by JD Cole
As Derek hopped to the curb, one boy attacked him, and was flung twenty yards down the street for his efforts. The rest of the boys kept their distance, but continued shouting in protest as the Hood proceeded to destroy the speakers. The resulting silence was almost biblical, so loud had the bass thumping been. Just to make sure the punks got the point, the Hood lifted the tail end of the vehicle and flipped the whole thing upside down. Then, because he was in a really bad mood, he ruptured and peeled the tires from each of the wheels and ripped the front doors off. After a short pause, as if having forgotten something, he kicked the front windshield in.
“This is a housing block, you ass-rash illiterates,” the Hood’s mechanically disguised voice declared. “People are trying to sleep.”
One boy, apparently the owner of the ruined car, was nearly crying as he screamed angry curses at the Hood, but they were ignored as the vigilante swung away in search of more disturbances to quell.
Five miles later he came upon a group of scraggly-looking men wandering through a quiet parking lot in a mall and, unsaddled by liberal concepts of social or racial profiling, decided to follow them. On closer inspection, he could see they were obviously doped up on something. Crystal meth was a favorite in this city. The Hood kept to the shadows and, where he could, rooftops. The group moved from the mall towards a decent-looking neighborhood… comfortable, well-kept houses that men like these looked wholly out of place walking in the midst of. There were five of the thugs, and Derek promptly gave them each labels in his mind. Tags, not unlike a scientist would use on wildlife to keep track of migratory movements and behavior patterns. There was Ugly One, Ugly Two, Ugly Three…
Apparently, robbery was to be the spontaneous crime of the night. They made a pitiful attempt at casing a nice, upper-middle class house, moving about its perimeter and trying to decide whether to be loud or quiet about their activities. In a display of utter contempt for their intellectual vacancy, the Hood found a comfortable position in which to sit on a nearby roof to observe them. He actually wished for a bowl of popcorn. The least he could do was wait until they’d fully committed themselves to his wrath. It was always possible they might exhibit some higher brain functions and decide to go home.
Ugly Five had penetrated the front yard fence, which was an aesthetic consideration more than a security one. “Penetration” involved hopping over it. The garage and carport had no such obstacle to overcome, and the other four Uglies began inspecting the garage, no doubt hoping to find a vehicle nice enough to steal. Ugly Five made it to the house windows and began testing them for locks which, unsurprisingly, were all locked.
One of his buddies, however, produced a small device that triggered the garage door to open. Such devices were not hard to manufacture, though they were expensive black-market trinkets because proprietary information, in this case the radio frequencies and encryption that opened the garage door, was hard to get your hands on. Information was the one thing on the planet that would always demand a high price, regardless of what any other market experienced. The device Ugly Three was using no doubt had dozens of different locking codes for various products programmed into it. Derek briefly wondered how many meth fixes the thug had sacrificed to purchase the thing, if he had bothered buying it at all.
He decided that to be unlikely; it was the kind of tool a competent thief would use, and ‘competent’ did not define this delinquent. It would be interesting to find out how he really got it. Dismissing the thought, Derek scanned for the door’s frequency, tuning his transceiver to brute-force its security code, and closed the door before it could raise high enough for the men to get inside.
Ugly Three tried it again. The Hood shook his head and sealed the door once more, then jammed that particular frequency. The next several moments were spent watching Ugly Three slap and shake his expensive toy, to no effect. Derek’s onboard computer detected another signal, and recognized it as an alarm that was alerting the police to something. Ugly Five had disappeared around the side of the house momentarily, and when he reappeared he frantically motioned the rest of the Ugly Troupe to look at whatever he had discovered; most likely he’d tripped that alarm without even knowing. Homeowners came up with all kinds of inventive ways to thwart robbers. Of course, the less creative ones just bought guns.
The Uglies began to hustle to join their friend, but the Hood had seen enough. A house that size likely had kids inside. He dropped off of the roof and, as soon as his feet planted on the concrete, he vaulted himself across the street to land virtually in the middle of the four men.
No words were exchanged, no wisecracks offered. Just a blur of hands and feet, and then a pile of unconscious bodies on the nicely manicured lawn. The Hood then walked around to meet Ugly Five, and saw that the man had managed to get one of the kitchen windows open and was scrambling inside. The Hood leapt like a fox on a rabbit, catching the man’s ankle just as it raised over the sill. With a vicious yank, he threw Ugly Five into the grass, but Ugly Five brought several dishes and curtains with him. Derek cursed himself for waiting so long to act; once again his ego had gotten in the way of things.
Ugly Five gained his feet, and produced a switchblade which he waved at the Hood. “Back off, man!” It was only then that he noticed none of his friends were around to back him up. “Larry! Carl!”
“The cops are already on the way,” the Hood said, projecting all the anxiety and concern of a drowsy hippo. “There’s two ways to get back to the street. You can either walk, or I can throw you.”
Ugly Five dropped his knife, remembering well-publicized claims that the Hood was impervious to blades and bullets. He raised his hands and put them on his head. “I’ll walk, man! I give up, don’t hurt me!”
