Centurion

Chapter 1: God Doesn't Play Dice

By: John Westcott

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© Copyrighted by John Westcott.

As I have recently had issues with people stealing my stories and selling them as their own, I feel I have to put an explicit copyright warning on my stories. Be advised that I have properly documented and protected my copyright of these characters and situations and have enlisted a lawyer to protect them. Any violation of my copyright will result in legal action, beginning with, but not limited to, a cease and desist order. If that fails, further and harsher legal actions will be aggressively pursued to the full extent of the law.

Author's Notes: Wow, that almost hurt.

Did you ever have the kind of inspiration that just 'strikes' you, right out of the blue? A story idea that just lays you out like Mike Tyson at a beauty pagent? Yeah, that kind of flash of inspiration that makes you stop doing whatever you were doing and rush to the nearest pen and notepad (or for the younger generation, laptop or blackberry) and write down this outline before it slips away. You just have to, man. I don't care if you're driving down the highway at 130 MPH, in a REALLY, REALLY, REALLY bad part of town or frying bacon in the nude... just stop whatever you're doing and get this story down so you can continue working on it and developing it.

That's how the inspiration for this story hit me, much like my other ongoing work, Den Of Thieves.

I was thinking to myself, 'self', I said, the problem with a lot of heroes and comic book stories that try to get off the ground today is that they're too mired in continuity or long, overly labyrinthine backstories that make coming into them as new readers offputting, if not compltely fracking impossible.

So I was standing there shaving, just like our main character, Daniel Kirby (named after Captain America creator Jack Kirby), and wondering what my reaction would be if suddenly someone just appeared and dragged me to another reality where I was some kind of spy or something, to replace an alternate version of myself that had just died or some such thing.

Personally, I think it's an easy concept to relate to. Like our title character, and like most of us, I have worked at one time or another at a job I detested (thank God that's not the case now), including two stints at what I consider to be the most soul sucking workplaces in existence... call centers. I have been in workplaces where I ate alone because I couldn't relate to my coworkers. I've lost girlfriends (believe it or not) just like our man Daniel. We've all been there, done that.

So wouldn't it be awesome if, when we've been in those spots where we just hate our lives that, BAM! (to steal from Emeril Lagasse), someone just appeared and yanked us into a better reality, where our lives were exciting and straight out of an adventure novel? Certainly, there were times when I wished that would be so. Sadly, it wasn't. So, rather than have someone get bitten by a radioactive spider or watch their parents murdered in front of them, or even come from a distant planet orbiting a red star, Centurion was born.

I also thought it would be interesting to start a novel about a superhero in which said superhero dies in the very first scene. Bad guy wins, right? Wrong. Centurion will live again, and you, the reader, will explore that universe: it's friends and enemies, lovers and haters, heroes and villains, through his inexperienced eyes.

Daniel Kirby went from living a drab, unimportant life to a life where he will be completely overwhelmed by new information. His girlfriend, dead in his reality, is now living and his fiancee. He leads a superhero team. There are men and women who want nothing more than to kill him. Talk about a total turnaround, whereas before he couldn't find someone to eat lunch with. Hopefully, that's where the fun comes in.

Daniel will have to learn how to use his new abilities and learn friend from foe in a world where everyone expects him to know it all already. It'll be a huge burden to bear, but also a source of (hopefully) tear inducing moments of inspiration, drama and comedy. He'll succeed where his alternate self might have failed, and fail where his alternate self may have succeeded.

This story is based on the classic superhero myths I've always enjoyed, inspired by Batman, Spider-Man, Superman, Captain America and pretty much every other comic in existence, because I've read them all. I've especially been inspired by the works of Geoff Johns, Ed Brubaker, Mark Millar, Brad Meltzer, Brian Michael Bendis, Greg Pak, Mark Waid, Charlie Huston, Alan Moore, Marv Wolfman and Jeph Loeb, just to name a very few. You could also add Ian Flemming, Tom Clancy, Joss Whedon, Timothy Zahn, Eric Van Lustbader and quite a few more to the list. So if those authors are to your liking, then hopefully you'll like this story I've concocted. If you don't enjoy it, well, it was free, so don't ask for your money back.

And if the story fails, maybe I can be content in knowing that is's a hit in some alternate reality.

My policy on reviews is thus: I do encourage everyone in giving feedback in the form of reviews or personal emails, and I do have a really thick skin when it comes to reader comments and want nothing more than to improve my skills, so I appreciate any input. As long as your feedback is constructive, it can be as positive or negative as you feel is necessary. Flaming emails along the lines of "You suck! Bite me!" will be given as much thought as what went into creating them in the first place.

Finally, thanks to my online pal, Rod Davila, who often helps me brainstorm and is pretty much solely responsible for creating the looks of my characters, based on descriptions that I give him. Rod's drawings make finding the inspiration for writing so much easier. He's done artwork and character sketches for Den Of Thieves, Angelwing, and is right now taking my incredibly poorly worded and often contradicting instructions for working up a great drawing of Centurion, to be posted soon on my yahoo mailing list (see my profile page for more info on that if you want to join).

And he's doing it all for free.

Please, somebody, buy that man a beer.

Elsewhen:...

“It’s a trap!”

Famous last words, if ever there were any.

From a spacious, darkened office in a faceless looming skyscraper, a lone man sat stoking his chin with his right hand, hunched over a laptop computer, watching a camera feed from street level, not far away. Unlike most who would watch this footage over the next few hours, he was smiling ear to ear at the sight, his heart singing with joy at the death of one single man, a man millions respected and some even adored. Most would call him a hero, but the lone man in the office only referred to him as a most hated ‘foe’. As the explosion overwhelmed them all, even the man sitting in the office realized that the force of the blast would not be enough to breach his adversary’s defenses. He was, for all intents and purposes, invulnerable… at least under normal conditions. These, however, were anything but normal conditions.

The innocent bystanders made all the difference. They were Centurion’s Achilles' heel. Given his abilities, the mastermind sitting in the office wondered why they hadn’t thought of this sooner.

It became clear to the heroes immediately that something was amiss as the battle was joined. The questions were written all over their faces. Why were their enemies protected by personal force fields? The answer became clear as the blast ripped through concrete and steel.

