by Nick Svolos
Negotiating my way around tables loaded with science gear, scurrying lab assistants, and humming machinery, none of which I dared touch, I found the scientist working at a computer terminal connected to a gadget that held a piece of metal suspended in some sort of glowing green field. I didn’t want to interrupt him, so I stood watching for a while as he’d type something into the computer, make an adjustment to the machine and then repeat the process.
“He’s going to be a while,” a quiet voice behind me spoke. I stifled the startled jolt that ran through me and turned around to find one of the lab assistants standing there. The young man, in a lab coat with a badge that identified him as Dr. Joseph Murray, kept his voice low. “We probably shouldn’t interrupt him.”
“Is that the cape-killer bullet he’s working on?” After the Coliseum battle, I managed to palm one of the specialized rounds designed to kill superheroes. I gave it to the Angels’ scientific team in the hopes that they might be able to develop a counter to them. It was illegal as hell, but I figured the least I could do was give them a fighting chance to balance the scales.
Dr. Murray nodded. “It’s been our top priority.”
“How’s it going?”
“Not well,” he grunted. “Whatever that thing is made of, it doesn’t fit into the periodic table. The atomic structure keeps changing, almost as if it exists in some quantum state that we don’t have the technology to interact with.”
“Wow. Who’d have thought space metal would be so complicated.”
“Apparently, Galestorm Technologies. From the data you retrieved, it appears that they didn’t know how it worked either. They just knew what it could do. To make matters worse, we can’t collaborate with the scientific community without revealing that we have this thing. We’re racing every criminal organization and most of the world’s governments to figure this out before they do. We have no idea who we can trust.” He sighed. “At least the rest of these things are safely locked away. But for how long?”
The rest of the bullets were locked up at the LAPD evidence locker, with a team from The Angels’ civilian security department standing a round-the-clock watch to make sure they stayed there.
“We should be good until the trials of Longshot and Mechanista run their course,” I offered. “With appeals and what-not, you might have a few years. Of course, once that’s over, it’s anybody’s guess. The LAPD can’t hold off the Justice Department forever. Of course, if things change on the political front, like if we get a new DA or something, all bets are off.”
“Oh, well, I guess if we wanted easy work, we wouldn’t have come to work here. So, are you here to discuss our research, or is there something else I can help you with?”
I reached into my pocket and pulled out the blood-filled test tube. “Yeah, I was wondering if someone could take a look at this. This came from a kid who supposedly fell out a window and broke his neck. The thing is, he was a flier, so it doesn’t make sense. I think someone did something to him, something that the Coroner’s not set up to find.”
“Hmm,” Murray said as he took the tube. “I have a few minutes. Let’s take a look.” He led me over to a workstation setup and went to work preparing a few microscope slides. Two of these he fed into some complex machinery that I didn’t recognize, and the last he placed in a high-tech electron microscope. He made a number of adjustments, pressing buttons and turning knobs with swift, precise motions, and an image appeared on a monitor that looked to me like a bunch of red Cheerios. He nodded, and changed the settings to zoom in closer, did some more science-cy stuff, and checked the readouts on the other machines. I just stood back and let him work his mojo, being very careful to resist the urge to lean up against anything. I’d learned the hard way not to do that. An awkward guy like me in a place like this could turn into a Jerry Lewis routine in a heartbeat.
Ultimately, he looked up from his work and said, “Well, I’m not finding anything out of the ordinary. Looks like perfectly normal human blood. B-Positive.” He looked at another terminal and added, “Now, what’s odd is that the usual markers that characterize superpowers aren’t present. You sure this kid was a natural?”
“Yeah. All the signs were there. Adolescent onset, initial lack of control overcome with training, the whole nine yards.”
He called over a colleague to confirm his results, and after a quick discussion, they agreed to bring Dr. Austin over to have a look. He didn’t look particularly happy about the interruption, but once he got started looking at the data, he warmed to the task. “Have you run a full-spectrum polarization survey?” he eventually asked.
The other two scientists looked at each other and affirmed that they hadn’t, and Austin took one of the slides across the room to a complex-looking gadget and started running an analysis. I followed the other two lab denizens over to watch him work. A monitor on the machine came to life, displaying a multicolored array of lines with varying degrees of, for want of a better word, squiggliness. I recognized a few of the words that tagged each line and decided they must represent different types of radiation. One of the lines was squigglier than the others. Its label read “Kunai”.
Dr. Austin leaned back in his chair, a look of amazement on his face. “Do you see it?” he asked.
The other two scientists nodded in agreement, displaying similar looks of awe. I realized, as the dumbest person in the room, I’d have to ask for an explanation. “I take it there’s something significant about that line there?”
All three of them nodded, and Dr. Austin simply said, “The red cells are displaying traces of residual Kunai radiation.”
Dr. Murray took up the challenge of breaking it down for the slow kid. “Kunai radiation is what makes nullifier fields work. It’s named after Shuusuke Kunai, the researcher who discovered it.”
“Ah, so the kid was under a nullifier beam?” I asked, thinking I might understand what was going on.
