Big Superhero Action

by Raymond Embrack

  “No.”

  “Gingiri ‘s report said that you were flying in a direct assault on Dr. Playground.”

  “Yes I was.”

  “Without a weapon?”

  “I was the weapon.”

  “A hundred-pound boy?”

  “I’m one-ten.”

  “That was no attack, it was suicide by OSD.”

  “If it would have stopped him I had a life to give.”

  That was good, the Carousel thought. The Kid was relatively useless as a superhero, effeminate as a tube of lipstick, but he showed heart and a high tolerance for fear. Now he had to be made dangerous.

  “Never give your life,” the Carousel said. “Unless you have a clone for backup.”

  “Where’s the risk in that?” The Kid said.

  “You want risk, you get all the risk you need. Never seek risk, cut risk.” Then he flashed on himself going Milo before Dr. Playground, not only creating risk but doing his best to commit suicide by OSD. But the Kid was new at this; you had to know the rules before you could break them.

  “Throw out ideas like sacrifice, honor, fighting fair, that’s comic book stuff. You’re in this to win a war that never ends. You’re in this to survive your career. In hot situations you need a cool head. Teenagers experience emotion with greater intensity but you can’t let that control you. You’re a superhero.”

  “Gingiri flew into me, knocked me cold. I mean what the fuck?”

  “In AXIS you have to act hard and fast. We’ll train you how.”

  Suddenly the Kid looked about to cry, his delicate face contorting. “I’m sorry.”

  Superheroes don’t cry, the Carousel thought. But he wondered what kind of father he would have made. Would his son be raised like Doc Savage to become the model of human perfection? Would he be normal? What was normal?

  Fuck it. He spread his arms and the Kid wrapped his thin arms around his neck and he held the Kid’s narrow back, patted it.

  “There there. Let it go. Release the stress. That night is a lot to process for the new guy. Superheroes get combat stress reactions, battle fatigue, post-traumatic stress disorder. Ultimately your power becomes how to take it.”

  He eased back from the hug. The Kid wiped his eyes, said, “I’m okay. But what am I? Can you tell me what I am?”

  “You’re a normal human; except that whenever you leave this city, you take it with you.”

  “I can’t help it. How do I do that?”

  “Help us find out.”

  “I will. How do I help you find out?”

  “You’re doing it. You live here now. You can have the twenty second floor. You’ll have an assistant. You are wealthy emancipated teen Chase Juniper. Your alter ego is teen superhero The Kid in the Picture. Member of AXIS.”

  “Seems kind of isolated here.”

  “Isolated?”

  “Very last part of Citizen Kane. Sounds a little…I guess…boring.”

  “Boring? Boring is good. I like to sit and stare at a wall so my life will feel longer. Boring. Being in AXIS you will pray for boredom. On or off-duty. Off-duty you’ll probably hang with the Sirens.”

  “Really?” The Kid’s face brightened. “Maybe they’ll take me to clubs with them. Get me laid and hooked on Siren Six. Just kidding. I don’t do drugs.”

  It was starting to rain. The Carousel gently removed the Kid’s mask. He closed the Carousel, unmasked Milo Spector.

  “Now Chase, we go to the kitchen, find something to snack on, and I give you the PG-rated version. It’s Alien History Month.”

  52

  It was like on TV. It was a large room with a glass wall, chairs on either side of the wall, phones on either side. The room buzzed with visitors on their phones. You went to yours, waited for your prisoner. JKM had a dangerous new swagger one hundred pounds heavier, his massive guns hanging from a sleeveless shirt. His hair was gone, shaved bald. He now had a mustache and goatee.

  He reached their phone. He was staring at her. She stood there so he could get the view. She held her hands behind her back, felt the softness of her own face for him to see. His eyes went from her face, her white blouse, down her black bustier corset, the latex skirt, down her smooth black nylons down to the black spike heels. You didn’t wear jeans for this moment.

  He sat across from her. They held the same gaze. They picked up their phones.

  He said, “You’re…yeah…how are you?”

  “I’m flawless,” she said.

  “Everything?”

  “Yes.”

  “Same here.”

  “I can see that.”

  “Which one is it now?”

  “Still first trimester.”

  “Showing yet?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Is that normal.”

  “Uh-huh. They say that’s normal.”

  “Stay on top of that.”

  “I do. Are you okay?”

  “I’m great,” he said.

  “No trouble I hope.”

  “Naw.”

  “No bullying?”

  “I’m trying to cool it. I break too many heads in here, they add time on me. But I feel like I’ve been practicing for this my whole life.”

  “Ohh Kirby…”

  “It’s weird.”

  “How?”

  “There’s two Man Mafias here. One wants to kill the other. I’m Mafia 13’s bodyguard. I charge him for keeping him alive. By the way he’s in here for shooting Remy Rocco.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Very.”

  “I haven’t seen her for months. I just thought she cleaned up her act and went home.”

  “You have always been an optimist. But he says he didn’t do it, he was framed by Pound & Flesh. But the guy was double-dealing, screwing the OSD on out-of-town traffic. Plus he was an AXIS snitch.”

  “Nice guy.”

