Pinnacle City

by Matt Carter

  I totally have a type, don’t I? This is what having a type looks like.

  All mysterious and unkempt, with those compact muscles and that look that says he knows things other people don’t.

  But my insides are warm from the WW, and the effort of balancing on a barstool is a crazy carnival game right now … and I don’t care.

  Besides, I’m not into the similarities half so much as the differences. He’s shameless without being too pushy, the smart-aleck banter is a nice change from sullen silences, and he even lets me coax out his smile once or twice.

  It’s a cute smile.

  The barstool difficulty level is ramping up exponentially, and it’s definitely time to say the magic words.

  “Wanna get out of here?”

  I get another smile in return. He gulps the last of his drink and stands to offer me assistance balancing back on my heels, which I gladly accept. He’s not too steady either, but together there’s a kind of mutual leaning post effect.

  Out on the sidewalk, in the sudden, breezy silence away from the music and the heat of bodies, the sky is still as clear as it has been all day, glittering now with all the stars the city will allow, and it gives me an idea.

  “You scared of heights?” I ask.

  “No, you?”

  “I’d have a serious problem if I was,” I say, levitating off the ground with a grin. It’s so much easier to stay upright this way.

  I slide under his arms, facing away from him, wrapping them tight around my shoulders.

  “Don’t let go,” I advise. He squeezes in acknowledgement, and I take off, leaving the ground far behind.

  He squeezes quite a bit harder after that, and flight and the firmness of his body tight against my back might be the greatest combination ever.

  I already know where I’m going. It’s a bank office high rise, vacant at this time of night, with no guardrails and a perfect view of the city and the valley beyond, one of my favorite spots to catch the breeze and watch the stadium fireworks, or just the hypnotic, fluid collage of the city lights.

  He doesn’t jump on the chance to take his hands off me when I set us down, just loosens his grip enough that I can turn around, and that’s how the make-out phase of the evening begins, all at once, leaning into each other with too little balance to support any kind of reserve. His lips are soft and his hands are careful but sure, and I’m feeling it, thoroughly feeling it this time, so I’m just gonna say it:

  “Ever done it on a rooftop before?”

  He looks around and genuinely appears to rack his brain. “Probably.”

  “Well, you haven’t with me.”

  I take both our coats and toss them in a heap together, then give a tug at his T-shirt, which he surrenders readily.

  I try to mirror him, then remember how long it took to get this dress on in the first place, and just point him to the back of it.

  “Um, would you?”

  He wrestles with the tiny zipper for a moment but finally gets it to move without breaking it, and then takes a moment to absorb the full reality of my distinctly unnatural proportions.

  This is a disclaimer I’ve had to give before.

  “They’re not real, but they’re durable. Go nuts.”

  He doesn’t wait to be told twice, diving in face first and with both hands.

  His lips are still soft, if a little cold, and they begin to explore upward and downward, a little farther each time, always finding their way back to the base camp of my breasts.

  His shirtlessness reveals a few details he wasn’t born with either: more ink and healed injuries.

  I run a finger from the army tattoo on his left shoulder to the scar next to it, the thickest one of the collection nearly separating his arm from his chest, and then up to the nick on his chin, a segment of the same line.

  He catches my tracing finger carefully between his teeth.

  “What are you doing?” he says through it.

  “Connecting the dots.”

  “Could you not?”

  “Sure. Give me something else to connect.”

  Fumbling his jeans open, he does so.

  “Nice. Hold a sec,” I say. He graciously returns my finger so I can do the accompanying hold a sec gesture with it, while I pick up my fallen purse and dig through it with the other hand.

  This isn’t something I do a lot, but I never gave up the high school preparedness habit.

  How on earth can eight square inches of chiffon so completely swallow whatever I happen to need in a hurry?

  Hurrah! A condom!

  I reach down to feel him, as ready as I am, roll the condom into place, and hold him steady while I lift off and slide myself onto him, locking my legs and then arms securely around.

