Superheroes In Denim

by Lee French

  Bobby snorted and watched the suit face forward again. With nothing left to do now but sit back and wait, he wound up staring out the window, watching the highway go by. About an hour later, they paused long enough to get some food. His belly full of cheeseburgers and fries, Bobby dozed off for the rest of the trip.

  He woke to Stephen jabbing him in the side with an elbow as the SUV rolled through the streets of Indianapolis. The suits kept quiet until they pulled into the well-lit parking lot for a two-story office building. Light peeked through the blinds of three windows on the second floor. They parked next to an identical black SUV.

  “This is it,” Driver Suit said as he shut off the car.

  “Ain’t exactly what I was expecting,” Bobby said, peering at the building. Nothing about it held any interest, from the blank, whitish walls to the squared shrubs. He thought the place where these guys did their business should have some kind of sinister feel to it. This reminded him of nothing worse than his dentist’s office.

  “Your expectations aren’t really our concern.” Passenger Suit hopped out and opened the door for Stephen.

  “Do they surgically remove your sense of humor before you’re allowed to wear the sunglasses?” Stephen asked.

  “Yes,” Driver Suit deadpanned as he opened the door on Bobby’s side.

  Bobby chuckled. “I reckon that actually means no.” He chose not to resist when Driver Suit grabbed his arm.

  “People keep telling me that no means no, and yes means ‘probably’.” Stephen let Passenger Suit grip his arm, too.

  Feeling a surge of mild paranoia about this too-quiet spot, Bobby let his free arm dangle and popped a dragon off his thumb without comment. If nothing happened, great. If something happened, he’d still have a dragon on the outside.

  The suits marched them in through an unlocked door, then up the stairs. On the second floor, Driver Suit knocked on the door for Suite 204, and another suit opened it.

  “How many guys in suits y’all got, anyway? Seems like an unlimited supply.”

  The new suit’s mouth went thin, and he slapped Bobby across the face. He tried to, at least. His hand connected with Bobby’s face, but he burst into the swarm with the impact, so the suit’s hand went right through his head. Hundreds of tiny robot dragons, all outraged that this man dared to hit Bobby, converged on that hand to destroy it.

  Surprised, Bobby took a moment to absorb what happened as his mind hovered in the center of the swarm. If he didn’t stop them, the dragons would shred the suit’s hand and move on to engulf his whole body. They’d kill the suit and this whole trip would be for nothing. Also, a man would be dead, which was a Very Bad Thing, for more reasons than the obvious one.

  Stephen shoved the suit to the side while Bobby clamped down on the swarm. “Get a grip,” the vampire snarled at the new suit. “We can kill all three of you faster than you can pull out syringes and use them. Remember that.”

  Aside — Paul

  “What do you think?”

  Paul watched the minor scuffle through a tinted window, the kind that allowed a person to observe out of sight so long as the light stayed off. One agent gripped his hand in real pain. The two newcomers glared at the agents and moved with the wariness of cobras facing a mongoose. They sat in the chairs suggested by the remaining two agents and seemed to have divided the responsibility for watching the agents by unspoken accord.

  He hadn’t expected them to look so…normal. The taller one was too pale, but otherwise reminded him of an average college student. Paul could easily picture the guy on his own home campus of Seattle University, and, he noted with a small bite of jealousy, with coeds on both muscled arms. Raymond had that, too.

  The other one had about a week’s worth of light brown beard to match his shaggy hair, and wore jeans with a blank t-shirt. In the footage he’d seen of the incident at Hill Air Force Base, these two men struck him as monsters. Here, now, they seemed more like earthy movie stars, the kind of men people would meet and comment about how nice and friendly they’d been. Although he didn’t appear to qualify as the kind of classically handsome that the girls went ga-ga for, he could imagine this shorter one with a girl-next-door in his arms.

