Just doing my job
folder
Original - Misc › Superheroes
Rating:
Adult +
Chapters:
25
Views:
2,351
Reviews:
4
Recommended:
0
Currently Reading:
0
Category:
Original - Misc › Superheroes
Rating:
Adult +
Chapters:
25
Views:
2,351
Reviews:
4
Recommended:
0
Currently Reading:
0
Disclaimer:
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of characters to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. The Author holds exclusive rights to this work. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited.
City of Heroes
I hate Los Angeles.
Leave it to the American’s to take one of the closet things to the Garden of Eden and turn it into a smog-filled hell. I looked out of the hotel room window, and couldn’t even see the Pacific for all the air pollution.
Part of my bad mood was probably to do with the fact that I was, for the first time in my life, a criminal. I’d never before had a parking ticket (ok, I don’t drive, but you get the point), and now I was being hunted by some global conspiracy bent on god knows what.
I wanted to believe it was something original, but the evidence Ren had shown me pointed to it being the bog-standard World Domination scheme.
Ren took to it like a duck to water. I think she actually enjoyed being hunted by god knows who. She never told me that much about her past, but from what I could gather she’d spent almost half her 26-years on the run.
I wasn’t famous as such, I was known mainly for being married to Charlotte, but I couldn’t risk going out in public and being recognised. Especially in Los Angeles, the city of heroes.
They say that there are more superhumans more square mile in LA County than anywhere else on the planet. Most are low-graders who work as stuntmen and body-doubles. Some work private security for dumb rich people who want a bodyguard who can not only stop bullets for them, but rip the door off a car and hit someone over the head with it afterwards.
And LA is the home of Jackson Smith, a man whose larynx I’d like to crush with my boot. It’s hard to place what it is about him that riles me so; he’s not that bad a person and I would trust him to watch my back during a fight.
The problem is he’s a walking advertisement for all that is wrong with America: he’s brash, offensive, has a massive superiority complex, thinks he’s never wrong and doesn’t realise that most people hate him.
I reached for the scotch bottle on the table, and found it empty. I threw it into the bin with the others: one side effect of my metabolism is it takes me a long time to get drunk and the chances were I’d run out of money before I did any permanent damage.
We’d had to get away from Ottawa as fast as we could, and had only stopped to get what money I could from an ATM before my account was closed. It was imperative that we did that before we left, as we didn’t want them to track us by bank records.
Shit, I’ve spent 5 years working for the government as a superhuman policeman, and now I’m wanted by every security agency on the planet. I couldn’t risk going home to England as M.I.6 was looking for me and my apartment in Ottawa was a bombsite. My wife, who I thought I knew, turned out to be one of the bad guys and the only person I could trust was a French Anarchist with a crush on me.
Cursing the way my life was working out, I grabbed the last bottle of scotch and did my best to destroy what brain cells I had left.
*********************************************************************
Ren was back by the time I woke later in the evening, thankfully clear of any hangover. She was sat at the table in the small kitchen area, playing with the teleporter Dr. Lang had given her. She’d tried explaining it to me as we made our way west along the US/Canadian boarder, but science was never my strong point.
“You drink too much.” She didn’t even look round from her work, “We don’t have the time or money for you to develop a drink problem.”
“The only drink problem I have is it doesn’t affect me.” I pulled my self up into a sitting position, “Why did we have to come to LA?”
“Because I’ve never been here before; I have safe houses across the entire planet, but we have to assume that they’ve been compromised. We can’t risk going anywhere we know anyone or may be recognised. If I was on my own it wouldn’t e a problem, but you’ve had your face splashed around all over the place because of your wife.”
“Don’t even mention her, ok. I need some time to work out how I feel about her and what’s happened.”
“Take your time: I can’t get this thing to work again without whomever it is we’re up against being able to track us.”
“How would they do that?”
“I did try and explain: the system uses the GPS navigation system to set point of origin and destination. I don’t have a clue how it actually teleports you, you have to be a certified super-genius like Lang for that, but it basically sends you up to the nearest GPS satellite, bounces you around, then sends you back down. You can pre-set a destination and use it as an emergency escape system if you want, but anyone with override access to the GPS system can track you.”
“So the time we used it to escape from the Institute?”
“I doubt they figured it out in time to track us, and we flew below radar on the way here.” She smiled coyly, “Thanks for the ride by the way.”
“I find it highly suspicious that you got tired so quickly.” I looked at her with half open eyes, “And you held on a little tighter than you needed to.”
“Can’t a girl have a little fun?”
“There’s fun, and then there’s getting on my nerves, and that is not a place you want to be right now.”
“Point taken.” Ren turned to face me, “So where are we going to go next?”
