The Hero Beat

by Nick Svolos

  OK, I just need to survive a minute and a half. That’s all I gotta do. I decided on a plan and started counting seconds in my head.

  Step one, get out of the car. My right hand fumbled with the seatbelt, finally pushing the button to release it after what felt like an hour. I pulled on the door handle. The mechanism clicked and the door popped open a few inches. Something was blocking it. I shifted to my left, drew both legs up under my chin and kicked out. The door opened a little more with a squeal of protest from the external side panels. One more kick and the door groaned open enough for me to wriggle out. Once my feet hit the pavement, I moved to get clear of the door, but my right arm caught on the shoulder strap and I was pulled to the ground. My arm came free as I fell. I hugged the ground and let the open door pass over me. Step one, complete.

  I looked back into the Lincoln at Ben. The Angel Security man was out cold, and it didn’t look like I could get him out of the car, even if I didn’t have a super-powered psycho to deal with. I figured the Omega was after me. The best chance I had to keep Ben alive was to lead Hammerblow away from the car.

  Hammerblow looked back at the racket I made when I kicked the door open and saw me as I stood up. He dropped the back end of the Angelmobile, sprouted glowing, green mallets from each hand and started walking towards me.

  My fight-or-flight instincts wisely pegged the needle towards flight. I had no illusions of being able to outrun the athletic supervillain, but any distance I could put between him and the car would increase Ben’s odds of survival until help arrived. I turned and ran back into the street. When I got to the middle of Victory Boulevard, I turned to see if my plan worked. I was rewarded, if it could be called such, with a view of Hammerblow stalking towards me. He walked past the passenger side of the Town Car, swiping the outstretched door out of his way with one of his hammers as if it was made of paper-mache.

  I was relieved, if you could call it that. Step two of my plan was working. Hammerblow’s display of knocking the door out of the way was good news for me. It was an intimidation move. He wouldn’t have bothered with that if he intended to kill me right away. Apparently, he felt the need to emphasize his point. He raised his right hand and the mallet on that side grew to about the size of a refrigerator and the handle extended so that when he brought it down, it crashed into the ground with a mighty slam about a foot to my left even though he was still about ten yards away. I was showered painfully with chunks of pavement thrown by the force of the impact.

  I let myself flinch. Everything hinged on letting him think I was scared, which didn’t take much in the way of acting. I was very scared. I stood in the middle of the street and said, “Hammerblow, are you mad at me or something?”

  Hammerblow ran at me. The mallet in his left hand disappeared and he grabbed me by the throat. He lifted me off my feet, carried me the rest of the way across the street and slammed me hard into the cinderblock wall of a storefront. He held me there against the wall, my feet dangling in mid-air, with his hand on my throat. I held on to his wrist with my right hand assisted by my left arm to keep from choking to death. These super strong guys love this Darth Vader move because they know it ties up their victims hands. Unless you’re the type that can do a one-armed pull-up, which I most certainly am not. Hammerblow’s eyes narrowed behind his brown eye mask. “Yeah, you could say that.” The mallet in his right hand returned to its normal size and he pressed it against my forehead, and then drew it back, ready to deliver the final strike.

  I wondered with more than a little terror if I had misread him and overplayed my hand. Then, he started talking and I hid my relief that step three of my plan, get him talking, was working. He spoke in a low, angry tone, “They put me on the List today, Conway, so I have nothing to lose. I have questions I want answers to, and I know you have ‘em. You give me what I want and I promise to leave something for your family to bury. Piss me off, and I’ll slowly grind you into a smear on the pavement, one piece at a time. I’ll make it last an hour, and I swear you’ll be begging for death after the first ten seconds.” Not much in the way of choices.

  My feet dangled above the pavement and my arms burned with the strain of holding my weight. Keep him talking, Reuben. “I don’t suppose there’s an option that gets me out of here alive?” I croaked as best I could though my nearly-crushed windpipe.

  The big man smiled, satisfied that his intimidation tactics were having their desired effect. “Depends on how good your answers are. Question one, you were there at the refinery last night. That means you knew something was up. Who told you to be there?”

