“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.
Trained to become the next Raptor.
The alarm clock began to chime, and Lucas let out a moan.
He felt as if he had just gone to bed, after a particularly grueling day that had dragged on into the early hours of morning.
Something has to be wrong, he thought, lifting his face from his pillow to squint at the clock across the room on his dresser.
5:00 a.m.
It couldn’t be. How could that even be possible? He’d just closed his eyes what felt like five minutes before.
But he knew it wasn’t wrong; the night had passed so quickly because he’d gone to bed only three hours earlier. Fearing his fate if he ignored the alarm, Lucas rolled onto his back and hauled his tired, aching carcass from the bed.
The one time he’d ignored the alarm and gone back to sleep had been a total nightmare. The training had been three times as grueling and had gone on through the night until the next morning, when it had started all over again.
He didn’t want to chance a repeat of that.
Throwing on some sweats and a T-shirt, he left his room, heading down in the elevator to the gymnasium, in one of Hartwell Manor’s many underground levels.
Lucas wondered what kind of abuse he was going to experience today. His entire body throbbed despite the body-repairing nanites running through his blood. He guessed there was only so much the tiny machines could do.
A growl like some kind of wild animal filled the elevator compartment, and he pressed a hand to his grumbling belly. He was starving again, as he always seemed to be these days, but he couldn’t eat until the first round of training was done.
He wondered what it would be today—something physical, like an aikido refresher, or maybe a quiz on Shakespeare’s sonnets? He had no idea what Shakespeare had to do with becoming a superhero, but knew it wasn’t wise to ask.
Roll with it had become his mantra these last few months.
Hartwell was the teacher, and Lucas was the student.
The elevator came to a stop, and the doors silently slid open on the gymnasium floor.
Usually his father would be there, impatiently waiting for him, but this morning only darkness greeted him. Lucas left the elevator, stepping out into the darkened gym, running his hand along the wall until he found the light switches. He flicked the switches up, only to find they didn’t work.
“Huh,” he said as he continued to stupidly push them up and down.
He heard a noise from somewhere across the gym, a door opening with a creak.
“Lights are busted,” Lucas called out, expecting some sort of response.
None came.
“Hello?” he called out. “Are you in here? I said there’s something wrong with the lights. Guess we’re not gonna get to work out today.”
He didn’t hear a verbal response, but he did pick up the sound of heavy breathing from somewhere up ahead.
Lucas squinted, trying to see through the darkness. “Is that you?” he asked, catching sight of a moving shadow. “What’s wrong? Is it silent-but-deadly day today or something?”
A roar like nothing he’d ever heard before filled the air and was followed by the sound of pounding footfalls heading directly toward him.
Whatever it was, it was big. Lucas could feel the vibrations through the floor, and it was on him before he even had a chance to react.
It was a man—at least he thought it was a man—a big man who moved like a freight train. The figure growled, driving him down with arms the size of steel girders. Lucas took the full brunt of the attack, lifted off his feet and landing in the middle of the gymnasium floor.
Who let a giant gorilla into the building? he thought as he scrambled to his feet.
The mysterious figure roared again, charging at him through the darkness.
Lucas felt the first waves of panic as his attacker burst out of the shadows with an ear-piercing shriek. The creature snatched him up by the front of his T-shirt and slammed him viciously to the floor. The air exploded from Lucas’s lungs in a wheezing blast, and colored lights blossomed in front of his eyes. He fought to keep from passing out.
As Lucas gasped for air the monster stood above him, lifting a bare foot with a grunt. Lucas knew he was preparing to bring it down and crush him.
He rolled out of the way just as the massive foot fell. The ground shook as it landed where his head had been.
His attacker roared in disapproval as Lucas sprang up.
A gigantic hand surged through the blackness and wrapped around his throat. Lucas gasped as the monster man began to squeeze.
He struggled uselessly to breathe. He felt his life start to slip away.
His attacker began to laugh, a horrible sound. Lucas didn’t want it to be the last thing he heard before he died.
The right fighting technique came to him in a flash; it was an aikido move.
Lucas brought his hands up, grabbing hold of his attacker’s wrist with one hand while applying just the right amount of pressure to the elbow with the other.
The monster man screamed out in pain as Lucas carried through, using his attacker’s weight and size against him to drive him to the floor. It was as if all he had been taught was lining up inside his head.
The monster didn’t stay down for long, rising to his feet with a growl.
But this time, Lucas was ready for him.
The key was to stay out of the monster’s reach. His opponent was a brute, relying almost totally on strength and savagery If he couldn’t get to Lucas, Lucas couldn’t be hurt.
Using speed and agility, Lucas kept away from the monster’s clutches, zipping in when an opening presented itself to strike at sensitive areas on the monster’s body.
It wasn’t long before the giant was lurching about, his body stiff from multiple blows, and he began to slow down as the fight slowly drained from him.
Lucas couldn’t have felt better.
This was where it all came together, all the long months and hours of training. This was what it was all for!
The monster was hurting, and his attacks became even more savage. Sloppy.
As Lucas circled him, keeping out of reach and deciding where to hit him next, the large man surprised him. Believing he was attacking to the right, Lucas dodged to the left, only to have the beast of a man change his direction suddenly and with a roar, snatch him up off the floor in a powerful bear hug.
The monster man roared with laughter, pleased by his cleverness, as he began to squeeze.
Lucas felt the first of his ribs snap. The pain was incredible. Even with the nanites inside him working overtime, he wasn’t sure how much more of a beating he could take.
Glancing down, he looked into the hate-filled eyes of his attacker, more beast than man. The monster was smiling, his razor-sharp teeth almost glowing in the darkness of the gym.
A rumbling laugh gurgled up as he began to squeeze even tighter.
Lucas squirmed in the monster’s clutches. Suddenly remembering something he’d learned, not from his fat
her but from the occasional brawl at the Hog Trough, he drew back his head and brought it forward with as much force as possible.
The top of his forehead connected with the bridge of the beast man’s wide nose. There was a loud snap, and Lucas’s face was spattered with something warm that had the acrid smell of metal.
And as the monster man cried out in pain, Lucas was able to pull his arms free. Then he threw them back and brought his hands together to savagely box his attacker’s ears.
The monster bellowed, releasing Lucas to grab at the sides of his head.
Lucas delivered a snap kick to one of his enemy’s knees.
His attacker crashed to the gym floor, hands still clutching his large, square head. Now at his level, Lucas drew back his arm, bringing the palm of his hand forward in a snap to the monster’s lower jaw.
His attacker’s head was driven backward, and the momentum carried his entire body to the floor, where he lay unconscious.
Lucas stood still for a moment, attempting to regulate his breathing the way he’d been taught and waiting to see if his adversary would get up again. But the beast man just lay there in a broken heap.
Lucas was aware of his body. It seemed he could actually feel the nanites working inside to heal him, to take away his pain.
His thoughts were in a jumble. He wondered where his father was, and whether this was one of the Raptor’s enemies, who had somehow found his way to the manor to exact revenge. He decided he would find something to tie this monstrosity up, and then he would search for his father.
Starting toward one of the equipment closets, where he’d seen an old jump rope, Lucas suddenly found himself falling to the floor, a gigantic hand crushing his ankle.
The monster man was conscious again.
“Kill you,” he growled, crawling atop Lucas.
Lucas tried to squirm away, but the monster grabbed hold, lifting him up off the floor and slamming him down.
This he repeated, again and again.
Each time Lucas hit the floor, the universe in all its glory appeared before his eyes, and he thought it would be the last thing he saw before it all went dark.
But Lucas decided he wasn’t too keen on dying, especially today.