Chapter Two
Andy sighed. “You’re going to get yourself killed. You know that, right?”
Don shook his head. “I’ll be careful.”
Andy stepped up and smacked the bald man across the back of the head with his fist. Don flinched and rubbed the area. “Yeah, but I know military history. And I know that guns generally pack more punch than, well, a punch.”
The billionaire nodded. “Then, I’ll get a helmet.”
Don strolled through his historical armory, looking for the perfect top to complete the outfit. Andy came up behind him, looking around as well. “I get all of this if you die on this stupid mission, right?”
Don glowered. “Thanks. You’re being very encouraging, Andy. I know you’ve lost family members, but can you, for one second, try seeing things from my perspective?
“I have no one ... no one ... left in this world who loves me. You have a brother. You have a mother. I have nothing.”
“I see, sir,” Andy said, condescendingly. “Shall I call the hospital and tell Elisa that you don’t love her or her children, and that she’ll have to find another caretaker?”
Don’s face twisted into a very visible grimace as he stared down at his assistant. Andy held his hands up in mock defense. “Hey, man, I’m not trying to piss you off. Just trying to show you how I see it.”
Don nodded, his face still twisted and upset. “Remind me to give you power of attorney so that you can decide when to pull my god-damned plug.
“What if these people decide I’m not worth sparing? What if, by some sheer accident, I was overlooked on the family tree, and they come calling? I can’t take the risk that this will happen again, Andy. Not to me, you, Elisa, or her kids.
“You’re right. I have family now. And I have to make sure I keep this family, or it might just be the last one life gives me.”
Don spun on his heels and found himself facing a replica of the head of the Egyptian god, Horus, rendered in helmet form in a titanium alloy. “Bring us victory,” he said as he read the placard before turning to Andy. “And bring us some black spray paint.”
As he slipped on the final touches of the outfit, Don Ford looked out over the back veranda of his Charleston mansion. In the back of the property sat a personally-designed fan-powered hovercraft capable of deep sea pressures as well as limited flight. Its wings were folded down, but it was ready. All it needed was a little black touch-up, but there wasn’t enough time. He popped his neck and cracked his knuckles before hopping off the back porch. “It’s wake-up time, little lady. We have a fire to put out.”
*
Police officers looked into the sky and were confused to see a dark unidentified flying object over the blackened skies above Decatur. Landing in an open spot, the craft folded itself up to the size of a commerical dumpster. “Lock,” a deep altered voice spoke, as the object hissed and clunked. The police all unholstered weapons and aimed them at the seven-foot-tall black cloaked figure. “I’m here to help. This work,” the unearthly voice spoke, “was done by an arsonist, correct?”
One of the officers squinted and raised an eyebrow, looking over the figure. “We think so,” she said. “What’s it to you?”
“People died. People suffered. People lost much and were hurt by this fire,” the bird-faced figure spoke. “That’s what it is to me.”
The same officer spoke again. “There may be survivors, but we can’t go in to get them.”
The suit nodded, looking distantly into the flames. “I know. I can hear them.”
“Wh-who are you?”
“I am the Ebon Phoenix.”
With that, the giant bird passed through the wavering wall of heat and faded into the fire.
The suit fed the screams of a girl into his brain, amplifying them so that he could filter out the background noise of fire and collapsing structures. His legs pumped, feet being protected against the shock of colliding with hard pavement, but carrying him quickly without much effort. His whole body felt light and flexible, and his responses to the environment seemed to be quickened and enhanced. Hearing something above him, he responded to the impulse to dive to the side, avoiding the crushing blow of a blown-out section of wall from above. The suit was performing above and beyond his expectations. On top of that, he wasn’t even feeling warm.
Barrelling up the stairs of an apartment complex, he found a crossbeam fallen in front of the door behind which the screams were coming. The suit also managed, at a closer range, to filter out the cries of a baby along with the cries of the child. Bracing himself, he got prepared to throw his whole body into moving the obscuring object. With the suit adding nervous energy to his own body’s strength, the crossbeam felt as light as a two-by-four, and the suit helped him propel the burning mass to the other side of the partially collapsed building.
Once inside, visual sensors filtered out two figures below one hundred degrees Fahrenheit. Grabbing them both, the memory cloth swaddled the three in a circular shield as he propelled himself out the closest window. Once outside, the cape unfurled to act as a glider on the way down. An explosion shook the city block as intense heat caused underground pipes to burst. For a moment, Don’s memories flashed back to the explosions at the Illiopolis plant. In that moment, his heart stopped for CJ, until the ground was firmly under his feet again.
