Ragtag Heroes

[Wednesday]

The first chapter of a sci-fi/fantasy story I'm working on. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated...

01. One Man

Before you decide that there is no such thing as hope, let me tell you a story—a story with immortals, and lunatics, and women and men who could do the sorts of things we can only do in books and dreams. This story ends with the world, as all stories should, but begins with one man, as so many stories do.

But I won’t tell you about the day they killed everyone he had ever truly loved. Not right now. And I won’t tell you how, before that day was through, he came to walk along that busy, American road. No need to yet. I’ll tell you about the day after the day after that, the day it started to rain. That was the day it all really began.

The story of our world begins on the third day.

Because he was a special man, 73 had lived an unfortunate life, so it was no surprise that the first drop tapped the perfect center of his scalp. The second fell on the left shoulder of his coveralls, the third on the right, and so forth and so on until both shoulders were nicely damp. But he never noticed. In fact, it wasn’t until the wet soaked through the cuff of his sleeve and chilled his wrist that he finally looked up and saw the grey sky scowl back.

He blinked once, looked ahead, and watched the sign in the door of the roadside diner just ahead flash “Welcome” in bright, pink, neon letters. The wind caught his cough when he glimpsed the happy, dry customers in the corner of his eye, cozy in their chairs, sipping warm drinks. For a moment he imagined their loud laughter at the overstated tales they spun for one another, but the only thing he could hear was the hard patter of rain on gravel. He shoved both hands as far as they would bury in his pockets to keep them as warm and dry as possible. The diner stood before him, next to him, and soon the pink neon flashed bright against his waterlogged back. He couldn’t afford to stop now. After all, there were things far worse than rain.



A nugget of old wisdom passed among American truck drivers is that the best place for potential hitchhikers is the rear view mirror. The good old days when a man could leave his front door unlocked were gone. Tall iron gates had replaced white, picket fences and only the angry mouthed bulldogs pacing suburban yards knew what they’d done with the pet poodles of yesteryear.

Which was why, with a wife and two kids at home, Bob was almost as surprised as 73 when he pulled over and opened his passenger side door. “Being kind’s gonna get me killed one of these days.” It wasn’t as much a self-warning as it was an open reminder that he was being benign. “Well, hurry up and get in before I change my mind.”

“Thank you,” the young man dripped.

“What’re you doing out there, anyways? There’s a diner about three miles back.”

“I couldn’t stop.” 73 shut the door behind him.

“Well, where you going?”

“South.” And that was about it.

In his thirty-two years on the road, the old tractor trailer driver had met a good number of these: quitters, trans-American refugees, runaways who had found trouble at home and decided it best to leave. Unfortunately, more often than not, their problems came along for the ride.

“Listen, I know it ain’t my place, but whatever you’re running from, you might wanna go back and settle things, you know? A man’s gotta face what’s troublin’ him.”

He could hear the young man shift in the wet spot of his passenger seat.

A loud, unexpected beep broke the tension and Bob laughed at the startled young man. He drummed the trusty, old electronic box and simpered, “You act like you never seen a radar detector before?”

“I haven’t.” 73 had never been much of a conversationalist.

“I don’t believe that. Where you from? Mars?”

“Near here, I think.”

“You think? You got problems with your memory or something?”

“I just got back from Japan.”

“Japan?” he asked with bona fide enthusiasm. “You know karate?”

73 stared at the exposed space of belly protruding from the break between Bob’s worn shirt and straining belt. “You should go some time.”

Bob laughed. “Maybe I will.” He turned a knob and the windshield wipers slung the water faster. “You got family there?”

“Not any more.”

“They moved?”

“Where’s your family?” 73 asked, moving the conversation to more comfortable ground.

Bob pulled the wallet from his back pocket and let the long line of family pictures unfold. “My wife and two daughters live in Utah. I always hoped I’d get nothin’ but boys ‘till my first girl was born. That’s her book right down there.”

73 rescued the softcover from the dirty floor space under the right leg of his dripping coveralls, wiped its hard cover dry, and flipped from one random page to another.

“Old lady says I need to read more,” Bob said.

It was a collection of short stories, it seemed, and 73 stopped at one of the title pages. Motel chickens could find inspiration, apparently.

“You like that kinda stuff?” Bob asked.

“I don’t know.” 73 had studied the written works and teachings of such men as Lao Tse, Rousseau, K'ung Fu Tzu, Sun Tzu, and Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. Science fiction had never even entered the equation.

“Seems there’s a lot of stuff you don’t know.”

73 flipped to page one.

