“We have a place,” Akin replied. “A base of operations, if you will.”
“And what happens if my mind doesn’t get right?” Timothy asked. “If I don’t get better.”
Akin nodded toward Angela’s severed head.
“Oh,” Timothy croaked.
“Now, come on!” Akin said, turning on his heels.
Timothy followed him outside.
Afrikah pulled the car up beside them. “Are we ready?”
“Yes,” Akin said, sliding into the front passenger seat. Timothy sat behind Afrikah.
“Where to?” Afrikah inquired.
“To the safehouse,” Akin replied. “Time to resume the work.”
“So, we’re heroes, again?” Afrikah said, smiling.
Akin nodded.
“Praise the Lawd!” Afrikah exclaimed.
Akin just stared at her, shaking his head.
FALL OF THE CARETAKERS
Ronald T. Jones
The bus hurtled toward him.
Victor ‘Ace’ Jackson wrenched himself out of the huge projectile’s path. The bus speared into a five-story apartment building, punching a massive hole through brick and glass. A ruptured tank hemorrhaged gas and a colossal fuel-fed eruption swallowed the bus, magnifying the hole’s size. An incendiary carpet unfurled upward, racing to the top of the building.
Jackson whirled about to face the one who flung that bus. His Adjusted View Display (AVD) filtered out a swirling haze of previous damage to provide a vividly enhanced image of his nemesis.
Garbed in signature red and gold with a Black letter ‘I’ displayed on his broad chest, Invinci-Man stood in the middle of a gutted out street. He cut a majestic figure, as if carved out of cobalt. Built like Mr. Olympia, endowed with the strength to move mountains, the ability to soar beyond the heavens, the durability to shrug off any weapon short of a nuke, Invinci-Man once reigned as a shining exemplar of goodness and integrity. Once upon a time, billions called him a hero. That was then. This was now.
Jackson stared at his former friend, briefly torn between reasoning with him and continuing this contest. No. The time for reasoning was long past. Jackson solidified his resolve and prepared to meet whatever his opponent dished out.
Invinci-Man’s costume appeared fresh and crisp, its wearer assuming an air of casual indifference as if he was strolling through the park on a sunny afternoon. Jackson, by contrast, seemed to have attracted every particle of debris to his Energy Field Supplemented Hyper Fortified All Environment Battle Suit, until its olive green surface was caked in gray ash.
Despite the suit’s climate control, Jackson sweated bullets.
A burst of thermal energy rippled from Invinci-Man’s eyes, striking Jackson in the chest. The Battle Suit’s contact shield deflected 89 percent of the blast as Jackson tumbled backwards. A windstorm of a shock wave roiled equidistantly from point of impact.
A gasping Jackson plopped on his back. The center of his suit radiated a crimson patch of deadly intense heat. He felt like his chest had been caved in. A diagnostic readout crawled across the bottom of his AVD. His suit registered a nine percent power drain from that single hit. Jackson neuro-linked a command to his suit’s core computer to compensate its powerplant’s loss…and just in the nick of time. He leapt upright as Invinci-Man came at him. He linked a second command, phasing his shield from contact to absorbent mode and braced himself.
BAP! A combination of super speed and immeasurable strength barreled into Jackson, knocking him through the air at a velocity exceeding the force he received. One building, two buildings…after that he lost count of the buildings he penetrated before crashing on another empty street. A fifty-foot trench ending in a dredged up mound of smoldering black-top marked his hard landing.
Muscle stimulating fluids from his suit pumped into Jackson’s body, accelerating his physical recovery. A dopamine compound cleared the fog from his brain.
Invinci-Man swooped from the sky, his fist reared back for a devastating follow-up.
Jackson raised his arm and his ordnance bracelet roared, releasing a spray of rockets. Each rocket was a tube of graphene, impregnated with a seething core of energy so dense it was as if the mass of Mount Everest was compressed into a space the size of an index finger. Jackson didn’t take the time to aim. He couldn’t. Fifteen out of 30 rockets pummeled Invinci-Man and the very fabric of existence seemed to come apart at the seams from the fury they unleashed.
Jackson witnessed his opponent being swallowed up in a boiling brew of unleashed energy.
