Heroid

Julia Kantner steps out of the taxi in New York City. The three-plus-hour train ride had been nice and she had enjoyed sitting beside the Canadian lady and her little girl. They had shared a taxi into Manhattan and Julia had learned all about the Wonder Pets and Yo Gabba Gabba!

Now, Julia’s mood has changed as she stands outside the austere building wherein resided Adam Scott, the programmer of Hero City. The man is a legend among archaic pc game enthusiasts, having developed text-based RPG’s way back in the 80’s and creating some (at the time) amazingly rendered 3-D video games back in the 90’s when PC platforms were capable of much more than game consoles. Hero City was to be his masterpiece, but he retired before its release, and the game never made it to market. He became a recluse; his only contact with the world now was via the internet. When he had agreed to see her, Julia snuck away from school and took the first train to NYC.

There is no doorman, only a series of buttons with apartment numbers on them. She presses the appropriate number for Mr. Scott.

“Hell-o?” a voice says to her from the speaker below the buttons.

“Mr. Scott?”

“Who wants to know?”

“I’m Julia Kantner – I emailed you and you told me I could come?”

“Do you have the disk?”

Julia thinks for a moment. Should she tell him she didn’t? Would he still see her? She had wanted to bring it, but if it was important or valuable enough for someone to rob a bank to obtain, she had decided it was too big of a risk to bring it with her.

“Yes,” she lies, “I do.”

“Then come right up.”

A few minutes later she is standing outside of Mr. Scott’s apartment. Before she can knock, from inside someone says, “Come in!”

Julia tries the door and finds it unlocked.

The inside of the apartment is a mass of wires. Tangles of them hang from floor to ceiling. Thick black ones snake across the floor everywhere. Somewhere she can hear the low hum of a small fusion reactor. The only light in the room comes from a lone computer monitor in the far corner of the room.

Julia steps in, careful not to trip on a cord.

“All right – give it.”

Julia peers into the darkness. There are figures standing among the wires, shadowy men whose silhouettes speak of Italian suits with shoulder pads.

“Who are you?” she asks.

“Don’t you know me?” one of them says as he steps toward her.

The light from the hallway catches his face and she gets a good look at him. He’s fiftyish, tall, slender, with a hard, handsome face. She does recognize him. The white hair is still the same, though receding just a little, but the main thing is his eyes. A person’s eyes always reveal who they are.

“Smith?” she says.

“Why didn’t you think of this?”

Julia’s right. I should have. Instead of getting her and Paley involved, I should have simply googled Adam Scott. I would have found out that he was alive and well and living in Greenwich Village.

She’s a bit miffed at me because Paley hasn’t turned up yet. I’ve been telling her that I’d take care of it, that I’d seen Paley in guise of S-p-e-e-e-e-d Tap, but he hasn’t turned up since. So when she called me and told me she had important information for me, I came straight home to the Rock to see what she had.

“He has a website. An email address too.”

She says this without a hint of snarkiness. She’s mad at me, but her primary concern is getting Paley back in one piece. Finding out the true nature of that software will go far in doing so.

“Julia, I leave this to you. You’re a better detective than I am.” That’s not a lie, I think. The more I get to know her, the more I respect her intelligence and diligence.

“And you’re going out looking for Speed Tap?”

“Yes. Though in a city of heroes, finding a particular one is like looking for that proverbial needle.”

“Luck,” she says.

“You too,” say I.

Twenty minutes later, I’m at the bank in Steel Canyon.

I use a combo of psi-powers and reflective stealth suit to make myself undetectable and wait for the safe to be opened. When it is, I go inside. I find the box from which I got the game disk and use TK to unlock it to look inside. It’s still empty, so I close it back up and put it back into its place. I go from there to the branch manager’s office where a record is kept of every time someone accesses a safe-deposit box. I have repeated this process every day since Paley disappeared. The records only show a “Mr. Smith” having accessed the box and that was days before the Freakshow raid. Of course, everyone knows that “Smith” is an alias.

I’m just about to leave when I hear the branch manager coming my way saying, “Ah! There you are, Mr. Smith!”

I spin around, at first because I think I’m the “Mr. Smith” being addressed. Quickly, I realize the branch manager is speaking to the owner of the lockbox! I put everything back in its place as fast as I can and shrink back into the corner to see this “Smith” fellow.

