Six Superhero Stories

by Robert T. Jeschonek

  I look away and consider turning back. I can't do this, I shouldn't have come.

  The last time I was here was the funeral--their funeral. No flag-draped caskets or President of the United States or twenty-one gun salutes then. Just a dozen or so people, and a priest, and the pouring rain. Just me losing it, weeping and teetering, drunk and drugged. Falling to my knees in the mud.

  I haven't been back since. I couldn't bring myself to do it. Bad enough I could still imagine their ghosts; why subject myself to physical proof?

  So why come here today then? Because my life has been turned upside-down? Because I need to make a clean break with the past and get a fresh start? Because the end of the world is closer than I imagined, and I might never get another chance?

  Or is it something else?

  I think of Hericane taking Stalwart's place at the Refraxus. Driving back the Manifestation again and again. Fighting off its corrupting influence, too, as it grows stronger. Holding the monsters at bay both within and without. Never knowing more than a few moments' peace.

  She was right about her power, inherited from Epitome, being enough to fend off the great beast--but can she keep her soul pure in the process? Or will she become the next Stalwart, twisted by unnatural cravings?

  Will she falter, and allow the world to end?

  The burdens she's taken upon herself are astronomically huge. The work is thankless, without reward. She has lost or given up everything she ever cared about.

  But she does it anyway, because of that one reason. The same reason the Protectorate could have found to stop the lying, if they'd looked a little harder.

  Because it's the right thing to do.

  So okay, then.

  I take a deep breath, and I face the three gravestones again. I grip the flowers so tightly, I'm afraid the stems might snap, and I start walking.

  As I get closer, the names on the three stones come into focus. Even through my tears.

  James Taggart, Husband and Father

  William Taggart, Son

  Stephen Taggart, Son

  It was the end of the world when I lost them. It's the end of the world again.

  Maybe it's time I finally let them go.

  *****

  The Wife Who Never Was

  In the middle of a battle with Dr. Egregious, I think of her laugh. It was loud, whether in private or public--too loud, sometimes, for polite company. Never a girlish giggle for her; more like a horse's guffaw.

  What I would give to hear it just one more time.

  As I think of it, Egregious draws his Trivializer and aims the barrel at my chest. I smack it away with one swipe of my hand, shattering it into a thousand pieces.

  Then, I go to work on Egregious. So very glad he's indestructible; I need someone like him to pound and pound until the memory of her laughter fades.

  Even though I know I'll never forget for long. How could I? She was my wife.

  Her name was Doris Dane. And for reasons unknown to me, she no longer exists. That particular version of her, the one I loved with a passion transcending time and space, has vanished from the face of the Earth.

  *****

  As I fly Egregious across town to the super-villain lockup, I think again of darling Doris. I remember the way her green eyes sparkled when she looked at me with joy. The way her golden hair gleamed with rose and umber as I flew her into the light of the setting sun. The way her lips pulled back from her slight overbite in a trembling smile.

  I haven't seen that smile in weeks now. For all my amazing powers--flight, strength, speed, impenetrability, explodo-vision, hypno-breath--I haven't been able to find a trace of her anywhere. Except in my own super-memory.

  There's a Doris Dane here, I've met her, but she isn't my Doris Dane. She doesn't remember being married; she doesn't remember our lives together. I try to stay clear.

  But everywhere I turn, I'm reminded of what I've lost. Because my wife is not the only thing that's changed.

  The guards at the super-villain prison, for example. When I drop off Egregious, they keep their distance. Their postures and expressions are stiff, as if I intimidate them.

  It never used to be like that. I remember people constantly shaking my hand, asking for autographs, having pictures taken with me. Most folks were relaxed instead of tense and suspicious around me.

  That's one of the things that makes me think the world is the problem. That maybe I've ended up on the wrong version of Earth.

  Or maybe I'm somewhere else altogether. Maybe even in Hell.