Invinci-Man flailed to the ground some distance away, landing yards short of an SUV. The close proximity of Invinci-Man’s impact swept the vehicle end over end as if swatted by the hand of an impetuous giant.
Jackson’s AVD status indicator elevated off the scale. By engaging Absorbent Mode, his suit had borrowed the kinetic energy of Invinci-Man’s blow, channeled it to its servos and stored it for potential use. This meant that for exactly two minutes and 35 seconds, Jackson would be as strong as the most powerful being on Earth. At least theoretically. Absorbent Mode was a new feature he hadn’t tested. Now was as good a time as any. Jackson catapulted himself half a block, landing in front of Invinci-Man.
The super being looked groggy and was slow to rise.
Jackson delivered a roundhouse kick that sent Invinci-Man cart wheeling through a wrought iron gate fifty feet away. An astonished smile flashed across Jackson’s face. It worked. He reveled briefly in his extra strength, ephemeral though it was. No time to waste. The clock was ticking and when this mighty strength was expended, he wouldn’t be able to engage Absorbent Mode for up to eight hours.
He rammed into Invinci-Man with all the speed his suit could muster, inundating his foe with kicks, chops and punches.
Invinci-Man took the barrage for an initial few seconds, before defending himself. He lifted an elbow, blocking a punch and countering with a fist to Jackson’s faceplate.
Jackson’s head snapped back with bone rattling force. Briefly, he wondered how far it would have flown were it not shielded by field-augmented armor. He reeled on the defensive, straining the agility function of his suit as he tried to elude a flurry of strikes from Invinci-Man. A kick-boxing style blow from a super powered foot landed solidly in Jackson’s gut, bending him over, but not knocking him down.
Invinci-Man switched to a short, sharp karate kick, but Jackson caught the other’s leg and shoved, plowing his foe to the ground. He attempted to slide underneath Invinci-Man’s guard, apply an arm lock, and for an instant he achieved a hold.
Invinci-Man shifted. It wasn’t a brute motion. It was more of a soft, subtle, judo-style reflex, containing just enough exertion to free his arm and topple Jackson off balance.
Jackson pushed off the ground with one hand, flipping to his feet.
Invinci-Man stood, still appearing irritatingly unwinded. He regarded Jackson with keen, measuring eyes. “Your suit has always amazed me. I used to wonder what it would be like going up against it with you in it. My natural powers versus your mechanized prowess.”
Invinci-Man’s expression hinted at a smile. He so much resembled a young Sidney Portier, with a deep, resonating Barry White voice. A charismatic combination, one that used to wow the masses, especially the female element.
Jackson snarled a challenge. “Well, I hope I’m satisfying your curiosity. Allow me to satisfy it some more!” He charged. Jackson had one minute remaining of borrowed strength. He was determined to make the most of it. He delivered a forearm to Invinci-Man’s rib, receiving a thunderous uppercut in turn.
Invinci-Man’s close quarter skills were superb. Jackson never understood why, for all his prodigious powers, the super being trained so rigorously in martial arts…until Invinci-Man clashed with a villain of comparable strength years ago.
A warning alert warbled in Jackson’s ear at the same instant a blip popped up on his AVD’s threat sensor display. An incoming aerial bogie. But it wasn’t a machine.
/> Jackson dove left, narrowly avoiding a vivid orange beam that drilled a bubbling hole into the spot he just vacated. His auto-targeter captured an image of the airborne aggressor: a tall, dark skinned woman, clad in silver breast plate armor, anatomically correct to the smallest detail. A matching kilt of glimmering lamellar flowed to mid thigh. She wore black ankle high sandals, attached to gray, spike studded shin guards. She wielded an intricately designed staff that appeared to be carved from hard wood. The world knew her as Candace, the Nile Goddess.
Jackson fired off an anti-personnel laser from his shoulder emitter.
Candace lifted her star staff faster than an eye blink, using it to catch the beam. The staff grew bright as it absorbed the laser, so bright it appeared a second sun had formed overhead. Instantly, the glare subsided and the staff reverted back to its cool earth tone.