My eyeballs almost fall out when I see him.

He’s about thirtyish. Tall, handsome, if you don’t mind me saying. Brown eyes. White hair.

Holy effin’ shaz! He’s older me!

Telekinesis is a basically useless power, made for parlor tricks and pranks. At times, however, it does come in handy, especially when you’ve been practicing creating high pressure bubbles. Naked Bomber Man doesn’t know it yet, but I’ve already built a bubble around him. If I can create and contain deep-sea pressures, then I should be able to contain his blast. That will keep him from hurting anyone but himself. Now I need to figure out how to stop him from hurting himself.

“I have demands!” Naked Bomber Man (NBM) shouts.

He looks almost comical to me, all scrawny gooseflesh with that I’ve-got-the-upper-hand attitude.

“First off – I want the War Walls down!”

You and me both, brother.

“Second – I want one million d—No! Make that ten million dollars!”

Now he’s sounding more evil.

“And I want pizza! And a helicopter!”

He’s watched too many movies.

The police are going into hostage crisis mode, except this time they are the hostages. I hear one of them under his desk issuing a call out on a police scanner.

NBM holds his thumb on a simple hand-held plunger device; similar to the controllers you’d see on a slot-car race set. It is connected to the explosives simply by a wire. Said thumb is probably feeling a bit twitchy also. It’s about to feel a lot more than twitchy. He made the mistake of wiring his detonator so that he has to push the plunger down as opposed to releasing it to set off the bombs. Bad mistake. I’m going to telekinetically bend his thumb backward – probably break it. I just have to be careful. If he feels my TK pulling at him or if he drops the plunger and it activates by accident…

Then suddenly a whirlwind seems to blow through the precinct house and NBM is standing there without the bombs strapped to him, his detonator dangling impotently in his hand.

The police are amazed. But then again, they are easily impressed by certain displays of power. You can use super-strength to rip up a piece of the street to throw at a fleeing mugger and the cops think you’re just the bee’s knees, no matter that you created a pothole big enough for the SWAT truck to disappear into. Or freeze an entire city block, breaking water lines and killing trees, just to discourage the Council from preaching on the street corner, it’s “Hey! Wow! Good job! Here – you can have a PCPD honorary gold badge!” But stop a bank robbery or rescue a hostage with just psi powers? “What was that name again? Is your brain registered as a weapon, because if it’s not I’m going to have to write you up a citation.”

Anyway, I digress.

As I say, the police are amazed. They – and I – know a display of super speed when we see it. I figure it’s Impact Wave (I wonder if she’s dating anyone…) or maybe Speed Date (who is dating everyone) but no, it’s –

“Speeeed Tap’s the name,” he says, “and that’s with three – no, four! – e’s in speed.”

He looks bloody ridiculous. He’s in orange and green spandex with big fake-looking pads creating big fake-looking muscles. He has a mask with lightning bolts for ears. Worst of all, he has a cape! What super-speedster would even consider wearing a cape!?

NBM is booked and taken to the holding cells. Sp-e-e-e-e-d Tap is surrounded by groupie policemen, glad-handing him and patting him on the back, Frank Howitzer among them. I’m about to leave them to their latest superstar when I do a double-take. Something about him…

Despite the fact that he is wearing a mask, I can still see his eyes and I know them.

Paley? I think it; I don’t say it.

As if he can read my mind he looks up at me and grins. Then he blurs and runs out the door, leaving behind his startled sycophants. Oh, and as he leaves he runs past me and sweeps my legs out from under me.

Frank sees this and says to me, “Are you high, kid? Do I need to run you in for a drug test?”

I’m up and heading for the door as fast as I can. “I’ll whiz in your cup later, detective,” I say as I go.

I know that was Paley in that mask! I just need to figure out what the bloody hell he’s up to.

“Okay, kid. I’ll level with you. I don’t much think children should be licensed heroes.”

Frank Howitzer is a portly gent, to say the least. He’s also a Paragon City Police Detective. He is the newest on a growing list of people who do not like me.

“So why don’t you tell me what happened to the Whitmore kid?”

