The Temporary Hero

by Nick Svolos

  “I-I don’t know!” she sobbed. “She was in her room and the alarms went off and she wasn’t there and the elevator won’t work and—” The terrified mother continued, growing more agitated as she went back to mashing the elevator button.

  I heard Herculene bound past us, on her way to Patty. Through the comms, her calm voice ordered, “Keep her there, Archangel. She’s in no condition to help.” The AI confirmed her compliance with the warrior goddess’ orders.

  “How’s the stasis field working?” I asked as I ran to the bedroom. The kid had been doing so well. Something had to have triggered this episode. I prayed we’d figure it out in time.

  “She’s descending at a rate of two inches per second. I don’t think I can increase the power anymore without risking damage to her.” The computer sounded frustrated. “I lack the necessary data to calibrate the field properly.”

  I tried to keep my voice calm as I searched the bed. Patty’s clothing sat on top of the bed, left behind as she phased through it. It reminded me of a chalk outline. “Keep at it, Archangel, you’re doing great.”

  Finally, I found something. Patty’s smartphone. She’d been texting someone—somebody named Kyle. While Herculene’s voice came over the communicator, trying to talk sense to Patty, I started to read.

  Ah, hell. Seriously?

  I dropped the phone on the bed and trotted back to the stairwell. “Herc? I found out what this is about. Her boyfriend just broke up with her.”

  In my ear, Herculene muttered something unladylike and quite a bit saltier than her usual cursing fare.

  “Thanks, Cap. I need you on the next floor down in case I can’t get through to her.”

  “I’m on it.” I started down the stairwell to Suave’s quarters while Herculene tried to explain how this guy wasn’t worth it. This will get better. There’s other fish in the sea. All the things you tell a lovelorn teen when something like this happens.

  And, as with teenagers since the dawn of time, that tactic wasn’t working.

  Standing in Suave’s bedroom, I saw Patty’s foot start to phase through the ceiling. I pulled my phone out of my utility belt and dialed a number I’d gotten from the Noblesse Oblige press office. “Make it quick, mate. Got somethin’ of a situation ‘ere.” Greyshade’s voice was whispered and tense, and I could just make out sirens in the background. They sounded like French cop cars. Ernie, ernie.

  “Sorry, man. Patty’s boyfriend sent her a ‘Dear Jane’ text, and now she’s phasing through the floor. Tell me what to do.”

  I’ll say this for the British. Nobody curses quite the way they do.

  “Get ‘er mind on somethin’ else, gov,” he finally told me. “Tell ‘er a joke. Put on a funny hat. Somethin’ outrageous and silly. ‘Off the wall,’ as you Yanks say. Snap ‘er out of it.” Something crashed on his end of the conversation, followed by a bellow that sounded like a cross between an eagle’s cry and a roaring elephant. “Sorry, mate. They’re playin’ my song. Cheers!” and the line went dead.

  Great. Thinking dark thoughts about what I’d do to “Kyle” if I ever made it out to Idaho, I looked up. Patty was about half-way through the floor now, legs kicking feverishly. She was naked, of course, and I blushed, seeing quite a bit more teenage-girl flesh than a man my age should. I spun, focusing my thoughts on finding something “silly.”

  “She’s coming through, Cap. I couldn’t stop her.” Herculene sounded like she was on the verge of panic herself.

  “Let her through. We don’t know what happens if she comes back while she’s got a floor in her ribcage.”

  Patty was almost completely through now. Every Monty Python sketch I’ve ever seen flashed before my eyes, but I couldn’t find any props to make them work. I’d have traded my left arm for a dead parrot right about then.

  I gave up on the plan. Probably couldn’t have made it work anyway. I couldn’t do a decent British accent to save my life. Besides, the teenage girls I knew in my day didn’t get Monty Python, and for all I knew, this year’s crop didn’t have any better taste.

  Patty’s terrified screams filled the room as her head came through. The air hummed with static electricity, and what little hair I had began to tingle as the field got closer.

  I was out of time. I’d have to find my own solution.

  “Patty, listen to me. Tell me what you’re feeling right now.”

