We Could Be Heroes

by Mike Chen

  Yet instead of charging, the soldiers in the background remained. And the man leaned forward farther.

  “Zoe,” Jamie said, “I think this is really important. You gotta push yourself, we’re close.” Beneath him, she grunted, and things snapped back into focus, except something was different.

  The helmeted man’s left fist uncurled to reveal writing on the palm. He moved it directly into her view, and in the memory, she struggled to move as if she were...

  As if she were stunned.

  The only movement she was capable of was involuntary blinking, and her eyes stayed trained forward, on something scribbled on the man’s pale skin. Everything blurred before Jamie could catch the details. Zoe’s memory connection was loosening.

  “Motherfucker,” she yelled in the room. “This is not easy.”

  “Hang on, hang on, hang on,” he told her before muttering under his breath, “Come on, come on, come on.”

  The memory returned, a clear and distinct image.

  On that rooftop, she had stared at a palm. With a word written across it.

  Telos.

  Over a scar crossing diagonally across his palm.

  A scar that exactly matched the one on Jamie’s hand. The one he lied to Chesterton about. The one that had been there since day one.

  The memory was so clear now, the connection so strong, that clear audio finally returned. “Okay, then.” Muffled behind the mask, but Jamie caught enough to notice his British accent. The man spit in his palm and rubbed the word away. “She’s ready,” he said. Gravel crunched as he stood, both hands extended, fingers vaguely pointed her way. And then the memory went black.

  In the apartment, Zoe’s howl ramped up into a full body scream, and her vibrating body lifted off the floor despite being weighed down by metal chains. She screamed one more time as the connection severed and she fell to the carpet, unconscious.

  * * *

  That was him. That was him in the vision, and even though it wasn’t the cool thing to do with someone you just kind of became friends with, Jamie let Zoe remain passed out for about twenty minutes or so. Other than regularly checking in to make sure she was still breathing, he’d spent that entire time switching between staring at the scar on his hand, pacing around Zoe’s apartment, gawking at her detective board and pondering his own memories. When she finally began to stir underneath the chains, Jamie considered the options before him.

  Option A: he could tell her. Sub-option to that: he could leave her chained while he told her. Just in case she didn’t take the news well.

  Option B: he could leave that information out. Because it sure didn’t look good for him to be leading the charge, then brain-stunning her and wiping her memory. Why would he leave her a word? A test of some kind, to see if memories carried over? That seemed to be the logical choice given that nothing benevolent happened during that whole sequence. Chasing someone down with armed guards generally didn’t fall under the category of “good buddy behavior.”

  Jamie didn’t know, he didn’t want to know, he never wanted to know, and the universe was forcing his hand into diving back. How deep, how far, he wasn’t sure.

  But now Jamie and Zoe were linked. And not just by the chain he started to unwrap.

  “It was a word,” Jamie finally said after it was clear that she was coming back around. He gradually freed her from the chains, and by the time they sat side by side on the futon, he’d made his choice.

  “I can’t pull any of it,” she said. “I get the room. The rest of it is flashes. It’s a rooftop. There are people in armor. A hallway leading to it. Little bits like that, but nothing stays long enough to grab details. Hey.” She turned to him. “You can try going back in—”

  “No.” Jamie stood up. “There’s no need.” He paced over to the window, staring at the side of the neighboring building. If she didn’t recall it, then at least she wouldn’t know about the scar. At some point, he’d have to tell her. But he needed to understand the hows and whys of every second leading up to that rooftop before he revealed the truth. Even then, maybe he shouldn’t.

  “I can tell when you’re lying, you know.”

  “What?”

  “You’re lying. Right now. People’s brains stress when they lie and it shows up in their heat signatures. Unless they’re, like, really sociopathic.”

  Damn it.

  “Which, hey, you’re not. At least.” Zoe offered a smile with her words, which only made Jamie feel even worse.

