Diary of a Teenage Superhero
Darrell Pitt
Copyright 2012 Darrell Pitt
Published at Smashwords
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Dedicated
To Aimee
Chapter One
My name is -.
Wait.
Scrub that thought. I don’t know my name. I don’t know where I am. I don’t know how I came to be here.
I don’t know anything.
I’m lying flat on my back looking up at a ceiling coated in peeling mustard yellow paint. Light is streaming in through a window, casting long rectangles across the floor and the bed. A white curtain, fading to brown, covers the window. To its left hangs a small white hand basin. It’s leaning badly, clinging grimly to the wall by only one bracket. A single square mirror sits directly above it. A plain round clock to its left counts the minutes.
3.07pm
This place has all the trappings of a seedy motel room. It even smells like it. Stale. Unkempt. Even the mattress smells bad, covered by a grimy gray sheet.
I stagger to the hand basin. My head feels heavy. Everything seems to be vibrating from side to side. I feel like I’ve been drugged. I look into the mirror.
The face staring back is completely unfamiliar.
But this is me. Male. Seventeen. Maybe eighteen. Short cropped brown hair. Brown eyes. A small scar on the left side of my chin. I’m wearing a blue and white striped t-shirt. Gray jacket. Faded blue jeans. My shoes are clean, though worn.
Then I examine my hands. Not working hands. Not someone who’s used to outdoor labor. I’m probably still at school.
Wherever that is.
But I still have one overriding question.
Who am I?
I turn around to survey the room and discover something so unexpected I fall back in surprise and almost dislodge the hand basin completely from the wall.
A man is lying on the floor.
As I was a few minutes earlier, he is face up and staring at the ceiling. Unlike me, he has a wound in his side, possibly a bullet wound. Blood seeps from it. His eyes are open and staring. More blood stains his mouth.
He is lying so close to the bed, I can see why I didn’t notice him earlier. Did I do this? Did I harm this man? I don’t see a weapon. Regardless, I have to help him in whatever way I can. Kneeling beside him, I gently pull his shirt apart to examine the wound. I don’t know wounds – no medical training springs to mind – but it looks bad. I reach into my pocket and find a handkerchief. Pushing it hard against the injury, the man’s eyes shift to me.
“It’s okay,” I tell him. “I’m going to get help.”
He shakes his head. Tries to speak. Fails.
“I’ll get an ambulance,” I say.
“No,” he responds. “My…”
His eyes search the ceiling hopelessly. He wants to speak, but the pain is so bad the words will not come. I take his hand.
“I’ll get help,” I offer.
The stranger squeezes my hand and before I know it he is dragging it towards his coat pocket. He forces my hand around something hard and rectangular. A book. As I draw it from his pocket he points to me. I know what he’s saying.
He wants me to take the book.
I don’t care about the book. It can wait. “I’ll get help.”
He shakes his head. With an enormous effort, he takes a deep breath and looks into my eyes.
“Your name is Axel,” he says. “You have to find the Swan. You can’t trust…”
A spasm of pain seizes him and he shudders. For a long moment I think he’s going to die. Then the pain seems to subside as his breathing becomes more rapid.
“Trust no-one,” he says. “Some…at The Agency…will help you. The answer…is in the book.”
“The book?” My mind whirls in confusion.
His hand traces a path across his body and finds its way up my arm. He points with a single finger. There are a series of tiny pinpricks running all the way up my arm. I touch the injuries.
Either someone has injected me…
Or I’m a drug addict.
“The Agency…” He tries to speak again, but the pain must be terrible. A pattern of sweat breaks out across his forehead. I should be finding a doctor for him, but now he grabs my hand again and holds it tight.
“Make…” he begins again.
“Yes,” I say.
“…a difference,” he says. “Make…”
How I’m supposed to make a difference is a subject that becomes a moot issue. The stranger’s head falls back as his hand goes limp and his eyes go unfocused.
He’s dead.
I slowly release his hand. The whole incident has been so shocking, so unexpected, so mind numbing that I feel like I’ve been hit with an electric shock. The man is dead. I’ve got to find -. Who? The Swan?
Apart from a type of bird, I have no idea what or who the Swan could be. And then there’s The Agency.
Oh great, I think. Trust no-one, but at least some people at The Agency are on my side. Whatever agency he was referring to.
I slump next to the dead body and stare blankly at the walls. All my strength is gone. Then slowly I realize there was one other piece of information the stranger imparted to me that was important.
Vitally important, actually.
My name is Axel.
I’m Axel – someone. No last name. No address. I rack my brain. There is a curious blank void that seems to lie outside of my thoughts. Even my own name means nothing to me. It’s as foreign as everything else.
I don’t remember friends or family. I can remember places. Television programs. Types of food. Lyrics of songs. But as soon as I try to extract personal information about myself – nothing.
The sounds outside the window slowly intrude. The din of traffic. The faraway whistle of a train. The overhead drone of a passenger jet. Slowly the sounds bring me back to the present. Slowly I realize that I’m now sitting on the floor with the body of a deceased individual. The man’s body is cooling. He will never move again under his own volition. At some point in the future he will be laid to rest.
Under normal circumstances I would go to the police, but these are not normal circumstances.
Trust no-one.
That’s what he told me. Trust no-one. The book he handed me is sitting on the floor. I tuck it into my back pocket. Then I start a search through the pockets of the dead man. I’m squeamish, but not so squeamish I don’t make a thorough job of it.
The only thing I find is a business card. It reads:
Cygnus Industries
Below it is an address on West Forty-Ninth Street in New York City.
