A/N: Thank you guys so much for the really nice reviews you all submitted! I am eternally grateful as you can probably tell by the replies I sent to you all! This may have something to do with the fact that I am running on only 4.5 hours of sleep at the moment but who cares! Keep reading – you guys are amazing!
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But he had been far. I often tracked his work. He went all over the world. London, Paris, Milan, Moscow, Hong Kong, Morocco. He dotted about the globe as though hewas running from something though what that was I had no clue. He was never in the same place for too long. Gradually the reports he submitted became fewer and he seemed to do less and less work until eventually, one day, there were no reports from him.
I asked at Hero Command Central for his whereabouts but got no response. One time I was told it was highly confidential. Not even Will's father could find out and he was pretty high up in the chain having taken early retirement for a more sedate office job with good pay and less chance of getting shattered into a million pieces by a meteor hurtling towards Earth.
So I had to give up on finding Warren. I had to move on. I was the head of the biological department at the HCC, wife of Will Stronghold and the mother of a boisterous two year old who was beginning to show signs of his father's power already. I missed knowing what Warren was up to but knew that I had to move on and trust that he was alright.
But he hadn't been and had been in this situation for some time by the time I found out. It had started with some whisperings that there was some new superbug that attacked the gene in heroes and sidekicks alike. It was almost like a cancer, slowly eating away at the gene until you just wasted away. The muscles withered, breathing became difficult and the heart couldn't pump blood very well. It was a slow, painful death.
Then I got a message asking me to try to create a biological way to fight this illness. Chemicals weren't working and it was hoped the answer lay in the plant world. So I scoured the rainforests, the foothills of remote mountains, icy plains and deserts looking for rare, medicinal plants and although I found many and was hailed as the saviour of so many people for finding the plants that cured innumerable illnesses, none of them had an effect on the cancer.
Defeated, I gave up. This cancer, like almost all others, was incurable. It could be slowed down but not stopped and it was fatal to all that contracted it. It was reported that there were cases dating back as early as 2010 and it was 2020 now. Why were we only just hearing about it? The people demanded to know who had been infected, where they were being kept, the usual panicked questions. The HCC was forced to come clean and had to publish a full list of those who had died from the illness already and those who had contracted it. As I read the list I was saddened to see a couple of names I recognised but my heart stopped dead when I reached the middle of the list. In amongst all these strangers there lay the name of my friend.
Warren Peace. Status – critical.
I had demanded to see him. Become hysterical. Raged against my superiors. But nothing had helped. I wasn't allowed to speak to him, talk to him or even write to him but I was allowed regular updates on his condition. This was something he'd had to consent to so it made me slightly happier to let him know that I was thinking of him in these dark times.
And then one time the phone had rang. It was 2am. Will had just stopped The Tiki Man from simultaneously erupting every volcano on the planet and was exhausted. He'd just flown through the window and had thrown his cape on the floor when the tone sounded. Wearily he'd picked it up but suddenly he came very alert. He'd shaken me awake and passed the phone over.
The message was clear. We'd thrown on some clothes. Will had dropped our son off at his parents and had flown us to the hospital where Warren lay dying.