Chapter 5

Brad sat on his couch and watched the afternoon Talk Show Host interview Jay. The caption at the bottom of the screen read, 'Hometown Superhero?' Brad's lips curled into a sneer as the host gave the lead in to the film from the fire, and Jay's voice describes the rescue. Brad muttered to himself, "Had to chose the college brat, di'n'cha?"

The show went to commercial break after the clip, and Brad went to the kitchen to make coffee. Pushing encrusted dishes piled high in the sink out of the way so he could get the pot under the faucet, and fill it. Brad poured the water into the coffee maker. He opened the cabinet and pulled out an almost empty can of generic coffee, slid the filter out part way and added one scoop of fresh coffee. Then he pushed the filter back into place, pressed the power button, and put a cup underneath the drip hole in the coffeemaker. The battered old coffeemaker gurgled and then a stream of thin, steaming coffee started to fill the cup.

Turning back to the TV, Brad saw the clips from the Today show that introduced the world to wings, flying bikes and started the whole thing.

He watched carefully, until his cup overflowed and the burner started to sizzle. Swearing, he pulled his overfull cup away, and shoved the stained coffee pot onto the burner. Taking a sip, so that he wouldn't spill the hot coffee as he walked, he reentered the living room. He pushed empty beer and soda cans off the coffee table to the floor with a clatter, and settled in to watch. He had missed most of the actual broadcast, the day before.

He got out a tape, put it in the battered VCR, and pressed record. When Troy started talking about Bonny and Clyde, he leaned forward, totally engrossed. After the clip ended, Brad rewound the tape and watched the entire thing again. After it had played to the end, he shut off the TV and the VCR, and then started rummaging around in the hall closet. Finally, near the bottom, he found what he'd been looking for, a nylon gym bag and a battered old duffel. Stepping back, he considered a moment, then bent and started shoving things into the bags. Once they were bulging with the boots, old phone books, coats and boxes, he grunted with effort and picked them both up.

Staggering back to the living room, he tossed both bags on the couch. Then Brad put on both his wings and his Grav belt, and turned the dial to one notch below maximum. Now, when he bent to pick up the bags, there was no straining, but it still took effort to get the heavily weighted bags moving. Then, after he had straightened up with his load, they continued moving upward, pulling his feet off the floor. Unable to flap his wings with his hands full, he simply let go of the bags, which then continued upward.

Now, when he flapped his wings and moved out from underneath them, they suddenly regained weight and crashed to the floor. He moved in to try again, with a bit more caution. This time, he tried to pull the shoulder straps for the duffel on, but his wings got in the way. He stopped for a second, and considered the duffel. Loosening the straps pulled one over his head to hang down against his front, and did the same with the gym bag. Now, wrapping the other strap from the duffel around his waist, and reattaching it through the loop of the gym bag's shoulder strap he had a snug load. It was almost as big as he was, but was all within the effect of the Grav belt.

Brad smiled grimly, and turning the dial up all the way, pushed off the floor and tried a few experimental flaps of his arms. Soon, he was swooping from one corner of the ceiling, to the opposite corner, diagonally on the floor. The extra mass made it difficult to judge, so he set to learning to adjust with a vengeance.

Later that night, as dusk turned to darkness, and the City that Never Sleeps put on its nighttime face. A lone figure, dressed in black, climbed out of a third floor tenement window. Silently, it swooped to Central Park and headed for the rich, uptown section, on the other side of the park. Brad stopped just short of the park's edge, and hid in the shadows of the trees, one hundred feet off the ground. The bright lights of the street, and teeming masses below, made him wonder how best to cross without being seen. Finally deciding, he climbed straight up to 500 feet, then headed for the nearest high rise apartment building. All of the highest ten floors of the sixty story building where slightly inset from the ones below, giving each room for a small balcony.

Brad slowly circled the building, looking within each lit apartment. Spotting a likely candidate, he settled in to watch, hanging on the column next to its balcony. After five minutes of no moment, he committed, and landed silently on the balcony. He tried sliding the glass door, and just as he'd expected, it wasn't locked.

'After all, ' he thought with a grin, 'Who needs to lock a 55th floor balcony?'

The obvious luxury of the apartment made Brad snarl at details like the marble entryway and granite countertops in the kitchen. He took off both bags, and started opening the built in drawers, in the kitchen. Not finding much in the kitchen, he moved on to the dining room. He quickly grabbed several pieces of decorative crystal, looked longingly at the china cabinet, but then moved on to the living room. Again, he looked with avarice upon the 70" plasma TV. But he knew, sadly, that was too big for either of his bags. Still he took the high definition DVD player, the game system, and nearly one hundred games and DVDs. He left the gym bag in the living room, and moved on into the bedrooms.

Jackpot! He opened a couple of the drawers in the large jewelry box, and saw what looked like real jewels. He shoved the whole box to the bottom of the duffel. Moving to the dresser, he saw another box, opening the bottom drawer he saw expensive looking watches, so he shoved that box into the duffel as well. Since he still had plenty of room, he wondered what else to take. Deciding, he stepped into the closet, tried on a jacket. When it fit, he took it off and wadded it up, and shoved it between the two boxes. He grabbed all of the belts, ties, jackets, held up a pair of pants and saw they were a fair fit and finished with the duffel stuffed full. Before leaving he decided to try the desk in the den. After emptying the liquor cabinet, he was surprised to find a high-end laptop in the top drawer, and a wad of small bills. He fastened the bags tightly, turned the dial on his Grav belt to maximum and launched off the balcony.