The radar detector beeped and Bob let his foot off the gas. “Well, the kid says it’s good,” he continued.

Page two.

Two hours later the book was finished and nestled in 73’s drying lap as the truck whizzed passed more tall buildings, cars, and people than he had ever seen. Lively kids jumped two or three at a time from cars while hurried adults filled tanks with cheap gas. Old couples, those carefree and care filled years now gone, took it slow.

“There are good people here,” 73 mumbled to no one in particular.

“Lots of good people here,” Bob answered. “Never been to Japan or nothing like that but I’ve been to every state in the good ol’ U.S.A. Land of the free, home of the burger. There’s a lot of good people out there.”

“What’s your favorite state?” 73 couldn’t sleep.

The answer tumbled from Bob’s lips like those kids from cramped back seats: “Utah.”

“Your home,” 73 said.

“Home,” Bob replied.

The car driving next to them was a convertible. The mother in the front was arguing with one of her kids in the back while the father sighed and rubbed his temple. Family vacation.

“It’s good to know where you belong,” 73 said, watching them.

“I’ll be retired soon.”

The oldest teen, took a drag from her cigarette. A chunk of ash fell between her father’s new car and their truck. 73 watched the smoke escape her lips as her mother continued to reprimand her brother.

73 turned back to Bob. “When?”

“Six months, five days. I was gonna vacation in the Bahamas, but who knows? It doesn’t snow in Japan, does it?”

The country music stopped abruptly, but it was the alarm in the news reporter’s voice that caught 73’s attention. There was a dangerous fugitive on the loose and the information had just been leaked to the press. He had been missing for three days but an exhaustive search of the district’s metropolitan area found nothing.

“Days?” Bob stared at 73 in disbelief. “They couldn’t hide something like that.”

But now the authorities were worried the man had found a way to leave the Washington D.C area fast—by car, bus, or by some other means. Even planes were being grounded. Then the announcer read a description: he was a bald black man, aged twenty-four, approximately six foot one with a muscular build. He had last been seen wearing blue coveralls, but they warned that after three days that may no longer be the case.

Bob looked at the muscular, tall, black man. He glanced at his bald head and gazed at his dirty, blue coveralls.

73 wanted to let him know everything was all right. He wasn’t dangerous, don’t be afraid, just please keep driving.

“I need gas,” Bob said.

“Okay.”

No sudden movements, not another word. Bob pulled off at the next exit and into the first gas station. He cut off the engine and removed the keys. “I’ll be right back. Stay here.”

“Okay.” 73 said again. When Bob walked into the store and out of sight, 73 stepped out and started walking. What had been gained was now lost, that was a matter of fact.

He didn’t notice that he was still clutching Bob’s book until some time after the trio of large, loud motorbikes roared passed, and that was the only reason he looked back and saw Bob surrounded. One of the motorbike men sneered, while another spoke. He watched Bob’s head nod as his eyes darted back and forth frantically.

He was in trouble. The police were coming for 73. The police were coming but they would be too late for Bob. Bob’s retirement was coming in less than a year. He had a family.

The list of considerations went on but 73 knew there was nothing to consider. He unzipped his top, shoved the book under his dirty coveralls, and started back to the gas station.

“Can I help you?” he asked them.

“Walk away, little boy,” said the man with the biggest fists. He didn’t care for tender-hearted heroes.

“He drove me here.”

“Didn’t you hear?” one of the other men asked. “He said walk away.” This one placed a hand on his side arm. Final warning.

“Is this how you prove yourselves, by preying on the weak?” 73 really meant it when he added, “I suppose it can’t be helped.”

He quickly took care of the situation.

[Wednesday]

And a blip appeared on a monitor in a car far away.

One boot came down hard on the new, polished dashboard, then the other. Codek stretched himself along the reclined passenger seat and ground his body into its comfortable leather. “We’ve got metahuman activity,” he yawned.

“Where?” It wasn’t 73’s direction that worried DeAngelo, but his distance traveled. She had read the metahuman’s files extensively. Everything from his personal history to his name at birth and psychological profile had been there for her perusal.

The United States government had kept him in their underground Washington, D.C. laboratory for almost his entire prepubescent childhood. During those thirteen years, the metahuman (or simply meta) had served as a nonviolent but unwilling medical subject of the government’s Department of Metahuman Research and Control. Unfortunately, he had somehow escaped (the only test subject to ever do so) and spent the last ten years outside captivity before being recaptured three days ago.

She considered the facts again. He had been a nonviolent child, true, but the fact remained that a meta could learn a lot about violence in ten years. Enough, she feared, to overpower or kill a civilian for a faster means of transportation.

