Congrats to all the winners of the DarkLight Redemption Goodreads book giveaway !
You’ll be getting your signed copies soon, and I hope you enjoy the read.
As for everyone else, you can still get the book in paperback or Kindle on Amazon.com, and it’s definitely worth a look (if I may say so myself).
Hey All,
Figured I ought to let anyone who drops by know that DarkLight Redemption is now available to purchase in paperback & on Kindle.
You can also borrow it from you local cyber library if you have a Kindle Unlimited Membership, or take a moment to enter the Goodreads Giveaway contest!
I posted a blog on the inspirations for the titular character of DarkLight Redemption a few days ago, so today I’ll be discussing a bit about the origins of the Post-Human Universe as a whole.
I love comics and have for most of my life, which is why I- like many geeks – often daydreamed about writing the adventures of Batman, Spider-Man, Superman, Captain America, X-Men, Justice League and all the usual suspects. Also, like most people, I didn’t exactly have the DC or Marvel people knocking down my front door asking me to write for them. So I ultimately had to create my own sandbox to play in.
The Post-Human Universe is called so because, while the Post-Humans are at the center of it, the story expands beyond just the Earth. Post-Humans are, simply put, people who have gained extraordinary powers. However, in DarkLight Redemption, I reference aliens from other worlds and even other dimensions. The Universe title is also a tip of the cap to the similarly named Marvel Universe and DC Universe.
As far as the story mechanisms goes, most comic stories are told from the first person perspectives of the title characters. Which is why I wrote DarkLight Redemption from that perspective, and intend to write my future Post-Human novels from it as well. They may not always be narrated by DarkLight himself, but they will all be told in the same manner. Another advantage of the first person narrative is that it plunges you directly into the world around that character with an immediacy that pulls the reader right in.
Tying the reader to a single character is also a good way to avoid several dozen, or hundred, pages of exposition. That’s especially useful here, since this story kicks in twenty years or so after the universe has already been changed in the Post-Human era. DarkLight himself is also a character who has spent years in a world that may otherwise seem strange to the reader, and so he’s a good guide for the journey.
I pulled some general story and tonal pointers from sources ranging all the way from Watchmen to The Venture Bros. Both of the aforementioned stories, wildly different as they may be, take place in extraordinary worlds made more relatable by the narrators who have lived in them for a while. Watchmen references a history of its world in smaller chunks, which works for the sort of story I was telling as well. And Venture Bros has fun with a world of super people and, while I didn’t quite go as far into the realm of parody, I wanted to keep things light for the most part.
You may notice that this novel is referred to as Book One in the Post-Human Universe. Don’t be scared off by that. I have plans to write several more novels in this series, but each one will stand primarily on its own merits – much like my Venator Series. Believe me, you won’t be waiting years for a conclusion to any of these stories.
If you’ve read this, and you’re interested in checking out DarkLight Redemption, then you should visit Goodreads and enter for a chance to win a copy of the novel. Of course, you always have the option to just buy the novel and leave nothing to chance. Either way, I do hope you decide to give it a shot.
Since I’ve just published my fourth novel, DarkLight Redemption, I feel like it’s a good time to discuss a bit about the origins and influences of DarkLight the character.
I’m a big comic book geek, and have been for a very long time. I love the larger than life action, the colorful costumes, the different spins they put on archetypal characters, really the whole shebang. Perhaps my favorite story trope is the loyal sidekick learning alongside the great hero and being groomed to one day replace him. Something about the idea of such a legacy always appealed to me.
The most famous example of this is Batman & Robin…well, Robins. Dick Grayson was the first Robin, and generally came across as a lot less intense and more personable that Bruce Wayne’s Batman. And while the idea of following around a superhero and learning from him is cool, my greater interest was in the idea that one day Dick Grayson would need to replace Bruce Wayne under the cowl. The idea of such a responsibility is very daunting to Grayson, but he also understands that Bruce will die someday, and he will be the only one who is truly able to step up.
Of course, DC Comics was in no rush to make drastic changes to their most popular character, but they also felt it was a bit odd that Grayson never got any older. So the idea was cooked up to re-brand an older, more mature Dick Grayson as Nightwing. I was fascinated with the notion of allowing a major recurring character to evolve, which is probably why Nightwing became my favorite superhero. He was a guy in his late teens-early twenties who was trying to carve out his own place in the world, while still understanding his place in the line of succession of Batman.
Other former sidekicks got “called up” before Nightwing, most notably his best friend Wally West/Kid Flash who became The Flash once Barry Allen was killed off in Crisis On Infinite Earths. But, eventually, Grayson got his chance to assume the role of Batman in the Batman Reborn storyline after the death of Bruce Wayne in Final Crisis.
