Waiting for a Miracle - Chapter 7

Ah, the light of day. It’s just so nauseating. Still, holding the City city council hostage is usually a day gig, unless you’re willing to wait for a filibuster. With as eager as our city’s council is to pass laws and go home, that happens even less frequently than a blue moon, so I reiterate, this was definitely a daylight plot.

I stood in front of the City city council building, dressed in civilian attire, and waiting for Wallace to arrive. Leona was beside me wearing a pair of black jeans and a black fitted t-shirt that read “I’m with stupid” and sported an arrow pointing up. Her real ears were tucked under a baseball cap and her pair of prosthetic ears which matched her skin tone were jutting out from around the sides of her hat.

For me, civilian attire meant blue jeans and a grey sweatshirt. I was additionally disguised with a full beard, which I suppose is silly since I always wear a mask. I wasn’t in the mood to take any chances, and I worried that someone might remember me from my early days before I wore my mask.

Wallace spotted me from the intersection just as Leona pointed him out, and he smiled as he strolled across the street. He looked like we were planning a field trip, not a mass execution. Just then, I wondered which of us was more crazy.

“So how do we handle this?” he asked in a soft, excited voice after shaking my hand in a causal manner.

For all the neutral qualities his beige khakis and white collared shirt may have possessed, they still could not detract from how rigid Wallace was. He looked like he was posing for some hidden paparazzi, and my confidence in our success dwindled as I observed his almost mechanical movements.

I said, “We’ll go in one at time and meet in the men’s room. Leona and I will need to change into our costumes, but you’ll enter the building invisible, making you our ace in the hole. Get going.”

Wallace nodded and walked away. He would make one trip around the block as I’d instructed him the night before, and then he would join us inside. I took out a cigarette and lit it, giving casual puffs while Leona went in first.

Since she had made routine visits to the building’s courtrooms before Miracle Man left, she would be the one that everyone could most easily identify. If she was spotted and recognized, she could kill that person and drag the body away so quickly that no one else would see it. I can move pretty fast, but I still leave an outline.

She came back out and went behind me, nuzzling my ear. “Nobody even batted an eyelash, LM. Are we doing this or not?”

“We were going to need to do something like this anyway,” I assured her. “You and I needed to get out or we’d both catch cabin fever.”

“No kidding,” Leona agreed. “I’ll see you inside.” Then she was gone again.

I dropped the cigarette on the ground and stepped on it, smirking as I walked up the steps. This was my plan at this point, even if I had told Wallace otherwise.

That didn’t stop me from cursing him for coming up with the initial idea. It was a stupid plan, if for no other reason than the fact that I’d tried two variations on the same theme already. I hadn’t told Wallace that I’d also kidnapped the governor in order to rile up Double M.

But that man! Oh! He didn’t show up, even after I started sawing parts off of the governor every five minutes. I killed the highest official in the state, and Wallace thought adding extra bodies would matter? Please, Ass Master had come up with better ideas for his holiday capers.

Still I went in for it because it was a chance to get out of the house with some friends and just be myself. And to be honest, even if the plan failed, it still couldn’t end with any of us being caught. In that way, it couldn’t completely fail unless our hero showed up, and then, technically...you get the idea.

I walked across the main lobby of the City city council building, looking at the lightly armed security guards. They had only a can of pepper spray and a baton, meaning they were nothing to us. This was beginning to depress me, since none of us would be challenged by such pathetic odds.

I was grumbling under my breath almost as soon as I was in the bathroom, and my mood didn’t improve when I realized Leona wasn’t in any of the three stalls. I took the one against the far wall and stepped out of my clothing, pulling my miniaturized costume and a shrink ray gun out of the pocket of my jeans. I heard a scrape above me and looked up at Leona, sighing as she stared longingly at my nude body.

“We are on a schedule,” she said. Her gleeful expression showed how much she was enjoying my impromptu strip show.

“All right, keep your suit on,” I said.

“No, you put yours on,” Wallace corrected me, sounding like he was above me.

I looked at the ceiling as I stepped into my suit. “How long have you been here?”

