“This is quite the letdown. I was hoping she’d be more of a challenge than her friend.”
“Umm Jericho?” Hammerspace’s voice entered my ear. “We’ve got a developing situation.”
His tone suggested this should be something to worry about. “Does it involve the last living member of SVIS?”
“Yep.” He turned up the volume on the television in the background. “Can you hear it?”
I heard the voice of my one time victim Brandon Howard. “In a developing situation downtown, a group of powered individuals are calling for the police to finally pull out all the stops to hunt down and bring The Negative Man to justice. The man leading the riot, one Nick Parson, has been officially confirmed as the police sanctioned vigilante Rhino of the SVIS. Sources close to the situation say this stems from the death of Ernie Masters, confirmed tonight as Elephant.”
“Boss, this looks serious. He’s got about ten people with him and they’re dressed for battle. We’re talking camo, assault rifles, the whole nine yards.”
I made a shushing noise so I could listen to the news report. “Our very own Geri Paisley is on scene. Geri, what’s going on down there?”
A female voice took over. “Brandon, the city’s been simmering for the better part of a year, but tonight that tension’s finally boiled over. In an exclusive off camera interview with Parson, he told me just what they want. These powered people want Grimes to step up and take the fight to The Negative Man, or Parson and his militia will. Parson said if he has to lead the charge, then the police won’t like the mess that’s left behind.”
I cut off the ear bud, angry at what I just heard. “No, no , no! This isn’t how it’s supposed to go!”
Heather had been listening too and tried to comfort me. “If those fools are stupid enough to come after you, then just teach them a lesson.”
Clenching my hands, “The death of the SVIS was supposed to put an end to this futile resistance, not strengthen it. How many more people will be suckered into their unrealistic goals?”
“Jericho, what does it matter? People either back down to power or face the consequences. It sounds like a group has made their choice.”
I needed time alone. I didn’t understand why more people were willing to oppose me. Didn’t they see what happened to those who tried? Why weren’t they scared? I shifted into pure energy and routed myself into the nearest power line. First The Crimson Mask, then Hijack, and now these people – all who weren’t afraid of the consequences of defying me. If that was the case, then I just needed more power.
I reformed outside the house and went immediately into the basement work shop. I knew what I had to do and I wasn’t going to stop until it was done. If this city no longer feared me, how could I expect an entire nation to? I think a friendly reminder of what I could do was needed.
Chapter 20 –
Tuesday Night; Wonderton Estate
**Kyle Wonderton**
Even though this was the second time I was conversing with a computer, it didn’t make it any less weird. “I did everything right, I guess I just didn’t hit the proper speed.”
“You’re lucky to be alive. I remember vividly what The Negative Man is capable of. The next time will be your last chance.”
The fuzzy outline of Phil Jenkins head blurred in and out of the old laptop. Apparently his power was being able to transfer his mind into any computer network. Unfortunately when he died physically, his conscious was pulled into this old relic and he was stuck. The network card fried the moment he entered, making his powers useless and him a prisoner.
The other problem was the battery was all but dead. To speak to him, we needed to have the computer plugged in, which made him vulnerable to The Negative Man, should he find out about Phil’s predicament. “I had a video camera set up to record my training, yet as you can see that Stormfall fallout fried the electronics.” I pointed to a burned up camera behind my makeshift bed. “No chance you might be able to rummage through it if I plugged in the memory stick, huh?”
The pixels on the screen faded out, returning a moment after. “I can certainly try. Honestly, I don’t know what I can do or my limitations. To date, I’ve only talked to Becky here and there after she discovered me.”
Becky was already on it, pulling the memory stick out of the charred equipment. “Ehh, this looks bad.”
Well, we wouldn’t know until we tried. I took the stick from her and inserted it into the only working plug on Phil’s computer. A low buzz came from the interior and Phil’s face disappeared. “I’m still here; I’m just going directly into the stick.”
As he did his thing, Becky turned her tablet on and started scrolling through social media. I had no interest in such thing, so I went back to brooding over what went wrong when I had a chance to finish The Negative Man for good. Out of nowhere, I get clocked in my arm. “You gotta see this.”
I looked over at her screen and saw a post that looked a bit odd. When she clicked on it and highlighted the words, an encryption must’ve been triggered to show the real message –
‘Krum’s Comics at seven p.m.
If you’re a powered who is sick of nothing happening,
show up in fatigues.
If he wants war, we’ll give it to him.’
The sender of the message had a profile picture of the letter X and his name was more nonsense: Rhinoc Eros. “What kinda weird name is that?”
“Forget the name Kyle, what about the message? Aren’t you worried this will escalate?”
I reread the message again. The sender clearly was tired of The Negative Man and seemed to want to incite a war or something. The problem was who’d be dumb enough to join that cause? “If people want to die, that’s on them.”
She grabbed my arm and shook it. “You might not care, but this message was meant for me and some of my friends. We can’t let them do this. C’mon, we’re going down there.”
That didn’t sound like a good time at all. Thankfully before Becky could pull me away, Phil’s computer began making noises. “Guys, I was able to recover some video of the memory stick.”
