Gods Among Men: Excerpt Chapter 4

So this month is National Novel Writing Month, and I've decided to devote this month to write out a novel idea that I've had for the past year or so.  It's set in a distant future, following in the aftermath of a devastating war between men and super-men.  Following the war, the super-men built a city called Theopolis:  a massive sprawl legislated by a human-run senate, but protected by a league of superheroes.  In this setting, the story focuses on Troy Gaines:  an outsider who uses a teleportation device to pass himself off as a super-hero, with the hopes of joining the Pantheon and becoming a true protector of the city.  To prove his worth, he is sent on a mission to investigate the disappearances of key personnel.  After snooping around for a bit, he has the following encounter.

This is still a work in progress, and is quite rough.

Additional information and progress can be accessed through my NaNoWriMo profile.

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                Troy stopped at a café for lunch, and was enjoying a hot beef sandwich served au jus, with a side of home fries and peas.  As he dipped his sandwich in the savory sauce, he relaxed and watched the people on the street as they passed by.  There were no shortages of pretty girls on the boulevard.

                Suddenly, a man sat down at the table across from Troy.  Tall, with bulging muscles, the man was easily twice Troy’s size.  A number of red tattoos ordained his ebony skin, accentuating the curvature of his massive biceps.  The stranger had long, mangy black hair that rippled down to his shoulders.  His eyes were dark and wicked, and he had a nasty scar cutting across his cheek down to his jaw.

                Regarding the scary-looking man, Troy smiled and said, “Hello,” before taking a bite of his sandwich.

                Scowling, the stranger spoke with a booming, intimidating voice, “The boss says you’ve been asking too many questions.”

                The threat was all too obvious to Troy; any other man would have likely been frightened by the encounter, and would have given up on the investigation.  Instead, Troy felt a certain giddiness in knowing that he had come so close to the truth that he invoked a reaction.  Whatever villainy was at work, they felt threatened by Troy’s snooping, and they wanted him eliminated.  More importantly, this was Troy’s chance to dig for more information.

                Still smirking, Troy said, “That’s my job.  I hope you’re here to answer some of my questions.”

                “I’m here to shut you up for good,” the man warned.

                “Who sent you? I hope it’s not my ex-girlfriend.”

                Showing off his teeth in an amused smile, the man revealed a set of jagged, sharp dentures.  He said, “Oh, you think you’re a funny man, do you? You’ll be a dead man soon.”

                “Oh my, what big teeth you have,” Troy mocked.

                “That’s nothing,” the man grinned.  He held up his hands, and his fingernails extended to form long, sharp claws. “Now these, are all the better to rip your heart out with.”

                “Who says I have a heart worth ripping out?”

                “Me,” the man growled. “My name is Snipes McBane.  Enemies call me the Wolf.”

                “I can’t imagine why,” Troy said. “Are you a friend of Duran DeLange?”

                “You keep asking questions, I’m going to claw your throat out!”

                “All I see so far is all bark and no bite.”

                “Do you really want to see what I can do? I’ll take a bite out of you!”

                “Not without a little sauce first,” Troy said, hastily throwing the cup of jus at the Wolf.  Steaming hot broth splashed on his face messily, making him scream in irritation.  A deep beastly growl came out of his throat.

                Snipes suddenly thrashed his arms up and knocked the table to the side, throwing off all the food and appliances that were on it.  There were shouts and cries from the people around them, either fleeing or watching the scene with alarm.  Stepping closer, Snipes grabbed Troy by the throat and lifted him off of his chair.  He brought his other hand back and balled it into a fist, ready to strike it hard against Troy’s skull.

                As Snipes took a swing, Troy turned on his teleporter device and vanished.  The enemy’s arm slugged through empty space, with tendrils of blue mist wrapping around his fist.  Swirling around Snipes, the glowing apparition moved behind him, before Troy reappeared.  Flanking his enemy, he swung his foot out and struck Snipes in the back.  The Wolf staggered forward, crashing into a nearby table.

                Whirling, the Wolf grabbed the table he fell on and hurled it at Troy.  With his teleportation, Troy vanished for an instant, allowing the table to fly through his disembodied form.  As he reappeared, the table crashed behind him.

                Regarding his enemy, Troy tried to consider how he could possibly overpower him.  It probably would have been sensible to teleport far away; he fly to the other side of the city in an instant if he wanted to.  He didn’t consider running away to be an acceptable option; he was eager to question Snipes and find out everything he knew.

