Normalized (The Complete Quartet)

by David Bussell

  I told Rune’s widow that my investigation had led me to believe Professor D’eath was the one who’d offed her husband. She thanked me for letting her know and agreed to show me how to get inside Legerdomain, just so long as I promised to do what C.H.A.M.P couldn’t and bring her husband’s killer to justice. I told her it would be my pleasure to put D’eath in the big house. Hell, it would be my jam.

  The widow told me Legerdomain’s secret. The movement of the phantom pub’s entrance was synched with the lunar cycle, she said, meaning you didn’t need a crystal ball to know where its entrance was going to make a show, just a calendar. Checking in her diary, she cross-referenced with some notes then pointed me to where the bar would be this evening. Finally, I was getting somewhere. That “somewhere,” I was informed, was the local graveyard. I tried not to read too much into that.

  Rune’s widow gave me some mystical knickknacks to help me on my way, then I headed for The Green Wood Cemetery to find Legerdomain’s portal. It was exactly as she’d described it – a nondescript mausoleum door on an unremarkable burial plot. You wouldn’t have given it a second look if it weren’t for the door occasionally swinging open and ejecting a slarty wizard.

  I watched from behind a tree as various witches and warlocks came weaving out of the inter-dimensional gin joint, slaloming through the marble orchard on the way back to their towers and tabernacles. I saw one crone staggering about like a dog in a Cadillac until she steadied herself on a tombstone, hiked up her robes and squatted down to drain off theevening’s elixir. It was some unseemly sh*t.

  I checked my watch. It was getting late. They’d be calling last orders in a bit and I’d sooner face Miss Fortune indoors than out in this bone yard. Besides, we’re talking about a wizards’ dive bar here. How was I not going to cop a snoop at that?

  I pushed open the door and stepped inside. I thought it was going to be all candlelight and pentagrams and people drinking out of skulls, but instead it just like any other neighborhood taproom; sticky floor, wonky stools and a buzzing neon Coors sign. The only things different were the details. Instead of a TV they had a swarthy man in a turban doing an Indian rope trick, a couple of barflies were playing a game of darts using the power of telekinesis, and I’m pretty sure the bartender was an actual zombie.

  Sat in a booth with her back to me was Miss Fortune. She was hard to miss dressed the way she was; wearing a robe with a collar so high it looked like one of those cones you put on a dog to stop it chewing the stitches out of its canine vasectomy.

  The rest of the bar patrons took a step back when they saw Mister Normal grace their establishment, leaving me to make my move on Miss Fortune uninterrupted. I moved in fast to get the drop on her but she caught my reflection in a Guinness mirror and whirled around, spirit fingers poised.

  “Abra-Cadaver!” she shrieked—

  —but the moment she realized who she was dealing with she froze up and made a face like she’d swallowed her rape whistle.

  “I give up!” she said.

  Instead of doling out a hot dose of witchcraft, Miss Fortune was throwing up her hands and promising to come in without a fight. What a gyp! I daubed ancient warding symbols over myself in lamb’s blood for this? No black magik hexes, no demonic familiars, not even so much as a garden-variety fireball to deflect with my twice-enchanted looking glass? There I was, all ready to do the voodoo two-step, denied so much as a waggle of her wand by the sheer force of my reputation! Honestly, I’m my own worst enemy, I really am.

  I cuffed Miss Fortune, crossed her off my to-do list and delivered her in person to the C.H.A.M.P picket line. I knew the press would be there and I wanted the people of New York to know somebody was still fighting the good fight. Plus I wanted to burn Birdy so damned bad he’d need fitting for a Phantom of the Opera mask.

  May 7th

  It’s not easy being humble when the limelight’s on you, and believe me when I tell you that light is burning bright. Since I made my first public appearance yesterday, Kettner and his ilk have lit the wick of my bottle rocket and sent it flying sky high.

  It’s whacked really. I only bagged a handful of Little Leaguers, now suddenly I’m a trending topic? It was only a couple of weeks ago that even the tumbleweed was giving me the swerve, now here I am getting more buzz than a chainsaw full of bees. Forget about disgraced former superstar Captain Might, that story might as well be written on papyrus. Mister Normal is where it’s at now. The new news. Fresh as a baby’s first breath.

  It’s my own fault for hotdogging. My lot’s meant to be a simple one – bag the bad guys and maintain a low profile doing it. Be a fart in the Jacuzzi of life. The last thing I need is fame. A couple of hundred screaming fans descending on me like I’m the new Twilight movie isn’t going to help me do my job, but that’s exactly what I got.

  All it took was for one fangirl to recognize me from my picture in the papers and the next thing I knew I had a mob situation on my hands. It was like old times, except there was no signing a couple of racks and flying away today. I tried to book it, believe me, but without that vertical dimension, the crowd had me kettled. It was horrible, like we were at war and I was the one guy with the food rations.

  Still, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy seeing the view from the top just a little bit. Spending all that time out of the public eye, it’s hard not to feel good about being relevant again. I can’t afford to get taken in by the razzle-dazzle though. Celebrity isn’t part of my job description anymore. I’m not doing this to put another star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. I’ve come too far to hit snooze on my spiritual wake-up call.

