“Do you care if we talk with her?” Hopefully this interrogation won’t end with cutting off any fingers.
A crash sounds through the speakers. Vince glances over his shoulder again. “I’ve got to go. Come out and I’ll get you a few minutes with her.” The screen goes blank.
“So,” I say, “back to Houston?”
“Back to Houston.”
“Ulrich,” I raise my voice to the captain in the cockpit. “Take us back to Houston.”
He tips his cap. “You guys sure are going to rack up those flier miles today, yeah?” He pulls the cabin door closed.
I lean back in my seat. My eyelids are refusing the ‘open’ command my brain keeps sending them. Next to me, Ann’s seat squeaks as she adjusts position. “Ann, can I ask you a question? And no, that does not count as my question. I hate that joke.”
“All right, James, but I get to ask you one too.”
“Deal.” I put my hands behind my head and stare at the inside of my eyelids. The plane engines whine to life and we shift, preparing for takeoff. “What happened back there? I mean, I get why you did what you did, but what changed?”
“What do you mean?”
“You didn’t seem super happy to be going in the field. You didn’t say a word when we talked to The Patriot and you seemed content to sit and gamble when I talked to River. So why go all guerilla interrogator on McCarthy?”
“I’m not afraid of heroes or biased against humans, if that’s what you’re asking.” There’s an edge in her voice. I may have insulted her, but it’s a question I need the answer to.
“I didn’t ask you if you were, I just need to know why the switch flipped.” I like Ann and this partnership seems to be working pretty well, so I keep my tone flat, hoping to bring her down a notch.
A high-pitched hum is the only sound for a few moments. I sit still and let the g-force from the plane sink my body further into the leather chair. She’ll work out her answer and I can wait for it.
“Getting Meltin killed messed with my head, all right? I mean, hell, here I was fresh out of the Engine and ready to save the world, yeah?”
I think of that fresh-out-of-the-academy feeling. My first patrol, my first arrest. A guy—trailer trash not much different than McCarthy—beat his wife. I don’t just mean he smacked her, I mean hospitalized. Putting the cuffs on the guy was the only thing that batted the rage down. The pride of knowing the fucker wouldn’t touch her again was the only thing that kept my rage in check. There’s a super-human feeling that goes along with clearing up the shit of the world. I can’t imagine what being an actual superhuman would add to that.
“Yeah, I sort of know the feeling.”
“Yeah, well, all the training, the physical and mental stresses they put me through. All the testing and pushing administered. I watched people in my class drop, one by one. There were twenty-five of us that started. Only two made it to the end.” Ann’s seat creaks. “So, they chose me. I’m the grand-prize winner of super powers to protect the world. The crowning achievement of my life, yeah?”
“So then I get through the Engine and nothing changed. I finally get told to sink or swim, thrown out into the field, and what happens? I get a hero killed. Do you know how rare it is for a hero to die?”
I don’t know an exact number, but I can only remember a handful in my lifetime. “No.”
“Rare. There used to be more, when the Engine was first discovered, but up until yesterday only two heroes have died in the last decade…and one of those was my fault.” Ann says the last words slow, a barely audible tremor in her voice.
“Shit happens. How could you have known?”
She hisses out a breath through her teeth. “Yeah, that helps. Anyway, they put me behind a desk, and it was agony. Save the world from in front of a computer screen, yeah right. I was blackout angry at first. Why me? Why did I have to be the most useless superhero ever created? After a long time, I accepted the fact. I didn’t think of myself as a hero, I thought of myself as a glorified secretary for a top-secret organization.
“In my head, I put down field work. Told myself I didn't need all the death and blood and misery out there. I focused on every bloody awful detail, made myself hate it.” Ann’s words are rushed, but she's found her voice again.
I listen as she inhales. “Keep going.”