                Lunging toward Troy, Snipes took a wide swing, threatening to dig his claws into his opponent’s side.  Teleporting for just an instant, Troy evaded the Wolf’s attack, and appeared at his side.  Grabbing a chair from nearby, he swung it at Snipes with all his might.  The enemy blocked the chair with his arm; with a strong downward thrust, he bashed the chair to the ground and smashed it to pieces.

                At that moment, they could hear sirens sounding from the distance.  It was an indication that the nearest patrol of enforcers were on their way, to stop the fight and maintain the peace.  Oblivious to the noise, Snipes rammed himself into Troy.  His fists slammed into Troy’s side as he pushed him into the café’s wall.

                Just as the Wolf swung his fist again, Troy vanished and slipped away as a flowing blue stream.  Snipe’s hand struck the wall with a bone-crunching crack, and he cried out in pain and rage.

                From above, an enforcer patrol vehicle glided over the boulevard and lowered gently.  As it hovered just a few feet off the ground, a pair of enforcers jumped out of the vehicle’s side.  They were dressed in gray and white body armor, and had laser pistols drawn.  Approaching Snipes from the rear, they aimed their guns and ordered, “Freeze!”

                Snarling, the Wolf lunged at the nearest policeman and slammed him against the side of the vehicle.  Punching at the man’s head repeatedly, Snipes knocked the enforcer out, before snatching away his helmet with his claws.

                Flanking Snipes, the second enforcer fired his gun.  A pair of laser beams spat from the gun’s barrel and into Snipe’s side; the beams sent electric pulses rippling through his body, making him convulse.  The guns were usually enough to stun a normal man; as big and strong as the Wolf was, he merely became agitated, and growled at the enforcer.

                Slamming himself into the enforcer, Snipes swiped his clawed hand out at him, and knocked the gun out of his hands.  Thrashing his hands again, Snipes threw the policeman into the side of the vehicle.  It was a strong enough blow to knock the enforcer out.

                Reappearing in front of Snipes, Troy picked up the gun that was knocked away from the enforcer.  Aiming it at the Wolf, Troy turned up the weapon’s power, and said, “Down boy.  You’ve been very naughty.  I’m going to have to put you down.”

                Still seething, Snipes was clearly overcome with a volatile mixture of adrenaline and rage.   He was still cognizant enough to recognize that Troy could still outflank and gun him down, especially with his teleportation powers.  Sneering, the Wolf said, “I’m not telling you anything.”

                “No matter,” Troy shrugged. “The Pantheon can take you in, and they have ways of making you talk.”

                “They’ll never cage me!”

                Snipes suddenly moved, and Troy snapped a shot at him.  The laser beam from his gun missed the Wolf by mere inches; the blast cut the air behind him, singeing some of his long black hair.  The beam continued into the enforcer vehicle, boring a clean, smoldering hole in the metal siding.

                It took an instant for Snipes to climb into the enforcer’s vehicle and move to the front seat.  Taking the controls, he flew the vehicle over the street and accelerated toward the nearest highway.  As the vehicle flew away, Troy aimed with his pistol and snapped another shot.  A bright red beam lanced toward the hovercraft, striking its underside and blowing another hole in its chassis.  A shower of sparks followed, and the vehicle tilted to one side; it was an indication that Troy had struck a vital system.

                Transporting himself, Troy zoomed over the street and flew in tandem with the enforcer vehicle.  He pushed himself fast enough to catch up to it; he brought himself side-by-side with its driver’s side window, and could see Snipes through the glass.  He saw Troy’s disembodied mist, and reacted by veering the hovercraft into him.  The vehicle swerved sharply in the air, passing directly through Troy’s vaporous form.

                The vehicle glided toward a skyscraper; Snipes tried to bank around it, but thanks to the damage the hovercraft sustained from Troy’s gunshot, it was unable to turn effectively.  Striking the side of the building, the vehicle scraped against the concrete wall with an explosion of sparks and flying shrapnel.  Continuing forward, it dived and spiraled toward a highway.

                Raised high above the lower levels of the city, the highway was a major bloodline to the heart of the city.  There were hundreds of cars and light hovercraft speeding along its smooth stone surface.  When the damaged enforcer vehicle slammed into the middle of the highway, several cars immediately struck the wrecked vehicle; one of them rammed straight into the vehicle’s side, crunching its hood in with a shower of broken glass and metal.  Two others struck the crashed ship at odd angles, causing them to flip and vault into the air; they flew for a short distance, before landing hard on the road with earthshattering crunches.  Behind the wrecked vehicles, more cars skidded to a sudden halt, causing more of them to crash into each other.

