TITAN

A long forgotten sense ran up the back of Tim Steele’s neck when he answered the phone. He had not felt the dull hum in his bones for a long time. It came to him like a memory he didn’t know he had forgotten.

The sounds of the people and the office around him faded to no more than a whisper. He dropped what he had been doing and his hand snapped to the phone on his hip. The pencil with which he had been sketching designs remained gripped in his other hand.

“Hoffman and Bond, this is Tim.”

“Is this Mr. Timothy Steele?”

“Yep, this is Tim.”

“Sir, my name is Sergeant Tom Renik with the Alexandria PD…”

“Sorry, Officer, but I don’t have anything to donate at this time.” Tim didn’t know why he said it, but he hoped that if he willed the caller to be nothing more than a solicitor then it would be so.

“Uh… no, sir, Mr. Steele, I’m calling about your son. His name is Eric Steele, s’that correct?”

The warning buzzing in his bones whistled in his head now. A cop would only be calling about Eric if he was in trouble or in trouble. Something approaching vulnerability crept into Tim’s voice—a rare thing, indeed. “Eric’s my son.”

“Mr. Steele, I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but your son was rushed to the emergency room about twenty minutes ago.”

Tim let the pencil he’d been working with drop onto his desk and he adjusted himself straighter in his chair. He couldn’t get comfortable. A lump of black dread settled into his gut. He could only think to say, “When? Where? What hospital?”

The officer gave the name of the hospital and said, “It looks like Eric collapsed on Duke Street. Some kind folks found him and called an ambulance.”

Tim was now standing, but he didn’t remember getting up. His hand was tight around the phone and the other pressed on the desk surface. The wood creaked under his weight. He pushed off and headed for the corridor, towards the exit.

“What’s wrong with him?”

“Well, we’re not exactly sure. He collapsed and was unconscious. Witnesses said it looked like he was… smoking.”

A nervous laugh escaped, but Tim didn’t remember thinking anything was particularly funny. “That’s ridiculous, Eric doesn’t smoke.”

“Oh… no, sir, I’m sorry. You misunderstand. His body was smoking. Like he’d caught on fire… but there were no burns. Some guy burned his hand. We’re still trying to work it out.”

Tim’s throat locked and he stopped walking. Every movement ceased and all of his strength went into making his lips move. “His body was smoking. But no burns? Like it was coming from the inside?”

“Yeah, that’s a good way t’put it. S’what the witnesses said. Like he had a real bad fever.”

The lump in Tim’s stomach grew until he felt like he couldn’t breathe. What the cop was saying could only mean one thing, but… it wasn’t possible.

Was it?

Tim didn’t know, but his son was in the hospital. That single thought pushed him forward and Tim could move again. He headed for the door and patted his pockets to make sure he had his keys. He snatched them off of his belt loop and launched outside into the sharp late winter air.

The officer gave Tim some additional information, which he didn’t quite hear. The moment he hung up with the cop, he dialed Nancy. This was going to send her into a tizzy, but he had to tell her.

It could be worse, you know… his bones hummed deeply now. He felt the warning as clearly as a voice. Everything in his rational mind wanted Eric to be okay, to just have a fever. The rock in his gut suggested otherwise.

* * *

Tim Steele was born and raised in Buffalo, NY like his father had been. He was from the southeast in the poor part of the city. He was short and stocky, but athletic and tough. Very tough. He had to be.

His dad was Arthur Steele or Art the Fart to his friends. Art was a professional handyman. He did everything: carpentry, plumbing, electric, ironwork, construction planning, and occasional superhero. Tim remembered his father as being tall, but Art was really only about five feet eleven, maybe six feet. He was lean and looked weak or even frail in his daily life when he wore ratty, loose clothes, but his body was fit and strong. His arms had been tightly muscled like cables, his shoulders sturdy and broad, and his hands rough and hard. Everyone thought Art’s incredible strength stemmed from a life of labor. Tim knew it was that and more.

