True Heroes (32 page)

              “Ah, you must be Mr. Whitmor.”

              The entire group of gun-wielding S.W.A.T. officers raised their metallic sights slightly while awaiting his next move. “Caleb will do just fine. Care to explain why you’ve come prepared for a fight?”

              The man stood from the green, metallic chair and extended his hand, very obviously not coming out from behind his black shades or his highly decorated breast. “General Fink. I believe you knew my brother.”

              The man actually did take off his shades then. “Ah, the guy in the back of the room at the funeral and the will reading. Nice to see you again.”

              A pang of sadness ran through him at the thought of the funeral. “The boy amongst older fogies. Yes, I do remember you now. Mind’s the first thing to go my apologies.” He raised his hand, and everyone else lowered theirs and the guns in them. “Excuse the guns. We were just being…over-protective.”

              “Right.” Caleb pulled up a mirror of the General’s chair and they both sat. “So, where are you stationed?”

              “West coast.”

              “Aha, so what brings you all the way east, General?”

              Caleb felt the leafy designs against his back through the thin shirt, and heard the subtle inching of the two guards behind him forward. The other four—one left, one right, two behind the General—stayed still. “Well, it seems we’ve stumbled upon some information regarding your…gifts.”

              Caleb was annoyed suddenly. “Your brother doesn’t know how to keep secrets then.”

              “You can’t blame him for wanting to do the right thing. He was concerned about you and thought I could help. As coincidence would have it, we’re actually developing something that isn’t unlike what you can do naturally. We’d like to bring you in for a few days, perhaps re-run some of the tests my brother ran, and you’d be well compensated for time and travel. We’d have to leave immediately if you’re interested.”

              ‘Not even the good doctor was trustworthy in the end.’

              ‘I’m sure he had his reasons.’ “I’m afraid I can’t go anywhere. My friend was just taken to the hospital and will need me when she gets back. The government doesn’t need the kind of power I deal with, anyways—”

              “Listen, dick. My brother threw away his entire life researching and teaching you how to be more than a spoiled little ingrate, and you’re pissing all over his memory every day you sit around and do nothing with what God gave you. So, let’s cut the bull: you’re nothing but a little shit to me. The least you can do is dedicate your life to his memory in any way you can. If you continue to resist, I’ll consider it a personal insult to his memory, me, and the United States Military and happily order these men to turn you into a valuable corpse. Is that frank enough to be crystal clear?”

              Both men stared: the General with a serious, composed look over the anger that was surely boiling inside him while Caleb smirked with daring, nearly-empowered eyes. Internally, both sides of Caleb were in tune with a single thought: ‘Who does this guy think he is?’ The boldness pulled Caleb through any lingering depression he had and sat him upright. “I think I’m honoring your brother’s memory better than you ever will, and I’m just getting started.”

              “How do you figure?”

              Caleb’s hands folded in contemplative observance. “You came here trying to harvest your brother’s work for your own means. The entire reason he watched after me was to give me a head start and to try and understand what’s inside of me so I could use it for the good of mankind.” Just reciting Doctor Fink’s mission statement brought the depression seeping back over his amazing failure. “Giving you my power will accomplish neither of those. All you’re doing is trying to hop on your brother’s coattail and find your own small semblance of permanence like a pathetic puppy following its master.”

              The bitter tones of his explanation caused tense trigger fingers to squeeze a little closer to their metallic callings.

              ‘I can take care of them in one move.’

              He used his better judgment and remained relaxed. As much as he tried, his senses were still high enough to sense a person approaching from behind. The two at his back let the lightly-stepping person through. Warm breath caressed his ears before bitter sympathy slapped against his drums. “Carol had a heart attack on the way to the hospital. They said she died before she made it through the doors.” She gave a single sob into his ear. “I’m so sorry. I can’t imagine how you must feel.”

