Meet the Heroes, Issue 2, Part 4

Deepwater

Somewhere off the northern coast of Cape Cod, a fishing vessel floundered about in rough seas. It was winter, and a blizzard had hit just as the boats were coming in. One captain, upon setting foot on land, swore that the ocean itself had chased him to shore. There were only a few boats caught in the chop. This ship, this fishing vessel was call the Grit Ten.

Had the ocean reared up it's ugly face? Evan McGovern, standing on the deck of the Grit Ten watching sailors throw themselves overboard in panic, believes on that day, it did. He looked it right in it's frothy eyes and spat back.

Evan cursed, tied a rope off around his waist and climber the fo'c's'le and raised his arms to the steely sky. What he said, no man heard save the Sea, but the waves cleared and a spot opened in the clouds and Captain O'Heard steered right for this patch of bright, as Evan instructed him to do.

Evan was considered lucky. No one ever suspected he was different. His ships came in no matter the weather. Now, his secret was revealed. Captain O'Heard begged him to stay on. They all did. They promised to keep him secret.

Evan could not stay. He could no longer deny what he was. He was a hero. He had to live up to his obligation.

from Parables of the Famous Heroes, Chapter Nine: Deepwater.

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Supercell

Generators. He didn't know anything about them. They'd gotten him into this mess. Without these generators, there would be nothing to power a grid and he wouldn't be at gunpoint.

People needed power. Electrical power. They didn't need a half man, half magnet so much. Especially one with no control over his gift. But, sit him near a few generators and electricity flowed. Endlessly.

He thought up a few plans. Threaten to turn of the power, they shoot you. Wait for the right moment and run, they shoot you. Overload the generators, they shoot you. Nothing was good nough.

So, he praticed manipulating his magnetism. He moved little objects first. A pen. A paper clip. One day, he moved one of the men's chairs while he was sitting down.

They don't shoot you. They beat you. They withheld food and water. They tortured you. Only they don't know their own strength, right? You pass out.

Next thing, waking up to new circumstances. New people with powers like his. The books on Tesla and basic principles of magnetism and electricity. They made a suit for him, insulated. Then, he got a pack with two mini-engine/generators in it. When he focused his thoughts, electricity came out of his hands.

Then they had him practice for hours. The suit was hot and uncomfortable. They blathered on about justice and nobility. He was sick of them. They capture you, fix you up, train you. You shock them.

Meet the Heroes, Issue 2, Part 3

Trinity

The tale of Belial and St. Michael. 4:15-27

The head of St. Michael created the avatar Belial at the behest of the Lord. He looked like Rick Dubois. He had the memories of Fink. The Lord chose this body and mind to house His taskmaster, Belial.

Belial believed he was equal to the Lord and the enemy of the Lord and all His creations. St. Michael knew different. Both he and Belial had no free will. They were automatons who did their Master's bidding. Belial was God's test for the human race.

Seeing himself as God's equal, Belial claimed all of creation for himself and shaped it to his will. God allowed this to test the human race. Now, with a human body, Belial decided he would prove his Equality to the Lord by converting humanity to a new form of worship, with him as their living god. He planned to enter the Garden and prove his power. Humans would no longer need faith.

He had many tricks. He could perform miracles. With the Fruit, he could grant eternal life. As he sat, waiting for the Son of Man to arrive at the Garden, a thought occurred to him. He'd made a terrible mistake! He made humans suffer and despise him. Ah! He decided he would eliminate all suffering, over-rule God's original punishment and restore humans to paradise. Yes, that was it! He and the human race would reclaim the Garden and eat the fruit of life.

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Chicago

Seven days of pure hell. Woke to compound under assault. People flung themselves on and over the wall. I'm not sure what the riot was about. Hex and Kosmos will get back to us. The Harmless went with them. Recon the entire Southside, they said.

Not what I signed up for. There's nothing keeping me here, and trust me, I want to just leave. I'll think about it. If so, I'll send word. It will be soon, before they get back.

Just in case I stay, send socks and anything baked or fried that won't go bad on the trip. Guise is telling me that Chicago is greatly improved since before Meggido. Yeah. Me and him tossing bodies back over the wall. Other guys are dragging them to a building about a mile away.

Maybe it's seeing the two of them fight. I dunno. Something about the old guys and how they can tell you how it's going down without any powers. Speaking of which, God's joke about making too few healers is true. And they break easy. And no one can make food just appear.

Send the stuff anyways. I have to stick around to see them detonate all these buildings at least. Maybe stay on a year and run a farm. I'd definitely see you out here once it's cleaned up. You'd get a kick out of the photos once we get all cleaned up. Yup.

Chicago was a laugh. Write back.

