“Come with me. We’ll get out of here.”
“In a few minutes the Idea Man will reshape the world in his image. The only way to stop him is to get past me.”
Alex raised his shotgun.
Mind Dame spread her arms and put her head on her shoulder in a mockery of the crucifixion. “Shoot straight. Let’s not make a mess of this.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Le Parrain took a deep breath from his oxygen mask. “I do hope Sergeant Hammer comes soon. I simply can’t stay awake much longer.”
Ashes and scraps of what were articles detailing the accomplishments of the New York Guardians covered the desk in front of him. At either side his bodyguards stood at attention. Behind him a steel sheet covered the window. And, in front of him, Stardancer extended her empty wine glass.
“Can I get a refill?”
“I think you’ve had enough, my dear.”
Her head lolled over. “Ah, come on. You told me to have a little wine to relax.”
“That was a few glasses and many hours ago. I counted on …”
The lights went out.
“Torche,” said Le Parrain.
A henchman drew a flashlight from inside his jacket.
“Finally,” said Le Parrian. “We come close to the final scene.” He said in French, “Men, take your positions. Sergeant Hammer and his friends may arrive at any moment.”
The henchmen drew pistols and ducked behind cover. One put a gun against the back of Stardancer’s head.
“Uh, what’s going on? Why is there a gun at my head?”
“You’re a hostage, mon cherie,” said Le Parrain. “This is the role you were born to play.”
Star Dancer’s smile disappeared. “You said you wouldn’t hurt me.”
“I said that? Well, so I lied.”
“No, wait. I’m the leader of the Young Sentinels. I don’t get taken hostage. That happens to Knockout Rose, not me.”
“You are an actress. You play the role you are given.”
The seriousness of the situation struck Stardancer. “You’re not really going to kill me, are you?”
“It would certainly desecrate the home of the New York Guardians if they couldn’t rescue a damsel in distress, no? The world would know, once and for all, that they are not heroes, nor were they ever.”
“But, I mean, why kill me when you can kill the New York Guardians? Aren’t they your enemies?”
“I do not want them dead. No, they would die heroes, the bad they’ve done interred in their bones while the good lives on. I want them disgraced. I want the world to know how they cannot save themselves. By morning, everyone will know they are not gods, merely flawed mortals.”
“But everyone knows that. I mean, they only look great in the comics and movies and stuff. It’s not real.”
“Reality is made of stories. All that is real is what we believe.”
“Life and death are real, and I really don’t want to die.”
“Please. All you are is …”
A henchman interrupted in French. “Sir, after the heroes arrive, what is the plan?”
“You know all you need to know.”
“How will we escape?”
The henchman turned his flashlight to Le Parrain in anticipation.
Le Parrain said, “That is not my problem.”
Two of the henchmen gasped. The other two simultaneously said, “What?”
“Your problems are not mine,” said Le Parrain. “You lived your lives. You made your choices. They led you here. You could’ve walked away at any time.”
The closest henchman said, “We trusted you.”
“But you do not deserve my trust. You worked for me because no one else would have you. All of you are criminals, dishonorably discharged soldiers, mercenaries, and other scum. You saw me cheat everyone I worked with. Why did you think I’d treat you any differently?”
The henchman took his gun from behind Stardancer’s head and pointed it at Le Parrain. “Give me one reason why I shouldn’t shoot you.”
“I can’t. My heart beats weakly. I can barely breathe. My bones are riddled with cancer. I’m not for much longer in this world. All I ask is you let me live long enough to see Sergeant Hammer come in.”
“Wait,” said another henchman. “We can take him hostage. The police will go easy on us if we turn him over.”
The henchman with a gun said, “No, screw that. He’ll bribe his way out of this one. I say we waste him.”
The henchman closest to the door opened it. “How do we get out of here?”
“The building’s sealed in steel plates, you idiot,” said another henchman. “And we’d have to get past the Idea Man, the cyborgs, the ninjas, and that damn bony monster to escape.”
