Short Fiction

Dual-Man

By Christian Mueth

Some say heroes are born. Others say that they’re made. I believe that heroes are posers, all imitating one another. Jerking themselves off to themselves.

But I guess I’m no different. I have a sweet body and own a mansion. Yet here I am, crawling through a grimy ventilation shaft to save some chick. What was her name again? Jessie Johnson, Daisy Doe, or some crap like that... We kissed once. That’s all I remember.

The shaft’s walls groan under my weight, and crease like tinfoil. I try adjusting my position, but my muscles are stiff boards. My tights chafe against my thighs and make a squeal along the metal. Head hammering, I slow my movements.

Something your marketing team never tells you about building huge muscles is that they’ll constantly get in your way. Same with the spandex. Plus, you can’t even see your muscle definition under spandex. But action figures need to be made, am I right?

I should’ve just followed Captain Casualty’s lead, and kept things casual… He somehow gets away with ratty T-shirts.

There’s a whir. A blast of air funnels through the shaft, and wafts into my face. I smack my lips — the air is musty. Dusty. My nostrils itch. Great — I can already feel them beginning to flare. My body ripples, straining to fight back the urge…

I sneeze.

Echoes reverberate through the shaft. I’m frozen. Though, maybe the sneeze seemed louder than it was. I have enhanced hearing. Yes — there’s no way I could’ve been heard from behind the metal. I glance at my immaculate reflection.

“It’s all good,” I say. “We’re cool.”

“Are you going to come down here to face me, or are you going to keep hiding?”

Shit. I could recognize that heavy-handed speaking style anywhere.

The Harbinger. My sixth greatest nemesis.

I take in a deep inhale, inflating my chest.

“Don’t you worry, I’m coming down there,” I say, my voice still echoing within the ventilation shaft.

My fist reels back, before hurtling toward the shaft’s floor. There’s a magnificent crash. My eyes close and my stomach rises, as I anticipate my plummet from the shaft. Though, I’m only met with an upswell of pain in my wrist. Reopening my eyes, I see that the punch has just left a dent in the metal.

I shake my wrist and give another punch.

“Ah! God!”

It must be a special type of metal. Maybe the Harbinger finally discovered a material that renders me weak.

“You can’t even get out of an iron vent? How pathetic can you get?”

A blast goes off. The world oscillates, then slams into me. In a daze, I pull myself up from a concrete floor. I fan away a plume of dust and rubble with my cape. At least the cape is good for something.

Whipping my head around, I see the interior of a warehouse stretching from every side of me. Harsh lights beat throughout.

I clear my throat. “Dual-Man! Ready to duel!” I grin to myself.

It’d taken me an hour to come up with that line. Worth it.

“I foretold you’d be here,” the Harbinger says.

I turn around. The Harbinger is perched atop a ray-gun, wearing his stupid trench coat and demon mask.

“Oh yeah? Well, did you foretell this?”

I give a grunt and a spark runs through my body, followed by a blue glow. Nerves tingling, my hands almost seem to fold out of my skin. After a few moments, I’m split in two. Then four. Eight.

The Harbinger leaps from his ray-gun and begins shooting blasts of energy from his palms.

“You may be many, Dual-Man, but your intellect is no match for mine!”

I weave among the crowd of myself, laughing. “Ever hear the phrase, ‘two halves are better than one?’”

“That’s—.”

I give the Harbinger a clean sock to the jaw, knocking him to the ground. Adrenaline rushes through my body. Perfect way to end a conversation.

“Where are you holding her!?” I yell, from a hundred directions.

Feebly, the Harbinger points ahead. My girlfriend is behind an office’s window a few yards away, watching some movie on a TV. I wave. She yawns, her eyes remaining fixed to the screen.

“The door is unlocked for her, and everything,” says the Harbinger. “I didn’t want to be one of those sexist kidnappers.”

I nod. “Yeah, I hate those sons of bitches.”

I adjust my utility belt and unsnap a bottle from one of the flaps. My duplicates unsnap bottles of their own and begin spraying at the ray-gun.

“Anyway, your plan is over!” I say. “Good luck counteracting this anti-freeze I’ve developed!”

The Harbinger smiles at me, serenely. The ray-gun is whirring now, and its tip shines red.

“Anti-freeze? It’s a heat-ray.”

“Wait, what? In that scrambled message you sent… I thought you said it was a freeze-ray!”

“Well, the message was scrambled. Maybe you misheard?”

“Maybe you misspoke. I have enhanced hearing, man.”

The Harbinger is back to my level, staring me in the face. Meanwhile, my duplicates fumble at the ray gun, to no avail. A countdown has started on the front of the ray-gun, displaying only two minutes left. I pace in a circle and run my hand through my hair.

“It’s fine… It’s fine!” I say. “Mr. Man-Mantis is supposed to be here any minute. He’ll disable it.”

The Harbinger laughed. “He’s not coming.”

“Huh?”

“He didn’t tell you? He’s having knee-surgery, today.”

I whip out my cell-phone. “Guess I’ll see if Dexter-Hex…”

“Photo-shoot with the Sustainers.”

“The Banister?”

“I think he’s being replaced.”

I put my phone back. Sweat is beginning to form, and my spandex isn’t liking it. I pray that I can get out of this, and that my “Dual-Man Cologne” will be strong enough to hide my odor.

“Brilliant! Just brilliant!” I say. “What, did you think I had a computer degree? I can’t disable this thing! Do you know how much my ‘Dual-Man’ merchandise is going to tank, because of you? Just kill me now…”

The Harbinger rests his hand on my shoulder.

“It’ll be fine… Trent Turner.”

I step away and give him a glare. “How do you — how do you know who I am?”

“Well, for one, you look exactly like the billionaire Trent Turner.”

I nod. He has a point.

“And for another… Well…”

His mask and trench coat fall away.

“I’m you.”

I shake my head. It can’t be. But he’s now indistinguishable from the rest of my duplicates, save for a cruel smile on his face.

On my face…

“It doesn’t make sense,” I say.

Though, I can already see all my duplicates folding back into him. Now, it’s just me.

“Think about it. Why is it that I never try to kill you?”

“I thought you just had really bad aim…”

“It’s because I can never let this end, Trent. I can never let you end. Every time you punch me, the populous eats it up. So I spawn you — a copy. I wipe your mind of all memories. We fight. And in the end? They buy every action figure, comic book, and cereal that we throw at them… They get the conflict they secretly yearn for. We make millions.”

It can’t be. Yet, I feel my bones trembling. A spark flows from him to me. I know it’s true. “You’re every villain I’ve faced?” I ask.

“I’m also the hero that stops them.”

I take a step toward him.

“But… Countless lives...”

“Oh, Trent. I’ve never killed anybody. All of this… It’s all spectacle. Nothing more.”

“But, we could’ve used our powers for—.”

“For what? We create jobs. We inspire. And meanwhile, we prosper. What more could you want?”

I take another step. My mind merges into his. Memories come flooding back of hours spent building, planning, and strategizing. I’ve done this before, countless times.

I walk up to the ray-gun. I flip the off-switch.

“Time to do this again, countless more times.”

My girlfriend remains glued to the TV screen. The rubble remains stuck to the ground. The room rings, hollow. Though, I laugh.

Heroes are never truly born. Heroes are never truly dead.

Heroes are never, truly.

End