Hero Engine Read online

  HERO ENGINE

  ALEXANDER NADER

  Booktrope Editions

  Seattle, WA 2015

  COPYRIGHT 2015 ALEXANDER NADER

  This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.

  Attribution — You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).

  Noncommercial — You may not use this work for commercial purposes.

  No Derivative Works — You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work.

  Inquiries about additional permissions

  should be directed to: [email protected]

  Cover Design by Greg Simanson

  Edited by Christopher Nelson

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to similarly named places or to persons living or deceased is unintentional.

  PRINT ISBN: 978-1-62015-899-9

  EPUB ISBN: 978-1-62015-930-9

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2015909917

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Acknowledgments

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  About the Author

  Other works from Alexander

  MORE GREAT READS FROM BOOKTROPE

  Acknowledgments

  Holy hell, so many people to thank, such a shit memory to remember them all. Thanks, as always, goes to you, the reader. You make everything possible. A huge thanks to everyone who beta read this book and told me it didn’t suck. Jon Edward Paul, you told me if I ditched half the fucks it wouldn’t be half-bad. Sorry I let you down, buddy. Julie Reece told me I say ‘pull’ too much. You guys can thank her for the 376,332 ‘pulls’ I deleted from this novel. Laney McMann read this thing as I went along and encouraged me to keep writing. These guys and a hundred others are more than just authors I work with, they are friends and I appreciate their help.

  My family. They kick ass, all of them. Pam has told me to keep writing more times than I can keep track of. She’s put up with a lot of pissy author behavior and a whole lot of coddling. She’s perfect and I wouldn’t be anywhere without her. Draven, Ava, and Xavier reminded me how much I fucking love comic books and wanted to write one. Somewhere in the middle of an intense debate about Spider-man and Batman is when I decided I wanted to write this novel.

  To everyone, thank you.

  For Pam, Draven, Ava, and Xavier.

  You are my own personal heroes.

  Chapter 1

  YOU KNOW HOW old people say they can feel changes of the weather by their joints? Well, I may not be old, but the throb in my fucked-up hip warns me of a shit-storm on the horizon. I walk through the front doors of the station and immediately head for the locker room to get ready for patrol. Usually, I’m the type to wade around the lobby and chat with whomever I can find lounging about. Today feels different—one of those days where I just want to keep my head low, run my shift without shooting or stun-gunning anyone, and go home. Spend some alone time with my couch; the two of us are very close.

  On my way past the conference room, a commotion steals my attention from the locker room door ahead. Half the damn force is gathered around a TV. Mr. Head-of-the-situation, Sergeant Lovell, is yelling at everyone to “Shut the fuck up,” while he maxes out the volume. The speakers pop and crackle.

  The smart part of my brain tells me to keep walking. If the news is that important someone will fill me in about it later. The shithead part of my brain puts the brakes on my feet and leans my upper body into the room, close enough to see the TV and make out the reporter. Fucking asshole, that part of my brain is.

  Before I can separate the reporter’s words over the din of the room, my eyes seize on the background. The city behind the reporter is leveled. Nothing but fucking rubble and rescue vehicles.

  I raise my voice. “What the hell happened?”

  “Shut the fuck up, Quig,” Lovell shoots back at me without taking his gaze off the screen.

  My jaw clenches. My hands try to close into fists, but I stop them. It’s that damn shithead part of my brain, I swear. The whole thing is reactive.

  Baker, the officer closest to me, leans back in his chair and in a hushed voice says, “It’s that hero chick, Gravitess. She lost her shit and just went bih-zerk on Seattle. She took out two other heroes who tried to stop her.”

  Lovell turns to glare at us over his shoulder, but doesn’t bother saying anything.

  I turn my attention back to the screen. Images flash by. Each one shows destruction like a bomb went off during an earthquake while LA was rioting over the Lakers losing in double overtime of game seven. In between pictures, the screen shows some shaky cell footage of the attack.

  One particularly clear shot shows the Goddess of Gravity hovering over the city, arms stretched out in her Jesus Christ pose. She yells out, “Get away from me,” before ripping a telephone pole out of the ground and flinging it like a Lincoln Log that just gave her a splinter.

  “Fucking cape bitch is nuts,” Lovell says, clearly assessing the situation. “The goddamn capes used to be as human as we are. A trip through the Engine and they think they’re gods among men or some bullshit.”

  “Yeah,” Collins chimes in. “I’m telling you, they can tell us the capes are good, but it’s a scheme. There are no super villains lurking in hidden lairs. They should just leave policing to the police. We’re best off without them.”

  “I’d like to see you call one of them a ‘cape’ to their face,” Ogle says to Collins and gives him a stiff punch to the shoulder.

  Collins mumbles under his breath and turns back to the TV.

  Another clip shows Gravitess raise an abandoned five-story building off the ground, turn it sideways, and drop it to the earth. The building explodes into a puff of dust and debris. She did all that without so much as much breaking a sweat, like a high school band director waving a baton at his orchestra during a practice session.