“That’s great!” I dropped down to face level. “Can you tell me anything? Did you see what I did wrong?”
He brought up a fuzzy, low resolution video on the screen. The play button clicked on its own and the final moments of our brief confrontation played out. It was hard to see anything clearly, but Becky and Phil both seemed impressed by what they saw.
After the video stopped, “From some rough calculations, I don’t believe you were going fast enough. Your reflex speed in your knees and arms is off the chart, but to breach the sound barrier, you’re going to need more than that.”
I knew it. “Can you tell me how to improve?”
“Sorry kid, your powers are like a foreign language to me. The only one who would’ve been able to help is dead unfortunately.” His pixelated face dimmed. “That took a lot out of me. Why don’t you guys unplug me and give me a chance to rest.” Before we did, he had one request. “Leave the memory stick plugged in. I think I might be able to clean up the video, when I get to feeling stronger.”
I shut the laptop and Becky unplugged it from the wall. “I can’t give up. Knowing that the research is solid, I need to increase my attack speed.”
She looked at me, a little sad. “You might not be able to do that. I don’t mean to sound like a Debbie Downer, but it could be years before your body matures and grows to get that speed.”
“I don’t have years.” I slammed my hand into the wall behind me. “I will find a way, I promise you that.” That was said more to the spirit of my dad than it was to Becky. “C’mon, let’s go see what trouble is brewing down at the comic shop.”
Luckily I had my license and one of my dad’s old cars was in the garage. Time was of the essence, so we took the sports car downtown. When we got to the shop, there was already a small crowd standing out front. At the head was Kim, his arms over his head. “Please, this is a place of
peace, not a bastion of hate.”
A large man wearing a black top and camo pants was pointing at Kim. “You’ve been an ally for a number of years, but a friend of mine tonight called me. You know what she said? She said she was going to take her own life so she wouldn’t have to worry about The Negative Man anymore!” This fired up the crowd even more. “I’m not going to sit back and wait for him to kill me!”
Diana came out of the store. “I’m with my husband; we started the support group as an outlet to bring people who were hurting together. If this is the turn it’s going to take, Kim and I are out.”
“Fine, you normals don’t understand anyway.” I was in shock. This guy was treating two good, honest people like dirt all because they didn’t want to participate in his scheme. “If you don’t mind, I have a meeting to host on the inside and I don’t want to have to hurt you.”
Kim and Diana moved out of the way reluctantly. A group of about ten, dressed in similar outfits to the lead guy, filed in behind him. I stayed outside with Becky, only going over to the friendly owners of the store once the rest of the supers were inside. “Are you guys okay?”
They looked very shook up. “I’m glad you two didn’t go inside with them.” Kim seemed relieved we were still outside. “Nothing good will come of what Nick is planning.”
“Who is that guy?”
“He’s Rhino, one of the SVIS members.” Diana pulled out an old photo from her back jean pocket. “We met all the SVIS members in a bowling league on Wednesdays. After getting to know them, we decided to use our store as a front to help lost souls connect. Mike Blackfield, another one of the group who’s deceased, he was the hothead, not Nick.”
“To be fair Diana,” Kim cut in, “he did learn that Barbra’s planning on committing suicide. It’s enough to make even the most tender soul a warrior.”
The pieces were falling into place. I’d wondered why Crocodile seemed so adamant on me coming to this shop and meeting with that group of outcast supers. “They won’t be able to take him down, you know that right?” Everyone nodded their head. “Won’t Nick listen to reason?”
“You heard him; he’s not in the right frame of mind.” Behind Kim, the door flew open again. Nick was on the phone with someone and he stared needles at us across the way. “Diana, I think it’s time to close up for the night. Kids, you should probably head home too.”
I heard Nick telling whoever he was talking to that he’d only speak to a Geri Paisley off camera. “Kim’s right, Becky, let’s get outta here before this gets ugly.”
We wished the Krummels a good evening and we got back into my dad’s old car. “I can drop you off at wherever it is you live, if you want.”
“I live at the Pacific Station orphanage. Honestly if I never went back to that place again, I’d be a happy camper.”
That was something I couldn’t relate to, yet as an orphan I understood her disdain. “Listen, I don’t go in at all, but if you want to crash at my dad’s house, according to the real estate listing there’s an awesome master suite.”
“You’re a good friend Kyle, whether you want to admit it or not.”
Chapter 21 –
Wednesday Afternoon; Pacific Station Science Center
One of my favorite places to go and clear my head was the Science Center. I was tired of listening to the news talk about Nick Parson’s ultimatum to the police. The conjecture on what my retaliation would be was borderline insanity. One ‘pundit’ claimed I was going to nuke the city and decorate the surrounding desert with the population’s bones. It was frustrating that no one, not even the smartest insider, had the vision that I might be trying to restore order.
My polarity accelerator project was stalling. The first test was a bona fide success, yet when I strapped it on to myself, for some reason the power supply reacted differently. There wasn’t the expected polarity reversal, just agonizing pain to me. It was almost as if it rejected my very nature. That was lunacy, as how could a manmade power source have thoughts or feelings of its own. Yet, in this instance, I thought the little bastard was out to foil me at each turn.
