Don't Be a Hero: A Superhero Novel

by Chris Strange

  —Notes on selected metahumans [Entry #1086]

  Gabby carried Niobe and the prisoners through the ash and smoke clouding the city and set them down on the outskirts of a warzone. When she finally had solid ground under her again, Niobe’s legs could barely hold her upright. Gabby held out a metal arm to steady her, and Niobe gratefully accepted it.

  As for Quanta, the red-suited man, and the pilot, Gabby tossed them into a pile against the wall. She’d produced a black fabric that turned into a box that resembled a coffin when she ran an electric charge through it. It’d keep Quanta from absorbing any light if he woke up and her disabler device failed.

  Flashes of energy and lightning crackled in the air above Niobe. She stood in the middle of a four-way intersection, each road blocked off by a makeshift barricade of ruined cars and bits of crumbled masonry. She spotted a knot of people huddled along the side of one barricade, facing down Kent Street. The light from two huge spotlights stung her eyes, and the rifle fire made her ears ring. She could make out brightly costumed figures through the smoke as well, but through the blinding light she couldn’t resolve the details.

  “Gimme a minute,” Niobe said. She slumped down with her back against the wall of an office building and fished out her miniature first aid kit from her belt. It wasn’t made for injuries like this, but it would have to hold until she could get someone to look at it.

  The Silver Scarab settled protectively in front of her while Niobe worked, weapons trained in the direction of the fight. Niobe slid a knife under what remained of her glove and started to slice it away. The bits that were burned into her flesh stung like all buggery when she tried to peel them out, so she gritted her teeth and cut around them. It was hard going with her left hand, but she managed it. The hand itself was a write-off. Maybe she could get Gabby to build her a robotic claw.

  She unscrewed a bottle of rubbing alcohol, braced herself, and poured it over her hand. Fire screamed through her skin. She screwed up her eyes and bit her lip to keep from crying out, but a strangled grunt still left her throat, and her eyes prickled with tears. When the pain finally faded enough for her to move again, she got some gauze and bandages out of her kit and awkwardly wrapped the mangled mess as best she could with her left hand and her teeth. With another strip of bandage, she fashioned herself a crude sling. It sure as hell wasn’t pretty, but it might keep her from bleeding out.

  She tapped Gabby’s armour to get her attention. “Do you have water?”

  Gabby produced a plastic bottle from a compartment in her chest and handed it to her. Niobe washed the taste of blood and smoke out of her mouth, spat, and then guzzled the rest.

  “All right.” She readjusted her mask and struggled to her feet. The thigh wound would have to wait. “Let’s do this.”

  Gabby hauled the prisoners on her shoulders, and Niobe walked. Her hand didn’t jar so bad with every step now. She glanced back once and saw Quanta’s airship making a slow turn away from the city. Then the smoke covered it, and it was gone.

  She turned back to the group firing over the barricade and stopped. “You?”

  Senior Sergeant Wallace fired another three shots from his L1A1 and then took a look at her. “Where the hell have you been?”

  “Uh, trying to get myself killed, I guess,” she said, holding up her hand.

  He glanced at it and grunted, then fired off another couple of shots as a streak of purple energy crashed into the barricade.

  Niobe looked around at the rest of the group. A couple of coppers—not Met Div, just regulars—were shooting as well. But what drew her eye was the greens and reds and blues of the others there. She dredged some of the names up from her memory. Negabeast. Ballista was there too, firing a dozen bolts at a time from her huge crossbow. Brightlance, shooting beams of brilliant blue from his hands. She recalled the last time she’d seen him in that yellow bodysuit and red cape, when the man was too broken to help them get the McClellan baby back. It seemed so long ago. But now here he was, fighting for the city. Had he kept a signaller all these years, waiting?

  There were others she didn’t recognise, younger metas. A girl in a pale blue bodysuit who couldn’t be older than fifteen hovered a few feet above the ground. Every time she flicked her wrist, a piece of building masonry took on a blue glow and flew through the air towards the supercriminals taking cover down the street. And overhead, a pair of fliers with matching purple uniforms streaked past, whirling chains in hand.

