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Stories from the Verse
Con Version
Chapter 93: Cooper 30
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Brown 314
Brian spent the night at the Tell mansion. It provided him with a free dinner, a more comfortable bed, and a decent breakfast, but at the cost that he had to reveal his secret identity to William and Belle Tell. He figured turnabout was fair play, and there wasn’t really much danger in them revealing his secret, particularly since he’d made the mistake already of telling him the name he was using as a hotel guest.
His gladius was a bit larger than the swords the Roman legions used, perhaps because the angel who used it had been taller than five feet and some inches. After breakfast at the Tell’s, William took him downtown. He dropped Cooper off at Latham’s Metal Shoppe where he bought a metal rod with handle and hilt guard attached by some on-the-spot spot welding. The whole thing weighed four and a half pounds. This was twice as much as his real sword, and thus well suited to training, or so he had heard.
Donning his costume in an alley, he walked two miles to a formidable and depressing gray stone block building with a twenty foot stone wall around it. The neighborhood, as might be expected, was not the best, as the poor did not get a say in whether they wanted the local prison next door. Approaching the front door, as William had instructed him, he spoke to the guard through the heavy wooden gate. A sliding slat let the man see his costumed face.
“Hold the sword up, let me see the letters on the hilt, and light it,” the guard said. Willingly, Cooper, now Mister Justice, did so. This satisfied the guard, and a door in the gate was opened. As he entered, a tall rangy redhead, one of the two guards at the gate, took him across the open courtyard to the front door of the prison, which was facing away from the main gate. Cooper found this to be an elementary precaution.
“How do you keep supervillains from escaping?”
“Well,” the guard paused in his walk. “Most of them are not much more than normal humans once you take away their gadget. Some we have to chain, or put in triple thick concrete walls and bars. If they are really problematic, we send them to the State Prison which is in an abandoned gold mine. No one’s punching through a thousand foot of mountain granite to get out.”
This relieved Cooper. There was no Superman in this world because Evil Superman could do that fairly easily, which would mean that the supervillains were lower in power as well, or they would have already taken over. He had absolutely no desire to go toe-to-toe with this world’s version of someone with a power level like Doctor Victor Von Doom, or Erik Lensherr, Magneto, Master of Magnetism. Doctor Doom or Magneto would have ended him in a heartbeat. The only question would be in how many pieces he hit the ground. Then again, as a verser (if that theory was true), it might not work that way.
The guard shrugged, and started walking again. “There are those who can move faster, or do other things, but we just teach the new guards to give those guys plenty of space, and keep a shotgun loaded and ready.”
The guard took him inside, and he had to show his ‘credentials’ twice more. Down a depressing gray painted concrete block hallway he was led to a wooden door with “Warden Long” written on it in a brass nameplate. Entering, he heard the latest guard introduce him, and he saw the Warden, a big, beefy man with a thick trim of light chestnut hair around his shiny bald dome. His light blue suit jacket certainly was never going to button up in front, but he rose and shook Cooper’s hand.
“You’re the new guy, eh?” The warden’s voice was loud and firm.
“Yes, sir,” Cooper said, and was pointed to a seat while the warden collapsed back in his chair.
“I’ve had superheroes come by before. Some wanted to make sure we were treating the criminals well, or that we had them securely locked up. I do have hidden measures, but I will say, keeping active very intelligent daring men imprisoned, even without some of them having superpowers, is difficult. Thankfully, most of our prisoners are ordinary criminals.” Cooper smiled to himself behind the mask. The warden was trotting out excuses.
“I came for another reason. William Tell Junior recommended this. I have been given a sword, but in confidence, warden, I’m not very good with one.”
“Oh! Heh. I can see that would be a problem. But how can I help you? I assure you, I have no training with a sword either. I think one of my guards used to fight epeé in college, but--”
“Red Swashbuckler.”
The warden leaned back, and his chair creaked as he moved.
“I see.”
Cooper waited. He had requested things from the Dean and the President of his college back in California before. Sometimes talking was just a way of giving too much. So he waited for the warden, who eventually smiled in gracious defeat with his thick lips parted.
“I think we can do that. It’s policy to try to help out the superheroes in any reasonable way. Now, you’ll have to do it on premises. You cannot give him anything. You have to have your suit empty of all items before you practice. You cannot wear that dart pistol. Understand?”
“Of course. That’s all very sensible. I would have required much the same myself.”
The warden gave him a measuring look, but Cooper had seen enough movies about meeting prisoners in jail that he truly would have done the same. This whole thing struck him as lax, except for the quick alertness of everyone involved. No one looked terribly stressed, but neither were they bored to tears.
“All right then. Shall we say an hour a day?”
