I locked and closed the back car door. The sun was at such an angle that I could check myself out in the reflection of my car’s back window. If I looked like Bogey, it was a Bogey who had his face pounded on more than once. Perhaps that was why no one had cast me to star in a Casablanca remake. My nose was a bit misshapen and there was some scar tissue on my face and ears. Under my clothes were more scars than I could keep track of. Accumulating scars was the risk one ran by first being a mixed martial arts fighter and then becoming a Hero. Fortunately, no supervillain had yet succeeded in separating my head from the rest of my body. But, the day was young.
I straightened my tie. A red power tie, of course, tied into a Windsor knot. It looked like a bloody fang lying against my sparklingly white French cuffed shirt. I had on the silver cuff links given to me by Zookeeper, the Hero who had sponsored me for the Hero Trials. My father was long dead, and Zookeeper was the closest thing I had to a dad.
I stopped peering at myself in the window. I stood up straight. I flexed, feeling my muscles bunch up under my clothes. I tilted my head to the side a bit as if I were looking off into the horizon. I tried to look resolute and Heroic. I decided trying so hard to look resolute made me look constipated instead. So I relaxed. Even relaxed, I looked almost as good as I felt at the prospect of meeting the Sentinels. I shot at my reflection with my finger. Shamuses like Philip Marlowe, Sam Spade, and Hercule Poirot did not have anything on me fashion-wise. If the Sentinels did not extend me an offer of membership, perhaps they would hire me as their fashion consultant.
I started walking. Being a trained detective, I was confident I could find my way to the Sentinels’ mansion from the parking lot. Prominent signage pointed the way there. Since I was skilled at finding things, following the signs seemed like cheating. But, one must not look a gift clue in the mouth. Homer wrote that in the Iliad. Or, maybe I had read that in a Dick Tracy comic. I got the two confused sometimes.
Somewhat disdainfully using the signs as navigational crutches, I made my way through the parking lot. I emerged at a crosswalk that crossed a tree-lined road, appropriately named Sentinels Avenue. Directly across the street loomed the Sentinels’ mansion, a four-story tall sprawling white edifice with soaring columns. The mansion and a large part the Sentinels’ property were surrounded by thick black metal fencing that stretched between dark granite pillars that were sunk into the ground every thirty feet or so. The rest of the property that was not enclosed by that large fence was thickly wooded. Though there was an airport relatively nearby, no airplanes buzzed overhead. The property was restricted airspace. Though the part of the property open to the public looked like a park and for all intents and purposes was a park, I knew it in fact was more secure than any other patch of land on the East Coast, including the White House and the Pentagon. In the past, supervillains with more cojones than good sense had mounted assaults on the Sentinels’ headquarters, only to discover they had made a very bad mistake. In addition to the powers and abilities the Sentinels themselves possessed, the grounds bristled with weaponry and Metahuman countermeasures. As demonstrated by the last time the property had come under supervillain attack, the property was protected by gun turrets, surface to air missiles, and lasers, among other weaponry. It was rumored the grounds also housed silos containing nuclear missiles. I thought that was just urban legend, like alligators in the sewers or strippers who did not have daddy issues. Even if not nuclear armed, the property was a fortress that was cunningly engineered to look as open and pleasant as a college campus.
Well, open and pleasant except for the security checkpoint visitors to the grounds had to pass through. A short line of tourists extended from the security checkpoint. Directly across from the security checkpoint on my side of the street were protesters. Some were armed with signs. Others were armed with nothing but their fear and hatred of Metahumans generally, and Heroes specifically. The protesters were shouting at the people in line to enter the Sentinels’ property. Even from this far away, the protesters’ cries rose up into the air like dandelion seeds:
“You’re patronizing your oppressors!”
“Heroes are false gods!”
“Metahumans are devil spawn!”
“The higher they fly, the deeper they’ll fall into Hell!”