“Australia. We should take the Hawaii-Fiji-New Zeeland root so we can stop and rest if we need too.” I pulled myself to my feet, “But not until I’ve seen Venice Beach…”
********************************************************************
The sun was just setting over the Pacific as we made our way along the boardwalk, disappearing into the crowd.
I’d never found anonymity so reassuring.
I began to understand why Ren acted the way she did sometimes: when you can so easily be lost in the crowd, you need to make your mark some way, or be swallowed by the conformity.
A hand landed on my shoulder and span me round to face a deeply tanned wall of muscle in a tank-top.
“Hello Jackson.” I didn’t even need to look up to see who it was. Anyway, my attention was on the half a dozen men in F.B.S.S. windbreakers.
“Hell Nathan, I’ve been looking for you.” Smith smiled, showing off his immaculate set of ivory teeth, “I don’t know what you’ve done, but you’ve upset a lot of people.”
“Just minding my own business.” I took a step back, “I don’t want any trouble.”
“Neither do I, so why don’t you just come in nice and peacefully.” Jackson flexed his muscles, a complicated procedure that forced other muscles to get out the way first, “Who are you?” He asked Ren.
“She’s nobody, just an old school friend.” I stepped between the two of them, “This can end one of two ways: one, you let us go, and two, I put you and your friends here into the hospital.”
“Somehow I don’t think that’s going to happen.” Smith drawled.
“I like your accent.” Ren smiled sweetly, “Where are you from?”
“Austin Texas,” Smith puffed himself up, “The lone-star State.”
“The way I hear it only steers and queers come from Texas,” There was a dangerous look in Ren’s eye, “and you don\'t look much like a steer to me.”
“Why you little…” Smith’s fist went back and the same time as Ren’s foot came up.
I winched: I may not like Jackson Smith, but there’s no man alive who wouldn’t have felt his pain as Ren’s foot connected with his crotch at something approaching the speed of sound. A blow like that wouldn’t permanently injure someone like Smith, but it sure as hell got his attention.
It was, however, the chance we needed.
I grabbed Ren’s hand and took off over the Pacific as fast as I could, hoping none of the others could catch up. The Federal Bureau of Superhuman Security may pay well, but there are high paying jobs out there if you’re powerful enough. Evidently there where either no flyers in Smiths team, or they where too shocked to try and catch us.
Ren got her bearings and started flying under her own power, and we dropped down to just a few feet above the waves: we where too low for normal radar but there was a chance that someone had naval surface radar out there and we needed all the head start we could get.
Taking a quick bearing of Ren’s GPS, we headed towards Hawaii.
To Be Continued…
Leave it to the American’s to take one of the closet things to the Garden of Eden and turn it into a smog-filled hell. I looked out of the hotel room window, and couldn’t even see the Pacific for all the air pollution.
Part of my bad mood was probably to do with the fact that I was, for the first time in my life, a criminal. I’d never before had a parking ticket (ok, I don’t drive, but you get the point), and now I was being hunted by some global conspiracy bent on god knows what.
I wanted to believe it was something original, but the evidence Ren had shown me pointed to it being the bog-standard World Domination scheme.
Ren took to it like a duck to water. I think she actually enjoyed being hunted by god knows who. She never told me that much about her past, but from what I could gather she’d spent almost half her 26-years on the run.
I wasn’t famous as such, I was known mainly for being married to Charlotte, but I couldn’t risk going out in public and being recognised. Especially in Los Angeles, the city of heroes.
They say that there are more superhumans more square mile in LA County than anywhere else on the planet. Most are low-graders who work as stuntmen and body-doubles. Some work private security for dumb rich people who want a bodyguard who can not only stop bullets for them, but rip the door off a car and hit someone over the head with it afterwards.
And LA is the home of Jackson Smith, a man whose larynx I’d like to crush with my boot. It’s hard to place what it is about him that riles me so; he’s not that bad a person and I would trust him to watch my back during a fight.
The problem is he’s a walking advertisement for all that is wrong with America: he’s brash, offensive, has a massive superiority complex, thinks he’s never wrong and doesn’t realise that most people hate him.
I reached for the scotch bottle on the table, and found it empty. I threw it into the bin with the others: one side effect of my metabolism is it takes me a long time to get drunk and the chances were I’d run out of money before I did any permanent damage.
We’d had to get away from Ottawa as fast as we could, and had only stopped to get what money I could from an ATM before my account was closed. It was imperative that we did that before we left, as we didn’t want them to track us by bank records.
Shit, I’ve spent 5 years working for the government as a superhuman policeman, and now I’m wanted by every security agency on the planet. I couldn’t risk going home to England as M.I.6 was looking for me and my apartment in Ottawa was a bombsite. My wife, who I thought I knew, turned out to be one of the bad guys and the only person I could trust was a French Anarchist with a crush on me.