  I struggled to force some air into my lungs, looked to my right and made an attempt to point that way with my left index finger. “He did,” I croaked. I prayed I had been counting the seconds correctly.

  “Shit, Conway, if you think I’m gonna fall for—” and then a bright green streak of light sped down the Victory Boulevard at just under the speed of sound and hit Hammerblow in the head with a tire iron. As I hoped, ninety seconds had passed. The force of the accelerated blow caused the big man to release his grip as he tumbled head over heels down the street towards Western.

  I fell to my knees, gasping for air as I looked to my left to see Hammerblow shake off the hit and spring to his feet.

  “What’sthematter,Hammerhead? Didn’tyouhaveenoughfunlastnight?” SpeedDamon jibed as he ran rings around the big man in an erratic pattern, hurling rocks, hubcaps, anything that came to hand at the villain, keeping him off balance.

  Hammerblow extended his psychic hammers and flailed them around, hoping to connect with the lime-colored speedster. He screamed, “I’ll kill you for that!”

  SpeedDamon’s movements were too fast and unpredictable for the villain, however, and he avoided the increasingly wild blows with ease as he kept up a constant stream of accelerated detritus and taunts directed at the Omega. “Almostgotmethattime!” The speedster kept attacking from the side away from me, and the fight moved towards the intersection.

  My initial reaction was to enjoy the spectacle, but I realized it was just a matter of time before one of Damon’s projectiles bounced off something and came my way. I was too exposed out here on the street, and I needed to see what I could do about Ben. I ran back to the wreckage of the Lincoln. “Hey, Archangel, how long until the rest of the team gets here?” I shouted as I assessed Ben’s situation.

  Archangel replied, “Herculene should arrive in forty-five seconds, Mr. Conway. My interaction routines indicate that I should offer words of encouragement. You’re doing very well.” Ben was still unconscious, but at least he was breathing. Blood streamed from a cut on his forehead, but I couldn’t see any serious injuries. He was pinned between the seat and the steering wheel. I reached down under the seat to see if I could move it back, but the mechanism appeared to be busted and the seat wouldn’t budge.

  One of Hammerblow’s attacks wildly crashed through a gas station’s awning and into one of the cars, flattening it. Fortunately, the people there had all run off when the fight started, and it didn’t look like anyone was hurt, but if he hit one of the pumps things would get nasty indeed.

  I’d had enough of fires and explosions for one twenty-four hour period and didn’t want to stick around for another. I figured my best bet was to get Ben out of the car and find some cover before another wild blow touched off a disaster. When people like Hammerblow and SpeedDamon tangle, the best armor is distance.

  “Archangel, I need to get Ben out of the car, but he’s pinned. Options?”

  “There is a pneumatic cutting wheel in the trunk,” Archangel said. The trunk popped open, “It should be in the toolbox on the left.”

  I went to the back of the car and found the tool. There was a compressed air cylinder and a hose right next to it. I connected everything up and turned the valve. I tested the cutting wheel, and it whirred eagerly. I hurried back to the driver’s side door and started cutting the seat’s back supports.

  Ben started to come to as I worked. �
�Wh-Wha’s goin’ on?”

  I smiled up at him as I continued cutting. “Nothing much. Just a little visit from Omega.” The wheel finally cut through the support and the seat back came loose. Ben sagged back with a moan, almost drowned out from the din of the battle at the intersection.

  “Can you move?” I asked as I started scanning for cover. I spotted a dumpster behind the car dealership. It looked like our best bet.

  “Yeah, I think so,” Ben replied. I half dragged him out of the car and helped him to his unsteady feet. He wobbled a bit and regained control.

  I grabbed him by his arm, “This way, bud,” and led him over behind the dumpster. “OK. If the fight moves this way, we jump into this thing. Otherwise we stay put, got it?” He nodded. I edged around to the corner of the dumpster and poked my head out just enough to see what was going on. You don’t get ringside seats to these things every day.

  SpeedDamon still had Hammerblow well under control. The big man was showing the strain of maintaining his fruitless attacks on the speedster and was bleeding from a dozen cuts caused by the constant barrage of random crap Damon was throwing his way.

  “Missedmemissedmenowyougottakissmyass!”

