Mechano. I could ask Mechano. At a minimum, he could tell me what he had against Omega Man. The best-case scenario was that he could answer every single one of my questions. If he was not willing to answer my questions voluntarily, I could turn his metallic body into a junk heap until he did. He was long overdue for a good pounding. He had tried to kill me, after all.
I shook my head at my sudden chutzpah. I had let all these months pass being too fearful to confront Mechano directly. Suddenly, after one conversation with a stripper, I was thinking about swaggering into Sentinels Mansion like I owned the place and beating on Mechano like he was a street punk instead of a world-renowned Hero and inventor. What crazy idea would get into my head if I made it a habit to hang out with strippers? I’d challenge Satan to a wrestling match, probably.
The UWant Building’s aircraft warning light mounted on a pole behind me blinked on and off. It bathed me in red as I thought. I tried to talk myself out of the idea of confronting Mechano. Even if I was Omega Man, that did not mean I was somehow miraculously as powerful as he had been. I had the same power set and power levels today that I had before I had even heard of Cassandra. Mechano was still a member of the world’s greatest Hero team. I had seen televised footage of him in action. Before I learned he had tried to kill me, watching his exploits had been inspirational. Now, the thought of them was terrifying. Learning I was Omega Man had not deluded me into thinking I could take Mechano on and prevail. Years from now maybe, once my powers reached their full potential and I had more experience. But now? Despite my earlier bravado, Mechano was far more likely to turn me into a junk heap than the other way around.
On the other hand, if it was true that Omega Man would return when the world was at risk again, didn’t I have an obligation as a duly sworn licensed Hero to find out as much as I could about the potential threat? I had failed Dad and Hannah already. I had no interest in failing everybody else as well.
Besides, it was not as though I had a better idea. I had obsessed about Mechano for months. After all that thinking about him, it was unlikely I would suddenly have a eureka moment later and come up with a better plan than the one I had now. And even if I somehow came up with the perfect plan in the future, I wanted answers now. If the world really was at risk, perhaps I needed them now. What was it General Patton had said? “A good plan, violently executed now, is better than a perfect plan next week.”
Then again, Patton was the same guy who slapped a wounded soldier and accused him of cowardice while the soldier was in his hospital bed. Maybe Patton wasn’t the best of role models. Maybe the more relevant question was “What would Omega Man do?” WWOMD. It didn’t roll off the tongue. I needed to step up my acronym game.
Though I did not know how to create good acronyms about Omega Man, I did know he would not stand up here doing his best indecisive gargoyle impersonation like I was. Based on everything I knew about the man, I knew what he would do. He would do what he needed to do to get answers.
I rose into the air, off the roof of the UWant Building. I moved quickly, before my quaking insides talked me into changing my mind.
I rocketed off to the north, toward the outskirts of town.
Toward Sentinels Mansion.
CHAPTER 16
A short while later, I cautiously slowed to a stop high in the air above the sprawling property just outside of Astor City that contained Sentinels Mansion. I took stock. Sentinels Way, the road leading to the mansion, was directly below. The face of the mansion was lit up by spotlights so brightly that the four-story white edifice was hard to look at.
Nothing had happened since I had entered the mansion’s restricted airspace. In continuation of the nothing happening, the grounds in front of the mansion were completely quiet, devoid of all activity. Though the grounds were closed to the public now because it was nighttime and after touring hours, I had expected to see armed guards on patrol. However, the usually ever-present white and blue uniformed guards that made up the Sentinels’ security force were nowhere to be seen.
I had a force field up around myself, ready for any and everything. My mind was ready to lash out with my powers at the slightest hint of an attack. All my senses were at high alert. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up as I surveyed the complete and unbroken stillness below and around me. Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. And it was not even the night before Christmas.
