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SMASHWORDS
Category:
Young Adult/Teen
Type: Fiction
Pages: 35
Copyright: Mar 14, 2014
ISBN-13: 9781310860362
Price: $0.99 (eBook)
From the sins of the father comes a new superhero. Step into the fast-paced world where everything lurks in the shadows, and in that darkness, something will rise to exact vengeance! Witness the rise of a new superhero in Hard Target: The Origin!
From the sins of the father comes a new superhero. Step into the fast-paced world where everything lurks in the shadows, and in that darkness, something will rise to exact vengeance! Witness the rise of a new superhero in Hard Target: The Origin!
Excerpt
Hard Target, The Origin . . .
Randolph J. Giles
Copyright 2014 by Randolph J. Giles
Narrator: “It is said that a boy becomes a great man like his father or he could end up baring his father’s sins. I was nine when I discovered that my father, uncles and their cousins who were all on the police force were corrupt. During their Saturday night poker games they would get intoxicated and boast about their illegalities and indiscretions and how much money they had made. My father wasn’t bad he was just a typical father, a man who never grew up and had more time for his friends than his own family. He tried to include me in some of his hobbies, like going to shoot guns at the gun range, but it was always way too loud for me and made my head hurt and body tremble. The sound of a gun being fired disturbed me as it meant the solution was final as it took the place of judge, jury and prosecutor and once it was done it was done and that frightened me”.
“I was closer to my mom, who was the one who truly raised me. She was an archetypal mom, she once loved my dad as they were married young, but as she got to truly know him, she gradually fell out of love with him, but she couldn’t abandon us, so she stayed for the sake of the family, she stayed for me. My mom was my best friend and she taught me how to be a man, but it wasn’t only my mom who made me the man that I am today, I owe most of that to my father as he taught me what kind of man I didn’t want to become, he taught me how to survive in this unjust world a world where most of the victims are just as guilty as villainous scum that preys upon them”.
“The neighborhood that we lived in was tough and my mother made sure that I had plenty of things to keep me occupied in order to keep me off of the streets. I attended the Cub Scouts every Friday after school where I learnt how to shoot the bow. I loved it when we had archery class it was so quiet and calm, peaceful even. It blocked out the roar of the El train, the fire truck and police sirens as I became one with the target. The bow unlike the gun is a beautifully crafted instrument from; the Japanese long bow to the American Indian self bow, back bow and composite bow too today’s recurve and compound bows. I prefer the recurve bow as it is less forgiving than the compound. It requires great skill to shoot a recurve accurately. The risers and limbs make the bow a very elegant weapon not to mention it being silent and deadly. Believe it or not, for a while the bow was far more precise than the gun and I still believe it to be so.”
Anyway, during the other days of the week I spent learning martial arts at the Martial Arts School of Inner Peace and Strength which sole purpose was to try to keep the kids from the neighborhood off of the streets by teaching them martial arts and educating them to the way of the world and society, preparing the kids for their future by making them realize that they actually had one”.
“One Saturday evening as I sat in my room reading a book on Japanese Archery, “Kyudo” and “Yabusame,” archery on horseback, I heard voices outside of my window. I got up from my bed and saw three krack heads robbing a friend’s mom who was coming from the store carrying grocery bags. The krack heads knocked the bags from Mrs. Cohen’s arms and were trying to take her shoulder bag from her. At first I thought about calling my Dad and uncles, but I knew that they wouldn’t have done anything as they were too involved in their poker game and getting drunk. So I thought to myself what could I do, as I knew if I just yelled at the krack heads they would have laughed at me and would have kept on robbing Mrs. Cohen. Looking about my room I saw my new hunting bow and arrow set that my mother had gotten me so when I went to my Cub Scout meetings, but I knew that I just couldn’t just stand out there on the fire escape and shoot one of the krack heads without being seen. Then I saw my black hoody the one that my dad didn’t want me to wear because he felt it was like me putting on a target for the police to shoot at, but it was dark and would conceal me within the shadows of the building so I put in on and took my bow and stealthfully climbed two fire escapes above my own. Taking aim as the krack head predators tugged at Mrs. Cohen’s bag, I shot the lead krack head in the thigh. Seeing that their fellow junkie was shot the other two grabbed him frantically in panic and quickly limped off away from Mrs. Cohen. Mrs. Cohen then very cautiously picked up the items that fell from her bags as she continuously watched the shadows and after she had everything placed back in her bags she looked up at the fire escapes and said with such gratitude that I will never forget; “thank you.”
“At that moment I knew what I wanted to be. I knew that I wanted to help and protect those who needed protection and from my observation of my father, his brothers and cousins, I did not want to be a cop. If I were there would be no one that I could trust. I hear my dad talking about the white cops on the force, the Latinos, the females, the Asians and they are all separated and can’t seem to trust one another. Knowing that, I knew that I had to do things on my own . . . whom else could I trust”.
“The years had gone by since that night when I rescued Mrs. Cohen from the three zombie looking krack heads that were trying to rob her and in those years I studied hard and became an architectural and electronic engineer, trained even harder with my bow, Japanese Kyudo and Yabusame until I could hit the head of a pin from a hundred yards while riding my motorcycle doing 80 miles an hour. I trained hard with my martial arts and studied various styles to add to my already extensive repertoire as Sensei said; “That you might see a style of martial arts that you like, but you may not like all of the style, but you take what you like and add it to your wardrobe. He said that once you had a strong foundation that you could build your house as wide and as high as you want and I needed to build especially for the life I was aiming to lead”.
“My father got promoted to detective and was killed in the line of duty and with his pension and life insurance mom and I were well taken care of. My uncle approached me and gave me a safety deposit key where the monies from my father’s illegal pay offs were stashed. I wasn’t stupid nor was I arrogant so I took the key and used the money to set me up a few safe houses under different aliases. I also gave some of the money to Sensei so to help keep the school going. With the aliases I purchased machinery and tools that I would need to make the weapons that I myself designed. Some of the weapons I even outfitted a custom motorcycle with which I designed myself from custom parts made from various companies that I had purchased under my aliases. It took a lot of careful planning and I did everything stealth-fully like hiding in the shadows no one would see me until it was too late and by then I’d be gone. I always made sure that I left myself several ways out, because you can never be too careful”.
“It’s taken months to develop my body armor so that it fit me as if I was wearing thermos. The body armor its self is made of the strongest and lightest of bullet proof material which has a super charged energy gel like substance in between that when the suit is shot, struck, stabbed by knife or even a hypodermic needle the gel sends energy to the point of contact and creates a shield of equal force that prohibits the penetration, but most importantly the gel absorbs the impact almost totally so that I don’t experience any serious damage only very slight bruising”.
“So I guess you are saying that my body armor sounds awesome or sweet, but what about my head? My helmet covers my entire head and is hooked up with my main computer that has access to all the Earth orbiting satellites. Whenever I am wearing the helmet or have my pocket communicator with me one of the satellites will have an eye on me feeding my computer information about anyone who has a weapon pointed in my direction and warns me a head of time before a shot can be fired or an attack could be launched. With this technology I can actually avoid being shot by using the information received to evade any shots fired at me or in my direction. The helmet links with the satellites which enables me to also to not only see, but hear what my attackers are saying by way of an enhance microprocessor chip that connects with the older (ferrets satellites) and some of the newer recon (spy) satellites”. This technology puts me way ahead of the game and hopefully will keep me alive long enough to enjoy my retirement which isn’t going to be for many years. . . I hope”.
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