Before a race war could break out, the door to my room dilated open. Pitbull stepped in. The room was so small that there wasn’t much room left over with just me in it. With four people in it, it was like being in a clown car.
My apprehension about what the Guild would do with me had eased a little thanks to my bantering with Isaac. Now with Pitbull here, my fears came back with a vengeance. It was hard to read Pitbull’s expression. It was tough to believe he had stopped by to pat me on the back, though.
Pitbull trained his eyes on Isaac and Neha. He said, “Don’t you two have somewhere else to be?”
“No,” Neha said. There was a note of defiance in her tone. I knew she wanted to hang around to stick up for me.
“Well, find somewhere else to be,” Pitbull said flatly. “Now.”
Neha looked like she was about to argue with him. Isaac saved her from stepping into as much hot water as I was in by grabbing her arm.
“Come on, let’s go,” Isaac said to her. “Maybe there’s a documentary about skydiving serial killers we can watch through Overlord.” He pushed her toward the door. Fortunately, Neha chose to go willingly. I doubted he could have made her leave if she had decided to stay.
Isaac shot me a look that said Don’t do anything stupid before the door dilated behind them, leaving me alone with Pitbull.
I still sat on the bed. Pitbull leaned against the wall, his arms folded. He looked down at me. His black eyes were expressionless.
After a few moments, the silence got to be more than I could stand.
I said, “You’ve gotta stop coming to my bedroom like this. People will start to talk.”
Silence.
Finally Pitbull said, “Is that supposed to be a joke?”
“Yes sir. I was trying to lighten the tension.”
“Do you think you accomplished your objective?”
“No sir. In fact, I think I made it worse.”
That actually got a slight smile out of him. Then he let out a long breath.
“Kinetic, I’ll tell you the truth: I don’t know whether to admire your sand, or try to beat it out of you.” My vote was for the former, but I wisely kept that thought to myself.
Pitbull shook his big head at me. “Assaulting a proctor is a very serious matter.”
I could have said that I had battered Lotus by hitting him, not assaulted him. An assault would have been if I had merely threatened to hit him. But I was sure Pitbull already knew that. He must have studied Hero Law just as I had. It seemed a bad time to point out the legal niceties between assault and battery, so I didn’t. Perhaps too late I was learning impulse control.
“I had whether you should be expelled from the Trials put up for a vote among the other proctors. All but two of us voted to kick you out.” My heart sank. “Interestingly, Lotus was one of the no votes. Though he wouldn’t go into details about what he saw in your mind, he said, and I quote ‘I’d rather have Kinetic inside the Hero tent pissing out than to have him outside the tent pissing in.’” Pitbull smiled wryly. “Lotus has real flair for language sometimes.
“The other no vote was mine. Fortunately for you, the Trials aren’t a democracy. It is a benevolent dictatorship with yours truly as the dictator. I let the other proctors’ opinions guide me, but I’m not ruled by them. I’m going to let you attempt to complete the Trials.” A wave of relief washed over me. “Except for this latest incident, I must say I’m rather impressed with how you’ve conducted yourself so far. And, if it weren’t for you, a lot of the complex would have been destroyed by that bomb.”
“Thank you sir. I really appreciate it.”
Pitbull stopped leaning against the wall and stood up straight. He clapped his hands together.
“With all that said, I believe it would only be appropriate if you apologized to Lotus.” Pitbull smiled grimly. His big canines glinted under the artificial light. “And going forward, you need to save your punches for Rogues and not go around wasting them on Heroes.”
I thought about how I had felt when I had awoken from Lotus’ dream world. How I still felt. I didn’t want to apologize to Lotus. If anything, I wanted him to apologize to me.
“Sir, I can’t apologize. I won’t. I know Lotus was just doing his job. I know it was just his powers. I know it was just a test. But what he gave me, only to have it snatched away again . . . .” I trailed off. I willed myself to not start crying again. I shook my head. “If you try to make me apologize, I’m liable to take a swing at him again. I won’t do it.”