  “How…?” Niobe couldn’t believe what she was seeing. “How are they here?”

  Wallace slammed another magazine into his rifle and pulled back the slide. “I called them.” He leaned over the bonnet of the ruined car and fired. “Goddamn typical. Bloody superheroes never could take the fucking initiative.” He reached into his pocket and tossed her something. “You can have this back.”

  She caught the Carpenter’s signaller and turned it over in her hand. It had worked. How had so many of them responded? Two days ago these metas cowered in the Old City like rats. But now there was something new in their faces. Or rather, something old. What the hell had Wallace promised them?

  “What about civilians?” she asked when the booms of Wallace’s rifle took a break.

  He jerked his head towards the hotel on the corner. Shadows moved inside the darkened doorway.

  “We got a couple hundred rounded up there,” Wallace said. “And I’ve got every copper who can still walk getting people to safety. A few metas are helping too,” he added grudgingly. “Probably another thousand got out of the city before the shit hit. I don’t have a clue how many are hiding in their homes. Or dead. But the shelters, they got hit worst.”

  Underground, Neo-Auckland was dotted with bomb shelters, she knew, built in the days when everyone feared another nuke.

  “I was watching from the rooftops,” she said. “Quanta’s people seemed more interested in causing havoc than trying to cut their way into concrete bunkers. What happened?”

  “What the fuck do you think happened?” Wallace pointed into the sky. “Your boy.”

  The controls for her goggles were on the wrong side of her face, so upping the magnification was awkward. But once she did, she couldn’t miss Sam. Her heart dropped into her gut. The strings still left his hands, so dense now it looked like he was floating on a grey, pulsing mountain. And in a loose sphere around him were the floating civilians that had become his shield.

  “He got into the shelters?” Then she figured it out. “Omegaman’s phasing power.”

  “We figured the shelters would at least slow him down. But he walked straight through the walls and took everyone at once. All we did was save him some travel time.”

  “Bloody hell,” she said. “Mind control? He’s making the civilians fight?”

  “I’m afraid not.” The voice came from behind her, but she knew it immediately. She turned to regard the Blind Man’s dark, lined face. He was the only meta present not in a costume, unless you counted the carved walking stick he leaned on. “It’s worse than that.”

  At the sight of the Blind Man, grief and anger swirled inside her. The Carpenter had still been alive the last time she’d spoken to the psychic. There was still hope for Sam, then. She still had her memories. But she suppressed the feelings. “What, then?”

  “Come.” He turned and shuffled slowly towards the hotel, heedless of the blasts still raining around him. How did he know where he was going? No matter. Gabby must’ve been following the conversation, because she nodded her insectoid helmet at Niobe.

  “I’ll stay here and deal with this lot,” Gabby said, the voice slightly robotic through the speakers. She gestured to Quanta and the other prisoners. Niobe touched her armoured chest, smiled, and followed the Blind Man.

  Inside the hotel, civilians huddled in the lobby, crammed together on couches and mattresses raided from the rooms. They spoke in whispers in the gloom, and the sharp scent of sweat pervaded everything. The Blind Man moved to the back of the lobby. It was
nearly empty back here. Hine-nui-te-po hovered in the corner, still dressed in the same woollen garments Niobe had last seen her in. The woman nodded at Niobe as she approached.

  “Spook,” Hine-nui-te-po said. “I’m sorry about the Carpenter. He was a great man.”

  “How did…?” She shook her head. “Yes. He was.”

  The Maori woman tended to a pot-bellied man lying motionless on a couch. His eyes were open, but they stared at nothing. His jaw was slack, his breathing slow. At a motion from the Blind Man, Niobe approached the man. She waved her good hand in front of his face. Nothing.

  Her stomach knotted, but she had to know. “Sam did this?”

