Andre took a deep breath and said, “You're talking about a Zharkovian work camp? Come on, man. I know things aren't great in Patriot City, but at least we aren't breaking our backs for food rations.”
“It's not like that. They're more of a community,” Wesley said as he adjusted his glasses. “They follow the teachings of this guy that are... I don't know. It's kind of like a martial art.”
Victor tried to swallow the beer in his mouth before laughing. “Wot the hell does you flippin' a coin in the air have ta do with learnin' karate?”
Wesley rolled his eyes like he was wondering if it would be easier to stop talking than to try to explain. “It's not like that. From what I've read, its foundations are rooted in Neijing, a Chinese martial art that focuses on the internal, the spiritual, meditative, mental side, not the external side of throwing punches and kicks.”
“Th-th-that sounds kind of r-r-religious to me,” Mickey said before drinking half his glass of beer in a quick succession of gulps. “It ain't a cult is it?”
“Sounds like it,” Andre said. “You can wrap all the new-age nonsense around it that you want, but I bet you all the beer in the world they start asking about your bank account at some point, man.”
“And then get shut down by them Guardian freaks flyin' about the Fatherlands,” Victor said. “They ain't got no love for the church, mate.”
Wesley shrugged and said, “First of all, there's nothing in my bank account for them to take. Second, they're not a religion. It's like a philosophy. I don't think the empire has rules against that. They've been running their work camp without any problems for quite a few years now.”
“Great,” Victor said, “this cunt's gonna go take a vacation in a communist country, meanwhile ol' Lucy Grae's gonna join the Alliance. We're gonna be the only one's left around the ol' neighborhood, boys.”
Andre choked on his beer. “What did you just say about Lucy?”
Victor shrugged as if everybody knew what he was talking about. “Rumor is, Lucy's gettin' courted by the Alliance of Heroes. They're gonna make her a right good superhero.”
Lucy Grae was yet another neighborhood misfit with powers no one could find a use for. Only difference was, her parents signed her up for the academy, hoping they'd find a place for her enhanced eyesight to be useful.
“Naw, man. That can't be true. They wouldn't be interested in her power.”
Victor shrugged his shoulders and said, “S'just what I heard.”
Andre waved the idea out of the air. “There ain't no way they're gonna meet with someone who just sees better than other people.”
“I-I-I heard her vision's been getting s-s-stronger and stronger,” Mickey said, nodding repetitively. “Sh-sh-she can see for miles now, or zoom in m-m-microscopically.”
Andre raised one eyebrow toward Mickey. “Where'd you hear that?”
Victor chuckled. “Kid still lives in the same building, Andy. Word gets around. Specially when one of us poor kids makes it big.”
Andre felt hurt, or jealous, or something, but he pushed it away. “Whatever, man. Even if that's true, what's the Alliance of Heroes gonna do with that? Even I'd be better in a fight than her.”
Wesley shrugged his shoulders and said, “There could be different uses for her in lots of areas. Just because the Alliance of Heroes takes you in, doesn't mean they're going to make you fight supervillains. They shop the powers out to wherever they'd be the most useful. She could be of use to someone, somewhere. Doesn't matter if it's the public or the private sector.”
“Speakin' o' privates,” Victor said, already bored with the topic. “Any o' you wankers seen Carmy and that fantastic set o' knockers of hers? She ain't been around Cleo's Place for weeks.”
“I-I-I haven't seen her around the n-n-neighborhood either,” Mickey said with a shudder. “Her m-m-mom locked her up ever since the s-s-snow fell. Carmen never did like the w-w-winter.”
Victor laughed as he lifted his glass to his lips. “Ya should give 'er a ring-a-ding, Andy, see if she'll give ya the ol' rumpy pumpy for ol' times sake. That'd make ya feel better, right? And who knows? Maybe she'd feel generous and give us all a go.”
Andre clapped his hand down on Victor's arm, slamming his glass of beer back onto the table “Vic? Shut your mouth, man.”
