Joe Average (Sample Chapters)
Prologue: Starry Sky, Scorched Earth
Gina Pradesh was skinny, wore glasses thick enough to stop bullets, and enough metal wire encased her teeth to fortify an office block, but to eleven year old Kenny Burton she was an angel on Earth.
They met when their first grade teacher, Miss Lathrop (AKA Miss Lather-Up to the more precocious), put them at adjoining desks, and they'd been best friends ever since. However, with seventh grade on the horizon, Kenny was actually starting to notice things about her that he had never noticed before. Things like how her hair smelled like cinnamon, how brown her eyes were, and the cute way her nose crinkled up when she laughed. He wasn't sure why he was starting to notice such things, but they were becoming all he could think about.
Kenny had no clue what she thought about him. Maybe she just thought of him as a friend, maybe she felt about him the way he was starting to feel about her, but the odds of that happening were thinner than she was. Kenny didn't have any illusions about himself; he knew he wasn't good looking, talented, or athletic. In the movies, fat kids like him were the comic relief and they never get the girl. Sure people often commented on how unique his purple eyes were. But when you're on the cusp of junior high unique isn't good, unique doesn't make you the leading man.
Kenny took a deep breath and heaved the cumbersome pack higher on his back. It was loaded with everything Grandma Burton figured they'd need on their little expedition. A pup tent, two sleeping bags, flashlights, extra batteries, some wooden 'strike anywhere' matches, an AM/FM radio, first-aid kit, and enough food to keep a platoon of the Russian Army going for a week.
Kenny tried to explain that they were only going to the Power-lines to watch the meteor shower, not on a quest to the farthest corners of darkest Mordor. Grandma just laughed and said in her usually clichéd style that it was best to have and not need than to need and not have.
Kenny was fully loaded to face the Rapture, and it was playing merry hell with his shoulders. At least his Grandma and Gina's aunt didn't try to join the trip as 'chaperones.' Although astronomy and camping weren't exactly Kenny's thing, he preferred spending times like these alone with Gina, rather than listening to Grandma Burton and Gina's Aunt Mohinder gossip around the campfire about the folks at the bookstore and the bakery. Kenny should have appreciated the time he had before their entrance into junior high made everything they did together suspect, but all he cared about at that moment was Gina and the weight on his back.
The Power-lines was a wide grassy gash through the heart of forest lined with the power-poles connecting Greenwood, Maine to the power plant over the county line. It was a popular spot for the local kids to play without the interference of adults. Kenny couldn't count how many times he and Gina played Star Trek there. They were always on the same side in those water-gun wars, with Kenny as a portly Kirk, and Gina a gangly Spock, putting a united front against the awesome Klingon onslaught of the Murphy twins from Crescent Street.
The Power-Lines lay less than a mile from their homes but the backpack's straps chewing into Kenny's beefy shoulders made it feel like a hundred. Gina was much better off, carrying only her telescope and tripod. How much could a couple of plastic and aluminium tubes weigh?
Kenny considered carrying the telescope kit as well, but Gina refused his offer after seeing how Grandma Burton made him into a one-man pack train. She said that even his good manners had to have a limit, he wasn't Superman after all.
"Isn't the sky beautiful tonight?" asked Gina, looking up at the deep red of the setting sun.
"Yeah," answered Kenny, not really noticing the colour of the sky. "Where do you want the gear?"
"This is a good spot," she answered, much to Kenny's relief. "I can use that big flat rock for the telescope."
Ken slid his burden off, stretched his aching back, and rubbed his shoulders, who were barking mad at him for putting them through the ordeal. The summer humidity made his black hair hang limp on his head and he could feel his first zit forming on his forehead, like a third eye that didn't need glasses.
Gina had no such problems, her light brown skin was blemish free, and she kept her waist length hair in a tightly woven braid that ran down her back. With a hop and a skip, she vaulted onto the top of the flat rock that was to be her makeshift observatory.
After a few snaps, clicks, one pinched finger, and a few curses, the tent was up. Kenny stood up, his hands on his hips like the classic hero triumphant and said: "The master camper has assembled our fortress."
"Great," said Gina as she carefully aimed her telescope upward. "Come on up, the meteors will be visible any minute."
The last rays of the sun crept below the horizon and Kenny made sure to take the big flashlight as her clambered up the rock to sit next to Gina.
"Look up there," exclaimed Gina; she didn't even need her telescope to see them, streaks of light rocketed across the sky. The sight was so amazing it shortly distracted Kenny from noticing for the hundredth time that Gina was still using the shampoo that smelled like cinnamon.
"Oh my god," he muttered. The sky above them suddenly formed into a parade of fire. The light was so bright, that he didn't even need to turn on the flashlight.
They seemed so close he could almost touch them.
So close...
One meteor, then another and another grew larger in the sky. Kenny didn't need to be a science whiz like Gina to realise something.
"Gina!" yelled Kenny as he leapt to his feet. Gina felt Kenny's hand shove her off the big rock, for a second she was falling, and then she hit the soft grassy earth.
"Kenny," she yelled, spitting out a mouthful of grass. This wasn't his kind of stunt. "What the hell-"
BOOM!
The air above her burst into flame as a meteor struck the opposite side of the big rock. The wails of incoming meteors and the roar of earth and rock torn asunder buried Gina's scream. Instinct took over and Gina curled up into a ball and tried to squeeze as tightly behind the big rock as possible.
BOOM!
Another meteor struck with a thunderous roar, sending dirt, fire, and smoke flying. Kenny lay flat on the big rock. The first impact knocked the wind out of him and left Kenny unable to move anything but his eyes. His lungs screamed for air, but brown dirt, black smoke, and a strange green dust choked him.
