Heroes of Global Warming E-Book

Robert Jeschonek

• Herausgeber: Pie Press
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

The world's hottest hero has gone rogue! In an age of global warming, super-heated hero Skillet looks like a lukewarm loser. But when his teammates, the Castigators, turn their backs on him, he turns the Castigators into prey. Let the hunt begin! Skillet becomes public enemy number one as he rounds up his former allies. But the secret plan behind his hunt might just save the world. The invention of evil genius Brain Fart could turn back the clock on global warming by melting down the high-powered do-gooders. Can Skillet capture the last of the heroes needed to charge the climate change reverser? Or will an out-for-blood super-hero hit squad cook his goose first? The hope of the future explodes in a fight to the death between the caped-and-cowled warriors of a doomed generation. Don't miss this action-packed super-hero tale with a difference from Robert Jeschonek, whose work for DC Comics laid the foundation for this thrilling new adventure.

Leseprobe

HEROES OF GLOBAL WARMING

A SUPERHERO TALE

ROBERT JESCHONEK

CONTENTS

Also by Robert Jeschonek

Heroes of Global Warming

About the Author

Special Preview: Forced Retirement

HEROES OF GLOBAL WARMING

Copyright © 2023 by Robert Jeschonek

www.bobscribe.com

Cover Art Copyright © 2023 by Ben Baldwin

www.benbaldwin.co.uk

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Published in March 2011 by arrangement with the author.

All rights reserved by the author.

A Pie Press book

Published by Blastoff Books

An Imprint of Inevitable

411 Chancellor Street

Johnstown, Pennsylvania 15904

www.piepresspublishing.com

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ALSO BY ROBERT JESCHONEK

A Matter of Size

Forced Betrayal

Forced Retirement

Forced Partnership

Heroes of Global Warming

Not-So-Fortunate Son

Seven Comic Book Scripts Volume One

Seven Comic Book Scripts Volume Two

Seven Comic Book Scripts Volume Three

Six Superhero Stories Volume One

The Wife Who Never Was

HEROES OF GLOBAL WARMING

Freeze-Dry, Floater, and Bottlenose catch up with me near the Times Square Sea, itching to bring me in after what I did to their buddy, Sunblock. Never mind that I used to be their buddy, too, a long time ago. Back before I went from being a superhero...

...to kicking superheroes' asses. Not that Freeze-Dry and his pals think they're the ones about to take a beating. Not when they've got me outnumbered three to one like this.

"Stand down, Skillet!" Freeze-Dry skates up on an elevated track of frozen water vapor, ten feet above the lapping waves of Times Square Sea. The track expands forward as he skates, responding to his freeze-inducing powers. "I won't tell you twice!"

"You heard the man!" Floater swoops up like a deflating balloon and holds steady at twenty feet away from me, drifting past the ruined buildings of the Square on the late morning air currents. His voice sounds like a cartoon chipmunk's, like he's just sucked a lungful of helium. "Don't make us hurt you."

Bottlenose, who's half man, half dolphin, spins up from the water below and triggers his antigravity harness, joining the rest of us hovering in midair. His gleaming gray head bobs as he lets loose a stream of clicking dolphin language, which I don't understand.

So now I'm surrounded. The forces of justice encircle me in the heart of the sunken city of New York, drowned five years ago by the rising sea levels of global warming.

The lights of Times Square are long dead. The giant screens on which videos once played for throngs of tourists are gray and shattered; even the highest is half-submerged.

Maybe if I didn't remember what this place used to be like, it wouldn't make me sick to the stomach now. The same goes for the whole damn world these days. Rising temperatures, rising sea levels, crazy weather. Manhattan has turned to shit, and the whole planet has gone with it.

The smell of salt water and dead sea life fills the air. The city is mostly deserted, but a few spectators weave between towers in sputtering motorboats. They know the score.

There can be only one outcome. The three noble heroes will defeat me in battle and take me in. My year-long struggle is at an end; Earth's most wanted is goin' down.

At least that's what they think.

