Long Hot Summer 8: Encyclopedic knowledge

by Nicholas Ahlhelm

For the second time in a week, Nightbird showed up on his doorstep. Lance opened the door to her in full costume. Despite being nearly one at night, the heat remained unbearable. The mid-August temperatures remained well over a hundred degrees as they had for more than a month.

Lance didn’t have time to think about the weather. He needed to know if they were ready.

“It’s time,” Nightbird said. “We’re meeting Witch in five minutes.”

“Five minutes? We can’t get to their offices in five minutes.”

“Just trust me,” Nightbird said. She grabbed Lance by his arm and yanked him out of his motel room. She walked him to the middle of the motel parking lot. A few stragglers, mostly drunks and addicts still meandered around the other rooms.

“This doesn’t do wonders for my secret identity, you know.”

“You’re eighty-something years old. You don’t have a secret identity anymore.”

“Still.”

Nightbird looked at her wristwatch. “Any time now.”

A flash of light engulfed them. A moment later, they stood back in the Argonauts’ lobby. The Witch, dressed in the same abbreviated costume she wore in the photo, stood before them.

“Mister Larter, Nightbird, I trust you’re both ready to be glamoured?”

“Yes,” Lance said. “We’re ready.”

“Let’s do this,” Nightbird said.

“So be it.” The Witch closed her eyes. She chanted several words under her breath. Lance didn’t think any of them were English.

The Witch raised her hands in front of her as she opened her eyes. Waves of sparkling energy flowed from her fingertips. The energy rushed out towards Lance and Nightbird. It coiled around their bodies. Lance felt his skin tingle under the touch of the energy.

He watched the familiar masked face of Nightbird fade. The face in front of him was of a nondescript redhead in her teens. Even her clothes were gone, replaced by an abbreviated dress.

“You did get work,” Nightbird said to the Witch. She looked Lance up and down. He looks like any clubber.

Lance looked at his reflection in the glass of a picture frame. A dark-haired teen with stringy hair and a goatee stared back at him. His hand went to his face. He stroked the goatee, amazed at how real it felt.

The Witch smirked as she caught his eyes. “For the next three weeks, the two of you will look like that unless I cast the counterspell. Since I’m so amazing, I went ahead and set you up both with fake identities.  Lance, you are now nineteen year old college student Blake Dumont, son of a local judge. Nightbird, you are Bette Horner, daughter of a wealthy family with strong ties to the Chamber of Commerce. If the Church is at all interested in exerting influence over local business and government, you would be good choices to be recruited.” She handed each of them an envelope marked with their new names.

Nightbird hugged Witch. “You’re a godsend.”

Witch chuckled. “That’s not something a witch is used to being called. The next recruiting session is tomorrow evening. I suggest you two get your stories straight in the mean time.”

“Not a problem,” Lance said.

“Good luck to you both,” Witch said. “Now get out of here before you start creeping me out.”

She waved her hand in front of her. A flash of light covered them both. They stood again in the center of the motel parking lot.

Lance looked at Nightbird. “Bette, right?”

“You got it, Blake. You want to head back to your place and go over our files?”

“We’ve only got a day,” Lance said. “And we can’t afford to mess this up.”

Nightbird nodded. With a chuckle, she turned and ran for his door. Lance reached in to his pocket, but found his door key gone. Beside the motel room door, Nightbird waved the keys.

“You’re going to have to be quicker than that, Lance.” She unlocked the door and disappeared inside.

With a shake of his head, Lance followed.

*****

Jack crashed down on to a thick piece of concrete. Smoke still rose from his body, but his clothes somehow remained unburnt. He stood up in time to see the hundred foot tall robot approaching him.

It was all rounded edges. Circular feet tapered down in to large cylindrical legs. Two tentacle-like pincer-tipped arms emerged from the shoulders of the massive barrel chest. A large round protrusion atop the shoulders served as the head for the massive red automaton. Various openings on its two large shoulder-plates revealed several chain guns and missile launchers.

Two glowing yellow eyes flashed across him as they took in the city. The harsh fuzz of an open speaker echoed down the empty streets.

“I AM THE RED RAIDER! BOW BEFORE THE MIGHT OF COMMUNIST ROBOTICS!”

Machine gun fire rained down around him. Jack instantly burst back in to flame. He hurled two balls of flame towards the robot’s chest, but each left little more than soot against the robot’s steel shell.

“YOU DARE ATTACK THE RED RAIDER? PREPARE TO BE DESTROYED PUNY MORTAL!”