The cloak spread out to shelter the children he was holding, and the suit began to filter out their cries and screams as he bore them out of the city. Sensing the fire wall at the city’s edge, he leaped, and the memory cloth became a sphere around them. Seeing a black ball fly through the fires, the police immediately saught defensive positions and raised weapons. When the figure stopped and two children emerged, some of the police moved in to bring the children to the safety of their squad cars.
“There are more,” the dark figure said, turning silently and charging into the flames again.
Searching all night turned up a few hundred survivors, some of whom were airlifted to Springfield for medical care. With each life rescued, the pain of the man inside the suit grew. It seemed so easy to rescue these people, yet he could not save his own townsfolk when Brighton went up in flames. But, there was no Ebon Phoenix to rescue them then. There was now.
“How can we ever thank you, Ebon Phoenix?” the female officer asked, trying to look into the helmet’s eyes for some semblance of humanity in an otherwise fearsome and darkly inhuman visage. “You’ve done the people of Decatur a great service.”
“I know,” the mechanically monotonous voice intoned. “I wish I had done more.”
“You have done more.” She reached to touch him and he jerked away.
“You’re wrong,” the voice said. “I can never do enough.”
The modified Ebbing Feedback Suit stalked toward the folded craft as police ran up toward their fellow officer. “That was the guy! The guy who stole the suit!”
She nodded. “Yeah, and he did something none of us could do. Twice. I think I’ll let him get away with using a stolen device to save a few hundred people, just this once.” She shot the other officer a glare as she watched an overworked fire brigade pull to a stop directly in front of them.
As the hovercraft unlocked, the suit enhanced a call police were receiving over their radios.
“... Maroa. A silent alarm at the LoComp facility was trigged after it was broken into. Some of the equipment has been stolen, some of it damaged. No one was in the building, but a damaged black Saturn was seen fleeing the scene of the crime, matching the description of the vehicle driven by Christopher Coffman ...”
Fire trucks sped through the area where the craft had stood only a few seconds before. Ebon Phoenix was already gone.
Landing in a field across the street, Ebon Phoenix crept around the police at the scene, slipping under the police line to sneak inside the building. Don was intently curious as to who was driving CJ’s car and attacking CJ’s old haunts. Stepping carefully around strewn and destroyed computer paraphenalia, the Ebbing Feedback Suit began to pick up a faint beeping noise, a sound that would otherwise only be detectable to dogs.
As he entered the remnants of the server room, the beeping got louder. Sitting on top of a pile of old rags which smelled of fossil fuels was a pair of dolls. Picking up the bigger doll, he noticed it looked like a classic sailor’s outfit, though it was done all in black and white, and the face of the doll was painted to look more like a mime or a member of KISS. The grin of the face was grossly exaggerated. A tag around its toe called it “Cracked Jack.”
Putting the doll in a compartment on his belt, Ebon Phoenix picked up the second doll. It looked like a scruffy terrier, also black and white, but it had no tag. As Don turned the figure over in his hands, the dog’s head popped off and a stick shot out. A fabric banner rolled down from the end of the stick, and as it did, a voice - an eerily familiar voice - from inside the building spoke to him over a surround sound system. It was the voice of CJ, from beyond the grave. Both it and the banner said “Bingo.”
The beeping stepped up to a pitch audible to human ears, and Don’s eyes widened as he saw the thermal charge inside the doll. Sprinting to the front door, he barrelled through it and the external police tape. Officers immediately began firing on the suit when it had emerged from the building, but none of them seemed to faze the figure at all.
Leaping over a car, he rolled to his feet and pitched the doll into the field. Inside the building, an insane peal of laughter roared from the sound system as the thermal charge exploded mid-air in a ball of flame.
Don finally felt the warmth inside the suit of his own blood as he staggered back to the waiting hovercraft. Ducking inside before he could take on any more bullets as souveneirs, he thrusted up and out of the field, heading back for the safety of Charleston.
As he set the craft to autopilot, he felt some of the imbedded projectiles in the helmet. “Thanks, Andy,” he said before passing out.
*
Perching on a tree branch, morning comes. Not colorful, but brighter than the night. My eyes adjust to see small motion on the ground far below.
