The Negative Man_Legends Can Die

by Jeremy Croston

  I did the same to the black pants I had made a few days before. Courtesy of the first floor bathroom, I’d been able to wash them last night when the place was empty, which made the fabric a bit easier to work with. Gone were just the comfort aspects of the pants, in their place was protection and the same wild look that my jacket had. There was something about the rough edged look that I really liked. It resembled me, barely put together, yet highly functional.

  The last thing I did to complete my look was grab a black glove from one of the drawers of the work bench. With a small piece of steel, I made a hand guard on the back that would also double as steel knuckles. I knew punching someone with the steel band over the knuckles would cause damage to my own hand, but it’d cause even more damage to them.

  With everything laid out on the table, I gently picked up my mask. This was it; this was everything I wanted it to be. There was no time like the present to try things out. I saved the mask for last, placing it on my head and putting the hood of my jacket up. Taking off the polarity lock from the elevator, I was no longer going to hide. It was time to show the world I was still very much alive.

  **Kyle**

  “Yeah, I’m almost to gl-O-bal, Becky.”

  “I know you don’t like doing this, but it has to be done,” she said for probably the seventh time. “And Kyle, don’t roll your eyes at me.”

  How did she know such things? “Hey, I’m about to go in, so let me go. I’ll call you when I’m done.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t be doing this by yourself.”

  “It’s easier this way. Besides, Mr. Caines didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. He’s probably in no shape to even resist.” I think I was telling myself that more than Becky. “Chances are he won’t freak out and go all mega villain on us with it being just me.” I was standing outside, impatient to get on the move. “I’ll be safe. I love you.”

  “I love you, too.”

  Hanging up the phone, I opened the front door into the lobby. There wasn’t anyone here, which wasn’t unusual for this time in the afternoon. Now, I just needed to figure out how to get into the basement. Except, according to the lights on the elevator, something was coming up from the basement. It dinged its arrival and the doors opened.

  I couldn’t believe my eyes… “What the hell?”

  The hooded man in the greenish-copper mask stopped as he exited and looked at me. “Kyle Wonderton, this is an unexpected surprise.”

  “Jericho?” There was a very ominous feel to this. The Negative Man I remembered was refined, well-polished. This – this looked like a freaking monster. “What have you been doing down there?”

  “That’s such an easy question, Kyle. I’ve been rebuilding myself to go after those who tried to kill me.” He held up his right hand. It was covered in some sort of copper gauntlet. Jericho looked like a wild animal.

  I switched into a fighting stance. “Jericho, don’t make me have to hurt you.”

  He started walking in my direction, apparently not put off by my threat. “It is you who shouldn’t want to be hurt by me.” In stride, sparks of electricity came off his body and interacted with the three crude looking bolts sticking out of a copper gauntlet. “This is for your own good.” He waved his hand and a blast of energy hit me in the chest. Not enough to kill me, but certainly to wind me. I hit the cement floor, hard.

  The Negative Man never broke his walk. “Stay down, Kyle. Let me do what must be done.”

  And just like that, he walked out into the populated streets of Pacific Station once again.

  Chapter 15 –

  Friday Night; City Hall

  I laughed to myself as I watched the television. The reporter, Holly Hasset, was standing in front of the steps leading up to City Hall, where I was currently with the mayor of Pacific Station and most of the top officials, too. She was so enthusiastic, I liked her. If anyone was going to announce my return to the world, I’m glad it was this bundle of energy. “We can confirm that Jericho Staley, or better known to the viewing audience as The Negative Man, has Mayor James Hull held hostage. We will break more as news comes in to us.”

  Mayor Hull was fine, except quite annoyed tax payer dollars were being spent on the SWAT team showing up. “Mr. Staley,” he started. “I don’t know how many times I need to tell you that I had nothing to do with the order to blow up Black Lagoon. My office didn’t even know you were being held there until just recently!”

