Enhanced

by Cosca, Paul

  After the buzz died down a little, ya know, that buzz you get from a good fight, I looked around and realized I was really fucked on this one. I didn’t have wheels. Didn’t have any other place to stay. I had a ride coming the next morning, but there was no way I was getting out of this one. Guy under the pool table was unconscious. Broken legs guy was crying on the floor. And knife guy had brains leaking onto the bar. Not to mention the six other people in the damn place who watched it all go down. So…I just sat back down and finished by beer. Waited for the cops. Didn’t take long.

  I’d been locked up for about a week when they told me I had a visitor. A lawyer. Lawyer? Man, I didn’t even have money for that beer at the bar, so I figured I’d end up with some shit ass public defender. The guy who showed up though, he wore a dark suit. Gold cufflinks. Little diamond clip thing on his tie. He said he was there to handle my case. He wouldn’t tell me who was paying him or nothing. He just said “If you say one fucking word any time we’re in court, I’ll leave and you can rot in prison.” I may have been young, but I wasn’t retarded. I kept my mouth shut.

  And I’ll tell ya man, I may be good at some shit, but this lawyer was a fuckin’ wizard. We went to one hearing, and a few days later, we were already talkin’ about a plea deal. And not just some crappy deal. Three years in the pen. I was facing 25 to life and now I’d be walking out before I hit my mid- twenties. But right before we went in, the lawyer sat me down with this contract. The thing said that if I agreed to the plea, it meant I had to come work for his employer once I got out. Otherwise, everything was off. I didn’t

  know dick about this employer guy, but I knew I was gonna be screwed without him, so I signed.

  Prison wasn’t so bad. Better than the army, anyway. Same kind of “go here, do this” shit, but at least you could score dope there. You could get a little in the Army, but there was a much better selection in lockup. I’m off that shit now, but it was a good way to kill time.

  I was twenty-four when I got out. Little less of a punk ass kid. Day I got out, I was met with a big car to take me off. First thing I did though…I went and got a cheeseburger. Not even a drink, ‘cause you can still get some decent shit in prison. But the food there is awful, so I got the biggest cheeseburger I could find. Then we went to talk to the employer.

  I can’t really talk about him…don’t bite the hand that feeds, ya know? Or talk about his private shit in public. Bottom line is, he saw my potential, and he put together a plan for me to be a hell of a lot more important than I was. He got me training. Gave me skills. He gave me a name. Black Hand. The Black Hand can do whatever it is that needs to be done, without anyone seeing him. He deals in the dark places. And a Black Hand is never afraid of getting a little dirt on him. I may not be the only Black Hand, either. Thought I saw one in Kabul. Almost killed one in Syria. The objective is simple. I get my orders and I go get shit done. Sometimes it’s seek and destroy. Sometimes I just have messages to deliver. I’ve broken up drug rings. Taken out cartel leaders and revolutionaries. I’ve been a good guy. Been a bad guy. Either way works for me. You don’t get anywhere in this world by being all the one way or all the other, you know? I just am.

  And man, I don’t know what the long game is. I don’t know what my employer does, how he makes his money, or why he needs all this shit done. And honestly, I don’t care. I like being the ground guy. I was never too good at seeing the big picture. All I could ever see was the face in front of me, waiting to get punched. Let the guys on top play the games. I take the low road. And that’s where I like it.

  October 30th, 1988

  I visit Cyrus at least a couple times a week. He has family that visits too. Sometimes they are around when I drop by. More often, he’s alone. I’ve found that this place, Blue Manor, is a place of great loneliness. Even though the amenities are a far cry from the grey walls and poor treatment that I’ve heard about in other facilities, the heartache in this place is still palpable. As I walk through the halls, it sometimes feels like the people peering out of their rooms want to reach out to me. It has been a very long time since anyone from the outside visited some of these people. They are forgotten. Cyrus is not forgotten, but even so I know he spends a great deal of time all by himself.

