Brass Ring Interlude 2: The Shield Splinters

The press had assembled en masse outside a small suburban home. Retired Air Force Major Colt Johnston peeked out the windows; the day he had always feared had finally arrived. Outside in the street outside his home was one of the few forces that he knew he could never defeat.

He had just received a text just before the first calls came. The text was from Telemachus: The files have been released.

The calls quickly became a flood. Within the hour, the press had camped out in front of his home. He sighed; sure, he had been dealing with a divorce, the death of his assigned sidekick, and the lack of popular support for the war, but that was no excuse for what he did.

He looked at his medals; a fourth of them were thanks to his taking out villages with names he couldn’t pronounce that had been hidden behind a top-secret clearance.

He still heard the screams of the dead in his sleep. There was only a single car in the garage because he would bolt upright, fully awake, sometimes screaming.

His anger at his first divorce and the death of Athenian, his only sidekick, was all that had driven him. His need to kill, to damage something, had been taken full advantage of by the brass of that era. Mistakes had been made.

He smiled at the glass he was drinking. When he had finally come out of the drunken haze he had been in for most of the war and sworn to sobriety, he realized what he had done.

His actions since then were penance for what he had done then. He would now never make up for what he had done, as if he could ever do that. He kept the alcohol for the company that came over constantly, both the fellow vets and his current teammates; this was his first drink since 1975.

Despite the challenges from others, the hardships he had gone through, or the times he had celebrated, he had never even been tempted. Yet here he was, hoping the amber liquid inside the glass would help him here.

He put his costume and shield away for the last time, hiding them behind the closet door. He emailed the local FBI agency, knowing that they would quickly put together a team that would deal with the investigation of his death.

He had included instructions on how to safely engage the various trapdoors and hidden caches in the home; someone would need to take up his mantle and that person deserved to have all that belonged to the title.

The world was rough and the next to carry the shield needed every tool Johnston could give him.

He kept only one item from the cache: his service revolver, a Colt M1903 that he had carried as a last resort.

There had been plenty of last resorts. He took a final look outside the window, then sat down in his recliner. He sighed one last time, and then did what he felt was necessary to be true to the memories of those who had served with him.

He allowed himself one last smile: He was about to do what The Green Mask, Lord Kano, and Madoc the Jumper had never accomplished.

When the FBI appeared just an hour later, the press stood up. When an agent gathered the press, they surrounded him to listen to his practiced statement: “Something tragic has happened but we are unable to comment on it since it is part of an ongoing investigation.” He promised them more information, then joined his fellow agents, who were already inside.

Agent Delacroix looked upwards. I hope Telemachus knew what he was doing. He disappeared inside the home of deceased Air Force Major Colt Johnston, the former Major Republica.

[The last story can be found here. The next story can be found here.]