  It was painstakingly clear he was telling the truth. “I’m not an unreasonable man, Mr. Mayor.” I lifted my mask. “Pissed off, but certainly reasonable.”

  “What can we do to resolve this peacefully?”

  Peace – that was a joke. I wanted peaceful as much as Mayor Hull wanted his voters to know about his love of the dog tracks. “Warden Porterhouse was dirty. You get Chief Woods down here and we can think about peaceful solutions.”

  Hull looked at his phone. “Good news, Chief Woods is here.”

  “Send him up.”

  Hull dialed out on his phone. I was perfectly capable of interfering, jumping in and making sure Woods knew how serious I was, but I got the impression Hull would do a fine job of convincing his police chief to do the right thing. He spoke in hushed, urgent tones. The message was clear, he didn’t give a damn about protocol, he wanted Woods to get his ass up here now.

  There seemed to be some disconnect between the two men. I overheard Hull asking where The Morning Lynx was and not being happy with the answer he got. “What good is having a vigilante in our pocket if he’s not here to avert a major crisis?!”

  It was painful to watch. The mayor wanted more than anything to get help and it wasn’t coming from The Morning Lynx, so he turned up the heat on Woods. His persuasive communication ability must’ve worked. Hanging up, “He’s on his way. I just don’t think you’re going to be happy with the answers you get.”

  “We will see what he has to say.”

  I was more than comfortable waiting for Woods to get up here, unfortunately the same couldn’t be said for the man sharing the office with me. Hull paced the floor, never standing still in my presence. Honestly, if I wanted him dead, he would’ve been. The fact was, killing him made no sense to me and didn’t help me accomplish my goal of finding out who was behind the attempts on my life.

  Hull stopped when there was a knock on the door. “This is Pacific Station Police Chief Brad Woods. Is it okay to enter?”

  Ha, another one who thought I was going to blow the mayor or, even himself, to bits. As laid back as I could sound, “Yes Chief, you may enter without fearing for your life.”

  The door slowly opened and a taller man wearing a PSPD hat and a bulletproof vest entered with his arms held high. “As you can see, I’m not carrying a weapon,” he said with exaggerated motions.

  Not that a gun would’ve helped him at all. “I can see that, come on in and send Hull down. His jittery nerves are starting to get under my skin.”

  The mayor looked as if he had a new lease on life. He practically sprinted out of the room, closing the door behind him. Woods tried not to look annoyed, but it was kind of evident. “Politicians, what can you do about them?” I jokingly asked.

  Woods rubbed his temples. “No matter who sits in this office, they all seem the same.”

  I liked this guy. He was honest and to the point. So I was going to do him the same courtesy. “The reason for my show tonight is to find out more about Warden Brandon Porterhouse. You’re the police chief, so…”

  Leaving it open ended for him, Woods took the verbal cue and started from the top. “He was hired on by Harvey Grimes, before I came on board.” Porterhouse had said as much. “I never liked him; he was lazy and had dirty hands, though damn if I could ever prove it.”

  Bingo! We were getting to the road I wanted to go down. “Porterhouse was working with someone, an inmate told me as much. Whoever it was ordered a hit out against me and Porterhouse took to bribing guards and inmates to do the job.”

  �
��Shit,” Woods cursed. “And you want to know who was pulling Porterhouse’s strings, right?”

  “Precisely.”

  He didn’t say much. He looked just as frustrated as I felt. “I don’t know,” was his answer when he spoke up again. “I know this isn’t a good look for me, but Grimes left the police department in such bad shape, that I was too preoccupied to handle Black Lagoon.”

  “Because of your lack of control over the man, a lot of terrible things have happened. Some caused by me,” case in point my coup d’état on City Hall, “and others by those who were bankrolling Porterhouse. My friend Darla was murdered in cold blood, just because!”

  “The murder of Darla Bannister was unfortunate. My detectives are working it as we speak,” he said rather bluntly. “I had no idea that it was related to what we were discussing. I’m sorry.”

