Ultimate Disaster #1

Paul Booker’s eyes opened for the first time in a year. An alarm sounded as he pulled himself into an upright position. His head felt like a nuclear explosion had been set off inside of it. He swung his legs over the edge of the bed and let them hang there for a while. The weight of them suspended off the ground felt foreign to him. Booker looked around the room for a doctor or nurse or anybody else.

The alarm stopped beeping as the door to his room swung open. A man wearing a smartly tailored suit sauntered into the room. He motioned for someone else behind him to stop. Lord’s hair was thinning, but still covered his head.

“Hello Mr. Booker, My name is Maxwell Lord. How are you doing this morning?”

“Where the hell am I?” Booker responded ignoring the sickeningly cheery tone in Lord’s voice.

“Ah straight to the point. I like that about you Paul. You are in a secure A.R.G.U.S. facility.”

“What the fuck is ARGUS? “

“I forget you did miss a lot. A.R.G.U.S. stands for Advanced Research Group Uniting Super-Humans. We are the United States government’s response to the rapidly growing metahuman population. I have to ask what is going to seem like a strange question, but it is an important one.”

“Go ahead and shoot.”

“What’s the last thing you remember before waking up today?” Lord asked the muscles in his neck tensed as he waited for the reply.

“I remember being in Midway and I was doing a heist with some Z-listers and things went south, but I really don’t remember how.”

“Well in Midway, your heist was interrupted by the United States government’s first attempt at creating the superhuman soldier of the future, Major Force. The experiments they performed on him gave him the power of an atomic bomb. Unfortunately, it also drove him completely insane.”

“Sounds about right for our government.”

“Major Force went nuclear in O’ Heir Square. Your running mates got out of dodge, but you stood and absorbed the entire blast. Not a speck of radiation reached the ground in Midway. Thanks to you
millions of lives were saved.”

“So you are the guy they sent to pin a medal on me?”

“No. I am here to give you some traumatic news. When you absorbed that blast in Midway you died. Your body exploded as you flew into the mesosphere. You were missing for eight months before your body turned up in New Hampshire.”

Lord paused giving Paul a second to absorb the information that was being given to him.

“You’ve spent the last four months in a coma here at ARGUS. Our scientist have no idea how you were able to survive this event. We’ve only been able to hypothesize that it has something to do with your powers.”

“So I’ve been” Booker paused as his words turned into dry heaves.

“Yes, for the last year you have been ‘dead’. We know this is a traumatic situation and ARGUS wants to give you all the support that you need to cope and get through this.”

“How do I know this isn’t some kind of sick, twisted mind game? For all I know you’re lying to me and trying to reprogram my brain.”

Maxwell Lord crossed the room and grabbed a hand mirror. He held it up to Booker showing him his reflection. Booker didn’t recognize the man that stared back at him from the mirror. His black, hair was long and shaggy and he had a grizzly beard. Booker sobbed as he looked at his reflection.

“An entire year?”

“One year, five days and twelve hours.”

One Month Later

Paul Booker looked in the mirror. The face looking back at him was much more recognizable then the one he had awoken to a month ago. He had his familiar and comfortable undercut hairstyle and the beard was all gone. It had been a long month of physical therapy and therapy sessions, but he had finally been given the okay to be released. He pulled himself away from the mirror and made his way towards the cafeteria.

“Good Morning, Paul!” Maxwell Lord said in his normal over-the-top used car salesman voice.

“Up yours.” He replied as he poured himself a cup of coffee.

“Nice to see you are in good spirits this morning. I figured you would be excited to see the apartment we are setting you up with and meeting your new roommate.”

“Yes as a thirty two year old man I am overjoyed to have a roommate. The only thing that makes me giddier is the fact I will finally be rid of you.”

“You won’t be getting away from me that easily. You are still a super villain in recovery. I’ll be functioning as your parole officer.”
“Shoot me now.”

“Trust me it won’t be that bad. I feel like we’ve almost became friends in the last month.”

“Yeah, ‘friends’. “

“Paul, I would like to introduce you to your new roommate, Larry Crock.”

“That’s Lawrence.” Larry replied extending his hand to his new roommate. Recognition washed over Paul Booker as he saw Lawrence’s face.

“Sportsmaster?!” Booker shouted as he sent a hailstone the size of a basketball hurtling at Larry.

Crock lunged out of the way of the hailstone which missed his head by centimeters. Crock grabbed a coaster from the coffee table and flung it towards Booker who sent it flying across the room with a gust of wind.

“Disaster? You died in Midway.” Crock shouted diving into the kitchen barely avoiding a lightning strike that came out of the ceiling.

“Yeah I died, but I got better.” Booker quipped as an earthquake split the kitchen hutch in half leaving Crock exposed.

Disaster made boulders fall from the sky to deflect the slew of knives Crock threw at him.

“What was I supposed to hit some exploding golf balls at the guy?”

“I should’ve left you to rot in the state pen, Larry.” Disaster replied as snow began to fall in the apartment.

“He was a walking, talking nuclear bomb, Paulie. I throw poisonous Frisbees and toss heat-seeking baseballs. What was I going to do against that?” Sportsmaster shouted as he slung plates across the living room.

“ENOUGH!!!” Maxwell Lord shouted as the fight entered a lull. Lord pushed down on the cuff link on his right wrist. Booker and Crock both dropped to their knees holding their ears. When he felt both were adequately subdued he pressed the left cuff link.

