The Good Fight 4: Homefront

by Ian Thomas Healy

  “H-here’s what I’ve got,” said the robot, and he projected the damning results into the room in a high-resolution hologram.

  Tactical leaned forward and watched. His eyes flashed red, and an ugly frown twisted his beautiful face into something baleful.

  * * *

  Will moaned softly, twitched, and he tried to open his eyes. It was hard at first because his eyelids had gummed together.

  He was in a hospital bed in a pleasant, private room at Spire City General. He would find out later that he had been dumped unconscious on the hospital sidewalk around midnight. His chair was nowhere to be found, and his wallet and keys were missing. Luckily for Will, the police easily were able to identify him, and he received excellent care.

  It seemed like everyone Will had ever known was in the room, except Greg Buchanan and, for obvious reasons, Michelle Breemer.

  The doctors declared that Will was in good shape after his ordeal, and he could go home in the morning after they kept him in the hospital overnight for observation.

  Visitors came and went, as did members of the press, looking for a juicy story, and detectives from the Spire City Police Department. Will knew it was pointless to implicate Vox Malaise, the Scavengers, or Judge William Strathmorne. They would all have airtight alibis, and Vox was virtually untouchable anyway

  Greg appeared in the door to Will’s room.

  “Everyone out,” announced Greg, not unkindly, but with a note of authority. “The counselor and I need to talk.”

  Everyone, even Will’s mom, removed themselves to the corridor, and Greg closed the door and pulled up a seat next to the bed. Will said nothing at first: This was no well-wishing visit. He knew this was going to be unpleasant.

  “Ready to cut the shit and tell me everything?” asked Greg. He held up the unmarked DVD that had arrived at the hospital with Will. “I have friends here, so I was able to intercept this before the police got it.” Greg did not seem overly cross. If anything, he seemed disappointed.

  “What do you want to know, Greg? There’s a lot to tell. There’s a lot I should have explained a long time ago.”

  “Let’s start with Skorn or Michelle Breemer,” said Greg.

  “Does everyone know about this, now?” asked Will, following up with a sad smile.

  “Probably. Remember we once talked about privacy and secret identities? It was extreme arrogance on your part to think that you keep something this explosive a secret. Surveillance cameras, X-Ray or laser eavesdropping devices, satellite tracking, human intelligence resources— this whole damn city is wired.”

  “Don’t forget drones,” added Will.

  “Yeah, them, too.”

  Before Will could explain, Greg rose and started pacing.

  His face flushed with emotion, and his eyebrows tightly knitted in anger. “My own partner consorting with the enemy! Do you know what that did to me? Yeah, I figured out you weren’t in bed with Nicholai Demetr—you were in bed with one of his chief lieutenants and lovers! You were not only betraying me and everything we’ve worked for—you were stupid about it!”

  Will took in all in silently. He was hurt and ashamed, but he knew he deserved it.

  “You are not a bad guy, Will. In fact, you are one of the best men I’ve ever known. But you are dishonest: You took that whole ‘man of mystery’ thing, and you abused it. I can’t tell you how many times I had decided to cut you loose because I couldn’t trust you. But, I didn’t. I had to believe you were a good guy in a bad situation. Besides, we were doing so much good in the city. Maybe Skorn was a secret project, and she was feeding you inside information about the Iron Brigade that helped you pursue them in court! Maybe.”

  Will smiled half-heartedly. “Nope, none of that. She wasn’t my spy. I didn’t want to jeopardize her position. It was just too risky for her.”

  Greg sat down again. “Then, it was all about a woman. It wasn’t about recruiting an inside person, or an intentional betrayal, or anything else. It was the girl.”

  “Yes,” said Will.

  Sixty seconds of awkward, heated thought passed. Both men knew the next words were important.

  “You lied from the very beginning, Will,” said Greg. “Why didn’t you tell me about John Underhall?”

  “Wh-What?”

  “The first Johnny Saturn. He’s your father. I assume you know that.”

  “How did you find out?” asked Will.

