The Negative Man: Act 1

by Jeremy Croston

  “Big words coming from a man who couldn’t even defeat his arch nemesis. Speaking of,” he pulled out his phone and brought up a tabloid headline, “it seems The Negative Man is actually being hailed as the city’s savior, not you.”

  Spades was really playing with fire. John’s eyes were ready to explode from his head. “I don’t care what anyone says; one day they’ll see just what a coward and a piece of shit The Negative Man truly is. As for you,” with catlike reflexes he reached for Owen. But, having learned his lesson the first time, John’s hand passed through Owen’s body. He was already intangible.

  Hearts roared forward and slammed his force field into John. The shock from the invisible blow caught him unprepared and he had to leap back to avoid any more damage. He didn’t stop until he made it all the way back to the rooftop. With one last evil glare at us, The Dark Lion vanished into the early morning.

  Spades was completely amused. “Oh John Wonderton, when will you learn that you can’t beat me. You’ll never beat me.”

  I got the feeling the real reason John left the scene was because I was there. If a full-fledged fight had broken out, I wouldn’t have had many choices in defending myself. As he pointed out before, Jericho Staley wasn’t the super. He was just the sidekick.

  Chapter 21 –

  Friday Evening; Undisclosed Location

  I pulled up to The Aces hideout, expecting to see everyone yet, only Spades was waiting for me. And he wasn’t wearing his mask. I parked the car and got out. “Everything okay boss?”

  When not wearing his black Spades mask, Owen Walker looked like the nicest guy in the world. He offered a friendly handshake and an explanation. “Tonight’s task just requires the two of us. You see, I think I’ve designed a weapon to help us with our vigilante problem.”

  “A weapon?”

  He started walking briskly towards the warehouse. “It is a thing of beauty.”

  I kept pace with him, like following a giddy kid through the aisles of a toy store. We passed through the portion of the hideout that acted as the parking garage and armory and went straight to the main computer room. Inside, all the screens were lit up showing various parts of Pacific Station. However, Walker didn’t even look up at them. He beelined straight to a case on the ground and picked it up.

  Popping open the latches, “I figured as a follow techno lover, you’d appreciate this more than the other two.” The top opened and inside was the elemental gun and its chambers. “Saw this the other night at the raid on gl-O-bal did you?”

  That I did. “Hearts told me that you can change the chamber in it, making it a sort of elemental weapon.”

  He slid down what I assumed was the engaging mechanism and the gun began to hum. The blue cryo chamber lit up and the liquid inside began rolling, almost like the ocean. “I’d stand back if I were you Jericho.”

  I did as he asked and where I’d been standing just seconds earlier, he fired the concentrated blue beam into the concrete floor. The air in the room immediately dropped by a lot, but only for a few seconds. As soon as the gun disengaged and the blue laser was gone, the temperature returned to normal. But that was the least concerning part of this. The spot of concrete that had been hit by the cryo-gun was a frozen solid disk of ice. Not just any ice, “Is that dry ice?”

  “You have a keen eye Jericho. As much as I’d love to tell you have I came to form this particular compound, I’m afraid that knowledge will stay locked away in here.” He tapped on the side of his head. “However, the reason you’re here is I need help perfecting the weapon itself.”

  From that demonstration, I thought it worked perfectly fine. “What’s wrong with it?” He handed the gun over to me. Immediately I picked up on what the problem was. “It’s overheating isn’t it?”

  “What you’re feeling is only a slight display of it. Use it for any more than five seconds and the gun becomes scolding hot. Obviously, to use it against The Dark Lion, I need it to be running at optimum capacity.”

  I looked around the room. “Do you have a tool box or anything I can use?”

  Spades left and returned shortly after, rolling in a giant metal tool box. “I think you’ll find I have everything one would ever need in this box.”

  I opened the first set of drawers, finding a complete set of the top of the line Red Wolf tools. “Holy shit, this must’ve cost an arm and a leg.”

  “No cost is unnecessary when you want to create the best. So tell me,” he gestured to the gun, “what are you thinking?”

  I picked up a Philips head screwdriver. “I first want to see the wiring for the gun from the power cell. That will tell me if the problem is in the power supply itself or in the physical wires.”

  As I took off the cover, “I checked and rechecked both. I find it hard to imagine that either would be the problem.”

  When the last screw fell into my hands, I popped the plate off and began inspecting the wiring. From the first glance, everything appeared to be normal and wired correctly. I followed the path back to the power cell, which also appeared to be stable. Then an idea hit me. “The energy coming off the power cell must be pretty extraordinary, right?”

  “To be able to get the concentrated blast needed to perform, no matter the element, we had to use the most concentrated supply we could muster.”

  I looked back at the wiring. “You don’t have enough wires funneling the energy. Basically you’re trying to push ten pounds of crap down a five pound bag. You’re overloading the wiring and the circuits on the other end. By my calculations,” I looked over the open compartment again, “I think you need to double the wire capacity and adjacent circuits. That would do the trick.”

  As he conferred with what I said, a huge realization just hit me. I just helped The Dark Lion’s enemy perfect a weapon that could in theory kill him. Walker was over the moon happy. “How could I be so dumb? Of course, in the interest of keeping the weapon light and streamlined, I overlooked the most obvious solution! Well done Jericho.”