Tim remembered his father’s hands most of all. For as battered and callused as those old hands were, they could be incredibly gentle too. Tim’s memory failed him more often than not these days, but he remembered how his father put his hands over his and taught him to use a saw, measure correctly, hammer without leaving marks, sand wood, and a lot more. Art had been a good teacher, quiet and patient; he demonstrated what he wanted Tim to learn and then guided him to do it on his own. He had been that way with everything.

Arthur Steele had been Titan, a legendary champion, empowered by the elements of creation embedded in his bones. Tim had been Titan, too, after his father’s time. But Titan was gone now. And Eric didn’t know anything about it. If this was really happening, Eric wouldn’t understand why his bones felt hot, why his joints ached, or why he broke out in fevers for no reason… why didn’t I see it?

You’re in a fog, that’s how. You’re spending so much time hiding from your grief… a cruel trick of fate has awarded—cursed?—your son with the family responsibility and you missed it because you’re blind…

Wait.

Not fate. No.

God.

…but there were rules, weren’t there? Maybe not since they’ve just been broken.

Tim remembered how his father had taught him Titan’s powers, his history, and his duty. He remembered a childhood, knowing a great family secret, never being able to tell anyone what he knew. Regular people read the news and accepted the stories as written. But Tim read the same stories—tales of disappearances, murders, thefts—and knew the truth from the fiction. There was evil in this world. Most of the time, a murder was just that: murder. But sometimes, there was another truth. Honed over time by Art’s tutelage, Tim knew man’s crimes from the unnatural.

At an early age, Art began telling Tim stories of a warrior called Titan. He taught him that Titan was God’s champion against evil. Art told Tim that Titan had existed since long before he was born and would be around long after he was gone. Art also told Tim that Titan was a secret warrior that only they could know about because if anyone knew, Titan and all the people that depended on him would be in danger.

When Tim turned ten, Art revealed that he was Titan. It wasn’t anything special—startling, maybe, but light from heaven did not shine down as it happened. Tim came out to the garage early one morning and found Art standing naked in front of his workbench.

“Dad?!” Tim had said. As a boy, his instinct was to laugh, thinking his dad was being silly, but as Art turned around his skin darkened with innumerable threads of fine metal moving like a liquid over his skin. As Art turned, his face was visible for only an instant before it wrapped over with the shifting waves of liquid metal. Tim watched a letter “T” etch itself across his father’s chest and form on his face appropriately enough over his T-zone, resembling something like a Viking helmet. When it was done, Art moved towards Tim, who was frozen in place, and said in a deeper voice, “The stories are true, kiddo. I’m Titan. And so are you.”

And so are you…

As a boy, Tim thought the whole thing was very exciting. His dad was like Superman—but real! Keeping the secret made it oh so much fun, too. It was something he and his dad shared that no one else did. Tim once asked his dad if his mom knew about Titan. Something about the question made Art smile. “Your mother is my wife. She knows enough.”

Art taught Tim things he had never shown him before: not roofing or carpentry, how to fight and how to strategize. Art taught Tim to size up an opponent, a situation, or a location in an instant because sometimes an instant might be all he got. It was something that Tim had passed down to Eric not as Titan training, but as fatherly advice. Eric often made fun of Tim because Tim never sat with his back to the door in a restaurant—he needed to see everyone who came and went.

For eight years, Art and Tim lived two lives. In the one life, they were father and son—just two regular Joes on the block. In the other life, Art was both master and teacher, and Tim was a student of an ancient power—something he never really understood. Tim learned about fighting, about using his enhanced senses, and about Titan’s power. Art was vague about from where Titan came and the older Tim got, the more he realized that Art probably didn’t know. Titan was old, though, maybe a thousand years or more. Tim suspected as much because all of the lessons and stories were usually littered with details that placed them after the time of Christ. Of course, all of it made Tim question if there had even been a Jesus… there was something strange about God existing in a world of superheroes and terrible demons. But Titan had been passed down for what Tim guessed to be a thousand years to the first born child of the previous Titan.

“There are rules…” Art had warned but had never been specific. When Tim pressed him about what that meant, Art had just said he would understand when he needed to. And on the eve of Tim’s eighteenth birthday, he had finally understood pain. Art had been preparing Tim for that day ever since the morning in the garage years before. Art had taught him to fight, told him stories, passed on what he knew as best he could, but Art didn’t know everything. Before Tim’s eighteenth birthday, Art came into Tim’s room after he had gotten home from work. Art laid a thick, gray book on Tim’s bed.

