EIGHT YEARS LATER
The seven Olympians stood still in the center of Houston. Moonlight and starlight reflected off their chrome bodies as men, women,
and children surrounded them, or rather, surrounded the statues of the
seven Olympians.
Though eight years had passed since that horrible, destructive night,
the memory of the Olympians was immortalized in a series of seven
statues that formed a half-circle around a slab of gold and black marble.
The marble was inscribed with the hundreds of names Houston had
lost that night. An epitaph carved into the face of the marble read, "TO
THOSE WE LOST ON THE GREEN NIGHT."
Set directly in the marble in the middle of the etched words was
an opaque crystal reminiscent of a full moon, which memorialized that
night and the souls who passed with it. The memorial of the Green
Night haunted the middle of a park in the heart of the city. What was
once a dozen city blocks, then a field of fire, was made into a park where
new life grew from the depths of the old.
Yet, beyond the park and the night's horizon, sat another reminder
of that night: a wall of metal that reached miles into the sky, surrounded on all sides by perimeter fencing and helicopters, known as the Forbidden Zone. Even though a decade had passed, the location of the final
battle between the Olympians and the Green Titan had been left so
tattered that the military had created an enormous enclosure around
it, prohibiting entry. The military and the government patrolled the
Forbidden Zone in somber solitude, while the rest of the population
had the memorial park.
Jordan Harris always found the memorial park a somber place to
reflect – to gather himself, his thoughts, his fears, and his young hopes.
Though he was only four on the fateful Green Night, certain scars have
a way of following you through the years. At fourteen Jordan found
that same pain lingering in his chest as he gazed at the memorial. Jordan
stood in front of the seven, curiously searching the eyes of the men and
women looking down on him.
"It's a shame, right?" a soft voice emanated from behind him.
Jordan suppressed the urge to jump and turned around to see a young
girl with striking black hair and a pale face looking back at him. She was
fourteen or fifteen, close to Jordan's age, yet her eyes carried a wisdom
of someone three times her age. In her hand was a bouquet of flowers.
She passed Jordan and placed them at the feet of the Olympians.
"I just came to pay my respects," she said softly.
"Me too," Jordan replied. "It makes me wish I could go back in
time to stop it, you know? Fight alongside the Olympians, be a hero
and all that."
The girl rose from her silent prayer and examined Jordan for a
moment. Jordan wore all black with gold trim: black jeans, black turtleneck, black jacket with gold cuffs and designs running along it, and a
pair of sneakers, the Zeuz Airwalkers – also black and gold. Even though
she said nothing, Jordan felt her analyzing him, studying his frame, his
clothes, his intentions. Inside a pair of worn black tactical gloves, Jordan
felt his fingers squirm. The gloves were just a bit too big for him, but he
didn't mind. They were special to him since they once belonged to one
of his favorite heroes.
"You look like you're a hero yourself," she mused.
Jordan smirked. "Not so much. But I'm working at it."
"Oh, a little vigilantism?" She smirked too. "I respect that."
Jordan froze. Wait? Was she joking? Did she figure that out just from
seeing me?
His thoughts were interrupted when the device in Jordan's ear
buzzed to life: "Calling all cars. Calling all cars. We've got a Vesper on
sight – possible 10-90 at City Bank."
Jordan tensed at the words as he recalled, 10-90? That's a robbery
in progress.
The girl leaned in, studying the sudden spike in his stature. "Are
you okay?"
Jordan paused, shook it off, and straightened. He scrambled to put
a lie together. "Yeah," he said. "I just–I just get emotional when I come
here. To see them and know what they did to save the city." Yet in his
rush to lie Jordan found a nugget of honesty. "It makes you believe that
anyone can be a hero, you know?"
"Heroes come in all shapes and sizes," the girl said. She cast another
glance at the monument, its seven heroes, the hundreds of lost names,
and the crystal in the heart of it.
While standing behind her, Jordan reached under the collar of his
turtleneck and pulled it clear over his nose and mouth, leaving only his
eyes exposed. His disguise was a mock imitation of the half-masks that
official heroes wore. Hearing the rustle of his clothes, the girl turned
back to Jordan, just as – THUMP. She reflexively turned away as a soft
pop and a gentle burst of wind blew past her. She froze.
Jordan was gone, and only shimmering specks of golden light were
left in his wake.
Jordan stood above the city of Houston. The black clouds of the
night served as the backdrop to a series of glittering lights inside towering buildings. Perched atop one of the high rises, Jordan dared not look
down. Moving from the highest point of one building to another was a
usual occurrence, but it still gave him chills and a bit of vertigo to look
down four hundred feet. Jordan preferred to think of it as hopscotch –
with really high stakes.
