True Heroes (40 page)

              “Insanity is rain, and I a cloud.” Power glanced away from the conversation, noticing an armored truck slowly rolling by on the left. It raised Caleb’s hands and clapped a single time, the subservient noise coinciding with the instantaneous expansion of itself, flipping the Brinks truck, ripping the back doors open, and spreading the money all over the square. ‘Drivers are alive,’ it assured Caleb. “You think I represent insanity? No, no, no. Take a look.” Its hand flipped up to the scene behind the truck; gathering puddles of people seeking fistfuls of money with claws and shouts. “They embrace insanity and hold it to their hearts with passion. No, I can’t take the credit for being insane; I simply am the drive. I am the cause of madness. The sound of madness isn’t the cackling gibberish of the rejected and recluse; it is the subtle touch of money to pavement, or resounding, whorish moans, or a trigger hitting gunpowder, all things I’m sure you’ve heard. The very root of insanity comes from the power of choice, not from the choices we make. That is why you’re powerless here. You’re simply not insane enough.”

              The three wandering guards had raced to protect the Brinks drivers as they tried to regain order. Leaving the General in a daze, Power’s eyes turned to the man now turning to the General’s ear and whispering. Power didn’t bother listening for the few seconds of one-sided interaction before the General zoomed off to help, the hooded man taking his ass-space. A full minute of obnoxious background noise passed before Power made the first logical step. “You’re not a normal grunt are you?”

              The man smiled and took back his hood, his shaking head taken as an answer for a few seconds. “You really don’t remember me, do you?”

              Caleb refocused in his own mind, and immediately retook control. “Stephen…how wonderful.” He took his sunglasses off and placed them on the brown book.

              ‘What are you doing? I had everything covered.’

              ‘And now I need you to check him out. Do you feel that? Something’s coming off of him in waves.’

              Power refocused as well, applying his considerable sense to the reclined man at his front, soon feeling it more than Caleb. ‘I’ll check it out.’

              “Glad you remember now. You have literally not changed at all since high school. I’ve gotten older, bigger, smarter, but man! That box-cut on your head is about the only difference I see.”

              ‘Let the sniping begin,’ Power curtly said. Caleb just smirked and ran his hands through his short hair. “I’m letting it grow out again. Give it a while. Everything will come full circle.”

              “That’s comforting to know.” Stephen pulled back his sleeves slightly, revealing finely-shined gloves that glared heavily in direct sunlight. “The army’s trying to pull our strings and push our buttons, Caleb.”

              Caleb pushed forward, feeling alone with him now. “How so?”

              “They’ve been feeding me propaganda and trying to ignite some ancient feud between us. I know what they’ll do. That portable thing they’re talking about will be a front for a dissection party. They’ll be cannibals with your ass on the spit. It’s typical army stuff I’ve seen for years. Every bit of DNA you can produce will be sucked out before your hollow body is sent to some med school.”

              “And yet, here you sit.”

              Stephen smiled. “Haven’t lost that brain of yours. I never said it wasn’t effective to some extent. Our past is sitting with us too.”

              Caleb opened his hands in a peaceful manner, retaining a smirk. “I understand high school a lot better now than I ever did then. All the grudges I had have passed.”

              Stephen leaned forward and calmly entwined his fingers. “I can’t forget what happened the last night we saw each other. You didn’t just whip my ass; you buried me in a pile of trash cans without even trying. I never could come to terms with that. No football meant I was left to myself, which I couldn’t bear. The sauce drowned out my voices pretty well until I got caught by Hackard—remember that jackass? He even picked under your skin. They wouldn’t let me graduate. Told me I could appeal it, but my family didn’t have money for a lawyer so that fell through. It took me so long to get something I could use to get ahead of the curve. Hackard porking his little office intern our senior year was enough to get a degree. To hell with the books if that works, right? Anyways, I’ve had to claw and walk the long way around walls that you just barreled through. The army gave me that I suppose, a way around I mean. I didn’t have to worry about ruining my own life anymore; instead, I saved millions of lives by taking one.” Stephen broke their eye contact, what little Caleb saw of the relics of longing being pulled back inside with his diversion. “Every spiral has a starting point, and that night was mine.”

              ‘It’s some kind of energy suit. It won’t be working anymore.’

              ‘Pat yourself on the back later.’

              ‘Please tell me you’re not feeling guilty?’

              ‘How could I not?’ Something inside of him wailed; some childish memory plagued his inner mind with sobs and knowledge. ‘It isn’t right. Things like this shouldn’t happen.’

              ‘Get over it or fix it.’

              “For all of that, all I can say is I’m sorry, Stephen, honestly.”

              The suited man waved his hand dismissively. “Worse things have happened, right? This is business, and I guess I just wanted to catch up a bit before. Look, the army wants what they want, but you can give it to them without finding a body bag. They do want peace. Things have been pushed far enough that everyone important wants the same thing. They’re still thinking practically and know you won’t feel great about developing a life-time syringe fetish either, so they sent me.”

              Caleb could then muster a smile. “So he did bring muscle then.”