A few years before that, however, the character who replaced Grayson as Robin- only to be killed off by The Joker– returned. Jason Todd came back from the dead (the how and why is better left untouched in this limited space) and took up the name Red Hood. He was more of an anti-hero than straight up villain who used the type of lethal force more akin to Marvel’s Punisher than Batman.
Speaking of Marvel, they had a similar story arc at around the same time where former Captain America sidekick Bucky Barnes came back as The Winter Soldier. Both of these characters became major parts of the ongoing adventures of Batman and Captain America. In fact, much like Dick Grayson becoming Batman, Barnes ended up carrying the shield as Captain America after Steve Rogers was killed off.
This is where I’m going to begin to tie everything to DarkLight Redemption. Character-wise, DarkLight is most similar to Dick Grayson. I even pay homage to the period in his run as Robin/Nightwing, when he led the Teen Titan (later known just as Team Titans and then just Titans) which was the inspiration for Varsity Squad in my book. But DarkLight’s character arc resides somewhere between Grayson and Jason Todd/Bucky Barnes, in that he does reluctantly become a supervillain. I’ll leave the specifics of that to be discovered by those who read the book.
There are also, of course, real world inspirations for DarkLight. I believe anyone who had been through – or is currently in – their twenties can relate to the idea of feeling as though they are at a crossroads in their lives. There are many paths that can be followed, and every decision you make leads you farther down one or another.
The sense of trying to make one’s parents, or parental figures, proud while still trying to blaze your own trail is one that I’m sure also strikes a chord in many of us. The legacy they are faced with living up to is far more dramatic that the one that most of us in the real world face, but the idea is the same. Maybe that, more than anything else, is why drew me to the Nightwings, Red Hoods and Winter Soldiers of the comic book universe.
Speaking of universes, I’ll probably be writing something up regarding the influences for the Post-Human Universe at large soon as well. Until I do, feel free to get started on DarkLight Redemption today! You can purchase the book in paperback, or follow me on Wattpad where I’ll be posting chapters weekly.
So this will be the final chapter of DarkLight Redemption that I’ll be posting here on my blog. The full novel will be available very soon, and you can count on me posting here when that happens.
I will continue to post chapter on my Wattpad page until the novel is complete.
EIGHT
As much as it pains me to admit it, Elizabeth Stokes was right: The Elemental Executioners had done a job for Weston, and when they came to collect their fees and found out that he was gone, they turned on each other quicker than starving hyenas.
The way I see it, if a tight unit like that can turn on each other so quickly without Weston holding their leashes, then this is a much bigger problem than I’d anticipated.
Which means that I find myself reluctantly flying back to Weston Tower to admit that Elizabeth was right. I’m looking forward to that about as much as getting teeth pulled. As an added concern, I seem to have picked up a stalker.
I thanked Dominatrix, as is proper etiquette when one saves your life, and then took off on my way. I’d expected her to take that as a signal to be on her way, but once again, I was wrong.
I’ve flown around the city twice already, hoping to politely shake her, but she’s kept pace. She keeps asking questions, which I naturally ignore. But not getting a response to one question doesn’t seem to deter her from asking another. And another.
“So where does your power come from? Inner willpower? Radiation from the yellow sun?” She runs down a number of other possible origins before moving on. “I was born with mine. Which was pretty weird. But also pretty cool,” she continues, making me wonder why she didn’t name herself Chatterbox instead of Dominatrix.
“Look, Dominatrix,” I turn toward her, and float backwards for a bit, “I really do appreciate your help, but…”
“Olive!” she calls back excitedly.
“What?”
“My name is Olive,” she replies with a polite smile that looks wholly out of place when surrounded by black leather.
“Okay, Olive, first: You shouldn’t go around telling people your real name,” I say matter-of-factly, “Defeats the purpose of the mask. Secondly: I’m on my way to handle some important business. So I have to say goodbye,” I finish.
“What important business?” she asks, her excitement ramping up again.
“It doesn’t concern you.” I’m irritated, but her vibe is somewhat endearing.
“But I can help!” she offers. “Like I helped back there with the Element Guys!”
“Elemental Executioners,” I correct her. “How long have you been doing this again?”
“I’m still learning the business, and I know you’ve been in it for a while,” she states. “So I was hoping to…y’know…hang with you for a bit.”
I’m getting the sense that shaking her is a lost cause. So I try a different route.
“Okay, Dominatrix….”
“Olive!”
“Trust me, when you’re wearing the mask, you’ll want to stick with codenames,” I explain. “I’m going to see Elizabeth Stokes. She’s got a job that I need to handle.”
