Chương 45: Absolute Power Bends and Molds

Flores walked into the parking lot, gripping her files tightly. The crack-riddled tarmac she threaded upon was barely held together by rough patchwork. Flores grumbled, silently wishing this would be her last visit to this precinct and its odorous, pothole-infested town. She pulled out her key and unlocked her car.

Unbeknownst to her, the back window of the car parked next to hers rolled down. "Have a seat, Meulen Flores."

She started, her hand instinctively reaching for the service pistol holstered near her appendix.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you." The voice was grizzled but eerily calm. "It's HAVEN. Now have a seat."

Flores released her pistol and stared into her reflection in the tinted window of her car. Sunlight gleamed off the car's metal bodywork, almost overpowering the reflection of a hand reaching out of the car behind her with a HAVEN badge. She clutched her files tightly. By the time she turned around, the back window was rolling up, and the door opened.

Flores entered the car. The air inside was cold and clean, with a faint minty fragrance wafting about. Two men in suits sat in the front. The driver, the only one she could see through the rearview mirror, wore a pair of thin shades, which clouded his expression. To her left was the man who talked to her. He dressed casually, wearing a flannel shirt and flip-flops. His hair was messy and his beard was unkempt.

"Can I take a look at those?" he asked, pointing at her files.

She huffed, shaking her head. "Since when is that proper protocol? You people always show up like a goddamn shit stain, demanding everyone take a whiff."

"Well, for both our sakes, I implore you to take a long, hard whiff. This shitshow involves all of us."

They locked eyes when she regarded him. His gaze was sharp, like the cold air seeping into her bones. Flores reluctantly surrendered her files to the man, who leaned into his seat and parsed through her documents.

"Who are you anyway?" she asked.

"Call me Mason," he replied, pulling out a photograph of the stone-skinned mysterious man. "What do you have on him?"

"Nothing I'm sure you don't already know."

He glanced out the tinted window on his side. "Forgive me, I asked the wrong question then. What is your read on the man?"

It was Flores' turn to peer out the window. She paused, shifting through the thoughts in her mind. "He is very elusive. So much so that we suspect he can change appearances. The hijacking last month was his last known appearance. We had set up Aldo Romano as bait to lure in Declan and his men, but the last thing we expected was him." She paused again. "Tell me, is he one of yours? An escaped convict? A failed experiment? An alien?"

Mason pulled out a cigarette and twirled it in his fingers. Then he put it between his lips, unlit. "It's none of that such. He is as much a mystery to your department as he is to ours."

She scoffed. "Sure, it's not like you'll tell me anything, anyway. Are we done? I have places to be."

Mason returned her flies. She was almost out of the car when he spoke. "A word of advice. Steer clear of that man. He is not someone your jurisdiction can handle."

With one arm clasping the window seam of the door, Flores glared down at Mason. She opened her mouth to speak but refrained from expelling any poisonous words. Instead, she slammed the door and entered her car before flinging her files in the backseat. The papers scattered like yellowed leaves blown in the wind. Wherever they landed, she did not care.

"Fucking flimsy ass jurisdiction. Fucking shit-faced entitled superhumans always thinking everyone else has to bend a knee and hope not to be noticed."

Flores rested her head on the steering wheel and took deep, calming breaths. Leave him be? To continue to degrade the very society they swore to protect and uphold. What if the stone-faced man went one step higher? What was to stop him from breaking into The Den and freeing an army of superhuman convicts that would plunge the country into a state of unrest never seen before? And yet, she was supposed to stand aside and watch it happen, like a helpless sheep?

He is right, Meulen. She reached into the glove compartment and pulled out an inhaler, which she used. The stone-faced shitshow is clearly too dangerous for you. How would you apprehend him if you somehow found him? Threaten him with a firearm?

She let loose a pained laugh and fired her engine. With a quick glance to the left, she noted that Mason's car was gone. Flores used her inhaler one last time before backing out of the parking spot.

❊ ❊ ❊

In a brightly lit room, several levels below ground level, a man sat by a table, fiddling with a mechanical apparatus that resembled an arm, complete with an articulating glove. The expansive room housed many autonomous robot arms, each busy with various jobs such as machining parts, fabricating modules, welding, and wiring.

The man wore a welding mask but otherwise left his arms bare as he soldered some circuitry in an open compartment on the gauntlet. His extensive work littered the table with metal shavings, extra components, and work equipment.

