Halfheroes

by Ian W. Sainsbury

  Halfheroes

  Halfhero Trilogy Book Two

  Ian W. Sainsbury

  For Auntie Hazel, who always said I should be a writer

  Contents

  Previously in Children Of The Deterrent: a catch up on Halfhero Book One (with spoilers)…

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Author’s Note

  Also by Ian W. Sainsbury

  Previously in Children Of The Deterrent: a catch up on Halfhero Book One (with spoilers)…

  The Deterrent is the world's first superhero, found in 1969 as an amorphous blob of slime (Abos) inside a strange cylinder buried in London. Years after the discovery, a chance spillage of blood on the cylinder starts a process ending in his transformation into a seven-foot-tall being who can fly, is incredibly strong and can move objects with his mind. Despite Britain's attempts to exploit him by drugging and brainwashing him into acting as a national hero, he disappears in 1981 and is presumed dead.

  Abos doesn't return until 2015, when one of his children (the halfheroes) tracks him down to ask for his help in destroying Station, the military department that drugged him, and which is now developing an army of hybrid super-soldiers. Abos is no longer male, having used female blood to grow his new body.

  Daniel Harbin is the eldest child of The Deterrent, and has as much, if not more, cause to hate Station, as they lied to him, used him, and kept him in a semi-catatonic state for a decade and a half. Together with Abos and George (Georgina) Kuku, another halfhero, they destroy Station. George dies, but Abos uses George's blood to grow her third body.

  Daniel and Abos start new lives, free of the past, unsure of what the future might hold.

  Peace and quiet, perhaps?

  Yeah, right.

  1

  Daniel spat out a tooth and looked at the concrete floor. It was smeared not only with fresh blood from that night's fighters but discoloured a dull brown by the thousands preceding them. The frenzied shouts of the crowd had taken on an almost hysterical quality. Cash was still changing hands as new odds were given, but many inveterate gamblers had forgotten all about the money at stake. This was the most ferocious fight they had ever seen, and the spectators jostled for space around the steel cage containing the combatants.

  Many watching felt their hands dart involuntarily to the pockets that would usually contain their phones. Not tonight. Filming was banned, and considering the place was run by Mr Cole, no one had refused to leave their phones at the door. The alternative was leaving their severed heads in a skip.

  Looking up from the floor, Daniel raised an eyebrow at Gabe and Sara, who were on the less dangerous side of the padlocked gate. They looked worried. As they should.

  Daniel saw Sara's eyes widen, and he rolled to one side just before his opponent body-slammed the concrete patch he had vacated. He backed away to the far edge of the cage and eyed the man picking himself up from the floor. Man wasn't really the word for the thing facing him, though.

  "Go on, Spot," called one of the handlers from the front row. Spot. Cute name for a cockerpoo, perhaps. Not so cute for this guy. His head twitched a little when he heard his name. As he stood and shuffled forwards, he focussed on an imaginary mark in the centre of Daniel's chest. He hadn't once attempted to make eye contact. Spot was a few inches short of six feet tall, so the top of his head was at the level of Daniel's chin. His dark hair was shaved. His forehead was large, coming down in a ridge of bone above his eyes that made him look like he was concentrating. Or angry. Or both.

  Daniel swallowed, tasting his own blood for the first time he could remember. He looks like a toddler trying to get close enough to a fly to swat it, he thought, as Spot lumbered towards him. The way the man moved reminded Daniel uncomfortably of the two hybrids he had fought in Station. That time, he'd lost three toes, when one of them had chewed his foot.

  Not that his limp was giving him a disadvantage now. Spot moved with all the grace and speed of an irritable sloth. Daniel watched him lumber closer and thought of the boxing matches he'd seen on TV as a kid. This guy was no Muhammed Ali.

  Float like a butter dish, sting like a twat.

  He laughed at the thought as he backed away, and Spot growled. People didn't laugh when they faced Spot. They screamed. They whimpered. They begged. Eventually, everyone who faced him made no sound at all.

  Daniel let Spot get close enough for the mouth breather to take a swing at him. He was ready for the speed this time. He'd been caught off guard before. Too relaxed. Maybe a little bit cocky. After all, Daniel had never lost a fight in his life. At six-foot-four, and broader than any steroid-pumped poser, all but the stupidest hard-cases gave him a wide berth, even when he was trying to be anonymous, hunching over and keeping his head down to make his bulk less noticeable. Now, rather than wearing his usual loose clothing, he was stripped to the waist, his body covered in a sheen of sweat. Slabs of muscle moved across his chest and upper back like tectonic plates. Any normal opponent would be looking for the door.

  Spot wasn't a normal opponent. He didn't so much throw a punch as detonate one. His fist, held loosely in front of his shoulder, moved faster than the human eye could track. It was all the more difficult to avoid because of the contrast between the speed and accuracy of the punch, and the slowly shuffling creature behind the attack. That first punch had been so unexpected, Daniel had felt his head snapped to the side before he'd tripped over his own feet and fallen.