There were more shouts, but I could not hear all of them. It was just as well. The underlying premise of all the cries were the same: Metahumans were different than normal humans, and different was bad. It was the same old stupid song that had been sung forever. The fact humans tended to distrust and dislike people different than them was one of the fundamental reasons for conflicts and wars throughout human history. The difference here was that if a war between Metahumans and normal humans broke out, despite the fact Metahumans were a tiny sliver of the populations, Metahumans would win. It would be like a giant fighting ants—the power differential was simply too vast for the ants to prevail.
Though I was too far from the protesters to see exactly how many there were, there were certainly more than there had been the other times I had visited the Sentinels’ mansion. There seemed to be more and more people who disliked Metas these days. Just a few months ago I had reason to visit the Heroes’ Guild National Headquarters in Washington, D.C. There had been protesters picketing outside of that building as well.
The irony of the protesters decrying Heroes laid in the fact they were on property owned by Heroes and were only being allowed to protest on that property because Heroes permitted it. I remembered what Avatar had said when he had been asked about the protesters years before during one of his periodic press conferences:
“As long as the protesters stay outside of the fenced area and stay peaceful, they can say whatever they like about me, the Sentinels, or anything else,” Avatar had said. “One of the many great things about this country is the freedoms every citizen enjoys. One of those is free speech. Freedom of speech means you get to say what you want when you want, even if people like me don’t agree with what you are saying.” Avatar was far more tolerant than I might have been had I had his super strength and ability to fly. I might have used those powers to fly all the protesters to North Korea. It would be interesting to see how well the protesters trying to exercise free speech went over there.
I crossed Sentinels Way at the crosswalk along with several tourists. Those people dutifully got into line at the security checkpoint. From the looks of the contraption the people in the line had to pass through, they were being scanned for weapons and contraband. I bypassed the line and went towards the guardhouse at the front of the gates. Several people in line stared at me as I walked by. They probably thought I was a line jumper.
“Mommy, is that man a superhero?” a little girl in line said as I passed by. The mother looked me up and down. She sniffed somewhat disdainfully.
“No, honey,” the mother said. “Superheroes wear masks and capes. That man looks more like a lawyer.”
That just goes to show what you know, sister, I thought, my professional pride wounded at being called a lawyer. I was not special. A rattlesnake might also be offended at being called a lawyer. If there is a supervillain attack, don’t come crying to me for help.
“My name is Truman Lord,” I said to one of the security guards once I reached the guardhouse. He, like all the guards, had on a white and blue uniform. “I have an appointment to meet with the Sentinels.” I gave him the security code that had been given to me by the administrative aide I had spoken to the day before. The guard was wearing a white and blue helmet that matched the colors on the rest of his uniform. It looked a bit like a motorcycle helmet with a light blue visor. He looked me over carefully—admiring my outfit, no doubt—and spoke softly into a microphone that extended from the side of his helmet. He cocked his head slightly as he listened to whomever was on the other end of the microphone.
“Welcome to Sentinels’ mansion, Mr. Lord,” he said finally with a slight smile. He opened a gate that was several feet away from the one everyone
else had to go through. “I hope you enjoy your visit.”
I thanked the man. As I walked past him through the now open gate, I saw he had holstered at his side a shiny silver-colored gun that looked like a prop from a science fiction movie. Generally speaking, I was happy with the guns I owned, including the nine millimeter I had with me. But, looking at the man’s big shiny gun, I came down with a serious case of gun envy. Sigmund Freud would no doubt make much of that.
“Nice gun,” I said as I passed by the guard.
“Thanks,” he said with a slight smile. “You too.” His words surprised me a bit. My suit had been carefully tailored to conceal the bulge of my shoulder holster. There was no way he spotted my gun simply from the contours of my suit. I guessed that visor was for more than shielding the man’s eyes from the sun. He had probably used it to scan me more thoroughly than the last time I went to my doctor for a check-up. I wondered what would happen if I tried to get onto the Sentinels’ grounds without being who I said I was. They would drop one of those legendary nukes on me, maybe.