To Julia’s credit, she hadn’t panicked when her boyfriend disappeared. Oh, she was upset, but I told her I didn't think Paley was dead -- just maybe teleported. I saw no reason for her to get into trouble on my account, so I promised her I would bring Paley back, and snuck her out by deceiving Mrs. Whitmore. (You know – “These are not the droids you’re looking for.”) And then I spent the next two hours trying to remember the codes Paley used to start the game. Of course, I was unsuccessful.

Around midnight, his mother came into his room to tell him that his friends needed to go home for the night. That’s when I told her Paley was gone. She assumed of course that I meant he had simply left. I let her assumption stand, and she believed me when I told her I was looking on his computer to try to find out where he’d gone. She called the police right away.

“I don’t know. But if you’ll release me, I’m sure I can find him.”

Detective Howitzer just gives me that look that adults in authority love to give younger men my age; that look that says I’m a pissant; that I don’t know shoes from Shinola; that his wisdom is so far above mine as to make anything I may conceive of irrelevant. I’m not going to tell him a bloody thing.

“I’m being nice, kid. I could have you arrested for obstruction of justice.”

“Oh? Arrest me then. Arrest all of us ‘capes’. Then you can stop your own bloody muggings.”

That’s always a sore spot with the PCPD.

“You think you’re a tough one? I’ve pissed out kidney stones that were tougher than you!”

“Then piss off and quit wasting my time!”

Indeed, I’ve cooperated as much as I’m going to. The chances of a city detective solving this mystery are slim to none. Finding Paley all depends on finding out exactly what that game really is.

I am about to take my leave when there is a commotion inside the precinct house. Howitzer – who moves amazingly fast for such a big man – beats me to the office door. There, in the middle of the main room, is a naked man. Police officers and civilians alike are running from him and diving behind desks for cover.

Oh, did I mention that he’s naked except for the bombs strapped to his body?

((You know, when you think about it, this is a game forum and games are pretty fluff to begin with. So people who play games and complain about people wasting their time with fluff are pretty silly. ))

“My five year old brother could do this.”

Paley Whitmore is a wiseacre, but he’s the best hacker in my small circle of acquaintances. He’s never liked me: in the beginning because we were on rival soccer teams in the city league, but now, I think it has more to do with the fact that he is currently dating Julia Kantner, a girl who had a crush on me not so very long ago. He isn’t a student at the Rock, but lives nearby. His father owns a popular chain of steakhouses in the northeast. Paley is trying to open the game I found in the bank vault on his pc. I had tried it on mine, but it was written for a much older operating system.

“Your five year old brother knows more about computers than I do then,” I say.

“Serious, dude – do you even know where the on-button is?” His voice, as it always is when speaking to me, is full of derision.

“I know how to turn on a computer,” I say and immediately know I phrased it poorly.

“Ha! I bet you blow in its ear!”

It is a stupid joke, but I had expected it, and it would not sting at all except that Julia is also present, a girl whose ear I had indeed once lightly blown into. I don’t qualify it with a response. Julia, however, giggles.

I stand by quietly while Paley works. He accesses the game’s code, adds a few command lines, opens his machine’s registry, makes some changes – that I recognize what he is up to makes me feel less like a digital moron. Once or twice I look over to Julia, and once or twice she is looking at me also. The eye contact makes us both visibly uncomfortable.

“Voila!” Paley suddenly shouts.

I turn my attention to his pc’s monitor and there I see a close approximation of Back Alley Brawler and above him, like a banner, the words “HERO CITY!”

“It was easy,” Paley begins, and I listen because he has every right to brag about now. “All I had to do was – hey!”

The screen begins to flash different colors and large numbers begin a countdown. With each flash a different hero races, flies, leaps across the screen with photorealistic graphics.

“What’s it doing?” I ask.

“It’s starting the game, dude! Whoa! Look at the detail – no way this ran on a machine made in 1998!”

A deep rumbling voice comes from Paley’s pc speakers. It says, “Hero City begins – Now!”

The monitor screen glows a dazzlingly bright white – a white so bright it nearly blinds me! All I can see is Paley’s silhouette as the glow speads out, engulfing the room. Then, the monitor goes dark and the glow is gone. And so is Paley.

Julia and I step forward hesitantly as if we are afraid we might get zapped also. Simultaneously, we look in Paley’s chair. All that is there now is a piece of his finger with his class ring on it. Julia and I look up at each other in horror.

“You killed him,” she says.