Although his glasses now lay in pieces around him, Kenny could see everything. The chaos and destruction took on a strange slow motion effect, like a ballet done under water. He saw a third meteor cut through the high-tension wire, sending a cascade of sparks down on him. He could see each individual spark and that over half of them were a strange emerald green.
Kenny saw the broken wire and the meteor locked to each other in an embrace of green fire and sparks. Kenny's last thought before the cable hit him was what the hell was making the fire turn green.
Another deafening boom filled the air and Gina felt the large boulder beside her split down the middle in a puff of green sparks, smoke, and scorched granite dust.
"Kenny!" she screamed into the thunderous tumult.
Several more explosions made the earth beneath her shake and a shower of dirt and stones come down on her like rain. Then everything fell silent.
"Kenny, are you all right?" she asked, her voice weak, fearing the answer. "Kenny?"
A hand hung limp over the side of the split rock. It was a chubby hand with an A-Team digital watch on its wrist; the watch's face was cracked and broken.
"Kenny!" she screamed as she scrambled back onto the rock. She didn't think about her singed and dishevelled hair, all clotted with dirt, nor did she care about the burnt and pitted hell that surrounded them. All she cared about was her friend, and that he might be dead.
Kenny lay on the rock like a failed sacrifice on a broken altar. His glasses were in pieces around his head like a rough halo, and the cataclysm scorched his Darth Vader T-shirt into tatters and ashes. A burn, covered with a faintly glowing green dust, crossed his chest like a whiplash.
Gina grabbed his wrist. He still had a pulse, so she still had hope.
"You're going to be all right Kenny," she pleaded into his ear, getting no response. Then she screamed for help with a volume that belied her thin frame, a volume loud enough to wake the dead.
Chapter 1
Ken Burton lifted his glasses, rubbed his purple eyes, and looked again at the newspaper. It was September 10th, two months to the day after the nineteenth anniversary of the meteor shower. The only commemoration of that event was that he and Gina called in sick, and played tourist for the rest of the day at Coney Island.
Today, like any typical day, was not the sort of day that called for commemoration. He had spent it cooped up in the Prudential Building listening to a consultant drone on and on about things Ken had talked about at the office for ages. Corporate logic dictated that the company shouldn't listen to someone they already pay for ideas when they can blow thousands more on outside consultants who possessed all the charm and wit of an uncooked turnip wrapped in sandpaper.
But that's the way the cookie crumbles, one day you're a carefree kid walking in the woods with your best friend in the whole wide world. Next thing you know, you're stuck in a live-action Dilbert cartoon and hoping that some caffeine will give you the energy to get some sleep.
Ken was at the end of the line in one of those mega-chain coffee shops that had spread through the city more virulently than syphilis in a bordello. The shop's staff was somehow managing to do their jobs without letting the line move a step. It was an incredible violation of the laws of physics and customer service, and they did it with wide toothy smiles that held all the sincerity of a ventriloquist's dummy.
Ken Burton had changed little in appearance since the night the meteors hit. He was quite a bit taller to start with, but his hair was still black and kept short; and he still wore the same black framed glasses. Although he could be no longer be called a 'fat kid' you could use the words 'husky adult' to describe him. He wasn't a handsome man, but he wasn't ugly either, dwelling somewhere in the vast realm of aesthetic mediocrity. If it weren't for his distinctive purple eyes, people would have a hard time describing him in anything but the vaguest terms.
Outside, Manhattan Island was wrapping up for the day, and the streets were crowded with people eager to return to the warm bosom of suburbia.
Ken had his back to the window, his patience with the immobile line and grimacing staff was growing thin. He didn't see the tall skinny man with the shaved head and the AK-47 emerge from the bank across the street.
Ken felt the bullet though.
A sharp stinging sensation hit his back, at the exact nanosecond his keen ears heard the plate glass window break.
Ken spun around with a speed that made time seem to stop. He saw the bullet that struck him, hanging in mid fall, crushed and distorted from the impact. Broken glass also slowed in its fall to an imperceptible creep.
Six more bullets crawled through the air towards the coffee shop, leaving wakes of distorted air behind them.
Ken leapt from the line and snatched the bullets out of the air. Touching them stung his hands, but that was nothing compared to what they'd do to somebody normal.
Gary Wayne Dogget was six foot four, whiplash thin, with a shaved head covered in tattoos declaring his fealty to the Glorious and Pure Aryan Nation. Being so easily identifiable made his chosen career in crime a tricky business resulting in over seventy-percent of his adult life spent seeing the sky filtered through steel bars.
But Gary didn't care about that now. He and his buddies had just scored at least a hundred grand and now he was going to have fun with this mongrel city, starting with the coffee shop across the street.
His first burst shattered the glass and hit some fat guy in a black coat. Gary hooted in ecstasy at the chaos and death he was dealing like a god of Valhalla made flesh. Then a gust of wind blew, and that stocky guy from the window suddenly appeared in front of him.
The stocky guy looked mad.
"All I wanted was a cup of simple goddamn coffee with a pretentious name," said the stocky guy holding out his hand. Lying in his palm was Gary's entire first burst, flattened, and crushed. "Instead I get a bunch of these. Which I believe are yours."
"What the fuck?" snarled Gary. Just who did this chubby sumbitch think he was? Gary Wayne Dogget was going to have to teach this suit a lesson in Aryan superiority. He aimed his AK-47 at the dork's chest, and opened fire.
Bullets belched from Gary's rifle. All hit their mark, but instead of tearing the fat bastard to pieces or sending him flying like a villain in an action movie, he just stood there without a hair out of place.