  “I can’t read anything at all off Cant,” he told the other man in the room with him. “He’s blank. But he looks like he’s not afraid of anything he can see coming, and doesn’t have much respect for authority. Mitchell, on the other hand… There’s a lot to read from him, too much. It’s like he’s got—” Struggling under the weight of so much input, he frowned. “Like each individual thread of thought occupies a different part of his mind, and they all crash around together. I think maybe it’s the dragons I’m sensing, somehow.”

  “You think each dragon has some part of his mind?”

  “I don’t know.” Paul shook his head. “Maybe if I could read just one dragon, separate from all the others, I could answer the question.”

  “So your talent is useless with these two.”

  “I guess so.” Disappointed with this truth, Paul sighed. He wanted to help. “Maybe if I was in the room with them—”

  “No.” The other man pulled his sunglasses out of the breast pocket of his suit jacket. “They don’t know any of you are working with us yet. I’d like to keep it that way for as long as possible.”

  Paul nodded and put his hand on the glass. This close, his icy blue, almond shaped eyes were reflected back at him, but he was more interested in the two men on the other side of the glass. “Are we really related?”

  “Blood tests have confirmed you all share one parent, yes.”

  “How did they wind up being such cold killers, then?” It bothered him, a lot, that he had half siblings who could murder people.

  “Everyone reacts to power differently.”

  Nodding, Paul sighed. He knew that, he studied psychology, it just seemed more disturbing when it hit so close to home, so to speak. “What are you going to do?”

  “Offer them a job.”

  “What?”

  “What kind of prison could hold them? It would be better to have them on our team, with some kind of control on them, than to try to find some way to stuff them in a box. They’ve already proven they’re willing to kill to get free, and capable of a fair amount of mayhem. Besides, if we can flip them, they know where we can find the rest.” He covered his ordinary hazel eyes with the sunglasses. “Put your earbud in. I want your opinions as I talk to them.”

  Paul nodded again and pulled the small device out of his pocket, then stuck it in his ear. “Is this thing working?”

  “Yes. Since you can’t get anything from their minds, just pay attention to body language and tell me if you feel strongly they’re lying or obfuscating.”

  “Right. Got it.” Paul watched while he opened the door and walked into the other room, hoping he’d be able to read these guys well enough. Lives might depend on it, maybe even his own.

  Chapter 2

  “Gentlemen.” That voice sounded oddly familiar, and Bobby turned to see who walked in through the side door. The sunglasses did a lot to make him just another anonymous suit, but that chin tugged on his memory. He’d seen this one before and recognized him. Realizing his identity took him about the same amount of time as it took the guy to pace in and sit down behind the desk, looking like he owned it.

  At the time, he’d been FBI Special Agent Steve Privek. Had he actually been an FBI agent then? Bobby reached up without thinking and rubbed his jaw where the man had socked him a good one about six weeks ago. “You’re kinda far from Atlanta.”

  Privek smirked. “So are you, Mitchell.”

  “You’re the one what made me leave in the first place.”

  “The situation was, perhaps, mishandled in some ways.”

  Bobby glared at Privek. “‘Mishandled in some ways’? Are you joking? You framed me for a murder and chained me up like a dog.”

  “I’m sure that’s how you see it.” Privek laced his hands together on the d
esk and leaned forward. “I’m prepared to offer you a deal. Are you here to listen or to address past grievances? ”

  Stephen reached over and put a restraining hand on Bobby’s arm. “We’re listening.”

  This wasn’t the time to blow up at Privek and Bobby knew it. The dragons hated this situation and it made him crankier than he ought to be. The contact with Stephen reminded him why he sat in this office, and he snapped his mouth shut, leaning back in the chair with a glower. He could listen, but he didn’t have to be happy about it.

  “Good. What I have to offer you is a chance to work for the betterment of your country by applying your unique abilities to problems we find difficult to solve with current manpower and technology.”

  “Is that what you were gonna offer when—” Stephen’s hand squeezed his arm painfully, making Bobby stop. A little harder and it would have become dragons.

  “What he means is that we’re concerned about petty things like bodily autonomy and right of refusal for requests we find objectionable.”

