Kingdom of Heroes

by Jay Phillips

  He smiled back at her, not his usual smirk, but an actual genuine smile. It felt strange. “I guess you’re right…” He paused. “No. I take that back. No guessing, you are absolutely right. Either way, we’re both dead.”

  He reached over, picked up his hat, and placed it back on his head. Without another word, he gripped the steering wheel, pushed his foot firmly against the gas pedal, and made a left turn onto the highway.

  _______________________________________________

  Journal Entry

  [Found on page 75]

  Note: The following is a letter/correspondence found on Rogers’ computer; it is apparently a communication between an insider within the government and a rebel group working against The Seven.

  From: Red Hot

  To: The Truth

  Subject: Children

  Truth, The Agent is collecting children. When they are tested, he is taking the most powerful and taking them into his custody, eventually training them to become his personal army/ personal assassins. The people need to know; they need to keep their children from being tested, to hide them, something. What he’s doing is no better than the old government when they collected the children and locked them away in containment centers. He is a monster, and he needs to be stopped.

  From: The Truth

  To: Red Hot

  Subject: Re: Children

  Red Hot, what are we supposed to do? There’s no way to prevent them from testing the kids. If the government finds out we are hiding untested minors, they will kill the whole family including the kids. I swear, sometimes I think you aren’t living in the same world that we do. We’re trying to fight back as much as we can. I have splinter cells all across the country, each ready to sacrifice themselves at a moments notice, but you can’t ask me to endanger our children. If one out of every ten kids is taken away to be part of Rogers’ personal corps, then it is an acceptable sacrifice to keep the other nine safe. We are fighting this war here on the streets, and it is taking everything we have to keep our families protected and free from danger. To do anymore, to put them at any more risk than we already have, is asking way too much. We shall continue to fight, to undermine The Seven and their corrupt administration at every turn, but we cannot and will not do anything that will potentially make our families targets for our actions. If this means that the tenth child will have to be sacrificed to save the other nine, we will have to learn how to live with our decision and maintain the fight.

  From: Red Hot

  To: The Truth

  Subject: Re: Re: Children

  I may not like it; I may not agree, but I do understand. You have the information, you have all of the specifics, you and your group can do with it what you will. -Red Hot

  _______________________________________________

  The rain battered the old truck’s windshield. The Detective looked over to the passenger seat. Emily sat there as if she was actually in the truck, going for a nice Sunday stroll. But she wasn’t there; the image of her was nothing more than an image that he alone could see.

  In actuality, she was sitting in the waiting room of a hospital in the city, sitting there with her sister’s two babies. She projected herself into his mind and into the seat beside him. She was a telepath, and whether she realized it or not, to be able to touch his mind from this distance, he knew she was a powerful one, maybe the strongest he had ever encountered.

  They passed a sign on the highway. The rain fell so hard he could barely make it out. It had said, he thought, that Metro City was x amount of miles away; the numbers were impossible to read. By his calculations, they were about thirty or forty minutes from the city proper. By the time they arrived, the sun would be completely set; for now though, he could see the occasional corner of the setting sun from behind the dark clouds.

  Less than an hour out of the city, another twenty minutes or so to Adam’s apartment building, and after that, The Detective had absolutely no idea. He was going to help Emily find a book; sometime before he had possessed The Iron Knight’s armor, before leaving his body instructions to shoot itself, Adam had supposedly left the book for her in his apartment, an apartment The Detective had just been in the night before. He hadn’t seen a book.

  “It’s there, Detective,” Emily said from the passenger seat. “I felt it off of him. I know he left it for me.”

  “First,” The Detective replied, “don’t read my stray thoughts like that. It’s unnerving. Second, don’t read my stray thoughts like that. They're usually dirty.”

  “Oh, I already figured that much out.” She smiled at him, not the sad one from earlier, an actual heartfelt, and quite lovely, smile.

  “Good, I’m glad we’ve established the fact that I have a dirty mind. It’s always good to get that out of the way.”

  She smiled and lightly laughed. It was a good feeling. It was as if he heard her laughter with his ears and felt it within his mind. It was almost intoxicating to feel. Or maybe that was just the effects of his concussion.

  “Probably just the concussion,” she said with another chuckle.

  “You really have to stop doing that.”

  She smiled at him. “Sorry. But it can‘t be helped. I‘m doing my best to not go deep; I don’t want to access your memories or anything of that nature, but I can’t help but hear the stray thoughts on the forefront of your mind.”

  “You’re forgiven,” he replied, trying his best to be as sincere as he could. “Still unnerving though,” he said under his breath.

  “I’m afraid you’re just going to have to man up and get used to it.”

  “Questioning my manhood? That’s just low. And here I thought you were pretty and nice. I guess one out of two ain’t bad.” He smiled at her, and she smiled back. He suddenly realized he was flirting with the girl in his head. It was like trying to get a date with an imaginary friend. He decided it was time to change the subject. “Why can I see you?”

