, but he knew this hero would have to be a little less glitzy. Kenneth Dunnigan, a 6’4 college basketball star, became Shadow. Cyrus brought in a guy from L.A. to teach Dunnigan how to use that bullwhip, which made for some great movies. He had a little bit of a swashbuckling thing. It made him popular not only with kids, but with women. Tall, dark, and handsome, right?

  The third costume could almost be a regular workman’s outfit. Almost. Jeans, a blue work shirt, with heavy black gloves and boots. Even the overly large wrench seems normal. If not for the American flag cape draped over the shoulders, you’d never guess the outfit was for a superhero.

  This next one is probably a lot more interesting to me than to a lot of

  other people. The Fixer only appeared in one or two shorts and a couple public service pieces. More often, you’d find him in the newsreels that showed before the movies. See, Detroit had one heck of a race riot just a few years earlier, and I think Cyrus wanted to really try to do something good up there. He found a mixed-race fellow named Simon Smith and turned him into The Fixer. The Fixer was real serious about unions. You’d find him in marches and rallies. And more than a few big negotiations were done with The Fixer in the room. Good publicity for everyone.

  The fourth costume is instantly recognizable to anyone who grew up in a certain era. The leather chaps are adorned with the American flag on each thigh. Two gun belts crisscross the hips, each weighted down by a heavy revolver. A lasso, used much more often than the pistols, sits on the ground in front of the mannequin. The black shirt is covered by a red, white, and blue vest. Above that are the iconic white eye mask and white Stetson. This costume and the man who wore it were the subject of a million imaginary games (mostly played by boys) and just as many lunchboxes. My own lunchbox still sits on a shelf in my living room. My staring must be pretty obvious.

  You’re a fan too, huh? Hard not to be. The Lawman was a brilliant piece of marketing. Lunchboxes, backpacks, pistols, hats. My dad was one of the big heroes and I still wanted all The Lawman gear. Cyrus went down to Texas and went through several cities before he found the right man for it. Nathan Earl Clifford was a rising rodeo star in San Antonio. He didn’t just know how to ride a horse; he knew how to be a showman. He was a lasso master and a quick study. He was also a drunk and a bigot, but Cyrus didn’t know that at the time. It’s a shame we ever had to know that at all.

  The final costume on display is another iconic piece. Out of these five heroes, this is the only one who still has comics running today. The costume is a bright blue body suit with red boots and gloves. A white cape is draped over the shoulders. The letter A sits on the chest, over a lightning bolt. It’s remarkable how little the costume has changed over the past fifty years.

  Dad was really disappointed when they phased out the American Justice movies. Not only was it a great paycheck, but he loved being the hero. I know I was damn proud of him. When the films were in theatres, dad would often make public appearances in costume. And I think, more than anything, that’s what was hardest for Cyrus. Seeing him on screen was one thing. But seeing him out there, interacting with the public, actually being American Justice…I think that was too much. But my dad and Cyrus were friends, so they went to New York and worked on developing Action Man together. In many ways, he was like an updated American Justice. Punching the bad guys. Saving the girl. Telling kids to eat their vitamins. He was as red, white, and blue as it ever got. There was no moral ambiguity with Action Man. The bad guys got punched. The good guys did the punching. It couldn’t get more straightforward than that.

  Did you know Action Boy was my idea? I was pretty proud of that. I didn’t in a million years think they’d actually have me do it in the movies with dad, but it was one heck of a thrill. And eventually I got to wear the outfit myself when we did the TV series in the 60s. Two movies and the TV series. I am truly honored to be part of that legacy.

  Things were different by the time the TV series ended. We knew a lot more than we had back in the 40s. I don’t know if Cyrus would have done things different if he’d known. Known about the virus and the military and all that. With the old heroes...they were just trying to do really good things. Trying to do it all with respect and dignity. I know there are critics who like to call the old superheroes hollow. Stereotypes, even. But I don’t buy that. What my dad and Cyrus built was a door. These weren’t the most sophisticated heroes, but they opened the way for a lot of real heroes, the Enhanced heroes, to step into a world that would actually accept some of them. Those men and women were given a gift. And the ones who chose to use it as heroes should thank the regular folks who wore these costumes. They should

  thank Cyrus. Those regular folks let America be ready to accept really amazing heroes who wore costumes and fought for justice. I don’t know if I had anything to do with that, but I like to think so. And I’m awfully proud to be a part of all that.

  December 12th, 1994

  I’m in the Disston Heights neighborhood of St. Petersburg, Florida today. Technically, the house I’m visiting is lakeside property, though where I grew up I’d more readily call Leslee Lake a pond. It’s a little brown today, but the ducks visiting for the winter don’t seem to mind. The weather is in the low 60s, which puts the natives in windbreakers and me in shorts.

  I’m happily met at the door by a lovely woman named Sam. Her father is my interview subject for the day, and she leads me into his study. If this cozy den-turned-study had once been used for boring paperwork, that use is long gone. Now it would be more appropriate to call this place a shrine. A large American flag, perhaps seven feet across, takes up most of the wall behind the desk. There is a map from D-Day framed on one wall. On one shelf, a helmet bearing the insignia of the third Reich (with specks of what may rust or blood) sits next to a case containing a few medals.