  Herculene, still in her formal gown from the funeral, landed in the street a few moments later. She walked over to a manhole and plucked the cover from the ground. SpeedDamon kicked up a cloud of dust to blind Hammerblow and cover Herculene’s approach, then sped over to where Ben and I hid and hunkered down next to us. He was vibrating and blurry, and his voice sounded like one of those cartoon chipmunks as he said, “Howyoudoing,fellas? Ilovethispart. Shouldabroughtsomepopcorn.”

  The warrior goddess calmly walked through the impromptu dust storm and, as it cleared, raised the manhole cover in both hands and slammed it down on Hammerblow’s blonde, flattop-covered head. The manhole cover bent like a coin over the big man’s skull, and the impact was announced to all those within earshot with a tremendous, resounding SPTANG!. Hammerblow crumpled to the ground with a thud. Herculene pulled her foot back and kicked the villain viciously in the belly. He remained motionless. She reached down and checked for a pulse, looked up and called out, “Clear!”

  SpeedDamon said, “Abadeebadeebadee,that’sallfolks!” and jogged over to where Herculene stood. Herculene scowled down at the prostrate supervillain. I got to my feet, and checked on Ben. He seemed to be alright. I helped him up and we started walking over to the heroes. Herculene looked over at me with concern, which turned angry once she saw I was unharmed. I steeled myself and continued the long walk over. She glared at me the whole way. SpeedDamon caught her demeanor and decided it was a good time to go place some flares around the open manhole. Ben wisely went with him, and I walked the last few yards to the angry goddess alone.

  VIII

  “This is what I’ve been talking about, Reuben,” she said quietly.

  I could have protested that I was being careful. I could have pointed out that the only reason I was even present was because The Angels invited me to the funeral. Hell, I followed Ben’s advice and accepted a ride from him and it almost got both of us killed. My neck hurt, my arm throbbed, I was dirty, tired, sweating through my suit in this damned heat and quite frankly, I was getting fed up with doing things the way The Angels wanted me to do them. Of all the things I felt like doing at that moment, the one noticeably missing from the list was getting read the riot act by this woman.

  Fueled by pain, lack of sleep and my general irritation at the entire situation, my anger mounted up and got ready to ride to glory. I was going to let her have it with both barrels, oh yeah, this was gonna be good. I drew a breath, but held it when I noticed the look on her face. She was angry, but she was also scared. It didn’t take any great feat of empathy to realize her fear wasn’t for herself. She was scared for me.

  I realized that Herculene just needed to vent. I decided to take one for the team and let her do just that. I forced my anger to dismount and sent it off to get a beer and cool off. I sighed and said, “Yeah, I know.”

  She didn’t waste a second. “You know, when Ultiman asked me to keep an eye on you I thought, ‘Well, this should be an easy job. This guy seems to have a good head on his shoulders. All I gotta do his help him keep it there.’” She picked up the manhole cover and tried to bend it back into shape. She didn’t have a lot of luck. Without leverage she only managed to bend the thing from a “V” to a sloppy “W”.

  “And yet, here you are, getting ambushed by this psycho, because you thought it would be clever to shoot a game of pool with a supervillain.” She now had one part of the “W” bent back into place, but the center of the cover was starting to bow out. I found myself very grateful that the manhole cover gave her something to do with those powerful hands.

  She wasn’t done yet. “You need to get off this case. You’re reckless and I’m starting to think you don’t understand how fragile people like you are.” The manhole cover was now a hopeless, twisted mess. She gave up and dropped it to the street with a metallic clunk. I felt the impact through the soles of my feet.

  “You keep pushing your luck. Every time you get away with it, you think you can push it some more. You know what Dynamo told me about luck? He said, ‘Luck’s a lousy power. It runs out,’” she punctuated each word of the last sentence by poking my chest with her index finger. It wasn’t hard enough to hurt—she had remarkable control for someone so strong—but it emphasized her point.

  “Reuben, how the hell am I supposed to keep you alive if you keep getting yourself into crap like this?”

  “I know, Herculene. I’m sorry. I like you, too.”

