SIX MONTHS LATER AND STILL NOTHING

By Stuart Fairchild

The Port of Los Angeles wasn’t supposed to feel alive at night. Usually, it was quiet – cranes loomed over darkened containers, their metal arms frozen high above the steel-and-concrete maze of warehouses and shipping containers amongst the workers. An occasional cargo truck’s headlights cutting through the darkness proved life still existed amongst the port, even at such a late hour.

Inside a nondescript warehouse occupying one of the many docks, security patrols moved through the shadows in slow, careful patterns, flashlights slicing the darkness, radios buzzing with routine check-ins. The place wasn’t open to the public, not tonight, and not ever if the Port Authority had its way.

The warehouse loomed like a guilty secret. That was the thing about places like this, Phil Urich thought as he crouched in the shadows. They never advertised their importance. They didn’t need to. The air itself seemed heavy with an implication of guilt.

Phil exhaled slowly and adjusted the strap of his satchel. He wasn’t wearing a costume tonight. No mask. No armor. Just a leather jacket and an uneasy knowledge that his investigation sat squarely in the gray area between journalism and vigilantism.

Funny how often his life came down to that distinction.

Still, the quiet felt unnatural. The air inside was stale but not dead. The warehouse wasn’t abandoned, not really. Someone paid to keep the power on. Someone made sure the doors were locked. Someone had gone to the trouble of fencing it off and posting warnings that were obviously enforced.

Which meant someone had something to hide.

Phil forced himself to keep moving. Standing still in places like this only let the imagination run wild – and his imagination had plenty to fuel. He passed crates marked with outdated shipping labels, some torn, some deliberately scraped clean. Phil moved, methodically, cataloging as he went. This was the part of the job he once loved. He took notes, snapped photos, and recorded observations. Time passed without him noticing.

“Hold it right there!” a voice barked, cutting through the warehouse’s low hum. Another voice added, “Identification! Now!”

Phil stiffened. Every possible response flashing through his mind. Truth. Lies. Running. Then he smiled. That smile – half charming, half dangerous – spoke volumes. Security didn’t know it yet, but they’d already lost. The distance between them and him might as well have been a mile as Phil chose the only option he ever really had.

Then the explosions started.

Metal screamed as the first blast tore through the building’s back wall. Security staggered, ears ringing, lights flickering in a storm of smoke and sparks. Phil laughed – high, sharp, and cruel, the sound echoing against steel beams. And from the shadows, his Goblin Glider appeared, slicing through the chaos with terrifying precision.

Phil didn’t hesitate. He leapt. One perfect motion, and he was on the glider, gripping it as if it had been made for him alone. Another explosion rocked the room, sending crates tumbling like dominoes. The floor cracked under the pressure of the blast. Security raised their weapons, shouting, trying to coordinate, but the scene had already become unrecognizable.

Phil and the glider were already gone. The echoes of more bombs continued to shake the port, the firelight casting erratic shadows across twisted metal and shattered glass. Somewhere in the chaos, his laughter soared above the smoke with a mix of joy and terror.

Outside, the port was silent again, almost unnaturally so. Security had regrouped, their hearts racing, trying to piece together what had just happened. Phil Urich, once a familiar face now a specter, had turned the night into his playground and vanished into the skyline, leaving only questions and scorched concrete behind.

And above it all, somewhere in the dark stretch of the city, the Goblin Glider’s engines purred like a predator satisfied with the hunt. Phil Urich had made his choice. Whatever was hidden in this warehouse, whatever dangers waited in the shadows, he wasn’t about to walk away.

Not tonight.

Not ever.

Hercules smelled the fire before he saw it. The danger always announced itself early, if you knew how to listen. Sirens wailed in the distance, frantic, but beneath them was an older sound – the hungry roar of flame chewing through wood and wiring.

The building burned, a six-story walk-up wedged between a laundromat and a shuttered grocery store. Smoke poured from its upper floors, thick and black, painting the night sky even darker. People clustered in the street below, faces tilted upward, fear written on all of them.

Men and women in heavy gear moved with practiced urgency, fighting a losing battle against a blaze that had found too much fuel and too little mercy.

Inside, the stairwell was gone. Fire raged down the hall, consuming doorframes, crawling across ceilings. The smoke was thick enough to choke a mortal in seconds.

It was then Hercules heard it.

A child’s cry. It was high. Thin. Terrified.

Hercules inhaled once, deeply, then moved.

He followed the sound of coughing, and labored breathing. Hercules found them in a corner apartment where the fire had cut off all sensible exits.

A firefighter lay trapped beneath a collapsed beam, one arm wrapped protectively around a small boy. The man’s air tank nearly empty. The boy’s face was streaked with soot and tears, eyes wide with terror.