There was a tense pause before Victor laughed it off. “I'm just takin' the piss outta ya. I knew ya would laugh it off.” He whipped his head to the side to get the hair out of his eyes and whispered, “I can see the future, ya know.”
Andre chuckled. It was the annoying part about Victor's power. You never knew if he saw the future, or created it by telling you what he saw.
“You're an asshole.”
“Sure am, mate. Sure am. But I'm a wee bit lovable too, ya gotta admit that.”
Andre sipped his beer and said, “You buy the next round and I'll find you lovable.”
And he did. Kind of. He actually tricked a guy at the end of the bar into buying them a round by figuring out what the guy needed to hear in order to think Victor was his new best friend. So the gang continued to drink well into the night, telling stories from the past and sharing hopes for the future. Andre succeeded in drinking himself into enough of a stupor that he forgot about the crappy neighborhood he lived in and his dead end job. Which was impressive, considering how much alcohol it took to work past his slight invulnerability.
But even though he should have been pleasantly inebriated, thanks to Victor, his mind kept swimming back to memories of Carmen. He swayed back and forth between the happy memories, like the way she smelled and the way she felt, and the memories that made him angry, like the way she made him feel like he was never good enough for her, like she deserved better than him. He wasn't sure which of the memories won the battle inside of him, but when the group of friends stumbled out the door, instead of turning right to go to his own apartment, Andre turned left. Carmen only lived a few blocks away.
3
MERMAID
As she stepped through the portal into Power Tower, she took a quick gasp of air to make sure everything inside of her was still working. She hated teleporting. Her body was betraying her in her old age, creaking and aching in new places every day. But when she poked around her chest and realized everything was still working, she smiled at the fact that her old bones could still walk through a portal just fine.
Mermaid waved her hand at Voyager, who sat at her desk in the middle of the room surrounded by doors, but she didn't notice the old woman. Voyager was too busy studying maps and blueprints, readying her teleportation power for an upcoming mission. She'd need to know where every doorway was if she was going to open portals as needed. Her power was incredibly useful to the Alliance, but it was precision work. They all put their trust in her that she wouldn't accidentally teleport them to a doorway in a sunken ship, or a hatch on a satellite out in space. So far, so good.
As Mermaid walked toward the room's exit, a small spherical robot floated toward her.
“Good evening, Mermaid,” the robot said in a friendly voice. “It's lovely to see you again.”
“Thanks.” Mermaid pulled off the band that held her long, pure white hair in a pony tail, and let it flow down over her shoulders and curl around her back. “Have any of the other council members arrived yet?”
“I'm afraid you are the first. As always.”
“Of course I am,” she mumbled.
As she neared the circular tower door, it automatically twisted open from the center. She stepped through the opening with the robot following close behind. The entrance scanned her with a bath of red light, then blinked green when her DNA matched the security records.
As the second door opened, the computer announced her arrival: “Eleanor Abraham, aka Mermaid, Council Member Number 1.”
She stepped through the second door and a young woman waved from across the room. A short brown pixie cut framed her youthful face, making her appear much younger than she actually was, and she wore a ti
ght yellow spandex costume that hugged every curve of her body. Mermaid smiled softly, trying to hide her jealousy for the days when she could pull off a costume like that. The girl's neck stretched toward Mermaid, extending across the large room until her head was only inches away.
“Hey there, Mermaid. Exciting day, isn't it?” she said with a cheerful smile.
“Hello, Flex. I suppose you are speaking about the recruitment process?” Mermaid continued to walk toward one of the many hallways that connected with the entrance room.
The rest of Flex's body stretched toward her face so that her entire body was now walking next to Mermaid. “Got any good ones lined up for us?”
“Not as many as I'd like” Mermaid said as the spherical robot handed her a digital tablet with the day's briefing displayed on the screen.
“Any SPMDs?”
“Keep dreaming, sweetheart.”