“That’s funny. When I asked her about you yesterday, she told me your contract expired.”
“This is a different kind of job,” I clarify. “So if you want to tag along, be my guest.”
She zooms closer to me and stops right at my side. I can make out her emerald green eyes through the mask now. I search the rest of her rounded, pale-ish face, and long straight black hair, but I’m still unable to put my finger on where I know her from.
We coast the rest of the way side by side and land a block away from Weston Tower. The heat’s on after the mess the Elemental Executioners made, so we use one of the secret underground entrances. It’s a converted length of sewer that leads directly to the basement of Weston Tower.
As the elevator arrives at Weston’s office, the doors open to reveal a smug Elizabeth with an I-told- you-so look on her face.
I’d love nothing better than to flip her off and step right back into the elevator, but there’s too much at stake. So I lead Dominatrix to Elizabeth in a whipped-dog posture.
“Ah, dear Thomas, how lovely to see you again so soon,” Elizabeth purrs.
“Thomas?” Dominatrix jumps in. “Your name’s Thomas?”
“Do you mind?” I ask Elizabeth, ignoring Dominatrix. “I’m trying to maintain a secret identity here.”
“Or do you prefer to go by Tommy?” Dominatrix asks from behind me.
“Apologies,” Elizabeth says without the least bit of an apologetic tone. “After seeing you two on the news, I assumed that you were partnering up now.”
“We’re not,” I correct her and look at Dominatrix over my shoulder.
“Tom-Tom!” she exclaims with a smile.
“Just Tom. Aw hell,” I say, finally turning to face her while I pull off my mask. “Not like this is doing any good here.”
“Thank God!” Dominatrix gasps. “This thing gets soooo uncomfortable sometimes.”
She slides off her mask and pulls off what turns out to be a black wig. She shakes out her short, red hair, and I finally realize who she is.
“Hey, you’re the cute girl from yesterday!” I blurt out.
“You think I’m cute?” she smiles and bats her eyelashes at me.
“No!” I say with a little too much emphasis. “Well, yes, but that’s not…” I take a breath and turn back to Elizabeth. “You were right,” I tell her. The words leave a bad taste in my mouth. “We need to find Weston.”
“Of course I was right,” Elizabeth replies without missing a beat. “But you may have had a point as well. Perhaps it would be best if I do not send you out there. At least not alone.”
“Who’d you have in mind?” I ask. “And don’t say Blynk or Mimic because even I don’t trust them, so there’s no way my old buddies on the right side of the law are going to.”
She doesn’t say a word; she just looks past my shoulder at Dominatrix.
“Who? Me?” she asks, just before a tomboyish chuckle escapes from her. “Niiice!”
“No way,” I immediately argue. “She doesn’t have the experience.”
“She saved your life not fifteen minutes ago,” Elizabeth reminds me.
“The hero types aren’t gonna want to have anything to do with her,” I continue to argue my case.
“As you said, she is new,” Elizabeth reminds me. “It should be quite easy for you to convince them that she’s unsure of her place in the world. You know how those do-gooders adore having the chance to redeem one of us.”
“Oh, I could totally play that up!” Dominatrix interjects, furrowing her eyebrows, “Yeah, I’ve done some bad stuff, but sometimes I have trouble looking at myself in the mirror,” she says with an overdone frown.
Elizabeth and I look at her with a shared curiosity for a few seconds before she breaks into a smile.
“Pretty good, right?”
I tilt my head at her, and then turn back at Elizabeth.
“You will be doing most of the talking anyway,” Elizabeth tells me.
“Fine,” I surrender. “I just need to change first.”
“I get it,” Dominatrix says with a wink. “You’ve gotta stop by your secret lair, right?”
“Yeah,” I answer as the image of my unmade bed and stack of dirty dishes in the sink flash into my mind. “I suppose you could call it that. Meet me at the top of the Empire State Building in twenty minutes.”
“I like it,” Dominatrix nods and puts her wig and mask back on. “Dramatic! Sexy!”
“Convenient,” I add. “It’s the most recognizable building in the city, and I figure you’re new in town.”
“How’d you guess that?” Dominatrix asks as she straightens her wig.
“I know that you have no wish to team up with Blynk and Mimic,” Elizabeth says, before I can brag about my above-average powers of deduction. “But they would be a good place to start. They handled a few other recent jobs for Mr. Weston, so they may have a greater understanding of what he was working on.”
“You mean you don’t?” I ask with genuine surprise.
“Mr. Weston, like all powerful men, does keep his share of secrets,” she says with a bit of hurt in her voice. “Even from his most trusted confidants.”
