Superheroes In Denim

by Lee French

  He remembered sitting in that room over there, watching Stephen drink Elena’s blood. Stupid vampire. Damn fool would be free if he’d just given Bobby the benefit of the doubt instead of assuming he was playing a dumb joke. As if he would’ve done that after everything they went through together.

  His dragons wanted him to focus on the job and get it done, and made that clear to him. The sooner they got Elena out, the sooner they could get to other, more important things. That stupid vampire was counting on him, not to mention all the others.

  Bobby threw himself into one of the dragons and found a door he thought to be for the basement. It was in the kitchen, which they must use as a kind of break room. A coffee maker percolated away on the counter, dirty dishes sat in the sink, and the dishwasher ran. Would anyone notice if he dropped his whole body in here and swiped something to eat? Better question: was it worth it to risk being seen here just to fill his belly?

  Thinking about it that way sent him to the door, where he landed on the deadbolt that locked from the other side. A keypad on the wall next to it had a card swiping thing, so he needed someone else to open the door for him. The downstairs probably had ventilation, finding its access would just take time.

  Screw it, he needed to eat. Dragons poured into the room. He re-formed and went for the fridge with one hand missing and a rumbling belly. That other two dozen dragons spread out through the ductwork to find the right access point. Most of what he found in the fridge was in bags or reusable containers, lunches for the people here. If every person working here brought one of these things, then there were twenty. Hopefully, that included Riker and his men, so there would only be fifteen or so. He could evade that many people.

  Nothing else in the fridge would feed him; ketchup and pickle relish sounded gross by themselves. He shut the door and scanned the room, noticing a bowl of fruit. Just as he stuffed a bite of banana in his mouth, the mysterious locked door beeped, the little light with the keypad flashed green, and it opened. Of course it happened then. Bobby made a start to flee for a hiding spot, but he didn’t have enough time before the door opened all the way and an older woman with a severe bun stood there, looking at him with suspicion and confusion.

  Jeans and a t-shirt probably didn’t measure up to the dress code around here, given she wore a navy skirt suit with matching pumps. Add to that what must be a comical expression of surprise on his face, his icy blue eyes, and his missing hand…she had plenty of reasons to be suspicious and confused.

  Bobby really did want to eat the banana. He wanted more for Privek not to know he’d been here. Dropping the fruit, he rushed her before the door could shut and clamped his one hand over her mouth. Her back and head thumped against the door frame and she squeaked without trying to bite or kick him.

  “I ain’t gonna hurt ya,” he whispered into her ear, “if’n you don’t give me a reason to.” It worried him a bit that he couldn’t be sure how much he meant those words. He saw her eyes go wide and scared, which made him feel a little dirty on the inside. He’d killed people indiscriminately and had more or less come to terms with that. It still bothered him to rough up some random woman. A real man didn’t treat women like this.

  She nodded and put her hands up in surrender. What did she do here? No idea. Could be nothing more than a pencil pusher, could be in charge of the place.

  Swallowing back bile from his own behavior, Bobby nodded back. If only Stephen was here, he could do his vampire thing and get what they needed from her that way instead. “I’m gonna pull my hand away, on account I got some questions. You scream or shout for help and I’ll kill you, we clear?” Would he really do that? No. Yes. Maybe. Hopefully not.

  Again, she nodded and looked like she took that threat very seriously. When he pulled his hand away, moving his arm to keep her restrained, she sniffled. “Please don’t hurt me,” she whispered.

  “There a girl named Elena here?” He remembered her introducing herself with that name, so he figured she must be using it with her co-workers. To be on the safe side, he rattled off a description of her.

  The woman shook her head. “No, she was transferred two days ago.”

  Of course she was. Bobby bit back a few unfriendly words. “Where to?” The woman swallowed nervously, so he added, “It’s important. Her family thinks she been kidnapped.”

  She blinked several times in surprise. “Oh. Um, I could…maybe find out?”

