Free Forced Betrayal by Robert T. Jeschonek Page A

black leather with a black cape trimmed in gleaming gold. He blasts the monstrosity with searing beams of power projected from his fists and eyes, crackling bolts that make it howl and flinch and pull back with each fresh strike.
    His code name is Stalwart.
    Maybe I shouldn't be surprised to see him, one of the greatest heroes of our age. After all, he triumphed over Pestis, the sentient plague, when all others had failed. He took down Big Bang and Heat Death single-handedly. Only he was hero enough to stop Mt. Slaughter from obliterating the continental shelf. And yet the fact remains.
    He disappeared thirty years ago.
    "Oh my God." I'm overwhelmed. Overloaded with the moment and what it brings up in me. So many feelings, so many questions. I can't process it all.
    "Bonnie?" Hericane squeezes my shoulder. "Are you okay?"
    I shake my head. A thousand questions well up within me, but only one finds its way out. "That thing...is Portcullis?"
    "Not the thing," says Hericane. "The place . This theater . It's where the Surrogates opened the Refraxus in 1987. Now it's a gate to keep the end of the world they summoned from getting in."
    Stalwart unleashes a flurry of beams so bright, I have to shield my eyes. "But I thought the super-heroes stopped the end of the world in '87."
    She shakes her head. "I only said they tried to."
    The creature's screams peak and oscillate. Sections of its gruesome tentacles burst, spraying pus everywhere. Stalwart presses the attack, pushing the mass of the monstrosity back further.
    This isn't making sense. "But the world didn't end in '87."
    "The process started," says Hericane. "The heroes could only slow it down." She gestures at the great beast writhing in the portal. "They couldn't close the Refraxus completely. That thing--the Manifestation of Armageddon--started pushing its way through into our world. If it makes it all the way, it will lay waste to the Earth." She gazes at the monstrosity. "What you see there is just the tip of the iceberg."
    I watch the creature thrash as Stalwart pounds it with his powerful beams. " That --is just the tip ?"
    She nods. "Superhumans have probed beyond the Refraxus. They couldn't find the end of this thing. Some think it might span an entire universe ."
    I feel dizzy. I'm still fighting to process everything. "And Stalwart? He disappeared thirty years ago."
    "He's been here all that time," says Hericane. "He's one of only two superhumans who've ever managed to hold the Manifestation at bay."
    "The other?"
    "My father, Epitome."
    Suddenly, the Manifestation unleashes a deafening roar, and the theater shakes. Bombarded by Stalwart's beams, the monstrosity withdraws through the portal. Stalwart keeps up the pressure the whole time, blasting it right and left, forcing it over the threshold.
    And then the Refraxus snaps shut with a great wind and a thundering crack. The movie screen looks like an ordinary movie screen again. If not for the pus and slime and twitching lumps of flesh splattered all over the stage and rows of seats, it would be like the monster had never been here.
    Instantly, relief floods through me. "It closed."
    "The Refraxus opens and closes on a cycle," says Hericane. "It stays open longer each time. Currently, it stays open fifteen minutes and some odd seconds and stays closed a minute more than that."
    "How long did it stay closed before?" I ask. "In the beginning?"
    She gives me a grim stare. "It stayed open for a minute at a time. It stayed closed for days."
    Just then, a voice calls to us from the front of the theater. "Hey there!" It's Stalwart. Even after the battle he just fought, he hardly sounds winded. "Hericane, is that you?"
    Hericane waves. "Hey, Stalwart. Mind if we talk to you a minute?"
    Stalwart waves for us to join him. "Always happy to have company! Come on down!"
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    *****
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    We're halfway down the aisle when the doors at the back of the auditorium burst open. Looking back, I see Mogul and CEO (in his purple rage