“Sure,” I say as I pull my own mask back on, “We’ll let you know when we find something.”
SIX
According to police standards, a typical person is not considered missing until at least forty-eight hours have passed. Drake Weston, however, is not a typical person.
Oh sure, he’s invisible when he wants to be, but he’s always reachable to his closest associates. And no one is closer to him than Elizabeth Stokes.
Just yesterday, I would have sworn to you that I’d never set foot in this building again. And yet here I stand, less than twenty-four hours later, in Weston Tower. Once again, I’m greeted by Elizabeth, but this time, there’s no Drake Weston sitting at his desk behind her.
I’m about two seconds away from turning around and walking right back out when I see a very unnatural look on Elizabeth’s face. It’s a look of genuine concern, and it takes a lot to make this woman concerned. Which is why I decide to hear her out.
“And that is the problem,” she says after an abbreviated salutation. “It has been nearly a full day, and I have been unable to reach Mr. Weston.”
“Maybe he slept in?” I propose. “Maybe he decided to take a day off from masterminding insidious schemes and just chill? Even the notorious Drake Weston must take a day off every once in a while.”
“I have at least a dozen different ways to contact him when it is urgent,” she deflects. “He never takes longer than three minutes to contact me back when I utilize any of them. Since you and I last spoke, I have used all of them…twice…and received no response.”
The tone of her voice becomes graver.
“A man like Drake Weston does not simply vanish,” she continues. “That means he has come up against something that even he cannot overcome. And that would be something that I have never seen. Nor would ever wish to.”
“Look, I get it: You care about your boss,” I say in a manner that defies my own fears about someone (or something) that could make Weston disappear. “And I don’t mean to sound insensitive, but honestly, I kinda think the world might be better off if the great and powerful Drake Weston is gone.”
“Mr. Weston always said he thought you were a smart young man,” Elizabeth says with daggers in her eyes and bullets in her voice. “Clearly he misjudged you. Have you learned nothing about how important he is to the world in the past five years?”
“What I learned is that he’s responsible for very bad things happening,” I counter. “In fact, he had me help him do some of them.”
“You know nothing,” she snarls.
“He’s the hand that steers the supervillain community,” I growl back. “I fail to see how the bad guys having less guidance is a negative.”
“You have worked with a number of Post-Humans on the wrong side of the law, yes?” she asks, getting frustrated with me. I nod.
“Have you developed many friendships during those jobs?” she asks.
“Of course not,” I reply.
“There are not many who have,” she says. “Do you know why?”
“I’ve got some ideas.”
“It is because they hate everyone. The so-called good guys, the government, the other so-called bad guys,” she explains with some condescension. “That is why they are criminals,” she continues. “What do you think happens when there is no one keeping them occupied and employed?”
“They’ll keep committing crimes,” I reply with no surprise, “and nothing will change.”
“It is not just the villains,” Elizabeth states. “Mr. Weston was the liaison between more Human/Post-Human affairs than anyone else on the planet. Heroes, villains, the government –”
“I get it. He had his fingers in a lot of pies,” I cut her off.
“I am talking about the man who is the single most significant part of the entire Post-Human infrastructure of society, and you are throwing pastry-based clichés at me?” she says coldly.
“Listen, even if you’re right and it’s a problem that Weston is missing, what makes you think I’m even the right guy to look for him?” I ask. “I’m no gumshoe.”
“But you are the one person who still has strong connections to both sides of the Post-Human community,” replies Elizabeth.
“You’re joking, right?” I scoff. “I’m Judas to the superhero community, and the supervillains never really trusted me; they just worked with me because Weston told them to.
“Trust me, if I’m anything, then I’m the guy most likely to get my ass kicked or killed anywhere I go!” I exclaim. “You need to find someone else. I know I’m not the only one to flip sides at one point or another.”
“Mr. Weston’s other allies will give you the information you request because I will tell them to. When he is not present, I am his voice and his hand,” she says in a way that’s, admittedly, a little intimidating.
“And you had a close bond with a number of the others from your days as LightBlast — the sort of bond that does not just disappear after a little time has passed,” she argues. “These people you cared about will not be immune to the fallout.”
I don’t like what she’s insinuating, especially since I know exactly who she’s talking about. I clench my fists and almost subconsciously try to power up. But Weston’s power-dampening fields keep me from doing anything more than getting red in the face.
“Even when you’re asking for help, you can’t stop pushing it, can you?” I say in a threatening tone of my own.
“You know that I am right,” she says, intentionally softening her approach.
“What I know is that I’m done here.”
I turn and head back to the elevator, stopping at the closed doors. A few long moments pass, but the elevator doesn’t appear.