  Anything's possible. After all, I'm Pinnacle, the mightiest superhuman hero alive. And my enemies are the most powerful in the world.

  *****

  The next day, I have another meeting with the Spell Squad--a team of mystically oriented heroes. They didn't exist in the world I remember, but I keep hoping they can help me nonetheless.

  When I land in front of their warped downtown mansion, the door opens without a knock. The Horoscopian walks out, followed by the Diviner and Seventh Son, who closes the door behind him.

  "Greetings, Pinnacle." The Horoscopian stands tall, all seven feet of him, in his zodiac cloak. "I regret to say, we have not yet found the answers you seek."

  "Still nothing?" My despair is familiar. This is my sixth visit to the Spell Squad with identical results.

  "We've looked behind every curtain." The Diviner stares into space with her three blind eyes. Her sing-song voice is haunting. "Peered into every abyss."

  "We've chased down every imp, punk, and quisling with the slightest stink of sorcery about them." Seventh Son spits a glob of chewing tobacco that hisses and slithers away when it hits the sidewalk. "We stuck it to 'em good, too. Nobody knows nothing."

  "We even made a very bad deal with Psychedelicus the Impure." As the Horoscopian says it, the symbols of Pisces and Cancer glow on his cloak. "Cauldron and the Tantrics are still trapped in Gnostos, paying a steep price for the intelligence he sold us."

  "Intelligence?" I can't help feeling a glimmer of hope. "Did he give us any leads?"

  "Only lies." The Horoscopian sighs. "I am sorry, good Pinnacle, but we can find no trace of this nonexistent wife, or the life you shared."

  "We have looked everywhere." The Diviner crosses her arms over the bodice of her shimmering blue dress. "Used every tool at our disposal."

  Desperation rises in me like an ocean tide. I see where this is going. "But there has to be another way."

  "My friend." The Horoscopian steeples his long fingers and shakes his head. The symbol of Virgo lights up on his cloak, as Pisces and Cancer fade. "Our search is finished."

  "The time has come for acceptance," sings the Diviner.

  I clench my fists. "Are you sure there isn't..."

  Seventh Son steps up and chest-bumps me. "We tried, capiche? Now amscray."

  Anger boils inside me, and I force it down. "But there has to be..."

  "Did it ever occur to you..." Seventh Son taps my right temple with an index finger. "...that the real problem might be in here?"

  *****

  Of course it has. That was one of the first places I looked.

  Early on, I went to Mentalissimo, master of minds, for an ultra-deep scan. He assured me the memories were real, and my sanity wasn't in question.

  I wonder if he'd say the same thing about my sanity now, after weeks of banging my super-hard head against the wall.

  Even if he did, I know there are people who wouldn't agree with him. The Spell Squad, for example...and the next folks on my list.

  They call themselves the Cosmologists, and their headquarters is in a sub-orbital tesseract extruded into the fourth dimension. You can get there by thought experiment, time-space stellarvator, high altitude bacterial biomagnetism--or, like me, by flying up to the entry cloud under my own power and twisting through the interdimensional membrane.

  When I land on the observation deck, robots whir up and escort me inside. I think they take me by the scenic route; by the time we
get to the sparkling white hyper-high-tech conference room, seven members of the team are waiting for us around the big black table.

  I smile and nod, but I can tell the mood's the same as it was at the Spell Squad's H.Q. Most of the seven are staring at the glossy ebony tabletop. There isn't a grin in sight.

  Armstrong, the team's leader, steps forward. "Hello, Pinnacle." The room's bright lights glint off his silver-plated body. "Welcome back."

  "Thanks." I shake his ice-cold hand. "What's the good word?"

  Armstrong shakes his head and sighs. "There is none." He turns to the six men and women seated around the table. "Tell him."

  Superstring, who wavers continuously between pinpoint and full-grown man, speaks first. "We've probed multiple quantum anomalies in and around Earth, to no avail. I find no trace of a reality shift or planetary displacement."