A missile launched towards his feet. Jack leaped in to the air. He sent a gout of fire down toward the earth to propel him upward. The missile smashed in to the sidewalk below. Concrete rubble flew everywhere.

A flash of light appeared in the shattered sidewalk. An older woman in a long cloak appeared from within the light. A large, heavily muscled man in a red bodysuit stood at her side. The man was the first to speak.

“See to the civilians, Witch. I’ll see to the robot!”

Jack landed next to the big man just in time to watch him get much bigger. His heavily muscled chest split out of his bodysuit. Within a few seconds, he stood nearly twenty feet in height. He glanced down at Jack.

“Get clear, citizen. I’ll handle this.”

The man in red slammed his whole frame in to the robot’s right leg. The robot staggered but refused to fall. Its tendril-like arms reached down and wrapped around the man in red’s midsection. They quickly tightened in to a vice-like grip.

“Mighty Man!” The Witch rushed past Jack. A bolt of lightning hurled from her hands, but it did nothing to damage the robot’s thick red frame.

Mighty Man’s hands went to the coils around his stomach, but even his strength seemed useless against the robot.

Jack concentrated and felt the fire build up inside him. As he felt the heat radiate from his skin, he marveled at the sheer amount of flame he produced. He always thought of himself as a second stringer, a guy that couldn’t do much with his powers. Now he suddenly felt like he could burn this entire city in minutes if he just let go.

It scared him, but not enough to stop him from stopping this robotic menace. Doctor Cosmic and his warnings be damned, he wasn’t going to let some communist robot wreak havoc on the city no matter what year he was in.

He burst upward, flame propelling him again in to the air. He dropped directly on to the tendrils crushing Mighty Man. His hands fell on the large metal coils. Jack closed his eyes and let the fire flow out in to the tendrils.

Within seconds he felt the metal coils melt in his hands. Liquid steel dripped to the ground as they quickly liquefied. In less than a minute, the robot stood armless.

Mighty Man struggled against the coils still around him. Without the robot’s power flowing in to the tendrils, he easily snapped the coils. They fell to the melted sludge on the ground.

The Witch hurled another bolt of electricity at the Red Raider’s robot, but it was Mighty Man that staggered the bot with a pair of blows. The robot returned fire with its machine guns, but the bullets ricocheted off Mighty Man’s skin. Still it seemed like a stalemate, neither Mighty Man nor the robot could hope to prevail in this fight.

A sonic boom broke across the sky. A red, white, and blue streak flew across the sky.

“YOU’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE HERE!”

The figure stopped in mid-air. Clad in the colors of the United States, American Hero delivered one blow to the robot’s head. The head exploded from its mountings. It flew over a block before crashing atop a building. Hero reached down in to the robot’s insides. He yanked a single man free, a small, bald-headed man with bright red skin.

“You will pay for this, American! Communist Russia will rule someday!”

Jack started a response, but stopped short as he remembered Doctor Cosmic’s warnings.

He dropped to the ground next to Mighty Man and Witch. Mighty Man quickly shrunk to his normal seven foot tall stature. “Thanks, friend. We couldn’t have held him without you. What’s your name?”

“I’d rather not say,” Jack said. “Can you just tell me what year it is?”

“What year? That’s an odd question.”

“Please, just the year.”

“Why, it’s 1952.”

Barely twenty years.

“Thanks,” Jack said. “But I’ve got to go.”

He closed his eyes and summoned his flames. They roared across his skin. He yearned for his time, for the future. With one final burst of flame, he disappeared from the Valhalla streets.

*****

Over four hundred people stood outside the Church of Hope and Truth. They all passed the time in any number of fashions. Some made out, others knelt in prayer. Still more simply read, or listened to music, or meditated. All were here for the same reason, to join the Church.

The gates of the church slowly opened. Several blue-robed priests came out through the doors. Each held a clipboard.

Nightbird leaned over to Lance. “Remember, they’ve got a strict selection policy and only a hundred people get in every other day. We need to make this count.”

“I got it. You coached me with the answers. I’m ready for anything they ask me.”

A blue-robe brought a megaphone up to his mouth. “Thank you all for coming. The prophet has chosen from the list of penitents. Wendy Acker, please step forward.”

Lance looked at Nightbird. “I thought we were to be interviewed?”

“I guess they changed how they do things.”

Lance didn’t like it. It seemed too easy for the Church to pick their new members this way.

The blue-robe continued his litany of names. “Jared Cochran. Glenn Davis. Blake Dumont. Gail Friedland…”

Lance looked at Nightbird. “How are they deciding? Just by the names we’ve submitted?”

