“Come on, one yard.”

“Come on, boys.”

“You the man, Dilfer.”

“Please, please, please…”

“Here we go…”

“Come on…”

“It’s…wait, look, it's Alexander…!”

“There it…”

“Yeah!!!!”

“Woooo!!!”

Seahawk and Max high-fived each other vigorously in celebration, and made unintelligible sounds of manly satisfaction.

The two heroes sat in the living room area of the Forte base—the original Forte base, not the other converted warehouse base that their team called home—watching the Seahawks make their second touchdown against the Jaguars in the first quarter on this rainy Seattle Sunday afternoon.

The temperature in the famous hidden hero base defied the chill outside, a pleasant 72 degrees as always, whether anyone was at the base or not. For the past several years, “not” was the norm, since the original Forte had disbanded. But environmental systems and cleaning robots kept the base looking and feeling like Forte had never left, as if in tribute to the undying legend of the team itself. The base saw occasional use by its former members. And on days like today, sometimes it was host to company.

Seahawk was in full costume, while Max was suited up sans his helmet. The helmet rested patiently on a nearby comfortable armchair, one where any of the legendary heroes who called this place home—Dr. Jackal, Cincoflex, Vanguard, Anvil, Moondancer or any of the many others—could have once sat and watched a football game just like these latest heroes calling themselves Forte were.

“That’s what they teach you on the Crimson Tide,” Max said, clapping, as they watched the replay on the enormous television screen before them. “That’s Alabama football.”

“Yeah, but he’s no Bobby Humphrey,” Seahawk commented, reaching for his glass of Pepsi.

“Bobby Humphrey?!” Max said, startled, looking at his teammate. “Alexander broke Humphrey’s rushing record! He’s Alabama’s all-time leader!”

“Only by 145 yards. Humphrey had more style.”

“Oh, man, you’re crazy.”

“Hey, kid, you were like, five when Humphrey played there, so don’t give me any lip. I saw the games.”

“Wow, you were able to tear yourself away from your Wang Chung records long enough to watch a whole game back then?”

Seahawk picked up a handful of Fritos and made like he was going to hurl them at Max. Max—Bobby—put up an arm to shield himself and laughed. He had a smile that lit up his whole face, and people found it infectious.

Tinker came into the room. They had heard her a few moments before in the kitchen, washing her hands. She’d disappeared about forty-five minutes before down the long tunnel that led to the Silver Bullet hanger. They were starting to wonder if she was planning on coming back.

“Somebody looks giddy,” Seahawk noted with a crooked grin.

Not even trying to deny it, Lucy made a gleeful little sound and flopped down on one of the couches, a Christmas morning aura around her.

“It…is…so…cool. Oh, my God.”

“You didn’t take it apart, did you?” Seahawk asked. “Because if we break anything in here, they’re probably going to expect us to pay for it.”

“Don’t tempt me,” she grinned. “The Silver Bullet! I had a poster of it on my bedroom wall as a kid! It’s beautiful!”

“You had a poster of a helicopter? Man, you were a nerd.”

She ignored the comment. “It’s everything I thought. It’s beautiful enough in design, but the modifications Vanguard and Jack made are ingenious. Well, I mean, there’s still room for improvement. I have tons of ideas. I have to sit down and talk with them about it. I have to fly it! You think they’d mind if I took it out?”

“I think that’s pushing our luck for our first time. Maybe we ought to wait on that one.”

Only slightly disappointed, Lucy reached for some Fritos. “This is so cool of them. I can’t believe they finally let us come play in their base unsupervised.”

“I know,” Max said, now that a commercial was on and his attention was off the game. “This is so great. They really must trust us a lot.”