  One of Bobby’s eyebrows lurched up skeptically. “You think I’m gonna trust you to go back down there and not tell folks there’s a guy up here what ain’t supposed to be? I may not be a genius or nothing, but I ain’t stupid, lady. Just tell me all the places she might be. You gotta know that, right?”

  Nodding again, she took a deep breath. “White Sands, Groom Lake, or Adelphi. If there are any other facilities where she might be, I don’t know about them.”

  “What about the one in DC?” Wouldn’t it be funny if Liam had walked past her five times a day without realizing it? No, not really.

  “No, she doesn’t speak enough English. She has to be someplace where no one will ask questions.”

  That made sense to Bobby. “You know why she was here? Or why she was transferred?”

  “Something about her boyfriend? Not really. Work here for a little while and you learn not to ask questions.”

  Bobby snorted, amused by that. “Sure. What you don’t know is what you can’t object to.” The little growl on the edge of those words made the woman go still as her heartbeat raced. “You listen and listen good,” he told her with quiet intensity in his voice. “I don’t know what you think is going on here, but it ain’t all it seems. Maybe you’re doing some good, I don’t know, but from where I’m standing, you’re doing stuff where the ends justify the means, and that ain’t never nothing good.” If saying that made him an immense hypocrite, he could live with believing Privek had forced his hand.

  “Point is,” he continued, trying to be as dangerous looking and sounding as he could manage, “I aim to cause some ruckus for your bosses on account they done caused harm to a bunch of folks I care about, and if you tell them I was here and what I wanted to know, it’s gonna make things harder for me. What d’you think I ought to do about that?”

  She gulped. “I don’t feel well all of a sudden,” she said breathlessly, eyes even wider than before. “I think I might go home and sleep it off. Maybe I’ll call in tomorrow, too.”

  Pleasantly surprised by her answer, Bobby nodded. He also understood: he had until the morning after tomorrow for sure, but past that, all bets were off. “Sounds like a plan to me.” Letting go of her, he backed off. “I hope you ain’t hurt.” He scooped up the banana, because he didn’t want to swarm in front of her. If she never saw him use his superpower, she couldn’t tell Privek which one accosted her. Might as well finish the fruit he’d already peeled. And take an apple and an orange.

  “No,” she said meekly as she reached up to rub her head.

  “Well, go on and git.” He waved her off with his one banana-filled hand, trying not to call attention to how the other arm ended abruptly at the wrist.

  She turned and scurried away, the sounds of her shoes moving swiftly down the hall punctuated by a door opening and shutting. As soon as it banged closed, he flowed into the swarm and got them to carry the fruit outside, where they met up with the rest of the dragons. From overhead, he saw Riker standing at what must be his post, watching the woman get into her car. Bobby stayed high enough to not attract attention, and slipped over to re-form on the ground next to Kaitlin.

  The other two men had awakened. Paul looked perfectly fine, though annoyed. Kaitlin sat without a scrape on her, her whole body turned away from Paul. Liam, on the other hand, held his head gingerly and had several cuts and bruises.

  “Ain’t you a healer?” Bobby started munching on the apple the second he had a hand and mouth to facilitate it.

  “I can’t heal myself,” Liam groaned, “only other people.”
/>   “Dang, that sucks.”

  “I was already aware of that, thank you. Since we’re pointing out the obvious, you don’t have Elena.”

  Bobby sighed as he finished his bite of apple. “Well, she ain’t here. I got three possible places she might be and only today and tomorrow afore somebody probably realizes I been here. If’n we had more help, it’d be easier to get ‘er done in that span.”

  “Forget it,” Paul grumbled. “Not a chance we’re letting anyone else free after Kaitlin made me crash the car.”

  “It’s not my fault,” Kaitlin snapped, “that you can’t focus well enough to drive straight when my power goes active. Thanks to you, I didn’t even get anything out of it.”

  “Great.” Bobby stared off at something else, not really paying attention to the bickering. His mind moved on other things. Like how to get where they needed to go and do what they needed to do. “Is the car dead?”

  “Yes. Kaitlin killed my car.”

