by Pen
“Please,” I repeated, thinking faster than I ever had.
There could easily be one superhuman in this hooded gang—first rule of being a professional supervillain: unless you’re trying to make a point, don’t identify yourself with a flashy costume when you’re actually on the job—you just give someone like me a target and a chance of knowing exactly what you can do if you have any real rep. You saved the costume for hanging with your minions and peeps.
He let my hair drop without a flicker—or panicked freakout—of recognition and I slumped with relief. Of course he misread it. “Maybe we’ll get acquainted later,” he tossed off as he moved to the next table.
Nobody else looked at us, and that was getting weird; the dining room’s lights were kind of dim, but it wasn’t like the tabloids hadn’t been spreading my unmasked face around recently. But none—none—of the guests or staff were giving me a Save us! look either, and that was just against human nature. I’d put being ignored before down to LA-society politeness; now it was freaky.
Which didn’t mean it wasn’t good, since I didn’t want these social-justice redistributionists to panic and spring into hostage mode; there were too many to protect and I could all-too-easily picture someone else’s brains spread over the white tablecloths.
And I didn’t even want to see theirs there, no matter how rude they got.
Our robber moved on from our neighbor’s table, leaving the nice older couple there more than a little shaky. I really hoped it wasn’t their anniversary or something, and worried about the lady; she looked unhealthily pale and wasn’t breathing well.
But this was okay. It would be okay if everyone just kept ignoring me—our robbers could sweep the room and switch to getaway mode and then I could pursue with nobody to get hurt. I wasn’t a local cape, but it was legal so long as I didn’t lose contact; I’d get somebody even if they dispersed on the streets, turn him over to the LAPD if they just—
“No! No!” The panicked cry came from the man eating alone three tables away and our personal robber clubbed him with the pistol he’d waved at me. Screams spread as the man, halfway to his feet when the heavy weight met his head, crashed to the dining-room floor and his attacker pointed his gun. And still nobody looked at me until I launched myself with no time even for a prayer.
“Everybody down everybody down everybody down!”
And the lights went out—which didn’t slow me down at all. I hit the would-be shooter hard, carrying him over the table and into the next-closest—dropped him but not before crushing his gun hand while disarming him. At least he still had his fingers.
Silk Road’s patrons and staff followed my screamed instructions, but the anarchists didn’t—they stayed on their feet, nice glowing targets in the black illuminated by their body heat in my super-duper vision. I collected and scattered guns, calling on them to surrender every time I bobbed up to give them something to focus on and shoot at in their blindness. The smart ones tried to run—also stupid since they couldn’t see—but none of them shot down.
Even so, my heart stayed in my throat the entire time and I didn’t breathe except to keep shouting for their attention over the bangs and screams until the last of the seven were down and the crashing chaos died. And the lights came back.
It was a wreckage but not—thank God—a bloody one. The seven had joined everyone else on the floor—I’d dropped each hard when I emptied their hands and left them broken wrists or crushed hands for good measure, and I didn’t see any injured patrons. I settled to an upright table in the center of the dining room, feeling light headed.
“Everybody wearing a hoody will stay on the floor, and if you move I’ll hang you from the ceiling. Would everyone else please move to the walls? I’m sorry for the fright you’ve been given.”
Tony rose from where he’d obviously, with care and foresight, gotten our neighboring couple to the floor and then crouched over them. Now he helped them up and away as staff began remembering themselves and doing the same. Some of the less shaken ones even picked up dropped guns as they moved away from my targets.
I couldn’t see “Mei,” but then I didn’t expect to; she would be somewhere with the lights if she wasn’t gone now, and I forgot about her and tried to look menacing—not easy to do standing on a table in my kicky shoes and sparkly dress, but I’d just inflicted serious pain on all of them and their monkey hindbrains wouldn’t forget that soon.
And I could hear sirens.
Minutes later the dining room flooded with half a dozen blue-boys and I climbed down. Tony helped me, a totally pointless and very nice gesture. “Excuse me?” I called to our maître d'. A bit pale himself, he did seem to at least be tracking things. “Have you seen Mei?”
He stopped giving the staff quiet orders and drew breath, looking around the dining room. “No. Not since these men arrived.”
I sighed. “Look in your supply closets, but I’m sure she’s fine.”
“Thank you.” He nodded and dismissed my bizarre suggestion, but he’d remember it as soon as he had a moment, I was sure of that.
Tony chuckled beside me. “Do I want to know?”
“Not really.” I recognized the expression on the officer headed towards me, and sighed again. Debriefing time. Turning to Tony, I looked him over. His jacket was rumpled and he’d loosened his “hangman’s noose,” but he was still in better shape than numbers Three and Four. And he’d acquitted himself surprisingly well back there . . .
“I can’t believe I’m going to ask this, but— Would you like another date? A do-over?”
His half-smile spread to full, without a trace of irony or sarcasm as he looked around at the trashed room and back at me.
“I’ll need to check my insurance, but sure.”
He could be Number Six.