I take off.
It looks small and shiny. Smaller than me …
I grab it!
It hisses at me, and the sparkles start chasing the string sticking out of the end.
I fly away. Then, my human mind deciphers what this object is, and right before it explodes ...
“AH!” Don screamed, shooting upright in bed. “Where am I?”
He realized he couldn’t see just before he felt the gauze on his face. Then, he heard someone moving. “Who’s there?”
“Jeez, Don, take it easy,” a familiar female voice replied. “I’ll take the gauze off before I leave.”
“Who are you, and why do you sound so familiar?”
“I’m your doctor,” she replied, just as the familiar sound of ripping gauze caught his ears.
“Uh, you must be mistaken,” Don replied. “My doctor’s a man.”
“Not now he isn’t,” she replied, just as enough gauze was removed to reveal a smirk on her face. “Not when you need to keep a secret.”
Don stopped dead. “You know,” he replied coldly.
“Of course I know,” the doctor replied. “How many billionaires get shot at?”
“I could name plenty of names ...” he started.
“Multiple shots?” she smirked again, taking away more of the gauze. Don could almost see the daylight streaming in through the bedroom’s bay window.
“Fine. You know, Andy’s right. I guess I have a real problem accepting that people are smart enough to figure out things on their own.”
“Yeah, well, I do read newspapers. Quite the story, Don.”
Read newspapers? That voice ... it all finally came back to him. “Well, thanks, Jessica. I owe you one.”
“You’ll owe me more than one,” Dr. Downen said, removing the last of the gauze covering his eyes. “I don’t make house calls, and I have a feeling you’re going to need quite a few, if you keep this up.”
“If it’s a matter of money ...”
“It’s not a matter of money, Don, it’s a matter of time,” she said, as her belt started to beep.
“Damn it. I’m on call. Just rest a few days, everything should be fine. Some of those bullets were really hard to pull out, though!” Jessica added over her shoulder as she threw on her lab coat and headed for the door.
“How’s that saying go again?” Andy asked. “‘Friends help you move. Real friends help you move bodies.’ Yeah.”
Don looked out of the corner of his eye at his assistant. “Very funny, Andy. You should do stand-up.”
“I’m serious, holmes,” Andy replied. “Do you have any fucking idea how heavy you are with that suit on? Jesus, I almost called in a forklift.”
“You finished?” Don said, looking up at him.
Don’s vision blurred as the back of his head felt a sharp impact. “Ow ...” he trailed off.
“Yeah. That was for almost getting yourself killed last night.”
Don shook his head. “I’m glad I have such good friends,” he intoned sarcastically.
“In order to prevent more instances of what happened last night,” Andy began, “I’ve called my friend, Martin, to come here and see what he can come up with.”
“Can he be trusted?” Don asked.
“You want another hit to the head?” Andy retorted. “I’ve been friends with Martin for years, Don. He won’t tell.” He turned to his gauzed companion. “Especially if we keep his mind occupied with things to do.”
“Okay,” Don sighed, “but I don’t want any more people knowing.”
“Stop going out, then,” Andy said, staring him down.
“I can’t do that,” he said. “I must know about what happened to my parents.”
“Then I’m not making a promise I might have to break,” Andy said, crossing his arms and leaning back into the wall. “But I will see what I can do.”
Sitting on the back porch, Don suddenly remembered the doll he’d saved from the explosion at the old LoComp building in Maroa. Waiting until Andy left the house to pick up the children from school, he grabbed it from where Andy had moved the suit. The tag of the doll read “Personalized People,” and listed a website.
Don hopped up from the chaise and went to his computer. The website no longer existed, but a search for the company name turned up a warehouse on Kennedy Avenue, in the industrial district of Charleston.
“Industrial ...” Don trailed off, turning the doll over in his hands and thinking back to CJ’s voice on the intercom. “No. He can’t be. Can he?”
Andy still wasn’t home when Don threw on the suit and reconditioned helmet. He quickly grabbed a car from the garage that hadn’t seen the light of day in a long while and sped off. He promised himself he’d be back before dinner.
*
The Personalized People warehouse was just as dark and seemingly abandoned as Don had thought it would be. Even the damaged, rusted black vehicle parked in the unused parking lot looked like it had been forgotten some time ago. “I just can’t believe he’s alive,” the figure in the suit remarked to himself as he crept toward the building.
