Pacific Station Vigilante (Book 0): The Negative Man [Prelude to Chaos] Read online

  As I finished getting the last one set, my backup finally showed up. The problem is I didn’t see them right away and I set the charger into the prewired harness. Pabon did and immediately pushed me out of the way.

  DL was charging forward but stopped. “Listen ranger, you don’t want to do that.”

  “I’m not taking orders from a freak like you.” I’d just set the timer for twelve hours but Pabon changed the denomination from hours to minutes and hit the start. “Sorry suckers, you’re not walking out of here alive tonight.”

  Esposito pulled a long, dangerous knife from his boot. “Rumor has it guns won’t work on either of you, but I bet you bleed like any other man.”

  A rumble was about to go down but we had bigger problems. In less than twelve minutes, Pacific Station was going to be a crater, unless I disarmed this bomb. So while the two rangers began stalking the vigilantes, I pulled out my own smaller pocket knife and began to sweat. “Damnit Jericho, one wrong move and this thing goes off.”

  Check please, I was ready to go back to being a villain.

  Chapter 14 –

  Tuesday Night; Ray’s Storage

  “What did they just take?” That was Massacre complaining about something. I didn’t have time to keep checking in on them. They were supers and these two guys were just guys – special ops guys, but still. I had a freaking nuke to disarm!

  I heard something hit the wall behind me. To my surprise, Pabon had just thrown Massacre into it. There was something strange about the ranger, too. Whatever they took, it seemed to level the playing field.

  Again, not my concern. I had wires to start snipping. I couldn’t look at the wires I just spliced from the timer to the core. I opened up the panel just under the harness where I installed the charger and found what I needed. There were so many wires going into the core, I didn’t even know where to start.

  Great, gun fire was added to the mix behind me. As if these idiots couldn’t make a deadly situation even worse. With that threat, I probably didn’t even have the twelve minutes that were on the timer. Or actually the nine minutes and fifty-three seconds it was flashing. C’mon Jericho, think! I looked over the wires again – it was time to make some decisions.

  I immediately discounted the three red wires going to different circuits. Red was always bad. I was left with green, blue, black, and white. There were two white wires, so I reached in with my knife and cut them. There wasn’t a giant, life ending explosion, so I figured we were good. That just left the green, blue and black.

  Pain hit me in the shoulder. I dropped my knife and hit the cement floor. Pabon had shot me. “I can’t let you do that, Jericho.”

  The bullet hit bone or else it would’ve gone clean through and mushroom clouded this city. That did little for me though, as I was in excruciating pain. Pabon walked over to me and pointed the gun at my head. “Nothing personal; I just can’t let you ruin our plans.”

  And so this is how The Negative Man was going to die, by trying to do the right thing. I was too close to the core to use my power, as that would’ve been a death sentence for us all. Either way, I was SOL. Until A clawed hand grabbed Pabon by the neck and snapped it. The ranger went down in a heap.

  DL was standing over me. “Jericho, are you okay?”

  “Besides a bullet in my shoulder, I’m doing fantastic!” Yeah, my sarcastic charm never goes away. Still, I was grateful… to my enemy of all people. “Thanks, I appreciate still being alive.”

  Esposito was laying a beating on Massacre. “I can handle him if you can finish disarming that.”

  I grabbed my knife with my working left hand and pulled myself up. “Go, I got this.” I sounded a bit more confident than I actually was.

  We were under five minutes. Seeing as how there were more black wires than any other color, I went with them. I cut all five black wires, and as I cut the last one, the timer switched from five minutes to a critical one minute countdown.

  Over the punching, “Jericho, I hope that’s a good thing!”

  Blue or green, there were two wires for each one. It was a simple guess at this point, so I grabbed green as it was my favorite color and cut the remaining two wires. With twenty-eight seconds to spare, the timer froze in place.

  At the same time behind me, DL smashed Esposito in the face with a huge overhand punch. Wonderton looked pretty damn beat up, too. I missed one hell of a fight.

