What has gone before ... Tommy Champion, Nebraska farmboy, and all-round hellraiser turned superhero, arrived in Los Angeles to become the official superhero of Nike, who felt that his superhuman strength, toughness, and ability to alter reality was almost certain to make him a superstar. But his cocky attitude and foul temper has not won him any friends, except for Michael, a Nike image consultant who gave him the superhero nom de guerre "Omega". Tommy spent his first night in L.A. in a less than heroic fashion: an orgy of sex and drugs at a seedy West L.A. club. Tommy was shaken when his partner nearly died of a drug overdose, and now sits in his hotel room pondering the consequences of the previous evening.

It's been months since I last felt like getting so fucking pissed that I pass out, but tonight's the night. I'm alone in my hotel room. Two hours ago, I was having the best fuck of my life. It had been a supreme fuck; I had a strong woman who was responding to me perfectly, it was the Bolshoi ballet of fucking, better than any pornography I'd ever seen. But then she OD'd, and the look of accusation on peoples made me feel like a turd in a toilet -- as I was being flushed into the shithole of all shitholes.

Whatever. That's what the lifeguard told me. That's what my problems amounted to -- a big fucking whatever. My fuck almost died, and when I went out to find someone to save her life, I have to go through playing twenty questions with a surfboard narc. And when I prove I didn't do anything wrong, do I get thanks for coming forward and helping to save someone's life? No! I get ‘whatever'. Whatever! Fuck him!

I suppose I shouldn't get too drunk, in case the cops show. But fuck it. Or is it ‘butt fuck' it? I don't care.

There's a big full-length mirror in the hall closet. I stand naked in front of it, drink a bottle of Jagermeister -- in all its 70-proof, stag-faced fucking glory -- and start having a conversation with myself.

"You're the man!" I toast myself. "You're the fucking man!"

"You look pretty awesome for a shit-faced drunk," I reply.

"Yeah, well who the fuck are you?" I pause and laugh.

"Man, are you ever pissed. Aren't you going to break the fucking mirror?" My reflection asks me.

"You want me to be fucking alone?" I reply.

"You are alone, asshole!" I shout back. I'm not sure if it's me or the reflection talking anymore. Good. I am getting pissed.

"Why the fuck is that?" I ask. "I'm so fucking shit hot I burn. Everyone wanted to be my fucking friend in high school, but as soon as I graduated, I couldn't get out of fucking Nebraska fast enough for them. I saved the fucking mayor of Omaha's life, but he wouldn't even let me get fucking near his daughter."

"Whatever. You're such a fucking bore. Tommy, you're a fucking bore," I say.

Of course, I had to smash the goddamn mirror. I knew I was going to break it.

Omaha. Omega. Did you notice there are only two letters that are different in those two words? You get drunk enough, and you start to notice shit like this.

I'm not sure what happens for the next few minutes, but when I wake up, the place is trash. It's in pieces. More than just a mirror is smashed -- the furniture is busted, there's a big gaping hole through the middle of the television screen. My hands are covered in dried blood, and hurt like a sonuvabitch -- I wasn't in superhuman form when I went berserk, and I lost a lot of fucking blood.

There's a knocking on the hotel room door, and someone is futzing around with a room key. I go to the door -- in my superhero body -- and groggily crack it open.

"Yeah?"

He's a kid in his early 20s in a dorky Hyatt uniform. You gotta love the night shift. This is probably the first excitement that he's had all evening. I make sure he knows I'm naked, just to see the reaction he's nervous. Cool. He'll keep his distance now, not get close enough to realize just how wasted I am. But I don't open the door enough that he can get a view of the mess.

"We've had complaints about a disturbance, and the phone's not working."

I blink and try to put on my best face. "I had a bit of an accident. Sorry."

"From what we were told, it's more than an accident."

"Look kid, how about if I promise you won't hear a peep out of me for the rest of the evening. Housekeeping can take care of the rest."

I stare at him hard. When I do that, people either get horny, or intimidated. Either way, I can sense he's ready to cave.

"Uh okay."

"Thanks." I fake grogginess and shut the door hard.

Great. I know what's next. In the morning, the day shift will show up, see the mess, and toss my ass out on the streets. I suppose I could always claim a supervillain teleported in and trashed the place. That's probably what they thought the fucking noise was.

I reconnect the phone -- the wire's stripped, not broken -- and I shuffle through my pants for the home number that Michael gave me when we were setting up our expedition. I call the number, but forget to dial "9" first and then the number. I apologize to the front desk and redial.

I get an answering machine. The message is short and to the point. "Michael, pick up," I say after the message. I wait a few seconds. "Fuck you Michael, pick up the goddamn phone."

"What!" Michael's voice comes in loud and clear. I must have woken him. Jesus, what time is it?

"Something's happened. I need you to come to the hotel right away."

"Fuck you," Michael says.

"No, I really need you. Everything is going to shit here."

Michael sighs. "Are the police involved?"

"Not yet," I answer.

There's a long pause. "Fine, I'll be there," Michael snaps.

