Kingdom of Heroes

by Jay Phillips

  “The short answer, yeah, I do.”

  “The real question here, Detective, is why do you feel such sympathy for one who has used you, one who would continue using you until she breathes her last breath?”

  The Detective answered with silence; he had no real response to the question, at least not a good one, and his head hurt too much to try and come up with one.

  “Maybe, Detective, maybe for your own best interest, I should just go ahead and kill her, thereby freeing you from her obviously destructive influence.”

  “No,” The Detective answered, his voice as calm as he could make it as he attempted to slowly walk around the armor and towards Ice. “It won’t help. I’m sure to fall under some other pretty girl’s destructive influence. It’s been the story of my life.”

  Adam reached out with his remaining hand and grabbed The Detective by the throat, lifting him off of the ground with ease. The Detective fired his gun into the armor’s helmet, only for the bullet to bounce off of the faceplate and ricochet out into the woods. He then punched the helmet in vain, hitting it hard enough to make his own knuckles bleed.

  Adam lifted him a few inches higher into the air, holding The Detective far enough away where his punches would no longer connect. “Why are you here, Detective? You see, I know I am being manipulated. I know I’m doing exactly what The Agent wants, but as it turns out, we both want the same thing.” The armor tossed The Detective across the clearing, and he landed hard against a tree, his head and back striking the same tree he had crashed into moments before. “So why are you here? Why are you allowing them to manipulate you? Do you feel loyalty to her? I promise, she feels none for you. They are using you just as they have continually used me. You are nothing more than a puppet being pulled by their strings.”

  Ice climbed to her feet; she was shaky and barely able to stand, but she stood up on her own power. “What the fuck are you doing worrying about him, you little bitch. Your fight’s with me, so let’s get this shit over with.”

  Adam turned the armor in her direction and raised the remaining wrist gun towards her ice covered chest. Without another word between them, the bullet fired into her upper chest, penetrating the ice sheath that enveloped her body.

  “Goddamn it,” The Ice Queen said a split-second before the bullet exploded, shattering her into thousands of tiny pieces of ice and blood which flew across the forest and rained down onto the grassy floor below. The armor itself was suddenly covered in Ice’s blood and remains.

  The Detective sat leaned up against a tree to keep from falling over, and he watched in silence as Adam walked the now blood soaked armor towards him. He tried to stand himself up to fight, but the energy, as well as the desire, was gone. He had nothing left. The armor leaned down close to him, the faceplate and the glowing red eyes only inches from his face.

  “I’m leaving now, Detective,” the computerized voice said. Pieces of blood and bone dripped from the armor’s shoulders and landed on The Detective’s coat. “I am going to kill The Agent. I am finally going to make The Seven pay for everything they have done. You can try and stop me, you can assist me, or you can take the opportunity to pull yourself out of their web. No matter what you do, tonight, it all ends.”

  Adam reached out with the armor’s lone hand and wrapped it around the top of The Detective’s head, squeezing it tight for a couple of seconds before ramming it hard against the tree. Then, everything for The Detective, the bright sunny day, the blood soaked forest, every thought in his head, all became a black sense of nothing.

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  Journal Entry

  [Found on page 69]

  Note: The following is the transcript of a phone call between The Agent and The Ice Queen, recorded from The Agent’s end and found on his computer. The call itself takes place before the war, and, at least according to the conversation, happens a short time before The Seven gather to discuss whether they should commit to the war or not (see pg. 57).

  Ice Queen: You called?

  Agent America: I did.

  Ice: And?

  Agent: I need to ask you a question.

  Ice: Sounds important.

  Agent: It is, very much so.

  Ice: So what did you need to know.

  Agent: I need to know where you stand.

  Ice: Right now or in general?

  Agent: I need to know, if there is a choice to be made, would I have your loyalty over Fire?

  Ice: In reference to what exactly?

  Agent: We are about to be forced into several hard decisions, decisions that will determine the rest of our lives, and these will be decisions that Fire will not agree with at all. She’s not like us; she hasn’t seen the darker sides of humanity; she hasn’t seen the pain and horror one man can commit against another, not like you and me.

  Ice: So what, you need me to talk her into some things, make her see our side of the situation?

  Agent: Mostly, yes, but I also need to know, like I said, where your true loyalty lies.

  Ice: Fire is my partner, my best friend; hell, she’s basically my sister. But you, you’re our leader, the one I have placed my trust. If you tell me to kill someone, they’re dead. If you tell me to conquer Australia, I’ll conquer it. If you tell me to fuck someone, I’ll fuck them. If you tell me to convince Fire to do something, I’ll convince her to do it, no questions asked. I love Fire, and I trust her with my life; but you are the one with the answers, the one who can prepare us for what we have to do next.

  Agent: Then I guess there is no question.

  Ice: No, there isn’t.

