Rogues

by Darius Brasher

  I spent a lot of time after I hit the panic button praying. It was the first time I had prayed in a while. God and I had not been on good terms since Neha’s death. When the Sentinels captured her, I had prayed that He help me rescue her safely. When He didn’t, I had been as angry at Him as I had been at myself. People said He worked in mysterious ways, but the mystery of why He let someone like Neha die while letting villains like Millennium and Doctor Alchemy live was beyond me. Mom, Dad, Hammer, Hannah, and Neha. As far as I was concerned, God had a lot of explaining to do.

  But, because there was nothing else I could do after hitting the panic button, I prayed. I prayed partly for myself. I would have to be far saintlier than I was to not want to escape the agony I was in. But mostly, I prayed I could escape so I could protect the world in my capacity as the vessel for the Omega spirit.

  Dear God, I prayed, if you let me get out of this, I promise I’ll do everything I can to protect Your people.

  God did not answer. Not the first time that had happened. In fact, it seemed He did not answer more often than he did. I wondered what I had done to piss Him off so. Maybe it was because I could not kneel as I prayed. Who knew God was such a stickler for formality?

  When God stubbornly refused to answer my prayers and Isaac did not show up, I convinced myself Isaac was not coming. Doctor Alchemy said I was in his volcanic lair. Maybe I was too deep in it for the watch’s signal to penetrate to the wider world. I had no idea how the watch’s emergency signal worked; maybe it had a range outside of which it did not function. I was a Hero, not an engineer. Since I was still stuck here, I was not even much of a Hero. When I got out of here, maybe I’d take up a profession more in line with my talents. Considering how well I vomited, I’d see if professional bulimia was a thing.

  When I got out of here. Hah! That prospect looked less and less likely. The Omega spirit had done a crap job when it chose me. Somebody else would have to save the world. I was not up to the task. I could not even save myself.

  Feeling like the world’s biggest loser, I started to cry. That in turn made me feel like the world’s biggest crybaby. The only good thing about Isaac not showing up was that no one was here to witness my humiliation. The tears were hot on my even hotter cheeks. I was burning up. Some small part of me realized my emotions were so volatile because of all the pain I was in with a healthy dollop of being sick on top. If you’re so smart, how come you haven’t gotten us out of this mess? the rest of me told that part. Pain, sickness, and despair combined in a potent cocktail, making me feel in my more lucid moments like I teetered on the edge of madness.

  I had a sudden thought. Ice cold fear gripped my stomach, drying my tears. What if I had played into Doctor Alchemy’s hands by hitting the panic button and trying to summon Isaac? Since Doctor Alchemy had not gotten what he wanted to know out of me, maybe he had tricked me into getting Oliver to help me retrieve my watch so I could summon Isaac. Maybe Isaac was walking into a trap. Maybe Isaac was already here, captured by Doctor Alchemy, and was being tortured right this second just as I had been.

  Then I thought that if Doctor Alchemy had known about the panic button, he could have hit it himself instead of duping me into doing it. The thought did not make me feel better. He probably had some deviously inscrutable plan in place and him tricking me into summoning Isaac was but a part of it. And even if this was not all a part of Doctor Alchemy’s plan, he had wanted to get out of me how to locate Isaac. After resisting ratting on Isaac all this time, now I had gone and done something to serve him up on a big silver platter by calling him here to rescue me. I was not the world’s biggest crybaby. I was the world’s biggest fool. On top of still being the world’s biggest loser.

  Just as fervently as I had wanted Isaac to rescue me before, now I just as fervently prayed he would not come. I wouldn’t wish what Doctor Alchemy had done to me on my worst enemy, much less my best friend. I hoped Isaac stayed far, far away.

  I was slipping in and out of consciousness and vacillating between wishing Isaac would come and praying he never would when, suddenly, he did.

  ***

  Isaac floated through the front wall. His body was translucent, letting let me see right through him. He was in his ghost form. He wore his Myth costume, a form-fitting, full-body black number with light blue bands on the wrists and ankles. Its black cowl covered Isaac’s face from the nose up. A ferocious-looking, blood-red dragon was emblazoned on his chest.

