Omega Superhero Box Set

by Darius Brasher

  “Gentlemen, you two have presented us with a conundrum. As long as there has been a Trials, the final test has been a contest between two Hero candidates with only one person declared the winner. It has been this way for decades and literally hundreds of Heroes.” Pitbull looked at first Isaac, then me. “Why then, with you two, did Overlord declare your match to be the first one in history be a tie and that you both passed the Trials?”

  Isaac and I looked at each other, and then back at Pitbull. Neither of us spoke.

  “Come on now, speak up,” Pitbull barked. “The doctors tell me there’s nothing wrong with your hearing.”

  “I’m not exactly sure what you’re asking us, sir,” Isaac said slowly. “Are you suggesting that we cheated?”

  “It is the only explanation for this unprecedented result,” Pitbull said. “Overlord was programmed to always declare a winner.”

  “We did not cheat, sir.” Isaac sounded offended.

  “We sure didn’t,” I added.

  “The evidence does support their contention,” Lotus said mildly to Pitbull. If I could have moved, I would have kissed him. “We have reviewed Overlord’s footage of their battle. Our technicians have checked Overlord for glitches in its programming. As you know, we have found nothing untoward.”

  “Be that as it may,” Pitbull said, looking annoyed at Lotus for chiming in, “the results speak for themselves. There are not supposed to be ties, and yet there is a tie. I do not have to understand exactly how a magician is fooling me to know I am being fooled.”

  Brown Recluse said, “The Guild’s bylaws related to the Trials are quite clear. Overlord is the final arbiter of who passes. You know those regulations were put into place to stop the blatant favoritism that existed before we had Overlord. Unless Myth and Kinetic admit they tampered with the results, you have no choice but to accept Overlord’s decision.” I had the feeling we were witnessing an argument the proctors had been having for days while I was unconscious.

  “We didn’t tamper with anything,” I said.

  “That right,” Isaac added. “If we could game the system, we would simply have had Overlord declare each of us the winners, high-fived each other, and then called it a day. Look at us. Instead we beat each other nearly to death. It was a fair fight. If Overlord says we both deserve to win, then we both deserve to win.”

  Pitbull sighed in frustration.

  “My colleagues are right. I have no choice under Guild bylaws but to declare each of you the winner and allow you to take the Hero’s oath and get your licenses.” Pitbull’s dark eyes flashed angrily. “But know this: If I ever find proof that either or both of you cheated, I will make it my new life’s mission to see you are stripped of your license. I’ll also have you prosecuted criminally. For fraud and anything else I can think of.”

  Isaac was so angry, he looked like he was about to have a stroke. With a visible effort, he controlled himself.

  “Am I correct in believing that, short of being caught cheating, now that we have completed all the tests, you have to give us our licenses?” he asked Pitbull.

  “Yes,” Pitbull admitted grudgingly.

  “Good,” Isaac said. “Then I’m at liberty to say what I’ve always thought: Your name is really stupid. Pitbull? Really? What, was Chihuahua Man already taken? Is biting children your superpower? As soon as I get out of this bed, I’m going to do the world a favor and put a muzzle on you.”

  Brown Recluse laughed out loud. His laugh trailed off when Pitbull glared at him. Then Pitbull spun and walked out of the infirmary.

  Still looking amused, Brown Recluse opened his mouth to say something. He apparently thought better of it as he turned to trail after Pitbull. Lotus left last, winking at me again before the door drew closed behind him.

  Neha, who hadn’t said a word this whole time, walked up to stand between our beds.

  “Alright guys, now that we’re alone, fess up. Which one of you did it? Or was it both of you?” she asked.

  “What?” I said.

  Neha rolled her eyes. “Come on. This is me you’re talking to. If you’re worried about listening devices, don’t. I checked. Plus, Overlord doesn’t have access to this room for medical privacy reasons. The only ears in this room are ours. You can tell me how you guys pulled this off. You know I’m not going to blab it to anyone. I just want to give credit where credit is due.” Her eyes shined eagerly. “I will say I’m surprised either of you would do something like this. This is more along the lines of something I would do.”

