The Sidekicks Initiative Read online

  The Sidekicks Initiative

  Barry J. Hutchison

  Zertex Media Ltd

  Copyright © 2018 by Barry J. Hutchison

  Published by Zertex Media Ltd

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  For Steve Ditko

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  EXTRACT FROM THE DEATH RECORDS OF JOHN HITLER (AKA KAPITAN NAZI)

  AUTHOR’S NOTES

  Your Free Starter Library

  One final thing…

  Also by Barry J. Hutchison

  Chapter One

  All those watching on television saw the exact moment when Grunk, Warrior King of the Morruks, realized he had made a mistake.

  It was not the moment when he first clawed his way out of the wide crack he’d made in a downtown Cityopolis street, leading his small but terrifying army of hard-shelled under-dwellers in an assault on the overworld.

  It was not when he laughed off the bullets of the lone police officer who had the misfortune of being first on the scene, or when he ripped the poor cop’s arms off and bludgeoned him unconscious with the elbows.

  It was not even when the streak of red spandex came rocketing toward him along the canyon of tower blocks, blue cape fluttering in its wake. Although, those looking closely enough might have spotted a flicker of concern playing briefly across the monster’s craggy features at this point.

  But no.

  The moment that Grunk, Warrior King of the Morruks truly realized quite how grave a miscalculation he had made came three-thousandths of a second after that, when a man with the power to push the moon out of orbit kicked him squarely in the balls.

  Doc Mighty, defender of the innocent, champion of justice, sworn protector of Cityopolis had arrived. And the crowd, as usual, went wild.

  To say he lapped up the adoration would be unfair. He acknowledged it with grace, brevity, and a smile so dazzling it was practically a superpower all of its own, and then he got on with the business of being a hero.

  Moments before, the frightened citizens had been fleeing in panic. Now, they stood their ground, watching and cheering, safe in the knowledge that their champion would protect them.

  Many of them laughed and pointed at Grunk, Warrior King of the Morruks, who was now several hundred feet in the air and still rising, his mighty slab-like hands clutching his groin. None of the onlookers had Doc Mighty’s enhanced hearing, so only he could pick up Grunk’s high-pitched whimpers drifting down on the breeze.

  The Morruks had all danced this dance before, and very likely knew that the next few moments held pain, humiliation, and not a whole lot else. To their credit, they performed their parts with gusto, several of them charging at Doc Mighty with their armored shells fully deployed, while a few more moved to grab themselves some hostages.

  Considering they were all lumbering foot soldiers from a race of underground savages, Doc Mighty appeared almost impressed by this tactical decision. The Morruks were usually villains of the ‘Let’s all just rush him at once, lads!’ variety, so it was refreshing to see them branching out into something less obvious.

  Unfortunately for the would-be hostage-takers, by the time they reached their targets, every single one of them had been carried to safety by a streak of red and blue.

  The safety in question was a rooftop café several blocks away, where they had been deposited at a table with a pitcher of ice-cold drinks and a note that read: ‘This one’s on me, citizens. Doc.”

  That done, he returned to the scene, whisked the fallen cop off to the nearest hospital, tucked him in, brought him some ice water, then rushed back.

  The Morruks, who had never been particularly gifted when it came to improvisation, spent the second and a half that Doc Mighty was away sort of standing around in confusion, wondering what they should do.

  Luckily, the decision was taken out of their hands upon Mighty’s return, when he flew through them like a bowling ball through pins. Or, more accurately, like a rocket-powered bowling ball through soft-boiled eggs.

  A shocked silence fell over the crowd as several intact Morruks went up… and then several dozen distinct and separate Morruk parts came back down again.

  For a moment, the whole of Cityopolis seemed to hold its breath as Doc Mighty alighted amidst the carnage, his cape billowing behind him.

  Raising an eyebrow, Mighty regarded the twitching Morruk parts, before giving a satisfied nod. He turned to the silent crowd, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

  “Steeeee-rike!” he announced.

  There was a scream from behind him as Grunk, Warrior King of the Morruks, smashed into the street like a meteorite.

  And with that, the crowd went wild. They whooped and clapped and stamped their feet in approval. The Morruks would pull themselves back together, they knew—they always did. But that didn’t matter. The good citizens of Cityopolis were safe. They were always safe. Doc Mighty had come from the stars, but he had chosen Cityopolis as his home, and the forces of evil were powerless against him.

  In moments, the chant rose up—“Mighty! Mighty! Mighty!”—and the usual scramble of reporters rushed to snatch up any pearls of wisdom that might tumble from the hero’s perfect mouth.

  “Look out for one another,” had been a favorite of late, although he’d also been experimenting with a humble half-smile and a sincere, “Just doing my job.”

