Silent Jury
Issue #19
by Tom Zjaba
Chapter 23
Here Comes the Calvary
As their plane sets down at the airport, Connie and The One
look out the window. Charlie has landed in a smaller airport, north of Los
Angeles. With The One aboard, he did not want to have to explain a large man
made of metal to customs. But since the jet and the airport are both owned by
Robert's company, they can get around allot of the red tape. The private jet
rolls down the runway as the it slows down. Once the plane has completely
stopped, some men come out of the darkness and bring over the stairs. Within
minutes, Connie steps out into the warm night air of California. She walks down
the stairs and is greeted by the workers. Next out is Charlie, who calls the men
over and hands them some money and says "Don't be frightened by what you will
see and please do not tell anyone." He hands each of the three men two hundred
dollars to be quiet. They all laugh as they figure this is the easiest money
they ever made. Then they see him. The giant metal man steps out of the plane
and they just stare in awe. He slowly walks down the ladder as they continue to
stare. Charlie then shocks them out of their shock "Is the other plane ready to
go?" The men pause for a second as they are still trying to figure out what just
came out of the plane. As The One gets next to them, they see how massive he
really is and how he is made completely of metal. One of the men stops staring
and answers Charlie "Yeah, we have it ready to go." Charlie smiles and says
"Great, now get this one gassed up and ready to go. I need to have them flown to
North Harbor." The One then talks as he asks the men "Do you guys have a
cafeteria or somewhere we can get some food?" The men all shake their head no.
Then one of them says "We can order pizza, if you like." The One looks at them
and says "Order a dozen pizzas, toppings don't matter." Connie jumps in "Yeah,
but no hot peppers." Charlie pulls out a stack of twenties and hands it to the
man "Also get some soda pop." The men all rush off to call the pizza place.
As the pizza is being ordered, Charlie looks at his daughter
and says "I must leave you now. I have something important to attend to. I will
meet you at Robert's house as soon as I can. Please don't do anything rash."
Connie looks at him with sadness in her eyes. "Father, I know it must be
important for you to leave at a time like this. But please be careful and hurry.
We will need all the help we can get." Charlie takes her hands in his and says
"I will be cautious. In the deck of the plane, there are three cases. One has
your armor and the other two have spare armor for Robert and Vanessa. I do not
know if they have any armor since they were not in the headquarters." She
releases his hands and hugs him. "You always think of everything, don't you."
she says as she squeezes him tight. He then releases her and leaves to an
awaiting car.
Robert and Vanessa are flying back home on a red eye. She is
asleep in the window seat. The view isn't as nice at night and she is tired from
the time zone and the excitement of the last few days. Robert looks at her as
she is sleeping and smiles. He wishes he could sleep that well on a plane. He
always is paranoid of the plane going down or something and cannot get into a
deep sleep. He just falls asleep for a few minutes at a time, never enough to
get any rest. With the plane quiet, he decides to pull out his father's journal
and read some more. He skipped up to a part on when they first encountered
Doctor Warlock and his cult. While things have change allot in the past thirty
plus years, he hopes that maybe there is some information that may aid him.
Journal 0040 - May 14 1970 - A fear has come over the city. There is talk of a
religious cult that is recruiting many young people. While there is no
connection to any illegal activities yet, I feel it needs to be watched closely.
Journal 0041 - May 21 1970 - Over the past week, grave robbers have hit a dozen
graves. While there are no suspects, all fingers point to the religious cult and
its very influential leader, Doctor Warlock.
Journal 0041 - May 25 1970 - With the help of the rest of the Silent Jury, we
are able to break up the Squad Leader's smuggling ring. The crazed villain who
still believes he is a squad leader in Korea, has been smuggling in opium and
other drugs from the Orient. We have been watching him for weeks, but he always
eluded us. But this time, we were one step ahead of him. Despite his new and
more powerful weapons, we were able to beat him. The new armor that Gadget has
built is very impressive. The Squad Leader did not know what hit him.
Journal 0042 - May 26 1970 - While interrogating the Squad Leader, we finally
got the break we were looking for. We found out that Doctor Warlock and his
religious cult were the ones that created the weapons he used. I knew there was
more to this cult than met the eye. Time to dig deeper and find out more.
Journal 0043 - June 3 1970 - We received a message about a gathering of the
cult. Upon arriving, we found them preparing to sacrifice a young woman. We were
able to stop it before she was hurt, but the leader disappeared. Not sure if he
was the notorious Doctor Warlock or not, but as we chased him, he literally
vanished into thin air. We were able to apprehend a few of his followers and are
in the process of interrogating them.
