I, Superhero

by David Atchison

  Fergus circles his sister. He can’t help the look of pride spreading across his eyes and his jaw. While keeping his eyes on Flynn, he says, ‘You mean like now?’

  Ernest’s own look of pride can’t be contained. He nods at his daughter. Flynn shouts a battle cry and presses the attack.

  Fergus meets the overhead strike by crossing his wrists and deflecting the blow with a subtle twist. The move all but wrenches the blade from Flynn’s hands. But Flynn is too strong and too quick to be bested that easily. She sidesteps a punch from Fergus, regains control of the training weapon, and lunges again.

  Fergus retreats. Fergus uses his leather gauntlets to deflect blows, looking for an opportunity to counter, mindful not to get cornered into a place where movement would be limited.

  Smart lad, Ernest thinks. Father pantomimes son’s defensive techniques like the corner man of a prizefighter, raising his own arms a split second before Fergus does. Ernest also knows that the best way to counter someone with a weapon lies in the fact that one usually needs to be upright in order to effectively wield said weapon. And he’s pretty sure Fergus has absorbed that lesson as well.

  Fergus parries a strike. He then barrel rolls under Flynn’s legs, kicking out his right leg. Flynn tries to sweep the blade down atop her brother, but she’s too late. The counter-attack works. Flynn falls, the sword tumbles from her hand.

  Sweep the leg. Works every time.

  Before he’s even completed the barrel roll, Fergus pivots. Flynn reaches for the sword, but he beats her to it. Fergus plucks the katana and stands in one smooth, practiced motion. Flynn crawls backwards using elbows and heels, looking a bit like a crab, eyes flicking right and left. Her brother closes the distance, looking over the length of the weapon.

  He’s still lagging by a few tenths of a second, Ernest thinks, but the long hours of training have borne immediate fruit. The preparation has become ingrained; the actions all but automatic. Which is just as it’s supposed to be. If you have to pause to think, Ernest knows, that pause will be your last.

  ‘Yield?’ Fergus asks his sister.

  ‘Hell no. Do you?’ Flynn answers, chest heaving.

  ‘Me?’ Fergus snorts an indignant chuckle. ‘What are you gonna fight me with, dumbass?’

  In response, Flynn kicks at her brother’s kneecaps. But the kick is a clumsy one, and Fergus easily dodges the blow. He then raises the sword over his head to deal the decisive blow.

  In an instant, Ernest foresees all that will follow.

  Flynn folds herself in half, tucking her legs behind her head with the ease of a gymnast doing a floor routine. She grabs a large, plastic, inflated exercise ball between her legs, using her ankles like a pair of forceps.

  She uncoils just as Fergus drives the wooden stick. But the exercise ball, not Flynn’s torso, receives the strike. For the second time in a five-minute span, energy is converted and conserved. The stick recoils off the exercise ball and smashes flush into Fergus’s forehead with a crack that makes even Flynn wince.

  Fergus staggers backward. He drops to a knee, and isn’t yet finished dropping things. The sword bounces off the tar-colored floor mats, and Flynn leaps to her feet with the deftness of a half-elf.

  ‘My brain.’ Flynn retrieves the training weapon. She points the business end inches away from Fergus’s neck. ‘That’s what I’m going to fight you with,’ she says, catching her breath. ‘Yield, dumbass?’

  Fergus raises his hands in a gesture of surrender.

  Then he grabs the sword.

  With a glowing flash, the sword erupts in flame. Flynn drops what hasn’t been reduced to cinders.

  Fergus rises from his feet. ‘Except once again: what are you going to fight me with, dum—Ow, owww! What the actual hell?!’

  Fergus begins patting furiously at his right shirtsleeve.

  It’s on fire.

  Flynn backs away and expresses her sympathy. ‘Ha! Ha! Dumbass.’

  As the two siblings are now discovering—one to her delight and the other not so much—searing thermal energy tends to set flammable clothing on fire.

  Fortunately, it’s a small fire. Fergus quickly tamps it out, limiting the damage to some burned forearm hair. The accompanying smell has taken the CrossFit gym’s odor from bad to worse.

  ‘Cheater!’ Flynn shrieks. ‘You can’t do that, you—’

  Ernest clears his throat. ‘Young lady. And you, young man. Yes. It was cheating. But remember that in a real fight, there’s no such thing.’