Flattened metal mushrooms bounced off the man in the grey suit and the black coat and clattered on the sidewalk.
Just then, Gary's old prison buddy Stubby Bennett came out of the bank in time to catch his partner's amazement. Not knowing the full story, never knowing the full story really; Stubby aimed his MP-5 submachine gun and cut loose.
More flattened bullets littered the pavement.
"Are you two done yet?" asked the freak with the glasses. Not a hair was out of place, and his grey suit was untouched by the onslaught.
"This can't be happening!" blurted out Stubby.
"I'll kill-" Gary didn't have a chance to finish his sentence. He had barely felt the gust of wind before the stocky guy was on him and crushing his AK-47 like tinfoil.
A light push from the stranger sent Gary Wayne Dogget flying hard into the bank's brick wall. The wind gushed out of Gary and he collapsed to the sidewalk, his head spinning, and his limbs possessing all the strength of broken rubber bands.
The next thing Stubby felt was a gust of wind, then his MP-5 flew from his hands, split down the middle, spilling parts, and bullets. A face that he could only describe vaguely at best appeared just inches from his own.
"Why can't you kids play nice," said the man with the glasses and what looked like purple eyes.
Stubby went airborne, hit the metal light pole with a tinny clang, and collapsed unconscious to the sidewalk.
Throughout all this, their third associate, another prime specimen of the Glorious and Pure Aryan Nation named Lenny Carlson, sat in their getaway car watching the whole insane circus.
Once Stubby's fate sunk into Lenny's shaven skull he slapped the old sedan into gear and put the pedal to the floor. That fat bastard was going to pay. Whatever body-armour he was wearing it wasn't going to save him from a couple of tons of premium American steel.
"Die motherfu-" screamed Lenny. He wasn't able to finish the thought before the entire front end of his premium American steel death machine collapsed inward like a cheap tent.
If Lenny was wearing his seatbelt he would have avoided crashing through the windshield and landing headfirst on his car's now crumpled hood. But Lenny wasn't one for following The Man's Rules even if their purpose was to keep him from getting a concussion, broken ribs, and multiple lacerations.
Ken Burton stood for a half second with the wrecked car wrapped around his thick waist. With the robbers out of commission people started to slowly raise their heads.
People are looking at me, thought Ken, panic gripping him like an icy claw.
They stared in awed silence at the scene. Panic's icy grip tightened. People were staring, staring at him. His cover was blown.
With little effort, Ken Burton extricated himself from the wrecked sedan. An onlooker took out a cell-phone with a built in camera, intent on capturing this moment and Ken's face for posterity. Others started following suit. Within seconds this was going to be the most photographed car wreck since Princess Diana.
In for a penny, Ken thought, in for a pound.
Then he took off, straight into the air, trailing little scraps of car behind him.
#
Anne Yamato was determined to prove to the world that she was more than just a pretty talking head reading the teleprompter. She was a real journalist with an Ivy League degree to prove it. But her two years with Channel 8 Action News were spent covering dog shows and filling in for Sunny the Weather-Watcher (she used to be the Weather-Girl, but that wasn't 'PC' anymore) when Sunny needed a fresh face-load of botox.
Anne wanted something she couldn't find at the kennel club or pointing at cartoon clouds on a map of the Tri-State area. She wanted respect as a journalist, and now was her chance to get it.
Anne carefully pulled a lock of her hair just slightly out of place. It gave her the appearance of urgency without sacrificing her air of professional competence.
Bernie, her one-man camera crew, plugged her headset directly into his camera and the transmitter that would beam her report directly to the Channel 8 studios. She could have used the News-Chopper's state of the art sound system, but the tinny sound of the headset's microphone was much more dramatic.
"We're almost there," said Virgil, the News-Chopper's pilot, he was a Desert Storm vet, and trained to fly Blackhawk choppers under fire. Anne hoped his nerves were steely enough to get in close enough for Bernie to get the shots they needed.
"You're on," said Bernie, "in five, four, three, two-"
"This is Anne Yamato," she said gravely, looking directly into the camera's glassy eye. "Coming to you live from the Channel 8 News Chopper. Shots have been fired in Midtown Manhattan, and we are told that there is a bank robbery in progress-"
Whoosh!
The whole helicopter shuddered and rocked as a dark shape rocketed past.
"What was that?" asked Anne.
Bernie aimed his camera. "It's not a missile," he said, then he paused, his unshaven jaw almost hitting the floor. "It looks like..." his voice trailed off.
"Like what?" asked Anne.
"Like a fat guy."
"What?" Then Bernie turned on the external camera's monitor. It did look like a heavyset man flying without the benefit of a Channel 8 News-Chopper.
"After him," Anne ordered Virgil. The chopper banked into a sharp turn and lined up the rapidly shrinking figure. "Keep the camera on him," she ordered Bernie. She then clicked the button for a private conversation with the Channel 8 news-control centre.
"Harvey," she said, "are you getting this?"
"Yes," answered Harvey Krantz, the Channel 8 news director. "Is this some kind of joke?"
"I don't think so," replied Anne. "Keep us live. We're going after him."
#
Ken looked over his shoulder. There was a white and blue helicopter on his tail.
Damn it, he thought. This whole day was turning into his ultimate worst case scenario. Things had gone too far. He was in danger of being exposed and spending the rest of his life somewhere in Nevada as a hopped up lab rat. That was not an option for Ken Burton.
Ken cursed and tried to calm down. They hadn't locked him up yet and that white and blue helicopter couldn't go some of the places Ken could. Ken dived deeper between the skyscrapers and hoped the pilot wasn't crazy enough to follow.
He was wrong.
