Six Superhero Stories Read online

  I understood. "Oh my God." I gaped at him. "There are twenty-four Castigators."

  Brain Fart drifted off, then perked up again. "Correct."

  "That's twenty-four...counting me."

  "Correct again." His expression hardened. "Which leads me to the inevitable question at the end of this primrose path, dear Skillet.

  "Would you do your part to reverse global warming, if you wouldn't be around to enjoy the result?"

  *****

  The question's moot now that I've killed Bottlenose. His blistered gray body bobs in the dirty water, mute testament to the failure of my efforts. All my personal commitment and sacrifice were for nothing. There will be no turning back the clock on global warming.

  Should I even bother bringing in Freeze-Dry and Floater? According to Brain Fart's equations, they won't be enough. Twenty-four is the magic number, the perfect balance for his climate change contraption.

  Maybe it's time to give up. Time to accept the state of the world and my life and give myself over to whatever suffering they still have in store for me.

  As if I'm not suffering enough already because of what I did to Sunblock. The memory of his cries still echoes in my mind.

  *****

  It happened the night before, on the observation deck of the Empire State Building. He wanted to meet to give me the news in person.

  "There's a new recruit." Sunblock was grinning from ear to ear. "A new Castigator. Someone with powers."

  At first, I didn't see the importance. I walked to the railing, raised my goggles to my forehead, and gazed out over the drowned city. The tops of the tallest buildings stood out like islands in the dark sea. Cookfires flickered in scattered windows as a few survivors struggled to hang on. Not exactly the Big Apple I'd once loved. Not exactly the City That Never Sleeps.

  "Don't you get it?" Sunblock grabbed my shoulder and shook me. "No one on Earth has manifested powers and come forward in years. Now there's a twenty-fifth Castigator! Brain Fart's device only needs twenty-four."

  I shrugged...but then it clicked. I saw where he was going with this. I knew what he was going to say.

  "You don't have to die." He shook me again. "This new guy can be number twenty-four!"

  Slowly, I turned from the view to face him. The contours of his dark brown face reflected the cherry-red glow from my super-heated body. His skin was slick with sweat from being too close to my perpetual fire.

  "Isn't that great news?" He couldn't stop smiling. "You can live, Mike! You can live to see the new world dawning!"

  I, on the other hand, wasn't smiling at all. "This new hero, who is he?"

  "Calls himself Floater," said Sunblock. "Some kind of levitational powers. Not a major threat."

  "Great." I turned away. "I can grab him up with the last two tomorrow."

  Finally, Sunblock's smile faded. "You mean both of us can bring him in, don't you? Like we have the other twenty Castigators?"

  I pulled my goggles into place and shook my head. "You're staying home, Joe. I've got it covered."

  Sunblock scowled. "No way. We started this together, we finish it together."

  "I'm sorry, but no." I pointed a finger at him. "Floater's going to take your place, not mine."

  "Screw that." Sunblock grabbed my wrist. "You can take your self-sacrificing altruistic bullshit and shove it up your ass." A cloud of his patented dark matter flowed out of his body and began to wrap around me. "I'm stashing you somewhere safe till this all blows over."

  The situation was racing out of control. Sunblock's dark matter could open up portals into shadowy places. Already, I felt the cloud tugging at me, starting to pull me into a dark space somewhere on the other side of the world.

  He wasn't leaving me with any options. I knew what I was going to have to do next, and I already hated myself for it.

  But there was no way I was going to let him keep me alive.

  I knew he wouldn't understand, because he didn't know all the facts. There was something I'd always held back from him, something I was afraid he wouldn't want to know...and without that puzzle piece, he wouldn't get it. All he would see was this:

  Me heating up suddenly and lashing out at him.

  He was surprised at the flash of power that burst out of me, burning away his dark matter cloud. The next blast of thermal energy threw him back to the floor of the observation deck.

  Intensifying my core temperature, I prepared to put him under by quickly inducing heatstroke. But before I could strike, he shot up his hands and let loose a bubble of darkness that bolted toward me.