  Jerry (that’s not his real name, I must admit), the owner of all these fascinating pieces, is lean and trim. Dressed with a military precision even in slacks and loafers. He needs to lean on his cane as he stands to shake my hand, but the handshake is still very firm. We chat for a bit, and I find he is practically a Norman Rockwell painting come to life, all charm and wit. But once his daughter leaves the room, his eyes turn a little darker. He pours himself a glass of water. Now, it seems, it’s time to talk.

  JERRY: I like to tell people I never made history. I was just in the room where it happened. But don’t get me wrong: I was honored to be there. In the offices and in the field. I met a president. I served under the greatest man I’ve ever known. I feel awfully lucky, and it didn’t matter to me that the decisions weren’t mine.

  I served for eight years under the personal command of General Franklin Carpenter. He’s not one of the better known generals in the European theatre, but there’s no doubt in my mind that the work he did in the war was as influential as anything else done then. For better or for worse.

  I went through my training in 1937 and was assigned to Fort Leavenworth, over in Kansas. General Carpenter was in command there. I felt lucky. My daddy had talked about Carpenter during WWI, and I felt it a real honor to be there. Everywhere else it felt like peacetime, but in Leavenworth we were getting ready. Nobody was pushing harder to put an end to Hitler’s regime than General Carpenter. He could see what was coming, even if the rest of them couldn’t.

  Now, it wasn’t too long before some people started talking about the kind of skills I had, and General Carpenter heard about it too. See, my parents were immigrants. Daddy was born in France and spoke French and German. My mother was Italian. Both of them wanted me to learn the languages of where they’d come from, so I had at least a basic grasp of four languages by the time I was eighteen. General Carpenter called me into
his office and told me he wanted me to be his personal assistant. He said he wanted someone who knew the language of the enemy, so it became my job to be his eyes and ears, taking notes of everything going on around us. Because of that, I got a glimpse of the war that few others ever did.

  Jerry stops. First he takes a drink of water, then cleans his glasses. He’s hesitating. I start to say something and he raises a hand to stop me.

  It’s okay. I know what part you’re looking for. I know it. I’ve talked about my time in the war to plenty of folks. And I would have talked to you about it just fine, leaving out all these...unfortunate details. But you asked. You’re the first one in half a century to ask, son. I don’t know where you got your information from but...my wife knew about it. I told her. But not my daughters. It’s not that I’m not proud of what came of it. I believe it’s one of the reasons we won the war. But it’s just a little difficult to think back on.

  I’d been working for General Carpenter for a little over a month when we first went down to the basement laboratory. He didn’t tell me about it. My job wasn’t to know these kinds of things. Just follow and observe.

  General Carpenter wanted his base to be up to date, so he got hold of enough equipment to make a very state-of-the-art science facility. There was one general lab, and the one below it that only authorized personnel could see. Down there they only had one project: the boy. They had different names for him: Adam, Lab Rat. Someone called him Pandora’s Box and that one made more sense to me than anything else. There was a sense, in seeing him, that this could open the lid to all kinds of things...far beyond our imagination.

  But he was also just a boy, maybe six or seven years old. They kept him in a small room with those one way windows on all sides. We could see in, but he couldn’t see out. The room was maybe 300 square feet. Had a bed. Couple of chairs. There was nothing warm or...homey about it. Nothing like a little boy’s room should be, but he seemed content enough. He was blonde. His eyes were blue...but lighter than that. Almost grey. He really was a beautiful little boy. And he was a mystery. What I learned is that the boy had some kind of illness. And that illness caused him to...change. He was changing all the time. Some days he woke up with brown eyes. His hair had recently grown in red. Some days he had no vital signs at all, then he’d be back to life like nothing happened. Different all the time. And when whatever was in this boy was put into others, they would change too. But nobody could ever predict what it was going to do.

  General Carpenter went down into that lower lab about once a month. Often he was just checking results instead of seeing the boy. I don’t blame him. It was difficult to see him. He looked content, never asked for anything. But it was hard to imagine him being happy. The trick...maybe it’s terrible but it’s what you had to do, was to stop looking at him as a boy. He was an asset. A tool. And with war on the horizon...that was the best tool we had in the box.

  General Carpenter was often on the phone with a man down in

  Louisiana. He said the man down there was running some tests that had to do with the boy. They were running an experiment, down at the Tuskegee institute. ...I don’t even know how I remember that name after all these years, but there it is. They talked, but it wasn’t until 1939 that I met the man.

  It was my first time in Washington D.C. What I really wanted to do was sight-see. Wanted to look at all the monuments. But of course I had to stay there with the General, and we were only there for a day. Besides, I got to see The White House. The Oval Office, even. There were people all over the place. Cabinet members. People in congress. The place was buzzing. But when we sat down in the Oval Office, all the buzzing stopped. It was just four of us in the room. General Carpenter and myself, the president, and a man I didn’t recognize.