  “I’m not lying,” he said, despite knowing he was indeed lying. “Well, look. Yes, I could dive back in. But there’s no point. You’re clearly drained—I mean, you levitated off the floor while screaming. That’s not good, you know?”

  “Fair point.”

  “Besides, this word. Let’s start with that. No more chains until we figure out what that means.” And no mention of a scar on a hand.

  “You think Telos...” Zoe pointed to the hodge-podge of papers and scribbles that made up her so-called detective board. “Telos, the rooftop, all of it... I mean, it has to tie into our abilities. And our missing memories. Right?”

  Jamie pictured the memory again, the scar on the palm as clear as a photograph on a screen. His left hand closed, as if he could will it to go away.

  “Has to.”

  But it didn’t go away. It was still there, the knowledge that he was somehow involved. Maybe she’d be okay with it.

  “I swear,” Zoe said, a growl entering into her voice, “if I find any of the motherfuckers who took my memory, I am gonna punch them through, like, ten buildings.”

  Or maybe not.

  Not yet, anyway. No, his plan was sound. That info would stay safely hidden until absolutely necessary.

  “Zoe, I promise you. We’ve got something to go on. That word. It has to mean something. Why would someone leave such a clue?” Jamie asked, catching himself from saying “I.”

  From behind, he heard her grunt as she stood up. She walked over at a ginger pace, and he didn’t need her reading abilities to know she was sore. “Not much of a view, huh?” she asked.

  “No. Not until the neighbors put up Christmas lights I bet.”

  “Yeah.” Zoe let out a small laugh. “The family across the way does a good job.”

  They stood in silence, the rev of passing cars and honking horns coming through the window. The mirror reflection brightened, and Jamie turned to see Zoe tapping at her phone. “Actually, you’re right,” she said. “We have something to go on.”

  Jamie’s eyes adjusted to the brightness of the screen and he read the website’s headline. Telos Foundation for a Better Life.

  A foundation. In fact, some sort of mental health rehab center, the kind of place you paid five grand and yelled at pictures of your parents while standing in the woods. Things started to lock into place, and though the gap between that place and the rooftop incident remained wide, they finally had a direction. And a direction meant no need to revisit Zoe’s memories. “I’ll go tomorrow,” Jamie said. “I mean, it’s not like I have a job to get to.”

  “Let’s both go.” Zoe’s response came with wide eyes, a nearly manic energy. “I think the city can live without the Throwing Star for one day.” She moved to a counter drawer, pulled out a notepad and pen. “Telos. Let’s dig up everything we can on it.”

  “Look at us, making plans, sharing pizza. Not killing each other.” Jamie turned to the open pizza box on the coffee table and grabbed a limp piece, slapping it onto his paper plate, grease pooling beneath it. “Like partners.”

  “Yeah,” Zoe said. “Partners.”

  Or close to partners, at least. A partnership would imply honesty with each other. But between the scar on Jamie’s hand and the mysterious “Stop Her” message, at this moment the only person he could fully trust was himself.

  12

  JAMIED NEVER
DID MEMORY lifts when off the job. In some cases, after he’d safely gotten a few blocks away from the bank he’d just robbed, he’d take a cab, go seven or eight blocks farther, then make sure the cab was safely parked when he removed the driver’s memories of their trip—with payment in full left on the seat, of course. He may have been a criminal, but he wasn’t a jerk.

  Today, however, was different. He’d taken a cab out here, some fifteen miles north of the San Delgado limits, past the long row of docks and across the area’s largest bridge—more expensive than getting a ride with OmegaCar, but those only took electronic pay and he wanted to leave zero trace behind. Tucked behind the office towers and the condos built into the sides of the nearby hillscape, a series of three connected buildings sat on the waterfront, the bay breeze swaying surrounding trees. He made the driver park there, then removed the memories of their trip and left cash before walking two blocks over to meet Zoe, who was already waiting for him.