Dr. Austin shook his head. “No. Well, possibly, but that’s not what we’re seeing. The half-life of Kunai particles is measured in milliseconds. These cells are retaining them somehow, perhaps even acting as generators.” He thought for a moment then asked, “Where’d the blood sample come from?”
“The morgue. The less said about how, the better. There were ... probably a couple of felonies involved.” I ran down the Coroner’s findings and my suspicions regarding Karl’s death again for Dr. Austin’s benefit.
“I’m going to need to examine the body,” the scientist mused.
“I don’t know how cooperative they’ll be. Sounds like the Coroner might put up a fuss about reopening the case. It sounded political.”
Austin nodded. “It’s always political. Well, I have some contacts over there. I’ll see what can be done. If nothing else, maybe Ultiman can call in a favor or two.”
“Cool.” He sounded confident about being able to navigate the Coroner’s bureaucratic wall, which in turn bolstered my confidence that I’d come to the right people. “Just don’t tell them about the blood, OK? If they put two and two together, I’ll probably be writing this story from a jail cell.”
“Our lips are sealed,” the good doctor grinned. “Theft of evidence, eh? Sounds like associating with our little band of vigilantes is rubbing off on you.”
I laughed. “Hell, doc. All good journalists have a little bit of vigilante in them. We just use pens instead of blaster beams.”
IV
As I walked back to the elevator, Dr. Austin’s words hung with me. Sure, I played it off with a joke, but I wondered if he might have a point. I’d straight up stolen evidence from the morgue. I hadn’t even given it a second thought. Would I have taken a risk like that before I’d gotten involved with The Angels? Maybe. I’d like to think so. But, I couldn’t dismiss the idea that being around these people might be affecting my judgment.
Deep in thought, I was about to hit the button for the ground floor when some internal process reminded me that there might be someone in this building who could s
hed some light on the whole Protest Girl riddle. I spoke into the air. “Archangel, is Three Dollar Bill in the building?”
The artificial intelligence that more or less runs the Angel Tower responded from hidden speakers in a cool, female voice. “Yes, Mr. Conway, he’s on watch tonight. You’ll find him in the Briefing Room.”
“Cool. Do you know if he’s available?”
“I believe he’s in a committed relationship.” The button for the forty-first floor lit up, and the elevator started moving.
“No, I meant—Archangel, did you just make a joke?”
“Yes. SpeedDamon has been providing me with guidance in constructing humorous dialogue, and I thought this would be an opportunity to test it. In this case, there were two possible interpretations of your question, and I deliberately chose the one with the least likely context to elicit a humorous response. I take it from your lack of laughter that my response was not funny.” The AI actually sounded disappointed.
“No, it was funny. Just unexpected. Might want to work on timing.” We discussed the finer points of comedy as we traveled upward. I didn’t want to say it, but I thought I knew why the joke fell flat. Maybe there was an innate human resistance to playing the straight man for a computer.
Our conversation ended as the elevator opened on The Angel’s massive conference room and command center. A big round table with their logo, basically an “A” with wings, embossed in the center stood in the middle of the room, surrounded by workstations and huge monitors placed around the periphery.
Three Dollar Bill sat at one of the consoles, his back to the elevators and watching a news broadcast on one of the huge flat screens that hung suspended from the ceiling. On other screens were a variety of information graphics such as crime rates in various parts of the city, traffic patterns, seismic activity, weather projections, you name it. I wasn’t sure how some of this fit in with costumed superhero work, and I suspected a lot of it was just there to make it look like they were busy. Unless some super-powered whacko was tearing up a shopping center somewhere, standing watch at the Tower was pretty boring. At least that’s what Helen’s told me.
Hearing the elevator doors open, Bill turned his head to see who was entering. He smiled and waved me over, muting the TV.
“Hey Reuben. Did we have a session scheduled?” He’d been teaching me Judo over the last month, one of Herculene’s ideas. She somehow got it in her head that I needed to learn how to handle myself in a fight. I’ve never been one for fighting. Talking my way out of a jam, and running like hell when that doesn’t work, is my forte. She’d tried to teach me herself, but even with her control, the only lesson I learned was what a badass she is. That, and how many creative ways I could come up with to explain facial bruises. Seventeen, if you’re interested. Training with Bill was a much better option.
“Nope. I’m actually here to pick your brain on something pertaining to your day job,” I said as I took a seat. In addition to being a chi-channeling martial arts master that can pull off the sort of moves that you only see in Hong Kong kung-fu flicks, he’s a civil rights lawyer and LGBT activist. He runs that side of his life out of an office above his dojo in West Hollywood. I figured if anyone knew how to track a protest leader, it had to be him. I gave him the details on Protest Girl and the anti-super demonstrations she’d been involved in. We pulled up the articles on the various events on his workstation as I walked him through the timeline I’d established.
“So, you think her next move is San Francisco?” Bill said, as he rubbed his chin, considering the information. “I didn’t realize there were any supers up there these days.”
“Moonchild and Shibboleth are still there. Not really active, I mean they gotta be in their sixties now, but they still help out when needed. Call it an educated guess. Seattle told me nobody’s pulled a permit, so unless she’s switching up her M.O., Frisco’s all I can come up with. The question is, how can I find out if there’s something planned? The cops aren’t returning my calls.”
