The City That Heroes Built

by Daniel Pierce

  Ironsides' three undamaged vital components answered when I needed them. I stood up with the brand new legs and the reliable core kept me balanced. When I jumped into the air, the legs respond, sending me arcing exactly where I wanted. The gyro stabilized me in mid-air. The blades stayed straight and strong as I slammed them into Threnody's back. It wasn't enough to kill her, but the momentum and weight of Ironsides kept her pinned in front of me as I came back down to earth. Our impact forced the blades further into her, and she took the brunt of the landing into the concrete. As quickly as I could, I activated the Taser and put a surge of electricity into her body as it lay under Ironsides' weight.

  She stopped moving. The helicopter circled closely overhead, the rotor wash sending ripples across her costume.

  I pulled the blades out of her and retracted them into the forearm housing. I crawled awkwardly off her, looking for Paragon. I accidentally placed my hand on Threnody's head, crushing it as I tried to move away. The sound of her skull cracking sickened me. I lurched to my feet.

  Paragon finished off the gorilla-robot. He had been beating it out of shape, and now finished it by pulling its robotic spine from its back. He held it aloft and howled. He stared at me. The robotic carcass of Monkey lie in a twisted wreck across the street, mangled and thrown there by Paragon when it interfered with his beating on me. The helicopter flew by again, distracting Paragon. He threw the gorilla-robot's spine at the helicopter, missing, but coming close enough to chase it away.

  Paragon remained largely unhurt through out the encounter. Bobby's attempt to save me had been wasted, I realized now. I should have been running away. Instead, I was bracing myself for another attack from Paragon. It didn't do me any good. He ran right into me, too quick for me to defend myself. He hit me with an uppercut aided by his momentum, knocking me back into a building, and through the wall into a convenience store. Surrounded by candy bars and soda, I looked back at him through the hole in the wall. He approached, his huge frame filling the hole. In the darkness, I could only see the teeth of his wide grin.

  The damage matrix showed Ironsides' core as red. I tried to move. I heard a whirling noise. I tried battle-override. The noise stopped. Ironsides shut down. Paragon knelt down to renew his assault on what little remained of the armor. I could only assume that once he got through it, I would be killed instantly. I'd like to say that I came to peace when faced with imminent death but my last moments were spent in sheer terror.

  Paragon knelt on top of Ironsides' chest. With a sharp jab, he broke through the armored lens, the shattered pieces falling into my face. I shook them off, struggling as if I could shake Paragon. He stared into my eyes. My mind raced to think of an escape plan, hoped that he'd try to interrogate me, or begin an overly long villainous soliloquy. He did neither. Without hesitating, he reached into the head of Ironsides to crush my skull.

  Instead he was pulled away from me, off of Ironsides and out of the building. By what, I did not know. Ironsides is equipped to allow the user to escape when it has no power, but because Ironsides was on its back, and the escape was out the back, I couldn't move. I couldn't see anything but the ceiling. Then I saw the most beautiful thing ever, Isabelle's lovely face poking into my field of vision.

  “You okay?” she asked.

  “I'm trapped,” I said. “How did you get here?”

  “I saw you fighting on TV. Let me help you up.” She stepped back out of my field of vision. Ironsides was righted. Isabelle was still standing in front of me. She put out her hand as if to steady the armor from a distance. I moved my hands out of the normal controls to reach the eject levers. I pulled, and the back hatch popped open. I stepped out backwards. Isabelle walked around Ironsides and gave me a hug.

  “We need to get out of here,” I said. “LEGION is around.”

  Isabelle helped me out through the hole Ironsides had been knocked through. I ached all over. My back hurt so that I couldn't stand up straight. Hunched over I hobbled out on to the sidewalk. Paragon lie in the middle of the street, about 20 yards away.

  “What happened to him?” I asked.

  “I was wondering the same thing myself,” said the Lady in Black from behind me. I turned to see her leaning against the building. She pushed off the wall and stepped towards us.