“This is yours. When it’s time, you haveto give this to your kids.”

Tim hesitated. “Kids? I thought…”

“Ah… to your first.”

When Tim touched the book, he realized it was metal; a finely woven metal binding just like Titan’s suit. It felt warm in his hands and like it belonged to him... If déjà vu could apply to feeling like you owned something but didn’t, then that would be how Tim felt as he held the book. It was bound plainly and looked faded, with only the faintest etching of a “T” on the cover. The heat in his bones and the agony in his joints was quieted as he held the book, which Tim gradually came to understand wasn’t a book. But he didn’t know what it was. Not then. But he learned.

Art told Tim that he should stay home on his birthday. There was no way to tell when the transformation would happen, only that it was always on the eighteenth birthday. Art didn’t know why.

Art had been mentally preparing Tim to be Titan for years, but not for becoming Titan. He had said it was a painful experience, but he had not gone into detail. Art only mentioned the feverish feeling and the joint pain when Tim had told him about the sudden flare ups a week before his birthday.

When Tim asked why Art had left so much out, Art said, “You have to do a lot of this alone, kid. So I’ve been trying to get you ready for that. Nothing hurts me more than seeing this happen to you, knowing what you’re going to feel. And to become… this.” Art gestured at himself as though he was nothing. Or maybe Art was lamenting what he soon had to give up.

“I thought Titan was good,” Tim remembered saying as agonizing pain shot through his knees. He fell back onto his bed, but Art caught him and let him down slowly.

Art smiled. “It’s good for other people. Not us.”

Tim remembered that more than actually becoming Titan. It was probably because, like with Eric, the agony of surging liquid metal soaking his bones and coating his insides with unknowable power had knocked him out not long after the heat had welled up in him.

* * *

Tim thought about his father as he wound through traffic. Art had been more of a mentor than a father—he trained Tim to be a weapon; he didn’t raise a son. Tim liked to think he had done it differently, but he realized that he had not. He wasn’t paralyzed by what happened to Sarah like Nancy was, but he hadn’t moved past it. Instead, Tim had put his blinders on and moved forward, often forgetting that he had a son who had lost his sister and a wife who had lost her daughter. Both of them lost him too. The worst part was that, in the end, Tim had failed his father; anyway… he wasn’t Titan anymore. That was gone. So, really, Tim Steele realized in his car driving down I-495 that he had pretty much failed everybody.

Or not.

God had somehow nudged things back into place. Clearly, He wasn’t done with Titan. The rules had been bent, but Titan would live again. Only Eric didn’t know what was happening to him. He had to find out, alone, in the middle of an Alexandria street, surrounded by strangers.

Tim whistled through traffic, hardly seeing the other cars. No one would prevent him from getting to his son. He had to protect him now. Well, I always had to protect him… but now… Tim’s failures were behind him now.

Tim almost pushed the gas pedal through the floor.

* * *

Everything went to hell.

One moment Jim was sitting in the Starbucks at the corner of King Street and South Union, and the next he was being “escorted” out by two of the Colonel’s men. They were rough with him, grabbing him under his arms and practically carrying him out. They didn’t say a word.

Until then, Jim’s “handlers” had never been violent. Jim could no longer deny the fear that had been simmering underneath his suspicion from the beginning—the shots, the things they knew about him, the long plane ride, the hangar in the middle of nowhere, the men armed with Desert Eagles… Jim had never been a stupid person. But from the beginning, ignoring the sinking, terrified feelings that whispered in his ear along the way had been the smart thing to do. If he denied these things were bad or scary, then he wasn’t in trouble… it would all be okay if he just did what they told him to do.

But not anymore. The denial evaporated. The shots, the guns, the anonymity, the tales of strange diseases… Jim’s mind finally let him realize what had been evident from the start: These men were killers.