  CYRUS: You know, I used to have too many friends. Ain’t that a head trip? Too many friends. When you’re wealthy, a lot of the people hanging around aren’t really your friends. But it can be nice to think of ‘em that way. Keeps you from realizing how lonely you are. By 1937, my apartment was one of the absolute primo places to be. You wanted girls? Liquor? Even a drug or two that might be floating around? My place was the place to go. We’d sometimes cram forty people into that tiny Manhattan apartment. Everyone was having the time of their lives. I didn’t do too much drinking, and no drugs. But girls...chief, I could have written an encyclopedia of those Penthouse Forum things.

  He laughs, and this sends him into a coughing fit. This isn’t the first time this has happened. It takes a couple minutes for him to get his breathing under control. I ask if he wants me to grab the small oxygen tank that sits at the foot of his bed and he shakes his head. After another long moment, he’s breathing normally, but the coughing has taken the energy out of him.

  That’s how it is, chief. That’s how it goes. You have your laughs, but the harder you get to laughing, the harder you come down on the other side. And boy did we have a fall coming. I didn’t know it though. Hell, I was ecstatic. Top of the world. I was making it through the depression in style.

  What could possibly bring me down, huh? Boy...lookin’ back it’s easy to see I was a real idiot. Even if it wasn’t something I could prevent...it still hurts.

  But right then the big guy and I were on top. We were still doing bank jobs, more than ever, and those were keeping the bills paid. But we had bigger jobs, too. Cut the ribbon on a new hospital. Did more exhibition matches. He even stopped a crime or two. Most times that was just standing there while some purse snatcher pissed his britches and ran away, but it made for good press. Hell, he was even grand marshal at the Macy’s Thanksgiving parade in 1936. How could it get any better than that?

  We picked up a promotional job that I thought was just way too great to pass up. See, flights over the Atlantic are no big deal these days. But back then, it had only barely been done. It was only ten years before that Lucky Lindy became the first guy to make it across, and trying to get over to England was still one heck of a hassle. Most people were still doing it by boat. American Airlines got the idea that it might be cheaper and easier to get people across the pond by balloon. Not like a hot air balloon, but an airship.

  They contracted the owners of this big airship and planned on making something like a dozen round trips in that next year. But the first one, from Germany to New York, that was going to be a big publicity event. And the plan was to have American Justice on board for it, smiling for the cameras. What better symbol of the American spirit, right?

  Patty...he’d never been on anything like that. No planes or nothin’. The poor guy was nervous as hell, but I told him that he’d be just fine. Told him that people do this kind of thing all the time. That’s what I told him. That was the last thing I told him, really. He hopped on a ship and headed over to Germany to catch the flight. Rode first class the whole way. And I’ll tell ya, that’s about the only thing I can take comfort in from the whole situation. This guy started as a broke Irish immigrant with nothin’ but good

  hands and a kind heart and he ended up riding first class on ships and trains. And flying. I bet his brain was just swimming. I bet it was.

  I got a telegram he’d sent from Frankfurt. By the time I got it, they were already up in the air.

  He points me over to the trunk at the foot of his bed and I locate the box he’s looking for. He opens it and sorts through yellowed newsprint and pictures until he finds the telegram he’s looking for and hands it to me. “Made it to Germany. Train was so nice, C. Still scared, but will make you proud. —P
”.

  He couldn’t write much, you know. He wasn’t stupid or nothin’. He just never gave much thought to reading and writing. He worked with his hands. Maybe he’s this big historical figure, but he lived a real simple life. He wasn’t sophisticated, he was just good. Maybe I wasn’t, but he was.

  Cyrus sighs, putting the telegram back in the box.