  ---

  After cleaning up and sliding a check under the office door for the cost of one partially melted rubber floor tile, Ernest and his daughter head out for the car, walking stride-for-stride. Ernest’s towel is draped over his right shoulder. Flynn’s is draped over her left. She takes a sip from a stainless-steel water bottle.

  ‘Dad, if I had a superpower, I could cheat, too.’

  ‘I don’t doubt that.’

  ‘If I knew I could have cheated, I’d have just used your pocketknife.’

  Ernest stops. His shoes scuff the black parking lot asphalt. He turns to his daughter in surprise, flattered by the news.

  ‘You had that pocketknife? Like the whole time?’

  ‘It’s in my waistband.’

  Ernest arches his eyebrows; wrinkles his forehead. ‘Really?’

  Flynn Smith turns and reveals a hidden pouch in her yoga pants. The pouch offers a soft protection, and is sewn just behind her right hip—easy to reach for a right-handed girl. Or woman, Ernest thinks. Most definitely a young woman.

  ‘That’s genius. But you wouldn’t stab your brother, though,’ Ernest says. ‘Right?’

  Flynn stares. She takes a sip of water. Shrugs. Glances to her left as Fergus arrives, twisting the cap on his own bottle of water.

  ‘What? What’d I miss? Who’s getting stabbed?’ Fergus asks.

  Flynn relents. ‘No one, far as you know.’

  ‘Thanks, sis. Big of you. And I won’t turn you into a charcoal briquette. You’re welcome.’

  ‘You’re not even part of this conversation, DA. I’m talking with Dad, not you, about how I could have cheated, and how you did cheat, and how without cheating, I would have won that sparring match, because I’m a better fighter, which means I did technically win. So suck it.’

  Ernest raises a hand. Sweat beads have reappeared on the foreheads of each party. ‘And that, Flynn, is the problem.’

  ‘What does that mean? You saying I’m not supposed to win a fight? Because that’s the stupidest thing ever.’

  ‘What I’m saying is what you’re saying is the main reason I don’t want you doing this. We’re not boxing. We’re not practicing for MMA. The goal of any fight Fergus gets into, which hopefully will be a total of zero, isn’t to win.’

  Flynn rolls her eyes. ‘So what’s the goal?’

  Ernest tosses his daughter the keys. ‘Survive.’ He walks past Flynn to the passenger side of the Toyota and opens the door.

  Fergus tosses his duffel inside the car. ‘Yeah, dumbass.’

  Thirty Seven

  Jupiter Blackshear shoves open the heavy steel door.

  He steps out on the rooftop, admiring the view from Chesterfield, Missouri’s, tallest building.

  Ah, beautiful Chesterfield.

  If someone from outside of the Midwest asks a resident of Chesterfield where they live, their response is always “St. Louis.” The answer is a shorthand; the person asking wants to gather some basics—what part of what country you live, what sports teams do you pull for, what food you eat, and so on.

  If you live within greater St. Louis, however, and are asked where you live, and answer, “Chesterfield,” that response discloses one particular detail: someone in your family—possibly you—works for MasterCard. Probably. Why? Because one-twelfth of every electronic payment transaction—every card swipe to pay for gasoline, diapers, football tickets, ad infinitum—gets sent through server farms controlled and managed by this corporate giant. For
the pleasure of servicing those several billion transactions, MasterCard collects roughly 1.5 percent. And 1.5 percent of several billion transactions per year, as it happens, is a lot of money. Like, more than a thousand dollars.

  In any event, Jupiter Blackshear has done the math. There’s more than enough money flowing through this town to finance his ambitions. All he needs is to bend one tiny portion of that money stream to his will.

  His ambition, quite literally, is to reshape Chesterfield. If he can do that, he can reshape St. Louis. If he succeeds, people far and wide will know his name for generations. The man with humble farming roots will have grown into something beyond his parents’ wildest imaginings.

  From a height of 25 stories, Jupiter looks over a carefully planned nature preserve/office complex that offers miles of shaded walking trails, a bird sanctuary, and, for workers showing up to work between 5 and 7am, a chance to see deer prancing through the underbrush. Up here, the MasterCard operations headquarters also offers sweeping views of the nearby Missouri river. Looking small on the horizon, roughly twelve miles away, the iconic arch keeps watch over downtown St. Louis.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ Jupiter announces. ‘Let’s talk about a land deal.’