He perked up as static echoed in his ear again. This was what he'd
been waiting for. "Calling all cars. Calling all cars. We've got a 10-90
confirmed. Vesper currently on foot. Calling in Esper support on –
" Pshhh. Pshhh. The device hissed. Jordan tapped his ear a few times,
trying to get reception.
"C'mon, c'mon. Give me the address," Jordan huffed.
The voice came back in a patchwork of words, "Calling – cars – all –
cars – 10-90 – Vesper – on – foot – Esper support –Avenue." Jordan bit
his lip in frustration, then perked his ears up as a familiar sound echoed
in the distance.
Sirens.
"There we go," Jordan mused.
Jordan searched the inky horizon and saw flashes of red and blue
lights moving in the distance. Not too far from him, by way of the
crow – or as Jordan preferred – by way of hopscotch between buildings.
This was Jordan's specialty. He took a deep breath through the collar of
his turtleneck and jumped off the edge.
He dropped freely for a second. Those four hundred feet of pavement below raced to meet him before he felt it activate. Like all Espers,
Jordan was different from the average human. As all humans are born
with trace amounts of stardust in their bodies, Espers were born with
more – at least thirty times more. These Plasma Crystals, as they were
known, collected in the bases of their necks, tied them to the universe,
and gave them the power to alter it.
In the old days, Espers were called Gods, but these days they were
just called superheroes.
Jordan felt a rush of bio-electricity course out of the base of his
neck, flowing in every direction, snapping through every neuron, and
finally flowing out of his body to connect to the gravitons in the air.
Like daggers of light, his eyes flashed gold with plasma as it spread
throughout his body. As his body became his own again and was under
his full control, so were the gravitons around him. Jordan snapped the
gravitons under his feet, and with a single thought flicked their polarity.In mid-air Jordan rotated ninety degrees and went from falling down
the building's face to running across its face. The view itself would be
surreal for most. Suddenly the world went from upright to sideways.
But Jordan loved it. He had read how runners feel a certain nirvana
when they're in the zone as their minds go blank, and it's just them and
the road. That's what he felt every time he found himself running across
the Houston metropolis.
As he ran he felt his prized gloves sliding down. He pulled them back
on, tight against his knuckles. While the gloves were a bit tattered from
his various vigilante volunteerism efforts, they had a special meaning
in his heart. They were a birthday gift, a really expensive birthday gift.
They were signed by the hero, Kinetic Jordan's idol. And written in
gold ink across the back of the right hand was the phrase, "Be Your Own
Hero." Jordan peered down at the phrase and felt the familiar words of
encouragement flood him. He leaped across the faces of the buildings,
and as cold air and city lights blasted him, he realized he had never felt
more alive.
Jordan rolled his collar down and let out an exuberant shout, but his
voice cracked in the middle of it. He shook it off.
Ugh, Zeus, I hope no one heard that, Jordan chided himself as he pulled his collar back up.
Jordan reached the edge of the building. He rattled the gravitons
under his foot, juggling them with his mind, crushing them underfoot, snapping them to his will, until they combusted. Jordan used the
controlled gravity burst to fling himself like a projectile across the street
and landed mid-run along the face of another building.
He heard a pop under him and looked down. Beneath his shoes and
the golden light permeating from under his heels, the glass had cracked.
And beneath that was a terrified woman who went from making
ordinary pasta in her kitchen to seeing an unbelievable masked teenager
standing on her window.
"Get out of here, you Vesper," she shouted.
"Sorry. My bad. I'm a hero," Jordan shot back.
"Get the f –" Her shout was lost in the night as Jordan sped off
toward the sirens.
Collecting more gravitons under his feet, he took off, sprinting down
the face of the building, careful to avoid the windows. As his own energies from his Plasma Crystal met the ambient energies of the gravitons,
they sparkled like golden fireflies, briefly leaving a trail of stars in his
wake. Like a parkour artist on fast-forward, Jordan leapt from building
to building in a dizzying display of flips, twists, and starlight.
Graham Grey never saw himself as a criminal, but necessity and
circumstances beyond his control had forced him into a life he never
wanted. Nonetheless, crime was just something he was good at. Ever
since the Green Night, ever since the death of most of the Olympians,
ever since crime had been on the rise, he found himself fighting for more
and more. His matters were only made worse when the government
established the Forbidden Zone for a large swath of Houston that had
included his home. Though he was not a part of the fight that night,
he and many others were casualties of it. No home, no job, and cast
out onto the streets, Graham was doing what he needed to survive. He
wasn't like the other villains. He was a survivor, not a terrorist. But even
Graham could tell the real villains were growing in power and number.
