Praise for A.P. Fuchs’s Axiom-man™
“Axiom-man is that unique breed of superhero that seems almost lost amid today’s gaggle of the dark and tormented. He’s nice, he cares, and his strength comes not from his fantastic powers, but from his soul. A.P. Fuchs has written a defining superhero novel.”
- Frank Dirscherl, author/creator of The Wraith
“Reading Axiom-man is refreshing, like reading about the early days of Peter Parker, but with a cooler villain as well.”
- Jon Klement, author/creator of Rush and the Grey Fox
“Axiom-man was well worth reading and recommending. The broad appeal is amazing—from youth to adult, guys and girls. Superheroes might just become my thing.”
- Susan Kirkland, reviewer, Calhoun Times
“Fuchs brings to life a wonderfully imaginative hero we can all relate to . . . . If you’re looking for something different, something truly creative, yet filled with action, look no further. Axiom-man is the end of your search.”
- David Brollier, author of The 3rd Covenant
“I found myself picking the book up at various points in the day, just to read a little more.”
- Darryl Sloan, author of Ulterior and Chion
“Plenty of surprising twists and turns in this highly enjoyable story. It’ll leave you wanting more. Axiom-man is a delightfully human superhero with true depth and spirituality.”
- Grace Bridges, author of Faith Awakened
“If you’re an action fan with moral sensibilities you’ll not just enjoy Axiom-man, you’ll wish you were he.”
- Frank Creed, author of Flashpoint
“If you dig superhero tales that are loaded with action and fun, look no further.”
- Nick Cato, Horror Fiction Review
“A must read that I cannot recommend enough.”
- Joe Kroeger, Horror World
* * * *
Also by A.P. Fuchs
Undead World Trilogy
Blood of the Dead
The Axiom-man™ Saga
(listed in reading order)
Axiom-man
Episode No. 0: First Night Out
Doorway of Darkness
Episode No. 1: The Dead Land
City of Ruin
Of Magic and Men (comic book)
OTHER Fiction
A Stranger Dead
A Red Dark Night
April (writing as Peter Fox)
Magic Man (deluxe chapbook)
The Way of the Fog (The Ark of Light Vol. 1)
Devil’s Playground (written with Keith Gouveia)
On Hell’s Wings (written with Keith Gouveia)
Zombie Fight Night: Battles of the Dead
ANTHOLOGIES (as editor)
Dead Science
Elements of the Fantastic
Vicious Verses and Reanimated Rhymes: Zany Zombie Poetry for the Undead Head
Non-fiction
Book Marketing for the
Financially-challenged Author
Poetry
The Hand I’ve Been Dealt
Haunted Melodies and Other Dark Poems
Still About A Girl
* * * *
AXIOM-MAN
by
A.P. FUCHS
Published by Coscom Entertainment at Smashwords.com
This book is also available as a paperback at your favorite online retailer like Amazon.com
or through your local bookstore.
* * * *
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and events either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
ISBN 1-897217-58-7
Axiom-man
Axiom-man is trademark ™ and Copyright © 2006 by Adam P. Fuchs. All other related characters are Copyright © 2006 by Adam P. Fuchs. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce in whole or in part in any form or medium.
Published by Coscom Entertainment
www.coscomentertainment.com
Text set in Garamond
eBook Edition
Cover pencils and inks by Justin Shauf
Cover colors by Kyle Zajac
Edited by Ryan C. Thomas
* * * *
To Kyle. Till the end.
* * * *
AXIOM-MAN
* * * *
Prologue
He loved this part—the falling. The city street rushed up to meet him, the freedom of having nothing but the air surrounding his body. The wind whistled by his ears on either side of his mask. Thirty stories from ground level, Axiom-man let gravity take him, pull him, draw him forever downward toward the earth. The lights from the streetlamps below quickly illuminated the dark buildings in front of him and the building face beneath him, as he plummeted headfirst toward the traffic below. The honking of horns, the revving of engines as the streetlights turned from red to green, the hollering of people at street corners embraced him. With a quick turn upward, he swept past the street not ten feet below, banking his body sharply to the left so he could follow the flow of traffic.
