Kingdom of Heroes (41 page)

“And what purpose would that be?” Rogers asked, the same smile still plastered across his gray bearded face.

“This is the fun part. You wanted him to kill the rest of The Seven. You wanted him to wake up and do what you didn’t want to, or maybe just what you weren’t able to do. With them gone, you consolidate power. No more having to wait for a convening to make a decision; now you can rule like the tyrant bastard you’ve always wanted to be.”

“Brave words for a man with all the powers of a hyper active golden retriever.”

The Detective smirked. “Do I look like someone who cares whether I live or die? If you don’t kill me now, I’ll probably just walk outside and bleed to death in the rain, or hell, I walk in front of a bus tomorrow. We all gotta go, might as well be doing what I love.”

“And what would that be?”

“Finding would-be despots who suffer from delusions of grandeur and telling them to go fuck themselves.”

“Doesn’t sound like something that comes up too often.”

“It’s one of those once in a lifetime kind of hobbies, so you have to take it where you can get it.”

The Agent lightly laughed from under his breath as he leaned away from the counter. “I must give you credit, Detective; you really have earned your moniker.” He walked towards the living area until he stood in front of the giant glass window that looked out over the terrace. He stared out over Metro City’s skyline, silently taking in the view of his city as lightning lit up the night sky.

The Detective took the momentary respite to walk around to the other side of the counter. He leaned in next to Emily and asked her as softly as he could: “Are you okay?”

She looked up at him and smiled. It was that same tragic half smile he had come to know her for, but it was better than nothing. “I’m okay,” she answered in a whisper. “He was right. My mind is starting to adjust. Powers are still gone, but at least the pain is starting to fade.”

“Good,” he said in return as she started to stand up; he put an arm out for her to hold, and she used it to pull herself out of the chair. She seemed much stronger than she had been just a few minutes earlier.

She looked up at him. “What the hell was that?” she asked in a quiet but forceful voice. “Provoking him like that, were you trying to get yourself killed?”

“Not really, just figured I had the chance to say it, might as well get it out of my system.”

She smiled at him again; this time it was the happy smile he had seen a few times. “I was impressed. Think I got a little excited right around the time you told him to go fuck himself.”

“Nice to know I can still impress the pretty girl with my shenanigans; it’s like high school all over again.” He stumbled a little bit as he stood there, his feet seemingly unwilling to cooperate with the rest of his body; despite his best efforts to not let it show, she noticed anyways.

“What was that?” she asked in a loud whisper. “Are you okay?”

“Nothing,” he replied, suddenly not sure if he was holding her up or her him.

She leaned next to him and pulled his coat away from the wound on his shoulder. The hemorrhaging had gotten worse; the entire interior of his coat was soaked in crimson and scarlet. “You’re bleeding to death.”

“Probably,” he answered with a grin. “Does dying make my whole speech back there seem any less brave?”

“Goddamn you,” she said, her whisper becoming ever so louder. “Do not give up; do you hear me?”

He straightened himself up and let go of her, not sure at the time which one of them would be the first to fall to the ground, but they both managed to stand on their own. He stretched out his neck, moving it from side-to-side, and he gave her a quick nod.

“I’m okay,” he said, trying his damnest to reassure her. He had come too far for either of them to give up now. “I’m tired, but I’m okay.”

She looked up at him, the sweetest look of concern present within her pretty eyes. “You better be. I’m not leaving here without you. You got that?”

“Yes, beautiful, we leave together, no questions asked,” he replied, hating the fact that he had just blatantly lied to her. He doubted his ability to walk without help, let alone being able to leave there without a body bag to climb into. The only thing keeping him going at that moment was the adrenaline surging throughout him and the piss and vinegar that made up his personality.

“Detective,” The Agent called without turning away from the giant glass wall.

The Detective let go of Emily and began walking across the large room, passing by the giant monitors, looking closely as he walked by at all the different camera angles The Agent had at his disposal. Knowing more were probably available at the touch of a button, the two screens showed at least a thousand different locations between them, each displaying a different corner, street, building top, hallway, or house. East Coast, the South, the North, the West Coast, The Agent could literally be everywhere at once and everywhere else in-between. With teleporters and assassins at his command, not to mention his armies of armed troops, it was no wonder he had kept the entire country under his thumb for so long.

The Detective made it to the glass, and he looked out over the city. As impressive as the view had been from Ice’s bedroom, it paled in comparison to the view he was currently seeing. The entire city was displayed in front of him, every building, every light, every home, all lit up by the seemingly continuous flashes of lightning that ripped through the heavens.

He turned and looked at the Agent, who still stared out the glass. Despite his size and strength, his face had a tiredness to it, a sense of weakness, that The Detective had never noticed in any picture or clip of The Agent. His stint as being America’s own personal savior had definitely taken its toll on the man, not that it was anything less than what he deserved. To The Detective, Rogers deserved so much worse.

“Look at it, Detective,” the Agent said, breaking the silence in the room. “Look at what I have created. It’s a utopia. There are no homeless; there is no crime, no drugs. Everyone has a job, and no one goes hungry. Everyone has just what they need. It may not always be enough, but it’s always what they need. When Adam killed Barren, it was the first unsanctioned, the first unapproved murder in almost five years. I make sure no one breaks my laws, and everyone is safer for it. They are happier because I took control.”

The Detective turned and looked at him. “You really believe that, don’t you? You really believe this is a better place since you and your cronies took power? You think because you took away the option to commit a crime, the chance to make a mistake, the option to grow up and be what you want, that you made the world a better place?”

