by David Barton
I had never seen him before. His hair was slicked back showing his receding hair line. He was smartly dressed if putting on a cheap suit meant that. His grin matched his slicked hair, greasy. “I asked you a question little man. Are we having fun?”
His voice still sounded distant but I managed to understand it this time. “Who…” I could only manage a word before my head went light.
The man lifted something in front of me and pushed the button on it. The pain in my arm doubled and then it was gone as I felt the three pins slipping out of my arm. I let go of the cage and fell back to the floor.
Cradling my arm in the other I looked up at the man. My vision dared to fail completely. “What is this?”
“It’s what us in the evil business like to call a trap. You come in wanting some information but really it’s just a way for us to get one up on you. You’ve been going around sticking your nose into our business.”
“You know an awful lot despite being a simple henchman.”
“Well, you see. I’m not a simple henchman. This man is just telling you what I want you to hear.”
Confusion set in, temporarily keeping the pain at bay. “What are you on about?” I clamped my hand around my forearm to try and stop the bleeding but it wasn’t working. It slipped through my fingers covering my hand.
“My little henchman here is speaking for me. I’m speaking to him through this ear piece.” The henchman pulled a little device out of his ear before putting it back in to carry on relaying the evil message. “Now, these men are going to kill you. If you had figured out my trap than you would have gotten the briefcase without anyone dying. You would have saved the man in the chair and also gotten a clue leading you closer to me.”
“What men?”
“Oh, you haven’t met the rest of the boys yet.” There was a pause before the suited man pulled out the ear piece and placed it inside his pocket. His voice came again but this time the vocabulary suited him better. “These are my mates.”
I followed his arm as he pointed to the men now entering the apartment. “If I had my strength I would rip your arms off.”
“But that’s just it. You’re weak and defenceless. There’s nothing you can do to hurt us. The only thing you can do mate, is to suffer and finally die.”
“No.”
“No? You have no choice.” Then he grabbed me and pulled me to my shaky feet. I watched as his fist came slicing through the air and there was nothing I could do about it. I wanted to move out the way but it seemed like my body and mind weren’t linked anymore.
But I did feel the pain as his fist crashed into my jaw. Then I went flying backwards, down to the floor. That’s when it started. The punches and the kicks. These guys weren’t trained to fight but it didn’t matter. They knew how to punch and where to kick. My whole body was filled with pain as I was passed around like a punch bag.
I could feel blood on my skin, trickling down from my face. Inside my body felt broken and bruised. My feet no longer held me upright. If they wanted to punch me down to the floor they had to hold me up first.
My mind was starting to go blank. Pain filled every corner of my body and brain. No thoughts were bouncing around. Just pain. I thought I was going to die when a loud voice came in my ears. It took another loud voice to make me realise it was someone screaming. But it wasn’t me. It was them.
One of my eyes was swollen shut but out the other I could see a shape. It wasn’t moving like I could but it was like looking in a mirror. It must be Ryan’s father. In this current situation I was happy to call him my friend.
I stumbled back until I hit the cage. That’s when I remembered the case and the clue the man had hinted at. I had to get it out. There couldn’t be an explosive. The trap was the blood lock. That was the whole point of this test. To get me weak so these guys could kill me and take me out of the picture. Obviously I was pissing someone off.
My hands gripped the cage bars and I pulled. Trying to pry them apart but it wasn’t working. There wasn’t enough strength in my arms to do it. I slumped to my knees, resting my head back on a bar. Then my vision was blinded by a bright blue light. The one I had seen before.
“It’s okay. Just let me heal you.” It was Donald. The blue light became more and more warming. It felt like a place I could rest. A calm place where there was no fighting. Nothing but time to relax and not worry about any problems.
Then my vision came back like a train, the apartment coming back into view in a sudden rush. A gasp of air shot into my lungs and I felt immediately better. Better than I had done before. All my power was back and then some.
Feeling strong enough to destroy a building I twisted around. Grabbing the bars I pried them apart easily. My arm shot in and my fingers curled around the handle. I pulled it out from under the chair. I heard Donald’s voice again, “You can’t bring that case with us.”
“What are you talking about?” I stand up realising he was still holding my arm.
“We have no idea what’s in there. I’m not risking it.”
“It’s not your choice.”
“I said no.”
My anger boiled again. It wasn’t all his fault. It was the situation and how I was tricked yet again by this man. “You don’t decide what I do. At the start of all this I said that you were following me around. Not the other way. I’m bringing it.”
“No you’re not.”
“Are you worried about it being a bomb?!” I was yelling now. I couldn’t stay calm anymore it was too late to real it back in. “Here.” I rammed the case into his chest and clicked open the latches.
“Wait, don’t.”
I ignored him. My hands flipped the case open and then there was silence. The man holding the case wasn’t saying a word. Neither was I. I had been right, there was no explosion inside the case but there wasn’t anything in there either. It was utterly empty. No clue as to who this person was. It had been another trick.