  Next comes Apogee, his red-clad body orbited by dozens of deadly satellites. "No unexplained orbital wobbles or similar anomalies, either."

  His sister, blue-suited Perigee, follows. Like Apogee, she's surrounded by a cloud of orbiting satellites. "Not a single variance in the paths of other bodies in the solar system."

  "My findings are identical," says Kuiper Belt, who seems to consist entirely of dust and micrometeorites. "No disruptions in the solar system's mass distribution. Nothing to suggest the transplanting of a non-native Earth."

  Solarflare, a being of crackling yellow energy, leaps to her feet. "No change in the solar wind. And Earth's pattern of neutrino absorption perfectly matches historic emissions from the sun." With that, she drops back down into her chair.

  Which leads to the last person at the table, Sphereling. She looks like a teenage girl with indigo skin, spiky black hair, and a costume made of glitter. "I have spoken to every creature in every corner of the solar system. I have contacted all sentient species in neighboring quadrants. All deny there has been any change to Earth."

  "So there you have it." Armstrong turns back to me and shrugs. "Our final report."

  "Final?" I frown.

  "We've done everything we can," says Armstrong. "Our findings are conclusive." He reaches out and touches my arm. "I'm so sorry, Pinnacle. If something happened to change the fundamental nature of our world, we can't detect it."

  I open my mouth to argue, to beg for more help--but then I think better of it. "Thanks for trying." Because as desperate as I am, I know a dead end when I see one. I know when a lead has gone irreversibly cold.

  *****

  I have one place left to go, one last source of help. As I fly there, I think of Doris again.

  In the world I remember, we were both cops, working side by side as partners in the same squad car. It was the perfect job for someone like me, because it led me to crimes in progress, providing opportunities for Pinnacle to save lives and property.

  But it also put my secret identity at risk. I constantly had to disappear at just the right moment so I could change from Mark Trent into Pinnacle. Doris, being the smart cookie she was, caught on pretty quickly but could never prove it. She spent years trying to unmask me, sometimes going to ridiculous lengths.

  I laugh to myself as I think of them, like the time she pretended to be a masked crimefighter, hoping to trick me into confiding my secret. "Lady Lash," she called herself, but her shtick was half-baked; she could barely handle her trademark bullwhip and in fact ended up trapped inside its coils.

  I still remember the look on her face when Pinnacle and Mark Trent showed up together to free her. She didn't know that Mark, in this case, was a shapeshifting stand-in--Mr. Morphiopoulis--who owed me a favor.

  She didn't know until two years later, when I finally came clean. We were trapped together in a basement come alive during the Buildings Rebellion--me with my powers drained by Leptonite deposits in the walls--and I told her everything.

  I think of that moment every day...of the relief of my confessions, the joy of her acceptance, the sweet ecstasy of our first kiss long denied. Of all the moments of my incredible life, it was by far the most intense.

  As flames closed in around us in the Cellar of Woe, her blonde hair glowed red-orange. Her skin was slick with sweat, her lips wet as I slowly kissed her.

  I closed my eyes, and a vision appeared in my mind. I saw two spirits entwined, two pearlescent forms wrapped around each other like souls or angels--together united as one being, though apart they had been incomplete.

  And in that instant, I knew, in my heart, that we were meant to be married. That without her, I would never be complete, would never be fulfilled.

  In that instant, I couldn't imagine ever being without her again.

  *****

  "Greetings on up gratings!" shouts Mixup, one of the W-Weird Wonders, as I walk into their upside-down hideout.

  They call the place Tendergroin--at least that's the name right now. It changes at random throughout any given day.

  And Tendergroin is my last stop, as the W-Weird Wonders are my last chance for a miracle. I've been working with them from the start, along with the other two teams. As the Spell Squad excels in the mystic arts, and the Cosmologists have mastered all things cosmic, the W-Weird Wonders connect with the strange, the bizarre, and the outlandish, in ways no other hero ever can.

