In Hero Years... I'm Dead Delux Edition

by Michael A. Stackpole

  “But they don’t mind because the broadcast revenues get pumped into the Superfriend pools, so everyone wins a little. Everyone is invested, so no one complains.” She ticked a point off on her fingers. “In all the shows, did you see any sociopaths or true psych jobs? Anyone like Belle Jeste?”

  “No, but there should have been. Law of averages.”

  “Your nuts and serial killers still exist, but the system picks them up fast and sends them far away. There’s a prison in Death Valley. They’re left there to rot or kill each other. No one cares. They just vanish.”

  As I did. “That’s not a pleasant thought.”

  “But the people feel safe. They go out, they work, they come home and cheer for their Superfriends. A little extra shows up in their accounts, or they get their faces plastered over the Murdoch like your friend at the bank. It makes them happy.”

  “Quite a little system you have going here.”

  She nodded. “Self-replenishing, self-policing; it keeps things going. It’s stable. People like it that way.”

  “I saw.” I half closed my eyes. “I saw something else, too.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I saw how to break it.”

  Chapter Nine

  “No! No, you cannot... I have not…” She stood quickly, her hands balling. Her face, half in shadow, reflected her struggle.

  She forced her hands open. “No, okay, I’m not going there. Not right now.”

  “Go where?”

  “You don’t want to know.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “You’re two for two for stupid remarks right now. This is not a trend you want to continue. Back to the point.” She snatched the sheets away. “You can ‘break it?’ Look at yourself.”

  She was right. Breaking wind would probably kill me. I had more bruises than a leopard has spots, and big ones, too. The light patches weren’t flesh colored, just that jaundice yellow. And for every mark on my skin there was a deeper, throbbing ache.

  “Do you know why you’re not dead?”

  I looked up despite the fury in her eyes. “They were pulling their punches. They use tasers and air-guns and mercy bullets and sonic disruptors. They don’t know how to kill.”

  “You know better.” She shook her head slowly. “That was a mob. Mobs don’t think. They don’t pull punches. The frenzy builds until someone gets broken. You were.”

  “But I didn’t die.”

  “You are very tough.” She stared down at me for a moment, then turned her face away. “Grant said…”

  “Grant said too much.”

  “Nice deflection.” Her ice blue eyes narrowed. “Luck. Pure luck kept you alive. You didn’t die because that storekeeper summoned Kid Coyote. You didn’t die because Grant had his son keep an eye on you. You were always lucky.”

  “Haven’t been for a long time.”

  “Twenty years?”

  “Yeah.”

  “But you did live, didn’t you? Tell me that wasn’t luck.”

  I shivered and closed my eyes. “I can’t.”

  Selene pulled the sheet up over me. I wondered if she’d cover me completely. Like a stiff in the morgue.

  Her voice became small, gentle. “Where did you go?”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  “Why won’t you tell me?”

  “I can’t.”

  “Even after this, you don’t trust me?”

  I looked at her standing there. “I trust you.”

  “Only because you’ve got no alternative.”

  “Not ‘only’.” I hauled myself up against the head of the bed. “I never needed anybody. I always operated on my own. If I was hurt I’d just crawl into a hole and heal. Slower now, I guess.”

  She smiled a little, for a heartbeat, but her arms remained folded tight over her chest. “Sucks getting old.”

  And then she waited for me to tell the truth.

  I wanted to, but I couldn’t. Not all of it. Not yet.

  “I trust you because I do. It’s because you trust me, or trusted me.” I shrugged weakly. “The last two decades taught me that to trust is to hurt or be hurt. There’s people out there who could hurt you because you’re associated with me.”

  Selene sat again on the edge of the bed. “Why would they do that?”

  “Because they can.”

  “You need a better answer.” She took my left hand in hers. “Let me tell you something about trust. I did trust you. And then you disappeared. I tried to keep trusting you, so I waited. I tried not to worry. Then I did worry. I started looking. Not only had you vanished, but all traces had vanished.

