The Invincibles (17 page)

Nightshadow winced as if struck. He wished he could have been in two places at once tonight. At the very least, he could have taken a bullet for one of those officers or agents.

Before he could brood too much on the matter, his supercomputer screen flicker-flashed and a very specific alarm wailed, the one he always dreaded hearing. Apparently, the Invincibles needed all hands on deck to deal with whatever sky-darkening, mind-bending crisis was threatening the world now.

Nightshadow stood up shakily, having more trouble than he liked, but had a thought. Had Danny kept his Invincibles communicator? He was too smart not to have tampered with it, so Nightshadow probably couldn’t trace him with it. Still, Danny could be hearing the call to arms, too. Would he answer?

PART TWO: SUPERTEAM

Chapter 7: THE CALL

“
Lindsey, you’re sure you know what you’re doing?”

“
Sure, I used to take meditation classes along with my yoga.”

“
That certainly fills me with confidence. Let the out-of-body experience begin!”

“
Shut up, Cal! I’m trying to read this e-book!”

They sat on a yoga mat in the middle of Lindsey’s living room floor. The furniture had been moved away and crowded up in the corners. Both of them wore old t-shirts and stretchy yoga pants. Incense burned. Tony Scott’s haunting
Music for Zen Meditation
played on the stereo. Though the curtains were drawn, cars plowed noisily by outside, often interrupting a gang of kids playing street hockey.

Hyperman had finished up his odyssey of good deeds with the Whorl a few days ago when they’d both needed to head back to their civilian lives. Still, the experience had left Hyperman invigorated. The people he’d encountered had real problems that had dwarfed his own. Hunger, disease, homelessness, and even lack of transportation to get medicine, food, or work; it was always something major plaguing their lives. It’d uplifted his spirits to be able to help. Now he was getting to spend the afternoon with Lindsey and that had made his mood even better.

Having had a stressful workweek full of writing deadlines, she needed to unwind. Instead of getting a drink, she’d talked him into trying this out-of-body meditation exercise. It supposedly put someone completely at ease, both in body and soul.

Hyperman considered all that kind of talk nonsense. He knew all sorts of mystics who could leave their bodies, but it was never an easy feat, and many predators lurked about the astral plane, looking for an easy meal. While he doubted Lindsey possessed the willpower to actually leave her body, he went along with it. All this New Age garbage seemed to relax her, even if it was only trippy music and funky-smelling candles.

However, he’d made sure to avoid the topic of superheroes with her as much as possible. He had ever since their one awkward conversation. Bringing it up would just make things tense between them, so he simply changed the subject if he ever thought it was about to come up. Maybe when Night dug up what he could on Lindsey, Hyperman could understand her a little better. Until then, he saw no point in drawing out the argument.

Lindsey stretched out her legs and lay on her side while clicking through the meditation manual e-book on her laptop. Even without makeup, Hyperman thought she positively shone with beauty.

“
Okay,” she said, sitting up, closing her laptop and sliding it away. “Sit like this.”

She hiked up her legs and crossed them Indian-style before resting an open palm across each knee. Hyperman mimicked her.

“
Close your eyes and breathe,” she said softly. “In and out. In and out. Become your breath and rise up out of yourself. So breathe! Picture a peaceful place. It’s calm, serene, and lovely. Imagine yourself floating up to it. To your own personal heaven! Let go and float up to heaven! Breathe and escape into the air! Take flight! Higher and higher!”

Hyperman matched his breathing precisely to hers, imitating her technique perfectly, holding in a gasp of air and expelling it out at a rhythmic pace. He let the warmth of relaxation trickle up through his legs and rise higher and higher throughout his being with every breath he took. He pictured the majestic blue skies and celestial white clouds he frequently soared through. He could practically feel the nippy cold of the air and sensed the often-peaceful silence. He even imagined the vastness of a sky that seemed limitless.

His body loosened up, and he almost felt as if he were flying. It had always been the easiest, most natural thing in the world for him. He’d always equated flying with complete inner peace. It gave him the ultimate freedom of going anywhere at any time. To his surprise, he found himself floating a few inches off the floor, ready to drift up and away as if in a dream.

Wow! What did he know? Maybe there was something to this new age relaxation shit after all! He was ready to let go and see where it took him, but his hyper-senses got in the way.

He heard gunshots ringing out from all across the globe. Streams of wireless communications glided through the air and tickled him, informing him of all the robberies, murders, and disasters taking place right at that moment. Energies flowed from everything and everywhere, kissing and caressing his skin, attuning him to what was wrong in the web of life spread out across the planet.

He tried blotting it all out, but someone somewhere was always calling out for help. Normally, somebody else could pitch in there. Not every emergency required Hyperman, but he still had to be on the lookout, just in case he was needed. So he had to stay alert, even in this trance-like state that had him approaching tranquility. Completely entering that state of mind might distract and slow him though, maybe even for only a half second, but that was enough time for someone to suffer and die because he wasn’t there. So he couldn’t let go, not completely, not when it might be too costly.

He forced himself to awaken. His eyes slit open, and he groggily snapped back to reality. Blinking, he studied Lindsey and measured her pulse and heartbeat as she drifted off to a dreamy, faraway place.

“
Ohhhhmmmmmm, ohhhhhhhhmmmmmmm,” she murmured.

His hyper-vision showed her eyes rapidly twitching behind their lids and electric signals flashing rapidly throughout her brain.

“
Lindsey?” he asked.

“
Ohhhmmmmmmm,” she replied.

He shook his head. She was apparently going to be out like that for a while.