“I’m not sure,” Nightbird said. “But I’m sure you should get up there.”

A progression of the chosen was already forming by a pair of the blue-robes. As he made his way up from the crowd, a blue-robe happily offered his hand. With a false smile, Lance shook it.

He was no expert on espionage, but he knew he didn’t like this. He hated this “Church” and everything for which it stood. Tamping that hatred down would prove difficult, far more difficult than he first thought.

“…Bette Horner, Wendell Knox…”

Lance caught Nightbird’s eyes as she approached the stage. A blue-robe tapped him on the shoulder.

“You need to go to Brother Thomas and verify your identity, initiate. Once you’ve done so, you will be escorted inside to receive your white robe.”

Lance followed the blue-robe’s finger over to another blue-robe, Brother Thomas. With a wave of appreciation, he started towards Brother Thomas.

This is it, he told himself. I can’t mess this up. One way or another, this is it. He took a deep breath and walked up to Brother Thomas.

“I’m Blake Dumont,” he said. He pulled his ID from his pocket. Brother Thomas studied it for a moment.

“Enter Initiate Blake. I hope you will join our order very, very soon.”

Lance only nodded in return.

*****

They walked down a sunny side street in the northern-most corner of the city, just before Valhalla faded in to several suburbs. Though still technically within the city, the area still possessed a certain suburban feel. Despite the extreme heat, people still walked their dogs, rode their bikes, and otherwise kept active outside. It was a far cry from deeper in the city, where the heat was forcing everyone on edge.

Dressed in street clothes, Annabelle looked at Freedom. “You sure this is the right place?”

Freedom, decked out in Bermuda shorts and a garish Hawaiian t-shirt, reached out and rang the doorbell of the small house. Slightly rundown compared to the rest of the neighborhood, the faded pink house stood recessed in the shadows of several oak trees.

“I’m sure,” Freedom said. “Just give him a second to get here.”

Freedom turned to watch a tiny camera planted in the roof’s hanging shingles a few feet away. He gave a quick wave.

Annabelle watched the door as several locks shifted inside. After nearly thirty seconds, the door inched open. A pudgy, bearded face appeared in the crack. His eyes focused on Freedom.

“Who’s the girl?”

“She’s my partner Libertad. We covered this in e-mails, man.”

The bearded man nodded. He opened the door a little more. “Get in here, quickly before anyone sees.”

Annabelle looked at Freedom. He waved her inside. She entered the house. Freedom quickly followed and closed the door behind him.

Inside the lights were low. The windows were all blacked out to keep excess light down. After the heat of outside, the flow of cold air sent goosebumps across her skin.

“This place is hell to keep cool in this heatwave, but I can’t risk the system overheating. You can’t process data with a melted down server.”

Freedom shook his head. “I get it, L33t. But I don’t have anything to give you right now. If I did I would lay it on you. You know that.”

L33t sat down in front of a card table. Three different monitors sat atop the table. Multiple CPUs filled the floor in front of him. He typed something in to the keyboard. The screens switched to multiple camera views of his home’s exterior.

“I just thought you wanting to meet in person and all that you might have a roll for me. Don’t sweat it, Free. I know the deal.”

“I told you about calling me Free. I came about the last tip you gave me. It was a trap.”

L33t shrugged. “They can’t all be winners.”

Freedom grabbed L33t by the shoulders and pulled him away from the computer. Annabelle could sense the anger coursing through his veins.

“They tortured me for over a week, L33t. They tried to brainwash my partner. Now how in the hell did our search for a terrorist cell take us in to a Church of Truth dungeon?”

“Hey, those Church crazies are up to no good,” L33t said. “I told you that when you came to town. But I don’t know why they would plant the tip just to run you all in. It doesn’t make sense. Everything the police picked up at the scene lead straight to an EMPIRE cell working within the city. You tell me why the Church would want to be involved with that.”

“Maybe it’s because they want us,” Annabelle said. “I told you what Elijah said to me.”

Freedom glared at her. “We’ll talk about that later. Right now I want to focus on EMPIRE.” He looked back to L33t. “You got anything on where we can find the cell?”

“I’ve got them pinpointed down to a two to three block radius. Give me a couple more days and I will have the exact spot for you.”

“This better not be another clusterfuck, L33t. I’m coming after you if it is. Get me?”

L33t threw up his hands. “I got you, man. I’m not playing with you here. I’m an information broker. I already told you that I’ll give you any tips you got for free just as long as you keep the money flowing in when you can. That’s how friends roll, y’know?”