"Gonna be a good night", he thought happily.

Awakened by pounding on his door, Brad groaned in agony. His head ached in time with the beating on his door, he felt nauseous and his mouth felt like it was full of sand.

He said loudly, "I'm coming!"

Still wearing the black pants he'd worn on his raid the night before, Brad felt a surge of panic, wondering how he could have been caught so soon. Everything he'd taken laid strewn about the living room, with two empty bottles of cognac in their place of honor on the coffee table. He wobbled to the door and opened it a crack, leaving the chain still attached.

Seeing his slumlord, Brad heaved a silent sigh of relief, and said, "Wadd'ya want?"

The short, fat, bald man was wearing nothing but a pair of jeans and a wife beater tee. He blustered, "Money. Rent. Ya know youse is always late. I ain't gonna put up with it no more!"

Sighing audibly this time, Brad asked, "How much do I owe ya?"

"Youse a week behind, and in two days it'll be two weeks, so nine hundred smackers, bub, or out youse goes," said the landlord, fat jowls quivering.

"Sec," Brad said. He returned to the stack of money he'd counted the night before and pulled a fifty out of his pocket and added it to the pile. Staggering back to the door, he opened it and said, "Look, all I got on me is four hundred, but I'll go to the bank and get the rest by this afternoon, but getting thrown out would probably be the best thing to happen to me in months," He angrily shoved the wad of cash into the fat little man's chubby hand.

The fat man's hand clenched the money, his eyes narrowed in suspicion, and he replied, "Da bank, yah right! Just have my money!"

Troy closed the door and flipped on the light switch before collapsing into his favorite chair with a sigh. He kicked off his shoes, and propped his tired feet up on the ottoman. Just as he started to doze off, he was startled when his cell phone rang. He recognized the ring for his Personal Assistant as he was groping blindly for the phone.

"Hey, good morning," he said sleepily.

"Morning, boss!" came the crisp reply.

Grumpily he said, "Please don't book me on anymore red-eye flights, I had to get a wake up call at 2 A.M.!"

She snapped back, "Well, you didn't have to agree to appear on the Tonight show, three hours earlier, did you? Besides, you knew you have a Board Meeting this morning, since you set it up. No later flight would have gotten you here in time."

"Yeah, I know. I'm just tired. Sorry, Angie, I know it wasn't your fault. When are you sending the car by?"

"The limo will be outside at 8:15 A.M. and Gary will meet you at the office at 8:30. There's a full continental breakfast being catered for the meeting, so don't worry about breakfast," she replied, all business.

Glancing at his watch, Troy suppressed a groan, and said, "Ok, then. If I want a shower to wake me up before I go, I have to get a move on. Thanks, Angie."

"Any time, boss," she replied and hung up.

Troy forced himself to his feet and headed for the shower. Fifteen minutes later, he breezed out the door of the brownstone overlooking Brush Creek near the Plaza and stepped into his black limo. The sleek black car swept up Main Street and turned onto Southwest Trafficway, headed for the Bottoms, the run-down industrial area just south of Downtown. Traffic near the plant was congested, and Troy made a note on his PDA to ask when the traffic flow improvements were going to be implemented.

The limo pulled to a stop in front of the old brick building, only five minutes late, but realizing he now only had ten minutes to get his briefing from Gary before the start of the Board Meeting, Gary jogged to the door, then up a flight of steps to the Executive Suite.

Angie met him at the door, and handed him a large stainless steel mug of coffee. He handed off his topcoat, and headed for Gary's office.

He said over his shoulder, "Thanks! You're a lifesaver!"

Hearing Troy's voice, Gary looked up from the report he was reading, leapt to his feet. He ushered Troy to the comfy couch. As Troy settled in, Gary rushed over to his desk, grabbed a couple of bound reports off the top of the stack, handed one to Troy, and sat on the front edge of a leather bound chase lounge, radiating excitement.

Troy raised an eyebrow, but Gary managed to keep a lid on his excitement, so he just opened the report, and skimmed the summary. He twitched in surprise, reread the numbers to make sure, and then looked up at Gary's huge grin. He exclaimed, "Wow! I can't believe my estimates were too conservative!"

Gary's brow beetled, as he asked, "Do you think it will follow through with the same growth curves we projected? If it does, we are looking at hitting our first 100 billion dollars in sales in just over ten months!"

Troy answered, as he continued leaving through the report, "Well, we'll just have to see, won't we? I can't believe the numbers on the power plants and bikes though! I thought they'd take longer for the value to be seen, especially since they're more than ten times as expensive."

"Actually, a lot of that was small and medium businesses. For them, it was a no-brainer, since they've never had an economically viable alternative to the power grid, especially not one with 100% return on investment. We are talking with the larger corporations, but they haven't actually bought, yet," Gary said in reply. He ticked off his points on his fingers, as he went on, "First of all, their procurement cycles are longer. Second, we have to find the right fit for each one. Finally, they have Boards of Directors and stockholders to answer to. I would say we've already been contacted about power plants, for half of the Fortune 500. Sales to them alone, if we get full penetration, would be at least 50 billion dollars!"