I was wrong before when I thought I was ready for anything. I was not ready for this, the complete absence of anything. The fact that nothing had happened since I entered Sentinels’ airspace unnerved me more than if missiles were being lobbed at me. Everyone who knew anything about the Sentinels knew that violation of their property’s restricted airspace was usually met with swift and blinding violence. Sentinels Mansion was said to be better defended than any other structure in the country except for the White House, whose defenses had been beefed up to make it perhaps the most secure building in the world after the Rogue Trident assassinated President Greenleaf a few years ago.
The last Rogue who had thought it was a good idea to mount an assault on Sentinels Mansion from the air had gotten a rude awakening. Almost a decade ago, Scimitar had been shot at by gun turrets, surface to air missiles, and lasers before he decided the juice wasn’t worth the squeeze. He had retreated to lick his wounds and regrow the hair the lasers had singed off. The Sentinels had released online the footage of Scimitar being repulsed by the mansion’s defenses. A video was worth a thousand warnings. No one had dared to fly into the mansion’s airspace without permission since then. The Scimitar video was a very violent reminder to everyone that you encroached on the Sentinels’ property at your peril. It was rumored that even nuclear weapons protected Sentinels Mansion, but no one outside the Sentinels knew for sure. I always thought those rumors were baloney. Sentinels Mansion was way too close to Astor City for the team to risk setting off a nuclear blast.
None of the property’s defenses, nuclear or otherwise, attacked me. If I had not seen the footage of Scimitar being blasted with my own eyes, I might have thought the reports of the Sentinels’ defenses were as much of an urban legend as the nuclear weapons were. No alarms wailed at my presence. No one’s voice was raised in alarm. The lack of a response to my presence was unnerving. The only sounds were the insistent chirping of cicadas and the faint hooting of owls from the large forest adjoining the mansion.
I once read that hearing an owl’s hoot meant that bad luck and death were ahead. I knew it was just a silly superstition. Nonetheless, a sense of foreboding started in the pit of my stomach and spread through the rest of my body like a fevered chill. Sometimes I wished I had never learned to read.
The woods surrounding the mansion stretched out for miles. The wooded area that composed much of the Sentinels’ property was one of the largest urban forests in the country. Thick, tall, black metal fencing enclosed the non-wooded part of the property that contained the mansion itself. The fencing stretched between dark granite pillars which were sunk into the ground every thirty feet or so. A small guardhouse and security checkpoint was next to the fence’s only entrance, which was directly across Sentinels Park from the front door of the mansion. As Sentinels Mansion was a major tourist attraction, during the day members of the public waited in line outside the fence’s entrance to be cleared by security to tour Sentinels Park and the small portion of the mansion itself which was open to the public. I had stood in that line a few times myself. I had previously visited the mansion in civilian garb in the hopes of learning something that would help me figure out what action to take against Mechano. During the day there would also be protesters picketing and yelling in a designated protest area on the other side of Sentinels Way, just as there had been at Guild headquarters in Washington, D.C. when I had shown up for the Trials. Some people thought Heroes were more public menaces than public protectors. Maybe Mechano had tried to kill them too. We should form a support group.
Behind the mansion was a hidden, undergrou
nd aircraft hangar. Between the fence around the mansion and the mansion itself was Sentinels Park. Open to the public, the park was a large, immaculately maintained green space. Statues of all the Sentinels, past and present, were positioned throughout the park. Almost all of them were made of marble. The only one that was not was made of bronze and positioned near the front of the mansion. It depicted the six current Sentinels. At the base of the statue were the words of the team’s motto: “Those who sow darkness soon shall reap.” The motto was an excerpt from the Hero’s Oath, but the general public did not know that. The fact there even was a Hero’s Oath was a secret, like a secret handshake between lodge members.
Even from up here, I could see the part of the bronze statue that represented Mechano. His bronze body gleamed in the spotlight shining on the statue. If I were a bird, I would have pooped on it. But I wasn’t. I did not want to risk being the Hero caught, with his costume’s pants around his ankles, defecating on a statue in Sentinels Park. What a shitty way to become famous.