  I couldn't evade it in time. The bubble lunged at me, locking me in its embrace of icy pitch blackness. Then, it began to draw inward, collapsing.

  I'd seen him use this trick many times before. If I didn't manage to break free, the dark matter would encase me like shrink-wrap and cut off my air supply, rendering me unconscious...then filter in just enough air to prevent suffocation. It was his technique of choice for capturing Castigators destined for death in Brain Fart's contraption; how ironic that he was using it now to keep me alive.

  Reaching deep, I gathered and stoked my heat, building it quickly into a raging bonfire. As the darkness pressed around me, I coaxed the fire higher and hotter, until it was straining to get out.

  Then, I threw open the furnace door.

  Like a nuclear firestorm, the wave of heat and flame rushed out of me, burning away the darkness in an instant. Freed from the trap, I fell to my knees, gasping for breath.

  And only then did I realize the terrible mistake I'd made. I'd shaped the charge to cook off the dark matter and quickly dissipate...but I hadn't realized how close Sunblock had been standing. I hadn't known he'd moved within the blast radius.

  If he'd been a few feet farther away, he would've been fine...singed but fine. But the full force of the firestorm had caught him.

  He lay crumpled in a fetal ball, smoking and shivering. The heat had been so intense, it had blown right through his defenses and fried his flesh.

  "God, no." I reached out, then drew back instantly. The smell of cooked meat was overwhelming. "Oh, Joe..."

  His only response was a whimper.

  Tears rolled down my cheeks. How could I have let this happen?

  Sunblock shuddered and groaned. His charred hide looked like the blackened skin of a marshmallow held in a campfire too long. I could only imagine the pain he was experiencing.

  "Please, no..." I reached out again, longing to hold him, to comfort him. Wishing with all my heart that things could have been different. Wishing I'd never gone there that night.

  Suddenly, he convulsed and cried out. Twitched like a live wire on a wet street...and then he fell still.

  The breath hissed out of him into the night air. His last breath, fled because of me, because I'd wanted to save his life.

  And the terrible thing was, I'd wanted that more than anything. But he couldn't have known it, because of that last puzzle piece I'd always held back, that one thing I'd never told him.

  The one thing it took him dying to make me say, though it would do neither of us any good ever again.

  "I love you!" I wailed it over his unmoving body, my tears splashing his smoldering flesh. "Oh God, I love you, Joe!"

  *****

  Where could I go from there? What could I do? Give up and let all our work have been for nothing? Take away the last hope we had to set the world right?

  Better to move forward, I thought. Better to play out the string and balance the scales with my own personal sacrifice. Bring into being a new world where my mistakes could be forever forgotten.

  At least that was the plan until I screwed up again and killed Bottlenose.

  As I float in the Times Square Sea and gaze at his body, I realize my choices from this point on are meaningless. The door has slammed shut on our plan for the world's salvation.

  Even if I bag Freeze-Dry and Floater and haul them to Brain Fart's lab, it won't change a thing. The global warming revers
er requires twenty-four super-powered subjects...and even with Freeze-Dry, Floater, and myself, we'll only have twenty-three. Brain Fart's out of the picture because he has to operate the equipment.

  So global warming is here to stay. And my life, for all intents and purposes, is over.

  Not only have I failed the world, killed the man I love, and killed Bottlenose, but I've pounded the last nail into my own personal coffin.

  As I bob in the filthy water, Freeze-Dry and Floater stare at Bottlenose's corpse, their expressions grim. Then, they turn my way.

  "What are you waiting for?" Freeze-Dry aims his twelve fingers in my direction. "Let's get this over with."

  I don't say a word or make a move.

  Freeze-Dry extends his ice ramp toward me and skates closer. "Death by super-hero, right? Isn't that what monsters like you do when you're cornered? Get yourself killed so you won't have to go to prison?"

  I seriously consider his proposal as I watch him approach me. I've lost everything that mattered to me. Why prolong the agony?