  I handed him the gun back and he returned it to the metal briefcase. “How long will it take you to rebuild that?”

  “Hopefully we don’t have to rebuild it from scratch, but if we do, possibly a month.” He started rubbing his hands together. “Just think, this could be the measure we need to get rid of The Dark Lion once and for all.”

  I saw the speed at which the energy from the gun shot out. Just by a quick calculation in my head, DL wouldn’t be able to avoid very many blasts before one hit him. And being hit by a concentrated blast of any of those elements would be deadly.

  Out of nowhere, “Jericho, what would it take to pry you away from Wonder-Tech and come work with me at gl-O-bal? If I had you running the R&D department, I bet the elemental gun would be ready in half the time. Plus, who knows what other wondrous gadgets we’d invent together.”

  Words failed me. “Are you offering me a job?”

  “Not formally, that’ll happen on Monday morning when I call you. Thank about it though, would you?” Again, he patted my shoulder. “It’ll be an offer that’s very hard to refuse.”

  That last line stuck with me from the second I left The Aces base all the way back to my home. It was bad enough living two separate lives, but the one I never meant to continue kept inching its way further and further into my real one. Plus there was also the problem with the elemental gun. Just because I was pissed at The Dark Lion and showed it over the past week, I didn’t want him to be killed by Spades.

  What I needed was clarification. Was there a way to get The Dark Lion to confront his biggest problem, The Negative Man? I didn’t know, but it was the only way to get the city back the hero it needed. The Aces were still the first and foremost threat. As bad as it sounded, what The Negative Man was doing wasn’t that big of a threat to the city. The lives of two shouldn’t mean more than an entire population.

  I fell asleep on my couch with all these thoughts running through my mind. I was awoken by my phone ringing beside me. Groggily, I l
ooked down at it and saw the display said eleven thirty in the morning. The caller ID flashed John Wonderton. It was his office phone. “Hello?”

  “Jericho, I know it’s Saturday and we haven’t talked much lately, but I need you here.”

  Rubbing the sleep out of my eyes, “It was a long night. How important is this?”

  “When I got here this morning, I received an email from an encrypted account. I opened it using you’re secure server and there was a video clip on it.”

  Apparently cutting to the chase still wasn’t his strong point. “What was on the video?”

  “It was The Negative Man. He gave me instructions on how to reach him today at noon and I’m going to need your help to set up the connection.”

  Hmph, well look at that. It seemed wishes really did come true. “I’ll be there in fifteen.”

  Chapter 22 –

  Saturday Morning; The Computer Lab

  We had five minutes before the chat room, for lack of a better term, that The Negative Man had given us instructions to break into would go live. It had taken me about ten minutes to successfully infiltrate the server and from there gain access to this room on the dark web. I would be out of camera range, but would still be able to monitor everything from the control panel.

  John Wonderton had transformed into The Dark Lion while I did the computer work. We really hadn’t said much to each other, but working towards a common goal of getting this meeting set up helped keep the tension out of the air.

  With two minutes until show time, the room began picking up another external signal. “Looks like we’ll be going live very soon. We’ve got company in the room.”

  The cowl hid most of his face, but his eyes were visible to me. Hate was set in every inch of them. “The sooner he gets here, the better.”

  I sat there, with baited breath, waiting for The Negative Man to appear. And then, like a ghost in the machine, his face took over the monitor in the center of the room. Hidden underneath layers of static, the only thing we could make out was the outline of his head and his bright white eyes in the center of a distorted greyish black image. The same electronic voice I’d heard when Massacre was killed greeted DL. “My old friend… I’m sorry for what I did to poor PJ, though it was for the greater good.”

  As DL prepared his comeback, the signal in the room started jumping all over the place. I had to go into hacker mode to keep us afloat in the room. My fingers were locked in a battle either with The Negative Man himself, or possibly an accomplice.

  None the wiser to my struggles, “Massacre was a good man and a damn good vigilante. You murdered him in cold blood.”

  “Just like he killed those innocent hostages in City Hall?” DL showed a moment of weakness. “Yes, I have eyes and ears everywhere.”

  “And how many innocents did you kill the last time you graced Pacific Station with your presence? Don’t speak to me of meaningless murders.”

  I think he laughed, but it was hard to tell. “Forget about my transgressions and look in the mirror at your own. You claim you wish to clean up the city, yet The Aces are still the ones with the power.”

  DL kicked a chair that happened to be too close to him. “The Aces are scum, but you’re the real threat to the city. Be a man and fight me already!”

  “You’re such a fool Dark Lion. I am so much closer to you than you think. But I will extend this offer to you.” My head perked up from my own battle at this and I almost lost us the connection. Luckily I kept it together before we were disconnected. “You rid the city of the plague that is The Aces and I will battle you personally. How does that sound?”

  “Why do you care so much about what those insignificant goons do? I thought you’d be all about Spades and his band of murders and thieves.”