Jim struggled. The Shadow Man’s goons were used to Jim going everywhere they wanted without a problem. In his fear-induced haze, Jim had complied with everything. So when he did fight back, it took the guards by surprise. Jim shoved the guard on his right into the street. A bicyclist crashed into the guard and together they collapsed in a heap. The guard on Jim’s left hesitated for a split second, long enough for Jim to ram his knee up between his legs. A gasp of high-pitched air exploded from the guard’s throat as his knees locked and his grip opened. Jim cracked the stunned guard in the center of his face with a closed fist and knocked him out.

Jim was free, but what now? He took off running up King Street, towards the roving groups of people. Those bastards wouldn’t dare cause a scene in front of witnesses.

Would they?

No. Jim was about as sure as he could be with a shadowy military sect. Not with as secretive as they’d been so far. It didn’t really matter anyway. Both guards were still down on the street.

The tourists were all taken by surprise. No one saw Jim take them out; they just saw him running away from the fallen men. Jim shoved past a few slow walkers and sprinted for as long as he could. He was a military school student—if there was one thing he could do it was run for a long time. And with his adrenaline pumping, Jim could go for a while.

Two thoughts echoed in his mind: Get to Eric. Warn him. He had no idea where Eric was, though, and he had no phone and no car. He considered stopping in one of the stores or restaurants, but his flight reflex wouldn’t let him. He needed to be far away. Very far away.

Ironically, Eric had been only two blocks over—a steaming heap, lying in the middle of the street.

* * *

Tim didn’t remember parking his car, though he later found it in the first row nearest to the door. He never parked that close to anything. “I’d rather walk than get my car all banged up by assholes,” he always said. Today was different though. His active memory only picked up as he sprinted through the white, sterile hallways towards the main desk. Even then, there were only bits and pieces. There was a receptionist—black, kind of cute—and something about forms. Tim kept hearing himself say, “Eric Steele. Where is Eric Steele?” Eventually, a paramedic grabbed his shoulder. A surge of fury coursed through him. Tim might have dented the young kid’s face if he hadn’t immediately jerked back. Tim couldn’t remember what the kid said exactly, but when he resumed conscious thought he was standing behind double doors with tall, vertical rectangle windows that peered in on the Emergency Room. Eric was on a table with people in sea-green scrubs and white coats hovering over him. His face was beet red and he wasn’t moving.

Tim wanted to storm in and take Eric home. There wasn’t anything wrong with him. Not really, anyway. But Tim was scared to death that the doctors would discover the Steele secret.

Dad got physicals all the time.I got physicals. They never found a thing. High iron levels sometimes…

This thought eased Tim only a little bit. His powers had not gone unnoticed forever, but that was a lifetime ago... He took his hands off the doors and took deep breaths—something his dad used to tell him to do when he’d get angry or frustrated.

“Kid, stop. Take a breath. You’re not thinking. Breathe it in… then breathe that shit out.”

Some part of Tim wondered if he remembered that or heard it. Whichever it was, it didn’t matter; it worked and he was thinking again. Eric looked okay and the doctors wouldn’t find anything.

Sarah’s doctors found something. Oh, yeah, they found something alright.

A tremor of rage rolled through him. His bones ached and his legs buckled. Dim memories he could usually never reach flooded his mind. His hands were clenched so tight that his knuckles threatened to pop through his skin. He took a breath and then breathed all that shit out.

Seeing his son lying on the table, surrounded by doctors, Tim missed his daughter all the more. He never wanted this for his children. He thought it was over. After what happened to Sarah, he figured it was.

The doctors stabilized Eric. Tim watched it and remembered what it was like. The memories of learning about Titan, becoming Titan, and being Titan were so fresh... Eric still didn’t know. Tim remembered what it felt like to change. But he had at least known what was happening to him. But Eric… he must have felt like molten lava was boiling inside of him. He probably thought he was dying.

Tim stepped back from the doors and collapsed into a nearby chair along the wall while keeping his eyes on the door. Nancy would be here soon. How was he supposed to explain this? She knew about him, but Eric… this wasn’t supposed to happen to him. It was over. At least Tim thought it was. As he wondered how it was possible, his father’s voice spoke to him again. But this time he didn’t care if it was a memory or not. His father whispered an answer—probably the answer: “God.”