Bill smiled. “Well, there’s more to this business than squaring things with the Man. You need bodies.” He brought up a browser and went to several activist forums. He did some searches and started eliminating them one by one.
I felt a gentle hand on my shoulder and looked up to see Herculene grinning down at me. She planted a quick kiss on my forehead and said, “Hiya, handsome. Heard you were wandering around here.” She affected a little pout. “A little disappointed to find out you weren’t here to see little ol’ me…”
I squeezed her hand. “Sorry, babe, I was focused on business.”
“I can see that. Whatcha working on?”
I brought her up to speed while Bill continued his search. She grabbed a chair and joined me in watching over the martial artist’s rainbow-garbed shoulder with interest until he dug up a post labeled “San Francisco Rally For The Powerless!” It was a post by a user named “AnoniMouse328” that invited the reader to join a demonstration to protect “normal people” from the “victimization and marginalization at the hands of super-powered bullies.” It went on to list an extensive set of grievances, some real, others imagined, and announced that a rally to “make our voices heard” was to be held at Golden Gate Park in something called the Polo Field.
“Well, there ya go,” Bill said as he leaned back in his chair. “Two o’clock tomorrow afternoon. You heading up there?”
I nodded as I wrote down the info in my notebook. “Yeah, I think so. Seems too good to pass up.”
Bill steepled his fingers. “That’s for sure. Seems like a lot of this is too good.” He went silent as he went into some sort of deep karate master meditation. Or maybe he was just thinking. With him, it was kind of hard to tell.
I was debating whether I should interrupt his reverie with a question when Herculene beat me to it.
“OK, I’ve seen this before. Have either of you guys eaten?”
Bill shook his head distractedly, and I checked my watch. “Cripes! It’s eight already.” As if it was waiting patiently for the right moment to launch an attack, a wave of hunger panged through my gut.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Herculene said. “Alright, you two, let’s continue this down in the galley.” She stopped short of grabbing us by our ears, but her tone made it clear she was serious. I’d long since learned not to argue with her when it was feeding time. After a short elevator trip down to the fourteenth floor, we entered our selections in the kiosk and took seats at a table by the window to wait for our food to be prepared. The heroes worked around the clock, and the Tower never slept, so they kept the galley open all the time. It was a pretty good fringe benefit for the people who worked there, too. You could get just about anything you wanted, it was really good, and it was free, so the price was right. It beat my plan of grabbing a drive-through burger on the way home.
Soon, a guy from the kitchen wheeled out a cart with our food. Two huge trays of food for the superheroes and a steak and fries for me. I’d ordered the smallest serving offered, and the ribeye still looked like it could tip over Fred Flintstone’s car. As we dug in, I asked Bill, “So, what’s that you were saying about the protests being ‘too good?’”
“Yeah,” Bill said between bites from a trough of pasta al fresco. “What I meant was the protests don’t fit the pattern I’d expect.” He washed his most recent bite down with a hearty swig of sparkling water and continued. “So, there’s a couple of reasons you’d want to stage a demonstration. It gets you media attention and it’s an opportunity to gain support for your cause. If you have a lot of people, you show your numbers and sway people who are on the fence to join in. If you don’t, you fake it.”
He paused to swallow another bite. “OK, I’m putting this together on the fly, so let’s just see where this goes. They had decent numbers in all the demonstrations so far, but there doesn’t seem to be much organization. This woman you’re looking for is working under aliases, and the supposed organizations she’s with don’t exist. S
o she’s basically starting from scratch in each city. How the hell is she doing that? It takes a long time to earn credibility with a community. An outsider doesn’t just fly into town and say, ‘Hey kids, let’s put on a protest march!’”
“I just figured she was working with someone local,” I said. “I don’t think she could have pulled all the permits. Some of those happened at the same time she was at an event in another city.”
“Yep, she’s got to have at least one confederate, but even if she had a ground person in each town, that’s not enough to build the sorts of numbers we’re talking about here. The kind of organization it takes to pull that together is pretty impossible to hide. In fact, that would defeat their purpose. Lack of numbers is weakness, and you want to hide that. So, you’d want to be very public and make your organization look as big as possible to establish credibility. ‘Power is not only what you have, but what an opponent thinks you have. If your organization is small, hide your numbers in the dark and raise a din that will make everyone think you have many more people than you do.’”
“Oh God,” Helen drawled around a bite of shepherd's pie. “Can’t we have one meal where you don’t quote Alinsky?” As Bill chuckled, she followed up, “So, no organization and yet she still manages to draw a crowd. Is the anti-super sentiment really that bad?”
I decided to field that one. “I don’t think so. The polls that I’ve seen run about sixty-twenty in favor of the status quo. It’s the main thing that’s keeping the government’s hands tied.”
Bill considered this. “Twenty percent undecided is a lot of people. That’s a pretty big swing if she can sway them. But, you see, you just had your finger on the main thing that’s bugging me. We all know the government would love to shut us down. Forced registration at the very least, or locked up in a vault somewhere if some of these guys get their way.”