  All of that was according to the plan. Which he followed meticulously. So much so that he used the checklist app on his phone to make sure he didn’t miss a step.

  Zoe, on the other hand, appeared to have forgotten what they’d discussed last night.

  “Are you, um, gonna change?” Jamie asked without trying to sound too accusatory.

  “What?” Zoe replied. She blinked at him, and he managed a quick gesture at her outfit of track pants, a tank top and a stained dark blue cap with the words Gone Fishin’ on it, which clearly contrasted his slacks and dress shirt. “You don’t like my disguise?” she asked, pointing to the hat. “Found it on a roof, thought it’d be perfect.”

  After leaving Zoe’s, Jamie spent last night reading anything and everything Telos. The facility seemed like an expensive therapy center: addiction, depression, anxiety, midlife crisis or postdivorce soul-searching; under the so-called Telos Principle, all of those things were driven by an underlying root cause they deemed the “catastrophic emotional self.” They even had scholarship programs and tiered payments for people with severe issues and no support, and happy patients left all sorts of testimonials for them.

  “Oh, it’s...it’s a cool hat,” he said with a forceful nod. “I just thought we were, you know, going to pretend we were inquiring about a tour.” That simplified things to the short-short version; in reality, Jamie had texted an entire phased approach after thinking about it during his ride home last night. It involved them pretending to be a couple on the brink of divorce, and they viewed Telos as a way to both heal their relationship and understand their own damage better, but they needed to tour the facility to determine if it was better to visit as individuals or as a couple. That then created a set of options where, if the opportunity presented itself, either could break off into an individual tour to explore, take notes, then examine potential areas to exploit for further reconnaissance should it feel necessary. Zoe had replied with, Okay see you there, which Jamie took as complete agreement.

  But perhaps not.

  “We really should look the part,” he said, gesturing to himself. “Did you bring a change of clothes?”

  “Wait, what tour? What are you talking about?”

  “I...” Jamie bit down on his lower lip and he almost dove into Zoe’s mind to see if she remembered texting her reply. “I sent a plan last night.”

  “Right. Meet here.”

  “But to, like, pretend to tour the place so we can assess the situation. Find clues. Detective stuff to go with your detective board. You know?”

  Zoe’s lips pursed as a gust of wind tossed her hair back. She turned to face the facility, then she looked back at Jamie. “Is that what that was? Sorry, I was brushing my teeth when you texted and a bit tired, so I didn’t really read it.”

  Deep breath. Deep, deep breaths. Jamie squashed the urge to cringe, exhaling at the cognitive dissonance being played out in real time here. He’d never worked with a partner before, and maybe that had always been a good thing. “I’m...okay. I think this can still work but—”

  “I thought about it while waiting for you, though. I was just gonna wing it.”

  The tour offered a reasonable way to get inside. It was much better than Zoe’s non-plan. “Look, I know we haven’t been on friendly terms for too long, but I just have to say it,” Jamie said. “Winging it is a terrible plan. You sure you don’t want to take—”

  “Nah.” Zoe waved it off and looked skyward. “It’ll be fine. Find a way in,” she said. “I’m gonna scout.”

  Find a way in. “Okay, well.” Jamie pulled out his phone and suppressed the urge to sigh. “Just stay in touch.” He looked again at the Okay see you there from late last night; in the midst of absolutely poor plans for spycraft, there was at least the lovely absurdity that the Mind Robber and the Throwing Star were texting.

  Zoe nodded, then crept into a shadowed spot between a building and a tree, she shot off and disappeared vertically, and a thump sound above him. He looked over at the Telos building up the small hill, its seemingly benign mix of polite modern architecture and occasional passing traffic feeling so ordinary. Though the facility sat on its own with its rear facing the water, a large fence surrounded the property. At the base of the hill lay a handful of small buildings, some occupied and some for lease, but nothing more than glorified mom-and-pop stores in a sleepy town primarily known for bed-and-breakfast stays and nearby hiking.

