The World Needs A Hero
"It is time to wake up. It is time to wake up. It is time to wake up."
He could hear it over and over again in his head.
"It is time to wake up. It is time to wake up." He knew where it was coming from. He just
seemed not to be able to open his eyes. They felt like they were taped down.
"It is time to wake up. It is time to wake up. It is time to wake up."
He finally found the strength to lift his arm and reach towards the night stand.
"It is time to wake up. It is time to wake up. It is tim…."
His hand hit the button with all the weight it had. Finally the voice had ceased. He rolled over
and sighed heavily. Yea, it sure was time to get up. Time to go out and face the world. Time to
go out and try to make a difference. He just wondered why it always had to be him.
He knew the answer of course. It had to be him, because who else was going to do it? Who else
could do it? Yea, he knew the answers to well.
He sat up in bed and rubbed his eyes. They started to focus on the room. The blurry sights of
just becoming conscious became sharp images of a fully awake mind. Everything was bathed in
the pinkish purple light of evening. He knew the sun was going down and that meant he had
business to attend to. He just wished that once he could just stay in bed all curled up in the red
and black satin and feel secure. That was one of the luxuries he could not afford. He threw the
covers back, swung his feet to the side, and stood up.
"Why did she have to teach me about HIM?" he wondered.
He crossed the room to where the bathroom lay on the left side of the bed. As he walked in, he
shut the door behind him. He looked down. The feel of the throw rug on the floor was wonderful
on his bare feet. Shaggy and soft between his toes. He leaned into the shower and turned the
water on. He stretched his hand out underneath the faucet to test the temperature. It felt about
right.
He pushed down his pajama bottoms over his hips, past his knees and down around his ankles.
They had folded themselves one rung on top of the other. There was a strong contrast between
the shag of the pale blue rug and the shining green silk of the pajamas. He stepped into the
shower.
At first it felt too hot, as if flaming tiny pin pricks were hitting his skin. Then his body adjusted
to the sensation. He reached to his right to pick up the soap. He knew it was futile to shower
before he went out. He always came home sweaty, dirty and sometimes bloody from what he did
at night. But the shower before made him feel human.
He soaped up his body, rinsed off and then shampooed his hair. As the shower nozzle hit the top
of his head, he closed his eyes tight so the soap wouldn't affect his vision. The warm soapy water
cascaded over the features of his face. He could not let it affect his vision. He could not let
anything get in the way of his job. His mission. That was all that mattered. His mission. Just
like……… HIM.
He reached down and turned the nozzle of the shower to off. He then opened the foggy glass
door. He reached to his right and grabbed a towel that was hanging on a rack. He rubbed his hair
to absorb the moisture and finally started to towel off the rest of his body. When he was finished,
he wrapped the towel around his waist. He walked to the sink and looked at the mirror image
staring back at him. Tall, muscular, black hair, a look of determination and a blank stare, that
was all he needed. He threw the towel on top of the shower rod and grabbed the dark blue, cotton
robe that hung on the back of the bathroom door. As he wrapped the robe's belt around him and
tied it, he thought about his life. In that one instant he wondered, "How did I get here?"
The night it had happened, the night it went down, he had been at his great-grandmother's
house. Out of all the relatives in his family, she was always the most fun. She had been alive
back when a person's existence only meant the country or planet they lived on. When she first
was around, it seemed like people still had hope. They had what they called Superheroes. They
had stories and films of made-up people who saved the day when it was needed. People who
couldn't be corrupted by power or wealth. Those heroes only cared about what was right, what
was just. The world needed that now.
He reached over and grabbed the sonic wave teeth cleaner. It only took a second to use. The
small sonic blast, that came from the end when he pushed the button, cleared the grime from his
teeth. It was nice how it worked. Fast and efficient.
The night it happened, his great-grandmother had told him about how she would brush her teeth with an actual brush. Apparently they would put some kind of paste on it and rub their teeth. It was during that conversation that they got the call.
The wall opened and there was a police officer on the screen. He looked like he didn't know
quite how to start. His great-grandmother sat up straight. It was almost as if she knew it would be
bad.
"This is Mrs. Shrondra Childers is it not?" he had asked.
"Yes," was all she said.
"Your granddaughter's name is Kara?"
"Yes."
He looked towards him at that moment. "Maybe we shouldn't…in front of the boy, mame" as he stared at him.
"If this involves his mother, he has the right to be here. Now what has happened?"
The officer sighed heavily. "There was a….disturbance at the building she owned. We thought it
was just another run of the mill robbery, being a bank and all. It turned into a hostage situation.
We thought we had talked him into letting them go. As it turned out was all just a lie. Apparently
the man's wife worked there and she had recently left him. Well, we did scan the building and
had thermal imaging, but we weren't prepared or to put it better, we weren't expecting he would
use rudimentary explosives."
The conversation got fuzzy in his head at that moment. He didn't quite seem to hear what he
was saying. The words didn't quite make sense. He did know one thing though. His mother was
dead.
He had lost his father years before in an accident. He had been coming home from one of the
other office buildings that they owned. It was just a freak thing really. He was flying towards the
house when a storm approached. The lightning bolt hit just the right spot on the vehicle and
caused the chemical make up of the fuel to blow.
Now he had lost both of the most important people in his life to explosions. His father
accidentally and his mother to some madman with a fertilizer bomb. Now he was an orphan.
Now he was wealthy. Now his was just like HIM. He vaguely remembers his great-grandmother
holding him while he cried. She was telling him it would be alright, she would take care of him.
She moved into their house and did take care of him for a while. At least until she died 7 years
later. By then he was nineteen. That was 13 years ago.