  “Six months after you disappeared, L’Angyle came to me. She told me about Tim Robinson. I checked. Nothing. There were hints of maybe a couple other identities, but just hints. You simply didn’t exist.”

  “And you weren’t sure what you were trusting?”

  She glanced down. “I’d trusted you. It was a fun game, not knowing who you would be when we would meet. People wonder if the costume is the assumed role, or the civilian is. I wondered, too, sometimes; but with you, we didn’t have to be one or the other. We could just be us. And I thought maybe…”

  She sighed. “But there wasn’t any you. You didn’t have an identity. No anchor.”

  “No point of vulnerability.” I squeezed her hand. “It’ll sound like a lie, but until I met you, I never wanted an identity. Whenever there was danger, I could run. I could drop who I’d been, or use that identity as a trap. My identities were just more gadgets. But with you…”

  I hesitated, swallowing hard past the lump in my throat. “I’d signed the leasing papers for a small shop on the Gold Coast, near the Village. Second floor, dark, dingy. Watch and clock repair, jewelry repair, appraisals. Milos Castigan–older, a bit crazy, but punctual for appointments. I could hang there, work on gadgets–I’m good at that. Need a toaster fixed, I’m your man. I wanted the anchor. I was willing to be vulnerable but…”

  She let my hand go.

  “Selene, I’m not lying to you.”

  She pressed a hand to her mouth and stood again. Her shoulders rose and fell in a sob, maybe two. I turned away. For privacy. Mine. Tears hurt tracking over bruises.

  Finally she turned back, keeping her face shadowed. “I believe you because I want to believe you. It’s just twenty years flashed…” Her voice trailed off and her arms crossed again. “Do you remember the last thing you said to me?”

  “I told you I’d be back.”

  “Men.” She shook her head. “Yes, you did say that, but your very last words. Do you remember?”

  I shook my head.

  “You said, ‘Be good.’ That’s it. Be good.”

  “Yeah. Okay. I woulda said that.”

  “I’m sure you didn’t remember because you didn’t put much weight on it, but I did. When you didn’t come back and didn’t come back, and even before that, I replayed our last meeting over and over. Daydream stuff, fantasy stuff. And when you didn’t return, I found something else to cling to. Be good.” She chuckled lightly. “I lived by that. I said it every day to our daughter. ‘Be good’ built all this. Granted, motherhood and my prior lifestyle didn’t work together, but I wanted you to be proud of me.”

  “I am.”

  “No, don’t say that. You can’t. You don’t know enough. Toss Hallmark greeting card platitudes at me, I’ll throw you out of here.”

  “I reserve the right…”

  “Reserve whatever makes you happy. I need you to understand some things. We aren’t the people we were twenty years ago. They’re dead. Now, I accept that you’re trying to come to grips with how the world has changed. I’ve been changing with it. It’s going to take you time. I accept that. I’m willing to help you adjust, but I’m not going to be Sancho Panza to your Don Quixote–and I’m not your Dulcinea.”

  “Selene…”

  “No, I’m not done, and you’re not ready to have the whole of this conversation, but let me ask you, do
es whatever you think you came back here for really matter? Is it going to give you back twenty years? You know it’s not going to make you young again–at even at your peak, you’d have had a hard time with the competition today. So, why is it important? Is it important enough to get killed over?”

  There, in a nutshell, she’d nailed it. Why had I come back? It clearly wasn’t to walk back into her life, kiss her on the cheek, snag a beer from the fridge and ask if I’d missed anything. I’d certainly used memories of her like a blanket to keep me warm at nights, but Selene hadn’t flashed through my mind when I was given my choice of destinations.

  Revenge is probably one of the more stupid and self-indulgent motives–but it’s also strong as hell. Why is that? You can dress revenge up with the idea that your enemies have to be brought to justice, that they have to pay or they’ll do it to someone else; but half the time they might not even have noticed what they did to you. Hell, if they’d done it to you at another time, in another place, you might not have noticed it.