“I may not have my powers up here, but neither do you,” I turns to face her again. “And I may not be the type of guy who hits women, but you and I are gonna have a big problem if you don’t let me out of this office right now.”
She pushes a button on Weston’s desktop, and I hear the elevator moving into position.
“You will be back once you see what happens out there without Drake Weston,” she warns as the light above the elevator dings and the doors slide open. “Believe me, Thomas, it will not take long.”
“Yeah, well, good luck getting someone to find your boyfriend,” I retort as I step inside and the elevator doors close.
It’s hot as hell out there today, so turn up your A/C, lay out on your couch and enjoy chapter five!
FIVE
After the conversation with my parents went about as well — and as poorly — as it could have, I walked just down the street from their house and took flight. It takes less than five minutes in the air to get to my usual landing spot in the city.
It’s still pretty early, so I decide to swing by the bar and see how everything stands there. I named my pub Dive. It’s an ironic name — or at least I like to think so. It’s small, seats maybe fifty at capacity, and we don’t serve any food other than your typical bagged bar snacks.
I live in Manhattan, but Dive is in Astoria because it’s way cheaper to lease a joint out there. We’ve got satellite set up, so we can put on any and all the games that we want to. Twelve TVs hanging from the walls, so we get plenty of local sports fans. I pride myself on keeping the good stuff on the taps and on the shelves. The patrons seem to appreciate it.
We’re still in September, so Sunday Night Football is airing on all the TVs. Bar’s about half full, which is typical for this time. I only keep one bartender and two waitresses on nights like this. I chat up the staff while seating myself at the bar and knock back a few while I watch the game.
When it’s time to leave, I duck into a narrow alley a few blocks down, make sure there’s no one watching from the windows and launch myself into the sky. I drop down on a rooftop down the street from my apartment building and float down slowly, again making sure no one is watching me.
My apartment is nothing to scream about, just a third-floor walk-up near Gramercy. Truth is, since I’m no longer collecting those loaded briefcases from Weston, I may end up moving closer to my bar in Astoria. Dive does well enough, but I’m not exactly a billionaire playboy.
But that’s a problem for later; right now, I just want to plop down on my sofa and enjoy my freedom. Of course, I have to feed Neena and Veena first. My lifestyle made it difficult to have high-maintenance pets, so I got myself a couple of dwarf hamsters and named them after a pair of bellydancing twins that I saw on an infomercial late one night.
They’ve got a lot of personality for such little critters, but at least I don’t have to take them out for walks a couple times a day. That being said, I do give them plenty of time in their plastic balls to go for a run around the apartment. Since my schedule is about to become a lot more manageable, I might think about adopting a dog or cat.
I thought I’d sleep better after simplifying my life, but that’s not the case. In fact, I barely sleep for more than a few minutes at a time. My mind keeps racing to the beat of all the remarkable and terrible things I’ve seen.
Aliens, monsters, doomsday devices, displays of power that would make a normal person lose control of their bowels. And I’ve seen too many of those normal people suffer at the hands of beings that are almost impossible to believe exist.
As LightBlast, I fought the battles that most people couldn’t. I mean, I personally blasted spaceships out of the sky, for cryin’ out loud!
Then, as DarkLight, I used those same abilities to assist Drake Weston in accomplishing whatever heinous ends he sought. But who am I now? Am I just Tom Reynolds: an aimless, self-employed twenty-something?
I still have my powers, and as far as I know, they’re not going anywhere. Do I just waste them and prove, once and for all, that I was never really worthy of having them?
I’m done with Weston; that’s not even a debate. But I can’t very well go back to fighting against him and his kind, either.
Drake Weston knows everything about me now. Which means that, if I piss him off, then everyone I care about could end up getting hurt. They might just vanish to some dark fate notated by a single shorthand line in one of Weston’s ledgers.
I’ve never once cursed my powers. In fact, I oftentimes defined myself by them. But to have them now, and not be able to use them?
I have to remind myself that I should be relieved. After all, there will be no more flying into fights where my opponent could make me explode with a wink of his eye. And yet relief never comes.
My personal identity crisis lasts until the sun forces its way in through my bedroom window. A bowl of cereal and a glass of juice later, I find myself finally passing out on my sofa.
Just as I’m settling into a mildly inappropriate dream about the redhead I spotted leaving Weston’s office yesterday, my phone rings me back awake. The number is blocked, so I’m about to let it go to voicemail when curiosity gets the better of me.
“Hello,” I yawn into the phone.
“Thomas.” Hearing Elizabeth Stokes’s voice on the other end of the line clears up my head in a hurry. “We need your help.”
“I’m done helping you and your boss,” I say with anger in my voice. “A deal is a deal. You might remind him about that.”