  May 8th

  Today I got word that the strike at C.H.A.M.P is finally over. Hear that? Have a good listen. That’s the sound of no hands clapping.

  So what if management finally caved? The damage is done. If John Q public can’t rely on superheroes in a time of crisis then what’s the point? While the professionals were busy arguing the fine print of their contracts, the little guy stepped up and did their job. Regular people are done acting like second-class citizens. Heroes are out now; normals are in.

  The Government has been paying attention to the way the wind’s blowing too. I’m hearing noise that they’re considering revoking C.H.A.M.P’s charter. Can you believe that? Like it or not, C.H.A.M.P are the best option we have for curbing crime. No one else comes close, and believe me when I say that, because I’m not exactly Birdy’s head cheerleader right now. Cutting capes out of the equation is a terrible idea; a bad case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater (and into a wheat thresher).

  People like you and me, we might be able to mop up the shallow end of the gravy, but to stand a chance against a big-hitter like Professor D’eath we’ll need every man we can get. It won’t be long now before he makes his move. We keep squabbling amongst ourselves and before we know it this city’s going to end up looking like a freeze frame from a Road Warrior movie.

  May 9th

  Back to business. I’d set out to catch the Murder Circus but there was still one pesky shrimp left to net. Acro-Bat was his name, and his uppence had most definitely come. Putting that lowlife away would be a real feather in my cap – who knew, it might even give me the clout I needed to convince the public how dumb shutting the doors on C.H.A.M.P would be.

  I received a tip-off from an underworld snitch telling me where my target was holed up. Acro-Bat was lying low in the old Red Hook Grain Terminal, an abandoned Brooklyn silo that hovered over the waterfront like a widow’s ghost. A quality setting for our final showdown, or at least it would have been if Acro-Bat had had the decency to show up.

  Instead I was met by my former colleague, Fish Face, who came floating to the surface of the Henry Street Basin like the answer to a Magic 8-ball question no one asked. He stepped onto land, pulled his fish tank over his head and screwed it tight, then came flapping towards me with his webbed feet. Was it just a co-incidence that the two of us had managed to show up in the same place at the sam
e time? Or was he there for Acro-Bat too?

  “Hello, Mister Normal,” he said.

  No, he was there for me, or my alter ego anyway. I wasn’t surprised Fish Face didn’t recognize me for who I was, he always said us landlubbers all looked alike to him. The daffy racist.

  Apparently the tip-off I’d been given was nothing but a bait and switch. Birdy had gotten to my source and made him feed me bad intel so he could lure Mister Normal to the waterfront and deliver a message.

  “It’s time for you to pack in the amateur crime-fighting,” Fish said. He was carrying a net and I got the feeling it wasn’t ceremonial.

  I was in Fish’s territory. That close to the water he could turn the place into shark week if the mood took him – no way I could fight back. I felt like I was back at high school all of a sudden; a wallflower kid getting body-checked into the lockers by Chris Carver.[97]

  I put on a gruff tone to disguise my voice. “I have no quarrel with you – I only wish to be left alone to play my part, sea-man.”

  Because but there’s no resisting a sly sperm joke.

  “I can’t allow that,” Fish Face replied, twirling his net.

  His voice, my brother’s words. Damn it. I knew me and Birdy were going to butt heads sooner or later, but when crunch time came I saw us working our out problems face-to-face, not like this. Not through some flunkey towing the company line. Honestly, it’s like I’m trying to be the bigger man here, but the bigger I get the smaller Birdy becomes.[98]

  I tried bringing Fish around.

  “I can help you. They say rough seas make skilled sailors and I’ve been riding the bitch of the bunch.”

  He seemed to soften then caught a hold of himself and squared his shoulders.

  “I have orders.”

  That it should come to this – the crown prince of Atlantis running errands for some dodo with a Napoleon complex. I had one last chance.

  “A day will come when the likes of you see the likes of me as more than just victims waiting to be saved. A day when the superpowered realize that ordinary men are capable of extraordinary things. A day when superhumans recognize that not every hero wears a cape. And only on that day shall we truly become one. Only then shall we triumph against evil.”

  ...is exactly the sort of dope speech I would have dropped if I’d stood my ground instead of reaching into my pocket for a flash bomb and hoofing it out of there like I was chasing an ice cream truck.

  May 10th

  I was getting itchy. The rest of the Murder Circus were a half-measure – a watered-down methadone dose – Acro-Bat was the hit I was really jonesing for, and I was clucking to make my score.

  First I had to figure out where to find him though. According to the news, C.H.A.M.P hadn’t been able to persuade Acro-Bat’s imprisoned colleagues to roll on him. Some kind of carny code they figure. I’m guessing Birdy could have grilled those guys as long he liked and he’d still be at it while the rest of us were yelling at kids to get their damned hover boards off our lawns.