Flying just above the cars always brought stares and pointing fingers.
“Look, there he is!” someone shouted as he zipped past.
He didn’t fly low to show off; it was more about remaining visible whenever he could, a reminder to those who looked up to him that he wasn’t far off and that, if they needed him, he’d be there to help.
The end of his long cape flapped against his heels, a sensation he never grew tired of. His only wish was that he could fly faster, see the world at a blur—lights behind window displays streaking past, people mere shadows as he flew by—but either way, he loved it.
A pocket of air swirled beneath him as he rose upward, the buildings no longer looming over him on either side as they quickly dropped beneath him.
Night was his favorite. At night, there was freedom.
He moved to fly low again and soon was back level with the buses and trucks; the cars were slightly beneath him. Ahead a Transit bus pulled away from the bus stop then quickly slammed on its brakes, the two red lights in the back shining bright. At first Axiom-man didn’t think anything of it. Perhaps the bus driver forgot to double check his clearance into traffic, perhaps he was too hot and wanted to remove the jacket of his uniform before continuing on his route. But when Axiom-man flew by, he caught a glimpse through the driver’s side window of a disheveled man still standing before the change receptacle, the bus driver facing him. Not fifteen feet past the bus, Axiom-man heard the muted screams from within. He whipped around, a few folks on the street yipping and hollering as the wind from his spinning around caught them off guard. Just as he speedily floated over to the doors of the bus, he heard the man tell the driver to drive.
The bus tore off into traffic.
Axiom-man followed. He pressed on the speed as best he could, hoping against hope that the bus driver wouldn’t end up flooring it. He knew he could only keep up for so long until the bus would be traveling faster than he could. Reaching forward, his fingertips touched the back of the bus, searching for a handhold. The bus had to be doing at least sixty kliks by now. Any more and he’d have to fall back. If only he’d been given the gift of speed. His gloved fingers grabbed on tight to where the rear window met the white metal frame surrounding it. If he hadn’t been simultaneously flying while he hung on, he would have easily lost his grip and tumbled to the ground.
The bus picked up speed, the cars in front peeling out of the way as the big behemoth of a vehicle started barreling through. The bus ran a red light. Cars crossing perpendicularly screeched to a halt, narrowly missing the bus. One caught the tail end of the bus, sending the bus fishtailing.
Please regain control, Axiom-man thought. The driver seemed to have heard his thought because a moment later, the bus’s path was straight again. Its horn blaring, it forced its way through the traffic. The speeding bus was met by other car horns and people shouting, most swearing. Axiom-man centered himself, focused, then gripped the rear right side of the bus and began pulling himself along the side paneling, doing his best to remain below the view of the windows. He didn’t want anyone inside catching sight of him and tipping off the man at the front who seemed to be the cause of this. Left arm stretched high, his forearm and shoulder muscles aching, he used his right hand to brace himself against the side of the bus, his fingers gripping the small ridges along the side paneling as he pulled himself forward.
Almost there. The front door was about eight feet away. People shouted from the sidewalk, horns honked. Someone inside the bus screamed. Up ahead was a bank of parked cars. He saw the shadow of someone inside one of them. If they opened the door—They did. The door raced toward him. Instinct taking over, left hand still clutching a beam dividing a set of windows between thumb and fingers, he let go with his right hand and floated up just before the door would have slammed him in the face. The top of the car door grazed his chest and belly, ripping along the thick and tough material of the chest piece of his uniform. He didn’t care if it had torn or not.
