Omega Superhero Box Set

by Darius Brasher

  I crashed through Truman’s third floor window like a thrown baseball. Glass exploded and fell around me. I hit the top of Truman’s desk with a crash. Items went flying. I caromed off the desk like a bounced ball. I smashed into the wall on the other side of the room, and then hit the floor. I rolled until I came to rest on the threadbare carpet against Truman’s couch.

  The floor was hard. What carpeting remained smelled, of age and years of foot traffic. There was a nice comfy couch right above me. I wanted to get up and onto it, but couldn’t seem to will my body to do it. I couldn’t breathe. I apparently had knocked the wind out of myself, having dropped my shield at some point after smashing through the window. Other than the city’s lights coming in through the broken window, the room was dark.

  “Dude, you suck at landings,” came a raspy voice. It wasn’t until later I realized it was mine. A breeze from the broken window blew papers from Truman’s desk and onto me. A few grew dark with my blood. I would have brushed the papers off, but they seemed too far away. Besides, I was too distracted by the pool of inky blackness expanding in front of my eyes. It beckoned me invitingly. “First Iceburn throws you through a window in Adams Morgan, then Mad Dog blasts you through one, now this. What in the world do you have against doors?”

  No one answered. Rude.

  The floor seemed far more comfortable with each passing second. Who needed a bed and sheets with a high thread count when you had a nice, comfy floor to relax on?

  The pool of darkness descended like a blanket, enveloping me whole.

  20

  I opened my eyes. I immediately regretted it.

  The room was bright. The light gouged painfully at me, like a dagger slashing through my eyes into my brain. I squinted. Squinting made it better. The slashing dagger shrunk to a jabbing needle. Progress. Having your eyes wide open was overrated anyway. No intrepid hero I had ever heard of looked at the world with wide-eyed innocence. Besides, if squinting worked for Clint Eastwood, surely it would work for me. Maybe I would look more like a badass this way.

  Even if I looked more formidable squinting, my badass ass felt bad. It felt as though I had gone five rounds with Mike Tyson in his prime with my arms tied behind my back. I wondered if I looked as bad as I felt. It would be hard to look worse.

  Blurred images swam hazily in front of me, slowly coming into focus. The first thing I saw was Isaac’s unmasked face, looking down at me with obvious concern.

  “The bomb that exploded in my face before the Trials, our fight during the Trials, and now this,” I whispered hoarsely. “How come every time I pass out, I wake up to see you?”

  “You’re just lucky, I guess,” Isaac said.

  Isaac’s face was fuzzy. I blinked hard, trying to bring it into sharper focus. “I thought earlier I’d settle for an ugly nurse, but this is a bridge too far,” I croaked. I had what felt like a combination of a flu and a hangover. I felt weak and awful. “Beggars can’t be choosers, I suppose. Give it to me straight, Nurse Ratched: Will the patient survive?”

  Isaac didn’t even crack a smile. “Maybe if he gets a brain transplant. What possessed you to confront the Sentinels all by yourself?”

  “Seemed like a good idea at the time.”

  “And now?”

  I struggled to sit up. My head threatened to slide off my neck and bounce off the floor like a rotten melon. I willed it to stay in place. My Clint-like squinting likely scared it into submission.

  “Now it seems like less than a good idea,” I rasped. Now that I was sitting up, all I wanted was to just lie back down.

  “That’s the smartest thing you’ve said in a while.” Isaac grinned. Relief was evident on his face. “Maybe you don’t need that brain transplant after all.”

  My surroundings fitfully came into focus. We were in Truman’s office. The door was closed. I was on his couch. The only source of light was the overhead fluorescents. The window I had flown through was now covered with a panel of particleboard, making it impossible for me to tell if it was night or day.

  Truman was behind his desk with his feet up and a paperback book in his hand. It was an Agatha Christie mystery. Was he scrounging for tips? Truman closed the book on a thick finger and looked at me as I focused on him.

  “Sorry about the window,” I said. “I couldn’t think of where else to go.” My voice sounded marginally stronger.

