Enhanced

by Cosca, Paul

  He was separate from us. We all worked together, doin’ our patrols and all that. But he wasn’t never really with us. Not as a friend. But he was real good at what he did. Flyin’ wasn’t his only trick. That cat could move anything with his mind. If I’m real honest, he was way better than any of us out there on patrols. He was the best of us. He was the biggest, which means he was able to make the biggest mistake, ya know?

  He did save my life though. Man, there ain’t nothin’ that’ll make you change your opinion of someone more than them pullin’ you outta the shit.

  We was on patrol and this girl comes up to us. I don’t wanna be mean or nothin’, but she was one of the night girls. And I don’t say that shit to be mean. Everybody’s gotta eat, and I’ve known those girls. A lot of ‘em are real nice. But it is what it is.

  She ran up to us and said that some tweaker mugged her. He had a gun, so she gave up the money, but that was all she had. So, of course we said we’d go get it back. That’s the kind of shit we did all the time, ya know? That was our job. So she points us over to this flophouse, this old warehouse. No doubt that’s where he went. That’s the kind of place where all the hopheads hung out. No doubt it was the kind of place where some bad shit was goin’ down, but that’s what we did. If you a hero, you supposed to be the one to jump in where nobody else will.

  It was real dark in there, man. No lights or nothin’. Those dopeheads like all the dark places so they can sleep, ya know? But we get in there and the hairs on my neck are standin’ straight up. This whole thing feels bad, ya know? Feels real bad. We walkin’ into some shit. I’m lookin’ around, lookin in the dark, tryin’ to find one crackhead that looks like all the others, ya know?

  I started to say somethin, but then I heard Synapse yell out. He screams real loud and I turn just in time to see a muzzle flash go off. I thought I was dead. Right there, right then, from all shit I’d gone through, I thought I was gonna end up dead by some fuckin’ crackhead. But I took a breath, and then I realized I wasn’t hit. And when the flash was gone outta my eyes I could see the tweaker on the ground.

  When Synapse seen that I was about to get shot, he did the only thing he could think of, and he spun the guy’s gun around and it went off right in that guy’s face. We checked the guy, and there wasn’t no pulse. So we took that girl’s money back and we called the cops. You can’t really tell the

  cops that you killed a guy with brain powers or some shit, so we told ‘em that we tried to talk the guy down and he killed himself. Same result. Easier that way. And I tell you man...from then on, I trusted Synapse. Trusted that cat completely. Without him, I wouldn’t be sittin’ here, man. I hate him...but he was my brother in arms, ya know? Except...that night was the first time I had had one of the dreams.

  The dream goes just about the same way every time. It’s a real sunny day, and I’m surrounded by people. Thousands, maybe millions of people, all around me. We’re all looking up, and there’s Synapse. That outfit he wears shines even brighter than usual...it’s like it’s makin’ its own light. Everybody’s smilin’ up at him...but I feel like something’s wrong. He reaches out his hand...and all of a sudden there’s fire everywhere. People are burnin’ up. Burnin’ alive and they’re still smilin’ up at him. Smilin’ till they ain’t nothin’ but skulls. Thousands and thousands of people, all burnin’ for him.

  But that was just a dream, right? Just a dream. I put it away and tried not to think about it, even though I was havin’ it once a week. That wasn’t the guy I knew...he wouldn’t do somethin’ like that. No way.

  Things was goin’ real well for us for a couple years. We was makin’ money. People was being helped. Shit, man. Even the police and everything was on our side. I don’t want to be all blowin’ my own horn or nothin’, but that right there was the golden age of superheroes, man. It was us. Everybody knew about us, and they trusted us. We was in the magazines and everything. Nothin’ could take us down.

  It was somewhere near the end of ‘76 when Synapse started gettin’ real weird. Distant, even for him. He sat us down and told us that some real weird shit was goin’ on with him. He said that a few months back, he’d started hearing a voice in his dreams. Just while he was sleepin’ though. He was hearin’ it more and more, which is one thing. But then he started hearing it when he was awake...and that’s a whole other story all together.