* * *

Two men entered the hospital entrance not long after Tim Steele ran past. They wore dark, inconspicuous clothes and strolled through. No one asked who they were or why they were there. They went by unnoticed. They looked like anyone. That was the idea.

* * *

A young doctor came out to meet Tim. He was rumpled and worn like he hadn’t slept in days. There was confusion in his expression and his words were chosen carefully. But he didn’t seem evasive, more perplexed.

“Mr. Steele, I’m Dr. Briscoe. I’m sorry you had to wait so long before anyone spoke with you.”

“Not a problem. What about Eric?”

“We aren’t exactly sure what caused this. He collapsed with, what I believe to be, a very high fever. It broke and his temperature is steady at 102. He’s now in a coma,” Dr. Briscoe said.

“Is that good?”

“Coma’s better than the alternative. But I think he’ll come out it soon. His temperature, while steady now, declined in the course of triage. And finally, while we aren’t sure what caused this, I can’t find anything wrong with him. The only thing is an elevated amount of iron in his blood, which while odd, isn’t particularly dangerous,” Dr. Briscoe said, patting Tim’s shoulder. “He’s gonna be okay. We have to monitor this coma, but really, I’ve seen worse. I’m hopeful.”

“Can I see him?” Relief washed through Tim. Eric was okay and they didn’t find Titan.

“Give us a few minutes to get him set up in a room upstairs. We’ll send for you,” Dr. Briscoe said and then faded back towards the Emergency Room and spoke to a couple of nurses.

Two men in scrubs exited a side room off the hall and entered the Emergency Room. They received instructions from the nurses and wheeled Eric past Tim, who reached for Eric’s hand. The man pushing the gurney blocked Tim’s hand. “Excuse me, sir. Let us get him arranged upstairs first.”

Tim wanted to hit him, but he fought the urge and let them pass. A nurse exited the Emergency Room and Tim caught her attention. “Which floor will my son be on?”

The nurse flipped through her papers. “Third floor.”

Tim walked after the gurney. They reached the elevator and one man held the doors open while the other ushered Eric in. Tim hurried to catch up and the man nearest to the door stopped him. “Sorry, sir. You can’t ride with a gurney on the elevator. Hospital policy.”

“I’ve never heard of that in my life,” Tim said.

“Now you have.” The doors closed and Tim wanted to hit that guy again.

He waited for the elevator to go up a floor and then he pressed the “up” button. He watched the floor lights brighten as the elevator ascended. Two… then three… now four…

“What?” Tim watched the floor numbers tick from four to five. There were only seven floors. His bones hummed again. Warning whispered though his marrow and Tim didn’t hesitate; he ran around the corner for the stairwell. He took the stairs two at a time, bounding up the narrow flights. His thighs burned in response and his heart pounded in his chest. Tim wondered if the pounding was exhaustion or fear. Probably a bit of both.

When he reached the top, Tim was covered in sweat and his hands shook. Over the sound of his gasping breaths and pounding chest, Tim heard the thrum of a helicopter. This was the roof. He exploded through the door into the hall. At the far end of the hall, a set of doors led onto the helicopter pad. The two men, with Eric on the gurney between them, were halfway down the hall.

“Shit!” one of them yelled. “Kill him!”

Tim charged. In his youth, he had been leaner and built more like his father. But he definitely wasn’t a young man anymore; he was stocky and solid. He was a bull raging down the hall after his son and the abductors.

The kidnapper at the head of the gurney continued pulling Eric towards the door. His partner stopped in his tracks and produced a big gun—a Desert Eagle. Tim ignored it; he was almost on him. The man fired. The side of Tim’s neck sizzled with pain and his face twisted into a snarl. He leapt at the shooter. He never got another shot off.

Tim grabbed the man’s arm holding the gun and smashed it out of his hand and onto the floor. “You MOTHER FUCKER!”

The man curled blows onto Tim’s back, aiming for his kidneys. But Tim gritted his teeth through the pain and head-butted him. The blow knocked the man’s to the hard floor. Tim rained blows down on him until the man’s face was a pulp of blood, spit, and tears. He was only dully aware of the warmth trickling down the side of his neck. Tim rolled off the man and picked up the gun. The other kidnapper was about to exit onto the helipad when Tim started after him.

