We Could Be Heroes

by Mike Chen

  Maybe she needed more support group time. Extraordinaries Anonymous. That would have been perfect.

  “I thought you helped people,” the man finally said.

  “Yeah...” was the only thing Zoe could utter. She wanted to say something reassuring, to let this man know that this was a one-off means of survival. Something profound. Or at least witty, like the crap Jamie said in the videos of him robbing banks. Instead, Zoe’s gaping mouth and dry throat failed to come to the rescue. “I—”

  From afar, voices shouted.

  “I need to go. Sorry.” That would have to do, though she wanted to leave on something a little more reassuring. She was, after all, totally stealing his car. “I’m sure your insurance will cover this.”

  The engine revved, and in the rearview, the man stood, his phone now recording. Zoe considered stopping, sprinting out and grabbing the phone just to make sure these shenanigans didn’t turn into a viral video. But the helicopter’s searchlight loomed in her rearview. She jammed the accelerator, putting everything behind her. A minute later her pocket buzzed, showing that signal had finally returned.

  I have to ditch this phone. You should change yours too. Something is definitely up. Find me.

  Better to be safe. Zoe took the phone and shoved it through the gaping hole in the door. For a moment, she felt the wind whipping through her bloody knuckles before she let the device go.

  * * *

  An hour passed with Zoe on the road, only taking one wrong interchange before she had to loop around, but in the end it wasn’t a total loss. At least that might have shaken anyone on her tail.

  Without her phone, though, figuring out where Jamie actually lived had been a chore in itself. Fortunately, her FoodFast training gave her a strong sense of direction and the ability to note landmarks along the way.

  The door flew open seconds after she banged on it. “Zo—” he started before she pushed him out of the way and slammed the door shut behind her.

  Her pulse screamed, not just from the running but the constant looking over her shoulder. But now, in the confines of thin apartment walls and honest company, things finally started to relax. She turned to Jamie, who’d stayed by the door, as if waiting for permission. “I got your message,” she finally said.

  “You look...rough.”

  Zoe noticed Jamie gawking at her pant legs, which had nearly been torn off at the knees, chewed threads dangling loose. “Oh. I’m all right. If I sprint too fast in regular clothes, they tear. Especially if I catch a corner or branch or something. That’s why I need the suit.”

  “You’ve been busy?” Jamie walked up to her, kneeling to match her hunched-over position. He looked at her, his mouth hanging open as if all different words jammed up on their way out.

  “Yeah. I got shot at. The usual, you know?” The words came out with as much of a casual tone as she could force into it. “Shot at” usually meant a guy pulling out a handgun—and her knocking it out of his hand before a single bullet left.

  This was quite different. But she didn’t want Jamie to see that. “And I saw...this guy, like all burned and stuff, but hooked up to wires in a glass capsule. But then I got chased, so I jumped out of a tower and threw a motorcycle at guards.” She made it through all that, and yet being in Jamie’s apartment slowed her down, as cat allergies started burning her eyes. “Oh, and I stole a car.”

  “Okay,” Jamie said slowly. “Let’s rewind a little. You want a coffee? And an antihistamine?” He pulled out two mugs from his cabinet. “I saw a lot too. Didn’t get shot at. Chased, though.” He laughed and shook his head. “Winging it.”

  “Nice!” Zoe held out a hand, waiting for a high five that came about five seconds later than it should have. “Look at us. We came out unscathed.”

  “I don’t know about that. I vote for a plan next time.” Serious creases framed Jamie’s eyes; apparently, he didn’t appreciate the visceral thrill of escape. “There’s a lot you need to know.” Her coffee remained mostly untouched for the next ten minutes other than for downing the allergy pill, and was now probably cold as Jamie spilled the details: the weird woman in purple who may have been the same woman she punched, the database of seemingly legit rehab patients, the questions about an experimental new treatment.

  Jamie’s true past.

  And a glowing man who appeared and disappeared.