A sound comes distantly from within the building; a jarring, clanking din. It can only be an elevator. As I hear it wheeze to a halt, I slowly rise and stare at the door. I have to get out of here. The best course of action is to make some distance between myself and this crime scene. I don’t think I’m responsible for this man’s death – I don’t see a murder weapon – but staying here can only be asking for trouble.
I cross to the door, but at the same time I hear footsteps in the hall outside. They are the tread of more than one individual. Maybe two or three people. Purposeful. Determined. I hear them draw frighteningly close just as I reach for the door handle.
Holding my breath, I don’t make a sound.
Someone starts to turn the door handle from the other side.
Chapter Two
The door is locked.
My heart is beating so hard I actually feel slightly faint. The handle turns once. Twice. Jiggles vigorously. I stare at it in horror. Then someone slams into it with their shoulder. The sound of muffled voices emanates from the other side.
Spinning about, my eyes helplessly search the room. There is only a single window and I’m several floors above the street.
Except…
I race to the window and unlock it. There is a fire escape on the other side. I try pushing the window up, but the owner of the building has very intelligently decided to paint it shut.
I push up on the sash with all my might. It moves. Slightly. Glancing back to the door, I see it shudder as the strangers on the other side slam against it.
It won’t hold.
So I draw back from the window, raise my leg and kick hard at the glass. It shatters and I immediately punch out the remaining jagged shards with my hand. I climb head first out onto a fire escape and race to the stairs to my left. Within seconds I’m charging down them as I hear the crash of the opening door from the room above.
There’s no time to think. There’s only time to act. I don’t run as much as fling, scramble and tumble down from one level to the next. I hear something thud onto the escape above me. More footsteps. They’re giving chase.
The terror of being caught drives me on faster. I slip on the stairs and bang my knee. The pain is instantaneous; a shooting explosion of agony that dances up and down my leg. I ignore it as a new thought in the back of my mind drives me forward.
If it was the cops at the door, they would have identified themselves as such. So these aren’t the cops. Not anyone legal.
So who are they?
There’s no time to ponder the question. I take another turn in the fire escape and find – it ends.
My heart nearly stops with panic until I look to my left and see -.
A ladder. Of course. A sliding ladder is attached to the escape to allow residents to evacuate the building, but not to allow thief’s access to the apartments at other times. I push the ladder down as hard as I can and it slides easily to the ground.
Seconds later I’m on the street. Once again, there’s no time to think. I’m in a wide back alley behind a row of buildings. Large square trash cans line the laneway. I sprint up the length of it as the sound of feet bang loudly on the escape behind me.
I’m half way down the block when I hear the gunshot. It slams into a wall to my right and I immediately veer away, forcing myself to weave slightly to become a more difficult target. The gun fires again. And again. This time I feel something whiz past my ear. I put on a burst of speed, reach the end and round the corner.
A man and woman holding hands walk past me. They cast a curious glance in my direction. Probably I’m wild eyed and looking like a crazy person. So be it. I am a crazy person. Someone is trying to kill me. I charge across the street. A car screeches. I veer away from it. Another one stops in front of me. I roll across the bonnet.
Gotta keep moving, I tell myself. Gotta keep -.
Bang!
Bang! Bang!
People start to scream. A shop window explodes. I see a man bend sideways onto the sidewalk.
No!
But I can’t stop. If they’re prepared to shoot a complete stranger then there’s no limit to what they’ll do to me. I sprint up the sidewalk and find a thin alley between the buildings. I tear down it, reach the other end and dance about undecided. Left or right? It makes no difference at all because I have no idea where I am. I just need to put distance between myself and my pursuers.
The street is congested with traffic, so I start to cross between the vehicles. There are a couple of trucks idling in the midst of the chaos.
This is part of the afternoon rush hour. Wherever I am. I think it’s Manhattan. So many engines are churning at the same time that it takes me a moment to realize I can hear a higher pitched whine above the chaos.
I turn around to see a girl roaring up behind me on a motorcycle. She is slim and dressed in black jeans and a leather jacket. The helmet obscures her face. No sooner do I acknowledge her appearance than I realize her eyes are focused directly on me.
“Get on!” she snaps.
“What?”
“Get on! I’ll get you out of here.”
I’m standing undecided in the middle of the traffic. Out of the corner of my eye I see three men round a corner. They are all muscle bound, dressed in identical tank tops and jeans. One of them is holding a gun.
The words go through my mind again as I look at the girl.
Trust no-one.
Turning my back on her, I weave through the cars until I reach the sidewalk. A moment later I’m racing down another narrow side alley. It suddenly occurs to me that the book is still in my back pocket. The stranger in the room died to entrust it to me. Slowing, I spot a gap in the brickwork near the bottom of a wall. I bend over and slide the book in. It fits. In fact, the spine blends so well it could have been made to match.
At the end of the alley I find an empty patch of road and a wide river. I’m on the island of Manhattan. I’m sure of it. I have all of five seconds to process this information before I hear the squeal of brakes.
I race up the road, but within seconds a truck has pulled up beside me. Half a dozen thugs leap out. One of them tackles me to the ground. I try screaming for help, but no-one’s around.
They drag me into the van.
Something hits me hard just above my right ear.
The world goes black.
Chapter Three
The sounds come to me first. A confusing mishmash of words and phrases that make no sense. Opening my eyes I can see only black. Slowly I realize that something is covering my face.
A hood.
I’d like to say the memories come pouring back, but mostly they do not. My name is Axel. That much I know. I remember the dead man in the room and my desperate escape through the streets of Manhattan. I remember the men in the truck.
A shred of knowledge burns the pit of my stomach.
