Government-Sanctioned Superheroes

GOVERNMENT-SANCTIONED

SUPERHEROES

By Chad Descoteaux

(Copyright 2017 TURTLE ROCKET BOOKS)

The sequel to WORKING-CLASS SUPERHEROES, which is now available on turtlerocketbooks.com

ISSUE #0

Lifting a barbell from the floor to his chin, over and over, in the middle of the prison weight room was a great way for fifty-something inmate Dwayne Sullivan to get a cocktail of adrenaline and blood pumping into his brain. He needed to think. And, being in prison for the next few decades, this was the closest thing to getting out of his cell and enjoying some exercise that he could conceivably do.

The minute sense of freedom that he felt allowed him to take a long luxurious run through his memories, carefully piecing together what had gone wrong in his life. His thought process started with him being stationed at a United States military base in Egypt all those years ago and ended with his current imprisonment here in Rapier Bunz Federal Prison.

Dwayne liked being stationed in Egypt. Like this prison cell, Dwayne found the gates that surrounded him at the military base needlessly constrictive. Because of this, he would secretly go AWOL a few times a week just so he could jog through the desert on his own. He loved jogging past the pyramids, finding them both fascinating and breathtakingly beautiful, especially when the sun was setting behind them, casting purple shadows over the landscape. He had read as many books as he could about these pyramids, how they were constructed and how different groups throughout history that had used them as symbols for different reasons. What a great place for a United States base, Dwayne thought. There’s a pyramid on the back of our money, after all.

As he ran, Dwayne thought about what was going on back home. But he didn’t think about all the protesters, picketing on the lawns of the White House and other U.S. government buildings. He didn’t think about all the conspiracy theorists who had concocted their own elaborate theories about why the United States had an increased military presence in Egypt these days. He thought about his son, Zeke, who was ten at the time. And his wife, Sandy.

Dwayne missed his family. He was sure that Sandy would be able to hold down the fort while he was gone. Sandy’s sweetness, hard-working nature and her love of children was one of the first things that Dwayne noticed about her when they first met, when she was working in Hicksville as both a waitress and a nanny. Not to mention her cooking, something that young Zeke loved about Sandy as well.

Dwayne was sure that being a soldier was the best way he knew how to make a living, to provide for his family. Being a sniper, hitting targets with guns from long distances was probably the only thing that he was ever that good at in his entire life. That included his BB gun, hitting tin cans and sparrows when he was eight. But being away from his family for months at a time was very difficult for him. And that was what he thought about as he sat on a large rock and watched the sky behind the nearest pyramid turn streaky and purple.

There was one particular evening where the nighttime desert was illuminated, not just by the sunset, but by unusual streaks of light that appeared suddenly out of the pyramid itself. The light was poking out from in between the millennia-old bricks that made up this impressive structure. Dwayne was alarmed. More so when the bricks on the pyramid started to move by themselves, letting more light shine though this rectangular sliding door as the pyramid itself opened wide.

From those streaks of light came what looked like two flying vehicles. They burst from the light, flying high into the sky. When they came back down to Earth, they skimmed a few feet above the sand and started moving across the landscape like hover crafts. When rockets fired, these hovercrafts whipped past Dwayne with a sudden burst of acceleration and flaming exhaust, taking off into the surrounding nighttime desert, leaving the soldier dumbfounded, bewildered and perplexed.

These hovercrafts were clearly attacking each other. One ship was firing lasers at the other, trying to stop or damage it. The ship in front was performing amazingly acrobatic maneuvers that took advantage of its unusual, aerodynamic shape. Its round wings were flipping from side to side and spinning to avoid the energy blasts that were being shot at it, blowing apart surrounding sand dunes and obliterating cacti. The blue-skinned, armor-clad pilot of the pursued ship pressed its fingers against a console that allowed him to control the whole of the ship with mere twitches of his scaly fingers.

Laughing arrogantly at his pursuer’s inability to hit him, this pilot from another dimension allowed the other ship to get closer to his before firmly punching the button in the middle of the console. Spiked balls, powerful bombs, each the size of tennis balls, burst from a compartment in the back his ship, pummeling the other ship with explosions that ripped it apart within seconds.

The pursuer’s ship was clearly finished, but before it could make a nose plant into the hot sand below, that chaser pilot activated the ejector seat. With a loud popping sound, the pilot went flying from the cockpit and into the air. Through his rear-view screen, the fleeing pilot could see his hated enemy, a six-foot tall humanoid figure with a falcon’s head, being propelled through the air, strapped to his seat with black exhaust trailing him. Unbuckling his seat belt, the wings of this falcon man burst from the shoulder blades on his muscular frame, allowing him to hover there, protecting himself from a messy fall as his pilot’s seat crashed into the hard sand below him.

With a burning look of anger in his eyes, and with one flap of his wings, this falcon-man was in hot pursuit of the other ship. Before the blue-skinned pilot could react, this bird-like humanoid beast opened his tiny, jagged beak and let out a squawk that would be easily heard for miles around. This squawk was accompanied by ripples of condensed sound that tore apart the ship that it was aimed at, ripping pieces off this ship as those pieces turned to dust in mid-air. A wingless, scrap metal version of this hover ship hit the sand hard, within full view of the United States military base where Dwayne was stationed. American soldiers gawked with astonishment at the unusual sight, particularly the powerful bird man that perched himself on top of the crashed remains of the ship with his razor talon feet.

