Hero's Call (Hero Chronicles Book 1) Page 3

  Inside it was poorly lit, like Captain Amazing was walking into some one’s basement that was lit with only a single light swinging on a flimsy cord. A myriad of tables were scattered around a single stage that jut out into the room like a great wooden finger. When he walked in a girl was just finishing her routine. She wasn’t wearing much, but what could he expect. God knew Germans loved their burlesques.

  Captain Amazing was in civilian clothes. He figured a man walking into a German strip club wearing a Hero costume might draw a few eyes, and apparently this place had a staggering drawing power for Villains. He could see why. There was a door leading to an unseen room that more than one working girl had led a patron into. It was an anything goes type of place. He didn’t mind, Captain Amazing wasn’t there for pleasure anyway.

  He sat down at the bar and ordered a beer. A thick German stout that he practically had to chew.

  “That one’s on me,” a voice with a thick German accent said to Captain Amazing’s right. He looked over and received quite a fright. Adolf Hitler was sitting next to him draining a tall stein of beer. He gave Captain Amazing a smile and raised his stein in cheers.

  “Thanks, buddy,” Captain Amazing replied and raised his stein in the same fashion as Hitler. He didn’t know what he was capable of at the time, and, to be honest, Hitler was actually a pretty good guy. Captain Amazing could see why he was voted Times Man of the Year…twice.

  They chatted for a bit. He could tell Captain Amazing was American from the second he walked through the door. Hitler didn’t appear to bear him any ill feelings. In fact, quite the opposite. Captain Amazing almost got drunk off of his Deutsche Mark. He mentioned that he was in country to do a bit of hiking in the mountains, but he’d heard that there were some shady things going on. Captain Amazing asked if there was any part of the mountains he should avoid. Hitler shrugged his shoulders and said there were rumors of weird goings on in the northern mountain range. Captain Amazing thanked him, and bid him farewell. He walked outside and slipped into an alley to change clothes. He had a general idea as to where to go, and it wasn’t hard to find what he was looking for.

  The castle was blinking with light, tucked away in a small valley. He set down inside the castle’s courtyard. There were no guards. He expected Czar Destructo didn’t think anyone would find him all the way up here. He was wrong. It was easy enough to get inside. He left the door unlocked. It was actually a pretty nice place. He had a massive tapestry in the entrance hall of himself on top of the world. Clear delusions of grandeur.

  Captain Amazing found Czar Destructo tucked away in a dimly lit cellar. He was hunched over some circuits with a soldering gun. In front of him was a massive globe of metal and electricity. He didn’t even seem to notice the fact that someone had walked in.

  “Pretty science project you’ve get here,” Captain Amazing said after a minute or two of watching.

  “It’s a gravitational generator, if you must know,” he corrected off-handedly, like he knew the Hero was there and had been the whole time, asking questions. Captain Amazing couldn’t be sure whether Destructo saw him coming, or just knew someone was going to be coming eventually. “It can pull the moon out of orbit and into the atmosphere with the press of a button. The world will bow to me when they learn of its existence.”

  Destructo got up and walked to a small desk on the left side of the room. Captain Amazing took the opportunity to step up and examine the generator a bit more closely. It was polished to a sheen and he could see his reflection. The generator hummed dully. Captain Amazing pulled back a fist, and went to plunge it into the device, but his hand stopped inches short.

  “I’m afraid I can’t let you do that,” Destructo said with a sly smile. He was holding a very strange pistol-like device. “This is a little thing of my own invention. I call it the Stop Ray. It renders anything I point it at completely motionless.”

  He was right. Captain Amazing couldn’t move a muscle. He was inches away from saving the world from being crushed by its own moon, and he couldn’t do a thing t stop it.

  “I haven’t worked out all the kinks just yet,” he said examining the weapon. “If I let go of the trigger the effects wear off. I’m close to correcting that though, so no worries.”

  He crossed the room and started collecting the circuit boards he was working on when Captain Amazing had first came in. He fumbled with the circuits and used a spare finger to pop open a hatch on the side of the generator. He slid the circuits into various places inside and clicked the hatch shut.