  (End recording)

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  Final Journal Entry

  [Begins on page 100]

  After my family was killed, I used my powers to help The Seven in any way I could, doing whatever I could to ensure the supers won the war. I spoke to the normals’ machines, and I told all of their tanks, their jets, their missile launchers, hell, even their cell phones to simply stop working. It crippled the old military, leaving them forced to fight an army of super powered soldiers with just guns and grenades. But the most important thing I did was shut down all of the machines that were manufacturing the cure. The cure was their greatest asset and truly the only real weapon they had against us. Without it, the war was permanently turned in our favor.

  After that, well, you know the rest. The Agent adopted me, making me his ward. He trained me, not only in how to use my own power more adeptly, but also in ways of war, in how to fight with my fists and feet, how to use weapons. At times, I think he always wanted me to be the great soldier that he had been, and in many ways, I was. And I loved him for it. I loved him for “saving” me, for taking me in, for treating me as if I was his own.

  In that same time span, your sister became my big sister as much as she was yours. You and she became my best friends and the greatest family I could have ever had. Fire’s home was always my second home, a safe place I always knew I could come to without fear or hesitation. And I thank you both for that. Know that no matter what happens, I will always love the two of you for everything you both did for me.

  I’ve spent the past two weeks, the two weeks since I opened that letter and all of my real memories came flooding back, trying to amass as much on The Agent and The Seven as I could. I’ve been inside of both The Agent’s and Barren’s computers and collected as much as I could, files, transcriptions of recordings, old newspaper and magazine clippings, placing as much of it as I could into this journal.

  To be honest, I don’t know why. I guess there’s just a part of me that needs you to know why I’ve done all of this; I need you to know the things they’ve done, and why I believe they have to pay for their sins. I guess I just want to believe that, when it’s all said and done, you won’t hate me.

  When I finish writing this part of the journal and it’s complete, I’m going to hide it in the ceiling above my bed, and then, then I’
m going to transfer my consciousness into the computer. Bruce has, on more than one occasion, told me it would be possible. I transfer everything I am into the computer, leaving my body with a single post suggestion. Hopefully, it will carry it out and won’t screw it up. I figured I would come back and check after I completed the transfer.

  Why tell my body to kill itself? I am transferring everything that makes me into me out of my body. All I’m leaving is an empty shell, but I’m scared some part of me will still be in there, suffering, unable to live and unable to die. I can’t imagine having to live with that kind of torture, so I want to make sure anything left of me won’t have to.

  Once I’m in the system, I should be able to transfer myself into one of Barren’s Iron Knight suits, and I should be able to control it as if my body was physically inside of it. While in his computer, I’ve seen the schematics for his newest armor; he says it’s the most powerful one he’s ever built. That’s my target; that’s the one I want.

  By the time you’re reading this, hopefully most of them are dead. Or maybe I never managed to complete the transfer, and I’m lost out in cyber space somewhere. Either way, I’ll probably be dead when you actually read these pages. So I just wanted to take the opportunity to say that I’m sorry. I’m sorry I’ll never get the chance to see you become a wife and a mother; I know you would have been a great one. I’m sorry we couldn’t be old people together; I’m sorry in advance if I hurt Fire; I’m sorry I ever believed Bruce and all of his bullshit, all of his talk of family, all of the crap he spewed about giving a damn about me. Believe me, it wasn’t true.

  I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you all of this in person. Let’s be honest, I know you. If you knew what I was about to do, you would have tried to talk me out of it, and you probably would have succeeded. You always could get me to do what you wanted me to.

  Most of all, I’m sorry for the world I helped to create. I’m sorry the normals live in squalor while we rule the world like royalty. I’m sorry that I ever blamed the normals for what happened to my family; I’m sorry I ever left The Hole that night with The Seven. If I had just died in that god forsaken place, I would have never been able to destroy the machines that made the cure, and The Agent would have lost his goddamn war. If that’d happened, this country, this world, would be a drastically different place.

  But it’s too late for what could have or should have been. All we can deal with is what it all truly is, and let’s be honest, it’s all a lie. The peace we thought we created, the freedom we thought we gave the supers, the world we thought we built, it’s all lies. All we did was place a madman in power, a man willing to do whatever it took to build a world in his image, a world of his creation, a world where liberty was destroyed in the name of keeping people safe from themselves.

  Finally, when and if you find this journal, do with it what you will. Keep it, burn it, toss it in the garbage, send it to The League of Nations as evidence of The Agent’s corruption, do whatever you feel you need to. And don’t you dare shed a tear over me. I promise you, I’m not worth it.

  Please know this and never forget it: Emily, you are my best friend, and I will always love you, no matter what. I hope, with all my heart, you will be able to find happiness in this hell of a world I helped create, and in the end, I just ask that you are somehow able to forgive me for everything I’m about to do. -Adam

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  “Family, I’m home,” nice EMT Nancy Myers yelled as she walked into her house. She looked around the small three bedroom house she shared with her husband and two children, but, for some reason considering it was the middle of the day, she didn’t see them anywhere. “Hello? Anybody home? Did you guys go on vacation and forget to invite the mama?”

