The City That Heroes Built

by Daniel Pierce

  “Thanks.”

  “You're on a lot of lists,” she said. “Might be interesting to find out why.”

  “My friend was Skyborne's girlfriend,” I said. “They got me on their phone list.”

  “Sure. And now you're stalking a supra-felon just in case he's part of a plot to break into the Citadel.”

  “I'm watching to see if he betrayed Glory Knight.”

  “You think he poisoned Glory Knight?”

  “No, but he might have told someone about the jailbreak.” I didn't tell her any more because I still didn't know that she or the Guardian Angels weren't involved. I thought it was Lady in Black, but I was rich in theories and evidence poor.

  “Well, have fun,” Calliope said. She left me alone. I sat there until Salute left work for the day. I followed him to the store where he bought beer, and watched him walk home to his apartment.

  I drove first for home to meet up with Isabelle. I'd given her a key a while back so she could let herself in. She was waiting with another cute pair of undies to show off. While she was showing me, I ignored a dozen texts and a few calls. Finally, the phone didn't stop ringing. I walked over to the coffee table and picked up my phone.

  “Yeah?”

  “Hey, it's Simon. Coin out. We need you.”

  “Yeah, I can't right now.”

  “It's a goddamn emergency. I can't name names, but I need you here now. Coin out.”

  Fuck.

  “Okay, two minutes.” I hung up.

  “Baby, I gotta go,” I said.

  “Seriously? We're in the middle of something.”

  “I know, it's a friend in trouble, I've just got to go, I'll be back superfast.” I grabbed my jeans and hoodie and walked out my front door while a naked girl was lying in my bed waiting for me.

  I put out my coin, called Cal and he came and got me. We popped onto a rooftop, then down to street level. I didn't puke. I followed him over to a bench in a small park where Simon was sitting. Restaurants and shops surrounded the square, which wasn't more than a bit of grass, a few bushes, and a couple of benches under a gazebo. Trees surrounded the gazebo, making it a decent place to watch the rest of the street from, without standing out.

  “Act natural,” Simon said. He hid himself behind his tablet. “Over there, in the sushi restaurant. Full Tilt and his girlfriend. I got his imprint, but I couldn't tag her. I need you to take a look.”

  “He knows me,” I said.

  “He won't see you,” Cal said. “Darker out here than in there.”

  “Okay,” I said. I started over to the restaurant.

  “She's the one in black,” Simon called out to me as I went. I walked by the window and got a good look at both of them sipping bright drinks with long straws. I hustled back to Simon and Cal.

  “What do you think?” Simon asked.

  “She's not wearing black,” I said. “It's Russian Violet.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” Cal said.

  “It's Thirteen,” I said. “Goddamn Thirteen. I met her when she came to see Fiver. I asked him if all his friends wore black, she said it was Russian Violet. Fuck. It's dark purple. It's the goddamn purple lipstick from the glass.”

  “It's not the same purple, black, whatever,” Cal said.

  “It looks different when it's a light smear on a glass and you hold it up to the light,” I said.

  “Fuck fuck,” Cal said. “Fiver hates her.”

  “Yeah, thinks she's responsible for killing the New Powers and the Guard,” I said. “And she has blueprints of the Citadel. She's got to be involved.”

  “We've got to tell him,” Cal said. He stepped away to make the call.

  “I couldn't tag her before,” Simon said. “Something fuzzy about her.”

  “Part of her power,” I said. “She gives people bad luck she says, but maybe she can stop your power. Oh shit. She did it.”

  Cal turned back towards us. “Yeah, okay,” he said into the phone. I snatched it away from him.

  “Dude, she did it. She shut down Glory Knight's ability to survive the poison, just like she shut down Screamingo's flying power, and Condor's after that. That's how she killed him. Dude.”

  “Yeah, okay. I'm on my way. I'll bring Slowburn.” Fiver hung up. I handed the phone to Cal.

  “Okay, I'm following. In case I lose them: Si, head over to his apartment. Tom, you get the shop in case they go back there.”