Some, like the gun-toting Nemesis and the fearless but very vulnerable Braveheart, died instantly. The powerhouse of the team, Quake, didn’t even get a chance to unleash his awesome power before his world came to an end. Would the magician survive? It was possible, and they’d deal with that if it happened. Of all of them, Centurion was the only one guaranteed to survive, but the presence of the innocents changed the equation entirely.

The camera link was broken only a heartbeat later, but upon replay and slow motion, frame by frame advancement, newscasters and viewers alike could easily make out the sight of the armored hero, extending the protective alloy shield he commanded beyond his form as far as possible, protecting as many innocent bystanders as he could from the blast.

Unfortunately for Centurion, protecting the bystanders came at the expense of protecting himself, and with flesh and bone exposed to the destructive brunt of the blast, the lone man in the office allowed himself a sinister grin as his adversary was consumed by fire and shrapnel.

The intercom on his sparse desktop buzzed and he flipped a switch as he activated his headset. The voice on the other end belonged to that of his spy at the scene. He was amazed that the man survived.

“Go secure?” Asked the voice. It was an inane question. Of course he’d gone secure by flipping the scrambler switch. He was the mastermind behind the death of one of the world’s most admired heroes, and yet his identity remained anonymous, as he’d always liked it.

“Don’t be stupid, of course I’m secure. What’s your status there?”

“The problem has finally been resolved.” In the background, he could clearly make out the clarion call of sirens and a throng of panicked screams. His spy paid it no mind as he continued his report.

“Your people, Phobos and Diemos especially, came through the battle unscathed thanks to those personal force fields. Some of The Visigoths were killed, however, but many survived. I don’t imagine you’ll cry yourself to sleep tonight at losing them. Plenty more where they come from, after all.”

The force fields had done their jobs, though they’d cost him a fortune and wouldn’t work for very long, but the gamble paid off. His forces were alive and The Legion had been wiped from the face of the planet.

“Continue.”

“Centurion performed as expected. The psyche evaluations hit the nail on the head. He looks to have been growing arrogant and careless after recent victories, but his respect for innocent life still ran deep. He sacrificed himself to save the rest. As the fires are put out and the dust settles, it looks like some of them may have been completely vaporized by the blast, no bodies to be found at all. It’ll be hard to tell for sure who lived and who died until the forensic teams move in and clear things up. One thing seems for sure, and that is, Centurion is dead. If he wasn’t, he’d be standing right there in the middle of that hellish fire.”

“Finally. Dump your cell phone and get out of there. Stay in your hotel room for the next forty-eight hours and then leave the country. You’ll find tickets reserved for you under the name ‘Mr. Raoul Cauvin’ at LaGuardia’s United Airlines ticket desk. Your payment is being transferred into your account as we speak. Goodbye.” The man in the office suite cut the connection. There was neither payment nor airline tickets waiting for him. The spy he’d employed for this simple job would be killed in his sleep by dawn, his throat cut by one of his more trustworthy people. Never leave loose ends.

Centurion was dead.

Laissez Les Bon Temps Roulez.

Queens: New York - Here And Now...

“Damn it!”

Daniel Kirby hissed as his razor blade opened a slit of skin in his throat, more an annoyance than an actual sensation of pain, but it wasn’t exactly how he’d hoped to start his day. He’d often dreaded going to work in the morning, and today was no exception. Daniel often wondered if there was anyone else who felt like vomiting upon waking up in the morning and realizing that it was another workday. Somehow, he doubted it. Each ensuing day proved harder to face than the last. Silently, he wondered where it would all lead him.

He grabbed a square of toilet paper and held it to the cut as the crimson stream of blood began to trickle forth. He applied some pressure and the rapidly clotting blood held the square of paper in place.

As the clock radio in his bedroom blared ‘I Just Want To Celebrate’ by Rare Earth, the D.J. cut in on the song to announce that the route he normally took to work was delayed due to an accident. Cars were moving like flies stuck in amber after a tractor-trailer blew out a tire and skidded out across three lanes of traffic. No one was hurt, but they were most certainly going to be inconvenienced. Moments later, the D.J. returned to your regularly scheduled drive time.

‘I just want to celebrate another day of livin'
I just want to celebrate another day of life
I put my faith in the people
But the people let me down
So I turned the other way
And I carry on, anyhow’

His shaving ritual continued unabated. There was no doubt about it now; he’d definitely be late for work. So much for celebrating another day of life.

Not that he particularly cared about work, or his life, for that matter.

Daniel’s average workday consisted of sitting in a gray cubicle with a headset microphone, assaulting random individuals by phone with telemarketing offers. One month he offered a way to lower your credit card debt; and yet another he offered lower telephone rates via a telecommunications company operating out of India. It was, without fail, mind numbingly boring and possibly the most unrewarding task he’d ever performed in his entire life, keeping in mind that Daniel was once a McDonald’s employee.

More often than not, the person on the other end of the phone, their numbers picked randomly from a database by a computer and autodialed, berated him for several minutes for interrupting their well-planned and no doubt sumptuous dinners with family and friends. Others hung up on him outright.

There was one sad case he recalled to this day, a frail, elderly woman from Tennessee that was starved for conversation. She didn’t buy anything Kirby was selling, but she talked to him for over twenty-five minutes about what the weather was like where he lived and what it was like to work in a big and exciting call center. He just didn’t have the heart to hang up on her.

When his superiors, who monitored every outgoing call like George Orwell’s ‘Big Brother’ in 1984, were made aware of the time he’d wasted brightening an old woman’s day rather than hawking his wares, they docked his pay by a half an hour. Mr. Royce himself was called down from his plush, oversized office to chew Daniel out, keeping him for nearly two hours after work.

Daniel should have told Mr. Royce off then and there, but he couldn’t find the spine to do it, and he needed the job after all. An apartment in New York, even a small one like his, cost a lot of money. Still, given his measly paycheque and the money he spent commuting to work every day, he thought he might actually come out ahead of the deal if he was unemployed. Unfortunately, Daniel liked to eat, and no one was giving out groceries for free.