I'm pretty numb. I wash my hands for about ten minutes. The blood comes off pretty easy, but I want to wash every last trace away. I'm still naked when Michael arrives, and have to quickly stuff myself into a pair of jeans to answer the door.

"You look like shit, farmboy," Michael says, walking in. He surveys the damage. "What the fuck happened here?"

"I--"

"Did a supervillain show up" He sniffs. "Oh shit, what the fuck have you been drinking? God damn it!"

"I--"

"It's two o'clock in the fucking morning, and you're fucking plastered, and you trashed the hotel room that my company is paying for, and then you wake me up to hold your fucking hand!"

 "Get the fuck out," I say, almost under my breath.

"No. Not until we've figured a way to get you out of this mess," Michael answers. "Let me calculate the damages" He inspects the hotel room. "Couch mirror bed's broken table the television"

"That's such a fucking small set. You'd think that the hotel could afford to upgrade their sets to a twenty-seven incher," I say.

"Yeah, I've always wondered that too," Michael says. "Do you have any powers that lets you fix things?"

"Huh?" I wonder. I hadn't even considered that possibility.

"You're superstrong, incredibly agile, and almost indestructible. Didn't I also read something about you being able to perform magic tricks, altering reality?"

"Well, kinda." I blush.

"You Elroy, why didn't you try seeing if you could put them back together?" He gives my arm a friendly punch, then shakes his fist in pain. "Shit! Goddamn concrete biceps." He blows on the hand. "Remind me never to do that again."

"I don't know. I thought it was fucking funny." I smirk.

I walk over to the mirror and concentrate. The shards lift up into the air, whirl a bit, and then reassemble themselves. In seconds, the mirror is back to normal. I flex a little. "Yeah, as good as new."

"Now that's a useful superpower," Michael says.

"Fuck. To think of the hours I spent working on dad's fucking tractors, when I could have just waved my hand over it and said ‘presto.'" I sigh.

"I guess my work here is done," Michael states. "Take care of yourself, farmboy. Next time something like this happens, try not to panic. And for Christ's sake, never ever get drunk alone. All that ever does is bring down a rain of flaming shit on one's ass."

"Uh, Michael, could you do me a favor?"

"What?" he says, annoyed.

I'm embarrassed to make the admission, but somehow I manage to speak the words. "It's my first time away from home, and well" I don't have the guts to admit I'm lonely. "Just stay the night, okay?"

He winces. "Jesus Christ. That means I'll have to take the 101 back home in the heart of rush hour, shower and change, then drive to work. It'll add an hour to my commute. No fucking way."

"What if I fly you home in the morning?"

"Fly?" He hadn't considered the possibility. "Can you fly with the Jag?"

"Absolutely."

"That'd be kinda cool. And I am pretty wasted. Okay, farmboy. Just what'd you have in mind?"

"Just talk. I still have some tequila." I hand him the bottle. He scrutinizes the label with a scowl.

"Any shit in a storm." He takes a swig, and passes it back. I change into human form so I can enjoy it with him.

"So Michael? What was with that bullshit you were saying earlier about angels insisting I had to be named ‘Omega,' or the fate of the world would be at stake? Was it bullshit?" I ask.

"If it smells like bullshit, and you call it bullshit, why bother questioning whether it's bullshit?"

"That's not a fucking answer," I protest.

"Fine. It's not bullshit. I really did have the dream." I start laughing. "Fuck, dude, what's so fucking funny?"

"Do you know how I got my powers?" I ask.

"Not really. I know our rep asked the question when you were interviewed."

"I was struck by lightning."

Michael spits out the tequila. "I guess that is funny. In fact, you might even call it a classic."

"A classic?"

"It's a classic." Michael laughs. "It's such a fucking classic. I get ‘visions.' You get lightning. All we need is a magical conspiracy, and Armageddon, and maybe the Anti- Christ, and the bullshit's complete."

"Yeah, that'd be pretty fucking stupid." I nod, and there's a long pause. "You haven't heard of any mystical conspiracies, have you?"

Michael swallows a lump of tequila hard. "Yeah, actually I have."

"Like what?"

"Well, you see there's this big guy, big and jolly, I think he's some kind of magical elf rapper. He lives at the North Pole, and he's got this list" He stops his spiel and just rocks back and laugh. I slug him lightly.

"Ow!" It's only a tap -- I don't even have my powers up.

"Be fucking serious," I snap.

"Okay!" Michael protests. "Well, did you know Harry Houdini's ghost is working for Scotland Yard?"

"I think I liked the one about the fat elf rapper better."

"Hey, Phat Santa C. is cool by me." Michael laughs. "But that's the trouble with magic. It all sounds like bullshit. It makes it hard to tell what's real and what's some fucker's drug trip. Did you know that Cameron Diaz is actually a reformed succubus?"

"A suck-you-what?"

"Succubus. As in, she sucks. People's souls, that is. Demon bitch from Hell. Or that the government has an entire department that's secretly investigating the occult?"

"I've heard that one." I nod, taking a swig. "Let's see, J. Edgar Hoover was really a sorcerer, and"

"Nah, the Premise Project is pure bullshit. Some Weekly World News hack that got out of hand. The Stone twins, on the other hand, are real. I met them."