#
"And furthermore," said Alan Smythe from his brand new senior vice-president's desk as his eyes wandered along the nicely shaped calf of Debra, his new secretary, "this problem is the purview of the product distributor, and not our-"
The broad window of his new corner office shuddered as a vaguely man-shaped object rocketed past.
"What the hell was that?"
The whole room shuddered next as a white and blue helicopter shot past in hot pursuit. If this sort of thing kept up, then maybe corner offices weren't as great as they said.
#
Ken glanced over his shoulder. The chopper still clung to his trail like stink on old cheese. Seeing no reason to further endanger the lives on the chopper, he shot for the open sky. Virgil let out a mad hoot, pulled back the stick, and kept up the chase.
Ken saw the distinctive spire of the Chrysler building a half-mile ahead. If he played his cards right he could make it.
#
"Can you get a better picture?" asked Anne.
"It's zoomed in as far as it'll go," answered the cameraman. All their high-tech gear and they still couldn't get a clear look at the strange figure flying above the city. Reports were coming in that he had stopped the robbery she was originally going to cover. There were also crazy stories about him taking bullet hits without even flinching and crushing a speeding car with his bare hands.
It was all crazy talk, but it had the makings of a great story, maybe even a local Emmy, if she could just get a shot of his damn face.
"He's gone," said Bernie, the monitor showed only the approaching Chrysler Building. "He put on a burst of speed and went poof."
"Poof?" asked Anne.
"He disappeared," said Virgil, piping in his two cents. "This guy went faster than a frigging rocket."
"Did you get all this Channel 8?" asked Anne. The director back at the station told her she on live. Faced with an audience of possibly millions, Anne thought on her feet. "This has been an incredible sight, we've got what appears to be a man flying, apparently unaided, over the skies of Manhattan. He's vanished just as quickly as he appeared. Where he's gone is anyone's guess."
#
Sandra Kettle, a junior intern with a firm of architects, came out of the copy room counting still warm sheets of paper, only to freeze dead in her tracks. A stocky man in a grey suit was climbing in through the window, a good fifty stories up.
"Hi," said the man, seeming embarrassed as he shut the window behind him. "It's-uh-it's the only place I can smoke."
"They must be very strict here," answered Sandra.
"You better believe it," answered the man as he straightened his windblown tie. "I've been thinking of quitting, it's too much of a hassle."
"That's a good idea," said Sandra. A sudden gust of wind caused her newly copied reports to fly from her hands. The man from the window was gone.
"I've got to cut down on the caffeine," muttered Sandra to herself.
#
The past nineteen years had been good to Gina Pradesh. Her once stick-thin figure had blossomed into being both shapely and slender. She still wore her waist-length hair in her trademark braid, but her glasses no longer needed to be so thick and heavy, and the braces that had encased her teeth for most of her childhood were long gone; leaving her with a straight and stunning smile. Gina had no idea how beautiful she was, and remained oblivious to the admiring and sometimes covetous stares of co-workers, colleagues, and casual passers-by. When she looked in the mirror, the skinny, angular kid still stared back at her through bottle-bottom glasses.
Gina sat in her Brooklyn apartment, dressed in her most comfortable MIT sweats, and watched the news that had dominated TV and radio all day.
Anne Yamato was telling her story and showing her incredible footage to a stunned nation courtesy of a live link with CNN.
"In my career," she declared in all earnestness to the CNN anchor, "I've covered wars, crimes and devastating disasters, but I've never seen anything like this."
"I have to admit that it's pretty unbelievable footage," added the CNN anchor, an affable talking head with a subtle southern accent. "This average looking man in a grey suit was apparently deflecting bullets, smashing cars and defying gravity."
"You should try seeing it in person," added Anne with a smile and a laugh. "I thought somebody had fired a missile or something like that. Then he shows up on our monitor and I thought somebody was pulling some elaborate practical joke, but the testimony of the eyewitnesses corroborate-"
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Gina looked up. Clinging to her skylight was a man back-lit by the moon. Since she was ten-stories up there was only one person it could be.
Gina waved to the shadow, the shadow waved back, and she reached kept behind her couch for a long pole tipped with a small metal hook. One quick poke of the latch and the skylight was open.
Ken Burton squeezed in and glided softly down before collapsing on the couch. His wrinkled suit and mussed hair would make anyone who didn't know his story think that Ken had just survived a near fatal accident.
"Have you seen the news?" asked Ken, his voice a barely audible moan.
"Yes," answered Gina. "You've been on every channel all night."
Ken moaned. "This is a nightmare," he said. "I couldn't go home because the place is probably crawling with god knows who."
"Relax," said Gina, her smile revealing her perfected teeth. "All they have is a picture of your backside over Manhattan."
"Really?" asked Ken, his voice brightened slightly, "but what about the eyewitnesses? The street was full of people, with cameras."
"The best description they can get is of a man in a grey suit," answered Gina. "Your secret's safe."
"You figured out who it was."
"I have an advantage," replied Gina. "I actually know a bullet-proof flying guy who wears grey suits. So, I could make an educated guess."
"You don't know any other bullet-proof flying guys?" asked Ken with a mockingly arched eyebrow.
Gina whacked him with a pillow and laughed. Ken joined in, mostly out of relief than any real humour.
"That was so damn close," he muttered as he yanked off his tie. "I came this close to ending up in a lab."
"Don't be silly," said Gina. "You're bullet-proof, can fly, and can probably bench press a fully loaded bus. Who on Earth is dumb enough to try to lock you up?"
"I'd rather not risk that kind of confrontation."
"Besides," continued Gina. "It's not like I haven't run you through the wringer enough times. All I have to do is give them my notes."