Still, he’d relived the moment countless times in his mind’s eye as Mr. Royce leaned in closer than anyone would have liked, invading Daniel’s personal space while railing at him endlessly, his spittle flying through the air and assaulting him as he sat there, unflinchingly. How satisfying it would have been to shove Royce - a man of nearly forty with leonine features and short cropped, sandy blonde hair, always dressed in immaculately tailored suits so expensive that they’d have paid his rent for a year or two – up against the wall and tell him to shove his head up his ass.

Daniel’s coworkers were no help, either. He ate alone in the cafeteria most every day, content to read the latest Mack Bolan action novel, wishing for all he was worth that he was the action hero known as ‘The Executioner’, living a life of intrigue and excitement, rather than the life fate had heaped upon him. Daniel Kirby was a call center employee and his coworkers were always quick to remind him of his place on the ladder... the very lowest rung. Daniel Kirby would have to be promoted just to make as much per hour as the janitorial staff.

The jokes and pranks were mostly harmless, but the sheer repetitive nature of them began to grind on his soul after a while. Daniel was a man of imagination, someone who dared to dream and think beyond the scope of his little life, and that kind of mentality was like sending up a flare to his fellow worker bees in a soul-crushing hive like a call center.

There was the time when they snuck his keys out of his pocket and moved his car to the far end of the parking lot during their lunch break. He spent nearly an hour trying to find it. There was also the time they used his company email account to send rather disgusting and unnatural porn involving farm animals to their boss, Mr. Royce. Daniel was nearly fired over that one until a security camera proved that he was eating lunch at the time the email was time-stamped and sent. Interestingly enough, the true culprit was forgotten after that.

His coworkers, men like Tyler Jacobs and Eddie Morris, and even women like Ida Dixon, were more than content to be in the moment, content to live for the next Friday night when they drank themselves into a stupor at the local bar and went home early the next morning to be sick in their commode. There was something to be said for the simple life, he supposed, and he shouldn’t condemn them simply for that. He himself enjoyed a cold six-pack of Corona on the weekend. If it were a simple matter of not being able to relate to his coworkers, he’d have been content with that. No, it was the fact that his inability to connect with them made him an object of their derision and persecution.

It’s not that he never tried to reach out to the people he would have as friends, but when the conversations began, he always found himself to be the odd man out. They spoke of nothing but sports and fashion trends and drinking themselves into a stupor. He enjoyed discussing something loftier, like politics or even the most recent archeological special he’d seen on The Discovery Channel. In other words, insidiously boring topics for his beloved comrades at work.

In a nutshell, Daniel was one of those men that just didn’t fit in, no matter what he tried.

Daniel stopped shaving for a moment and stared at the reflection in the mirror. The eyes that stared back were of a striking greenish-blue. They looked as if they were actually brimming with seawater. His close-cropped and close cut dirty blonde hair was fashionable and well kept. He was clean-shaven and in excellent physical shape. He’d spent a great amount of time at the gym, after all. At least at the gym he could wear his I-pod and be alone for a good reason.

He dressed well and he was immaculate in his personal hygiene habits, so it wasn’t his personal appearance that kept him from connecting with others. It had to be his personality. For almost his entire life, Kirby was the odd man out.

When he took stock of himself, Daniel knew that, deep down, he wasn’t an evil or vile man. He was a good man and he could be a good friend… but he just didn’t seem to connect on any kind of level with those around him. It was like he was from another planet.

Daniel considered quitting, but where would he go? The call center, TCE International (AKA Tele-Communications Enterprises International) made it a policy to never give out letters of recommendation, so he would have nothing to show for the last four years of his life when he went out on the job hunt, even though the TCE center he worked at was the corporate headquarters, as evidenced by the presence of Mr. Royce, the CEO.

Royce was a wealthy man who’d often made the pages of the New York Times. He was, without a doubt, the richest man Daniel had ever been berated by. It was almost an honor, if not for the fact that he wished nothing more than to punch him square in the jaw. It also spoke much of Royce’s nature that a man as wealthy and busy as he would actually take the time to berate and scold one of his lowest ranking workers.

Others, like Eddie, Tyler and Ida, were sure to make friends with their team leader on the floor of the call center, buttering them up constantly with unending and rather nauseating praise. They also weren’t above making their team leader a frequent drinking buddy. Thus, they were all promoted ahead of Daniel, even though they’d all started on exactly the same day.

This meant that they made more money and chose the best workdays for themselves, when the least calls came in, and ensuring more vacation time for themselves. Daniel didn’t care. What did he need vacation time for? He didn’t even have a pet to spend it with.

The extra money sure would have been nice, though. He’d have been able to move out of his claustrophobic four-room apartment and enlarge his collection of Roman books, films and paraphernalia.

To sum up, saying that Daniel hated his job would be an understatement along the lines of ‘rain is wet’. He completely and totally detested it… to the point where he actually came close to vomiting before work every morning.

Daniel resigned himself to the fact that he’d most likely be late and continued at a leisurely pace. Perhaps he’d have time to heat up a S’more Pop-Tart and crack a can of Coca-Cola to give him enough energy to survive the chewing out he’d receive from his floor supervisor.

Even though he was heavy-laden with regret, Daniel Kirby knew that his current life situation was of his own making. Despite the pleasant face he wore to work every day, he was drowning in a sea of regret. There was no one to blame but himself. Like a character from a Dickensian play, he was burdened by many lengths of chain hanging from his neck, each fashioned from a regret or bad decision, and each dragged him further down and weighed on him heavily. As he continued shaving, he watched as the drops of condensation, a result of his hot shower moments earlier, begin to give in to the inevitable tug of gravity and slide down the glass mirror. If he positioned his face right, it almost looked as though he was crying.

There was so much he would have done… so much he could have done, if only Caroline was still by his side. He felt truly invulnerable during their short time together. Unlike anyone else in his lifetime, she understood him and she supported him, no matter what. When he confessed his addiction to Pop-Tarts and Coca-Cola, she simply laughed. Caroline even found his fascination with ancient Roman times; from movies to the many books he’d spent most of his pay on, quite fascinating. She even encouraged it once she found out his grandmother, Helena, was originally from the old country in Rome. It was the kind of relationship any man would kill to experience.