  “Those we get free quickly are fine.” The Blind Man shuffled alongside her. “Especially if the victim is young. Then the psychic damage is minor. The mind is remarkably capable of regeneration. Quick-fire and some others have been trying to free who they can before they’re taken out of reach. But it seems that those we are slow to retrieve from the boy’s grasp are…” He seemed to struggle for the right word, which was so unlike him her stomach grew tighter. “…empty.”

  She remembered what she felt like after the Blind Man had taken her memories, and her thoughts grew dark. “Amnesia.”

  “More. I’ve searched these people’s minds, and there is nothing left. No memory, no personality, no will. They will eat, breathe, drink, walk if you guide them, but they no longer retain anything that makes them human.”

  Jesus. “Why’s Sam doing it? Just to shield himself?”

  The Blind Man was quiet. The loose skin around his neck wobbled, and she realised he was shaking a little. “Perhaps. He has only used this technique on non-combatants. Perhaps it’s just to protect himself. Perhaps he gains energy from them as well, using them to fuel his powers. But I believe there’s something else. I believe deep down he’s trying to keep them safe, away from the fighting. And then he takes them inside himself, so he’ll never be alone.”

  What the hell did Doll Face do to you? What’s going on in your head? She sighed. She could still remember being inside that scared little boy’s head as O’Connor attacked him. She still wanted to save that boy.

  She couldn’t look at the man’s blank face anymore, nor those of the others gathered around the room. She turned away from the Blind Man and Hine-nui-te-po without another word and strode back out into the night, where the battle still raged.

  Sam was getting closer. She could feel his energy in the air. How many people were under his control now? Five hundred? Six?

  She recalled an old story device from the comics. They called it the Hero’s Dilemma. The villain kidnaps both the hero’s sidekick and the girl he loves, and puts them in two separate death traps. There’s only enough time for the hero to save one. So which is it going to be?

  Of course, in the comics, the hero always cheated. That was the answer to the dilemma. The hero couldn’t let anyone die. He had to save everyone. And he was always smart enough, or strong enough, or fast enough to do it.

  But this was real life. She couldn’t cheat against Sam. He was too strong. So she had to choose. She’d promised to save Sam. She’d promised Frank Oppenheimer, and she’d promised herself. But he was killing people, or worse. It didn’t matter that he didn’t know what he was doing, that it wasn’t his fault. He was sick, he was out of his mind, but he was a threat. With his uncle’s power, he could fly through any wall in the world. If someone tried to nuke him, he could dive into the earth itself, letting hundreds of miles of rock and soil shield him from the blast. No one would be safe from him. He’d only grow stronger as the hours passed, until no one would be able to stop him. She couldn’t let him keep doing this. How many lives was a promise worth?

  And if someone had to stop him, it should be her. She owed him that much.

  If she was going to act, it had to be now, while her adrenaline was still up. The bandages on her hand were going red. She couldn’t keep this up forever. Her eyes fell on the spotlights pointing down the street, where the supercriminals continued to fight even as more heroes swooped in to join the battle. A plan took hold in her mind. It wasn’t the best she’d ever had, but against Sam, nothing would be.

  She looked up into the sky once more, finding him amongst the stars and the bodies. With her goggles on maximum magnification, he was close enough that she could make out the pain in his face.

  I’m sorry, Sam.

  “Wallace,” she shouted over the gunfire and blasts. “We need to get Sam on the ground.”

  “Kinda busy here,” he growled. Gabby was next to him, adding her own firepower to that of the others.

  “It’s not a bloody suggestion, Senior Sergeant. Can you do it?”

  “I can.” The voice was so quiet she barely heard it over the noise of battle. Niobe found the young girl in the blue bodysuit floating beside her, still telekinetically hurling rocks down the street. “I think,” she added, not meeting Niobe’s eyes.

  Niobe chewed her lip. Bloody hell, the girl was young. “What’s your name?”

  “Dancer.”

  Niobe smiled behind her mask. “Dancer, eh? I like it. Where’d you get the costume?”

  “It was my mother’s.”

