Chapter 4

It was much later in the day, around five pm, and Rick was on the floor of his living room, piecing together a set of lego blocks into what vaguely- very vaguely, resembled the intersection where Ram met the Ultimate man. Sitting across from Rick on the floor was a healthy looking young man with a sloppy hair cut and rather thick glasses. The young man looked down at this set skeptically.
"Okay, Rod- pretend this is the Bronson Building here," Rick told him. Rick picked up a space man lego figure he’d given a plastic cape. "Now, Ultimate flew across the front windows of the building, when-" Rick demonstrated by throwing the small figure against the flimsy looking structure. "He’s hit by some invisible force."
Rod looked down at the now broken figurine, "So Ultimate hit a building and snapped in half?"
Rick gave him a stern look before continuing. "Okay, so this what we’ve got- an unseen hostile hit one of the most powerful men on earth with an unseen projectile and actually did him harm." Rick held up his forefinger. "But! Despite doing this- they don’t press their attack. Ultimate is able to call for his support people, and they take him away safely." Rick shrugged his shoulder, more to get his point across. "So what was the point? What was gained here?"
Rod blinked, genuinely taken aback. "You’re asking ME?"
Rick pushed the legos buildings aside and leaned forward. "Look Rod, what did I tell you the day I had you impersonate me as the Ram? You’re a part of this, now. And I need your help with this one."
"Oh, well, that’s cool I guess-" Rod rubbed the back of his neck and grinned nervously. "It’s just, you know, we haven’t really hung out in a month or so, I just figured you were giving me the brush off."
"I’ve been... busy is all." Rick answered uneasily.
OKAY, SO MAYBE I WAS HOPING FOR AWHILE HE’D JUST FORGET ABOUT EVERYTHING
"The thing is, Rod... I don’t know much of anything about superheroes. I’m not really in their world," Rick reached down and pieced the Ultimate man lego figure back together. "You seem to be something of a fanatic, someone who may understand how things work with them better than I do."
"Well..." Rod looked down, thoughtfully. "If it wasn’t obvious WHO attacked Ultimate, and you didn’t see the source of the attack... I don’t think it’d be a supervillain. I mean, a supracriminal." Rod corrected himself. "People like Dr Dimensia, or The Human Meteor, they want credit for the havoc they wreak. This was somebody who wanted to stay anonymous."
"But then why?" Rick asked, waving his free hand a bit. "Was their intent really to hurt Ultimate, kill him even, and they failed in that?"
"Okay," a familiar voice called out from the kitchen, both Rick and Rod looked over to see Jamie lazily leaning in the archway, holding a soda. "What in the hell is this?"
"We’re conferencing," Rod said with all the confidence he could muster.
Jamie looked down at the colorful, plastic block assortment. "Where?" he asked. "Legoland?"
Jamie sat himself down on the couch, throwing down a bit of the soda he held. "Don’t take it the wrong way, Rod, but make tracks for awhile. Ma and I need to talk."
"All right, cool," Rod put his hands in his pockets and shuffled off in a bit of a defeated manner.
Rick looked over at Jamie with a great deal of irritation. "Jamie, Rod and I were discussing something very serious."
"Oh yeah, cause- you know, it LOOKS serious." Jamie remarked, swinging his right leg out and kicking over the lego set.
"That wasn’t necessary," Rick remarked.
"Necessary nothing, man," Jamie put his elbows on his knees and looked at Rick intently. "What in the hell are you doing?"
"What am I doing? I’m looking into a potentially volatile situation- what happened today-"
"Ariel dumped you, man," Jamie told him flatly. "You know who I heard that from? The guy who borrowed my History notes three weeks ago and finally returned them today. Apparently, you were too busy creating a diorama from toys you haven’t played with in eight years to fill me in on that."
Rick looked down at the floor, his face becoming blank. "I... it... this came up, and-"
"And maybe you were really damn eager to bury yourself in something "The Ram" COULD deal with instead of something Rick Maine COULDN’T," Jamie told him without blinking.
Rick stared forward, and they were both silent for a very long stretch of time. Jamie then slowly stood up and set his soda can on the coffee table. He reached down and pulled Rick to his feet. "Come on, man. I know a place that doesn’t card people- let’s get some beers."
"Yeah," Rick said, suddenly feeling a lot less involved in the most recent event of the day. "Right now, I think I’d like that."