  “Do I know you?” she asked.

  “No,” I said.

  “Wasn't talking to you,” the Lady in Black said. “You're the other one, aren't you?”

  I was terrified and ready to fall over in pain and exhaustion. Isabelle held me up.

  “Back off,” Isabelle said. Something in her voice: she wasn't afraid of Lady in Black.

  “How did you kill my dead hero?” the Lady in Black asked.

  “You don't want to find out,” Isabelle warned.

  “I do, actually. Think you could do it again? Don't worry. I won't interfere. I like to watch.” Her eyes lifted past us. Paragon groaned. Isabelle and I turned to look. He started to get up. I looked back at the Lady in Black.

  She shrugged. “It's a gift.” Without warning she aimed a kick at my head that would have connected if Isabelle hadn't pulled me out of the way. She let go of me and I fell to the ground. She reached out and grabbed for the Lady in Black, grabbing nothing, but drawing her fingers together as if squeezing something. Lady in Black stopped, lifted just slightly off her feet. She grabbed for her heart.

  “Oh, darling,” the Lady in Black winced through the pain. “So that's how you did it. Think it will still work on a dead man?” She was tough enough to manage a sincere chuckle, even while Isabelle reached out and squeezed her heart from 10 feet away.

  Paragon ran at Isabelle's back. She heard him, and turned her head to look. She dropped her hand and the Lady in Black dropped back on to her heels on the sidewalk. Spinning around to face Paragon, she gestured as if shoving someone. In fact, she was. Paragon went flying way up and way, way back. He landed somewhere out of sight on the other side of the 1. Isabelle turned back to the Lady in Black.

  “It's rare to find myself at a disadvantage,” the Lady in Black said. “Now isn't one of those times, in case you were wondering.” She looked left. Isabelle glanced in that direction. I had to twist to see. A couple of old people watched from the shadows, Madame Black and Night Plague.

  “She's bluffing,” I said. It came out like a groan. Isabelle kept her eyes on the Lady in Black as she helped me to my feet.

  “We don't need to be able to get your girlfriend, darling,” said the Lady in Black. “We just need to get you. You're not in your armor any more.”

  “Let's go,” Isabelle said. She led me one way; the Lady in Black went the other.

  “Be seeing you, sweetie,” said the Lady in Black.

  They kept their eyes on each other until we passed out of sight under the 1 on Black Road.

  “Okay, hang on,” Isabelle said.

  I stopped walking and started floating. She was floating next to me.

  “I can't go very quickly, but it's better than walking,” she said. “I can also help you feel better. I just need to concentrate on this right now.” We flew just a foot above the ground, and only about 20 miles per hour, until we reached her car. It was only a half-mile away. She spent most of the trip looking over her shoulder.

  At the car, she put us down.

  “Where does it hurt,” she asked.

  “My back, mostly, down low, and my head, all over. I feel like I need three bottles of Tylenol.”

  “Try this instead,” she said. She touched my back and I immediately felt better. Then her hands touched my face and my migraine faded.

  “You're amazing,” I said.

  “It's not much,” she said. “But I'm working on it.”

  “Handy skill for someone who is going to be a doctor,” I said.

  “I haven't even started yet,” Isabelle said. “Let's talk about it later. Get in the car.”

  “I need to go to a junkyard,” I said. I gave directions as best I could. It was all I could
do to concentrate.

  “You want to call ahead?” Isabelle asked.

  I used her phone to call Cal. He answered.

  “I'm at the hospital. Call our friend.”

  “I don't have the number, can you forward me?”

  Cal sent my call over to Fiver.

  “I thought you were dead, dude. We're at the junkyard. Get over here.”

  “I'm already heading that way, but I'm lost.”

  “I'll text you directions,” he said. I read them off and Isabelle drove. Navigating was the extent of our conversation. I was too overwhelmed by questions to know what to ask first.

  Howard opened the gate when we returned. Jen and Fiver were in the workshop with Bobby, Jen in the armor but no helmet, and Fiver in his red costume without the mask. I collapsed into a chair without asking.