  She didn’t answer. All she did was scream and cry. The most she could manage was a few incoherent words in between outraged shrieks and terrified moans.

  It wasn’t working, but I kept trying, keeping my voice steady while I looked for inspiration in the clutter of Suave’s bedroom. Tangled sheets on the unmade bed. Clothes on the floor, not all of them his. In desperation, I grabbed a paperback book off the nightstand and opened it to a random page.

  In a booming voice, I read from the text like a preacher at an old-timey revival rally. “Julia’s hands trembled as she unbuttoned her blouse. Straddling the pirate captain in the rocking stateroom, she could feel his need growing beneath her.”

  Christ, what the hell was I reading? I glanced at the cover. The hairless torso of a male model holding a cutlass in one hand and a flintlock pistol in the other took up most of the front, while a three-masted sailing ship burned in the background. Emblazoned across the cover was the title, Captain Lust.

  Freakin’ Suave….

  “Keep at it, Cap,” Herculene whispered, “It’s working.”

  So, God help me, I read the account of Julia’s tryst with her buccaneer lover in all its R-rated detail and glory. I’ll spare you the blow-by-blow-me-down. Let’s just say, the author had a few curious notions about human anatomy, or maybe Captain Ezekiel Lust had some superpowers of his own.

  After a few paragraphs, Herculene was laughing so hard she was in tears. After a line or two more, Patty joined in with embarrassed teenage girl-giggles and she floated, corporeal at last, in Archangel’s stasis field in the middle of the room.

  Herc grabbed a blanket off the bed and wrapped Patty up to save her any further humiliation. I tossed the life-saving romance novel back on the nightstand and beat a hasty retreat to the living room where I found several confused security guards milling about, looking uncomfortable at what they’d just heard.

  Great. By this time tomorrow, the tale of how I preached soft-core porn to a naked teenage girl would be all over the Tower.

  And people ask me why I drink.

  ***

  Lord Moleman cackled with glee as he towered over his captives.

  “Struggle all you like, Thunderboy,” he laughed. “Not even your vaunted might can break those Subterrainium bonds!” The villain sauntered over to the control panel. “Soon, my molemen will launch their invasion. Within minutes, the very bedrock of Sparkle City will be undermined by my subterrobots. Your city will crumble into dust. My warriors will emerge from the earth and enslave the pathetic surface dwellers.” The madman threw back his head and laughed triumphantly. “At last, the surface world will be mine!”

  “You twisted fiend!” the young hero cried as he struggled in vain to free himself. “You’ll never get away with this!”

  “Ah, but I already have. With you and your valiant compatriot in my clutches, there is nobody left to stop me. And now, all I need do is push you both into the Pool of Suffering to forever banish you to the demon realm where you will suffer the torments of the darned!” The misshapen madman advanced upon the pair, menace in his eyes.

  Princess Sparkle grinned. “There’s one thing you don’t know, Lord Moleman.”

  “Impossible! My genius is unparalleled! Nothing has been left to chance!”

  “That’s where you’re wrong.” She smiled triumphantly. “I don’t need my hands for my wish powers. I wish these shackles were made of cardboard!”

  In an instant, the young defenders of Sparkle City broke free of their bonds. Thunderboy rolled to one side of the villain’s advance. He thrust his arms forward, unleashing a wave of tectonic
force that drove the subterranean menace stumbling toward the yawning portal.

  “I wish the molemen were free of your diabolical mind-control beam!” Princess Sparkle shouted.

  “No!” the would-be conqueror howled with rage.

  Thunderboy’s power forced him closer to the perilous brink. “Great idea, Sparkle! Now they can return to their peaceful lives in Magma City. And now, to make sure this monstrous abomination never enslaves them again! For justice!” The youthful hero’s face strained with effort. Soon, a titanic wave of force blasted the villain into the Pool of Suffering.

  “No!” Lord Moleman screamed as he sunk below the surface. “I am undone! Curse you, Thunderboy and Princess Sparkle!” The demonic waves engulfed him, sweeping him away to an eternity of torment.

  “Hooray!” Debbie cheered in five-year-old delight, leaping into the pool after me.

