We Could Be Heroes

by Mike Chen

  This time, though, it mattered. His senses reached out, seeking the one person in the building he should recognize. But where was she?

  Where was he, for that matter? Upstairs, downstairs? Underground? They’d walked him so quickly through corridors and up and down stairs that it wasn’t clear where he’d ended up. Maybe just tucked into a corner? Maybe three feet on the other side of the wall was a sidewalk and a lawn and low-maintenance bushes perfect for a governmental building.

  Or, if they’d really prepared for the Mind Robber, he could be in as protected a corner as possible.

  Jamie kept seeking, left and right, above and below. Part of the issue was proximity, a certain radius of effectivity existed, and if Zoe was outside it, he wouldn’t be able to connect.

  But perhaps the path to Zoe wasn’t her. He scaled back, reaching out again for a different signature.

  Chesterton.

  The detective had been straight upstairs; since getting dumped in this space, Jamie had kept a rough track of his movements. Now checking back in, the detective was on the move to...somewhere. A quick search found that he’d walked from his office (he’d assumed) down the hall. Several seconds later, he took an elevator, and then farther down the hall, followed by a right turn. A hesitation, then several more feet, and suddenly Chesterton stood in front of another familiar presence.

  There she was.

  “Sorry about this,” he muttered as he put his hands in front of him, fingers extended. Would the cameras catch that? Would they be able to piece together what this was all about? Anyone who reviewed security footage of the Mind Robber’s work would have recognized the pose—a little more function and less flash, but still the same sentiment.

  And yet, the room replied with silence. No one broke down the door, no gas filled the room, no spikes emerged from the floor. If they watched him, something like this fell into the “expected” category. Whether or not they had an expert on containing mental abilities, though, remained to be seen.

  The mind connection clicked and out flowed Zoe’s immediate memories.

  There she stood—no, sat. Four guns pointed at her. And Chesterton talking. A lot. “They listen in on the police band, they have friends and rivals and all that stuff...”

  Jamie gave her credit for staying still during that whole lecture. He jumped out, counted to five and jumped back in. Other people’s minds pinged to him like a radar. Hopefully his presence did the same thing for her.

  “So...two scratches would be a big yes. And one would be a no. By no, I mean like not enough. This shit itches. Got it?”

  Yes, she’d heard him. Or felt him, or whatever you wanted to call it.

  Also, Zoe was clearly awful at improvising words under pressure.

  “If you’re super sad or pissed or whatever. Your body flushes and your heart rate goes up. And maybe wave. That would stand out.”

  A strong emotion. Something to stand out from the people working in a police station. They’d likely be calm. Or angry. Or focused. Or frustrated or excited. What could Jamie think about that might be different from that?

  He started waving his hands in the air, pondering the best way to feel terrible about himself.

  No. Not himself. Jamie was a protective shell, a recent episode, a shield anytime something from further back poked through and rang for attention. He turned his thoughts, not to any moment in Jamie’s life, but to the snippet of Frazer that floated around, first in a video clip and then in his head. He’d tried to push it away, to snuff it out and treat it as just a thing that he’d viewed.

  But the truth was more than that. Before all this, he’d been a villain. A selfish liar, an unreliable partner, a person so devoid of caring that he put up false fronts only to implode. The weight of that reality sank in, the fact that those few minutes revealed choices of a lifetime that he couldn’t comprehend. The same body, the same brain, and yet how could he choose to do those things to Francisco? Jamie felt bad if he even fed Normal late or ran out of coconut water, and what Frazer had done was orders of magnitude worse.

  Frazer was worse than the Mind Robber. In fact, the only good thing Frazer might have done was ask for help from Telos.

  The thoughts that simmered since seeing that clip pressurized, but rather than push back, Jamie let all the defenses down. And soon, he didn’t have to try to create an emotion to signal Zoe. The regret, the guilt, all of it was there, finally a part of him.