I’m in trouble. Big trouble.
It’s the kind that people don’t usually survive.
I could die in this place.
At that instant the hood is dragged off my head and I find myself half blinded by the light. My hands are handcuffed to the arm rests of a wooden chair. My ankles are attached to the legs of the chair via more metal restraints.
Disconcertingly, the chair is bolted to the floor.
Blinking into the glare, I find myself in a timber room with bare walls and ripped carpet. It’s some kind of derelict building. Angling my eyes upwards I spy a single light set into the ceiling. It is intensely bright. And hot. Must be halogen. It cleanly separates light from dark. A clock hangs on the wall. Ten minutes past six.
I am afraid.
But it is not the room that makes me afraid.
It is the man sitting before me.
He looks emaciated; his suit almost looks like it is ready to fall off. He is narrow faced, bald except for tufts of graying hair above his ears. He has a tiny chin that recedes straight into his neck. His lips are slender and tight. His glasses have round lenses; they are the type that John Lennon made so famous.
He smiles.
I wish he hadn’t done that. It is almost reptilian.
“Ah.” His voice is soft and calm. “You’re awake. I’m so pleased. I was afraid Terrance had struck you so hard you would never speak again.”
I say nothing.
“Speak to me, boy.” The smile has not left his lips. “What is that old expression? Has the cat got your tongue?”
I slowly shake my head.
“How are you feeling?” He leans forward. “Is your head sore?”
I nod. When I speak, my voice is a croak. “Whatever it is you’re after, I don’t -.”
He cuts me off with a wave of his hand. “Save your breath. We are still in the introductory phase. We will become friends. You believe that, don’t you? We will be friends?”
Out of all the things I believe at that moment, becoming friends with this man ranks last on the list. Regardless, it is pointless to antagonize him. I nod.
“Good,” he says. “Now, would you like a drink of water?”
“Yes.”
He rises from the chair, goes to the door and departs. My first action is to try my restraints. There is a tiny amount of give, but only keys will open the locks. The chair is timber and, given time, I could possible rock back and forth on the chair and try to collapse the furniture into pieces, but time is a luxury I don’t have. The man reappears with a glass of water in his hand. He holds it to my mouth and I drink. After the third swallow I wonder if the liquid could be poisoned, but that could be a blessing depending on what this man has in store for me.
He draws back the empty glass, sits back in the seat and places the glass next to the chair.
“How easily most problems are answered,” he says. “A man is thirsty. He drinks water and his thirst is quenched. Simple.” He nods. “My name is Doctor Ravana. As they say on television shows, ‘I will be your host for the evening’.”
I nod.
“Questions and answers are similarly simple.” He bites thoughtfully on his bottom lip with his thin, even teeth. “As long as the questions are answered correctly, honestly, with humility and verisimilitude there are no problems.”
He speaks as if delivering a lecture.
“I will not lie,” I say. “I have nothing to lie about. I don’t know anything.”
“Everyone says that.” He nods, smiling again, but there is no humor in the smile. “In the beginning.”
“But I really don’t know anything,” I say. “I woke up in a room. I could not remember my name -.”
“But you remember now,” he interrupts.
“My name is Axel.”
“Good,” he says. “We have a beginning.”
“But I don’t remember how I got there. There was a man in the room. A dead man -.”
“His name?” the doctor inquires.
“I don’t know,” I say. “I don’t know his name.”
“You see,” he says. “This is where we have a problem. How does one separate the lies from the truth?” He makes a motion with his hands as if panning for gold. “It would seem that a person must be not only willing to tell the truth -.”
“I am willing,” I say. “I am telling you the truth!”
“- but desperate to tell me the truth,” he finishes.
For the first time I realize the man has a slight accent. German, I think. He is reminiscent of one of those death camp doctors during the war. The comparison does nothing to ease my mind.
“Desperate,” he repeats.
I say nothing. The silence in the room yawns between us like the sky at night. Open and endless.
“Desperation is a powerful emotion,” he says again. “It brings things to the surface. It separates the chaff from the grain. You see, it is not enough that you are telling me the truth.”
He leaves the chair, kneels in front of me and places a bony hand on my knee.
“I must believe you are telling me the truth.” He nods, looking down as if confirming the thought in his own mind. “I must believe it.”
“I will tell you the truth -.” I begin, but already Ravana has risen to his feet and crossed to the door. He leaves the room and a moment later I hear the rumble of a trolley. He reappears with a medical trolley and wheels it into the room. An electrical device sits on the upper level. It is a plain, silver box with two lights. One is green. The other is red.
“Do not be fooled by appearances,” he says. “This is a highly sophisticated device. And equally effective.”
The device has a hand held wand made from metal. A lead runs from it to the silver box on the trolley.
“I will ask you questions,” he says. “You will give me answers. The pain from the probe is all consuming. One second of it will seem to last an hour, but fortunately the agony will disappear completely when the probe is removed. In fact, you will feel a strange euphoria. As if you are sitting by the beach on a summer’s day.”
“You don’t have to do this,” I say desperately. “I will tell you the truth.”
“I know you will tell me the truth.” He turns the device on and a low hum fills the room. “They always do.”
Chapter Four
When I awake I find every inch of my body is covered in a lather of sweat. My clothes are drenched. Blood seeps from my bottom lip; I remember biting down on it during the interrogation.
I lift my head slowly. The doctor has left the room.
I want to vomit.
Ravana was right in what he said. When the probe was taken away from my bare skin, the pain instantaneously disappeared, instantly replaced by a sense of relief. Pleasure, even, like being bathed in a tub of warm water.
But when the probe was applied it was like being on fire.