  By now, I was not the slightest bit surprised to see him. I had been visited by a bunch of people already, including Avatar, Omega Man, Hanna, Mom, Dad, Neha, and our son James. I suspected they all had been fever and pain-induced hallucinations, unless the Last Trump had sounded and they had risen from the dead. It was just my luck to be trapped in a supervillain’s lair when the biggest event in the history of ever happened. I had missed the Big Bang too, for reasons I could not remember. Darn my luck!

  Isaac’s ghostly form solidified. He looked at me aghast. His horrified eyes roved over my naked and bloody body. His nose wrinkled at the smell in the room, a heady mix of vomit, blood, waste, and sickness.

  “Sweet Jesus,” he murmured in a low voice, “what in the world have they done to you?”

  “I don’t have to explain myself to a hallucination,” I rasped weakly. “Or an apocalyptic zombie.”

  “What are you talking about?” he asked, still in a low voice. He shook his head. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter. Sorry it took so long for me to come. Not only is this place in the middle of nowhere, but it’s infested with hundreds of armed goons. I had to wait until the coast was clear to sneak in here undetected. Let’s get you out of this thing.”

  “A hallucination can’t free me. Dad already tried. You trying to say you’re better than my Daddy?” Isaac didn’t answer. Rude. Hallucinations these days. Clearly the products of bad imaginary parenting.

  Isaac bent over and poked experimentally at the hard, black substance around my legs. His hand gazed my left leg. I felt his touch. I had not felt Neha when I had asked her to kiss me one last time. She had passed right through me like the figment of my imagination she had been.

  “You’re real,” I whispered, startled.

  Isaac didn’t say anything, still busy examining my restraints. He didn’t say Yeah, real handsome or real hot or real good or any number of other goofy jokes he normally would have made. I must have been a real mess and looked a fright if he could not muster a single joke.

  Isaac’s body glowed briefly, and shimmered. In seconds, a massive green-gray monster with sharp canines for teeth and the musculature of Mr. Olympia stood where Isaac had been. An ogre. The ogre grabbed the ring I stood on, near were my feet were attached. Its massive muscles bunched and flexed. The ring tore apart with the sound of rending metal, freeing my feet from the ring, though they were still encased in the black substance. Isaac broke the metal ring around my waist. Then he stood up straight and ripped the metal ring apart where my hands were attached. I went sprawling across Isaac’s broad shoulder. For the first time in countless days, I was in a position other than ramrod straight. Fresh pain ran through my body like an electric current.

  I was crying again, tears of pain and relief and feverishness.

  “I didn’t tell him about you. I swear I didn’t. I wanted to, but I didn’t,” I blubbered. I said it over and over, like a rosary prayer. My right leg felt like it was burning into ashes. Pins and needles the size of spears stabbed me up and down my body.

  Isaac tried to shush me, to no effect. He gently lay me down on a clean part of the floor. His ogre body glowed and shimmered again. When the glow disappeared, an animal the size of a large bear stood in the ogre’s place. I had no idea of what Isaac had transformed into, but whatever it was had black matted hair and looked like what would happen if you crossed an ape with a sloth. It had thick, sharp claws on its paws that were about the length of a ruler. Isaac used those claws to carefully slice into the black substance around one of my feet. It cr
umbled into a fine black dust once Isaac’s claws breached it. In seconds, my hands and feet were free again.

  The ape-sloth shimmered, and Isaac’s human form appeared again. He looked down at where I lay on the floor. “Can you use your powers?” he asked.

  “I didn’t tell him about you. I swear I didn’t. I wanted to, but I didn’t.”

  Isaac sighed. “Kinda what I thought. Sit tight. I’ll be back in a second.”

  Isaac became translucent. He walked through the front wall again, leaving me there to babble on the floor. Soon, he was back.

  “The coast is clear for now,” he said. “Let’s get you out of here.” He bent down, picked me up, and slung me over his shoulder’s in a fireman’s carry. Being jostled and the fresh surges of pain it brought partially roused me from my stupor.

  “We can’t leave,” I said weakly. I was bleeding on Isaac’s costume. I wondered if he knew a Hero with dry cleaning powers. “We have to save Oliver. And Tiffany. We’ll start with what’s left of her in the drain. And all the others. I don’t want to fail again.”