Someone who had been watching the entire pursuit might wonder why this bird creature was flying a ship at all. Why didn’t he just use this powerful squawk as a weapon sooner? If he can fly, why did he need a ship in the first place? The body mechanics of beings from another dimension are foreign to humans, so the best answer they could possibly get would be that adrenaline, or at least excitement, was a factor. This falcon being couldn’t use his ‘power squawk’ haphazardly whenever he wanted to. He had to be in a hopeless situation, or one that angered him to a certain point, before he could use this ability. And given what this blue-skinned being from a parallel dimension had done, anger was probably the largest common denominator between his actions and the falcon’s rage.

Plunging his fist through the remaining glass of the cockpit, this falcon creature forcefully pulled the pilot through those jagged glass slivers. Looking back at this tall falcon man with disdain, the pilot scoffed at his very presence, not intimidated in the least by the piercing, angry, yet strangely beautiful eyes of this powerful being.

Sett! barked the falcon, frightening the few human soldiers who heard this creature speak for the first time. Sett was the armored, humanoid pilot’s name. He was someone that this falcon man knew all too well. Where is it? Give back what you stole! the bird creature ordered in a foreign language that had not been spoken on Earth in ten thousand years. The human soldiers that were now forming a circle around the damaged craft with their guns pointed at these alien creatures could hear the exchange, but not understand what was being said.

See for yourself, bastard son of Isis! shouted Sett, pointing at a small device that was resting in the cockpit. It was about the size of a laptop computer and had clearly been damaged in the crash. The falcon immediately recognized this machine as something that could teleport inanimate objects over great distances, a machine that was commonplace where they were from. I have sent the artifact far away. Where it is, you will know not! Sett quipped before letting out a hearty laugh, cocking his head backwards as he guffawed callously.

The falcon’s rage grew when he saw how badly damaged the device was. There was very little chance that the data could be recovered, that he could find the priceless artifact that Sett had stolen from his beloved father. Soon, the falcon man could no longer contain his anger. Glaring at Sett with his piercing eyes, his righteous anger, fueled by the realization of injustice, once again gave him the ability to squawk ripples of extremely destructive sound. Realizing that his current physical form was about to die yet again, for the umpteenth time since he had become part of the myths shared by the ancient peoples of this small sector of this dimension, Sett closed his eyes, focusing on the immense success of his mission rather than the meager success that his enemy would have killing him.

Dwayne arrived back at the base just then, running like the wind. He watched with astonishment as this falcon creature, surrounded by frightened and befuddled United States soldiers, disintegrated Sett with a single, prolonged screech. The soldiers started to fall back when the loud squawk pummeled their ear drums, but Sett’s body was obliterated by the blast. Yellow blood burst from the parts of his torso from which limbs were torn. And the parts of his body that did not disintegrate fell to the sand, held together by mere tendons as more yellow blood stained the ground beneath the clawed feet of his executioner.

What this falcon man saw as a rightful, lawful execution of a man who had committed a capital offense back in his home world, these human soldiers saw as an overgrown freak with bird features murdering what looked to them like a human being in a costume. Especially when the falcon planted his feet on the sand beneath the ship and started to eat what was left of Sett.

It was General Ty Gordon, Dwayne’s commanding officer, that decided to do something about this. He opened fire on the falcon creature. Many soldiers followed his example, later filled with terror when the bullets bounced off this humanoid bird’s muscular, feathery torso. They soon stopped shooting. Some of them ran frightfully back to the military base, fearing that they were the next ones to be squawked at.

But they were not. This falcon creature was a prince in his home world. He was only here to capture a thief that had broken his people’s law by stealing something that belonged to the king. Travelling between dimensions without permission was also against the law. The prince would be breaking the law himself if he harmed the native people of this primitive dimension in any way. Putting his arm talons up above his head, a sign of surrender in any world, the falcon man dropped to his knees submissively.

Decades later, rotting away in the Rapier Bunz prison, Dwayne would remember the team of soldiers that were frozen with fright, pointing their guns at the creature while looking to each other for direction. Do we arrest this thing or what? thought most of them in unison. It looks like he’s surrendering. Don’t look at me! Gordon’s in charge! Dwayne could see that the demeanor of this creature had changed from the rage of a warrior to someone who was respectfully adhering to the authority of the land he found himself in.

Wandering around his cell, Dwayne looked at the newspaper clippings that he had taped to one wall, creating a collage of real-life superhero stories. These were stories of men and women, mostly from Hammer City, who had acquired superhuman abilities through any number of circumstances (mostly involving radiation) and used them to fight crime or to benefit their community and fellowman in a number of helpful ways. These stories reminded Dwayne of when he was a kid. Back then, superheroes were not only more commonplace, but they were sanctioned by the government as law enforcement officials, handling threats that normal human cops could not. They even had their own federally-funded Superhero Headquarters in the dead center of Hammer City.

But times had changed and the government has since cracked down on what it called ‘masked vigilantism’. Dwayne had never seen an actual superhero in person, but would marvel at news reports about these brightly-costumed do-gooders. That fateful day in Egypt was the first time that Dwayne had seen someone that he could rightfully deem super. And this falcon man was far superior to some working-class schmuck from Hammer City who acquired superhuman powers god knows how and decided to fight crime independent of the proper authorities. This creature was obviously superior to any human, but he was bowing to the authority of the United States military on what was considered American soil for the time being. Very respectful bird, Dwayne thought, remembering that ‘bird’ was a slang term for a cute girl in England. Is that thing male or female? he wondered.

Everything that happened to Dwayne since then, his attempt to find the artifact that Sett had stolen, stealing it from a rogue black ops group to keep it from being weaponized, being thrown in jail, the government cover-up that made his family think he had robbed a convenience store, all of it started when this falcon man pointed at himself and told the soldiers his name. This relatively-immortal, interdimensional being couldn’t speak