During those minutes the outer world ceased to exist. There was no city. No room. No chair. There was only Ravana and the probe.
And his questions. His voice calmly asking me again and again -
“Where is the headquarters of The Agency?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where is The Swan?”
“Please, I don’t know where he is. I don’t even know who he is.”
“What was the name of the dead man in the room?”
“I don’t know.”
“His name? You must know his name?”
“Please, I don’t know.”
Ravana is gone. It is only now I look up at the clock. It is almost seven o’clock. I have been in the room for less than an hour, but he has broken me. I would have condemned my own grandmother to death if he had asked me. Anything to avoid the all consuming pain of the probe. But I could not tell him anything.
I don’t know anything.
Then I remember the book. In the midst of the interrogation there was no mention of the book or any questions about the man giving me anything. I know I will tell Ravana about the book. It is still hidden in the wall in the alley. I will take him to the book, if necessary. Anything to avoid the pain.
A bottomless void fills my stomach. Deep down inside I know that even if I comply with every direction given to me I will probably not survive this experience. Ravana is no amateur. His calm demeanor has convinced me he has tortured many other people and he always gets his way. He did not lose his temper once during the interrogation. Didn’t even raise his voice. He was the picture of calm.
I will tell him about the book.
Footsteps rebound in the hallway outside. He enters with a spring in his step as if he has just returned from taking a stroll outside. His face brightens into a smile.
“Ah, you’ve awoken,” he says. “Wonderful. I was concerned you would sleep for hours.”
“Please,” I say. “I will speak. I don’t know anything, but I’ve just remembered -.”
At that moment I hear a rapid pop, pop, pop.
The smile fades from Ravana’s face. “What is happening?”
He turns back to the door and the sound of a man screaming reverberates along the corridor. Ravana grabs the door and pushes it shut. I derive more than a little pleasure in seeing him stand nervously behind the door, staring at it defensively. He reminds me of a naughty child waiting nervously for punishment from an angry parent.
More screaming comes from beyond the door. More firing of guns. I hear a sound like punches being thrown and then a final crash as a body hits the ground. A full minute passes. Ravana stands fearfully behind the door, clenching his fist.
“This is not possible,” he says. “They cannot -.”
The door is smashed open. Ravana staggers backwards as he defensively raises his fists. A person enters the room. It is a girl. Slowly I recognize her. It is the girl I saw on the motorcycle earlier. The one who ordered me to go with her.
She glances at me. “Bet you wish you’d accepted the ride.”
I nod dumbly.
The girl turns back to Ravana. The torturer suddenly looks like a cornered rat. His eyes dart around the room as if willing the walls to grow another door. Finally his gaze settles on the girl.
“Hurting me would be an enormous mistake,” he says.
“Not hurting you would be a bigger one,” she replies.
Faster than the eye could see, her fist snakes out and hits Ravana across the chin. He hits the ground like a sack of potatoes. My mouth falls open. I’ve never seen anyone move so fast.
The girl examines the chair. An instant later she has broken the arm rest on one side and my hand is free. I am wearing the handcuff like a bracelet, but my arm is free. She repeats the action on the other arm rest and for a finale breaks the legs with a couple of kicks. Producing a small piece of metal she quickly and efficiently picks the locks of the cuffs. They fall free.
“Let’s get out of here,” she says.
“You’ll get no arguments from me.” I follow her. “Can you at least tell me your name?”
“It’s Brodie,” she says.
I notice something about the way she says it. I realize she has an accent. I decide to ask about her country of origin later.
In the hallway there are groaning and bleeding men all over the floor. I vaguely recognize some of them from when I was grabbed. To my surprise, we start to head upstairs. I don’t argue. It’s when we reach the roof of the building that I look around in confusion.
“What’re we doing up here?”
“I’m pretty sure more reinforcements are arriving,” Brodie says. “I can handle a lot of them by myself, but I can’t protect you at the same time.”
“So how do we get off here?”
“We jump.”
“Jump?”
“Sure. It’s only to the next roof.” She starts across the roof. “It’s not too far.”
Okay, time for a reality check. Jumping from building to building might be something Mrs Bruce Lee does on a daily basis, but it’s a little out of my league. We reach the edge of the roof. With every step my legs shake a little more. By the time we can see the streets below they’re quivering like jelly. There is a building next to us, but it’s not simply a small step. It must be at least eight feet away.
I can’t do it. I still can’t remember my past, but I do realize something about myself that I didn’t know before now.
I’m terrified of heights.
“You’ll have to trust me,” she says. “We’re going to take a long run up and then jump across.”
“There’s part of that I don’t understand.”
“Which part?”
“Everything after, ‘you’ll have to trust me’.” I look down at the alley below. “Have you lost your mind? Jumping? Are we talking the same language? I’m going down via the stairs. I’m not jumping anywhere.”
She starts to argue with me, but I’m already making my way back to the stairwell. I’m about to enter when I hear the hammering of steps on the stairs below. Someone – correction – a lot of someones are racing up the stairs.
Hell.
I turn around just in time to see Brodie in mid flight. Obviously she has decided to shame me into jumping from one building to the next, but she has failed to inspire me with her bravado. I see her land and roll. A second later she’s back on her feet, waving to me.
Come on!
I glance down the stairwell. The cacophony of feet is drawing closer. I can try to jump or I can remain here to be interrogated again by Ravana.
I run towards the edge of the roof on shaking legs. I pick up speed quickly, though and accelerate. It’s not such a big distance and I will be across before I know it. The one thing I don’t notice is the small lip on the edge of the roof. It’s only a few inches high. I only see it out of the corner of my eye it at the last second. By then it’s too late.
