Wednesday 24 December 2014

1.5 The Machine Part 1

I’m eating a bowl of cereal for breakfast when I find out about the bounty that has been placed on my head.

Lily came rushing into the dining room whilst mum and I were eating. Dad has already left for work about ten minutes ago.

“Guess what,” says Lily and she continues to speak before either mum or I can reply, “Somebody just put bounties on the League of Heroes. Isn’t it exciting?”

***

“How much?” asks Samuel.

Having heard about the bounties, Sam, James, Sky, Lucy, Stefan and Charlie have meet up before school outside the corner shop down the road from school.

“Most of us got fifty thousand in dollars,” I reply, “That’s over thirty thousand pounds by the way.”

“Damn,” curses Skyler while Lucy, James and Charlie echo their similar sentiments.

“Personally I think it’s kind of cool,” says Stefan, “Perhaps people will take us seriously now.”

“You said most of us,” says Samuel, frowning, “What about the rest?”

“Me, you and Narszara have a hundred thousand dollars over our heads,” I tell him, “That is easily over fifty thousand pounds.”

“I’m jealous,” grins Stefan, “Any idea who it is behind it?”

“Well, it’s in dollars,” says Lucy, “And we defeated Vengeance, who people see as heroes for some reason, so maybe some good intentioned fool wants to take us down for that.”

“What do you think?” James asks me.

It’s strange how they see me as the smart one. Everybody in the League has above average intelligence and James and Charlie are just as smart as me. Lucy and Kevin are even smarter than me. 
I suppose it is because I run the base and all our businesses in addition to our logistics and supplies, our information and a bunch of other things.

“Sam, Narszara and I have a theory, but I don’t want talk about it here,” I answer, lowing my voice, 

“Back at base after school.”

“Okay,” says James.

At school, everybody is talking about us. Again. This time it is about the bounties and a few conversations about Vengeance. Stefan’s right about one thing, people are starting to respect the new generation of the League of Heroes.

“So Daniel,” says Sam at lunch time as he sits down next to me and Charlie, “So were we right about you know what?”

I understand Samuel’s coded words as not only are me and Charlie sat at the table, but two other people, Brandon and Jake. Two normal people that have no idea who the League of Heroes really are.

“Yes we were,” I answer, “As I said before school, I’ll talk about more after school at our hideout.”

“Good,” says Samuel and Brandon and Jake share confused look between them.

“Did you enjoy DT earlier?” asks Sam, “I bet you want make your own hover drones rather than just design them.”

“They would be nice,” I reply, not mentioning that I have already done that with granddad, “But why would I need them?”

“Besides, you would need to have the money to get all the parts and equipment,” points Brandon, 

“You would have to be millionaire or something to have that sort of money spare.”

“Daniel is a millionaire,” whispers Jake in Brandon’s ear.

I grin as Brandon’s face flushes red. It’s true that I have eleven million pounds that I inherited from granddad when he died. While he left everyone in the family a hundred thousand pounds, he left the majority of his wealth to me along with his vehicles, house and other processions. I think he surprised a lot of people who didn’t know he was Sentinel, but neither of his daughters cared they were skipped.

As to where granddad got his riches in the first place, he ran the League’s side businesses which supplied, manufacture equipment and other things. It started out small, but when he had been doing it for just over six decades, things build up.

It’s strange that despite being so wealthy, granddad and our family lived fairly normal lives. I guess it was mainly to do with granddad being the Sentinel again. He got his wealth from being part of the League and I guess he didn’t want to abandon the League to live the high life regardless of how rich 
he became.

He was a nice guy like that.

I also think granddad never wanted to forget what he was fighting for. Personally I feel that he wanted to stay in touch with being a normal person despite also being a superhero.

I wonder how many superheroes are in touch with normal people these days. I hope the answer is a lot.

I can’t help, but compare it to what Laura told me about feudal lords of the past. The nobles started off as heroes who rose from amongst the common folk. But as time went on, the original generation and their children died and the number of nobles rose. Eventually titles were inherited rather than being earned. This meant that the nobles stopped being in touch with the common folk they ruled over. A few stayed in touch and remained good leaders, but they were ultimately too few and most nobles been removed from power by the present day.

I wonder if the same thing is happening with supers. Minus the being removed from power part.

The old Leaguers were some of the first superheroes and were noble and moral as was the Paragon and the Patriots, their American counterparts. Now things have changed as more superpowered people have been born and things have gotten worse as time has moved on. Secrecy and security seemed to much more important days than a few decades ago.

But then again, at the end of the day, there are more than enough heroes to fight evil where ever it may be. 

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