I'd Like to Ask the Same
The feel of a thumb driving into a temple. Skin sank in the shape of the thumb, a fingerprint stamping itself into the flesh like a seal. Index and middle fingers curved over the crown and hooked there like claws, while the ring finger and the little finger lay across the opposite temple.
Breath touched the palm. The man caught on the other side of it was breathing in a snarled reek of blood he had never asked to smell.
"Kh—kuhhhk..."
A man with his head locked in that enormous hand. An officer of the United States Army's Special Research Operations Unit. Lieutenant Colonel James Martes's bloodshot eyes flashed.
"Rebelling... against the United States government...?!"
The power of life and death was clenched in the man before him, and still James threw his voice without fear.
"The world sings your praises, so you've lost your mind! By what right do you do a thing like this...?!"
The grip ground tighter.
"Gyaaaaaah!!!"
"I'd like to ask you the same. Junior."
The hardened voice came out quietly, and yet, though the room was no small one, it swallowed the space and rang through every corner of it.
"What nerve did you have, to do a thing like this?"
"...Heh. Heh. Heh!"
"You're laughing?"
The thumb advanced, one millimeter at a time. Temple bone cracked and caved in as it happened, and under that pain James's mind swung between heaven and hell without a pause.
"I—I don't know anything. I haven't a word to give you...!"
Spit strung from his mouth with the agony, but the madness never left James's eyes. It was plain enough how far the crooked conviction he lived by had reached.
"The only thing you'll walk away with is regret for what you've done...!"
"Is that so."
A wet crunch. The palm, deciding this was a waste of time, put the faintest extra force into the grip, and the head of Lieutenant Colonel James—an A-rank superhuman—burst apart like a snowball.
Captain Earth, owner of that palm, looked down at the brains sliding thick and wet over his hand. Anguish darkened his eyes.
The feel of blood on his skin was familiar. He had fought in the two most horrific wars on Earth, and the years he had spent beating down villains too foul to name already numbered in the decades. A dirty, stinking hand was more familiar to him than pale white skin, and a fist rough as stone sat easier than a palm opened wide as a sunflower in full bloom.
He said nothing.
He had toured nation after nation crying out for peace and against violence, and yet, paradoxically, today too he was using violence for the sake of that same peace. It was not that he had never asked himself whether there might be a better way. The enemy he had come up against was simply not the sort of group that bare violence could settle.
Back then—did that phantom thief foresee even this?
The Phantom Thief of Korea, whom he had met only briefly in Hawaii. Before leaving, the man had left him a warning.
Was this the price of having taken that counsel lightly? Captain Earth had come all the way to a fight against his own homeland.
On the office laptop, a file blinked. He looked into it.
Superhuman Development Program
A project for the raising of superhumans, driven in secret by the government of the United States. Any one of them might fall short of Captain Earth. The aim, all the same, was a force in which a single company could bring to bear power equal to his own.
A USB capable of drawing the data out sat plugged into the laptop. Captain Earth leaned back in the chair and let himself sink into thought.
The making of superhumans had been argued without end from the moment such people first rose into view. Whether a power born with the blood could be drawn out after the fact, or whether systematic education might turn it to a nation's advancement—every country, without distinction, turned the problem over. This project lay on that same line. Manufacturing artificial superhumans out of Captain Earth's genetic information would draw controversy, but the man himself had never cared. So long as the process was not unethical, and so long as it did not cheapen life, he would have let anyone use his information whenever they pleased.
Then why was he here, killing men who drew the nation's pay and stripping information off a laptop?
The United States had crossed the line. Far enough that hardly any hand but Captain Earth's could set it right.
A chime sounded. The alert rang, and the download was finished. Captain Earth took the USB and rose.
When he opened the office door, a red carpet made of soldiers' blood lay unrolled before him.
He passed them without interest. The eyes of a soldier who had died weeping held the back of Captain Earth as he walked away.
One step.
Captain Earth stopped. Beyond the main gate, thrown wide, soldiers stood in ranks with guns in their hands. His senses alone put the number easily in the hundreds. The whole of the building was surrounded, and the smell of oil came on thick. To kill a single man, they had brought tanks.
He stepped out through the door. The soldiers, rigid, hands trembling, leveled their muzzles at the strongest hero alive. Toward men who had stripped away every mark by which they might be identified, Captain Earth spoke.
"If you were put on this operation against your will, on orders from above. Raise your hand."
"......"
"If you want to walk away from this, even now. Raise your hand."
"......"
"If your life is too dear to you, and you don't want to fight. Guns down."