Gil

Archival Letters from the Reconstruction

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The Harmless

He and his father found a curious coven of natives that didn’t try to eat them on sight. The spoke of Lord Cancer. Intrigued, the duo questioned them at length about Lord Cancer and discovered that this tribe was not suffering from radiation sickness. The were not talking in metaphors. They lead The Harmless to a buckled up piece of concrete near a row of toppled buildings, and then ran.

It was a clever idea. A crab the size of a small sedan had been feasting on the local population. That crab was Lord Cancer. That crab had been given too more sacrifices. The natives’ stories made sense now.

“Now, there’s something,” the Son said to his father. The crab was curious, like the natives. It shuffled its bloated orange body over to them slowly. The smell alone should have driven them made, but instead the Son said, “Okay, now you’ve had a look at us. Go back in your hole before we’re forced to kill you.”

“I am Lord of this land and all who enter are my servants,” the crab responded.

“I know the rules,” the Father said, “But to hell with this.” His Son motioned to wait as his father readied to attack.

“I ask you again,” the Son continued, “Please return to your hole and we will pass through without harm. You may have your land and you servants, but you may not have us.”

Lord Cancer was appetite and greed. He launched himself at them. Father and Son split and countered from each side. Father pierced the hard exoskeleton with his fist and tore at the goo inside. The Son flashed the Sword of David and Lord Cancer’s left limbs fell to the ground. Father climbed on back and pounded holed with his fists, like a double hammered pile driver. The Son removed the beast’s eye stalks and claws. Lord Cancer shook them both off and scurried for shelter.

They returned to the tribe and told them this tale. The tribe would not believe them, even when the Father showed his hands and the Son showed the Sword of David. The Harmless then laid a curse on the natives and left them with their blind, lame God.

Meet the Heroes, Issue 2, Part 2

High Minded

File 1452899^a
Global Event I
Dr. Robert Favat

Four distinct astronomical events followed by the hemmoragic fever epidemic, food shortage, water contamination and widespread competition for resources. It is believed the nuclear weapons release started with India attacking China and Pakistan. This resulted in retaliation by China, wiping out India. Pakistan did not survive India's first assault. Predictably, the Russian States used this as an excuse to launch against China, and NATO launched against Russia.

After the attacks, the earth's magnetic field increased exponentially. This caused power failures and the destruction of almost al magnetic records, including servers and hard drives and backup tapes.

The estimates are 75% mortality rate occured across all species, including plants and bacteria. There is no definitive record of the exact sequence of events, and no empirical evidence except for eyeball testing local ecosystems and sending written documentation to fellow collegues. Unfortunately, a vast amount of oral folklore has obscured the true scientific facts of the first seven years of Global Event I.

Global Event II has some significant, well tested data. The sudden rebound of human life and the mutations and diversity of the human family is astounding, even when viewed through the most skeptical frames. In short, reliable witnesses in the thousands have seen the exceptional nature of these genetic advances.

As an aside, I can't help but find it peculiar that just as modern science was about to manipulate the Human Genome, nature jumped ahead in line and did it for us. If the events were, in fact, of natural origin.

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Done Zero

And we thought cities had a crime problem! It was amazing to see nature- human nature and plain old wild nature- take over so quickly. I thought I was a badass fighting a hundred drugged crazed illegal aliens. I thought outwitting a criminal mind was tough. There is no outwitting a hungry town of half alive, starving human animals.

Some of the cities have it petty good now. I remember Pittsburg, man. We drove up, maybe fifty of us. Whole place is lit up and we figured time for a little relax. The radiation was so high people were still burning by the week. They didn't want us. They wanted clean water and doctors. They didn't want order restored. I guess we reminded them of the old Red and Blue a bit too much. We didn't stick around long enough to meet 'the Govenor'.

Compared to then, earth is a paradise now. Most parts at least. The rest we can handle in time. Not much of the old crimes. Nature's done a hell of a quick ckeanup. Still, the odd bad man pops up here and there. That's why I'm not retiring.

Done Zero's response to Maurie Fitzgerald during an interview for The Chronicle

Meet the Heroes, Issue 2, Part 1

The Tale of Belial and St. Michael.


Belial admired the lush Garden behind the head of St. Michael, the Archangel. Trees peacefully sighed in relief from the wind. Many creatures stirred and ate and enjoyed the endless landscape of forest, stream and field.


"I ask you again," Belial said to the head, "to be reasonable. Isn't your God a forgiving and loving God, full of mercy and compassion? Please let me but enter the Garden for a few minutes. I will leave no footprint, no broken branch or disturbed animal in sleep."


"Only one man may enter the Garden," Michael answered.


"But I am so much more than a man!" Belial protested. "It was you who granted me power to rule when you spat me out. Am I not the Christ is all but name?"


"You were born a man and a man you remain," Michael replied.


"I should shatter your gigantic head," Belial said. "I could, you know. I was His favorite before the Son, and I am more powerful on this earth than even you!"