  I felt bad for him, ya know? That kind of shit couldn’t be easy. I mean, if you walkin’ down the street and then you got a voice in your head...how are you supposed to deal with that? You’d probably think you was goin’ crazy. And that’s what he thought too. He went on for a month thinkin’ he was losin’ his fuckin’ mind. No wonder he looked bad.

  See, I might’ve thought he was kinda crazy too, except he wasn’t the only person’ who’d heard it. When he told us about the voice, Emilio said he’d heard it too. But only a little, when he was sleepin’. And there was no way Emilio was crazy, man. Emilio was as cool as it got.

  Anyway, Synapse had heard the voice, and then he started talking back with it, too. He said that the voice...and man, I don’t know how I just didn’t laugh at it ‘cause it seemed so fuckin crazy...but he said that the voice was from...like another dimension or some shit. Like, an alien from outer space. And yeah, it sounds just as crazy now as it did then. Even though I seen that shit, it still sounds crazy. But there it is. He said that the voice was from this thing that was being hunted. It was the very last of its kind, and it was lookin’ for help. A distress signal.

  Man...I got through the tenth grade. What the fuck do I know about space and aliens and shit? Nothin’ ‘cept what I seen in the movies. But everyone else seemed to be into what he was sayin, and I didn’t want to seem ignorant, so I didn’t ask no questions.

  So the thing was lookin’ for help, lookin’ for someone to help it cross over to get away from whatever was huntin’ it. And...well...that was kinda our job wasn’t it? Helpin folks who needed it? And yeah, this wasn’t no pro tryin’ to get her money back, but this was somethin’ that needed our help. That’s what we was told. I asked him if he knew what it looked like, and he sent us a picture. And when I say that, I don’t mean he drew it or nothin’. I mean he sent it. Like, from his brain to ours. Man, I don’t know if you’ve ever known a cat who could do that shit, but it’s pretty freaky. You go from havin’ your

  own thoughts to havin’ someone else’s. And you can feel that that shit ain’t yours.

  He showed it to us, and it looked kinda like us. Like, two arms and legs and whatnot. It didn’t have crazy tentacles or nothin’. It seemed pretty harmless. And looking at it...it made you feel real peaceful. I don’t know how to describe it. Kinda like one of those magic eye pictures? Where there’s a picture underneath the first one? Yeah, there was a feeling underneath that picture. And it made you feel good.

  And I guess now we gettin’ down to it, ain’t we? Yeah, everyone can be all angry with Synapse ‘cause he’s the one that done it. But man...there was six of us in the room right then. He asked us what he should do, and I told him that if there was some alien dude that needed help, we should help him. I thought about my dream a little, but not much. In the end, I thought it was pretty simple. Pretty black and white, ya know? We all said he should do it, and he did. It’s easy for one cat to take the blame...but I was a part of that shit too.

  The snow is getting worse. I suggest that we can continue this later, but he shakes his head.

  Naw, man. We got this shit started, and we gotta finish it. Besides, I guess we ain’t got too much more to go through.

  So May 1st, 1977. That’s the day, ain’t it? I tried real hard for a real long time to forget about that whole day. I went through whole years of not rememberin’ it...but it always came back in my dreams, man. Always in my dreams.

  As the day got closer, I started havin’ second thoughts. The dream was comin’ every night, and every night it felt more and more real. Was Synapse plannin’ somethin’? Or was there somethin’
he didn’t know? Man, I thought about bringin’ it up to everyone so many times...But what the fuck would I say? Tell ‘em I was havin’ a dream, so we should call the whole thing

  off? I kept quiet about it, but it was eatin’ me up. I didn’t get a decent night ‘a sleep for a month. I felt real paranoid all the time. And as the day was comin’ close, I realized I was gonna have to make a real choice. If I really believed somethin’ bad was happenin’, I was gonna have to stop it. I got myself a gun. I shouldn’t have...but by that point I was real strung out from how little I was sleepin’. It was stupid, but there you go.