  I may not have known the man, but General Carpenter did. The man smiled...his smile was huge, and he shook the General’s hand. General Carpenter didn’t smile back. That man...there was something a little off about him. About his smile. It’s like...it’s like he smiled with his face, but not with his eyes. Does that make sense?

  I nod and can’t help but ask “Was it Teddy Freeman?” Jerry looks down and takes a deep breath, then grabs another drink of water.

  I’m not a spiritual man. They say nobody’s an atheist in a foxhole, and maybe that’s right, but I left that behind a long time ago. But if there’s such a thing as a soul, then I don’t think that Freeman fella had one. That’s the only way I could put it.

  But whatever uneasiness I might have had right then was washed away once I got to shake the president’s hand. FDR didn’t stand up to shake my hand, which I didn’t really think too much about at the time. But I saluted him and he gave me one back, then shook my hand and asked my name. When I told him, he said “Good to meet you, son.” Oh boy that was something to write home about, let me tell you.

  But I was soon forgotten. These men had important matters to discuss. Important not only for us in the room, but for everyone in the world. See, the date was September 1st, 1939. And right there in the Oval Office was when I learned that the Nazis had invaded Poland. I felt like the wind got knocked out of me, but General Carpenter had been prepared for it. He said that this was the time to get involved, before the problem could spread and get any bigger. But FDR stopped him right there. He’d already decided that they weren’t going to get into it. Not yet. But that didn’t mean we couldn’t prepare.

  Teddy Freeman laid out his plan. He’d run two sets of tests with what’d come out of the boy in Fort Leavenworth. Now that he’d seen results, he wanted to open up a third experiment, this time on soldiers. President Roosevelt had accelerated the acquisition of about 100,000 acres of land down in Texas to open up a new military facility: Fort Hood. This was to be the home of this new experiment.

  General Carpenter didn’t like it. He said “What the hell do you need soldiers for, Freeman? Your other subjects not good enough?”

  Teddy just smiled, and I remember this, he said “Oh, those niggers do well enough.” That got him some scolding from the president, which I have to imagine is just the most top-level kind of scolding around. But Teddy said “They do just fine, but the potential of this is wasted on them.”

  Part of me wishes it hadn’t...but that idea of potential got the General’s attention. He wanted to know just what kind of potential there really was. And that’s when Freeman took a second file out of his briefcase. The General leafed through it and asked what the hell it was. Freeman smiled again...just thinking about it gives me the creeps...and he said “Results.”

  Remember, there’d been two experiments. One was in Louisiana, the other was in Guatemala. The Louisiana test had brought up some real interesting results, but nothing like what happened down in Guatemala. What

  made them think there was so much potential was subject number 336. Lord...the things I can remember. Where does that come from? From what I remember, it was male. Thirteen years old. He started showing very strange behavior. Stopped being able to eat regular food. Only thing that kept him alive were blood transfusions. Then they came in one day and found him drinking the blood right out of the bag. Emotionally, he was still a little boy. Physically, he was becoming an animal. Even his teeth fell out and sharp little fangs came in. Horrible.

  Teddy said that he made arrangements for the boy to be released. A field test, he called it. There were a few dozen guards on the base, and none of them could stop the boy. Many of the people on the base ran, but those that didn’t were slaughtered. The boy was unstoppable. He tore them apart. He was like a wolf in a herd of sheep. And then he disappeared.

  General Carpenter was about ready to walk out of there. And...I don’t want you to think I’m ashamed, but part of me wishes he’d walked out right then. But something held him. He asked Freeman what the standard results were. Fifty percent of the subjects had no results at all. Another forty percent had some kind of negative result, from mild headaches all the way to death. Then the last ten percent might show some kind
of positive reaction. Or, if not positive, at least useful. Ten percent. That’s it.

  “You want me to put my boys in a program where some of them might die?” General Carpenter asked. And Teddy kept his smile on. “No, not some. Many.” And General Carpenter asked why the hell he’d ever agree to that, but we all knew the answer already.

  War was coming. And what they were talking about wasn’t experiments on people. Not really. Soldiers are people, but we’re different, too. What Teddy Freeman was talking about was making soldiers that didn’t need guns. Or bandages. Every country with a dog in this fight was going to be working on the best weapon. And what we were looking at was the

  ultimate ace in the hole, you know?

  President Roosevelt suggested 1000 troops. Teddy wanted 3000. General Carpenter...he was the one who said we should send 7000 down there. If we were going to do this, he said, we’d all just better bite the bullet and do it.

  Jerry stands up, his back and knees popping. He takes another drink of water and shuffles over to a file cabinet in the corner of the room. He reaches in his shirt and fishes out a key looped around his neck. He uses this key to unlock the bottom drawer and brings me back an old, weathered book. Really, it’s a notebook like you’d have in elementary school.

  What happened in Fort Hood might be better explained by that boy there than by me. I found his journal after he was shipped out. I...I hope it helps make things a little more clear.