Legacy (7 page)

The pain grew worse and he hunched over, explosions of color expanding before his eyes.

“Hold on,” the Raptor said, removing something from one of the many compartments that hung from his belt. “This should help.”

The superhero held a hypodermic needle, and before Lucas could react, he plunged the needle into Lucas’s arm. Instantly, relief flooded through Lucas, but his eyes grew incredibly heavy.

“Promise you’ll teach me everything I need to know to hurt them,” he said, reaching out to grip his father’s arm. “Promise me.”

“I promise,” the Raptor said as Lucas surrendered to the embrace of darkness.

Lucas was dreaming.

In this dream, he left his bed, drawn by the delicious aroma of bacon cooking. He shuffled into the kitchen and found his mother standing at the stove, turning the sizzling meat in a frying pan.

Lucas didn’t care for bacon that was too crispy, and he certainly didn’t like his mother that way. He stared at her as she worked at the stove, her body black and still smoldering.

And suddenly he had to wonder, was it the bacon he smelled?

Or was it the burning body of his mother?

He came awake with a yelp.

He was lying in an enormous bed, his naked body
covered by cool silk sheets. Lucas looked around in a rush of panic. The room was huge, bigger than his and his mom’s entire mobile home, and filled with big pieces of heavy wooden furniture.

And then it all came back to him.

He remembered his father, who he was.

Shifting on the bed, he felt a sting in his arm and looked to see that he was hooked up to an IV bag hanging on a bracket over his bed, dripping clear fluid into his vein. He reached over and carefully pulled the needle from the bend in his arm, dropping it onto his pillow. He maneuvered himself into a sitting position and threw his legs over the side of the big bed, letting his feet touch the floor.

He felt different.

Lucas studied his legs, arms, and stomach, not quite understanding what he was seeing. His body seemed harder, more muscular. It reminded him of some of his friends who spent way too much time at the gym.

He saw a mirror across the room and sprang off the bed toward it.

“Oh my God,” he whispered, staring at his reflection. It was like he’d been given a whole new body. He’d always wanted to look this way, muscular and cut, but he’d never had the discipline.

Lucas quickly looked back at the bag of liquid that had been draining into his arm, wondering if there was a connection. He decided it was high time for some answers.

A bathrobe and a pair of sweatpants were slung over a wingback chair in the corner of the room. He quickly dressed and went to the closed door. He feared it might be
locked, but it wasn’t, and he turned the knob, stepping out of the room into a long, curving hallway.

“Hello?” he called out, his voice sounding strange in the silence.

He walked toward a staircase at the opposite end of the hall and peered over the banister. The house seemed to be enormous.

“Hello?” he called out again, but still got no response.

Lucas went down the stairs and found himself in a large foyer. The floor was marble, and the furniture looked antique. On a circular table in the center of the hall, he noticed a vase of dead flowers and a thick coating of dust. In fact, dust coated just about everything.

As if nobody lived here.

He walked over to the large wooden front door and opened it, stepping outside. The air was cool, and he pulled his bathrobe tighter around him as he turned around and took a look at where he’d ended up.

“Holy crap,” he muttered, walking backward to try to fit the view in. He was outside a mansion; that was the only way to describe it. It reminded him of one of those old English manors he’d seen in movies about British royalty. The home was huge, with lush, green grounds on either side, and beyond them, thick woods.

His curiosity stoked, he went back inside, strolling from the dusty foyer into what appeared to be a parlor; it was hard to tell because the furniture in this room was covered with long white sheets.

Across the parlor was an open doorway, which led to a sunroom with glass doors looking out onto a patio.

Lucas was drawn to the view.

Swinging the glass doors open, he stepped outside, gazing out over more woods and a pristine blue lake to an almost dreamlike vision of a city barely visible through a heavy fog.

Seraph City, he guessed as a warm breeze flowed across the lake, dispersing some of the mist.

“An amazing view, isn’t it?” asked a familiar voice behind him.

Lucas turned to see Clayton Hartwell wheeling a cart through the doorway onto the patio, cane tucked beneath one arm.