"Stone twins? Is one of them named Sharon?

"Avery and Lexi," Michael explains. "When the government wants to put a whammy on someone, they dredge up those two walking abortions." I give Michael an odd look. He stretches, a long movement that pushes up the bottom of his t-shirt and exposes his washboards. "It's a long story, and not all that interesting."

"You got superpowers, Michael?"

The question comes out of the blue, but it shouldn't have come as a complete surprise. There's a certain look to a superhero: it isn't just the muscles, or charisma, or drop-dead good looks, or confidence, or intensity, although Michael had all of these in abundance. It was a quality that people had tried to synthesize since the dawn of time. Michael's got the look.

"Yeah. I've got the mutant ability to surround myself with the biggest collection of fucking idiots imaginable."

"Bullshit," I say, again downing some booze. The Jagermeister is vile, great stuff. "You're an image consultant. Idiots come with the fucking territory."

"Okay." Michael takes a deep breath. "My superpower is really that when I get aroused, my dick gets so fucking big, it's superhuman."

"Shit," I snap. "I'm trying to ask you a goddamn serious question!"

"Maybe I don't want to give you a fucking serious answer, sheep-fucker," Michael responds.

"Kiss my fucking ass," I snap back. We look at each other for a second, inspecting each other's surly testosterone faces, and then we just laugh.

"There's something," Michael says when we finally come up for air. "Something that isn't normal about me. I've known it for years, and to be honest, I don't really want to know what it is. I don't need that bullshit in my life."

"So you don't want to be my sidekick." I laugh.

"Hell no. If I ever come out of the superhero closet, you get to be my bitch!" Michael snorts.

My response is unintelligible, thanks to the magic powers of Jagermeister, which I swallow at the same time I'm talking. It had something to do with ass-monkey, I'm sure. After that, the conversation stops for about a minute. We sit in a drunken stupor and cease to exist. It's a moment of Zen drunkenness.

"You ever work with any superheroes?" I finally ask. Michael nods.

"A lot of so-called fucking ‘heroes' come to Los Angeles. You're the fourth one that I've had the joy of knowing, not including the talking dog." I laugh. Michael continues. "What a collection of fuck-ups. They try to make a splash, they never listen to what they're fucking told, and when you challenge their flawed perceptions of reality, they beat the shit out of you. Fuck ‘em all."

"Was there any of them you liked?" I wince.

"All of ‘em." Michael replies. "Fuck-ups are interesting."

"I guess that makes me interesting." I smirk.

"No, you're just plain fucking dangerous," Michael says. "I saw your power ratings and your profile, sheep-fucker. Not only are you as strong and as tough as anyone on the planet, you can fucking alter reality. When people realize what's really behind those teeth and those curly locks of yours, they're going to be scared shitless. That's a whole different set of problems than the ones I've had in the past."

"Yeah, I'm pretty fucking awesome, aren't I?" I boast.

"You're a little fucking awesome sheep-fucker," Michael snaps.

I tell myself that it's the booze that's making him say that, and it's the booze that makes me want to rip off his head. He's definitely asking for an ass-kicking. But I hold myself back.

"You're just a fart in the asshole of marketing." I finally sneer back, and take another drink.

"Yeah, but I'm a fart who's going to make you a goddamn superstar," Michael promises. "Even if you're just a sheep-fucking egomaniac, we can still package you, because corporate America knows how to sell shit to a shithouse."

"You think I'm piece of shit?" I stare at him real fucking hard.

"That isn't what I said." He takes a drink. "No, you're not a piece of shit. You're a little Nebraska farm-boy faggot sure, but not shit."

I've had enough. I get up, ready to jump him. He realizes what I'm about to do and holds out his hand. "Yeah, right. You spit on God. On my best day, I bench three-fifty. This is going to be a real fair fucking fight."

"I can keep it normal," I say. "Let's go."

Michael laughs and mocks me. "Sure! We're gonna go rassle in the barn. Just like us boys do it in Nebraska before we ass-fuck each other!"

"Do you do things different in California?" I ask.

 "Yeah. We get a goddamn lawyer and we sue the fuck out of each other," Michael responds. "We go broke, but nobody gets hurt."

"That's not fun." I sit back down and shake my head.

"Goddamn superheroes get to be seventeen all their lives." Michael just snaps, a rant that even the booze can't explain. "Just once I'd like to see one of you mother fuckers grow up without killing yourself."

"What the hell's your problem?" I'm too drunk to keep the thought to myself. Even with tequila and Jagermeister dancing in my head like the fucking Cirque du Soleil, I'm beginning to piece together that some real bad shit happened to this guy. "You knew three other superheroes, and they all fucked up. What the hell happened to them? And what happened to you that you're taking this bullshit out on me?"

"Fuck you," Michael snaps. "You want to fight, let's do it." He removes his shirt, peeling it off slowly, unveiling a physique that's definitely built for display on Venice Beach. His chest alone has some serious acreage. We get out of our chairs and he gives my pectorals a playful double-handed shove. "You like to see guys who bare their chests and strut around like faggots? C'mon farmboy. Fuck me if you can."