  “We talk a lot. Turns out he knew Murder Mouse.”

  “That’s…frightening. How?”

  “Murder Mouse worked for him.”

  “Then he must be a scumbag.”

  He said, “I wanted to see you because I have something to tell you.”

  “Okay.”

  “But we can’t talk freely here, you know how that is.”

  “People listen.”

  “Yeah. I’ve been working hard on a way to tell you what I have to tell you in code. But you have to follow me.”

  “I’ll try.”

  “Okay. You saw the movie The Dark Knight?”

  “Is that a trick question?”

  “You remember the part where the Joker sets something on fire?”

  She had to think.

  “The hospital?”

  “That was a bomb. This he set on fire.”

  “Okay.”

  She ran the picture through her brain. The Joker….fire…a huge pile of money.

  “You mean…”

  “…Don’t say it. But you know what it is?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s what this is about.”

  “It is?”

  “Batman Begins. What did Bruce Wayne do before after he gave his coat to the bum?”

  “He…made some lame wisecrack…”

  “After that?”

  “He walked away.”

  “After that?”

  She looked down, replayed the picture carefully, tried to think like JKM. Simple. Keep it very simple.

  He left town.

  “I won’t speak it,” she said. “But I have it.”

  “Perfect. Now put the two together.”

  A huge pile of money. Leaving town. The huge pile of money was outside of town.

  “Okay,” she said.

  “You got it?”

  “Yes.”

  “You sure?”

  “Please.”

  “Okay. Murder Mouse was supposed to collect it.”

  “Okay.”

  “So…the…Joker…is still…there.”

  “Thirteen to
ld you that?”

  “He had no choice. So there it is.”

  JKM was looking at her strangely now.

  “No way,” she said.

  “It’s a lot of Joker, Halo.”

  “I can’t leave town now. Or ever.”

  “I thought about that. You could do it.”

  “If I do I’m outside the Limit. If I’m outside the Limit I’m a sausage fest again. And I lose our child.”

  “And when you come back you’ll be back in effect and with child.”

  “What if I can’t come back? What if they close traffic to Brutalia? They could do that any day now.”

  “I thought of that. I know people. There are ways to get back in no matter what.”

  “But…eww… I don’t want to…ever…go back…to that…”

  “Joker. Think Joker. We need Joker.”

  “Ohh fuck you, JKM. If this had come up before, it wouldn’t matter. We could’ve waited.”

  “Too late now.”

  “Ohhh. Fuck you. Fuck me. Fuck The Corpus. Fuck Us. Fuck life.”

  “Yes or no?”

  Sometimes she hated his guts.

  She aimed a finger at him. “It had better fucking be there.”

  “No kidding,” he said.

  53

  Through the black screen he saw the white dots of the stucco wall, saw red dots…a mask of terra cotta red, covering the entire face. Below the red were light peach dots that flowed, filled white dots, caressed white dots in a female shape. The shape alone changed the color of his bloodstream.

  “Talk to me,” spoke a female voice behind the screen.

  “I’m with AXIS,” he said to the screen.

  “You killed Dr. Playground.”

  “AXIS did.”

  “AXIS now has my allegiance,” she said.

  “We knew each other as kids.”

  “Who are you?”

  “I’m Duff Nash.”

  “I remember a little boy with Down’s Syndrome.”

  “A girl healed him.”

  “With music from the future.”

  “I was the boy.”

  “Duff,” she whispered.

  “Was that you?” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me last time?”

  “I wasn’t ready.”

  “You had to kill Dr. Playground first?”

  “I knew I had to be a superhero.”

  “Why?”

  “For you.”

  “Why?”

  “You’re a superhero.”

  “You think I’m looking for a superhero?” she said.

  “I’m the one you created. You gave me my superpower.”

  “You believe that?”

  “Where else did I get it? I say it was you. I say you saved me. And made me.”

  “So you want me?”

  The words spoke themselves. “We’re past that. I’m here to save you.”

  The terra cotta dots slipped away from light peach dots. The light peach dots flowed across the stucco dots. They flowed through the wall into his side of the wall, nude and female.

  Her superpower had evolved to where the sight of her was a phenomenon of spiritual and genetic bonding. It was somewhere between instant marriage and being born again as two people.

  54

  Morning. They were asleep in a Pyramid-tan bedroom under mummy-white sheets. The walls caught the wall of early sunlight turned gold by the walls. Low music started, something quiet and electronically symphonic that slowly built toward the splendor of the sun.

  Above the bed, a four-foot circular section of ceiling soundlessly slid away onto deep blue sky, creating a skylight spanned by a stylized design cast onto the bed below in an arcane circular pattern of sunlight.

  Night in the shower of ancient sunlight they held each other under a blasting spray. They kissed gently. They nestled into each other like Adam and Eve during the first rainstorm. A hand rose to caress a head, run fingers through flattened hair. Her tiny hands clung to the muscles of his back. His arms encased her narrow shoulders.

  In the kitchen they sat in white Egyptian cotton bathrobes over wine of the Pharaohs, their bodies scrubbed and blasted into damp innocence. They gazed at each other. They were as one, feeling the gaze they shared cleanse space.