  Revenge is really a desire to make yourself whole. If someone does you dirt, they’ve made you subordinate. They assert their superiority. They make you their bitch. You want to level the field. You want to bring things back to even, or maybe get one up on them. Face it, every good revenge plan ends with the victim putting the victimizer away forever. If you show any mercy at all, you know you’ll get bitten in the ass.

  But would vengeance make me whole? It wouldn’t give me back twenty years. Old wasn’t going to go away. Vengeance might make me feel good–which really means superior–for a while, but that wouldn’t give me two decades of birthday parties with my daughter, or Father’s Day cards or even a single day of protecting someone like Randy Singh.

  And it didn’t help, of course, that even if my vengeance would mean they would never hurt anyone else ever again, my lack of knowing who they were made the whole vengeance thing moot.

  So if all that was silly and stupid and pointless, why couldn’t I let revenge go?

  I think I knew. I think it was because vengeance had been the promise I’d made to myself. It was the bargaining chip. Whenever I wanted to lay down and die, I didn’t because that would mean that they would get away with it. All those cold nights, shivering, having given away the last crust of bread to some wretch even more miserable than myself, those were all in the hopes that if there was a merciful God, He’d see my kindness, and He’d grant me a favor. He’d let me live. He’d let me get free. Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord, but couldn’t He let me be His agent just for once?

  And if He wouldn’t, I was pretty sure His competition would.

  Somewhere, then, deep down inside, lurked the certainty that if I abandoned the quest to find those who had betrayed me, I’d die.

  As simple and stupid as it was, the answer shook me. My aches and bruises mocked me. Selene was right. Luck had kept me alive, not the drive for vengeance. And that same drive would likely get me killed.

  So I’d die without it, and it would kill me.

  But not absolutely. Probably.

  And yet, in that slim sliver of a chance, I found hope.

  I clung to it.

  I looked up at her. “’Be good,’ was the last word you had from me?”

  “Have you heard nothing I’ve said?”

  “It’s percolating.”

  “It’s festering, more like, and you’ll purge it.” She sighed. “You’re not ready.”

  I gave her a weak smile. “You think I ever will be?”

  “Yes. It’s going to take something profound to get you there. I’m just afraid of what that’s going to do to you.”

  I opened my arms. “Grant told you what saw when he peeked inside. Could they do more?”

  “They can hurt you in ways you can’t even imagine.” She closed her eyes for a second, then nodded. “Yes, ‘be good,’ was the last thing I heard from you.”

  “No other messages. No hints, no comments, no post cards?”

  Selene studied me, her eyes tightening. “No, nothing. Not the least little hint.”

  “Okay.” I frowned. “Eight years ago, Stockholm. Police recovered three stolen Picasso oils. One was slashed and destroyed.”

  She nodded. “It was a forgery. The paintings were recovered from a dumpster, rolled in a case. A radical Crypto-conservative movement had stolen them from the National Museum. Held them for ransom.”

  “No reason for the one to be cut.”

  “The art world thought it very fortuitous that only the forgery had been destroyed. Prior to that no one knew the piece was a forgery.”

  “Except you.”

  Her head came up. “And you.”

  I nodded. Faint memories of an evening together, laughing our way through a reception at the Capital City Museum of Fine Art. She was lethal in a stunning red gown. My rented a tux looked shabby by comparison. We were nobody really–she’d gotten the invite through her work with the museum. That night everyone wanted to know who we were. And the next day we’d be utterly forgotten.

  As we toured and listened to the museum’s director carry on with his description of the works, she’d told me the picture was forged. I never doubted her. And I’d remembered.

  “A post card would have been more effective.”

  “I didn’t have any stamps.”

  “You’re not going to let this go, are you?”

  “Would you?”

  She laughed aloud, full of surprise and relief. “You don’t get it. I have let it go. I let it go years ago. ‘Be good,’ meant I had to. Grant may have told you that heroing was a young man’s game. I’ll tell you that it’s a stupid man’s game. Running around constantly afraid of being exposed. Risking limb, if not life, for what? Points in a rating system?”

