A servant standing nearby called out, “Niko Zharkov the Cherubim, Guardian of the North, son of Azakor Zharkov the Morningstar, Guardian of-”
Azakor shoved the servant to the side. He didn't need a list of his own son's genealogy. He grabbed the armored boy by the shoulders and pulled him in for a hug.
“Niko! How wonderful, my boy. What has it been? Two? Three months? How is the north treating you?”
“Father...” the boy said in almost a whimper.
“What is it, son? What brings you to my corner of the empire?”
The boy's head fell again, unable to look into his father's eyes as he delivered the news. “It's great-grandfather...”
“The imperator? What happened? Speak!”
The boy sucked in a deep breath and said, “Imperator Konstantin is dead.”
2
ANDRE
The streets of Patriot City were bustling with activity, everyone readying themselves for the shopping season. The Zharkovs had banned all religious holidays, but that didn't stop capitalism from insisting that people still exchange gifts. Lights were twinkling in store windows and city workers wrapped gaudy decorations around lamp posts. Men in raggedy suits begged for change, hoping to afford something for their children. Some shoppers held onto their holiday spirit, keeping a jovial smile upon their faces and wishing others good will, but most pushed and shoved their way through the crowded streets, tired and worn out by the stress of the season.
Unfortunately, Andre Evans was in the latter. He tried his hardest to maneuver through the flow of human traffic, but everyone was insistent on getting in his way. There were visitors from the outer suburbs that stopped in front of him and stared up at the high-rises, amazed that the superheroes had rebuilt the city so quickly after the war. There were shoppers carrying so many bags that they took up the entire walkway. And there were the people staring into the screens of their MajesTech mobile phones instead of looking where they were walking. Beyond them, he had to deal with stumbling drunks who imbibed a few too many holiday cheers, wild, twirling children who ate a few too many sugar cookies, and their parents, who produced a few too many kids.
When he reached his destination, he ducked into the old apartment building and shook the snow off his hooded jacket. An addict mumbled something to him as he stepped over their legs and jogged up the rickety stairwell, jumping two or three steps with every stride. He reached the third floor, walked past the open door with the baby crying, past the door with the couple arguing, and slammed his fist on the door with the crooked 3C hanging on it.
There was no answer at first. There never was. So he banged harder, but he still had to hold back. He didn't want to damage anything. Not yet, at least.
When the door finally moved, the man inside kept the interior chain locked and peeked through the thin opening, rubbing his bloodshot eyes. He was standing in his underwear and a T-shirt, his ear lobes hanging down past his shoulders, twitching and twirling. Prehensile ears. What a useless super power.
“Yeah,” he said, still rubbing his eyes. “Why the hell are you banging on my door like the damn police, this early in the morning?”
Andre kept his hands in his pockets. No need to be aggressive. Yet.
“You Teddy Callahan?”
“Who're you?” the guy asked, his eyes opening a bit more.
“Bobby the Bull sent me.”
That made his eyes open real wide. They flashed to the door chain again, double checking to make sure it was still locked in place. He stood up a bit straighter.
“Yeah. Yeah. I was gonna call him. See if I could come down later this week and pay him.”
“It ain't no problem, man,” Andre said, cocking his head to the side. “See, Bobby is real considerate-like. He sent me over here to collect. Figure it'd save you a trip.”
The guy scratched his neck and flashed a look around his apartment. “Yeah, see the thing is-”
“No, man,” Andre said, clamping his hand around the edge of the door. “There ain't no thing. There's just me and you and the money. There is money right? Cause if there ain't, there's gonna be a whole lot more me and you. Understand?”
The guy nodded and said, “Yeah. Sure. Sure. Just calm down. I'll, uh... I'll go get the money for you.”
He started to close the door, but Andre firmed his grip. “Naw, man. See, you're gonna open this door and let me in. Then you're gonna offer me a nice cup of coffee and you're gonna get me Bobby's money. We clear?”
The guy nodded his head, his hand shaking as he reached up to undo the chain. “I, uh... I gotta close the door to unlock this.”
