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Powers vs. Power Book One
Powers vs. Power Book One
Powers vs. Power Book One
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Powers vs. Power Book One

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In Los Angeles, a city where glamor and grit exist side by side, heroes and villains struggle to define what good and evil mean. A self made millionaire and an accidental superhero both follow a dream of superpowers, with very different results for each. All around them, the true centers of power will decide their fates.

LanguageEnglish
PublisherRobin Reed
Release dateDec 31, 2009
ISBN9781458006516
Powers vs. Power Book One
Author

Robin Reed

Robin Reed lives somewhere in the vicinity of Los Angeles, with cats.

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    Book preview

    Powers vs. Power Book One - Robin Reed

    Powers vs. Power

    ~Book One~

    by

    Robin Reed

    Copyright  2009 Robin Reed

    Smashwords Edition

    License Notes

    This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

    All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

    The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

    Cover art  2008 Mike Dominic

    Originally published as Power vs. Power at

    http://meutahumanpress.com

    Barstow Productions

    http://www.barstowproductions.com

    Reflection

    Let’s go, Randall Moss said, settling himself in the front seat of the limo. He never sat in the back, and he never let Marcus open the door for him. They were friends from the neighborhood. Marcus was not a servant.

    Something wrong? Marcus asked. He started the stretch Hummer and pulled out of the alley which was the only place they could find to park the monstrous thing. Randall only used it for this kind of public appearance. It helped his image as a billionaire with nothing on his mind but expensive toys.

    No. Randall was lying to his old friend, but he had to think before he could honestly answer the question. He had just come out of the Crenshaw Community Center, and he wasn’t sure he was the same man who had gone in just an hour before.

    It was just a PR thing, a photo op. After winning the African American Entrepreneur Award and being on the cover of Jet Magazine, he had gained much more of a public persona than he wanted. Before that he was covered mainly by computer and business magazines.

    Just go in and be seen with the kids, the PR flack said. It will be good for your image. Randall should have learned long ago not to listen to PR flacks. Especially if it meant going back to the neighborhood where he grew up.

    Marcus pulled onto the on ramp for the 110. It was backed up. It was mid day on a Saturday and there was no reason for a traffic jam, but that was L.A. Randall thought about the suit. He could have sent a hundred kids to college just for what he had spent on the suit.

    ***

    He had started the tour of the community center without much interest. The head of the place was Mrs. Sullivan, a large woman with a booty you could shelve books on. She smiled broadly at him and treated him like the biggest celebrity she had ever met. Maybe he was, but if so she needed to start dealing with a better class of celebrities.

    She nattered on about the center and how much it was helping the kids in the neighborhood. Randall nodded and followed along, but mainly he was thinking about how soon he could start his new career. Everything seemed to be ready, but what had he not thought of? What could go wrong?

    There were a lot of boys playing basketball. Dreaming the NBA dream that would never happen. At least here the hoops had nets, unlike the plain metal ones in the parks where he played when he was a kid.

    There was a weight room, which Mrs. Sullivan showed him proudly. There was a camera crew recording his every move, all for a one minute bit at the end of that night’s news.

    And there was a boy following him.

    ***

    You gonna tell me? Marcus asked.

    Randall grunted.

    Okay, Marcus said. I’ll be here.

    The traffic opened up as they moved onto the 10 freeway. Randall looked at his right hand. He could still feel that little hand in his, see the trusting face. He was sure that the news would show him talking to the boy, but they could never show what had happened to him as he did.

    Mrs. Sullivan had beamed when she reached the new computer lab. Inside, ten new computers, loaded with Mossoft software of course, stood waiting for the kids to use them.

    This kind of donation was a small tax break for Mossoft, the amount nothing compared to the company’s annual budget, but it was another way Randall played the public figure. He obligingly stood in front of the brass plaque with his name on it and recited some pretty words about helping his old neighborhood.

    And he saw the boy standing in the door looking at him.

    The community center was full of kids. Kids who looked exactly like the ones he grew up with. They had the same hard faces, and he was sure they had the same belief that life ended at twenty.

    He knew how little chance most of those kids had. If they weren’t destroyed by gangs and drugs, many of them were headed for prison. He had gotten out of the neighborhood only because he had help.

    Now he was determined, had invested millions, in his plan to fight crime, drugs, gangs, and hopelessness. When Knighthawk hit the scene, the badguys would watch their asses, that was for sure.

    ***

    The Hummer pulled up to an uninteresting looking roll up door. The door started to rise after Marcus keyed the code. Another door was on the other side of a featureless garage space.

    When the outside door closed, Marcus keyed another code. The inside door began to slide up. Neither door would open if the other one was open.