((The villan forums never were. Also, there are no villian forums. Nor are there vilain forums. You could ask the devs, and if there's enough interest, they could maybe start some. Heck, if enough people ask for it, they might even start some villun forums! ))

((Hope things work out for you bro'. TCOB and we'll see ya on the backaround. ))

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I disagree with your assessment of me!

I do not have good insight! That's why I wear glasses.



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((Glasses are for your outsight. ))

((Happy Birthday! ))

Two things you should know before we proceed.

One – Jessie and I are no longer Jessie and I. Circumstance has come between us, and I’m afraid we’re just not the people we were a few months ago. Very sad, but one must move on, even though one wishes terribly that he didn’t have to. As a result, my relationship to my friend Ben (as well as to several other friends I had made at Maggie’s Rock) is strained, and I find myself a bit isolated. Metamite –whose true identity must be kept secret from the general public -- and Jenny, the little-girl ghost, still seem to like me. (Indeed, if ever Jenny’s smile ceases to lighten my bad moods, then I shall be a lost cause indeed. She’s the little sister I wish I had, and indeed, the closest thing to family I do have.)

And two – it seems as though I am some sort of demigod. I haven’t done much research into it, mind you, and don’t really plan to. It’s all very confusing, with one sun-god blending identities with another sun-god until they all become associated with Apollo, who may or may not be my father, depending on one’s interpretation of Greek mythology. To murk things up further, my father claimed to come from a neighboring universe, so I’m not quite sure if he is of the same Olympians that certain denizens of Paragon City claim relation to or not. In other words, it’s entirely possible I am Statesman’s fourth cousin or great-great step-nephew or some such. Or not. The gist of it is that my status as demigod seems to be the source of my powers, and more, I seem to have abilities which I am only beginning to discover.

All of that is, however, a personal matter, and in the carrying out of heroic duties, personal matters do not… er… matter.

So it is that none of this weighs on my mind as I answer a call to respond to a bank robbery in Steel Canyon.

Why anyone would attempt to rob a bank in Paragon City is beyond me. By the time I arrive at the bank three other heroes are already there – a feral-looking fellow with long wicked claws, a giant in titanium armor, and a floating girl crackling with electricity. While they stand plotting a strategy foil the robbers, I activate my stealth suit, open the door quietly and only as widely as necessary, and go on inside.

Freakshow are behind this one. They have the tellers corralled inside the branch manager’s office while other of them have moved on to the safe with its treasure trove of lockboxes and moneybags. That is where I go, for that is where the leader of this band is likely to be found.

“Find it! Find it!” one rather hulking pile of flesh and steel shouts to his underlings. “It’s worth more than everything else in this vault put together!”

That piques my curiosity, so I remain unseen and watch them conduct their search. They blast and strong-arm the safe-boxes open, going through each thoroughly. A noise from the lobby draws the attention of the thieves. The other three heroes have made their entrance.

“Damn!” the leader shouts, “Time to cut our losses! Grab and go!”

The Freaks drop the lockboxes and grab as many bags of money as they can carry and try to get out of the bank with them. I can hear the ensuing battle and can tell from the sounds of it that the bad guys do not fare well. I decide to try to discover exactly what they were looking for.

I know I shouldn’t, but I can’t help but think it’s important, so I go through the unopened safe-deposit boxes looking for the item of such high value. I find the usual stuff – heirloom watches, deeds, stock certificates – nothing worth the amount the Freakshow leader had hinted at. All right, what do I do next?

If I found nothing usual of obvious value, then perhaps I should look for something unusual of hidden value.

I look again, searching for the odd piece – something one wouldn’t typically lock away for safe-keeping. The only thing I find is a CD in a clear jewel case. It’s an old computer game, copyright 1994, called “Adam Scott’s, Choose Your Own Adventure: Hero City”.

((Bwahahaha! ))

Not th' first time alcohol's been associated with makin' bacon...

((Happy Beedledee!))

[ QUOTE ]
Dead Like Me




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((Me too. ))

((I have to get him back to the point where I can do a plot-driven story with him. Right now he's all tore up because he broke up with his girlfriend.))

((Another bump.))

((Some nice stuff here. ))

((For me, playing CO was very much like playing Guildwars. I had no fun whatsoever during the weeks I playtested. I've given up on it.))

((Congrats!))

