From Superheroes Anonymous: A Modern-day Fantasy, Year Two, Chapter 10: "Interrogation."
He awoke for a second to find the hospital bed on its side and parts of the ceiling on fire. Some of the floor plants in the corner were stripped of their leaves. Magazines were covered in char marks. The sprinkler system dropped a tropical storm’s worth of water into the room, and two of the security agents were scrambling for blankets. People out of sight were shouting nonsense, and then Jimmy blacked out again.
***
Sometime later, in another room, Jimmy awoke tied to a chair. His muscles were weak, his cheeks sticky, and his throat felt strained and immensely dry. Each limb felt bruised and his chest was heaving. Something patchy sent a recharging current through his elbow joint. His sleeve was rolled up to his biceps. A charger.
The room was small, like an office, with gray padded wall panels on all four sides and a flickering black light causing eyestrain overhead. A table stood on the opposite side, adorned with a fruit basket full of mangos and papayas, some coffee mugs, and a stack of magazines. A large, opaque, Plexiglas window loomed off to the side of the table, and a sterile metallic door stood beside it. Jimmy faded in and out of consciousness as he surveyed the room.
A man with cropped dark-blond hair, an athletically toned body, and a tattoo of a mongoose down his left forearm stood next to the door. His feet were apart, spanning the width of his shoulders, and he tapped his palm with the edge of a silver stun gun. He was smiling. He had a chip in his right lateral incisor, a three-toed pair of crow’s feet, and his eyes and teeth glowed under the black light.
“Morning, sleepy head,” the man said.
“Where am I?” Jimmy asked.
He was trying to keep his eyes open. The guard was blurry under the flickering black light. The rhythmic tapping of the stun gun was hypnotic. He noticed a thumping pain banging against the back of his eyeballs.
“Oh God. I can’t believe you people shot me.”
“Now, now, let’s not dwell on the negative. You’re in a place where you can break no rules.”
“Good, then let me out of this chair so I can slam your face in a wall, assuming that’s allowed.”
Jimmy squeezed his eyes shut. Even with the soft glow of the black light, he couldn’t bear the luminance.
“So violent,” the guard said. “How could I, in good conscience, let a miscreant like you run loose in this town?”
“Why don’t you turn your conscience off then? Didn’t seem to be a problem when your people brought me here to begin with.”
The guard laughed. “Mister Powerstick Man—that is your name, right?—you assume far more than what’s good for you. My conscience is clear, now that you’re here. My security force has reminded me of that.”
Jimmy rocked against the chair, but stopped in seconds when it occurred to him that he was more likely to crash to the floor than to break out of the ropes. Regaining control was difficult, though, as his feet were pinned to the chair legs.
“How long have you kept me here?”
“Oh, time is relative when the sun can no longer reach you. Might’ve been minutes. Might’ve been days. Irrelevant.”
Jimmy lowered his chin to his chest.
“I don’t suppose screaming will do me any good.”
“You could try. But I don’t know who’d hear you. We’re pretty deep underground.”
“I think I’ll try.”
Jimmy screamed, forcing so much from his lungs that he lost control of his senses, and he put so much static power into his legs to accent the scream that he tipped his chair anyway. He crashed sideways, right on his cheek. When the pain started and his voice quieted and his eyes sprang open, the guard laughed.
“See, didn’t do a—”
In an unexpected response, the window over the table exploded, and a brown object flew through.
“What the—”
The object sailed across the room like a Frisbee, and its metallic rim wedged into the adjacent wall with a
kerchunk.
The guard prepared his stun gun, but it was too late; Junkyard Bob, attired in his trademark blue duster, hopped through the broken window and rushed him. The guard almost had time to aim, but the old man knocked the weapon back, and the guard was aiming at his own neck by the time he got off the shot. Junkyard Bob pushed him against the wall with his boot-covered foot as the guard’s body convulsed.
Once the guard slumped to the floor, Junkyard Bob stomped across the room, stepped over Jimmy’s head, and retrieved his Razor Rim from the wall. The weapon came loose with a jerk from his metal glove. Then the old man lifted Jimmy to an upright position and sliced the ropes open with the blades circling his hat. The ropes fell to the floor and Jimmy kicked them away.
“I can’t believe that worked,” Jimmy said, panting from the sudden excitement.
“What worked? My hat is always badass.”
“The screaming.”
“What are you talking about?”
Jimmy stood and smoothed out his spandex.
“Never mind. Why are these guys so intent on secluding you?”
Junkyard Bob replaced a leather strip around the rim and put the hat on his head with a quarter turn for style.
“I’ve gotten sketchy answers since November,” he said. “I’ve had doctors tell me I needed time to recover. Nurses told me I bring balance to the room. Frankly, I didn’t care because I loved the luxury. But today, the TASER-happy numb nut squad changed my mind.”
Jimmy rested his hands against the table. The fruit in the basket looked fresh.
“And what of visitors? Did you request no visitors?”
“Never had a say in that.”
Jimmy took an apple and ate it. The juice squirted across his teeth. Then he hopped butt-first on the table.
“So why didn’t you leave?”
“Like I said before, they treated me like a king.”
“Did you try to resist?”
Junkyard Bob stomped toward the convulsing guard.
“How about instead of putting me on trial, we put this guy on trial?”
“He’s got the jitters. Don’t think he’s in a mood to talk.”
“He will be.”
(to be continued in...)
Superheroes Anonymous: A Modern-day Fantasy, Year Two
by Jeremy Bursey
Available Now
Don't forget to check out
Cannonball City: A Modern-day Fantasy, Year One to see how it all begins.
If you're wondering how this is OHR related, this is a continuation of the loosely adapted novelized version of
The Adventures of Powerstick Man. It's not to be confused with the short story of the same name (that comes with the game). This is a much deeper story than that.