With Caroline, he was going to make something of himself. He was going to live a life that meant something, both to him and to others. He was going to make a difference… somehow, whether it be volunteering for the U.N. in Africa or perhaps even starting a career in law enforcement. She made him feel as if he could achieve anything.

But Caroline was long dead, and in a very real way, he had killed her.

When they buried her in the cold ground on that miserable, gray September day, they shoveled the dirt on his dreams, too. Everything Daniel was going to do with his life, every dream and ambition, was long forgotten. His zest for life, his joie de vive, was as cold and dead as she. The feeling of invulnerability that came with her presence in his heart was replaced by a sense of aching loneliness and despair at her absence.

Daniel Kirby had given up on life, and so life gave up on him.

As he returned the razor to his skin with a deep sigh, Kirby looked a little harder in the mirror. He rubbed his eyes in an attempt to clear them.

“What the hell is that?”

He grabbed a facecloth and wiped the condensation from the mirror. No, nothing had changed there. Was that smoke he saw billowing behind him? Was something on fire? He didn’t smell anything burning. It appeared to have no source. It reminded him of a will-o’-the-wisp, the ghostly lights often seen over bogs at night, only with smoke trails. Was he having a stroke or something?

The resounding concussive detonation that assaulted his ears made him jump nearly a foot off the ground as smoke billowed in roiling clouds like a thunderstorm; only this was localized to his bathroom.

Was it a terrorist attack, a bomb of some kind?

There was no way to know for sure. The safest thing to do was call the police and…

“Thank God I found you.”

The regal looking individual who stepped from the smoke and thunder looked somehow familiar to Daniel. He wore a perfectly tailored tuxedo, replete with gloves and a broad cape adorned with a red and black scheme, woven with intricate designs all over it. He recognized some as Celtic imagery. Caroline was fond of Celtic crosses and the like. Other images, however, looked completely foreign to him.

He was rather gaunt, with black hair combed back in a widow’s peak and a perfectly manicured goatee/mustache combination formed under his hawkish nose. Daniel would not think to ask why the stranger was talking like they were friends until later.

“Who in the hell are you? Get out of my apartment!” Daniel shouted as he brandished his razor as if it were actually a weapon of some kind. The stranger extended his hands and stared quizzically at him.

“Daniel… it’s me, Douglas.”

Kirby eyed the stranger with an appraising gaze. That’s right, he knew this man, not personally, but he knew his name.

“You’re that guy, that magician.”

The stranger appeared relieved. “Yes, that’s right, Daniel. I thought you’d lost your memory in the blast. I’m Mr. Magus.”

Daniel tried to take another step back, but realized he’d already pushed himself up against the bathroom’s tiled wall as far as he could go.

“I remember seeing you in Vegas once, that’s all.”

The stranger appeared confused. “Vegas? Daniel, now is not the time for jokes. I thought you’d died in the blast, but it appears we were both lucky enough to come through the portal I’d conjured. The rest may not have been so lucky. Phobos and Deimos really got us by the balls this time.”

The man known as Mr. Magus took hold of Daniel’s wrist. “Now come on, armor up and let’s get the hell out of wherever we are and put a hurt on those bastards!”

By this point, Kirby had had just about enough. He wrenched his wrist from the magician’s grip as he stopped in his tracks. Refusing to follow him any further or participate in his own humiliation.

“Enough! I don’t know what kind of reality prank show I’m on, but you can kiss my ass, ‘Mr. Magus’. I’m not playing along. Go and saw some reality show bimbo in half, why don’t you!”

Mr. Magus eyed Daniel suspiciously before taking in his surroundings with a disapproving look. “Daniel, where in hell are we?”

Kirby swore. “You’re in my apartment, which means you’re breaking and entering, you prick! Now get out of my home! I’ve got my limits and I won’t be your punch line!”

The one calling himself Mr. Magus retreated into the tiny kitchen area and then, with his cape flowing behind him, examined the single bedroom with the fourteen-inch television and the X-Box 360 on the out of date carpeted floor beside it. The walls were adorned with a faded blue paint and few pictures. There was a large print of the Roman Coliseum over the bed, however.

The main feature of the room appeared to be the bookshelf, adorned with a variety of titles from Mack Bolan adventures to comic book anthologies, from Tom Clancy and Ian Flemming to Shakespeare and Tolkien. He also noticed the small collection of antique Roman relics and books relating to Roman gladiatorial times.

A brief wisp of a pencil-thin smile passed the stranger’s lips as he caught sight of the collection before returning to a grave seriousness. His gaze bored a hole through Daniel’s head, as if he were trying to access his thoughts just by staring hard at him.

“Who do you think I am?” He asked.

“You’re that TV magician, the man they called ‘Mr. Magus’. I saw you once in Vegas opening for David Copperfield… and you sucked, by the way. I should have asked for my money back. The best thing about your show was the buffet.”

“And just who are you, exactly?” Magus asked, oblivious to the insult.

“My name is Daniel Kirby. I’m an outgoing sales agent at TCE International.”

Magus shook his head. “No, my friend. Your name is Daniel Kirby… and you are the world’s greatest superhero. You are… The Centurion.”

Kirby screwed up his face as if he had just bitten into a lemon. “Fuck off! Who sent you, Eddie Morris or Tyler Jacobs? This is going too far! I’ve just about had enough of those two! I’m going to introduce those jerk-offs to my steel-toed boots the next time I see them!”

The man, Mr. Magus, was shaking his head even more emphatically in an attempt to clear it. “Where in the hell have I found myself?”

He then turned his back on Kirby and began muttering endlessly to himself, something about ‘cross-dimensional portals’, not ‘having enough time to speak the incantation properly’, ‘quantum mechanics’, someone named ‘Hugh Everett’, a ‘multiverse’ and not ‘looking a gift horse in the mouth’.

“What the hell are you rambling about?” Kirby demanded.

“It would appear…” Magus said as he stroked his goatee thoughtfully. “… that God does not play dice.”

Frustrated, Kirby stormed off, looking for the phone. Of course, the cordless device wasn’t on its base where it should be. Where had he tossed it?