Oddly, I don't want to fight him now. But he's not giving me a choice. He connects with a punch that's hard enough to break my nose, and the crack is like an opening bell.

He's a strong, the vicious little cunt, and his build is even bigger than mine. But I'm nearly ten years younger than he is, and I was a bronze medal at the Nebraska high school wrestling championships  --even before I got my powers. Putting it bluntly, I'm really fucking dangerous in a fight, powers or no powers. Scoping him out, I estimate that I have about a three-inch height and a twenty-pound weight advantage. That's enough to give me some confidence. We shove each other a bit, then lock up. There's a bit of a pushing contest, but I win it, I grab him in a headlock, toss him on the ground, and just press my weight into his chest. He's still struggling like a son of a bitch. Now I'm enjoying myself.

After two minutes, Michael manages to wriggle out of my grip -- I'm still fighting in normal mode -- and he gives me a couple more punches to the face. I bearhug him, muscle him down, and wrap his legs and arms in an inescapable pin. He struggles for another three minutes before he finally shouts "Okay asshole, I give up!"

"You going to tell me what's fucking bothering you?"

"Okay!"

I let go of my hold and get to my feet.

"Goddammit. I hate fucking superheroes," he says. We're both breathing hard.

"Nice fight," I say. "Now, you got a story for me? Talk to me, man."

I use my powers to heal my nose, waiting for Michael to compose himself. I put my hand on the fucking wide mound of muscle that he calls his shoulders, but he brushes it off. We stare at each other for a minute. Michael finally sits down. "Goddamn you, farmboy."

"Get it out. It might even be good for you."

"Now you're a fucking shrink." It takes a concerted effort for him to start his explanation, but I'm suddenly in the mood to be patient. He turns to walk away, but I corral him with a simple hand gesture. A few seconds of eye contact, and he's ready to open up.

"Every superhero I've known, we've gotten close," Michael begins. I think there are tears welling in those blue eyes; and if this is bullshit, he deserves a fucking Oscar.

"How close?" I ask. He doesn't answer me.

"The first one I knew was killed by the other side."

"By supervillains."

"I never call them that, except to the press." Michael shakes his head. "They're just assholes and fucking nutcases."

"That's what all the literature says."

"‘Villain' gives them a grandeur they don't deserve. Fucking animals. They killed him when he was asleep. They slashed his goddamn throat and they left his body in bed for me to find in the morning."

"That sucks." It was an incredibly callous thing for me to say, but you say that sort of shit when you're drunk. Complex thought becomes so fucking difficult.

"The second one got blackmailed by another one of these assholes, and committed suicide. I got to have the joy of watching her as she walked into a nuclear reactor. And as for the third well, I'd rather not talk about him right now. Someday, if I work up the guts, we'll pay him a visit."

"None of this is going to happen to me," I declare.

"You're a goddamn idiot." Michael's shaking his head. "When people put on the tights, bad fucking things happen to them. It's inevitable. The story of every superhero is the story of incredible amounts of shit happening to some poor son of a bitch and to the people who surround him. Nobody wins in this business."

"Well, I'm sorry your life's been such a shit-fest, Mikey." I reply. "But I'm going to beat it. And you're going to be watching me do it, ass-monkey."

I'd hoped to cheer him up -- fighting really was a bonding ritual for me. But he was just tired. "Fine. Now if you're finished torturing me and calling me an ass-monkey, do you mind if I get some sleep? I'll sleep here."

 "There are some spare blankets in the closet, and this hotel gives you way too many pillows." I say. There's a long pause. "You aren't mad at me, are you?"

Michael's eyes narrow. "You're a dork."

"Fuck you." I start to get to my feet and into a combat crouch.

Michael smiles. "No rematch tonight. Or ever. Goddammit, I think I was a little hasty calling you ‘Omega'. ‘Kid Testosterone' is a better fit for you."

"Kid?" I wonder aloud. "The testosterone part's cool though. It sure beats fucking ‘Omega.'"

"Shit!" Michael shouts. "You hate ‘Omega,' but you like ‘Testosterone?' You goddamn farmboys have no fucking taste."

"Fuck you!"

"Not tonight. I'm way too goddamn tired," Michael says. He picks up the phone, arranges for an eight o'clock wake-up call, then goes to bed with a blanket over his head. I'm still psyched, and still drunk, and even in my human form, it's virtually impossible to go to sleep (I can't sleep in my superhero form at all). Michael ignores my attempts to talk to him, and eventually I use my powers on myself to induce some shuteye.

In the morning, I fly Michael's Jag to his apartment -- he wasn't kidding about L.A.. traffic being a nightmare -- and then go out for breakfast while he showers and changes and then I fly him to Nike. Michael doesn't invite me into his flat -- in fact, he's not talking very much to me at all. When I confront him about his silence, I get a standard bullshit complaint about lack of sleep. He does seem to enjoy the flight.