  Cal made a call.

  “We need you ready to travel.” He hung up.

  “Catchpenny?” I asked.

  “In her light armor, so I can teleport her in to the fight. I'm almost able to do the heavy set, but I need more practice to go very far.”

  “We might be able to take her here,” Cal said. “I'm going to go gear up.”

  “Bring me a shotgun and a trenchcoat,” Simon said. Cal was back in ten minutes. The sun had sufficiently set. He stepped into the shadows of the tree and crouched behind Simon on the bench.

  “They're still in there,” Simon said, shrugging on the coat. “Not in a hurry to leave. You want me to stick around? We can ambush them when they walk out.”

  “Nah, too many people around.”

  “Should I go?” I asked.

  “Let's see what car they get into,” Cal said. A few minutes later, he muttered, “They having a second dessert?”

  “Maybe they're coffee people,” Simon said. “How far out are the others?”

  Cal checked his phone. “Rebel and Slowburn are in route.”

  “Am I the only one who doesn't like Rebel as a name?” I asked. “Doesn't really roll off the tongue.”

  Cal shrugged. “Code names are passé.”

  “You're like the most hipster supras ever,” I said. “Should I do another walk by? See if they slipped out the back or something?”

  Cal checked his watch. “Yeah, this is taking too long. Almost as if they are waiting for something.”

  “I'll go take another look,” Simon said. He went towards the restaurant, and hustled back.

  “They've gone out the back. I can't scan her mind, and it's cluttering everything else.”

  “Let's do this the old fashioned way,” Cal said. “Split up, call me if you see them. I went left, Simon went right, Cal popped up to a rooftop.

  I ran around in the streets, looking for a couple walking away. I utterly failed the balance between getting close enough to observe, and far enough to not be seen. Several couples gave me strange looks as I closed on them less subtle than I would have liked. I texted Simon and Cal, but only Cal got back to me. There was no sign of Full Tilt or Thirteen.

  Cal called me.

  “You heard from Simon?”

  “No, does his phone work?” I asked.

  “Straight to voicemail. Start looking for him.”

  He passed the word to Slowburn who burned brightly as he searched the area. Fiver ran back and forth down the streets, but it was Catchpenny that found him. Her thermal imager spotted him in the back of an alley, heat already fading. She called for Cal.

  Cal popped in and out before the rest of us had stopped searching. Catchpenny called us all together. We stood around in the alley where Simon was found.

  “Back to the bar,” Catchpenny said finally. We went our separate ways and met there within the hour. We sat quietly waiting for news. Fiver was on whiskey.

  Simon didn't make it. Cal took him to a hospital, but they declared him dead on arrival. Cal left with his brother's body and took him to the armory. One by one, he collected us. We stood in silence, then the others collapsed to floors and sofas, fatigued by emotion. I stood alone at Simon's feet. I don't remember what I was thinking about, other than just gripping the loss of a friend.

  August 4, 2021

  I stayed standing for as long as I could. Cal sat by his brother's head. Slowburn, Fiver and Jen were smushed together on the sofa. I finally sat with my back against the wall. At some point, I fell asleep. I woke up stiff in the knees and ankles
. Slowburn was tapping me awake.

  “Get up, we've got to go. Come on,” he said. I followed without asking any questions. We got in a car. He drove, I slept. I woke up in the desert. Slowburn drove on and on. I just stared out the window. After a time we came to a ghost town, like the one where we practiced combat.

  Slowburn parked in the middle of what had been the main street a century ago.

  “Where are we?” I asked.

  “The Ghost Town,” he said.

  “I can see that. Why are we here?” I followed him to an old church. Behind it, we found a small cemetery.

  “For this,” Slowburn said. “The Supra-hero Graveyard.”

  He put a coin on the path in the center of the graveyard. He looked at his phone.

  “You have a signal?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Hang on.” He flew straight up. I ventured over to the gravestones. I recognized the names. CAPTAIN DYNAMIC. ROCKFACE. FIREHAWK. BOYSCOUT. Slowburn returned. Cal arrived a minute later with his passengers. East Coast Steve and Simon were lying in coffins. Fiver and Jen arrived. She did the digging in her armor. The rest of us took a turn as well.