  “Has everyone suddenly gone deaf and stupid?” Isaac said, almost shouting. “We did not cheat! You want me to say it in Hindi so you can understand it better?”

  Neha looked a combination of suspicious and uncertain.

  “Maybe you should just leave, Neha,” I said. “Both Isaac and I have been through a lot. We need our rest.”

  “If I’m wrong, I apologize,” she said.

  “Just get out,” Isaac said irritably.

  Neha hesitated for a moment. Then, she walked to the door.

  “I’ll come visit you guys tomorrow,” she said before the door closed shut behind her.

  “Can you believe their gall?” Isaac asked. He sounded offended. “All the hard work and sacrifice we poured into pursuing a license, and those knuckleheads are questioning the results.”

  “It’s insulting,” I agreed.

  The room fell silent for a bit.

  “I didn’t cheat,” Isaac finally said, “but just so you know, I did hold back on you a little. Because you’re my buddy. In the real world, if we ever did throw down, I’d beat you like a stolen drum.”

  “Who do you think you’re kidding?” I scoffed. “A real fight between us would consist of two hits: I’d hit you, and then you’d hit the ground.”

  “It’s ‘whom’ not ‘who.’”

  “I know that. Don’t be pedantic.”

  The room was quiet again for a bit.

  “Thanks,” I said, thinking of how he had stopped me from passing out and told me to hit him again. If it hadn’t been for that, Overlord would have probably judged Isaac the winner by TKO.

  “For what?”

  “You know what.”

  There was a silence for a few moments.

  “Yeah, I know. Don’t mention it,” Isaac said. “You would have done the same for me. Besides, you’re the guy who got Trey bounced from the Trials. I figured I owed you one.” Isaac yawned noisily. “Now stop flapping your gums so I can get some shut-eye. Whatever meds they put me on have got me as sleepy as a narcoleptic.”

  In a very short while, Isaac started snoring. Though I also was tired and in pain despite the haze of meds I too must have been on, I had a lot on my mind.

  The truth was, I had done the same for Isaac. I had spoken the truth when I told the proctors we hadn’t tampered with anything. We hadn’t cheated.

  Unbeknownst to Isaac, I had though.

  When I had lain in my bed hours before my fight against Isaac, it had occurred to me the situation was a no-win scenario. That had triggered in my mind something from Star Trek, of all things. In the movie The Wrath of Khan, it was revealed that James T. Kirk had been the only Starfleet cadet to prevail in the Kobayashi Maru, a computer simulation designed to test how the cadets would respond to a no-win situation. After flunking the test twice, the third time Kirk reprogrammed the computer so he could prevail. In his mind, there was no such thing as a no-win situation.

  I agreed with Kirk. As far as I was concerned, it was a Hero’s job to find a way to win, to make a way out of no way. Once I had thought of the Kobayashi Maru, it inspired me to emulate Kirk. I had left my room to go talk to Hacker. As she had said after our test on Hephaestus, she owed me one. When I had asked her if she could hack into Overlord without it being traced back to either me or her, Hacker had looked at me like I should be in a padded room and kept away from sharp objects. I had taken that as a “no.”

  Once I explained what I had in mind, she was o
nly too happy to use her Overlord access panel and her powers to break through its security and reprogram it. She looked as happy as a pig in mud while doing it. As she had told me on Hephaestus, breaking the rules was what hackers did.

  Hacker had wanted to reprogram Overlord so that it would declare me the winner of my fight with Isaac regardless of who actually won. I told her I didn’t want that. I just wanted to give Isaac and me a chance to both be declared the winner if the fight was close. If we both deserved it, we both would win. If one of us was the clear-cut winner, the other would have lost.

  As Kirk said, there were no no-win situations. If the cause is just, a Hero finds a way to win. Even if he breaks the rules a little.