  One of Privek’s eyebrows arched up over the sunglasses. “You’ll have to prove we can trust you. After what happened in Salt Lake, we’re a little hesitant to just give you whatever you want.”

  “Being shot kinda makes a guy get surly.”

  “You wouldn’t have been shot if you hadn’t already killed three of our men.”

  “Which was only ‘cause—”

  Stephen cut him off again. “Bobby. You’re not helping.”

  Nodding, Bobby shut his mouth again. He had to remember that he’d come here for Jasmine, not for himself. Every time he opened his mouth here, he put himself before her, and she didn’t deserve that. Worse, he put himself before all of them. While they had a few he didn’t much mind doing that to, most of them ought to get better from him.

  “I won’t speak for Bobby, but I’m definitely interested. What could I expect for the first twenty- four hours?”

  “We’ll want to run you through a full physical and take some samples for testing.”

  “What kind of testing?” Stephen frowned. “I’m not interested in being anyone’s lab rat.”

  Privek nodded his understanding. “Just drawing some blood and taking a swab of DNA for examination. After that, we’ll want a full explanation of everything you know about that makes you different from a normal person, then we’ll assign you missions based upon your abilities. From what we already know of what you can each do, you’d both be well suited to war zone duties.”

  “I ain’t no soldier.” Bobby shifted in his seat, annoyed that the idea of actually doing soldiery things made him wonder if Lily would be more attracted to him for it.

  “I understand that,” Privek said curtly, “but what you can do would be useful to other soldiers. This is about saving lives, gentlemen. A small army of people with your type of capabilities could end most wars with very little loss of life, on both sides.”

  Bobby sat and glared at the desk. Stephen, though, leaned in and seemed very interested. “I’m not sure how useful I can be in a desert environment, but I’m willing to do what I can to help soldiers come home. Can this be provisional, with the sample-taking after the first mission? I’m hesitant to just give that up right now. It feels violating on some level. I want to know I’m on the right side of the line before I go all in.”

  Privek pursed his lips and furrowed his brow. After a long pause, he finally said, “Very well. We don’t need anything from Mitchell anyway. Hagen will take you to your next destination, where you’ll be looked over and questioned about your capabilities.”

  “If it ain’t too much trouble, we’d rather work together than apart.”

  “I’ll make a note.” Privek stood up and gave them each a nod without offering his hand to shake. “I hope this is the start of a long partnership, and that we can put all the messy business from before behind us.”

  Stephen stood with an echoing nod. “So do I.”

  Bobby stood and grunted his unenthusiastic assent, not caring if that bothered Privek or not. He watched the agent leave the room and turned his mild glower on Stephen. They probably had some kind of setup to listen to whatever they might say in here, so he kept his mouth shut. The vampire wordlessly headed for the other door, the one they used before. Having nothing better to do, Bobby followed. Passenger Suit stood waiting for them alone, checking his phone. At least they didn’t get stuck with Touchy Suit.

  “I’m Hagen,” Passenger Suit said as he looked up. “We’ll be heading east. If either of you need to use the bathroom, this is a good time.”

  “I don’t have such petty mortal concerns.” Stephen smirked, his humor slipping back on.

  Bobby rolled his eyes and headed for the door Hagen pointed out. He needed to settle down. They took a job working for Privek. The dragons seethed inside about it. Heckbiscuits, he seethed inside about it. If he found out Privek had only been an FBI agent following orders before, he might decide to be more charitable about the whole thing. Until then, he wanted to do things to the man that would horrify Momma.

  Speaking of Momma, why didn’t he think to ask that surveillance be taken off of her house? They might do it anyway, given they had him here now. He still should have asked. Maybe he should teach people how to be as lousy at negotiation as him. Hannah would’ve handled all this much better. Lizzie could probably have gotten more, too. On second thought, her idea would be to blow stuff up until she got what she wanted, which might not really qualify as ‘better’.