  “I was going to have Bobby call you,” I said.

  “He tried,” Jen said. “My comms system didn't survive contact with the enemy. We came here to try to get him to reach you.”

  “A fortunate side effect of the remote monitoring,” Bobby said. “Not intended to be a distress system, but I sent the robots to fix you up, and once there, I had to try to help out.”

  “The gorilla and Monkey saved my life,” I said. “I lost the Ironsides armor, but they bought enough time for Isabelle to get to me.”

  “We were on our way when the monitoring system died,” Jen said. “Thought that was it for you when the core was destroyed.”

  I started to tell them my story, and they interrupted and told me theirs first. While we talked, Howard handed out cold beers and water. I finished my part with gratitude to Isabelle for risking her life to save me.

  “Best surprise of my life,” I said.

  “Totally wasn't a surprise,” Fiver said. “You thought she had powers since way before you were dating.”

  “What? Why?” Isabelle asked.

  “Because one morning, on a single occasion, you looked like hell when Moccasin was out the night before fighting gangs,” I said. “So I theorized that you could be her. But I didn't think so.”

  “Also, because his power is to seduce supras,” Fiver said.

  “That's not my power at all,” I said.

  “Do we really want to go into this now?” Jen said. “We need to figure out what we're going to do for the night.”

  “The city is calming down,” Fiver said. “LEGION stopped. Suicide Prime turned over to Enigma. Zombies are contained. The dead supras we know about have all been defeated. The fugitives are hiding. And we shut down the gangs. Injustice Unlimited seem to have been stopped or got bored. I think we're done for the night.”

  “Also, I didn't want to interrupt, but is your leg still broken?” Isabelle asked.

  “Yeah, I think so,” Fiver said.

  “Let me see it.” She went over to him and rolled up his costume over his leg. Everything below the knee was swollen and dark purple.

  “Jesus,” I said. “That hurts to look at.”

  “Hurts to walk on too. Cal's got me on some pretty strong painkillers. I probably shouldn't be mixing them with alcohol though.” He finished his beer and reached for another. Isabelle gently ran her hands over his leg. The color improved, changing to a lighter shade of purple. The swelling reduced.

  “Feels pretty good,” Fiver said.

  “Where are we crashing tonight?” Jen asked.

  We ruled out any of our homes, and didn't trust that we could get into a hotel without attracting attention.

  “We've got the RV,” Howard said. “Been meaning to work on it. Right now it doesn't run, but the inside is clean and it sleeps four.”

  So we settled on sleeping in a refurbished RV at the junkyard.

  I crawled into the bed above the driver. Isabelle crawled in next to me. She put her head on my chest.

  “You saved my life,” I said. “I'm grateful and lucky to have you.”

  “I'm just glad I got there in time,” she said. “And you killed Threnody, and maybe Impact.”

  “Yeah, but you killed Paragon and scared off the Lady in Black. You could have killed her if I wasn't there as a potential hostage or victim.”

  “Maybe,” said Isabelle. “But I'm glad I didn't have to.”

  I couldn't sleep. Physically, I was exhausted, but my brain wouldn't slow down. I kept thinking about how I was lucky to have Isabelle, and the chance that we would meet.

  “I'm pretty lucky that you were a barista in my building,” I said. “I was going to say, 'What are the chances?' but supras just seem to show up where I am.”

  “Weird,” she said.

  “Yeah, weird,” I said. I remembered something I wanted to ask about, but fell asleep before I managed it.

  August 14, 2021

  I woke up after noon, opening my eyes to see Isabelle watching me.

  “Good morning,” she said.

  “What time is it?”

  “I don't know.”

  “How long have you been awake?”

  “A while. I just like laying here with you,” she said. “Fiver and Jen woke up a couple of minutes ago and went to get breakfast. There's a burrito place across the street.”

  My belly rumbled. “I need machaca,” I said.

