The Man in the Blank Mask, Part 3
Renaissance guy.
Welcome to Olympus City, where super-powers, physics-defying tech, and unearthly creatures are all possible now. Human nature, however, remains unchanged.
No one is born a perfect superhero, but a few strive to live up to the ideal anyway.
Previously: Ken ran into a woman he once could have fallen for, were she not pretending to be someone else. He then went looking for a distraction and found the villainous Terran hanging out on the beach, minding his own business.
Part 3
Mr. Amazing had twice met the Terran and twice failed to apprehend him. Ultra Woman, the Silver Stranger, and even the Golden Gladiator had also failed to take the misanthropic terrorist into custody.
But perhaps Ken Shield would have better luck.
Ken strolled across the sand while murky waves crashed not far away. “Hey. Hope I’m not bothering you.”
“No one owns the beach. No person, corporation, or government.”
That wasn’t true, but Ken didn’t correct him. Instead, he extended a hand to shake. “I’m Ken.”
The scrawny villain gave a firm handshake. The stench of marijuana clung to him, detectable even over the saltwater.
“Isaac.”
It may have been an alias. Still a better name than “the Terran” in any case.
“I wasn’t expecting to find anyone else here on a night like this,” Ken said.
The gloomy sky emitted a distant rumble.
“Rain won’t bother me,” Isaac said. “Besides, the waves are soothing.”
As the Terran, Isaac possessed the power to turn those soothing waves into a weapon. Water, earth, air, fire—all took orders from him. He nearly killed Alyssa the first time they met. Ken was not so forgiving of such malice.
“I’ve always found the ocean hypnotic,” Isaac continued. “How can something so violent be so peaceful? And how can something so peaceful be so violent?”
Ken, for his part, possessed the power to kill Isaac with a thought. He could have ripped his heart out of his chest, crushed his brain, severed his arteries—his imagination supplied numerous options while his conscience held him back.
“I prefer to focus on the peaceful part,” Ken said. “The world has a lot to offer us if we just know where to look.”
He felt like such a hypocrite, one who would say anything to deradicalize a dangerous young man. The world also lied to people’s faces, as he well knew. He wondered what Charlotte was doing right now.
Isaac snorted. “Yeah, the world has a lot to offer. The planet, we should say. But civilization is killing us.”
“Oh?”
“The problem, you see, is the status quo.” Isaac started gesturing this way and that, like a professor teaching a class. “Civilization is supposed to be a cycle, but the status quo freezes the cycle, it suffocates us, it locks us into the same pointless routine that’s poisoning the planet. Don’t you see, friend? You can’t have a cycle with the status quo.”
Ken nodded politely. “Interesting theory.”
“It’s a fact.” Isaac brandished his pointer finger in the manner of one who never knew the weight of doubt. “People just don’t see it yet.”
“But how much of a status quo is there? Things are always changing. I mean, as just the most obvious example, some people have super-powers now.”
Isaac’s eyes lit up as though he had expected that very argument. “Yes, people get powers, and what’s their first thought? They dress up as colorful ‘superheroes’ and ‘supervillains’—just like they learned to as children.”
Not everyone. Ken thought about his friends Lance and Hailey and their New Mount Olympus community. No heroes or villains there. Then he thought of Tuck Lewis. Well, maybe one villain.
“The status quo is like a black hole. It sucks everything in and destroys it.” Isaac squeezed his fist in demonstration.
“Isn’t there something to be said for stability?”
Isaac rolled his eyes. “That’s just a comforting lie, friend. Most people won’t realize the truth until it’s too late. What we need is a new Renaissance, but we’re too complacent for that to happen.”
“A Renaissance sounds nice. Not quite sure how to start one, though.”
“You should study history. What comes before the Renaissance? The Dark Ages. We’ve got to break everything down so people are motivated to build it back up—and maybe get it right this time.”
“But the Dark Ages lasted centuries.” Ken kept his tone calm and affable, like he was discussing a hypothetical with one of his students. “There’s no guarantee we’d emerge from another. It’s easy to look back at history and view it all as inevitable in hindsight, but you’re referring to a period of awful stagnation. It’s a miracle that people managed to regain any cultural momentum. You might just be trading one status quo for another.”