  No reply.

  “Hello?” She yelled again. The house seemed dark for the time of day. This early in the afternoon, everything was usually a little brighter. She stepped more into the house, allowing the front door to shut behind her, removing the small amount of light that had crept in between the open door and the frame. She walked through the living room, craning her neck around the room, trying to find them before they jumped out to surprise her. She always had loved little games like this.

  “If this is hide-and-seek,” she yelled, turning her head towards every room, making sure they could hear it no matter where they were hiding, “you guys know that the mama always wins.”

  No answer, just the unnatural quiet that didn’t belong in a home populated by two very hyper, very active, little girls. She walked to the stairs that separated the living room from the kitchen, dividing the house in two.

  “Family?” She yelled up the stairs as she climbed them. The stairs seemed darker than the rest of the house, unnaturally dark, scary dark. “Babies?” She yelled once she reached the top.

  No one answered. She walked toward the girls’ room, feeling more and more nervous the closer she got. There was a strange sense of dread that she tried to rationalize away, but it wouldn’t leave. Something, everything, just felt off; everything just felt wrong.

  “Girls?” she said softly as she opened the bedroom door. The room was pitch black, absolute darkness, unlike anything she had ever seen before, especially within her own home. She stepped into the room, carefully, trying to avoid tripping over what she couldn’t see.

  The door shut by itself behind her. She turned quickly to see who shut it, but what little light that the open door had once allowed in was now gone, and everything was replaced by the darkness. And then, she appeared. From the center of the room, the center of the dark, a woman made of light emerged from the nothingness. She was beautiful, so shiny and bright. Nancy, for a moment, felt mesmerized, hypnotized, as if in a dream, staring at something that shouldn’t be.

  The feeling faded almost as quickly as it arrived. Suddenly, all she could think about was her girls, her husband, her family.

  “Where are my babies?” Nancy pleaded. “Please tell me where they are.”

  “Hush now,” the woman made of light said, her voice soft and comforting. “They are safe within the darkness, but they need you to be with them.”

  “They’re okay?” Nancy asked as tears began to stream down her tired face. “Please tell me they’re okay.”

  The woman walked towards her, edging nearer with every word she spoke. “They are safe. They feel no pain; they will know nothing of hardship nor hunger; they will never again be lonely nor betrayed.”

  Nancy looked up from her tears to see the woman had crossed the short distance between them, and now stood right beside her, close enough to whisper in her ear.

  “But they need you, Nancy,” the woman whispered. “They need you to join them in the darkness.”

  The blade of light erupted from the woman’s right hand, and Nancy felt it enter her stomach and cut up to her neck. As she fell to the floor and the pool of blood formed around her, even as the darkness engulfed her, she could only think about her babies and the hope that they would be there on the other side, in the dark, waiting for her.

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  RUN REPAIR PROGRAM

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  REPAIR SEQUENCE COMMENCE

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  WARNING: APPENDAGE DAMAGE NONREPAIRABLE

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  SKIP APPENDAGE REPAIR Y/N

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  TIME REMAINING UNTIL SYSTEM FULLY OPERATIONAL: 4H00M00S

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  TIME REMAINING: 3H59M59S

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  TIME REMAINING: 3H59M58S

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  ACCESS FILE: SELF DEFENSE PROTOCOLS

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&
nbsp; FILE LOCATED: OPEN FILE

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  SEARCH WITHIN FILE: AGENT AMERICA

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  OPEN DOCUMENT: AGENT AMERICA

  Agent America: real name Bruce Rogers. Usually called The Agent a.k.a. The Supreme Chancellor of The United States of America. Home location: He’s not hard to find. There’s a tower, the largest in Metro City, known as The Agent’s Tower. He can be found there along with his couple hundred heavily armed security guards. The building itself is a fortress. There are a hundred floors, most of which are either living quarters for the security team or detention centers filled with cells where The Agent holds his occasional visitor. The building only has a single elevator, and there are no stairs at all, meaning that accessing any floor above the first requires going through the bottom level, which is almost always guarded by a hundred or so of The Agent’s troops.

  The only way to access Roger’s penthouse without going through all of his guards would be to fly directly to the top and crash through that damn giant window of his, the one he uses to look out at all of the mere mortals in the world. But going straight to the top means you will just run into The Agent that much sooner, and therein lies the catch.

  Strengths: The Agent is the pure embodiment of strength. His power level has consistently been measured between a 9.5 and 10, marking him as one of the, if not the strongest person on the face of the planet. Aside from the super strength, The Agent’s skin is virtually impenetrable. I have personally seen bullets bounce off of him as if they were wadded up pieces of notebook paper thrown by an asthmatic child. In other words, as if they were nothing. Knives, bombs, fire, missiles, I have witnessed him survive all of this and more without taking the slightest of scratches. Short of a nuclear bomb dropped directly onto his head, I have no idea what it would take to cause him any kind of physical harm. To be honest, I think he would probably survive the nuclear bomb.