“I can’t remind him of anything,” Elizabeth says with some concern registering in her normally unshakeable voice. “Because he’s gone missing.”
Celebrate Friday with chapter four of DarkLight Redemption!
And don’t miss out on getting The Alpha for $0.99 – only two days left on this KDP Countdown Deal.
FOUR
I try to have dinner with the family at least once a week.
Sure, I catch plenty of grief for my questionable life choices, but I know I’m lucky to have them. I’ve run into too many super-powered nutjobs who have a traumatic upbringing to blame for their issues to bemoan my own situation.
My folks still live out in the ‘burbs, and I’ve got an apartment in the city, so it’s a bit of a trek to see them. I don’t have a car, so I usually just fly over there. Since they don’t know about my abilities, I naturally have to lie to them, and I touch down at the train station nearest the house.
It’s only about a mile away, and I always tell them that I’d be happy to walk over and get some air, but they insist on picking me up at the station. Truth is, it’d be quicker to just land closer by, but I’ve got appearances to keep up.
So I fly to the wooded area just behind the train station and walk out to the tracks. Pretty sure everyone who sees me thinks I’ve just finished taking a leak in the woods. The crooked looks and head-shakes confirm as much. From there, I walk to the parking lot just in time for Dad to pull up.
We make typical small talk on the short jaunt to the house. How have you been? Anything new? Did you catch the games on Sunday? The usual. We pull up to the house, and I can smell the pot roast in the oven as soon as I walk in.
My mom always makes pot roast when I come by. Or prime rib. I suppose she feels like she wants to make something nice, but I’d just as soon sit down and have some meatloaf or mac and cheese.
Maggie’s not here. My mom tells me that she’s out with her girlfriends. She’s rarely around when I come over — at least that’s how it’s been the last few years. At first, I figured it was the standard pouty teenage girl thing. But she’s out of her teens now, so maybe there’s something more to it.
I’ve already decided that this would be the night I finally come clean with my parents. Since I’m leaving the whole superhero/supervillain game to people less jaded and more interested, I might as well let the people closest to me in on my secret.
Some Posties claim that they keep their secret identities hidden from their loved ones to protect them. I guess I sort of understand that, but my reasons were a bit different. My parents have always been the worrying sort, so I mainly kept my work as LightBlast and DarkLight to myself to keep them from having a monthly nervous breakdown.
At least that’s why I kept my life as LightBlast secret. I really kept the whole DarkLight thing to myself out of shame. It would also raise questions about why I switched allegiances that I didn’t want to answer.
We stick to small talk through dinner, but once the coffee comes out, I decide that it’s now or never.
“So there’s something I’ve been wanting to talk to you guys about for a while now,” I begin.
“What’s on your mind, son?” asks Dad. “The bar’s not in trouble, is it?”
“No, I’m doing fine with the bar,”
“Is there a special lady that you want to tell us about?” asks Mom. “It’s been too long since you brought someone over for us to meet.”
“No, it’s not that either,” I reply.
“Have you finally given more thought to going back to school?” Dad jumps in, and I ignore what I recognize as a light jab.
“What I want to tell you is that…” I pause for one last second to make sure I want to go through with this. “I’m a Post-Human.”
They look to each other curiously for a moment before turning back to me.
“Oh, honey, we know that,” my mom says with a shrug.
“You do?” I ask as the shock I was expecting backfires on me.
“Of course,” Dad adds. “Have for quite a while now.”
“How?”
“If you can’t recognize your eldest child when he’s flying around shooting lasers out of his hands, then you’re not a very attentive parent,” Mom explains.
“You know, they’re not exactly lasers, per se,” I start.
“But that’s still no excuse to not get a college education,” Dad says, ignoring my last comment.
“People go to college to get better career opportunities,” I say. I end up going on the defensive about a completely different matter than I’d expected.
“I’m already a successful small business owner. What would be the point?”
“Because knowledge gives you real power,” Dad says. This is a line that I’m sure he’s rehearsed numerous times before.
“The alien warlord Grytlepletarch The Indomitable has real power,” I counter. “And I’ve used my powers to help stop him from conquering the Earth on more than one occasion.”
“Don’t be so literal, sweetheart,” my mom gently insults me. “Your father and I just want you to understand more about the world.”
“I’ve been all over the world,” I insist.
“Having super-powered fistfights in the Roman Colosseum or over Tokyo don’t count as knowledge-gathering trips,” Dad states.
“I read!” I exclaim. “I watch plenty of History and Discovery Channel. Hell, I’m probably more prepared to win on Jeopardy! than any college graduate.”
