Little bit of writing. Whole lot of plotting. That really takes some time.
Convincing a collection of lawbreakers to turn themselves in ended up being easier than Fire Ant thought it would be. The group’s benefactor had assured them he would have them out of government custody within a week. But he also guaranteed their compensation would double every week that they remained. He then put enough money in a sort of criminal escrow account (the criminal underworld has its own financial system because apparently most of the standard institutions don’t want to work with criminals) to cover each member of the team for 10 years of imprisonment. So there was a significant financial incentive to getting them out.
“What were you looking for here?” New Moon questioned Fire Ant. Then he pointed at the man dressed in a knight’s armor. “And who is that? I don’t recognize him.”
“Don’t know what we were looking for. We given a file name but we have no idea what was in it.” That much was true. Neither Fire Ant nor anyone else on her team knew anything about what they were looking for other than the file name. They also didn’t know anything about who hired them. This was strictly mercenary work. “So if you want to know, you’ll have to ask the people who created the file and then hid it here in this secret fortress meant to look like a warehouse.”
“Heh,” New Moon laughed. At least, it seemed like a laugh. Certainly not a laugh like any normal person, but Fire Ant suspected that this was the closest he was able to get to a laugh. It was actually frightening.
“As for the tin can over there,” she continued. “I have no idea who that is. I’ve never seen him before today. I thought he was some sort of new recruit of yours.”
“Perhaps I can be some help with that,” now the tin was speaking. “I’m King Arthur.”
I have many names, though I’m not sure anyone of them gets at anything more than just a part of who I am. Most people know me as The Prime. They don’t call me that because I was the first superhero. I wasn’t. But I was something unique when I first took on a role protecting the public. There had been heroes with special abilities prior to my public arrival, but none with a similar array and magnitude.
So the public named me The Prime because they thought I was the most complete example of what a superhero should be. That’s a lot of pressure to live up to. It’s like a couple naming their son “the son.” It’s tough to be the embodiment of an idea. I can fly, have super strength, can see and hear anything occurring on the planet and even off, can travel as fast as the fastest speedster, and even shoot lasers from eyes. But even with all of that. I sometimes think my greatest superpower is the ability to live as symbol that was thrust upon me.
Partly because of that pressure, but also for a host of other reasons, I can’t always live in my identity as The Prime. The first name I ever knew for myself was Ethan Mears. I grew up with that name on the farm of my adoptive parents Dale and Edith Mears in Normville, Nebraska.