My foot catches on it and instead of a graceful leap, I trip and sprawl out into space. Brodie’s mouth opens in horror. My arms stretch out. Brodie screams. The roof of the building opposite disappears from view.
I fall between the buildings.
Chapter Five
My forward momentum takes me as far as the opposite wall. I hit it with both hands. My nails rake the brick work, but don’t find purchase. My lower body collides a moment later.
Then gravity takes hold.
To make matters worse, for every action there’s an equal and opposite reaction, so my impact against the wall results in a slight rebound. As I fall I see something a few feet below my hands.
I reach out with everything I’ve got and one hand grabs the top of a window frame. My body swings in towards the building and then -.
Crash!
I hurtle through a window and into someone’s living room. It isn’t a graceful landing. Far from it. But it’s a landing. And I’ve only fallen a few feet as opposed to a hundred feet, so it’s a win as far as I’m concerned.
I’m covered in glass, timber and shredded curtain. Picking myself up, I find I’ve destroyed someone’s flower pot and knocked over their television set. An elderly black woman is sitting on her lounge looking at me with open mouthed astonishment. I can’t blame her. It’s not every day a teenage boy comes smashing through her window.
Bang!
A bullet thuds into the carpet next to my face.
Someone’s shooting at me!
“Sorry about this,” I climb to my feet.
She stands up, waving a finger at me and yelling something unintelligible.
I charge through her apartment and, more by chance than design, find the front door. Just as I struggle to open the lock something hits me from behind. Hard. I turn around and a broom smacks me in the face. Grabbing hold of the old lady’s weapon, I get the door open and stumble into the hallway.
“And don’t come back!” she yells.
Those words I understand.
I’m in the middle of a long hallway in a rundown apartment building. A door has opened down the passage and a young mother and her son peer out in astonishment. I realize part of the curtain is still hanging off my shoulder. Knocking it to the ground I try to wave reassuringly.
“It’s okay,” I tell them. “Knocked over a vase.”
I hurry in the opposite direction and arrive at a set of elevators. I’m about to hit the button for them when I notice they’re already ascending. But is this good news? This could be Ravana’s men. Could they be that fast?
I spot a set of fire stairs to my left. Dragging open the door, I start down them. There is a gap I can look down and see all the way to the bottom. It looks to be about ten stories. I hurry down one set of winding stairs and pass the door leading from that level. That’s one floor gone. Only about nine to go. Racing down another two floors I suddenly notice a sound and stop.
Footsteps.
Or am I just imagining it?
Is it just the reverberation of my own feet? Silence fills the stairwell. Regardless, I have to keep going. I continue down another floor, slow down and listen. Sounds okay. I rush down another floor and hurry past the entry door from that level.
The door flies open.
The guy catches me from the side, throwing me towards the railing and knocks the air out of me. He is tall and thin with a cruel face. He gets an arm around my throat and drags me backwards.
“We’re not finished with you, kid,” he says. “The doctor’s got a long night of fun planned for you.”
It’s the reminder of Doctor Ravana that does it. I see the doctor’s face in my mind and his patient expression as he applies the probe to my hand. If there’s one thing I know for sure, it’s that I never want to return to that room again.
Bringing my elbow up into his stomach I hear a satisfying oomph and his grip loosens. Slightly. But not enough to escape. So I repeat the action three or four times more just to get the point across. All the while we’re sliding and stumbling down the steps. I swing around and brace him against the railing while I slam my elbow into his diaphragm.
I turn around and blindly swing a fist into his jaw.
It happens suddenly. The railing is not that high. Probably some building inspector looked at it thirty years ago and gave it a green light without a second thought. Little did he think this little piece of building design would become the stage of a life and death battle.
Because at that instant the thin man falls backwards. If it weren’t so horrifying it would be funny because he actually flips back like some sort of character in a comedy show. I make a grab for him, but the angle is bad and all I grab is a part of his jacket. It tears out of my grasp and he disappears from sight.
I watch him fall down the gap between the stairs. It seems to take forever. He gives an inarticulate cry. Makes a sound that has no meaning. At some stage his eyes meet mine during that endless fall. It’s almost an expression of disbelief.
How can you be responsible for my death?
Then he hits the ground floor with a terrible splat. Open mouthed, I stare down at his motionless form. Maybe he’s not dead.
Please God, let him not be dead.
I stumble down the remaining flights of stairs in a daze. I slip over twice, but barely notice. All I can think of are the man’s eyes. Such sheer disbelief. He must be alive. He can’t be dead. People survive falls worse than that and survive.
Finally I reach the final turn in the stairs. The thin man lies in a growing pool of blood. The shape of his body is like some sort of crooked swastika. His disbelieving eyes are dull with death.
I have killed him.
I have just killed a man.
Chapter Six
It is evening. The air grows cooler by the minute. Shops and apartment buildings slide past my gaze. Cars beep at each other. Someone practices opera from an open window. A man sweeps his front step with a straw broom.
I see and hear it all, but it is as if I am deaf and blind.
I have killed a man.
I am a murderer.
It was self defense. That goes without saying. There is no doubt in my mind the man would have dragged me back to the room with Doctor Ravana and I would have been tortured and eventually killed. My body would have probably been buried in an unmarked grave or disposed of in a river. My parents, whoever they are, would never know what had happened to me. My own death would have been a foregone conclusion if I had been recaptured.
Still, I have killed a man and I will carry that knowledge with me for as long as I live. This is what soldiers must go through. They must experience similar feelings of guilt and horror. Once a person passes through that door they can never return. I have taken a human life and there will never be a time when that can be undone.