“I’m calling the police.” As he spoke, he found the phone tucked between the sheets on his unmade bed. He picked it up and reached for the ‘on’ button, only to watch helplessly as the device took to the air of its own accord, floating as though weightless through the air toward the gloved hand of the magician known as Mr. Magus. Daniel stared wide-eyed as the phone lazily came to rest in the magician’s palm and seemingly regained its heft.

“No, Daniel, you can’t call the police.”

“How… how did you do that?” Kirby asked, pointing toward the phone markedly with a look of disbelief. “It’s some kind of rigged prop!”

The magician smiled genially. “It’s your phone. I’ve never seen it before. It’s a simple spell… though when we first met you explained to me that there is no such thing as magic, only a kind of science that we don’t yet understand. You were, as always, quite correct.”

Before Daniel could reply, Magus continued unabated. “This may come as a bit of a shock to you, Daniel, but my real name is Douglas Von Erik. I am known to the world at large as ‘Mr. Magus’… I am a sorcerer and mage.”

Silence reigned in the tiny apartment as Daniel Kirby eyed the stranger incredulously. Like a pall, the stillness hung between them until, all at once, Daniel burst out laughing.

“You must be high.”

Ignoring yet another jibe, Von Erik soldiered on.

“Listen to me, please. When I’m done you can call whomever you want. As I said, my name is Douglas Von Erik and I’m known as Mr. Magus. I am, in fact, a direct descendant of the legendary Simon Magus. The Daniel Kirby I know is the leader of the team known as ‘The Legion’, a hero… a ‘superhero’ if you will. That’s certainly what the papers call you. They know you as ‘Centurion’. The Daniel Kirby I know has billions of semi-sentient nanites injected into his blood stream. When you summon them to the surface, they coat you in a kind of metallic sheath that augments your strength and renders you invulnerable. You can even morph the nanites into simple shapes with mental commands.”

Kirby could hardly breath, he was laughing so hard. “So, I’m a… ‘superhero’. I’m like Superman or Batman.”

“I can prove it. I know all about you. Daniel Kirby loves Orange Tootsie Roll Pops, Coca-Cola, Doritos and Corona beer with lime. You once tried to go vegetarian and after two weeks you gave in and ate six Big Macs in one day… before throwing up for nearly 24 hours straight. You’re allergic to Tandoori spice and fish. You love 80’s guitar rock… especially Van Halen… whom you’ve seen in concert five times, and you once set your own shoes on fire during a Halloween prank gone wrong. Your favorite movie of all time is ‘Gladiator’. Your favorite book series is the Mack Bolan thriller novels.”

Daniel was unimpressed. These were all common facts about him anyone could have gleaned, probably from some of the idiots at work he’d chosen to foolishly confide in. It was Von Erik’s next statement that stopped the laughter cold.

“Your fiancée is Caroline McNiven.”

Kirby felt a wave of nausea overcome him as he leaned on the pedestal-style sink for support. The cool sensation emanating from the porcelain helped him regain his senses, if not his equilibrium. His face was now a mask of sorrow and even some hatred for this man and his cruel joke.

“You bastard…” He wheezed breathlessly. “You fucking bastard…” Frustrated and consumed by fury at the callous mention of his dead love, Daniel threw a punch at the interloper. There was no technique but a lot of emotion behind the punch, but it never managed to connect.

Mr. Magus, master of sorcery and magic, made a quick hand gesture and turned himself intangible. As Daniel’s fist passed through the garishly clothed man, he lost his footing on the damp tile floor and stumbled forward.

“Watch yourself!” Mr. Magus shouted as Kirby careened out of control. Unfortunately, Daniel slipped and hit his head on the tile floor. All was darkness for a time.

He dreamt of her… Caroline Anne McNiven… the love of his life. From the moment they’d first met at an office party at her employer’s penthouse, they connected as if each was one half of the same soul, only now reunited.

Unlike him, she was a competent and self-assured social wonder, who still managed to take the time to truly talk to him and find out about him even though conversation with strangers was not his forte. She actually found him charming. He found her irresistible. They spent four hours sitting by the stone fireplace, just talking.

The dream turned to nightmare as the image in his mind’s eye switched to her pallid, lifeless form in a highly polished casket surrounded by bouquets of sickly sweet smelling flowers at her wake, only a week after he had broken up with her. His own damn insecurity gnawed at him for months, fearing that he wasn’t good enough for her and that she was probably cheating on him with that cute trainer from the gym. Better to end it now than be humiliated as he had so often been in the past. She was, understandably, destroyed by this, as Caroline was completely devoted to Daniel.

After the inevitable argument, she left, weeping openly. The car accident that killed her would have been completely avoided if he’d simply had the courage to love her back as much as she loved him. He awoke with a start, in his own bed, alone. He thanked God. It was all a dream. Kirby’s head was aching and he felt the small bump on his head. As he felt the evidence of the morning’s strange events swelling on his forehead, the caped figure once again appeared in his bedroom, only this time through the door and not in an explosion of cloud and smoke, with a cup of coffee in his hand which he proffered to Daniel.

“Drink this.”

“How many times to I have to tell you?” Kirby hissed. “Get out!”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that just yet. I have to see to your well being first.” Kirby took the coffee, prepared just as he liked it with one cream and two sugars, and drank it gratefully. It helped to revitalize him as he realized how very late he was going to be for work this morning. He glanced at the clock by his bed just as the phone rang. He picked it up and answered.

“Where in the hell are you, Kirby?” It was his floor supervisor, Sherry Phillips, and she sounded as displeased with him as she’d ever been. Her shrill voice surely attracted stray dogs from miles around.

“Sorry, Ms. Phillips. I had an accident at home. I fell in my bathroom and hit my head. I only now regained my senses.”

On the other end of the phone, Phillips sighed with disgust. “You truly are an incompetent wonder, Kirby. Can’t you even take a shower correctly? You are over two hours late for work and you’ve been on my shit list for a long time now. If you like staying home so much, how about this? You’re fired. Stay home, eat corn chips, watch soap operas and masturbate all day for all I care!” She slammed the phone down and severed the connection.

Resigned to his fate, Daniel didn’t even protest. He simply switched the phone off and tossed it to the floor.

“I’m sorry, Daniel. I didn’t mean for you to lose your job.”

