Don't Be a Hero: A Superhero Novel

25: There's Always A Way

The hand relaxed, and air rushed in to fill the void in his lungs, along with the scent of Oppenheimer’s sweat. Spasms wracked Morgan’s chest, and he coughed again and again.

“Where is he?” Frank demanded again.

Something slammed into Morgan’s stomach, and the coughs doubled in intensity. “Frank,” he managed to gasp before another coughing fit struck him.

“Tell me where Sam is!”

“I will,” he choked out. “Don’t…don’t hit me again.”

He waited for another blow, but it didn’t come. He forced himself to take deep breaths, suppressing the spasms in his throat. Frank’s hand had left him. He wanted to curl over and vomit, but he suppressed that too.

“Sam’s safe,” he said when he could speak again. “He’s fine.”

“Where?” The voice was coming from his other side now. Omegaman could still move silently, no matter his age.

“I figured you’d come, Frank. I’m glad we finally have a chance to talk. I always admired you.”

The noise that came from Morgan’s right was more of a growl than words. “Why? Why did you do this?”

“Because someone had to.”

He could feel Frank moving around the cell. He wondered if the man was in costume. If it still fits. Omegaman used to have goggles that let him see in the dark, but even those wouldn’t be much use down here. You couldn’t amplify a photon if it didn’t exist.

“Did you know how powerful Sam could be?” Morgan said. The movement stopped. “You must have had some idea, or you wouldn’t have come to see your friend, the one who worked at Unity Corp.”

Frank grunted.

“I was surprised you fell for it so easily,” Morgan said. “But you were eager, weren’t you? A medicine to suppress metahuman powers. You couldn’t get here fast enough.”

He said nothing.

“Were you afraid Sam was going to go mad and try to kill you like your brother did? Or did you just want to spare him this life?” Morgan heaped scorn on the sentence. “Tell me, Frank, are you ashamed? Do you regret being Omegaman?”

“I’m ashamed that I share an origin with you, monster. With people like you to represent us, no wonder the normals hate us.”

Morgan laughed. “Oh, come now. You and I both know that supercriminals had nothing to do with what they did to people like us. Like many metas, I thought for a long time that it was economics. We were taking their jobs and doing them better. But it was more than that. We lost some part of ourselves. We didn’t fight this, because we didn’t believe in ourselves anymore.”

“Stalling won’t save you.”

Morgan prodded his sore gum again. It was becoming a compulsion. “I just want to make you understand, Frank. Do you remember that old saying? A hero’s greatest power is his mind. It turns out that’s true. Well, not the mind, but the brain. We did some research. There’s a protein that builds up in the neocortex of the brain, especially in more powerful metas, and especially in psychics. A collection of proteins, really. Your brother would have been swimming in it. Perhaps that’s what drove him mad.”

He made out the sound of steel leaving a sheath.

“The protein complex is incredibly elaborate, and unique to the individual. And recently, we discovered something very special. It retains an imprint of the meta’s powers, even when removed from the brain in question. Of course, this is useless for the most part, a curiosity. But there are ways of conducting a transfer. Ways of giving someone another’s powers. All you need is a powerful psychic stimulus, and a metahuman malleable enough to take the transfer. That part is the tricky one. Such a metahuman is exceedingly rare. It needs to be a tier zero meta. Someone like Sam.”

A palm slammed into Morgan’s sternum and shoved him back against the wall.

“Enough,” Frank said. A blade whistled as it cut the air. “Enough of your talking. You will tell me now. Where is Sam?”

“You were a scientist,” Morgan said. “I thought that bit of information might interest you. Maybe you’re out of practice. Should we should start with something simpler? Perhaps the sort of experiments children do in school. Do you remember the chemical reaction that you get from putting zinc and copper electrodes into certain fruits and vegetables?”

The point of a blade pricked his neck, but he didn’t stop.

“Potatoes and tomatoes, for example.” Morgan’s hand groped to the side, until it touched the metal tray. “The zinc is oxidised, and hydrogen gas is produced. And along the way you get a nice little flow of electrons.” He prodded the spot on his gum again, where the false tooth used to sit, waiting for this day. “The whole reaction only gives less than one milliamp of current, of course. But you know, it’s just enough to generate…” He pressed the tiny bulb into the tomato’s flesh, and it began to glow. “…a little bit of light.”

Morgan could see. And in the dim red light, he made out the realisation in Frank Oppenheimer’s eyes. Each time Morgan had done this over the last two days, he’d savoured every morsel of light he could drink up. Hoarding it. For just this occasion.

He smiled.

Oppenheimer was fast, but Morgan had surprise on his side. The blade of light he formed in his hand was a pitiful thing, dull, not much longer than a bread knife. But when he passed it across Frank Oppenheimer’s throat, it sliced through just the same.

The old man toppled. His silver dagger clattered to the ground. Morgan had to dart forwards to catch Oppenheimer before he hit the ground. Gently, Morgan lowered the ex-hero the rest of the way, while the man’s wide eyes stared at him. The spluttering was awful. Again and again Frank tried to take a breath, only to draw more blood into his lungs.

God forgive him.

“I’m sorry, Frank,” Morgan whispered. He cradled the man’s head in his arm and used his sleeve to wipe the blood from around Frank’s mouth. “I wish you could understand. I’m going to make a better world.”

The old man was looking at something Morgan couldn’t see. Oppenheimer’s eyes glistened in the dim light of the blade. His mouth made gulping motions, and his hands gripped helplessly at the grey and black fabric of his bodysuit. He was wearing his old Omegaman costume after all. At least he’d die as a hero. A small comfort, but a comfort nonetheless.

Morgan waited with Frank until the man’s eyes glazed over and blood stopped squirting. The blood was all over Morgan’s face, he knew, but for once he didn’t concern himself with his appearance. There’d be time enough for that in a few minutes, when he’d gather his captured metas and escape this prison. But first, he had something to do.

Finally, when everything stopped moving, he laid Frank’s head on the cold concrete and shifted his weight. The headache was back, and it was trying to make up for the last two days. Morgan wouldn’t complain, though. The price was far cheaper than the one Frank Oppenheimer had paid.

“You deserved better than this,” he said to Frank. “We all did.”

He brought his blade down on Frank’s skullcap and began to cut.

~~~

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