Every time I close my eyes I see the event in some sort of stop motion sequence. I try to grab him. He falls. His eyes meet mine. His body lies motionless on the floor. His neck lies at an unnatural angle.
Shivering, I wrap my arms around myself. I realize I am cold. Freezing. I stop at a street corner and the city slowly comes to life around me. A man is walking a dog. A woman is playing with her two small children on the sidewalk. A bus stops and passengers exit. It seems inconceivable that people are still carrying out their everyday lives.
I have to start thinking about where to go from here. My eyes randomly search the street and settle on a dimly lit vertical sign.
LIBRARY
Such places often stay open later than many retail shops. Crossing the road, I mount the steps and a moment later the warm interior embraces me. It’s not a large library. More of a local community centre. Still, it is better than nothing. An idea is forming in my mind. The woman at the desk smiles at me pleasantly. She is middle aged with brown hair and eyes. Probably even if you saw her on the street, you would still pick her profession. They must make all librarians from the same cookie mold.
“I’m sorry to bother you,” I say. “I’m very lost. I was on the tourist bus and I’ve gotten out at the wrong place.”
She nods.
“Can you tell me where I am?”
“You’re on Fort Washington Avenue.”
“Which city?”
She gives me an odd look. “New York City, of course.”
“Thanks.”
I turn around and meander through the dozen aisles that make up the library. Why am I in New York City? Does my family live here? I find I can remember images of the city, but they could be from television programs. I can’t actually remember any street in detail, whether it be from here or anywhere else in the country.
The questions remain: who am I and how did I get here?
I slowly decide on a course of action.
“Can I use your internet?” I ask the woman at the desk.
She looks up. “Our internet isn’t working. I’m sorry.”
She looks a little annoyed. Maybe she’s busy playing Minesweeper. I persevere anyway.
“Where are your encyclopedias?” I ask.
She nods towards a nearby shelf. A few minutes later I’m searching the ‘S’ volume. The man back at the room told me I had to find the Swan. He did not tell me to find Mr Swan. I had to find The Swan. Possibly the name is some sort of code. Maybe something in the encyclopedia will give me a clue.
Fifteen minutes later I put the book down in frustration. I’ve found out a lot about swans. They’re part of the same family that includes geese and ducks. They are among the largest flying birds in the world. They feature in the mythology of many different cultures.
Unfortunately none of this is going to help. If someone gives me a snap test on swans I should ace it, but as far as finding out what the hell is going on -.
I drag open the encyclopedia again. There must be something in here that will help. I’m half way through studying the section again when something leaps at me from the first line:
Swan (Genus Cygnus)
That’s the second time today I’ve seen the word Cygnus. The business card I extracted from the dead man’s pocket bore the company name Cygnus Industries. The address was West Forty-Ninth Street. I lay down the book in triumph. At last I have a lead. The Swan must be located at Cygnus Industries.
“We’re closing soon,” the woman calls from her desk.
The woman is becoming icier by the moment. She must have bombed out of Minesweeper. Still, I bravely ask her for directions and within minutes I’ve found my bearing. Despite everything I’ve been through, I now have a spring in my step. An hour before I was cold, alone and lost.
Okay, I’m still cold and alone, but at least now I’m not quite so lost. I have a plan. The man in the room said to find the Swan. The Swan can probably tell me all sorts of information, like my last name, my address and how the hell I got into this situation.
I’m feeling brighter by the moment. Maybe I’ll even get my memory restored. This time tomorrow I could be with family and friends and looking back on this whole experience as an unpleasant memory.
It only takes me a few minutes to find the right address on West Forty-Ninth Street. It turns out to be an art deco apartment building nestled between taller, more modern structures. Turn of the century apartment blocks huddle together across the road. A motley collection of small businesses seem to operate out of the address. I can see signage in one window for a mortgage broker. Another window advertises shoe repairs.
My eyes slowly shift to the roof of the building. A shape seems to be silhouetted against the night sky. For an instant I think it’s a bird, but then I realize it is growing closer with every passing second. Before I can make a move, it becomes terrifyingly close and the object slams into the roof of the car parked behind me. Glass and metal fly in all directions. A passing woman screams and faints. An elderly couple stare in horror at the sight.
I stare in horrified fascination at the dead man. He is covered in blood and more is appearing with every passing second. I can see his face. He looks stunned. Obviously death was the furthest thing from his mind when he reported to work this morning.
Nobody needs to tell me his identity. This is the Swan. As surely as night follows day he is the man who held the answers to all my questions and now those answers have died with him.
One thing I know for certain.
This swan could not fly.
I look back up at the building and get my second shock for the evening. There is a man leaning out of a window high above. His hands are on the sill. He peers down, not at the dead man on the car, but at me. Our eyes meet.
Doctor Ravana’s face twists into an expression of seething hatred.
Chapter Seven
A hand suddenly grabs mine. I’m jolted out of my astonishment by a familiar face, a person who is not looking at me with hate or a maniacal desire to kill me.
“Brodie,” I say.
“I thought I might find you here.”
“How –?”
“Now’s not the time,” she interrupts. “Looks like we’re too late to find Mr Swan.”
“You know about him?”
She shakes her head. “Later.”
We hurry down the street and through a confusion of back alleys and main roads until we’ve put some distance between us and Ravana. It can’t happen soon enough for me. We hurry through a district surrounded by abandoned factories and high fences. It starts to rain and within minutes I’m feeling cold and wet. A distant roll of thunder reverberates around the buildings like the beating of an enormous drum.
“Where are we going?” I ask.
“I’ve got a place.”