“That sounds more like an excuse than a reason,” Dad says in a very Dad-ish fashion.
“So you’ve known about me for a while.” I scurry to get the conversation back on point. “Why didn’t you ever say anything?”
“We respected your privacy,” Mom says. “And we figured that if you wanted us to know, then you’d tell us yourself.”
“Wait, you said you’ve known for a while.” I dread the answer to the question I’m about to ask. “Does Maggie know?”
“Of course she does,” Mom replied. “She’s a very bright girl.”
“College graduate,” Dad adds as an aside.
“Does she know why I…” I search for the proper phrasing. “Went bad?”
“No,” Dad says flatly.
“But we do,” Mom preemptively answers my next question. “We’re well aware of how difficult it would have been to get her into one of those treatment studies. God knows we tried our best.”
“And we wish to hell that you weren’t the one who had to make that compromise,” Dad adds with a mixture of anger and embarrassment.
“I know you do,” I say. “So why does she think I started committing crimes?”
Mom looks over at Dad again before replying.
“For the money.”
“Then let’s leave it that way,” I say. “I don’t want her feeling guilty or somehow responsible for my actions.”
“We agree with you on that,” Dad mutters, still with some shame.
It breaks my heart to see my dad — who was always such a strong, proud and noble man — wrestle with a horrible time in our lives that he simply had no control over.
“I suppose that explains why she’s not usually here when I come by,” I say with a sad smirk.
My parents both struggle with how to reply to that. Dad finally decides to get the discussion moving forward again.
“Why have you decided to tell us about your secret identity now?”
“Because I’m finished with it,” I say with some pride of my own.
“All of it. I repaid my debt, and I’m walking away.”
“I’ll be honest with you, son.” Dad looks to Mom again, this time with a smile. “We’re very relieved to hear that.”
“Well, I’m relieved to say it,” I reply, even as the whisper of a doubt creeps into my thoughts.
“You know,” Dad begins, sitting up straight and taking a satisfied sip of coffee. “Since your full attention will now be on your business, perhaps you should consider getting an MBA?”
It’s Monday, which is usually a terrible thing, but on this Monday you get to enjoy Chapter Three of DarkLight Redemption!
THREE
I know what you must be thinking: Hey, I thought this was just a guy in over his head. But here he is, taking briefcases full of cash from criminal masterminds. What gives?
So allow me to offer some context. Post-Humans (often referred to by the public at large as Posties, though I can never tell if that’s meant as a slur) first appeared a little less than twenty years ago, which means that I’ve never really known a world where super beings didn’t exist.
No one really know the why or how. Maybe the stars were properly aligned. Maybe the mad scientists of the world unleashed something. Or maybe it was just time for the world to change.
It was strange because people who had been ordinary their entire lives suddenly began exhibiting these powers. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to it — it just happened.
There are two theories that I think hold some validity. The first is that Earth had its first encounter with extraterrestrial beings at around that time. And the second is that Charles Porter made a breakthrough in his work with dimensional barriers.
I can’t prove a connection to either event, and I wouldn’t even know how to start explaining Charles’ work since he’s a world-renowned physicist, and I never even finished my second semester of community college.
Instead I’ll focus on my personal history. It was all pretty boring. My dad’s worked in construction for thirty years, and my mom’s a veterinarian. My sister, Maggie, just graduated college with a degree in sociology, which I have no doubt my parents will use to try and guilt-trip me into going back to school.
When I was a kid, I loved reading all about the superheroes. Half the comic books on the shelves were non-fiction, if you can imagine that. All the action seemed to be in the major cities, so growing up in the quiet suburbs, I always longed to visit a big city and see a super fight in person.
When I got old enough to travel to Manhattan myself, I would take the train in every weekend just hoping to come across a Post-Human showdown. It was stupid and morbid and dangerous, but if you can’t do dangerously stupid morbidity when you’re fifteen, then when can you?
One day, I got my wish — and it nearly killed me.
I was in midtown when the wall of a bank evaporated. It didn’t explode; it just sort of went away. A Postie named Moleculon was robbing it. He has the power to manipulate any physical matter that he’s touching. And yes, that’s as terrifying as it sounds.
In this case, he touched the wall and transformed it into a gaseous state. Again, not a physicist, so I have no idea how one turns brick into gas. But Moleculon did it nonetheless. He was making a break for it when MasterBlaster arrived on the scene.
MB and The Paradigm became the faces of the superhero movement about fifteen years ago when they were both in their early thirties. Not P.H.A.T.E.’s government-sponsored version of the movement, mind you, but the real one.