Candace dove toward Jackson, her face a mask of ferocity. “Let me have at him!” She shouted to Invinci-Man.
Jackson soaked in her rage, and for a second, vestigial fear gripped him as he pictured how much of an avenging goddess she must have appeared to her ancient subjects. Assuming her claim to godhood was valid.
The Nile Goddess pointed her star staff, summoning a second stream of orange fire.
This time Jackson was not quick enough to elude its bite. The beam caught him in the side, wrapping him in a writhing hot blossom.
Candace reached into the mini-conflagration, grabbed Jackson’s arm and hurled him effortlessly a full four blocks.
Jackson ricocheted off the corner of a building, ripping the roof off of a parked station wagon before slamming headfirst into a dumpster. The large metal container crumpled around him in a distorted hug.
A red tint shrouded his AVD. Diagnostic alerts shrilled with urgency until Jackson silenced the clamor. His suit’s power level took a grave dip, forcing him to draw additional juice from his power plant. At this rate, it wouldn’t be long before he had to tap into his reserves. He managed to pry his way out of the remains of the dumpster just as Candace arrived, looming over him like a hungry raptor, her star staff raised.
She brought her staff down in a swift, gleaming arc.
Jackson leapt clear. The staff struck the dumpster, incinerating what was left of it. Jackson slid behind the Goddess, neutralizing her staff arm while clamping a forearm to her throat.
Normally, Candace would have broken such a hold with contemptuous ease. Her strength was second to Invinci-Man’s. While Jackson had 35 seconds left of Invinci-Man’s strength, the physical advantage in this instance was decisively his. It was an advantage he utilized with zest as he increased pressure on the Nile Goddess’s throat…squeezing…squeezing…
Candace strained to break free. She tried to wrench her other arm from Jackson’s grip so as to gain room to direct her staff.
Jackson tightened his hold on both her arm and throat. The Goddess’s struggle began to slacken.
Could he do this? He questioned himself. Could he kill her…like this…in cold blood? A former colleague?
A warning alert interrupted his musing. His scanner detected massive air displacement, an indicator of something or someone moving very, very fast. The threat was inbound on his five.
Jackson shoved the Goddess aside and turned in the direction of the source just as a streak of blue grazed him. The contact was peripheral but imbued with enough force to send Jackson spinning to the ground.
Marty Buckles, also known as the Blue Blur, the fastest man in the universe, stopped on a dime. He wore wind resistant head to toe blue spandex with blue-tinted wraparound sunglasses.
He threw a frat boy grin at the Nile Goddess. “Boy, I wish I could have recorded what I just saw. Ace nearly had you down for the count, lady!”
Candace straightened, rubbing her throat, murder burning a ruby light in her eyes. “If you don’t shut your insufferable trap, I’ll put you down!”
The speedster raised a lewd brow. “I think I’d like that.” Then he was off.
“I’ll bet you would,” the Goddess murmured irately.
The Blue Blur bowled into Jackson at a speed that most certainly earned him his sobriquet, and held on tight. “How ‘bout a quick ride, Ace?”
The Blur held Jackson for little over two seconds, which in distance translated to six long blocks. He let go and halted, but Jackson kept going, sailing across a park, through a playground until he collided with a tree, rupturing its trunk to splinters. Jackson lay curled on the grass, emergency bells and whistles again filling his helmet with a low key racket.
The Blue Blur was far from the strongest member of the Guardian Protectors. Still, even a rabbit, moving at supersonic speed, could cause considerable damage if it bumped into something.
Jackson stood shakily, orienting himself. He spotted the Blue Blur standing on the other end of the park wearing a cocky smirk. The next second the speedster was gone…in motion!
Jackson didn’t think. He acted. He powered his foot repulsers. Tiny thrusters in the soles of his metal boots lifted him straight up. At the same time, he ejected a dark gray, marble-sized object from his lower torso harness.
The object fell in the Blue Blur’s path and detonated. The impending blast threw the speedster back as if he’d bounced off a steel wall. Clods of dirt and grass, mixed with a bubbling froth of black smoke, bloomed from a ten-yard diameter crater gouged by the explosion.
The Blue Blur flopped limply on his back, the wind knocked out of him.