Where the Research half of her department had failed in restraining him, the Control half would succeed in detaining him, she pledged.

Codek poked the dot on the computer’s screen and it zoomed in on the satellite image feed. “One hundred twenty miles straight ahead. Just off the interstate. He went South, just the way Dogg expected. Pretty far too.”

DeAngelo tightened her grip on the steering wheel. One hundred twenty miles straight ahead in three days was humanly impossible on foot. Even if his metahuman gene would allow him to travel fast enough, she reasoned, there was no ignoring the fact he would have caused a satellite blip the moment he activated his power.

73 was not on foot.

“He got wind of that ‘news leak’ we let out, and now he wants the hell out of Dodge,” she said. “We’re the closest, just like Dogg wanted. Call in and give ‘em our location.”

“They know where we are.”

“By the book.”

Codek sighed. Two buttons on his department issue cellular phone and it completed the long dialing code.

“We don’t know for sure how fast he can travel now that he’s used his powers,” DeAngelo continued. “If we can’t catch up in time, they’ll have to fly in Chess.”

“You’re really scared, aren’t you?” Codek asked.

“I was being trained and chasing down every rogue metahuman deemed a threat to national security when you were still getting drunk off your ass, reading college physics books for fun, and dreaming of getting laid, Doctor. I’ve got a one hundred percent retrieval rate and I’ll secure any target by whatever means. You want to be a field agent on my team, you need to know two things. First, I don’t like questions, especially when they undermine my authority. Second, I don’t scare.”

“Eighty miles per hour says otherwise,” Codek grinned.

DeAngelo actually smiled a little before she caught herself and hit the gas, shooting their Ferrari around the next tight curve and through the straightaway.



“You didn’t have to come back,” Bob called out as his truck rolled along. It was starting to rain again.

There was no doubt in 73’s mind that they were coming for him now. Hopefully, he could lose them if he took the long way home.

“I owe you.” Bob tried again.

“I’m keeping the book.”

Bob almost laughed. “I owe you more than a book. You want a ride?”

They both stopped.

“You’d be helping a wanted man,” 73 warned him.

“If you wanted to, you coulda forced me.”

That was understood. 73 turned to the northern horizon. They were coming, he was sure of it.

“There’s another book under the seat,” Bob offered.

73 rubbed his bald head. “Really?”

“It’d just go to waste.”

That got the job done. As 73 buckled himself in, Bob smiled and said, “You know, I’d thought I’d seen everything.”

“Seems there’s a lot of stuff you don’t know.”

They drove off.



After almost an hour of uneasy sleep, 73 finally asked Bob to pull off at the next exit. The sun, relinquished from behind the clouds, blinded him as he opened the cabin door, and he almost slipped when his foot hit the wet mud.

“Thanks for the ride.”

“We’re still not even.” Bob’s smile quickly faded. “We can keep going. This ain’t the best place for--”

“I’ll be okay,” 73 stopped him and shut the door. But he wouldn’t be okay. If they could find him in another country, he doubted his trail had cooled in the last few days. His right hand slid a business card in his side pocket and jingled the loose change Bob had given him.

“I’ll help you. Take you as far as you need.”

“You can’t drive me where I need to go. Besides, a man’s gotta face what’s troublin’ him.” The dozens of American control agents chasing him had already proven that they were willing to hurt innocent civilians to bring him back to their government labs, and even kill if it would help them to learn more about that special little quirk in 73’s genes. “I’ll be faster if I stop and get a little rest.”

“Faster than my truck?”

73 looked up at the man who had brought him so far. “Take care,” he said.

There was no getting around it. “You too.”

The floors of Rocky’s Diner were dirty. Dirt filled the air and filmed the windows. It tainted every glass and crusted every corner. But the looks 73 got were even dirtier. He rested his head on the cleanest spot on the bar top and held up the menu. It couldn’t be helped, he supposed.

The angry barkeep with the grease-stained shirt finally walked over and leaned in. “Can I help you?”

“I think I’d like an American burger.” Land of the free.

Someone tapped him on the shoulder. He wondered how they had found him so quickly.

A large hand grabbed his shoulder, forced him upright, and spun him around in his own barstool. 73 was large, but this guy was gigantic. The biggest man in the bar, in fact, a point made evident by the dozen huge but smaller men who stood behind him. The lanky fellow in the next chair got up quickly and bolted to the furthest corner of the room.

The man towered over him, looked him in the eye, and informed him with beer-soaked breath, “We don’t like your kind around here.”