  Emilio and Synapse had gotten all that shit organized. Press came from all over the world. They had politicians and all kinds of folks there. I don’t know that anyone really believed it, but nobody wanted to miss it if it was true, ya know? If we was gonna make contact with an alien, there wasn’t nobody that wanted to miss it. There was so many people there...what did they all expect to see?

  They blocked off the streets in front of the Sears Tower and put up this big stage. Man, there must have been a thousand people in front of the stage. More, maybe. I thought the key to the city thing was big...that wasn’t nothin’ compared to this. I was nervous, and all I had to do was stand there in my costume. But Synapse looked real excited. He looked tired, but excited too.

  The governor spoke and then Synapse got up there. Told the people what was goin’ on and what they might see. Some of ‘em cheered...some of ‘em laughed, too. And then nobody was laughin’ once he sent ‘em the picture like he’d sent it to us. Everybody got real quiet after that. I guess they figured if he could do that...who knew what that cat could do? At the very least, that wasn’t a cat you wanted to laugh at.

  Okay, so I don’t know that I can explain it too good...but basically what he was gonna do was use his mind to press against...space? Does that make sense? Like, he’d push on one side, and the alien would be pushing on the other, and that would open up a hole, or a tunnel, for the alien to come on through. Man, I don’t know how that shit works, but I seen it, so I guess it

  does. I guess one brain can’t do all the pushing on its own, even if it’s really powerful.

  He was gettin’ ready to head up, and for me it was gonna be then or never. I reached in my pocket and there was the gun. Synapse wasn’t facing me at all, so I could have got him before he even realized anything was happening. Maybe I wouldn’t have even had to kill him...just hurt him enough to end it, you know? My hand was shakin’, but I took hold of it and started to pull it out of my pocket.

  Just then...like fate steppin’ in or somethin’, T leans over and puts a hand on my shoulder. I look back at him and he’s got this real big smile on his face. He gets real close and he says “Man, Jackie...ain’t he somethin’?” And he was. He was somethin’ amazing. I felt so stupid right then...I was gonna shoot the most amazing man that ever lived because I was havin’ some bad dreams? I put the gun back and started cryin’. I went back to being one of those smiling faces, lookin’ up at him. Thousands and thousands of smilin’ faces.

  If things had gone different that day, people would think about Synapse as the most amazing cat that ever lived. Because man, he was. After doin’ that first trick with the picture, he did his second one. He closed his eyes and lifted his arms and up he went. Up and up. Everyone was cheerin’ and clappin’ and everything. Higher and higher. Hundreds of feet up. So high you couldn’t barely see him no more. And then he got on the radio and told us he was ready. But man...he wasn’t ready. None of us was ready. No way.

  May 1st, 2001

  After Antoinette was attacked, I convinced her to take a month off of patrols. Six days later she was back out there. I wanted to...I don’t know what I wanted to do. What I wanted to do was protect her, but she spends most of her nights leaping off of rooftops and chasing down criminals. You can’t protect someone like that. When I met her, it was with the thought that she would be the subject of a fascinating experiment that I would document. But now she’s as much a superhero as there’s ever been, and I don’t quite know how to deal with that. It’s silly, so I just keep quiet about my worries.

  It’s May Day, and we’re visiting Memorial Tower. She’s lived here for almost a year and hasn’t gotten a chance to see it, so today’s the day. The final chill has fallen out of the air, and I’m glad to be able to get a little Vitamin D. Antoinette wears a sun dress that dances on her thighs as we walk. And we walk all over today. She carries a large shopping bag, though she won’t tell me what’s in it. “It’s a surprise,” she says. Today we are happy.

  There is a small ceremony happening at Memorial Tower, though it’s sparsely attended. Really, it looks no different than any other day down here. Tourists walk by. People sell things on blankets spread out on the sidewalks. Homeless people beg for change, and those who have money mostly ignore them. Since I have been so wrapped up in the history of this place, I can’t help but get a little upset. Something happened here. Something significant and awful. But time...time turns even the greatest tragedies into words and dust. Do I raise a glass on December 7th? Should I? Instead of grabbing and shaking the shoulders of the oblivious businessman as he sneers at a homeless girl, I follow Antoinette into the building.