Banging on the glass. Someone inside had seen him. He tried to bring a forefinger to his nose to signal them to be quiet, but before he could, the man at the front moved swiftly for the driver. Axiom-man lowered himself so he was alongside the bus again and flew forward as fast as he could, all the while guiding himself along the bus. A loud bang sounded from within and the bus swerved to the left. He nearly lost his grip again as his body was lurched to the side with the vehicle. He squeezed the metal framing that ran beneath the windows hard, the metal crinkling between his fingers. He grumbled. He had wanted to do this with as little damage as possible. Pushing himself, he flew faster. When he finally reached the front doors, he saw the crumbled and bloody body of the bus driver through the windows. The bus swerved to the right as the man inside got control of the wheel. The bus picked up speed. The traffic up ahead didn’t seem to know what was happening and not a single car moved.
Axiom-man reached forward and curled his right hand fingers around the flat front of the bus. Scrunching the metal, securing himself, he punched through the glass of one of the front doors with his left hand, took hold of the beam dividing the doors and tore the door off and sent it slamming to the concrete below. He caught the bus driver’s body as it tumbled toward his feet, lifted the corpse and placed it inside as fast as he could. The moment he set foot on the first step, he found a gun pointed at his face.
A jolt shot through him. He was not bulletproof. The only protection he had was the tough, light blue material that ran at an angle across his chest and across his mask. The rest of his outfit was thick, navy blue tights. Quickly, he scooped the bridge between the thumb and index finger of his left hand under the man’s wrist, sending the man’s forearm flying upward, the gun pointing toward the ceiling. The gun went off. Everyone on the bus screamed. Out of the corner of his eye Axiom-man caught the elderly lady sitting in the handicap spot cover her ears. The bus swerved to the left and ran up the median then rocked as it came back down off the curb on the other side. They were heading toward oncoming traffic. The man jostled in the driver’s seat and forcefully tried to lower the gun back down. Quickly, Axiom-man pushed up, his strength easily outmatching his attacker’s. The gun went off again, punching another hole in the bus’s roof. He lunged for the driver. The driver pulled on the wheel, spinning the bus one hundred-eighty degrees. Tires screeched from behind as cars avoided the vehicle. Sirens blared up in the distance and before long the interior of the bus was filled with flashing reds and blues.
The driver stomped on the gas. The bus lurched forward. The flickering red and blue lights of the police sirens faded toward the back of the bus then were gone altogether before reappearing when the police cars behind them caught up again.
“Stop the bus!” Axiom-man shouted.
The driver didn’t reply.
Axiom-man squeezed the driver’s wrist. A bone popped beneath his thumb. The driver cried out and dropped the gun. Axiom-man pulled on the driver’s arm, tugging the man violently toward him. With a quick right hook, Axiom-man’s fist connected with the man’s face. The guy released a low grunt as his head was knocked nearly clean off his shoulders. The side of the driver’s skull crashed into the corner of the divider separating the driver seat from the rest of the bus. The man crumbled to the floor, landing on top of the true bus driver’s body. The bus veered to the right when the man’s hand left the wheel, and crashed into a parked car. The deafening dull bang of metal slamming into metal rang in Axiom-man’s ears. When he glanced up, the passengers were all leaning forward in their seats from the impact, their heads on their knees. Some had fallen into the aisle. Others had fallen on top of each other. Sirens sounded loud and clear, and red and blue danced along the bus’s interior walls and ceiling.
Getting to the controls, Axiom-man set the bus in park, and turned and raised a friendly hand to the passengers who were looking at him. He went down the steps and squeezed through what was left of the bus door and set foot on the pavement. Just as the cops, guns ready, cautiously approached the vehicle, Axiom-man gave them a salute with two fingers then took off into the night sky.
What a way to end a Sunday night.
