Kingdom of Heroes (29 page)

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The Detective parked the truck next to the curb. He sat in the cab and watched the rain fall against the windshield and onto the pavement outside. He sat there, about a block away from Adam’s apartment, still confused on what to do next. While he could go in guns blazing, he was down to about five bullets. It wouldn’t be much of a show. He could sneak in, but he had a feeling The Agent’s little assassin duo would be hard to sneak past. There was always plan G: putting the truck back into gear and making a straight shot for some border or another.

“You wouldn’t,” Emily’s voice said from beside him. “You said you wou---”

“I’m not,” he interrupted. “I just like to keep my options open. And you said you were going to stop reading all of my stray thoughts. I really can’t control those things.”

“You came all the way here,” she said in return, ignoring what he had just said. “Why would you change your mind now?”

“You really don’t listen, do you? I said I’m not changing my mind.”

Her voice softened. “I know. I’m just worried. I’m scared.”

“About what?” he asked as turned towards her.

“I’m worried about my sister. I’m worried about the babies. I’m worried about myself.” She paused for a moment. “I’m worried about you.”

He smiled at her. “Don’t worry about me. I’m like a cockroach. The only thing that can kill me is a giant boot. Or insecticide. And probably those little roach motels. Oh yeah, those little black traps with the bait inside. Hate those things. But in case of nuclear war, I am so good.”

“I hate you,” she said with a smile and a chuckle.

He turned back towards the windshield. “I know. The pretty ones always do.” He reached over and grabbed the door handle.

“Do you have a plan?” she asked as he started to push the door open.

“Not in the slightest.” He opened the door and stepped out of the truck. His hat did little to block the rain from his face. He was quickly becoming soaked. “Figure I’ll do what I always do.”

She suddenly appeared beside him, standing outside of the vehicle and in the pouring rain. He couldn’t help but notice how weird it looked as the rain seemed to fall through her. “And what’s that?” she asked.

“Make it up as I go along,” he answered.

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Journal Entry

[Found on page 31]

Note: The following is a transcription of a video found on Rogers’ computer, recorded in The Agent’s tower some time after the end of the war, around when The Agent began collecting children. The Agent is going over paperwork handed to him by his lawyer, Grant.

The Agent: Where did you find them?

Grant: Homeless shelter, sir. All of their immediate family are either dead, or they just abandoned the children along the way.

Agent: Twins?

Grant: Yes, sir. A boy and a girl, twelve years old. The boy’s powers emerged with muteness as a side effect.

Agent: He can’t speak at all?

Grant: He can make assorted grunting noises and the occasional moan, but he can’t form actual words.

Agent: The girl?

Grant: She makes up for her brother’s silence by talking too much.

Agent: And he is a teleporter?

Grant: He can teleport himself, but he is more than a run of the mill teleporter, sir. He can become a literal doorway, allowing as many as ten people to walk through him and appear wherever he or they choose to be. It is quite extraordinary and very rare. Along with the transportation skills, he also has advanced strength, the power to become intangible, and the strange ability to remove any artificial light from a room; it’s as if he drains the illumination from a bulb. It is a little unnerving.

Agent: The girl, what can she do?

Grant: She has the ability to cover her body in a layer of solid light, much in the same way The Fire Maiden can coat herself in a sheath of flames. Conceivably, with proper training, she should be able to form the light into solid constructs, such as blades or projectiles. The light also has a secondary function; it has a sedating effect on those who view it for a set amount of time.

Agent: And how long would that be?

Grant: In some cases, the sedation could take affect in a matter of seconds. For the strong willed or those with telepathic type powers, the times are questionable, but during the testing, every subject we sent to her eventually succumbed to the effect, causing all of the test subjects to appear docile in her presence, obeying her commands, and refusing to harm her when given the chance.

Agent: Do they have names?

Grant: The girl has taken to calling herself Light and her brother Dark. It seems to fit.

(End video)

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He could see it on the monitor, his special children in his son’s building, silencing anyone who may have accidentally come into contact with The Detective. The twins did such good work; he could never complain. Dark blocked each floor’s exit while Light went from room-to-room, making sure no one who lived there would be given the opportunity to speak about The Detective’s earlier visit, his arrival with The Ice Queen, the finding of Adam’s decayed corpse. All of these secrets were his and his alone; they were not for anyone else to know; they were not for anyone else to share.

A warning light lit up on the base of the monitor. He bent down and pushed the adjacent button. A call was coming through, a call from the building where his special children were currently working. He picked up a phone next to the row of buttons and placed the receiver next to his ear.

“Take the call,” he said to the person on the other end of the line.

“Emergency management,” answered a man from the phone’s earpiece, “what is the nature of your call?”

“They’re killing everyone,” a woman said in a scared whisper. “They’ve been going through every apartment. They’re killing people. You have to send somebody to help, somebody, anybody, please; I’m begging you.”

He spoke into the phone. “Ask her where she is right now.”

“Miss, where are you currently?”

“The eighteenth floor, apartment M, I’m hiding in the bathroom; oh my God, they’re killing everyone. Please, please, please.”

“Ask her if she can describe them,” he said as he looked at the monitors, pushing various buttons to find the exact apartment.

“Miss, can you describe the assailants?”

“I’m sorry; I can’t, please, send someone, for God sake; they’re killing everyone. I think I smell smoke. I think they’re setting a fire. Please, help us.”