Journal 0043 - June 4 1970 - Doctor Warlock has taken over the local television
stations and sent out a message. He said that if his followers were not freed,
he would unleash the fires of Hell onto the city.
Journal 0044 - June 5 1970 - True to his word, Doctor Warlock unleashes the
fires of Hell. More accurately, his followers set fire to a dozen or so
buildings in the city. Guess arson is as close as he can get to the fires of
Hell.
Journal 0045 - June 6 1970 - More fires are set in the city. The mayor pleas for
the release of the followers. Without getting any information from them, we
reluctantly release them. But we do bug one of them, so we can find out where
their headquarters is. In a brilliant move by Charlie, we place two bugs on the
person, one that is well hidden but that could be found and one that is so well
hidden, they will never find it. Charlie figures that they will look for a bug
and when they find it, they will stop looking.
Journal 0046 - June 7 1970 - As predicted, the first bug was found and
destroyed. But the second one is still working and we are getting an idea where
their hideout is.
Journal 0047 - June 8 1970 - The bug has stopped working. They must have
discovered it. But we were able to get a very good idea where their hideout is
located.
Journal 0048 - June 9 1970 - Today, we are heading to what we believe is the
hideout. It is in a mountain in a National park outside the city limits. We hope
that they have not left.
Journal 0049 - June 10 1970 - Doctor Warlock has taken over the television
stations again. He gave a message that if the people responsible for kidnapping
his followers does not come forward and give themselves up, he was going to send
a nuclear bomb into the heart of North Harbor.
Journal 0050 - June 11 1970 - Unsure if he is bluffing about the nuclear bomb,
we decide that we must strike. We put on our armor and head to where we his
hideout should be.
Journal 0051 - June 10 1970 - Today's journal is hard to write. What I have
witnessed has shaken my very soul. We found the hideout of the cult, which was
inside the mountain. But what we found will disturb me till the day I die. They
knew we were coming as they all committed suicide. We came in to what could only
be described as a fortress, only to find hundreds of dead people. Bodies were
everywhere. They all seemed to have died of poisoning. We are unsure if Doctor
Warlock was among them. What we also found were hundreds of weapons being made
for various super villains and other criminals. We did not find a nuclear bomb,
but then the place is so big that there could be more hidden there. But the
place is also so filled with evil, that we do not want to spend too much time
there. Unsure what to do, we carried the bodies out to the woods and laid them
out and let the police know about it. We staged it to look like a gathering and
brought the poisoned pills they used. But we decided to close down the fortress
and hope it remains hidden. There is stuff in there that is too dangerous to
fall in the wrong hands.
Journal 0052 - June 18 1970 - Been over a week and no word of the cult. Doctor
Warlock has either vanished or was among the dead. We may never know. I still
cannot get the images of all those young people that we found dead. All anyone
talks about is the cult as it has been on the headlines of all the major papers
for the past week. Let's hope this is the end of it.
Robert puts down the journal and tries to imagine what it
would be like to find something like that. He knows that Doctor Warlock did not
die that day. He cannot help but think of him as a coward to have all those
people kill themselves and then just run off. This makes him even angrier than
before. But he did not find out anything to help him. The old Silent Jury did
not even know what Doctor Warlock looked like, let alone how to battle him. And
he cannot help but wonder why did Doctor Warlock not just move elsewhere or
stand up and fight the Silent Jury? Why have a mass suicide? None of it makes
sense. Maybe he can get the answers from Doctor Warlock after he defeats him. At
least that is the plan right now.
As the rest of the group heads to Robert's house, Charlie
heads to a warehouse in San Diego. It is an hour's flight for him to get them,
but he doesn't want to be slowed down by driving. As he arrives at a small
airport that way, he gets off the plane and into a waiting. The car then takes
him to the warehouse. It is an import/export warehouse that is extremely busy
during the day, but at night, it only has two employees. This man has worked
there for the past year and somehow he gets the work of five men done every
night. And he does it in little time. All he asks is to be left alone as he
spends most of the night playing online computer games. Every morning as the
rest of the crew arrives, they find all the work done and this guy playing
computer games. They are jealous of him as they are not allowed to fool around
on the clock. Some have come up with theories on how he gets his work done, but
none are that plausible. The most prevalent one is that he hires illegal
immigrants to do it for him, but since he does not make that much money, they
have no idea how he could afford to pay them.