  He grabs my hips and pushes in deeper, then tries a few experimental thrusts, grinning at the novelty of our unsupported verticality.

  Ha, I can do something he hasn’t tried before!

  With his feet still planted on the solid rooftop, my flight gives the cool illusion that he’s stronger and I’m lighter than we really are. But where’s the fun in stopping there? Holding on tighter, I inch upward until we’re both hanging in the air. He’s prepared, smoothly shifting his weight to his arms, locked around my shoulders for leverage.

  In better light and from a spectator’s angle, I’d love to watch how long he could keep this going, but it’s not the most practical trick, and after the first minute or two he’s favoring his left arm, so I pull close to his ear.

  “Ready?” I ask.

  “For … ?”

  I swing myself over onto my back, taking him with me, holding him firmly close so that I cushion his fall and don’t bend him the wrong way.

  I land on the ledge, my upper torso hanging naked and upside-down over the city, held securely to the roof from the inside by his weight.

  The street is too far away, and beneath too many downward-facing streetlights for anyone to see us, but I can see the city, miles and miles of its nighttime face, and the stars above it, and tonight is finally just tonight.

  “Whoa, right?” I say, looking up at him and nodding out at this lightshow more brilliant than anything at the Silver Cowl.

  “Yeah, whoa,” he agrees, holding the edge with both hands, going at me a little more cautiously to avoid nudging us farther over, and my whole body opens up, nerve by nerve, to catch every beat of the more measured rhythm. “There’s, uh, there’s no chance you’re going to drop me, is there?”

  “Only if you stop what you’re doing.”

  This doesn’t reassure him as much as I intended it to.

  “Kidding!” I say. “Sorry, totally kidding! But seriously though, please don’t stop.”

  CHAPTER 6: THE SUPERHERO

  So this is what a hangover feels like. No wonder people complain about them so much.

  The sun is too bright, the floor is too hard, and even from inside my purse ten feet away, my phone alarm is way too loud.

  If I feel like this, the guy I’m spooning from last night must be in agony.

  Or maybe not; he never did get around to telling me his superpower.

  I flex circulation back into one of my arms and clumsily stroke a tangle of hair behind his ear to wake him. He doesn’t budge, but his loose, sleep-mussed ponytail falls to the side, baring another tattoo at the back of his neck, and in an instant I’m wide awake, scrambling over to quiet my phone, panic equivalent to about a dozen espressos fresh in my blood.

  Oh sweet fudge, he’s a supervillain.

  I’m due for my first ever PCG mission briefing in an hour, my head feels like it’s sealed full of Diet Coke and Mentos, and I just woke up next to a fracking Glamper’s Island inmate.

  Cripes, this is bad.

  But he hasn’t woken up next to me yet. That’s good. I can fly away any time I want, just disappear. I’ve got time to think this through.

  First thing’s first, find my bra.

  Check.

  Zip up the dress I’m half
wrapped in.

  Mostly check.

  Then I close the alarm message on my phone and swipe through the menu. What does that icon look like again? Did it change in the last update? How did I end up with this many apps I don’t recognize? But I know it’s here, and finally I find it: VillScan.

  Basic tool in every hero’s arsenal, but this is thankfully the first time I’ve had to use it on a naked guy sleeping under my favorite coat.

  I lean over the back of his neck with my phone’s camera, then lift my feet off the ground to hover at a better angle until the barcode on his skin finally registers.

  I back away to read the file that comes up.

  Theft.

  Assault.

  Extortion.

  Possession.

  Vandalism.

  Henchman-level accessory to criminal conspiracy.

  There’s a listed release date just shy of nine years ago. No name on the file, just a number. Juvenile privacy regulations. Which is good, I think, because if he’d added to his rap sheet recently, that courtesy would have been waived.

  A name would be nice info to have, though. I could do some digging, but that’d take more time than I have. Why on earth didn’t I ask him yesterday, when it would have felt natural? I never forget to ask.