He was just playing with me and I was sick of it. My hands gripped around the case and I threw it to the ground, splintering it into pieces. “You need to calm down.”
“Don’t tell me to calm down. I’m going to kill this person!”
“We have to find him first and we’re not going do that with you all fired up like this. Let’s head back to my place and we’ll figure out our next move.”
“Fine. I’ve got some stuff to check out anyway.” I blew out a long breath and told myself to calm down. “Let’s get going before they wake up.”
“They will be out for a while but yeah, let’s go.”
We made our way through the darkness that covered the city. Getting back into his place, still finding it strange how similar it looked like mine. My saviour took his mask off and hung it on a hook. “So what stuff do you need to check out?”
“Firstly do you have anything that could study this for me?” I pulled the rock out of my jacket pocket and showed it to him.
“What is it?”
“As far as I can tell it’s just a piece of rock and that’s all you need to know about it. Now, do you have anything that can help?”
He blew out a frustrated sigh. “I acquired something from a police lab that we could use.” He took the rock from my hand. Looking at it as he walked over to some kind of contraption sitting on a table. I watched as he placed the rock in between two pincers and switch the machine on. It didn’t look like it was doing anything but he turned around and left it alone.
“Anything else?”
“I just need to use your computer for this one.”
“Feel free.” He waved over to the laptop sitting in the corner. Then he walked off into another room. I didn’t bother seeing what he was up to.
Instead I lifted up the laptop and once it was booted up I slipped the flash drive into the port. Then I waited until a box popped up. I double clicked on the picture file, ignoring the rest for now. They came up and there were plenty of them to sift through.
According to Ryan there was
one particular one I should be searching for. Using the buttons I scrolled through them quickly. Discarding all the ones where it was just me. Nothing I hadn’t seen before.
Then I came across the ones depicting the moment I lost my memory. I flicked through them slower. Wondering what memories I lost when that weapon hit my head. I was about to discard them as boring until I saw the one Ryan must have meant.
These weren’t ones I had seen before. I went through them like a flick book. Watching as the man in this apartment with me emerged from the shadows as the gang ran off. I had been calm for the last ten minutes but now I was finding it hard not to lose it. My hand gripped the desk, my grip threatening to splinter it to pieces.
I enlarged the photo, making sure it was him. This man had the same build and also the same kind of beard. Not to mention the black outfit and the mask we both wore. My clenched fist snapped the corner of the desk off. My hand went to my pocket where I had deposited Ryan’s picture.
I had forgotten all about it after almost losing all my blood. Opening it up I saw the same image as what was on the laptop. I couldn’t believe it was true. There was a lot more explaining to be done by this man.
I turned as the man walked into the room. “Find what you were looking for?”
“Yeah I did. Want to take a look?”
“Sure. What is it?”
I kept silent as he came closer. His face was full of interest right up to the point when he saw himself on the screen. Then his face changed and it dawned on him what I had just found. “Care to explain?” I tried to keep my voice calm but there was anger rolling around my words.
His eyes dropped to where my fist was being clenched on top of the desk. He took a step back, clearly reading my mind, knowing exactly what I was thinking. “It isn’t what it looks like.”
“It looks like you just stood around and watched me get beaten up. What did you do next?”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“What did you do next?” My voice was slowly getting louder.
“I took your body and brought you back here where you freaked out because you couldn’t remember anything.”
I tried to think back as far as I could. The earliest memory I could bring up was fighting a man in an alleyway. It wasn’t the photo. It seemed like a memory lost in a shroud of fog.
“You ran off and I didn’t see you again for at least a year. It seemed like you let your alter-ego take over and disappeared. Then you just popped up out of nowhere again and started investigating all this.”
I blew out a breath and calmed myself down. “I just have one more question.”
He looked a little worried before he asked, “What’s that?”
“Why didn’t you help me before I was hit on the head?” I stared at him as his mouth opened but nothing came out. “Why?”
“I’m not a fighter. You’re the fighter out of us.”
“You seemed to be able to handle the guys at my apartment. You didn’t even need help from me.”
“That was a small group of guys and I had the element of surprise. This gang was around ten or more. I mean they were able to get the upper hand on you. What was I to do?”
“You should have helped.” I hadn’t realised but I had stood up from the desk, taking steps towards him. He had backed up all the way to the other end of the apartment. “You shouldn’t have just stood there hiding.”
“I tried to help you afterwards but we had to get out of there before anyone came along.”
“You should have helped.”
“Stop!” He placed his hand on my shoulder. I had no idea if he meant to show me that blue light or not but it impaired my vision which made me even angrier. That anger slipped into my limbs and I lashed out with both arms.
I felt my fist hit something and when my vision came back I saw him flying through the air. He crashed into the wall creating a man shaped dent. I smiled as he hit the floor with a satisfying thud.
“There was no need for that. I wasn’t trying to attack you.”
“I don’t know what to think about you anymore.”