  But he needed the feeling to linger, to act as his beacon. That snippet showed the worst of Frazer, but what was the worst of Jamie? The answer to that raced to the front of his mind. It wasn’t robbing banks. It wasn’t even the woman who fell during his last robbery; that was terrifying and haunting but still more an unfortunate overlap of circumstances than anything else.

  No, there was one thing that even now, after the opportunity to come clean several times, even with multiple revisions of Zoe, that he’d simply not done. All out of cowardice.

  Tell her the truth about the rooftop, about her recapture at Telos.

  The lights fluctuated again, the intervals becoming more sporadic and longer, leaving Jamie in darkness except for the red lights staring down at him. He tapped in one more time. “The itch. I think I found it. It just needs to stay there,” she’d said, right after the guards joked about taking bets to fight her. He refocused and counted, as he always did, both to re-center himself and also to sense time passing before the power came back on. And when it finally did, he reached back out, trying to reconnect with Zoe, waving all the while despite a developing cramp in his shoulder.

  But something strange happened. Zoe wasn’t there.

  And neither were the guards. Suddenly, he only sensed one mind, and it was barely conscious, a beacon of light blinking in an ocean of blank space.

  Zoe, though, was elsewhere. But where, exactly? He scanned around, searching for the unique signature of her mind. At first he tried to find her, though soon he realized he’d gotten it all inverted: all he had to do was follow the trail of emptiness in the police department, the rooms and hallways where maybe one person remained conscious.

  So much for talking their way out of this.

  Jamie moved quicker, skipping around, and then there she was—darting fast, her own signature fading, but not the way it did when someone lost consciousness (presumably from Zoe punching them). That was more like a flashlight going out, but Zoe’s exertion made her signal fuzzy, almost blending into the background, like a radio broadcast coming in and out of static.

  He skipped ahead to a cluster of minds probably about ten feet in front of her. He locked onto the first opportunity, but that went dark before pulling any memories. He jumped to the next one, finding the headspace and sinking in, except that one snapped shut, sending him out. He bounced again, diving into one more but that one knocked out even before he established a mental lock.

  One last person remained in the group, and Jamie grabbed a memory the moment it processed. It was a quick flash, an instant before the whole thing went dark, and it was Zoe following through on a punch as an officer tried to contain her. She stood, shoulders heaving from heavy breaths, as if she was taking a moment to recharge.

  Then she looked up, her eyes switching from weary to focused, and she leaped forward. The memory cut off.

  Jamie’s eyes flew open, jumping back into the present, not because of anything he saw but because of something he heard. It wasn’t totally distinct, but it was clear and it was loud—he didn’t need any sort of heightened hearing to figure it out.

  Thump.

  Crash.

  Clang.

  Jamie pressed his ear against the metal door, and that managed to get a little clarity, though a sudden loud pop caught his attention. That was followed by several sharp slams and a final dull thunk, and then quiet.

  Eyes shut, he reached out again. And though he couldn’t see
anything, every other sense told him that the electricity flickered again.

  The noises came closer. Jamie tried to filter them out, and instead focus only on sensing minds. He came upon a group of active beacons, like candles lit in a circle. But one by one, they went out, each mind starting to physically fall before going out.

  Well, they did say there was a precinct pool. Guess they knew now.

  The door rattled, accompanied with a loud bang. In fact, all of the muffled bumps and smashes from before were gone. In their place were voices, metallic slams, and two loud pops—one of which was followed by an audible scream and a female voice yelling, “Motherfucker.”

  Two echoey clangs of metal rattled the space. Several seconds of quiet, and panic flooded Jamie, reaching out to locate her.

  But he didn’t need to. He’d overshot, searching down the hallway. A sudden smack of the door, a violent rattle and the emergence of a fist-sized indent in the cell’s door told him otherwise.

  “Jamie?” Zoe yelled.

  “Right here! You okay?”