* * * *
Chapter One
Gabriel Garrison stepped off the elevator at the seventh floor of Dolla-card, a credit card company near the heart of downtown. He swiped his pass card at the set of double doors which led onto the main calling floor and quickly scanned for Valerie Vaughan. She wasn’t in yet. Even after having worked there for the past fourteen months, he still found himself excited to see her every day when he came in to work. How he longed for a chance to ask her out. He had almost mustered up the courage four months ago, but after having acquired his powers, he had to enforce a change in priorities. He only hoped that in the mean time she wouldn’t find someone else. So far she hadn’t, but that could change at any moment.
He ran his fingers through his brown hair, the bangs falling back over his forehead. Straightening his glasses, he reminded himself that he was at work now and had to act accordingly.
The original plan, as Axiom-man, had been to operate in secret, to be a kind of shadow figure who would come out of nowhere, help, and move so swiftly that no one would notice he was wearing a costume. But after his first night out, saving a woman from two muggers, he quickly learned that remaining unseen and leading a double life would be a lot harder than he first thought. The moment the woman caught a glimpse of him, he knew it wouldn’t be long before he, in full costume, graced the front page of the Free Press. And sure enough, the next day he was an artist’s rendering of who the woman described she saw. And after rescuing a construction worker who had fallen off one of the beams many stories up while working on the new Manitoba Hydro building, the media was already there when he flew him down to street level, the cameras flashing and the video tapes rolling.
Though Gabriel had been comfortable with his disguise and felt the dark and light blue costume and mask, which concealed his head save for his hair, was enough, he got to thinking that he would have to take the disguise even further and hide even himself when he was, well, himself.
When he first started working at Dolla-card, he adhered to their dress code of mandatory button-down shirts and dress pants. But when he made the decision to really try and distract any possible thoughts people might have that, for whatever reason, he was really Axiom-man, he took the dress code a step further. He added a cardigan to his ensemble (a different color for every day of the week) and bought a pair of reading glasses from the drug store. After a few days of wearing the reading glasses all day, the headaches set in so he went to a costume shop and bought a pair of costume glasses with similar-sized frames and replaced the frames in his reading glasses by way of a friend he used to go to high school with who now worked as an assistant in an optometrist’s office. Knowing full well he must have come off as goofy as anything, he begged his friend not to worry that the new lenses he was giving him were prescription-free. He said the glasses were for his brother and that his brother needed a pair of glasses for a costume party and really liked the reading glasses’ frames but couldn’t make it down to the optometrist’s office to get the lenses replaced. In the end, he finally had something he could wear day in and day out without the setting in of unnecessary headaches.
The main change he had to undergo was the change in his demeanor and the way he presented himself. His coworkers at Dolla-card knew him as an all-round cool guy, confident, friendly, fun. Slow but sure he had to work a more gentle mannerism into his presentation, soften his voice and, at times, “accidentally” spill his tea in the lunchroom or “accidentally” brush his papers off his desk. Though he knew it made him look clumsy, it was all he could think of to do to help keep his life as Axiom-man a secret.
Gabriel took his seat in his cubicle and turned the computer on. While his machine booted up, he removed his fall jacket and draped it across the back of his chair. The sudden coolness of being with one less layer of clothing was comforting. Even after nearly half a year, he was still getting used to wearing his costume beneath his clothes. He feared that because of the bulkiness of the front part of his uniform—the tough light blue material that ran diagonally across his chest and stomach—he would come across as too big or imposing than “just your average guy.” But he found that if he held his posture just right and let his arms hang at his sides a certain way, the costume wasn’t noticeable beneath his clothes. He still had to figure out what to do come summer. Thankfully, the material of his uniform was thick enough that any sweating of his didn’t show through.
He logged himself into the inbound calling software and settled in for a day of customer care.
* * * *
At a quarter past twelve, Gabriel locked his workstation and turned off his computer monitor. Lunchtime. He dug his thermos out of his cabinet drawer, spun his chair around so he was facing the aisle behind his desk, and removed his jacket from the back of his chair. Switching the thermos from one hand to the other to better handle his jacket to put it on, he stepped into the aisle and “accidentally” bumped into Valerie. His thermos tumbled to the floor and rolled down the aisle.
