“THAT IS NO MATTER. WHAT MATTERS IS THE CHOICE YOU HAVE BEFORE YOU. THE CHOICE THAT WILL DEFINE THE REST OF YOUR LIFE.”
“What do you know about my life? What are you talking about?” Jesse circled around wildly, searching the surrounding buildings for anyone with a bullhorn, although the voice sounded as if it was everywhere and yet nowhere at once. He saw no one in any windows, but continued scanning his surroundings for any movements.
Although…there weren’t any movements. He looked back at the van. When he’d left the driver’s seat, he left the emergency blinkers on, just in case. Now, when his eye caught the sight of the panel van, the lights were just on—continuously.
“I KNOW YOU, JESSE. I KNOW THE DESIRES OF YOUR SOUL. I KNOW WHAT YOU WANT, JESSE.”
The voice was sharp and pierced his heart. It was then Jesse realized there were no other sounds. The birds, the traffic sounds from the rest of the city, the general hum of electricity—all absent as Jesse stood, confused and stunned. He didn’t speak and a few seconds later, the voice spoke again, interrupting his thoughts.
“ANSWER THIS QUESTION, JESSE: WHAT HAVE YOU WANTED YOUR WHOLE LIFE? WHO ARE YOU DESTINED TO BE?”
While he had control of his motor functions, Jesse was frozen. Stuck in his indecision and the conflict within. What was the Voice’s endgame? What was Jesse’s role in all this?
“What do you want from me?” Jesse shouted into the stillness.
A moment. Silence.
“I WANT WHAT YOU WANT.”
“And what do I want?” Jesse asked. He could feel his blood pressure rising; he was being toyed with.
“POWER.”
Jesse felt himself gasp. Larry knew Jesse’s thoughts, but he wouldn’t have told anyone else. That would admit a potential weakness and The Universal Hero wouldn’t do that. He might be a jerk, but he wouldn’t risk his own safety.
“And how do you propose to give me that power? I don’t want any wussy power, either. Nothing like spontaneous mucus production or anything like that,” Jesse said, trying to gauge who he was dealing with.
“TAKE IT,” the disembodied voice said.
“Take what?”
“TAKE THE POWER YOU WERE DESTINED TO HAVE. THE OBJECT IN THE ROAD—PICK IT UP. THE POWER CAN BE YOURS NOW.”
Slowly, deliberately, Jesse walked away from Larry and towards the object they’d seen in the middle of the road. It was about the size of a laptop, with a silvery aluminum shell. There were a few lights on the surface, blinking at an irregular pace. Cautiously, Jesse knelt down on the pavement and looked at the object without picking it up.
“What is it?” Jesse asked, his curiosity taking over.
“PICK IT UP AND YOU WILL KNOW.”
As soon as Jesse touched the object, his entire world changed.
++++++++
Jesse saw it all. The past, the present, the possible futures. He saw what it was that he held. It was an object of immense power and it was meant for him.
Finally.
After all these years, Jesse had his answer. He was meant for greatness and this was his opportunity to take it. He saw his future. With the object in his grasp, he could protect not only his city, but the whole state—the entire world. He could eliminate the need for superheroes. Jesse could use the powers to ensure world peace—no more suffering, no more death, no more villains.
He knew what it was he was holding.
It was a Time Dilation Device—perfectly attuned to his body. Jesse could exist in “normal” time even inside of the time bubble the device created around him. Larry—The Universal Hero—wasn’t frozen, he was merely moving at a speed so slow, Jesse couldn’t tell the difference. Jesse was still moving at his regular speed, but to Larry’s view, it would be at near supersonic speeds.
In his hands, Jesse held power.
He could use the device to travel the earth, eliminating other villains and crushing rebellion wherever it sprang up. He could do it all. He could be the hero the earth needed.
Jesse knew he could increase the size of his time bubble. It was just a portion of a city block right now, but what if he encompassed the entire Tri-State area within its borders? What if he put the entire nation within his grasp? He could rule the world on an invisible throne.
The thoughts of domination raced through his head, encompassing his every thought and ruling every fiber of his being. With this one object, Jesse could not only be A hero, he could be THE hero.