  "'Bring 'em back alive' is the Castigators' policy," says Freeze-Dry. "But accidents happen, don't they? And Floater will back me up, won't he?"

  Floater nods. I can almost feel the heat from the hatred in his eyes.

  Swallowing hard, I make up my mind. Death is what I deserve. Why not get it over with?

  The water around me steams as I start building a charge. Freeze-Dry smiles as he realizes I'm going to do exactly what he wants.

  "Thank you." His fingertips sparkle and crackle as his own power charges up. "I'll make it quick, for old times' sake."

  This is it. Steeling myself, I raise an arm from the water, preparing to fire.

  "Stop!" Freeze-Dry's fingers glow bright blue, ready to cut loose. "Stop, or I'll shoot!"

  I continue to raise my arm, which is glowing cherry-red now. I think of Joe, and a smile flits over my face.

  End of the line.

  Then, suddenly, a bubble of darkness plunges down and envelopes Freeze-Dry. He screams as it tightens around him, swiftly adhering to the contours of his body.

  Floater whips around and tries to flee, but another bubble catches him, too. He fights it, but the inky substance sucks tight in seconds, clinging like spray-on black latex to every inch of him.

  It can't be.

  Frantically, I look up, and at first the sky is empty. I look right, then left...and then I feel a hand touch my shoulder.

  I twist around to see an arm wrapped in bandages, hanging down. A familiar form is stretched out above me, buoyed on a carpet of dark matter, silhouetted against the sun.

  "Hello, Mike."

  My heart hammers when I hear that familiar voice. "J-Joe?" I take his hand.

  He draws me up with him, rotating us both to stand above the water, face to face. Though his face, like his arm, is covered in bandages.

  His whole body is swaddled in white bandages under his purple uniform. Only his eyes remain uncovered; his eyelids are the only patches of exposed skin anywhere on him.

  A pang of guilt shoots through me to see him like that, damaged because of what I did to him. But the guilt is balanced by equal parts wonder and surprise.

  The last time I saw him, on the observation deck of the Empire State Building, he was silent and still. I assumed he was dead. I activated the distress signal in the belt buckle of his Castigators' uniform and left him there, expecting his teammates to retrieve the body.

  Now here he is, alive.

  "H-how?" There are tears on my face as I stammer the words out. "How d-did you...?"

  He wipes the tears with one bandaged finger. "Darkness heals, Mike. It transforms." He runs the tip of his finger along the side of my face. "And I had something to come back for. Something that wouldn't let me go."

  I cock my head, staring at his bloodshot eyes between the bandages. Hoping he means what I want him to mean. Hoping he'll say what I want him to say.

  And he does. "I love you, too, Mike."

  Then, he tips his head toward me. I feel his lips moving against mine through the bandages, kissing me.

  And when I close my eyes, I can imagine the bandages aren't there at all.

  *****

  As soon as we fly in through the open window of the 77th floor of the Chrysler Building, Brain Fart starts hurrying us. He needs the darkness-shrouded captives we carry—Freeze-Dry and Floater—put in place immediately. According to his calculations, our odds of success will diminish the longer we wait. Something to do with sunspot activity and pollen counts.

  He leads us through the room, which he's tricked out like a mad scientist's lab. There are wires and coils of metal tubing everywhere, all sparking with energy. Laptop computers flicker and flash on every bench and surface.

  The place smells like copper and ozone and melting plastic. Everything's humming and beeping and hissing and whistling. Above all the ruckus, Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries" blasts from a hardcore speaker system.

  The floor is littered with tools and little scuttling robots with wrenches for hands. There are lots of toys, too, for Brain Fart to play with when he switches from genius to simpleton; I nearly trip over a toy fire engine and a blue rubber ball.

  The middle of the place is dominated by a huge carousel of gleaming silver and glass. Spokes radiate from a central hub, each ending in a transparent pod occupied by a frozen Castigator. As we walk the perimeter, I see Swiftboat and Concertina, Waterlog and Glacier, Climate Slut and Strange Agent. They're all here, every Castigator rounded up by me and Sunblock, sleeping in misty sockets in a world-changing machine.