“Surprise, surprise,” Jackson taunted. He switched his thrusts to flight mode and glided out of the park.
The mayor had evacuated the entire southern district of Valor City at Jackson’s request. He needed to keep the battle within its bounds.
Something struck his right shoulder as he zipped over a wide avenue. Jackson spiraled out of control before regaining enough of his bearings to manage an off balance landing. He cast his gaze about until his threat sensor locked onto a red Ford Taurus 30 to 40 yards in the direction from which he came.
The car suddenly disassembled. Its parts shifted and shuffled in a dizzying array of motion that resolved into a man…at least from all appearances.
George Kennan, aka MachineWare, always had more of an affinity for gadgets than people. His psychic ability to manipulate machines made him a valuable asset to the Guardian Protectors. But as Kennan, little by little, converted himself into a gadget, that’s when the corruption set in. It could be said that his humanity, and all the compassion and empathy it entailed, diminished with his imbibing of each new cybernetic component.
Ropes of super hardened overlapping metal coils, connected to metal plates, layered MachineWare’s gaunt frame. Only his face remained bare of any markers denoting his bizarre transformation. He raised his right arm and it reconfigured into a Gatling gun. The gun’s eight barrels rotated and a flaming chatter of titanium bullets ripped forth.
Jackson staggered backward as a sleet of hot metal pounded his suit. He pushed outward with his mind, extending the range of his shield to approximately seven feet in front of him. Waves of bullets deflected off the shield.
MachineWare raised his other arm. It lengthened and thickened in a clanking whir of adjustable parts, forming a long-barreled cannon. A black missile whisked out of the cannon’s maw, plunging into the shield. A scorching shower of released energy gushed from the shattered missile, winking the shield out of existence, propelling Jackson into a brick-walled corner drug store.
MachineWare hurled five more missiles after the first, and the entire storefront, along with a good chunk of the building that housed it disappeared in a fiery, demolition collapse.
An ashen cloud belched from the flame-smothered ruin, encroaching on daylight like a horde of demon wraiths springing from the underworld.
MachineWare’s armaments retracted into his body. He stood before this howling destruction he’d wrought, unaffected by the smoke and heat, unmoved by his action. His expression held a very machine-like dearth of emotion. �
��Pity, Victor Jackson. You should never have opposed us.”
“Pity on you, George. You should never have gone rogue.”
MachineWare whirled to find Jackson standing behind him.
Before the cyborg could react, Jackson triggered a beam from his ordnance bracelet.
A crackling web of electromagnetic energy surrounded MachineWare. The cyborg quaked violently, his previously impassive face twisted in a convulsion of agony. When the web vanished, MachineWare crumpled to the pavement in a short-circuited heap.
Jackson pumped enough EM into MachineWare to plunge all of Valor City into Stone Age darkness. It would require ten times that amount to fully and permanently disable him.
Jackson had neither the time nor the output to finish Kennan off.
A cold wind whipped around him. It was a winter-like gust in the middle of a humid summer day. Dark storm clouds boiled into sudden existence overhead. The odd weather was no natural occurrence. The wind grew more frigid, more active, becoming a raging twister.
Jackson powered his thrusts to get away, but the savage funnel snared him with irresistible force, driving him skyward.
In a wink, the twister vanished and Jackson found himself face to face with the tornado’s conjurer, a flame-haired woman called Windrider.
Valerie Hewitt had been a climatologist in a past life. Ironic.
Windrider crossed her forearms. A tendril of lightning danced from the sky, poured into her body, surging out of her hands in a pulse of linear energy directed at the armored man.
Jackson extended his contact shield, blocking the pulse. He countered with a salvo of rockets.
Windrider waved an arm, scattering the rockets with a high speed blast of wind.
“Give it up, Jackson!” Windrider derided, her crimson mane waving in a self generating breeze like a flickering candle light. Her sky blue cloak vividly contrasted the yellow body suit that hugged her comely contours like a perfectly fitted glove. “You can’t beat all of us. Hell, you can’t beat one of us!”
“I’d say I’ve been holding my own pretty well so far,” Jackson retorted.
Black Power- The Superhero Anthology Page 3