                Climbing out of the smashed enforcer vehicle, Snipes had a deep gash on his scalp that trickled blood.  He staggered onto the road, disoriented.

                Flying into the scene of the accident, Troy appeared behind Snipes and pressed his gun against the Wolf’s head.  Troy firmly iterated, “It was a nice attempt at escape, but it was completely reckless.  The Pantheon won’t let this carnage go unpunished.”

                “You think this is carnage?” the Wolf scoffed. “You haven’t seen anything yet!”

                “Oh? Tell me what you know then.”

                “You’ll find out soon enough! A plague is coming to this city of gods, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it!”

                Before Troy to inquire any further, Snipes darted forward, and he crossed the median.  Troy reacted by snapping several shots at the Wolf; one of his laser beams grazed his enemy’s leg, burning through the pant leg and drawing blood.  Snipes shouted in pain, but continued to run into highway traffic.

                Stepping into the busy road, he faced an oncoming car.  It skidded to a halt with its horn blaring.  Leaping, Snipes jumped onto the car’s hood, just as it bore down on him.  Running over the car’s roof, he leapt onto another car in the next lane.  Landing on the car’s hood, his body weight crunched the metal inward.  In a panic, the car’s driver slammed on the brakes and sent the car into a skidding turn.  It flung Snipes off of the hood, and he rolled across the street.

                With two stopped cars in the middle of the highway, cars came to a stop and cautiously moved around the vehicles.  One car roared past Snipes; he reached up with a clawed hand and grabbed onto the car’s side door.  As the car sped forward, it dragged the Wolf among; he used his other clawed hand to grip into the car’s side and pull himself up.  He clung to the roof and rode the car further down the highway.

                Teleporting, Troy appeared as a brilliant comet hovering in tandem with the car.  Snipes snarled at the disembodied specter.  Veering into him, Troy materialized for a split-second, to shove Snipes firmly in the chest.  Knocked off of the car, he tumbled off and landed on the hood of another car in the next lane.  It was a strong enough impact to smash in the car’s hood, crippling the engine and forcing the car to slow to a halt.

                Reacting to the accident, other cars slowed and continued around the stopped car.  Troy materialized beside the stopped vehicle.  Seeing him appear out of the blue haze, Snipes immediately ripped open the car’s door and grabbed its driver.  He held up a young blonde girl, who screamed in terror and squirmed against his grasp.

                When Troy came to full human form, he saw the hostage and immediately trained his gun at Snipe’s head.  While the Wolf held up the woman with one hand, he brought his other hand to her throat, with his claws extended.  He warned, “Time for the moment of truth, hero! You could take me in, or you can save this girl!”

                Just a few miles down the road, where the other accidents occurred, sirens rang out, and more enforcer vehicles hovered around the highway.  Troy said, “You’ll never get far.”

                “Then your choice has been made! Catch her if you can!”

                Snipes threw the girl over the side of the highway, with the ease of tossing a rag doll.  Flying over the guardrail, she plummeted through the air to the city blocks hundreds of feet below.  Her scream was shrill and constant, and gradually faded the further she fell.

                Troy had only an instant to react.  He could have taken a shot at Snipes, but he feared that the falling girl would have died by the time he aimed and fired.  Instead, he teleported and raced after the girl.  His vaporous form fell through the road, and he zoomed toward the freefalling figure.  She was halfway to the ground; the buildings beneath them were rising up like teeth, threatening to devour the falling hostage.

                The combination of gravity and speed helped Troy cross over a hundred feet within seconds.   Honing in on the girl, his immaterial form wrapped around her, before he materialized.  It took only a second for him to grab her and teleport again.  Together, they disappeared in mid-fall, turning into a singular stream of glowing particles.

                Troy led them back to the highway, and he materialized on the side of the road next to the wrecked car.  When he reappeared, he released the girl, and she staggered on the ground disoriented and confused.  Once she realized that she was out of danger, she regarded Troy with astonishment and pleaded, “Oh my God, I thought I was going to die!”

                “Oh no, we couldn’t have that,” Troy remarked.

                “Thank you so much, mister! You are a real hero! I owe you my life!”

                Looking around, Troy saw no sign of the Wolf.  As expected, he made a clean escape, and Troy felt disappointed.