“Where is it? Underwater?”
She gives me an odd look. “What makes you say that?”
“You’re English, aren’t you? You know, bad weather and -.”
“No,” she says. “I think I’m Australian.”
“You mean you don’t remember -.”
“Later.”
She flashes me a smile. For the first time I realize she is quite attractive. She has red hair, blue eyes and a neat, heart shaped face. She is still wearing the same clothing – jeans and a jacket.
“Where is this place?” I ask.
“It’s close.”
“What happened to your motorcycle?”
“It ran out of fuel.”
“And you didn’t get more because…”
“Because I have no money and I didn’t feel like robbing a bank to get some.”
Under these crazy circumstances this seems like a reasonable explanation. She takes a right turn under a gap in a wire fence. I follow her across a vacant lot littered with refuse. We reach a double wooden door secured with a chain. Dragging on the bottom edge, she creates a gap for me to enter.
Whatever the warehouse used to be was a long time ago. There are pieces of machinery all over the place; it’s odd looking apparatus not much larger than a person. I suspect that it belonged to the last business run here. Probably this place has held many different commercial enterprises over the years.
“They used to make shoes here,” Brodie says.
“And before that?” I ask. The high ceilings are almost fifty feet above the floor. There’s a crane and pulley system that runs the whole length of the structure.
“That’s anyone’s guess.”
Now the storm has begun in earnest and it’s raining hard. Through the glass skylights in the ceiling I can see lightning flash. Its stark light floods the many dark recesses of the warehouse. There are other corners which remain in pitch darkness. Those are the ones that scare me.
“We’re safe here,” Brodie says. “I’ve been here a while.”
“How long is a while?”
She shrugs. “About three days.”
“You don’t have a home?”
Brodie shakes her head and leads me towards a small office at the rear of the warehouse. She lights a candle and its flickering glow reveals a couple of piles of blankets, a few tins of food, some bottles of water and a few books.
“This is home,” she says. “Ever since I landed…here.”
“You mean…” I try to understand exactly what she is saying. “Um, what do you mean?”
“I woke in a building on the other side of town,” Brodie says. “I had no idea who I was or how I got there or where I came from. I assumed I’d been in an accident and so I started looking for a police officer.”
“Makes sense.”
“I had only walked about a hundred feet down the street when I van pulled up behind me. These guys jumped out and tried to drag me into the van.”
My blood goes cold. It was bad enough for me, but I can only imagine it would be every woman’s worst nightmare. Brodie sees the look on my face and forces a laugh.
“It’s okay. They got more than they bargained for.”
“What do -?”
She throws a few punches into the air. She’s fast. Incredibly fast. Unnaturally fast. I don’t think I realized her speed when she faced Doctor Ravana back in the room. She drops low and kicks into the air. Leaping to her feet, she snatches up a piece of timber from a nearby pile and tosses it up. A second later her hand snakes out and strikes the centre of it.
It shatters into matchsticks. I pick up a clutch of the shattered remains and examine it carefully.
“Remind me not to start any arguments,” I say.
“I only use my super powers for good,” she says with a straight face.
“But seriously, that’s not normal.”
Fast is fast, but she’s so fast I doubt any martial arts expert on Earth could keep up with her. And not only is she quick, but she knows what she’s doing too.
“I think I’m about three times as fast as a martial arts expert,” she says. “Maybe faster.”
“Do you know what style you’re fighting in?”
“Style?”
“Kung Fu, jujitsu…”
“Oh, that.” She shakes her head. “Not a clue.”
“And what about your name?” I ask. “How did you work out your name?”
“It’s on my clothing.”
I suddenly realize my clothing might be similarly marked. I check the inside back of my jeans and – hey presto! The name ‘Axel’ is stitched onto a small label. I then proceed to tell Brodie about waking up in the room, the guy on the floor and everything that had happened to me since I woke. She listens in dead silence until I finish. Then she just shakes her head in amazement.
“Good thing I’ve been following those guys for days. Otherwise…” She lets the word hang in the air. Finally she says, “That book must be important. It might answer all our questions.”
“We can find it in the morning,” I tell her. “I know where I left it.”
She nods. “We’d better get some shut eye. We’ll start out early.”
Brodie hands me blankets and a pillow. I don’t expect to sleep, but by the time she blows out the candle I find I can barely keep my eyes open. The storm subsides to a steady flow of rain. The wind blows distantly and a piece of metal bangs out a random tune.
The next thing I know is Brodie’s shaking me awake. At first I don’t know where I am. There is a cramp in my neck and I feel stiff and cold. I look up at her face and don’t immediately recognize her. Then it all comes back.
Oh. That’s right. Mrs Bruce Lee.
Time to move.
It’s early morning. Brodie produces a spare sweater. I’m glad of it because it’s a cold morning. We’re out the door in minutes. The rain has stopped, but the streets are still wet. We walk a couple of blocks. Then Brodie spots a nice car. She produces a wire coat hanger from her jacket.
My eyes desperately examine nearby apartments. “What are you doing?”
“Getting us a ride,” she says. The car door opens and within minutes she has the vehicle hotwired and we’re driving through the early morning city streets. I’m shaking my head in amazement. Whatever Brodie was before she arrived here, she was no girl scout. Still, I’m not about to criticize her. Without her we would be walking twenty blocks. Now we cover the same distance in a fraction of the time.
After a while I tell her to pull over. We climb out of the car and make our way down an alley. In the next street I recognize a couple of landmarks. A café. A diner. A used bookshop. This is the place.