The Paradigm was your classic all-star quarterback type: all brawn and media-friendly smiles. MB came across as more of a thinking man’s hero. His insightful brown eyes expressed a great intelligence, but his square jutting chin showed that he could take a punch. MB is a pretty big guy in his own right, so you know he can throw a punch as well.
Seeing him in person was just as awesome as I’d imagined it would be. MB flew down from the sky, glowing blue and wearing the red and gray costume that I’d seen in photos and drawings for years. Here was the heroic masked man swooping in to save the day! Classic.
Moleculon turned some cars to gas, blew them toward MB and then resolidified them. MB took a pounding, but his force field deflected most of the impact. The whole fight only lasted a few minutes, but it felt like an hour while I was watching it.
But losing track of time was less of a problem than losing track of where I was. And so I ended up too close to the action, and Moleculon grabbed me.
He held me in front of him like a human shield as MasterBlaster set down on the ground. There was yelling back and forth — I don’t really remember details, but it was your typical chest-beating stuff.
What I do remember is that my entire body began to feel lighter. I felt like I was disappearing — and in fact, I was. Moleculon was threatening to turn me into smoke if MB didn’t let him escape.
Not surprisingly, I was getting the sense that would happen anyway. Moleculon had killed before, and I didn’t doubt he would again. MasterBlaster must’ve felt the same way since he quick-drew a narrow energy blast, which shot through Moleculon’s shoulder.
At the same moment that he fell, my body seemed to come alight, and I lost consciousness. When I woke up, I was in a laboratory. MB was unmasked and running some tests on a machine. He introduced himself as Charles Porter and told me that I’d been changed on a cellular level.
When Moleculon had a hold on every atom in my body and Charles blasted him, my cells became infused with the same kind of power that Charles’s had.
I, of course, thought that was awesome. But Charles warned me of the dangers of carrying that sort of power without any understanding or training. I agreed on the spot to join up as his sidekick, LightBlast. I came up with the name myself.
I say “agreed” to become his sidekick, when “forced myself into the job” might be more accurate. Either way, Charles took me under his wing, and we got our superhero on together. For five years, I partnered with Charles, even starting my own superteam with other teenaged Post-Humans.
There was no adult hero equivalent, as most team-ups ended up being temporary. Egos and such always end up getting in the way. But my team, Varsity Squad, stuck together. I came up with that name as well, and I’m not sure if I’m more embarrassed by that one or LightBlast.
At any rate, I was living the dream. Beating up bad guys, fighting off alien invasions, and just enjoying all that comes with having superpowers. I felt invincible, like nothing could touch me. And then Maggie got sick.
She got hit with something new, rare and nasty. Fast, too — in fact, most cases ran their course from first symptoms to death in less than a month. I had no options and little time to find some.
There was no widely known treatment at the time, and to get Maggie enrolled in the experimental testing would have required pulling a number of strings that my family simply did not have access to.
I went to Charles first, hoping that he might know something I didn’t. He called his friends, mostly other Post-Humans, but nothing came of it.
That’s when I had to make a hard choice. There was one person I knew of that had the sort of resources I needed to save my sister. So I went to Drake Weston and made a deal with the devil.
As it turned out, he had the inside track on a treatment for the disease. He’d run a few tests of his own, and each one was a success. The only reason he hadn’t cashed it in yet with the world medical community was because he was still waiting to see if the cure would last.
I didn’t have time to wait and see whether the treatment would kill Maggie, as the sickness would take her long before then. So I agreed to work for Weston, and he agreed to get my sister enrolled in his own private treatment study.
Five years later, my sister is alive, and I’m finally done paying off my debt to Weston. It took betraying all my friends and most of my principles, but I would do it again in a heartbeat if it meant keeping Maggie’s heart beating.
But what about the money? you may still be asking.
Well, Weston could have had me doing his bidding for free if he wanted. But, always one to take preemptive action to avoid future complications, Weston made sure that all his employees were well-compensated.
I did try to refuse the first few payments, but I eventually caved and accepted. Say what you will about my wobbly moral compass, but the money helped me buy my pub. And having that will allow me to walk away from LightBlast, DarkLight and my whole messy past once and for all.
Hello Readers!
I’m trying something a bit different with my new novel, and that something is giving it away for free – one chapter at a time.
Since DarkLight: Redemption is a superhero story, and most superhero stories are told one monthly issue at a time, I’m releasing this in a similarly serialized manner.
Fret not, though, because I won’t just release one chapter a month. I’ll be rolling it out twice a week to completion. I’ll try to keep them regularly rolling out every Monday and Friday.
And so, without further adieu, here is the first chapter in the first book of what I’m calling the Post-Human Universe.
Enjoy!
ONE
What is the difference between a hero and a villain? Continue reading