This just wasn’t 73’s day.



“Turn on your glasses.” DeAngelo’s words came over the secure line and into the audio device in Codek’s ear.

“They’re shades,” he retorted, looked at the sign above, and pressed a small button in the frame of his right lens, bringing his ranking control agent’s computer screen to life.

“Rocky’s?”

“Doesn’t make sense.”

“Don’t make a fuss and don’t let them notice you,” her orders came. “Get in and get out. I’m reading at least a few dozen civilians inside.”

Codek walked in through the bar door. The place was seamy and he liked it. His digital lenses began clearing up the dark and smoke-filled image automatically as he surveyed the room.

“Wait,” DeAngelo stopped him. “Turn your head to the right, slowly.”

He did.

“Stop.”

Codek waited for her to zoom in on the image of a group of men surrounding another guy in his chair.

“That’s him,” she finally said.

“We don’t like your kind around here,” Mick repeated to the black man sitting in the stool.

“I’ll leave,” 73 told him.

Codek advanced. “I guess they just don’t like black people.” He stuffed a hand in the pocket of his leather overcoat as he approached his mark, pulled out a small cardboard box, and placed it on his lap. He eyed the gang of big, stocky southerners. “Who would’ve guessed?”

“Oh!” 73’s answered. Just as Codek guessed, the meta had forgotten there were other reasons to hate him. “And you are?”

“Number 1045D-X018.”

“Oh.” It was his control agent serial number. “I just want to leave.”

“You know I can’t let you do that.”

“I’m not causing any trouble.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“I don’t want to fight but they do.” 73 pointed to the group of men who now surrounded them both.

“I’m coming in there,” DeAngelo said in Codek’s earpiece.

“No you’re not.” Because she outranked him, he added, “Just trust me. I’ve got everything under control.”

“Don’t make any noise you don’t have to.”

“Cowgirl, noise is what I do best.”

“Who the **** you talking to?” Mick finally rumbled. His eyes were practically swimming in alcohol.

73 opened the cardboard box. He’d seen ear plugs like these before, and feared the worst. All he could do now was slip them in.

The little man with the shades stepped up to the big, burly hick with the alcohol eyes.

“Shut up,” Codek sneered.

Mick answered with a wild fist to the Codek’s jaw, but the little man’s gloved hand stopped it effortlessly with a metallic clank.

“You like it?” he asked, pulling down his sleeve with his fleshy hand while bearing down on Mick’s fist. His entire right arm was made of a reflective metal. “It’s all the rage overseas,” he joked.

Before Mick could connect with a left swing, Codek tightened his grip and cracked four of his knuckles. A simple flick broke his wrist. Mick’s scream as he dropped to his knees was enough to make everyone in the room step back.

“So,” Codek looked at the dozen other men, then around the room, “which one of you dick weeds is next?”

“You’ve got your mark,” DeAngelo said in his ear.

One man charged in with a pool stick, but he dodged the blow and slipped out of his coat in one sweep. He followed with a kick in the chest while his human thumb ran along his shiny arm. From behind, three men ran in as the bionics hummed to life. He saw them just in time, aimed in their direction, and twitched his fourth finger just right, vibrating every organ of their bodies. Without a touch, all three fell to the ground at his feet.

More people got up now, and he wished the grin on his face would show on his field commander’s monitor screen. He moved his fingers in a specific series, releasing a widespread sonic pulse, and the entire room seemed to freeze. One after another people fell to their knees, retched, and vomited violently.

He turned to the metahuman, glad to see the earplugs had saved the him from sharing the unfortunate fate of everyone else in the room. “A42-44073,” he said, “I’m Venn Codek, Control Agent Number 1045D-X018. But you can call me Fused. Uncle Sam wants you back. I’m here to take you in.”

“I can’t go back.”

“I’m not like the other control agents and trackers,” he warned, waving a metallic finger. “I give my marks one chance to come peacefully, that way I can really let loose when they don’t.”

“I can’t go back.”

“That wasn’t a request.” Control Agent Venn Codek lined a fingertip along his bionic arm again and the pitch of its metallic hum increased. He aimed his open palm directly at his mark’s bulky chest. “Those earplugs I gave you are top notch government issue. Good ****.” He smiled. “But they ain’t that good.”

[evanescentdream]

Very interesting. Very ambiguous. Curiosity will eat me until I read more.

I also like your method of starting in the middle of the action. Although I am drawing my own conclusions about what happened to 73's family, your withholding of this information fuels the sense of irony in my soul, and I hunger desparately for the story before the story. Please post more soon.