Ken chuckled at the memories of all those silly tests and winced slightly.
"You're hurt?" this surprised Gina.
"The robber was using an armour piercing assault rifle," answered Ken. "It's nothing serious, just a lot of those annoying little bruises. During the whole thing, I made a point not to flinch. Guess, I didn't want to look--I don't know-- un-macho."
"Un-macho isn't a word, now open your shirt," ordered Gina. "I'll get my taser."
Ken knew better than to argue and opened his wrinkled white shirt. The diagonal scar left by the night of the meteors was now just a narrow ridge of raised and mottled flesh. Small bruises left behind by normally lethal bullets surrounded it in a random formation.
"You poor dear," said Gina as she crouched beside Ken and activated her taser. A small electrical arc formed at the head as she poked the centre of his chest with it.
Ken giggled, ever since the meteors he found normally debilitating electrical shocks both ticklish and helpful. The bruises faded away and in seconds his chest everything healed, except for that one scar that refused to go away.
"All better," said Gina, putting her taser away. "It's kind of funny, if it wasn't for that meteorite both you and a lot innocent people would be dead. What kind of maniacs open fire on a crowded street?"
"What kind of maniac tries to rob a bank in Manhattan at rush hour?" asked Ken. "These guys were not only crazy, they were thicker than two bricks."
"The TV says that they're wanted in three states for murder," continued Gina getting back on the couch. "Everybody's calling you a hero."
"Pull the other leg it whistles Dixie."
"I'm serious," Gina hit him with the pillow again. "It's all over town. You saved lives and nabbed the bad guys, which makes it official."
"It can't be," said Ken. "I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time."
"The opposite is true," said Gina. "You were the right person in the right place at the right time. If it were anyone else a lot of people would be dead."
"It's just that," Ken's voice tapered off. "It's just that I've kept this secret for so long."
"We can still keep it secret," said Gina. "I've been thinking about this for a long time. You can wear a disguise and have a secret identity. You can be a real life superhero."
Ken laughed.
"I don't know what you're huffing at the lab Gina, but I'm not a superhero," he answered. "This isn't a comic book or some cheesy movie. This is real life."
"Come on yourself," snapped Gina with another flick of the pillow. "This isn't the first time. Do you remember the fire at the Arbuckle house, that car accident in college, and all the other times you saved the day on the sly? I say seize your destiny. You've already got more experience than anyone else and I know you've got the powers to back it up. You're already a superhero, you just won't admit it."
"Okay," said Ken. "Maybe I am a 'superhero,' but no one's going to want to see me in tights. I'll have people trapped in burning buildings saying: 'No thank you, I'll wait for the next one please.'"
"You don't have to wear tights," said Gina. "I've got some ideas and none of them involve tights."
"At least you haven't completely lost your senses," said Ken. "Look, you're probably right, but I still can't accept this. Despite all that's happened, I still feel ordinary. Does that make any sense?"
Gina leaned over and hugged Ken. An electric current more unsettling than any taser filled his chest. Her hair still smelled of cinnamon.
"Yes, it does," answered Gina, "but you have a gift and I think the world needs you."
"Even if it's crazy?" asked Ken.
"Especially when it's crazy, a real-life superhero will give people some hope that not everything is out of whack," said Gina, letting him go, much to Ken's regret. "At least think about it."
Ken got up from the couch and buttoned his shirt. "I will."
"That's all I want."
"Gina," said Ken. All this talk of seizing destinies had inspired a crazy old notion in his head.
"Yeah?"
"I'll call you," he said before leaving, this time through the door.
Outside, Ken could see the lights of Manhattan from across the moonlit river, and cursed himself for being a tool.
#
"I feel like a tool," said Lieutenant General Alfred Hopper, as he looked at himself in the mirror.
"I think you look sharp," said his wife Miriam, admiring the cut of the dark blue suit he only wore under duress.
"This is asinine," said Hopper, adjusting his dark green tie. "I'm the chairman of the goddamn Joint Chiefs, I earned the right to wear my goddamn uniform in the goddamn Oval Office." A statement that earned him a disapproving tut-tut from his wife.
The General's lean and fit physical condition belied the fact that he was almost sixty and close to retirement. He wanted to end his military career doing his part to protect his country, but he wanted to do it in uniform, not in a monkey suit, playing courtier to some uppity cracker hillbilly from Georgia.
"The first lady doesn't like uniforms in the White House," said Miriam.
"It's an insult," he said as he picked up his briefcase, "not just to me, but to everyone who ever served this country. Besides, she shouldn't even be at this meeting. The First Lady has duties of her own and they don't involve national security."
"Just don't say that in front of Munsen," said Miriam. "I'd rather not see you running a weather station in Alaska."
"Don't get me started on Munsen," grumbled Hopper remembering that while the General was off earning his right to wear his uniform in the goddamn Oval Office, the current Commander in Chief was hitting on hairy legged hippie chicks in a pot-induced haze.
Hopper kissed his wife goodbye. "This could run late," he said.
"I've seen the news too," she answered. "You've got a lot on your plate. Now go, you don't want to keep the President waiting."
#
General Hopper, Admiral Sheen, Air Force General Kurtz, FBI Director Carter Snodgrass and even CIA Director Evan Lowell were kept waiting in the Oval Office for over half an hour.
The military men were all dressed in the nearly identical dark suits that Evan Lowell called their Beltway Camo. Each one wore a different coloured tie, Hopper, the soldier, wore dark green, Admiral Sheen wore distinctive battleship grey, and former fighter pilot Kurtz wore a bright sky blue. It started out as a joke when the First Lady first laid down her no-uniforms rule and Sheen suggested different coloured ties to tell each other apart. In the three years since he first cracked that little jest, it had become not just a little rebellion, but also an administrative necessity.