  Jupiter wheels around, shoes crunching in the rooftop gravel. He folds his hands behind his back.

  The procession that catches up is a cluster of friends-with-the-mayor-types, five men in total, all starting to perspire under their tailored suits in the sticky afternoon air. Familiar faces abound: red-cheeked Don Numark from the investment arm of United Bank of Missouri, fish-belly-white Dan Glassworth of the Allied Reinsurance Group, and oily-haired Blake Fenton (he of Fenton, Missouri, ancestry) of the Missouri Retail Development Commission, the lobbying firm responsible for inking deals with companies that employ tens of thousands, and who build stores with square footage footprints that also run into the tens of thousands. Men like these spend most of their adult lives on airplanes traveling to cities like Atlanta, Minneapolis, and Leiden, Netherlands, to speak with the CEOs of Home Depot, Best Buy, and IKEA.

  And now, Jupiter thinks, after a two-martini lunch, with me.

  Jupiter runs a hand through his hair and scans the parcels of land below. The roadways, the housing developments, the car dealerships, the grocery store complexes.

  Of particular interest: a modest plot, off in the distance to Jupiter’s right. What remains of a small family farm, overgrown by corn that’s long past the point of being an actual crop.

  ‘Tell me, Fenton. What could we do with that land there?’

  Fenton follows the path of Jupiter’s index finger—the one attached to a hand that can reshape itself—to the dilapidated farm. The lobbyist scowls. ‘Not much. A stand-alone hotel, maybe. But look where it is, Blackshear. Nothing else around. I know that’s your old man’s place, but, well, you know the rules about real estate. Location, loca—’

  ‘I get it.’ Jupiter holds up his left hand. Fenton stops speaking.

  Also of interest: a closer parcel of land, to Jupiter’s left. There, earth-moving vehicles trundle about, performing the tasks they were built to do—removing trees and rocks and native grasses, so that wholesale retailers, build-your-own-burrito chains, and high-end department stores can take their place.

  The parcel belonging to Douglas Rowe.

  The development deal that will cement Rowe’s legacy. Of course, all the assembled men are well aware of this fact.

  Jupiter aims his left arm at the lucrative development underway. Asks his next question without looking back. ‘And aren’t you two ever worried about what happens if there’s a 100-year flood? Like what happened in ’93?’

  Numark, the banking interest, is the one who speaks. ‘Of course. We’re always concerned. But more than 1,000 levees have been rebuilt since then. And it’s all covered in our contracts. We’re protected against things like fire, hurricanes, riots, solar flares, natural disasters—’

  Glassworth, the insurance suit, interjects: ‘Or any other act of God.’

  ‘Act of God…’ Jupiter’s voice trails off. His eyes return to the worthless tract of land bequeathed to him by his mostly dysfunctional and impoverished parents.

  ‘I like the sound of that.’

  Thirty Eight

  Ryland flips to page three of the report.

  Unfortunately, fourteen more pages remain. The account making Ryland’s eyes cross is that of an arrest gone awry, although “awry” has seldom been a less adequate descriptor.

  Page 3 details the arresting officer’s arrival at the suspect’s house, search and arrest warrants in hand. The woman, wearing a yellow nightie, bolted out the back door, climbed a fence, and then ran across the neighbor’s property. The arresting officer—a rookie, naturally—gave chase, pushing the husband out of the way to initiate the pursuit on foot. The woman was apprehended, but is now being treated for lacerations of her gluteus (referred to as the “cleftal region” in the AO’s extensively footnoted, densely worded report). That injury, according to the woman’s statement, was caused by a dog in a neighbor’s yard, which may or may not have been a Pit Bull, illegal by city ordinance. Animal Control has now gotten involved, and taken the dog into custody for DNA testing. Meanwhile, the neighbor, who by all accounts is a charming little man in his early 70s, claims that a) the dog is not a Pit Bull, but rather a Boxer mix—i.e, the typical junkyard dog, and b) the woman is lying. The elderly man’s account is that the suspect’s hindmost became injured when she tried to hop down from atop his fence, and the nightgown didn’t offer adequate protection. His dog lost its mind because, well, that’s what dogs do when “some goddamned banshee comes running through the back yard chased by a cop.” The neighbor subsequently threatened to call F. Lee Bailey while his dog was being taken into custody. Meanwhile, the injured suspect is threatening to sue the SLPD for unlawful and reckless pursuit—her husband is being treated for a concussion allegedly caused when the arresting officer shoved him—and is suing the elderly neighbor for good measure. The neighbor, with the help of F. Lee Bailey (supposedly), says he’ll counter-sue the female suspect for property damage, and for causing emotional distress over the loss (temporary, Ryland hopes) of his pet.