"That should do," he said, dropping his equipment and pulling his mask off. "Sheppard, run a full diagnostic."

"Certainly, sir," Sheppard replied in her usual monotone manner. "Initiating full system diagnostic on the arm component."

He reached for a coffee mug and downed the bitter, murky liquid that jolted his senses; while resting a lazy gaze on the screen to his right. The cables connected to the gauntlet granted Sheppard the necessary connections to perform her task. The arm moved, flexing its fingers as Sheppard checked hundreds of systems and ran through hundreds of tests that reflected on the screen he watched.

"An incoming call from Mason," Sheppard said. "What should I do, sir?"

"Put him through on the big screen." He sat up and swiveled his chair 180 degrees to reveal his Mission Control Interface, which was situated up against the wall. It consisted of a massive OLED wallpaper display, about 300 inches wide, with an extensive interface system below, housing hundreds of buttons and switches. The Radiant Assembly symbol displayed on the screen switched out to an image of Mason, seated in the back of a moving car.

"How are you holding up, Mark?" Mason asked.

"I'm managing," he said. "I've survived well enough so far."

Mason nodded. "How has the team been doing? I admit, I haven't had time to catch up since Ampress…"

"We've certainly seen better days. Though I've been absent from HQ for a while." Mark folded his arms and dropped his gaze. "I still don't understand how the tower was breached. What exactly happened?"

"I imagine you were given a detailed rundown of the events leading up to the—"

"Don't give me that bullshit, Liam. I read the report."

Mason sighed, running a hand through his hair. "The truth of the matter is we have no fucking clue. Our agents are still sifting through the rubble, searching for answers." He glanced out the window. "One thing is for certain, though. Killer Cell got what he wanted."

He narrowed his eyes. "The Hypersphere? That was the only thing noted as missing."

"Yes." Mason nodded. "However, keep in mind we are still uncovering more details every day."

Mark cupped his chin. The Hypersphere was a perfect spherical mass the size of a soccer ball, made of an unknown metal. Technora, HAVEN's most important and intelligent asset, theorized that the sphere housed a virtually unlimited power source of unknown origin. She had managed to harness its power, using it as the Radiant Tower's primary power source. Mark had requested access to study the thing, but till now, his request was yet to be approved.

Well, it's not happening anytime now.

That begged the question. Why did Killer Cell go through all that hassle just to steal the Hypersphere? Someone like Mark understood the significance of such a phenomenon. But to risk his life infiltrating the most secure location in the tri-state area when Novaman was present? It made no sense to him. Unless there was more to the Hypersphere that Killer Cell was privy to.

"You're doing that thing again," Mason said.

"What thing?"

"Retreating into your mind where, no doubt, a million fucking questions are flying a second."

Mark chuckled, but remained silent. Behind him, a jarring cacophony of machine sounds became prominent as his custom robotic arms continued their tasks.

"What are you up to anyway?" Mason asked, squinting at the action behind Mark. "It hasn't been this busy in a long while."

"I need more firepower," he said, glancing back at a robotic arm that assembled the underframe of his next armored suit. "It seems criminals are getting bolder and more powerful by the day."

"True that. It's like a storm of locusts brewing on the horizon and we are the goddamn Egyptians." Mason leaned closer to his screen. "That brings me to the reason I called. Take a look at what I sent you."

Immediately, a video file appeared on the secondary display below. Mark swiped on the file and sent it to the primary display, which portioned the new file to be shown on one-fourth of the screen. Then Mark hit play. As the video played, his neutral expression soured as he bared his teeth and tightened his fists.

"When was this?" he asked.

"The FBI metadata states it happened a few days ago."

"Hmm, then he is getting active again." Mark leaned forward, his fingers dancing on the many buttons laid before him. More windows appeared on the large screen, displaying audio recordings, a facial composite of the suspect's face reconstructed from the officers' recollections at the hijacking that freed Declan O'Malley and his men, satellite imagery presenting the stone-skinned man in flight, and the passport photo of a black man with curly, full hair. "What does he hope to accomplish fraternizing with hardened criminals?"

"I might have the answers to that exact question. Check the other file I sent you. It's an audio snippet from Cooper."

When Mark played the audio file, the familiar vocal signature of Jalen Nkanga—a person he had analyzed thoroughly over the past month alone—came on, his usual calm tone sharp with anger. Mark soaked in every word that sounded into the large room to catch a glimpse of the inner workings of the mysterious man.