“Actually, I followed you in,” the ceiling said. “It occurred to me that I didn’t need to circle the block if I was going to be invisible. I didn’t see any reason to argue the point either, so I just sat back to enjoy the view.”

Laughing, Leona asked, “LM, are you blushing?”

“Um, no. I’m just...flushed with tension over our plan.” I covered my face with my mask. “Are you ready for this, Wallace?”

“I think so,” the door to the stall answered.

“Alrighty,” I said with a shake of my head. “You go into the council chamber and take out the guards. Do it quickly and bring them in here. Got that?”

“I assume that I’m going to want to do this as quietly as possible?” the toilet asked from behind me.

I turned, smirking under my mask at Wallace’s game. “Yes, but if you catch any attention, tell us and we’ll bust in early.”

“Gotcha.” I heard the door to the bathroom say as it opened. It was closing, emitting a hiss from the pneumatic pump at the top, when suddenly it slammed back into the wall with a thunderous boom. The boom became a steady drum-like rhythm of explosions that nearly deafened me. I engaged the neural link on my suit, grateful when the suit’s noise filters reduced the pounding volume that drilled into my eardrums.

I looked up to see Leona with her eyes squeezed shut, both of her hands clamped on either side of the top of her head as she tried to muffle the dreadful sound as best she could.

At last the sound subsided, and the mirror announced, “Finished.”

I went to open the stall door and almost fell when I tripped on something. I looked down to find an arm sticking out from under the stall beside me.

“What the hell?” I asked and stepped over it to open the stall door. Wallace appeared a moment later, standing by the mirror.

Almost shouting, I asked, “Are the guards all packed into one stall?”

“Yes, including the ones from the main lobby,” Wallace said.

“And you don’t suppose all that noise you made might have alerted someone else to a threat?”

Wallace nodded. “No one in the council chamber heard it, but I took out the people in the lobby when I realized how noisy I was being. I guess the collar muffled my hearing, so I had no idea. I’m sorry.”

“Where are those bodies?” I asked.

“In there.” Wallace pointed to the first stall.

Leona leapt across the dividers and looked, whistling her approval. “Geez LM, there’s got to be fifty bodies crammed in here.”

I opened the door, stepping back as the pile slid out of the stall in a jumbled heap.

“Fifty-four,” Leona corrected herself, leaping to the top of the pile. “Way to go, Dr. Cornwall!” she cheered, giving a spirited clap.

Wallace gave her a look that seemed a mixture of guilt and pride, and I let her cheer him on before activating my suit to remind them that we were on a mission.

The main lobby was eerily quiet and devoid of any sign of life. I looked at Wallace, who seemed embarrassed to be there.

“I’m not supposed to see you,” I scolded him.

“Sorry, Light Master,” he said and vanished.

“It’s all right Wallace,” I said over my shoulder, relieved that he at least remembered to use my code name. I went into the main council chamber and turned up the intensity of my suit’s light emission.

“Nobody move!” I yelled, which of course sent the entire crowd into a panicked run.

They clumped around like a stampede, splitting into many herds to find an exit. The windows were barred, leaving only the door I was standing at. The various groups formed one stream that converged on me.

They found Leona and an invisible Wallace instead, falling back in shock under a high-speed barrage of slaps.

“Easy as pie,” Wallace said from just behind me after the crowd had been subdued.

“Hmm,” I said in response.

Looking around, I spotted a pimple-faced cameraman on a terrace just above the council chamber, and it occurred to me that he hadn’t run when everyone else had.

Resolving to kill him last, I flew up to the terrace and landed in front of his camera. “Leona, guard the door,” I called over my shoulder. “Is this camera still broadcasting?”

“Y-yes sir, but the signal is only a community access broadcast,” the cameraman said.

I picked him up under his jaw, lifting him up as I carried him to the equipment booth. The pimply kid kicked at my knees with a feeble weakness. I let him go, and he gasped when he landed on his ass.

My voice booming with menacing authority, I said, “Show me the signal feed console.” He did, and I attached a multi-spectrum broadcast generator, a trinket I’d made during my plot to hold the mayor hostage. “Go back to your camera. You will film me, and only me. Am I clear?”

“Yes,” the cameraman said before he ran to the camera to spin it around and aim it at me.