Kirby rubbed his forehead. “Bite me.”

Von Erik continued unabated, spilling information from his lips as fast as he could speak it. “If I may continue from where we left off before you attacked me, your team: you and I, a man called ‘Nemesis’, a good and kind man known as ‘Braveheart’, a brilliant individual known as ‘Sleuth’ and an absolute powerhouse known as ‘Quake’, were caught in a trap set by your primary foes, two truly evil and disturbed gentlemen known as ‘Phobos’ and ‘Deimos’. They control a gang of marauders known as ‘The Visigoths’. It was a bomb. You, Daniel Kirby, extended your morphing nanite shielding to its maximum around the crowd of innocent bystanders in our midst, saving them but exposing yourself to the blast. Or at least, your alternate self did.”

Whatever nonsense this man was spewing, Daniel could not absorb it. It was the kind of story he’d always enjoyed: heroes and villains locked in mortal combat for the lives of innocents. He didn’t believe the tale, but he was intrigued by it. Perhaps he’d write it up when he got around to attempting his first novel... something he’d longed to do but had been putting off for years. But why did this bastard have to mention Caroline? That was cruelty in the extreme. Slowly, he sat up and hung his legs over the side of the bed.

“As the explosion consumed us all, I had only a millisecond to act. I spoke an incantation and made the correct motions with my hands, but I must have misspoken, or perhaps the explosion ripped a hole between dimensions, sending me here. You are clearly not the Daniel Kirby I knew.”

Douglas Von Erik’s shoulders sagged then, and Daniel Kirby found himself overcome by a morose sensation. He suddenly felt as though he were unworthy of the fantastic fable that had just been spun for him. That made him feel glum… and yet he had no idea why.

“While you were unconscious I have come to the sad realization that the Daniel Kirby I knew is… dead.”

This time, the silence that passed between the two men was not broken by gales of laughter from Daniel. In fact, Kirby’s shoulders sagged appreciably. He felt as if he’d been informed that his entire life truly had been wasted when it could have been something grand, the kind of life people read about in bestsellers.

“You’re… serious, aren’t you? You think you’re from another world.”

Von Erik sighed heavily. “Not another world, my friend… another reality, a world just like yours… well, almost like yours. There are obviously fundamental differences between the two. In your world, I am, apparently, a cheap stage magician. And you…” It was Von Erik’s turn to let his shoulders sag, defeated. “You work in a cubicle at a call center.”

“I used to.”

Again, Kirby found himself feeling as though he were very small and insignificant. The magician’s sorrow was palpable, almost as much as his own. Whatever else he was, this man, Douglas Von Erik, was clearly sincere as he sunk into a kind of depression, sharing this room with a man sitting on a bed in a cramped apartment, wrapped only in a yellow towel. He stared blankly at the floor, fighting back tears, as did Daniel.

Then, Von Erik began to eye his newfound friend with an appraising stare as he continued to stroke his chin hair thoughtfully. The Daniel Kirby from his reality would have recognized that as a sign that the doctor was deep in thought.

“God doesn’t play dice.”

He repeated it over and over, each time louder than the last.

“God doesn’t play dice. God doesn’t play dice… he doesn’t play dice! Yes! God… does… not… play… dice!” v Daniel winced as Von Erik punched his open palm. He appeared to come to a kind of epiphany. Kirby leapt to his feet. “What the hell does that mean?”

A new look overcame Douglas Von Erik’s classical features, a look of hope that replaced the one of utter despair. He snapped his fingers as realization crystallized in his mind’s eye.

“I am here for a reason, Daniel. I’m here to find you, whether by accident or fate, my spell of teleportation took me through a portal to anther reality… to find you and take you back with me. You just lost your job for a reason, as well.”

At the mention of his sudden unemployment, Kirby leapt to his feet, pointing his finger accusingly at the magician. “That was your fault! And how the hell did you do that phasing out thing you did? You never did anything that convincing during your stage show in Vegas!”

Again, Von Erik sighed as he tried to get his point across. “It wasn’t a trick. I simply turned myself intangible for a moment. It’s a simple enough spell, but it’s very draining and I can’t do it for long. This reality may not have need of you, but we do, Daniel. We need our Centurion, now more than ever. Phobos and Deimos, as bad as they are, answer to an even greater threat… a man known only as Mars: The God Of War. Without Centurion to stand against them, millions of innocent lives will doubtlessly be lost.”

He paused for dramatic effect as he pointed to Daniel. He certainly had the same grand mannerisms as the Mr. Magus he’d seen on stage in Vegas; only this one wasn’t surrounded by buxom and scantily clad assistants.

“You need to come back with me to my world.”

Suddenly, Daniel Kirby felt as though his feet were about to fall out from beneath him.

“If this is a joke for some reality TV show, it’s a really bad one. You’re insane! I’m not going anywhere with you. Bin Laden, Hitler and guys like that, they’re evil enough for me, thank you!”

He was actually starting to believe what this magician was saying… or at least he was starting to see that the man himself believed it. Was he simply insane? If so, where did he come from? There was no way a normal man could just appear inside his apartment in a ball of fire and smoke.

Daniel could be somewhat naïve, but he was no idiot. There is no way a man could arrange this kind of trick appearance in his own home without him even seeing the setup. No magician was that good. And how did he turn himself intangible?

“This is no joke, my friend. We are comrades in arms, you and I. Can’t you hear it in my voice, the respect I have for you? You may be a call center employee in this reality, but in my universe you entered the realm of law enforcement and you were eventually drafted into the secret service. Your stellar career led you to be the prime candidate for the nanite injection that turned you into Centurion. You gained your codename and even named the team, The Legion, in honor of your hobby… your fascination with ancient Rome.”

Kirby’s heart nearly stopped. No one knew that he was planning on a life of law enforcement… no one but Caroline.

“How do you know that? I never took the test! My girlfriend died in a car accident the week before I was set to take it! I just… couldn’t… not after she died and the way we ended.”