  I lean back out the doorway and take a step toward the locker room.

  Baker’s chair squeals as he rolls into the hall with me. “Hey, where are you going?”

  “To get ready for my shift.”

  Baker nods toward the TV. “With all that going on, you’re just going to get dressed and go out there like nothing’s happening?” He snorts a little laugh. “What are you, some kind of fucking nihilist?”

  “Nihilist? Been using your word-a-day calendar again?”

  “Fuck you. It means—”

  “I know what it means. I’m no nihilist, but all that,” I nod toward the TV, “is happening in Seattle. We are in Atlanta. I can’t do a whole lot about th
at there, but I can do something about the crazies here.” I resume my path to the locker.

  “What if this is some kind of conspiracy and all the heroes start going bonkers?”

  “I’ll see how a Glock fares against Mr. Cool Ice.” I push open the door.

  “His name is Icestro, you ignorant—”

  As the door closes, I hobble my way to a row of lockers. My hip burns worse than usual today. Reconstructive surgeons did everything they could, but the pain is permanent; some days are just worse than others.

  I open my locker and try not to think about the images on the screen. Bombs, mass shootings, terrorist attacks; tragedy has been on a steady decline since the beginning of the Super Hero Initiative in 1962.

  I tuck in my shirt.

  People have been telling me for years that it wouldn’t be much longer until the heroes put me out of business. All the talk of how one hero could take care of an entire police force, save the taxpayers millions.

  I slip a stun gun into its proper holster.

  Heroes have been the golden children of the world for a long time now, like that perfect house pet that only exists in your mind. Not the puppy that chews up your shoes and pisses on your favorite rug. No, the heroes have been that perfect dog from the commercials that brings you the paper and a beer out of your neighbor’s cooler. It sleeps by your feet at the campfire while you make out with a supermodel and then comes and warns you when the little Turner boy fell down a hill, or some shit like that.

  I clip my gun onto my belt.

  If that dog has gone rabid, the world could be in for some truly scary shit. Can I stop it? No. I’m just a cop: Cool James Quig. Can one single cop from Georgia stop the heroes of the world from uniting and taking this shit over? Fuck no, get real. He can, however, arrest some drunk asshole for hitting his girlfriend until the heroes take the world over.

  I grab my keys and head for the door.

  Chapter 2

  I TAKE THE BACK EXIT from the building to avoid useless chatter about superheroes. Celebrity gossip never much interested me and the fear talk that will inevitably spread, even less so. I’m sure they’ve already digressed to how it’s some massive government cover up. Everyone ignoring the plain-and-simple fact that sometimes people just lose their shit and start killing. It happens to humans, so there is no reason it wouldn’t eventually happen to a hero.

  I shove all that shit to the back of my mind as I walk to my car. Car number one-eighty-eight—the force specifically skipped one-eighty-seven. No one wants to ride in the car that shares its number with the code for a dead body. Car one-eighty-eight, my ride, is one of the few remaining Crown Vics. Everyone else has moved up to Chargers, but I kind of like my Ol’ Crownie, so I’ve skipped on the new ride and let the other guys have their fun with the Hemis. Besides, I’m more of a Ford guy, anyway.

  I take my seat, perfectly adjusted as always, and start the car. I don’t even have time to pull into gear before the radio crackles to life. “We’ve got a fifty-one fifty. Vagrant out by twelfth and Henderson causing quite a stir. Available units, please respond.”

  I grab the mic off the dash. “This is unit one-eight-eight, I’m in the area. I’ll check it out.”

  The road in question is only a couple miles up, so I turn out of the lot and head toward the trouble. Since the operator didn’t say anything about immediate danger or weapons, I don’t bother with the lights. In city traffic they slow me down half the time. Too many morons see lights and sirens and stop, as opposed to the correct response of, ‘Getting the fuck out the way.’

  I’m at the corner in three minutes. Sure as shit there is a guy with a knee-length beard, torn clothes, and a cardboard sign screaming something at everyone oblivious enough to walk within ten feet. I pull my cruiser over to the curb on the wrong side of the road so I can talk to him out the driver’s window.

  His beard is waxy with old sweat and his hair is damn-near dreadlocked with grime—old white dudes should not have dreadlocks. A string leads from the waistband of his camo pants down to the neck of a shaking, bug-eyed Chihuahua. He has a sign in his hands that reads, “HEROES are taking over. END is NEER. PREY for salvation.”

  The guy spots me and points a finger in my direction. “He can’t save you. No mortal man can save you from being left behind as the poor sinners we are.” Liquor-scented spit flies from his mouth as he screams.

  Cute. Sidewalk preacher full of street-sweeper reveries is just how I wanted to start my day. “Excuse me, Sir?”

  “We are all damned. We are all sheep to be slaughtered by the gods among us.”