“But the Idea Man left Griffin Tower’s security guards on the landing below us, right? Maybe they’ll help.”
“No, he ordered them to stay put,” said Le Parrain. “They will stay as motionless as bowling pins. It was the Idea Man’s way of thanking me. To give me servants but no way to control them.”
“Screw it, then,” said the henchman with a gun. “I say we end this now and surrender.”
“To who?” asked the henchman with a flashlight. “No one’s here. For all we know, no one’s coming.”
“That’s why we need to get out of here,” said the one near the door.
The fourth henchman said, “Wait, I thought we established that was suicide.”
“If you surrender,” said Stardancer, “I’ll put in a good word for you guys. Honest.”
Le Parrain laughed until he coughed. “You see how well you do without my leadership? You can’t decide whether to fight, run, deal, or stand as still as those mind-controlled goons outside. You need my leadership.”
“And you led us here,” said the gun-wielding henchman.
“You were born to follow. Should you survive this night, you will follow someone else.”
“C’est des conneries! See this gun? This makes me more powerful than you. I can end your life right now.”
“Then shoot. But know that whatever power that gun gives you disappears when you stop killing. And then, you must face the consequences of your actions.”
“Please,” said Stardancer, “Do what you want, don’t kill me.”
The henchman with a gun aimed at her. “Shut the hell up!”
“Wait,” said the henchman with a flashlight. “The cops will go easier on us if we turn her over.”
“Forget this,” said the one closest to the door. “I’m out of here.”
“So what about us?” said the fourth henchman. “Are we supposed to wait or …”
“I am sure Sergeant Hammer will be here soon.” Le Parrain breathed deeply from his oxygen mask. “I want to see him one last time before I die. It’s fascinating, really. I only saw him once before, yet I think of him every day. In so many ways he shaped what I’ve become. I want to leave him with one last mental scar. The sight of me with ashes from articles and stories about his legacy and the corpse of a girl he failed to rescue should do it.”
Stardancer gulped. “No. I don’t want to die.”
“Sacrifice is an ancient tradition,” said Le Parrain. “Your death will show the powerlessness of the gods.”
“And what about us?” said the henchman with a flashlight. “Are we sacrifices too?”
“When Lucifer waged war against God, many angels followed him. They, too, fell from heaven to hell. Did you ever wonder if they rebelled against the devil? If they threatened to kill him, to bargain with God, or to run back to heaven? I like to believe they retained enough nobility to accept for their own actions and where they led them. After all, they are still there today. But they were angels. You are barely men.”
“Barely men?” The henchman with a gun pointed it at Le Parrain. “This is just a job for me. I saved what you paid me. In one more year I’d have quit with enough money to start a new life.”
“No, you wouldn’t,” said Le Parrain. “I
keep strict records of my money laundering. I know what accounts all of my employees have, and I can take back every cent with a simple forged signature. Even if you lived another year, which I would do all in my power to prevent, you’d find yourself a pauper, wanted by no one but the police.”
“Why, you …”
“It doesn’t matter. You fool yourself with outward and perishing things, and don’t know what’s real inside yourself. Do you really think a man who kills for pay can retire to a normal life? That the blood you spilled hasn’t stained your soul?”
“Shut up. I can stop this any time I …”
“You threaten to kill me. What will you do when your wife disagrees with you? Your child talks back? Or your neighbor is rude, and all you can think of is how to kill him? No, peace is not for people like you.”
The henchman lowered his gun. “Don’t tell me who I am. I can control myself.”
“But you cannot control the world, and by dawn it will be a different place. Maybe the Idea Man will rule it. Maybe the Skreaks will kill us all. Maybe the Iron Pirates will become a force to be reckoned with. Either way, your dreams would have amounted to nothing.”
The henchman who left ran back into the room. “There’s a lot of shooting downstairs.”