  She was on a roll, preparing to launch a second salvo. “I mean, every time I let you out of my sight, you...wait, what?” She stopped in mid-rant and looked at me.

  I kept my voice even and low. “I’m sorry you’re upset. I’d feel the same way if our situations were reversed. I like you and I wouldn’t want to see you get hurt.”

  “What in the world are you...wait, did someone say something to you?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “Mentalia!”

  I shrugged. “Yeah, she gave a little lecture when she dropped off my clothes. If I hurt you, she hurts me, that sort of thing.”

  Anger flared in her eyes and her hands balled up into fists. “Oooh, I’m gonna kill her!”

  “Don’t be mad at her. It was coming from a good place. She cares a lot about you.”

  “That’s not the point!” She paced around a bit, arms flailing. “She..I mean, you...oh, dammit, you’ve changed the subject on me!”

  “That wasn’t my intent. Would you like to yell at me some more?” I’m nothing if not helpful.

  She threw up her hands in exasperation, “No. What good would it do?”

  SpeedDamon, noting that the tone of our conversation had become more calm, sauntered over with Ben close behind. “Is it safe? Anybody going to be getting hit that I should know about?”

  “Oh, knock it off. I wasn’t gonna hit him. Apparently, I ‘like’ him.” She emphasized the “like” with air quotes.

  “Well, don’t ya? I thought...well, Mentalia said…”

  I cut him off. “You’re not helping.”

  “Oh.” He quickly changed the subject. “The team’s sending a crew down to pick this guy up. We’re gonna hold him in the vault until the FBI can come get him.”

  After a bit, Herculene said, “This wasn’t your fault, was it?” See? Once she calmed down, she figured it out. She’s really smart.

  “No. Well, in a way, maybe. Hammerblow might have decided I was trying to put one over on him when I played pool with him this morning.”

  Ben interrupted me. “Wait, you played pool with him?”

  “Yeah. Ran into him in a bar this morning while I was running down a lead.”

  SpeedDamon chuckled. “Did you win?”

  I nodded. “He can’t play the finesse shots. Lacks control. Anyhow, I managed to get him talking, so maybe he figured I was playing him. But, this is rea
lly all about me breaking the story. Everyone knows I was there last night and wants to know why. The cops were looking for me before the sun came up. Someone from Omega was bound to figure it out eventually. Getting put on the List has a way of focusing one’s mind, I imagine.”

  Damon changed the subject, “So, how did this guy know where to find you? I mean, he seems about as sharp as a bowling ball.”

  Herculene’s head popped up at this. “Yeah, that’s a good point. Reuben, who knew you were going to be at the funeral?”

  I hadn’t considered this yet. “That’s a good question. Outside of you Angels, there’s my editor, and that’s it. Harry might have told someone at the paper, but I have a hard time believing Omega found out about it that way. Hammerblow wasn’t at the funeral, too many people around who would spot him. I suppose someone there could have tipped him. What’s interesting is that he knew we were in the Lincoln, instead of the Honda I drove over in.”

  Ben nodded. “Yeah, that’s odd, isn’t it?”

  SpeedDamon put his hands on his hips and paced around a bit, looking at the road and surrounding buildings. “So, Hammerboy here knew which car to hit, and the route you were taking. I mean, this is one way to get from the cemetery to the freeway, but the most straightforward way would have been to get on the Ventura like we did. There was an accident, and we were stuck in the traffic. That’s the only reason we were so close.”

  Ben chimed in, “Yeah, Archangel told me about the traffic and re-routed us to I-5. I thought your car went the same way.”

  SpeedDamon rubbed his chin, “Well, it looks like he knew just where to catch you, doesn’t it? This ain’t the worst place for an ambush. Make the grab, drag you into the alley. This wasn’t a crime of opportunity. He had this planned out.”

  Suspicions began to form in my mind, but I couldn’t make any of them fit. The cops were there looking for me. Maybe there was a leak at the police department? Chavez, Brice or one of the other reporters? Easy enough, but the timeline didn’t work. It would take far too long for Hammerblow to get to The Valley from the south side. And nobody could have known the car I’d be in and the route we took. That left me with one other possibility, but it was too crazy to voice. I had to be missing something.