  “Sir, you’re scaring the nice folk within shouting distance of your holy lunacy.”

  “The gods are rising up now. They will sweep this land of foul sinners, leaving behind only the most holy. Repent now or suffer the wrath of the gods!”

  “Excuse me, Pope Bat-Shit Crazy, calm down with your End Times talk. If I have to get out of the car, I’m gonna be real unfriendly about this.”

  “Your idle threats do not bother me, Sinner. I fear only the Lord and the Horsemen come to do his bidding.”

  Goddammit. I open the door and get out of the car with my hand on my stun gun. There is entirely too much paper work involved with shocking the ever-loving shit out of a homeless guy, but at this point in my day, it might be worth it.

  A man in a way-too-fancy-for-downtown-Atlanta suit steps in between me and the preacher. “The Horsemen you say?” He aims the question at the preacher in a cool, calm manner that even knocks my heartbeat down a couple beats.

  “Why, yes,” the preacher says in a much quieter voice and scratches behind his ear. The dog on the string is still shaking and wide-eyed at his feet, but it’s a Chihuahua; that might just be its normal look.

  “I believe the Good Book states that there are four Horsemen, correct?”

  “Well yessir, there’s white, black, red, and the pale rider hisself.” The bum and dog both drop their heads to the side a little. The bum from confusion and the dog because, whatever.

  “If you are saying the heroes are the Horsemen then I believe your counts are off. There are exactly twenty-one superheroes. Surely the Good Lord couldn’t have missed the number by that far, could he?” Suit Guy gives a little shrug, his hands never leaving his pockets.

  “Well, um…”

  The dog whimpers.

  “Here.” Suit guy pulls his hand out and gives the preacher a twenty. “Why don’t you go get yourself and your friend a burger and think about it for a little while?”

  The preacher takes the money and shuffles off, his little dog bouncing behind him on the way. Well, that’s solved. Paperwork-less to boot. Maybe today won’t completely suck. Maybe only one superhero has gone ape-shit and it’s already been dealt with and I will have a normal shift with no problems. Maybe the President will declare himself a Satanist and turn the Oval Office into Lucifer’s asshole. One can only hope.

  “Thanks.” I duck back into the car, grab the radio, and call into dispatch to clear the situation with the preacher. As I put the car into gear, Suit Guy pulls open the passenger door and takes a seat next to me. My right hands snaps to the gun on my hip. “Is there anything I can do for you, Sir?”

  Suit Guy smiles. “Yes, Officer Quig, you can.”

  Okay, fancy suit and he knows my name. This guy works for someone. His clothes are too sharp for regular police work and the guy’s face reads too likeable to be IA I’m pretty sure FBI don’t dress like this, either. And damn if this guy doesn’t have a cool smile. The kind of smile that says, “Come on, you can trust Ol’ Uncle Sammy”. I’ve seen the type before, slapped across the face of every military recruiter I ever came in contact with. Only, those guys were decked out in fatigues, and this guy’s looking suave in Armani.

  My hand drifts from my gun back up to the steering wheel. If my guess is right, this is going to be a long fucking day. “You work for the Initiative?”

  Suit Guy smiles wider. “Why yes, yes I do.
Very perceptive of you. Anyone ever tell you that? Tell you you’re smarter than the average cookie?”

  “Only the last one of you guys I talked to. My answer is still the same, no. And has anyone ever told you you look like the guy from that one superhero movie?”

  “The guy with the bow and arrow?”

  “No, the guy in the suit.”

  “Ah, yeah, I’ve got that before.” He smiles down at his hands.

  “My answer’s still no.”

  Suit Guy pulls out a pack of gum, offers me a piece, which I decline, and pops two cubes in his mouth. “You haven’t heard my proposition. Before you judge me and my offer, why don’t we take a ride so you can hear what I have to say? If you still don’t want anything to do with me, I’ll walk away and you can go back to your patrol.”

  I’ve got no reason not to believe him. The last time a recruiter came my way, I told him no and never heard from SHI again – until now. I’d like to tell the guy to shove off, but he’s got a good smile so I guess I can hear him out. “Where to?”

  “Oh, anywhere is fine. By the way, my name’s Vincent Larson, but everyone calls me Vince.” He sticks out a hand and we shake.

  I roll the car into traffic and make for a quiet part of town. Hopefully this Vince can explain to me why, of all the fish in the sea—the fish creaming over the idea of being super-fish—the Initiative feels the need to come back to me again. The answer will still be no. I’ll be leaving the heroing to the heroes.

  Chapter 3

  THERE’S A SUBDIVISION not far from the street-preacher’s corner altar. The owner of the land had intended to build some Richie Rich subdivision for Atlanta’s elite, but then the bottom dropped out of, well, pretty much everything. You can’t quite buy 10,000-square foot mansions with food stamps as a down payment. The houses all stand there waiting, some fully finished and some barely with foundations down before the workers figured out the well ran dry and split.