  But he’d started with the name Zoe Wong—the rest of it didn’t even need to exist. All that time with the detective board, piecing together seemingly unrelated clues and searching for fragments of her own memory, it had all been there on the name tag the whole time. And she’d never even bothered to dig deeper. It felt too easy.

  “It’s all connected somehow. Telos is definitely more than rehab. I wonder if they have something similar out in Hartnell City.” Jamie stood and started pacing back and forth, long fingers pointing and poking at the air to push his thoughts forward. “That place you went, I’m sure it’s listed as something else. The thing—the man.”

  How common a name was Zoe Wong? She’d searched before, but that was years ago, and now that she knew, it changed everything. Where to start? Social media? Facial recognition?

  “And me. I mean, I sounded like a terrible person. And I was clearly a patient. But still, armed guards?”

  Searching online was a start, but where? Records for Zoe Wong could be from anywhere. She could have lived across the country. Parents? Friends? Would her name and photo on social media help old acquaintances just find her? She had little experience with any of the social media sites, what with trying to keep a low profile and everything, but there were plenty of stories about miracle reunifications through them.

  “And that woman was creepy as shit. How did she block me?”

  And it wouldn’t be just about who Zoe Wong was. But what she was. So she could finally answer that nagging question that always lingered in the back of her mind, that sheer drive of wanting something more. What did she miss out on? What path got derailed from gaining the ability to hover and catch petty street criminals?

  “And then ten cows appeared and murdered everyone in sight.”

  “Right, right.” Maybe she could start with a list of every Zoe Wong she could find but whittle it down to her age range and—

  “You’re not listening.”

  “Of course I am. The clinic and the blue guy.”

  “And the murderous cows.”

  “Wait, what?”

  Jamie shot her a look, an arched eyebrow that proved his point.

  “Okay, your name was...” Zoe bit down on her lip, trying to pull back that one fairly important detail. But it wasn’t there. If Jamie had dived into her memories, he would have only found blurry images and muffled audio, things eclipsed by her own name and pondering what might have been. “Okay, you’re right. Maybe I’m overthinking it right now.”

  “Yeah, let’s just slow down. Take a break. I mean, I don’t sense anyone out there. Do you?”

  Jamie was right. With her thermal vision and extraordinary hearing, no threats emerged on her personal radar. Just neighbors doing neighbor stuff. “A break sounds good,” Zoe said, and suddenly her mind rushed with a different type of spark. Months and months of isolation and obsession—and inebriation—all culminated in this moment, something that seemed impossible a short time ago and now seemed so necessary. “I got an idea.” She reached into her back pocket for her phone before realizing that it was lying on some two-lane country road miles away. “Can we use your laptop? I wanna show you something.”

  * * *

  Jamie cringed as yet another head got severed. He peeked over at Zoe, whose cheeks seemed to be permanently up in a grin. “Oh!” she yelled, as Lo-Bot, the titular cyborg samurai of Lo-Bot: Samurai Cyborg, decapitated three demonic ninjas in a single swipe on his small laptop screen. “I can’t believe I waited to finish this. This is so freaking go
od,” she said, stuffing bits of microwave popcorn into her mouth. Jamie tried not to mind the fact that she didn’t wipe the grease on napkins before planting her hands on the futon cushion.

  He tried—seriously—to match her enthusiasm for this low-budget 1970s Japanese horror movie, complete with poor American overdubs. But all he could do was sit back befuddled, though as Zoe oohed and aahed at sloppy choreography and blood that seemed far too liquidy to pass for real, he found himself smiling.

  Really smiling.

  Not at the movie, because it was terrible. But because they sat on his little futon, Normal on his lap, screen propped up on the coffee table with a stack of his library books. And not as the Throwing Star and the Mind Robber, but as Jamie and Zoe.

  “Dude,” she said as Lo-Bot and his canine sidekick walked off into the forest while credits rolled.

  “What?”