  Again, I always appreciated honesty. “Thank you.” Sometimes a simple apology is the most effective weapon. “Let’s make a deal tonight Chief Woods.” His eyes sharpened and he stood back up. “I’ll give you twenty four hours starting at midnight to find out who was behind this. In that time, you won’t even know I’m in the city.”

  “And after the twenty four hours?”

  “If you don’t find the answers I want, I’ll do things my way.”

  He understood the gravity of the situation. “If my computer forensics team finds out who’s behind this, what do I get? Will you turn yourself in and allow us to re-incarcerate you?”

  I chuckled at his boldness. I really did like the man. “No, Chief,” I answered sincerely. “Grimes made the mistake of chasing the white whale to the ends of the earth. Please, don’t make the same mistake he did.”

  He was doing his damndest to get something out of me. “You need to give me a reason to help you.”

  “Let me put it to you this way; if I have to find out on my own who was behind this, there will be a pile of bodies come Monday morning at Waves Park for you to clean up.” He wasn’t the only one who could negotiate. “Allow me to be very clear, I have no qualms in getting my own hands dirty. These people have tried to kill me,” Darla’s dead face continued to haunt me, “and they killed a close friend of mine.”

  “That won’t be necessary. Give me and my department twenty four hours. We will find you something on Porterhouse.”

  “Good.” With my deal done, it was time to make my grand exit. “I’ll see you just on the other side of midnight, Sunday morning.” I blasted a hole through the mayor’s window and snapped a power line open. With the live energy ready to accept me, I phased into pure energy and escaped just as quickly as I came.

  It didn’t take more than a minute to reemerge outside of gl-O-bal Innovations. I started to walk back inside when something hard hit me from behind, the feel of a fist through my hood and connecting with the base of my skull. The force of the impact sent me forward into the street. I caught myself with my gloved hand and straightened up.

  My attacker was a lanky man in white body armor with a drab, old yellow cloak on. That was the cloak of my best friend and worst enemy, John Wonderton – The Dark Lion. “Kyle,” I called out to him. “We don’t need to do this.”

  “Jericho, you’ve shown no restraint since your prison break. I’m sorry, but I can’t allow you to roam the streets.” He tensed up. “I gave you a chance, and you blew it tonight.”

  “The mayor missed you at my evening festivities. Said he was irritated that his pet vigilante wasn’t there to stop me.”

  Taunts appeared not to work. Reasonably, “There’s good in you, whether you care to remember or not. What you’re doing currently… it is evil.”

  Call it what you want. I called it getting results. “We’re going to have to agree to disagree.”

  “If it’s a disagreement you want, then it’s a disagreement you’ll get.” He launched himself at me at a speed I couldn’t even comprehend, with his fist ready to deliver the knockout blow.

  Chapter 16 –

  Saturday Morning; Innovation Blvd

  I put up my force field and Kyle broke off from his attack at the very last minute. He hurtled right by me and slammed into the brick exterior of the old bank beside gl-O-bal. He turned around, fire burning in his eyes. “Are you that stupid? Are you trying to create the Stormfall again?”

  I knew what the Stormfall was; it had given me the boost in my powers that required my gauntlet to control. “No,” I said seriously. “I was merely trying to defend myself.”

  He shook himself off. “So it’s going to be like that.”

  My anger and my quarrels weren’t with him. “If you keep trying to attack me, you won’t like the results.”

  He didn’t take my warning. Once again Kyle waded into battle, this time more cautious. Figuring I could end this quickly, I sent out a jolt of electricity at him, only for Kyle to duck it with ease. The blast went harmlessly over his head and knocked over a street light. “You’re going to have to be a lot faster when I’m expecting it.”

  The kid I remembered wasn’t this good, not nearly as fast. “You’ve improved.”

  “You made it clear that I needed to if I was going to clean Pacific Station up. I have.” Fearing he was going to attack again, I put up my electric field, discouraging any direct attack.