A massive marble statue of Omega Man loomed up from the middle of the park, dwarfing the rest of the statues. Like the mansion, spotlights lit the gleaming white statue. It was shorter than the four-story mansion, but not by a lot. Omega Man’s Metahuman power had been the ability to control gravitons, the particles that comprised gravity. He had been so powerful that people thought he could have split the Earth into two had he been so inclined. Fortunately, he never would have done such a thing. His powers were equaled only by his wisdom in using them.
Omega Man’s head was positioned so that he seemed to be looking off into the horizon. As coincidence would have it, I had flown in at an angle so that Omega Man seemed to now be staring directly at me. Watching to see if I screwed up my visit to the Sentinels, no doubt. There was a big omega symbol on the ornate clasp that held his cape together around his neck. Even wrought in marble, Omega Man’s cape seemed to billow out behind him heroically. His hair had been so artfully carved that it almost seemed to blow in the breeze. His muscular torso was V-shaped, tapering down to a waist against which his clenched fists were pressed in determination. He had high cheek bones, a dimple in his chin, and a square jaw. If he was not male model handsome, it was a near thing. Even in marble form, Omega Man looked like he was about to spring into action to succor the afflicted and strike a mighty blow against the wicked. I wouldn’t be surprised to find a picture of Omega Man if I opened a dictionary and looked up the word “hero.” I knew I wouldn’t find a picture of me there. I’d already looked.
And I was supposed to be the reincarnation of this guy? Hah! Whoever oversaw reincarnations had neglected to give me Omega Man’s good looks and impressive muscles. I wanted to return the product as being defective, but I feared I was twenty years too late for that. Though I was too far away to see it, I knew from prior visits to the mansion that a bronze plaque was next to Omega Man that summarized his accomplishments. I couldn’t imagine him becoming me was listed as one of them.
I let out the long breath I had been holding. I was procrastinating, and I knew it. WWOMD? Not hover up here in the air like a confused dragonfly, staring at statuary, thinking about taking a dump on one of them, and letting his imagination run wild with all the terrible things that could possibly happen, that’s for sure. And yeah, I definitely needed to come up with a better acronym.
I tried to shake off my fears and feeling of foreboding. I descended, landing in the park in front of the mansion. The statue of Omega Man was now at my back. The grass had recently been watered. My boots sank down into the wet ground a tad. A landmine did not explode under me, I was not ensnared in an electrified net, nor did a bear trap clamp down around my ankle. Something like that would almost be welcome at this point. A threat I could deal with. The complete absence of anything or anyone when I had been all keyed up to deal with the opposite was really freaking me out.
I looked up at the big mansion. A chill ran down my spine. It was part apprehension, part awe at where I stood. Made of white sandstone and featuring soaring columns, turrets, spires, and battlements, Sentinels Mansion looked like the bastard child of an ancient Greek temple and a medieval English castle. Most of the Sentinels lived here, so the sprawling edifice also functioned as a residence.
A large portico extended from the front of the mansion. The stairs to the portico were in front of me. Normally there would be guards posted next to the columns that supported the roof of the portico. They were nowhere to be seen. Not that I needed it, but the guards’ absence was further proof something was amiss. The Sentinels had made a lot of enemies over the years. As far as I knew, the mansion was never left unguarded with the defenses turned off.
Though no one was visible, I could not shake the feeling that I was being watched. I felt like a nervous antelope walking in the Serengeti with lions lying in wait in the tall grass. I did not have Spiderman’s Spidey-sense, but that didn’t stop me from knowing something was seriously amiss.
I lifted my hands a little and let out a pulse of my telekinetic touch, like the one I had used to locate Cassandra in Areola 51. The pulse confirmed that there was no one around outside with me, which made me feel better. My pulse could not penetrate the walls of the mansion though, which made me feel worse. I had no way of knowing if any of the Sentinels were home, much less Mechano. There could be a horde of demon-possessed Rogues waiting for me inside, and I would be none the wiser. I had never encountered something my telekinetic touch could not penetrate. Running across that something the night I decided to confront Mechano did not make me jump for joy.