Le Parrain huffed oxygen and widened his eyes. “Do you think it’s the New York Guardians?”
“I didn’t see anyone, but superheroes don’t carry guns.”
“I’m sure he’s among them. You, take the gun out of my face and point it at our hostage. You, put down the flashlight and restrain her. The other two, take your positions beside the door.”
The fourth henchman and the one who left got on either side of the door and drew their pistols.
“No!” Stardancer tried to cover her head but the flashlight-holding henchman grabbed her arms from behind.
“What are you saying,” said the henchman with a gun, “we go back to the plan?”
“Even when you challenge me,” said Le Parrain, “you still acknowledge me. Put the gun to her head.”
“Oh, god, no,” said Stardancer, “you don’t understand, Sergeant Hammer hates me.”
Le Parrain said, “He still won’t let you …”
“No, you don’t get it. He really hates me. He called me a trollop unfit to lead a pre-school in front of my team. And he insulted everyone else on the team too.”
The henchman with a flashlight said, “Sergeant Hammer wouldn’t say …”
“He did! Earlier today, when he led us to Soho.”
The henchman with a gun relaxed his arm. “But in the comics, he says all men should be gentlemen to all ladies.”
“He’s not like he is in the comics. The comics make him out to be this terrific guy. But he’s not.”
The henchman who held her arms said, “Should I gag her?”
Le Parrain slowly huffed oxygen from his mask. He thought back to the first time he saw Sergeant Hammer, that foggy morning in France so many years ago. He remembered the fruitless cries of “Bitte! Ich ergebe mich!” from the Gestapo agents that only stopped with the wet crunch of smashed bones. He always knew the gentle American giant was more monster than man. The man in the newsreels, and later comic books, and after that movies, was a thing of fiction.
And, yet, Le Parrain believed that fiction.
He consumed information about Sergeant Hammer since his first encounter. He read all of the comics. He watched the newsreels until the film fell apart in the projectors. He studied news articles in every language he could read to better understand his enemy.
Le Parrain looked at a scrap of Sergeant Hammer Comics #1 on the desk. He straightened it between two fingers and angled the flashlight to see it better. It was from the first page. It said, “Written by Jack Simmons – Based on the Adventures of America’s First Super-Hero.”
Of course. A story. Mere fiction. Sergeant Hammer was only a god because people believed in him. Le Parrain never thought him a god, but still he believed that Sergeant Hammer was more than a man. The belief alone was a driving force in Le Parrain’s life.
Le Parrain looked at the shredded articles on the desk. Sergeant Hammer fights Nazi menace. Sergeant Hammer hold off Viet Cong soldiers from the Saigon Embassy. Sergeant Hammer joins the New York Guardians, the first legally-recognized superhero team in the nation. New York Guardians defeat an invading army of fish-men from the ocean, with Sergeant Hammer clearly in the pictures. Sergeant Hammer faces dozens of villains, many using tools and henchmen supplied by Le Parrain.
But no stories mentioned Le Parrain.
So Sergeant Hammer was a driving force of Le Parrain’s life, but could it be that Le Parrain meant nothing to Sergeant Hammer?
The very thought made Le Parrain’s confidence leave him with one long breath.
Did he, too, fool himself with outward and perishing things? Was he blind to who he really was?
Of course Sergeant Hammer wouldn’t come. Sergeant Hammer was a public hero who battled public villains. He battled the men in garish suits who went off on long monologues, not the men who outfitted them.
Le Parrain always looked down on those arrogant idiots. He didn’t mind selling them whatever they would pay for. He always thought of himself as far above them because the heroes never got close to him.
So why did he trap himself inside the heroes’ headquarters?
He had to be honest. He wanted to prove he was better than them. He wanted to show these paragons of power how powerless they really were. He wanted to look into their eyes when they realized they couldn’t punish a dying man. He wanted them to remember that, despite their strength, intelligence, and powers, he was always their superior.