  This time he was as ready as anyone could be when confronted with Spot the wonder psycho. He twisted backwards as soon as the punch was unleashed. Anyone attacking at normal speed would have missed the target as Daniel rolled his head away, but Spot's right hook landed. It just didn't land hard enough to do any real damage. It still hurt, though.

  Daniel jabbed back with his left hand, hard. Daniel's jab was capable of breaking solid wooden doors off their hinges, and often had. Used against a human body, it should have been enough to produce massive trauma, requiring a lengthy stay in hospital.

  Only, this time, it didn't. Spot howled, and his eyes took on an expression previously unseen by anyone other than his handlers. Spot was injured. Daniel's punch had been carefully aimed, hitting him, as Gabe would have put it, "directly in the intercostals." In layman's terms, Daniel had planted his fist just under Spot's armpit, towards the ribs. Gabe had made a careful study of anatomy, and he knew every area of weakness he could exploit in a fight. Daniel had picked up some tips and was trying this one for the first time.

  While Spot came to terms with the new concept of receiving, as well as inflicting, damage, Daniel jogged over to his corner. It
was a corner only in name, as the cage was no more than a steel fence around a circular area with a diameter of thirty feet. Outside the cage was a gap of five feet, then the barriers holding back the crowd. Each fighter's team watched from these gaps, as did Mr Cole's representatives.

  Sara held out a towel, and Daniel quickly wiped his face and handed it back.

  "What did I tell ya?" said Gabe. "The intercostals. Hurts like a motherfucker."

  Sara was looking at Daniel's bloodied face and frowning. "Are you going to be okay, Daniel?"

  They had been prepared for this mission, briefed at length. It wasn't simple—no IGLU mission ever was—but it had seemed more straightforward than most. Penetrate the Birmingham underground fighting scene, win enough fights to get an invite to the big one, which was literally underground, as it was held underneath one of Mr Cole's money-laundering restaurants in the city. Win against his best fighter, get an audience with the man himself, and take him into custody. Mr Cole, whose criminal empire was rapidly expanding, had discovered a new sideline in weapons and was acting as the middleman in deals arming certain terrorist groups. The government had asked for help, the UN had been made aware, and a phone call had been made. Three weeks later, Daniel, Sara, and Gabe had found themselves in Birmingham. Ten days after that, they had received the invitation to tonight's fight.

  The plan had unfolded just as Sara had said it would. Until now.

  "Is he—?" said Sara.

  Daniel nodded. "Yep. Must be. But there's something really, really wrong with him."

  "Shit," said Sara. "Can you handle it?"

  "I think so. I hope so."

  "Incoming," said Gabe, and Daniel turned to see Spot moving in his direction, his eyes pinpricks of rage. The noise of the crowd swelled again, but Daniel could still hear Spot's howl. It was the sound of a creature who wished to inflict a great deal of violence on the man who had dared hurt him.

  "See you in a minute," said Daniel.

  "Wait," said Gabe, coming forward. "I have a plan."

  Daniel looked at him, then jerked his head towards Sara. "She's the one who has plans," he said, "not you. She got the brains, and you got the - nope, hang on, you didn't even get that. She got both. Hardly seems fair."

  He glanced over his shoulder. Spot was getting too close.

  "Look, I'll take him on a circuit of the cage. Tell me when I get back."

  "If you get back," said Gabe.

  "Funny guy," said Daniel, and set off, jogging backwards, keeping Spot at a safe distance.

  Sara watched him go, chewing her bottom lip. This wasn't in the briefing. No one had said anything about another halfhero being on the bill. Especially a psychotic halfhero with brain damage.

  The Inter-Governmental Logistics Unit was a small, deniable branch of the United Nations.

  Daniel's involvement with IGLU (everyone pronounced it igloo, naturally) had started when, a few weeks after he and his superhuman parent, Abos, had moved to a farmhouse in rural Cornwall, his local post office had handed him a blank envelope with a smudged, foreign postmark.

  "Bit weird," admitted the post office manager. "It arrived last week with a note describing you, explaining they'd forgotten your name, and where you live, but that you'd be popping into the post office within the next week. So here you go."

  The letter inside intrigued Daniel enough to call the number underneath the signature. The main reason he took the risk was the first two lines:

  I am writing because my best friend told me how to contact you and insisted that I did. Her father was The Deterrent. She says you are her half-brother.

  Daniel had purchased a cheap mobile phone and ridden two-hundred miles before calling. One lesson he'd learned during his first thirty-eight years of life was not to trust anyone.

  Saffi, the woman who had picked up the call, had understood his paranoia and answered all his questions. Over a series of phone calls (which he made using new mobile phones bought from multiple locations), she had filled Daniel in on the background leading to her letter.