Heading down another alley, my eyes search the brickwork. We end up at the other end and slowly work our way back again. I’m beginning to think Ravana’s men have already found the book, but then I notice a shadow near the ground. Easing the book out of the slot, I breathe a sigh of relief. It appears undamaged.
Opening it, I start leafing through the pages. Brodie looks at my face as slowly my expression turns from excitement to disbelief.
“What is it?” she asks finally. “What’s written in it?”
“That’s the problem,” I say. “Nothing’s in it. All the pages are blank.”
Chapter Eight
We stare at each other in stunned amazement. Brodie takes the notebook from me and turns over the pages one at a time. She even holds the pages up to the light to see if any words have been etched onto the paper.
“You’re sure the book is important?” she asks skeptically.
“Absolutely. The man dragged it out of his pocket with his dying breath and forced it on me.”
Brodie nods. “Okay, let’s head back to the car.”
We return to the vehicle and spend the next half an hour in the front seat examining the book from front to back. At the same time it grows lighter in the street outside. People walk past the vehicle on their way to work. A street cleaning machine zooms down the road. A café owner starts setting out tables and chairs onto the sidewalk. Another day in the Big Apple.
Finally Brodie puts the book down between the seats. “The book is a dead end. For now.”
“What do you suggest?”
She thinks for a moment. “What about Cygnus Industries? We could go back to see what we can find.”
I raise an eyebrow. “To see what we can find? You mean, like bad guys with guns and psycho doctors? You might have super powers, but -.”
“I don’t have super powers,” Brodie starts. “Well, actually I sort of do, but that’s beside the point. I still think Cygnus Industries is the safest place for us right now.”
“How do you figure that?”
“They’re probably turning this city upside down looking for us,” Brodie explained. “Cygnus Industries is the last place they’d expect us to return.”
I can’t fault her logic. It seems so unlikely we would return there that it’s probably the one place we should go. I nod.
“Okay. But you’re Batman if the bad guys turn up.”
She smirks. “Okay, boy wonder.”
We drive across town to Cygnus Industries. Taking care to park some way down the block, we approach the address carefully. The body and the damaged car are long gone, of course. All that remains is a little broken glass on the road. We stroll past it nonchalantly and enter the main lobby. It’s an older building, but clean and well maintained. We make straight for the elevators and reach the floor without incident.
The door to Cygnus Industries has been broken open; the lock is hanging on by a single screw. Obviously the men who attacked our contact didn’t bother knocking. A zigzag of police tape is strung across the front. No sound comes from within. Silently, we push the door open and ease our way between the police tape. We close the door behind us.
“Wow,” says Brodie.
Wow, indeed. Imagine a fairly typical office with filing cabinets, desks, computers and partitions. Now imagine it has been turned upside down and every file and piece of paper taken. Desks upturned. Computers smashed. Even the water dispenser had been pulled off the wall.
“They obviously don’t have a cleaner,” I say.
We start to methodically search every filing cabinet and desk for papers and find exactly – nothing. Not a single page has been left behind. We even start lifting furniture and still find nothing. Not a business card. Zilch. There is a smaller room that leads off the main office of Cygnus Industries. Possibly it was the manager’s office as all it contains is a desk and a wardrobe. We search the drawers of the desk and still find nothing.
I try plugging in one of the computers, but it simply gives me a blue screen. It doesn’t even start to boot up.
“Holy hell,” I groan. “This place has been stripped clean.”
“Wait a second,” Brodie holds up a hand. “Did you hear that?”
We both freeze. I realize Brodie is referring to the elevator. It sounds like the doors are closing. We look at each other. If someone is coming to this office there are frighteningly few places to hide. There is the desk in the manager’s office which can fit about half a body under it. Then there’s the wardrobe behind it.
We quickly scoot into the office and climb into the wardrobe. Standing there with the door slightly ajar, I peer out to see if anyone enters the main office. At the same time I’m conscious of how close I am to Brodie. She is only a few inches away. My eyes stray to her face. Her lips.
She whispers. “Keep your mind on the job.”
I avert my eyes. At that same moment I hear the front door to the office creak open. A shuffle of feet. Someone clears their throat. The drawer of a filing cabinet is eased open. More footsteps.
Finally someone steps into view. It’s a kid a couple of years younger than me. He is of Asian appearance. Maybe fourteen or fifteen. Black hair. Round face. A bit overweight. He looks completely focused on carrying out the same identical search we have just completed.
I catch Brodie’s eye. The whole thing is bizarre. To make matters worse, I know it’s only a matter of time before he enters the manager’s office and opens the cupboard to find – us! A horrible thought goes through my mind. It’s terrible, but I can’t help it. No, no, no. That’s too awful. Do not even think about it.
Because all of a sudden I can imagine myself leaping out of the cupboard and scaring the daylights out of the kid. A smile creases my lips.
Brodie looks at me, frowning and I simply shake my head.
Don’t worry.
I’m one of the good guys.
At that moment things take a slightly radical turn. The kid suddenly freezes. At first I think he has heard us in the wardrobe. Then I hear a grunt and I see the kid race for the door. Two men crash tackle him to the ground. He hits the ground.
My stomach turns over. One of the men punches the kid – hard – in the stomach and I see him roll up like an injured bug. The men lift him to his feet, drag him into the office and throw him on the manager’s desk. One of them holds him down while the other one navigates around the desk. The man has his back to us; he is so close we could reach out and touch him.
“You’re gonna tell us everything you know about The Agency,” the man says.
“Please,” he gasps. “I don’t know anything -.”
“You’ll speak or -.”
That’s as far as the man gets. At that moment Brodie pushes open the door of the wardrobe and taps the man on the shoulder. He turns around in astonishment.