  "Right there." Brain Fart gestures at an empty pod and nods at the bundle of unconscious Freeze-Dry in my arms. "Put him there."

  The canopy of the pod is open. I lay Freeze-Dry inside and step away.

  "Duh...wha?" Brain Fart wobbles for a moment as his head shrinks and his wits leave him. "Doy..." Just as he starts gnawing on the open canopy of the next pod over, his head reinflates. "Shit." He gives the canopy a whack and points at Sunblock. "Put Floater in there, Joe."

  Sunblock lays his burden in the pod, then straightens and turns. His gaze fixes on the next two pods on the carousel, which are also empty with canopies open. "I guess those are for Mike and me."

  Brain Fart smacks buttons on the control panels of Freeze-Dry and Floater's pods, and their canopies hiss shut. "We have a full house, today, gentlemen." Puffing, he hurries over and checks the controls on the last remaining empty pods. "Good thing you made a reservation."

  Sunblock takes my hand and leads me between the two pods. We stand there a moment, gazes locked, painfully aware that this is it. The end of the line.

  We've only just connected, and now it's time for us to separate forever.

  Brain Fart punches commands on a tablet computer and watches the screen. "Time's up, my friends." He doesn't comment on our closeness; did he know we belonged together all along? "Places, everyone."

  Sunblock lets go of my hand. He turns toward his pod.

  But then I catch hold of his shoulder. Because I don't think I can do it. I can't bear to be without him, especially now.

  "Wait." Maybe there's a way. "Tony, I need to ask you a question."

  *****

  No. That's Brain Fart's answer. No, it will not upset the balance.

  That's why, as the canopy closes, sealing me in the pod, I am not alone.

  All that matters is that all twenty-four Castigators are present and accounted for.

  As the device rumbles and whines and starts to spin, I have someone to hold.

  It won't matter if one pod is empty...

  I have someone to love.

  ...and another has two occupants.

  The global warming reversal device turns faster, and the whine gets louder. Sunblock and I cling to each other, bodies wrapped together in our last embrace.

  It makes a difference as the spinning accelerates and the countdown begins. As fear digs its gnarled claws into my heart.

 
The numbers boom over the speaker in the pod, with "Ride of the Valkyries" in the background.

  Ten...nine...eight...

  "I love you, Joe." Sunblock reaches up to smooth my hair. "I'm glad you finally wised up."

  "Better late than never." I laugh softly.

  ...seven...six...five...

  "Here's to the end of global warming," says Sunblock.

  I touch my forehead to his. "Here's to us."

  ...four...three...two...

  He tightens his embrace. We both tense in anticipation.

  ...one...zero.

  There is a pulling sensation coming from all directions which quickly increases, and then I scream in white-hot agony as my body is torn asunder. I dissolve in a shower of sparks, swirling in waves of scintillating light.

  Just as I realize my body is gone, just as I spin through a cascade of terror and loneliness, I feel it. The sparks of another, of Sunblock, dancing through me, mingling with me. The two of us flowing together, becoming one commingled current of life and light.

  The device holds us there for an instant like a handful of fireflies. We whirl and toss and flicker, a tingling perfect oneness.

  Then, suddenly, we are sucked through the spoke into the central hub, where we merge with twenty-two other sparkling showers. The device squeezes us all together, weaving us into a single matrix of coruscating, incandescent power...mashing us, kneading us, building up pressure.

  And then it releases us all at once, straight up, from the giant antenna atop the Chrysler building.

  As we race up into the atmosphere, I am truly not afraid, not despairing, not confused. Because as long as I can still feel him, I will be all right.

  And as much as we have changed, I can still feel him.

  When we reach the greatest heights, we explode in all directions. The sky ripples with curtains of rainbow light, a vast aurora spreading swiftly around the globe. Then that explodes too, in countless flares of color, the greatest fireworks display ever seen, burning off excess carbon dioxide with each burst.