Three turned back to smash at the ground while one climbed to the top of the pile of rubble, nodding. Royce walked back to find the biggest patch of wall and started smashing at it, carving a nook for himself to lie in wait. He muttered to himself, “Bossin’ people around’s too much work!”
* * *
It had been ten minutes since Django had finished off a Royce clone as he trudged faithfully in the direction Callahan had suggested earlier. He stopped and listened, hearing faint but rhythmic pounding ahead.
“Callahan, are you there?” Django asked, his voice low for no good reason.
“Got you on my screen, yessir,” Callahan said. “Science geeks up here are complaining about seismic activity, what’s going on down there?”
“I can hear loud rhythmic sounds ahead,” Django said, putting a hand against a wall. “I’d guess they found the right place and are trying to get down to it. Any idea how many are left?”
“Looks like the last five of them are about six hundred yards ahead of you,” Callahan noted, “four together and one near a wall.”
Django sighed. “An attempt at an ambush. They know I’m coming but don’t know about you. Hm… you’re sure the area is completely evacuated?”
“…yeah, nobody is within 500 yards of where they are,” Callahan said uneasily, “but the gas company says one of the ruptured mains is right in the junction where those five are. We really like this city, you know, with roads and buildings…”
“I’m trying to factor that in – plus saving the whole planet from being eaten,” Django said, starting to walk again. “Can you tell me about the layout, where the last five are? Where is the gas main, and where are they?”
Callahan “hmm”ed while he watched his screen. “If you keep going the way you are, you’ll come out facing the four guys in the middle and be just over the head of the one next to a wall. The gas main will be to your right at your 4 o’clock position.”
Django considered this as he walked. “Can you call the T.A.S.K. main desk and ask them to connect you to my assistant, Gabriela Gomez? I am going to call in a favor from my grandfather and get enough gold to pay for whatever I’m going to break, but Gabriela will know how to make it all work on paper. I hope ten tons will be enough…”
Callahan audibly gulped. “I’m… I’m gonna get everybody to pull back some more, you okay for a few minutes?”
Django wearily said, “Thank you, yes. It will take me some time to walk that far.”
Callahan dropped the mic and Django could hear the lieutenant anxiously yelling as he got further away.
With only the dim light of far off points and the moist sound of his own footsteps for company, Django, covered in slime and trash, marched on.
* * *
Bored, Royce pulled out his phone and started tapping at it. Typically, there was almost nothing on it. “Luckily, coverage is never a problem with Legacy,” he chuckled and downloaded a game called Temple Run. Despite his huge fingers, he was able to nimbly guide the tiny on-screen character past various obstacles and hazards.
“Oi!” Royce squealed as he turned at a particularly hazardous curve.
“You’re pretty good at that game,” a friendly voice from above said.
“‘s funny,” Royce responded, never taking his eye off the screen, “I end up with a lotta free time between murders and what not, so…”
Royce looked up from the screen, his character suffering from this lapse in attentiveness, and glared around. The lookout was glaring angrily away from him, the pounding of the other three continued unabated. Then, he looked up to see Django – bedraggled hair hanging down towards the ground – smiling and waving.
“Hello!” Django said confidently before leaping off to the right.
“OI!” yelled the lookout, noticing the flash of motion.
“All by yourself, huh?” Royce asked, standing up.
“Seven,” Django smiled. “Like seven shining lights. Perfect.”
The other Royces were clamoring out of the hole as the first one said, “Wot’s this all about?”
“Just wanted to make sure you’d survive this,” Django said, leaping at Royce and kicking him hard in the solar plexus, sending him flying dozens of yards and skidding off the sewer walls.
As the others started his way, Django yelled, “The police have evacuated and I am standing near a gas leak! I can teleport away from here before you can get me, and the lightning will ignite the gas! Walk away now, and nobody else has to get hurt!”
Far off, the first Royce stood up, laughing. “I never get hurt for long, and I don’t give a toss what happens to these blokes. Neither do they, right boys?”