“I got it.” Andre winked at him and gave the door a slight shove to pop the chain clean off the wall.
The man stumbled back, and as the door swung open, Andre saw the baseball bat in his other hand.
“Seriously, man?”
The guy gripped it with both of his hands and shouted, “You stop right there! You-you get outta my house!”
“Well, which is it, man? You want me to stop where I am, or you want me to leave?”
The guy glanced at the floor for a second as he tried to decide exactly what he wanted, and that's when Andre rushed him.
Andre was fast. Faster than a normal person. Everything about him worked just a little better. He was a little faster, a little stronger, and a little tougher. It wasn't enough to qualify him as possessing an SPMD, which sucked, but it came in handy. Especially in his line of work.
The guy swung at him, but his timing was off. He wasn't expecting someone Andre's size to move that fast. The bat glanced off the back of Andre's skull, enough to daze a normal person, but Andre kept coming, punching the guy square in the jaw. The guy went flying, slamming into the wall as he dropped the baseball bat. Andre stepped up to him, and placed his boot on the guy's shin. With just a bit of pressure, Andre could feel the bone start to splinter. The guy let loose a howl of pain, gripping onto Andre's leg with both hands, trying to move him, but he wasn't going to budge.
“Where's the money?”
“I got it, I got it! Get off me!”
“Now, normally I'd be a nice guy here. But you had to go and hit me with a baseball bat. So I'm gonna ask again.”
He stepped a little harder and the bone snapped.
The guy screamed out in pain.
Andre asked slowly, “Where. Is. The. Money?”
“Top of the fridge!” The guy yelled, shaking his finger toward the kitchen. “In the coffee can!”
Andre took his boot off the guy's shin and walked into the kitchen. He grabbed the coffee can and dug his fingers in. There was a wad of money that he flipped through, counting out enough to cover the guy's debt. Then he snagged another hundred for himself. He'd chalk it up to hazard pay or something.
“Thanks for your business,” Andre said to the guy laying on the floor throwing up his middle finger in reply.
Bobby the Bull would be happy. Andre always delivered. But just because he was good at hurting people, didn't mean he enjoyed his job. He wanted something bigger, something better, and he kept waiting for Bobby to recognize his talents and move him up in the organization. No one else could hand out a beating like Andre though, so Bobby kept him right where he was. At the bottom.
When Andre stepped back out into the cold, he decided that Bobby could wait until morning to get his money. Andre needed a drink, and he knew the crew would be down at Cleo's Place. They always were.
Cleo's Place never closed, and for every twenty-four hours that Cleo's Place was open, Cleo was behind the bar. She never slept, because she didn't need to. It was a leftover ability from her days as the costumed supervillain, Pyramidas. She wasn't an A-list supervillain. Or a B-list supervillain. Her list was around F or G. But that was the way she liked it. She knew that being “popular” in the media meant there would be more attention from the superheroes bounding around on the rooftops. So she spent a rather long, successful career, scrounging away every penny that she stole. Eventual
ly, a superhero caught her. A bad coincidence. Wrong place, wrong time. They locked her away in the Pit, but this was before the war, before every sentence was a life sentence. So when she reemerged, she took her money and opened the bar. It became a popular hangout for old supervillains to drown their sorrows and talk about the good-old-days. Cleo covered the walls in framed newspaper clippings, photographs of old supervillains, and a few pieces of memorabilia. And that was exactly why Andre and his friends started hanging out there.
Andre, more so than the rest of his friends, idolized the old villains. The men and women who didn't get in line to join the Alliance of Heroes, the ones who didn't fall to their knees when the Zharkovs took over. The rebels. The ones who were free. Really, truly free. They did what they wanted and didn't bow down to anyone. He could get behind that. And the old timers knew how to put on a show. Elaborate costumes. Bombastic names. Masterful plans to take over towns, and cities, and countries. Even the world sometimes.