  In short, the arrest went awry.

  Which makes having to slog through the arresting officer’s poorly-written report about said mess all the more painful reading.

  ‘Too many adverbs!’ Ryland says with an exasperated sigh.

  His desk phone rings. He lifts the receiver. ‘Ryland.’

  He listens to the voice on the other end of the line. Digests the news contained in this oral report. His features slacken. He’ll have time to wordsmith later on.

  ‘How many people live in that floodplain?’ Ryland asks.

  As he listens to the answer from the other end of the line, the diminutive police chief rests his pen on the desk. With the hand that’s now free, Ryland reaches for his old cell phone.

  ---

  Fergus Smith opens the door to Flynn’s room.

  Almost immediately, his eye is drawn to the glint of light reflecting off the brand-new katana lying on her bed. Fergus pauses. Studies the weapon. The sheath, also new, rests on the bed, next to the blade. Fergus notices the color.

  ‘Huh. Red,’ says Fergus. ‘Just like your pocketknife, yeah?’

  Flynn turns from her desk chair and takes off her headphones. ‘What?’

  ‘I said the scabbard thing. On the sword. It’s red.’

  ‘Right. It’s red,’ Flynn says, nodding. ‘Brilliant, Fergus.’

  ‘Yeah, I’m pretty s-m-r-t,’ Fergus says, spelling the word. ‘You’re the one who texted. What’d you want?’

  Flynn stands and pushes in her chair. ‘I wanted you to take a look at something.’

  ‘It’s probably infected. Can I go now?’

  ‘Oh, the dickwad makes a joke,’ Flynn says, frowning, but amused. ‘It’s something I made, actually.’

  Fergus reaches for the katana and lifts it in
the air, feeling its weight. The thing is perfectly balanced; a marvel of precision and craftsmanship. When he speaks, all traces of sarcasm or sibling antagonism are gone. ‘This is cool, Flynn. It’s really, really good work.’

  With that, Fergus tosses the sword to his sister, who is blushing at the compliment. ‘And I can’t accept. I have fire. I don’t need iron. You should keep it.’

  ‘Of course I should,’ Flynn says, ‘because that’s not what I’m giving you.’

  Sisters.

  Flynn leans the katana against her desk and proceeds to her closet. She opens one of the sliding doors and squats, reaching somewhere in the back of the closet. Upon emerging, she’s holding a cardboard box that would be about the size of a hatbox if anyone in the world still had such thing as a hatbox. She sets the oval of sturdy cardboard on her desk while Fergus looks on, curious. Flynn opens the lid.

  ‘The bad guys aren’t the only ones with cool suits.’

  The supersuit is a dark, matte grey. Thin. Breathable. Flexible, yet sturdy. Like the blade itself, a marvel of care and workmanship. An ingenious exoskeleton delivered in what’s essentially a sweat-wicking t-shirt, easy to slip on and off.

  She offers the exoskeleton shirt for Fergus’s inspection. While Flynn explains some of its finer points—the heat stability, the energy dispersion, the ability to withstand a blast from a shotgun—he slips it over his head. It’s a perfect fit, hugging his torso like a surfer’s neoprene wetsuit.

  ‘This is… I don’t even know what to say,’ Fergus says.

  ‘It’s not that big a deal,’ Flynn responds. She wears her modesty less easily than Fergus does the supersuit. ‘You know, supersuits already exist. Well, not like this one.’

  ‘They do?’ Fergus swings his right arm, testing for range of motion.

  ‘Yes. They’re called Kevlar vests. Cops use them.’

  ‘Cops. No shit?’

  ‘You’re repaying my work with sarcasm? Is that your plan?’