I hang there a moment, held aloft by the pillar of rising steam gushing up from the water below. My powers keep the steam flowing, generated by the waves of intense heat I radiate.

Turning slowly in my red-orange costume trimmed with flames, I give each of my former pals a long stare from behind my red-tinted goggles. Bottlenose chatters some more and flips me the bird with one of his hybrid flipper/hands. His purple harness bears the insignia of America's premiere super-team, the Castigators: a stylized letter "C" that looks like it's been sculpted out of ice.

Floater, also purple-clad with the Castigators' emblem on his chest, looks like a human water-skimmer. His pipe-cleaner body flutters on errant breezes; he floats on his caved-in belly like he's part of a mobile, dangling over an infant's crib.

Then there's Freeze-Dry. "Well, Skillet?" He's got a good-sized paunch these days, filling out his silver parka. Global warming has been good to him; lots of demand for a guy who can cool things off with a wave of his hands. "Going to come quietly and answer for what you've done?"

Not as much demand for someone like me, though. Someone who's all about the heat. "Funny thing, Rick." Reaching up, I run an orange-gloved hand over my bright red shock of hair. "I was just going to ask you the same question."

"No civilian names!" Freeze-Dry swings up both hands, pointing all twelve of his fingers right at me. "You're not one of us anymore."

"Sure I am." I nod and give him a wiggling double thumbs-up. "Once a Castigator..."

"Don't even joke!" says Floater in his helium chipmunk voice. "Not after what you did to Sunblock!"

The three of them move in a little when he mentions that. I can see how there'd be some hard feelings.

But the fact is, there's something they don't know. Something that puts a different spin on the whole mess.

"Listen." I pump out a little more heat to push them back again. "You'll never know how much I didn't want to hurt Sunblock."

"You didn't let it stop you, did you?" squeaks Floater, and Bottlenose chatters in agreement.

"But it wasn't supposed to be that way." The fire of regret wells up within me, followed by the fire of pain. "I didn't have any choice."

* * *

It all started with the clinking of beer bottles, a year ago to the day. We started down this road with a toast to the future, to setting it right, my partner and I.

Make that Sunblock and I.

Neither of us was smiling as we tipped back the bottles and drank. The occasion was hopeful, the plan was worked out, we were committed...

But the price would be steep.

"Are you sure you can do this?" Sunblock raised his eyebrows. Tiny beads of sweat stood out on his dark forehead, the effect of sitting across a table from me with my two-hundred degree body temperature.

"Of course not." I swigged some more beer, which was already warm from my hand. "But I'm willing to try."

"Shit." Sunblock shook his head slowly. "Are you sure you don't want to switch places?"

"And be the double-crossing mole?" I touched the big "C" on my chest; back then, I was still wearing a Castigators' uniform. "Having to hide my true purpose from America's premiere super-team while secretly manipulating them from within?"

Sunblock sighed and put down his beer. "I've gotta ask, Mike. This isn't because of the critics, right? You're over that, aren't you?"

I laughed, though it wasn't a laughing matter. "I'm not doing this because I won the Droopy Long-John." It was true. Receiving the critics' award for most useless hero was just one of the things that was motivating me, one part of a miserable life.

Sunblock reached across the table and put his hand on top of mine, which I knew made him uncomfortable. Fresh sweat popped out on his forehead and ran down his face. "What about the R-word? I hate to bring it up, but..."

"Retirement?" I bumped his hand aside. "How many times do I have to tell you, this isn't some mid-life crisis."

"I know, I'm just..."

Lunging forward out of my chair, I grabbed the front of his purple costume. "This is about the future, Joe! Making things right for everyone!"

"Except two dozen super-heroes." Sunblock hissed the words in a harsh whisper. "Tricked into a cape-and-cowl death trap."

I held on to him for a moment, locking my gaze to his ebony eyes. As always, they were full of understanding and friendship. Like any good friend on the brink of a big leap, he was simply conducting one last sanity check. He was backstopping me, as always, because he cared.