((That was a great book. I miss the comics of those days, there was some magical stuff back then.

Take care of yourself and hope to see you back here one of these days! ))

[ QUOTE ]
Most people in forums who claim to be writers, or who talk about writing contest they enter... well to put it nicely their writing sucks.

Such is certainly not the case in the above story. It deserves publication in a major magazine at the least. Hopefully entering it into the contest didn't mean giving away the publication rights. It should at the very least be entered in the Writers of the Future contest.

[/ QUOTE ]

((I don't think I'm all that, but thanks.

As far as publication... I'll never make a living at it, so I'd rather be read than published. Thank you all for reading. ))

((Here's the winning story. ))

Daisy Was a Good Dog
By Warren Thomas Newsom



I’m standing here where our home used to be and I’m looking at stars.

When we first got married, we lived in town, but when my great-uncle got too old and feeble to live alone, we got offered his house in the country. It didn’t take too much talking to convince Annie, my wife, to move the family out to the boonies.

It was a nice, little two-bedroom house, and while our kids, Jacob and Missy had to share a room, they were still little enough to do so and there would be space enough to build on a room later when they got big enough to need to be separated. As little as the house was on the inside, there was plenty of space on the outside; surrounded by woods with a long dirt drive that connected us to the highway. We were finally able to get the kids a dog.

Daisy was a good dog, a big golden lab-shepherd mix. We got her for the cost of a checkup and shots at the animal shelter. I don’t think you could find a gentler dog than Daisy. She never barked unless something came into the yard that didn’t belong there. If a strange car came rolling up the driveway, we’d know. One time a couple of hunters who’d lost direction came strolling out of the woods. Daisy let us know we had company, and when we went out to see who she was barking at, she’d had them penned up against our storage shed, just barking away – never threatened to bite them, just barking. If a stray dog or a bobcat or some other animal that was big enough to hurt one of the children got in our yard, Daisy would send them running.

Daisy was a good dog.

I wish everything could have stayed the like that -- perfect. I wish we could have lived out there the rest of our lives, let the children grow up and me and Annie grow old. But then the sky comes falling on you and nothing’s the same again.

When you live out in the middle of nowhere, you can see the stars really good on a clear night. Some nights I’d go out after supper to smoke a cigarette and look up at all the thousands and thousands of twinkling lights up there. I didn’t know the names of them, but I knew them. It gave me a feeling of being a small part of something huge in a way that an entire childhood of Sunday school and preaching hour had never done.

Two weeks ago, on a particular crisp October night, I saw a light in the sky. It was almost straight up when I first saw it, and crossed the sky quick like meteor, only it wasn’t a meteor. It wasn’t an airplane either. Or a satellite. I had seen all of those things and this light wasn’t any of them. For one thing, it pulsed – not blinked like airplane lights, pulsed – getting brighter and then dimmer and brighter and dimmer. And when it did that, with every pulse, it would change color. Red. White. Green. White. Blue. White. Just like that, changing to white between the other colors. It was getting bigger too, like as it crossed the sky, it was coming downward.

I yelled for Annie, but by the time she got out there, it had disappeared behind the tree line.

“What did you see?” I remember her asking.

I told her it was just a shooting star. When she asked me if I had made a wish on it, I told her I’d forgot.

“Too bad,” she said, “Wasted that one.”

I didn’t talk about it the next day. I just laughed when, at breakfast, Annie told the kids that I had wasted a perfectly good shooting star wish. It was a fake laugh though, and I think Annie sensed it. The UFO (that’s what it was in my mind anyway) had left me with an uneasy feeling. I went to work and tried to get it out of my mind, but it was all I could think of.

I wound up asking to leave early so I could meet Jacob and Missy where they get off the school bus and drive them down the driveway to the house. Annie was already standing there when I pulled up, Daisy by her side. She said Daisy had been nervous all day, barking at the woods and pacing around the edge of the yard. When the bus dropped the children off, they all got in the car; wife, kids, dog, and I drove them to the house.

Things seemed calm then. Daisy didn’t go back to pacing the yard and barking. She came in with us and stayed inside, and lay on the floor in the kitchen where the kids did their homework and Annie cooked supper. Nobody was real talkative, but I thought maybe everybody was tired. Or maybe it was just that time of year, with summer over and winter coming on. But that wasn’t why we were quiet. We were quiet because Daisy was listening.

