Kingdom of Heroes (5 page)

Five minutes of silent traveling had begun to wear on him. Too many thoughts poured through his mind, too many unanswered questions. He led with the most obvious. “So that Grant guy, what was his power, extreme ass-kissery?” he asked without ever lifting his hat from his eyes.

“Goddamn it,” Ice said in return. “I knew the quiet was too good to last.”

“Super powered paper pushing?”

She sighed. “For the record, not that its any of your concern, but Grant is a normal who has been in employment by The Seven for several years. He handles many of our legal matters.”

“I’m impressed.” The Detective sat up, taking the hat off of his eyes and placing it slightly off-kilter on his head. “I’m amazed you would allow a normal so high into the organization.”

“For your information, 616---”

“Please,” he interrupted, “I‘m not sure I know you well enough to be on a first name basis; you may refer to me as Mr. 616.”

She ignored him. “As I was saying, we have several normals placed in important positions throughout the government. Despite what you and the rest of the world may believe, the life of the average normal is not as horrible as you would make it out to be. They all have jobs---”

“That the government assigns them to,” he interjected.

“There are no homeless.”

“I always assumed the government had them processed into food.”

“No,” she angrily bit back. “All of our normals, the sick, the weak, those who cannot take care of themselves, are taken care of. We maintained the judicial system, the education system, and national healthcare.”

“All of your normals, or citizens as they’re called everyplace else, are told what to do, how to do it, and how long to do it, but they don’t get to ask why they do it. That might upset the system.” He pushed his hat back down and sat back hard against the seat.

“Since we took over,” she said, making it obvious that she was trying to control the tone of her voice, “the crime rate in this country has fell to less than one percent.”

He sat up, taking his hat off and staring her in the face. “Because all of your ‘normals’ live in fear of their super powered overlords. They have a national curfew; they have no choice to the direction of their lives. They can’t even vote anymore; you and your cronies assign out every single governmental position.”

“It works,” she answered, her voice seemingly struggling to remain calm.

“It works? For God sake, you’ve placed the super villain Doctor Faust as Governor of California. Didn’t he try to blow up South Dakota?”

Her milky white face began to turn slightly red. “First, he’s reformed, and second, nobody gives a rat’s ass about South Dakota. They never did.”

Out of nowhere, he burst out laughing. Maybe it was stress, anger, or a year of pent up emotion, amongst other things, but at that exact moment, that was simply the funniest thing he had ever heard. Tears rolled out of his eyes.

Ice took her eyes off the road and stared at him; seconds passed, with him still laughing as hard as he could. Her face turned a deeper shade of red, something closer to scarlet. He didn’t know if it was from anger or embarrassment, and in all actuality, he didn’t care either way. She turned her eyes back towards the road, refusing to look in his direction.

He wiped his eyes and leaned back in his seat. “Oh God…I needed that. I really did. That was the funniest damn thing I have ever heard. Seriously, funniest thing ever.”

She answered with silence, her eyes locked on the road ahead of them. He finished laughing and wiped the remaining tears from his eyes. They drove for a few more minutes without a word being spoken between them, until she turned her head towards him.

“Look,” she said, her face still tinted red, “I don’t know you, and I really have no desire to change that fact. I don’t want you here, and I don’t need you here. I’m the head of security for The Seven, and this is my problem to solve. I have no need for you whatsoever.”

He chuckled. “Believe me, princess, there’s no love lost. I have no desire to be here either, but it seems we’re stuck with each other, for now at least.”

“For now,” she said in return, as her milky white face began to return to its natural color. “But you will do what I say when I say it, no questions asked. And if you fuck with me, I swear, you won’t like the consequences.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he said with a smirk, the same smirk he already knew she hated. “I get it. You’re in charge, and I’m just a lowly prisoner who’s just lucky to be here.”

“Exactly.”

“So if my presence upsets you so much, why in the hell would The Agent request my appearance? Is he hoping my shining personality rubs off on you or something?”

“Hardly,” she answered. “And I have no fucking idea why he would want an outsider on a situation of this priority or why he would want you, and I especially can’t understand why he needs me to baby-sit your useless ass.”

“Now that just hurts,” he said with a smile.

“I really don’t care,” she said, her eyes still glued to the road. “All I know is that he insisted we come and get you out of prison the moment he heard about Barren. Your name just came out of goddamn nowhere, and it fucking pisses me off.”

“Story of my life,” he said with a smile, “the old guy wants me around for some weird, strange purpose, and the pretty girl doesn’t want anything to do with me.” He could have sworn the last statement put a slight smile on her face, but it faded before he had direct confirmation.

“I’m tired of talking about this bullshit,” she said, turning towards him for a second before turning back towards the highway. “If you have anything else to say, it had better be something useful, something about this case.”

He nodded towards her. They drove in the quiet for a few moments before he broke the stillness with a question. “Were you and Barren close?”

“What fucking difference does that make?”

“Just trying to get my bearings before I get tossed headfirst into the shit.”

“No,” she said in the same serious tone she seemed to consistently use. “Personally, I always thought he was an asshole; but he was our asshole, so we overlooked him.”

“Did he have enemies, ex-wives, was he running a secret abortion clinic?”

She shook her head. “He didn’t have anymore enemies than the rest of us.” She turned towards him. “So what, you fucking agree with The Agent? You really think this is an all out attack against the entire group?”

