by Matt Carter
I just had my first coworker elevator ride with Demigod!
Now, which room is mine again?
Entry code, entry code … yes! Third try!
Superspeed shower, extra detangler, shaving touch-ups with my energy blasts, half a bottle of mouthwash, supersuit, in my seat twenty seconds before the bell.
Just like school.
Demigod pretends not to notice my arrival, and the others are already talking amongst themselves, except for Pinnacle, who clacks the file folder in his hands against the podium to call everyone to order.
“Hedgehog and Bear Man,” Pinnacle reads off without preamble. “You’re following up on that smuggling operation by the docks. Mental Man’s found evidence they may be operating out of the I-6 weigh station. Make sure they’re Tickler’s people before engaging.”
Wow. The Justice Juniors almost never handled anything as big as the cartels, and Pinnacle talks about them like it’s a slow day.
In spite of the lingering pressure behind my eyes, I’m inching to the edge of my seat waiting to hear what mission he has for me.
“Strongwoman, there’s a protest scheduled at the university today. I need you to represent the Guardians from the ground. Make our commitment to education clear and ensure the situation remains peaceful; nobody wants any more pictures of beat-up cops making the news. And if Dissident shows up again … you know what to do. Mental Man, stay on those transmissions from last week. Demigod, you’re on emergency call. Solar Flare …”
That’s me!
“You’re on protection detail, open ended.”
I excel at protecting people!
“You’ll have a few days to look at the case file and put in your hours on the training floor before checking in with Mayor Card’s chief of security. He’ll get you up to speed on the recent threats against the family.”
… Wait.
“Protection detail … for the Card family?”
I don’t mean to question my first-ever mission assignment, certainly not in the tone that I do. It just … kind of slips out.
Pinnacle levels his gaze on me, and I get the sense that I’m precisely meeting his expectations—and not in a good way.
“Is there a problem?”
“No,” I lie. “No problem.”
“Spit it out now, kid. I’d rather hear it before you drop the ball than after.”
I sit up straighter and search for a way to put it, other than, maybe he kinda deserves a few death threats.
“Frankly,” I imitate Pinnacle’s confident bluntness in a way I’m crossing my fingers he’ll like, “Mayor Card is an embarrassment to this city, and any form of partnering with him would be a stain on the PCG’s history of integrity.”
“Is it ‘partnering’ to save a person’s life?” asks Pinnacle. “Do you plan to audit the investment portfolio of every passenger on the next train you prevent from crashing?”
“Of course not, and if Mayor Card ever happens to be on a crashing train, I’m not saying we shouldn’t stop it, but he’s not. Politicians get death threats all the time—especially politicians who threaten their own constituents in every public address. The things he’s said about gene-jobs, aliens …” I could babble on for hours trying to list the reasons Mayor Card is an unimaginable jerk, closing public hospitals, giving tax exempt status to the Human Supremacy League, trying to wall off half the city into some kind of unincorporated no man’s land, but Pinnacle’s running out of what little patience he started with, so I jump straight for what I think might possibly strike a chord for him. “… All those anti-super rants he does. If we offer him proactive protection, on top of his own security team—”
“We demonstrate that we’re the bigger people, don’t you agree?” proposes Pinnacle.
“Or that we endorse his position against anyone else we miss the chance to protect while a seventh of our efforts are focused on him,” I counter-propose.
“Is that your whole objection? Your belief in our inability to adequately protect the city as a whole?”
“No!” I backtrack, take a breath, and do my best to convey the gravity with which I do not want this assignment. “If Mayor Card had his way, I wouldn’t be allowed on this team. Or much of anywhere else.” I’ve hardly been online since the ceremony, so I don’t know if he’s said anything about me personally, but I can guess based on precedent. “In his words, I’d be a distraction, a whiner, and an unacceptable insurance liability.”
I glance at Strongwoman for support, but she doesn’t glance back.