They made it into the front yard in time for the man of the house to open the front door, dressed in the stereotypical white t-shirt and blue shorts, and holding a baseball bat. “What’s going on?” he demanded.
The Hood forcibly turned Ugly Five to face the man. “My arch-enemy, the evil Crook Man-” Derek shook the robber in his grip for emphasis, “was trying to break into your house. I thwarted him by exploiting his only weakness: brains. Some of your dishes got broke when I pulled him out of your kitchen window. Sorry about that.”
The man looked at the unconscious people on his lawn.
“Ah, those are Crook Man’s evil minions. They fought valiantly, attacking my feet and fists with their faces. Fear not, good citizen, they merely sleep. I think.” Two children, a boy about twelve and a girl about fourteen, appeared in the doorway with their mother. The boy pointed and jumped excitedly.
“The Hood is here! Yeah, beat ‘em up, Hood!”
“Quiet, Greg,” the father scolded. The boy’s mother pulled him into her arms, trying to calm him. The girl just looked at the Hood, smiling shyly and blushing. Derek had seen teen magazines advertising articles about his vigilante work, trying to attract subscribers after national media had turned him into a heroic icon following the Boston attack. He had never bothered to read any of the articles. He wondered if the girl had a poster of him in her room, next to whatever boy band had captured tweens’ hearts these days. The criminal in his hands brought his thoughts back to reality. He grabbed the man’s head and turned it to face the family.
“These people are minding their own business. They don’t go to work all day so that you can come in and take what they have. Their kids don’t deserve to feel insecure in their own home.” The Hood spun Ugly Five around and took hold of his collar, lifting the man from his feet. “You get off easy tonight. I’m not gonna mangle you in front of women and children. I suggest you take this opportunity to lay off the drugs and learn how to be a real man. The next time I catch you harassing a family like this, I will put you in a wheelchair that you’ll have to drive with your tongue, you understand me? Because I will pulverize everything else in your body.” The man nodded in fear, and when the police cruiser pulled up, he actually looked happy at the prospect of being arrested, a
s long as it got him away from the psychotic vigilante. The Hood tossed him onto his unconscious buddies as the officer stepped out of his car, weapon drawn. The Hood recognized officer Danning. They had met each other twice before on occasions like this one.
“You’re gonna need a bigger car,” the Hood suggested, motioning at the pile of methheads.
“What do we have here?” Officer Danning asked, pointing his flashlight at the vigilante and his victims.
“Breaking and entering at the very least. Possession of an illegal security decryptor… public intoxication, narcotics violations… I can even make some stuff up if it’ll keep them in prison longer.”
The homeowner walked to stand with the Hood. “Looks like he stopped a break-in,” the man said.
“This your home, sir?” Officer Danning asked. It was a stupid question, but necessary. After all, the one time any answer would be important would be the one time you didn’t ask for it.
“Yeah,” the man replied, giving his name. He turned to the Hood. “Thanks a lot, Hood. The alarm system woke up me and my wife. That’s the first time it went off, we were hoping it was a glitch. I’m glad you were around.” He looked at the officer. “And I’m glad to know it doesn’t take you guys long to respond, either.”
“What were you doing here?” Danning asked the Hood.
“I saw these clowns at the mall down the road. They looked like trouble, so I followed them here.”
“Why were you at the mall?”
“I saw a model in Vogue last week wearing a yellow hood with glitter and bells, thought I’d see if Macy’s had any my size.”
Derek heard movement from Ugly Five, and the Hood’s left arm came up, firing a single needle-bullet from his arm cannon into the man’s thigh. The tiny bullet was an explosive charge, but not powerful enough to cause any significant damage to flesh. There were casual firecrackers available far more dangerous. But the Hood’s brand of ammunition was lined with a chemical cocktail that caused a wicked burning sensation for several minutes.
“Shit! Dammit!” The crook stupidly grabbed at his leg and bent over, complaining loudly as the chemicals burned his hands and seeped through his scorched pants.
“Don’t move,” the Hood warned.
“Was that necessary?” Danning shook his head. He was more than familiar with the Hood’s complete lack of concern for the welfare of criminals. On one hand it was sometimes funny, but on the other...
The Hood was not laughing at all. “With kids around? Yes.” He looked at Ugly Five again, who was comically trying to keep himself from rubbing at his leg. “I’d kill you in a heartbeat if I thought you were a threat to those kids. So no sudden moves. Got me?”
“Shit, man, I don’t wanna hurt no kids! What the hell you shoot me for? This fuckin hurts, man!”
Danning sighed. There was no point in trying to arrest the Hood these days. The public loved him way too much, and he wasn’t endangering anyone other than criminals; the amount of violence they suffered from the vigilante was usually proportional to the threat they posed. Besides, the Hood could flip the police cruiser over with one hand if he wanted to. S.W.A.T. had chased him away from active crime scenes before, but even they avoided pissing him off. “How many broken bones this time?”