“At least tell me there are some cute ones,” Flex said, nudging Mermaid with her elbow.
“Oh, honey. If I could just choose the ones I thought you'd find attractive instead of vetting the usefulness of their powers, this whole process would be so much easier.”
Flex shrugged her shoulders and winked at Mermaid. “Just be sure to forward the photos to me after the meeting. I want to know what to expect.”
And with that, she threw one arm behind her and stretched toward it, her elastic body flowing back down the hallway.
Mermaid shook her head and mumbled to the robot, “Not sure I'll ever get used to that,” before returning to her tablet's screen.
All the usual notes were there. New super powers detected in children. Illegal uses of super powers in the American Republic. How many centimeters the glacial wall of the Frostlands encroached upon their northern border over the last week. But the last note, posted only minutes ago, made her stop.
The imperator was dead.
It felt shocking, but the feeling deflated the more she stared at the words. Did it really mean anything? They would crown another imperator within days, and it would be a Zharkov child that took the throne. The laws would remain the same. Their agreement with the empire would remain the same. They would still feel the weight of the empire while professing to the people that they were free. Nothing would change.
What she did find interesting was the fact that the Zharkovs had invited the Alliance to the funeral at the Grand Citadel in the Fatherlands. The fact that they were paying any respect to her and the rest of the Alliance was new. She knew the Zharkovs saw the heroes in the Alliance as rejects. They possessed SPMDs, but nothing that was worth marrying to breed a more powerful generation of Zharkovs. They allowed the Alliance to exist in order to run the bureaucracy of keeping track of new powers, and to keep Patriot City in line after the destruction of America. The Zharkovs left them alone as long they followed the rules and did as they were told. But that invite was something all together different. She wanted to analyze their intentions, read between the lines, and deduce their ulterior motives, but she didn't have the time. No matter what they wanted to call her kind now days, she was still a superhero, and she had a domain to keep safe.
The problem was, she knew no one else would want to attend the ceremony. Who would want to deal with royalty looking down their noses at the silly American superheroes all night? It would take quite a bit of trickery to get the group to agree.
As she entered the main council chamber, she kissed the tips of her fingers and tapped them against the lips of the memorial statue standing near the doorway. It depicted Quentin Kross, aka Plasmax. He stood life size, with flames erupting from his hands. The sculptor did a good job, but Mermaid knew no one could capture the charm he held in his smile. Even when they battled, she found herself smiling back at him. She would deny it if anyone asked, but she always hoped he would change his ways, turn away from his life of crime and take on the mantle of hero. Yet that was exactly what got him killed. Trying to be a hero. Standing up to the Zharkovs when they invaded America. And what did she have to show for his sacrifice? A domain that may as well be part of the Fatherlands for as many laws as they've forced down her throat.
At the center of the council chamber was a table in the shape of a shield. Around it sat five large chairs, each one etched with a different logo. Mermaid sat down in the chair with a single drop of water etched into it, her old superhero logo, back in the days when she deemed it necessary to wear a costume. These days she found it much more comfortable to wear her usual long, flowing dresses. They tended to hide her love of pie a little better.
Mermaid pressed the palms of her hands down upon the table, summoning the holographic, tactical map that rose up from the base. With a few swipes, she zoomed into Patriot City. A few more taps of the menu and glowing dots appeared all across the map, each one representing a possible recruit.
There weren't many, which worried Mermaid. The number of people with powers she had to choose from was becoming slimmer every year. The utilitarian powers, like omnilingualism for translators, or energy generation for the power plants, were becoming less and less likely to appear. Not to mention the fact that combat powers like freeze vision or razor sharp claws were non-existent in the new crop of candidates.
It was a byproduct of the imperial breeding laws. The Zharkovs required anyone who had a super power, SPMD or not, to gain permission from the empire before they had a child. And two people with SPMDs who wanted to have a child? Completely forbidden. It was their little insurance policy to make sure no one could usurp the Zharkovs' rule over the world.