“That gentlemen is a sonic emitter, one of ARGUS’ latest developments, and if you two cannot agree to be friends then I will use it again.

“Alright.” The feuding duo replied in unison.

“Well while the two of you bond over old memories; I am going to find a new apartment for the two of you.” Lord said before he walked out the door.

“That guy is such an asshole.”
“He sure as hell is. You want a beer?” Crock asked as he walked into the danger zone that was the kitchen.

“Haven’t you heard I’ve been dead for a year? Of course I want a beer.”


“Let me repeat myself again. Just in case I was not clear. I am not doing another fucking test until I see my family. Did you understand that time you moron?” The walls of the lab rattled as Booker yelled at Maxwell Lord.

“Paul, I understand why you feel the way you do, but it’s not something you want to rush into. You’ve been missing for over a year; not to mention you weren’t really there before that as much as you should’ve been.”

“I may not have always been there for Kelly, but I have been for Morgan.” Booker stated defiantly.

“I understand that Paul, but your daughter is twelve. Her dad just walking in the door after being gone for a whole year is going to be difficult for her. We need to approach this the right way. Can you agree to that?”

“Yeah I guess.”

“Good. I have a meeting to sit down with Kelly this afternoon and discuss some matters with her involving your “death”. At the meeting I will inform her that rumors of your demise were greatly exaggerated.”

“If, and only if, she is comfortable with it we will bring you in. Then the three of us will figure out the best way to tell Morgan. This is something that will have lasting ramifications on your daughter so we need to handle things as delicately as possible.” Lord drawled on beating the dead horse that was his point.

“You know she isn’t going to be happy about this right?”


“Are you kidding me? Is this supposed to be a joke? It’s been an entire year!” Kelly Booker screeched; her blonde bangs fell down into her face as her blue eyes watered. Her petite frame quivered as she processed the information Maxwell Lord had just given to her.

“I know this is a lot to take in, but it’s something that needs to be addressed sooner rather than later.” Lord replied.

“Morgan and I have moved on. It’s been hard, but we’ve moved on. We got out of Midway and relocated here to Coast City to get away from the memories. The two of us have started over and are better off without him.” Kelly replied.

Paul Booker had heard enough from just outside the front door.
“To hell with your ‘plan’, Max.” Paul shouted as he entered the small two bedroom apartment.

“This is not what we discussed, Paul. I said I would let you know when to come in.”

“Paul? It’s really you isn’t it.”

“Yeah, it’s me. I’m back.”

Booker couldn’t decipher the look on his wife’s face. He’d always been able to read her like a book from their first date till the day he died. Today was different though.

“Max, can I please have a moment alone with my wife.”

Lord hesitated, momentarily caught off-guard by the request, but finally relented.

“Did you miss me?”

Kelly paused. Her facial muscles tensed as she tried to mask her lie.

“Of course I did.”

“What?” Paul asked.

“Nothing. I missed you.”

“That’s even worse. I know you don’t mean that. You never could lie to me.” Paul laughed to himself. The silence between husband and wife clung to the air before Paul continued.

“Come on, we’ve always been able to talk to each other even when things weren’t going good. Tell me what’s wrong? “

“I don’t want to do this. There is going to be nothing good that happens if this conversation continues. I think you and me both know that.”

“I don’t want to have this conversation either, but we’ve got to do it. It’s probably going to hurt me like hell, but I deserve it.”

“You are a part time dad and you’ve never given her a whole family. You were here for the whole first year and ever since it’s been spurts here and there, but as soon as something else popped up you were gone. Morgan’s twelve and in those twelve years you’ve spent maybe three whole years in her life. You always pop in on holidays, birthdays and all the milestones in her life, but then you vanish from her day to day life.”

Kelly stopped to compose herself. The words she’d said so many times in her head were finally finding their place in the universe. She could feel the years of suppressed emotional baggage lifting off of her shoulders.

“Three years out of twelve. And she still loves you with all of her heart. And that makes me even angrier. Because our daughter deserves so much more from her father. She deserves to have someone in her life that loves her as much as she loves you.”

“I do love her with all my heart.” Paul choked out as Kelly paused.

“And you can say that till you are blue in the face. That doesn’t make it true. She doesn’t get the five years you did in prison back because you love her when it’s convenient. She deserves to have you there for her every single day of her life and you’ve failed her. Till your actions reflect your words don’t bother repeating them.”

“I’ve sacrificed everything I was for the two of you.”

“You don’t get to blame that on us. We were fine just having you, but the three of us being together was never enough for you. You decided the only way for us to ‘make it’ was for you to become a criminal. You brother offered to fast track you to foreman with his company, but that wasn’t good enough.” Kelly said as tears began to fall down her cheeks.

“Do you feel better now? “

“Better? You think that was supposed to make me feel better? I feel miserable after that. But you needed to hear that because what I just told you was the reality of our situation. I need you to know this is the last chance you have to erase the decade of emotional scars you’ve given your daughter. I know you for what you are Paul and now our daughter is going to see through your façade too.

“But I really hope you prove me wrong. I hope you’ve changed. For Morgan’s sake I hope you are ready to be the father she deserves. Be here Friday at four.”

Paul regained his bearings after being broke down by the love of his life. “Sounds good. I’ll see you Friday.”