Superheroine - Chapter 6
The ventilator mask covered the face of the sleeping girl. Demarco Dominick's lips trembled as he held her hand and looked down at her face. Three tubes ran from the machines around the bed, disappearing into her body. Even when she had been healthy, his massive hand had dwarfed the hand of his seventeen-year-old daughter, Ashley. Now she was frail, her physique a victim of all the pills and other drugs she had abused.
His jaw tightened. The scumbag addicts who had pulled her into their world had caused this. Before drowning in that world, she had been his sweet, innocent baby.
She looked like a tiny skeleton next to his gigantic frame. Dominick, a tall black man, was large in other ways beyond just his height. His belt could have fit around the waist of two men, and his arms and legs were the size of tree trunks. His size was that of an obese man, not an athlete. He had been an athlete, decades earlier, but many years behind a desk had robbed him of that physique.
He wasn't sure how long he had sat here, starting at her while she slept. She was all he had left. His wife and her mother had died two years earlier, just before Ashley first slipped away, into this coma. The doctors had told him Ashley was brain dead and wouldn't awaken, but he had refused to believe it. It had taken the best lawyers in the country to win the fight to bring her home. Now she lay here, day and night, hooked up to a machine to keep her alive.
His friends assumed he had brought her home to die. But Dominick wouldn't accept death for his daughter. Dominick hadn't built Fizzure Technologies into a powerhouse by quitting. He had grown from humble beginnings into one of the city's richest men through force of will, to go along with his intelligence and ingenuity.
Dominick turned and crouched before a small safe to the right of the bed. He keyed in a combination and opened the door. A dull, black rectangular piece of rock, about the size of a brick and with smooth edges, sat nearly invisible inside. The brick was so dark it blended in with the black fabric lining of the container.
Dominick took it in both hands and held it up in front of his face, marveling at its lightness. The rock was solid and smooth on all sides, but was nearly weightless in his grasp.
He placed it inside a device resembling a microwave oven, on a shelf next to Ashley's bed. A tube ran from the device toward the bed, before splitting into three smaller tubes. Each of those tubes ran to separate intravenous bags hanging above her.
He closed a door on the front of the device and pressed a button. He stood back and waited, turning his attention to his daughter.
Moments later his daughter's eyes flickered, color returned to her face, and her breathing became more consistent. He slid the breathing mask off her face as her eyes open. Her lips formed into a smile as she looked up at her father.
"Hey, Daddy," she said, her voice clear and strong.
"Hey sweetheart," he said, running his hand through her hair.
"How are you holding up?" she asked him.
"Me?" he asked, looking at her and shaking his head. "Honey, don't worry about me."
"I worry you'll be alone, Daddy, when I'm gone."
"Don't talk like that," he said. "We will figure this out. You will get better."
"It's been how long, Dad? Two months? And they still can't make this last more than a minute or two. You need to prepare yourself."
"No," Dominick said firmly, setting his jaw. He took Ashley's hand. "We are making progress. My men achieved a breakthrough. A way to lend power to this. Power that could make it last."
"Oh, Daddy," Ashely said, and looked away. When she looked back, tears filled her eyes.
"Honey..." Dominick started to speak, but his voice cracked and trailed off.
"Daddy..." Ashley's eyes fluttered. "Please live a happy life without me."
Dominick leaned in, about to tell her she would not leave him, but her eyes closed. Moments later her labored breathing resumed. He returned the breathing mask to its place over her face.
He stood motionless for several minutes, before retrieving the rectangular block from its place and returning it to the safe. The large man knew it would be days, or longer, before he could use it again. He locked the safe, rose, and took a deep breath.
Fighting back tears, Dominick walked from the room, stealing one last look at his daughter. He moved down the hall to his home office and picked up the phone. He punched a button.
"Any news on the intruders?" he snapped when a male voice answered. His words came out as more of a sneer than a question. He needed good news to counter the rage and frustration building within him.
"Not yet. We know they used Crawford's access card to get into the building. They either stole it from him, or, more likely, the idiot dropped it somewhere."
"Crawford is a damn fool," Dominick answered, venom dripping from his words. "He has to pay a price for his carelessness, regardless of how they got his card."