Sneaking up to a broken window, Ebon Phoenix quietly moved a crate into position so that he could get a better view inside the building. Sure enough, the machines inside were hard at work, though the company had bankrupted years ago. And inside, inspecting the goods was a man in a black trench coat wearing black and white face paint surrounded by goons with guns. The computer disc inside the belt buckle began computing possible “forced entry” scenarios while Ebon Phoenix listened inside the room to hear the conversation.
“Once I get all these dolls out, we’ll have a hot time in Charleston tonight!” the white-faced man laughed as he danced a little jig while his cronies worked. “Ah, yes. Just another city to add to the pyre,” he laughed again.
“That’s enough,” the inhuman voice of the suit boomed as Ebon Phoenix leapt in through the window. “Stop production on those incendiary devices, or I’ll be forced to stop them for you.”
“Who the hell are you?” the coated figure asked, obviously not impressed.
“Ebon Phoenix,” the dark mechanical voice replied.
“Well ...” the other figure mused, “I’ll give you points for costume and theatricality, but the name’s not original. I’m afraid I came up with it years ago.
“Still, I can’t say as I’m a big fan of animals in the home. Gentlemen!” he clapped for attention. “I want this bird out of my house.”
The suit clicked into high gear as the impulses were sent to each of Don’s muscles, readying him for combat. Unaimed early shots were fired, which the suit avoided with ease, but as the criminals closed in, Don began to grow concerned. He hadn’t thought this through at all, and he’d already faced down a squadron of trained police officers before dropping unconscious and needing personal medical attention. What would a group of criminals fearing the law be capable of?
Soon after these thoughts came a flurry of smoke and gunfire, the latter of which the suit was able to dull to a background noise level. With the instinctive reaction of two nervous systems propelling him, Ebon Phoenix leapt behind a storage crate.
Splinters flew all around as the corners of the box were blown away, and Ebon Phoenix decided that obvious cover was bad. Darting into the shadows, a barrage of bullets whistled past, most ricocheting off of pipes, catwalks, and staircases as the man in the suit paused to reassess the situation from the comfort of near-total darkness.
“First note, suit,” Don began. “Before I go to do this again, get weapons.”
“All right, then, bird brain,” the figure who looked like CJ yelled out, “I guess we’ll just have to smoke you out.” He snapped, and the henchmen began shooting tear gas into the shadows of the abandoned factory.
The suit did its best to filter the air out, but Don started tearing up inside the suit anyway. “Second note, gas masks.”
The figure in the black coat waited for a few minutes, then finally threw up his arms. “Well, I guess we’ll just have to start the fire without him. On second thought, if he’s still here, I guess we’re technically starting the fire with him!
“HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!
“Before I leave, though, I wanted to say that my suit is looking mighty good in black! It’s nice to see you don’t stop at just stealing names! Have a nice day!”
While Ebon Phoenix was battling the effects of the tear gas and listening to CJ’s speech, the goons had loaded all the dolls into the back of the rusted black car, and the gang was starting to drive away, when the car screeched to a halt in front of the open garage door at the back of the building.
“By the way, EP,” the white-faced man began, “you may be wondering why we left the doors open after gassing you. It’s ventilation, because fires burn so much better when they have room to breathe! Enjoy flaming death, Tweety!”
He cackled as the car drove out of sight. Ebon Phoenix had barely cleared his eyes before he noticed a bag of the dolls still sitting in the center of the room. “Third note, escape equipment.”
As soon as he’d cleared the hiding hole, the thermal scanner on the suit noticed the dolls were significantly higher than the rest of the room. He got five steps toward the open door before the whole sackful exploded.
Quickly thinking back to Decatur, Ebon Phoenix whipped the memory cloth cape around himself like a bubble and charged toward the exit, using the force of the blast to help propel him. Once out the garage door, he watched the black car turn the corner at the very far end of the street, toward the outskirts of town. “Fourth note,” he managed between gulps for clean air. “Tracking devices.”
Luckily, he was able to have the remote tracker to his hovercraft, and within a minute, it was idling next to the blaze that had engulfed the old warehouse. Turning off the voice emulator and taking off the helmet, Don quickly called from his cell phone to report the fire. Then, he turned the emulator back on, slipped on the helmet, and Ebon Phoenix piloted the craft after the criminals who almost burned him alive.