“Yes, Detective, I do,” Rogers answered as he turned towards The Detective. “I protect them from themselves; I have saved them from choice. If the choice to make a mistake is taken away, nobody will make one. I have created a perfect world, where hunger, addiction, crime, where none of this exists. My people, normals and super powered alike, are finally safe.”

The Agent pointed out to the edge of the city, the area that used to be considered the slums. “After I was blessed with my powers, I worked that area, The Commons, for years, tearing through drug dens, destroying bands of criminals with automatic weapons who could care less what innocents they caught in the crossfire. For every one I took off the street, whether I dropped them off at a precinct or bashed their brains off the curb, two or three more pieces of scum would take their place. You were a police officer at some point; you know exactly what I’m talking about.”

The Detective nodded. As much as he didn’t want to agree with this man, he couldn’t help but understand what he was saying.

“Then you understand the frustration of always taking two steps back. I fought for those streets; I bled for those streets, and then, our own country, the same country I had fought and shed blood for, declares us, supers just like you and me, as the criminals, forsaking us in exchange for all of the scum I had tried so hard to save us from. I---” He corrected himself. “---we had no other choice; we did what we had to do, and in the process, I took the opportunity to finally achieve what I had never thought possible. I made them all safe, each and every one of them. Even if they didn’t want my protection, like you, like the rebels that Emily’s sister used to feed information to, I still protected them from themselves, taking away their opportunity to fight back, removing the need for me to punish them for their actions. There is no more crime because I make sure there is no more crime. It is this way because I will it to be.”

“You were once Agent America.” The Detective replied. “What happened to fighting for freedom?”

The Agent turned back towards the glass. “Freedom? Which is more important, Detective, the right to be free or the right to be protected? What is wrong with being protected from doing harm or having harm done to them? What is wrong with making sure your people are always safe?”

The Detective looked out at the city and the rain that fell upon it. It was beautiful; he couldn’t argue it. He couldn’t argue with The Agent’s devotion to his ideals either. No matter how insane they were, no matter how off kilter, no matter how wrong they were in the end, on some level, he knew that The Agent absolutely believed everything he had done was for the best, that everything he had done and continued doing was his insane attempt to make the world a better place. It was all crazy as fuck, and he didn’t agree with any of it. But he knew that The Agent’s actions weren’t out of malice; he was still just trying to save everyone from themselves. And he was willing to sacrifice anyone or anything to do it.

The Agent turned and looked at him. “This world I have created, Detective, this utopia, now, thanks to you, I can finally spread it to the rest of the world.”

The Detective returned his gaze and took a step away from him and the giant window. He shook his head. “The League of Nations will never let you attack another country. You would have to face an army of supers from across the world. It‘d be suicide.”

“Years ago,” Rogers began, ignoring everything The Detective had just said, “I tried to make Canada as safe as America; I launched a little coup to take the country as non-violently as possible. You remember, don’t you? After all, you were one of the ones who assured my failure.”

The Detective smiled. “Oh I remember; I got the scars to prove it.”

“And then a few years later, I had several of my operatives attempt to attain the prime minister’s security codes. And yet again, who was there to ruin my plans?”

The Detective halfway raised his right hand. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Emily standing in the section of the room where the kitchen met the living area. She smiled at him, almost as if it made her proud to know that he was the one who had foiled The Agent’s plans.

“Since then Detective, I’ve kept a close eye on you. I have studied you, watched you, found what makes you tick, how your powers work, things about you I doubt you even knew yourself.”

The Detective shook his head. “You sick bastard. You watched me shower didn’t you. I always suspected you were into such debauchery. Now I know for a fact.”

“You have always used humor when you feel uncomfortably,” The Agent continued, again ignoring The Detective’s last comment. “You can’t leave a question unanswered, no matter what cost the answer. You have never been able to turn down a pretty girl. Look at you over the last day or so. You followed The Ice Queen as if she had you on a leash, never questioning that she only led you where I needed you to be. I even anticipated her attempt to aid you, knowing that your natural charms always seem to break down the strongest defenses. Such a shame, after all, she had been my most loyal soldier.”

“And you let Adam kill her,” The Detective chimed in.

“When she tried to give you a means of escape, she betrayed me. She took a chance on destroying everything, all of my plans, all of my hopes, and why? Because she felt a misguided sense of gratitude towards you? Not that it mattered. A group of armed guards, a teleporter, and you placed yourself exactly where I needed you to be. You are nothing else if not predictable. That’s why I brought in Emily here. You met her; you knew her; I realized after Ice’s death, the tether line bringing you to me had been cut, and I needed another solution. Emily is so sweet, so pretty; I knew you would never be able to live with yourself if you put her in danger. And make no mistake, the threat was always real. If she hadn’t gotten you to take that left turn, I was going to kill her, her sister, her sister’s children. I was going to burn their house down and pretend they never existed. And I probably still will.”

“Go to hell, Rogers!” Emily yelled as she walked the distance between them. “I did everything you wanted! You have no right to hurt them!”

The Detective grabbed her by the shoulders as she walked by, holding her back before she could reach The Agent and launch into him with her delicate fists.

The Agent smiled at the young woman trying to tear herself out of The Detective’s grasp, his voice still emitting the same friendly tone of a man welcoming his neighbors into his home. “I can’t get over how much you have grown. That scrawny little girl who used to hang on to her big sister’s every word has grown up to be such a beautiful young lady, so full of fire and passion, willing to do whatever it takes to protect her family, even when she knows there is nothing she can do. Emily, my dear, if I wanted you or your sister dead, you would be dead. You live because I allow it. Your sister is alive in her hospital bed right now as we speak because I allow it. My city out there is alive and breathing because I allow it. I keep my world safe, but I can always burn it down and begin it again.”