It wasn't too long after his swearing in and the beginning of the no uniforms rule that they noticed Munsen taking long pauses whenever he had to mention one of them by name. The President of the United States honestly had a hard time sorting them out.
Normally, they held such meetings in the secure National Security Council room below the West Wing. But to do that required the presence of the National Security Advisor, and she was persona non grata since making an ill-advised comment on Munsen's private life at a press conference. Her replacement hadn't taken office yet, because he was busy wrapping up things at his law-firm in Beverly Hills.
A sure sign that this was an emergency was the presence of Evan Lowell. He wasn't officially persona non grata, but he wasn't exactly a welcome sight in the Oval Office. Munsen had cancelled the traditional morning briefing from the CIA Director for fear it might tell him something he might have to act on. Munsen's unwillingness to see his own DCI became yet another topic of mockery among the folks in Washington. When an escaped mental patient drove his old Impala into the gates of the White House, folks would joke that it had to have been Lowell trying to get an appointment.
They didn't dare fire Lowell; Munsen's predecessor had lured him out of retirement and he then single-handedly rebuilt the CIA from scratch after a series of embarrassing leaks, scandals, and blunders. Even Munsen's most partisan advisors believed that it was better to keep a fellow as sharp as Evan Lowell in the tent pissing out, than in the tent, pissing in.
The door opened and a stern looking Secret Service Agent came in. "The President of the United States," he announced and they, civilian and military alike, snapped to attention.
President John Munsen was a handsome fellow, with a square jaw, soft blue eyes, and matched streaks of grey just above his temples. Scuttlebutt was that a hair-dresser, imported from Beverly Hills, touched them up each morning to keep him looking distinguished without looking old. He was dressed in a black housecoat with the presidential seal on its breast and matching black pyjamas.
His wife Vanessa Faraday Munsen was fully dressed for a power-lunch at Spago's in a dark red jacket and matching slacks.
"Please sit down," said President Munsen. His visitors returned to their places, while he sat at his desk and Vanessa took her usual perch in a wingback chair beside it.
Snodgrass was the first to speak.
"Mr. President, did you see the news today?"
"When was he supposed to do that?" asked Vanessa Munsen, her blue eyes jabbing him like a pair of sharpened icicles. "The President has had a very busy day. He had to go right from Andrews Air Force base to a very important function."
Yeah, thought Hopper, another goddamn fundraiser. He held so many of them since he took office the joke around town was that you couldn't leave home without signing a check to Munsen's party. Sadly, it was necessary considering his party had pay so many fines for violating campaign finance laws during the last election.
"We normally wouldn't disturb you," said the Air Force chief Kurtz, "but this is a very urgent situation."
"What, short of war, is so urgent that it couldn't wait until morning?" said Vanessa, her tone chilly enough to freeze mercury.
"That's okay," said Munsen. "I couldn't sleep anyway. What's up?"
Snodgrass hit the play button on the office's VCR.
"This was broadcast live in New York this evening," said Snodgrass. "It was also picked up by the wire services and all the major networks."
Munsen and his wife leaned forward to get a better look. Hopper smiled inside to see the look of shock come across their normally unflappable faces.
"Did you drag us out here for some kind of joke?" asked Vanessa.
"This is pretty unbelievable," added her husband. "It looks like a guy flying like Superman."
"Like I said," reiterated Snodgrass, "it was broadcast live in New York. There were also over a hundred witnesses to this same man stopping a violent robbery by," Snodgrass consulted his notes, "and I quote, 'beating the snot' out of the shooters and their car before he flew away. He was pursued by the TV news chopper that shot this footage, but he was lost somewhere around the Chrysler building."
"This is nuts," Munsen's smooth southern drawl always got more pronounced when he was surprised or upset. Hopper's money was on a little of both tonight.
"What are the details?" asked the First Lady.
"They're straightforward," answered Snodgrass, "at least as straightforward as this situation can be. A white male, average height, stocky build, with dark hair and a grey suit got in the way of a robbery in progress. The robbers-"
"Alleged robbers," corrected Vanessa, "no one's been convicted yet."
"What do you mean by 'stocky?'" asked Munsen.
"Fat," answered Admiral Sheen. "Chubby, zaftig-"
"Can a man be zaftig?" asked Kurtz, "I thought only women can-?"
"Can we get back on topic?" asked Vanessa Munsen, her patience thinner than a razor's edge.
"The alleged robbers," continued Snodgrass "had allegedly opened fire with an assault rifle. They had allegedly shot the fat man in question multiple times with said assault rifle and an additional submachine gun. The bullets bounced off the fat man, as I mentioned earlier, without piercing him or his clothing. He knocked two of them out with single blows, and that's when the getaway driver rammed him."
"Let me guess," said President Munsen, a man who had seen a lot of movies. "The car didn't hurt him."
"It folded up faster than the French army," added Sheen, earning an icy glare from Vanessa, but he was overdue for retirement and didn't give a damn.
"The car is in the NYPD forensics lab," added Snodgrass. "It looks like it hit a concrete pylon at full speed. We also obtained these from the NYPD." Snodgrass reached into his case and pulled out a large clear evidence bag filled with crushed and mangled bullets.
"Are those for real?" asked the President peering closely at the bag.
"They're real Mr. President," answered Snodgrass. "The only way bullets like these can get this mangled is if they hit the armour of an Abrams tank."
Hopper nodded. "I have to agree with Director Snodgrass on that."
"I don't fucking believe this," muttered Munsen. "This is like something out of a-"
"Comic book sir?" asked Kurtz.