Pitbull’s eyes were disbelieving. “Weren’t you listening to what I just told you? The only reason why you’re still here is because I’m letting you stay. The least you could do is to apologize to Lotus for your behavior.”
“I won’t do it,” I repeated. I knew it was stupid, but I was feeling stubborn. I folded my arms. “And that’s final.”
“Who do you think you’re talking to? Don’t you know who I am?”
Anger bubbled up in me like lava. I was royally sick of being pushed around. People had been pushing me around and trying to push me around all my life. I was sick of being tricked, of people trying to kill me, and of watching good people die. Dad, Mom, Hammer. Who’d be next? Yes, I wanted to be a Hero. But the days of people telling me what I could and could not do were over.
I stood. I was taller than Pitbull. It gave me satisfaction to look down at him.
“Yes sir, I know exactly who you are. You’re Pitbull, a licensed Hero and the chief proctor of the Hero Trials. You’ve probably forgotten more about being a Hero than I’ll ever know. But you must not know who I am.”
I paused for emphasis.
“I’m the guy who’s not going to apologize to Lotus.”
Pitbull didn’t even get mad. His dark eyes simply became flat and cold. The look in his eyes reminded me of the way a snake looks at a mouse it’s about to pounce on. A while ago the look would have scared me. Not anymore. I wasn’t the same South Carolina mouse I used to be.
“I said you could stay in the Trials,” Pitbull said coldly. “So you can stay. But know this: I don’t care what’s happened to you in the past. I don’t care if you are an Omega-level Metahuman. I don’t care if you are the second coming of Omega Man himself. While you are here, you will show me and the other proctors the respect we deserve. Your impudence will have consequences.”
He turned on his heel and left my room. It was probably just my imagination, but it seemed like the door snicked shut behind him ominously.
Well that was an incredibly stupid thing to say to someone with power over you, part of me thought. You’ve got a real knack for winning friends and influencing people.
Oh shut up! another part of me retorted irritably.
24
“Thirty-seven Hero candidates began the Trials,” Pitbull said from the dais. “Six of your colleagues did not make it past the written phase. Thirteen of them failed various tests in the scenarios phase. And, unfortunately, eight have died. Four of the deceased have been granted their Hero’s licenses posthumously. Their names will be remembered with honor and respect as long as there is a Hero’s Guild.”
We ten remaining Hero candidates, all dressed in costume, sat in front of Pitbull in the same holographic auditorium he had addressed us in when we had first begun the scenarios portion of the Trials. An Overlord node floated in the air slightly behind Pitbull. Hopefully this time we would not wind up fighting a bunch of killer robots at the end of Pitbull’s presentation. After all we had been through, I would not have been the slightest bit surprised if we had to fight the robots again, but this time while blindfolded and wearing high heels.
It was several days after my fifth test with Lotus. Since then, I had cooled my heels waiting for the remaining Hero candidates to complete their last tests so we could all begin the sixth and final test together. I was glad to have had the break. I had been through a lot both physically and emotionally. Thanks to the respite, I was now pretty much one hundred percent healthy
physically. Emotionally, I wasn’t so sure.
I was not at all surprised to see that Isaac and Neha had made it to the final round of testing with me. They both sat to my right. Also, Hacker was among the remaining ten candidates. As for the other Hero candidates, I had seen them all before, but had had no real interaction with them.
“As I indicated when I first spoke to you in this room, now that you have successfully completed the first five tests of the scenarios phase, you will now face one final challenge,” Pitbull said. “In it, you will be pitted in a one-on-one gladiatorial style fight against another randomly selected Hero candidate. The fight will take place here in the Guild complex in one of the holosuites. The holographic environment the fight will take place in will also be randomly selected. Whoever wins that fight will get his or her license; whoever loses will fail out of the Trials. There have been complaints from prior Trials’ competitors about the zero-sum game nature of the final challenge. We have kept it that way over the years because being a Hero is often a zero-sum game. In the real world, if you need to defuse a ticking time bomb, either you do it, or you get blown to bits. When you’re fighting a supervillain who’s intent on killing you, either you subdue him or he kills you. In the real world, there are no do-overs, no ‘everyone is a winner.’ There’s a winner and a loser, a predator and a prey, a killed and a killer. The final Trials challenge is but a reflection of that stark reality.”