  “I am telepathically projecting myself into your mind, allowing us to have contact despite the distance betwee---”

  “No,” he interrupted. “I understand the how. I am asking why. You are in my head; I should just be hearing you. Why am I hallucinating you sitting next to me?”

  “It’s not an hallucination per se.”

  “You know what I’m saying,” he replied. “Why are you going through the trouble of projecting an image into my mind. When you speak, I hear your words. When I speak to you, I feel the need to turn and talk. Even though I know you’re in my head, I feel like you’re sitting right here next to me.”

  She smiled at him again. It was the old smile, the sad smile, the smile of a pretty girl who wanted to smile but didn’t feel the happiness that was supposed to be associated with it. “I didn’t want you to feel lonely. I thought if you could see me, if you at least felt like I was here with you, it would be somewhat comforting.”

  They drove along in complete silence for a good thirty seconds before he spoke again. “Thanks,” he said, his voice soft.

  The rain continued to fall hard against the windshield, causing the road to be harder and harder to see. The Detective ignored it and drove along as if it was a nice sunny day in June. It wasn’t as if he had anyone else in the car to kill besides himself; his only passenger was his imaginary friend.

  “I’m not imaginary,” Emily responded.

  The Detective turned towards her without saying a word, a stern look covering his tired face.

  “Sorry,” she said again. “Like I said, it can’t be helped.”

  He turned back towards the windshield. “You could try a little harder.”

  “You’re in a mood.”

  “I’m driving myself to certain death alongside my favorite hallucination in a truck that smells like a bad combination of cigarette smoke and canned meat. You try being in a good mood under those circumstances.”

  “Would it help if I…”

  He turned towards her in time to see her hair grow longer, hanging way past her per
ky breasts.

  He smiled at her. “Not really…no…that doesn’t help at all.”

  “How about…” she said as the outfit she had been wearing changed into a very short skirt and low-cut shirt. “Any better?”

  “You look quite nice,” he replied. “But I don’t think an outfit choice is really going to make a difference as to how I feel about my suicide mission.”

  “What if I do this?”

  He turned towards her again, and he was no longer sitting next to Emily, The Fire Maiden’s telepathic little sister. Instead, he was sitting next to The Ice Queen, dressed in the same tight outfit she had worn after their first encounter with The Iron Knight at the Barren Building.

  “Is this better?” she asked in Ice’s voice.

  “And you say I’m mean.” He turned back towards the road, his eyes doing their best to see something, anything, through the pouring rain. “No. I can assure you, that is not better. She is the last person I want to see right now.”

  Emily turned back into her usual self, with the same haircut and sundress she had been wearing when The Detective had seen her at the hospital. “What was that?” she asked.

  “What was what?”

  “That feeling,” she answered, “that emotion, that just ran across your mind. What was that? Was that…sadness?”

  “You’re the one in my head; you should be telling me what I feel. Not the other way around.”

  “I told you; I’m trying to not go too deep. But I felt it, right here on the surface. You’re sad that she died. Big Bad Detective, Mr. I Don’t Get Attached, you’re sad about Ice.”

  He shook his head, half from the headache she was continually giving him and half from the frustration. “I’m upset I couldn’t save her. Is that what you want to hear?”

  “Maybe.”

  “And I’m helping you cause I can’t stand to see anyone else die because I couldn’t save them. If I walk away from you and you die, the guilt of my inaction will just add to all of the rest, and I will probably end up putting a bullet in my own skull. So it’s a hell of a lot easier to drive myself to certain death than to be the cause of yours. Now. does that make you feel better?”

  “A little, yeah.”

  “You’re sick.” He turned and smiled his usual smirk at her. “I mean, I’m a killer, an obvious masochist, and a whole list of other things I’d rather not mention. But you’re just sick, getting off on the misery of others like this.”

  “I got you to smile.”

  “You could have just told me a dirty limerick or said my hair looked nice today. Either would have worked just the same.”

  She smiled back at him. “Those wouldn’t have been as much fun.”

  “You are a sick little girl.”

  “I’m not that little.”

  He started to say something in return, but decided to leave it at that. This flirting was amusing, and he almost found himself somewhat enjoying it. It, at least, provided a distraction for what he was currently doing, the whole part where he was driving to the city to face a pair of trained assassins just to retrieve a book, a book he would then use to try and find a way to kill the most powerful super in the world, Agent America himself.

  “So,” she said, breaking the silence, “when she died, did you cry?”

  He was about to say something back, something along the lines of how messed up she was in the head, but he found himself interrupted by a noise, a noise coming from the glove department, a noise he never expected to hear. He couldn’t answer her smart ass comment. He had to answer the phone.

  _______________________________________________

  After an hour of flight time, The Iron Knight armor arrived at its destination: Fort Xorn in northern Kentucky. It had previously been, before the war, an army base known as Fort Knox and had held the nation’s supply of gold. The base itself had been closed when The Seven disbanded the United States military and replaced it with a private army made up of supers and hand-picked normals, but the depository, where the gold had once been stored, remained open, though minus the gold. Now it was used as The Agent’s personal warehouse, where he stored his most valuable artifacts, his souvenirs of the past, his weapons of war, all guarded by a cadre from his private army, hundreds of soldiers, each armed to the teeth, each willing to die just to remain in The Agent’s good graces.