“Then this shit happened. Tess and the Engine and this investigation and you. I didn’t want to go, but I wasn’t about to tell Vince I wouldn’t do something. So I went. You handled The Patriot on your own and you handled Gagnon on your own and I thought to myself, Maybe I won’t have to see any of the shit of field work. Maybe I can escape the death. Then we went to Vegas and River was going to kill you. Saving you made me feel again. It made me remember why I wanted to help people. And then…”
I open my eyes and peek at Ann. She’s staring at the ceiling with all the stoicism of a granite sculpture. “Houston.”
“Yeah, Houston. I saw the death and destruction and all the terrors I had convinced myself were real. It didn’t take any thought for me to run right in and start helping people. Houston is when it dawned on me that I, we, might have the power to stop this. To keep this from happening. So I told myself that I wasn’t going to be Scared Little Ann any more. That’s what happened at McCarthy’s.”
“So this is what I’m going to be working with for the rest of this mess?”
Ann doesn’t move. “Is that a problem?”
“Nope. Just needed to know where I stand. I feel much better having a partner I understand.” I close my eyes and enjoy the slight up and down motion of the plane as we make breakneck speed across the county.
I want to sleep. I need to sleep, but unconsciousness is being an elusive bastard and won’t come to me. My mind flits around all the pieces of the puzzle, but they still don’t fit together. Everywhere we go is a new piece, but all the pieces seem like they don’t belong. The Engine bombing is the clearer of the two of our problems. Maybe McCarthy makes the bomb, maybe he hands it off to someone, maybe that someone gets the bomb to DeLaCruz at SHI, maybe DeLaCruz has balls made of gold-plated titanium and plants the bomb.
The lot of maybes add up to way more than I can make out of this Gravitess business. I’ve got no idea how long I’ve been laying here rolling things around in my head, but Ann hasn’t spoken in a while. Maybe she’s asleep.
“Do I still get to ask my question?” Her voice is sudden and spooks me.
“Huh? Oh, yeah, go for it.”
“Why did you take Vince’s offer to come in on this? You’re just a cop, just a normal guy. Investigating a bunch of super humans has to be intimidating. I guess what I’m really asking is, what makes Cool Jim Quig tick?”
“Why does something have to make me tick? This isn’t a comic book, not everyone’s got a nifty backstory that ties conveniently into the overall plot arc. Well, other than Gravitess being the one that caused the accident that screwed my hip.” I crack an eye open to peek at Ann.
She’s sitting up in her chair looking at me with wide-eyed excitement. “Really?”
“Nah, I’m just fucking with you. You’d think for G.I. Jane or female James Bond or whatever, you’d be better at spotting a fib.” I smile at her and close my eyes again.
“Funny, but I’m supposed to trust my partner.”
“Touché.” I roll her original question around in my brain. What am I supposed to answer? I try to drudge up some childhood memory of me always playing the cop in Cops and Robbers or signing up for the military when I turned eighteen to help my country, or being a fifth-generation beat cop. None of that comes because none of it ever happened.
“You with me?” Ann pokes my elbow with a finger.
“Yeah, yeah. I’m just trying to think up a story more interesting than the real one. I did well enough with high school, graduated anyway. Took a couple years off before college to really contemplate what I wanted to do with my life. Copious amounts of alcohol and fast driving did not he
lp point me in any life direction.”
“I feel like this was the pitch for the first ‘Fast and The Furious’ movie. Let me guess, then you got caught for reckless driving and turned on your friends, right? You liked snitching so much you became a cop. I guess that would be like the reverse “Fast and the Furious,” yeah, but still.”
Ann’s seen “Fast and the Furious?” Huh, who knew? “Yeah, but exactly nothing like that. I never got caught for any of the stupid shit I did on the road. Georgia is full of backroads with almost no one on them at night. We practiced a safer kind of dipshittery.”
“Ah, very mature of you.” Ann’s tone makes me think that she doesn’t mean that at all.
“So, a couple years passed and then a couple more, and I found myself twenty-two, four years out of high school and no idea of what I would go to college for. I did the next most obvious thing, looked up jobs where no college degree was required. Out of all of them, police officer had good pay, decent benefits, and a chance to do something that mattered. I’m no patriot’s son, but helping people seemed like a noble job for a fuckup like myself.”