  “I’m a detective, you idiot. That’s what I do. I would never have teamed up with you in the first place without first doing my research. I waited for you to tell me, to explain your real motivations, but you never did. I assume that’s why you set yourself up as my minder, because you believed the Johnny Saturn persona was your birthright, and you had to manage your intellectual property.”

  Will and Greg talked for an hour, and Will told him everything. Will gave up all the power he had held over everyone by selectively parceling out information. He realized that he had wronged Greg by omission and should have trusted the detective from the beginning. Will should have done a lot of things differently. He was amazed that altruistic intentions had led him into a wilderness of lies, half-truths, and deception. Will had wanted to be like his father, yet this was not how John Underhall would have handled anything. This realization was the most self-damning thought of Will’s life.

  The suite’s door opened, and Nils let himself in.

  “Sorry, boss, but this couldn’t wait. A bicycle courier just delivered this, and I signed for you.”

  Nils handed Will an envelope. He opened it.

  “If you want Michelle Breemer, you can have her. She’s waiting for you in the warehouse at 33rd and Hardy. I can’t wait to see you.

  N. D.”

  Will’s blood froze in his veins, and his stomach tried to crawl up his throat. He was paralyzed, this time with dawning horror, not injury. Everything he had feared for so long was now coming to pass.

  “Well,” said Greg, reading over Will’s shoulder, “Either Vox Malaise played her hand early out of spite, or Skorn screwed up and got caught.”

  “No . . .” whispered Will, his face screwing up in anguish.

  “I’m going to suit up and end this thing once and for all,” said Greg Buchanan, rising as he did. He was already starting to slip into his Johnny Saturn persona, growing more intimidating and menacing by the moment.

  “Wait,” said Will. “Here’s what we are going to do . . .”

  * * *

  When Team Saturn arrived at the warehouse on 33rd and Hardy, they were not surprised to find that it was an old, vacant Wissenschaft Inc. facility. Maybe Tactical chose this location to send a message to all his enemies—what is yours is mine! Once, Wissenschaft had been Tactical’s primary competition for the job of being Spire City’s crime boss, after all. Maybe Tactical merely found it amusing.

  Johnny Saturn led the way, ferociously kicking the building’s aluminum door off its hinges. With him were Will and Nils, who had smuggled his wheelchair-bound boss out of the hospital.

  A vast gloom waited within the warehouse, a cavernous space punctuated only by an orderly forest of steel support columns and tons of scattered trash. Dusty light filtered in through holes in the sheet metal roof, and the place smelled of mold, old grease, dust, and stale air. It looked empty, except for its lone occupant. Skorn hung from the rafters, heavily chained and motionless. A pool of blood had collected beneath her. She was naked and covered with burns, cuts, welts, and all-over bruising.

  “No!” hissed Will, who set his chair into motion, covering the hundred yards between him and Skorn on wheels faster than his companions could run.

  “Careful, Will—We’re not alone here,” said Johnny Saturn. “My night vision lenses are picking up shapes in the distance.”

  Will got to Michelle Breemer. From below, it was impossible to tell if she were still alive.

  “Nils, get her down—Give her to me!”

  Nils found where her chains were anchored, rel
eased them, and lowered Skorn into the waiting arms of her lover. It was an odd sight because she was out of proportion with him, and she was heavy enough that his wheelchair sagged beneath their combined weight.

  “Michelle! Michelle! Can you hear me! Please be alive! Please!” Will held his breath, waiting, hoping against hope.

  Skorn’s eyelids fluttered, revealing unfocused eyes.

  Johnny Saturn stood, his carbon staff at the ready, looking into the distance. “Be ready, Nils. They’re coming. There are a lot of them.”

  Nils leaned forward, flexing his massive arms as would a gorilla. “Let ‘em come, Johnny. Let ‘em come.”

  Will knew none of this. He held his broken, dying lover in his arms, and nothing else registered.

  “Hold on, Michelle! I’ll get us out of this!”

  “Shh,” said the giant woman through bloody, swollen lips. “I’m not getting out of anything this time.”

  “Yes, you are!” said Will, pushing some of the now slackened chains off her. “I’m here! I’m going to save you.”