The heroes had been at this base on several occasions before, but always with the other Forte heroes, and usually for specific events like the cross-world annual gathering to meet the heroes from the other Earths, or Dr. Jackal’s 40th birthday party. It was understandable that there would be some reluctance to let these new people into their home, give them access to all their systems and secrets. But Dr. Jackal had contacted them, and apparently, the time had come. They’d more than gained the Forte alumni’s trust in the time they’d now known them, and apparently, the alumni had talked it over and agreed it was time. They now had access codes to get in, full link-ups on their own computers to the Forte.com base system, and total access to the complete Forte database and records. And an invitation to come hang out at the base on this Sunday, make themselves at home and look around. Upon arrival, they had found a fully stocked fridge and a welcome banner made up by Dr. Jackal’s daughters.

“Yeah, well,” Seahawk said, looking up at the ceiling, “they’re probably watching us on the security cameras right now.”

Max looked at him in shock, and started looking up at the ceiling and walls himself.

“He’s kidding, Bobby,” Lucy reassured.

“Am I?” Seahawk asked her. “You did meet Vanguard, right?”

Rainier walked in from the computer room—wearing the human form of Davis Alexander—with his attention focused on clipboard-sized screen that Vanguard had constructed, one that allowed for portable viewing of whatever was on the main computer’s screen.

“This is amazing,” he said, still reading.

“Told you he was still alive in there,” Seahawk said. Davis’s disappearance made Lucy’s look brief.

“What’s that, Davis?” Lucy asked, pulling her legs under her and getting comfortable.

He stepped into center of the living room area, finally taking his attention off the screen and acknowledging his teammates. “Shrike was from the future. He was cast back in time, back here to our era, where he joined Forte and died.”

“The future?” Max boggled. “Is that possible?”

“Theoretically, yes, but it’s no longer theory. Apparently a device was constructed—or will be constructed—called the “Time Lash” that can transport people through time. And he wasn’t the only one. Trixie, Johnny Quest’s wife? She’s from the future, too.”

“Johnny’s wife, from the future,” Seahawk said. “That somehow makes perfect sense, doesn’t it? That, or if she turned out to be a robot.”

“She and Shrike were sent back at the same time, but she was thrown further back and arrived years before he did. And they were brother and sister.”

“What?” Lucy asked.

“Yes, and it gets stranger. It turns out they’re both the children of Phantasm.”

“Woah,” Max blinked.

“Oh my God,” Lucy said. “That’s so sad. They didn’t just lose a teammate when Shrike died. Phantasm lost his son. And Trixie lost her brother.”

“Only Phantasm didn’t know until later that it was his son. The whole time Shrike was on the team, he never revealed that to Phantasm. But the amazing part here is that Shrike was born again.”

Max paused and thought about that for a moment. “So, he was, like, religious, or…?”

“No, no,” Davis said. “I mean literally born again. His future self died, but not long after that, he was actually born to Phantasm and his wife. He’s ten years old now.”

There was a period of silence. Seahawk finally broke it.

“That’s messed up,” he said plainly.

“That’s incredible,” Davis countered. “The implications are staggering. Even more so with Trixie. She was born soon after Shrike. There are two of her now, existing in our time together, both the younger and older versions. A whole field of the study of applied temporal mechanics could be founded just based on the information in this database.”

“Maybe that’s why it has to stay in the database,” Lucy offered. “Maybe the world’s not ready for time travel.”

“It’s just…” David said, looking down at his screen again and scrolling through some things. “The team’s records are filled with things like this. Time travel, other earths, gods, the verified existence of Hell, things with scientific and theological weight on a level I can’t even describe. If the world knew half of what they know…”

“Big responsibility,” Seahawk said. “Knowing all that, having to decide if the world’s better off knowing or not knowing it. Guess it’s our responsibility now, too.”

“But who are we to make that decision? Who are we to be keepers of all this knowledge? Why do super-powers give us this right? Does being able to lift a bus or shoot lightning from our fingertips qualify us to make these choices for billions of others?”

“Dave?” Seahawk said. “You’re doing that thing again where you give me a headache.”

Davis sighed and stared at the screen, deep in thought. “I suppose super-heroes have had to deal with these questions for as long as we’ve had super-heroes. I’d be interested to see how they’ve all managed to deal with it.”