But…
He didn’t know if it was a nagging thought, or maybe his conscience, but Jesse stopped.
Jesse was never looking to rule over the earth; his goal was to protect it. The power he held in the palm of his hand was too great. No one should have that much power.
It wasn’t easy, but Jesse knew what he had to do.
He let go.
++++++++
“No,” he heard himself say.
“JESSE.”
He stood and instinctively took a step back. He wanted a superpower—but not like this. Not in this way. Jesse shook his head to clear it.
“JESSE, TAKE THE DEVICE. IT IS YOURS TO TAKE. IT IS YOUR DESTINY.”
“No,” Jesse heard himself say. “It isn’t. It isn’t anyone’s destiny to rule the world. This device would give me too much power. I don’t want that.”
“IT CAN ONLY BE YOU. IT IS YOUR POWER TO WIELD.”
Jesse stopped in his tracks. “Why is that? Why am I the only one who can operate this device? Why is it my destiny?”
“WHY DO YOU RESIST, JESSE? YOU WANTED THIS. YOUR ENTIRE LIFE HAS LED YOU TO THIS MOMENT. DO NOT TURN YOUR BACK ON IT NOW.”
It was then that Jesse began to listen beyond the words. What the ominous voice was saying to him was important, but there was more to this game. Jesse had learned early on in life that if it sounds too good to be true, it probably was. This was a game. Someone on the other side of that booming, overpowering voice wanted something in return. This was not a gift. It was a manipulation.
“How do you know what I want? What do you know of my life?” Jesse shouted, trying to figure out the endgame in front of him.
“YOUR LIFE AS A PAWN CAN BE OVER IF YOU JUST GRASP THE POWER BEFORE YOU. THINK ABOUT IT—YOUR TIME AS A WORTHLESS CHESS PIECE CAN BE TRADED FOR THE LIFE OF A KING.”
That’s the thing about being a king, especially when it comes to chess—you might be the most important piece, but you’re also the most fragile and weak. It sounds appealing, but given the choice between being the kin or the queen, everyone would choose to be the queen. Able to move virtually anywhere gave the queen unrivaled powers.
Being king was a nice title.
Being queen as the true power.
And suddenly Jesse knew whose voice surrounded him, whose voice was almost compelling him to take up the time dilation device.
++++++++
Again, Jesse swung his body to look all around him. There was no one visible in any of the windows of the surrounding buildings, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t anyone there. While Jesse was unfazed by the Time Dilation Device, he knew if he was having this conversation within the bubble, there was one other who was immune to its powers as well. If that person was able to give him these powers, that person would be able to take them away as well.
That made his enemy perhaps the most dangerous person on the planet right now.
Jesse still had on the backpack he’d packed a few minutes earlier. He took it off and placed it on the ground near the device. Quickly unzipping the bag, Jesse searched for a flathead screwdriver.
He was afraid to touch the device with his hands, so he covered the object with his hoodie and flipped it all over, careful to only touch the fabric of his sweatshirt and not the object itself.
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?”
Jesse ignored the voice. He wasn’t afraid of a disembodied voice anymore and just wanted answers. He grabbed the flathead screwdriver and pried open the side compartment to the device. There weren’t any screws v
isible, but there was a slight opening and Jesse jammed the edge of the tool in and pried it open. A series of electronic components filled the guts of the device. There was a small digital screen that flashed every few seconds. He couldn’t identify any of it, but a small vial was attached on the right side, filled with red liquid.
“What is this?” Jesse yelled into the silence.
“IT IS NONE OF YOUR CONCERN.”
“The hell it isn’t,” Jesse said. “You want me to take this and protect Earth, but how do I protect myself from you? You seem immune to the effects of the device as well. Unless I know what this is—what powers this device, I’m walking away.”
“YOU CANNOT WALK AWAY,” the voice called out. “THE MOMENT YOU FIRST HELD THE DEVICE, A TIME BUBBLE WAS FORMED AROUND THE ENTIRE PLANET. EVERYONE YOU HAVE EVER MET IS NOW WITHIN THE TIME BUBBLE. UNLESS YOU AGREE TO ACCEPT ITS POWER, THE DEVICE WILL CONTINUE TO HOLD THE WORLD IN STILLNESS.”