So we arrive at Nike. It's my first day on the job -- except it isn't. The first thing that happens is that I get a long, frantic call from my agent; I had instructed the hotel not to forward my phone messages, and Chester Morgan, the Morgan part of ‘Morgan, Hoffstead, and Kline' had phoned me eight times yesterday. Apparently Frigia, whose parents named her ‘Michelle Bitch Law' but left out the most important part of her name, had a little chat with some of Nike's upper brass after our meeting. As a result, Nike's legal department found a way to institute a three week probation clause. They decided to redefine the ‘public relations duties' part of my contract. Unless I generate a favorable lead story on the local news, or appear (favorably) on the cover of the Los Angeles Times within three weeks, they can legally cancel my contract.

Fucking lawyers.

"Do you realize that you just flushed eight million a year down the goddamn toilet!" Chester was screaming with a New York accent that would have been more appropriate if his last name was Goldstein.

"It's alright Chester." I assure him, ignoring the impulse that was telling me to fly up to the CEO's office and shout ‘Fuck you!' in a superhuman voice guaranteed to shatter every window in his office. "I'm working on them. I'll be in their good graces before you can say ‘Nebraska sucks.'"

"You aren't a goddamn baseball player!" Chester snaps back. He had been a sports agent before branching into the superhero trade, so naturally everything tended to filter through this Arliss wannabee's brain in athletic terms. "Just because you're loaded with fucking talent doesn't mean you're going to succeed. You need to work with these fuckers. Work with the fuckers until you've convinced them that you shit golden shit!"

And people wonder where I picked up my swearing habit? (Actually, I never swore before I started hanging around locker rooms in junior high, but it's more fun to blame lawyers and sports agents than growing up in the Nebraska public education system.)

"Actually, I can shit golden shit," I say. The frightening thing is that I probably could shit golden shit if I really tried

"I don't need to hear about your sex life," Chester says with typical Los Angeles tact. "You stay at that place and you meet with people, and you make sure the entire building is kissing your ass by the end of the day."

"Right"

"Work them so hard that even if Michelle Law was the fucking president's daughter, she's still going to get a pink slip by the end of the day. Work them so hard that everyone will want to fuck you..."

"Sure, Chester." Chester has the really fucking annoying habit of issuing his commands, then rewording them and repeating them at least twenty times. And I'm not kidding or exaggerating. At least twenty.

"How's it going?" Michael whispers as he walks past me. He must be on his way to a meeting.

"My agent wants you to give me a fuck," I reply.

"Was last night close enough?" Michael deadpans. I shrug, and he nods and walks away.

I don't have any meetings with Nike executives; instead, I'm scheduled for police procedure orientation and a police tour of Los Angeles to familiar myself with major landmarks. They sit me down in a lecture hall with about twenty desks and wooden chairs that are too small for my frame; I can't imagine how some of the bigger and fatter of the donut patrol manage to fit in here. I'm the only one seated. Being the only student in a classroom is a surreal experience (I think I'm using ‘surreal' correctly, nobody in Nebraska uses that word for fear of public ridicule). It's like attending high school after the Bomb drops.

I did the police procedure bit to death back in Omaha, and when I do the "country boy" routine and ask about differences between Nebraska and California state law, I get a really annoyed ‘I don't give a fuck about your goddamn little-house-on-the-prairie state look.' Not that I care, but I knew that the donut boy wouldn't do his homework. I wonder who he pissed off to get this assignment.

I'm just waiting until we get to the part about excessive force. Sure enough, an hour and thirty-five minutes into the lecture, I start getting the list of atrocities committed by superheroes against innocent parties. I'm afraid the Black Martin disembowelment incident just doesn't sound quite as shocking the third time around. "What about Rodney King?" I ask.

"That's a perfect example of what not to do," the police liaison says. "Even though we were clearly in the right in trying to subdue a hostile suspect who just wouldn't go down, the perception was that we were a pack of brutal thugs who got our jollies from beating the crap out of a black man. A black man with a really long criminal record, I might add. And we paid for that perception in the court of public opinion. It's not enough to actually use the least amount of necessary force"

"Couldn't you guys just have gang tackled him?" I interrupt.

 He ignores me. "you have to be perceived as using the least amount of force. Even though our officers were found to be innocent in a court of law, the enemies of the system found a way around the double jeopardy law and they managed to screw four decent, hard-working officers And what they did to us, they could do to you."

High school was a whole lot fucking better the first time around.

I manage to answer their bullshit ‘pop quiz' to their satisfaction, though they don't show it. I'm now ready for Part II, the tour of downtown Los Angeles.

This is a lot more interesting. Officer Bob Shithead is glad-handing me and loading me into the passenger seat of his cop car, while Officer Big Fat N'Surly is sitting in the back seat trying not to look too bored.

The tour starts in West Hollywood, where I had already gotten my first sight of the gay billboards: pictures of young men trying to look like teenage boys so their products can appeal to pedophiles who want to have their nubile hairless beefcake and eat it too (and their dicks). It's a great way to tell me I'm not in Nebraska anymore.

After that, we pass through Beverly Hills. Big fucking mansions. The thing that strikes me, however, is how incredibly boring they all look. At least the mansions I can see that aren't hidden by overgrown hedges. They all look like overgrown suburban homes, and not the kind of neo-European splendor I'd expect from a place that's supposed to be America's Camelot by way of Monte Carlo.