  Skorn tried to smile, but her face was not functioning as it should have, and one of her eyes started to turn red as it hemorrhaged from within.

  “Will?” she said.

  “Yes, my love?”

  “Have you ever been happy,” she asked, “even a day in your life?”

  Will smiled sadly.

  “Never once,” he answered. “Until I met you.”

  “It’s the whole Iron Brigade,” said Johnny Saturn. “There must be forty metahumans here.” Indeed, the Brigade had surrounded Team Saturn, and even now they were tightening the noose. “I’ll hold them for as long as I can, Nils. You get Will out of here.”

  Nils looked at Johnny Saturn, realization dawning on his face. He said nothing, though. He did not have to.

  “It’s okay, Nils,” said Johnny Saturn. “I blew my 401K on this armor, so I knew retirement was out of the question for me anyway.”

  The cordon of menacing metahumans closed around the little group of heroes. As the Iron Brigade drew their noose tight, they jammed together until there were they were shoulder to shoulder and three ranks deep. Most of these powered criminals had grudges to grind with Johnny Saturn, and they would have to push through the crowd to get their chance.

  Their master, Nicholai Demetr, stepped forward.

  “Greetings, Johnny Saturn,” said the Balkan fighter. “When last we met, you used my army as leverage against Dr. Wissenschaft’s mercenaries. I wonder, what will you do this time?

  Johnny Saturn stepped forward, facing off with the yellow and brown armored crime boss. Saturn’s bearing was menacing, his frown magnificent, and many of the Iron Brigade fighters shuffled back several paces under his baleful glare. This Johnny Saturn was the ‘Giant Killer,’ after all, and he had survived long enough for his reputation to far outstrip his reach.

  “Last time we met,” said Johnny Saturn, “you were much shorter and uglier. I’m impressed.”

  “I guess you could say that I’m a new man,” said Tactical. “You, conversely, are about to become a dead one.”

  “If you knew me at all,” growled Johnny Saturn, “you would know that I’m okay with dying.”

  Tactical grinned.

  “Then, you will die. Alone and without allies, you all three will die here.”

  Johnny Saturn smiled, and it was a chilling sight.

  “Did I say I was alone?”

  There was a thunderous rattling, and the warehouse roof peeled back as if it were an oversized sardine tin. Above, framed in the sunlight, was the Squadron Premiere. They circled in from the sky like two scores of brash, primary colored birds and formed up in a defensive ring with Johnny Saturn and Nils Zilcher, surrounding Will and Skorn.

  “I brought some friends too,” said Johnny Saturn.

  “Damn you, Saturn,” swore Tactical, then he raised his gun and took a wild shot at the vigilante. The battle joined with a deafening impact, and soon weird energies permeated the air, balls of plasma shot here and there, and a multitude of assorted projectiles in motion turned the atmosphere dark. The cement flooring cracked, shifted, and became perilous under the combined force of the two teams, and the warehouse began to collapse in sporadic, drunken waves. Fires started here and there, smoke and haze cut visibility to a few yards, and the sounds of metal rending, stone crumbling, shrieks, challenges, death rattles, and horrific moaning filled the space.

  Before Nils joined in the battle, he scooped up Will, his chair, and Michelle all at once, and then carried them to the conflict’s outer perimeter. He shielded them with his own body as he ran, and he moved with a speed and nimbleness no one would have expected from the over-muscled giant. Once he had deposited the lovers in a relatively safe location, he turned and began fighting. No one was going to harm Will without first killing Nils!

  Will was oblivious to all this. He felt Michelle shudder, and he instinctively knew she was about to slip away. “Hang on, Michelle! Hang on!” He pulled Skorn closer, intent on kissing her one last time. Their lips locked, and with her last reserves, Michelle responded to his touch.

  Will’s kiss was savage—It could not end this way! It must not!

  The battle in front of Will and Skorn had reached a rolling boil, but none of the fighters noticed that something very odd had just happened. A strobing pulse of green energy, much like a spotlight, yet unveiled only for a moment, flashed around the two lovers. Space seemed to warp, and now it appeared that Will was far bigger than the woman he held in in his arms, not vice versa.

