by Matt Carter
“Conference room.” He breezes past an open door. “Salon. Briefing room.”
We pause in a small, tiered auditorium with a podium and a screen taking up the front wall, like the lecture halls back in college.
“This is where you’ll check in for mission assignments at eight every morning, suited up and ready to go, unless a previous assignment requires your presence.”
I don’t blink at the ready-to-go-by-eight-every-morning part, but Pinnacle isn’t looking at me to catch this special bit of toughness.
We keep going, and I get the feeling we’re running even later that he expected, though I’m afraid to stop and check.
“Armory,” he says, with a touch of finality, coming to a stop in front of the last door at the end of another hall and waving his ID card in front of a sensor. “This is where you’ll go for outfitting and replacements or repairs for any and all gear you might need.”
We float along down dark rows of batons, color-coded grenades, caltrops, ray guns, and weapons I can’t even make up names for, and I want to slow down to look at absolutely everything but I know there’ll be time for that later.
The aisles through the racks all funnel toward a more brightly lit central space and a single desk with a portly man eating from a plate of pizza bagels.
“Any special requests, Rob here is your man.”
Rob licks the red sauce off his fingers and hurriedly wipes them on the bottom of his chair as he stands to shake my hand, which probably makes us about even, since it takes me about that long to pry my eyes away from a display case of vintage PCG costumes to look at him.
He’s in his late thirties, but grins like a kid on a sugar rush.
“Glitter Girl, I’m a big fan.”
I spot a sketch on his desk of Mental Man’s latest costume update, with the trench coat and asymmetric mask.
“You designed that?” I ask.
“Wha? Oh, yeah, that’s one of mine.”
“Then I’m a big fan, too,” which makes him blush.
“I trust you’re in good hands,” says Pinnacle, hovering back toward the door. “I’ll see you in thirty at the amphitheater, camera-ready.”
Just thirty minutes until the ceremony!
“I’ll be there,” I promise Pinnacle’s departing back.
Rob pays no notice to his exit, and I try not to be bothered by the abruptness of it either.
Thick skin.
Who cares? My Solar Flare outfit’s been designed by the same guy who did Mental Man’s!
“I can’t tell you how excited I was to do your suit,” Rob tells me. “It was like … like watching you emerge from Glitter Girl into Solar Flare right under my mouse, like getting to see that before anyone else in the world. I’ve been literally counting the days waiting to see you in it.”
I’m bobbing up and down in the air with matching impatience.
“Then what are we waiting for?”
Rob takes the hint and runs his hand along a catch in the wall behind his desk.
“Ta-da!”
A dressing room opens and lights up automatically around the dummy inside, at last revealing my brand new Solar Flare costume.
The colors radiate out from the chest in shades of red and gold, a brilliant contrast against the constellation-speckled black cape, and …
“Well?” Rob prompts, both proud and a little nervous.
“It’s …”
How on earth do I politely point out that it appears to be missing pants?
Strictly speaking, the costume I’m wearing now doesn’t have pants, either, but the one on the dummy also doesn’t have a skirt.
Or leggings, or shorts.
The leotard cuts away at the sides around waist height, leaving the hips bare, and tapers down to a strip maybe an inch and a half wide at the crotch.
Even that lush, iridescent cape isn’t going to be able to offer any privacy for the wedgies I’m going to get.
Somehow I don’t think this is the kind of skin-having that Strongwoman was advising me to demonstrate.
I don’t have a problem with my legs—one of the many benefits of superhuman metabolism—but the sheer amount of shaving I’m going to have to do every day to wear this thing is already making my head spin. I’m legitimately doubtful it’ll cover so much as the strings of those tampons in my welcome kit on such occasions when I’ll need them, and now that I think about it, is that a really weird thing to get as a welcome present?
“Sorry,” I say, shaking myself off in a way that makes me feel like a clone of my mom. “I think I just spent a little too much time staring at my uncle’s old costume. Give me a sec to adjust.”
“Oh yeah, he had a great one,” Rob agrees. “The custom-molded body armor and all. It gave me a great jumping-off place. Had to update it a bit with the times, of course. Some deeper, crisper colors to go with the rest of the team’s new palette.”
He points out the color gradations radiating down the sleeves—it has full sleeves, which somehow make the bottom half feel even more incomplete—and I wonder if I’m fixating on nothing. Maybe it’ll suddenly look normal once I’m in it.
“And we want to remind people that you’re not just Solar Flare; you’re the new Solar Flare. You’re honoring your uncle, but you’re not your uncle. Not that anyone could make that mistake with you.”
He smiles, and I smile back.
Is the tailoring so standard that it’s not even worth mentioning?
“So, and I know this is weird to talk about with someone you’ve just met, but since it’s kinda my job to notice and accentuate everyone’s assets, I’ll just tell you … you have really terrific thighs.”
Okay. We are going to talk about this.
“Thanks.”
“So, since you’ve got a way higher invulnerability rating than Mr. Erickson did—I love designing for invulnerables, by the way—I figured, to make things a little more personal, now you’re not stuck only representing tweens, it’d make a nice statement for you to get to stretch your legs a little, so to speak. Show people you don’t have to hide anymore.”