"Pretty impressive, huh, kid?" Officer Bob tells me in the same voice that he uses to tell third graders to look both ways before crossing the street. "I'll bet you'd like to live in one of those."

"Well, it'd be a place to stay in before I build my secret headquarters in high earth orbit." I joke. He gives me a "What The Fuck" look, but a second later, I probably have the exact same expression on my face. It suddenly occurs to me that I probably could build a secret orbital headquarters if I really wanted it. Or a solitary fortress in some godforsaken arctic wilderness. Or my own private invisible island. What the hell isn't possible for me?

And then we're into Hollywood. If transition seems abrupt well, that's the way it was for me too. One moment, we're in a lush, irrigated paradise, then bam -- we're in the desert of Shittywood. Hollywood is dry and dusty, a desiccated corpse of a town, a few upscale movie theatres trying to hide between block after block of porn shops, video stores, and recording studios.

 Every window in this shithole is protected by a curtain of ugly steel bars, making it look like some sort of backward penitentiary town. It's shocking to see how close to Beverly Hills the poverty comes, just fucking shocking. There are a lot of blacks and Hispanics (actually, they call them Latinos here, given their ancestral hatred toward all things Spanish) lined up at bus stops, and I can't help but notice that their eyes are completely dead. The buses are slow and lumbering things that give off tons of fumes, like smokers trying to run a triathlon. They pretty much look dead on arrival. The streets are mostly empty.

"Shit," I say. "Is it always such a dust bowl here?"

"There are two seasons in Los Angeles," Officer Surly tells me. "The burning season, when everything dries up, and the Santa Ana season, when the wind blows and everything either catches on fire, or gets blown away to God knows where."

"What season is it?" I ask.

"Take a guess," Surly snaps in a ‘why are you fucking bothering me' voice.

Officer Bob interrupts us. "Look, it's the walk of fame! Maybe you'll get your own star one day, Omega!"

That's fucking wonderful, isn't it, boys and girls? Fortunately, I'm not drunk, so I don't antagonize Officer Shithead.

We then move into Los Angeles proper. The size of the office buildings impresses me, but the only big city I've ever really seen is Omaha, so perhaps I'm too easily impressed. The impression is shattered only a few blocks away from the offices, when we pass the Federal building and we get into the really shitty part of town. It's a blacks only club here, but these streets, which look like a cool urban wonderland in all those fucking rap videos, is really a gutter of poverty and misery: America crossed with Biafra by way of a white supremacist nightmare.

"Would you like to swing by some movie studios?" Officer Bob smiles, completely oblivious to the mass of fucked-up humanity I'm witnessing. Face after face without hope, faces for which the American dream is just a big fucking joke. These guys are never going to make it. They're never going to get out. They're fucked, and they know it, and anyone who gives a shit about them isn't going to be able to do a fucking thing to help them, because they don't even know how to be helped anymore.

"God," I mutter.

"You know what they call people who look at these guys from a safe distance?" Officer Surly says. "Liberals. And you know what they call people who actually have to encounter these guys on a daily basis? Conservatives."

"I think I've seen enough for today," I say. "We'll go over patrol routes tomorrow."

"I'm afraid we're booked for the next three days," Officer Bob says. "We won't be available until Thursday"

"Fine. We'll do it Thursday," I decide. "Just get me back to Nike. Now."

Officer Surly busts a gut laughing. Asshole.

Nike really doesn't know what to do with me, so they tell me to be a good little superhero and go out and do superhero things. And don't shit on the costume. Fuck them. Maybe I should pay a visit to Converse.

"Hey Michael," I place a call to the one person who's at least pretended to have been my friend. "Can we get together this evening? Around seven?"

"Not tonight, farmboy," Michael says. "I have other plans. You're on your own this evening. How about lunch tomorrow?"

"Are you sure you can spare the fucking time in your fucking busy schedule?" I snarl.

"You don't own my life." Michael says, hanging up the phone. As soon as the click registers, I redial, and then redial again. All I get is a fucking answering machine. Shit. I can't believe how whiny I sound. I hope I didn't fucking blow the one thing that resembled a friendship with someone in this town. What the fuck happened to Tommy Champion, the guy who owned the universe? Now I'm just Omega, and I don't even know who the fuck he is.

I guess it's time to find out. I fly back to my apartment and put on the tights. I examine myself in the mirror. The costume's sleekly designed and makes me look a little skinny, so I adjust my bulk and add some show muscle. That makes me so big that even I can see that it looks ridiculous, so I lose it. I'll just have to make my way to a good gym and see if I can build it up the natural way. I never was into the steroid scene, except for a few months back in tenth grade, and that's a time I'd rather not talk about or remember.

And then I open my balcony window, and I try to imagine the right theme music for Omega's entrance into the world. Nothing comes to mind. Fuck it. I just fly. I glide in a spiral around the hotel, getting my bearings (I'm told every flying superhero has an ‘I got lost' story to tell), and then I head north.