That’s how I ended up here. Sometimes the simplest of science held the answers one needed. I was in the atom room, gazing at all the 3D models and displays brought me back to basics. It really was simple; there were electrons, protons, and… neutrons? Wait a second, why hadn’t I ever tried to incorporate the neutral charge in my equations? I’d been so focused on positive and negative energies that I never once considered a neutron to hold any value.
A few students, high school age by the looks of it walked in. Three boys, two in glasses and a taller one who didn’t quite fit in with the dynamic went over to the first atom display. The taller one looked over at me and recognized me. “Hey, aren’t you Jericho Staley? You made this right?” He pulled out his Predator smart phone.
“I didn’t make it myself, but an entire team did.” I smiled and tried to look friendly. “How is it working for you?”
He flipped it up in the air with a smile. “I don’t know what you guys did, but this week the network speed is insane. I downloaded the role playing game Ragnarok on Ice in less than fifteen seconds. That file should’ve taken two to three minutes easy.”
His friend looked crestfallen. “My phone doesn’t even have enough memory to download it. Shame too, they really made Rumil’s avatar look hot in the upgrade.”
I had no idea what game they were referencing, but hearing the network speed was hyper fast made me very happy. With the undertaking almost ready, we’d need every single advantage we’d get. “How is the built in wi-fi coverage?”
“I leave it on all the time. My parents don’t even need to pay for internet anymore, we just piggyback off the phone network.”
Eyebrows rose, “I figured that would eat up too much data on the phone plans to be a viable alternative.”
He pulled up something on his phone then handed it to me. “See, Cross Country Wireless is now offering unlimited data to anyone using the Predator phone. The internal network you and your company created is so fast they don’t even need to cap the data anymore. It’s genius.”
This news shattered my expectations. If people were using this phone as a hotspot, I wouldn’t even need fifty-one percent of the market to initiate the plan. The wi-fi signal would boost Heather’s power tenfold! “What’s your name son? You’ve given me much to think about.”
Our hands met as he introduced himself. “I’m Wilson Fetts, a senior at West Pacific. Wonder-Tech is like my dream job.”
“I’ll remember your name Wilson. Come talk to me when you have a bachelor’s degree in a few years.”
He turned and high-fived his two buddies. “You can count on that Mr. Staley.”
“Please,” I hated being called Mr. Staley, “it’s just Jericho.”
My new acquaintance Wilson and his two friends were about to walk away when the thought of running my conjectures by him hit me. Sure he was a high school kid, but the youngest minds tended to be the smartest, even if they didn’t know it yet. “Before you go Wilson, I wanted to run an idea by you. It’s for a new project we’re working on, top secret and all.”
All three boys got wide eyed and Wilson was smiling so much I was curious if his face would crack. “I don’t know if I can help, but I’d love to hear what you got!”
I picked up one of the smaller 3D atom models. “Simple science tells us three basic facts, electrons emit a negative charge, protons a positive, and neutrons no charge at all.” All three shook their heads in agreement. “I can’t tell you exactly what I’ve got planned, but what if we could reverse the polarity of the charges? For example, give electrons a positive charge, if only for a short time?”
One of Wilson’s friends scoffed at me. “That’s impossible, it’d go against the very scientific fact you just stated.”
His opinion was null and void to me; I was curious about the tall, bright student’s in front of me. “I wouldn’t say impossible, but it’d be
a damn hard thing to pull off.” He tapped the side of his face as an idea formed. “What if you found a way to use the neutrons as your conduit?” Wilson took the model from my hands. “Send your positive charge in first, followed up by your negative charge – then see if you could continue the reversal from there.”
They say great minds think alike. “Mr. Fetts, I’m glad we are on the same wavelength. If this idea works, I’ll be sure to give you credit as well.”
Handing the model back to me, “You might want to check out the library. There’s an old book about some sort of electron generator from thirty years ago. Apparently one of the scientists there was able to do something similar to what you’re proposing.”
“How do you know about that?”
“A research paper I did my junior year, a history of energy sources in our country. I couldn’t find anything on the internet about it, but I ran across it one day in the library.”
The very project that ended up creating me, and there was information about it in this city. I felt my hands start to tremble a bit and even sweat on my palms. “Do you remember the name of that book?” I tried to ask without seeming too overeager.
For a moment I thought it was lost in the mind of a teenage boy. Then, “Conspiracies that Shaped Our Country. I think the author’s name was D.S. Cooper.”
“Thank you. Now if you’ll excuse me boys, I have some tests to run.” Leaving the three bewildered children in the atom room, I practically ran from The Science Center, wanting to get to the library as quickly as possible. D.S. Cooper, what a way to hide valuable information from me Dr. Cooper.
Outside I hailed a taxi and asked him to get me to the library as quickly as possible. Could there have been secrets to my life hidden under my very nose? About halfway to the library my phone rang. “Hello?”
It was a call from Wonder-Tech Tower but it was filled with a lot of static. “Hello, there’s something wrong with the connection.”
The Negative Man: Act 1 Page 33