  “It’s the ladies in the office across the street you really should be apologizing to. Now they can’t look over here and see me flexing. Their lost eye candy notwithstanding, it’s no big deal. Worse things have happened in this office. Windows can be replaced.” He looked me up and down critically. “You, on the other hand, can’t be. You look like you lost a wrestling match with a hot stove.”

  I looked down at myself. I was out of my Kinetic costume and dressed in only a tee shirt and loose athletic shorts. They appeared to be mine. My skin was red, as if I had spent far too long in the sun, with all the pain and itchiness that accompanied a bad sunburn. My skin was blistered in a few spots. The blisters all were where my Kinetic costume hadn’t covered me. Evidently it had afforded me some protection from Mechano’s energy blast after my force field failed.

  “You tripped an alarm at Truman’s house when you flew through his window,” Isaac said. Obviously the two had gotten past the “pleased to meet you, I’m a Hero too” stage while I was unconscious since Isaac was walking around unmasked. “He got here shortly before I did. I tracked you here from the GPS on your communicator. Truman had a doctor friend of his come check you out. I packed some clothes for both of us before leaving home, and changed you out of your costume so the doctor wouldn’t suspect you’re a Hero. Aside from radiation burns, pain, and you exponentially increasing your chances of getting cancer down the road, the doctor said you’ll be fine in a couple of weeks. He also advised that whatever you had done to get you into this condition, stop doing it.”

  My brain played conga drums against my skull. “Sound advice,” I said. Like a bad dream resurfacing, I thought of the Sentinels. They likely were scouring the world, looking for me right now. I’d have to figure out how to deal with them. It was like a Cub Scout thinking he’d have to figure out a way to deal with the United States Marines. “Though I can’t make any promises. Are Bertrand and Ne—I mean Smoke—safe?” The fact Truman knew Isaac and my secret identities didn’t mean I should put Neha’s on blast too. Though I thought Truman could be trusted, I had no right to share her secret identity without permission.

  “Bertrand I put up in a hotel for a while,” Isaac said. “I paid cash for it so it couldn’t be traced to me. I gave him a song and dance about how you pissed off a criminal with your work at the Times, so it wouldn’t be safe for us at the house for a while. Neha I can’t get ahold of. I’ve left messages for her, though.”

  I felt a surge of apprehension about Neha. I tried to suppress it. She was the smartest of all of us. She can take care of herself, I told myself. Still, I wished she was here. I wished I had made up with her before now.

  “Also, when I got here and saw the condition you were in, I got in touch with your supervisor at the Times and called in sick for you.” Isaac hesitated. A slight smile played around his lips. “I think he got the impression I’m your boyfriend, so if you’ve got your eye on a cutie at work, you’re probably out of luck.”

  “Why would he have gotten that impression?”

  “Probably because I told the guy ‘I’m Theo’s boyfriend.’ It had amused me at the time. Besides, I owed you one for calling me a tattletale a few days ago.”

  “Thanks a lot. With friends like you, who needs the Sentinels?” I said. I stretched out my arms and legs. I winced. In addition to the pain, everything was stiff. “How long have I been out?”

  “Over a day and a half,” Isaac said. “Doctor Hastings gave you a light sedative to help you sleep. He wanted to give you something even stronger, but I knew you’d want me to tell him no. If the news is any indication, we’ve got to
o much on our plate for you to be doing a Rip Van Winkle impersonation right now.”

  “The news? What do you mean?”

  “Truman, can I borrow your phone? Since I’m a known associate of Lobster Lad over there, mine is off with the battery unplugged. I did the same with your phone, Theo. I didn’t want someone to ping our phones’ GPS to figure out where we are.” Despite his jocular facade, Isaac was no dummy.