  Will unsnapped the seat belt that held him in his chair. He stepped forward, and he gently laid Michelle into the chair he had just vacated. He did not see any life left in her, and he could not tell if she were still breathing.

  Will rose to his feet, and he stood under his own power. His clothing grew so tight that it popped apart at the seams with his every movement, and his once unmarked skin now was covered with the same mystical tattoos that previously had adorned Skorn. (Will once had wondered how a tattoo artist’s needles could have pierced an invulnerable woman’s skin, but now he knew—they had not. It was the tattoos that made her skin nearly unbreakable. It was a chicken-and-the-egg story where the chicken came first. )

  Will raised his head and locked his gaze on Tactical

  “You!” bellowed Will. “You killed her!” His voice had become a roar, cutting through the noise of battle like a fog horn.

  All the fighters froze for a moment. These men and women lived in a world full of magic, miracles, flying humans, and mad science run amok, but even these people were given pause when the disabled lawyer stepped from his chair and rose up as a tattooed giant.

  Will charged Tactical with bullish ferocity, knocking aside the metahumans that blocked him. They flew this way and that, bonelessly flopping like rag dolls fired from a cannon.

  Will grabbed Tactical, lifted him overhead, and then smashed him into the floor with such force that it pulverized the floor to sand and rubble. The violent kinetic energy radiated out, liquefying concrete, toppling some of the combatants, and even breaking some metahumans’ legs in its passing.

  “Never touch me again, you cretin!” screamed Tactical. His armor had taken the brunt of the force, though he was still rattled by the attack’s ferocity.

  Will ripped away chunks of Tactical’s armor, but he was not quick enough. Tactical opened fire with both gauntlet guns. Like all the weapons Tactical preferred, these firearms were compact but delivered disproportionately powerful payloads. If not for his new metapowers, Will would have been blown to bloody red gobbets!

  As it was, he was momentarily stunned, and the bullets blew small divots in his skin.

  “You can’t kill me,” bragged Tactical. “I've seen more war, blood, and pain than you could observe in a million years! I am—”

  “Shut the fuck up,” cried Michelle Breemer. She caught Tactical in a choke hold from behind and yanked the crime lord off his feet.

>   By all appearances, Skorn should have been dead, but the random mystical tattoos on her skin showed that she hadn’t passed all her magic power into Will, and she had kept some for her own use. She smiled through her swollen, bloody face as she tightened her grip on Tactical’s throat.

  “Uk, uk uk!” cried Tactical, and his face turned red and then purple. His beauty had been twisted into ugliness by rage and agony.

  “Were you going to chop me up and leave me in a refrigerator, you disgusting little man? Maybe you going to kill me to inspire Will into becoming a tragic hero? Was I just a minor plot point for you and your twisted little narrative?”

  Skorn twisted, and Tactical’s neck loudly snapped. Tactical’s tongue protruded out, and his eyes almost bulged out their sockets, then they went dark as his inner light began to flicker out.

  Will had regained his feet, and he approached.

  “Michelle—” he began. No one would ever know what he might have said. Would he have urged his lover to kill Tactical? Or, to release him to stand trial? In an instant, it did not matter.

  “I had you brought back to life, restored your power,” whispered Michelle in a dry croak to Tactical. “That was my mistake.”

  With a mighty tug, she ripped Tactical’s head from his body. She cast his corpse aside, and then she stomped Tactical’s severed head and brains into a frothy red paste.

  No one in the Squadron Premiere or the Iron Brigade moved to stop her. The battle had halted, and everyone watched Skorn’s terrible vengeance play out. Some of the witnesses were sickened, some were envious, and some just impressed.

  Michelle looked down at the mess she’d made.

  “You won’t be coming back to life from that, you sadistic pervert.”

  Then she slumped into Will’s waiting arms.

  The battle had been more or less even up till now, but after Will and Skorn had defeated Tactical, the Iron Brigade began to panic. It was soon a rout, and those villains that had not fallen in battle fled by foot, wing, stealth, teleportation, or whatever means they had at their command. A third of the bad guys were captured before the day was out and the Iron Brigade’s power in Spire City was broken forever.