Cracking knuckles and walking over menacingly, the duplicates all nodded.
Here goes nothing, Django thought to himself, as he held out both hands and sent blasts of lightning at the oncoming duplicates. As skin and clothing was seared off of torsos and faces, they slowed but continued to march.
Just then, the gas ignited with a huge KABOOM! The duplicate in front was destroyed instantly, and both Django and the rest were hurled in different directions. Singed but unbowed, Django rose quickly to punch through one, two duplicates’ chests and ducked out of the way of a haymaker from the last one. Django pulled his arm back before being grabbed and held aloft by the real Royce.
“That trick won’t work on me, boyo!” Royce yelled, swinging Django around and around his head before slamming the hero through the knee-high water into the ground. The dupe kicked Django in the ribs and Django lashed out with a massive lightning attack, incinerating the clone instantly and singing Royce.
Royce staggered backward, allowing Django time to recover somewhat. Django drew his fist back and wrapped his fist in lightning, uppercutting Royce so hard that the man flew upwards, smashing into the sewer roof, and then falling right into a full two-fisted blast of lightning from Django, which sent him flying across the empty space. Django teleported just then and appeared where Royce was falling to punch him again, then teleported a final time to rush to catch the man with a last uppercut, felling the huge villain unconscious into the brackish water.
Breathing heavily, Django stood over Royce, waiting for signs of motion. After a moment he said, “Callahan, can you hear me?”
Callahan responded, “Jesus, yes, it sounds like World War Three down there! You okay?”
“Yes…” Django said tiredly, “if someone can help with containing this monster. He may not stay down for long, and T.A.S.K. needs to contain the site.”
“Your pal Glitch said she was sending Kraken already,” Callahan answered. “That the guy from all those TV shows?”
“That’s him…” Django said, plopping down against the rubble the Royces created. “I’ll just wait here.”
Callahan said, “Minimal damage up here, just a couple of houses knocked down. You saved us all, so let me be the first to say ‘thanks.’“
Django smiled wearily and grunted.
* * *
Hours later, John Henry stood next to the much drier and calmer Django while Kraken – who somehow had gotten a transparent Armani clean suit with extendable segments for his tentacles – supervised the excavation.
“The winch will have it up here in a minute,” Kraken yelled back over the sound of the heavy machine. “Royce did most of the work for us, so that’s helpful.”
“I’m sure Django will send him a gift basket in that supermax prison,” Henry chuckled, patting Django on the shoulder. Django grunted in reply and took a sip of coffee from an SLPD travel mug.
The winch reached the top and they all strained to see what Kraken was bringing up. A plain surfaced, opalescent oval emerged and Kraken confidently settled it into a nesting of flexible foam inside a huge crate he’d specially designed to contain this item. Once enclosed, Kraken activated the multi-combination lock and smiled at them.
“All done!” he said cheerily. “This thing is awesome – it’s broadcasting a signal based on the biology o
f the Burning Tide, making the whole solar system invisible to them. I can’t turn it off of course, that’d be crazy, but I can’t wait to get some readings off of it.”
Kraken cheerily pushed the floating crate on to a platform, which lifted the artifact and the scientist up to street level.
“You did great work here, Django,” Henry said, arms crossed.
“Thanks, John,” Django smiled, standing. “There was a girl… I’d like to…”
“You work with T.A.S.K. now,” Henry interrupted, waving a hand. “We don’t just show up, knock down some walls and fly off. In addition to what social services is going to do for her, we’ve assigned a T.A.S.K. social counselor to keep tabs on her and help her stay on the right path.”
Django pondered this. “I wish we could do more …”
Henry raised an eyebrow. “Do you have some other ideas?”
“Maybe …” Django said thoughtfully. “Maybe …”
“Well, for now you should teleport up to the Tempest,” Henry said. “I’m told your assistant has a full calendar of things you should be doing. We’ve got this under control.”
Django nodded, stood back and disappeared in a flash of lightning.
