Sub-Heroes: Boombox

Chapter Six

Run away, run away,

as quiet as you can.

Don’t dare look back,

It’s the Obsidiman!

Children’s Nursery Rhyme, Author unknown

So much smoke, so much fire and with frantic people running and screaming, it’s no wonder we felt overwhelmed.

From what I could tell the train had come off the rails leaving wrecked and crumpled carriages scattered across the track and its surrounds.

There’s a steady stream of passengers fleeing, limping, crying or being carried away by the first few people here.

All three of us run forwards towards the wreck, Kellie falls behind with the occasional flash of her camera letting us know where she is in the dusk light.

Corbin and I come across an overturned carriage enveloped in back smoke with some of its wheels still spinning slowly. The heat radiating its metal stops us from wandering too close at first, but we can hear people crying inside. Angry flames flicker through the torn holes in the carriage.

“What the hell can we do?” asks Corbin distressingly.

I look about to see if anyone is watching, there are plenty of people about but none looking in our direction, they are too preoccupied to notice me.

“Just stand back,” I whisper followed by a deep base note from my chest. The heavy note creates a mild shockwave that is enough to cause the flames to flicker and extinguish.

“Nice one man,” whispers Corbin as he enters the red hot carriage first and I closely follow.

I recall The Admirals story about the untrained Ultra Hero and I realise with horror that we are also woefully underprepared for this.

There is charred movement amongst the wreckage on the floor.

“Is that, people?” asks Corbin weakly.

“My God, it is. Can you, um, help me with this one?”

I reach down to a burnt waving arm, all the time fighting the urge to turn away.

“It’s okay, we are going to get you to safety.”

Corbin clears away some smouldering seating and reveals a woman’s face staring back at me. She is alive, eyes darting back and forth but she’s not shouting, screaming or saying a word. I take hold of her arm and in that instant, she screams.

Corbin reels and I fall back.

“Withdraw kids, we can take it from here.”

That voice comes from a tall man standing behind us. He is wearing a smart grey finned business suit and has a black scarf covering the bottom half of his face.

“Who are you?” Corbin asks as he stumbles back to his feet.

The man effortlessly helps me up and then holds both hands out in front of him. All of the remaining debris that was covering the injured passengers lifts up onto the air and floats out of the carriage.

The obviously Powered and well dressed man looks at us and his eyes suggest theres a smile behind his scarf. “Who am I? It’s best I don’t say, I didn’t quite have time to change properly.

Now go back to safety kids, the professionals are here.”

Corbin and I reluctantly leave the smouldering wreckage behind us while a crew of ambulance officers rush past carrying red first aid kits and stretchers.

“Who was that?” asks Corbin. “Was it Zeon?”

“I don’t know, it could be but I thought he was hurt after his fight with Asher,” I reply.

Normally meeting any Hero would have Corbin and I buzzing but neither of us felt like conversing. I’m so useless here, with all of my Powers at the ready but not being able to use them.

A fine rain falls, enough to let you know its there but not to soak you through. Thunder rumbles above and I wish I could speak to Ms Johnston right now. I still feel like I need her permission to let me off the chain.

We make our way back to the street, where police are forcing the growing crowd back. A sudden scream from a nearby wrecked piece of carriage chills me.

Corbin and I look at each other. “I have to do this.”

“You know that I’m not going to stop you,” replies Corbin, “Do what you have to do!”

I run towards the scream to see a girl leaning over some poor passengers’ body in a shallow crater.

The girl looks up at me and I realise that it’s Kellie. Her eyes are wide open, fine rain washed ash hide the tears streaking down her face. I quickly take her in my arms “I’m sorry,” the scream did not sound like her, ”I thought that you were only taking photos.”

“I was, I did,” Kellie sobs, “But he is not moving, is he dead?”

I look down to the man lying on the ground, at first I don’t recognise him. His face is caked in mud and crusted blood from an angry wound that passes over one of his eyes. His clothes are torn and shredded, however these are not normal clothes, it’s a thin pale blue fabric with the tattered remains of a cape pulled too tightly about his thick neck. This is Solidstone, a powerhouse Ultra Hero now battered and blood stained.

Picking up one of his heavy arms, I check for a pulse. “He’s alive,” I say as I gently put his arm back down.

“Help!” yells Kellie blindly into the chaotic night. “We have a hurt Hero here!”

“Urrrrgh…” groans Solidstone as he tries to open his good eye.