“I’m not hiding now,” I say, folding my fingertips around the short hem of my Glitter Girl dress.
“Good!” says Rob. “Seriously, good. Nobody normally believes anything nice about their own bodies, which makes my job a whole lot harder, but yours, I mean, it speaks for itself. So, give it a try!”
He steps back from the dressing room.
“See how it feels. If anything doesn’t fit right, we can make adjustments.”
It’s not going to fit right.
But he’s all Christmas morning levels of excited about this, and he’s so talented and did such a gorgeous job on the colors and I’ve got about sixteen minutes left to get changed, deal with the body hair issue, and zoom over to the amphitheater to take the Pinnacle City Guardians oath on live TV, and heck if I’m going to be that diva who’s so insecure and picky about the wardrobe that she misses her own initiation ceremony because she was too busy making the nice armory specialist cry.
Any lingering doubts or disappointments feel a million star systems away when I stand on the stage in Pinnacle Park, in my new Solar Flare regalia, with my hand over my heart.
The grass and the bleachers are packed shoulder-to-shoulder, all the way out to the sidewalks on the far sides of the street. Thousands of people are here in the early December chill to witness the ceremony in person. There’s a thicket of camera crews in a semicircle around the stage, and drone cameras circling our heads for the best angles, and through all of them I can see Mom and the Justice Juniors holding up a banner with the words “Kongratulations, Kimberly!” stitched on it, screaming their encouragement.
Well, Mason is more telegraphing his encouragement through intense attempted eye contact, and Leah’s image prevents her from screaming, but I’m sure she’s deadpanning some affectionate snarkery I can’t hear, and they’re both holding corners of the banner over their heads.
The Gu
ardians stand in a solemn line behind me onstage, ready to welcome me into their family, and Uncle Ethan sits in his floating chair, dressed in his own Solar Flare suit for the first time that I can remember, smiling down on me proudly with a ceremonial tome on his lap, ready to administer the oath.
It’s not necessary.
I’ve known the words since I was five.
“On this day, I pledge the power of my body, mind, and soul to the protection of Pinnacle City and the good people who dwell within her. I swear to uphold the values of loyalty, family, community, and heroism, set forth by the noble men who came before me.”
When Uncle Ethan reaches up to dab his eye, I wonder if he remembers me practicing this on top of the dining room table with a towel tucked into the back of my swimsuit, and I start to lose it a little. There’s no avoiding it, some sniffling’s gonna happen.
“I am the tooth of the guard dog,” I croak out. “I am the edge of the ax. I am the fulcrum of Justice. I am the strong arm of the people.”
I hold the moment and swallow, while the audience holds its breath.
“I am a Pinnacle City Guardian.”
I can’t hear what Uncle Ethan says over the crowd as he presses the Solar Flare emblem from his suit into my hand.
CHAPTER 5: THE DETECTIVE
There’s a lot of different places you can find information if you want to put in the effort, but I always Google first. There’s a lot of cranks and crazies out there when it comes to walk-in clients, and if you want to vet them before going further, the Internet’s one hell of an ally.
I don’t know what I hoped to find when I started looking into Ruby’s case, but part of me was disappointed when she turned out legit.
Ruby Marie Herron, age twenty-eight, legal assistant to Quentin Julian, deceased.
No red flags about her on social media. She liked to party some, but mostly vanilla stuff. A fair handful of condolences on her pages after Julian died.
His death, too, is verifiable, though not as easy as usual. There’s only a few perfunctory news stories posted about his passing, only one of which alludes to possible foul play. The coroner still has his body for “ongoing investigation,” but no listed information on cause or, for that matter, location of death.
Breaking into the coroner’s office and trying to get a read off his body is always an option, but considering the kind of security they have around there, I rule that option out.
I could snoop around his office and home, try and get a read that way, which is somewhat more reliable, but if they’re considered crime scenes too, well, I’ll have the same problem.
And so, my best shot at knowing what happened is reading the murder scene itself.
There’s one way I can find out where that is, though it’s not my first choice.
I can’t believe I’m about to say this.
“My name’s Eddie Enriquez. I’m on the list.”
The bouncer, an eight-foot tall behemoth with skin of cracked stone, checks his tablet and nods. The people waiting behind the velvet line, many dressed in their finest “superhero couture,” look on disgruntled as a guy from the Crescent in a T-shirt, jeans, and black trench coat cuts past them.
If there’s one upside to this, it’s their faces … unfortunately it’s likely the only upside.
I despise nightclubs. I hate the noise, the activity, how most of them are shrines to superhero celebrity. If people want to get wasted and do stupid shit, there’s cheaper places you can do it.
Better booze, too.
A couple women pass me by, hot little numbers in skimpy dresses and short capes. They eye me appreciatively. I return the favor.
All right, there are a few benefits to EPC clubs.