  “Yeah. We gotta move. Step back.” Clang. Clang. Clang. Zoe’s punches worked through the door until it finally flew off its hinges, sailing into the middle of the cell.

  In the doorway stood Zoe Wong, hair matted and sweat dripping down her face. Jamie gasped as he realized her right elbow and bicep were exposed—it wasn’t just a tear in her suit, but a wound with blood seeping out. He squinted, and as Zoe leaned against the doorframe, seemingly to collect herself, her blood apparently clotted in real time. Fresh, oozing blood became still, and though it remained liquid on the surface, beneath it formed a texture, a scab building at an accelerated rate.

  “Zoe, did you mangle a cop?”

  “What? No, of course not. Knocked some out, though.”

  “What the hell happened there?”

  The gash on her arm warranted a mere glance from her. “Huh? Oh yeah, I got shot.”

  “Shot?”

  “Yeah. It’s fine.” She scooped him up without asking, then adjusted him with a shrug. “Sorry if it’s a bumpy ride. My powers are still going in and out a bit.”

  “I hope you didn’t take them all out. We need them to follow us, remember? The media too.”

  “Well, I think I got their attention. Come on,” Zoe said. “Let’s go make a scene.”

  33

  ZOE RAN AT HALF SPEED.

  Which was still better than normal humans, and perhaps the exact percentage of her speed was off, but whatever. Even though she’d laid off the mental abilities and let herself restore for a minute before she took off with Jamie, things were awry.

  She was injured.

  Carrying Jamie seemed as easy as ever, but with a bullet wound in her shoulder, her legs refused to crank at the pace that they should have.

  “We need a car,” she yelled. Just like in Kaftan’s facility, she tossed a chair through an upper-story window. And just like then, she jumped out, except this time she had Jamie slung over her shoulder. They hovered for several seconds, the solid pushback of air against her palms coming and going into something far less tangible than it should have, causing them to bob up and down in the air. She recovered and they floated long enough for her to see that the several blocks ahead of them seemed to have gone dark.

  Whatever Kaftan was doing, the city was feeling it.

  “You okay?” Jamie said as spotlights struck them, turning on one by one until their collective intensity shone bright enough to blur out the heat signatures of the people below.

  “Yeah. Fine.” But right when she made that claim, her powers gave out again, dropping them straight down.

  One story passed, then another before her palms felt connected enough to slow their fall. “You hold on to me, I need both hands.” Jamie did as instructed, wrapping his arms around her shoulders and locking his fingers. “I don’t know how much juice I’ve got left. So hang on.”

  Zoe sucked in a deep breath and scanned the horizon. Buildings, streets, cars, all of it the usual bustle of San Delgado’s downtown. But over to the left, there was a small patch of park with a toddler-sized play structure and some lawn. It’d have to do.

  “There.”

  “There what—oh, oh shiiiiiii...”

  Jamie’s voice trailed off, or got knocked out by the wind. Either way, Zoe felt his grip tighten when she pushed them forward with all she had left in her extraordinary tank. They throttled through the air, first accelerating as her abilities propelled them, then decelerating when they refused to work anymore.

  “Hang on,” she yelled. Her left hand pulled at Jamie, rotating him over and she cocooned him with her body, impact with the ten-by-ten patch of lawn and a neon-colored play structure imminent.

  Right when they hit, she spun and turned her back to take the brunt of the impact. Plastic shards and metal bolts flung through the air, bouncing off nearby mulch and stucco.

  “I’m okay,” Jamie managed with a weak voice.

  This was worse than flying through concrete and rebar back at the YMCA. That night, she’d stepped into fire and gripped white-hot metal, all before hurling herself through a wall, and yet she’d basically recovered in a matter of hours, and everything felt better moment by moment.

  But now, things were getting worse. The gunshot was increasingly sore. The ability to take a hit, to move with speed, to fly, all of it was degrading. Whether her journey through the police station had just worn her down, she wasn’t sure—all that surging and draining and back again probably wasn’t healthy. The problem now was that her power didn’t seem to want to restore all the way. Stress, the wound or something else syphoned it.