He looked directly at her face. Damn, her eyes were quite blue. “Too early to truly say,” he said, taking his gaze away from her. “We’ll know pretty soon though. If this guy’s gonna strike again, he’s going to do it fast before the rest of you are truly prepared. If nothing happens in the next couple of days, you’ll know it was isolated. If it is an attack against the entire Seven, this guy should come right to us since you’ll be on his target list.”

“Well, good luck to him on that,” she said with the first real smile he had seen her produce.

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Journal Entry

[Found on page 67]

Note: The following is a twenty questions style interview of Speed Demon from some American magazine---conducted approximately two years pre-war. Couldn’t find the second page.

This week in our 20 Questions feature, we found the one man, no matter how fast you think you are, you shouldn’t race against for money: Speed Demon. Even though he is a current member of the superhero group, The Seven, the Demon has made a name for himself throughout the country battling his own unique rogue gallery of super villains.

Question 1: Okay, so how fast can you run?

Speed Demon: Well, I’ve been clocked at the speed of sound, but I’m sure that if I pushed myself, I could beat that by one or two miles per hour.

Question 2: What do you have to say about those reports which have reportedly revealed your secret identity to be comedian Billy North?

Speed Demon: Point A, I am not Billy North, and number 2, I wish I was. That dude is one of the funniest men I have ever seen. And he’s handsome too.

Question 3: Sounds like you’ve got a bit of a man-crush on Billy North. Something there you want to talk about?

Speed Demon: Have you seen that guy? He’s fantastic; he’s funny; he’s handsome; If I was married, I would want him to have sex with my wife while I watched with a bag of popcorn.

Question 4: Speaking of sex, have you ever had to slow yourself down during the main event?

Speed Demon: I only use the speed in bed if they want me to, if you know what I mean.

Question 5: We honestly have no idea what you‘re talking about, but speaking of sex again, are The Ice Queen, Fire Maiden, and Metal Girl (the female members of The Seven for those just moving out of their cave) as hot in person as we all think they are?

Speed Demon: In a single word, they’re hotter than what you think they are. Especially Fire, she’s hot in all kinds of ways. This one time, she burned me when I “accidentally” grabbed her butt.

Question 6: How do you respond to your critics who say that your rogue gallery is basically filled with mentally challenged individuals in costumes that the rest of the superhero community wouldn’t be caught dead fighting?

Speed Demon: I say my critics are stupid, not my villains. I mean c’mon, The Killer Kangaroo could take down The Agent if he really wanted to; I’m sure of it. And for the record, The Spanker almost single-handedly conquered Topeka, Kansas. Lucky for them, I showed up in time to stop him.

Question 7: Easy question time: if you weren’t a speedster, what other super ability would you want to have?

Speed Demon: Oh man, I would love to have Psychosis’ ability to read and control people’s minds. Dude, if you saw what he could do to people. He can erase their memories or make them believe things that never happened. It would be awesome to make people do whatever I wanted whenever I wanted them to. That would be sweet.

Turn to page 117 for the rest of our interview with Speed Demon.

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The Ice Queen drove her little red sports car through the streets of downtown Metro City. The Detective sat in the passenger seat, looking around at the city he had once called home. In the fifteen years since he’d been there much had changed, yet there was so much that hadn’t. He almost felt nostalgic.

She whipped the car around every corner she could find, but he didn’t really care. He was too busy thinking and remembering, trying to piece together the city he remembered with what the city had become. Everything was just so damn clean; he couldn’t remember everything being this nice and pristine. Where were all of the crack dealers, the pimps, the junkies lying in their own filth on every curb? This new Metro City, this new capital The Agent and his Seven had created, looked great on the surface, but beyond that, it just felt wrong. The life was missing.

“Are you purposely trying to get us killed or is this just a new ride at Six Flags over Metro City, the Ice Queen drives you into the side of a building ride?” he asked while being as sarcastic as possible, just hoping she would take the bait.

“Shut up, we’re almost there.”

“That it? Just shut up. You are no fun anymore, and I think we’ve grown apart.”

“Are you going to stop being stupid anytime soon, or is this just how you are?”

He smirked in her general direction. “I would like to say this is just a temporary thing, but I’d hate to start our new relationship out with a lie.”

“Sorry to be the one to break it to you, 616, but we are never going to be in any kind of ‘relationship.’” She emphasized the last word as if it tasted bad coming out of her mouth.

He sighed. “And here I thought we were going to be best friends forever. Today has just been full of disappointment.”

He stopped talking as they turned one more corner, and the Barren Building came into full view. A dozen cops and their respective cars stood outside the structure, creating a perimeter to guard the building from any unauthorized visitors. The officers immediately recognized The Ice Queen and her car, and they cleared the way to allow her entrance into the area.

She stopped the car near the front of the building, and they both stepped out. He looked around at all of the cops, all the while remembering when he had worn that same uniform. It seemed like a lifetime ago, and in many ways, it had been. That was back when the country wasn’t ruled by a super powered despot and his band of cronies. He looked over at the crony he had traveled in with. Without a single word to any of the cops standing guard, The Ice Queen walked towards the building’s front door.

“Are you coming?” she asked after stopping and looking back at him. “Or are you just going to stand there like an idiot?”

He walked in her direction. “I remember when we first started hanging out, and you were so much fun. Now it’s just nag, nag, nag.”

She stepped over to the front door, completely ignoring his latest comment. A small keypad was placed to the right of the door; she reached out and inputted a series of numbers into it. The door slid open, revealing a small elevator, just barely big enough for the two of them to fit in.