  The plan as I knew it was to reach the states right around Boston, then take the coastline down and make the landing in New Jersey. The damn thing was hours late by the time it reached Boston on May 6th. I was worried we were going to lose the light. We needed that light. Needed the publicity. Every time he got his name in the papers or on the radio, that was one more job for us. So you can imagine how happy I was when I heard that some bad weather meant that great big airship had to fly right over the island of Manhattan. Holy cow we had the eyes and ears of millions of people on that one! And of course, every time they’d mention on the radio something about the airship, they’d mention that American Justice was riding on board. Ah! I took in half a dozen calls just that afternoon for promotional appearances. I actually got a glimpse of it too. It was huge. Beautiful. It floated across the sky so carefully it was hard to think that it was a man-made thing at all. It looked like it belonged up there.

  A couple hours later, I knew it was time to go. I wanted to get over to Lakehurst, at the landing site, and catch up with the press guys there. And

  I…I remember all this so well. Some days I wish I could forget. It was a little before seven when I showed up. Most of the guys were still setting up cameras and equipment. We probably had half an hour to touchdown, so I just did a little bit of shootin’ the shit. I knew all these guys by name. These were the guys who made my business. They did the interviews. Set up the stories. Or made up the stories, sometimes. Yeah, you’ve probably read all kinds of old stories about the crime fighting American Justice did, right?

  Cyrus leafs through all the old headlines in his box.

  “American Justice Stops Bank Robbery!” “Masked Hero Foils Dangerous Plot!” “Superhero Sullies Scoundrels!” Chief, a lot of these stories were just baloney. Garbage. I’d call a guy I knew at one of the papers, call up a bank to let ‘em know we were coming down to take pictures, then grab a random guy off the street and pay him ten bucks to put on a costume and pretend to be a bank robber. Bam. We get in the paper no problem. Of course, a little money had to change hands but...you gotta spend money to make money, right?

  So I stand around with all these guys. Jawin’ it up. Asking about families. Making little plans. Just killing a little time, and then it comes into view. They had a crew of guys on the ground, but they weren’t ready for it the first time around, so the big airship had to do a flyover. God it was beautiful. I’d never been in an airplane or anything. Hadn’t been up in the air like that. It just made me think of how much the world was changing. This was humanity standing on tiptoe and pushing right up to the face of God. Planes are all right and all. But they seem to get up in the air with brute strength. A balloon...a big balloon like that just seems to laugh at the laws that try to keep it down. It’s a hell of a thing.

  It came around again and started getting ready to land. Dropped these great big ropes and the guys were bringing it into position and then...someone pointed up the airship. There was something flapping...the

  skin of it. Like there was a leak. And even in the fading light I could read the name on the side of it. Hindenburg. Of course it had to have a damn krout name.

  A moment later...there must have been a spark or something. Because one second it’s coming in to land and the next second there’s fire everywhere. The whole goddamn thing was covered in flames and coming down way too fast. I saw people leaping out of it, trying to get away. But there’s no way Patty would have been able to do that. He was wearing the suit, you know? For the cameras. God...the whole mess looked like someone throwing gasoline on a campfire. Flames exploding in every direction. How does a thing like that happen so fast? I’ve remembered it over and over again. Played it all out in my head. Sometimes it happens in the blink of an eye. Sometimes it takes an eternity. But really, the whole goddamn thing burned to a crisp in a minute or so. In just a minute, the whole thing was gone. The balloon was gone. The people were gone. And he was too. The world’s first real life Superhero, burned to death by some stupid fuckin’ balloon. Somewhere way off in the distance, I heard someone screaming. Took a few seconds to realize it was me.

  August 8th, 1993

  It is late into the evening. Hardly fair to even call it evening anymore, as the first grey lights of dawn will soon be clawing their way through the window. Mel has smoked through most of a pack of cigarettes. We’ve talked about official business. We’ve talked about life and our pasts. Some of the weariness has drained from her, replaced with a quiet resignation. But she looks better than she did when I walked in (and, I suspect, better than she’s been in quite a while). We are nearing an ending. And more poignantly, she is nearing her own end.

  MEL: They’re close, you know. The ones who are after me. They’re about 150 miles away, staying in a hotel room that a lot of the agencies like to use. The place has been bugged, tapped, and wired since the ‘50s. I got in touch with them three days ago, said I had a few people to say goodbye to. Then I’d turn myself in. Of course, they didn’t believe me. Yesterday they sent an agent dressed as a bellhop up to the room. I sent him back down in a laundry cart and left him in the river.