Walking out of the control tower, I looked into the camera lens. “This is a message to Miracle Man! I have taken the city council, the mayor, and nearly one hundred civilians hostage. Until you show up, I will kill one hostage every five minutes. On the third hour, I will kill the rest in a gruesome and agonizing manner. Trust me, Miracle Man, you don’t want to be late!”

“Do you think he saw it?” Wallace whispered behind me.

“The broadcaster sent my message to every television station as well as every radio station in the AM and FM frequencies,” I explained. “To be on the safe side, I even had it sent in Morse code, just in case he’s hanging out at a Western Union.”

“You’re kidding,” Wallace said in disbelief.

“I am,” I confirmed, huffing a laugh when Wallace elbowed my side.

We had only a few minutes to wait before it was time to begin, and of course Miracle Man didn’t show up.

“Showtime,” Wallace muttered.

I shouted, “Miracle Man, you are trying my patience, and I am not at all amused. My first vic—!”

“You won’t get away with this!” the mayor shouted from the middle of the bunched up council members.

I clenched my jaw, trying not to lose my temper. But I was just starting my monologue and I hate when someone interrupts me right at the start like that.

I shouted, “Damn it! Can I make just one plan without one of you little bitches ruining it with that stupid remark? Unless your precious hero arrives in ten seconds, I will be getting away with your murder!”

Pointing to the now cringing mayor, I roared, “Leona, put him on slush!”

With that bellowed command, every council member around the mayor scattered like flies avoiding a slap. They weren’t tossed aside. They dove out of the way to avoid getting killed.

Leona leapt at the cowering mayor, ripping him to shreds as she ran around him in a circle. She caught the various parts and tossed them into the air as she worked, juggling everything until she was supporting a funnel of red paste. At last she stopped and ran back to the door, while the column continued to spin for several more seconds.

All the terrified crowd saw was the mayor disappear in a red tornado, and they moaned with fear as the funnel collapsed, sending blood and viscera all over them.

“Just for his stupidity, a second victim will also die in this same five minutes!” I said with a menacing growl. Pointing to a hippified looking man, I flew down in front of him. “You! Why are you here today?”

“I wanted to get funding for another homeless shelter,” the man said. “Ours is overcrowded and we have to send people away.”

“Touching,” I said before turning my head. “What do you think?” I whispered.

“Pass,” Wallace decided.

I spun on my heel, pointing to a weasely little man with greasy hair and beady eyes. Yes, I know, a likely target. “What about you?”

“I don’t want to die!” the man cried and then pissed himself.

“What you want is irrelevant!” I bellowed, almost busting up laughing when the man crapped his pants next. “Why did you come to burden our city’s government?”

“I—well I wanted to get a new law ratified,” the weasel man whimpered.

“Go on,” I said and crossed my arms, drumming my fingers on my bicep.

“I was going to ask for an increase of the fines for possession of a firearm,” weasel man squeaked.

“Ah,” I said and snapped my fingers. “Leona, frappe!”

The crowd moaned as I flew back up to the terrace, and weasel man disappeared just as quickly as the mayor, disintegrating in a cone of blood and guts.

The time passed in much the same way for the entire three hours, until we were at the last five minute mark. The crowd was covered in blood, and the floor was now under a foot of chunky viscera.

“Last call,” Wallace mumbled. “Good thing too. This smell is bad enough to make me vomit.”

“Hold it until we leave,” I whispered. Turning to Leona, I pointed to one of the windows. “Check outside to see if we got lucky.”

Leona went to the window and fell back into the blood, screaming in terror.

“What the hell?” Wallace asked.

I went to the window, looking around before my eyes locked on the figure that Leona had seen. “Oh shit.”

“Did the national guard arrive early?” Wallace asked from the terrace.

“No, it’s the Rocket,” I said. I turned to watch Leona as she began crab-crawling backwards through the slush. “Leona, snap out of it!” I yelled, hoping to get her back on her feet.

Leona shook her head so violently that it blurred even in my sight. She chanted the same mantra over and over, “I can’t, I just can’t beat him...I can’t—”

I went to her and took her shoulders. “Leona, he can only arrest you. He can’t beat you up if you don’t put up a fight, okay?”