              “Eh, of a different kind, yeah. They made this suit that’s supposed to be as strong as you,” Stephen rolled his sleeves up the elbow and showed his gauntlets, “and they just need you to test that theory. We’d do a warm-up then a real fight. One little skirmish to save the United States from fraction: sounds easy right?”

              “It was too easy, in fact.” Caleb picked up his parcel and his sunglasses while standing.

              “What do you mean?”

              “The fight’s already over.”

              Caleb turned and calmly walked away as Stephen shouted into an earpiece. Their futile attempts at activation gave Caleb one more smile; his imagined scene of engineers on the receiving end cursing and swearing while engaging in equally fruitless actions
played on repeatedly. ‘Simple victory, simple pleasures, simple minds.’    

Chapter 10

             
None of the heads on the helicopter had look higher than the floor, and the mimicking commenced as Stephen stepped out onto the helipad. ‘Nobody saw such a small thing coming? Embarrassing.’ A preliminary group of diagnostic engineers had Stephen out of the suit before he got out from under the spinning blades. They rushed ahead of him with the pieces laying like a shot person on a gurney as Stephen and General Fink took slow, mulling steps. The staircase was endless. ‘The General should be more embarrassed than me. He’s a pompous coward. Still…he just sat there and it was over. Nobody saw movement, the General said he’d been watching, no movement, I was definitely watching and he did not move.’ They reached the lift finally and descended a few floors before Stephen’s mind broke through the drone. ‘That’s not what’s really bothering you. He had no tricks, no distractions, no exertion of strength whatsoever.’ The elevator began going diagonally. ‘Just a clap and everything came apart.’ They straightened again, on the final leg of descent. ‘That’s real power.’

              The forty story drop lasted about as long as a suicide diver from the same height would until his head burst apart on the pavement. The Major was off to the left as the elevator opened, his eyes glaring and impassive. “What the hell happened, boy?”

              “I assume you were watching through the camera?”

              “Of course I was, but we never saw the bastard move. No spikes in energy readings nothing.”

              “Neither happened. How he felt when we got there was the same as when he disabled the suit. His hands never flinched and his eyes never lit up, per the file, which means his energy was trace above natural output, which also means your scientists set the sensors too high. They were probably expecting the bulk of his energy only. He did just enough to screw everything up. He’s smart, and subtle.”

              Ancel briskly walked towards the chattering pair. “We ran through the diagnostics on the suit.”

              “And?”
              “We couldn’t even start the circuit. Apparently, we could still send power, but all the wires connecting the cell to the arms, legs, and chest were completely disconnected. The power couldn’t circulate, and we ran through the tapes. No movement from his hands during the time we lost connection.”

              ‘Sneaky, powerful bastard.’

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              The sun bombarded its way through the vertical blinds, ran through the few swarming mites, and into the dark fibers of the carpet, all with Caleb sleeping steadily in a shadowed corner. Caleb’s power unsettled from his mind, lifting Caleb’s head slightly and slamming it against the carpeted floor. He snapped awake and up into a crouched position, his senses slow to replenish from sleep’s lull. Power casually leaned against the wall above him. “Morning.”

              “Why would you wake me up like that?”

              “Tell me what’s wrong.”

              Caleb, although thoroughly groggy, instantly smelled a powerful stench. He looked around carefully while opening a window with Power and holding his nose with one hand. His head leaned out for a fresh breath. “What the hell is that smell?”

              “Oh, that’s the obvious clue. C’mon, find out what’s wrong.”

              “What the hell do you want me to find?”

                     “Keep searching, detective, and shut up.”

              The smell cleared slightly as he scanned, noticing a singed circle of hairs on the carpet a few feet from where he slept. ‘That smell…burnt carpet…why would he burn the carpet? He’s not after my security deposit…it burnt something else there. Ugh that smell! Like burnt—pink feathers in the corner. Indentation near the door, one big one small–high-heel shoe—flattened fibers three feet from the door…someone lain there.’ A slip of paper came floating to him without his command. ‘Keep the noise down. It’s three in the morning. No signature. Cowardly attempt at a complaint….’

              “Well?”
              Caleb crumbled the paper into a tight wad. The thin piece was the only barrier keeping his nails from digging into his own hand again. “What did you do? You snuck around in my body, lured someone here, and did what?”

              Power stayed against the wall with his eyes closed. “Have you ever smelled burnt hair before?”

              Caleb whirled and childishly threw the paper towards his power, the paper making it a few inches before being caught in the aura. Power lifted its ghastly hand and clenched as if the paper were within arm’s reach, the ball bursting into a tiny, controlled flame inside the field before it completely disintegrated. “A new little trick I learned. Takes care of all the evidence so if anybody comes looking for that pretty little face of yours, it won’t be for murder. And, yes, I may have tested it on a hooker last night.”

              A loud pound resounded from the door, preventing Caleb from going haywire while he pounced towards it. He nearly ripped the door off the hinges as he swung it open, not able to keep his anger from his voice. “What?” A second of processing elapsed before his overweight landlord was identified. “Mr. Warren. How can I help you?”

              “One day in and you’re already pissing me off? Three tenants have complained about your noise and your smell. I see why, Jesus! What did you burn in there?”