  Somewhere the city went on without them. Time passed slowly, both days and nights shot with infinity. They smoked the shit she smoked, crushed insects the color of sand. It created the sense of comfortable dread perfect for hiding from the world surrounded by ancient timelessness. It remixed reality isolating the one perfect part of the song and repeating it into one long perfect moment that lasted for hours. Dog-headed holosynths in the background served them the wine of the Pharaohs, seared fat-dripping sliced meats they ate like tigers. The only conflicts they had were when they fought over the meats, dominance-seeking balance reduced to tiger-striped growls and muscle, one or the other ending without the largest chunk to embrace submissiveness as one side of the balance. They exchanged ids but shared one ego. Behind every close of eyes was the other of them seeing the darkness. One was alone when the other slept. Isolation was the other flavor of being as one with her, pure as pure salt. It was an exquisite shade of melancholy and her next waking was as watching a Super 8 home movie of his six year-old self waking to Christmas morning. Every touch was their sex. Sex was an excuse for touching each other. She was thirsty to be seen and touched by a person who absorbed her superpower until he could see her seeing herself through his eyes. That was how he was saving her. She had been slowly losing her mind to dementia. Her unmasked self had been seen by no living person for years. She had been untouched for longer. Like music from the future he was healing her.

  “Heroes” played at low volume from the cassette deck. He “piloted” the Delta 88 from the rooftop of her compound. It was her first time leaving it in two years. Under deep blue sky the rooftops, streets, and alleyways below had an architectural clarity littered with people. TC nearly hung her head from the lowered window. That gave him a view of the Romantic art of her Egyptian cotton dress and bare almost kneeling bottom.

  “You make things fly,” she said.

  “I could still be unaware of that,” he said. “It took accidentally hearing the song for maybe the twentieth time for it to connect.”

  “It was no accident for me. Music from the future started playing in my iPod. The moment I heard it I visualized what it could do. For years my full-time job has been tracking down the songs. Not easy. The one that healed you was ‘Night Sight’ by the French duo Air. The last future music I heard was Jay-Z’s next album. It’s pretty strong.”

  “Do they still have the effect?”

  “Only some have an effect. The ones that do only until they’re released and become music of the present. Then they have no effect.”

  “How does that work?”

  “The technology takes the form of music so we can understand it and use it. Not understand with our brains but with our personal entity codes. The brain receives the translation as music.”

  “Whose technology?”

  “I call them the Brutalians,” she said. “But it could be one being with many forms. Or I could be psychotic.”

  “You’re inside a flying car. It takes a lot to be psychotic in this town.”

  She leaned back from the window, gazed at him.

  “Beauty is another form it uses. They turned me into a drug.”

  “What did they do with me?” he asked.

  “People who can fly are like servers.”

  “How do you know so much?”

  “I’m in contact with the Egyptian gods. Seriously.”

  “So all this is ancient Egyptian stoner theory? You had me buying all this and it’s Chariots of the Gods?”

  “Nnnoooo….it’s a processing system for humans.”

  “What are the Egyptian gods?”

  “Beyond our processing,” she sai
d. “To understand them we would have to communicate by smell using our ears.”

  “Those Brutalians spend a lot of time coming up with this shit.”

  “I think they have a lot of time.”

  A roar of murdered stone hit the ear. He turned that way. Above the rooftops two blocks away Teenage Cleopatra’s compound burst a fireball into the blue sky.

  She made a sound that shattered tombs.

  His heartbeat tripled. “We have to run.”

  Fiery sparks slammed the Delta 88 sideways, killed the cassette player. TC was covered with sparks. He beat them out with his hands.

  He jammed the headphones on hit PLAY.

  I…I will be king.

  He took her hand, opened his door high above the alley. He would fly her from the plunging death, take her above the rooftops to the KM Building where she would be safe and protected.

  The street spun blue sky and fireball, sped toward the car.

  Tin roof smashed into him. Forty yards away flaming Delta 88 plunged between rooftops into an alleyway.

  55

  “Friends of Dr. Playground…Man Mafia…OSD loyalists…” That was the Carousel talking to cops outside the ambulance.

  Duff spat debris. Hair hung in his eyes. He was feral with perplexity, an animal prodded and shocked from multiple directions, outnumbered and over-fucked with.

  He put on his headphones.

  I…I will be king.

  And you…you will be queen.

  It was gone. “Heroes” was just a song now, one he had played thousands of times. The thing that merged with the music and took off inside him…that was not only gone, he had no concept of it now. He took off the fucking headphones, broke them in two.

  It seemed like a trade-off, his superpower for his life. The crash had only left him banged-up and barbecued around the edges like a hot dog fallen off the grill. She was killed.

  They were still talking:

  “How did the individual survive?”

  “He can fly.”

  “The individual escaped from the vehicle by flight.”

  “Looks it.”

  “That would be the same superpower the individual used to make the vehicle fly.”

  “He was trying to get them both from the car when it was shot out of the sky. It crashed into the alley with her inside.”

  Rain started falling again, drops hitting the debris, murdered metal, rubbled stone, landed hot through the smoke and dust.