So Andre would buy these old men and women drinks, as many as it took, until their lips were loose. They would entertain him into the dark hours of the night, and sometimes the bright hours of the morning, with tales of their adventures. And he would daydream along with them, wishing his slightly enhanced body was more powerful than it was.
He might be able to lift the back end of a car with his bare hands, he might never cut himself when he chopped vegetables, and he might never need a pair of glasses, but none of that added up to a super power of mass destruction. And that's where his friends could relate.
By law, anyone with a super power had to attend the Academy of Super Powers. It was the school designed to test and evaluate powers. Once you graduated, if your power was useful enough, the Alliance of Heroes would ship you off to whichever domain needed you most. Or, in the unlikely case that your ability manifested into an SPMD, you might even get to join the Alliance. But that almost never happened. Ever since the war, SPMDs were rare. Really rare.
Andre and his friends took a different path. They kept off the grid, which was easy enough in their neighborhood. Living in the low income tenement blocks as children, they were naturally drawn to each other. And as each of them discovered their powers, they made a pact to never tell their parents, and never register their powers. They didn't go to the academy. They weren't shipped off to different corners of the world and placed into jobs that would fit their abilities. They found other ways to make money. Less than legal ways. It was a hard life, but they were free. For the most part.
Andre found three of his friends sitting in their favorite corner of Cleo's Place, the second pitcher of beer nearly empty between their pint glasses. There was a scattered collection of shot glasses, but the friend with the largest pile in front of him was Victor Valentine.
He had only known Victor for a few years. They had met in Cleo's place and bonded over their shared love of supervillainy. It was still a bit early in the night for Victor to be as drunk as he was, but then again, Victor wasn't known for being cautious. Some would consider it a care-free attitude, while others saw arrogant smugness. It usually depended on how many drinks he had already finished. But it all stemmed from his super power: the ability to see the future. His power could have been one of the most desirable SPMDs if it weren't for the fact that he could only see three seconds into the future. Still, it did benefit him in his everyday life. He could foresee every possible outcome, whether he shifted his weight right or left, said yes or no, or what the pretty girl's response would be if he asked her to come home with him. Most bar fights ended with the other guy giving up because he was too tired from swinging at Victor and never landing a punch.
“Andy! Bloody brilliant, mate,” Victor yelled in his slurred, nondescript accent, a leftover gift from his mother, who had illegally immigrated to the American Republic.
He twisted the end of his mustache as he saw his friend approach the table. “Wot brings you round 'ere?”
“I-I-I'm gonna go out on a l-l-limb and say he needs a d-d-drink,” Mickey Riddle spit out in one jittery breath.
Mickey had super speed. Or at least he should have. He could run fast, that was for sure, but the power never quite manifested like it was supposed to. When he really kicked it into high gear, and ran in a straight line, he could break the sound barrier, but stopping was always a problem. The few times he tried to use his power, he'd usually break a few bones, needing a solid wall in order to stop. And he could never stand still, his body always wanting to move. So he ended up a blurry, shaky mess that talked too fast. Most people mistook him for an addict.
“You need a drink, Andy? Well ya came to the bloody right place then, didn'tcha?”
Mickey slammed his hands on the table and stood up, wobbling a bit as he did. “D-d-damn straight!”
“Calm down, Mickey,” Wesley said, as he focused on the quarter spinning in mid-air, inches from his eyes. “You're going to knock the whole table over.”
Wesley Lockhart's telekinesis wasn't much more than a party trick. Something the size of a quarter was about all he could lift with his mind. He was the black sheep of the group. He refused criminal activities and instead held down a string of temp jobs that barely kept him afloat. Andre still held out hope that Wesley would be the one of them to succeed. Maybe get out of the neighborhood at least. He had a good head on his shoulders and was the only one that looked remotely clean cut. He may have been a mama's boy when they were young, but it paid off. He was still doing his best to keep his nose clean.
“I-I-I got next r-r-round,” Mickey said, snatching the pitcher off the table and running up to the bar, startling Cleo with his sudden appearance.
Victor laughed, leaning back in his chair. “That wanker's gonna give that ol' bird a heart attack one o' these days.”