I did not like the fact there was a chance I would have to go up against either Neha or Isaac for the final test. The thought that I might be the one responsible for thwarting their dream of becoming a Hero almost made me sick to my stomach. The thought one of them might stop me from becoming a Hero didn’t make me want to do backflips of joy, either. Fortunately, there was only a twenty-two percent chance I would have to go up against either of them instead of one of the other seven Hero candidates. I liked those odds. I would have liked them better if there was a zero percent chance. If there was one thing I had learned, though, it was that the Trials could not have cared less about what I liked.
“As with many of the tests you have undergone, Overlord will be the sole judge of who won and who lost this final contest in the interest of eliminating human error and bias,” Pitbull said. “Other than the fact you all should not be trying to kill one another, all other bets are off. As you already know or you wouldn’t have gotten this far, the Trials are no place for shrinking violets. You should do whatever you feel you must do to win. Overlord will end the match when a clear winner has been established.” Pitbull paused.
“Does anyone have any questions?” he asked. No one did.
“Very well. The matches will take place two at a time in two separate holosuites. The Round One matches will begin approximately twelve hours from now. Overlord, please show the candidates who their opponents will be.”
A beam like the one we saw when Overlord projected its countdowns emitted from the bottom of the node. Words and a list of names formed in the air.
The first thing I saw was that my match was in Round One. That suited me just fine. The sooner I started the test, the sooner it would be over.
The second thing I saw made my heart rise to my throat.
“Myth versus Kinetic,” the glowing green letters read.
Isaac and I looked at each other in dismay. My odds had gone from twenty-two percent to one hundred percent. My nightmare scenario had come true.
I felt another set of eyes on me. I looked back over to Pitbull on the dais. He was staring straight at me. There was a slight, smug smile on his face.
Like a tape replaying in my head, I remembered what Pitbull had said to me when I had mouthed off to him about Lotus. “Your impudence will have consequences,” Pitbull had said. Maybe having to go up against one of my friends was that consequence.
But hadn’t Pitbull just said our opponents would be selected randomly? A twenty-two percent chance of drawing either Neha or Isaac as an opponent wasn’t a zero percent chance.
That’s what a part of me thought, the small minority of my psyche that still believed, despite a whole lot of evidence to the contrary, that people tended to play fair and to follow the rules.
Random my ass! the rest of me thought.
A short while later I lay in bed in my room. I was alone and stripped down to my underwear. I stared at the ceiling, thinking about how unfair my predicament was.
If I beat Isaac and won, I’d prevent him from becoming a Hero. Yeah, he could take the Trials again some other year, but there was no guarantee he would get as far in them a second time. And even if he did, I would be the one responsible for delaying his achievement of his dream to become a Hero.
On the other hand, if I lost, the shoe would be on the other foot. I’d have to take the Trials again. Meanwhile, the trail connecting Iceburn and whoever hired him to kill me would get colder than it already was. I didn’t want to have to wait any longer to find the people who had killed my Dad and who had been trying to kill me.
It was bad enough that I had to fight Isaac. But, if I had to fight Isaac because Pitbull had set it up to be that way, that was doubly unfair. If only I had kept my big mouth shut and apologized to Lotus the way Pitbull had asked me to.
My mind groped for a solution.
It came up empty. This really was a no-win situation.
Wait! That’s it!
I sat up so abruptly that I got lightheaded.
That’s exactly what this was: a no-win situation. And I knew someone who had faced a no-win situation before.
I hastily threw on some clothes. I left my room.
There was somebody I needed to talk to.
