Action Figures - Issue Four: Cruel Summer

by Michael C Bailey

  Matt reels. “Edison Bose is Concorde,” he says. It’s not so much a stunning revelation as a plain statement of fact: Of course Edison Bose is Concorde. How did I not see that? He looks at me. “You knew.”

  “I knew.”

  “He told you?”

  “Not so much. Look, this is not the time for one of your stupid fits of jealousy,” I begin. Edison interrupts me with a tap on the shoulder.

  “Sara, listen to me,” he says. His knuckles have turned white from gripping my phone so tightly. “Stay where you are. Make sure the house is locked up and you stay put. I’m sending Carrie over now and Catherine will be there in a few minutes. She’ll bring you both to HQ. You’ll be okay. I promise.”

  He might be an ace liar, but I can tell Edison is BS-ing big-time.

  Edison shoves my phone back into my hand. “You need to get to Sara’s as fast as you can. If you see anyone suspicious lurking near her house, anyone who sets off your alarms, take him out. Blast first, ask questions later, got it?”

  “Yes sir,” I say.

  “Let’s go. Act casual.” As we pass through the office door, Edison puts on a mask of calm neutrality for Trina. “Trina, I’ll be taking our interns here out for a bit. Hold my calls, please?”

  “Will do, Edison,” Trina says, smiling and never suspecting a thing.

  We pile into the elevator, where Edison’s mask falls off. I’ve seen him angry plenty of times, annoyed a lot, worried a few times, but never flat-out terrified.

  “Edison, what’s going on?” I say.

  Edison slips a key into a slot on the elevator control panel. It rises, and when the doors slide open, they reveal a small locker room with a single locker. Edison steps out and presses his hand to a dark rectangular panel set into the wall near the locker — a handprint reader. A section of the ceiling slides away. There’s nothing beyond but clear blue sky.

  “Go. Get Sara,” Edison says. “We’ll see you at HQ.”

  “Stand back.” I slip my headset on, boot up the flight system, and rocket skyward. I hit mach one as soon as I clear the tree line.

  The building shudders from the shockwave, and the throaty BOOM of the sound barrier breaking rolls across the sky like thunder. Edison closes the ceiling hatch with one hand and dials a number on his phone with the other.

  “Catherine, get over to Sara’s house. Carrie should be there by the time you arrive. Get them and bring them to HQ, and call in the rest of the team.” He hangs up and dials a second number. “This is Concorde, with an urgent message for everyone on the New England HeroNet. We have an as-yet unconfirmed sighting of the King of Pain. I repeat, we have an as-yet unconfirmed sighting of the King of Pain. The Protectorate is responding and, pending confirmation, we will be holding a region-wide conference call in approximately one hour. Be ready.”

  Edison returns to the elevator. Matt follows. The doors slide shut.

  “I imagine you have questions,” Edison says without looking at his young intern.

  “Not really. Rich guy becomes a super-hero to exact symbolic revenge-by-proxy on his parents’ killer. Nothing groundbreaking there,” Matt says. Edison cocks an inquiring eyebrow. Matt shrugs. “I’ve followed your career since I was a kid. I know everything about you. Well, now I know everything about you.”

  Edison grunts.

  “No, I do have one question: which one of you is lying? Do you hate me, or does Concorde like me?”

  “You want all the cards on the table?” Edison nods. “All right. Fair enough.”

  The elevator disgorges its passengers on the ground floor. Edison leads Matt out of the building to the executive parking lot, to a black muscle car. Matt recognizes it as a Ford Mustang circa 1970, back when such cars were durable and reliable and, in Matt’s opinion, still possessed a sense of style sorely lacking in modern sports cars. The engine comes to life with a deep purr Matt feels as much as hears.

  “When I first met you, I didn’t like you because you reminded me of someone I didn’t want to be reminded of,” Edison says as he backs out of his space. He slams the car into gear and peels out of the lot, tires squealing. “As I got to know you, I liked you even less because I thought you were a rude, arrogant little punk with some serious entitlement issues — who turned out to be nothing at all like the young man I got to know later. My intern is mature, respectful, eager to learn, has a nimble intellect, and possesses a truly impressive grasp of modern technology.”