  Kaitlin reached over and smacked Paul in the arm. “Whatever. It was already making a funny noise and probably older than you. Quit whining. The bigger problem is we have no transportation and a time limit. Why do we only have that long?”

  Bobby shrugged, unwilling to get into it. “Life’s like that. I can get me gone no problem, you lot are gonna have to walk until you find something.” He crunched into the apple again and had another thought. “Or maybe see if Riker will give you a ride or something. Your phone,” he said to Liam, “has bells and whistles, don’t it? The places I got to try are White Sands, Groom Lake, and Adelphi. I know where the first one is, I been there. The other two, I got no idea.”

  Liam tapped on his phone. “Groom Lake is a military base in southern Nevada, also known as Area 51. Adelphi has too many options.”

  “Area 51 is real?” Paul peered at Liam, echoing Bobby’s skepticism.

  “Apparently.” Offering his phone so Paul could see for himself, Liam went back to nursing what must be a headache of serious proportions.

  “Where’s White Sands?” Paul looked the map over, holding it so Kaitlin could see, too.

  “New Mexico. Which ain’t far from Nevada. You all could work the Adelphi angle while I get myself out west and check those places out.”

  “I don’t think so,” Liam growled. “You’re not leaving my sight again.”

  Bobby huffed. “I came back, didn’t I?”

  “Doesn’t matter. If you’re going, so am I.”

  “You can’t leave me alone with this.” Paul indicated Kaitlin with a little jerk of his head.

  Kaitlin rolled her eyes again. “Like I want to spend my time with you, either.”

  His hands too full to rub his face, Bobby sighed. “Look, I can fly. Can any of you? We don’t got time to wait for whatever you can do to get a ride to someplace worth being. I coulda just took off and left you here, but I didn’t. I came over to tell you what’s up. I ain’t your enemy, we’re on the same side. All I want is all of us free and not being used against our will. Ain’t no more complicated than that. Everything I done’s been about that, whether it seemed like it or not.”

  Kaitlin got to her feet and picked up her bag from where it lay on the ground behind her. “You guys can keep me as a hostage against his word if that’s what it takes.”

  “All it will take is one stupid phone call,” Liam said irritably, taking his phone back from Paul, “and we’ll be on our way as soon as a tow truck can get here.”

  Bobby lifted an eyebrow, wondering if he was the only one feeling like a healthy dose of paranoia would a good idea. “You planning on using your name and all, let Privek know you been here? I’m sure he won’t notice, won’t read nothing into it. Ain’t nothing wrong with you going for a joyride and needing a tow truck out near Culpeper, where there just happens to be a facility Elena was in until two days ago.”

  “I hate you.” Liam grumbled it with no real heat and stuffed his phone into his pocket.

  Poor guy had to be in a lot of pain, and he even get his girl back yet. “Yeah, yeah.” He waved that off and fixed Liam with a dead serious look. “We’ll find her, man, I promise, and you’ll get her back. Don’t know how, but I got this far. Ain’t gonna give up now.”

  Chapter 2

  “So, there he goes. We’re never going to see him again.” Liam rubbed his aching head as he got to his feet with Paul’s help.

  “If there’s any one person you can trust to stick to the mission of ‘rescue the girl’, it’s Bobby.” Kaitlin smirked and led the way back to the road, peering down the direction they’d come from.

  “What are you looking for?” Liam had so many bumps and scrapes that he felt like a walking ache from head to toe. Some of it had healed when he took on Paul’s injuries, but not much. His power sucked.

  Kaitlin waved at someone and walked down the road in the other direction. “Traffic, duh.”

  “Why are we going this way? Culpeper is back that way.”

  Paul still scowled at her. “She saw something, just now. I can tell.”

  Kaitlin pursed her lips and waited a second or so before answering. “Yeah. I saw Riker, pointing this way. Across the road.”

  “But your mind went wonky for a second,” Paul insisted. “What did you actually See? ”

  “Why, did it make you want to crash your legs?”

  Paul growled under his breath. “If you hadn’t killed my car, we wouldn’t be in this situation.”