“Or maybe the next Dark Ages will be shorter. Ever think of that?” A note of testiness entered his voice. “But it is a fact that civilization is killing us, so we need to kill civilization before it kills the planet and we’re all screwed.”
Those unsettling gray eyes seemed to glow in the darkness, like a predator’s.
“We could always try saving civilization instead,” Ken said.
Isaac snickered at that.
“Okay, fair enough,” Ken said. “Civilization is too broad of a concept. No one can save all of civilization. But we can save the people within it, or simply help them. Helping just one person is always progress.”
“We’ve got a planet of billions, friend. We don’t have time for that.”
The wind was picking up. The waves were getting larger. One rose just a little higher than the rest, then crashed back into the ocean. Isaac watched it with fascination.
“Remember that tidal wave last week?” he asked.
Ken indeed remembered the standing wall of water spraying him as he struggled to push it back into the ocean. Even with Carey doing the heavy lifting, they barely succeeded.
“It’s a hard thing to forget.”
“Yeah, I suppose it is.” Isaac grinned as he turned to Ken, studying his face. “I did that. I made that tidal wave.”
“You did?”
“Don’t believe me?”
Ken spoke calmly and carefully. “I believe you like the idea of it, but what I don’t understand is why. It would have caused a major disaster if it hit the city, but even that wouldn’t be nearly enough to bring the world back to the Dark Ages, let alone create a new Renaissance.”
“No, friend. I can’t do it alone. I never intended to. But someone needs to knock down the first domino.” Isaac directed his gaze into the city and angled his head toward the central skyscraper, the Persepolis building. “The tidal wave didn’t work out, but a more focused target might.”
He would destroy that building. Ken had no doubt. Whether he struck from above or shook the foundations beneath it, Isaac could and would topple the whole edifice. He had utterly convinced himself he was in the right. Pure certainty radiated from those unsettling eyes.
Isaac was too far gone.
He smiled at Ken, a lazy, faintly inebriated smile. “So, what do you think, friend?”
“I think if you were willing to drown me in a tidal wave, I’m hardly your friend.”
Disappointment crushed the smile. “Oh, Ken. You have so much to—” Isaac choked as though something was caught in his throat. “—to—ach!”
Nothing had lodged in his throat, but external pressure had clamped around his neck—the mental pressure of telekinesis.
Ken hated using his power this way. Superheroes weren’t supposed to strangle people. It felt like an illegal strike deserving of a penalty. It was illegal. He intended to release as soon as Isaac passed out. Then he’d get the villain contained and turn him over to the authorities. And he could take a long shower afterward.
The shower arrived now. Countless gallons of saltwater pummeled Ken and kept pummeling him, flowing in a manner and direction outside the bounds of normal physics.
Isaac had employed this tactic before, so Ken knew what to do. Concentrating, he telekinetically pushed against the current, clearing a pocket of humid air for himself. The strain was tremendous, but he had kept his brain in shape.
Ken flew straight up out of the water—right as fire rushed toward him.
Telekinesis made a poor shield against heat. Ken tried anyway. He thought about pushing all that fire the other way while also whipping up a barrier of water. The effort saved him from critical burns but not all injury.
Ken crashed onto muddy sand as nerve endings screamed across half his face. His clothes sizzled. He forced himself up just in time for Isaac to punch him. Bony knuckles connected with singed flesh.
“I owed you that from the first time, ‘Ken.’ ”
Isaac gazed toward the city, eyes locking on to that central skyscraper, lips curling up.
“You could have stopped me.” He looked down at Ken and smirked. “You still could, if you really wanted to. I think part of you wants me to succeed.”
An invisible force shoved Isaac across the beach, and Ken climbed to his feet.
“No,” he said.
“All right. Tried to give you the benefit of the doubt.”
Sand swirled around Ken, escalating into a storm. He barely kept it out of his face and throat as he centered his concentration on Isaac, deciding where and how to strike.
But then a wall of sand rose up before Ken—and buried him.
To Be Continued Next Week!