  Zoe tried to stand up; her legs didn’t agree and she collapsed on one knee before gripping the side of the play structure’s remains. Above them a helicopter soared into view, the whip-whip-whip of its blades overwhelming every other sound, and its bright lights eclipsing the fact that power seemed to be out on the block.

  “You wanted to make a scene?” Jamie said. “I think we got everyone’s attention.”

  Zoe arched up, though an unusual sensation overtook her arm. Pain. Pain, and the bleeding started up again. “Okay, then. Let’s lead them to Kaftan. We’ll need a car.”

  “A car.” Jamie looked around as police sirens came into earshot. Alongside them, traffic whizzed by at its normal rate, people hardly giving a second glance to the two extraordinary people who just fell from the sky and destroyed a children’s play area. “There.” He pointed.

  No, he wasn’t just pointing. He was brain-stunning.

  “You’re kidding.”

  Jamie supported her, his shoulder under hers. “It’s the only car that’s parked. Come on, let’s get them out.”

  Them, as in plural. Two people, to be exact, a cook and a server, a woman and a man both standing in a stupor.

  Because he’d picked a food truck, its side displaying big letters painted over anthropomorphic potatoes. Effie’s Stop Tot & Roll: Your San Delgado Motor Spudway.

  They were going to take a goddamn food truck out to Kaftan’s.

  As they brought the stunned employees out, the smells of the truck hit her nose—like school cafeteria food, though given their proximity to downtown, probably the expensive artisanal version—igniting a new memory: picking up an order from a different food truck, this one with the simple name Tater Truck in big block letters and a receipt with “M. Peng” printed on it, then putting it in her big red FoodFast backpack before vaulting up to a rooftop and sprinting.

  That wasn’t an image put together by inferring from Jamie’s notes. That was real. A very new, very real memory from before her most recent reset.

  “Zoe!” Jamie yelled. He pointed at the wave of police lights heading their way. “We need to go now!”

  “Right, right.” Memories could be recovered later. They had more pressing things
. Zoe grabbed a towel hanging off of the deep-fryer’s rack and tied it around the oozing wound on her arm. “This time, I’ll drive.”

  34

  FOR A BANK ROBBER —a former bank robber, technically—Jamie lacked experience in running from the police. He’d certainly walked fast when police cars zoomed toward a bank, probably some ten minutes after he’d exited and the brain-stunned victims started to come to. Head down, legs moving at a good clip to be expeditious without giving off obvious bank robber vibes, all while police sirens whizzed by in the opposite direction. That fell more under the category of stealthy evasion than panic-induced escape.

  Though Jamie supposed their current situation didn’t totally align with that. They weren’t running, after all, except in a metaphorical way. Instead, they were driving a food truck as fast as was safely possible. Zoe sat behind the wheel, though it soon became clear that she hadn’t taken any driving lessons since her reawakening. But given the helicopter above them and the flashing lights behind them, Jamie had to be at peak Mind Robber, reaching ahead of them to catch any signs of potential barricades or police roadblocks.

  “Lucky we grabbed something with a full tank. We’ve still got at least thirty minutes to go,” Jamie said. Zoe grunted in acknowledgment, and he returned to looking at the path ahead. Fortunately, he’d figured out where Kaftan’s facility was during Zoe’s weeks of recovering her identity, so other than the last few miles or so, this would all be a smooth ride with only a handful of highway interchanges. And given the late hour, traffic was minimal.

  At least, the traffic in front of them. Behind them, the barrage of law enforcement kept their distance. In fact, it appeared that they’d locked into a steady gap, never pulling too close and never dropping too far back.

  Which seemed strange. “Zoe,” he said.

  “Yeah?”

  “Don’t you think it’s odd that they’re not, I don’t know, landing a helicopter in front of us to block us in?”