  “If you had the balls to handle the unexpected, your car would be fine.”

  These two might kill each other, unless he killed them both first. Liam took a deep breath to push aside all the pain so he could try to make some peace, or at least shut them up for five minutes. “It doesn’t matter. What we need is to get back to DC, as soon as possible. Someone’s going to notice Bobby’s missing at some point, and if we’re not accounted for, we’re going to be the prime suspects. Did you see anything that will help us get there?”

  “Yes.” Kaitlin looked both ways before jogging across the road, beckoning them to follow. The driveway she went up belonged to the next property over. He followed her and so did Paul, figuring that getting anything more would to be similar to trying to get his mother to eat at a greasy spoon diner: close enough to impossible as to not be worth the effort.

  She led them a short way past a gap in the wall of trees and shrubs to absolutely nothing, where they stopped and looked around. “Something is going to happen here, right?” Liam was starting to think he’d entrusted his fate to a lunatic.

  This time, she skipped the sarcastic reply and only nodded. She stood there serenely, like everything was right with the world, and everything she expected to happen was happening. Liam couldn’t see any reason not to, so he sat down and put his head in his hands, wishing the precog had the foresight to bring a bottle of aspirin. Seriously, if she knew so much, how come she didn’t see that? She brought clothes for Bobby, after all. He also wished he could get his head to stop playing light jazz in the background, which it had been doing for a few minutes now.

  “Liam, can you stop…thinking so much?” Paul stood with his hands crossed and a grumpy frown on his face.

  “Given the alternative of being a blank, drooling moron, no, I don’t think I can.” He heard Kaitlin snort. “I think you need to work on your shielding. The crash must have jarred your concentration more than you think. I can hear music.”

  Paul blushed bright red and mumbled an embarrassed apology. Putting his hands on his head, he paced several steps away, then turned and came back.

  After a minute of merciful quiet passed, a blue sedan pulled in and Riker leaned out the window. Bewildered by this turn of events, Liam stared stupidly as Kaitlin took the passenger seat, leaving the back for him and Paul.

  Riker gave him an expectant look, which shook Liam awake. He got to his feet, hurried over, and got in. Mindful that his ability didn’t really protect him from anything, he put his seatbelt on.

  “What’re you doin
g?”

  “Helping.” Riker backed the car out, choosing the direction Kaitlin pointed him in, away from Culpeper. “This is bullshit duty and I know it, so does the rest of my team. We know something’s going on, and trust Bobby. Even if this means we get branded as traitors, we want to do what’s right, not what we’re told. Where are we going?”

  “That way,” Kaitlin said, pointing straight ahead.

  Liam glanced back and saw another car falling into line behind them. The driver gave him a perfunctory wave. He waved back out of habit and settled into his seat, facing forward. Bobby was more dangerous than he thought. Not because he killed people—Riker did that for a living. Because he was so damned likeable and believable. He had that harmless good guy routine down pat, so sincere Liam thought the guy believed himself. “This is getting out of control.”

  “You healed me,” Riker reminded him amiably. “I was given an option to either keep my mouth shut about that or be charged with treason. Bobby and Stephen asked me politely to keep my mouth shut about them and what they did to free us. Guess which one I trust more.”

  Now he stood firmly on the other side. There wouldn’t be any going back. He wanted proof and hadn’t gotten it yet. He still switched sides anyway. Heaving a sigh, he rubbed his eyes. They ached as much as everything else. More than anything, he wanted Elena. He never knew how badly he needed someone until he had her, and then she was gone, disappeared so abruptly he worried he’d dreamed her up. For all he knew, he’d sent Bobby off on a wild goose chase, searching for a figment of his imagination, one that laughed and danced and made him willing to do nearly anything to get her back.

  “We should go back.” Even the stupid tree-lined road made him think of Elena, mostly because he wanted to watch her watching it. She’d love this, all the vibrant life streaming past. Who knew what she’d see in it that he didn’t. “To the facility in DC, I mean. And by ‘we’, I mean Paul and I.”