  If they were lucky, they might hear one of his rare warnings to any supervillains watching from their evil lairs, reminding them that Cityopolis was not only under his protection, but the protection of the entire Justice Platoon, and that evildoers should think twice before trying any of their shenanigans in the future.

  And yes, he often used the word ‘shenanigans,’ and not even in an ironic way.

  “Doc Mighty! Jodie Malone, Cityopolis News Online,” announced a woman in a lime-green suit that she somehow managed to successfully carry off.

  Mighty nodded politely and smiled down at her. “I know who you are, Ms. Malone. I’m a fan of your work.”

  “Thank you, Doc. And I can safely say we’re all big fans of yours,” the reporter replied, eliciting more cheering from the crowd. “Do you have anything to say to the people at home?”

  Doc Mighty, defender of Cityopolis—and the world—smiled sincerely straight down the lens of the camera. “Stay in school, kids,” he announced. “And don’t do drugs.”

  Sam Summers flicked his eyes to the wall-mounted TV for only the second or third time since the footage of Doc Mighty’s latest city rescue had started to roll.

  “Stay in sch
ool? Jesus. He’s gone back to using that?” Sam muttered. “What is this, the nineties?”

  He lowered his gaze to his own screen and resumed typing as the report cut back to the studio. A superimposed box in the top right corner of the TV continued to show the hero repairing the cracks in the street by melting the edges together with his Plasma Vision.

  Sam’s colleagues—nine of them in all, six of whose names he didn’t know—had jumped up from their desks when the report had first started, gawped and cheered as Mighty’s heroics played out, and now hurriedly returned to their terminals before Dirk came out of his office and caught them slacking off.

  The guys were generally approving of Mighty’s performance, discussing it like they might discuss a big football game, suggesting strategies they themselves might have employed had they found themselves in the same situation, and if they’d somehow become the single most powerful entity on the face of the Earth.

  The women were more breathless about it all, two of them practically giddy with excitement. Only Stella, the oldest of the team, was critical of Mighty’s performance. Not as critical as she’d been of Sam’s own performance in the storeroom during the office party a few months back, mind you. He’d had to explain he was still emotionally fragile after the divorce, that he’d had too much to drink, and that, honestly, this had never happened to him before.

  After he’d burst into hot, embarrassed tears and projectile vomited down her partially exposed back, they’d both agreed never to speak of it again and, as far as Sam knew, Stella had never uttered a word about it to anyone. Probably for her own sake, as much as his.

  “I mean, it was OK,” she said, taking her seat two desks along from Sam. She was beside Romesh, whose name Sam had made a point of learning in case not knowing it would one day make him look like a big racist. “I’m not saying there was anything wrong with it, exactly…”

  “He saved us from mollusks,” said one of the guys who’d made most of the football comparisons Sam hadn’t really understood.

  “Morruks,” Sam corrected, not looking up.

  “No, I know he did, and I’m grateful for it, don’t get me wrong,” said Stella. “Just… where’s the pizazz, you know?”

  One of the other guys whose name Sam didn’t recall snorted. He was the youngest of the team, vegan, and cycled everywhere on a folding bike made of bamboo. Sam had felt a near-overwhelming urge to dislike him immediately but had decided to give him the benefit of the doubt.

  Which turned out to be the wrong call. He was a dick, there were no two ways about it. Sam suspected he hadn’t learned the guy’s name almost as a sort of protest against his very existence.

  “Pizazz?” the unnamed co-worked sneered.

  Stella blinked very slowly and deliberately in the guy’s direction. “Yes. Pizazz. It’s a real word, not like your stupid LOLs and Twitterers and Fo Shizzles, or whatever it is you lot say.”

  “Jesus, how old are you?”

  Sam flicked his eyes to Stella for a moment, trying to figure out the answer to this question himself. It had kept him wondering for a while now. She’d mentioned kids a couple of times, but in a way that suggested they’d all flown the nest. Forty-five, maybe? Fifty-five? He’d never been good with ages.

  Sixty-five? Christ, he hoped not.

  “Old enough to give you a clip around the ear,” Stella said. “I’d just have liked some more whooshing about. I like it when he whooshes about.”

  There was a general murmuring of agreement that suggested everyone liked it when Doc Mighty whooshed about.

  The conversation clattered to a halt, and everyone got back to typing as the door to the manager’s office opened and Dirk emerged. He clutched his World’s Best Boss mug like it was a cherished and hard-earned award, rather than something he’d bought for himself in a thrift store back when he’d first been promoted.

  Dirk had the appearance and demeanor of a boxer a decade past his prime. He was mostly solid, but with a paunch around his belly and some drooping under his jaw. He didn’t have a Roman nose so much as a roaming one. It meandered crookedly down his pock-marked face, bent out of shape from a punishing history of hooks and jabs.