  Truman handed his smartphone over. Isaac sat down next to me. He used the phone’s browser to go to UWant Video. He went to one of the trending videos. It was from one of the cable news channels and titled “Hero or Menace?” The tinny sound of the video from the phone’s small speaker soon filled Truman’s office:

  “The Sentinels, who many consider the greatest Heroes in the world, are dealing with the fallout from an attack on their headquarters outside of Astor City, Maryland early this morning. Sentinels Mansion is internationally recognized as a symbol of the heroic spirit,” said a Vixen News anchor. Blonde, busty, and perfectly made up and coiffed with pearly white teeth, she looked like a sex doll come to life. Her sultry look was designed to make the network’s mostly grey-haired audience go weak in the knees and hard in the penis. She sat behind a transparent desk. The camera afforded a perfect view of her crossed, tanned, high-heeled legs. If her neckline were a teensy bit deeper and her skirt a tiny bit shorter, she would look like she was about to mount one of the poles at Areola 51. She said, “The attack on Sentinels Mansion came, not from a Rogue as might be expected, but rather, one of the Sentinels’ fellow licensed Heroes. This footage was captured by the security cameras on the grounds of Sentinels Mansion.”

  The woman’s perfectly symmetrical features were replaced by a video of me in costume, floating high up in the dark sky over Sentinels Mansion. The video showed me shooting my energy blast into the mansion, the resulting terrific explosion, part of the mansion collapsing, and then me flying away. The video shut off, replaced with a still close-up of my masked face from the video. The voice of the anchor said, “Both the Sentinels and the Heroes’ Guild have confirmed that the Metahuman who perpetrated the attack is Kinetic, a licensed Hero who has been active in Astor City the past several months. Three of the Sentinels were in Peru contending with the supervillain Puma at the request of the United Nations at the time of the attack. Millennium, Mechano, and Seer, the remaining three Sentinels, were inside of the mansion when the attack came. No one was injured. Kinetic’s attack did cause millions of dollars in damage, however, in addition to destroying priceless artifacts housed in the mansion. Both the Sentinels and the investigative arm of the Heroes’ Guild are searching for Kinetic for committing what the Sentinels are calling ‘an inexplicable and senseless terrorist attack.’ Here is Sentinels’ chairwoman Seer, making a statement a short while ago from the world-famous Situation Room.”

  The video cut away from my picture, replaced by a recording of Seer. She was in the Situation Room. Part of the room had collapsed, no doubt because of my attack.

  “We have no idea why Kinetic would launch this unprovoked assault on Sentinels’ headquarters,” Seer said. “Clearly he is a very troubled young man to attack us without reason or warning. We are just grateful that no one was injured in this dastardly attack. Rest assured that the Sentinels are devoting our considerable resources to locating Kinetic before he lashes out again and hurts or kills an innocent member of the public. Kinetic is unstable and obviously dangerous. Anyone who spots him should avoid all contact with him and immediately report his sighting to us. We have set up a hotline for that purpose. Kinetic, if you are listening to this, please turn yourself in. You have my personal assurance you will be treated fairly.” The number for the hotline flashed on the bottom of the screen.

  The leggy anchor filled the screen again. “We have sought a comment on Kinetic’s behavior from the Heroes’ Guild. Other than also encouraging Kinetic to turn himself in and stating that it had opened an investigation into his behavior, the Guild had no comment.”

  The video shut off. I glanced at the number next to the video’s icon. It had millions of views. I took the phone out of Isaac’s hand and scrolled through some of the comments about the video. The gist of them was that I should not only be thrown in jail, but castrated, drawn and quartered, burned at the stake, and then buried under the jail. So much for innocent until proven guilty and keeping an open mind until you heard the other guy’s side of the story.

  A wave of weariness washed over me. Life had given me tons of experience in not being well-liked, but being universally hated even by people I hadn’t met was a new experience. I didn’t like it. “Tell me Vixen is the only network reporting this story,” I said hopefully.

  “Nope,” Truman said. “Every television news network is playing the footage of the attack on almost a constant loop, including the major international networks. Not to mention it being discussed to death on talk radio and getting above-the-fold coverage in the major newspapers. Including your employer, by the way.”

  Disgusted, I leaned back on the couch. I regretted it. I grimaced in pain. The pressure against my aching back made it hurt worse. “I’m famous. Or rather, infamous. Fantastic. Not only are the Sentinels looking for me, but every Tom, Dick and Harry in the world who pays attention to the news will have his eyes peeled for me too.”

  “On the plus side,” Truman said cheerily, “you take a real good picture.”