  “I have to admit,” he said crossing the room to a control panel, “I’m glad to see you here. I was afraid my threats to the leaders of the world would go unheeded. Sending a Hero means I’ve gotten through to them. What’s your name anyway? I admit I haven’t seen a lot of Heroes, as I’m new to this whole Villain thing. I don’t see an emblem. You’re a bit small time then, eh?”

  Captain Amazing couldn’t answer.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” he said when he noticed that his foe couldn’t move his lips. He let go of the trigger of his Stop Ray, and Captain Amazing felt his body relax.

  “Captain Amazing,” he replied, and drove his fist through the hull of the generator, pulling out as many circuits and wires as he could get his hands on. The dull hum of the generator slowly died away, the lights fading into nothingness.

  “You idi…” Czar Destructo started to say, but before he could finish or grab the Stop Ray, Captain Amazing crossed the room and gave him a vicious right hook. He slumped unconscious to the floor. Captain Amazing picked him up and threw him over his shoulder. As an afterthought, he smashed the Stop Ray to bits. It was actually an interesting device, and Captain Amazing felt a tinge of regret he had to destroy it, but God knows what Destructo could have accomplished once he’d worked out the kinks.

  Captain Amazing stepped out into the night air with an evil genius over his shoulder. It was crisp and refreshing, and Captain Amazing felt alive. He could feel the blood pumping through his veins. He felt even more unstoppable than he actually was. Like he could actually take over the world. Of course, he would do it for a good purpose. But that was not his fate. He wasn’t here to rule the world, just keep it safe. And he had saved it for the first time of many.

  On the day his great-grandson was due for a visit after getting Devon Macledowny in-school suspension, he was over a century old, sitting in a threadbare arm chair watching old reruns of Leave it to Beaver. His skin was wrinkly. His hair was thinning and white. His bones ached and cracked nonstop. He hadn’t saved the world, or anyone for that matter, from anything in almost fifty years.

  Captain Amazing sat by himself all day reminiscing about the old days of saving the innocent and crushing the wicked. He would play checkers with a guy down the hall. The other guy never won. Probably had something to do with the fact that he had Alzheimer’s and can’t remember what he’s doing halfway through the game. At night, he would fall asleep praying he didn’t piss himself in the middle of the night.

  The only shining light at the end of the dismal, dreary tunnel was his weekly visit from his great-grandson who was due to arrive any second.

  Chapter Three

  From the diary of Czar Destructo,

  Evil Genius. Villain Extraordinaire.

  Final Entry.

  That son-of-a-bitch Captain Amazing is the whole reason I’m in here. As a Villain, you’re not technically required to have a nemesis. It’s actually a bit more prudent not to have one. They’re kind of annoying. Things happen though. When you try to take over the world several times, the same Hero seems to come back again and again. Always appearing at the last second – tall, fair, and handsome – to ruin the work you’ve spent months perfecting.

  They just don’t understand how long it actually takes to breed a mutant army, or build a Death Ray, or even take control of everyone’s mind in the country. Things like that take planning and work. They require large sums of ill-begotten money. You have to hire henchmen. Ugh, do
n’t get me started on henchmen. Ever since they unionized they’ve been nothing but a hassle.

  I am not the original Czar Destructo. To be perfectly honest, I don’t even know who was. The name has been around for ages and ages. I’m merely a clone, of a clone, of a clone, and so on. And when I get out of here, I’ll make a clone of myself. I still have years of Villainy ahead of me, I think, but I need time to train my protégé.

  I’m old, though I may not look it. Time seems to have a funny effect here. I was brought to life sometime around the 1900’s, but, to look at me, you’d only guess I was in my late forties. I know the Hero Gene gives you an unnatural long life, but this is something different. I don’t know if it has something to do with the cloning process, or if this prison has effects they didn’t realize when they built it, but I care not. I feel as young and lively as the day I was cloned.