  But beneath it all, perhaps there was something related to the extraordinary. He looked up to track Zoe leaping into a line of trees at the property’s edge before heading in.

  It was just them. And one of them bounced on rooftops.

  Nothing nefarious stood out as the sliding doors opened up to tranquil indoor fountains, soft music and the soothing voice of a woman on a welcome video. He stood in the middle of the large foyer, pretending to take it in but in reality stretching out for a mental lock. A security guard approached, probably to ask him about his business. In his jacket pocket, Jamie flicked a finger, the lightest of brain stuns, something to disorient the man for a few minutes while he scanned around.

  He walked up to the front desk, suddenly aware that outside of the stunned security guard, no one was coming or going. In fact, the only entrances or exits were the main doors and, across the lobby, an armored locked door held by an intimidating metal frame, all chrome shine and weighty thickness.

  A man sat behind the counter typing away, something he kept doing even while looking up and nodding. Jamie started a short greeting before pausing midsentence. “I should take this,” he said, picking up his phone and tapping the side button to make the screen glow. “Hello?” he said to no one in particular.

  Walking a good seven or eight feet away, Jamie blended next to an overhanging plant, occasionally nodding or saying benign yesses and nos. All the while, his mind flicked through the memories of the receptionist for something, anything. The most recent images played out as standard office fare, paperwork and spreadsheets and phone calls. He dipped farther back, skimming over the weekend out at a hike and walking an adorable orange corgi. Beyond that, most of his work life involved that desk and the occasional escort of a new patient, though someone else almost always immediately scooped them up and whisked them off down the hall.

  In that glimpse, it was clear that things lacked the grim quality of the scene in Zoe’s fractured memory. This place could have been any health-care facility built in the past few years.

  At least up front. He needed to get inside, a closer look. “Hi, my name is Gordon Wright,” he said, using the alias he’d created last night, though the backstory came on the spot. Hopefully his improv skills passed the believability test. “I have a four o’clock appointment for a tour. We are trying to convince my sister to come. She’s struggling with a messy divorce and a drinking problem.” The words came out smooth but quiet and in his native accent, the complete opposite of the Mind Robber.

  “Certainly. I’
m sorry you’re in that situation but I hope we can help. We have an excellent record of changing people’s lives here—” The keyboard clacks stopped as the man frowned. “How do you spell your last name?”

  “W-R-I-G-H-T.”

  “Hmm. I’m sorry, I don’t see you booked. Our tours are confidential and coordinated to ensure patient privacy. I’m sure you can understand.”

  “Right, right. Well, the thing is I flew in from Los Mondas just for this trip. Can I at least speak to a therapist or program coordinator?”

  The man hesitated, looked at his screen and then back up at Jamie. “I think we can try to accommodate that. Let me see...” His fingers flew over the keyboard, clicking away as the screen flashed, illuminating his face in various colors. “A lot of our staff are tied up for the moment but maybe Dr. Waterfield is available.” Another few button presses and he began speaking into his headset. “Hi, it’s Archie from the front desk. I have someone here who scheduled a tour and we hit a snafu. Can you speak with him a moment? Okay. Okay. Great. Sorry about the short notice.” He looked back up and nodded. “Dr. Waterfield will be right up. In the meantime, I need you to sign in.”

  Winging it, indeed.

  He pulled out a tablet from a drawer, then handed it over. “And I’ll need your phone.”

  “My phone?”

  “We respect the privacy of our patients. To ensure that, we check in the phones of all visitors to ensure no recordings or photographs can be made. You must understand, many of our patients come from volatile situations and are in fragile states. That kind of intrusion can lead to undo stress.”

  “Right, right. Okay.” Jamie pulled up his text messages and quickly tapped one to Zoe. Going in. Will be off-line for a bit.

  “Thank you,” the man said, taking his phone. He put it into the drawer, then locked it. “It’ll be right here when you leave.”