  “You’re sick and hurt and not in your right mind,” Isaac said firmly, still in a low voice. After all the racket he had made freeing me from the ring, surely Doctor Alchemy’s minions wouldn’t raise an eyebrow at a regular volume conversation. I tried to tell Isaac that, but the words wouldn’t come out. With me draped over his shoulders, Isaac turned back toward the wall he had just walked through. “You have a raging fever. I’m no doctor, but you look like you have the mother of all infections. You’re in no condition to save anyone. I’m getting you out of here and getting medical help. We can come back later.”

  “Goddamn it, put me down. Coward. If you won’t help me save Doctor Alchemy’s slaves, I’ll do it by myself. I’m Omega. Those Rogues got the drop on me before, but never again. Here I come to save the day,” I cried. Or at least I tried to say all that. It came out as gibberish. It was just as well. Here I come to save the day was Mighty Mouse’s line; I’d hate for him to sue me for copyright infringement. I tried to twist out of Isaac’s grasp, but I barely moved. I tried instead to activate my powers to free myself, but could not concentrate enough to do so. My friends, my body, and my mind were all betraying me.

  The world became draped in a fine gray mist. Isaac half walked, half floated through the front wall. I stopped cursing Isaac’s cowardice long enough to say goodbye to my former accommodations. I started mentally composing my UWant review. My stay in Hotel Horror had been interesting, but all in all I would not recommend it to my friends.

  With Isaac in his ghostly form and me riding shotgun on his shoulder, we alternated moving through solid rock and broad, brightly-lit, ornately decorated corridors that would not look out of place in Buckingham Palace. Isaac paused and ducked back into the rock once when he spotted a patrolling armed guard. The guard was dressed in the turquoise uniform with a yellow sash that Doctor Alchemy seemed to favor. The guard did not raise an alarm. He must not have seen us. Isaac proceeded once the guard moved on.

  Soon we passed through a final rock face. We were outside. It was nighttime, but a crescent moon and a canopy of bright stars provided plenty of light. The night lights reflected off a large body of water off in the distance ahead. A dark mountain loomed up behind us. It was where we had come from. Sand was under Isaac’s feet. Thin vegetation was around us. The distinct smell of salt water was in the air. I was thirsty. I wondered if Oliver would be coming along soon to give me some water.

  “Be sure to hold on tight, now,” Isaac said. I did not answer. I was too busy cursing him for not helping me save Doctor Alchemy’s slaves.

  Isaac glowed again, his form twisting and transforming under me. Before I knew it, I sat astride a four-legged animal. It had the head, forelegs, and impressive antlers of a large male deer, but the wings and hindquarters of a multicolored bird. A Peryton, my mind told me. I knew what the hell a Peryton was, but not how to move my body parts correctly or how to use my powers to go back and save everyone. My knowledge was mighty spotty.

  The Peryton trotted forward, beating its wings powerfully. This is no time for a horseback ride, I thought. Stagback ride, I corrected myself. No, that wasn’t quite right either. Birdback ride? Whatever. Regardless of what kind of animal ride it was, I wanted off. I made no effort to hold on. Not that I could have anyway, with my body being as uncooperative as it was.

  Before Isaac went airborne, I slipped off his back. I handed heavily on the sand on my side. I barely felt the impact. Free of Isaac’s constraints, now I could go back and save Doctor Alchemy’s slaves. “Here I come to save the day,” I cried again, getting a mouthful of sand. Mighty Mouse’s doing, no doubt. A mouse was but a cuter version of a rat, and everyone knew you couldn’t trust a rat.

  Isaac trotted in a tight circle back around to me. Though I tried, I couldn’t move from where I lay. His form shimmered again as he regained his human form. “That’s my mistake,” he said. “You’re too far gone. We’ll have to do this another way. This is likely going to hurt, so I apologize in advance.”

  Isaac began to transform again. This time his form swelled to several times his normal size. The bird he turned into looked like an eagle, only this eagle was bigger than a bull elephant. A roc.

  The roc lifted its taloned foot and placed it over me. Stuck between a roc and a hard place, I thought. The thought would’ve made more sense if the sand been hard. It was not. It was softer than any bed I could remember. After I saved Doctor Alchemy’s subjects, perhaps I would come back here and take a nice long nap. I resolved to never sleep on anything but sand for as long as I lived. I wondered if mattress companies knew about sand. They probably did and deliberately kept the public in the dark about the benefits of sleeping on sand. Conspiracies were afoot everywhere.

