The ride back into town was uneventful. Ironbolt's car had not been far from the lake. Once we were inside, him in the front, I in the holding cell in the back, nothing more was said. I didn't take him to be the talkative type anyhow.

Not that I minded. I had far too much to think about as it was. After everything which took place, nothing was certain in my life. Who and what I was seemed lost. The question kept repeating itself in my head. Was I who Maximal thought I was?

Like so many who turned out to be villainous Barons, I had just wanted to escape the draft and be free. How many steps away had I really been from fighting back, I thought. From Maximal's perspective, the only thing holding me back was cowardice. If I really did have the horrifying ability to tear other living things apart, it would seem like just a matter of time before I found the balls to cut loose and take what I wanted. What else could a career Hero think of someone who hated his profession. I must be tweaked.

Being the cynic that I was, I even heard myself ask. "Why don't I try? Am I really considering this?" Could I escape if I really wanted to? Was I capable of the violence that might require?

Every Super was put into the same damn binary of good and evil, and now I saw how they did it. They were using violence and coercion in a grand system of control, which they called civil order. They were nothing more than Supervillains sanctioned by the pretense of Democracy, Goddammit. Yet if I responded in kind, I would be the evil one.

I felt the car stop. Outside, I could tell by the sound of traffic that we'd reached the center city. Right where their Headquarters were.

Ours was a budding city with just around seventy thousand inhabitants. But its positioning in the panhandle of Florida was such that it served most of the Southeastern area's needs. No small feat, and subsequently, it was no small Station.

When Ironbolt opened the back of the tank, he was still wearing his helmet. It was pointed and sleek, with an angular visor and winged ears. He was a speedster, I recalled. And a Technicist, for some reason.

Even with his helmet, I could tell that he had seen the dark look in my eyes. I was sizing him up. I hadn't meant to, but in the back of my mind, the scenario was playing itself out. Right here and right now, one on one, I doubted he had the stopping power to beat me. With my healing alone, I could make it to the ocean. A mere few hundred feet away. From there, I could be free.

"Who would get hurt?" I heard myself say. They were not words I thought I had in me. So much had changed.

"Listen to yourself, Walter. This isn't you." He took a relaxed posture. He was calm and excruciatingly deliberate as he spoke. "I don't want to hurt you. I want to see your gifts put to good use. All you have to do is let me help you."

"You don't know a thing about me," I said. "Not a damn thing. You're a career Hero, aren't you?"

"Yes."

"Then how could you possibly relate? You see me scrabbling like a mad dog to escape what you no doubt think is the greatest, most morally pure job in the world. How could I be anything but a deplorable human being? If you can even call me that, anymore. A human being."

Ironbolt forced himself to move slowly, I could tell. His arms were almost shaking with the effort of it, as he reached up. That was when he made an unexpected move. He took off his helmet.

"I do know you, Walter. I know you don't want violence. If it were up to me, the system would allow for conscientious objectors. But it's simply not up to me. And so, I have to handle the problems which inevitably arise. That's what I do. I figure things out." He was an average looking guy. Dark hair, blue eyes, and fine features. This was his civilian identity he'd just given me.

It was clear what the bet was, I thought. "You're trying to establish trust," I said. "But it doesn't matter. I'll do you one better than your secret identity. I know how your power works. That alone would be enough to identify you in a crowd."

"You don't want violence, but you're weighing it against what you do want, which is escape. I know that you would do nothing with my secret identity. You certainly wouldn't try to hunt me down. Despite what you think, that's not the bet I'm making." He tossed me his helmet.

"What is it, then?"

"Look around you. We're in a carport. Between you and the water is an open stretch of park and pier. Main street is within sight. If we fight, my identity will be captured on camera without a doubt. You may not have any interest in hunting me down, but there are plenty who do. I could have backed the truck up directly to the loading port and herded you in like an animal, but I chose to give you an open sightline to the water. That's the bet, Walter."

I shook my head. This was all just too much. "Can I... Can I step out, then?"

He swept aside, opening his arm to the ocean. "Please."

I took my time stepping down from the truck. He didn't even stop me as I wandered to the end of the carport and out into the light. The sun now hovered fully in the sky. Even in the middle of winter, it was warm on my face. The sensation threatened to knock me over emotionally, but I kept it together. I kept my head above water.

In the far distance, I could see that a few people had stopped to point at me.

"I look like a leathery skeleton," I said, feeling where my ears had once been. "Can you imagine what that's like?"

Ironbolt was honest this time. "No, I can't."

I sighed. "I can always try again later, can't I?"

This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

"That's what Maximal is afraid of. And I believe you're afraid that after the first time you save someone's life, you won't want to. I think you know that this job is where Supers belong. It's our responsibility to help people."

"I'm sure you think that."

Helping can be a guise for control. Too much care can be weakening. Sometimes, when at rock bottom, when you've got nothing, though... it can be the only thing saving you.

My spirits had finally begun to lift. A plan was formulating itself in the recesses of my mind, and all I had to do was wait. As I looked down under the sun at my demon-like clawed hands, I made up my mind. Even while there was little left of my life now, I couldn't lay down and die. I had survived loss before and I would do it again. With God as my witness, I would get out of this pit and take the world for what it was worth.

I told Ironbolt, "I can't give up hope. No matter what happens, I have to decide right here and now. I'm going to find my way. I will make the sacrifices necessary to become the person who endures."

He stepped just far enough forward to put a hand on my shoulder. It was the first time anyone had touched me since the fire. It showed me he wasn't afraid. "I'm glad to hear that, Walter. You have a strong spirit."

Ironbolt motioned for me to join him under the dark carport. That was where the Station's entrance awaited. I followed him through that door and inside, determined to keep my heart set on this new goal.