  “...I still don’t know if you like me or not.”

  “Let me put it this way,” Edison says. “Edison Bose likes Matt Steiger just fine. Concorde thinks Captain Trenchcoat is a huge pain in the ass.”

  “Okay,” Matt says. “Well, back at you.”

  I land in the patch of woods near my house and, without bothering to remove my headset, sprint full-tilt down the road to Sara’s place, all the while scanning the street for anyone who looks even remotely out of place. The neighborhood is empty, devoid of visible signs of life, but that only jacks my anxiety up to eleven.

  The Danvers’ house is dark. I slow down as I reach the walkway, but not by much, and pound on the door, calling out for Sara. I throw a nervous glance over my shoulder, half-expecting to see someone looming behind me like the killer in a cheesy slasher movie.

  Sara throws open the door, grabs me, and pulls me inside. She slams and locks the door, snares me in a desperate hug, and sobs into my shoulder. God, she’s shaking so badly...

  “It’s okay, I’m here,” I say. “Catherine will be here in a few minutes. We’ll get you to HQ. Concorde’s called in the Protectorate. You’ll be safe.”

  I feel her nod. She says something I can’t make out through her sobbing.

  “Sara, why didn’t you —? You fought back, didn’t you?”

  She pulls away. “I tried,” she says, “but it didn’t...I mean, I couldn’t. Carrie, my powers didn’t work.”

  “What do you mean, they didn’t work?”

  “I mean they didn’t work! I tried to push him away but my powers didn’t work! It’s like I lost them!”

  “Lost them? How is that even possible?”

  “I don’t know!” Sara wails. I shut my stupid mouth. I’m not making things any better.

  Catherine arrives a few minutes later. She told me once that, despite having psionic abilities herself, she knew she wasn’t cut out for the life of a super-hero and was better off in a support role, one that kept her out of the line of fire. You’d never know it by looking at her now that she’s a desk jockey. I’ve never seen her looking so focused. Her eyes are in constant motion as she escorts us to her car. She moves with purpose, tense and ready. Her hands don’t leave our shoulders until we’re in the car, and she roars away from the curb like the devil himself is giving chase.

  None of us speak during the drive to Protectorate headquarters.

  Catherine takes us up to the main conference room. We’re the last ones to arrive, or nearly so; Matt, Stuart and, to my surprise, Missy are here, as are Edison and Bart — neither of whom, I note, are in costume. Natalie, Edison tells us, is en route and should be here any minute.

  Bart pushes past everyone to get to Sara. I think he’s going for a hug, right up until he grasps her by the shoulders and says, “The man who attacked you. I need you to show me what he looked like.”

  “What he looked like?” Sara says. “He was —”

  “No.” Bart points at Sara’s head. “Show me.”

  “I don’t know if I can. My powers...I couldn’t use them, at all. They, like, blacked out on me.”

  Bart tosses Edison a look. Edison grimaces.

  “I’ll put out the call,” he says, taking out his phone.

  “Then I need to go into your memories,” Bart says. “I need to see what you saw.”

  Sara nods. She and Bart lock eyes. They’re statue-still for a minute or two. In unison, they blink and shake their heads as though emerging from a trance. Bart dashes out of the conference room without another wo
rd.

  “Edison?” I say.

  “Get into your uniforms,” he replies.

  “Not until you tell us what’s going on. Sara’s terrified and I’m right behind her.”

  “You’re terrified? Good. Hold onto that,” Edison says to Sara. “It just might keep you alive.”

  NINE

  We head downstairs to the locker rooms. Matt pulls on his gloves, brings us our uniforms, then stalks off to change. He barely takes his eyes off Sara the entire time.

  Sara and Missy follow me into the women’s locker room, where Natalie is hastily jamming herself into her Nina Nitro regalia. She stops as we enter and dashes over to Sara.

  “I swear to you, girl, we’re going to everything we can to keep you safe,” Natalie says, wrapping her arms around Sara. “We’re going to nail him.”