"I'll take care of it."
"And you're trying to tell me you still don't know who the boy and the girl were?"
"Since you turned off the video surveillance in the basement, we're limited with what we have to go on."
"But you have the outside footage and saw their faces."
"The footage was at a distance. In that zombie outfit we couldn't make out his face. And the girl with him matched none of the faces in the databases we have access to. Maybe a closer shot would have yielded better results."
Dominick squeezed the handset tighter and balled his other fist. He didn't need this man questioning his procedures. Dominick always turned off the basement cameras when they were conducting business. He needed to.
"Think about it," Dominick said. "She's got to be an athlete, based on what the men said she did. And she's young. Maybe from a local school. Try to get into their systems. See if you get a match there. With her looks, it shouldn't be hard to find a match. Even with bad security footage."
"Yes, sir."
"I don't need to tell you that this better not become a bigger problem," Dominick said. His voice trembled as he tried to contain his anger. The project's slow progress was bad enough without it being run off the rails by a couple of trespassers.
"It won't, sir. We'll contain this."
"You'd better!" Dominick said and slammed the phone back into its cradle.
He moved to the window and looked out over his palatial swimming pool and ten-acre property. Dominick would trade all of this to save his daughter. He would trade anything. Or anyone. It didn't matter how crazy his plan sounded.
And his current plan did sound crazy, even to his own ears. He was doing all of this because of the words of a bizarre stranger — a hooded man with silver eyes. The man had first approached him months earlier, promising almost limitless power. Dominick had thought him mad.
But the man had offered him the rectangular block as a token of good faith. He had used it to show Dominick what might be possible. The block had given Dominick a brief but incredible increase in strength. It had provided enough power to light his house, at least for a few moments. And now it invigorated his daughter, but only for a minute or two.
That had been enough for Dominick. The science behind it all — if it could be called science — sounded ludicrous. Dominick didn't care. The potential drove him forward. The large man needed to believe he could harness even greater power. For Ashley.
His reasons were just. Any father would do what he was doing, he reasoned. Any man would bend rules to save his child. Even if it meant harming others.
Sunlight glistened on the ocean as Majid Azari looked out massive window from his spot on the forty-second floor of the high rise. His eyes traveled across the shimmering water and rested on the point of the horizon where the ocean met the sky. A stranger might think he found something funny. A slight smile turned up the corners of his mouth, and a gleam shone in his eyes.
Those who worked for him knew better. He wore a look of perpetual amusement on his face, as if something, or life in general, humored him. But those working with him had seen him explode with that same expression on his face. His outward appearance meant nothing, providing no insight to his thoughts and feelings.
"He's on line two, sir," the man standing in the room's doorway said. Azari glanced at the expensive paintings on the walls of his office before looking up at the man. Azari nodded and picked up the telephone on his desk.
"You have news?" Azari asked, skipping a greeting.
"Some," the voice on the other end of the line replied. Even in that one word, the soft voice exuded a quiet confidence.
This response caused Azari to smile. This time his smile was genuine. The man on the phone was a kindred spirit in some ways. The man was a mystery, but Azari had sensed from their first meeting that he got results.
"Would you care to enlighten me?" Azari asked with a chuckle, and not a hint of impatience in his voice.
"Dominick says the data from last night's test is promising. He is using it to recalibrate the machine, but that will take time."
"Did he say how long?"
"He was unsure, but after the last test it was four days until they were ready to try again."
"This goes slow," Azari said. "But it will be worth the wait. Dominick does not know who I am?"
"He does not. That is why I am the one dealing with him. He only knows a silent benefactor is involved."
"Good. Let's keep it that way. While I know you have sympathy to our cause, he might not. Even his desire to heal his daughter might not be enough for him to accept my financial assistance with this project, if he were to learn who was funding it. Keep me updated."
Azari hung up the phone and returned his gaze to the ocean. He didn't like to run all communications through this strange man with the silver eyes, but the man was capable. The man had initiated the contact, actually. Without him, Azari wouldn't have known of Dominick's efforts. Without him, Azari wouldn't be closing in on what he needed for his upcoming war with the United States and her allies.