Kingdom of Heroes (35 page)

“My turn to ask the questions,” The Detective said in return, ignoring Adam’s last comment. The last thing he needed was a homicidal killing machine owing him a favor. “Do you have a plan here or are you just making all of this up as you go along?”

“
I have a plan.
”

“Care to share?”

“
I am going to kill The Agent and make him pay for all of the atrocities he has committed.
”

“Sounds great. You got some kind of a magic bullet, or are you just planning on showing up unannounced, sneaking up on him, saying boo, and hoping for a heart attack to kick in?”

“
I have a method in place.
”

The Detective sighed. “Goddamn mass murdering robots being controlled by disembodied dead people. They never give you a fucking straight answer. Seriously. Speaking of which, is there a reason you’re just getting around to going after Rogers. Hell, it’s been hours since you left me for dead in that damn field. Seems to me, you’ve had plenty of time to go fire your magic bullet and end this whole damn thing. What, did you get cold feet or something? I guess theoretically a robot would always have cold feet, being made of metal and all, but you get my meaning.”

“
When I was still alive, Detective, I probably would have found you to be quite amusing.
”

“Yep, I am a funny, funny man,” he replied. “I get it. Let’s all laugh at the man with the jokes. That doesn’t answer my question though.”

“
After our last encounter, I had to enter into an extended repair sequence to repair both internal and external structural damage.
”

The Detective remembered firing a bullet into the machine’s arm after Ice had frozen it solid. Not a pretty sight. “Yeah, sorry about that. My bad.”

Adam ignored his comment. “
After the repair sequence finished, I had to procure the device that I will use to administer The Agent’s demise.
”

“Sounds complicated and time consuming,” The Detective responded. “The questions is, will it work?”

“
It will.
”

The Detective took a deep breath, gearing himself up to ask the one question he always hated to ask in situations like this, the one question which always seemed to get him into trouble. “What do you need me to do?”

“
Detective,
” answered the robotic voice from the other end of the phone, “
I need you to rescue Emily, protect her, make sure she comes through all of this safe and alive.
”

“That’s it?”

“
That is it, Detective. Emily safe and The Agent dead are the only things left in this life that I desire. I am hoping that your rescue will provide me with a distraction and an opportunity to face my adopted father without interference.
”

“So that’s all you need from me? A rescue and a distraction?”

“
Yes.
”

The Detective smiled to himself. “I can do that.”

“
This will be the last time we speak, Detective. I wish you well upon your task.
”

The Detective started to say “you too,” but the call ended before he had a chance to get the words out. Not that it would have mattered; Robot Adam wasn’t exactly the world’s greatest conversationalist. The Detective figured that was probably the only answers he was going to get from him.

He felt a stirring in his mind, the feeling of another presence within his thoughts; it was a strange yet now familiar sensation. Emily was there, inside of his mind, waiting for him to speak, knowing that he probably had dozens of useful questions. The joke was on her; he had questions, though he doubted any of them were useful.

“So, he began to ask, “was your bestie always so, forgive my wording, robotic in his speech, or is that something new?”

“It’s new,” she answered from his thoughts. “He always described the process of speaking with machines as a form of telepathy, like he was leaving his own body and entering into the mind of the machine itself. I guess this time he took the whole process as far as he could.” She paused before speaking again. “Detective, tell me this, is he really gone for good? Is there any way he could be brought back? Is there any way he could be saved?”

The Detective paused, not exactly sure how to answer. For the past twenty-four hours, since he had been released from his holding cell in The Hole, since he met Ice, his entire time in this fucked up situation, he had continually thought of the killer robot as something that needed to be stopped, yet now, he found himself on the same side as the machine and the man whose essence remained inside of it, both gearing up for one final confrontation. Hell, he wasn’t even sure if he was going to make it out of all of this alive; if he couldn’t save himself, what chance did he have to save the man who had already sacrificed himself to kill the rest of The Seven.

“I don’t know,” he said, giving her the only answer he could come up with at the moment. “My only concern now is finding a way to save you, and hopefully, getting the two of us out of this with both of our heads still attached to our shoulders.”

“I have faith in you, Detective.”

“Well, that makes a grand total of one, so that’s one better than normal.”

He could feel her smile from his thoughts. “Give me something good to think about,” she said. “What are we going to do if we make it through this?”

He stared at the giant white tower through the falling rain; it inched closer and closer with every passing second. “I am going to take you on a date.”

“A proper one?” she asked with a small laugh. “I’ve been in your thoughts. I’ve seen your idea of a date. Coffee and a taco from a food cart won’t cut it this time.”

“A proper date,” he answered. “Dinner, a show, we’ll get dressed up. I’ll pick you up in my new truck I just got. I‘ll even wear a tie.”

“You always wear a tie.”

“I’ll wear a nice tie, just to shake things up.”

“Can I wear something low cut and revealing?”

He laughed. “I wouldn’t consider it a date if you didn’t.”

He could feel a swell of happiness from his mind, as if a ball of sunshine and rainbows had erupted from his thoughts. Her happiness engulfed him; it felt nice.

He slowed the truck down and moved towards the curb on his right, stopping in a nice parking spot just in front of another car.

“Why are you stopping?” she asked.

He looked out at the hundred story building less than a block away from where he had stopped, standing in the distance like a giant sentinel, as if it was just waiting on his arrival. “I’m here,” he answered as he reached down and picked up the journal before placing it inside of his coat.