I would hold my plan close and secret. And, when the time was right, I would act.

I would be free.

The inside of the Heroes' Headquarters was exactly as I had imagined it would be. Like a hospital more than a police station. Everything was cleanly painted in neutral colors, with expensive equipment filling the available space. I could see what he meant about the loading bay, as well.

To my left was a glass wall and just beyond that, a windowless cell. There was only one way in that I could see. Along the exterior wall ran a seam, which I reasoned would open for the truck to back up to and force whatever it was carrying inside. Just like a rabid animal indeed. Too hot to handle.

As it was, I remained outside the cell. "I can't imagine Maximal would be happy with you letting me walk free."

"Sit here," Ironbolt told me, patting an examination table just before he zoomed to the other side of the room to retrieve something. "And no," he called, "he would not. But as long as I'm effectively taking responsibility for you, he has no official grounds to call me on it. He's hardly my superior."

Sitting on the examination table caused me to take stock of my body for the first time. The external changes had been obvious, but mentally, there was a lot disrupted as well. "I feel woozy," I said. "Like, almost drunk."

Ironbolt prepared a syringe-gun device. "I'll take a blood sample. Most likely, judging by your loss of weight, this is a consequence of your power. You cannot, as it turns out, break the law of mass conservation."

"You mean I cannibalize myself to heal? Add that to the list of suck, I guess." I let him take the blood from my arm. At first the machine had trouble piercing my skin, but he only had to adjust a dial to get past that. It was tech made for Supers, after all.

"We'll get you some food and water. My hunch is that you'll have that mass back in no time. In fact..." He let me hand him back the helmet I had been carrying and plucked an earpiece from inside. "We're going to need a lot of food in the med bay, Dupe. Thanks."

"Dupe..." I said. "Is anyone else here?"

"Just him. The rest are all on response right now. As you probably know, we're a little under-staffed."

"War does that." There was no doubt in my mind that, if I had believed they would be shipping me off to the war, I would have fought. I would have fought all three of them at the lake and died.

Dupe came through the room's entrance in reverse, pushing the door with his back while his arms were occupied carrying. He had a mountain of junk food which he couldn't see over.

He dropped it all down on the counter and turned around to face us. I could see that he struggled to contain his shock as he noticed me. Without closer inspection, I appeared as some kind of horrific burn victim sitting normally in the med bay.

"This is Maximal's code red from earlier this morning. Code red, I would like you to meet Dupe." Ironbolt introduced us.

"I never took you for a ginger," I said, trying to add to his little injection of levity.

"Ha... yeah. It's pretty distinctive, so they make me hide it." He only held eye contact for a moment before cutting back to Ironbolt. "He's uh... he's not in the pen there, Iron. Maximal's assessment-"

"Was incorrect. I'll brief you later." When he was annoyed, Ironbolt was almost too fast to follow. He pointed to the food on the counter, then back to Dupe. "Make sure he gets fed, and watch after him. There's work I need to do and this has taken far too long with too much drama already."

"Hold up a second!" Dupe attempted to protest, but his commander was already out the door and gone. Ironbolt's speed-walk was the equivalent of a normal person's sprint. There was no getting another word in with him.

That just left the two of us. As Dupe stood tensely by the door, I got up from my seat and walked over to the counter. I turned on the faucet there and began to guzzle water while he watched. Gallons and gallons of water. Needless to say, this only made him more uncomfortable.

"So, I don't suppose you have a code-name yet or anything like that? Something for me to call you by?" Dupe asked.

"Walter," I said, grabbing a handful of snack packs and tearing into them.

"No, you're not supposed to...!" Dupe pinched the bridge of his nose. He managed to look even more stressed. "You're not supposed to tell me your real name. There's a whole declassifying process."

"If I'm joining the team, it was only a matter of time. Besides, I'm pretty sure anybody with a police scanner knows my name at this point. In this day and age, that's half the city," I said.

He seemed to have been caught off guard by that. "Joining the team?" Dupe looked from me to the holding cell. "Sorry I don't mean to imply, it's just... the Code Red. The whole manhunt?"

I was shoveling chips in my mouth as I replied. "I wanted to draft dodge." Munching happened. "Maximal wasn't having it. He also doesn't want me working anywhere else, because he thinks I'm a dangerous liar and only he knows the exact truth. Because he's God, or something."

"Haha, yeah. He's like that. Heh..."

I angrily ate chips while he uncomfortably watched, feeling confused and obligated to make sure I didn't run off.

"I was on the night shift when everything happened, " I told him. "And I never got my shower at the gym that I wanted, and I never got any damn sleep. Think you could help me with that?"

"I don't know that you're allowed to ahh... The Hero facilities are restricted, um," Dupe stammered. "That's a really comfortable table though, don't you think? And sinks are great for showering?" He practically wiggled his fingers at me for effect.

I squinted at him. "Damn... you're right." I knew exactly what he was doing but apparently that didn't stop it from working. I was suddenly excited about showering in the sink and sleeping on a papered examination table. "Why are you all like this, man?"

While I got the hot water running and started stripping down, Dupe gave a forced smile. "With great power comes... Oh. Okay. You're really just gonna do it then. I have to watch a burnt french-fry lizard take a shower. God I love my Power."

"It's what you wanted. Aren't you glad you're a Utility Hero?" As I took off my pants I breathed a terrified sigh of relief. While weirder, the little guy was still there. "This is what you deserve."

"Aaahhh!" He averted his eyes. "Nope. No sir. Don't need to see that."

"Somebody's probably going to have to clean up all this skin falling off."

"This is not happening. Definitely not a real thing I'm seeing."

Finally, someone knew how I felt.