“Are you informing me that your personal politics might interfere with your ability to preserve the life of a man receiving terrorist threats against his safety and family?” asks Pinnacle.
“I only mean …” I scrounge for a professional-sounding reason. “If he holds true to form, I doubt he’ll accept security advice from me.”
Especially in this outfit.
“If he absolutely needs PCG protection,” I say, “it might go smoother if—”
“Are you suggesting that just because a citizen in need has some kind of antiquated preference for a male hero, we should go out of our way to indulge his prejudices?”
… Drat.
I slump back into my chair.
“No, sir.”
“Good.” Pinnacle nods with finality. “Whatever false impression you imagine Mayor Card may have of you, or any of us, consider this your opportunity to prove him wrong.”
CHAPTER 7: THE DETECTIVE
I’m never gonna live this down.
“So let me ask this question,” Tragedii says, transforming the pinkie finger of her mechanical hand into a pair of bolt cutters that make short work of the gate’s padlock. “When she came, and I’m assuming she did ’cause you’re a nice guy and all, did she shout, ‘GLITTER GIRL, GO!’?”
Petting Zoo’s laughing like hell, the sound equal parts human and hyena.
I’m not.
“No, no wait,” Petting Zoo gasps. “I’ve got one. Did she shout, ‘GLITTER GIRL, COME!’?”
“I was drunk,” I say, pushing my way through the gate and past the pair of them. The maintenance access ramp we’re on leads down into the Pinnacle City River, which is just a massive concrete ditch that bisects the city most of the year, but a pretty impressive actual river when it does decide to rain around here. As it’s been a few days since the heaviest rain, most of the river’s drained, leaving dry sides for us to walk along. Lucky, since according to Dissident, the badly beaten body of Quentin Julian was discovered under the bridge at the end of this access ramp.
If only the cost hadn’t been so damn high.
“You get drunk all the time, and you don’t usually wind up screwing a superhero,” Petting Zoo says, bouncing alongside me enthusiastically.
“Remind me why I invited you along again?”
“Because I had the day off?”
“Right. That.”
“It’s nothin’ to be ashamed of,” Tragedii says. “She didn’t rob you, and she’s a looker. Having a one night stand with a pro-hero, that’s something you can boast to the grandkids.”
“Unless she turns into one of those one-hit wonder heroes, saving the city once and then having to quit due to some drug scandal,” Petting Zoo notes.
“Always possible,” Tragedii admits.
“Well, I’m not gonna boast about it to anyone, let alone the grandkids I’m not gonna have.”
“Why not?” Petting Zoo asks.
I fume. “Because pro-heroes stayed in their towers, putting our friends and families in jail while people like you and me fought overseas in wars they could’ve ended but wouldn’t get anywhere close to touching. Because they pad their pockets with commercial endorsements and attend charity balls to benefit the less fortunate, all without taking their feet off the throats of those same poor. Because my best fucking friend when I was just a dumb fucking kid … Do you want any more becauses?”
“Eddie, be cool, this isn’t group,” Tragedii says.
“Jesus, Eddie, I was joking,” Petting Zoo adds.
“I wasn’t. I fucked a superhero. It was one of the worst mistakes I’ve made in a life full of mistakes, and I’d appreciate it if you’d just let me black this out and didn’t joke about it, at least not to my face.”
“So, you’re saying we can joke behind your back?” Tragedii asks, hiking her duffel bag up her shoulder.
I flip her off for an answer, but at least it has some humor to it.
Little else does these days.
Dissident meant well. I know this because I know her. She’s always been on me to get out more and have fun, and I’m sure she thought it’d be a great joke on both me and Solar Flare (since she has nearly as much contempt for the pro-heroes as I do), but she only got half the equation right.
Solar Flare.
If I hadn’t fallen asleep touching her and that thin, useless coat of hers, if my powers hadn’t slipped out in my dreams, I’d have thought she was just another girl at a bar. The night would’ve been just another night of drunken fun, and we could’ve let that be that.