The Zharkovs tasked her more than a few times with tracking down super-powered babies that were born in secret. The looks on the parent's faces when she took those babies still kept her up at night. That wasn't why she put on a costume all those years ago. She used to stop bank robberies, doomsday weapons, maybe the occasional serial killer. Now days, her job was much different.
“You look how I feel,” Stiletto said as she walked into the council chamber, the lights in the ceiling rolling across her smooth metal skin.
The voice shook Mermaid out of her pity party and she summoned a smile. “Sorry. Just lost in thought.”
Stiletto dropped into the chair with the logo that matched the one on her chest: Two crossed blades. She kicked her feet up on the table and let out a long yawn.
“Late night, dear?” Mermaid asked.
“The Boiler Boys decided to start some trouble in southern Patriot City, near the Doom Caves,” Stiletto said, stretching her arms. “Took me a while to round them all up. By the time I dropped them off at the Pit, I barely closed my eyes before my alarm went off.”
“I appreciate the timeliness,” Mermaid said, doing her best to cover up her sarcasm.
“So where's everyone else? I'm not sticking around if you're going to just cancel the meeting.”
“Don't worry, your favorite man of action has arrived,” Everlast said as he jogged into the room. “No need to get your metal panties in a twist.”
Replica was following closely behind, though she wasn't in as much of a rush. “Stiletto doesn't wear panties. That's just her skin. Which means she's naked all the time. Which has always bothered me. I mean, that's weird, right?”
“Yeah, but can you actually picture Stiletto, 'the warrior woman of steel,' wearing clothes?” Everlast asked with a smile. “Or how about a dress?”
Replica stopped and bent over, she was laughing so hard.
“Are we ignoring the fact that you two happened to arrive at the same time?” Stiletto asked, striking a match against the table and lighting a short, fat cigar.
An exact copy of Replica split off from herself and sat down in her chair, marked with two large Rs, while the original walked over to Stiletto and kissed her on the cheek. “Don't be jealous, Lilith. There's enough of me to go around.”
Stiletto formed her hand into a long blade, the tip sharpening only a few inches from Replica's face.
“Back off.”
Replica laughed as she to
ssed her blond hair over her shoulder and returned to her other copy, reintegrating into a single form.
Everlast settled into his chair, etched with his own logo of an “E” with a circle around it. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table and running his hands through his hair. Half of his head was bald, with a few singed hairs poking out.
“And what happened to you, child?” Mermaid asked, startled by the loss of hair.
He shrugged his shoulders and gave her a smirk. “Save a few kids from a burning building, this is what happens. Invincible skin? Check. Invincible hair? Not so much. But I think I can pull off the look.”
“Be thankful your hair isn't invincible,” Replica said, smacking on a piece of bubble gum. “Or else you'd end up looking like those Zharkov freaks with their braided hair down past their asses and the beards that make them look like Santa Claus's dirty uncle.”
“Perhaps we should get started,” Mermaid said as she cleared her throat and pressed a button on the table.
A hologram of the fifth council member appeared in the last chair. He was a potbellied old man, with long gray hair pulled back into a ponytail and a short goatee wrapping around his chin. He had one pierced ear and wore an unbuttoned Hawaiian shirt, showing off his beaded necklaces and copious amounts of gray chest hair.
“How's it going, dudes?” he asked with a warm smile.
“Negaton, thank you for attending the meeting. I know how busy you can be,” Mermaid said, smiling at the appearance of her old friend.
“Ah, it's okay. The Pit runs itself, really. I just gotta stay in my room, ya know? Keep everyone's powers mellowed out.”
“I've been meaning to find the time to visit. It'd be nice to see you in person, instead of this.”
“Right on! That'd be groovy. I don't get a lot of visitors that aren't, ya know, prisoners.”
The Super Power Saga (Book 1): Super Powers of Mass Destruction Page 3