  “Thus always to bad guys!” Eddie shouted, following his little sister with a cannonball. A blast of water caught me in the face.

  “Oh, so that’s how you want to play it? Lemme introduce you to my soggy friend.” I laughed as the boy resurfaced and shot him a splash in return. Then it was on. Our game of Heroes and Villains degenerated into giggles and horseplay.

  “Alright, you guys,” Cindy Cannon said, interrupting our splash fight. “Dinner’s ready.”

  “Awesome!” Eddie shouted, quickly swimming to his mother, who waited with an armload of towels. “I’m starvin’.”

  I plucked Debbie up and set her on dry land. “Can I have a hot dog?” she asked.

  “Daddy has one waiting for you,” Cindy said, wrapping her daughter in a towel big enough to swallow the kid whole. She scampered off to the barbecue to collect her victory meal. Cindy shot me a wink. “I guess that’s the last we’ll see of Lord Moleman.”

  “Are you kidding?” I climbed out of the pool, accepting a towel. “That guy’s gold. I’m already working on The Revenge of the Mole King, Part Seven: The Lordening.”

  She winced at the stinger and handed me a beer. “Might want to send that one back to marketing. Pretty sure ‘Lordening’ isn’t a word.”

  “It tests off the charts with five-to-eight-year-olds.”

  Joe Cannon joined us with paper plates laden with hamburgers and buns as we sat down at their patio table. “Can’t argue with the focus groups. Thanks for keepin’ the midgets busy, Reuben.”

  “My pleasure.”

  “We could charge him for the service, babe. He loved that game when we were kids. He always had the best bad guys.” Cindy’s eyes beamed at the memory.

  Joe looked in surprise at his wife. “So, you were the good guy?”

  She nodded. “Yup. Funny how things turn out, huh?” She changed the subject. She didn’t like to talk about her old days as a supervillain when the kids were around. “Pity Helen didn’t see that little display. Chicks dig that sort of dadliness. It’s an aphrodisiac. Where is she, anyway?”

  “Stuck at the Tower,” I mumbled around a bite of cheeseburger. Knowing Cindy, she probably timed her question to hit when I had a mouthful. The woman’s pure evil. The good-natured, sisterly kind of evil of the girl next door that you’ve been friends with all your life, but evil nonetheless. “Got a kid there with phasing abilities, and she had a setback Friday night. She decided she better stay close, just in case.”

  “Ah. Rough times at the Jorgensen Institute, eh?”

  “The ‘what’ Institute?” Joe asked.

  “It’s like a school The Angels set up to help kids learn to control their powers,” Cindy answered.

  “Wow. When did that come about?”

  “A couple of months ago, but they’re keeping it quiet. Trying to figure out how to present it to the public. A lot of legal issues.” I started assembling another burger. “You remember that story I did last year about Panhandler’s apprentice?”

  “Sorry, man. I don’t really follow the superhero stuff.”

  I waved it off. Most people didn’t. “Well, this local kid, Karl Jorgensen, suddenly got super strength. Accidentally put his sister in a coma and ran away. Ended up dead a couple of months later.”

  “Jesus.” Joe glanced at his children.

  “Relax, hon.” Cindy put her hand on her husband’s. “It doesn’t run in the family.”

  “She’s right. Your kids are as safe as anyone else’s. Anyway, Helen decided enough is enough. She convinced the rest of the team to set up a training program for kids like Karl. Show ‘em how to control their abilities.”

  “So, like a superhero apprenticeship thing?”

  I shook my head. “No, more like train them how to live a normal life. You know, so they don’t hurt themselves or anybody else. What they do with their abilities after that is up to them.”

  “I wish there’d been something like that twenty years ago,” Cindy said with a shiver.

  For her, there hadn’t. Her parents had gotten suckered into sending her to an “academy” in Japan. Cynthia Nguyen got a world-class education, but they also turned her into a human weapon for the Japanese government. She broke free, but that only got her branded an outlaw. She fell in with a bad crowd for protection, which made matters worse. Sinfonie was still wanted by most of the world’s governments, which weren’t so much interested in bringing her to justice as they were in getting control of the most powerful telepath on the planet.