"That's right," said the President, his drawl at full throttle now. "A goddamn old funny book I'd use to get from the drugstore. Bullet-proof people don't go flying around our major cities. It's all nuts."
Just then, Lowell decided to enter the conversation with his deep stentorian voice.
"We can be thankful for one thing Mr. President."
"For what?" asked Vanessa Faraday Munsen.
"That he was stopping the robbery," said the CIA Director, "and not committing it."
The Oval Office fell silent. Hopper was always amazed at the old bastard's ability to stun everybody with what should be bloody obvious. He had thinning white hair and a bookish air that belied the fact that during the most frigid days of the Cold War he was a top field operative with seven dead spies, traitors, and terrorists under his belt that they knew about. He only spoke when he absolutely had to, and when he did; it was usually a bombshell.
"I think he's using some kind of high tech device to do all this or at least look like he's doing it," theorised Vanessa. "It has to be something pretty advanced and top secret." Vanessa cast an icy glance in the direction of her visitors from the Pentagon.
Hopper shrugged. "The Army doesn't have anything like that on our drawing boards, let alone lying around for any fat guy to pick up a play hero with. Our R & D guys are still playing catch-up with the Bond movies."
The other officers nodded in agreement.
"There is one person," said Lowell, "who, if it is possible to build such technology, could pull it off."
Again, all eyes were on the CIA Director.
"Who?" asked President Munsen.
Lowell took a sip of ice water. Hopper admired the old bastard's ability to milk his moment. "I'm not accusing anyone of anything," continued Lowell. "But Hamilton Trask's technological resources outstrips even the US government."
A hush fell across the room. The generals and the G-man were amazed that Lowell had the stones to even bring up the subject of Hamilton Trask. The President and Mrs. Munsen were honestly at a loss.
Vanessa Munsen broke the silence. "Who is Hamilton Trask? I've never heard of him."
"Very few have," answered Lowell. "He doesn't attend celebrity campaign fundraisers."
Burn!
Hopper smiled to himself and figured that Lowell must have a balls made from stainless steel and Kevlar. No one else would even dare make such a statement.
Snodgrass jumped in, hoping the break the icy wall between the First Lady and the CIA Director. "He avoids all public events and media attention."
"What does he do?" asked President Munsen, forcing his accent back down to its calm drawl.
"Everything," answered the FBI Director. "Just about every major technological or business advance has got his fingerprints on it, even though you're not supposed to know it."
"His people also do a lot of defence contracting," added Admiral Sheen. "Usually consulting on fixing or upgrading other company's projects. When his people are involved there's never any scandals or unnecessary cost overruns."
Kurtz and Hopper nodded in agreement. Then Hopper said: "His people fixed a problem with our tank's targeting system. Not only did he fix it, it worked above and beyond the original specs."
"His people also fixed the Bureau's database last year," said Snodgrass. "We haven't had a bug or a problem since, but Trask is the Bigfoot of the high-tech world. There's more myth about him than fact."
Evan Lowell pulled out a thin manila folder. "There's a reason for that," he said. "During World War Two, Trask was put in change of co-ordinating British, Canadian, and American intelligence operations against the Axis. First thing he did was expunge all information about himself from the public record. This is all that's left."
Lowell placed the file on the President's desk. Munsen paused and looked at the plain beige folder for a second before opening it. When he did open it, only three items were inside. There was, encased in plastic, an eighteen-ninety-seven birth announcement from the Halifax, Nova Scotia Chronicle, another encased clipping announced the nineteen twenty-six marriage of an wealthy inventor to a Boston socialite named Betty Markham. The third item was an eight by ten black and white photograph. It showed a wiry man in his sixties shaking hands with a much younger version of Evan Lowell. True, Lowell had more hair in the photo and fewer wrinkles, but you couldn't miss the focus in his eyes, as sharp as rifle sights. The wiry man next to young Lowell was completely unremarkable, with his sad hooded eyes and pale almost ghostly complexion. If it wasn't for the novelty of seeing a young Evan Lowell anyone looking at the photo would be hard pressed for anything interesting.
Munsen paused. "Are you telling me," he asked, his inner hillbilly crawling back up, "that this might be the work of a man who is well over a hundred years old?"
"I met him once," answered Lowell as he carefully scooped up the file, "when I accompanied my father to a dinner for former OSS agents. Trask was the keynote speaker. It was his last public appearance, but he was, how should I say it? Impressive. Although we only talked briefly, I realised that this was the smartest man I would ever meet. Like I said, if it can be done, Hamilton Trask would figure out how first."
"How do you even know he's still alive?" snapped Vanessa Munsen, she could smell a plot to politically embarrass her husband. One of many floating around thanks to John's penchant for girls with big hair and even bigger mouths.
"You could ask him yourself," said General Hopper. "There's a contact number on file. He doesn't like anyone to know where he is, but he doesn't like to be out of touch."
"It's for emergency use only," added Snodgrass, "but I think this flying man can be considered an emergency."
"Of course," said Lowell as he carefully placed his precious file back into his briefcase. "There is another possibility."
"What's that?" asked Munsen.
"That some Joe Blow from New York really is the new Superman."
Munsen reached for his secured telephone and hoped no one noticed the slight tremble in his hand.
"Jenny," the President asked his secretary, "I need the number for a Mr. Hamilton Trask, please."
#
Sailors who plied the oceans sometimes spoke in hushed tones among themselves about the mysterious black ship. It was a massive vessel, seen only in the most remote reaches, far from the major shipping routes. The stories always described glimpsing it in the distance before it vanished like a ghost into the mist.