I walked onto the grounds. A slight tingle ran up and down my spine. Even though I had been here before, coming here was still quite a thrill and inspired more than just a little awe. I felt much the same way when I visited the Lincoln Memorial or the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., and for much the same reasons. The Sentinels stood for everything that was good and noble about being a Hero.
A massive marble statue of Omega Man rose up before me. It was so big I could walk under its slightly spread legs without stooping down. Omega Man seemed to be looking off into the horizon, as if on the lookout for a hint of danger. His clenched fists were pressed against his waist. Despite the fact he was immobile stone, his long cape seemed to billow out behind him. His well-defined body looked like that of an Olympic weightlifter’s. I had seen plenty of pictures of Omega Man. Despite the statue’s size, the statue was such a realistic rendering of Omega Man that it was as if the man himself had been frozen in stone. Though I knew of a supervillain who was capable of such a thing, tangling with that supervillain was not what had happened to Omega Man. Omega Man had died in 1966. He had sacrificed himself to stop the V’Loths, an alien race that had invaded Earth and nearly conquered us. A bronze plaque next to the huge statue summarized Omega Man’s exploits. Though I had read the plaque before, I read it again. It left out a lot. It needed to, or else it would be the size of a novel instead of a mere plaque. Omega Man was widely considered to be the greatest Hero of all time. He was one of the founding members of the Sentinels, along with Lady Justice, Avatar, Millennium, and three others. They had come together shortly after the passage of the Hero Act of 1945 to fight menaces that were too much for a single Hero to handle. Because of the precedent established by there being seven initial Sentinels, it was written into the Sentinels’ constitution that they were to always have seven members. Thanks to their long lifespans, Avatar and Millennium were still active members. The fact I would be seeing at least some of those living legends in just a few minutes made my heart beat faster.
In addition to being the greatest of all Heroes, Omega Man was also one of the most powerful. He had been capable of destruction on a planetary scale had he so chosen. Thankfully, he had used his powers for good instead. But, in honor of him, part of the Metahuman power scale bore his name: those handfuls of Metahumans who were mega-powerful were said to have Omega level power. On the other end of the power scale were Alpha level Metahumans, people who could do things other people could not, but their powers were nothing to write home about—being able to set your forefinger on fire, or being able to make your eyes pop out of their sockets and then retract them, that sort of thing. Metahumans who were more powerful than Alphas and yet who did not have the kind of world-ending abilities that Omegas did were called Betas. Metahuman abilities were on a bell curve—a tiny handful of Metahumans were Alphas and Omegas, and the vast majority of people in the middle of the bell curve were Betas. I, for example, was a Beta level Metahuman. There were currently only four Omega level Metahumans known to be alive. Two of them were licensed Heroes, namely Avatar and Millennium. Another was a supervillain named Chaos. He was currently in MetaHold prison, with his power being constantly drained away by a cell the Sentinels had designed just for him so he would not be able to escape. There had been some talk when Chaos had been captured about executing him for the good of humanity. The last time he had run amok, he had caused more damage than most natural disasters. But, Avatar had said no to the idea of Chaos being executed, and that had been the end of the talk about it. Avatar rarely put his foot down over something, preferring to let people decide things for themselves. But, when he did put his foot down, people listened. He was universally respected, not to mention a bit feared. We all knew that it was only his inherently good nature that kept his power in check.
The fourth Omega level Meta was in a self-induced coma in Beijing, China. Lim Qiaolian was a telepath with a superpowered intellect. At the age of five, she had told her father and mother she needed to think some things over, had sat down in her room, closed her eyes, and appeared to go to sleep. That had been almost seventy years ago. She had not moved a muscle or changed in appearance since she had closed her eyes. She was still very much alive; doctors had confirmed she still was breathing and had brain activity. A cult had sprung up around her, and worshipped her as a god. After her parents died, her worshippers had constructed a temple around Lim’s still form. In light of how bloodthirsty gods tended to be, there were worse people to worship than that immobile little girl. Some of her followers had tried to wake her, but to no avail. Good. Let sleeping gods lie, I always said. No one knew what in the world the little girl had been thinking about all this time. How to cure cancer, maybe. The best way to get around Einstein’s speed of light travel limitation, maybe. Perhaps she was systematically reading the minds of every man, woman, and child on the planet. Maybe she was simply trying to remember where she had mislaid her teddy bear. Or, maybe she had decided humanity was ruining the planet, and she was thinking about the best way to eliminate us root and branch. What Omega level Metas were capable of scared me more than just a little, and this particular one was not a licensed Hero trained to use her power with restraint and for the benefit of the general public. I for one hoped Lim never roused herself from her self-induced coma. God only knew what she would do once she did.