              ‘No, you can’t,’ both Caleb and his power shouted from his head. They couldn’t have sounded more different. There was something crippling both entities; Caleb’s power felt glee as palpable as air and water while Caleb himself felt his head lose all blood. His hand caught his head in an attempt to keep his body still but it wasn’t working. His heart and lungs suddenly held all blood and air for themselves, carelessly hoarding in unbridled panic as the rest of his body was left with his nerves, writhing and twisting with white-hot pain. A shudder transformed throughout his body into a constant twitch as his eyes struggled to keep back flooding. The glass floor seemed to give way.

              “Yeah, yeah, very sad. Come with us or we’ll make the pain go away permanently.”

              The General stood as tears began to water the ground beneath Caleb’s downturned face. In his mind’s arena, his crumpled body was in shambles and approached by his power, whose face was not as mirthful as he surely felt some measure of the torture Caleb now felt. Its cold hand attempted a warm gesture. Its hand on his shoulder, it offered him an alternative in his ear. ‘Take the end of pain I offer. You know I can take the pain away. Let’s show them pain. Show them the very meaning of pain.’

              Without a word or glance, Caleb simply stood and stepped aside, giving over the reins to his kingdom. His power didn’t smile but simply assumed its place while Caleb fell with tatters of life and broken glass surrounding him into the abyss.

---

              With a single breath of free air, Power illuminated Caleb’s hallowed eyes. The open capillaries all over the face of Power slowly began to relax themselves closed and the clear tendrils of energy began to unfurl and stretch along the ground. The General must’ve given some signal during the mental transition as a few hands found their ways to his relaxed shoulders. As soon as its domain was extended to everything it’d need, it stood up suddenly, pushing its green chair back into the guards with enough force to send them both flying. A slight push sent the General’s chair into two more guards, their bodies flailing in mid-air. Before any triggers had even been touched, Power raised its hands and, again using slight force, smashed energy against the last guards’ chests, flinging them in different directions.

              They stood face-to-face, it and General Fink, as Power could only muster a small smile. “I wanted to do that all in one motion. I’ve been cooped up for too long.” A horrified General drew his pistol, but found it difficult to pull the trigger with a small sliver of energy behind the trigger. “Look at the taste of carnage around you, General. Whatever made you think you could take me against my will? Maybe bring someone bigger next time. At least I’ll have to try to lift them.”

              Power heard the distant thudding of more than one helicopter forthcoming across the outer city and turned its brightened eyes to confirm. It stretched the physics of sight over forty yards until a very clear picture came into their seeing irises. “Only four men per copter.” Its whisper was cut off by an oddly sharp wind hitting the back of his neck. Turning its head revealed the General, dropping his pistol and gripping at his hand in pain.

              It breathed a chuckle. “You don’t seem to understand the situation, General. I’ll make it simple: you could never generate enough energy to scratch my surface. All you see is skin before you when the reality is far different. The skin you see would never be a factor of your anger; my tensed field of energy would be rock to your autumn breeze. You’ve barely got the balls, and never will have the brawn. Hm, the look on your face is intriguing. You’re anger still boils over but your fear constrains you from daring to make a move.” Power finally illuminated Caleb’s eyes completely. “You came looking for something unstoppable.”

              Power moved faster than the General could see. Less than a blink elapsed, it being all the time needed for Power to destroy whatever small threat the two helicopters represented. Such was the extent of Power’s increased abilities; what used to take a few seconds had been shaved to one. Its formerly inefficient movements had polished into single swipes to cut through both copter guns, two arms of energy reaching up and turning the swirling blades into scrap, all in mid jump before it spring-boarded off the falling husks and back towards the coward General. The shells of metal fell with all four men helpless in each crashing copter as it allowed a crooked smile to cross its borrowed face.

              ‘Enough.’

              Caleb’s weak voice echoed heavily from inside its hollowed self. ‘I told you I would handle it.’

              ‘Keep going like this and it’ll be over before it ever begins. You don’t have enough energy to take on the entire army at a time.’

              ‘Your tears haven’t ensoggened your logical mind I see.’

              ‘I don’t want people to die. I just wanna be alone now.’