But how could he best them if they never showed up?
The stairwell door opened. A man shouted, “Down! Everyone down.”
The henchman with the flashlight said, “Sounds like they found the mid-controlled security guards.”
“That will barely slow them down,” said Le Parrain. “The Idea Man gave them no orders. They stand as still as trees.”
The air got cold. Wind howled through the hallway, followed by the sound of bodies falling over.
A woman’s voice said, “Should I tap them with the stun gloves? Make sure they’re out?”
Stardancer perked up. “That’s Kayleigh.”
“One of your actor friends?” Le Parrain huffed his oxygen.
The henchman held their positions. A man knocked on the office’s door and said, “MAB.”
Stardancer screamed, “I’m in here! Help!” before the henchman behind her slapped his hand over her mouth.
A man said, “We are armed, but we don’t want to shoot. No one has to die tonight. We are willing to listen.”
Le Parrain snorted. “This isn’t how it’s supposed to happen.”
“The situation is under control,” said the agent. “We’re all still alive, so there’s nothing we can’t work out.”
The henchman with the flashlight said, “Hear that? He said …”
Le Parrain cut him off. “Tell him I will surrender to Sergeant Hammer.”
The henchman repeated Le Parrain’s request.
After a long pause, the agent said, “We don’t know where Sergeant Hammer is, and the New York Guardians’ charter is suspended so he can’t come here. We can arrange for you to meet with him if you leave the building with us.”
Le Parrain’s withered hands clenched into fists. “This isn’t right. It can’t end like this.”
The henchman near the door said, “Look, we can surrender, and …”
“My point was to show him how powerless he was against the random evil of this world. How can I do that when I’m in handcuffs?”
The MAB agent said, “Le Parrain, no one has to get hurt. We’re willing to work with you for the best solution.”
Le Parrain sat motionless. He looked at the scared actress who pretended to be a superheroine next to him. The henchman who held her arms back took frequent glanc
es at the door. The two men on either side of the door held their guns in shaking hands. The man in front with his pistol pointed at Stardancer let his arm drop.
“This is how it ends for me,” said Le Parrain. “I trap myself in my enemy’s office. I am surrounded by idiots and patronized by a common government employee. I set out to show how powerless heroes are against the chaos of the world, only to be trapped by agents of the law.”
“I say we surrender,” he said. “We might …”
A loud droning hum drowned out the henchman’s words. The only sound heard over it was an agent screaming, “It’s the Micro-Sapiens!”
The air got cold. A young woman shouted, “I’ll hold them off as long as I can” over the howl of wind.
Knockout Rose shouted, “I’ll help.”
The henchmen and Stardancer looked about in terror. They, like almost everyone else on the planet, heard the stories about this army of miniature robots. For most people, it was enough to know this swarm of drones left nothing in its path – inorganic material torn apart to build new robots and organic material simply torn apart.
The henchman with a gun said, “That thing’s on our side, right?”
“No.” Le Parrain huffed his oxygen mask. “I had the Indian boy send it messages. He told it where we would be. But he said it didn’t respond.”
The cloud of tiny robots tore apart the office door in seconds. The wood became specks of dusts that were quickly absorbed and broken down into fuel. The hinges and knob sparked as the robots reduced the metal to chips for their own armor.
“So you can’t call it off?”
“I don’t even know why it came.”
The Micro-Sapiens moved inside the office, out of the range of Gale Force’s wind, and resumed a shifting humanoid shape.
“So this is how it ends,” said Le Parrain, “not at the hands of the law, but at the whim of something beyond the control of heroes.”
The two henchman on either side of the door crouched.
The henchman restraining Stardancer let go of her arms and embraced her protectively.
The henchman in front of Le Parrain dropped his pistol and covered his eyes.
Le Parrain grabbed the gun. His gnarled finger closed around the trigger as he ignored a pain like a thousand bees simultaneously stinging his arm.
The Prospects Page 24