The firefighter looked up, disbelief flickering across his expression as recognized the Prince of Power appear through the blaze.

Hercules knelt beside them. “No jokes today, friend.”

The beam pinning the firefighter was thick, reinforced with steel. It burned hot to the touch. Hercules wrapped his hands around it and lifted. The beam creaked, then rose, torn free from its resting place as though gravity had suddenly reconsidered its priorities. Hercules tossed it aside, where it smashed through a burning table and came to rest in a shower of sparks.

The firefighter sucked in a breath. “Kid-” he began.

“I have him,” Hercules said.

He scooped the boy up gently, cradling him against his chest. The child flinched, then relaxed, instinctively clinging to the broad, solid warmth of the Olympian.

“You’re okay,” Hercules said quietly. “I have you.”

The ceiling cracked. Flames surged, emboldened by the disturbance. Hercules did not hesitate. He turned, grabbed the firefighter by the back of his coat, and ran.

They did not go back the way the Olympian came.

Hercules hit the far wall at full speed and went through it. Brick exploded outward as they burst into open air. The night rushed in, cool and shocking. Below, the crowd screamed as Hercules fell then landed in a crouch that shattered the sidewalk and sent a tremor through the street.

He rose smoothly and set the boy down, shielding him from the worst of the noise. The firefighter stumbled, then caught himself, staring at Hercules with awe.

“You… you saved us,” the firefighter said.

Hercules nodded. “You did well.”

Firefighters rushed in, pulling the man away while wrapping the boy in a blanket. Medics shouted questions.

Hercules stepped back.

The boy looked up at him, eyes shining. “Are you—”

Hercules raised a finger, gently. “Listen to them,” he said, nodding toward the firefighters. “They are the heroes tonight.”

The boy hesitated, then nodded.

Hercules turned away.

Behind him, voices rose – calls of thanks, of wonder, of disbelief. A chant began to form, his name rising on the night air like an old prayer.

Hercules began to walk faster, slipping between fire trucks and clusters of onlookers, moving with surprising grace for someone his size. He ducked down an alley, then another, the sounds of the fire fading behind him. His heart still pounded, not from exertion, but from something heavier.

He did not slow until the city grew quiet again.

Hercules stopped beneath a flickering streetlamp and leaned against a brick wall. He closed his eyes and breathed.

Memories pressed in – of other fires. Other rescues. Other crowds. Praise that turned, inevitably, into expectation. Worship that curdled into resentment the moment he failed to be everywhere at once.

He opened his eyes.

“I am tired,” he said softly.

Hercules pushed off the wall and walked on. He passed a late-night diner, laughter spilling out as a waitress told a story. He passed a bus stop where a woman hummed to herself, unaware of how close disaster had come. Life continued, stubborn and miraculously, as it always had. As he had always seen.

That was why he did this. Not for statues. Not for cheers. Because, someone needed him.

At the edge of the neighborhood, Hercules paused and looked back. Smoke still lifted into the sky, thinner now. The fire would be beaten. It always was, eventually, by people who showed up, did their jobs, and went home sore and alive.

Hercules smiled faintly.

Then he turned and walked away, leaving no signature, no demand for gratitude. Just a small, quiet gap where a god had stood for a moment – and a city that would never quite realize how close it had come to tragedy, or how easily the night had been saved.

The screen flickered to life, and Julie Power appeared, her blonde hair shining under the soft light as she leaned into the camera with a grin that could brighten any room. Behind her, the bustling set of Superstar loomed -cameras, crew members milling about, and the distant hum of busy production. There was an undeniable energy about her, like the kind you feel when you’re part of something bigger than yourself.

“Hey, hey, hey, guys!” Julie’s voice, warm and vibrant, crackled through the live stream, her every word practically bubbling with enthusiasm. “It’s Julie Power, coming at you live from the set of Superstar: Season 2! I know it’s been a while, but I promise, this season is going to be SO worth the wait!” Her smile was electric, her hands gestured excitedly, almost as if she couldn’t contain the words spilling out fast enough.

“So…let’s talk about filming!” She leaned in a bit closer to the screen, her tone as if she were about to share some wild secret. “Okay, no spoilers, but I’m telling you right now, Season 2 is going to blow your minds! I mean, there are so many new characters, and I’m honestly so stoked about the direction we’re going this year. Like, my character’s got some serious growth. We’re diving into a lot more personal stuff, a lot more depth,” she said, her voice practically dancing with excitement.

Julie let out a small laugh. “But honestly, the best part of all this? The people. The cast and crew? Honestly, they’re like family. We’re all so excited to bring you guys a season that’s bigger, better, and full of those moments that make you go, ‘Did that really just happen?!’”

