Tales of the Parodyverse

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Spaztic Chyld
Fri Aug 18, 2006 at 01:42:18 am EDT
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The Reluctant Superhero -- PART VII
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PART VII

(This material is Copyrighted by Joseph Gould. Any copying or use of this material without express written consent from the author of this storyline will result in criminal prosecution.)


When Jacob came to, he was in a hospital bed and it was late at night. He sat up, trying to make heads or tails of where he was and what was happening. Vague flashes of people and instances were all that he could manage as he tried to recall how he got to where he was. Two things stood out in his mind as he tried to sort through his thoughts: Jayson was in some sort of trouble and a vague impression of a light bulb with white hair.

A snore from the next bed over brought him back to his current situation. “How the heck did I get here?” he asked himself aloud.

“Officer McFahy found you and brought you straight here,” a voice from the darkness responded, causing Jacob to jump a little, “and it’s a good thing too.” From the shadows of his room, a darkened figure stepped forward. Suddenly, Jacob realized who it was.

“Jayson?”

“Officer McFahy was always getting you out of trouble, if I remember right.” he openly joked, to ease the tension.

“As I recall,” Jacob said, leaning forward and resting his arms on his knees, “it was you who got me into that trouble in the first place. You and your ‘let’s be superheroes’ plans.” Jacob shot back, and then hoped Jayson would have forgotten about his ability to fly all of a sudden.

“Look who’s talkin’ superheroes Mr. Flight.”

“So you do remember…” Jacob trailed off into a ‘could we drop it’ tone.

“Remember?” Jayson came up and sat in a chair next to the bed. “Dude, you’re the reason I’m here…” He looked down in a shameful sort of way and continued, “I guess it is like the old days… I’m the reason why you’re here too.”

“What do you mean? Did you do this to me?”

Jayson looked up, “Man, they musta given you something hard.” Jayson got up and checked the other patient to see if he was really asleep then came back, speaking in hushed tones. “I caught a flight into Seattle the other night and took a stroll through Gasworks. I ran across Officer McFahy and he was babbling about some flying man who had saved this girl who was sitting on the bench in front of him. I had smelling salts on me and brought the girl around. When she told the same story of a flying man, I had to use every bit of my ‘influence’ to convince them that it was a top secret government project and if they told anyone, they could be imprisoned for life for giving out intelligence.”

“Was the girl all right then?” Jacob asked, dismissing for the moment the rest of Jayson’s story.

“Yeah. I think she’ll be all right.”

“She say why she jumped?”

“As a matter of fact, her boyfriend died on that bus accident and she wanted to die where he did.” Jayson smiled at him and suppressed a laugh. “She called you her Angel, but don’t get any ideas about using that name or Marvel may sue.” Now he couldn’t hold it back, and he let out a light laugh under his breath.

“Funny!” Jacob hit him with a pillow. “I don’t plan on doing that again.”

“Bro, if there’s one thing I’ve come to learn in all that I’ve done, you never plan to do anything. Sometimes you just do what you’ve got to do because you know that no one else can.” Jayson was serious and Jacob could tell.

Trying to break away from the flying topic Jacob picked up an earlier part of their conversation. “What do you mean by ‘They,’ Jayson? Who are they and how did I get here?”

“I wish I could Bro, but there’s little I know for myself.” Jacob could tell that he was hiding something from him. Jayson sat back down in the chair and looked him straight in the eye. “What I can tell you is that there are traitors in our midst. By that, I mean in our own government.” He leaned forward and began to whisper, “I know this may sound like something out of some movie, but it’s for real Bro. Remember my last letter? The one about a mission?” He waited for Jacob to nod. “Well, it went through without a flaw and that landed me a job in… Well, let’s just say in government Intelligence. What I found there was a whole other game. I was going to write you, but with things going as they were, it’s best not to let your enemies know you’ve got friends.”

Jacob wasn’t having a hard time believing all of it. Jayson grew up idolizing heroes from his comics and always said one day he’d be a real live GI Joe. But the fact that Jayson wasn’t telling him something made him nervous. He decided to call him on it. “You never could lie to me Jayson.” Jayson made no change in expression at his friend’s accusation. His training had prepared him for these kinds of attacks. “How’d I get involved in all of this? You said that you were responsible for why I was here.”

“I never could lie very well to you.” Jacob looked down and then back up again, “Traitors in our midst Bro… I don’t know why, but I kept that stupid picture you gave me at your fourteenth birthday, sort of a ‘don’t forget where you came from’ token. Anyway, I had it in one of my bags. I was working a job in… well, a ways from here, with a partner. We were supposed to do this job, but he turned out to be a double agent. I had ta bail with what I had and my bags weren’t with me. They must have taken the address from the other side and done taps on your phones and junk…”

Suddenly Jacob remembered the call to meet up at Red Robin. “They knew where we were gonna meet.”

“I was there, but they got sloppy and I recognized on of em and slid out to the parking lot before I was noticed. Just as I was leaving, I saw them jump you.”

“And you didn’t do anything?!” Jacob shot at him angrily.

“There was nothin I could do Bro. Four of them, one of me; do the math.”

“At least you could have…” the lights came on suddenly and the night shift nurse was there.

“Are you family?” she asked very haughtily. “Because if you aren’t, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

Jacob turned to her and smiled innocently, “Didn’t you hear him call me ‘Bro?’” She looked at the two of them, sizing up how different they looked and then pointed to the door. “Will I see you later?” He asked as Jayson got up and walked towards the door.

“If things don’t change… very likely.” Jayson said over his shoulder, as he walked out of the door and out of sight. Something in Jacob wasn’t quite excited about either his parting words or the story he’d just been told.

“Right or left?” the nurse asked, holding up a syringe.

“What is that stuff?”

“A detox agent. Looks like you were drugged pretty good.”





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