The Silver Cowl is one of the newest and trendiest clubs in town. An old bank that was one of the first documented locations of supervillainous crime in the United States (yet still not a national landmark, go figure) was in danger of being torn down until Mayor Card’s son bought the place up and turned it into this trendy spot. It’s now a monument to garish superhero luxury, with scantily clad, masked girls dancing in go-go cages, while beefy (and also scantily clad) “henchmen” fly around them in coordinated dances. Heavy glass cases line the walls with superhero costumes and artifacts that’d be better off in museums, the bartenders and servers are all dressed in pinup-style costumes, and, of course, everyone on the dance floor, at the bars, at the tables, is dressed in cheap approximation of superhero chic.
It’s my version of hell, which I’m sure is part of the joke.
“Hey, Eddie!”
I see her waving for me from one of the second floor tables, and I make my way up through the crowd.
By the time I’m there, she’s finally shooed away the last couple of autograph seekers.
Fadia Bakkour.
Known as one of the most trusted television anchors in Pinnacle City, she’s as beautiful and modest as ever in one of her more stylish hijabs.
Before I knew her, she was just another media personality I wouldn’t have given two thoughts because I’ve always avoided news like the plague (don’t want to hear about the fucking heroes any more than I gotta), but she spent a long time doing a series on life for the rehabilitated villain community in the Crescent a few years back. She really got to know a number of us longhairs, spent a lot of time at the Lineup, and I was able to find out that she’s not only intelligent, but a genuine believer in truth and justice.
While I won’t call us friends, she’s on my shortlist of people I’d choose to spend time with.
“Took you long enough to get here,” she says as I take a seat opposite her.
“Traffic. Parking. You know the excuses.”
“Too true,” she says, summoning a waitress.
“You buying?”
“For my very dear friend? Of course.”
“Whiskey—and not your well stuff.”
Fadia orders another cranberry juice and sends the waitress away.
“This doesn’t interfere with your night job?”
She surveys the crowd beneath us. “Oh, come now, Eddie. We must always make time for leisure, otherwise what’s the purpose in living? Besides, if I’m gone all night, every night, people might start wondering if I’m leading a secret life.”
“But you are leading a secret life.”
“Precisely why I must be seen in public from time to time.”
I didn’t find out that Fadia was Dissident until about a month after her series on the Crescent. Dissident was already active for almost two years by that point, and she rescued me from a pretty bad fight with a couple of Milgram’s henchmen. Enough contact with her armor gave me an easy read of who was hiding behind it.
Given Dissident’s rep, I thought she’d kill me for discovering her secret identity.
Instead, she asked me if I could keep a secret. Now we pass each other info from time to time. Seems to me like I got the better end of this arrangement.
“So, what do you want from my secret life today?”
“Actually, it’s your public life I need help from.”
“Really? Now you’ve got me positively intrigued.”
“Quentin Julian.”
Her smile disappears.
“What do you want with Quentin Julian?”
“His assistant contracted me to look into his murder, which she thinks looks suspicious as hell.”
“Probably because it is suspicious as hell.”
“Why?”
“Because we’re not not allowed to talk about it.”
“I’m not following.”
“If you want to black out a story, you don’t completely cut off information about it. A hole like that, that’d make people suspicious. So you just control the flow of the news. Let a little of it get out, but limit its spread and detail so it falls into the background of flashier news. Why follow a small story about a dead nice guy lawyer when Mayor Card saying something racist or a new Solar Flare being christened trends much b
etter? That’s how it’s been trying to report on his death.”
“I thought Julian traveled in your circles? Rich guy killed in the Crescent, you’d think someone would want to make a big deal about it.”
“True, and for any other blueblood they would.”
“But not Julian?”
“Not Julian.”
Our waitress comes with our drinks, and I take my whiskey gratefully. Fadia and I both check her out as she sashays away.
“Has Petting Zoo mentioned me, recently?” Fadia asks, a little dreamily.
“Julian?” I say, trying to bring her back on topic.
“Fine, spoil my fun. The Julian family is one of the oldest big-money families in Pinnacle City, going back almost as far as the Ericksons and Cards, and were every bit as ruthless. However, that all went down the tubes when Richard Julian, Quentin’s father, married a gene-job from the Crescent, and they had a son. They were still part of the upper-crust by name and blood, but not much else. Quentin was never fully welcomed in, which is probably why he started to forge his own path. While the other great families saw to pillaging Pinnacle City, he fought for people’s rights and for feeding, housing, and employing as many people as his trust fund would allow. He was, for lack of a better word, a hero.”
“Then why hasn’t Dissident been on this?”
“Because she’s been busy preventing Milgram from burning the Crescent to the ground.”
“Fair enough. Julian have any enemies?”
“Too many to list.”
“Do you at least know where he was killed, so I can get a read?”
Fadia raises an eyebrow. “I might.”
“Where?”
She laughs. “Oh, no, you’re not getting it that easily.”
This is the part I dread.
Fadia never gives anything up for free.
“What do you want?”
“I want you … to have fun.”
“I have fun,” I say, defensive.
“Passing out drunk on your couch alone every night isn’t fun. No, I brought you here, even though I know you hate it, because I want you to have fun. Give me that, and I’ll give you everything you need.”