  ****

  General Whisant placed Esposito under arrest personally. It was a shame we weren’t there to see it, but we were back at Wonder-Tech Tower as DL was digging the bullet out of my shoulder. I’ll go ahead and admit it, I screamed. Never being shot before, it wasn’t something I’d ever want to do again.

  “Jericho,” he sounded solemn. “From here on out, this control room is your home. I put you in harm’s way and for that I’m sorry.”

  He was referring to the gunshot, but we were in so much more danger if I hadn’t been there to disarm that bomb. “You know what? I could use a quiet spell. Being the eyes behind the scene is just fine by me.”

  “I need to go check on PJ, but in the meantime, take the rest of the week off. You’ve earned it.”

  He was walking away, yet I had one last question. “You think this is all over, with the shady government connections and everything?”

  DL sighed. “It’s as over as it is going to be for us. The core is out of the city and the corrupt captain has been arrested. Sometimes they don’t come any more gift wrapped than that.”

  A blasted Christmas pun. “You know what? Christmas is next week. I’m taking vacation through the twenty-sixth.”

  “Fair enough. Just turn out the light when you are able to get on out of here.”

  About an hour later, my shoulder was feeling a tad better and I was ready to head back to my apartment. I looked back at the control room one last time. “Yeah, I think this is where I need to be, for the time being.”

  Chapter 15 –

  Christmas Day; Alameda Apartment Complex

  I flicked the power on the old goggles and this time, they came to life. A nice radiant yellow color shined through, looking very intimidating. I pushed them over my eyes and saw the world in a whole new way. Maybe one day I’d have to work myself up a pair of these.

  I fixed up the dings and scratches, too. They looked almost brand new. Figuring if I was going to do this, I’d do it right, I dropped them into a brown paper bag and wrote Merry Christmas in black pen on the bag. Planning to drop these off later, I had one other stop to make today.

  I pulled up to the Cieslik house. I’m not sure why, I felt really bad about having to kill him the way I did. My guilt had spurred me to go out and buy a six pack and come over on Christmas. I knocked on the door and waited to see what would happen.

  Danielle, Erin’s wife opened the door. “Jericho?” Her eyes were red and puffy, obviously from crying. “What’re you doing here?”

  The real reason was something I’d have to keep to myself. Instead, “I figured you could use a drink and a friend today.”

  She let me in and I saw the kids playing with some toys by a fully decked out Christmas tree. “Erin loved Christmas, that’s for sure.”

  I plucked two beers from pack and handed her one. “Erin was a pretty decent guy. You think he’s still out there?”

  She took a long sip before shaking her head no. “He loved his kids too much. No, he’s dead, that I know for sure.”

  Yeah, I did too. We didn’t really say much more as we finished the six pack together. It was getting a bit later in the afternoon, so I got up to give the family some time. “Merry Christmas, Danielle. I’m sorry things have unfolded the way they did.”

  “After the New Year, me and the kids are moving back east. It was Erin who wanted to live out here, not me.”

  I bowed my head a bit. “Good luck. I hope everything works out.”

  **Phil Jenkins**

  I was sitting with Owen Walker at the bar, the only two people in the place on
Christmas. “I know that charger was defective. I purposefully miss-wired it so it wouldn’t work.”

  Walker tipped his whiskey at me. “Don’t worry about it, Phil. It would’ve been nice to keep that technology with us, but I have another plan in place.”

  I finished my beer and another one immediately showed up. I started downing that one, too. “Is the group still in place? The plutonium core incident doesn’t change anything?”

  “Phil,” he said as he placed his hand on my shoulder. “You’re such a worrier. Yes, as soon as we recruit a fourth member, our little group will be immobilized. There is a power vacuum in this city that we can very much take advantage of.”

  I wondered how long it would take to get that fourth member. Either way, “Well, I’m out, Owen. Thanks for the Christmas beer.”

  Another man walked through the bar door even before I put my money down to pay for my tab. It was Jeff Trelewicz. “Walker, Jenkins – I think I found the perfect guy to take up the Diamonds mask.”