Ann doesn’t say anything, so I continue on without prodding. “I used what little money I had to get through the academy and then got hired on with the department. Once I became a cop, and actually had to deal with the assholes I hung out with on a regular basis, the worthlessness of my old life became pretty clear. My friends and I never had some lover’s quarrel or anything like that. I just stopped calling to see what everyone was doing and they stopped calling to invite me.”
I shift in my seat, not from any discomfort from my memories, but more from trying to find a good spot for my hip. “I made some new friends on the force. A couple guys I would grab a beer with after a shift, a couple guys and a girl that were good to spar with in the gym when I needed to let out a little steam. No life crisis best pal types, but I guess I never needed that. Always managed well enough alone.
“I kept doing that until Vince showed up. The prospect of dealing with heroes made me nervous, but Vince seemed to want me, so I guess that counted for something. Maybe I can help these attacks from happening again. Maybe not. Either way, I wasn’t doing anything else. I figured Vince’s offer was probably a once-in-a-lifetime shot. What good would letting it pass by do?”
Ann laughs. It’s a gentle sound too tired to convey any real humor. “Did you take some Zen philosophy classes in the academy? Carpe diem and karma and everything all rolled into one?”
“Hey, it all just comes down to: What the fuck else was I doing?” I shrug.
“Spoken like a twenty-first century Horace.”
“I don’t even know what that means.”
“Google it while I catch some shut-eye,” Ann says. She moves around in her seat one last time.
“Maybe tomorrow.” I roll to my side and try not to think of any more horrors awaiting us in Texas. Doesn’t do any good. Screams and shouts and blood and debris and death. Makes for a real peaceful nap.
Chapter 18
THE PLANE JERKS as it sets down. I open my eyes to a world full of blurry goo as the engines die. Palms to the eyes take care of most of the goop covering my vision. I turn to look out the window. Ulrich seems to have parked us directly in the same spot as before. SHI would have a pilot as well-oiled as the rest of the machine, but the pinpoint accuracy of the landing is impressive.
The view beyond the plane is still depressing. The sun is on its way down and it casts an orange glow over the wreckage of the city. Broken wood and cars and buildings litter the street. Construction lights are popping up all over, trying to give people light to work by. Occasionally a hero will fly by in the distance.
I sigh and swallow. Hard. That much devastation frays the nerves. The loss of human life makes everything seem even more temporary. These people were living normal, boring lives until a few hours ago.
“Hard to look at, isn’t it?” Vince steps up the stairway and into the cabin with us.
“How many dead?” Ann stares out the window, head cast down to look at the destruction closest to the plane.
“No numbers yet. We are still in Search and Rescue mode. The tallies of deceased and injured will be bad, but preliminary counts aren’t looking as grave as you might think.” Vince gestures to the city outside. “The damage was contained to a four-block area and it seems mostly cosmetic. The people of the city have pulled together to help, and the heroes have been as good for aid as they have morale.”
“Nothing pulls humans together like a tragedy.” I think that’s a quote, right? Maybe it was just a thought.
“Sure. Thanks, Socrates.” Vince pushes his palms across the front of his pants and rubs his hands together. “I’ve got to get back out there. Flaura is close. I’m going to send her up. Hang around after the interview before you go chasing your next lead. I want a full debriefing on everything you’ve gotten so far.” Vince takes a new packet of gum out of his pants pocket and pops three pieces into his mouth.
“Sir, yes, Sir,” I say. Too tired to convey any of the correct respect in that statement. Doesn’t matter anyway. Vince is three steps out of the plane before I’m finished saying it. “I thought he was cooler than that.”
Ann shrugs. “Two attacks in major US cities in less than two days, I imagine he feels like he’s up a creek without a paddle right now.”