  “You’ve got this weird look on your face. Oh no,” she said, “was this too gory for you? There are less gross ones that—”

  “No, no, it’s fine,” Jamie said with a quiet laugh. “I’m just...” he hesitated, searching for the right way to express his epiphany “...not used to having company over.”

  “Hey, we should have like a weekly movie night! There are so many on HorrorDomain. I mean, we can still rob a bank and everything. But also movie night. Because really, you gotta see some of these.”

  “Maybe. They have movies at the library too, you know. Ones with slightly bigger budgets.” Another laugh came, this one loud enough to cause Normal to readjust on his lap. “You’re a good friend, Zoe Wong. You should know that. And a pretty badass hero.”

  Zoe’s movie-spawned grin softened, the angles becoming less sharp as it exchanged sheer enthusiasm for something a little more vulnerable. And her eyes, the excitement dimmed, becoming a glint of something deeper. She shook out of it, head bobbing with an aw-shucks demeanor, then she punched him in the shoulder.

  It was probably supposed to be a joking tap, except it really, really hurt. Jamie grimaced through the pain, knowing she meant well.

  “Whoops. Sorry ’bout that. So,” Zoe said, snapping back to her usual cadence, “this movie got me thinking. Like, really thinking. I know this whole thing started off kind of by accident. The hero stuff.” As Zoe spoke, Normal poked her head up and looked diagonally into the corner of the room. She shook her head, collar jingling, then pounced off of Jamie’s lap, her back claws pushing out enough to dig into the fabric of his pants. “And I know I haven’t been a textbook hero by far, but something about it feels right. Being her feels right. I mean, Zoe Wong is going to exist but just like Lo-Bot embraces himself once he meets his dog, I think I really am the Throwing—”

  Jamie felt a sting in his neck, then a second in his back. It wasn’t pain that dropped him to the floor as much as a total collapse of his muscles. A bang sound clapped through the space and he saw Zoe drop to the floor after five or six darts flew into her, limp arms failing to brace her. Jamie’s face slammed to the thin carpet, and from his view, all he saw were Normal’s two eyes glowing from under the coffee table before the world faded out.

  20

  THERE WEREN'T MANY TIMES when Jamie would have rather had Zoe’s power. Maybe the hovering bit, but the speed and the power? Those were all tools, but tools still operated as steps in a process, a means to an end. On the other hand, lifting memories and brain-stunning, that was a cheat, a direct line to the finish.

  This was the exception to the rule. For starters, Jamie was bound to a chair, so tightly his hands throbbed from the lack of circulation, and that certainly didn’t help with his ability to attempt any mental invasions. A simple application of extraordinary strength could break the chains and ropes tying him up, probably even the metal folding chair, as well.

  Then there was the issue of the person in front of him: the woman from the facility. Sitting face-to-face with her now, Jamie studied her in ways that weren’t possible back at Telos. Being tied up helped in that regard.

  But she wasn’t just anyone. Her mind shielded itself from him. He couldn’t even sense it, eyes closed or open. And if she was the same woman Zoe encountered, she took a punch in ways no normal human should be able to withstand.

  With her neat hair and purple dress, she may as well have been sitting for a job interview. Everything about her look projected professionalism. And calm. Calm exuded from her entire body, from her neutral expression to her relaxed posture.

  She was calm probably because she knew she was invulnerable to Jamie.

  Which was the second reason having Zoe’s powers would have been nice here.

  “Welcome back. Jamie now, right? Or Frazer? Or Bill? Have they all been the same?” Her head tilted, her left eyebrow rising. “No, I don’t think so. This version of you seems a little—” she sucked in a breath and pursed her lips “—quirkier than before.”

  Jamie pondered his options. Getting out of the chair—bound hands made that impossible. Appealing to the mystery woman’s sense of compassion? That seemed less likely than escaping.

  Threaten her?

  Maybe that was the only route. On the off chance that her presentation was just that, and she didn’t realize her immunity to his abilities.