Julie laughed, her joy contagious. “But seriously, the team this season is amazing. The crew is incredible, and the cast? Just, wow. It’s so humbling to work with so many talented people who push me to do my absolute best. I’ve learned so much, and it’s just fun. It’s honestly fun, y’all.”

Her face softened as she leaned in, voice quieter, almost intimate. “And the fans… You guys have been so supportive. I can’t even begin to tell you how much it means to me. The messages, the comments, the love – it’s like you’re right here with me, cheering me on every step of the way.”

She waved her hand in front of the camera, like she was trying to contain all the excitement bubbling inside her. “And hey, I really can’t wait for you to see what’s coming. You’ll love the surprises we have in store. Just… just wait until you see some of the crazy twists!”

Amadeus Cho arrived three minutes too late.

He knew the exact number because his brain insisted on knowing things like that, because it refused to let uncertainty stand where data could exist. Three minutes, twelve seconds, give or take the margin introduced by traffic lights he had chosen not to smash through and a police barricade he had vaulted instead of arguing with.

Amadeus stood at the edge of the cordon tape, hands in his jacket pocket, backpack slung low, eyes flicking across the scene with the speed of a supercomputer pretending to be a teenage boy. Steam rose from the blackened husk of the building as firefighters packed up hoses and medics checked vitals under harsh white lights. The fire was beaten. The crisis contained.

“Unbelievable,” Amadeus muttered. “And no Hercules.”

Amadeus scanned the crowd. No towering frame. No booming laughter. No dramatic farewell speech that would have taken thirty seconds too long and somehow still felt earned. Just shaken tenants, exhausted first responders, and a boy wrapped in a blanket, talking animatedly to a firefighter and gesturing much larger than his own body should allow.

The boy couldn’t have been more than eight or nine, eyes still wide, cheeks masked with soot. He was talking fast, words tumbling over each other, hands moving in big, excited arcs that contrasted sharply with the blanket draped around his shoulders.

Amadeus approached the boy, crouched slightly to get on eye level, offering a smile that was gentle despite the whirlwind of thoughts spinning in his head.

“Hey,” Amadeus said. “You okay?”

The boy nodded vigorously. “Yeah! A guy saved me. Like a huge guy. He just picked me up,” the boy said. “Like this! And the wall broke and there was fire everywhere and.”

Amadeus slowed his thoughts, closing his eyes for half a second.

“Uh-huh. Big guy. Really big. Like bigger than my uncle, and my uncle’s huge.”

“Of course he did,” Amadeus said. “Did this huge guy have… I don’t know… legendary vibes?”

“That’s one way to put it.” The firefighter laughed, then coughed, then waved off a medic who looked ready to intervene again.

“He saved us,” the firefighter said. His voice was rough, scraped by the smoke. “Came out of nowhere. Lifted a beam like it was cardboard.”

“Did he say anything?” Amadeus asked.

The boy frowned, thinking. “He said I was brave.”

That hit harder than Amadeus expected.

The firefighter added, “Told me I fought well. Then he left.”

Amadeus looked up at the building again, eyes tracing the damage. He could reconstruct the rescue easily – angles, vectors, timing. Hercules would have gone straight through the problem, literally and figuratively. No hesitation. No drama.

“Yeah,” Amadeus uttered quietly. “That tracks.”

He stood and backed away, giving the kid a small wave. “You did great,” Amadeus said. “Both of you.”

That was the thing people didn’t always understand about him. For all the jokes, all the hyperactivity, all the big-brain bravado, Amadeus Cho processed best in motion. Walking helped his thoughts line up, let emotion bleed into logic without exploding.

Hercules had been here. Hercules had saved lives. Hercules had left. Amadeus replayed the timeline in his head, not because he expected a different outcome, but because understanding the pattern made it hurt less.

Amadeus exited the densest part of the crowd, drifting toward quieter streets where the noise of the scene softened into distant echoes. He passed a convenience store where a clerk watched the news, Hercules’ silhouette already circulating on television.

“Great,” Amadeus muttered. “He didn’t want attention and now he’s trending.”

Hercules didn’t want the moment to be about him. He wanted it to belong to the people who would live with it – the boy who would remember being called brave, the firefighter who would go back to work tomorrow, the neighbors who would rebuild and move on.

It was noble, Amadeus thought with a grin. It was infuriating, he thought with a roll of his eyes. A wide smile would stretch wide upon his face, it was typical. It was Hercules.

Jack of Hearts stood at the center of the room, encased in a diagnostic energy field which powered down his power to a low glow, just enough to keep his cosmic energies from bleeding outward. The cosmic energies, which had massive destructive possibilities within him were stable, for now. That alone was a small miracle. Jack looked uncomfortable – not in pain, but in the way someone does when they’re aware they’re being observed and don’t know what’s expected of them.