  “That can’t be the only reason…”

  “Oh no, it’s not. Sure, some people still come into it full of dreams of public service and helping someone, but that doesn’t mean much when an enemy pushes you off a building or catches you upside the head with a pipe-wrench. For the others, it’s all about money and fame.

  “In the old days heroes financed things one of two ways: the family trust or the way you used to do it–skim some here and there. Grant never liked that about you. Nighthaunt either. Others understood. You drop a drug dealer. He’s got twenty thousand in loose cash, why not put it to good use?”

  I frowned. “I used to give a lot of that away.”

  “I know, you were a regular Victims’ Aid Society. I found that out about you after. That isn’t the way it is now, though. You know how the majority of them make money? Revenue sharing from the ads on the Murdoch, pro-rated by points. And the big guys? Endorsements. Toy deals, movies, Murdoch series, merchandise, public appearances. Cape and a cowl and you can make big bucks on the motivational speaking circuit. They write books, too. Dr. Sinisterion just did one.”

  “What’s your point?”

  “My point is that you can’t be an earner in this system. That’s all the system has room for. But you’re not going to believe that. We’re going to have to go Dickens on you.”

  “What?”

  “Ghost of Christmas past, and all that.” Selene nodded solemnly. “A week from now Redhawk is being inducted into the Hall of Fame. You’re taking your daughter to the festivities. If that doesn’t put it all into perspective... well, don’t bother coming back.”

  Chapter Ten

  Selene continued to be a gracious hostess. I began to get up and around. A week after the beating I was fairly ambulatory. By mid-week I was taking walks outside the, though I was using a walking stick. In my mind it became a short bo. It really was just a cane, and I needed to use it. Muscles were protesting enough that my balance wasn’t always what it should be.

  I didn’t watch much of the Murdoch. Unlike most places, Selene’s house had a way to turn the machines off. The device on the line wasn’t just a power switch. It clearly had the cable company thinking the machine was on, even though the screen had g
one black. I never asked, she never told, but I gathered my admonition to “be good” had its limits.

  Selene sent someone to rescue my clothes from the Excelsior, then she bought me some more. She also brought Mister Evan in to cut my hair. The man was flamboyantly gay and harried. He carefully explained to Selene that he had “a full schedule, what with the ceremony coming up and…” He’d have gone on but she handed him a wad of cash and he got down to business. I only balked at having my hair colored, but otherwise he had his way with me. He updated my look, but left my hair longer than Gravé wore his.

  In fact, the week went very well save in one area: Selene’s relationship with Victoria. They both had Graviton-class wills and the building shook when they clashed. I didn’t actually hear the arguments, but I’m pretty sure any mentalists in the area were going to be bleeding from every pore.

  Quite simply condensed, Victoria had no intention of taking “the sperm donor” anywhere. So, as the limo pulled up outside the gallery on that fateful Saturday morning, I emerged nicely, though casually, dressed. My daughter, wearing boots, a sleeveless t-shirt, shorts and carrying a canvas bag, followed silently, sullenly and as cold as the Sphinx–especially after Dr. Sinisterion had it moved to Antarctica.

  Sullen teens are no big deal for parents who’ve had some experience with them. That would not be me. Moreover, the sullenness is usually spread out over a period of years. I’d gotten it all saved up, and a bunch to spare. Victoria sat in the back, her arms crossed, her scowl deep. Only her round sunglasses saved me from immediate immolation.

  I did my best to smile. “So…”

  “Don’t start with me. You’re the sperm donor, okay, that’s it. Nothing more. I don’t want to be here. I don’t want you here, and I don’t want to be nurse-maiding you all afternoon.”

  “I was just going to…”

  “Didn’t you hear me? Don’t start.” She let her glasses slip and I caught the full glare. “Biologically I may be your daughter. I hope I’m not. And I wouldn’t be here but my mom asked. Why? Your guess is as good as mine.”