“Thought you might want some breakfast,” he said.

Lucas had a million questions, but, enticed by the smell of the food, he decided they could wait. At once he felt an aching emptiness begin to form in the pit of his belly. Like somebody hypnotized, he walked to the glass-topped table, pulled out a chair, and sat down.

Hartwell lifted the metal covers from the various plates on the cart. “I’ve got scrambled eggs, cereal, toast, sausages, and grapefruit,” he said. “Help yourself.”

Within seconds, Lucas had filled a plate to overflowing and was eating as though it would be his last meal.

“How is it?” Hartwell asked, hanging his cane from the edge of the table as he sat down across from the boy. He was dressed in his usual dark attire, his white hair slicked back.

“Good,” Lucas said through a mouthful of eggs and toast.

“It’s been a while since I’ve cooked anything. I’m surprised it’s edible,” Hartwell said with a chuckle.

Lucas poured some orange juice from a glass carafe.
“You made this? Don’t you have any maids or butlers or anything?”

“No, it’s just me.” His father smiled. “As my life grew more … complicated, I found myself having less to do with Clayton Hartwell and more to do with the Raptor. Eventually I thought it best to let the staff go, and I’ve been living here alone in the mansion’s lower levels.”

Lucas refilled his plate with even more food, then glanced at Hartwell sheepishly. “Sorry,” he apologized. “I’m just really hungry.”

“That’s perfectly normal for your condition,” Hartwell said.

“My condition?” Lucas asked before taking a bite of his third piece of toast. “Are you talking about my body?”

“I thought you would have noticed,” Hartwell said.

Lucas nodded. “Well, I’ve never had muscles like this before.”

“That’s because the nanites in your blood weren’t fully activated until now.”

“Nanites?” Lucas repeated, his skin suddenly itchy.

“I guess I should probably start at the beginning.” Hartwell poured a cup of coffee from a silver pot.

“Your mother and I were involved in a serious relationship, but one that became strained by my revealing to her that I was the Raptor.” He poured a splash of milk into the dark liquid and stirred it with a silver spoon. “When she became pregnant, she left me.” Hartwell sipped his coffee, staring out into space.

“And what does that have to do with these … nanites
you mentioned?” Lucas asked. He grabbed half a grapefruit and began to devour it.

“As she feared for her … our baby’s safety, so did I.” Hartwell paused as if considering his words before continuing. “And the last time we were together, unbeknownst to her, I injected her with the nanites—microscopic machines programmed to ensure the health of our unborn child.”

“Microscopic machines?’ Lucas asked incredulously.

Hartwell nodded. “It’s why you didn’t die during the trailer park attack.”

It suddenly started to make sense to Lucas. “And why I didn’t die when I got stabbed.”

Hartwell looked at him, head cocked. “You were stabbed?”

“I’ll tell you later. Go on,” Lucas urged.

“The nanites were programmed to activate only when your life was in danger,” Hartwell continued. “They would be undetectable until then.”

“Is that what’s making me so hungry?” Lucas asked, spearing four sausages with his fork and shaking them onto his plate.

“Exactly,” Hartwell confirmed. “The nanites need fuel. If you didn’t eat, they would be forced to consume muscle and body mass while trying to fix you.”

Lucas gazed again at himself, at his new body. “They did this?”

“They did,” Hartwell answered. “They were fully activated during the attack at the trailer park and have made you stronger than you’ve ever been before. The nanites have brought you as close to physical perfection as possible.”

“I can’t believe this,” Lucas said. “It’s all completely
crazy.” He was staring at his hands, imagining tiny machines flowing through his blood like trucks speeding down a highway. “Where did they come from?”

“Scientists employed by Hartwell Technologies,” his father explained. “I’ve utilized many aspects of their research in my war against crime. One of the earliest versions of their performance-enhancing drugs is even in my blood.”

“Then how can you be dying?” Lucas asked point-blank. “If these drugs made you perfect …?”

“The earliest versions of these drugs didn’t work as well,” the old man said. “My older system can’t handle the strain anymore and is breaking down.”