"So powerful that you sit here day and night requesting to enter the Garden," Michael bellowed laughter. "Go home, Belial. There is a place for you yet. Destroy your creation and go home. Perhaps you will be forgiven. But you will never enter this Garden."


"You're a fool, Michael," Belial said. "Come out of that rock and join me. Together we could enter the Garden unhindered and let that dullard Gabriel guard it for us. We could leave in peace, not servitude."


"I remember the last time you made this offer," Michael said. "The results were less than ideal for you. I choose to serve."


"Fine," Belial said, "Then I refuse to destroy my creation. I will sit here and wait for this Holy Man to enter and I will go in with Him."


Michael laughed quietly.



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Father

Harmless lay in a blood outline of his body. Barely conscious, he knew many things that he never understood. The Law and the Prophets. All of the incarnations of the one true Light. The new species of humans. The underworld dwellers that had lived hidden for centuries. The giant black stone computer hidden in Thibet. The world of terrible secrets awaiting him as he died.

He would suffer. His mistakes ruined him completely.

The last minutes he remembered before lying there in his own blood. He, a wicked man, lost a long battle with a man infinitely wicked. The Fink changed once in the mouth of the Head of St. Michael. He became a force primeval, an Angel. The Angel. The Lightbringer. The Morningstar. God's own lieutenant who rebelled granted Fink the greatest gift the Devil can offer. Fink became the Devil Incarnate. Fink beat Harmless into realms of pain beyond things imaginable by normal men.

Be design, St. Michael intervened after seven years and spat them both out. Fink ran with a madness he could not explain. Harmless lay in blood. At that moment a young man approached the Head of St. Michael and asked, "Can this be my Father?"

"Extend your hand," St. Michael commanded, "And raise him by the strong grip, the Paw of the Lion." The Son of Harmless, the Son of Man, did as commanded. His father was healed. Then Michael issued a warning, "You, Son of Man, may enter the Garden. It is your right. But remember that whatever you carry in, comes with you."

Neither man saw a Garden.



Harmless



I took my father's name both to honor him and to remind me of his fate. We stood side by side and lived by the rules for a long time before he died, but he'd killed too many and never forgave himself. Why ask God for forgiveness if you won't even give it to yourself. He's in Hell now.



The Harmless Man, post Meggido, when asked about his father, the previous Harmless Man.



Guise



Retirement is a good life. Guise still had the old relics hanging about his shop. He had the admiration of all the new building jumpers. They knew. They knew he did it when there was no help. He did it with guts, not powers or mutations. The knew he could talk endlessly, but every story had a nugget of wisdom to use. Plus, no one made a suit or did a cut job like Guise.



So, one day when Mercy answered the door and saw her son standing with the look on his face, the look his father always got, she called Guise. Her and Guise had tried to make a go of it after her boy had healed, but she could never let go of the father of her son. Guise talked to mercy the way one talks to a Doctor while in treatment for a long term, terminal illness. Hopeful, but always aware there was no chance of a cure.



The first time Guise had the young man in his shop, he was amazed. Young Harmless was shorter than his dad, but stronger, more beautiful. For a man, he was gorgeous. Guise recognized the source of that beauty. Despite his loathing for the father, he instantly loved the boy.



Young Harmless admired Buzz Baldwin's old suit. Guise modified it. Blue and yellow, no insignia. He made a special mask of double interlocking verticle diamonds and spiked the boy's shock of blond hair up. Harmless looked stunning. The wonderous part, the boy wanted no modifications. "You'll see," he said, when Guise tried to talk him into some padding or kevlar.



After the fitting, Guise begged him to stay and sit with him on the back porch and talk. Harmless admitted that's why he really came by. Guise, for the first time in years, felt genuine joy. Maybe good Dr. Mercy had found a cure after all.

Meet the Heroes Issue 2 Introduction

The history of modern heroism is written in the soil. Find a mound and dig. You will find bones of heroes. Hundreds of thousands died on Meggido and across the globe as the Four Angels came to Earth. St. Michael trumpeted and they came. All of that history in the span of seven years. The mass extinction that followed leaves hints in the soil.

What survived? Extraordinary animals. At the time the Angels came, evolution gave humans a kick in the pants. Lucky us. Without the mutations and adaptations, only those fearful, wretched ground dwellers would have survived. They came up from the earth greedy and blood thirsty. They ate themselves and refuse.

A boy emerged from a cave, or so legend tells us, bearing the moniker of his father. And much like his father he became except he was filled with compassion. When his father was spat out by the head of St. Michael in Meggido, the boy emerged from the cave to find him. History from those times, like those men and even the Wretched, is emerging from the ground and now the truth can be told.

from a lecture by John Hezzac (son of Sean Hezzac, The Hex) at the Centennial of Meggido.

Cover for Issue Two of Meet the Heroes