  “Natalie, will you please tell us who this guy is?” I say. “No one’s telling us anything and it’s not helping.”

  “Trust me, you’ll know everything soon enough. Get dressed,” she says, and she turns to finish changing.

  “Natalie!” She stops. “For God’s sake, talk to us.”

  After a moment of thought, Natalie waves her hand. Get changed, the gesture says. “The King of Pain is the bad guy the good guys are scared of. He’s practically an urban legend in the super-hero community.”

  “Except he’s real,” I say.

  “Oh yeah.”

  “What does he want with me?” Sara says.

  Natalie hesitates. “That’s a lot more complicated.” She glances up at the clock above the locker room entrance. “Finish getting changed. Almost time to call the war council to order.”

  She isn’t kidding when she calls it a war council. We return to the conference room to find Catherine and Edison, now in his full Concorde gear, in conference with Dr. Enigma. They’re all gathered in front of the giant TV at the front of the room. The screen is subdivided into several smaller boxes, and each box features a different super-hero who’s Skyping in for this — uh, whatever it is. It reminds me of one of those crazy talking head discussion panels like you see on cable news channels. Aside from Doc Quantum I don’t recognize any of the faces, so I creep toward the front of the room to sneak a peek at the tags at the bottom of each box.

  “We’ll be doing formal introductions soon enough,” Concorde says. “Is the Squad ready?”

  As if on cue, Matt and Stuart enter. Missy hops up onto the corner of the conference table and perches there, making room for Mindforce to push through. He presents a tablet to Concorde, who glances at it and says something to Mindforce. He nods emphatically.

  “Take your seats, everyone, we’re going to get started,” Concorde announces. “That means you too, Entity.”

  Sara lets out a yelp as the Entity, in his traditional manner, emerges from the corner of the room, all shadows and silence. Yeah, that’s right, freak out the traumatized girl some more, you ginormous tool.

  “Get off the table,” the Entity says to Missy.

  “Bite me,” Missy says in (oh my God, that’s why it sounds so familiar!) the exact same creepy monotone as the Entity. I should probably be extremely concerned about this, but frankly, I’m too happy to see her.

  “Um...this does mean you’re back on the team, right?” I say.

  Missy considers the question. “I guess it does.” She tilts her mask up enough to expose her mouth, and it’s like a switch flips, setting her back to Normal Missy Mode. “I mean, I got the phone call and I was like what the actual heck, I thought Concorde was totally messing with me, but then I was like, Concorde isn’t going to play a joke like that on me, duh, and next thing I know I’m grabbing my stuff and here I am. Crazy, right?”

  “Yeah. Crazy,” I say. “But it’s nice to have you back.”

  She lowers the mask, and Creepy Missy returns. “Thank you.”

  “All right, everyone,” Concorde says to the room and to those present via the Internet, “we’re going to get the formalities out of the way so we can get down to business.”

  With that, Concorde makes the introductions for the Protectorate and the Hero Squad, then asks those calling in to identify themselves for the official record (as kept by Catherine, who types away furiously at a laptop).

  “Doc Quantum and the Quantum Quintet, present,” Doc Quantum says from the square at the center of the big screen.

  “Deuce X. Machine here. Hey, Nina.”

  “Douche,” Nina Nitro drawls.

  “Deuce. It’s Deuce.”

  “I know what I said.”

  “Focus,” Concorde says. The roll call continues.

  “TranzSister, checking in.”

  “Black Iron, present.”

  “The Amazon, present.”

  “Yankee Spirit, here.”

  “Jeez, this must be every super-hero in the New England area,” Matt says to me.

  “New England and eastern New York,” Nina says.

  I may be vague on the protocols in action, but the message is clear: the King of Pain is serious business.

  “First things first,” Concorde says. “We have confirmed that at approximately fifteen-thirty hours Eastern Daylight Time, Psyche, a member of the Hero Squad, was attacked by the King of Pain while in her civilian identity.”

  The entire screen inhales sharply in unison.