“I can’t, I just can’t beat him.” Leona mumbled, at last stopping her head shaking.

I knew she wouldn’t be snapping out of it any time soon, so I turned to look at the terrace to tell the cameraman to shut off the camera. Instead I groaned, because I could see Wallace. “You went visible!” I shouted. “Turn invisible and shut off the camera!”

Wallace looked down. “But I didn’t—!” He stopped himself and flew up, hovering a few inches from the ground. “I think I still have all my other powers, but I can’t cloak myself!” he shouted, the panic rising in his voice.

I realized that he’d somehow drained the power to the collar’s stealth circuits when I saw it on his neck.

“Shit!” I bellowed, stomping the floor and sending a wave of gore splashing over what was left of the huddled mass of hostages. Leona was next to useless in her agitated mental condition, and Wallace’s famous mug was going to force me to really kill everyone, something I was hoping to avoid by just shutting off the camera.

Frustrated, I grabbed a squealing council member and threw him at a window, blowing out the glass and tearing the bars free. “Shi—!” I stopped mid-curse when a plan came to me.

I flew to the cameraman, who had thankfully been following me instead of capturing any incriminating evidence against Wallace. I felt bad about cutting him down with a light blade, but everyone had to die.

I flicked the light blade up and away from the cameraman’s falling body to cleave the camera in half and end the broadcast.

Looking at Wallace, I shouted, “We have to kill all of them, but leave whole bodies!”

I surged off the terrace to begin killing the remaining hostages with my light blade. I lost track of time, but I’m sure less than a minute passed before I found one of Wallace’s victims still moving.

Groaning, I shouted, “Wallace, get over here!”

“What?” he yelled as he flew over.

I pointed at the man in front of me, still trying to wallow in the gore. Stepping on his head to push it into the violet stew, I pressed until I heard and felt a wet crunch. “Make sure they’re dead, you fool, or your precious professional life is over!”

The rage in my voice made Wallace flinch. I wanted to apologize, but he needed to understand the impact that discovery of his identity would have.

Still I dropped some of the growl out of my voice as I shouted, “Start throwing these bodies out the window, and then roll around in this gore! After we’ve tossed most of them, you will fly out as though you are one of the bodies for the pile. I’ll toss the last two or three on top of you. If we’re lucky, the Rocket will think you’re just another victim.”

Wallace did as I asked, and I finished tossing the remaining corpses.

Leona was still chanting when I knelt in front of her, and she wouldn’t stop even after I’d repeated her name half a dozen times.

She finally stopped after I slapped her, and then her eyes filled with tears. She whined, “Not you too.”

She spoke those three words and ripped my heart out of my chest and handed it back to me in a doggy bag. “I’m sorry, but I had to snap you out of your trance.”

The lump in my throat was choking me. I swallowed hard but it only sank a little. I couldn’t make it go away. “Listen to me, okay? Wallace is out there in that pile, and it won’t take the Rocket long before he starts going through it to search for survivors.” The lump returned. I swallowed it again. “You have got to go out there and get arrested so he won’t think about heroics, just the bust, okay?”

“I can’t—” Leona said.

“Listen to me,” I pleaded, taking hold of her bloody hands. “I’ll bail you out just like I did every time with double M. Just please, do this for Wallace.”

Nodding, Leona stood up and went to the window. Jumping out, she landed awkwardly and sank into a crouch to catch herself on her hands. She wobbled to her feet and raised her head to look at the Rocket, who stood less than twenty feet away.

Leona’s ears were folded sideways, clamped to the sides of her head. From where I hid, I could see the hair on her tail stump had bristled. She was terrified.

The Rocket stood in a typical hero’s pose, his arms crossed under his chest to make his pecs look bigger. His metallic costume started off white at the top with his bullet-head and shoulders and then shifted to red for his torso. His belt was white and his running boots were too, but his tights were blue. He looked like a giant popsicle to me, but I wasn’t the one who had to face him.

The Rocket nodded to Leona as a sneer formed on his lips. “What’s up, gimp?”

“Don’t call me that,” Leona said in a low voice.