  The Cast –

  Jericho Staley – The Negative Man

  John Wonderton – The Dark Lion

  Erin Cieslik – IT; Wonder-Tech

  Dave Whisant – General; United States Army

  Channel Esposito – Captain; Army Rangers

  Joshua Pabon – Captain; Army Rangers

  Valiant – Masters of Magic

  Hilda – Masters of Magic

  Danielle Cieslik – Erin’s Wife

  Heather Adams – Lawyer; Wonder-Tech

  Owen Walker – CEO of gl-O-bal

  Phil Jenkins – R and D; Wonder-Tech

  PJ Douglas – Massacre

  Jeff Trelewicz – Security; gl-O-bal

  Present Day…

  Ifelt like shit. I opened my eyes and the light burned them. And the headache, oh my God it was killing me. A voice startled me. “It seems you’re finally awake, Mr. Cieslik.”

  Awake, if you want to call it that. “Where – am – I?” My voice was hoarse, cracking with each word.

  Two men entered my line of sight as my eyes adjusted to everything. “Mr. Cieslik, I’m the Secretary of Defense, Ronald Victory. You might remember the man to my left, General Dave Whisant. You worked for him previously.”

  It was like a bad dream coming back to haunt me. “You’re the guy the hired me to steal the power charger.” My throat felt a bit better this time.

  He stepped forward. In a friendly tone, “That I am. I’m sorry that things didn’t work out in that situation.”

  “What do you –” Then a memory flooded back to me. My friend Jericho found out I betrayed the company. No wait, Jericho was The Negative Man! He killed me! Or at least I think he did…

  Seeing me thinking over all of this, “You were dead, for about twenty-six minutes. But we saved you. You’re currently being held in a top secret facility underneath Dungeon Bay, outside of Pacific Station.”

  What this Victory guy said made no sense. “How did you bring me back to life?”

  “We needed a test subject,” Victory went on. “When General Whisant discovered your body in the water, we couldn’t believe what we found. Proof that The Negative Man was still in play here.”

  My headache was starting to come back. “What did you do to me? Why do I feel so different?”

  “In a minute.” Victory walked over and freed the restraints holding my arms. “It took the better part of five years, but we’ve perfected the serum just in time. Congratulations Mr. Cieslik. You’ve been promoted to my security detail.”

  I stumbled forward, my body feeling like it didn’t belong to me. Through gritted teeth, “Tell me what you’ve done!”

  Whisant answered for him. “Like Secretary Victory said, it took five years, but you’re the perfect specimen. We think because you have some residual power from The Negative Man flowing in your veins, the serum worked better. You my friend, well you’re Omega, the most powerful sentinel alive!”

  “It is an honor, Erin. The ones we’ve released to various police departments are nothing compared to the power that is fully harnessed inside of you,” Whisant added.

  “And with The Negative Man off the playing field, trapped in some coma over at Black Lagoon, it’s time we finish what we once started here in Pacific Station. And you my sentinel friend, you’ll lead the charge,” Victory said as he was laughing like a maniac.

  I didn’t know what a sentinel was, but a cold, almost robotic presence was welling up inside me. It was starting to take over and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do to stop it. “Nooooo!”

  Continued this spring in, “Legends Can Die…”

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  Thank you for reading The Negative Man: Prelude to Chaos and be on the lookout for more from the Pacific Station Vigilante world coming in 2017.

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  One Last Thing:

  Thank you for taking the time to read my book. I appreciate your time and effort in doing so. I would love to hear from you and hear feedback about my work. I encourage you to write a review on Amazon to help other readers, as well as me. Again, thank you for being an awesome reader!

  Warm regards,

  Jeremy Croston

  [email protected]

  Table of Contents

  Table of Contents:

  Reader Warning:

  Chapter 1 –

  Chapter 2 –

  Chapter 3 –

  Chapter 4 –

  Chapter 5 –

  Chapter 6 –

  Chapter 7 –

  Chapter 8 –

  Chapter 9 –

  Chapter 10 –

  Chapter 11 –

  Chapter 12 –

  Chapter 13 –

  Chapter 14 –

  Chapter 15 –

  The Cast –

  Present Day…

  About Us:

  One Last Thing: