TRICKLE DOWN

By Wesley Overhults

SHIELD Helicarrier

“So why exactly am I in here?” asked Wipeout. “You missed me that much?”

He wasn’t sure why Quake had summoned him and him alone to her office for the briefing. Usually the whole team was there for the mission briefings so Frankie had to assume that this was a special case. It didn’t surprise him though. Quake probably noticed his skills and decided that he deserved a chance to branch out without the rest of the team holding him back. It seemed as if he was finally going to start getting the recognition he felt he deserved.

“Charming,” replied Quake though her tone said that it wasn’t charming in the slightest. “No, Mr. Jensen, you’re here strictly on business. You see, a couple nights ago there was a bit of a problem during a routine prisoner transfer. This is Ricky Calusky but he’s more famous as Excavator.”

Wipeout looked at the file Quake handed him, barely registering the photo of the boy with sandy blond hair and the words that accompanied the photo. Calusky was the son of the Wrecking Crew member known as Piledriver, a man that Wipeout had fought against before. The boy’s talents didn’t come from Asgardian magic like his father but rather a mutant gene in his DNA. The file told Wipeout that Excavator had a troubled past ever since learning his father’s identity. Like his father, incarceration was the norm for Ricky.

“He got away?” asked Frankie.

“Ricky turned eighteen recently and as such is considered an adult,” explained Quake. “They were going to transfer him to the Vault instead of Detention where he was being held. Something went wrong and the plane went down somewhere in Missouri. We’ve confirmed he’s survived and he’s on the run.”

“So where do I fit into this?” questioned Wipeout.

“Word is that he’s hiding out somewhere in Arkansas,” answered Quake. “Last time I checked your file, it said you were from Hope Springs, Arkansas. We think that’s where Excavator is lying low. We want you to go to Hope Springs and help catch him.”

“I’m not really too hot on that,” admitted Wipeout. “I haven’t been back home in a long time and I don’t plan on doing it any time soon. You should find somebody else to do it.”

“It’s your job,” stated Quake. “You’re an agent of SHIELD and I’m your handler. I’m telling you this is your assignment and you’re going to perform it. Need I remind you what will happen if you choose not to comply?”

Wipeout thought about it for a moment, thought about the fact that he had never been caught before and never seen the inside of a jail cell. He didn’t plan on breaking that trend any time in the near future. However, if he really thought about it then he was already in a jail. He was never really free as long as he worked for SHIELD because someone would always be controlling his destiny and it would never be him. It was the price to pay to stay out of a real jail.

“Fine then,” he decided. “You’ve already booked me a flight?”

“First class on the SHIELD express,” said Quake with a smile. “Hope Springs doesn’t have an airport so you’ll land in Little Rock and travel the rest of the way. You’ll have a couple of other agents watching you just to make sure you don’t decide to run out on us. Find this kid and subdue him with minimal force. SHIELD wants him alive.”

“Whatever you say,” agreed Wipeout with a grin. “You should know me well enough by now, Agent Johnson. When I want something, nothing stops me from getting it.”

Hope Springs, Arkansas

There were times when Ricky Calusky wished that he had never ran away from his grandparents’ house to go find his father. If he had just stayed with his grandparents then maybe his life would have been a little less screwed up. But no, he had to go find his super-villain father, then he had to get dropped off at Xavier’s, and now he had to end up in this toilet of a town while on the run from the cops. At this point, life for Excavator couldn’t exactly get worse. He was one misstep away from going to prison, real prison now that he was eighteen. Worse yet, he would probably get sent to a different prison than his father or the rest of the Wrecking Crew so he wouldn’t have anyone to watch his back. No, his best option at this point was to avoid jail altogether and that meant staying low and hanging out in Hope Springs for as long as he could. He reasoned that eventually the cops would get tired of looking for him and move on to some other super-villain.

“Stay low,” muttered Excavator to himself as he pulled up the hood on his new sweatshirt and entered the gas station. When his plane went down, Ricky had made sure to ditch his prison clothes and pick up something a little less conspicuous. The hoodie and jeans suited his purposes just fine.

The clerk at the desk didn’t give him any notice, something that Ricky was completely fine with. The muted noise of the radio filtered through the hood and into his ears, the catchy hook of the latest pop song lodging itself deep into his brain. He shuffled over to the refrigerated rack that housed the sodas and studied the selection with the eye of a true connoisseur. He tried not to think about how lax the security was in this place. He tried not to think about how there were barely any cameras that would capture his image if he chose to do what his instincts told him to do.

“Stay low,” he repeated to himself, the phrase becoming his mantra.

He tried not to think about what his father would do in such a situation. For starters, his father wouldn’t have been caught dead in this backwater town. His father was in the big leagues but Excavator knew he wasn’t there yet. He still had to earn his stripes but first he had to stay low.

“Hey yo, pops!”

Ricky mumbled a few curse words under his breath as he saw two kids roughly his age walk into the store. He knew what was coming. Their clothes were extremely baggy, even by Ricky’s standards. Hell if the attendant had any common sense, he would have kept his eye on Ricky considering it was a little warm for a hoodie. Excavator noticed it though. He noticed how the two boys walked with the swagger that only a sense of entitlement could produce. He noticed the bulge in the waistband of one kid’s jeans and figured that both of them were packing something. It wasn’t his problem. It wasn’t his score. If he got involved, it would only attract attention because it would most assuredly go sideways if he chose to step in.

“Damn,” muttered Excavator as he heard the click of the pistol and saw one of the boys draw on the elderly man behind the counter. “At least let a brotha get the hell outta the way first.”

“Everybody get the hell down!” shouted the other boy though the store’s population consisted only of the two boys, the clerk, Excavator, and one girl with a rail-thin body who looked like she was probably a drug addict of some sort.

The girl immediately hit the floor though Excavator was unsure as to whether or not it was in compliance with the boy’s order or because she had passed out from whatever she was on. Ricky remained intent on studying the rack of sodas before casually selecting a Mountain Dew. This would later be known to him as his first mistake of the evening. At the moment though, he had no intention of doing what the boy with the gun ordered him to do. He was Ricky Calusky, son of a real, honest-to-God super-villain and he wasn’t going to lay down for some punk with a gun.

“I said get down!” snapped the boy even as his partner began to relieve the clerk of the money in his till. “The hell you think this is? Get your ass on the ground!”

“I think that I’m going to take the soda and walk out of here,” said Excavator, opening his drink and taking a sip. “Damn this is good shit. Can you believe they wouldn’t let me have a damn soda in the joint? Cold, man, real cold.”

Excavator saw the kid’s eyebrow arch and decided that staying low just simply wasn’t an option tonight. He took another drink from his soda and calmly approached the two kids at the counter. Both of them instantly trained their guns on him, the apparent leader still holding the bag of cash they were intent on stealing from the store. Ricky knew for a fact that they couldn’t hurt him. While he was in Detention, he had plenty of time to practice with his mutant power. One of his new tricks was turning his body into solid rock. He didn’t even begin to understand the science behind it but that didn’t matter so much to him. The second the two boys opened fire on him, their bullets would bounce off his skin and he would look like a total badass while they ran away after soiling themselves.

“Smoke him!” ordered one of the kids and both boys unloaded the contents of their weapons.

Excavator felt the bullets go through the fabric of his hoodie and then bounce up against the solid rock that was his skin. He moved towards them and swatted one of the guns aside, bashing the kid in the face with his other fist and probably breaking his jaw. The other hoodlum was smart enough to drop his weapon and run out of the store, leaving Excavator with an unconscious thug, a frightened gas station clerk, and a bag full of cash lying at his feet. Staring at the money that spilled out of the bag, Ricky made the only sensible decision someone his age could make in such a situation.

“Don’t thank me,” he ordered the clerk as he picked up the bag and headed for the door. “Gotta make sure I get that paper, you know? Sorry ’bout your damn luck, pops.”

With that, Excavator made off into the night with his bag full of cash. He could already hear the police sirens approaching and figured someone outside had seen what was going on and called the cops. Ricky didn’t plan on being around when that happened and thought it best to get away clean with his newfound wealth. It was at least enough to buy him some sort of transportation out of this town and that was all he really needed at this point.

SHIELD really didn’t pay him enough for this crap. It was bad enough that he had to get saddled with a couple of low-level agents babysitting him but now he had to come back home to Hope Springs just to catch some kid running around trying to impress his father. Wipeout had read the file on Ricky Calusky and didn’t think much of him. Excavator was a kid who was so impressed by his father’s lackluster career as a villain that he decided to follow in his footsteps. Truthfully, Wipeout could relate a little to Excavator’s struggle. More than likely, Ricky was a kid who wanted everything. He had grown up with delusions of villainy as the path to fame and fortune because that’s what he mistakenly saw his dad pursuing. Wipeout knew what it was like to want more than what you could obtain given your station in life. It was no secret that he enjoyed being a thief, that he enjoyed getting everything he thought he deserved. So maybe he understood where Excavator was coming from but that still didn’t mean he planned on cutting the kid any slack.

“No skills at all,” he mumbled to himself as the two SHIELD agents assigned to watch him continued questioning the hapless gas station attendant. “Seriously, what kind of thief lets someone else do all the work for him? The crappy kind.”

Wipeout knew the gas station and its employees well. In fact, he had swiped some money from the store’s till on more than one occasion before packing up and heading out of town for greener pastures. The place barely had any security measures to speak of, mostly just surveillance equipment. Frankie preferred the more subtle approach though. Ricky was a bull in a china shop, using brute force to get what he wanted. Frankie had learned the art of the touch and his power didn’t hurt him either. It was easy to get into the places you wanted when you could travel through a building’s pipes.

“He’s still on the loose,” confirmed the female agent. “Witnesses say he left on foot before the police arrived, heading south.”

“Not a lot of places to go in this town,” admitted Wipeout. “South would put him back towards the middle of town. Poor kid doesn’t even know where the hell he’s going around here.”

“What does the middle of town offer him?” questioned the male agent.

“If he was smart then he’d want a bus station or something,” said Wipeout. “The middle of town isn’t going to get you that. It’s just going to get you into a place with more people to hurt. That means we need to get there quick and I’m the one that stands the best chance of doing that.”

“You’re not leaving our sight,” stated the female agent.

“Watch me,” suggested Wipeout as he shifted into his water form.

Frankie poured himself into the ground, letting the moisture-starved dirt soak him up. He moved through the rock like an underground stream, shuffling through the rocks and speeding towards his destination. It was weird to describe how he knew where to go. It was like he could see everything because he was one with the water that flowed through the ground and through the town’s piping system. His eyes were everywhere and all he had to do was push himself closer to Excavator.

Wipeout saw that Ricky had changed course, proving that he wasn’t as dumb as he appeared. He was now heading towards a place that could offer him a lot more than the middle of town. Excavator seemed intent on catching a train and getting out of town. Frankie intended to make him rethink that plan along with some other key decisions in his life. He shot through the underground waterways and came out in a miniature geyser right under Excavator’s feet. The sudden jet of water knocked Calusky off balance and sent him to the ground even as Wipeout reformed his body into flesh and blood and stared at the kid who was only at maximum a year older than he was.

“I’ll give you credit for having enough sense to get the hell out of town after a big score,” said Wipeout. “You don’t have any technique though and you sure as hell don’t have any balls if what I saw back there was any indication.”

“The hell you think you are?” questioned Excavator as he got back to his feet and sized up the newcomer even as the distant rumblings of locomotive engines reverberated around the dead air of the train yard. “You wanna come at me? Not smart, son. Not smart at all.”

“Let’s just get this over with so I can get out of this place before I actually start feeling homesick,” suggested Wipeout.

Frankie decided to strike first, launching streams of water from his fists. Excavator turned his body into rock and threw up his arms to block the blasts of liquid. To his credit, Ricky waded through the attack and managed to get within striking distance of Wipeout. He tried to connect with a haymaker but Wipeout slipped away before the blow could find its mark. Excavator turned and launched a stream of dirt from the ground in front of him at Wipeout. Frankie shot himself upwards in the air, elongating his body and then letting the attack from Excavator cut his legs out from under him. He fell towards Ricky and curled his body up like a tidal wave before crashing down onto his foe. Excavator shook off the water and tried not to shiver. The weather was cooling down a little but he was already soaked and it increased the intensity of the temperature change. He had to get to cover and get away from whoever the hell he was fighting. Ricky hadn’t counted on Hope Springs having a local superhero or whatever Wipeout was. It didn’t matter though. He was the son of a Wrecking Crew member and he had been getting in fights all his life. If there was one thing Excavator knew how to do, it was fight dirty.

“You think I care about a little water?” he asked Wipeout. “I got better shit than you, kid. You step to Excavator, you get buried like the rest.”

Wipeout felt the ground shift under his feet like someone was yanking the rug out from under him. The dirt beneath him shot upwards like a geyser, mirroring the trick that he had used earlier to catch Excavator off guard. Ricky didn’t stop there. The dirt curled up to form a ball with Wipeout trapped inside it. Excavator grinned as he squeezed the ball of dirt tighter before finally slamming it down into the ground and leaving his foe trapped there to suffocate. He wasn’t going to waste time though. That attack had used up more energy than he cared to admit.

Excavator ran and took cover behind one of the stationary boxcars that littered the train yard. He needed to get out of there and luck was with him because he could still hear that train coming closer and closer. He peeked out from behind his cover to make sure Wipeout was still buried. Satisfied with the results of his attack, Excavator made a mad dash towards the sound of the train. Amazingly enough, he still carried the bag of cash that he had scored earlier in the evening. He thought for sure it would have slipped out of the pocket of his jeans where he had stuffed it but it was still there. If he could hop this train and get away clean then he could land himself in some other town and stay low until the heat was off. Everything was going to work out perfectly.

“Just gotta hop this train,” he said to himself as the ground beneath his feet rose up and shot him forward, practically throwing him into one of the open boxcars on the train.

He heard something behind him, almost like the sound of a raging river, and realized that this just wasn’t his night. The torrent of water hit him in the back and propelled him forward, causing him to shoot into and then out of the boxcar. Excavator tumbled down the hill on the other side of the tracks and came to a stop in the valley below. A living stream of water shot through the air and landed with a splash in front of him, reforming itself instantly as Wipeout began firing off blasts of water at Excavator with the intent to drench him and possibly take the fight out of him. Withstanding Frankie’s water blast was like fighting against a fire hose that was going at full volume. No normal person could take that kind of punishment and so far Wipeout had encountered very few superhumans who could.

Excavator didn’t have time to shift into his rock form and shot backwards when the first water blast hit him. He skidded along the gravel floor of the pit before rolling with his momentum and ending up on his feet. He placed his hand on the ground and a horde of spikes erupted from the dirt around Wipeout. Frankie contorted his liquid body around the spikes as Excavator tried to skewer him. It was then that he realized he was better off in the train yard. They were at the quarry located on the outskirts of town. The whole place was one giant gravel pit that suited itself more to Excavator’s liking than to Wipeout’s. Frankie looked around for a new method of attack but he didn’t have time. Excavator charged at him like an enraged bull and began throwing punches as fast and hard as he could.

“You could’ve just left the store alone, Ricky,” reminded Wipeout. “It wasn’t your score.”

“You start with your little ‘scared straight’ bullshit one more time and I’ll make sure you stay buried,” retorted Excavator even as Wipeout’s watery body zipped through his legs so Frankie could have more distance to work with. “What’s your deal anyway? Why do you give a damn about me and my business?”

“Because SHIELD sent me out here to bring your sorry ass back into custody,” explained Wipeout, tagging Excavator in the back with a water blast. “You think I wanted to come back to this Godforsaken town? I’ve always hated it here.”

It was true. Frankie could remember how living in Hope Springs was pure torture. His mother could barely provide for him even with the two jobs she worked. It unnerved Frankie to go to school and see all the nice things that the other kids had, the things he wanted but could never have. It left him with a need inside him that he couldn’t fulfill, an emptiness that would never go away. So when he found out what he could do, Frankie Jensen vowed that he would never be denied what he wanted. When he wanted something, he would take it because now he had the power to do so and make sure that no one could stop him. It was freedom in the truest sense but that freedom opened his eyes to the fact that Hope Springs was a prison. The town was holding him back, preventing him from truly living the life that he wanted. So he left Hope Springs behind and traveled all over the country. Yet now here he was, back where he started only with enough of a changed perspective to realize his mistakes.

“I didn’t do nothing to that plane,” assured Excavator. “It just started going down. I was the only one that made it out alive. I ain’t goin’ back with SHIELD, water boy, so you better go hard or go home.”

Excavator came at Wipeout again and tried to knock him out but Ricky was a slow learner. Frankie was through screwing around with this kid. It was taxing his patience and when Wipeout got impatient about things then that was dangerous for everyone around him. He flowed around Excavator to dodge his attacks and clamped his watery hand around Excavator’s head. The bubble of water enveloped Ricky’s head and began to drown him just as Wipeout had done to the HYDRA agent that had killed Raymond Sydney.

“I’m already home so I guess that leaves going hard,” decided Wipeout as he watched Excavator suffocate.

Taking what you wanted was easy, especially for him. Maybe he was tired of taking the easy way out though. He remembered what he had said to Finesse when she yelled at him for leaving her behind on the Helicarrier. She would have done the same to him and they both knew it. Both of them were all about self-preservation. So why were both of them staying with this job when they had their chances to walk away? Maybe life wasn’t always about getting what you wanted. Maybe it was about something more.

“Bein’ soft ain’t a good look for you,” coughed Excavator as Wipeout let him go.

“Trying to fight me again isn’t a good one for you,” retorted Wipeout as he kicked Excavator in the back of the head and knocked him out. He looked up to the edge of the gravel pit and saw his two SHIELD babysitters slide down the hill to greet him. “It’s about time you guys showed up. How the hell did you find me anyway?”

“This thing can track your genetic signature,” said the male agent as he held up what looked like a larger version of a smart phone. “Agent Johnson also issued us some special weapons in case you decided to take a walk.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” said Wipeout sarcastically. “This kid is down for the night so he’s all yours. I’ve got a special stop I need to make in the morning. Right now though, I could use some sleep.”

The Next Morning

Frankie had to hand it to SHIELD and their resources. All it took was flashing a badge and he could go anywhere he wanted. He wondered why he had spent so much time being a thief when he could’ve just accomplished the same ends working for SHIELD. It seemed that the organization’s employees enjoyed a level of privilege that he had spent years trying to attain. It was a little annoying to him.

“I’m afraid there’s been no change,” said the doctor as he studied the charts in front of his eyes. “Your mother’s dying, Mr. Jensen. The cancer in her lungs is spreading rapidly. I wouldn’t expect her to be alive by the end of the year.”

Frankie Jensen nodded solemnly. It was perhaps the greatest secret he ever kept and he kept it from everyone he knew. Gail Jensen, the woman who had given birth to, in Frankie’s opinion, the greatest thief alive was dying. After watching his mother work herself to the bone for years to provide for him, Wipeout couldn’t take watching her die in front of him, watching her wither away as the cancer she had acquired from years of smoking destroyed her body. This was the reason he had filed for and attained legal emancipation as a minor. He didn’t want her dragging him down but, more importantly, he didn’t want her to see what he was turning into. Wipeout’s mother always believed in the value of hard work and dedication but Frankie knew that such a dream was a lie. People with power took what they wanted and left those like his mother to suffer and die. When he got his mother admitted to this hospital, Frankie made a deal with himself. His thievery wouldn’t be used only to his own benefit but to his mother’s as well.

“I don’t know when I’ll be able to come back here again,” admitted Wipeout. “I need to see her before . . .”

He didn’t have to fake crying and it wasn’t because of his power that his eyes watered. The doctor nodded and escorted him to his mother’s room. Frankie stepped inside and closed the door behind him. He saw his mother lying in the bed and barely recognized her. All the chemo had taken its toll on her. She was a shell of her former self and for maybe the first time in his life, Wipeout wished he hadn’t gotten what he wanted. Truthfully, he wanted nothing more than to run screaming from the room, the hospital, the entire town of Hope Springs even. He stayed though.

“That better be you,” said Gail Jensen. “Hate to think I can’t recognize my own son.”

“I’m here,” said Wipeout quietly. “I know I haven’t been around in a long time. I’ve always kept sending you money though. I . . . I got a new job. I think you’d be proud of me.”

“I’m always proud of you, son,” croaked Wipeout’s mother.

“You shouldn’t be,” whispered Wipeout to himself as he crossed the room and sat down next to his mother. “I’m not sure about this new job. It’s not really something I’m into but the money is good and . . . I dunno. I feel like maybe I’m doing something right.”

“You were always a good kid,” said Gail Jensen.

“I’ll send you more money when I can,” promised Frankie. “The doctor told me it was bad, Mom. I wanna do whatever I have to do to help you.”

“It’s in God’s hands, sweetie,” assured his mother.

Frankie’s eyes clouded with pain. Where was God in all these years? God didn’t give him anything. He was the one out there earning everything he got. He was the one scraping and clawing for even the smallest of scraps while there were other people who were eating their fill. Where was God in all this to deliver some much needed justice and to balance the scales? Frankie looked at his mother and realized that she truly believed everything would work out in the end. He wondered if he could ever be like that but he knew the truth. The truth was that he couldn’t trust anyone but himself, couldn’t rely on anyone but himself.

“I met this girl at work,” he said, admitting to himself for the first time how he felt about Finesse. “She’s . . . she’s something else, Mom. I like her a lot.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t take better care of you,” apologized his mother. “I’m sorry I’m not around to . . .”

“You did enough,” assured Frankie as he gripped his mother’s hand and squeezed it before getting up to leave. “I’m sorry if I don’t make it back before . . .”

“I know,” assured Gail Jensen. “Everybody gets what they want if they work hard enough for it, Frankie. Remember that.”

Wipeout didn’t acknowledge what his mother told him, preferring instead to simply wave goodbye and exit the room. He bit back the tears that threatened to overcome him as he purposefully made his way down the hall and took care of some paperwork at the reception desk. He turned to see his two handlers waiting for him and moved to join them.

“We got Calusky in custody and we’re waiting for transport,” confirmed the female agent.

“I really don’t care,” admitted Wipeout. “Do me a favor and make sure this little visit doesn’t make it into your reports. It’s not going into mine.”

That Night

Ricky Calusky was screwed. He was sitting in a swarm of cops and they were just waiting to turn him over to SHIELD so he could go to real, adult prison. This was assuming the SHIELD agents didn’t just kill him for the lives lost in that plane crash that set him free. Ricky didn’t know why that plane went down. He just knew he had nothing to do with it. He never touched the pilot or any of the guards. He just sat in his seat like a good, little prisoner and did what they told him to. Someone had brought that plane down though and Excavator wouldn’t mind getting some answers from them. At this point though, that closure wouldn’t be achieved.

“I assume you’re Ricky Calusky,” said a voice once the lights came back on.

Excavator looked at the man standing in front of the holding cell. His jet-black hair was tied back in a ponytail and his hair color matched the color of his business suit. The man held a cane out in front of him though Ricky didn’t think he needed it for anything except to help his image. Next to him was a scraggily man wearing a beaten-up brown jacket, jeans, and a t-shirt. The pair was an odd couple and they both looked out of place compared to the environment of the police station.

“Government name,” said Excavator. “What’s it to ya?”

“Excavator then,” decided the man in the suit. “I’ve kept my eye on you and I’m impressed with your abilities. I think I have just the right work for someone like you, assuming of course that you’re interested.”

“I ain’t doin’ no work-study from jail,” said Excavator. “You gonna get me out of here if I say yes?”

“I believe you are smarter than you look,” decided the businessman. “You see, Ricky, I have a lot of power in this town but I’m looking to branch out. To do that, I need more hired help. You look like a man in need of a new career, one that promises to be very lucrative.”

“I don’t do big words,” reminded Excavator.

“You’re going to make a lot of money,” paraphrased the man in the suit. “Mr. Fagin, please be kind enough to create an opening for my new employee. After all, we do need to keep up the pretense that he escaped from police custody before his SHIELD transport arrived.”

Fagin shifted into his mutated form and put his hands in between the bars. He bent them in opposite directions to help create a hole for Excavator to squeeze himself through. Ricky did so with ease and dusted himself off. He was still soaked from his fight with Wipeout and the first thing he wanted was a new set of clothes, preferably a dry one.

“I didn’t say yes,” he reminded Fagin’s boss.

“I think you did,” replied the man. “I believe your generation would put it like this, Mr. Calusky. You either get down or you lay down. Do we understand one another?”

“Hey, you ain’t gotta hit me with all that,” assured Excavator. “I’m down.”

“Excellent,” said the businessman. “Come with me and we’ll work on getting you some dry clothes for starters.”

“You never told me your name,” said Excavator.

“You can call me Helix,” decided the man. “I think it’s a name you’ll be hearing a lot of in the future.”

Next Issue: Fight Night