25
I stood about a half a block away from Isaac in the middle of a big city’s street. Skyscrapers loomed up around us like giants. Thanks to them, Isaac and I were shrouded in shadows despite the fact it was the middle of a sunny day.
Parked cars lined the street we were on. We could have been almost anywhere—New York, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, or any one of a number of other large cities. The downtowns of big cities all had much the same feel and look to them. The only thing that betrayed the fact that we were on a holosuite and not standing in the middle of a real big city’s street was the fact that the city was almost dead quiet. There was no traffic, no people, no hum of people’s conversations, no sound of airplanes overhead, no nothing except the slight whistling of the wind. You could have literally heard a pin drop.
I found my mind turning yet again to the bombshell I discovered before coming here for my test against Isaac. I tried to shove the thought out of my head. There was nothing I could do about it now. I’d deal with it later. Now, I needed to focus.
The ever-present Overlord node was overhead, counting down the seconds until out test formally began. I was heartily sick of seeing that countdown. Win or lose, it would probably be awhile before I would be able to bring myself to wear a watch again.
“I’m sorry it’s you I’m facing,” Isaac said. Like I was, he was wearing the costume the Old Man had given him, the black one with the light blue bands around the wrists and ankles. Neither of us had our capes on. Isaac’s face was obscured by his cowl. The blood-red dragon on the front of his costume seemed to glow faintly. If you didn’t know him, Isaac would look very intimidating all decked out in his costume. Heck, I knew the guy and I still was intimidated.
“Yeah, me too,” I said. I grinned, displaying a humor I did not feel. “It’s not going to keep me from trying to kick your ass, though.”
“Ditto,” Isaac said. He grinned back at me. “When I’m a Hero, I’ll let you be my sidekick until you can stand for the Trials again. How does Mini-Myth sound as a new code name for you?”
“And here I was thinking Kinetic Kid sounded like a good sidekick name for you.”
Isaac shook his head.
“Typical white person’s attitude. The funny black guy has always gotta be the white man’s sidekick. You trying to turn me into a stereotype?”
Isaac’s grin slid off his face as Overlord’s countdown approached zero.
“But seriously man, I’m awfully sorry about this,” he said.
“Me too.”
Overlord’s countdown hit zero.
I lifted my hands and brought them together. Two cars on either side of Isaac flew from where they were parked, shooting toward Isaac like they were iron filings and he was a magnet.
The cars smashed together with a terrific crash. Glass and auto parts went flying.
The problem was, I had missed Isaac entirely. Right before the cars could hit him, he had changed into a huge dog and leapt out of the way.
No, not just a dog. A monstrous, lethal-looking, three-headed dog from the gates of Hell itself.
Cerberus.
Isaac raced toward me faster than any normal dog could have. I threw debris from the car crash, metal trash bins, manhole covers, and other objects from the street at him. But, thanks to his three-headed form, Isaac could watch out for projectiles from all directions. He easily dodged all the missiles I launched at him.
Thanks to the speed of Isaac’s canine form, the distance between the two of us diminished to almost nothing. I could smell him. He stank of brimstone and rot.
If I didn’t do something and do it now, Isaac’s slavering fangs would soon be at my throat.
Time to change tactics.
I erected a force field in front of me. Though it shimmered in my eyes like a translucent brick wall, it was invisible to Isaac. Running full tilt, he slammed into it.
One of his Cerberus heads whimpered in pain and surprise. His huge dog form bounced off of my force field like a ping-pong ball smacked by a paddle. He landed on the street on his side, skidding a bit.
He twisted back to his four feet. Two of the heads appeared to be trying to shake off the impact. The third head, the one in the middle that had taken the brunt of the impact, was a bloody mess.
Before Isaac could recover, I erected a dome-shaped force field around him, trapping him like a bug in an upturned glass jar. Isaac must have somehow sensed he was trapped because one of his heads sniffed the air cautiously. He went up to the edge of my force field and pawed at it.
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