  I will have to admit, though, that this prison is something of a marvel. It’s nestled miles under the frigid water and ice of Antarctica. I don’t know who designed it, probably Brainiac or The Constructor, but my hat’s off to them. It’s an impossible labyrinth of icy tunnels and pools of water that would give you frostbite just to dip your toe in. They leave me free to roam in my cell, which is nothing more than a large icy dome with a single bed and a television that I could guess is one of the first televisions ever made.

  I’ve been in here for forty long years. I was caught in 1959 by Captain Amazing, as I said. I had constructed a massive army of seemingly indestructible robots. I marched on Washington, and took over the entire United States government in one fell swoop. Captain Amazing was out of the country at the time. The news reached his ears in no time, but even for a Hero, it takes a few hours to fly across the ocean. For just a few short hours I knew what it was to have the country under my command. Just as I was broadcasting my victory speech across the nation, that bastard Captain Amazing dropped down on the steps of the White House. My robot army that I thought couldn’t be stopped was turned to tin foil in less than ten minutes.

  He marched into the Oval Office and found me sitting with my feet propped on the desk. He went through the same old garbage.

  “This ends now, Destructo,” he said in a commanding voice.

  “Oh give it a rest, Amazing,” I replied with annoyance. “I’ve heard it all before. You know I’m not going to just give up and let you take me away.”

  “If it’s a fight you want,” he said with a smile, “it’s a fight you’ll get.”

  Now, anyone with the Hero Gene is much stronger than normal men, and that includes me. But, even so, I’m no match for Captain Amazing. His blows landed like sledgehammers. I don’t even know if the few hits I got in on him were even felt. He certainly didn’t seem to notice them. With a final punch to the chest he sent me flying through the wall of the Oval Office and into the White House rose garden. I wasn’t unconscious, and I probably could have gotten up and fought, but I didn’t see the point.

  At the time, I thought they were going to take me to prison again. But I’ve broken out of their prisons far too many times, and they wised up. They manacled my hand and ankles together and threw me in an electrified cage. Seven armed guards were trained on me at all times, plus Captain Amazing. They loaded me into a dark, musty cargo plane, and flew me as far south as you can go before you start going north again.

  I spent the majority of my days watching television. There’s really nothing else to do, unless I want to sit and brood, but I gave that up years ago. There’s amazing reception for it being the South Pole. I suppose I have whoever built this place to thank for that. I’m not much for the programs they come out with nowadays. It’s just a bunch of idiots sitting around a coffee shop or some one’s apartment talking about a bunch of crap that doesn’t matter or make much sense to the world. Who cares about shrinkage or whether those two morons were on a break or not?

  I don’t watch the news anymore. I used to watch it because it was reports of me and my random acts of terror. Once Captain Amazing locked me away in this place, I grew depressed watching reports of other Villains terrorizing the world. From time to time, Amazing would stop by to make sure I was where I belonged, which made me flick on the news to see what Villain could be so evil to make me a suspect. Seeing those wannabes fail time and time again also depressed me. Once The Dreadnaught Virus took hold, and what was left of the remaining Heroes and Villains scattered to the four winds, I stopped watching because all I saw were reports of robberies and murders and wars that I wasn’t behind.

  The Dreadnaught Virus was one of my more brilliant plans. Me being a super genius, it was easy to study the Hero Gene and create a virus that counteracted it and inoculate myself against it. It was all part of my plan with the robot army, but it didn’t work like it should have. It must have been a miscalculation of sorts. The plan was to release the virus into the air of every major city on Earth, which I did. The effects were supposed to be instantaneous, which they weren’t. I didn’t know that however. I was going to reveal what I had done in my victory speech when I took over the country, but Captain Amazing, that witless wonder, had something else to say about that. Imagine my surprise when he showed up and punched me through a wall. As a punishment, I kept my secret. Funny, he spent all that time protecting the innocent, and he’s the one responsible for the ignorance and desolation of his people. The world is without Heroes, and it’s all thanks to Captain Amazing.