  Stopping at the end of the row of desks, Dirk pushed out an ear. One of the lower buttons of his shirt had come undone, revealing a diamond of hairy stomach. The stench of his cheap cologne wafted along the row of desks like a creeping fog of cedarwood-scented testosterone.

  Dirk closed his eyes and let his head tilt from side to side as if detecting music in the rhythm of everyone’s typing. “That’s what I like to hear,” he said, sniffing deeply. “Everyone hard at work, being productive. Definitely not all gathering around the TV to watch Doc Mighty do his thing on company time. No, sir.”

  He slurped from his mug and smacked his lips together—Aaah. One hundred fingers and thumbs continued to type.

  “Good though, wasn’t it?” he said, jabbing a thumb in the direction of the TV screen. “You know what I like about him? About Mighty?”

  He cast his gaze along the long row of desks, like a teacher deciding which student to pick on today. “Kara?”

  Sam followed Dirk’s gaze and made a mental note as to which one Kara was. He was a little dismayed to discover she was the young-ish black woman he’d been calling ‘Carol’ for the past four months.

  “Huh?” said Kara. “I mean… sorry?”

  “Do you know what I like about Doc Mighty?” Dirk asked again, speaking slowly as if addressing a child.

  “Uh, no. I don’t know,” she admitted, looking around at her colleagues for help, but finding none forthcoming. “His cape?”

  “His…? No, not his cape. Jesus, Kara, do I look like a child?”

  Kara gave a nervous chuckle.

  Dirk waited.

  “Oh, was that an actual…? No. You don’t look like a child.”

  Dirk puffed himself out a little, before continuing. “I like that he’s not afraid to take the cheap shots. All the power in the world and he has no qualms about just kicking a guy in the nuts. Just right in Peter Enis and the plums. You gotta respect that. Right, Sammy?”

  Sam missed a digit on his keypad and had to backspace to correct it. He thought about correcting Dirk, too, pointing out that he always went by ‘Sam,’ and never ‘Sammy,’ but they’d had that conversation four or five times now without anything productive ever coming of it, so he chose to save the energy.

  “I guess so,” he said, not taking his eyes off the screen.

  “Boom!” Dirk proclaimed. Nobody really knew why. “Sammy gets it. Sammy totally gets it.” He mimed kicking someone in slow-motion. Presumably in the balls, although it was hard to tell without knowing the height and position of the imaginary recipient.

  That done, Dirk took another slurp from his World’s Best Boss Mug, told everyone to, “Carry on,” then about-turned in the direction of his office.

  He clicked his fingers. All along the row, everyone bristled and held their breath.

  “Oh! One other thing,” he said, turning back. “Stella, I need you to come in tomorrow.”

  Nine people, including Sam, exhaled with relief. Their fingers continued to clack across their keys.

  “I can’t,” said Stella. “My grandson’s in a play.”

  Sam let out an involuntary squeak. Grandson?! Jesus.

  “What’s that got to do with anything?” Dirk asked. “No one’s making you go.”

  “But I want to go,” Stella told him.

  This proved a difficult concept for Dirk to get his head around. “You want to go?”

  “Yes.”

  “To a kids’ play?”

  “He’s hardly a kid. He’s twenty-three.”

  Twenty-three?! Sam grimaced behind his screen and felt his cheeks flush red.

  “And yes, I want to go.”

  “Well, you can’t. Sorry. I need you,” Dirk told her.

  Sam glanced along the row and saw the defeat on Stella’s face. He groaned inwardly, knowing h
e should keep his head down, but also painfully aware he wasn’t going to.

  “You can’t just order her to come in,” he piped up.

  All around the island of desks, the sound of typing faltered. Dirk’s shoes creaked as he turned in Sam’s direction.

  “What was that?”

  “No. It’s just… Regulations. You know, like employment law? She doesn’t have to… I mean, you know? If she doesn’t want to,” Sam said, his chest tightening with every word. He licked his lips, which were suddenly very dry. “That’s all I was saying.”

  “Oh, that was all you were saying, was it?” asked Dirk. He clicked his tongue against the back of his teeth a few times. “Right. I see. Well here’s all I’m saying—that big contract came through. The one you and I spoke about? We need someone to do the old…” He mimed typing with one hand. “So, if Stella can’t do it, then fine. You can do it, right?”

  “What contract? We didn’t… I mean, I don’t remember…” Sam shook his head, more as an admonishment to himself than as a refusal. “I can’t. I have my son tomorrow. It’s my weekend.”

  Dirk’s mug froze halfway to his lips. “Sammy. It’s the big contract.”

  “No, I know, it’s just… It’s my weekend.”

  “We spoke about it.”

  Sam didn’t think they had spoken about it, in fact, but he didn’t really want to go there.

  “If it was any other weekend…” he said. He fished in his jacket pocket and pulled out a bright blue soft toy. “I got him this. It’s his favorite color.”