Five Moons of Pluto (12 page)

“No Quantum.” Hardwire walks up to his son’s grave and picks up the flowers. The flowers rot in his hand, sizzling to ash with a dark red mist. “Death is the only thing you shall face.”

Hardwire shoots out a red beam from his right fist blasting Quantum to a parked car in the parking lot. Quantum angrily gets up. He feels pain, not much, but enough for him to take notice and touch his chest. His chest is bare. His skin slowly begins to rot but his healing force activates. Skin starts to grow and the burn marks very slowly disappear. Quantum’s healing force never took this long to heal before. He will have to take note of this. Just a fast as Quantum, Hardwire collides into him and together they battle across the sky. Quantum can’t help but be amazed at how quickly David developed the armor. He took his time and calculated every strength and weakness of Quantum.  In the sky, Quantum will have the advantage. He must not know this. so far the offensive capabilities is proving more than adequate at delivering pain. However, Hardwire does not desire pain.

From Queens to 42nd Street in Manhattan the combatants soar then crash. Hardwire is the first and quickest to rise to his feet and fires a double beam using both fists at Quantum. Quantum crosses his arm and shields himself from the blast. Again he flies this time by himself ten blocks down . A MTA bus rockets through the air. Inside, people are screaming, a man vomits on the woman in front of him and a lady smashes her face against a window cracking her skull. Quantum bolts towards the bus and grabs it with his massive arms, but the force is too strong. He glances inside. A woman looks at him, her lips move saying “
Please save us.”
Quantum looks behind and sees that they are heading towards an office building- a bank where a meeting is taking place. Metal bends and makes squeaking sounds as Quantum clutches the bus tighter. He shifts his weight to the left, crashing  through side of the building ripping and shredding his skin tight yellow and black costume, exposing most of his impeccable physique. As the bus smashes through, Quantum watches as people look in shock, and who wouldn’t, a bus has just crashed through a twenty-fifth floor office building. Quantum, what little control he gets, uses his body to brace the impact. The bus slides uncontrollably while Quantum is sandwiched between the train and the pavement. The bus slows down to a complete stop in front of a Ray’s pizza shop. Quantum lifts up the bus just enough to climb from underneath it. He gently puts it down and rips open a hole wide enough for the passengers to escape. The passengers push and shove to escape the hellish ride.

“Hurry, get somewhere safe,” says Quantum breathing heavily.

A woman screams as she points up towards the sky. Two more buses soar towards him filled with passengers. Quantum, exhausted and tired, quickly wipes off the pieces of rubble and dirt off his face. The world around Quantum slows down as he uses his incredible speed to rip out four lamp poles. The bus moves slowly in mid air giving Quantum a better accuracy. He aims and quickly throws all four lamp poles. Each one hits it’s target crashing through the side window of the bus. The curved ends of the lamps hooks onto the bus. The force of the throw pushes the bus towards a building. With the help of the lamp poles being embedded into the building, the bus hangs there twenty-five stories high. For the people are safe. Quantum sets his eyes on the second bus. Quantum simply flies towards the bus and gently lays it down on the ground. Time resumes and Hardwire lands a powerful blow to the back of Quantum's head send him down to the pavement. Hardwire him picks him and bear hugs him. Hardwires body begins to glowing dark red. The surrounding area begins to slowly rot away. some civilians are caught in the decaying mist. They melt away like butter on a hot griddle. Quantum’s skin begins to melt. His golden hair slowly turns black and the wind carries it away. metal rusts, trees wither away and buildings crumble as Quantum watches.

“Enough. people are dying,” says Quantum in agony.

“So be it.”

Quantum sees that his only option is the most dangerous one. He has no desire of doing it but he is all out of options. However, more people could get hurt, even die. Quantum sees a young boy not much younger than Jacob. His foot is caught underneath a slab of concrete rubble. The dark red mist is approaching the young boy. Quantum has made his decision. He flies straight up into the sky above the clouds as his face begins to melt.

“Please stop now,” said Quantum, with slurred speech.

Hardwire ignores his request and continues.

Quantum stops in mid air a few thousand feet. From above the outline of manhattan can be seen. Quantum charges up and glows bright yellow like the sun. Quantum has used this very technique to wipe out an entire army on Mars. However, he nearly destroyed the planet. Heatwaves begins to emit from the armor from the extreme heat. Hardwire releases his grip but Quantum grabs him pressing the side of his face to the hot metal. From below people look up at what appears to be a small sun. They cover their eyes from the bright light.

“let me go,” screams Hardwire.

The metal armor glows red from the severe heat. David screams in pain from the heat but is blocked out by Quantum’s as he powers up for more. Hardwires arms falls to his side. One of his robotic eyes cracks then breaks. Quantum’s feels his lifeless arms and ceases his attack. They both crash down in the middle of Chambers street in front of City Hall. The crater reaches from both side of the street. Police officers, firefighters and paramedics quickly arrive blocking off both ends of the street and moving civilians away from the danger zone. Heatwave rises from the crater. Quantum peels his face off of Hardwires chest. Blood and melted skin oozes off. Quantum staggers to his feet. Officers run to his aid but he holds out his hand signaling them to stay back. The sounds of twisting and scrapping metal comes from the crater. Quantum turns and sees David’s body exposed inside the armor. His body is scorched and blackened. A slow and low scream escapes from the mouth as if it was trapped during the final moments of David’s death.  No one could tell who this person was by looking at it but Quantum does, he’s the father of Jacob, the man who had every right to take Quantums life, the only man who came close to killing him. Quantums Healing force activates and again his wounds heal and his golden hair returns. Quantum steps back down into the crater and picks up the corpse and flies off.

Snow falls softly onto the stones of the dead. Quantum replaces the dead flowers with fresh ones on the graves of the father and son who he killed. He’s out of his costume and looks more like a regular guy wearing fitted jeans, leather boots and a thick turtle neck sweater. Quantum watches as the snow begins to blanket the flowers. His thoughts travel back to his heroic deeds of saving planets form an evil tyrant and vanquishing a giant in another dimension. Quantum is broken out of his thoughts by the cold snow on his head. He wipes it off and gazes one last time at the graves of the innocent. Quantum walks past a garbage can as he exits the graveyard and throws the dead flowers in.
Todays newspaper lay beside the flowers and an empty water bottle. The headline reads:
Day fifty-five. The disappearance of Quantum.
The snow has become thicker and has captured each step that Quantum has taken right up to the edge of a cold lake where the footprints disappears.

THE END