Mr. Magus made some strange but graceful motions with his hands and an orange glow suddenly began to emanate from his fists. He mumbled another incantation in a tongue no one on Earth had spoken for thousands of years and stared hard at the man before him with an appraising eye. “Everything that Daniel Kirby was, I sense inside you. You are the same man. Those same qualities: the valor, the bravery, leadership and the compassion… the desire to make a better world… are all in you.” As quickly as he began, Mr. Magus fell silent, the look on his face dire. “Wait… did you say… Caroline was dead?”

As if this day hadn’t dealt out its share of heart stopping surprises, Mr. Magus nearly stopped Daniel’s heart once again.

“I tried to tell you before… how do you know Caroline?” He whispered, barely able to say her name. Mr. Magus smiled knowingly. “I’m happy to report that she is alive and well in my reality, old friend. She is, and always has been, the love of your life. I know how happy you two are together. She’d be devastated at the news of your death. If you come back with me, I’ll never have the sad duty of informing her.”

At this point, Daniel did, in fact, fall to his knees as his legs gave out beneath him. Mr. Magus rushed to his side, but was brushed away with force. Years of loneliness and anguish, long held in reserve, rushed forth like water from a bursting dam. This time, there was no condensation sliding along a mirror, mimicking tears… these were real.

The thought of Caroline alive and well… it was almost too much for him to bear. He felt his stomach turning and rushed for the toilet. He vomited then and when he was finished, he began to feel a little better. This time he allowed Mr. Magus to get close to him, bringing a wet cloth to his friend’s forehead.

Their eyes met and Magus smiled again, only wider. “You really are the spitting image of him.”

“The spitting image of a dead man?”

“You’re not a dead man, at least not literally. You’re only dead inside.”

Daniel began to laugh a little then as he rinsed his mouth out with Listerine. “You have no idea. I’ve been looking for a reason to live for quite some time. I… haven’t been able to find one.” Mr. Magus stood and extended his gloved hand. Daniel took it and regained his footing. “I am here now to give you one, Daniel Kirby.”

He began to count off his questions and Daniel’s answers on the fingers of his left hand.

“Have you ever felt that you were destined for something greater than this?”

“Yes.”

“Have you ever wished that you could live a fuller life?”

“Yes.”

“Have you ever wished to be a hero and adventurer like the ones you’ve read about in Tolkien and adventure stories?”

“Yes, I have.”

“That’s because you were destined for greatness, Daniel Kirby. In my reality, you realized your full potential. Why don’t you do something about it now? Come with me and be the man you’ve always wanted to be. Come with me and you will be a hero. You will be an adventurer. You will be a Centurion. You will live the life you always wanted. The pieces of the puzzle that is your life will all come together and you’ll see what you’ve been missing… what you could have been. What you can still be. All you need to do is man up and reach for that brass ring, just like the Daniel Kirby in my reality once did. I’m offering you a second chance at greatness, my boy, and that’s something not many of us get.”

Kirby began to shake his head as if Von Erik was speaking a foreign tongue. “Listen, look at this from my point of view for a minute. I live in a world where heroes are an extinct species, and there’s never been anything like a Phobos or Deimos… or a Centurion or Sleuth in the history of my world. Can you imagine how this sounds to my ears? You sound like you’re fucking insane!”

A seeming eternity passed as Von Erik said nothing. Slowly, he began to nod his head.

“Yes, I suppose I would have trouble believing it too, wouldn’t I? You even know me as a cheap stage magician. I can’t blame you for thinking this is some elaborate practical joke.”

Mr. Magus began to pace back and forth, again stroking his goatee softly, tugging at it every now and then as his mind raced. After a few moments, he snapped his fingers.

“You need proof.“

Without awaiting a response, Mr. Magus began to speak, once again in a tongue Daniel didn’t recognize as any known language, and his hands began to gesture elegantly. If this wasn’t the Mr. Magus he knew, this imposter certainly possessed the same level of impressive stagecraft.

Daniel had always wondered what it must be like to fly, and as they lifted off the ground, seemingly weightless like the phone earlier, his eyes bulged in disbelief. He looked to Mr. Magus for some kind of reassurance, and the magician only smiled and gestured once more.

The air around Daniel began to spark as though filled with static electricity, and the molecules around him formed into his favorite clothes, a pair of faded denim jeans, a New England Patriots jersey, casual socks and sneakers.

“You always did love it when I used my spells to fly us into a dangerous situation, but you never did it dressed in a towel. Now that you’re properly attired, shall we be off?”

“Off? Be off? Off to where?”

Guided by the gloved hands of Mr. Magus, the two men drifted lazily out the apartment window and ascended higher, ever higher, into the sky. The people and cars on the streets below began to look like ants and he felt like a god looking down from Mount Olympus.

“Jesus Christ!” Daniel exclaimed, wide eyed with fear.

“That’s what I said the first time, too.”

Daniel Kirby looked up, and saw the ceiling of clouds just ahead, and before he knew it, they were actually passing through them as silent as a whisper. No one, no matter what his or her abilities or level of stagecraft, could manage this type of special effect.

“We’re flying…” He muttered at first to himself. Then, as they broke through the cloud cover and the sun’s rays warmed his face, a kind of joy that he hadn’t felt in many a year overwhelmed him. He shouted it out loud at the top of his lungs.

“I’m flying!”

Mr. Magus couldn’t help but smile broadly at the young man’s exuberance.

“Exhilarating, isn’t it?”

As they continued soaring above the clouds, a passenger airplane, a Boeing 777, massive as it barreled across the skyscape, on a descent toward LaGuardia or JFK airports, passed just overhead, its engines roaring like a pack of lions. The gusts of wind as it passed should have knocked Daniel over or swept him up in its wake, but the protective magical bubble they were encased him rendered him impervious to the effects of its passing, even though he was so close to the plane that he could easily make out the rivets on the underside of the aircraft.

“Unbelievable!” Daniel Kirby felt like shouting out loud, and, overwhelmed as he was by the joy of flight, did exactly that. He emitted a primal scream unlike any he’d ever let loose before. This was easily the most liberating thing he’d ever done in his life. He’d completely forgotten that he’d just been fired from his job. In fact, he couldn’t have cared less.

Together, the duo soared over famous New York landscape, far more quickly than any human had ever moved before. Kirby was speechless as they drifted lazily over Central Park, passed The Empire State Building and even Lady Liberty.