  The first floor looks much like it did in 1977, which is to say it looks like a nice lobby at any upscale office building. But the short elevator ride to the 10th floor takes us to the spectacular indoor gardens. We wander the gardens for a while, both of us silent and contemplative. Then we mount the stairs.

  Since I’m the one writing this, I could lie a little if I wanted to and say I had no

  trouble with the stairs, and kept up with Antoinette just fine. But that would be a bold-faced lie. By the time we pass a big number “30” on the wall, my calves are aching, but she never breaks stride. Step after step after step she climbs the tower, and I do my best to keep up.

  When we reach the top, I’m exhausted, but I’m a little vindicated to see that she is sweating too. But now that we are here, I am amazed by the view. I imagine that the view was different when the tower was taller, but this is such an amazing side of the city I love...and here I stand with...my friend. I am struck by the significance of this moment. I hope that, by writing about it, I keep it with me forever.

  Antoinette leaves me on a bench for a moment. “I have something to show you,” she says. Off she goes with that large bag she’s been carrying all day. I know she’s been working on something, but she’s been secretive about it.

  A couple minutes later she comes back out. She is dressed like...well, like a superhero. The suit is made of black lycra, with thin armor plates on the shins, thighs, chest, arms, and back. The plates on the backs of her arms have short metal studs. The belt at her waist is stuffed to the gills with gadgets and non-lethal weapons. A black metal helmet covers her head and neck, leaving her eyes and mouth exposed. The only bit of ornament on the entire outfit is a dark heart, almost black, over her chest. I knew she’d been working on something, but I’m completely blown away. She smiles and all the intimidation of the outfit fades away.

  ANTOINETTE: Do you like it? I think I look like a comic book villain, but I had to choose camouflage over style. Everything’s armored. Can’t stop a bullet, but it’ll deflect a knife if it comes down to it. All the joints are free, so there’s plenty of movement. I’ve been doing this for a year now. We’ve got sponsors. I’m out there all the time. I feel a little silly in a costume. But at the same time, I feel good. With this...now I can just be me in my everyday life, and I can go be someone completely different at night. And…whatever I have to do out there, it isn’t Annie doing those things. It’s the other one. Dark Heart. Do you like the name? She can be anything she

  needs to be. She can hurt. She can...she can do what’s necessary. And then I can come back and take it all off and leave it behind. I can separate. Compartmentalize. I don’t know if it’s the healthiest way, but I think it’s the best way.

  I felt
like this was the best place to show it to you because of all that happened here. There haven’t been a whole lot of heroes since then, but maybe we can change that. I’m more than I was before. And I feel like I’m better, too. Maybe I can’t always forgive the things I have to do, but I know that I’m making a positive difference in the world. I have meaning. I have purpose. And you...you helped give that to me.

  I’ll have to hide the good work that I do, but I understand it all now better than I did before. Before I was just angry. I didn’t understand why they hate us. But how could they ever embrace something they don’t understand? We’ve been hiding in the shadows for so long...I don’t think anyone has a clear idea of who we really are. But maybe...maybe it doesn’t have to be that way forever. Maybe the day will come soon where we can step out of the shadows.

  This place...the last time something truly horrible happened in this country, it was superheroes that caused it. But the next time it happens? I think we’ll be the ones to help pick up the pieces. We’ll be on the front lines, making it better. And maybe that’s what it will really take to put it all back right again.

  May 5th, 1999

  My GPS has gotten a serious workout today. While I was in Cheyenne, it connected to the satellite just fine. But once I set off into the great flat wilderness of Wyoming, the GPS all but abandoned me. After a few hours of searching, I finally come across Jarod Singleton’s small farm. At twenty-five acres, it is completely dwarfed by the properties surrounding it. These sprawling ranches of hundreds of acres apiece are nothing like this little bit of farmland. Here there are a few cows lazily munching grass in a back field, and two horses chasing each other. As I pull the car up the drive, I have to stop for a domesticated goose who seems to care very little about how big the car is. He looks up at me. I honk. He honks back. I decide I’m probably close enough and park the car.