  “I’m turning things over to my teammate Nina Nitro,” Concorde says. “In her civilian life, she’s a criminal psychology major who’s spent the past few years working up a profile on the King of Pain. Some of this is going to be familiar material for a lot of you, but we want to make sure everyone is on the same page. Nina?”

  Nina rises.

  “I wish I had more than educated guesswork to offer,” she says, “but unfortunately, we have precious little in the way of first-hand information. Most of what we know is based on second-hand accounts from family, friends, and comrades of the King of Pain’s victims.”

  Victims. Plural.

  “The first confirmed encounter with the King of Pain was six years ago in California,” Nina continues. “The victim was Dale Johnstone, a super-hero who operated under the codename Faultline. We know he was the King of Pain’s first victim because his murder was captured on a private security camera.”

  Nina takes the tablet from Mindforce and taps the screen. The headshot squares disappear to make room for a still frame from the security video. The setting is an empty parking lot at night, although there are no visible details that reveal the precise location. Could be anything from a Walmart to an elementary school. There are two figures in the frame directly underneath one of the lot’s floodlights, like it was staged for the camera. One man, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, slumps against the base of the light pole, his face hidden in shadow. The other man looms over the body, his head tilted to one side like a dog trying to make sense of a strange noise. Nina zooms in on the second man. The close-up is grainy and pixilated.

  “The man’s harder to photograph than Sasquatch. He isn’t seen unless he wants to be seen, which isn’t often,” Nina says. “The King of Pain has been caught on video a few times, but never clearly. However, we have this.”

  Nina pulls up a pencil sketch of the King of Pain, like one of those police composite sketches you see on the evening news. His features are totally unremarkable. He’s so...I don’t know. Plain. I don’t know what I’d expected the King of Pain to look like, but I’m surprised to learn that, aesthetically speaking, he’s utterly mundane.

  Mundane and, to my dismay, familiar. Why do I feel like I’ve seen him before?

  “Mindforce sketched out this mug shot based on what he saw in Psyche’s memories of the assault,” Nina explains. Nina taps the tablet, pulling up three other sketches that might be of the same man, but none of the images are identical. “As you can see, it doesn’t quite match up with descriptions we’ve received from our few surviving eyewitnesses —”

  “That would be because memories are impressions, not records,” Doc
Quantum interrupts, “and memories of traumatic events are especially unreliable. I don’t believe we can trust this portrait to be wholly accurate. No offense intended to Psyche or Mindforce.”

  “None taken,” Mindforce says, “and I don’t disagree, but as Nina said, all we have on the man is soft intel.”

  “Almost everything we have is theory and conjecture,” Nina says. She taps the tablet, dismissing the mug shot and bringing the headshot collage back up. “Which brings us to my profile of the King of Pain. I’ve spent two years interviewing the victims’ survivors, from both their civilian and professional lives, and reviewing reports filed by local super-teams who investigated the deaths — eleven deaths, to be precise, attributed directly and indirectly to the King of Pain.”

  “Indirectly?” I say. “How does someone indirectly kill someone?”

  “What I mean is, most of his victims weren’t in fact murdered. Four deaths were ruled homicides. The rest committed suicide soon after their encounters with the King of Pain. I count among the suicides what happened with Airstrike, a member of the Justice Krewe in New Orleans,” Nina says. “According to the report filed by team leader Wyte Zombi, Airstrike had a full-blown psychotic break a few days after crossing paths with the King of Pain. He attacked his own team. They tried to subdue him.”

  She pauses — or maybe it’s more accurate to say she hesitates.

  “Things went south. Things went south in a huge way.”

  “What did the King of Pain do to him?” I ask, my morbid curiosity getting the best of me.

  “We don’t know. Airstrike took that information to the grave — which is a common thread tying the victims together; they all died without ever telling anyone exactly what happened to them.”

  “So you have no idea what this guy actually does?” one of the virtual attendees asks. Black Iron, I think?

  “We’re not completely in the dark,” Concorde says. “Three super-heroes have survived chance run-ins with the King of Pain —”