  Okay, I’ll admit it—as much as I tried to justify it, I felt pretty guilty about cheating. I had been raised Catholic, after all. Feeling guilty was kind of our thing. Guilt was baked into Catholicism the way Purgatory and the Immaculate Conception were. I didn’t think my parents would approve of what I had done. What they would approve or disapprove of was my touchstone for what was moral or immoral.

  Then again, I was convinced Pitbull had bent the rules himself by making sure I went up against one of my friends instead of having my opponent be chosen at random. Also, I would never forget how Isaac had encouraged me to keep fighting when he could have just let me pass out and taken the win for himself.

  When I thought about those things, I felt a lot less guilty.

  My level of guilt shrank to almost non-existent when I thought about what Hacker had discovered when she had hacked into Overlord’s system.

  Hacker had discovered who had gotten into Overlord’s system to plant the nanites that had attacked me. That same person had programmed Overlord to allow one of the Hero proctors to plant the bomb in the holosuite that had nearly killed me, Neha, the other test-takers, and God knew how many other people in the Guild complex. Hacker said that person had left almost no trace of their activity. Only a Meta as adept at dealing with intelligent machines as she was would have been able to discover who had done it, she had said without a trace of embarrassment over her lack of modesty.

  The person who had accessed Overlord and who had tried to kill me was none other than the creator of Overlord himself:

  Mechano of the Sentinels.

  Me knowing who had been targeting me during the Trials was the thought that had distracted me when I had first faced Isaac during our final test.

  I didn’t know what my newfound knowledge meant yet. Was Mechano also the one who had hired Iceburn to try to kill me, leading to Dad’s death? Neha had told me long ago that a big-time Metahuman assassin like Iceburn only worked for Metahuman big-leaguers. As a member of one of the most powerful group of Heroes in the world—if not the most powerful—Mechano certainly qualified as a big-leaguer.

  Was Mechano also behind the blonde woman who had planted the small bomb in my pocket after the bank robbery? Maybe. That bomb was pretty much identical to the one I’d found in the mall, only it had been smaller.

  Were the other Sentinels in cahoots with Mechano? And why come after me? What in the heck did I ever do to Mechano or the Sentinels? They were Heroes. To a lot of people, they were the Heroes. Avatar himself had been a member of the Sentinels when he had been murdered. They weren’t supposed to be doing things like hiring assassins and trying to kill people.

  I didn’t know what was going on. I had more questions than answers.

  Here’s what I did know: I had finally earned a license and the right to wear a Hero’s cape. As soon as I got out of this hospital bed and was sworn in as a Hero, I was going to go after Mechano. I’d go up against every single one of the Sentinels if it turned out they were behind my father’s death. I didn’t care how powerful they were.

  I had proven to myself I was powerful too.

  The End

  In Sentinels, Book Three of the Omega Superhero Series, Theo confronts the Sentinels, the world’s preeminent superhero team. While struggling to determine why people have tried to assassinate him, he uncovers his world-changing destiny.

  Turn the page to begin Sentinels.

  Sentinels

  The Omega Superhero Book 3

  Sentinels Copyright © 2017 by Darius Brasher

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.

  Lord John Dalberg-Acton, Letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton

  Any man who tries to be good all the time is bound to come to ruin among the great number who are not good.

  Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince

  1

  If you had told me years ago when I was a skinny, bullied farm boy that I would eventually become the licensed superhero known as Kinetic who fought crime in one of the country’s biggest cities and that late one night I’d break into the apartment of a mob enforcer named Mad Dog and wait for him to come home so I could scare him to death, I would have laughed in your face and asked what you were smoking. And if I had been a lot more adventurous back then, I might have asked you for a hit of it.