“Make sure it stays that way,” Freedom said. “I’ve had a history with friends betraying my ass. I wouldn’t want to add you to that list.”

“Take it easy, man. I’ll hook you up, Freedom. I promise. You don’t have to get all Eastwood on me.”

Annabelle rested her hand on Freedom’s shoulder. She could feel the tension in his muscles. The torture got to him in a way she wasn’t used to seeing. She understood his rage, but she knew she needed to cool the situation right now.

“You plan on beating him down?”

Freedom turned back to her. He stepped away from L33t. “I need to make sure he wasn’t playing us. We can trust him.”

Annabelle looked at the information broker. “It was nice meeting you, L33t.”

“Uh, yeah. You too.”

She grabbed Freedom by the forearm and leaned in close. “We have any other reason to be here.”

Freedom shook his head.

Annabelle gave L33t a friendly smile. “We’ll be going, L33t. Get us that information A.S.A.P. We need to check out this EMPIRE cell.”

“Two days at most. I’ll make it top priority.”

“Thanks. We appreciate it.” She pulled Freedom away and out the door.

They walked over a block before she stopped him. “We need to talk about what happened under the Church?”

“I told you I didn’t want to talk about it.”

“You’re the most stubborn bastard I’ve ever met, Patton. You know that right?”

“Wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“If you’re not going to talk to me, we might as well get back to Hit’s. Sounds like we’re waiting on an e-mail.”

*****

The view-screen showed jerky shots of two winged men at war over the city. Blasts of fire ripped through buildings and vehicles as the camera angle switched from one piece of footage to another. Legend knew the bat-winged one had ties to the old Epsilon team, but the other figure was the one he found troubling.

Seraphim and the so-called Church of Hope and Truth were supposed to be a positive influence on the city. The heatwave that fell over parts of the Midwest seemed focused already on the city of Valhalla. He worried that the heat would only lead to increased tensions in the city. If the city’s fastest growing Church also proved to be up to no good, he wasn’t sure if the city could survive it.

He paused the video footage and turned to Iron. The aging one-eyed hero grimaced as he caught Legend’s gaze.

“I can already tell this isn’t going to be good,” he said in his deep, raspy voice.

Legend stood up from the bank of computers and walked back in to the operations room. The room was mostly empty. A planned meeting table and several more banks of computers would be installed within the next few weeks as the team continued to come together. For now, only Iron and Legend occupied the under-construction facility, but soon other heroes would be filling the dorm areas a few hundred yards away.

“The Cabinet isn’t going to be happy if you bring this to them,” Iron said. “They want this to be P.R. blessing and I don’t think going after a religious organization in Valhalla is the way they plan on that happening.”

Cloaked in his red and blue costume, Legend nodded. “The deal I made was that we would have full autonomy in mission selection. I’m not naïve. I’m sure they will stick their nose in now and then, but they know I’ll walk if they try and stop this.”

“I’m just not sure if burning your good graces with the administration on your very first mission is the way to go. We haven’t even assembled a team yet.”

“I’ll take care of that. We’ve already decided on our top candidates anyway. I want you to keep the surveillance squad watching that Church. And I’m going to have to leave you in charge of the renovations here in D.C.”

Iron laughed. “Somehow I knew you would find a way to do that. When I agreed to be your second on this, I knew I was going to end up being the den mother.”

“And you are a great one.”

“I don’t care what kind of high falutin’ hero you think you are. I will still take you over my knee, boy.”

“I’m serious that you’re great at this, Iron. You can wrap your head around administrative duties like no one I know. If this team is going to succeed, you’re going to be the key player.”

“You aren’t exactly chopped liver, kid. But I’m glad to be here. This is our chance to do something good, Sam. I can feel it.”

“I’m hoping that’s what it will be. Although with a name like the Federally Organized Response for Critical Engagements, we already have a strike against us.”

“You know no one is going to call it that,” Iron said. “They will all call it F.O.R.C.E. That’s the point. Now who’s the first recruit?”

“I thought I would call on an old friend from our Federation days.”

“I told you that the armored kid would be trouble.”

“He’s a good guy. He’s seen his share of problems, but he deserves his chance to shine.”

“I still don’t like it, but you’re the boss.”

“I hope everyone can have that attitude,” Legend said. “Get the surveillance squad on the ground in Valhalla. Once they’re in place, we will put together the squad. If this heatwave continues, we can use it as cover to go in. And if we find that this Church is as shady as they seem, we will crush them before they can bring another disaster to this country.”

“I’ll start the paperwork.”