  She left us on the pretense of checking on the children. “Damn, I’m sorry, Joe. I shoulda just said I'd tell ya later.”

  He shook his head. “Don’t worry about it. She … gets like this sometimes. The kids are good for her. Helps her get past the bad memories.” His face brightened as Cindy swept up Debbie and held her close. “So, this institute sounds like a good thing. What’s the hold-up?”

  “Legal hassles. Lots of little details that a bunch of costumed vigilantes don’t tend to think of. I mean, they’re the types who see a problem and solve it. But with something like this, you got other people’s kids involved. That gets the government involved. Suddenly, there’s all these certifications and inspections. Plus, the mayor’s not wild about bringing untrained supers to town. The Angels are getting a lot of pushback.”

  “Alright, so they gotta jump through a few hoops. Doesn’t seem like it should hold them up too bad. They got lawyers, right?”

  “Sure, but that’s not the worst of it. The government wants to know who they’re training. How can they let that kind of information get out? The idea is for these kids to have normal lives. They’ll never get a chance with the feds looking to get their hands on them.”

  “Sounds a little paranoid.”

  “Is it?” I raised an eyebrow and glanced over at the other side of the pool where a tickle fight had broken out.

  Joe wasn’t ready to concede the point. “Yeah, but that’s different. Her past—”

  “Is pretty much irrelevant. It’s her power they want.”

  “But that’s Japan. You really think the US government would try to get their hooks into these kids?”

  I finished off my third burger and started putting another one together. David Winters’ fifteen-year-old yearbook photo floated through my thoughts. “Yeah, that’s what scares me. I think they’re already doing it.”

  ***

  By rights, I should have been working, but one of the benefits of being a reporter is you can read newspapers while on the job. Call it research. As long as you hit your deadlines, nobody’s going to give you any grief for it.

  Curious about what Greyshade was up to Friday night, I scanned the headlines of the French news services and finally came up with what I was looking for in the Saturday morning edition of Le Parisien. I found an English version of the story on their website and dug in. At about 0300 local time, a forty-five-foot reptile resembling a giant gecko went on a rampage, tearing up the area around the Place Charles de Gaulle before settling in for a nap atop the Arc de Triomphe. Noblesse Oblige made short work of the creature, luring it into the open space around A
venue Foch before beating it into submission. Later that morning, several museums, including the Louvre, reported that they had been pillaged during the night. Authorities refused to comment on the event, citing their ongoing investigation.

  I leaned back, looking at the pictures. The article didn’t speculate as to who might be behind the crimes, but to me it looked like Le Amplifier was up to his old tricks. Greyshade would be stuck in Europe for whatever time it took the EU’s superteam to track him down.

  Damn. I was hoping we’d get him sooner. Since Patty’s recent meltdown, we had to return to keeping her in the containment field whenever someone wasn’t directly working with her. That didn’t help the poor kid’s confidence. The world was full of problems we couldn’t solve, and this was one of them.

  I found the article on the wire service and flagged it for Harry. We didn’t usually run foreign stories of this sort, but I figured a giant gecko was kind of like a dinosaur, and everyone likes stories about dinosaurs.

  My phone rang before I could get started on anything more productive. I answered it to find Archangel on the other end.

  “I’m sorry to bother you, Mr. Conway. Are you available to speak right now?”

  “Uh, sure. I’m at my desk now.” Translation: I can’t speak freely, but I can listen.

  “Understood. I’ve completed the analysis of the files on the thumb drive. They appear to be a backup of the computer systems at Romita Shipping.”

  Why did that sound familiar? “Can you refresh my memory?”

  “That’s where you confronted Backdraft.”

  “Oh!” I leaned forward, suddenly piecing together why Dawson gave the thumb drive to me. “What’d you find?”

  “Sadly, nothing. This just appears to be typical company records. Personnel records, accounts payable, receipts, and so forth. There is one anomaly in their order tracking system, however.”

  “Well, don’t keep me waiting.”

  “There appears to be a missing record.”

  “Why’s that anomalous?”

  “Normally, systems like these archive records rather than delete them. That way, erroneously deleted records can be recovered. However, the archives were included in the backup, and the record is missing there, too.”