  Okay. I’m breathing.

  This isn’t … terrible. He’s out legally, and he’s just an ex-henchman.

  But he’s still sleeping under my favorite coat.

  True, I don’t need the coat for warmth, and he obviously does, particularly on this breath-revealing December morning, but it’s a really cute coat that I’ll never find in that last-season pinkish crimson color again, and his own trench coat is two feet away and much thicker.

  I pick up his coat and spend about a minute trying to gauge whether I can get away with making the switch without waking him, before accepting how moot a point it is.

  We’re forty stories in the air, on top of a building with no roof access, and I brought him here. Villain or not, there’s no chance I’m abandoning him in his sleep—and I know it.

  I take a breath, then another, and another, and then give him a nudge with my foot.

  Then another.

  And another.

  It’s not easy, finding the narrow window of force adequate to get a response out of him, but inadequate to rupture his non-invulnerable internal organs, and when I do zero in on it, he curls up into a tighter ball with a moan.

  No, definitely not a hangover-proof superpower.

  “Hi,” I say, nicely but not too loudly. My own voice hurts my head. “I’m Kimberly, by the way, nice to meet you.” I offer him a hand.

  A shred of last night’s smile seeps through his grimace, but he makes no move to get up, with or without my help.

  “Smooth move, not making me ask. I like it.”

  “You can steal it, if you like.”

  “Eddie,” he says, reaching for his pants, probably for a phone. “’Time is it?”

  “A little after seven. I have to go to work.”

  He gives a little snort, like he finds the phrase funny somehow, coming from me, and I try not to be too annoyed. Maybe it’s just morning phlegm.

  “Yeah, me too.”

  Whatever he’s looking for isn’t in his pants. He tugs the trench coat out of my grip, pulls a prescription bottle out of one of the inner pockets, and shakes three tablets into his hand.

  “There’s a coffee shop around the corner,” I say. “If you need water. I can be there and back in thirty sec—”

  He bites down on all three pills at once.

  Ew.

  They make a chalky, crunching sound as he chews.

  I can ask, or I can hope for the best.

  The coin flipping in my head comes up heads.

  “Look, Eddie, this might sound kinda bad …”

  He swallows and looks up at me, shielding his eyes against the sun, interest piqued, and I sort of have to finish.

  “Would you … would you mind terribly … not mentioning me to anyone?”

  “Like who?”

  “Just anyone.”

  “Would I mind terribly not mentioning to anyone that I once met a girl named Kimberly in an EPC club?”

  “Yes, please?” I emphasize this with a hopeful smile and imploringly clasped hands.

  “I guess.” He shrugs into his T-shirt.

  Just when I’m starting to hold out hope that he’ll never realize or care, he puts a hand on my coat to push it away, and I see it click.

  “Kimberly,” he repeats, and this time it means something to him. “Kimberly Kline. Fuck me, I thought those were dreams!” He shoves the coat off as if whatever dreams he’s talking about are still wrapped in it. “You’re a fucking superhero!”

  He says it like an accusation, like something dirty.

  “Uh, yeah. Yeah, I am.”

  “Oh, that bitch. That bitch! She set me up. I’m gonna kill her!” he spits, finally motivated to get up and stumble into his jeans. “I am. I’m going to kill the shit out of her.”

  “Who are you going to kill?” I start charging up an energy blast, just in case.

  “Fadia fucking Bakkour!”

  “You’re going to kill the award-winning senior field reporter of the Pinnacle Looking Glass?”

  He takes one look at my face.

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake, not literally.”

  I let the charge dissipate.

  “Oh. Good. And …” I’d really like to feel sure, especially now that he’s mentioning reporters. Fadia doesn’t specialize in celebrity scandal, but still. “You won’t tell? It’s not you, exactly,” I try to explain. “It’s not personal. And it’s not even that big a deal. It happens all the time. With guy heroes, at least. But even then, it’s always this big dramatic incident, and I’d rather not have that be the first thing I do as a Guardian, you know?”