* * *
Two weeks later, Erin was sitting on her bed in a foster home on Florland Drive as her roommates Tanisha, Rocio and Courtney danced to a Becky G song. Erin glared icily at them, her homework undone on her lap. She rolled her eyes and chucked the notebook on her pillow.
Suddenly, she heard screams from downstairs and wondered what idiocy her foster sisters were getting into now. After a moment, she heard her name mixed in with the screams and decided to find out what was the problem.
Erin lazily strolled down stairs and was stunned to see Django standing in the front hall, two of Erin’s “foster sisters” fawning over him.
“Hey!” he said excitedly.
“Wha… you…” Erin stammered.
“I found out about you, Erin,” Django said. “That you were an honor student, that your parents were killed in a tornado, that you had a bad time in a group home. I…I’d like to do more.”
Erin walked closer. “You saved my life, even when I was kind of a jerk to you.”
“I acted like you were a stereotype,” Django replied. “Not cool. So, I called in some favors. Everybody in this foster home who keeps up good grades and stays out of trouble is going to college, free, on me. Simple as that.”
Erin’s eyes welled and she clasped her hands to her mouth while the other girls screamed. “That’s…”
“My people sent me out to help people,” Django smiled. “That takes more than my fists. The T.A.S.K. counselor is going to be there for all of you, and you will have every chance to become a hero in your own life.”
Erin ran over to hug him, and he smiled.
“I don’t know how to thank you!”
“Find somebody to save, one day,” Django said. “Deal?”
Erin rested her head on his chest and said, “I promise.”
NIKIA THE PANDORA
Lance Oliver Keeble
One thinks of the strangest things when they’re tied up. Especially when it’s not for pleasure. You find yourself asking, How did I get myself in this predicament?
Smack! The sound echoed in the dark dank concrete room used as a dungeon. Nikia abruptly awakened by a rush of pain across her face, it was her nemesis, the Black Russian, who would, for the next hour, be taking out his frustrations on her. Nikia was tall, her skin color of newly creamed coffee; covered with freckles head to toe. Her hair was thick with large curls. Her multicolored locks where black and brown with blond streaks in the winter and red streaks in the summer. Her Afro framed her face, hiding ears. As a child she was teased for her freckles and wild hair, a product of African and Irish slaves coupling. As an adult, men and women alike pursued her. Today she’d been captured.
Nikia was tied to a large oak cross, bound by abrasive thick manila rope – how apropos. Actually, it was called a St. Andrew’s cross. It was quite uncomfortable.
Nikia had started her day happy. This was her last year as this city’s heroine. She had fallen in love. She was getting married soon. She looked forward to retiring and being a mother. She looked forward to transferring the Herculean task of heroine to a new female child, a new generation of the unknown and unseen protectors of earth.
Whack, came the hand of her enemy, as he stalked back and forth, talking trash to her. Nikia contemplated her escape.
“You fuckin’ bitches are all the same!”
Nikia was not; she was the ultimate woman and she inherited superior power and the proverbial virtues of womanhood, including persuasion, persistence and endurance to the tenth power to name a few. Nikia was all the positives of womankind packed into a single human being. Even her tolerance for pain was unmatched. No man could endure what a woman was created to endure. Childbirth is that ultimate example and proof. Still, Nikia wasn’t enjoying this thrashing.
Black Russian is a drink containing vodka and coffee. It’s also the name of the asshole standing before Nikia monologuing and hitting her. His true name is Peter Nieves Gannibal. Peter’s family was transplanted to Russia many years ago. He was a descendant of an Afro-Russian nobleman, military engineer and general who was kidnapped as a child and presented as a gift to Peter the Great who raised the child in the Emperor’s household. Russia was Peter’s homeland via kidnapping.
Whap! He hit her again and stood in front of her in grand fashion. Hitting her rapidly proved that he was a sadistic twat. His long trench coat flowed like a flag as he breathed heavily through his mask, bragging about finally winning, finally getting the upper hand, finally ridding the world of her kind.