If they get on that helicopter, I’ll never see my son again… that thought fueled Tim with parental jet fuel. A shot rang over his head. The kidnapper was shooting at him and dragging the gurney so his aim was off and he couldn’t fire quickly. Tim didn’t dare shoot back. Eric was too close and Tim hadn’t fired a gun in ages. But he knew that when he got his hands on the guy holding him, he was going to rip his throat out.

Eric and his kidnapper disappeared through the double doors at the end of the hall. Tim arrived a split second later. Five rounds ripped through the door and Tim hugged the wall. Anger and surprise wrestled inside of him. He glanced out the window and saw Eric’s abductor making his way to a waiting helicopter with two other men inside. A fourth man stood along the side to help get Eric in. He aimed an M-16 at the doors.

Tim kicked the left door open and machine gun fire blasted through the opening. In the same instant, Tim shouldered through the right door and squeezed off four shots towards the man with the machine gun. He’d never fired a Desert Eagle before. It kicked like a horse. But two of Tim’s shot’s connected anyway. The gunman went down in a spray of vaporous red that swirled up into the helicopter’s beating blades. The abductor fired two shots at Tim before his gun clicked dry. Tim couldn’t hear the man over the helicopter’s roar, but he saw him mouth, “Fuck!”

This was Tim’s moment. He knew he’d get one. He didn’t shoot the abductor. Instead, he fired all three shots he had left into the window of the helicopter. The man behind the throttle of the craft sagged. His passenger ducked. The abductor turned to look and wasted precious seconds he could have been reloading. That was a mistake.

Tim ran at him and hurled his empty pistol. It caught the kidnapper in the side of the head. The kidnapper dropped his now reloaded gun. Tim circled the gurney and the guy swung a hard right into the side of his face. Tim shrugged it off and grabbed the guy’s loose scrubs and pushed him up into the helicopter blades! Tim heard his last words as “Holy fu…” There was a sound like a whipping stump grinder and then Tim, Eric, and the side of the helicopter were sprayed with blood. Blood and sinew spun with and splattered from the blades. Tim tossed what was left of the body into the helicopter and made a move to climb in after it. The pilot in the opposite seat swung the helicopter off of the roof in a swinging, wavy, out of control path. Soon, the roar of the rotors died away.

Tim wiped the blood and chunks off of his son’s face. He wheeled Eric back into the hospital quickly.

* * *

The next twenty minutes were the fastest, scariest twenty minutes of Tim’s life. He had just killed two men, beat a third within an inch of his life, and covered himself and Eric in liquefied human remains. Someone from the hospital staff would eventually come upstairs. Perhaps sooner, someone would notice that Eric Steele wasn’t where he was supposed to be. Yet even more urgent, was Tim’s current appearance: slathered with sweat and blood. Fortunately, only Eric’s face and hair had been splattered. Tim had to get the blood off of his face and clothes, Eric, and the gurney sheet. Cleaning it was out of the question; blood was worse than chocolate.

Tim pushed the gurney back into the top-floor hallway taking care not to touch the doors with his bloody fingers. The man who had skimmed Tim’s neck with a fifty caliber bullet was groaning and twitching. He was alive, but he wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Tim checked every door along the hallway looking for something—anything—to get clear of this. Most of the rooms had plain white doors, probably cleaning closets or storage rooms. Tim looked in each one.

Back in Buffalo, when he was fifteen, Tim had worked as a cleaning person for the local recreation center, like Eric’s job oddly enough, and some of the janitors kept spare clothes in their lockers. Tim opened door handles with the outside of his shirt. Tim peered into the room three doors down on the right, very near to the nameless man with a broken face, and found a maintenance room with a row of short metal lockers.

“Thank God.”

Tim left Eric in the hall, while he examined what he had to work with. He continually checked on the elevator and stairway door. There was a small square mirror the size of a compact disc case leaning on a shelf reflecting Tim’s face back at him. What he saw in it frightened him. His face was smeared with blood and ribbons of flesh hung in his black hair. His eyes looked sunken and distant. Somehow seeing his reflection forced what had just happened into the front of his mind, filling him with dread and peculiar humor.