I groaned, knowing what was going to happen. He was goading her to attack.

The Rocket laughed with derisive malice. “Why? Did you grow your stupid tail back? Naw, I didn’t think so. That makes you a pathetic loser gimp.”

“Stop calling me that!” Leona ran at the Rocket, who sidestepped her clumsy lunge and drove his knee into her chest.

I was livid, but even more than that I was afraid for Leona because I could see her. She was moving like a normal person, trying to throw punches that anybody could have dodged. The Rocket let her try for a few swings, and then he began to pummel her to the ground. He stomped on her, and then he picked her up by her stump, thrashing her against the ground over and over.

Tears blurred my vision, and just when I felt I could take no more, Wallace flew out of the pile. “No, you idiot,” I whispered. “You’re going to ruin your whole life.”

Wallace’s glare was furious as he descended the pile of corpses. “Enough!” he roared.

The Rocket spun and looked at Wallace, dropping Leona like a bad habit. I saw her ears twitch once, but I realized that it was the secondary motion from the impact and not a sign of consciousness from her.

The Rocket’s smile be came smug, and he asked, “Which villain might you be?”

Wallace shook his head, landing just a few feet from the Rocket. “I’m no villain. I was trying to stop this woman from killing everyone inside when her partner caught me with an energy blast. I had almost beaten her myself. Do you understand what I’m telling you?” Wallace yelled, pointing down at Leona. “You’re beating a woman when she was already badly injured. Does that make you feel big and bad, you little cocksucker!”

“Do what?” Both I and the Rocket stammered at the same time just before Wallace punched him in the nose.

I mean really hard too.

The Rocket staggered back, falling on his ass. “Do broge by dose!”

“I swear to God, I’ll break more than your nose if you don’t get the hell away from that poor girl!” Wallace’s voice was so confident and furious that I’m positive double M could never have matched it.

The Rocket stood up, feigning his injury before he went to take a swing at Wallace. His fist found empty air as Wallace vanished.

Yes, I know what you’re thinking: But Duggan, Wallace’s stealth collar was drained. That’s right, but what I’m saying is that Wallace moved so fast that I, with cybernetically enhanced eyes, still could not follow his movement.

The Rocket screamed in pain, and I heard a staccato of slaps. I realized that Wallace was holding back from killing the Rocket, and I smiled at his plan. This went on for nearly two minutes before Wallace next appeared in front of the Rocket.

His look was still angered, but it was somewhat tempered as he picked up the Rocket and threw him onto the ground so hard that it broke his muffler.

I laughed at this, because without his muffler, the Rocket’s explosive gas would backfire and kill him. The fight was over, and my shrink had just handed the hero his ass on a platter.

And THEN the police arrived.

Now I try to avoid using unsavory language, but I felt no guilt as I began to beat my head against the windowsill and chant, “Fuck, fuckety, fuck fuck fuck.”

Yet Wallace did not budge. He waited until one of the cops asked him who he was before he pointed at the Rocket. “I watched this so-called hero beat this poor woman within an inch of her life, and I’ll be claiming a citizen’s arrest. I’d already injured Leona in my attempt to defeat her, and this buttmunch thrashed her way beyond the call of duty!”

“All right,” said one cop. “If you’re the hero who was going to make the bust, what’s your name?”

“Would it bother you all that much if I told you I hadn’t thought of one yet?” Wallace asked, almost ruining his own act.

“Wait a minute!” another cop yelled, snapping his fingers. “You’re Wallaby Cornball, the famous shrink for heroes!”

I laughed. This is City’s finest, the best police we could find. I swore to God and the devil both that I would find a plot that was bad enough to bring Miracle Man back. Without him, City was screwed.

I lingered just a moment longer before I decided to make my getaway. I flew up and over the cops, noting with satisfaction that Wallace gave chase.

He followed me back to the lab, and he still had that righteous scowl on his face as we landed. Wallace’s courage had bailed our asses out on his impromptu plan B.

Suddenly, a brilliant idea came to me. I didn’t pay it much mind at first, but a voice began to nag at the back of my mind that if Miracle Man couldn’t be found, I was looking at City’s plan B.