“Least he buys a round once and awhile,” Andre said. “I ain't never seen you do that, man.”
“Pinchin' pennies is a gift, Andy. Ain't nothing to shame a man about.”
Andre shook his head. “You ain't right in the head, man.”
“None of us are,” Wesley said, snatching the floating quarter out of the air and pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “Never have been.”
Victor laughed obnoxiously loud and said, “I'll drink to that, mate!”
Wesley rolled his eyes and decided to ignore Victor, leaning forward and speaking directly to Andre. “How's everything going with you? You look stressed.”
“I'm fine,” Andre said with a shrug of his shoulders. “Just kinda sick of doing the same thing over and over. You know what I mean? I feel like I'm stuck. Bobby the Bull is good to me and all, but...”
“Maybe you can go straight like our goody two shoes friend 'ere,” Victor said, throwing back his thumb to point at Wesley. “That store yer workin' at... they hirin'?”
“It's just a temp thing. Selling MajesTech crap for the shopping season. I'm out on the street on new year's day.”
“That's criminal, son,” Victor said, slapping his hand down on Wesley's shoulder. “Ain't right, this time o' year. Supposed to be good-will-toward-men, but all ya get is a fist up yer arse and a thank-you-very-much.”
Wesley turned toward Victor with a sincere look in his eyes. “You do realize that I never know what you're talking about, right?”
“Exactly, mate. Ex...actly.”
Andre chose to push the conversation forward. “So what's your plan, man? I know your aunt doesn't charge you much, but she ain't gonna let you stay at her place for free.”
Wesley shrugged his shoulders. “I get the feeling she's looking for a reason to kick me out anyway. Rent or not, I doubt I can stay there much longer.”
He sunk back into his chair as Mickey ran up to the table, beer splashing over the sides of the pitcher.
“Aw, come on now!” Victor yelled. “Stop abusin' the alcohol, ya cunt!”
Andre reached up and steadied the pitcher, taking it from Mickey and pouring it into everyone's glass.
“Th-th-thanks, An
dre,” Mickey said, plopping down in his seat and turning his head back and forth to look at everyone, his curly mop of hair making his movements appear even more chaotic. “S-s-so what did I miss? Wh-wh-what are we talking about?”
“We're talkin' about how we're all buggered.”
Victor held up his glass of beer like everyone should clink their glasses together in honor of his statement. When no one reacted, he shrugged his shoulders and took a large gulp.
“Actually, I've been doing some research.” Wesley mumbled after taking a sip from his glass.
“Research?” Andre asked, sensing his friend's hesitation. “Into what?”
“Yeah. Just trying to find a way to put my power to use.”
“I keep tryin' to tell ya, ya need to come down to the casino with me,” Victor said. “Ya start movin' those dice, we can empty the place out!”
“That hole in the wall you go to ain't a casino, man,” Andre said with a laugh. “It's some place run by the henchmen of some mafioso that thinks he has an SPMD.”
“Yer the one that won't let me anywhere near Bobby the Bull's place.”
“Because, man, I don't wanna have to break your legs when you can't pay up.”
Victor spoke into his beer. “Might be nice fer a change, havin' someone friendly do the business.”
Andre ignored the comment and continued, “Besides, everyone around here knows what Wes can do. They'd never let him near the dice.”
Victor shrugged. “They make the dealers wait five damn seconds ta deal ta me so that I can't see the cards. Too bad there ain't no Vegas no more. We could clean house, boys.”
Wesley continued without response to Victor. “I've been reading about this place called the House of Psi. Have you ever heard of them?”
Victor shrugged. “That some kinda club?”
Mickey waved his hand, excited he might know the answer. “Th-th-they're a band?”
Wesley shook his head. “No. It's a group, over in the Fatherlands. They're psionics. All of them can do what I can do. I mean, probably better than I can do it, but still. They're looking for others like them to join up. Help them out.”
The Super Power Saga (Book 1): Super Powers of Mass Destruction Page 2