*
Outside of town, the man in the black trench coat was using a potato gun to fire the dolls through the windows of the houses they passed and was laughing maniacally as he did so, unaware of the large black hovering glider that was coming up behind their vehicle.
The booming sound of an amplified voice directed at the car broke all the windows as well as the gunner’s concentration. “Christopher Joseph Coffman, pull over your vehicle, NOW.”
“Sorry, officer!” the man replied. “You’ve got the wrong man! I’m Cracked Jack!”
Ebon Phoenix moved up to the car and gave it a firm shove from behind, crumpling the car’s already damaged back bumper. “I’m not going to repeat myself!” the modified voice yelled from the hovercar.
“Good!” the man with the potato gun replied. “I’m tired of listening to your chirping already!”
With that, Ebon Phoenix gunned to slam the car again, freaking out the driver. “Boss!” he said, trying to keep the car under control. “Get him to stop, or we’ll all be dead!”
“And give in to this freak-of-nature? No way.”
“Then we’re outta here!” the driver exclaimed as they all threw open their doors and abandoned the vehicle.
Cracked Jack yawned. “Oh, don’t worry. I’ll drive,” he said non-chalantly, climbing over the front seat to take the wheel. He checked the rear view mirror to see where the glider had gone, but it wasn’t there. Looking to both sides, he couldn’t see the vehicle, either. Then, the roof dented above his head with a sharp thunking noise.
“Oh, wonderful,” Cracked Jack said, rolling his eyes. “Bird droppings. And I just had this car cleaned.” He picked up the potato gun to fire it, but a gloved hand had already grabbed him by the throat, lifting him from the driver’s seat.
“Where’s the other suit?” Ebon Phoenix asked flatly, staring down the face-painted man with the unflinching hollow eyes of his helmet.
“Let’s see,” CJ’s choked voice managed. “I think I have it in my pocket...”
The other gloved fist slammed him square across the face. “Where is it?” the voice demanded again.
“I’ll get the address for you,” Jack said, grabbing a set of brass knuckles with his right hand and throwing a punch at the helmet.
The suit instinctively threw out its hand and grabbed the oncoming fist. Pulling with the momentum of the punch, Ebon Phoenix pulled back, ripping CJ away from the steering wheel, just as the end of the street came into view. “I’m getting tired of asking,” Phoenix said as the car began to swerve of its own accord. “Tell me, or die.”
CJ cleared his throat, and for a brief moment, Don thought he could see his old friend surface from below the white and black face paint of the madman Cracked Jack. “We ... we had an interested buyer,” he said before flinching as the car took out a mailbox. “Someone we’ve been doing business with for a long time. We wanted to give him a prototype, see if he was interested ...” CJ cringed as the car rocked from colliding with a trash can, throwing the vehicle back out toward the road. “But right now, my friend, Dan Bledsaw, has it. He’s waiting to meet the buyer here in town ...”
With that, Ebon Phoenix threw Cracked Jack back into the automobile and climbed back into the glider hovering above it. As it sped off, Jack jumped back up into the seat in time to see a brick wall a few feet from the front of the vehicle.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAAAA!!!
*
Don got home and started to put the suit back when he heard the television in the living room. He walked in to find Andy, Charles, and Xavior all watching the evening news. Scenes of the burning warehouse and highway chase were top story of the night. Without a word, Don came in and sat down, hoping Andy wasn’t going to throw anything at him. He’d had enough excitement for one day.
“Can I have a word with you?” Don’s friend asked, getting up from the couch. Don flinched. “Yeah.”
Andy was actually smiling as they went into the kitchen. “Made you a sandwich. Figured you’d gone off again. I should hit you for trying to do it while you were injured, but I think you’ve done enough damage to yourself for today. Just remind me when you’re one hundred percent. I owe you an ass kicking.”
Don nodded before grabbing the offered meal and stuffing his mouth full.
“So, what did you find out, holmes?”
Don smiled and swallowed. “Dan has the other suit. He’s trying to sell it to an interested buyer. I also have reason to believe that CJ was behind the burning of Decatur. Don’t know about my hometown, though.”
“And was that CJ on the news? I thought he was dead.”
Don swallowed the last of the sandwich and stood up from the table. As he left the kitchen toward the stairwell, he turned back to Andy. “Yeah. CJ’s dead.”
The billionaire then ascended to his bedroom, cold and alone.