It was as if the dark corners of the world saw the passing of the greatest
heroes as a sign that they could do whatever they wanted, or needed,
without fear of being stopped.
He paid no mind to the increasing internal monologue of his own
guilt or to the rising sound of the cop cars closing in on him. The bags
of money in hand felt lighter than he imagined. While robbing the bank
was the first step, the second was just as important – getting away.
A pair of cop cars skidded to a stop at the end of the block. Graham
skidded to a stop too. He whipped around and saw another pair of cop
cars coming his way.
Not now. Not. Now. Graham tapped into his Plasma Crystal, felt a
familiar rush of plasma coursing through his veins, then tapped into the
electrons in the air, before Graham snapped his fingers and a green wave
burst from his thin frame that rippled through the area. The bulbs in the streetlights swelled before popping. The batteries in the police cars
whined then burst. The electronics within range creaked and moaned
as the electrons inherent in their bodies were extinguished.
Jordan was mid-leap across the city when the static ended, and the
voice came back clear and more urgent than before, "Calling Esper
sup –" Then it went silent, just as the lights about four blocks away
went dark after a flash of green. Jordan felt a chill burrow through his
stomach and creep up to his chest.
Green plasma...Jordan privately seethed, shaking off flashbacks to
the Green Night. Jordan landed softly on the top of a building. In his
peripheral vision, he spotted another reminder of the Green Night—
the massive walls of the Forbidden Zone looming over the city like a
tombstone. He closed his eyes, exhaled, and in a burst of golden plasma,
he was back in the air, closing in.
Graham saw the flash of green, then darkness. It went from a dozen
streetlights and multiple flashing police lights to just moonlight. He
capitalized on the officers and their disabled cars to bolt down an alley.
However, he failed to notice the shimmering golden streak above
him.
Graham, bags in hand, rushed down the alleyway only to be met by
the streak of gold that was suddenly crouched at the end of the alley.
Graham sneered, "Who are you?!"
Jordan rose from the ground and stared him down. He used the
first few seconds to coach up a little self-confidence: Okay, hero pose.
Be intimidating. Shoulders high, back straight, lean back, don't blink. Is
that sweat? Sweat in my eye? Ow. Ow. Jordan stood up straight and tried
to make his frame look as intimidating as possible even though Graham
was clearly a few inches taller than him. Graham took a few seconds
to study the kid: no bodysuit, no shoulder pads, no mighty star in the
middle, no worries.
"Oh, you're nothing but a kid playing dress-up," Graham chuckled.
"I gotta get outta here."
Ugh, I'm out of breath too. I need something easier to breathe
through...Wait, did he say something? Jordan breathed heavily behind his collar, trying to maintain good posture after running and vaulting
over several city blocks.
"Out of my way," Graham shouted, obviously for the second time.
Green plasma surged down from his neck to his left arm, and burst out
of his palm in a pillar of sizzling viridescent energy.
Why can't they just go quietly? Jordan sighed. He exploded gravitons
underfoot, throwing himself up and over the blast. Then he manipulated another set of gravitons that sent him diagonally to meet the
right wall of the alley. In a third burst, he ricocheted off the right wall
to land on the left. In a dizzying display of light and gravity defiance
he zigzagged between the walls and brought himself face to face with
Graham, fists pulled back and ready.
With no choice but to abandon their cars, the officers charged to the
edge of the alleyway. Officer Jons was ahead. With his gun drawn, he led
his fellow officers to the mouth of the alley, when, in a flash of golden
light, Graham was vomited from the alley and sent tumbling past the
officers, end over end into the street. The officers paused. Graham
stopped too but that was because he was unconscious. What didn't
pause were the dollar bills that had been blown into the air.
Officer Jons glanced at the nearest officer, who stammered, "I think
we got our Esper backup."
Jons rounded the corner, his firearm leading the way. Jordan, with
his face mask up and gold light pulsating off his body, was trying to
regain composure as the bills rained down around him. Jordan didn't
dare take one, no matter how much he wanted the extra cash for lunch
tomorrow.
"Vigilante," Jons hissed.
Jordan nodded at him: Yeah, you're welcome, dawg. With a final
gravity burst under his feet, Jordan turned himself into a projectile, rose
high above the alley, and left the streets of Houston below.