I climbed up the stairs to the portico. Once on it, I face a stained, dark wooden door that was closed. A doorbell was next to it. This was the main entrance. The entrance people used to tour the part of the mansion that was open to the public was on the east side of the building. I knew from my Sentinels research that normally the only way a non-Sentinel was allowed through the main entrance was if he was expected, if he had already passed a security clearance, and if a retinal and handprint scan confirmed his identity.
I had come too far to be thwarted by a closed door. I was thinking about how much trouble I would get into by forcing my way in when something strange happened:
The front door swung open silently. Silent darkness lay within.
Yeah, that wasn’t at all creepy.
“It’s a trap!” exclaimed Admiral Ackbar’s voice in my head from Return of the Jedi. If this were a movie, this would be the part where the audience would be yelling at the screen, warning me to not go inside. In the movies, a guy walking into a dark, seemingly abandoned house in the middle of the night after its door magically opened to him never ended well. I kinda wished Isaac were with me. In the movies, when creepy stuff went down, the black guy always got the shaft first. It would give my cowardly white ass a chance to get away.
Though I knew it was just my nerves talking, I still felt shame at my throw Isaac under the bus thought. Besides, this wasn’t a movie, Star Wars or otherwise. I’ve always been more of a Star Trek fan, anyway. What was there to be afraid off? I was a Hero. History had shown I could handle myself. I wasn’t scared.
My insides quivered. My instincts shrieked at me to turn around and fly far, far away.
Okay, maybe I was a little scared.
What would Omega Man do? Not fear his own shadow, that’s for sure.
I screwed my courage to the sticking place, as the Bard would say. I stood up straight and squared my shoulders. I took a deep breath and puffed my chest out. What was there to be worried about? I was an Omega-level Metahuman, and the reincarnation of Omega Man to boot. I was the very model of a modern licensed Hero. First Shakespeare, now Gilbert and Sullivan. Apparently, my brain took solace in the classics when I was nervous.
I was procrastinating.
Trying to channel my inner Omega Man, I strode through the open door. It closed behind me with an ominous click. I was engulfed in darkness as if I had been swallowed by a whale.
CHAPTER
17
It was quiet inside of Sentinels Mansion. It smelled the way some old people’s houses did, of antique furniture, moldering books, and being closed for too long. It took my eyes a few moments to adjust from the spotlight-illuminated brightness of the outside. Once they did, I realized my surroundings were not as dark as I had first supposed. There was an orb about four feet in front of me, hovering slightly off the ground like a balloon which had lost most of its helium. The orb was a tad smaller than my fist. It glowed very faintly, like a firefly’s bioluminescence. It dimly illuminated the foyer I was in.
I was immediately suspicious of it. A glowing ball had exploded in my face after that foiled bank robbery in D.C. Another had exploded during my third Trials’ test and would have killed me had I not absorbed and redirected the energy from the explosion. Fool me once with an exploding ball, shame on you; fool me three times with an exploding ball, shame on me.
With my personal shield up to protect me if the past was prologue, I poked tentatively at the glowing orb with my telekinetic touch. Fortunately, whatever had prevented me from scanning the interior of the mansion from outside of it did not seem to have an impact on my powers here. I halfway expected the orb to explode as soon as my telekinetic touch contacted it. Instead, nothing happened. Though my telekinesis was operating as normal, my telekinetic touch passed right through the orb like there was nothing there. There was no resistance to my touch, no pushback, no movement of the orb, no anything. It was as if I probed thin air. Thin air did not glow like this, though. I had never seen anything like it.
Encouraged that my powers were behaving normally again, I tried to use them to probe beyond this room and further into the mansion. I could not reach beyond this room, though. Maybe there was something built into the walls of the mansion that blocked my powers.
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