Cursing the way my life was working out, I grabbed the last bottle of scotch and did my best to destroy what brain cells I had left.
*********************************************************************
Ren was back by the time I woke later in the evening, thankfully clear of any hangover. She was sat at the table in the small kitchen area, playing with the teleporter Dr. Lang had given her. She’d tried explaining it to me as we made our way west along the US/Canadian boarder, but science was never my strong point.
“You drink too much.” She didn’t even look round from her work, “We don’t have the time or money for you to develop a drink problem.”
“The only drink problem I have is it doesn’t affect me.” I pulled my self up into a sitting position, “Why did we have to come to LA?”
“Because I’ve never been here before; I have safe houses across the entire planet, but we have to assume that they’ve been compromised. We can’t risk going anywhere we know anyone or may be recognised. If I was on my own it wouldn’t e a problem, but you’ve had your face splashed around all over the place because of your wife.”
“Don’t even mention her, ok. I need some time to work out how I feel about her and what’s happened.”
“Take your time: I can’t get this thing to work again without whomever it is we’re up against being able to track us.”
“How would they do that?”
“I did try and explain: the system uses the GPS navigation system to set point of origin and destination. I don’t have a clue how it actually teleports you, you have to be a certified super-genius like Lang for that, but it basically sends you up to the nearest GPS satellite, bounces you around, then sends you back down. You can pre-set a destination and use it as an emergency escape system if you want, but anyone with override access to the GPS system can track you.”
“So the time we used it to escape from the Institute?”
“I doubt they figured it out in time to track us, and we flew below radar on the way here.” She smiled coyly, “Thanks for the ride by the way.”
“I find it highly suspicious that you got tired so quickly.” I looked at her with half open eyes, “And you held on a little tighter than you needed to.”
“Can’t a girl have a little fun?”
“There’s fun, and then there’s getting on my nerves, and that is not a place you want to be right now.”
“Point taken.” Ren turned to face me, “So where are we going to go next?”
“Australia. We should take the Hawaii-Fiji-New Zeeland root so we can stop and rest if we need too.” I pulled myself to my feet, “But not until I’ve seen Venice Beach…”
********************************************************************
The sun was just setting over the Pacific as we made our way along the boardwalk, disappearing into the crowd.
I’d never found anonymity so reassuring.
I began to understand why Ren acted the way she did sometimes: when you can so easily be lost in the crowd, you need to make your mark some way, or be swallowed by the conformity.
A hand landed on my shoulder and span me round to face a deeply tanned wall of muscle in a tank-top.
“Hello Jackson.” I didn’t even need to look up to see who it was. Anyway, my attention was on the half a dozen men in F.B.S.S. windbreakers.
“Hell Nathan, I’ve been looking for you.” Smith smiled, showing off his immaculate set of ivory teeth, “I don’t know what you’ve done, but you’ve upset a lot of people.”
“Just minding my own business.” I took a step back, “I don’t want any trouble.”
“Neither do I, so why don’t you just come in nice and peacefully.” Jackson flexed his muscles, a complicated procedure that forced other muscles to get out the way first, “Who are you?” He asked Ren.
“She’s nobody, just an old school friend.” I stepped between the two of them, “This can end one of two ways: one, you let us go, and two, I put you and your friends here into the hospital.”
“Somehow I don’t think that’s going to happen.” Smith drawled.
“I like your accent.” Ren smiled sweetly, “Where are you from?”
“Austin Texas,” Smith puffed himself up, “The lone-star State.”
“The way I hear it only steers and queers come from Texas,” There was a dangerous look in Ren’s eye, “and you don\'t look much like a steer to me.”
“Why you little…” Smith’s fist went back and the same time as Ren’s foot came up.
I winched: I may not like Jackson Smith, but there’s no man alive who wouldn’t have felt his pain as Ren’s foot connected with his crotch at something approaching the speed of sound. A blow like that wouldn’t permanently injure someone like Smith, but it sure as hell got his attention.
It was, however, the chance we needed.
I grabbed Ren’s hand and took off over the Pacific as fast as I could, hoping none of the others could catch up. The Federal Bureau of Superhuman Security may pay well, but there are high paying jobs out there if you’re powerful enough. Evidently there where either no flyers in Smiths team, or they where too shocked to try and catch us.
Ren got her bearings and started flying under her own power, and we dropped down to just a few feet above the waves: we where too low for normal radar but there was a chance that someone had naval surface radar out there and we needed all the head start we could get.
Taking a quick bearing of Ren’s GPS, we headed towards Hawaii.
To Be Continued…