Jesse looked over to Larry. His boss, The Universal Hero, was virtually indestructible. In all the battles he’d been through with his boss, The Universal Hero had always been able to save the day. To come out the victor in the end. He was still in the same position he had been in when he and Jesse had entered the time bubble, as if he had been shot with Dr. Mercury’s Freeze-Ray. (Jesse knew what that was like from previous experience. When he and Larry had battled Dr. Mercury before, he was forced to sit in absolute stillness while Larry destroyed the source of the Freeze-Ray’s properties. Another trip to the infirmary after that one.)
This wasn’t like that, though. Jesse knew this was different. Dr. Mercury was living out the rest of his natural life in the Hudson Penitentiary and this was no Freeze-Ray.
It was time to show his cards.
“I’m going to destroy it,” Jesse yelled. He took a hammer from the backpack and held it aloft above the device.
“GO RIGHT AHEAD. SEE IF YOU CAN.”
He didn’t hesitate. Jesse brought down the hammer and was immediately thrown back a few feet, landing roughly on the asphalt.
Okay. While he was able to get a look at the innards of the device, apparently it was protected by a force field. Larry could have handled it, but Jesse didn’t have the capability to destroy the device.
What if he just walked away? The people of Earth would continue on with their lives. They would all travel at the same speed. Jesse would still be outside the new normal, “slower” time and would have to live a life of solitude, but he could make that sacrifice. The only problem was his enemy would have free will in the world because Jesse was too much of a coward to handle the problem in the first place.
No. He had to figure this out. He had to get the time field shut down.
Jesse picked himself up off the ground and walked back to the device.
“Once again, I’m going to ask—why me? Why am I so important? There are 7 billion people on this planet—why do you need me?”
The voice didn’t reply immediately. When it did, Jesse had all the confirmation he needed as to the identity of the person behind it.
“BECAUSE IT IS YOUR BLOOD THAT POWERS IT.”
++++++++
A few months earlier, after the radioactive ring incident, Jesse was put into radioactive quarantine with Geiger Counter. In the previous week he’d spent with Ross, Jesse had to deal with the pain of a spider bite on top of the drowsiness from the radioactivity. This time, it was just hanging out as Ross absorbed the worst of the atomic energy.
While Jesse was awake, Geiger Counter challenged him to a few rounds on the ever-present chessboard. Jesse never was the best chess player, but liked to dabble with the game a bit. It was just after taking Jesse’s second knight on one of the final days of his quarantine that GC asked Jesse for some of his blood.
“Why?” Jesse asked.
“I took some last time you were here for the spider bite,” Ross said. “Standard procedure. You know how it is.”
Jesse shrugged and pulled up his sleeve. The vial of the syringe was slowly filled and capped. Ross placed it in a refrigerator and then the two of them continued their daily chess game.
Jesse never gave it a second thought until he was staring at that very vial contained in the time dilation device.
++++++++
“It’s the blood you collected from me last time I was in quarantine, isn’t it?” Jesse said quietly, not wanting to believe Ross was the one behind this.
Just about 10 feet away, a figure seemed to materialize out of thin air. A chrome-plated device, similar to the one on the ground, hung from his belt. It was Ross Anderson—Geiger Counter. Although he was now fully visible, a glow seemed to surround Ross. Jesse had seen the effect before; Ross was enveloped in a personal force field.
“Why won’t you just take the power given to you?” GC asked. “You’ve been after a superpower your whole life; suddenly someone offers one to you and you want to walk away?”
Jesse was face to face with his adversary—a man he thought was his friend.
“This isn’t right, Ross.”
“Don’t call me that. I’m no longer a man—I’m Geiger Counter.”
“Of course you are. We all started somewhere, Ross. You are a man, just like me,” Jesse said.
“No, I’m not! My powers are more than a mere mortal can handle. You yourself couldn’t handle the radioactive energy you were given and who was there to save you? Me, that’s who. No one else on the planet can do the things I can do. No one!” Ross said through gritted teeth, spittle flying through the air.