“Oh sorry,” he said.
Valerie balanced the stack of callback papers she had in her hands. At five-four, she came to just under his chin. “Better watch where you’re going, Garrison. I nearly took a spill.”
“Sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
He watched her as she rounded his cubicle to the other side where they sat diagonally from each other. Fortunately, the cubicle walls at Dolla-card were only half the height they usually were in most call centres. Even while he was working he could still glance her way and see her.
He raised his index finger. “Sorry about that again, um, Valerie. I didn’t mean to.”
She waved a wave of acknowledgement. “Don’t worry about it. Did you have a good weekend? Anything exciting happen?”
Gabriel looked at his shoes and in his mind’s eye envisioned his tight-fitting Axiom-man boots beneath them. “Not really, no.”
She made a face, as if saying, “That’s what I thought.” Then sat down at her desk and organized her papers, already forgetting him.
He stared at her a moment. Today she was wearing a long, form-fitting black skirt, a white blouse and a black sweater, all three of which complimented her small frame, dark eyes and hair. Beautiful. He went over to her cubicle. “I’m going for lunch and was going to pick up a sandwich in the Square. Did you want something?”
Her eyes never left her papers as she curled her long brown hair behind her ear. “No, I’m okay. Thanks anyway.”
He smiled. “Sure.” A moment of silence. “Well, I, um . . . well, I’m going to go.”
She didn’t say anything.
“Okay. S-see ya.” He proffered a wave and when she still didn’t look up, he turned and left. He lightly tapped his hands together when he remembered he dropped his thermos.
* * * *
Outside the front doors at street level, Gabriel zipped up his jacket and mulled over the morning. Nothing too eventful. All the calls were the same—folks wondering about charges they forgot they made, interest rate inquiries, card upgrade options, same old, same old. The only call that he found somewhat interesting was when a guy had said he got his statement and noticed he was charged twice from an online credit card processor when he purchased a how-to ebook. While Gabriel was walking him through the steps of disputing the transaction, the guy went off about how the ebook he bought was a how-to book on marketing your ebooks on the internet and how, if done correctly, you could make a fortune selling information online. He even said a few years ago an “info product guru” named Oscar Owen came on the scene and since then, in his sales letters to his potential buyers, stated he had made millions selling ebooks. The guy then went on to say that the last he heard, Owen had started his own payday loaning company with some of the money earned off his ebooks and now Owen was even more rich. What interested Gabriel about the conver-sation was that, though he never deemed himself a writer, if he were able to somehow write an ebook on call centres, maybe one on how to pass your time while waiting for the next call and make your day go by in a snap, and if it succeeded, he could quit Dolla-card and focus more on his Axiom-man duties.
But how am I going to justify asking someone to spend twenty-some-odd bucks on an ebook about whiling away the hours? he thought. No sooner did the thought flee from his mind than he descended down the outdoor stairwell that led to Winnipeg Square.
He made his way through the traffic of people and caught himself wishing he had brought a lunch to work rather than having to go out and buy one. He didn’t make much money as it was and every penny saved was one step closer to finally buying a house of his own instead of renting an apartment just outside downtown. He knew Valerie rented and that she, too, was saving up for a house. It was one of the few things he could find himself able to talk to her about without suddenly getting brushed off. The way she treated him reminded him of how he had been treated growing up in grades gone by. Though he wasn’t the most unpopular kid at school, he was nowhere near the top of the popularity ladder. If anything, his social status had been about two rungs from the bottom. Three at best. Either way, he never really found a way to fit in and earlier on in junior high, when he had tried to fit in and act like the boys at the top, he had gone too far and found himself spending more time in the principal’s office than he cared to admit. After a while he learned to just settle at being himself, but even that seldom brought comfort. Nowadays though . . .