  “I think you don’t know who you’re dealing with here,” Jamie said, switching to the false bravado and bad accent of the Mind Robber. “The police couldn’t catch me. The Throwing Star couldn’t catch me. Bank security couldn’t stop me. I am—”

  The woman’s heavy sigh interrupted his train of thought, stealing the rhythm of his speech. He coughed, not because any phlegm caught in his throat, but to buy him a few seconds to catch himself, reset.

  Okay. Take two.

  “I am San Delgado’s most wanted criminal, the city’s most feared foe, the one person that—”

  “Really?” The woman sighed again. “I mean, I know you don’t remember who I am but this whole song and dance seems a bit pointless, right? We saw you. We tracked you. We found you, and now you’re tied up. Do you really think a speech is going to scare me?” She leaned forward, her arms crossed. “Especially since you can’t...” She raised a single finger, then tapped it against her forehead. “You know.”

  That cleared that part up.

  “And you really have to drop that accent. It’s really bad.” That sigh again. “You know how some British actors just can’t do American accents? You’re one of those. So let’s drop everything. The defenses, the accents, the threats. Okay, you really want to try your powers on me. Let’s do this, just to get it out of the way. Prove a point.”

  The woman stood, walking with a strut that exuded confidence. Or maybe it was a scare tactic. Jamie considered that—after all, Zoe’s tale might have been an exaggeration, or Zoe might have missed her punch and been too proud to admit it. That seemed like a Zoe thing to do.

  But then the woman gripped the chains wrapped around his waist and flicked them off like the metal links were wet paper. They flew through the air, smashing into the concrete wall of the dimly lit space hard enough to leave a harsh indent.

  As Jamie watched dust and debris trickle from the gash in the wall, the woman walked behind him and tore the ropes off his hand. “Come on, stand up.” She nudged the chair with her foot, then did it again, scooting him several inches, the metal legs scraping against the floor. “You’re the Mind Robber. Your hands are free. Dive into my mind.”

  For every bank robbery, Jamie planned possible scenarios, ways things might go sideways and how to counteract them. A stray guard, an overzealous customer, a terrified employee. Even considering the unpredictable still lent a certain level of predictability. And he’d been able to pull it all off under duress. This, however, froze him.

  “You’re nervous. Would a cup of coffee help?” She opened the door and looked at him, suddenly a barista taking an order. “No cream, no sugar, just black, right?”
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  He replied with silence and she stepped out, the door closing behind her. Except, did the lock latch? He wasn’t sure, but as he reviewed the memory, the lights started to flicker.

  On the floor, the thinnest blue line started glowing a trail. It started faint, so much so that Jamie wasn’t even sure if he saw it or if his eyes were merely adjusting. It grew in thickness and brightness until pooling in the center of the room, erupting into the blue figure that had appeared in his living room. The eyeless figure turned to him, a distorted scream bouncing off the four walls before fading away. Everything went back to black before returning to normal lighting, the mystery woman staring straight at him, now with a white paper cup in hand. “Did you see that?” Jamie asked. “What was that?”

  The woman appeared to hesitate for a beat, her focus drifting around the room. She snapped back, as if the interlude never occurred, and instead held up the coffee. “Your favorite. I apologize that it’s from a pod. I know you prefer the pour-over method. We’re a bit limited here,” she said, gesturing at the dingy confines of the space.

  The smell hit him strong enough to signify its authenticity. Could it be poisoned? That seemed possible, but to what purpose when they held every clear advantage?

  Jamie closed his eyes and wondered why he ever agreed to help Zoe, why he ever decided to be an extraordinary bank robber. Life would have been so much simpler and less threatening if he’d found a less publicity-fueled way to make money. He would probably be sitting with Normal, a steaming mug of coffee in one hand and a good book in the other.

  But no. He had to try an American accent and rob banks and help out emotionally damaged extraordinaries.

  From that perspective, he kind of deserved to be here.