  What I wasn’t counting on were there to be two people here this night. A second attack came from my blindspot and whatever hit me shorted out my powers. My barrier of protection disappeared. As though it was a timed coordination, Kyle was on top of me and delivered a kick to my stomach and a strike to my back and I hunched over. The blows were hard and precise.

  I had fallen to one knee. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the second fighter, a girl. Her blonde hair was tied into a pony tail and she was wearing a black jumpsuit. In her hands was a futuristic looking gun. Seeing my eyeball it, “A souvenir from your fight with Titan.”

  If that meant anything to me, it didn’t come to the surface. “Whatever it is, I don’t think it worked as well as you hoped!” Whatever suppressed my power only did so temporarily. Streaks of white-blue electricity arced off me, the electrons inside supercharged in their negativity.

  Kyle had to act fast to get both of them out of the way. “It’s like a miniature Stormfall,” the girl proclaimed. “Look at him! He’s more dangerous than ever.”

  There was no denying that. “You two may have bitten off more than you can chew.” I was building up for one more powerful attack, my copper gauntlet storing as much juice as I could flow into the bolts. “This ends one of two ways, kids. You leave and live or you stay and die.”

  She was focused on my left hand. Kyle’s eyes never left mine. “Jericho, you don’t want to kill anyone.”

  “Of course I do.” To show I was serious, I snapped my fingers and a burst went towards the girl. He dove in front of her and took the blast. This proved something very important. “You love her.”

  “What does that have to do with anything?” he asked through gritted teeth. The back of his cloak was smoking from the attack.

  It meant everything. “I loved someone once and it was ripped away from me, just like all aspects of my life. People will do strange things for those they care about. They do strange things to avenge those who were taken without cause.”

  The girl, seemingly ready for me to go off and kill them at a moment’s notice, leveled the gun at me and fired. This time, I was ready and returned the blast with one of my own. They collided in midair, blue met white in a symphony of power. Immediately I knew why my power was lost when she shot me in the back – this gun produced energy that was positively charged. Unlike me, whose energy comes from cranking up the negative energy, or electrons, to their maximum capabilities, this weapon did the same to the protons. We were opposite energies, capable of neutralizing the other.

  I ramped up my storm laden powers, trying to win this standoff with sheer brute strength. As I syphoned in more power, something incredible happened. The opposite polarities were creating a magn
et. The metal works in the street, the light poles, fire hydrants, etc..., began to lurch towards us. The first street pole snapped and crashed into the connecting point, right above the center of the street.

  Over the noise created by the confrontation, “Jericho – if you keep this up, this entire block is going to come crashing down. Including your lair underneath gl-O-bal!,” Kyle yelled at me.

  As more and more stuff began to become effected, “If I let go, that blast will do a lot of harm. How do I know your girlfriend will send me the same courtesy?”

  I couldn’t see much over the blaze of energy still happening, but it appeared they were having a heated conversation. “When I say stop, both of you will stop!”

  There wasn’t much of a choice. Neither did either of them know, but the massive amount of power I was putting up was pushing me to my limit. If I extended too much, I’d lose control and this whole area would be leveled. That was the price of the Stormfall’s gifts. Behind my mask, I watched for him to give the signal.

  “Stop!”

  Trusting that he convinced Little Miss Six Shooter to stop, I pulled back everything. She must’ve let go of the trigger too as both charges disappeared. A mess of street lamps, car doors, and other random metal objects fell noisily to the street. Across the way, the stalemate was continuing. “What do we do now?”

  “Is this your first encounter with a super who’s on the same level as you? What happened to the void of power after my fall?”

  “Ever since Liberation Day, the super menace as some like to call us died down. Those with powers tended to go into hiding, or even leave Pacific Station altogether.” There was sadness as he told me this. “Besides me, there is just the random super who comes out of hiding. It’s… it’s better this way.”

  People who were like me were hiding or running away? This was total bullshit! “Even with my mess of a memory, I know that’s not how this city works. This place was a safe haven for those who were different.”