  They don’t keep me restrained in my cell. I’m free to come and go as I please through the maze of ice tunnels that surround me. I’ve walked those paths a thousand times, only to eventually find myself back in the dome cell they created for me. I took every combination of twists and turns I could think of, and they all lead back to one place. It was some sick twisted mind game, I’m sure. They probably thought it would be funny to make me think there’s a way out somewhere, and watch me wander for hours and end up in the same place.

  The joke’s on them, though. Guards come and go three times a day to bring me my food. They have to enter and exit from somewhere even if they do it somewhere out of my sight. They make me lie on the bed while automated harnesses lock me in place. Then they bring out a tray of food, and set it on top of the television and leave. But I’ve figured out from whence they come and go, so, like I said, the joke’s on them.

  “Lie down on the bed,” a steely voice called from the overhead speaker.

  It was dinnertime, and Czar Destructo had had enough of his icy prison. He walked silently over to the bed, stashed his diary under the mattress, and did as he was told. Four solid steel restraints slid out of the bed and locked over his wrists and ankles. There was a sound of a door opening followed by distant footsteps. A few seconds later, two guards wearing khaki uniforms and winter coats appear. One of them was holding a steaming tray of food, if it could even be called food. The other had his gun trained on the Villain in case something went awry. At each of their sides hung an extendable police baton.

  The guard carrying the food set it down on top of the television. They both started to back out of the room.

  “Excuse me, guard,” Destructo called after them. He could hear their footsteps stop.

  “What do you want, maggot,” one of them answered him. His voice was burly and gruff. He could not be any more of a stereotypical tough guy.

  “I was just curious if you could send a message to someone for me.”

  “No mail goes in or out,” he growled back. “Those are the rules.”

  “Yes, well, I’m afraid it’s something of importance,” Destructo said casually. “I was just hoping you could tell your mother that I had a wonderful time last night, and that cute purring noise she makes in bed is plaguing my mind.”

  Czar Destructo could hear angry footsteps pounding across the room. In a moment, the guard was hovering over him face to face. A massive vein was bulging in his face and neck. Destructo could tell he’d hit a sore spot.

  “What did you say to me?” he spat in Destructo’s face
as he talked.

  “I simply said that I’ve had sex with your mother, and that I’d like her to know that it was quite enjoyable.” Destructo gave the guard a wry smile.

  “Release the restraints,” the guard yelled to no one. The metal cuffs holding Destructo down slid soundlessly back into the bed. “It’s time to teach you a lesson.”

  The guard grabbed Destructo by the shirt and hauled him to his feet. The guard dragged him to the middle of the room and left him there. He took two steps more, and turned to his prisoner. Destructo could see the rage in his eyes. His muscles were bulging through his shirt as he took off his standard issue winter coat. He grabbed the baton from his waist and flicked it open with one quick movement.

  “I’ve been waiting a long time for this,” he growled.

  There was a power suppressor field around the whole chamber. The field makes it so if Destructo were to break free of his restraints, he’s still just human. So, when the gorilla of a guard started to charge his prisoner, he thought a man half his size and strength was standing before him.

  The good thing about fighting Heroes your whole life, Destructo thought, is that, after the first few times of getting your ass kicked, you realize you need to learn to fight. You already know you’re stronger than any normal man you may encounter, but that doesn’t mean you know how to brawl with a Hero. Destructo spent a year in Asia making himself a better combatant. He wouldn’t be winning any martial arts tournaments any time soon, but it had served its purpose.

  The guard took a massive swing at Destructo that he might as well have broadcast to the world before he’d done it. Destructo ducked effortlessly and the baton went sailing over his head. The wind from the swipe rustled his hair. Destructo may not have been as strong he used to be, but he was still strong enough. He planted his right fist into the guard’s gut, and he could hear the air get knocked out of him. He doubled over, and Destructo drove his knee into the guard’s nose. Blood gushed out like a river. To his right, Destructo could see the guard raise his gun, but before he could fire, Destructo pulled the bloody guard to his feet and use him as a human shield. Two bullets plunked into his back. Destructo grabbed the baton hanging lifelessly from the dead guard’s side and threw it at the guard who was still alive. It landed squarely between his eyes, and he slumped over unconscious.