  “You really think you can get him to touch the ground? Or a roof?”

  Dancer straightened her back. “Uh-huh. Um, I might need some help, though.”

  “I reckon that can be arranged.” Niobe glanced around at the other heroes. “Hey, Brightlance.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I’m in,” he said without turning away from the barricade.

  “Okay. Wallace. You think your people can hold here with only a couple of heroes? I need you to give me a hand with something.”

  His scarred face betrayed nothing. “This better be good, vigilante.”

  “You might wanna tell your people to keep an eye on Quanta and the other prisoners too.”

  “Fine.” He barely stopped shooting to glance back at her. “I’ll tell ’em to put holes in the bastard if he so much as twitches. Just stop yapping.”

  “One more thing.” She pointed to the spotlights. “I need to borrow those.”

  She took her time, letting the cigarette smoke play on her tongue, drip down her throat, and slowly exit her mouth again. No one had offered her a blindfold or a last meal, so she was sure as hell going to enjoy this.

  From her position back on top of the Unity Corporation building, she had a good view of the city, or what was left of it. The blasts of light in the streets were slowly dying off. Without the airship to extract them, Quanta’s metas were isolated in small groups. And as more and more heroes joined the fray, the villains were slowly being picked off. All the supercriminals who had been resting here on the roof had fled or been captured, so she had the place to herself. Well, almost.

  “How’s that?” Wallace said. She exhaled a cloud of smoke and turned back towards the rooftop gardens. The pair of spotlights stood on either side of the stairwell door, casting a wide shine on the centre of the tile walkway.

  She pushed her goggles up to study it with her own eyes. The lights were bloody bright. “That’s the low setting?”

  “Low as it goes.”

  Jesus. Her skin was already burning at the thought. She slipped her goggles back on and looked out over the city, where Sam and his shield of civilians drifted slowly closer. The rest of the city had gone quiet, like it was holding its breath. She took a last long drag of her cigarette, then flicked the smouldering butt over the side.

  “I need you to do me a favour,” she said.

  He came alongside her, his rifle at rest in his hand, and watched the city with her. His face was dark. “I’ve been doing you a lot of favours lately.”

  “You’ll like this one,” she said. “If I’m not out in three minutes, I need you to crank up those lights to full power.”

  He was quiet for a moment. “Is that safe? For you, I mean.”

  “What do you think?”

  Streaks of light began to dart ac
ross the city sky. If Sam noticed them, he didn’t give any sign. Niobe pulled her mask down to cover her lips. The pain in her right hand was really starting to hit her. She hoped the second dose of morphine she’d taken would kick in soon.

  “My wife and daughter are somewhere out in this,” Wallace said.

  She glanced at him. He could have been talking about the rugby game he’d watched in the weekend.

  “Yeah?” she said. “You see them much?”

  “Not much.”

  At maximum magnification she could make out Gabby burning through the sky. To either side of her were the twin fliers in purple, weapons whirling. Dancer, Brightlance, and a dozen more heroes would be in position by now as well.

  Wallace spat over the edge. “It was never personal, you know.”

  “Fuck you, copper.”

  The lines on his face became less jagged for a second. She could’ve sworn he smiled.

  “You’ll do what I asked?” she said.

  He nodded. “Three minutes.”

  “I hope your wife gets out all right.”

  He shrugged. “I’m not fussed either way.”

  A boom exploded across the city. Even from here, she could see the flash of Gabby’s shoulder cannon. The blast passed between a pair of floating civilians and crashed into Sam’s side. His skin shimmered for a second, and then he was covered in steel. Lightning crackled around him.

  The purple fliers darted in from the other direction. Each of them grabbed a pair of the smallest bodies under their arms and sliced at the fibres. An instant later, they came free.

  Sam’s scream put shivers down Niobe’s spine. He spun away from Gabby and raced towards the fliers, his hostages following like balloons. Damn it, he was fast.

  “They’re not going to make it,” Niobe said. Her fist clenched in her pocket.