  Saffi's best friend was a halfhero with gifts which had come at a significant price. She was hospitalised, requiring round-the-clock care. Many of her major organs could not function without medical intervention. The private hospital's fees had exceeded the means of her family, but when Saffi had alerted her UN employers about her friend's abilities, they had picked up the tab.

  Saffi's friend may have lost the use of her body, but the power of her mind had grown exponentially as her physical capabilities had weakened. She sensed patterns where no-one else could, warning of political upheavals and humanitarian crises. Saffi passed on her predictions, which proved to be unnervingly accurate. The only problem was timescale. Saffi's nameless friend predicted events days or, sometimes, hours before they occurred. On very rare occasions, she could look weeks ahead. She'd known a day in advance that a certain building would collapse near Liverpool Street station in London. She had known how to find Daniel, but not accurately enough to provide an address.

  After weeks of talking, Daniel had agreed to meet the IGLU team. Both of them. Not much of a team, but—as Saffi had pointed out—it wasn't exactly as if there was a big queue of halfheroes asking for work. Meeting Sara and Gabe wasn't a massive risk, since Abos was shadowing Daniel, ready to step in if necessary. Abos and Daniel had discussed whether he should reveal that The Deterrent was still alive, albeit now as a woman, but both had been reluctant. Station was gone, any remaining children were in their late thirties, and Abos's years as The Deterrent had been a convincing enough warning about the pitfalls of being a public figure.

  In the event, Abos was able to preserve her anonymity. The meeting—at a roadside cafe in Yorkshire—went well. As he'd said to Abos afterwards, "It's weird. I made it to my mid-thirties with a mother I haven't seen for twenty years and no other family. Now I have you, a sister, and a brother."

  "A family," said Abos.

  "Well, kind of. Don’t hold your breath for the sitcom."

  Since the meeting, he had joined the IGLU team on missions all over the world. They cleared the way for disaster relief agencies to access areas hit by earthquakes, hurricanes, and floods. They rescued hostages from armed groups of all political persuasions. They disarmed and incapacitated terrorist cells with plans for mass destruction.

  All of which was fine, but it wasn't the best part. Daniel had friends. Real friends. He needed them, and they needed him. That was the best part.

  Of course, having friends was all very well, and most of the IGLU missions had been...well...fun. Better than staying at home. But when his friends were on one side of a steel cage, while Daniel was locked inside with a crazed super-strong opponent who wanted to rip him in half before, probably, eating the pieces, having a cup of tea while watching Loose Women actually seemed pretty appealing.

  2

  Shit.

  Daniel was on the concrete floor again. This wasn't part of the plan. He wasn't sure how to finish this. He was banking on the element of surprise being a decisive factor. What he hadn't banked on was Spot having any surprises of his own.

  The slow, shuffling, lumbering style of his opponent wasn't the whole story. Not by a long shot. It was certainly Spot's favoured technique, following his opponents around the concrete ring with all the speed of an injured tortoise, waiting for them to come close enough to be on the receiving end of one of his blindingly fast punches. But it wasn't the only trick in his arsenal. Daniel was amazed that Spot had an arsenal at all. Or he would have been amazed if he hadn't been lying half-stunned on the floor again.

  The last time he'd looked, Spot had been on the far side of the ring. He had covered the distance in a blur of speed. Daniel, whose reactions were keener than most, had only just begun to react, pivoting to the side, before a huge fist caught his shoulder and lifted it cleanly out of its socket, tearing muscles as it went, spinning him away. He'd hit the cage, hard. Then he'd hit the floor, slightly less hard, but still painfully.


  Shit.

  He blinked sweat away and got to his knees. The volume of the crowd's response was incredible. They'd never seen anyone get up after one of Spot's punches. This guy had taken two of them and was still breathing. More money changed hands. No one had bet on Daniel to win, just on how long he would survive. Now there were a few takers for a Daniel victory. But not many. Most of them had seen Spot fight before.

  Daniel got up, holding his shoulder and wincing. It would heal in a few days, but he didn't have a few days.

  "Hey, buddy." Why was it only Americans could say buddy without sounding like a tit? He looked through the bars. Gabe was even shorter than Spot, medium build, average looking. Enemies underestimated him. He enjoyed showing them the error of doing so.

  "Hang on." Daniel grabbed his dislocated shoulder and, before he had time to think about it, pushed it back into his socket. He roared with pain as he did so, and specks of bloodied spit hit Gabe's face.

  "Jeez," said Gabe, wiping his face with the back of his sleeve. "You coulda warned me. All better, big guy?"

  Daniel moved his left arm slightly and roared again as the torn muscles protested.

  Gabe wiped his face with his other sleeve. "I guess not. Here's Plan A."