A running little boy wearing a cape from the nearby Sentinels’ gift shop caromed off of me like a billiard ball off the side of a pool table, breaking me out of my reverie. Barely breaking stride, the little boy ran off with his arms outstretched and making a whooshing sound with his mouth. I realized I had been standing in front of Omega Man’s statue for a while, staring up at him and thinking long thoughts about the Heroes who had come and gone before me. My neck felt tight. I moved my head from side to side to loosen it. Looking up at Omega Man while standing on the ground of Sentinels’ mansion made me realize anew what an awesome responsibility I bore as a licensed Hero to use my powers wisely. Though I was often accused of never seeming to take anything seriously, the opposite was the case: I knew how serious being a Hero was and the responsibility I and others like me bore to the rest of the public. Just look at Omega Man: despite his awesome powers, he still had needed to sacrifice himself to save the rest of us. My powers were a great gift and an integral part of who I was, but they were also often a burden. At any moment I might need to sacrifice myself to save others. My joke-making was my way of lightening the load of that burden a little. Plus, if being a Hero did not pan out, I could always turn my well-honed comic skills to being a stand-up comedian. It was good to have a Plan B. Plan C was to write women’s erotica. In light of my water-based powers, my erotica writer catchphrase could be “Truman Lord: Making you wet is not just my job, it’s my passion.”
I moved on from Omega Man’s statue. I dodged more playing children and clumps of tourists as I walked. The immense swath of well-manicured lawn on the front an
d sides of Sentinels’ mansion was essentially a public park. Astor City was a world-class city that attracted tourists from around the world, and the grounds of the Sentinels’ mansion were one of the city’s well-known attractions. As I moved among the other statues in the park, I caught bits and pieces of conversations in various languages, some of which I recognized, some of which I did not.
Each member of the Sentinels, both past and present, was honored with a statue in the park. I wandered around the grounds, stopping to look at each statue. Some of the Heroes memorialized were still alive. Most were dead, and those who were had mostly been killed in action. Being a Hero was a dangerous occupation. Not too many of us died in our sleep. I said a silent prayer for the families of those who had fallen. I was not a particularly religious person, but it could not hurt.
I made my way through the park until I finally stood in front of the large statue that depicted the currently active members of the Sentinels as a group. Unlike all the other statues in Sentinels Park, this statue was bronze rather than marble to distinguish it from the others. Here they all were, the metal representations of the Heroes I would be seeing in the flesh in a few short minutes: Doppelgänger, Ninja, Millennium, Mechano, Seer, and, of course, Avatar. Ninja and Avatar I had met before; the others I had never seen in the flesh, though I had followed their adventures for years. Ninja I knew because we had gone through the Hero Trials the same year about ten years ago. Avatar I had seen just months before in the Heroes’ Guild’s secret space station. He had been deeply engrossed in conversation with Amazing Man at the time, so I had not gone up to him to see if he remembered me. Avatar and I had encountered each other for the first time years before in the course of a case I had been investigating. Due to a misunderstanding, he and I had briefly fought. The fight had been a draw. With Avatar being the powerful Omega level Hero he was, no one believed me when I told them that. Truth be told, I had cheated. I would not stand much of a chance against a Hero as powerful as Avatar otherwise. Once our misunderstanding had been cleared up, Avatar had shaken my hand ruefully.
Superhero Detective Series (Book 4): Hunted Page 3