“It’s okay Mr Solidstone, sir, help is on its way,” I say calmingly.

“Help, anyone!” yells Kellie again.

“There, it came from over there,” I hear some nearby voices followed by the sound of people running.

Two emergency medical officers appear, both looking fairly young. The young man says, “No way, that’s not Solidstone is it, what do we do?”

The young female officer shakes her head and says, “We do the same as anyone else, now make yourself useful and see if any of the Ultra Division Medical team are here yet.”

The guy nods and heads off into the smokey darkness.

“Will he be okay?” I ask.

“I can’t say,” the officer shakes her head, ”We are not allowed to treat Ultra Heroes, but I will be damned if I will let him lie here in the mud.”

Kellie must have seen the officers name tag and asks, “Janice, can I call you Janice? I’m a reporter for Channel 14, do you mind if I take some photos?”

Janice takes off her yellow jacket and rolls it into a pillow. She then gently places it under Solidstone’s head as he groans in groggy pain.

Janice looks up and says, “Photos? Only if you really must and keep out of my way.”

Kellie stands back, taking photos of Janice making Solidstone more comfortable. The flash from the camera briefly lights up scene and Corbin remarks, “This is a mess, how on earth did this happen?”

“Umph, Killer…” groans Solidstone.

“Killer?” questions Kellie, “Was this, Killervolt?”

“Young lady, if you want to see tommora’ then you better put that damn thing down.”

Startled by the new voice we all look around to see three men running up to us. The first man is the young ambulance office followed by two genuine Ultra Heroes. Well, they are dressed like Ultra Heroes but I don’t recognise either of them.

One appears young, about my age with short cut black hair and a fairy stocky build. His uniform is mostly black with thin golden highlights running along its seams. On his face, he wears a simple black mask.

The other Ultra Hero is older, he is dark skinned and dressed in a red and black ultra-suit with an unusually thick black face mask. The two Heroes take a few moments to look over the fallen Solidstone.

“Probable internal injuries, extreme trauma to the left ocular cavity and a mild concussion,” says the red and black suited Hero.

The younger Hero is standing over us, looking down like he has stepped in something nasty.

“Who put that rag under his head?” he demands.

The young ambulance officer looks up at him, “I did, I was making him comfortable.”

“You’re not qualified to do that.” He turns abruptly to Kellie. “Now you, give me that camera”

Obediently Kellie hands her camera over.

“I’m sorry if I’ve offended you Mr…” Kellie lets the sentence hang, hoping to catch the Heroes’ name. The darkly dressed man offers no such reply.

“I am happy to destroy the last few photos if you wish?” Kellie matches her offer with the best smile she can muster given the situation.

The stocky Hero turns the camera over in one hand. “No need.” He places his other hand over the camera then slowly and deliberately, pushes his hands together. The cameras metal casing buckles and splits under the pressure, followed by the cracking of the glass lenses. The Hero twists his hands together as if he was kneading bread allowing warped pieces of metal casings, glass and the strip of film to fall to the ground. Finally he brushes his now empty and unharmed hands together, wiping away the last few shards of broken lenses.

“What!” Kellie’s exclamation worries the Hero in the red suit.

“Steady on mate. Please excuse my friend, we are still trying to piece what has happened here together and seeing our Solidstone like this has us a little on edge.”

Before the other Hero or Kellie can say anything, I interrupt with, “It was Killervolt, Solidstone said something about Killervolt.”

The two Heroes glance at each other and then the black suited Hero turns to me. “You need to wake up to something boy, this is Ultra Division business. So forget what you think you heard… you heard wrong. That goes for the skinny runt and doubly so for the wanna-be reporter. Do you all understand that because I don’t have the time or the crayons to draw you a picture?”

All three of us nod in agreement but I’m sure that if these Ultra Heroes knew what I could do they would change their tone… Should I show them?

“Mr Hero, Sir,” I start to speak, what am I doing… I can hear Ms Johnston voice ringing in my head saying, ‘Don’t!’.

The black suited Hero bites back. “Oh, do you have something to say? Sure, lets chat some more to further delay us from helping these victims?”

“Um, no it’s nothing. We will get out of your way now,” I say apologetically.

Corbin, Kellie and I turn and walk away. We make our way back to relative normality, towards the street lights and the other side of the newly hung police tape.

I want to turn around, run back and use my Powers to help people.