  His face flickered for a minute before all the static went away. He was still hidden in the shadows, but the distortion was gone and his voice was no longer mechanical. Softly, “We have two different philosophies, but at the end of the day we both wish for this city to be a controlled environment. The Aces are a plague and I would never join with those amateurs.”

  The Negative Man, the terror of Pacific Station sounded so human. I mean, I knew he was human, I just never thought he’d have to show himself in this capacity when fear was his greatest power. The Dark Lion also seemed to be at a loss for the way his greatest enemy chose to present himself. “Why should I believe you truly mean this?”

  “When have I ever lied to you? Even in our greatest battles, I was always honest with my intentions.”

  Something rolled over to my feet. The connection had become steady when the static went away so I bent over and picked up the rolled up note. ‘Trace the line.’ With no interference, I might be able to.

  I went to work while DL kept him talking. “I will have revenge on you for everything you’ve done, so help me. If removing The Aces from the equation in the only way to kill you, then so be it.”

  “Good. I knew I could count on you. Now, as for you trying to track me, allow me to show you how bad an idea that is.”

  DL looked over at me and using his inhuman reflexes jumped over and knocked me away from the computers I was operating. Surges of power fried everything and if it hadn’t been for DL, probably me with it. Explosions happened all over the lab, every computer station being swept up in the brewing electrical nightmare.

  DL helped me to my feet. “We need to leave!”

  I was all about it and followed him as we ran out of the lab and into his office. The surge must’ve been building wide and affected the entire system. Sprinklers were going off and wiring was exploding from the wall. “You’re still in costume! What if someone sees you?”

  “Just act like I showed up to rescue you.”

  We had to take the stairs and ran into no one. I knew it was a Saturday, but usually there were some stragglers in the office to catch up on work. The first casualty we saw was the front security officer who was face down on his keyboard. Smoke was still coming off his sizzling body. DL ran over to the sign in log for the weekend. “There were only three people here, me you, and Heather Adams.”

  My stomach bottomed out. “Heather’s here?” I looked outside and didn’t see her. “She still must be up in Legal. Let’s go!” The fires weren’t blocking the path yet and I was determined to get to her.

  DL stopped me from running back. “Get outside and make sure the fire department is on its way. You can’t help her, but I can.”

  I tried to push against him, but his strength was greater than mine. “Fine, but I’m counting on you.”

  He gave me a nod before taking off towards the stairs. I ran outside where people were gathering around to see what was happening. The nine-one-one operator picked up on the second ring. “Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency?”

  “My name is Jericho Staley and I work at Wonder-Tech. Something happened to the electrical system and things began blowing up building wide. The Dark Lion is on the scene, but fires are breaking out everywhere. We need the fire department.”

  The lady remained stoic even with everything I just told her. “Sending the dispatch now. Was there anyone else in the building with you?”

  John Wonderton, but he’s currently running around as The Dark Lion, so I refrained from saying him. “There was a security guard, but he’s dead. I think there was someone down in Legal too, but I couldn’t check the check in ledger due to the fires.”

  Over the top of my voice a large explosion shook the ground. Based on where that originated, I guessed it was the R&D lab. The servers were on the same level, what was left of them anyway, so it made sense that the overload would find its way there.

  Her voice, never wavering with everything that was happening, “I’ll be sending an ambulance as well. Stay on the line until they arrive Mr. Staley.” She was polite, but my heart was racing; I needed to know if Heather was okay. “Are you unharmed sir?”

  “Yeah, just shaken up.” That much was true, my hands were shaking.


  The doors to the building flew open. DL came running out with a body slumped over his shoulder. He ran over and dropped Heather to the ground, her eyes closed and skin horrifyingly pale. “Hurry with that ambulance! The Dark Lion just pulled a survivor out!”

  I dropped my phone and ran over to her. I put my hand on her face and it was cold and clammy. “Is she alive?”

  Bad news was coming; I could feel it just by his body language. “I’m sorry son, but I don’t think she’s going to make it.”

  Chapter 23 –

  Sunday Morning; Heights General

  I sat in the waiting room, drinking probably close to my tenth cup of coffee. According to the nurse that came out to brief me a few hours ago, Heather was still in critical condition. According to the doctors, it looked like she was on the phone when the power surged and there was no telling what internal damage it caused. They were most concerned with her brain, due to the activity she was doing at the time.

  I didn’t know much about Heather’s family, but it was telling that no one else was here. The same nurse that gave me the update said on her insurance information, her sister was listed as next of kin, but the telephone number listed was out of service. She asked me if I knew of anyone else and I felt sick telling her no.

  When the doors opened again, my head jumped up. It was the nurse again and she made her way over to me. “We’ve done the best we can. She’s stable and responding to verbal commands, but she can’t breathe on her own and her movements are limited to tiny hand gestures and blinking.”

  “Can I go back and see her?”

  I knew the answer was probably no, but the nurse relented. “Yes, but only for a few minutes. She needs rest before we have to start all over again.”

  The nurse, whose name was Annie Lipsky, led me back to Heather’s room. She opened the door for me and I slipped in, closing it behind me. The beeping on all the contraptions reminded me of my own visit to Heights General not that long ago. I walked over to her bed, her eyes were closed.