Return to Table of Contents
UNDERESTIMATED: A MENOPAUSAL SUPERHERO STORY
Samantha Bryant
Suzie Grayson noticed the Indian man in the yellow polo shirt when he came into the café. Spending time with Patricia and the other agents of the Unusual Cases Unit had trained her to pay attention to her surroundings, even when there didn’t seem to be any danger, and that included making note of who was in the space with her. She categorized him quickly as one of the denizens of Springfield’s financial district, taking off early this afternoon for some golf. Good looking enough, in a salesman sort of way. Expensive shoes, probably too much cologne. Not dangerous.
Unfortunately, the man noticed her noticing him. They made eye contact and his face lit up like a Christmas tree. Suzie cursed under her breath—this man wasn’t her type, but it looked like maybe she was his. Just as she’d feared, he took her glance as an invitation and walked up to her table after procuring his frozen coffee confection. Suzie kept her attention pointedly on her laptop, acting as if she didn’t see him standing there, but this one was a clueless sort, so he cleared his throat to get her attention.
Suzie swallowed a sigh and met the man’s gaze. She didn’t disguise her irritation, hoping the man might show a little awareness and back off. Instead, he pulled out the chair noisily and sat down opposite her, uninvited. “What are you working on?” He didn’t say “sweetheart” out loud, but Suzie heard it in the smarminess of his smile.
She held up a finger at him and clicked a few more items on her document. Then she closed the laptop and ran her hands across it as if she needed to smooth wrinkles out of the case. The decal of a fish on a bicycle, a gift from Patricia, was starting to peel up on a corner and Suzie stuck it back down firmly without breaking eye contact with the man across from her. He began to look a little uncomfortable, which was a good sign.
Then, he laid a hand on her arm, which was a bad sign. “Do you want—”
“Is this guy bothering you?” It was Patricia. In handling her unwanted tablemate, Suzie had failed to notice when Patricia walked in. That was saying something, too, because it was hard not to notice Patricia O’Neill, even when she wore her human face. I
n college, Patricia’s field hockey team had called her “The Amazon.” Now, at nearly sixty years of age, she was still nearly six-foot tall, strong and confident, and walked with a swagger that was echoed in the vibrant red of her short-cropped hair. When they had first met, back when Suzie had been Patricia’s intern, Suzie had been intimidated by her hard-nosed attitude and unapologetic forthrightness—and that was before she saw her Lizard Woman side.
Now Patricia was standing beside the table, her arms crossed over her chest and her head cocked to one side as she gave the polo-shirt clad man a dismissive up-and-down. Suzie couldn’t see it, but she was willing to bet that Patricia was doing that thing where she shifted only her eyes to their reptilian form, just long enough to make a person think he imagined it.
“I was just leaving,” the man said, pushing back the chair so quickly it squealed against the tile and hurrying back out to the street where he stopped and looked back at them through the window before he went on his way towards the big parking garage on the corner.
Suzie sighed. “You didn’t have to do that. I had it.”
“Of course you did.” To her credit, Patricia sounded like she believed that. But she still preened like some kind of rooster and gestured with her thumb at the street the man had fled down. “But it was so much fun to make him scurry away.”
Suzie decided not to try to make Patricia understand just then. Patricia had come a long way in their time together. She had learned to stop dismissing younger women just because they were young or cute or blonde. After all, Suzie was all three of those things, and she was a powerhouse of a person—one who wasn’t afraid to call Patricia on it when she was being condescending or smug.
It had gotten a little more complicated once they started sleeping together. That brought out a protective side of Patricia which, while flattering in a way, was also annoying and a little patronizing. Suzie didn’t need anyone to fight her battles. Certainly not small skirmishes like unwanted coffee shop flirtations. “Come on,” she said to Patricia. “If we don’t leave now, we’ll both be late for the debriefing.”
It was a short walk from the coffee shop to headquarters. Patricia nodded to the security guard at the bank that served as the front for the Unusual Cases Unit, then strode across the lobby to the “Employees Only” door near the tellers’ stations. She stood there holding the door for Suzie, who took a bit longer to cover the floor, given that she was a foot shorter than Patricia, and wearing high heels.
Two security doors later, the pair were in the main hall of the underground offices of the Department. The conference room wasn’t well populated yet when they arrived, much to Suzie’s relief. She’d still have time to get her laptop hooked into the system so the Director would have her presentation to work from as he spoke.
Suzie was looking forward to this debriefing. She had played a pivotal role in the success of the agents on the Earthquake incident. It had been her first big case and she was proud of her work. Her quick thinking behind the scenes had the getaway car and the distraction ready at the right time, and special agents Flygirl and Fuerte had been able to get the terrorist into custody without interference. There were no serious casualties and Suzie knew she deserved some of the credit for that, too.
The Director came in and stepped up to the presentation screen, picking up the remote that Suzie had thoughtfully placed at his left hand, along with a print copy of his presentation notes. He glanced in her direction and smiled. Suzie smiled back, frowning again when she realized his greeting was for the agent behind her.
The debriefing didn’t take long. The big takeaway was that the equipment department would upgrade the show uniforms for the public face agents, so that agents in the field were never again left unarmed, unshielded, or out of communication, even when trouble was not expected. Suzie hadn’t gotten the shout-out she expected, but tried not to take it to heart. She knew the Director wasn’t known for handing out praise, knew how essential her work was, and took pride in doing work that mattered in a broad sense. It wasn’t always easy to work with people with the unusual powers that UCU agents often manifested, but Suzie wasn’t one to shy away from a challenge.