Solid point. I move to one of the windows to spy on Vince. He walks across the grass to the edge of a pond at the corner of the park. His arm swings, gesturing to the plane, but I can’t see anyone. After a moment, he walks off, away from the plane and toward the city.
A figure rises up from the edge of the water. The feminine silhouette pulls herself out of the pond and onto the grass. She walks toward the plane with a light amble, deceptive of what she must weigh as each foot step leaves a deep imprint in the grass.
In the dying light of day, I make out details as she strolls over to us. She’s not wearing clothing and instead has roots wrapped around her body like Eve on Miracle Grow. Her skin is the brown of smooth tree bark and her black hair is braided and twisted up on top of her head like a botanical root system. As she walks, all of the foliage within her vicinity bends toward her, like sunflowers chasing the light.
“This should be fun. Who’s taking point on this one?”
Flaura moves under the plane and out of view.
Ann straightens up. “I will.”
A little part of me wonders if she’s doing this to prove she’s not light on heroes. A big part of me hopes this ends without any untoward pruning.
Each of Flaura’s footsteps up the stairs shakes the vessel. Her stacked hair appears in the cabin and her body follows up behind it. She moves with the lithe grace of a dancer doing the Ballet of the Peaceful Lilies. There is a sense of menace in her glowing green eyes that makes me think the dance would be more like the chomping of a flytrap.
She takes a seat at the table, opposite me. Ann has stood and paced toward the back of the plane, probably trying to keep her powers from dropping Flaura’s ‘clothing’. Flaura’s posture is straight up and down and her eyes flash back and forth between the two of us. “You rang?” She speaks slowly, as if already bored by our presence.
Ann clears her throat. “Yes, we wanted to ask you a couple questions relating to Gravitess and Cendy.”
Flaura grimaces, showing off a series of small, pointy teeth. “And this is an informal request. Am I right? To the best of my knowing, no formal investigation team has been launched, correct?”
“SHI Director Vince Larson has asked us to perform this investigation. Consider this formal.” Ann’s voice is still even; a cop reading a sloppy drunk her Miranda Rights. She leans up against the wall at the back of the cabin, eying Flaura from a distance.
“And you,” Flaura turns her venomous gaze to me, “You been causing quite a stir. Word is, you broke free of River’s psychic ability and there’s even a rumor going around that you laid some pretty heavy hands on The Patriot. Self-r
ighteous prick may have deserved it, but we heroes watch out for our own. I would tread lightly if I were you.” She flicks her tongue off the top of her jagged little teeth on the word ‘lightly’.
Flaura’s gaze moves up and down my body. “So what are you, some kind of secret hero no one knows about? Like a secret agent within a secret agency?” She stretches a mocha colored hand out towards me, palm up. The wrinkles in her hand look like lines in the bark of a tree.
I pull my hands off the table, away from her touch. The heroes must have talked among themselves about my confrontations with River and The Patriot. They think I’m the one with the powers, not Ann. The element of surprise is always a bonus, so I decide to play this hand close and hope Ann goes along with it.
“I’m something of a special case, you could say, but we aren’t here to talk about Little Ole Me.” I snap off a wink, camera-shutter-on-a-sunny-day quick. “We’re here to talk about Cendy and Tess. Word is, there was some bad blood in those waters.”
Flaura entwines her fingers on top of the table. “That is putting it mildly. Tess always walked around like a stuck-up twat with a log jammed sideways up her prissy ass. She hated Cendy and me both for no reason. She just brooded through SHI with her nose ten feet in the air like she couldn’t stand the smell of us.”
Well, now that she mentions it, the plane does smell a bit…earthy all of the sudden.
“Do you have anything…more specific?” Ann asks.
“More specific?” Flaura eyes Ann with disgust, upper lip curled in a manner that would make fake Elvises all over rage with jealousy. “Specifically, Tess is a bitch. She hates all the heroes and doesn’t socialize with anyone. Keeps to herself and blows off anyone who tries to talk to her.”
Hero Engine Page 11
