John Public
Richard Mays stood on a street corner looking up at the sky. He thought he had spotted a glimmer in the sky that didn't move like any aircraft he had ever seen before. He wondered what it could be.
A beam of light ripped down from beyond the clouds. It struck Mays, engulfing his body in liquid fire. He blinked out of existence for several seconds. Then the light withdrew to its point of origin.
Rick wondered why he was on the pavement, looking up at the clear blue above.
"What happened?" Fire burned through Mays's brain as he tried to think.
The voices started then. They muttered about lost cats, rent payments, who shot JR. Taken by themselves, it would have been like overhearing a conversation on the bus. The problem was that each voice went on with another voice overlapping, then another, until all he could hear was a staticky buzz that resembled waves crashing into the shore.
Mays staggered to his feet. Despite the constant talking in his skull, he felt stronger than he had ever felt before. Maybe he had suffered a stroke. It happened, even to people as young as he was. He should get an x-ray of his brain to make sure everything was still rolling along in there.
Mays turned to his mental map of the city. He found the nearest hospital and realized it was blocks away. He started down the street, trying to ignore the shifting chorus as he walked. Everywhere he looked, a voice matched the person he looked at as they made their way along.
Someone decided to try and rob him as he slowly worked his way along. Mays felt the thought a few moments before hands reached for his shoulders to push him down and rob him. He felt a small amount of surprise when he braced himself and the hands barely slid his feet along the ground.
Mays didn't know if the surprise was his, or the mugger's.
Mays turned, hooking his arm around the thin man trying to roll him. The man looked light, but he felt lighter than that. The mugger left the ground and hit the wall. He lay there looking up, arms and legs contracted to protect his body from kicks and punches.
"I think you need to get in a program and get off the crack, Tyrone." Who was Tyrone? "Then decide what you want to do with your life. Otherwise I think you're going to wind up dead messing with the wrong guy. Do you want help?"
"Get away from me!" Tyrone scrambled up and ran. "Get away from me."
Mays watched him go, convinced that he could chase the thinner man down as easily as fish swam. Instead he stood there. He had rifled Tyrone's brain in a few seconds of contact. He decided that he really needed to get checked out. Something unexplainable was going on.
A beam of light flashed down out of the clear sky. It caught his attention, reminding him of the other flash he had spotted before he had fainted. He decided that getting an exam could wait. Maybe his answers were wherever the beam had hit.
Mays ran in that direction, amazed at how much faster he felt, how much easier it was to run along the sidewalk. He hopped over the hood of a slow moving car like a champion hurdler. That was the least of things as far as he was concerned. Panic drifted to his enhanced brain.
He heard a scream. A car flew through the air. He saw it hit the front of a clothing store. He winced at the pain that cut across the rest of the chorus he felt moving in his brain. He didn't know what was going on, but someone had to stop it, and he felt like it was something he could handle thanks to whatever had been done to him.
Mays paused when he saw a man dressed in black garments like something out of Star Wars. Black light burned from the man's eyes. He turned to face the New Yorker, his gaze igniting a lash of pain as the voices inside the changed man's skull competed with something else trying to get in.
"You don't seem like a champion." The voice was part scratching on chalkboard, part exacting as a measured line. Most of it reverberated inside Mays's gray matter with his new mental radio. "I suppose killing you will be some kind of distraction as short as it will take."
"I don't know what's going on." Mays looked around, glad to see that some of the bystanders were helping the wounded out of the battle zone. "I do know that you seem a little crazy, and someone has to do something to stop you. I guess that will be me unless you want to go back to where you came from right now."
"Maybe you are the champion after all." The man smiled.
Richard Mays looked around, wondering how he had gotten into this mess. He should have walked the other way. Now he was committed to doing something against someone who could throw a car with ease.
And why was he the champion? That didn't feel right at all.
"I don't want any trouble." Mays held up his hands. "The police will be here to take you in any minute. Why don't we settle down to wait for the nice policemen to take you to the hospital?"
"I have been sent to settle a long established feud." The Visitor's voice cut through Mays's head. "If you are the champion, ripping out your heart is the proof I need that I have completed the mission."
"What if I'm not this champion?" Mays grimaced at the thought of having his heart ripped out of his chest.
"Then I can rip out your heart for personal enjoyment." The Visitor smiled as the black light poured from his eyes.
"I'll pass." Mays shook his head. This was kind of like the bullying he remembered when he was a kid. First they talked tough, then they tried to demonstrate how tough. The two of them were still in the talking tough stage, and he didn't like it. He didn't have the knack for it. "I like my heart where it is."
The Visitor flew forward, hand reaching for Mays's chest. Once he dug his fingers in, he could rip out whatever engine was in there. He saw the move to the left just before he flew into a parked car.
"You can always say you couldn't find this champion." Mays tried not to think about the massive dent in the Chrysler. That could have been him. "Tell them they sent you to the wrong planet."
"I think we're beyond that." The Visitor slapped some dust off his robe. "You are the one I have been sent to find."
"Let's say for argument's sake I am the champion." Mays quoted the word champion with his fingers. "What if I don't want to fight? I can just walk away anytime I want."
"Then I continue with what I'm doing until I am bored." The Visitor picked up the bent Chrysler, tossing it up and down with one hand. "That might take a while."
Mays stepped back. Usually the villain chucked the car and then tried to use it as a screen. Of course he was a whole lot faster than what he used to be. Could he dodge a flying car at close range?
The Visitor threw the car like a boomerang, the unnatural v of it spinning in the air as it rolled toward Mays. He leaped after it in a trail of black sparks. The two movements were so fast it looked like a piece of stop motion photography.
Mays jumped forward, swinging a right hand as hard as he could. That seemed to be the only thing he could do.
The champion caught the improvised weapon, trying not to freeze at the realization that he was stronger than a hundred men without going to a gym. His arm continued the forward motion. That slung the car back at the Visitor. The black garbed alien seemed to be taken back by the metal bearing down on him. He raised an arm and punched through the automobile. A human hand grabbed his wrist while another pulled his hood down in the way of his searing glare.
"Release me!" The Visitor reached up with his free hand to knock the grip away from his cowl.
"I got the picture now." Mays released his grip on his enemy's arm. "You want to decide if humanity is fit to be asked to join your union. So you test some random guy off the street to see how he acts. You make some noise and see who shows up. Your methods blow."
"How do you know that?" The Visitor paused, unsure for the first time since they met.
"Your guys screwed up back at headquarters." Mays shook his head. "They changed the conditions from what you're used to."
"I don't believe you." The Visitor looked up at the sky as if seeking answers.
"Why don't you go home and check it out?" Mays pointed up in the air. "I'll still be here when you get back. I'll even give you an address you can meet me at for the rematch."
"Why would you do that?" The Visitor crossed his arms.
"Eventually humanity is going to be out there with you guys someday." Mays shrugged. "There's nothing anyone could do to stop that short of destroying the planet. I don't see anything wrong with an observer watching our progress as we work our way up to that level. Trial by combat should be the last thing you try. Give us the chance."
"All right." The Visitor pulled what looked like a remote control from his belt. "I'll be waiting to rip your heart out if you ever get that far."
He pressed a button and vanished in a beam of sparks ascending to the heavens.
Mays looked up at the sky, imagining the things he had seen and doing them himself. He smiled.
"We're coming for you, buddy."