Within an hour, Charlie arrives at the warehouse. It is
closed for the evening and the only people there are this man and a security
guard who watches the main gate. As Charlie pulls up, the guard stops him and
says "We are closed for he evening." Charlie pulls out his name badge and shows
it to him "I know but I have something that I have to do." As he looks at the
badge and sees that he is the owner, he apologizes. "Sorry sir, I didn't know it
was you." Charlie nods as he says "No problem, you were just doing your job." He
then opens the gates and lets him in. As the car drives up to the warehouse,
Charlie gets out and tells the driver "Stay here, I should be out in a half
hour." He then walks up to the warehouse and uses his name badge to unlock the
door.
Inside the warehouse, everything is quiet. He looks around
the cavernous place and is impressed at how everything is so neatly stacked.
There are piles of boxes that are ready to be shipped out. He also sees the
piles of merchandise that came in on boat. Everything is sorted, labeled and
checked. He slowly walks through the warehouse, which is extremely clean. He
sees a light on in the office upstairs and heads up the steel stairs towards it.
As he goes up the stairs, he can hear the sound of someone
yelling. "You did not just kill me. When I respawn, you are so dead." he hears
coming out of the office. He walks up to the door and looks in. With his back
turned, a man is sitting with a two liter of cola, a bag of chips and playing a
laptop computer with headphones on. He is moving around in his chair in an
animated manner, as if to try and dodge the bullets on the screen. Charlie opens
the office door and steps in. The guy does not hear him as he is so engrossed in
his game. Charlie walks up to the laptop computer and pushes down the screen.
The man jumps out of his skin as he did not know anyone was there. "What the
hell did you do that for? I was winning." He puts down his joystick and looks up
at Charlie. Before he can say anything, Charlie shows him his name badge. The
guy looks at it and says "So, you are the big cheese. Go ahead and say something
about playing on company time." Charlie smiles as he says "I am here to talk to
you about something else." The guy spins around in his chair and says "I know, I
know, the other guys are moaning because all it looks like is that I play games.
But I get my work done. Every freaking night, I get everything done and then
some. Charlie looks at the list of work and says "So you emptied today's
shipment, checked it all, sorted it, labeled it and did the paperwork?" The guy
smiles as he puts his hands behind his head. "Yes, it is all done." Charlie
looks at another sheet. "And you have all the shipments for tomorrow all boxed
and ready to go, with all the paperwork ready?" The guy smugly smiles and says
"Yes, I do." Charlie then looks over the sheet and says "And the whole warehouse
has been swept and mopped?" The guy laughs as he says "Would you like to inspect
it?" Charlie then hands him the list and says "And you did all this in three
hours?" the guy smiles and says "What can I say, I know my job." Charlie looks
at the awkward looking man in his early twenties. He has long brown hair that is
tied into a pony tail. He has a soul patch on his face and is wearing a Korn
t-shirt and torn jeans. He looks like a slacker and if Charlie didn't know
better, he would swear that is what he is. "I am not here to reprimand you, so
relax. I want to talk to you about how you are able to get all this work done so
quickly." The man turns his chair back towards his computer and says "I told
you, I am really good at what I do."
As the man is turned around, Charlie pulls out his laptop
computer and sets it up. The guy instantly comes over to look at it. "Sweet
computer. What brand is it?" Charlie smiles at him and says "It is a specially
built computer." He looks at it and says "Looks sweet. What are the specs on
it?" Charlie clicks on an icon and starts a video program. "If I told you the
specs, you would call me a liar." He then hits the button and a video of
warehouse appears. "You may not know it, but I have this entire building on
constant surveillance." The video shows piles of boxes just disappear from one
section and reappear in another. "Let us slow this video down." he says as he
puts it into very slow mode. As it is slowed down, he can see the guy moving the
boxes. "As you can see, in regular mode, you do not even appear in the video,
but as we can see, it is you moving them. Only you are doing it as super speed.
Now tell me, how are you doing it?" The guy's jaw almost hits the floor. "Dude,
like how did you get that? I disable the surveillance cameras every night."