Cooper agreed, and put his gear down in the office, including the Sword. Warden Long got up, panted a bit, and led him through the prison. Men in cells turned silent, and some stared at him with cold, evaluating stares, while others just put their head up, looked, and fell back asleep. He recognized one man as the fellow he had slashed through. This man just pointed his finger like a gun, and mouthed ‘bang’. Only one person was visibly nonhuman; he wore a red pair of tights and had black skin with long claws and triple-sized ears. He chittered like an insect at Cooper. They came to a prison cell far down the corridor, and the Warden tapped the bars with his heavy gold ring.
“Red Swashbuckler, you have a visitor.”
Cooper looked at the man sitting on his bunk reading. His hair was jutting off to the right, straight, bristly, and his eyes burned with a fervid intensity. Then his expressive mobile mouth quirked, and Cooper saw a playful, lively intelligence married to the commitment of a fanatic. He was reading Das Kapital, a book that had helped create two hundred million deaths in Cooper’s home timeline. Glittering black eyes examined Mister Justice.
“I think you are a new one. That monster Mordenslice bragged about his scheme, but the forces of History, and Justice is one of them, are not so easily caged as he would think.”
Cooper felt like telling him of the Fall of Communism, but held his tongue. Instead, he bent over to the warden and expressed his concern that all would know. While the Red Swashbuckler watched in keen interest, the warden quietly explained that it would be in the smaller courtyard, and a couple dozen prison cell windows overlooked that. There was no way to hide his training. Sighing, Cooper assented.
“I need training with a sword,” Cooper said.
“Oh.”
“One extra hour outside, under God’s sun, for training, every day he visits. No other benefits,” the warden said firmly.
“Well, I could reread my copy of Designing Son et Lumiere. That fascist corporal was wrong about many things, but he was right about how style and showmanship move a man even as much as the ineluctable forces of History. However, I can do that later. I’m free now. Just give me my rapier, and--”
“No. A wooden practice stick. I’m having one of my guards prepare it. I’m not letting you put your hands on Reason’s Revolution. Do you think me a fool, Swashbuckler?”
“No. I think you are many things, but not a fool, Warden. And God’s sun? You know that religion is the opiate of the masses.”
Bickering continued between the two, even after the supervillain was chained and released from his cell. The trio went to the side courtyard on the far side of the prison, which was a third the size of the entrance one. Four guards were already there, and with a smirk, one presented Red Swashbuckler with a sawed off broomhandle. He sighed as if deeply insulted. Then the chains were released and the guard backed up quickly, and Red Swashbuckler transformed--oh, not in any blatantly obvious way, but suddenly he moved like a dancer.
“I was in the Bolshoi Ballet, but the sword always called to me more. En guarde, unwitting tool of the Chief of the Imperialist Powers.” With that, Cooper’s pain began. Red Swashbuckler was clear, incisive, and overall a good teacher, but if you did not get it the first time, he hit you until you did. Meanwhile, there continued a streaming chatter of insults and questions which Cooper was expected to answer while he dodged about the courtyard and tried to get a slash in. He kept on, even as his arms trembled and stung from the training sword’s weight and the snap-flick-snap of the broomstick wielded by his foe.
It was with relief that he heard the guard’s whistle, and the proclamation that the hour was over. Still, he held himself ready until Red Swashbuckler gave the wary guards back the stick and accepted the chains.
As the supervillain was about to be led away, the man turned to him and called out. “I understand why you would defend this Land; it is a beautiful country. Also, the People. I can understand defending them. Justice is a high and noble thing. Defend that indeed. But your government, Mister Justice, why defend that? They have broken every vow they have made to the Indian tribes, and to themselves, and to their own people. They have murdered their own civilian citizens in great numbers, and burned enemy civilians, like in Dresden. Now the warmonger Eisenhower threatens to destroy the world with nuclear weapons to defend the Yankee Imperialist Powers. Why defend that, Mister Justice?”
He wanted to come back with something. But the only thing he could think of was ‘Communists are far worse’ which was not exactly a ringing endorsement of the American government. It was like saying Jeffrey Dahmer, cannibal serial killer, was worse than Ted Bundy--which might be true, but it hardly meant you wanted old Ted over for a visit. Who was it who said that democracy was the worst form of government, except for every other form? The guards hustled Red Swashbuckler away, and Mister Justice, sore and tired, went back to the warden who asked him if he would be back tomorrow. Cooper nodded, and said he hoped so. Despite it all, he had learned a great deal.
There is a behind-the-writings look at the thoughts, influences, and ideas of this chapter, along with eleven other sequential chapters of this novel, in mark Joseph "young" web log entry #510: Versers Debate. Given a moment, this link should take you directly to the section relevant to this chapter. It may contain spoilers of upcoming chapters.
As to the old stories that have long been here:
