Free Don't Be a Hero: A Superhero Novel by Chris Strange Page B

supercriminals too, as I recall,” Hayne said as he pulled the girl’s top down to expose her breast. She giggled and tried to bring the glass to her lips, but spilled most of it. Hayne pinched her nipple, and her giggle turned to a gasp. Her friend was dozing, head nodding.
    “Yes, that’s my point,” Morgan said. He put the glass to his lips while he watched Hayne’s groping hands, but he didn’t take a drink. “The US government commissioned a census in the early fifties to find out what occupations metas held. Of the tier four and higher metas, over twenty per cent were professional superheroes or crime-fighters. They estimated another five to ten per cent were supercriminals. And so many of the rest were designing hyper-advanced technology or trying to build cities the likes of which had never been seen before. So the question is this: do metas gain these powers, and then decide to do great or terrible things with them? Or was there something in those people already, something that was just waiting for the chance to make a difference? Something that took the catalyst of nuclear radiation and gave metas the power to change the world.”
    Hayne tightened his grip on the girl’s nipple, and she tried to slap his hand away. Laughing, he gave her one last squeeze before releasing her. She rolled away from him, dropping her glass to the wooden floor.
    Hayne let out a noise that was half-grunt, half-sigh, and drained his glass. Holding his hand up in front of him, he frowned. “That’s a hell of a wine,” he slurred.
    “Think about it. No animal has ever been discovered with superpowers. Only humans are affected.” He swilled his wine. “Hero or criminal, I believe all metas became metas because they have something in common. No meta’s subconscious—his id, as it were—is content to just let life happen, to ‘go with the flow’, as they say. They shape themselves, and then they shape the world around them. They all share one deeply-held belief, a belief so buried they might not even know they possess it.” He pushed himself to his feet. “Carpe omnia.”
    Hayne doubled over, clutching his head in both hands. “Carpey what? Morgan, I ain’t feeling so good.”
    “I know.” Morgan lifted up the couch cushion and pulled out the object he’d concealed there before he went to the bar. It was white and shaped somewhat like a small handgun, with a needle encased within a cage in the barrel. “Although sometimes I wonder whether you were ever truly ‘good’, William.”
    “What you talking about?” Hayne tried to stand up, but he collapsed to the floor on his hands and knees. The two Thai girls were motionless now, aside from the slow rise and fall of their chests. They would have bad hangovers for a day or two, but the drug he’d slipped into the rice wine wouldn’t do them any serious damage.
    “Never mind,” Morgan said. He flipped the safety switch on the gun, and the needle protruded out of the protective cage. As he brought the injector gun down towards Hayne’s bulging neck veins, he exhaled. “Just remember what you used to be.”
    But before he could make the injection, his muscles froze. What? What’s happening? Dimly, the realisation came to him. His disease. No! Not now. Morgan’s limbs tensed of their own accord, sending little bolts of electricity through his body.
    Then white hot pain shot through Morgan’s head. A scream tore through him as his vision went red and spotted. For the love of God, not yet. His head swirled like a merry-go-round, and the injector dropped from his hand. His hands and arms curled, muscles seizing. No!
    He wrenched his eyes open, and a metal-plated fist collided with his jaw. A new wave of pain crashed through him. He flew back and smashed into a table, breaking it in two. His brain scrambled to deal with the twin assaults, both internal and external.
    “You son of a bitch,” Hayne’s voice growled through the fog. “What the hell did you do to