But that couldn’t just be that, could it?
Now I can’t get rid of that night I’d normally forget without trying. I remember every false feeling she gave me, every taste, every curve of her body. Every sound she made. How good she smelled.
Memories that should be pleasant mixing with the worst memories.
Us on that roof flashes to me, Bystander and Marco pulling that robbery in EPC.
Burying my face in her breasts and hearing her moan makes me see those pro-heroes floating above us, and Marco yelling that we had to run.
Entering her, floating above the city, makes me see the glow of the hero’s eyes before the lasers shot from them, connecting with Marco’s body.
Her cries of pleasure become his screams.
Her smile becomes Marco’s bleached skull, sitting on the street and looking up at me with hollow eyes.
If I could erase that night, I would. But I can’t, and now I’ll have to live with it.
A three-day bender of pills and whiskey helped with some of that, but after the third day, the pileup of messages from Ruby Herron and Dissident were enough to get me off my ass to attempt some semblance of an investigation.
Bringing Tragedii and Petting Zoo along for the ride, well, that just keeps me honest.
And safe.
Can’t forget that.
When we reach the end of the ramp, I’m hit by a powerful wave of nausea, so strong I need to brace my hands against the wall of the river and vomit.
Petting Zoo pats me on the back. “Feeling better?”
“Actually, no. I think I need a drink.”
“I think you need to sleep this off some more,” Tragedii says. “Drink some water. Eat some real food. Or any food. Lay off the booze for a while. Which you know pains me to advise you on, as your favorite bartender, but I can’t have my customers dying on me, can I?”
They’re saying this because they want me to suffer. This is a fact my cloudy mind knows. Also, in my current, infinite wisdom, I know that I have to get away from these dangerous women as quickly as possible.
Guess I might as well do my job.
The bridge we’re at matches the crime scene photographs Dissident sent to my phone. The winter rains have washed away any visible proof something happened here, but for me that doesn’t matter. I walk to the stretch of wall with a very identifiable earthquake crack cutting in half about two decades worth of faded graffiti.
“We’re here,” I say, taking off my trench coat and tossing it to Tragedii. She and Petting Zoo take up casual defensive positions on either side of me.
“Got any good Twenty Questions?” Petting Zoo asks.
“I’ll think of one,” Tragedii replies.
“Nothing from any alternate futures! It’s gotta be something I’ll know!”
“Spoil my fun, why don’tcha.”
I close my eyes, tune them out, get a feel for the place. Stretching my arms out, I fight back the pain in my left arm. Much as I’d like to be doped to the gills right now, I’ve found this next part often gets clearer results with the hurt.
If you go by my R-SAL card, my power is defined as “psychometry,” though that’s never sounded right by what I do. Psychometry sounds like something involving a leather couch and some sort of hypno-coin.
What I can do, I’m able to do anywhere, at any time, with anything. Give me a place, an object, a person (though they’re always less reliable) and enough time, and I can tell you what happened. The longer I’m in contact, the further back I can look. It puts me in—I guess you’d call it a trance, taking me to another place. But while I’m there, my body’s vulnerable.
That’s why I’m glad for friends like Petting Zoo and Tragedii, keeping an eye on me (for a modest fee, of course).
“Petting Zoo, plug me in?” I ask.
“Sure, why not?” she says, pulling a memory stick from one of my coat pockets.
Call this the one decent thing the Army did for me, the one thing that makes me different from your average psychometrist. For some extra cash, I volunteered for a program where they inserted an implant in my left arm I can use to download any active vision I’m having. While the thing itches to high hell, it’s made my job a lot easier—especially when I’m called into court.
Petting Zoo plugs the memory stick into my arm.
“Okay, here we go,” I whisper, crouching down and placing a hand on the ground.
Time rewinds before me.
Seconds become minutes, minutes become hours, hours become days.
I watch as the water levels of the river rise and fall with the winter rains.