    ***

    The boy wasn’t there the next time Randall looked. TV reporters asked stupid TV reporter questions, and Randall answered politely, hoping to get out of there as soon as possible.

    I have a board meeting to attend, he finally said, which wasn’t true. Thank you, I... Then he felt the small hand slip into his. He turned and saw the boy, seven years old at most, standing there and smiling up at him.

    Um, was all Randall could think to say.

    The boy pulled on his hand. Amused, Randall followed. The cameras and reporters followed both of them. The boy sat in a chair in front of one of the computers. With his free hand, Randall pulled another chair over and sat.

    Do you want me to show you how to use the computer? he said.

    The boy just shook his head.

    ***

    Marcus and Randall walked from the Hummer to the elevator, passing the rest of Randall’s car collection. Randall decided not to go upstairs, to his lavish home built into the old factory space.

    I’ll be in the warehouse, he said. Marcus nodded, looking worried.

    The elevator dinged and Randall stepped into it. The door closed. Instead of pressing one of the buttons, Randall entered a code into his cell phone.

    The elevator started, going neither up nor down. It smoothly slid sideways.

    ***

    The boy wouldn’t let go of Randall’s hand. He suddenly asked, You famous?

    Randall laughed. He glanced at the camera lights. A little.

    You got a big house?

    Pretty big. What’s your name?

    Jerard.

    I’m Randall.

    Jerard nodded. Suddenly the TV lights clicked off. The camera crews had enough footage and were moving on to report the next bit of breathless trivia.

    Mrs. Sullivan arrived and said, Jerard, don’t you bother the man. Then she turned to Randall. I’m sorry, he does this sometimes.

    It’s all right. Randall wanted to pull away from the boy. He also wanted to give Jerard a hug, the kind that no one gave him when he was a kid. He tried not to show his inner confusion in front of Mrs. Sullivan.

    His foster mother drops him off here when she goes somewhere, Mrs. Sullivan said. He kind of clings to any adult he likes.

    Jerard smiled. He was missing a tooth. He looked at Randall with trusting eyes.

    Randall didn’t pull his hand away from Jerard’s. He was stuck, he had forgotten how to stand up.

    ***

    The warehouse was a huge open space. It was in a building that he didn’t officially own. There were several other buildings between his home and this one. Businesses in those buildings didn’t know he owned the whole block. The warehouse had little in it except a workspace with several computers, the car, and the suit in its display case.

    The car was a shadow wrapped in mystery. It was sleek but the black skin was not shiny. The car was meant to hide, to disappear in pools of darkness.

    Randall had at first designed a car that was very cool looking and very fast, but still a car. Then he realized that he wouldn’t get much heroing done with his multi million dollar vehicle stuck in traffic on the freeway. He went back to the drawing board, and for a couple of million more dollars, he made it fly.

    That meant building a door into the ceiling, which dilated open when signaled from the car. The headaches of finding contractors to do the work, ones who wouldn’t ask questions, were enormous.

    Randall grew up in the custody of the state of California. He was not technically an orphan. His mother was alive. She lived on the streets, somewhere. He spent his childhood in foster homes. He lucked out and never lived in an abusive situation. He lived with adults who were paid to give him a home. They gave him a bed and food and got him on the school bus. They were not paid to care.

    ***

    Looking at Jerard, he wondered what the boy’s future would be. How many years before a gang started using him as a courier? Maybe two, maybe three. The little guy he was looking at could be a full fledged gang banger in five to six years.

    Randall had escaped because a teacher had noticed how smart and curious he was, and contacted a program that helped kids get into a private high school. A rich white couple paid his tuition. He always figured that they were more interested in a tax deduction than in him, but he still had to thank them for everything that followed. The scholarship to Princeton, the contacts that funded his startup business, and the explosive growth of Mossoft, Inc.

    Jerard was unlikely to get such help. The high school tuition program still existed, but it could only handle a tiny fraction of the kids who needed it.

    You like comic books? Randall asked. Jerard looked blank. Comic books had been Randall’s release and hiding place when he was a kid. Now kids barely knew what they were.

    He likes video games. Mrs. Sullivan put in.

    Well then this is your lucky day. Randall smiled. I’ll send you some. He made a mental note to send him the entire Mossoft kid’s line.

    Thanks Randall, Jerard said.

    ***

    The suit was in its display case, ready to be put on, to transform him into a hero. Randall stood and looked at it, and also at his reflection in the glass.

    He had first sketched the costume when he was fifteen, on a piece of lined notebook paper. The suit had changed a lot due to practical concerns, but it was basically the same idea. It was as dead black as the car. It vaguely resembled a medieval suit of plate armor, but of course it used more modern, lighter materials. A hawk with spread wings, like on a coat of arms, adorned the chest.

    The suit was bulletproof, or as much as it could

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