"… have plans for it. Originally, I elected to take it slow, to eventually control what actually makes this city run. But that is hardly necessary now that I have unshackled the restraints I so stupidly put on myself. Heed my warnings agent. By the end of it all, you'll see how hopelessly outmatched HAVEN is."

"We have grounds to arrest him now," Mark said immediately after the clip ended. "It matters not if we have proof of him being the stone-skinned superhuman. He assaulted an agent."

"Not possible," Mason said, twirling a cigarette in his fingers.

"Not possible? What nonsense is this? You know—"

"The law? Oh, I am fucking familiar with the law. It is practically my bible. Perhaps I used the wrong phrase then. It is not advisable."

"I fail to see your line of thinking, Liam. I do not doubt that it would be a difficult endeavor to apprehend him. However, with the appropriate resources plus a competent superhero team, we can bring him in and ship him off to The Den to be contained."

Mason scoffed, cigarette still in his grasp. "Appropriate resources. Competent superhero team. You see, that's your problem, Mark. You're all about your algorithms, data analysis, and computer fucking simulations. Yet, you are so ignorant of the big fucking picture slapping you in the face."

"I believe in what is quantifiable and subjective. My analysis suggests that his body composition renders—"

Mark raised his hands in resignation. "Spare me that unnecessary bullshit. I heard my agents theorize about our plausible chances of apprehending him many times. Yet we are thoroughly lacking in human intuition. Context! That's the fucking word. Lemme ask you a question, Mark. You worked with Novaman for how many years now? Seven?"

"Ten."

"That's a long time. Ten years as Metal Shadow on The Radiant Assembly. I'd call that a bloody illustrious career, don't you think?"

"Your point?"

Mason leaned in, his face practically taking up the entire screen. "You've had plenty of time to run your simulations on Novaman in the event he turns hostile? How certain are your chances of neutralizing him if Howard gave the order, along with HAVEN's entire hoard of resources, to construct your countermeasures and assemble any team you want?"

Mark remained quiet for many minutes, the answer evident on his face.

Mason smiled. "Not so reliant on those simulations anymore, are you?"

"Indeed, Sheppard gives a seventy percent chance." Mark cupped his jaw. "That, of course, accounts for Demistra and Ameor playing vital roles. But—"

"Demistra is an alien. Her allegiance ultimately lies elsewhere. And Ameor famously hates confrontation."

"Are you equating Jalen Nkanga's power to Novaman? That is an unfathomable leap of judgment."

"I call shit how I see it." Mason shrugged. "When I see Novaman, my skin fills with goosebumps and I'm scared shitless. I have that same feeling just from pictures of this guy. You believe in subjective facts while I never stray from my intuition. It's what has made me what I am today. Besides, the reason the demons invaded Hermosville is that they were looking for someone presumably powerful who opened a particular portal. Persia confirmed the exact location where the portal sprang up. Same place where Jalen Nkanga disappeared only to show his face six years later. Now I'm not saying he is the one the demons are looking for, but all the evidence points to the stone-faced fucker. I say we treat him with extreme caution."

Mark reclined back in his chair, his forehead creased with fury. "So we sit back and watch him enact whatever plans he is concocting? There are always measures we can take. Novaman, for instance, could provide assistance. We can gauge his strength with TechNora's robots, then take appropriate measures."

"Not possible. One, Novaman, and the rest of the team save you and Lightflare, are tasked with finding and neutralizing everyone responsible for the tower disaster. You can call Howard and confirm it if he is not bugged down by more Congress summons. Killer Cell takes absolute priority, as it's a national security issue. Two, even if Howard gave Novaman the order to assist you, he would refuse. He took what happened at the tower very personally, as you can imagine. As for using TechNora's robots, she too will refuse as she is taking the full brunt of the blame for Killer Cell's successful infiltration. It was her security systems he bypassed after all."

"Jalen Nkanga is about to become an even bigger national issue if he is not stopped now."

Mason nodded. "That, we can agree on. However, our hands are tied. We can only wait for the right human resources to be freed up sooner rather than later."

"Too long of a wait. No one knows how long it will take to neutralize Killer Cell. By that time, it will be too late. I cannot sit by the sidelines and watch evil run unchecked. That goes against my very principles."

With fingers rubbing his temples, Mason exhaled a tired breath at his declaration.