The old salts said it was a trick of the light and anything else was pure bunk. The more paranoid said that it's a secret government spy ship scouring the seas for UFOs, others claim that it's a modern day version of the Flying Dutchman. It had to be a ghost-ship, because anything else would appear on radar. Most dismissed those stories as pointless babble by sailors with too much time on their hands.
All their theories were wrong, but the ship did exist. The builders originally intended it for a fleet of luxury liners, ferrying wealthy passengers to exotic ports of call. That was until the president of the cruise line and the CEO of the shipyard got a special visitor with sad hooded eyes and an intensity that belied his elderly frame. They quickly decided after a review of the contents of the visitor's briefcase to let him have the ship instead.
Of course, the vessel's new owner didn't just take it as is. For six months his own people controlled the shipyard in Denmark, granting paid vacations for anyone not in on the plan. The visitor's specially imported workers were an odd bunch, they spoke a complex tongue no one, except the visitor, seemed able to understand or even identify. They were handsome exotic figures, with long aquiline noses, spidery tattoos adorning their temples, and straight, jet-black hair.
One day, after watching them completely gut and reconstruct the ship for over a month the CEO's secretary approached him with a book. Her son was studying anthropology and she had brought his textbook on South American natives to show him something. It was an old black and white photo of several tribesmen and a thin man with pale ghostly skin and sad hooded eyes standing on the banks of the Amazon. The natives were handsome men with long aquiline noses, straight jet-black hair, and distinctive spidery tattoos adorning their temples.
The CEO had figured that his secretary had solved the riddle of these mysterious workers. They were from South America, nothing strange about that. But the riddle only deepened when the secretary pointed out that a disease outbreak in the nineteen fifties supposedly wiped out this tribe.
The CEO decided not to ask any questions about their elderly visitor and his people. The visitor's money was real and that's all that really mattered to his stockholders.
Very soon the ship, it's hull coated in a glossy black substance the visitor refused to elaborate on, slipped out of dry-dock and into the ocean. The CEO and his client never saw the ship or their visitor again, and that was fine by them.
Now, ten years later, that same vessel cruised through the waves as the sun rose over the Pacific.
Deep within the bowels of the vessel a lone figure sat in an elaborate mechanised wheelchair and studied a wall of TV monitors through sad hooded eyes and thick glasses.
He was an old man; even he would admit that he was ancient by anyone's standards. A withered version of a once larger man, with his ghostly complexion, sunken cheeks and near skeletal hands on the control pads. However, his eyes still radiated the impressive intelligence that operated behind those immense lenses.
Right now, those lenses focused on the banks of monitors surrounding him. Each screen showed the same footage with different pundits offering different commentary, in different languages. The Babel of voices would have overwhelmed any other listener, but not Hamilton Trask. Even as a boy, he could simultaneously distinguish and understand the individual conversations of a crowd of chattering people, or pick out that the second chair violin in a hundred piece orchestra was a little flat on one note.
Besides, it was the image of a stocky man in a grey suit flying free as a bird that held his interest. He keenly reviewed every frame, and knew that something very important was afoot.
The door behind him slid open with a low hiss. Trask didn't need to turn around to know who it was.
"What is it, Ms. Brady?" asked Trask, never taking his eyes off the monitors.
Ms. Brady, a tall woman with blood-red hair, and the trim figure of a natural athlete answered: "President Munsen is on line five."
Trask smirked to himself. So, he thought, the President of the United States has deemed to call little old me.
"Tell him I'll call him back," answered Trask.
#
Ken Burton stood in front of the bathroom mirror and looked at himself. Sure, he thought, he was a bit on the doughy side, okay, maybe a little more than a bit, but he wasn't without his charms. Other women had found him attractive, a few at least. Most of his dates in college were exchange students from countries where any man with all his original teeth was a prime catch. Lately it had been several women rebounding from better-looking men, who figured that a dip below their normal standards would make them feel better.
Stop thinking like that, Ken thought to himself, that kind of thinking isn't going to win Gina. I have a lot to offer. I just have to sell her on the idea.
"Gina," Ken asked his reflection. "We've known each other for a long time...and... I was wondering if you'd like to someday..."
No, he thought, too tentative. Be decisive.
"Hey, Gina," said Ken to his reflection in what he thought was his most decisive tone. "Want to go out. I know about a new place in Chinatown that's really great."
That's it! That's the ticket!
Decisive, without being bossy, and it also didn't sound desperate. Despite being desperate, he definitely didn't want to appear that way.
Ken turned from the bathroom mirror and marched out into his living room. This was his moment, and he was going for the gold before he chickened out.
Ken's living room, like the rest of his apartment was small, with tightly crammed bookshelves, and furnished in a style he called 'thrift-shop utilitarian.' Ken considered sneaking in the same way he went to Gina's apartment. But a quiet and quick recon of the building showed that it wasn't crawling with shady agents in black suits. His secret was still safe.
Ken picked up the phone and hit the speed dial button for Gina.
Ring.
Ring.
"Hello," it was Gina. Ken felt his chest tighten.
"Hi Gina," he said. "It's Ken. I've been thinking and..."
For what seemed like an eternity but what was actually less than a second, Ken paused.
"I'll do it," he said. "I'll try out your plan."
Gina's squeal of delight almost blew out his phone.
"You've made me so happy," she said, the obvious smile in her voice sending chills down his spine. "I've got everything all set. Meet me at the lab tomorrow after work and I'll give you a big surprise. Okay?"
"Your lab," answered Ken, his voice a stunned monotone. "Yeah, I'll be there."
"I'll see you tomorrow."
"Yeah, I'll be there. Goodbye."
Ken hung up and slumped on his couch. He seized the moment all right, only it was the wrong moment.
"I am such a tool."
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