  Adam landed the black and red armor outside of the depository, just beyond the protected gates. Several guards opened fire, all of them decked out in the black swat team armor that designated The Agent’s personal service. The bullets bounced off of the armor’s plating as if they were nothing, not even leaving the slightest dent in Barren’s all powerful metal suit. The Iron Knight raised it’s one remaining arm, the palm facing out towards the still shooting guards. The machine’s repulsor ray fired, sending each of the guards flying backwards towards the building, smashing them hard against the depository’s thick stone walls.

  Adam walked through the hole in the fence his ray had created, staring at the guard’s broken and mangled bodies as he moved to the depository’s front doors. Various alarms and sirens raged around him; he had apparently made his presence known. The repulsor ray blew the doors open, revealing the hundred or so soldiers in the room’s main hall, all of whom immediately opened fire as the armor crossed the threshold and stepped into the building itself. Just as before, the bullets made no impact, leaving no impression in the armor nor on the disembodied man who currently possessed it.

  As the wrist mounted mini-gun began to activate, The Iron Knight raised it’s arm again; bullets began to fly through the large room. One soldier after another was ripped to shreds as the bullets tore through them, leaving a pool of blood in the center of the room that grew with each body that fell to the ground. A hundred soldiers became fifty, which then became ten, all of whom, realizing their dwindling numbers, looked at each other in unison before placing their guns on the ground and raising their hands in surrender.

  Taking no pity on anyone who would choose to work for The Agent, Adam ignored their surrender, aiming his gun at each of them in turn. The last few tried in vain to seek cover from the deadly projectiles, but the bullets shredded their bodies, leaving them on the ground with the rest, their blood adding to the ever growing pool on the floor.

  Realizing that going through the entire complex was going to be more complicated and time consuming than he had planned, Adam armed the machine’s last seven missiles from the launcher on its back and aimed them at the center of the floor. The rockets launched, single file, one after the other, each opening a hole in the subsequent floor.

  After the last missile fired, Adam looked through the smoke and debris and into a shortcut that led straight to the fourth sub basement. The Iron Knight jumped through the newly created hole to where The Agent’s vault waited for him.

  _______________________________________________

  “Is that your phone ringing?” The Detective asked as he reached over and opened the glove department.

  “I’m not physically here, sooo…couldn’t be mine,” Emily answered.

  The Detective pulled the ringing phone out of the glove box; it was an old style flip phone, low tech, basic, the kind he used to carry. “Afraid you were going to say that.”

  “It probably belonged to the truck’s owner. You stole his truck; he’s probably just calling to see if you’re going to bring it back.”

  “I didn’t steal it.” The Detective stared at the number on the phone’s caller ID: Unavailable. “Truck was abandoned. I found it.”

  “Found, steal, it’s all the same. You’re not going to answer it are you?”

  He smiled at her. “There is a huge difference between finding and stealing. And of course I’m going to answer it.”

  The Detective flipped the phone open, placed the receiver against his ear, and spoke. “Hello,” he said nonchalantly, as if he had answered this phone everyday of his life.

  “Hello, Detective,” replied the voice from
the phone, a voice The Detective instantly recognized. “It’s been far too long since we last spoke.”

  “What’s it been now, Agent, twenty-four hours or so? How’s tricks?”

  “You always were one for the witty banter, Detective.”

  “It gets me through. Something you need?”

  “I see you’re on your way back to the city, back to my city.”

  The Detective looked up to the top of every light pole and street sign he passed, noticing the white camera located on top of each. As he drove by the next one, he waved. “If you get a good shot of me, be sure to send me an eight by ten and a few wallets. Good pictures are so hard to come by these days.”

  “I watched you at the intersection, Detective. You sat there for so long; I was afraid you would take the easy road and run.”

  “And miss seeing your pretty face? Heaven forbid.”

  “I thought you might have been contemplating abandoning your mission and the agreement we made. You remember your agreement, don’t you? You bring me Barren’s killer, and I grant you your freedom. I was afraid you would attempt to run before finishing the mission, and I would be forced to have you arrested, or worse, on sight.”

  The Detective smiled. It wasn’t his usual smirk; it wasn’t flirty. It was the smile of a man with nothing left to give and nothing left to lose. That plus the fact he found it fun to fuck with the most powerful man in the country. “Oh, I remember my mission. Let me update you on the status. All of The Seven, minus you and Fire, are dead. Several guards, a few police officers, and at least one teleporter, have also been killed. And if Psychosis and his metal girlfriend had any house pets or an ant farm, it’s safe to say they didn’t make it out either. Your adopted son, Adam, has transferred his subconscious into one of Barren’s suits, and he has systematically murdered all of your little group, except for Fire, of course. He let her live. Probably just because she’s such a super nice lady. And now, literally as we speak, he’s on his way to murder you.”