  Fiver and Cal said words as we laid our friends to rest. I won't share them. Our moment was somber. We all needed it.

  Then Cal got the cooler of beer from the car. We held a good Irish wake as the sunset over the desert. We all needed that, too.

  August 5, 2021

  I woke up at home, hung over, someone pounding on my door, and my phone beeping with incoming texts.

  Calliope was at the door. I let her in and checked the texts. A dozen from Isabelle wondering where I was, what happened and why my phone was off. I sent a quick explanation about having to go to the desert and losing cell coverage, with lots of sorrys and it'll-never-happen-agains.

  “Missed you yesterday,” Calliope said.

  “You find out about that list?”

  “Not more clarity on why you're on it. Ravelin looks for powers. Supras have signatures that she can detect, mostly filed away by what their power is. She went looking for powers that had been in the Citadel and she came up with your address.”

  “Maybe she mixed me up with someone visiting you. I've seen all sorts of people here to see you.”

  “Let's Sherlock this, shall we? Either you're not who you say you are or you're not who Ravelin says you are. I'm less inclined to believe you, since Ravelin and I go way back. You're still trying to sell me on you being an innocent writer when your ex-girlfriend is a supra, and your teleporting pal is on her supra-team. I say we go talk to her and clear this up.”

  “Fine,” I said, “let's go.”

  There was a knock on my door. It was Isabelle with coffee. I had a short wave of guilt being caught talking with a female neighbor. That's how not used to relationships I am.

  “I thought you might need this since I haven't seen you yet this morning,” she said.

  “That's great, thanks, I totally need this,” I said. “Oh, Calliope, Isabelle, my girlfriend.” Isabelle gave me a look. I hadn't ever called her my girlfriend before. Maybe I jumped the gun. The women shook hands.

  “Nice to meet you,” Calliope said. “I need to borrow him when you're done.” She headed for the door. “I'll be in my office.”

  “So that was cool,” Isabelle said. “You're interviewing Calliope?”

  “Yeah, she's getting me in to talk to the Guardian Angels, I hope. It's really hard to get supras to talk about themselves.”

  “You'd think that they'd be more egotistical and want to brag about their accomplishments.”

  “I think the ones who do end up dead, to be honest,” I said. “Secrecy keeps them alive.”

  “A prudent precaution.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay, well, I hope you learn a lot,” Isabelle said. She kissed me and went back to the coffee shop. I changed clothes quickly, sprayed myself with some deodorant, and knocked on Calliope's door.

  “Ready?”

  “Yeah, your car,” she said.

  She gave directions. I drove. She settled on a parking lot off the beach. We walked away from the car, finding as remote a spot as we could get near the water. We ended up in the wooded area just off the beach. Sunday was waiting there for us.

  “Ah, this guy,” she said.

  Calliope walked right up to her.

  “Come on, stand close,” she said to me. I stepped close, then closer, until the toes of all our shoes were touching. The wind kicked up, then. It spun around us faster and faster until we started to rise slowly of the ground. It took just a second, I'm sure, though it felt longer. The air rushed and I was yanked upward, as if in an incredibly fast invisible elevator. We stayed upright, moving sideways after a bit. The wind made it difficult to see at first, but it eventually dropped to about knee level, like we were standing on a tornado, or pushed along violently on a cloud. It was 12 and a half miles to Angel Island, not it's official name, but what everyone called it. I could see the Citadel in the distance as we went. The landing was smooth, on an open are like a patio the size of a helicopter pad. The wind left when we were standing on the patio.

  Angel Island is basically a modern fortress crossed with an elegant mansion on top of a massive rock in the ocean. The patio ran back towards the pool and the house. Sunday put us down and walked off. Ravelin met us on the patio in her sweats. She looked older than she did on TV, confident, and relaxed. She had built the fortress, and rarely left. Speculation was she was the main component of the defense of the island.