  At least this mission thing should help people, even if it meant knowing Privek officially pulled his strings. How did that saying go? Good done in the name of Evil is still Good. He splashed some water on his face and stared at himself in the mirror. “You sure you wanna do this?” Thankfully, his reflection didn’t answer. The question did galvanize the dragons, though, reminding them why he’d just given up his autonomy to Privek. They had to do something. This qualified as ‘something’.

  He toweled his face off and took a deep breath. “Just don’t forget this is all for them,” he told his reflection. “Just don’t forget about them, no matter what.”

  Chapter 3

  Ten hours later, Bobby and Stephen sat on a couch in the living room of a big old house. Hagen had disappeared to get some sleep after the long drive, and they now faced a man in a normal suit and holding a clipboard. He’d diligently scribbled down their names and now waited patiently for them to explain their superpowers.

  Instead of using words, Bobby popped one dragon off his hand. Its fingertip disappeared, the end of the knuckle smooth as if it had originally grown that way. The dragon swooped around the room, chirping its annoyance at this whole process. “My whole body’s made of ‘em,” he told the guy. “Hundreds, maybe over a thousand.” It landed on Stephen’s shoulder and quieted.

  “They eat gears and stuff, I still need to eat, too. One gets smashed or shot or blown up or whatever, the others eat it and I get a sore spot for a bit. They do what I tell ‘em to, but can do simple stuff themselves. If’n they get mighty angry, they can blow fire, but I ain’t sure they can just do that whenever. Not real good at killing, but the swarm can take a guy down if’n we gotta.”

  The guy nodded and wrote on his clipboard. Bobby suspected they had cameras recording this interview, too. “Are the dragons ‘they’ or ‘we’?”

  Bobby shrugged. “Yes.”

  He looked up gave Bobby a hard, frowning stare. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Dunno. If’n I figure a way to tell you, I will.” Bobby shrugged again.

  Stephen snickered. “I, on the other hand, am easier to explain.”

  After smoothing his expression and flipping a page over the top of the clipboard, the guy said, “Go ahead.”

  “I’m a fairly classical vampire, though I have no issues with garlic or holy symbols. I’m very sensitive to sunlight and burn easily, more than a person with fair skin. I couldn’t say if I catch fire under prolonged exposure, and am not i
nterested in learning the truth of that. Other than that, I have the superhuman strength, can fly, regenerate, and drink blood. I have no capability to handle food or other liquids and no longer have need of a bathroom. What happens to the blood in my digestive tract is a mystery I cannot explain, and again, I’m not especially interested in solving it.”

  The suit nodded and scribbled. “Does sunblock work?”

  “Briefly. I tried SPF 70 once on the back of my hand, it started to redden in five minutes instead of five seconds. Clothing works just fine, anything that ordinarily protects from sunburn.”

  “Ya know, technically, you do have a problem with garlic,” Bobby pointed out.

  Stephen smirked. “Yes, well, it’s not really confined to garlic. All food is problematic. It doesn’t repel me is the point, nothing does.”

  The suit didn’t find that funny. “From what I saw you’re both perfectly fine with killing? ”

  “No, not really.” Bobby shook his head.

  Stephen pursed his lips and looked off at the wall. “It’s not something I prefer to do. Drinking blood is fairly primal, though. The instincts are there, and can be difficult to suppress.”

  Bobby squirmed. “I only did take down three of your guys. Them first two, the dragons were kinda…” He shifted again. “I lost control of the swarm, they went berserk on account of what was done to me up to then. That third one, he tried to shoot me and a kid, and it didn’t look like he was gonna stop. I don’t got a whole lotta control over that—once they’re looking to kill, they’re looking to kill.”

  The guy huffed and wrote something else down. With one brow arched, he glanced from Bobby to Stephen and back. “If you were asked to kill someone, like an assassination, would you be able or willing to do that?”

  Bobby looked at Stephen, who shrugged. He scratched at his beard and frowned. “I guess if’n it was a bad guy who done things what ain’t right, then maybe, yeah. Call it a case-by-case sorta thing, but it ain’t neither of us’s first choice. I’m good at scouting, and getting in and outta places.”