Los Angeles looks friendlier when you rise above it, and all the shitty detail isn't visible. I'm feeling a hot breeze, so I gain some additional altitude, and I take off my tights, tying them like a big red and yellow scarf around my neck. Just like I did back in Nebraska; flying in the buff is a real rush. It's even better when you know some traffic reporter chick in a helicopter could be watching you and creaming her jeans thinking about your body.

But there are no helicopters in sight, so with a thought, I'm in costume again. I fly above the streets, overtaking the traffic at a leisurely cruising speed. When I push myself, I clock at two-third the speed of sound, about 450 mph. I like to cruise around 60, pushing to 120 when I'm bored. Unless I see a plane -- I can't stand anything faster than me in the sky. But I'm not addicted to speed.

Now that I'm airborne and actually pretending to do my job, I get down to business. I'm no detective, and my knowledge about how to go about collecting evidence is limited to detective shows and a few boring police seminars. But I can sense shit as it's happening. Usually it's my own shit, screaming at me not to fuck up my life. And other times, it's minor shit, shit that's so unimportant that if I stop to consider all of it I'd become such a neurotic git that I'd probably fly into the sun just to end it all. But just as I told the fuck who OD'd on me, there's some shit that's just impossible to ignore.

The first piece of shit I have to clean up involves a woman in her mid-30s, a street person whose walking along one of Hollywood side streets, drunk or stoned or whatever. I get to watch her as she staggers out in front of a bus. I swoop down out of the sky (swoop is such a fucking dorky word, isn't it?), and grab her and push her out of the way of certain death. This knocks the wind out of her. It also causes the bus driver to slam on his breaks, and he gets lightly rear-ended by an SUV that's riding too close to his tail. Nobody is hurt -- I can tell because the bumpers aren't even creased, although the bus driver stops and cusses me out.

I wait for the police to arrive, give them a statement, and leave. The woman, a plain Latino with a worn face and a sagging belly, is more completely stoned than anyone I've ever met in my life -- she has no idea who I am or what I've done. Instead of thanking me for saving her from getting hit by a bus, she fucking gropes my ass.

"Congratulations," the Officer on the Scene is laughing his fucking balls off. "You just saved the life of your first hooker. And what a hooker she is."

"L.A.'s fucking finest." I growl, and I go skyward again.

The second piece of shit I encounter is preceded by a loud crack of two cars crunching against each other. I've arrived too late to prevent the collision, and haven't a clue how it started. But I do get to witness the argument.

In one corner, there's a big black guy, in his late 20s, wearing a silk dress shirt. He was driving a Lexus. In the other corner, there's a slightly balding and overweight white guy, early 30s, in a tank top who was driving a beat up Acura. Despite a large scattering of broken windshield and pieces of fiberglass, it looks like there were no serious injuries. The smaller white guy looks like he wants a fight, but the black guy is fending him off and inspecting his vehicle -- he's more worried about the damage to his Lexus. He looks more like a businessman than a pimp, which was my first guess. Too much goddamn television, it's making me think the worst of people.

"Who the fuck are you?" Tank Top Man spits as I land.

"I'm Omega," I state. "What's the problem?"

"You with the police?" Mr. Silk asks.

"I'm cooperating with them," I bullshit. "Again, what's the problem?"

"This man has no insurance," Silk says. "He shouldn't even be on the road."

"Who the fuck asked you to come out of the sky and stick your fucking nose in my business, you costumed Nazi fuck?" Tank Top screams at me, and he gets in my breathing space.

And here I thought Los Angeles was supposed to be a mellow town. I hate to imagine what New York's like.

"Let's wait until the police arrive," I suggest. "And for Christ's sake, calm down!"

"I have a pitch session in twenty minutes," Mr. Silk protests. "Do you know how hard it is for a black producer to green-light a series in this town? I can't afford to miss this meeting!"

"And you were so busy trying to make it to your goddamn pitch session on time that you swerved into my fucking lane."

"You came out of nowhere! You had to be doing at least twice the speed limit."

"That's bullshit!" Tank Top protests. "You're a fucking bullshit artist!"

"Uh, do we have any witnesses?" I ask. I look around, to a chorus of vacant expressions. Although there are plenty of gawkers, no one has the balls to admit that they actually happened to be on the scene at the time of the accident. When the police car swings by, I don't even stick around to answer their questions.

Right about now, I can't wait to rescue a cat out of a fucking tree.

The city blocks seem endless; I'm a rat trying to navigate a microprocessor circuit. I was told that a Thomas Guide to Los Angeles was absolutely essential to surviving here; I suppose I could always shrink it down to microscopic size and then use my powers to project maps in front of my face to help me navigate this hellhole.

That's when I hear an ambulance, about a half-mile to the north, sirens blaring. At least it sounds like an ambulance. I track it, and follow it, hoping to provide assistance. It'd be nice if something went right for me in this town today.

The ambulance stops in front of a run-down apartment building, and a couple of paramedics dismount with a run, grab a gurney, and storm into the building. I land and follow.

"Can I help?" I ask. It's no big sweat to follow them in.