  No smile from him now. “What happens all the time?”

  “Um. Doing it with villains?”

  His hand goes to the back of his neck, then pulls away and clenches deliberately at his side.

  “First off, I’m not a villain anymore, I’m reformed, not that that makes a fucking difference to you people, and second, ‘doing it with villains’? What are you, ten?”

  “Just because I know a few words with more than four letters,” I mumble, unable to keep the irritation out of my voice any longer.

  His language didn’t bother me yesterday, maybe even excited me a little; made me feel far from home in a good way. But everything after “fucking superhero” has lost its charm. Now it just feels rude.

  “Oh yeah, ‘doing.’ Five whole letters. You’re a fuckin’ thesaurus. I’m in awe.”

  He bundles up my coat and throws it at me like he can barely stand to touch it.

  “You can keep your precious reputation,” he says. “Believe it or not, not everyone from the Crescent lies awake at night dreaming of the day when they’ll get to tell some sordid tale of that one time they fucked an airheaded EPC celebutante. And I wouldn’t touch that lie factory you call the news with a hundred foot pole.”

  Airheaded?

  Shake it off.

  “Then … then what does Fadia have to do with it?”

  “Just her fucking with my head. She knows what I think of pro-heroes, and still she talked me into talking to you. Her idea of a joke, I’d bet.”

  “You chatted me up on a dare, and I’m the ten-year-old?”

  “Don’t you have to be at ‘work’?” I can hear the air quotes.

  “I do, and I only woke you in the first place to ask if you need a ride somewhere first.”

  “Very heroic. I’ll pass.”

  “Like, maybe to the ground?”

  “Pass,” he repeats, approaching the ledge where I cracked the paint slightly in my enthusiasm last night. “Also, where am I?”

  “23rd Street,” I point out. “Riverside Avenue,” I point to the perpendicular thoroughfare.

  “Deep in EPC?
Fuckin’ wonderful,” he mutters.

  “Are you sure I can’t—”

  “You still here?”

  He’s diving back into his pill bottle, and I try to rationalize whether dry-chewing unlabeled prescription medication on an exposed rooftop with no stairs qualifies as the immediate danger to self or others that could justify using my powers to move him without his permission, but I know it’s a stretch.

  I gather my things and fly away.

  He doesn’t call after me.

  Whatever.

  Whatever.

  I had a good time and probably didn’t mess up my career, which is all I wanted anyway, and it’s not the first time a guy’s found different words to describe me in the morning than he did the night before. At least the feeling was mutual.

  Whatever.

  I do feel scummy asking him to hush up about it. It’s a horrible thing to say to someone, but the potential fallout if people knew—if my mom knew—matters so much to me and so little to him. He seemed more ticked off about finding out who I was, and on that point, he has zero high ground.

  Whatever, whatever, whatever.

  Not going to spare him another thought, starting in three … two …

  I don’t stop at Juniors Ranch, not wanting to budget the time to explain to the others, especially Mason, where I ended up spending the night. After all, I’ve got my Solar Flare outfit and a room with a freshly stocked private bath waiting for me at Guardian Tower.

  And that’s how I end up zooming through the tower lobby, hair and teeth unbrushed, carrying my shoes, into an elevator being held open for me by Demigod.

  He’s carrying a coffee cup, already dressed in his modified toga supersuit, hair gelled perfectly into place under his laurel leaves.

  “Morning,” he says, a smirk crossing his very square jaw.

  Nothing to do but own it.

  “Morning.” I smirk back, trying to look mysterious and devil-may-care, instead of unwashed and vaguely nauseous.

  The elevator dings.

  Demigod reaches behind me and jerks my half-zipped zipper the rest of the way up.

  The door opens.

  “See you in briefing,” he says without a change on his face.