Thirty minutes ago, I was preparing to send housing dimensions to my crew… three minutes ago, I shoved a man face first into whirring helicopter blades… now, I’m covered in blood looking for new clothes in a janitor’s closet that smells of chemicals… A dry chuckle escaped him and Tim realized that if anyone saw him standing there, soaked in blood and laughing, they’d think he was crazy and throw him into a padded cell. Or jail. Hell, that might happen anyway.

“Yes, officer, two mystery men armed with guns kidnapped my son and tried to take him away on a helicopter. I killed them, but the helicopter got away. Oh, I’m also the failed latest in a long line of people with super strength and metal in my bone marrow. Am I free to go?”

He took a breath and breathed that shit right out, per Art the Fart’s orders. His vision cleared and he got a grip on what he needed to do and how fast he needed to do it. Despair would get him thrown right in jail, where the bastards who were really responsible for this belonged.

No. They deserve to be dead. Shot in the kneecaps, hands cut off, necks broken…

Tim knew that getting Eric out of the hospital unseen would be impossible. If he could just get Eric back to his room, it might be enough. It might even serve as an alibi if he was quick enough.

Tim opened the lockers with his sleeve. Fortunately, they weren’t locked. Unfortunately, only one locker had anything he could use: a white tee shirt. But unless Tim got the kidnapper’s blood off of his neck and face, it would be useless. Plus, his neck was oozing his own blood into the mix.

Stepping into motion, Tim grabbed a black trash bag and yanked his shirt off. His build was thick and looked like he had once been deeply muscled, fit, and trim. It was dense and flabby now. Oh, and slick with blood and sweat. Tim threw his shirt into the bag and stepped into the hall to remove Eric’s gurney sheet. He examined his pants and found that they were mostly okay. A few flecks here and there, but Tim was wearing dark jeans. Since he was usually working on site with his company, Nancy bought him dark pants that didn’t show dirt and dust. The blood was barely noticeable, even in the ghastly fluorescent lights. Besides, Tim could say it was paint.

Tim found bleach among the chemicals. He yanked a pail out from beneath the bottom shelf and poured in a fair amount of bleach. He filled the pail with water from the wall spigot and stirred it with his hand. His split knuckles howled in the coarse liquid. He ignored it. With a rag, Tim went to work swabbing blood off. The bleach wasn’t diluted nearly enough and the rich chemical scent burned his nostrils while the liquid did the same to his skin. He very nearly screamed when he rubbed the rag over his neck wound. When he was done, all things considered, he looked alright. Though, he feared the bleach would turn his hair white. It hadn’t yet, but it probably would later.

Tim diluted the mixture more and cleaned up Eric. He stirred briefly when the reeking rag passed under his nose. The smell was unpleasant even to the unconscious. Aside from slightly wet hair, Eric looked fine. No visible blood anywhere else.

Tim slathered the clothes inside the bag with bleach to contaminate the blood. His hope was to burn the bag and the clothes inside, but he had to cover all the bases anyway. Just in case. Tim slipped on the tee shirt and saw no splotches of blood. Perfect. He dumped the pail out down the spigot drain and slipped the bloody rag into the bag and tied it up. He would carry it with him and say that it was his change of clothes out of his car. Then, he washed his hands under the water with a mix of soap and bleach that left his hands feeling raw and dry.

Tim closed all of the lockers, careful not to touch them with his fingers. He wiped down everything he touched with hem of the tee shirt. He kicked the spigot handle “off.” With bag in hand and a bloodless appearance, Tim exited the closet and pulled the door shut with his foot.