  But I hadn’t been adventurous. Back then I had merely been a small-town farm boy who had never been anywhere or done anything or used any name except the one my parents had given me, Theodore Conley. But now, as a 20-year-old who had operated as the licensed Hero Kinetic in Astor City, Maryland for over six months, I was a lot more adventurous. Developing superpowers at the age of seventeen, discovering you are an Omega-level Metahuman who therefore has the potential to become one of the most powerful Metas in the world, enduring the rigors of Hero Academy, defeating the supervillain who killed your father, being Amazing Man’s Apprentice near Washington, D.C., completing the terrifying Hero Trials, being attacked by Mechano of the Sentinels during the Trials, and surviving multiple assassination attempts all tended to have the effect of making one more adventurous.

  Or dead. Fortunately, the former instead of the latter had happened to me.

  Then again, the night was young. I was lying in wait for Antonio “Mad Dog” Ricci, after all. He was a leg-breaker for the Esposito crime family. I doubted Mad Dog had gotten his street name because he was a canine lover who was just mad about man’s best friend. When he came home to discover me lurking inside, it was unlikely he’d mistake me for a dog, and greet me with a pat on the head and an indulgent “Who’s a good boy?” Him trying to cave my skull in with a tire iron was far more likely.

  Though my former farming self would never have believed it, waiting to confront a mob enforcer in his high-rise Astor City apartment in the still of the night was not the craziest thing I had ever done since getting superpowers. Heck, it wasn’t the craziest thing I’d done this month.

  Not everyone agreed.

  “Have I mentioned how crazy this is?” asked my best friend Isaac Geere for the umpteenth time. Isaac murmured his question in a near whisper. Though alone in Mad Dog’s apartment, we had been keeping our voices down. In the stillness of the dark apartment, speaking in a normal tone sounded like a shout.

  Isaac was also known as the Hero Myth. He had the Metahuman ability to turn into various mythological creatures. Though he wasn’t currently using his powers, he still managing to do a pretty good nagging harpy impersonation without them.

  “Not in the last five minutes or so,” I responded in a similarly low voice. We had been over this several times. Though Isaac was partly joking around—when was he not?—I knew he was partly serious, too.

  “Time for a reminder, then. You’ve had some horrifically bad ideas in your time, but this one’s a doozy. I think it even edges out the time you sucker-punched one of the Hero proctors during the Trials. Intimidate a guy named Mad Dog? The madness of it is right there in the guy’s name.
Trying to scare a guy named that is like trying to drown a shark. Either his parents named him that, which means Mad Dog is carrying around the genes of lunatics, or people gave him that nickname based on his behavior, which means he acts like a lunatic. Either way, I doubt he scares easily.”

  “Of course Mad Dog is not his real middle name. Who’d name their kid Mad Dog?”

  “A crazy bitch.”

  I groaned. “How long have you been sitting on that pun?”

  “I thought of it thirty minutes ago. I’ve been waiting for the right time to spring it on you.”

  I more sensed than saw Isaac grin at me in the darkness of the room we were in. The only illumination was the faint glow of the city’s night lights leaking in through the closed blinds of the apartment’s windows, especially the floor-to-ceiling glass window directly behind us. Plus, Isaac blended into the dark room because he had on plain dark clothes rather than the colorful costume he normally wore as Myth. Two years older than I, Isaac was also taller. He was toned, but on the wiry side.

  Like Isaac, I also wore plain dark clothes instead of the costume I usually wore as Kinetic. We each had on black ski masks and gloves which we had donned after entering Mad Dog’s apartment. Wearing my Kinetic costume made me feel ten feet tall and like I was truth and justice personified. My current outfit made me feel about as heroic as a cat burglar.

  Isaac said, “On second thought, we’re the ones who are the lunatics. After all, we’re government-sanctioned superheroes sworn to uphold the law, not to mention truth, justice, and the American way. Despite that, we illegally broke into an apartment to frighten a private citizen. I must have been absent from class with the flu the day the Academy taught us that breaking and entering to intimidate someone was A-OK. And, the fever from the flu must’ve done permanent damage to my brain since I agreed to go along with this cockamamy idea.” I faintly saw his head shake. “Do you hate your Hero’s cape so much that you’re looking to have it taken away from you so soon after earning it?”