  The roc closed its talons around me, gripping me tightly. It hurt like hell, but I did not mind. Pain was my old friend. Pain was the only friend around who wasn’t carrying me in the wrong direction when there was work to be done and people to save.

  The roc beat its massive wings, blowing up debris from the ground the way a helicopter’s rotors would. The roc launched itself into the air, carrying me with it.

  We rose high in the sky. The rushing wind made me shiver. How could I be so cold and yet so hot at the same time? Now that we were airborne, I saw that we had flown off an island with a volcano in the center of it. White smoke puffed lazily out of a huge crack in its summit. As the roc flapped its massive wings, soon the island was but a speck of black in the ocean. The water reflected the light of the moon and stars, making it look like a sea of quicksilver.

  Heroes ran toward danger, not away from it. I was thinking I would not share with Isaac any of the credit for rescuing Doctor Alchemy’s slaves because he was too eager to flee when I slipped in Isaac’s talons, almost plunging into the shimmering quicksilver below. Isaac grasped me harder, my old pal pain embraced me tighter, and I passed out again.

  CHAPTER 27

  The same scene played over and over, like a horror movie set on a loop.

  I stood next to a waist-high stone bier on which a naked corpse lay. A bright light from above lit up the bier and the surrounding area. Thick gray mist swirled beyond the cone of illumination cast by the light. I was dressed in my full Omega costume, including my silver-white cape.

  I was not alone. Avatar, in his red cape and iconic gray and blood-red costume with the stylized red A on its chest, towered over me on my right. Omega Man, almost as tall as Avatar, was on my left, garbed in his famous yellow and blue costume, its cape held in place with an ornate silver clasp wrought in the shape of an omega symbol. Dad, dressed in the only suit he owned that he wore to weddings and funerals, stood directly across the bier from me. Neha and Hannah were on either side of Dad, both in somber black dresses.

  All six of us pointed accusing fingers at the battered and bloody corpse on the bier.

  “You failed us again, Theodore Conley,” we accused the corpse. We were j
oined by countless voices from the surrounding mist, voices that represented everyone in the world. Deafeningly loud, the world’s voices accompanied us like a Greek chorus.

  I was the corpse on the bier. Lying face-up, my eyes were closed. I was still bloody and battered from my encounter with the Revengers and the torture sessions with Doctor Alchemy. Naked and mottled with hues of white, pink, red, and black, I looked as far from heroic as anyone could possibly look. I looked more like a boy than a man, and simultaneously more like a mangled piece of meat than human.

  “You failed us again, Theodore Conley,” I and everyone else intoned once more. “You failed us again, Theodore Conley.” With each repetition, the gray mist grew thinner and thinner, while the light shining overhead expanded, getting brighter and brighter, dispelling the mist like the sun chasing away a morning fog.

  The light banished the remainder of the gray mist. With accusations of failure still ringing in my ears, my eyes snapped open. I sat up on the bier. I and the rest of my accusers faded away.

  ***

  I blinked, blinded by the brightness of the room. I was sitting up in a bed. Not my own. The room was spartan, antiseptic, full of medical equipment, and contained five other beds that were identical to the one I was in. The other beds were empty.

  A hospital room. Hospital rooms all had the same depressing sameness to them. I had been injured enough over the years to know one when I was in one. While I wasn’t stoked to awaken in a hospital room, this was a vast improvement over lying dead on a cold stone slab while also standing over myself and joining the world in chiding my corpse over what a failure I was. I hoped that had been a fever-induced dream rather than a premonition.

  I wore a plain white short-sleeved shirt and shorts. I ran a hand over my head. I found stubble there despite the hair removal ointment Doctor Alchemy’s subject had used on me. Obviously, my hair was starting to grow back. I pulled off the thin sheet that covered my legs. My right leg was no longer skinless, raw, and bloody. Other than it being discolored, like I had gotten a deep tan from my groin to my ankle, my leg looked normal. Hairless, but normal. An intravenous line ran from my arm to an IV bag dangling from a stand on the side of the bed. A thin electronic monitor was taped near where the IV line entered my arm. All further evidence I was in a hospital room. Maybe I should be a detective instead of a Hero. I could apprentice under Truman. He could teach me to escape a Rogue’s clutches without help.