Gabriel bought a sandwich and scanned the food court for a place to sit down and eat. All he could see was a sea of heads and no room anywhere. He checked his watch. It was already past twelve-thirty. Might as well head back and eat it on the way.
Returning the way he had come through the Square, he caught sight of a man kicking and swearing at an ATM outside the Credit Union. A middle-aged woman who was a teller (she wore a nametag and was standing just inside the opening to the bank) was already telling him to stop or she’d call security. It turned out she didn’t have to because within moments a security guard from the booth about fifty feet away was already coming toward the man and the ATM.
Gabriel crossed the Square and headed toward the next strip of shops. There was a bathroom at the end of that strip and he hoped it was unoccupied just in case he needed a place to change. As he walked swiftly, he wrapped his sandwich back up and kept a careful eye on the scene in front of the Credit Union, all the while brushing shoulders with people and excusing himself for not paying attention to where he was going. He thought of his bumping into Valerie less than half an hour ago. The things he did to guard himself . . .
The security guard approached the man and demanded to know what was happening.
“It wouldn’t give me my money!”
“Sir, if you’d just—” the teller said.
“Shut up! I know what happened!”
“Hey, don’t yell at her!” the guard shouted.
People began slowing around the commotion. The guard turned away for a brief moment to shoo them off. When his back was turned, the man made a break for it.
Great, Gabriel thought and made his way back toward the bank to see where the man had gone off to. He didn’t see what had happened but the next thing he knew, the man grabbed an older woman, holding her in front him as if a shield. His eyes were wide and wild. The security guard was a few feet away, urging him to calm down.
“Quiet! I didn’t do anything! Your stupid machine ate my card and wouldn’t give me my cash!” the man yelled.
The guard grabbed the radio off his shoulder and called for more help, then again began telling the passersby to keep moving and to let him handle it. The older lady pleaded for the man to let her go. The man gripped her shoulders tight then threw her into the security guard. One of the people walking by—a man who looked to be in his late thirties with thinning dark hair—stepped out of the crowd and slugged the man. The older woman ran into the crowd.
“Hey!” the security guard said. “Let me handle it.”
The guard approached the man who was on the floor and bent over at the waist to help him up. The man on the floor tackled the security guard’s legs, sending him backward to the ground. The guard’s head hit the tiled flooring with a sickening smack.
Everyone suddenly cleared away when two police officers arrived on the scene accompanied by another of the Square’s security guards. The guard dove on top of the man and wrestled him off his comrade. The cops pulled their guns. The man, on his knees with eyes wide, his expression almost begging, spread his hands to the side as if in surrender. The cops rushed him and the second one of them was close enough, the man dove at the cop’s arm, knocked him down, and grabbed his gun. The man was on his feet in a flash.
“Stay back! Stay back!” he said, waving the gun around.
“Sir, put the gun down now!” the cop who still had his gun said.
The cop on the floor tried to move.
“Don’t,” the man said, pointing at him while firing a shot into the ceiling.
Everybody within earshot screamed and dropped to the floor. The cops appeared as if they didn’t know what to do.
Gabriel turned and headed for the restroom, each step quicker than the last.
* * * *
“Thank you for calling Dolla-card, this is Valerie speaking. How may I help you?”
“Here, let me get my card number.”
“Sure.” She waited until the gentleman on the line was ready.
“Ready?”
“Yes.”
He gave her the card number and she punched it in. It was a platinum account.
Oscar Owen’s.
“Okay, Mr. Owen, just a few security questions and then we can proceed.” Valerie ran him through the cardholder verification process. Once all checked out, she said, “And how may I help you today?”