"Who the hell are you?" one asks, still walking.

"Omega."

"Do you have any medical powers?" the medic asks. To his surprise, I nod.

"Can you stabilize a stroke victim with a touch?" he asks.

"I've never tried. Do you want to risk it?"

"The hospital will kill us," the other medic says. "Unlicensed superhuman practitioner."

The lead medic shakes his head. "They also say ‘do no harm'. Screw them. If you can help, fine."

They make their way to Room 152. The door's already open. An old woman is crying over an old man's body; she's checking his pulse. The two medics crouch, take over the operation, and start shouting at each other in a jargon that would make an ER actor wince. About all I can tell is that he's still alive, and the situation is critical.

"Can you bring up his blood pressure?" the medic shouts at me.

I do my best to oblige him. I have to concentrate hard, but not too hard If I knew exactly what was happening, I could probably treat the entire stroke, but without a lot of medical knowledge, performing a complex operation like that is way too risky. There are some things even I can't really get away with.

"Ease off! Ease off!" the medic shouts at me. "Keep lowering it there!" he shouts as I get the blood pressure just right.

"His pulse is starting to get back in the ballpark," the other medic says.

"He's diabetic," the old woman informs us. "He's had some dizzy spells for the last three days. I kept telling him to take his aspirin and see Dr. Carter, but but"

Her memories are a little muddled, and she's starting to break down. I concentrate, and use my powers to give her a perfect memory of what had happened during the man's collapse, and to keep her calm as she tells the story. The chief medic, realizing what I'm doing, shoves me and pushes me aside for a quick chat.

"Never, ever, use telepathy on the elderly," he snaps. "Aside from the psychological trauma, their synapses can't take it. It can cause serious brain damage."

"Sure. But I was trying to"

But my colleague is not interested in excuses -- he's already back at work on the patient, and asks me to help stabilize his blood pressure again. After several minutes, the old man's stabilized, loaded on a gurney and prepped for transport back to the hospital.

"I can fly the ambulance directly to the hospital." I say. The medics nod together in approval. "Can I mind link with you so I can get the directions out of your head?"

"Sure." The chief medic says. There's hesitation in the voice, but I don't wait - I'm immediately walking inside his skull, talking to him. I pick everyone off the ground, including the gurney and the old woman (she's the man's sister), and fly them inside the ambulance and seal the doors. I lift the ambulance like a Harrier, and we take off. I remain outside the vehicle to keep it stable -- I can't treat this like Frigia's limo. We're in an emergency flight back to Midway Hospital Medical Center, a twenty-five minute drive that I hope to cut down to three minutes. One medic is on his cell phone, making sure the hospital's ready. The other medic is checking the patient's condition and trying to provide comfort for his sister.

"The Lord's on your side," he tells her. "I think he sent us an angel."

A Della Reese gig was the last thing I imagined myself doing, but after the shitty day I've had, I'm pretty much ready to accept any compliment. Frankly, after the day I've had, I'm expecting him to die at any moment, just to be goddamn ironic.

About a minute into the flight, the man's blood pressure drops again, almost to the level where it was when we first found him. I have to slow down and concentrate to adjust the blood pressure from a distance. It takes a little while, but I manage to help stabilize him again.

We arrive at Midway Hospital, not far from Century City. I made it in seven minutes. They quickly wheel the patient out. "Stick around!" the chief medic orders me.

I spend the next few minutes cooling my heels outside the ambulance area. I listen to some of the conversations inside the hospital, but nothing's really interesting me. There are crying kids in the pediatrics ward that annoy the hell out of me, so I turn off the antennae.

Then it occurs to me that if I stay here, I'm either going to be branded a pariah for interfering in a medical case without a license, or (worse) I'll get drafted so that everyone is going to use me as a cheap medical tool for the rest of my life. I like helping people, but this isn't what I signed up for. I'd rather get dissected than become enslaved for the betterment of the California HMO system. So I fly away.

It'd have been nice to know if the old man managed to make it out alive, though.

I return to the hotel and I wonder what the hell my next move is going to be. One day down, twenty days to go, and then Frigia and her Nike bitch patrol will kick my bubble ass out of this toilet. Fuck ‘em all. I turn on the tube, and watch anchormen with perfect hair recite their usual babble. There's a some piece of cheesecake named Knock-out who's doing a Xena-number of New York's bank robbing community, who comes across as nervous but likeable. There's a doom and gloom story on the disintegrating relations between the United States and the Central American nation of Santa Domingofuck. And apparently there's some scientist over at USC who's been murdered by a particularly nasty fuckhead who used some kind of experimental energy weapon. Funny, I hadn't sensed that particular shit when it was going down. They babble on for a bit about mad scientists and high-tech terrorism, which is making a serious bid to become Public Fucking Enemy Number One, at least for as long as it sells newspapers.

There's so much shit in the world. And I only have two big fucking fists to hit it with. I consider giving Michael another call, but that'd make me look real pathetic. I'll see if he actually wants to keep the lunch date, take a shower, go normal, and hit the bed.

Twenty fucking days to go. Maybe Nebraska isn't so shitty after all.

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