  She lights another cigarette. This is the last one in the pack.

  It was five days before anyone found Oscar Soriano, the grad student. His fellow grad student was the only one who knew that Oscar had injected himself with the sample. Being right before Christmas, the lab was closed, so the other grad student just assumed that Oscar had gone home for the holidays. Or at least that’s what he wanted to tell himself. Either way, when their first day back at the lab came and Oscar didn’t show up, his partner knew right away that something was wrong. By the middle of the day, he grabbed Dr. Grant and told him everything. Grant had gotten some disquieting information of his own on his trip to Washington. His superiors had essentially told him that he was no longer in charge of his own operation. His orders were now to come directly from Teddy Freeman. Grant thought about leaving the project, but he worried that he was the only source of ethics

  in the whole operation. When Grant heard about what happened, he and the grad student rushed over to Oscar’s apartment immediately.

  What they found there was not something they ever could have anticipated. Even with all the strange symptoms they had seen in their test subjects. All the growths and lesions and bizarre disorders...what they saw with Oscar was…completely new. And completely horrible.

  Dr. Grant told me that walking into Oscar’s apartment was like walking into a classroom where they’d been clapping the erasers. Remember that, with the blackboards and everything? You’d have to clap the erasers to get them clean, and Grant could taste the chalk in the air. They searched the small apartment and found a thing that could not have possibly been Oscar. There was no way for it to be him. Oscar Soriano had been alive and healthy five days prior. The remains they found had to have been decades old, if not longer. No skin. No hair. No identifying features. The corpse was a white, chalky, shriveled mass, like a mummy made out of the kind of stalactites that form in ancient caves. But it was him. That was Oscar Soriano. The sample he’d injected into himself had seemingly flipped on everything in his body that made calcium. It made the whole system go into overdrive, calcifying everything. In five days, there was nothing left of him besides calcium; everything else was just a dark stain on the mattress. It’s hard not to imagine how much pain he must have gone through during those days. And impossible to blame anything besides the virus.

  Dr. Grant and the grad student were debating just what they were going to do when a third voice joined them. This voice was calm and cool. And that slow southern drawl told them all exactly what they
were going to do. Dr. Grant wouldn’t tell me just what Teddy Freeman said. But there were threats. I know that for sure. Oscar Soriano had gambled and lost, and now Freeman was pushing the pieces back into place. The grad student ended up finishing his duties in Central America. Dr. Grant was sent to what would

  later become Alaska. Oscar Soriano was just more collateral damage.

  Dr. Grant regretted following orders the minute he landed in Alaska, and he resented it every day afterward. By the time I met him, he’d had a family. Had a wife he’d buried five years earlier. Three grown daughters and a bunch of grandchildren. He’d had a life completely separate and apart from the ethical black hole he found in Tuskegee, but he never forgot. He never forgave. And he made it his life’s secret mission to reveal the truth about Tuskegee somehow. When I came along, he finally found someone he could trust. And once he told me, they found him. A few days before I left, Dr. Grant’s house burned to the ground. Faulty wiring, they said.

  I didn’t think they’d try to touch me. I was one of them, after all. That’s what I thought, anyway. I know that classified means classified. I wasn’t planning on just getting out and spilling my guts. I’m not that way. I went my superior; gave him the chance to explain. And that night I came home to find that my apartment had been...looked through. Not torn up, not like in the movies. These are professionals; they know what they’re doing. But so do I. I packed up and got out of there.

  Since then I’ve been all over the world. Spent time in Beijing. Stayed with contacts in Europe, North Africa. But then I’d see the writing on the wall and get out of there again. This is my final stop. I’m just...I’m so goddamn tired. I’m ready for it all to be done. And what that means...well, I won’t go as quietly as Dr. Grant did. I’ve got a little more pep in my step than that.