He found the right apartment and the right room, focusing the camera down onto the woman’s face. She was young, no older than thirty or so, quite pretty. It was such a shame. “Tell her help is on the way.”

“Miss, we are sending help. They should be there shortly.”

“Oh God, thank you, thank you so much. Please tell them to hurry. The smoke is getting stronger. I think the floor above me is on fire.” And with those words, her phone went silent.

“Chancellor,” the man on the other end of his receiver began, “should we send help?”

“No,” he answered. “The team I have on the premises should be able to handle things.” He reached down to the console and pushed another button. “Light, you missed a straggler; she is on the eighteenth floor, apartment M, in the bathroom. Remember your instructions, no witnesses, no survivors.”

He hung up the phone, carefully returning it to the cradle. An image on one of the monitors had caught his eye. A truck had parked down the road from the building, a truck he recognized, and a man in a trench coat and a fedora was walking through the rain towards Adam’s building.

He picked the phone back up, pushed a button, and returned the receiver to his ear. “Light, my dear, you and your brother have company coming.”

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The Detective could smell smoke in the air. Usually, rain prevented scents from being carried across distances, but the smell was strong and coming from the general direction of Adam‘s building. It was well past curfew, and the street was devoid of people. Yet he could hear voices. No, not voices. Screams. And like the smell of smoke, they came from what used to be Adam’s home. He crossed the street, heading toward the sounds.

“What do you think is going on?” Emily asked from beside him. The rain continued to fall through her.

“Smells like a fire,” he said as he walked. “Sounds like a fire. Safe to say, there is probably a fire.”

“Why would they start a fire?”

“I don’t know,” he answered in a sarcastic tone. “Maybe to kill a whole lot of witnesses in one fell swoop.”

“What’s a swoop?”

“No idea,” he said in return as he continued walking toward the burning stench. “Maybe it’s some kind of a bird. Probably a duck.”

“A duck?”

He could see the building, a rundown twenty story apartment house, as he turned the corner. A bright orange and red light illuminated the upper floors, but the tell-tale signs of a twenty story building being engulfed in flames were nowhere to be found. There wasn’t a mass exodus of people trying to get out of the front doors, no alarms blared, and a fire-truck was nowhere in sight. Yet there were screams, lots of screams. He wasn’t sure if they would have been audible to the average, non superhuman hearing enhanced person, but he heard them clear as day, as if the screaming mob was standing directly beside him. Men, women, children, babies, he could hear their voices of terror and pain. There were times when he didn’t enjoy his abilities; this was one of those moments.

“What can we do to help them?” Emily’s still dry image said from beside him.

He broke away from the sounds and turned to look at her. Water dripped from his soaked hat and onto his face. He was so wet he didn’t notice. “You can hear them too?”

“Only cause you can,” she replied. “I only see and hear what you see and hear.”

He started back walking toward the building, and with each step, he silently prayed for a clap of thunder to block out the noise. By the time he reached the front doors, he realized it wasn’t coming. Thunder, it seemed, never came on demand.

The Detective turned and looked at Emily’s disembodied image standing beside him. “I need you to get out of my head.”

“What?” she stammered as a hurt look spread across her face.

“Sorry,” he said, trying his best to muster a half smile. “That came out completely wrong. It’s not that I don’t like having you rattling around in my brain, but you give me a headache.”

“Your apologies need work.”

“Probably a little.”

“A little?” she asked with her own half smile. “That’s the understatement of the day.”

“Again, sorry,” he turned away from her and looked straight up to the top of the building. Despite the rain that fell hard against his face, he could see tongue like darts of fire licking at the windows on the highest floor. He turned back towards her. “Let me try this once more. I am about to walk into certain death, and while I have enjoyed your company, having an extra person in my brain is ever so slightly on the distracting side. And I think I need to have access to my full faculties for what I’m about to do.”

“Okay,” she said. “Now was that so hard?”

“Surprisingly, yes, it was.”

She smiled at him. “What do you want me to do in the meantime?”

“See if you can access some of the residents; try to see what they see. And let me know what they show you.”

“Anything else?”

“Find The Agent’s little duo. Try to get into their heads. Maybe you can work your way into their thoughts, access their memories, take control or something.”

She frowned at him. “I’ve never been able to invade an unwilling subject like that.”

He smiled at her. “First time for everything.”

“If you say so.” She tried to smile at him, but it failed. Her pretty eyes filled with tears. “If you don’t make it, if we never see each other again, I just want to say---”

“That you find me incredibly annoying,” he interrupted. “Can’t blame you; I occasionally get on my own nerves.”

“Not even close, Detective,” she said, but her voice, the one he heard within his mind, had already begun to fade. She sounded so far away. “Good luck.” He could barely hear the last two words as the image from beside him faded away.

His head suddenly felt normal; it felt empty. The irony wasn’t lost on him, but there wasn’t anyone around who could appreciate the joke. With the slightest of smiles on his amused face, he stepped out of the rain and through the building’s front doors.

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The building’s lobby was dark, desolate, and empty. The smell of blood and death combined with the smoke to make an almost inhuman aroma. The Detective stared into the darkness. It was almost inconceivable to believe this was the same place he and Ice had visited less than twenty-four hours ago. Last night it had been the usual dimly lit, rundown, low budget housing unit that The Seven’s administration liked to use for the normal population. Now, it was more akin to a tomb.