He wheeled Eric towards the elevator and hesitated over the beaten man. He knelt down beside him, careful not to touch the blood on his face, and searched him. There were two extra pistol clips in his right pocket and two sticks of Juicy Fruit in the other. Tim was about to leave him lying there when he noticed a little white bump in his ear. Tim looked closer and saw an earpiece connected to a thin wire sliding beneath his collar. Tim pulled out his car keys and used them to pop it free of the man’s ear. Then he yanked on the wire. It came out only so far because the guy was laying on what it was connected to. Tim angled the guy up using his foot and pulled the rest of the device free. It was a small black box with a tiny key pad. Tim guessed it was a transmitter and receiver. He pocketed it and hurried back to the gurney.

On the way to the elevator, Tim picked up one last item: a new gurney sheet. It was in a bin in a room just beside the elevator. The picture was complete. He prayed to God that he could just get Eric to his room safely. If he could just do that, he would give thanks and be a good person. Try to be what he hadn’t been before. But first, he was going to find out who tried to take Eric and kill them in the most painful way he could devise.

* * *

The Colonel’s smile was gone. He hunched over the desk with a transmitter in his ear. The voice on the other end brought him up to date. Creases in his face grew dark and deep. Years of control, patience, and carefully consolidated power came from pure will.

It was wavering.

Petty annoyances glanced off his iron resolve without notice, defeats along the way were taken in stride—you don’t win all of the time—and setbacks were accepted when they came and turned back into progress when possible. But slowly, over time, more and more annoyances clipped him. Defeats came fast and they came often. The setbacks were major—the Colonel’s project had been whittled down from a major operation to little more than a half-cocked special op. And now, the results of working with incompetents were mounting. Limited and poor resources were compromising results.

A fucking kid beat two of my men…

Jim had escaped into the streets and the Colonel’s “crack” squad had been nearly wiped out by Tim Steele… a broken down, unarmed man. This is what you got with washouts and back-benchers.

It is closer than it has ever been, but this is it… if not now, never. Make of what you have, not of what you don’t…

The voice that sometimes came to the Shadow Man was especially clear in his ear. He often thought of it as his inner mind’s voice, but every now and again the voice was loud and distinct. It was deep and not his own, but not unfamiliar.

The voice was right, but it didn’t say anything he didn’t already know. The Shadow Man had been confident, but it was wavering. His control was slipping bit by bit. Deep rage—the eternal flame burning him up inside, driving him ahead—was slowly devouring him. Unless things turned around, the Colonel wouldn’t be able to contain it any longer. He would just kill his men and do it himself.

Once upon a time, this project had been popular with his commanders. They had believed in its success and supported the mission with funds, men, equipment, research, etc. But time, limited progress, setbacks, and poor performance had ended the gravy train. This really was the end of the line unless he acquired Titan. The samples obtained long ago had yielded unpromising results… well, results with poor side effects. The subjects had been effective while they retained their mental faculties. Jim had been prepped and if they could just get their hands on the little bastard again, the final injection could be used.

The fact was, even if Eric Steele had undergone the change, he was not Titan. He was just a boy; young, untrained, and stupid. Not like his asshole father or his murderous grandfather. He was just a boy with all kinds of shit running through him that he didn’t understand. The Colonel would send more men and try it that way. If they fucked up like the rest, well… plan B was promising. In his heart of hearts, the Colonel wanted to start with “Plan B,” but he had to keep up pretenses. It was overkill and might expose them, but it was time to go for broke because it was over otherwise.

The simmering rage burned to a boil and the Shadow Man flipped over the desk, the computer, and the whole station and smashed the workstation around him. His men stared, but the Shadow Man didn’t give them a second’s notice. It was all crumbling to shit and all his men could do was stare. He wanted to kill them all. He wanted to tear their faces off and stuff them up their asses. The plan had been simple and yet it was falling apart.

The Shadow Man turned to his C-squad of rejects. “Get the fuck away from me! When that helicopter gets back, I want a team out there. Find Jim McNulty immediately. If he gets to the Steeles first, this whole thing is fucked! Jim knows nothing specific, but Tim Steele will connect the dots.”

One of his assistants, suiting up to go out, called to him, “Sir, what about Titan? Will we attempt retrieval again?”

The hate didn’t subside, but the Shadow Man’s demented smile returned. He wanted to laugh again. “Yes,” he said, drawing it out and hissing like a snake. Yessssss.

“And if all else fails, Jim McNulty will help us.”