Sometime after midnight I woke up to Daisy barking at the back door. I ran through the house to see what had stirred her up so much. She was scratching at the back door and whimpering when she wasn’t barking. I knelt down beside her and tried to calm her down. When she got quiet for a moment, that’s when I heard it.

There was a whistling. That’s the only way to describe it. It wasn’t like a tea-kettle, but it wasn’t like someone whistling a tune either. It didn’t waver in tone. It didn’t rise and fall. It didn’t fade out. It was constant. But somehow, it didn’t seem like it was coming from a machine or something like that. It sounded like something alive was making that noise. That’s the only way I can describe it – something alive was making that sound.

Daisy got all excited again and tore away from me, attacking the back door with her teeth and claws.

By this time Annie was there too and when I reached for the doorknob, she said, “No! Don’t let her out!”

But I didn’t see no other way. Daisy was going to get out that door even if she had to tear it down. I opened the door.

She dashed across the yard to the woods with me following behind as fast as I could. The whistling seemed even louder now, filling my ears so that I could barely hear my dog. I stayed with her right up to the edge of the woods, and then before I knew it, she had disappeared into the thick underbrush. I heard her tear her way through the honeysuckle and kudzu, her bark booming the whole way, and that damned whistling over and above it all, seeming to come from everywhere at once now.

Then things went silent. The whistling stopped. I couldn’t hear Daisy either.

I turned to see Annie standing on the back porch and the kids looking at me out the screen door.

“Send them kids back to bed,” I said, “and go get the gun.”

You hear it said all the time, “the silence was deafening.” I’m here to tell you that ain’t just an old saying. The only sound was my own breathing. It seemed right then that the rest of the world had disappeared, just up and gone, and I was the only one left.

When I heard the sound of something crunching its way through the woods toward me, it was a relief. Then I realized that it might not be my dog that came running out to me – it might be the whistler. I stood my ground, and when I definitely heard the sound of paws pounding the ground, it was a sweet sound.

“Daisy!” I shouted when she came out from the brush. I threw my arms wide and knelt down to hug our hero who had protected us from the Unknown. Looking back, that was the wrong thing to do.

She didn’t slow down, and as she bowled me over I knew something was wrong. Before I could get away, Daisy had me pinned down. She was growling now, and her eyes were rolling wild with way too much of the whites showing. I tried to push her off, but she was strong – too strong. All I could do was try to protect my face and neck. Her jaws clamped shut on my arm and I screamed. It hurt like hell when she wrenched a chunk out of it.

Daisy’s jaws opened wide. Her teeth came down across my face. I could feel them sinking into my cheeks. She was going to kill me and there was nothing I could do to stop her.

I should have closed my eyes. Anybody else would have. I could have closed my eyes and then maybe the universe would still make sense to me. But I didn’t. I kept them open and when I looked between those jaws into her maw…

… I saw stars.

I know. It sounds insane. It would make things easier if I was crazy.

I saw stars. Not the stars I knew. Not the ones that filled me with wonder. No, these were strange stars. Stars that didn’t belong in the same creation with the night sky I had loved to look at. For a moment, I could feel them pulling me to them.

The sharp sound of my old thirty-ought-six rifle pulled me back to earth. Daisy left me and darted toward where Annie was on the porch. Annie fired again. Daisy fell in mid-leap and never moved again.

We buried her that night at the edge of the back yard. Annie wanted to get me to the emergency room, but I’d have none of that. She did most of the digging and together we lifted Daisy and carried her to her grave. The kids watched the whole thing from their bedroom window. I didn’t tell them about what I’d saw.

When the sun came up, I finally let Annie take me to the doctor. The kids came with us. Didn’t see no point in sending them to school after a sleepless night. After my 800-and-something stitches, we went to Annie’s folks to stay. Annie, Jacob, and Missy all decided they didn’t want to go back home. Ever.

I just came here to start getting our stuff out. But it’s gone. The house is gone. Where it used to be there’s a deep sink hole, and down at the bottom…

I’m standing here where our home used to be and I’m looking at stars.

[ QUOTE ]
War, you were already cool.

BTW, the link only goes to a login page--how do I see the letter?
Cheers,
T

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((We'll try Photobucket then. ))

((Perhapanauts, published by Image comics. ))