Nikia Lynott was an Eve, an Anesidora. Americans called her Pandora from the Greek mythos. It was much deeper than that. They were descendants of Lilith, Lucy, Mawu – the real Eve from over 150,000 years ago. Not the biblical Eve most people are familiar with; the true Eve born of the earth, the motherland, where it all began.
Pow! That one hurt.
Black Russian was a super soldier, genetically engineered through years of fetus tampering. He had high intelligence and astute strategic skills but there were some qualities that the lab boys neglected to enhance. His fragile ego and poor common sense were just a few of his vulnerabilities.
Nikia finally focused her swollen eyes. She looked Black Russian up and down. She couldn’t hold in a snicker. He looked ridiculous. His costume combined the Russian flag and the African flag; it was the South African flag, more or less. Emblazoned on his front torso was a green “ч”, for the word “черный”. It was outlined by yellow and white. The red, blue and black colors framed the rest of the body suit and mask. He finished the ensemble off with a black trench coat. To Nikia, he looked like a combination of a Mexican wrestler and a gay version of Blade.
Wham, he didn’t like her giggling. What was she giggling about?
His vehement hatred made no sense to her. Maybe he was simply a misogynistic jerked who resented the women who apotheosized creation? Maybe he wanted to kill her because of his need to erase his historical truth. The Freudian psychology of it didn’t matter much. What mattered was that Nikia wasn’t going to take too many more of those slaps across the head and face. She was a mystical being bestowed with magical powers of life and death, good and evil. Her human side was ready to kick this motherfucker’s ass. That shit hurt.
Nikia didn’t like Black Russian either. Not because he denied his blackness; not because he ignored the thousands of years of oppression while claiming Afro-pride; not even because he dated only Caucasian women – dating someone you preferred was no crime, but to belittle and hate on Black women to justify a choice, Nikia found deplorable. He was a hot mess of conflict and contradictions. Even so, Nikia disliked Black Russian because he was always trying to kill her.
Pop! That was a solid backhand. Black Russian should have been the antithesis of all that prejudice. Instead, he em
bodied it. His name was a play on words and a cruel irony. In Russian, they loved him; he could have had the honor of being Russia’s Super-man, their Captain. See, Russia wasn’t too kind to Black people, but they loved their celebrities. Black Russian could have been a trailblazer. He let his powers and abilities get to his head. He became a villain instead.
Nikia used her powers for good. It was her obligation. Her kind had been cursed after releasing evil to the world. They spent generations tracking evil, capturing it, and putting it back where it belongs. Unfortunately, evil begets evil, so the responsibility, the curse, is an eternal circle, never to be broken until the end of time.
Crack! He hit her again. Nikia was growing weary. She looked past Black Russian to see the Pandora’s Box on the table behind him. The box, the pithos, was more like a jar or an urn that had evolved into a locket the size of her palm. It was an egg-shaped jewelry box made of gold and ivory. Historical glyphs adorned the sides. They changed and moved as the Pandora coursed through time and history.
Nikia spit blood. Her thoughts seemed to be all over the place, but she was now focused on the box. If only she could open it telepathically. The clasp was a traditional looking one but it was a modern touch lock that could only be bypassed by an Anesidora. The internal hinges secured the lid so that the user could control how much she opened and closed it. She could control the volume of good and evil that she released or captured. Legend was that the powers used to control the box itself were hope, faith and trust.
Bam! He taunted her. “Do you want your precious weapon? You’re powerless without it, aren’t you?” Black Russian chortled.
“It’s not a weapon.” Nikia spoke through her bloodied mouth.
Hope lied deep within the pithos. It was a great responsibility, one a Pandora never took lightly. If used properly, the wielder could dole out exactly what was needed for each adversary. For example, if it was an evil water monster, then a fire dragon might appear. Equally, if the person was inherently good, then some other sprite would appear, causing the opponent to succumb to reason.
Black Power- The Superhero Anthology Page 22