“Well, you’ve got access to the Hero System now. Call a few of them up and ask them,” Lucy said.

“Yeah, right,” Davis said, distractedly. Sighing again, he looked around the room, then at the others and the TV, almost as if he was noticing his surroundings for the first time. “How can you be watching TV? We’re in one of the most secret and historied buildings on Earth. We have access to all this information. And you’re watching television?”

“Have you noted the size of the television?” Seahawk asked, sipping his drink.

“It’s the Seahawks, man,” Max said, as if the answer was self-evident.

“You want a brownie?” Lucy asked, holding up a mostly full plate. “Jack’s daughters made us brownies.”

“No, no,” Davis declined, in thought again. “I need to get back…to reading…there’s still so much…” With that, he was lost to them again, looking at his screen and wandering off back toward the computer room.

“Knock yourself out,” Seahawk toasted as he left. “His brain’s going to be fried by the time we leave here. That’s assuming he even leaves.”

“At least the fridge is full so he won’t starve for a while,” Lucy said.

“And there’s bedrooms upstairs,” Max said. “If he wants to sleep.”

“Ooh,” Lucy said, looking up the stairway. “I wonder who had which room? Think there’s a list in that database somewhere?”

“With Vanguard putting it together? Probably so,” Seahawk said.

“Makes you wonder doesn’t it?” Lucy asked.

“What does?”

“You know. All these different heroes, all those bedrooms, all that post-world-saving adrenaline…”

Seahawk rolled his eyes.

“What? You think that hot tub in there is strictly for therapeutic use? Come on, Jackal and Knightsabre, Cincoflex and Shrike… The office romances are well documented. Just makes you wonder who else might have hooked up over the years that we don’t know about.”

“Hmmm,” Seahawk said. “Makes you wonder how much the security cameras around here pick up.”

“Hmmm,” Lucy agreed, looking around. “You know, my Phantasm and Phantashia dolls used to make out.”

“Do tell?”

“I always thought they’d make a good couple. Similar names and such. You know.”

“Score!!” Max yelled. “The kick is good!”

“Oh!” Seahawk yelled with him. “That’s gotta hurt!”

More high fives ensued.

Davis came running around the corner from the computer room and jolted to a stop.

“There’s a race of plant people living beneath Seattle!”

Everyone turned to him.

Davis waited, incredulous that he wasn’t getting any reaction.

“There’s a race of plant people living beneath Seattle!”

The others looked at each other, then back at him, in silence.

Exasperated, Davis shook his head, turned, and went back to the computer room.

“No, wait, Davis, we’re sorry,” Lucy said guiltily over her shoulder through a mouthful of brownie, catching a falling crumb with the back of her hand. “Come back. We want to hear about the plant people.”

“I don’t want to hear about the plant people,” Seahawk muttered. “You want to hear about the plant people?” he asked Max.

“How can they be plants and be people?” Max asked.

“My point exactly,” Seahawk said, and grabbed for a brownie himself.

Finishing her brownie, Lucy looked around, having been sitting in one place too long. “I’m going to go check out how the security system’s set up.” She got up and headed toward the security room.

“You break it, you buy it,” Seahawk reminded after her. “Nerd,” he finished under his breath.

“You think this base is cooler than our base?” Max asked as another commercial started.

“I don’t know,” Seahawk said. “I like ours fine.”

“Think we’ll end up moving in here?”

“Again, I don’t know. These are some big walls to fill. But we are Forte now, right? This is the Forte base. I guess it’s kind of inevitable. Sounds like they’re moving us in that direction.”

“Wonder if we should pick out bedrooms.”

“Think that’s getting a little ahead of ourselves.”

“I think you ought to get a big one.”

“Me? Why?”

“Well, I mean, I know you need a lot of extra space. You know, for all those Wang Chung and Duran Duran albums…”

This time, Fritos did fly.

END.

 

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