He stood up, blood trickling down from a cut my fist had created. Then to my surprise the cut slowly closed up until there was nothing but the wet blood. “You can trust me.”
“That is one thing I know I can’t do. Not before and especially not now.” With that said I walked out. On my way I retrieved the flash drive. Then I head straight up to the roof and from there I started leaping from rooftop to rooftop. The cool air managed to push the surface anger deep down. The ball of it rolled around as my mind still thought about the betrayal. The poor excuses that came out of his mouth. Ryan needed to know exactly who is father was.
06/07/2014 AM
It was still dark when I woke up for the third time that night. Once my eyes had adjusted to the darkness I grabbed for the bottle of whiskey on my bedside table. My hand missed the first three times but I finally got it the fourth, spilling a few drops on my bed.
I was about to take a big swig of alcohol when I heard a knock from the other room. Stumbling out of bed I made my way into living area. Standing in the middle of the room was the masked vigilante. He looked more serious than usual.
“What’s going on?”
“I have something very important to tell you. Please, come and sit down.”
I did so, getting my drunken arse comfortable on the sofa. “What is it?”
“Firstly you shouldn’t be drinking like this.” He snatched the bottle from my hand. I protested but was too unstable to do anything else. “Now, I have something to tell you about your father.”
“No, no, no. I can’t handle any more bad news. Yesterday had enough of it.”
“Yesterday? Didn’t you sleep with Felicity?”
“That part was great. Something else happened that wasn’t so great.”
“What?”
“It’s not important. You don’t need to worry about it. What do you need to tell me about my father?” My ears were listening but my mind seemed to want to mess around. Wondering how it would feel to jump out of the window and plummet to the street below.
“I found something out about him. He’s like me.”
That’s when my mind started listening intently. “He’s a superhero?”
“Not exactly. I don’t think anyone could call him that.”
“I certainly wouldn’t.”
“When I say he’s like me I do mean he has super powers of some kind and he wears the same kind of outfit as I do.”
My eyes scanned the masked face that was looking at me. “Is that what you found out? I think that could have waited until the morning.” I went to get up but he pushed me back down. “Something else?” There wasn’t enough effort in my body to protest.
I just sat there and looked at him. “I don’t know how long ago it happened but I was attacked and I ended up getting hit on the head.”
“Like in the photo I found.”
“Yes. The photo you gave me. It had the man from the shadows in it. You wouldn’t recognise him but that was your father. He watched me get attacked and didn’t do anything to help. Now I can’t remember anything and it’s his fault it happened.”
“You don’t remember anything at all before it happened?”
“No, I can’t even remember what I look like or what kind of person I am when I’m my alter-ego.”
“What do you do during the day then?”
“I don’t know. My mind keeps me in the dark I suppose thanks to the bump on the head.”
“It’s like you’re a schizophrenic but both sides are in harmony with each other.”
Even under his mask I could tell he pulled a face. “That’s one way to look at it.”
There was a small pause in the conversation before I asked, “So what are you going to do now?”
“Finish my investigation. Everything is pointing towards this Henrikson guy. I’ll have to ask him some questions and take him out.”
“Out? As in kil
l him?”
“It’s what I do. Get rid of the people too dangerous to be locked up in prison. Makes the city a safer place.”
“Right. So, anything I can do?”
“Actually, there could be. It’s going to be daylight soon so I won’t be able to move around like this. Not even on the rooftops. So, could you try and find out where he will be tomorrow night. That way I know where to get to him.”
“Yeah, I’ll get on that as soon as I wake up and my impending hangover is gone. Think I might need to go back to sleep now. How will I contact you?”
“I’ll come back here. Leave your mobile number by your phone and I’ll use it to contact you.”
“Sounds like a solid plan. Now if you don’t mind seeing yourself out of my bin bag window, I’m heading to bed.”
“Thanks for your help.”
“Don’t mention it.” I speak through a yawn. “Night.” There was no reply, just a silent exit from my apartment. I chucked my body onto my bed, not caring about getting under the covers. The only problem was, my mind wouldn’t shut off despite there being nothing to think about.
There was just drunken blankness and yet it was so distracting that sleep didn’t come to me. After what seemed like forever I stared at my bedside table forgetting I had smashed my alarm clock the other morning.
Blowing out a breath I pushed myself up from my bed. Looking out the window, noticing the city was still covered in the moonlight. I stood from the bed and headed out into the living area. My feet seemed unstable as I stumbled past the furniture. I leant on the counter that divided my lounge and the kitchen and stared at the timer on the cooker.
It was almost five in the morning. This is all I needed. Not being able to sleep and it wasn’t even daytime yet. So I headed over to the coffee table, picking up my bottle. The sudden lightness of it left me disappointed. My feet splashed in something wet. When I looked down I realised that the superhero had poured it out to stop me drinking.
Unfortunately that was the only bottle I had left. So I was in my apartment at the crack of dawn with no alcohol and a horrible mental image that kept trying to come back to me. I dropped back on the sofa blowing out a very long breath.