I watch as gene-jobs and the homeless climb the slanting concrete walls, trying to find cover and warmth as high up as they can go.
I watch a police investigation cleaning up, then fully active, then setting up as they go from taking a body out of the coroner’s van, retrieving evidence, taking pictures of it, and finally (or originally) establishing the crime scene.
Then the police clear out, and I’m just staring at the body of Quentin Julian lying in the Pinnacle City River. A night and a day pass with the body undiscovered; it’s too well concealed under the bridge to be seen from anywhere else, but I’m not being paid to figure out how he was found, just who killed him.
It’s night again. His body’s looking fresher, the blood around him pools back into him in reverse. He starts moving again, twitching, breathing heavily, trying to move.
Then things happen so fast, it’s a blur.
And then he’s on his feet again, looking around.
I slow things down, put time to rights.
Then I’m just a spectator.
Quentin Julian stands beneath a darkened bridge in the Crescent. Even with his light gene-job fur, he’s cold, pulling a heavy coat around him. His phone vibrates, and he answers it.
“Hey, Ruby. Listen, I’m going to be in late tomorrow. I’ve got a meeting tonight. It’s not in my book. I can’t tell you, I’m sorry, but if it goes the way I’m hoping, it’ll solve a lot of our prob—”
There are sounds nearby. Footsteps. A glass bottle rolling down a wall of the river.
“I have to go.”
He hangs up. He smiles.
“Gentlemen. If you really wanted to meet, we surely could have found someplace a little warmer, couldn’t we?”
His ears perk up. He looks around. He can sense he’s surrounded by several figures coming out of the darkness.
“What’s going on?”
One of them turns on a powerful flashlight in Julian’s eyes, blinding him.
“Hey!” he exclaims.
Then they’re on him. Punching and kicking and slashing at him with their claws.
Gene-jobs. Four of them. Not professional jobs like on Julian’s side, these guys are lopsided messes, with features stretched and twisted and mixed with all sorts of different animals. Victims of gene bombs
, or their kids, maybe.
The people Julian dedicated his life to protecting.
They attack with a ferocity you wouldn’t expect men to be capable of. I see their faces clearly, get every detail I can so I’ll earn my pay for this job.
I watch every impact. Hear every bone break. Every moan and protest from Julian. He doesn’t fight back. Maybe once he tries to plead with them, but through bloody, broken teeth, his protests are just a whimpering gargle.
After only a few seconds of this he’s on the ground, and still they don’t let up on their attack.
Then, almost as if a switch is flipped, the four of them stop the assault.
“Did you record that?” the man with a muted beak asks.
“I thought you were supposed’ta!” the man with a single, curving ram’s horn coming from the side of his face says.
“Let’s get the hell out of here!” another yells.
At once, they flee.
Julian lies still for a while, but achingly, he coughs up blood and rolls onto his stomach. He crawls away a few feet, then collapses. He reaches for his cell phone, but its screen is shattered.
Then he’s face down on the ground.
Then, well, you know the rest.
When I come out of the trance, I’m breathing heavily, sweating even though it’s cold.
No matter how many times I’ve seen it, I’ve never gotten used to watching a person die.
I don’t think anyone does; not anyone who can still call themselves human at the end of the day, at least.
“Oh, good, you’ve rejoined the living,” Petting Zoo says. She looks agitated, tosses me my trench coat and instantly transforms into a leopard.
“I miss something?” I ask, standing up slowly.
“Just some local color. Let us little ladies handle it,” Tragedii says.
As my eyes clear and I get my bearings, I see a trio of well but darkly dressed people sauntering toward us; a large gene-job man with reptilian skin, sunglasses and a goatee, a woman with spiked hair and a scarf covering the lower half of her face, and a man made entirely out of running chainsaws.
“Be my guest,” I say. Quickly, I pull the memory stick from my arm and pocket it, and pull my trench coat on. Petting Zoo pads up beside me, growling.