              Caleb’s foothold was its sole restriction; his annoying assurance that it could only hold out so long with one arm pushing Caleb away while the other fought the world. He knew Power; he knew it couldn’t ravish the lands as it so pleased without his cooperation. ‘Some part of you isn’t ready to give up quite yet. So be it. I’m in control at least.’

              A flashy wink was all Power could muster to the General before it was gone. It came to Caleb’s window and quickly crashed inward. Its outreached field surrounded the closed filing cabinet and hoisted the two-drawer thing to its shoulder. Both psyches heard the various approaching sirens as they turned the body with their load shouldered and Power jogged away. The three-foot high brick fence was gone in a flash. Minutes passed by slower than the miles. In its shower of arrogance, Power didn’t turn or dodge any structures in its way. It simply passed through them. Only trees were in the way after a few seconds, and the next half-an hour was an incensed, bumpy one for Caleb. ‘Let me have control now.’

              ‘You must be kidding. What are you afraid of? Splinters?’

              ‘I need some air. Just…just let me out.’

              It stopped in the middle of a forest as Caleb’s psyche began flailing for control. He kept pushing the phantom of his body into a field before regained his mind’s will. “You think it’s wise to challenge me after locking me away?”

              Caleb’s heart soon felt the intense emotional stress his mind had been concealing. “This is my body not yours.”

              “No, you have the mind. I have the body.” Power came face to face with Caleb’s nearly cowering eyes. “Listen carefully, Caleb. You’ve made the rules this whole dragging time we call life, and now it’s my turn. I gave you forty years to torture me against a chained wall while I played savior whenever you needed me, but enough is enough. You’ve finally,
finally
, loosened your grip and fallen into chains yourself. So, let’s settle this into a foreseeable future: you are now my dog, which I will call when I need your lovely social skills or a rest for myself. As a dog, you have no opinion. Your voice is nothing but a senseless series of yelps and yips to me. Got that boy?”

              A long silence clouded the energized air around them as Caleb felt his fear and emotions melting away to a hating prejudice. Power suddenly assumed a defensive stance when it saw Caleb’s eyes glowing back with as much passion as its own. “Didn’t get a single word of that, sorry.”

              It turned its head as it flashed from one end of the energy dome to the other, seemingly observing Caleb from every side. “Your little fiery self is back. Why ever so, I wonder?”

              Caleb discovered an answer faster than his synapse seemed to fire. “I’ve seen your daydreams of razing insanity. The faces of the billions of dead people not changing the picturesque face of lethargy that you can’t help but force onto the world as the ground slowly burns past the point of recognition. Every face we could be saving, damn it! We’ve let so many people down in our lifetime. You used to care about that. I can’t stop caring about that, and I swear to you I won’t let you use me as a vessel for genocide.”

              Power floated above Caleb with arms crossed, taken aback slightly. Its whispers barely created enough green waves to reach the far edge of their capsule. “This man, this little man trapped in his own mind, somehow turned his pain into a formidable determination.” It lowered to the ground and raised its voice. “We’ve let a fraction of people down. There’s still about seven-billion left to completely destroy. Carol was just the start, but apparently that wasn’t enough to send you over the edge. I thought it would be, and yet you still retain control….” Power realized it was rambling. “You’ll run out of heroism sooner or later. I’ll just build myself up further and further until you do, and then I’ll push you so far down a tar pit that you’ll never resurface again. The earth will be turned into a homogenous rock, and you will be buried right in the center of it all.”

              Caleb smiled smugly in an attempt to frustrate his power, and succeeded. “I’ve seen so many heroes come and go. I won’t ever be anchored down by you again, and neither will the world.”

              Another long pause accompanied the impasse. Power suddenly flashed over to the filing cabinet and ripped the top completely off, revealing hundreds of thousands of dollars wrapped in fresh bank slips. “I’d forgotten how much you’d saved. Should be enough for quite a bit if we need it.”

              Even Power could feel how feeble its attempt to sway from Caleb’s intensity truly was.

              “Let’s get to a resting place before the government gets our picture out.” Power flared enough to fold over the remaining metal of the cabinet like a paper shopping bag before folding itself back into Caleb’s body. “I’ll let you drive.”