As she tended to Oscar’s problem—just the mere verification of a charge that went through his personal charge card—Valerie couldn’t help but snoop through his other transactions. Nothing out of the ordinary: restaurants, clothing shops, a few bills—nothing special. What she was impressed with, however, was the dollar amounts listed. Everything was over the several-hundred-dollar mark save for some of the bills. Though she wasn’t one where money was everything, every time she assisted a wealthier client she couldn’t help but feel encouraged by what she saw. Though her personal income was nowhere near what these guys must earn in a year to justify a five-hundred-thousand-dollar credit limit, seeing the multiple dollar amounts listed on the screen encouraged her to work harder and reminded her that if she kept at it, in time, she could be making a higher-waged living. Just one of those things to help you through the day.
After clarifying Mr. Owen’s transaction, she said, “Is there anything else I can help you with today?”
“Not right now though I was wondering who I might talk to for an increase in my credit limit? I have had a, how should I say—upturn?—in income and have some larger purchases going through.”
“Well, sir, I know that your current credit limit is the highest we offer,” she said.
“On the contrary, I know your company offers higher limits for select clients. I’m also aware the competition does, too. I’d be more than happy to contact them and—”
He had her there. It was true that Dolla-card carried—on an exception basis—cards that held a million-dollar credit limit, but it was something the employees were discouraged to inform the client of; past experience proved that some who had increased their limit to such an amount had abused it and, in the final analysis, were not ready for such a responsibility of funds.
“I’d be more than happy to transfer you to a credit representative for assistance,” Valerie said. She hated it when the client proved her wrong or presented something the company offered that she wasn’t aware of.
“Fair enough,” he said.
* * * *
I hope I’m not too late, Axiom-man thought as he swung open the bathroom door. He clenched his fists, raised his arms shoulder height, and he was in the air. He hadn’t heard a second gunshot while changing so either the cops had taken care of it or everything was just as it had been when he went to switch clothes. Fortunately, he was able to change into his uniform in less than a minute so he shouldn’t have missed much.
Within a couple of seconds he was there. The man still held the cops at bay, his gun aimed at the one with the weapon.
“I’ve given enough chances,” the cop said. “This is your final warning.”
All eyes settled on Axiom-man the moment his feet touched the ground. The man quickly looked at him, eyes wide.
“What’s—” he began but anything else he might have wanted to say seemed to escape him.
Some folks took a few steps back.
The cop glanced at Axiom-man. “Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to stand down.” He flashed Axiom-man an I-see-it-but-I-don’t-believe-it look.
Axiom-man ignored the cop and took in the man with the gun. As long as he doesn’t fire at me, everything should be okay. And as long as the cops don’t blow off a few shots, there shouldn’t be any danger. Hopefully. He wasn’t bulletproof and his costume provided protection only for wear-and-tear. Even a knife would penetrate the suit if someone took a hard enough swipe.
Axiom-man raised his hands in as friendly a manner as he could manage. “Sir, please,” he said, “put the gun down. It’s a simple misunderstanding. We can work this out.”
“Simple!” the man shouted. “You call this simple? The stupid bank machine wouldn’t give me my cash and the next thing I know I got cops all around me. I didn’t do anything!”
Aside from nearly taking that lady hostage, Axiom-man thought. “Okay, then. I’m sure the officers here would be willing to discuss it with you if you’d lower your weapon. No one here wants anything to happen that you, or even they, might regret.”
The man seemed to consider his words. The cop at his feet tried to sit up. “Stay down!” the man barked, pointing the gun at the officer on the floor.
“Sir!” the cop with the gun said.
What do I do? What do I do? The thought raced through Axiom-man’s mind. This was the first time he ever had to negotiate with someone with a weapon. Any other time, because of the circumstance, he had taken the armed individual down by force. Like last night on the bus. He wanted to look at the police officer with the gun and silently convey an askance for help, but he also feared that, of all things, he might look bad for not knowing what to do. Since donning the mask and cape, he had quickly learned that those who encountered him, those who spoke about him on the street, the stories written in the newspaper, the commentaries on the radio—everyone had the idea that a hero always knew what to do and that whatever the hero did was always for everyone’s best interest. To shatter that . . .