“None. Probably a few loose teeth, but that’s all-”
“And my leg, you fucker!”
“And his leg,” the Hood corrected himself. “Quit swearing in front of the kids!” The Hood turned his head, as if hearing something the others could not. In fact, he had: a frantic emergency call had just been placed about an assault, possibly a rape in progress, and the phone call had been cut off in mid-reply. It was only two miles away. “I need to go.” He started out onto the street.
“Hey, man, come on!” Danning cried after him, only to be ignored. He looked at the father. “I guarantee you he wouldn’t be so active if he had to fill out the paperwork on all these yahoos he bounces on.”
Just then the Hood pointed his arm at a streetlight at the edge of the block, firing a bright blue beam that pulled him up like a bungee cord. With great speed, he swung around the corner and was gone. Then the dispatcher was heard on Manning’s radio reporting a two-six-one; the police code for rape. The two men traded looks, knowing exactly where the vigilante had gone. Another unit responded shortly, and Danning called after them. “This is unit thirteen, you better send an ambulance there, too. I saw the Hood heading that way, and you know what he does to rapists.”
In the doorway, the boy and his sister were cheering.
~
Doctor Cynthia Valentine screamed again. She was getting tired of this. The phone she’d used to dial 911 was now destroyed, just like the last five phones she’d used over the previous week. Each phone was used to report that she was being victimized in a different “crime”, the “criminals” would wreck the phone… and every single time she and her cohorts had had to vanish just before the police arrived. She struggled now with two men, trying to appear in distress though they were purposely extending the duration of her “assault”.
A concealed surveillance group, three men, covered the alley in which they were staging this act; they weren’t interested in allowing intervention attempts by anyone not wearing a black hood. The Hood was being very picky about who he helped… or more likely he was too overwhelmed to investigate her previous calls. It was a big city, and he couldn’t be everywhere they tried to fake a crime.
Hopefully tonight would be different. She’d decided to try simulating a rape victim now, with her bodyguards playing the part of the rapists. The Hood was known to be extremely responsive when it came to this particular crime, although he was often relegated to avenging it rather than preventing it. Surprisingly, that sometimes involved the victim getting a visit from the Hood himself, in his own odd attempt to comfort the victim with a promise that her attacker would never be capable of hurting her or anyone else again.
The track record spoke for itself; the most spectacular case involved a pair of college coeds being drugged and gang-raped at a party. Their attackers had recorded the event, and the video found its way onto the internet, adding to the victims’ already substantial turmoil. The foolish college men were later assaulted by the Hood… in the middle of their court sentencing. The vigilante obviously had not felt that prison time would be sufficient punishment, and had said as much to the two young women in the courtroom before fleeing from the police. All five of the convicted were now quadriplegic, and would remain that way unless they could come up with the millions of dollars it cost for implants that could mobilize them again. The news article detailing the event had quoted the Hood shouting, “if the girls have to suffer with this forever, then so do you.”
Dr. Valentine had a false alias and address set up so that the Hood would have a victim to visit if she did not meet him tonight. She was understandably reluctant to put herself in this humiliating position, and as interim team leader, she had never even suggested it before last night. They were desperate for answers, though, and far behind schedule in their efforts to investigate the alien who had attacked Boston. Worse, the aftermath of the attack had left her organization splintered and cut off from vast resources, essentially crippling their capability to prepare for another attack. And so she had put this plan on the table, to the raised eyebrows of her team. At the time she had thought herself tough enough to go through with it, especially if it would elicit a prompt response from their target. That was all that had mattered to her then. Now? Well, she was committed, whether or not she allowed herself to have second thoughts. Cynthia Valentine had never failed at anything in her life.
Still, she wished there were another woman who could have taken this role, but the only available female operative was in Canada at the moment. Major Samantha Vox hadn’t exactly been recruited for such... exotic undercover work, and she would not be in Boston until next week, anyway. Dr. Valentine wanted to have the Hood in custody before then.
So now, th
e doctor played her part, and rather convincingly; mostly because she was not really acting. The men were not hurting her, but this was discomfort on a level she had never before experienced. Dr. Valentine had instructed the troops to grope and handle her freely, that she would not take it personally… but things were going to be rather awkward for her around them after this, her claims to the contrary notwithstanding. These men were professionals, and approached this as just another assignment; she was not, and could not. Yet if they all did this half-assed, she would be submitting herself to this for nothing when the Hood arrived and saw right through the act. Her cry was quite real when the front of her trousers was ripped open.
Snipers watched the alleyway, armed with non-lethal weapons to make sure the Hood did not permanently maim their friends. He had never killed anyone, at least not that had been reported, but the plan was for the men to flee at the first sight of him, leaving Dr. Valentine to act like she was badly hurt so that the vigilante would not immediately chase them. That way she could mark him with a tracker, the “rapists” could disappear, and the whole merry gang could later follow and learn the Hood’s true identity. Worst-case scenario, they would make this rape appear real in official documents, using the limited resources still available to them, and hope the Hood made a visit to the “victim”, Dr. Valentine.