“Daniel, I think it’s time we went home,” Mr. Magus said softly, his tone reminiscent of his father’s, telling him as a child that playtime was over and that he’d have to come indoors and start on his homework. Daniel felt now as he did then, a sense of deflation, as if he were a balloon that had just been deprived of its air. He almost whined to his new friend,

“Do we have to?”

Mr. Magus reversed the incantation and they slowly began to sink back through the clouds, heading towards the Earth once more. Kirby began to feel a strange weight once again upon his shoulders as the problems and worries he’d left behind once they took flight began to weigh upon him once more. Moments later, they were back in the apartment and Kirby was smiling from ear to ear.

“Come with me, Daniel and your life will change. It will be as you always wished it could be. I can show you a glimpse of what my Daniel Kirby did for work every day, and I can assure you it was far more exciting than working in a call center.”

Just then, what Daniel could only describe as a ‘portal’, an opaque window appeared before him, the edges roiling with dark clouds and tiny sparks of electricity, much like the one that this strange man used to enter his apartment. The portal was exactly as big as the space between Von Erik’s gloved hands, no more than a foot in diameter.

Then, the portal lit up, as if from behind, and began to display images. What he saw took his breath away. He saw incredible, fantastic things on the other side of this gateway. He saw a man sheathed in an incredible metal alloy with a golden eagle embossed on his chest, a man who looked exactly like himself.

He witnessed a crowd of onlookers cheering him on as he punched another man, this one clad in a wild looking black and blue getup and full fright mask with a giant and threatening mace in his hand, square in the jaw, sending him flying across a crowded street and careening into a brick wall.

He saw this and more.

Daniel Kirby witnessed the man standing before him, Douglas Von Erik, casting spells and wielding force blasts of some type, powerful enough to send a parked car flying into the air and crash into a throng of attackers. He saw a group of people standing shoulder to shoulder with him… they must have been the others Von Erik referenced: Sleuth, Quake, Braveheart and Nemesis, though he had no idea who was who.

It all could have been special effects. It was amazing what they could do with CGI these days, but after what had transpired between them moments ago, he was less convinced that this was a trick. Still, none of it truly convinced him… until…

…until he saw her.

She was just as incredible as he’d remembered.

Caroline Anne McNiven.

The woman he loved.

The woman who died nearly five years ago.

She was wearing a dark blue, knee-length skirt and white blouse, looking just as fabulous as he’d remembered. She possessed the most dark and mysterious eyes, matched by shoulder length hair as black as the night itself, all set against porcelain skin. Her body was just as toned and supple and curvaceous as he’d remembered in his dreams. He saw something hanging from her waist, an identification card. She belonged to some government agency.

“She’s really alive?” He asked breathlessly.

“She really is.”

Daniel Kirby didn’t even have to think twice. With butterflies churning in his stomach, he extended his hand to Von Erik. What did he have to lose?

“Take me with you.”

Von Erik smiled. “It would be my pleasure.”

A moment later, the sorcerer known as Mr. Magus spoke some more incantations and gestured with his hands. This time, another portal, much the same only large enough for the two men to step through, appeared in a similar explosion of sound and smoke much like the one Von Erik originally used to appear in Kirby’s bathroom.

Eager to once again see his only love, Daniel began to step through, only to be stopped by Von Erik, who gripped him tightly by the wrist. The look on the magician’s face was dire.

“Before you do this, I feel I have to warn you. You have a right to know what you’re getting into, both the pros and the cons. This isn’t some comic book life you’re stepping into. We do what we do because it needs to be done. There are people in my reality who are even worse than Bin Laden or Hitler. While that may be hard to imagine in your reality, it is the truth.”

Von Erik’s expression turned dour once more as he recalled the events that brought him to this plane of existence.

“People die when we fail… your alternate self died when we failed and we’d thought of you as someone practically invulnerable. You will be putting your life in danger, probably on a daily basis, when you reach my reality. You’ll have to pretend to be the Daniel Kirby from my world and I’ll have to train you in secret while we reform The Legion. Even Caroline can’t know that you are not the same Daniel Kirby that she woke up beside this morning. It will NOT be easy and it most certainly won’t be safe.”

He paused for a moment to let this information sink into Daniel’s head, but it was clear he wasn’t hearing Mr. Magus. He was fixated instead on seeing the love of his life once more.

“I just thought… you had a right to hear about both sides of the equation before you make the jump. Here, you’re safe and you’ll probably live a long life.”

Daniel turned and looked back at the empty apartment, a wistful smile on his face. “Look at this place. I have no friends. I have no wife. I have no job. My parents have been dead for seven years and I have no siblings. Who would knowingly live like this if they had the choice? If I leave now and never return… no one will ever miss this Daniel Kirby… least of all me. If you can show me that Caroline is alive then I’ll be forever in your debt… but if this is a cruel joke, then so help me I’ll break every bone in your body.”

Von Erik searched Kirby’s eyes for any sign of self-doubt. For the first time in years, there was none to be found.

“You’re certain?”

Daniel Kirby squared his jaw and eyed his companion without fear. It was a pleasant and most reassuring sensation. All he had to do was think of her and the rest was easy. He looked every bit the hero that his alternate self had become and it filled him with pride.

“I’ve never been more certain of anything.” As they were about to step through, a kind of terror gripped him by his spine and he stopped once more.

“Wait!”

“What?” Mr. Magus exclaimed, on the alert for some strange attack.

“Do they have Pop-Tarts in your reality?”

Von Erik looked to Kirby quizzically. “What is this… ‘Pop-Tart’ you speak of?”

A look of abject terror blossomed on Daniel’s face as Von Erik’s regal features broke into a wide smile that seemed to encompass his entire face.

“Just kidding.”

Kirby let out a sigh of genuine relief.

“I thought a little levity might lighten the mood. Are you ready to go? Are you ready to step into a larger world?”

Ready to see Caroline, alive and well when he thought he’d never hear her voice or feel her warm embrace again?

“Absolutely.”

Mr. Magus nodded. “Then let’s go.”

Together, they stepped through the portal and it closed up behind them, leaving no trace of their passing.

Centurion was about to be reborn.