  “This is the guy?” Ravelin asked.

  “This is the guy,” Calliope said.

  “I'm the guy,” I said.

  Ravelin appeared to concentrate. “Nah, that's not him,” she said. “He doesn't have the power I was looking for.”

  “See?” I said to Calliope. “How does your power work, anyway?” I asked Ravelin. She ignored me, went back to her margarita and lounge chair. “I really like your patio furniture, by the way,” I said. “Really classy. Posh, but not in your face.”

  “This is the guy that lives at that address you gave me for the unPerson,” Calliope said. “How can he not be the guy?”

  “I don't know,” Ravelin said. “His power is totally different.”

  Calliope froze. I may have, too.

  “What do you mean his power is different? What's his power?” she asked.

  “I don't have a power,” I said.

  Ravelin sniffed the air and looked at the sky. She looked at me.

  “I don't know how to say it. He's sort of an attractor, maybe on subconscious level. You know about the supra-pheromone, right? He's radiates it more than anyone I've ever met, and not 10% more. A thousand times more. Well, like a hundred. But you get the point,” Ravelin said. “He might have interfered with my search.”

  “What does that even mean?” I asked. “No one has even proven that is a thing. How is that a power?”

  Ravelin took a deep breath, like she was breathing in my essence. She asked Calliope, “Do you feel inexplicably like you should be hanging out with him?”

  “I have a protective streak,” Calliope said. “It's in my nature. It's my job. Also there may be a contract out on him.”

  “Besides that. He releases a subtle effect that draws supras to him.” Ravelin looked hard at me.

  “No way,” I said.

  “Does he have a cute supra girlfriend?” Ravelin asked.

  “Ex-girlfriend,” Calliope said.

  “You're totally talking over me,” I said. “Not cool. I do have a cute supra ex-girlfriend, but I also totally have a cute, not-supra girlfriend.”

  “Supra friends?” Ravelin asked.

  “One,” I said. “A couple. I'm writing a book about supras. Actually I wouldn't mind talking to you all about your experiences, I'm really interested in how you all joined the Guardian Angels, how you reconciled differences of philosophy, levels of violence, and general belief in lawfulness. I'm more interested in a con
versation, than asking a bunch of questions, more free-form subconscious storytelling. If I could just hang out for a couple of days, take a few notes, I could bring you drinks, cook, entertain.”

  “Honey, I don't want you anywhere near me,” Ravelin said. “You attract trouble like nobody else. You'd also affect the rest of us here.”

  She waved to Sunday who had retreated across the patio to read. Sunday walked over. “Time for them to go,” Ravelin said.

  I couldn't manage a decent protest and I was half afraid they would dump me in the ocean and make be swim back, so I stood glumly while Sunday and Calliope gathered close around. The wind kicked up, and we flew back the way we had come. Sunday set us down on the opposite side of the parking lot.

  “Hope that was a useful trip,” she said. She flew away without waiting for a reply.

  “Well, hell,” Calliope said. “Looks like we were both right.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You're not the unPerson, but you're a supra-vector.”

  “I highly doubt that.”

  “I'm not saying that Ravelin's infallible, but it's a sense she has. It's like she's describing a car to you and you're refusing to believe that the car looks the way it does.”

  “She could be lying about the car,” I said.

  “I'm sure you can imagine a reason why she would lie to you, but I can't imagine a reason why she would lie to me.”

  “Maybe you're both in on it.”

  Calliope rolled her eyes.

  “There's a fair chance that you have excessive contact with supras.” She listed things off on her fingers. “I have an office in your building. Your ex- is a supra. The teleporting friend is a supra. Think about it as you drive.”

  I did think about it as I drove. Any involvement with supras I had seemed like coincidence to me, or part of a continuing string of events that started Calliope renting a place from me. I told her as much.

  “So I was the first supra you met?”

  “No,” I said. “Technically, I met Captain California on the day I was born. My parents were having dinner and the Merchant of Menace attacked, and that made my mom go into labor. Captain California delivered me.”