A flinch. A few of the muzzles wavered.
Three shots cracked as one.
Their heads blossomed, all at the same instant, into flowers of blood.
"With a man in rebellion against the United States government standing before us, we have no need of warriors who take fright. We must give our bodies and fight for the stability of the nation."
From among the soldiers, one officer advanced as if a king had come to pay a call. Two stars glittered, gaudy and bright, upon his shoulder.
"A pleasure, Steven Turner. I am Major General Wilson McCann."
Major General Wilson wore a thin, cold smile.
"I'll spare you the long speech. Surrender. Unofficially, you have become a traitor to the United States. I would rather you didn't add any further to your crimes."
"Crimes..."
Captain Earth tilted his head at a crooked angle. The corner of Wilson's eye twitched.
"If my crime does harm to the peace, then I'll take the punishment as I ought."
"Hoh. Just as one would expect of a man who was once so noble a hero. We understand each other."
"But I'm afraid that won't do. I still have work left. Villains to put down."
"Ha..."
Wilson's face went blank with disbelief.
"Mad. Well and truly mad. You dare define the government of the United States as villains? Us—the police of the world?"
"I don't know since when a handful of big shots began speaking for the United States... I am only doing my work. As a hero, I cannot overlook those who would harm this country."
"I won't hear any more of it."
Wilson flicked a finger.
Hulks of muscle, their heads sealed entire inside black helmets, appeared in the strength of two platoons.
"A pity they don't amount to a company, but I call it enough. However strong a hero may be, he's human, isn't he? Cross the mountains, swim the seas—put a hole through a vital spot, and you die all the same."
Captain Earth read an energy like his own coming off them. Project Earth Force. The fruit of that research. Weapons completed with living human beings for their material. An intolerable sin stood there in front of him, and his chest rose and fell beneath a stifling weight.
"The offer I made still stands. If you don't want to do this, you don't have to. Giving up is a kind of courage, too."
"......"
"What are you doing?! Attack, now—!!!"
Something burst, wet and heavy.
"The nuisance is gone. Choose at your ease."
With the pressure of his fist he had driven a hole clean through Major General Wilson's upper body, and with that he delivered his final warning.
"......"
Their commander was dead, and still the strength did not leave their eyes. Captain Earth respected their will. Past this point, no more words were needed.
The air shuddered. He closed his fist, and overwhelming power set the space itself vibrating.
"Fire!!!"
Muzzles roared in a rolling storm of gunfire.
"———!!!"
The weapons rushed him, giving off a grotesque noise. Captain Earth swung his fist with every ounce of his strength.
Thunder.
The Vatican. Here, in the holy city of a faith of two billion, the Saint of the age and the pope were meeting alone.
"...Why, of all times, must you insist on going abroad?"
Pope Nikolai stroked his beard. The Saint's lips, red as cherries, parted.
"Let us call it a personal matter."
"Heh heh. Not a word even for this old man. I must have been a burden to you of late, Saint."
Nikolai looked her over with a benevolent gaze. The Saint did her best to ignore the chill of filth crawling across her skin.
"I would like to grant the Saint's request, if I can... but as pope, I cannot send you out with no reason at all. Please consider how troubled the affairs of the world have become, and how anxious the faithful are."
"I understand Your Holiness's heart. I was impatient, and my thinking was shallow. I apologize."
At that docile apology, Nikolai faltered for a moment. Her head had come level with the floor. Sacred blond hair, as if God himself had blessed it, bared the crown of her head without a shred of defense.
Nikolai licked his lips, then carried on like a grandfather indulging the whining of a foolish granddaughter.
"How could I fail to know your heart? Only resent me—the one who cannot grant it."
"Not at all, Your Holiness. I will take my leave."
The Saint bowed low and left the room.
Nikolai drew his fingers along a glass crusted with every kind of jewel. His sleeve slid back, and a bracelet set thick with rubies and diamonds caught the light and flashed.
"What are you scheming?"
She would not have come to him like a fool, and for nothing...
He shook a bell wrought of pure gold. A door that a master painter had spent months bringing to life slid quietly aside.
"You called?"
"Increase the watch on the Saint. Do not miss a single move."
And—
"When the work is finished, come to my room."
The corners of the woman believer's eyes trembled.
"...Understood."
"Go on."
"Yes."
Left alone, Nikolai stood with his hands clasped behind his back and looked down through the window at the streets. A kingdom existed there for him alone.
"Not enough."
Nowhere near enough.
The face the window gave back was Nikolai's. It resembled the greed of a devil.