Bill Foster adjusted his glasses and glanced from the monitors back to the man inside them. “Before we do anything else,” Bill said calmly. “I want to ask you a simple question. What do you remember?”

Jack blinked. “About… what specifically?”

“About yourself,” Bill clarified. “About today. About how you got here.”

Jack frowned, the expression awkward, as if he were trying on a word that didn’t fit. “Well…I know I am in a lab,” Jack uttered. “I’m thinking S.H.I.E.L.D? Project Pegasus? The Avengers?”

“Close enough,” Bill said. “There aren’t many of us currently, but you are with the Champions. You’re safe here.”

“The Champions?” Jack shifted slightly, the energy field compensating instantly, his tone questioning Bill Foster’s answer. “That’s actually a thing?

Bill crossed his arms, looking at Jack in disbelief.

“I don’t remember how I got here,” Jack replied. “Last thing I remember is… nothing. That’s the problem, isn’t it? If you think you can help then help. For all I know you could be the new Fantastic Four.”

“I would not say that,” Bill smirked that garnered a strange look from Jack. “I am good friend with the Thing. He gets very sensitive regarding those matters.”

It was just a box. At least, that was what Phil Urich told himself the day he stumbled across it. It rested in front of him like a challenge, questioning every angle. Every line. Every edge.  It was a reminder that everything lead somewhere. It was the somewhere that scared him.

It wasn’t big. That was the first thing that always struck Phil. After everything, after what it had done, it was still just a box. Its colors of black and white in conflict with each other as its sharp, defiant patterns repeated on every side –   as if the box bears a warning, or perhaps a promise. They were not decorations. They are declarations.

“I’m here,” Phil said quietly. “I’m not in you.”

The box did not respond.

That was worse.

He remembered the warehouse first. He always did. The box had been sitting on a crate like it belonged there, like the universe had arranged the entire break-in just so he would find it. Even then, a smarter man would have walked away.

Phil did not.

Now, sitting here, he could feel that moment echoing in his bones. The instant when curiosity tipped into inevitability. When he’d reached out not because he had to, but because he wanted to know. Someone built this for a reason. Someone invested time, money, and intellect into creating a tiny world governed by simple rules.

He drew a quivering breath – or Phil thought he did.

Time had no meaning where he was now. That was another thing the box had taken from him. There was only the awareness, drifting in a sea of half-remembered moments. He couldn’t escape the echo of his own scream – looping, folding back on itself, never quite fading.

He knew better now.

I stole it, he remembered. God help me, I stole it.

The apartment seemed to recede around him as memory surged forward, vivid and unkind. He was standing over the box again, back when it had been new to him, when fear hadn’t yet evolved into something colder. He remembered the way the air had thickened, the way sound had dulled as if the world were holding its breath.

Phil flinched in the present, his shoulders tightening as if expecting it to happen again. But, the box stayed where it was, heavy and inert. He remembered the pull. He remembered the pull most of all.

Back then, the pull had not been physical at first. It had started inside him – a tug behind his chest, a pressure in the skull, like a question demanding an answer. The box hadn’t lunged. It hadn’t attacked. It had invited as though daring him to prove he deserves whatever waits inside. 

That thought haunted him.

The box had opened inward, revealing a space that shouldn’t have fit inside it. Phil remembered the impossible depth – space that hurt to perceive and which mocked the laws of physics Phil had taken for granted. He had seen colors without names, shapes that implied other shapes lurking just out of sight. And beneath it all, a presence – vast, ancient, and intensely curious

And then he remembered being pulled off his feet. The memory tightened around his thoughts like a vise. He remembered the fear then, raw and primal, flooding his system as the pull began. He had wanted to fight it.

Voices flooded his mind and then he went beyond the concept of his understanding. Words were no more, only impressions of emotions. Regret. Rage. Triumph. Loss. They were fragments of his own mind.

Somewhere beyond the door that had slammed shut behind him, beyond the thin, comforting concept of reality, the box had taken away everything.  It had turned his memories into a treacherous thing. They bent as if they never really happened. Rewriting itself as a Phil Urich he did not know.

Phil recoiled from that memory even now, whatever now meant. He had rejected it. He was sure of that.

Yet there he was. The memories weren’t just resurfacing on their own. They were being examined. As if something were sifting through his past, weighing each choice, each doubt, each moment of weakness and resolve. Something else was beneath the memories now. A presence that was not the box, not entirely. It was a feeling. That the box had not been finished with him and that had been the worst part.

Phil looked down at his hands, flexing his fingers, anchoring himself in the present. He was here. He had come back. Whatever the box had done, it had not erased him.

Phil Urich did not know that the object before him was a Skinner box. His concept of what was real and what was not had been shattered and he was starting from the very beginning. It was more than a box. It was a crossroads.