“Then what are you waiting for,” she said from within his thoughts, his own mind filled to brim with the excitement she was feeling. “Come and get me.”

“Why the hell not.” He gripped the handle, opened the door, and stepped out into the still pouring rain.

_______________________________________________

He watched the wall of monitors, so much happening, so little time left for it to all unfold. He had just watched his son decimate all of the soldiers stationed at the Fort Xorn depository; over two hundred soldiers killed without giving Adam’s armor even the slightest of scratches. He couldn’t help but be impressed. Despite everything, this was still his son, tearing through the country, killing the most powerful governing body in the world. How many had tried to kill The Seven over the years? How many had failed? All of them. Until now, until his son, alone, completely by himself, had done that which all the others couldn’t have conceived of doing.

The show at the depository had been quite the spectacle, but he knew it was all for naught. Adam had the right plan, but he had thought of every eventuality, every contingency. There would be no surprises tonight.

He looked at the bottom corner on his wall of monitors. Emily continued to sit in her cell, her nose still bleeding ever so slightly from her previous over exertion. He knew that she had been helping The Detective during his fight with his special children. Not that it mattered. It was his desire that The Detective stay alive, so therefore, The Detective was still alive. When he needed The Detective to be dead, he would make sure the dog on two legs was dead. When and how was his choice, and no one else would make that decision for him.

He looked up at a monitor near the top: The Detective drove through the storm, hell bent on arriving here to rescue his fair maiden. He wondered if The Detective would have tried so hard to get here if it was Ice in the cell instead of Emily. He doubted it. Besides, Ice wouldn’t have waited to be rescued; she would have already fought her way out. He was still surprised that Ice would have picked one like The Detective over him, choosing one so weak over one so strong. Such a shame.

He picked up the phone and placed it to his ear.

“Yes, Chancellor,” the voice on the other end said in answer.

“The Detective is almost here; have Peterson prepare the welcoming committee. When The Detective arrives, he is to come straight to me. No detours. And once he arrives, no one comes up until I give the all clear code, and then, I will need at least three clean-up crews brought up. Are we clear?”

“Yes sir,” the voice replied.

He bent down and pushed a button on the console. Without waiting for a voice to answer, he spoke into the receiver: “Do not make your presence known until my son arrives. And then, you are free to do with The Detective whatever you wish.”

He lowered the phone and returned it to its resting place on the console. He looked at the wall of monitors and the many different views of his city. So many different places, so many different players in his little game, yet there was only one way it could all end.

_______________________________________________

The Detective walked through the rain, all the while continually staring at the giant white tower standing before him. He was still a block away, but the hundred story building dominated the darkened skyline. He realized he should have been annoyed at having to, yet again, take a long stroll through the rain; after all, he was still drenched from his last exposure. But everything still maintained that sense of finality he had felt from earlier. In his mind, this felt like his last walk in the rain, his last time staring into a dark sky, his final time wishing he could see the moon and the stars.

If this was it, somewhere deep inside, buried well beyond everything he felt on the surface, he knew this was worth it. Emily, in the end, was an innocent in all of this. It wasn’t her fault that she happened to have a sister who was one of The Seven; it wasn’t her fault that she had encountered him earlier that day; it wasn’t her fault The Agent was using her as a pawn to lure The Detective to this place, this building, this imminent finale.

He felt the need to save her, and hopefully, actually accomplish something in this situation, a situation he continually reminded himself not of his making. Like Emily, he just seemed to find himself in this whole mess, twenty four hours of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

“You still there?” he said aloud to the invisible voice in his head as he continued walking, the rain splattering hard against his hat and coat, drenching him further past the point where just saying he was wet was no longer an apt description.

“I’m here,” she replied from his thoughts. Her voice seemed tired. He wondered if she had ever actually used her powers this much over such an extended period of time. He sensed the strain she was feeling, not that she would have admitted it out loud, not that he needed her to admit it to know it was there.

“You okay?” he asked, knowing the answer before she ever said the words.

“I’m great,” she lied. “I am expecting company, and I’m doing my best to get the place ready.”

The rain dripped from the bill of his hat and onto his face. He didn’t complain; he just added it to the list of things he could be experiencing for the final time. “Anybody I know?”

“For your information, I am expecting a gentleman caller.”

“Sounds fancy,” he added with a smile. The Agent’s building was just around the corner. He truly had no idea what to expect; nothing would have surprised him. It could be an army of supers, a whole tank battalion, a mime doing the whole trapped in a box thing. Okay. He lied. That last one he would have found a little shocking, but at this point, just a little. He turned the corner, and what he saw, much to his surprise, he had not expected.

One guard.

One single, solitary guard stood in the pouring rain outside of The Agent’s tower, standing all alone in front of the building’s front entrance, seemingly unarmed and defenseless other than the storm trooper/swat team armor he was wearing. The Detective stopped walking for a moment and stared at the man, suddenly not sure if he should be happy or insulted. He was leaning toward insulted.

He started back walking, staring at the lone man on the other side of the street, the lone solitary man, standing there alone, defenseless, just waiting. As The Detective came closer, he saw something in the man’s hand, held underneath his arm, presumably to keep it as dry as possible. It was a clipboard. The man was holding a goddamn clipboard. That was how little The Agent worried about his visit. He sent a glorified bureaucrat to act as a doorman.