At a silent hyper-speed, he knifed up into the kitchen to make Lindsey some chai tea and strawberry scones for when she awoke. He was setting the tray down on a small table in the living room when he heard an ultrasonic siren shrieking on a frequency for his ears only.

“
Hey Hyperman, sorry to bother you,” an old, gravelly voice said, “but could you drop by the Quarry? We need to talk.”

The siren abruptly cut out.

Hyperman looked at Lindsey. She’d probably not even notice he’d left. He could fly to and from Mars in no time. He might even get back before she awoke. In fact, he’d even bring back ice cream. After grabbing a strawberry scone, he launched out the back door up into space.

***

Hyperman and Paul Wrath meandered down the prison corridor together. Thick, glossy red columns and sleek orange metal walls made up the decor, and it all flickered with cryptic little lights. Cells ran up and down the length of the corridor with swirling, static-shocking energy fields sealing the prisoners in. Passersby could look inside, but prisoners couldn’t see out. Unaware anyone was even strolling by, the inmates slept, read, played solitaire, or did push-ups in their cramped confines.

“
The results showed faster than anyone thought,” Paul Wrath said, his parched voice echoing off of the walls. “He’s a new man. Literally, in fact.”

“
He’s once again the man he was before Mutagen,” Hyperman replied.

“
He doesn’t remember much about actually being Mutagen and some other parts of his life before that.”

“
What small bits does he remember?”

“
Well, he says he and Mors used to be friends before he was Mutagen.”

“
Really?”

“
Yep. I’ll let you hear it straight from the horse’s mouth.”

Wrath limped on, dragging one leg slightly behind the other. He wore a ragged, dirty-gray suit with a matching trench coat. A large, puckered-pink scar gouged across his throat. Wily, cloudy-white hair whipped about his shriveled head. His body had not only thickened and hardened with age, but a paunchy gut hung out over his belt. John Wrath wasn’t his real name. Not even Nightshadow had ever managed to uncover what it was, but he had learned why Wrath hadn’t seemed to age for years and years, and he shared the story with the Invincibles.

Back during the American Revolution, Wrath had been a spy for George Washington’s Culper Ring. One mission saw him keeping the redcoats from exploiting Ponce de Leon’s fountain of youth. Upon seeing the beautiful, sparkling water, he hadn’t been able to resist a taste. The drink had retarded his aging and only now was his body catching up with time. He’d spent his long, long life working as a spy. In his time, he’d spied on and for everyone. His decades and decades of shadow ops experience had made him the ideal choice for director of S.I.L.E.N.T. when it was founded after World War II.

He led Hyperman over to a small corner cell. “Here he is,” Wrath said, and jabbed his thumb toward the shadowed figure reading a book on his bed in a cell at the end. Hyperman saw the book was about building little model ships.

Wrath smirked, and it wrinkled his face even further. “He’s all yours,” he said. “I’ve got a space pirate to interrogate, so take your time.”

His shaky, claw-like fingers tapped a code onto the control panel built into the wall. The energy field for Mutagen’s cell flicker-flashed and became transparent. Mutagen looked up and marked his place in his book. He came toward the door and did a double take at seeing Hyperman.

Like all prisoners, Mutagen wore a baggy, powder blue jumpsuit over his stocky, big-boned frame. The light gleamed off his bald head. Scars and scratches etched across every inch of his flaky, dark brown skin. His bulbous, hazel-brown eyes twitched, and a big nose squashed down in the middle of his face.

Hyperman had always wondered what Mutagen had looked like before becoming a monstrosity. He hadn’t expected him to be anything like this. He’d imagined him to be a cutthroat, addict, drunk, or just a grizzled, hateful man looking to lash out at the world. He had never thought that Mutagen could have been just a plain, simple, respectful man.

“
Good to see you, Director Wrath,” Mutagen said.

“
You too, Rogelio,” Wrath replied with a nod. “I’ll leave you two boys to talk.”

The old spy scuffled off, whistling “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

After exchanging an awkward glance with Mutagen, Hyperman bit his lip. A great bit of tension hung in the air. He wasn’t sure how to begin. “Hello,” he finally said.

Mutagen smiled. “Hello yourself.”

“
You wanted to see me?”

“
I wanted to thank you. You cured me! You made me human again! When I was…when I was that monster, I had this whole world of voices in my head, and I didn’t always know what I was thinking or feeling. It just got worse and worse, and I didn't know what was real or not or if I was really dead and dreaming or whatever. I didn’t know what I was doing or who I was hurting, but you stopped me all those times. I know I still did a lot of damage and hurt a lot of people and I’ll spend the rest of my life making up for it, but you kept me from doing so much worse! Thank you! With every fiber of my being, thank you! I’d shake your hand if I could, but this energy field’s in the way.”

Hyperman chuckled. “It’s in your way, not mine.”

He forced his hand through the energy field, feeling its hot, flaring particles nicking at his skin. Mutagen took his hand and gave it a voracious shake. The former villain’s hands felt cold and clammy. After pulling his hand back through the energy field, Hyperman wiped it on his pants leg when Mutagen blinked so he wouldn’t notice him doing that.

Hyperman unsteadily shifted about on his feet. Since he was now constantly tuned in to his followers’ prayers all over the Earth, hearing any type of praise made him uncomfortable. It coming from an old enemy of his, despite his current circumstances, caused Hyperman to view it as being at least somewhat suspicious. While his hyper-senses hadn’t picked up on anything odd, Hyperman had to remain vigilant, in case this was some kind of trap or set-up.