He walked to the bedroom and put on some sweats and then headed down stairs to the kitchen.
He could smell the food cooking before he even reached the doorway. He walked to the counter.
"Coffee'" he said. The machine had it brewed in less than 10 seconds.
"Good morning sir, or should I say good evening?" the android he had affectionately named
Alfred said as he continued to cook. He had programmed him to cook the old fashioned way.
There was something about the smell of fresh cooked food instead of replicated dinners that he
found reassuring. Sometimes technology, no matter how efficient, just doesn't beat the real
thing.
"I've made your favorite this evening, Yankee pot roast with red potatoes sir."
"I'm not hungry. Just coffee today. I'll get something later," he said as he added his second cube
of sweetener.
"Very well, I will send it over to the mission." He hit a button over the stove and the pot roast
dissolved into tiny gleaming particles and was gone. "As usual." He heard him mutter.
He had programmed him to have the capacity to learn human behavior. He was picking up
sarcasm and annoyance very well.
"There was a transmission CD that came today sir. Some kind of charity function I believe."
"Thanks, Al."
"Shall I make you some dessert and send it straight to the mission untouched as well? A cake
perhaps? Or maybe a chocolate torte?"
"That won't be necessary," he answered as he chuckled to himself. He was picking up sarcasm
very well indeed.
"Everything is turned on and ready for you in the bunker sir. I took the initiative of routing the
transmission CD straight to the computer down there for you."
"Ah hum," he sounded as he sipped the coffee and headed out of the kitchen.
He walked to the main front room of the house. Above the huge stone fireplace was a
holographic image of his parents on their wedding day. He liked to remember them that way, in
love and happy. The room consisted of a large black leather couch and love seat. A black leather
recliner and a glass coffee table with silver trim. The floors were wood and there was a large
Chinese print throw rug on the floor. The colors were black and white of course. On the far wall
on the left side of the fireplace was a 3-D holographic grandfather clock. If he didn't know it was
a hologram he would have thought it was quite the antique. Most people to visit the house
thought so. He had projected it there to hide the entrance to the bunker. It was just like how HE
had hidden the entrance to the cave. Behind a grandfather clock.
He walked over to the table by the front door. Out of the drawer he picked up a remote and
pointed it towards the clock. The clock slowly faded away and revealed a steel door with a key
pad next to it. He had it set up so that the clock would reappear three minutes after he entered.
He walked towards the door. He punched in the numbers 91939 and the door slid open. 91939.
He had watched an old episode of the Justice League cartoon and those were the numbers HE
had used. He started to walk down the stairs.
He had every comic, every book, every movie and every TV show that had to do with Batman.
Even before his mother was killed, he had been his favorite. The stories his great-grandmother
had told him about the Batman when he was little had always been the best ones. Every
Christmas and birthday she would give him some kind of Batman related gift. It was sometimes
a comic CD, sometimes a movie DVD and sometimes a t-shirt, so he could pretend to be him. If
she only knew.
He always liked him the best because he had no powers. He couldn't fly. He couldn't see
through walls. He didn't have super strength or super speed. All he had was his intelligence, his
planning, his fighting ability, his wealth and resources, and his sheer will to do it. He wanted to
make sure no one would have to suffer what he did. That there would be justice for those who
were weak. He didn't get it completely as a child. He just thought he was cool. Then that all
changed. One mad man with a bomb had seen to that. After that night he didn't just think he was
cool anymore. Now he understood. Now he knew the rage inside, the need to do something. He
got it that night. He knew he could do it. He had the same resources and money behind him. He
knew he had to do it.
As he entered the bunker, the motion sensors switched on the lights. He sat in the chair in front
of the wide array of monitors and large plasma screens and watched the information of police
transmissions and news casts go by. He touched the screen where the little mail sign was. It was
a charity event. It was for the children's hospital. A banquet and ball two nights from now on
Saturday. He hated these functions. The majority of the people who attended were vapid and just
out to prove how much money they had. It was like a contest to see who was the biggest
contributor.
He wished he could just send a large currency credit and be done with it. Of course he couldn't.
He had to show. It was expected of him. Everyone always wanted to see who he would attend
with. Tall, handsome, single, trillionaire Daniel Russell always had a gorgeous woman on his
arm. They liked to guess if this would be "the one". He had news for them. None of them would
be. They were just decoration for the part he had to play, just like Bruce Wayne. Someday maybe
he would meet a woman he could share everything with. Superman had Lois Lane. Then again,
he wasn't Superman or Clark Kent. He was Daniel Russell. He was more like Bruce Wayne. If
memory served him right, Bruce never found his Lois. He wanted to believe he would be more
open with his heart though. That he would find her….. someday.
"I took the opportunity to wax the vehicle before you went out tonight."
The voice behind him startled him. Alfred had come down stairs while he was deep in thought.
"I was wondering how on earth you managed to get a scratch that big on the titanium hull?" he
asked with a raise of his plastic eyebrow.
"It wasn't easy," he responded never taking his eyes off the screens.
"I wouldn't think so sir," the android replied.
A police transmission came through talking about a new large drug shipment of HY452. He
knew that drug well. The pushers and the junkies called it 'HIGH'. The other night he had finally
gotten some info on where the shipments were coming from and from who. He got it while
interrogating a dealer on the street. Tonight he was heading to the source of this drug. The supply
was coming from the Mars colony New York 2. The source in his city was located on the Upper
East Side. A man named Alfonse Treeder. Alfonse and him were due for a little….chat.
He got up walked towards the changing room. That's where his "costume' lied. One of many
actually. It was time to change. It was time to go to work. It was time to bring justice.