“What a d**k,” says Corbin, breaking my concentration?

“Yeah,” replies Kellie „It’s a good thing that was the stations camera and that I was on my third roll of film otherwise I would really be pissed.” Kellie then puts her hand in her pocket and with a smile, produces two rolls of film.

“Careful,” I caution. “I’m not sure that they would be too keen on you having that.”

“I will be fine, I can sneak the photos onto my bosses desk anonymously. She will be too distracted by them to care about a lost camera,” Kellie smiles cheekily.

We leave the wreckage behind us, walking away from the cacophony of sirens and shouting. The rain now succeeds in soaking through to my skin but it should be me, I should be a part of the rescue teams… I know I can help. Damn these rules. I’m like a coward for not helping… it’s not a nice feeling.

“You know what those Heroes need?” asks Corbin.

Before I can answer, Corbin continues, “They need a lesson in customer service… or a chill pill. We’re only trying to help here! If Kellie had not found Solidstone he might still be lying in that ditch, dead or dying.

Anyway Oscar, I mean like wow, you pulled out some real Hero moves back there, you totally saved those other people by putting our the flames.”

Kellie’s eyes light up, “Really? Did you go ‘full Hero’ and I missed it?”

“Yeah,” I reply sheepishly, “I was kind of cool”

“You should do it again,” demands Corbin. “To hell with this mild mannered ‘keep it all to yourself’ crap. The Heroes need you.”

I was about to chime in with my usual ‘when it’s the right time’ monolog when surprisingly Kellie says, “Do it, you have been in training since junior high, you can save lives, it looks like the Heroes are one person down and you do have your own suit.”

“No, why...” I start.

“That’s the wrong way to start your answer,” Corbin demands.

“No, it’s the right way,” says Kellie as she wipes rain from her eyes. “You have those words the wrong way around though. You should ask ‘Why no?’”

“Okay, but I can’t waltz up to the Ultra Division doors and shout ‘Here I am’, I need to be seen doing something big, something that will make the Heroes respect me from the word go.”

We fall silent for a moment as we walk on and ponder the options. In next to no time we approach Kelly’s, or should I say our apartment. After the chaos outside, this place is ghostly silent as we walk in.

After drying ourselves, Kellie switches on the TV and there’s footage of the wrecked train with rescue workers desperately searching through the twisted metal.

“It’s a shame that I didn’t photograph you putting out that fire,” says Kellie.

“Okay, so you have to do a report on me if I do something Heroic,” I say.

“How about,” starts Corbin, “How about Killervolt?”

“Hold on,” I reply quickly. “I thought about that, but now… after seeing what he did to Solidstone? No, I meant something big not suicidal.”

“I don’t know about that either,” says Kellie.

“No, wait, think about it,” Corbin says excitedly, “He is the biggest threat in this city and he’s trashed Solidstone.”

“Wait!” says Kellie as she points at the TV.

There is no sound, only images of rescue workers walking through burning wreckage. Running along the bottom of the screen is a ticker strip providing rapid updates.

“Wait for what?” I ask.

“Read it!” exclaims Kellie.

I read the screen and two words jump out at me, ‘Obsidiman Dead’

“I didn’t even know that he was a real thing!” says Corbin.

I can’t believe it, this is all too crazy. To see the name ‘Obsidiman’ appear is the same as seeing the Bogeyman or Easter Bunny.

The words on the screen continue to scroll by,

‘-Solidstone and the Final Three thwart a robbery at the Monolith Art Gallery-

-Obsidiman killed trying to escape-

-Accomplice believed to be Killervolt escaped and derailed city train-

-Train crash casualty numbers currently unknown-‘

“No freaking way,” I find myself saying.

“This is real,” says Corbin with an unusually determined look on his face.

“It’s time Oscar, time to let Boombox out of the… well, box. Your shout, that Turbo Bass can knock anyone flat in one hit, Blammo! All you need is to sneak up on Killervolt and ‘boom’ knock the fool out cold.

Kellie can film it and you will be a Hero, an instant celebrity! Or you can save a cat up a tree and become the Hero’s comic relief?”

It sounds like a decent plan. But do I dare put myself in the line of fire like that, can I?

Kellie answers this question for me. “Okay, I will borrow a police scanner from the studio, Corbin can be your eyes on the street and you, my little Hero honey, can move your uniform into your new secret hideout, here with me.”

[21 days until Detonation.]