“Fine, but you aren’t going to convince me to pick up the time dilation device again. That isn’t me—I’m not like you,” Jesse said, shaking his head. “I may want superpowers, but not like that. I want to help people, not be in a position to enslave the entire human race.”
“The human race—ha! If there was a race, they lost it a long time ago. What do they do with their time? Watch TV, play stupid apps on their phones, eat and drink until they’re fat and happy. They fight and hurt each other. They kill and maim and then just expect us to come along and fix everything. They don’t appreciate us—they want their perfect little lives and they want us to make it that way. With that,” Ross motioned towards the device on the pavement, “you can make their lives perfect. You could be the greatest hero this world has ever known.”
“But they wouldn’t know me. I would be a hidden hero. I would only be in their shadows and in their nightmares. That’s the greatest gift of humanity—free will. I don’t get to decide how a person should live their life and you shouldn’t either. If they want to waste their evenings donating their time to charity or watching the latest season of Redneck Reindeer Ranglers, that isn’t for me to decide. As heroes and sidekicks, we are there to protect all ways of life, even those lifestyles we don’t always agree with,” Jesse said.
“But how do they have a life where they get to watch their inane television programs? How are they able to life in their sheltered lives, away from the mayhem of reality?” Ross spit out. “They put themselves in a bubble. How ironic that they are now in the very thing they crave! You have given them the very thing they want—a life where they don’t have to worry about good versus evil.”
“But that isn’t my decision to make. Nor is it yours,” Jesse said.
Ross simply smirked.
“Ultimately, it doesn’t matter what you want. The choice is out of your hands, Jesse,” Ross replied darkly.
Jesse narrowed his eyes. “What do you mean? What have you done?”
“Like I said before, the time bubble now covers the planet. You activated it when you touched the device,” Ross said. “That’s one of the great things about radioactive blood. In my position, I’ve been able to do countless experiments on it—not just yours, but blood from people touched by radioactivity from all over the planet. Each has its own unique property.”
Ross flipped up his device’s covering and showed the inside to Jesse. It looked very similar to the time dilation device
with a few minor changes to the circuitry. A similar vial of blood sat in the center of the controls.
“I took this blood from a 9-year-old boy who wandered into a nuclear waste facility in Russia a couple years ago. Took a little work, but it powers my personal cloaking device and force field,” Ross said. “A few drops of your blood also keeps me in your time field. Which is now ‘normal’ time. You should stop thinking of the world’s time as ‘normal.’ This is the new normal, Jesse.”
“How?” Jesse was still working it all out. The puzzle was almost complete, but he needed one or two more pieces. “You still haven’t answered all my questions. I know who you are now—the least you could do is answer my questions.”
“Your blood, fused with the radioactivity from both the spider bite and the ring, has the ability to slow time to a crawl. I’ve pre-programmed the device to slow time to move at one-sixtieth of the time it normally does. If you notice, your boss has moved since you came into the bubble,” Ross said, jerking his head towards Larry.
Jesse instinctively looked towards Larry and noticed that the hero’s red shoe had finally made contact with the pavement and a puzzled look was beginning to take shape on his face. Jesse could only imagine what Larry was seeing—or not seeing—as the superpowers he’d come to rely on were worthless under the spell of the device.
“So, this is your power. If you agree to it, I will give you the power to adjust the device over time. As long as you live, this can be your superpower,” Ross said, turning on his charm. As much time as Ross had spent working behind the scenes in Vegas, working for crime families before the acquisition of his abilities, Ross knew when to turn the screws.
As long as he lives? Glancing down at the device, Jesse realized what the tiny screen showed. The flashes that seemed to coordinate with the banging of his heartbeat were exactly that. The device not only lived off his blood, but off his lifeforce. If Jesse was dead, the device would die with him.
It was a risk, but Jesse wasn’t sure he could go on living in a world with just him and Ross, anyway. He didn’t like chess that much. He needed to make a sacrifice. Would Larry make the same sacrifice for him? Jesse wasn’t sure, but this was bigger than the two of them. This was about the fate of humanity. One or two people were not qualified to rule the entire human race.
The Powers That Be: A Superhero Collection Page 18