  “You should call yourself Silver Lining Man,” I said. Still leaning back, I closed my eyes against the brightness of the light. Knowing the world thought I was a crazed terrorist wasn’t doing my pounding headache any favors. I hadn’t even been a licensed Hero for a year and I was already a household name. And not in a good way. From obscurity to infamy in just a few hours. It must be some sort of record. The enemies I’ve made in the years since I became a Meta such as Pitbull, Elemental Man, and others—pissing people off might as well be one of my superpowers—must have been having a good chuckle at my expense right about now. What’s that German word meaning taking pleasure from someone else’s pain? Oh yeah—schadenfreude. People like Pitbull must have been luxuriating in schadenfreude right about now. The Germans were probably pissed at me too.

  “You’re not going to turn me in to the Guild, are you?” I asked Truman.

  “Of course not.” He sounded offended. “Remember, I’ve had less than positive experiences with the Sentinels in the past. If you blew up their mansion, I’m guessing they deserved it.”

  “Are you going to tell us what happened between you and the Sentinels, or am I going to have to be the one who turns you in to find out?” Isaac asked impatiently.

  I reluctantly pried my eyes open. I told them everything, beginning with the revelation Cassandra had made to me up through me crashing into Truman’s office. Well, almost everything. I still left out the fact I had cheated during the Trials and Hacker’s role in it. Isaac would flip his lid if he knew he had his cape because of cheating.

  Once I finished, Isaac leaned back on the couch along with me. His eyes were wide.

  He said, “So not only did Mechano try to kill you during the Trials, but he and two Sentinels have been trying to kill you ever since you developed your powers? And now that you’ve refused to become their protege, they’re looking to kill you so this Omega spirit thingamajig will pass to another host? If I didn’t know you like I do, I’d think you had been hallucinating, smoking crack, or both. And thanks to your pyrotechnics at the mansion, anybody who pays any kind of attention to current events is going to be looking for you too.” He shook his head in wonder and disbelief. “Well, here’s another nice mess you’ve gotten us into.”

  Truman blinked in surprise. He said, “I would’ve thought you were too young to be quoting Laurel and Hardy. Hell, I’m too young to quote Laurel and Hardy and I’m older than both of you.”

  “Isaac and I had the same Hero sponsor. He had a taste for the classics,” I said. I turned to look at Isaac, wincing as I did so. My body w
as telling me to quit moving around so much, but my body wasn’t the boss of me. “We’re in a mess? I didn’t see a picture of you on the news.”

  “You’re my brother. If you’re in trouble, I’m in trouble.” Isaac said it matter-of-factly, as if he had said water was wet or the sky was blue. I felt the same way about him, but to hear him express the sentiment made me get a little misty-eyed. Apparently, being seared like a steak and being a wanted man made me maudlin.

  “Please tell me you two lovebirds aren’t going to start making out on my couch,” Truman said.

  “I can’t kiss him,” Isaac said, sounding shocked. He dropped his voice to a whisper, as if afraid Truman’s neighbors might hear a terrible secret. “Theo’s a honky.”

  “So am I,” Truman said. “Nobody’s perfect.”

  Sweet Jesus, I thought. There’s two of them. I blinked away my forming tears and cleared my throat in embarrassment. “I wonder why the Sentinels didn’t release my real name and likeness to the public. It would be a lot easier for them to locate and dispose of me if everyone in the world was on the lookout for not only Kinetic but also Theodore Conley.”

  “It’s against the law to expose the secret identity of a licensed Hero,” Truman said. “The Sentinels probably don’t want to face a bunch of awkward questions from the Guild about why they’re breaking the law by exposing it. Not even the Sentinels are above the law. At least that’s how it’s supposed to work. Clearly the Sentinels haven’t gotten the memo saying they aren’t above the law. Plus, them releasing your real name and face would beg the question of how they got that information. The Guild’s computer records are supposed to be secure and confidential. The Guild would have a fit if it knew Mechano used them as his personal address book.”

  “That makes sense. Thank goodness for small favors. I’m in a big enough fix as it is without having to put a bag over my head every time I go outside.” I shook my head, which didn’t do my headache any favors. “We need to figure a way out of this mess and how to bring the Sentinels to justice. Well, Isaac and I do. You didn’t sign up for Sentinel wrangling when I hired you, Truman.”