Charlie smiles and says "I know. I saw the five minute gap that was appearing in
our security cameras every night. So I took it upon myself to have my own system
installed, one that not even your boss or his boss knows about." The guy stands
up and says "That is like so big brother dude. You are like totally spying on
me. Why?" Charlie tries to calm him down "Relax. At first, I figured that
someone was doing it to steal merchandise. But I noticed that the shrink numbers
were excellent. But I needed to know why it was happening. I needed to know that
someone wasn't using this place to ship drugs or counterfeit merchandise." The
guy sits back down and says "So are you like going to fire me or what? I like
have a game I need to get back to and you are so stopping me." Charlie crosses
his arms as he says "No, I am not going to fire you. Instead I have a
proposition for you." The guy looks at him and says "If you want me to do more
work, then you need to pay me more money. The pay here is not very good, but I
like being left alone, so it is all cool with me." Charlie goes back to his
computer and turns off the video. "No, nothing like that. But what I am going to
tell you needs to not be repeated to anyone. Can I trust you to keep it to
yourself?" The guy laughs "You video tape me without my consent and you want me
to trust you? That is hilarious." Charlie looks at him and says "I will get
right to the point. I want you to join the Silent Jury."
Once it sinks in, the guy almost falls out of his chair.
"What? You want me to what? Who the hell are you? Some kind of Professor X?"
Charlie shakes his head no. "I am one of the people who were part of the
original Silent Jury back in the sixties and seventies. Now, we have a new group
of heroes and we need a member with your talent." The guy laughs "Dude, I heard
all about how your group of armor wearing heroes trashed North Harbor. Why would
I want to join that?" Charlie stops for a moment and thinks. He knows that just
being in the group is not enough for this guy. "Tell you what, name your price.
What would it take for you to join?" The guy laughs as he says "Money is no big
deal for me. I have money. You cannot buy me, Mister Trump." Charlie thinks for
a moment. "You are right, you could easily get all the money you want. But there
has to be something you want." The guy thinks for a minute. "Tell you what, I do
have a few things I want. If you can get them for me, then I will join your
team." Charlie shudders when he thinks about what he wants. "Name them." The guy
spins in his chair as he says "Being a hero is all cool and such, but I want
immortality. The kind you only get when you have your own action figure."
Charlie almost laughs "What? You want an action figure?" The guy laughs and says
"Hell yeah! I want kids playing with a figure of me with super speed motion or
something. That and I want my own cartoon show." Charlie looks at him and says
"A cartoon show?" The guy gets all animated as he moves his arms around "Yeah,
with me beating up all kinds of villains and saving the hot chick with the big
boobs. Yeah, that is what I want. And a cool theme song in the cartoon show.
Done by a real band like the Red Hot Chili Peppers." Charlie has to keep from
laughing as he says "Is that all?" The guy then says "Well, I need a bitchin
costume and I also want a tricked out computer like yours. One that guarantees I
kick butt on any FPS I play. Totally lag free, if you know what I mean." Charlie
smiles and puts out his hand. "You have yourself a deal." The guy shakes his
hand and then says "Awesome! Now I need a kick ass name."
Charlie thinks for a moment and says "We need to give you a
name that emphasizes your speed. Like Flash in the comic books, it instantly
says what his power are." The guy smiles and says "Anything is better than my
real name." Charlie looks at him and says "What is wrong with your name? Morton
is a perfectly fine name." The guy breaks out laughing "You are way too old man.
Morton or Mort as I am called, sounds like the kind of name a guy would have
that sits at a park bench feeding pigeons." This makes Charlie break out
laughing "You really do hate your name." The guy thinks for a minute and says
"Need something like Speedy or The Zip." Charlie looks at him and says "The Zip?
Sounds like your powers are controlling zippers." Mort laughs as he says "Yeah,
that is kinda gay. Let me think here. I need something fast and something that
is memorable. Has to roll off the tongue. Gotta be a one word name. " Charlie
thinks about it too and then it hits him. "I have it, your name could be Blink."
The guy looks at him and says "Blink? I don't get it." Charlie blinks his eyes
real quick and says "Blink, because you can beat someone in the blink of an
eye." A smile comes over Mort's face. "Blink. Yeah, that is pretty cool. And I
don't think anyone is using it. Yeah, let's go with that. Awesome!" He then
gives Charlie a high five and says "So what is our first mission?" Charlie looks
at him and says "We need to break into our fortress and battle a powerful
sorcerer and his band of super villains." Mort looks at him and says "That so
sounds like a video game. You can't be serious." Charlie looks at him with a
straight face and says "It is all too real. We are going to meet the rest of the
team and make our move." Mort grabs his computer and says "Well, I need my
costume and I will be ready to go. Charlie starts walking towards the door and
says "I have one waiting for you in my private jet." Mort speeds past him and
stops in the door right before him. This is the first time Charlie has seen him
move fast in person and it was impressive. "Dude, like is your jet all tricked
out like the X-Men's plane?" Charlie laughs as he says "No, just a regular jet.
And it is not invisible like Wonder Woman's."
Silent Jury © 2006-2009 Tom Zjaba