“Isn’t there anything you can do?”

The old man nodded. “Yes, and I did it,” he said. “I found you.”

Nightmarish images of the trailer park massacre flashed through Lucas’s mind, temporarily shutting down his appetite. “What about the park?” he asked.

“It’s been more than two weeks since it happened,” Hartwell said.

“Two weeks?” Lucas was shocked by the amount of time that had passed.

“While you were unconscious,” Hartwell continued, “the authorities investigated the incident at the trailer park and determined that it was just a horrible accident. A faulty propane tank exploded, setting off a chain reaction that destroyed the park.”

“An accident?” Lucas repeated in disbelief.

“Explanations like that help people hide from the reality of the world they actually live in,” Hartwell explained.

“Is anyone looking for me?” Lucas asked. “Or do they figure I burned up with everybody else?”

“Sorry to say, but you’re dead now,” the older man said with finality. “To the outside world, Lucas Moore died in a terrible fire caused by a freak accident.”

Lucas felt his eyes begin to well up with emotion. It wasn’t every day that you were told you had died.

His father reached over from his chair and placed a powerful hand on his shoulder.

“I know how this feels,” he said with a slight nod.

“What, did you die too?”

The man’s expression became very serious. “In a way I did,” he said. “It was very early in my career as the Raptor, and let’s just say it changed my view of the world, and of the evil in it.”

Now Lucas’s curiosity was piqued. “What happened?” he asked.

“People died because of my carelessness,” Hartwell said, pulling his hand from Lucas’s shoulder. “Taken away in the flash and roar of an explosion. And on that day, the Raptor the world knew died as well … and a new Raptor was born.”

Lucas could see that his father didn’t want to talk about it anymore, that the memory was too painful. He recalled his own horrors—images of his attackers riding on their hovering vehicles, death rays cutting through the darkness. He felt himself grow angry.

“So you’re saying that I died and have been reborn.”

Hartwell nodded. “Yes, you have.”

“That’s good,” Lucas said. “So when will I get a chance to go after the guys who killed my mother?”

Hartwell stood up from his chair, retrieving his cane. “You’re not there yet,” he said. “There’s still a great amount of training you will need to undergo to prove to me that you’re capable of taking on the mantle of the Raptor.”

He slid the chair into the table.

“There’s a chance you might never be ready,” he added grimly.

“I’ll be ready,” Lucas said with an assured nod. “I’ve been reborn.”

His father laughed as he turned.

“We’ll see,” he said, limping from the patio. “By the time I’m done with you, you’ll probably be wishing you’d stayed dead.”

The days became weeks, and the weeks flowed into months, but it seemed like years to Lucas as he came to truly understand his father’s cryptic words.

At least ten times a day, when his body was screaming from exertion and his muscles burned and trembled as he forced them to their limits and beyond, a small part of him did wish he had died that fateful night at the trailer park.

But then he would remember his mother, and Mrs. Taylor, and even Fluffles, and somehow he would find within himself the ability to push his body that much further.

Someone had to avenge them.

And that someone was going to be him … if Hartwell ever finished with his damn training.

His schooling was relentless—multiple forms of hand-to-hand combat, military history, weapons training, advanced first aid. It just went on and on, until his brain was so
crammed with information that he was sure nothing else could possibly fit.

But there was always something more to learn, always some new way to disarm an opponent or defuse an explosive device, so his training continued.

Lucas actually started to believe that his father was some sort of machine. In a world where costumed heroes existed, why not? Here was a man, in his mid to late fifties at the least, who was dying from some mysterious illness, who often needed a cane to get around, teaching Lucas relentlessly without any signs of growing tired. He couldn’t possibly be human.

But a fire burned in the old man’s eyes, and Lucas hoped that fire would one day—
one day
—burn in his own eyes.

So he went on with it.

And he would hear his father’s oft-repeated words as he struggled to get through the latest lesson.

“You can have the most powerful weapon in the world at your disposal, but if you don’t know how to use it, it’s useless.”

Lucas’s body was that weapon, and this was how he was being trained to use it.

How he was being trained to become more than he was.