  “Let's go then.” We climbed down, in the same clothes we had climbed up in.

  “I smell terrible,” I said. “Let's get breakfast to go.”

  We met up with Fiver and Jen at the burrito shop, and agreed to meet up later.

  “At the bar?” I asked.

  “Nah, back here,” Fiver said. “We'll go back to the bar eventually, but let's avoid it this weekend.”

  We spent the next hours eating breakfast, showering, and watching the news. Things had died down over night. The zombie outbreak had been contained and destroyed, though at the loss of several hundred people. The gangs shot themselves up pretty well, and there was some rampaging by former guests of the Citadel, but most wisely slipped away. Many remained at the Citadel, unable to escape. The US Agents were expected to deal with what looked like a hostage situation, but by nightfall the police reported that the New Powers had rescued the hostages. Cal confirmed he had handled it when we met up later.

  Howard and Bobby had cleaned up the workshop and put a table in the center. Bobby was off his perch, and in a wheelchair at the far side of the table when Isabelle and I arrived at 8pm. Slowburn was there already. Jen, Cal and Fiver showed up together a few minutes after we did. Calliope was a surprise late arrival to the meeting. She brought news from the Guardian Angels.

  “Ravelin says that Lady Thirteen has departed the area. No telling how far she went, but she's probably well beyond the city limits of Santa Maria.”

  “So that's it, then?” Jen asked. “They're not going to go after her?”

  “They're still reeling from the loss of Sentinel,” Calliope said.

  “Are we going after them?” Jen asked.

  “Where?” Fiver asked. “How? Who do they have left? Lady in Black and Thirteen? A dead version of Paragon? The US Agents will probably target them now. Once they finish re-capturing the Citadel.”

  “They can just wait it out,” Cal said. “Even supras have to eat.”

  “Right. I'm more worried about what we're going to do tonight,” Fiver said. “The gangs that spent all day resting will head back out to shoot up their neighborhoods tonight. If we head out together in a show of force, we can deter a lot of that violence before innocent people are caught up in it. But we've got to go big. Cal, Jen and me standing on a corner aren't going to be enough.”

  “I'm in,” Slowburn said.

  “I'm out,” I said.

  “So I've been fixing this armor up for nothing?” Bobby asked.

  “What armor?”

  Slowburn pulled back the sheet that had been covering something behind him. Ironsides stood battered and broken, but there it was.

  “Okay, I'm in if the kid is fixing the armor,” I said.

  “Not today, proba
bly not this month,” Bobby said. “But we'll get you back out in it eventually.”

  “How about it?” Fiver said to Calliope.

  “What?”

  “Joining up with the New Powers.”

  “Ha, you can't be serious,” Calliope said. “Oh my god, you're serious?”

  “Of course, why wouldn't I be?”

  “Because I'm just getting used to the fact that you're a supra. Because we were together. Because I was a Guardian Angel.”

  “No one cares what your grades were in high school,” Fiver said. “You want to join up and do this or not?”

  “Not.”

  “Come on, you know you want to. You had the time of your life yesterday.”

  “I almost died yesterday,” Calliope said.

  “But you didn't, and I sent you a healer. Come on. You don't have kids, you don't have a man, you're basically a cat lady with no cats.”

  “Do you realize you've lost any and all charm that you once had?”

  “I don't need to sell you on this,” Fiver said. “You already want in. Who is going to mentor the young women on the team if you don't?”

  “What young women?”

  “Jen and Isabelle.”

  “I'm on the team?” Isabelle said. She didn't seem like she wanted to be on the team.

  “Are you kidding?” Fiver said. “Of course you are.”

  “I'm going to med school,” Isabelle said. “Orientation is Monday.”

  “Even better.”

  “How is she supposed to go to med school and be a hero?” Calliope asked.

  “You'll help with expert mentoring of time management skills,” Fiver said. “We're not going to ask her to solve crimes, just be around when we need help crushing criminals. It'll take less time than most doctors spend playing video games. Besides, she's a natural healer.”