  Because the Wonders, to a man, are complete lunatics.

  "Brings you here, what, -acle Pinn?" Mixup turns inside out, presenting me a view of his ribs and pulsating organs that looks like a gruesome flower.

  "Here are I you -ing ask what am -gation reee in sults vesti." The W-Weird Wonders didn't exist in the world I knew, so it took a while to learn how to talk to them. But at this point, I feel like I'm finally on their wavelength. (Which should worry me, I guess.)

  Before Mixup can answer, Tendergroin squeals and rotates counterclockwise, so the floor and ceiling become the side walls of the place. That's when Easteregg jumps out of a blinking sandwich and starts flapping her arms in my face.

  "Attention mighty marvel! Click on this." She points detached fingers at what looks like a glowing orange starfish on the ceiling/wall.

  It's a clickable icon, like an Easter egg hidden on a movie DVD. Leaping across the room, I press the palm of my hand against it. There's a faint popping noise, and then the starfish expands into a pulsing silver circle--a mirror.

  I see my own face in the mirror, and it speaks without a sound. Reading lips, I understand the single word it says.

  "Nothing."

  Just then, Sacroiliac the Cheerless Vertebrae clatter down between me and the mirror. Banging together, they send me a message in Morse code.

  Final...verdict...unresolvable.

  As the clattering continues, I'm overwhelmed by waves of intense gloom. I recognize it as The Offness, a cluster of sentient emotion.

  The gloom deepens, accompanied by a sense of fatalistic finality. Without a word of human language, The Offness conveys to me the report I've come for. These are the results of the W-Weird Wonders' investigation, in all the level of detail I need to know.

  Mixup turns right-side-in and confirms it. "Dane we Dor find -ry can -is not. Shifted not world you as the claim has."

  Sacroiliac clatters some more. The Morse code leaves no room for error.

  Your...Doris...not...found. Change...in...world...not...evident.

  *****

  What now?

  As I fly away from Tendergroin, that's what I wonder. What now?

  I've personally done everything I can to work out this mystery and get back home--scoured the globe, roughing up every villain, turning over every rock I can think of. I've appealed to the greatest experts this world has to offer, extraordinary superhumans with unmatched insights into the supernatural, reality, space and time, and the unexpected.

  And all of it has come to naught. Of my Doris Dane, there is no trace. Of our life, our world, I can find nothing.

  I know it existed. I know she and we existed, because I remember it all with perfect clarity. But as to what took her away from
me, what changed so much of the world in ways both grand and subtle, I haven't a clue.

  Why is my costume different, with electronic ivory techno-armor instead of gold trunks over white tights? Why is my secret identity Mark Trent an F.B.I. agent instead of a cop? What ever happened to my secret refuge in the heart of the Sahara Desert? And the brownstone in Isosceles City where Doris and I once lived?

  Why does the air smell different than I remember? Why does the meat and milk taste different?

  Not a clue.

  So what now? I've got no leads, and I'm out of ideas. I've used up all the goodwill I can find in the superhuman community. And I've got nothing.

  So what now?

  The obvious, of course.

  I rush to the one place that offers even the slightest relief, even the briefest reprieve. The one place I've gone back to again and again, even though I've fought to stay away.

  Even though, as I fly there at nearly supersonic speed, I know it's a mistake.

  *****

  The Doris Dane who isn't my wife lives in a condo in uptown Isosceles City. She's on the seventh floor of the building, third and fourth windows in from the right front corner.

  I know it well. In the past few weeks, I've been here too many times to count. Watching, always watching from the top of a building across the street. Pretending to forget, at least for a little while, that she doesn't care for me the way my Doris did.

  And now, I'm back again.

  At first, when I started coming here, I felt like a voyeur, a Peeping Tom...but not anymore. Now, in the face of my failures, it's a matter of survival. If gazing at her--substitute or not--keeps me from going over the edge a little longer, I see no harm in it.