  I had a lead on Acro-Bat though – I knew where he shopped. 7-Eleven on the Lower East Side, same place he trounced me at all those moons ago. I pitched a spot across the street and waited to see if he stopped by the store. Bats are known to be nocturnal feeders so I waited until after nightfall. It was a long shot – with the rest of his teammates dropping like flies I figured fat chance he’d be dumb enough to put in show. Just goes to prove, some folk you can’t underestimate enough.

  I almost didn’t recognize Acro-Bat at first, out of his circus leotard and dressed on the reg in jeans and a jacket, his rodent ears tucked into a beanie. I watched him enter the store and marvelled at my good fortune. I could hardly believe my luck, even though by this point the unbelievable was getting to be pretty commonplace. Honestly, Oprah could have galloped into the deli aisle on a unicorn and I’d have given it one of these ¯_(ツ)_/¯

  I waited for Acro-Bat to exit with his groceries then tailed him a couple of blocks to a low income rent squatting behind a fat heap of uncollected garbage. I watched from the shadows as he stepped to a battered door and dug around in his pockets for a key. This was his supervillain hideaway? I always figured Acro-Bat hung his cowl somewhere gloomy, but I was thinking gothic lair, not toxic crack den. At the very least I thought he’d have himself an underground cave of some kind, you know, like that bat man from the comic books.[99] I definitely expected something more impressive than this squalid little sh*tbox. You could almost feel sorry for the guy. Well, you could, I couldn't stand the son of a bitch.[100]

  Acro-Bat rifled through a set of keys, working them one by one into the door’s many locks. I guess I should have made my move then while he was distracted but I felt like sneaking up and clocking him from behind was a dick move. I decided to add a touch of gravitas to the situation instead, bounding up the ladder of a nearby fire escape and taking an eagle-eyed perch.

  “You there!” I growled.

  Acro-Bat’s groceries went bouncing all over the sidewalk. Boy was he spooked.

  “You got the wrong guy,” he pleaded. “I’m not in the game anymore.”

  “Sure,” I said, “and Doctor Octomom just opened a massage parlor.”

  “I’m serious – I quit crime after my last run-in with the Cap.”

  “When you cold-cocked him in that grocery store you mean... or so I heard.”

  “Things are different since I went inside. I go to anger management classes every week now. That stuff’s all behind me.”

  “If you’d gone straight you’d have stayed in the pen instead of sending a guard to the infirmary.”

  “The news got that all wrong! The guy who shivved that screw was Mimix pretending to be me – I only cut and run with the rest. Come on, you believe everything you see on TV?”

  He had a point, but still.

  “I’m not here for excuses, Acro-Bat. I’m here to make sure you serve out the rest of your time.”

  “Please don’t send me back! You don’t know what it’s like sharing a shower with those guys. A guy called Manolith made me pick up the soap one time... you could have sold advertising on the side of his—”

  “—enough.”[101]

  But what if Acro-Bat was telling the truth? What if he had gone legit? I’d had my wake-up call, who knew, maybe he had too. Looking at him stood there with his groceries spilled everywhere he sure didn’t look like the hardened criminal Kettner said he was. The most suspicious thing about the guy was the fact he’d turned his shopping bags inside out to try and disguise the fact he’d been shopping at 7-Eleven (like that ever fooled anyone).

  Hell with it, he’d done wrong and he needed to repay his debt. Sorry, but them’s the breaks.

  “Stay where you are and put your hands behind your head, I’m taking you in.”

  I vaulted the rail of the fire escape and sailed to the ground, neck-tie fluttering majestically in the breeze. Unfortunately, I misjudged how high up I was and failed to stick the landing. Somehow I managed to flip upside down and hit the ground with my shoulder, popping my arm out of its socket like a champagne cork.

  “Son of a bitch!” I noted.

  What was I thinking, showboating like that after everything I’ve learned? What a goddamned kick in the hubris.

  As I rolled around in the dirt cursing some more, Acro-Bat offered to call for help. I had to say no out of principal really. He asked if I was sure and I hissed that I was fine and shooed him away. After a while he shrugged, collected up his groceries and went indoors. I almost felt bad about shopping him in to C.H.A.M.P and having them haul his ass to jail after that. Almost.

  May 11th

  After last night’s sorry business I returned to the safe house to lick my wounds. I knocked back a couple of slugs of scotch, laid down in my cot and went to sleep trusting my shoulder would knit itself back together overnight. Have one guess how correct that wasn’t.

  I woke up at 3am about ready to scream the place down. I don’t usually participate in
the theatricality of pain, but this hurt something fierce. The agony was absolutely indescribable (at least by this literary talent). I needed to see a doctor ASAP, but I wouldn’t be able to check into a hospital without wrecking another identity. There was only one thing for it.

  I showed up on Doctor Love’s doorstep like a flaming bag of dogsh*t. Considering I was a ‘stranger’ ringing her bell in the middle of the night she was pretty damned neighborly about it. Seeing the shape I was in, Love hurried me inside and carefully peeled off my jacket to inspect for damage. I knew she must be buzzing with a million questions – Mister Normal, in the flesh! – but she concentrated on the job at hand, popping my wing back in place with a bare minimum of fuss (from her end anyway; I yelled that place down like I had the Bieber fever).