Still, a thank you would have been nice.
After the meeting the other agents, including Patricia, cleared out quickly, leaving Suzie alone to put the room back in order. She gathered all the papers and tossed them into the shredding bin, then put the cups and saucers onto a tray by the door so that the kitchen staff could reclaim them easily. Coffee from one of the cups splattered on her blouse. That was probably going to leave a stain.
Her phone rang. She picked it up. “Suzie speaking.”
It was the Director. “My office, please.”
The please was a concession, an improvement in his politeness, so Suzie smiled as she agreed. “Be there in five.”
She was there in three, and had been waiting for fifteen by the time the Director arrived. Suzie thought she hid her irritation well. She took down the information about their newest cases and then stood up to leave, intending to go to her own office where it was quiet and she could organize this mess. The Director stopped her when she was nearly to the door. “Suzie, could you do me a favor?”
“Probably.”
“Fuerte wasn’t at the meeting. Could you fill him in? Maybe talk to him about the importance of attending our debriefings?”
“That’s really not my place.”
The Director put on an aw-shucks expression—the one he always seemed to use when there was something he didn’t want to do for himself. It hadn’t taken Suzie long to suss that one out. When he pulled that manipulative stuff, even his face seemed to change, making him resemble a young Michael Douglas, instead of Michael J. Fox, which is who she usually thought of when she looked at him. “He’s been so emotional lately. It’ll go better coming from you. You have a way with words.”
Suzie refrained from rolling her eyes at the attempt to use flattery to sway her and walked out the door, calling over her shoulder. “I’ll let Leonel know that you want to talk with him.” She wasn’t going to let the Director dodge his duties just because he was uncomfortable with emotional displays by his agents. Leonel had been through a lot in the past year or so: he’d been transformed into a man, gained super-strength, and gotten shot. To top it off, his husband—who had stuck by his side through all the rest—had walked out on him when he refused to quit working for the UCU. Suzie was surprised Leonel held up as well as he did under the circumstances. The Director could suck it up and do his own pep talk or whatever it was supposed to be.
Back in her office, Suzie spread out her notes across the table and began putting the new assignments into her various organizational charts and spreadsheets. As she opened multiple windows on the touch sensitive screen that made up one entire wall of her office, she appreciated again that the job did come with some serious perks, even if it also came with occasional jerks. The tech department was utterly amazing.
Suzie was deeply involved in her task of making the Director’s vague notes into workable plans with appropriate resources allocated and budget codes applied, when she heard someone in the doorway clear her throat. “It’s six o’clock,” Patricia said, leaning against the doorframe and letting her gaze bounce around Suzie’s open windows. Suzie minimized them all by tapping a pattern on her desk. She didn’t like people to see her unfinished work, especially not Patricia. It was like letting the audience peek behind the curtain before the show. Spoiled the magic.
“I’ll be a while yet.” Suzie reached around her former boss and closed the door to afford them a little privacy for their conversation, or at least the illusion of privacy. Suzie knew that the entire facility was very well surveilled, but they hadn’t told anyone else about the shift in their relationship. Suzie wanted to protect that secret as long as she could. “Do you want to wait? Or just meet up later?”
Patricia frowned. After all her years as the VP of a multi-million-dollar company, she was still getting used
to the idea that not everyone was at her beck and call. Suzie could see her convince herself not to push back. “I guess I could put in a little gym time. Think another hour is enough?”
She really could have used two, but Suzie knew a peace offering when she saw one. “That sounds great. Maybe we can hit the new Thai place for dinner.”
Patricia leaned down and kissed Suzie then, bending her back against the desk with a pressure that left her breathless. “Don’t make me wait too long,” she said. Then the older woman stepped back, smoothed down her clothes and the nodules of spikes that had risen on her neck, and walked back out.
Suzie shook her head to clear the endorphin fuzz from her brain and turned back to her tasks, tapping the pattern on her desk to bring all her windows back up. It took a few more shakes of her head before she could focus again. If she’d had spikes that rose up out of her skin like Patricia, Suzie knew she’d have ripped her coffee-stained blouse.
Time sped by as she worked and when she looked up again, it was already nearly seven. Sighing, she closed the not-quite finished plans, and promised herself she’d come in early tomorrow to get them done. Right on cue, Patricia rapped on the doorframe. “Ready?” Suzie picked up her purse and keys and followed Patricia to the parking garage.
There was the usual tussle over who would drive. This time Patricia acquiesced and folded herself into Suzie’s tiny blue sports car, adjusting the seat as far back as it would go.
They arrived at the restaurant at seven-thirty and were immediately seated. They must have lucked into a lull between crowds though; by the time the food arrived, the place was packed to the rafters and so noisy it made Suzie’s teeth ache. After dinner, it was a relief to get back out into the comparatively quiet night. “Let’s walk for a little while,” she said, slipping her elbow into Patricia’s. “There’s a great moon tonight.”
