by Peter Clines
They offered to cut their fellow heroes in on the deal.
“Sweet money and not that hard,” Ebon Lighting urged three of the others, Sunshine Princess, Tsu-nami, and Captain Hurricane. Sunshine Princess did try it, as he recalled, but did not do well in a match against the Hunktress.
Women liked him. What’s not to like about strength and charisma? They liked his gee-whillikers good looks.
He was a little bit in love with Sunshine Princess at one point when he was depressed, but the woman that he would go to his grave loving was another of the Weather Team: Waterlily Elegance, an enormous-haired alien, cerulean-eyed with pumpkin-colored skin from beyond Betelgeuse.
She did not return the affection though. The mate waiting for her, after she had spent a year in their world, was an enormous purple flower, forever stationary, who floated on a lake of violet emulsion on her home planet.
When she returned home to engage in the mating ritual that would lead to her explosion in a rain of seeds, he spent three nights running in a bar with Sunshine Princess. Each night, they staggered home to his apartment and made clumsy love in his unwashed bed. On the third morning, he woke up to find her making eggs and coffee in the tiny kitchen.
He drank the coffee in a sullen silence that ate away like acid at her happiness, making it more and more brittle as she moved around cleaning the small space, wiping at the counters with a lemon-colored sponge.
“Sit down, for the love of God,” he finally snarled, and she sat, pouring herself coffee and sweetening it with lavish spoonfuls.
“Is everything okay, babydoll?” she cooed, and he could tell she was latching on, sinking in the hooks that would drag him into married life and an eternity of lemon sponges.
“I’m not your babydoll,” he told her startled face. “Not your gumdrop, not your honeybunch, not anything. You were convenient; that’s all, Eleanor.”
She went white as she stood, swaying, and then stiffened herself and marched out to collect her things. She wrapped the yellow cape around herself, sodden still from the previous night’s rain and clinging in damp folds to her skin. He caught a glimpse of her eyes, which were enormous and bruised dark.
That night, he patrolled Central Park and beat three muggers so savagely that they could not walk.
#
Part 3: The Announcement
Three months later, when she came to see him about the pregnancy, he already had felt it in his heart. He pushed money into her hand and then pushed her away, physically, a hard shove that sent her sprawling. He turned his back and walked away.
He’d gotten a photogram that morning from Waterlily Elegance. She stood by the shore of the violet lake, one slender hand cupped around her swelling body, ripe with the offspring that would kill her. He wondered what it would look like. Would the seeds explode outward, scattering her flesh, leaving scraps of squash color to dry and brittle on the ground? He asked around, asked Silver Spring, the other alien on the Weather Team, but Spring ignored him in a way that screamed impoliteness. Realizing he was violating some taboo, he dropped the subject with reluctant haste.
#
Part 4: The Arrival
He met his daughter first when she was four, hair like cotton-candy floss, colored with pale light. She had inherited powers from both of them although he could sense she would never be as strong, as fast, as him. From her mother, she had taken the trick of fostering light beneath her skin, letting it go in pulsations of brightness. He called her his Firefly.
He took her every Saturday: to the zoo, to the harbor, to the botanical gardens, to the sculpture garden, to the playground, to the grocery store, to the laundromat.
They had a year of such meetings before she vanished.
Someone took her out the window, the thirteenth story window that she looked out of each night, her small, luminous moon face pressed up against the clear surface. They melted through the glass as though it was water and abducted her in silence.
He nearly died when the police showed him the film, which they said was selling well in underground circles. Although she wore a mask, he recognized the flashes of light that trembled on her naked skin. The men with her wore masks too. They said it was a snuff film and would not show him more than the moment he needed to identify her. The corpse was never found.
He never found the men either though he has spent a decade looking. Princess Sunshine committed suicide, and most of the Weather Team was gone. He had to leave it after three years and the fourth scandal of a criminal killed in the course of apprehension. In another decade, one of Waterlily Elegance’s children might come back to this planet and perhaps join a new superhero group. He knew that twenty-two had survived her death. Their names blended together for him: Casual Horizon, Immaculate Bliss, Serenity of Spite…
Sometimes, he wrote to her mate and received in return graceful thought-grams, blended nuances of mental energy and sensation that conveyed regret and well wishes and never spoke of her.
#
And now, the loop complete for another hour, he steps forward again into the darkness. The mask he wears is a duplicate of one from the film. He has no wish to explore why he chose it.
But every night, it’s the same, his mask looming down over the fallen form of the mugger, the purse snatcher, the rapist, the suspected harasser, the suspicious stranger out late at night as he kicks and slaps at them, superhuman strength making bruises bloom like light flashes on their skin. Tonight, jewels of light will glitter on their unturned, blank face, and he will feel the blood hot within himself, boiling hot and mammal, unlike the rain’s cool and vegetative touch.
Gone Rogue
Wayne Helge
The first time it happened, we were on our way to knock the stink off of The Midshipman. Lame name, I know. He was a lame villain, the kind nobody cared to read about. He surrounded himself with a team of henchmen, the Able-bodied Seamen, Oddjob-types with bow ties that shot at you like spinning ship propellers. Once you were past them, The Midshipman was a pushover with an armored face mask, extendible limbs, and a riding tractor.
Zooster and I blasted our way down Clark Street in our Zoo-cycle, him in the driver’s seat, me in the side-car like an old lady or runaway junior high-school girl. We passed the Midshipman off Ohio Street. He sat in the tractor, excavating the sinkhole leading down to the “top secret” terrorist holding cell beneath the old Water Tower, where Cabin Girl was rumored to be held. His henchmen were nowhere to be seen.
“Could be a trap,” I said.
“How many fallen cops did you see?” Zooster said.
I gave him a look, and he thumped me upside the cowl.
“We’ve been topside since Randolph. This stretch is cop central. How many have you seen?”
Embarrassed, I said nothing. I hadn’t noticed.
“None. No cops. That’s the point. Dammit, Z-pack. Pay as much attention to the missing details,” he said. “Those are clues too.”
“What do you mean?” I said, still running the calculus in my head.
“The cops are somewhere else,” he said. “Which means the Able-bodied Seamen are creating a diversion.”
“So The Midshipman is all alone.”
“He may have one or two Able-bodied Seamen on standby. Keep your eyes open. We go now,” Zooster said, crossing over to Superior Street to swing around for the attack.
As we moved eastward, Zooster got a call on his helmet cell. I tapped in to the RF waves to listen in.
“Zoo, we’ve got new problems. Admiral Soju is at the surface and sending an assault team down to the Tub. He’s got something big with him.” It was Guppy, calling from the command station inside our submerged hideout about a quarter mile off Navy Pier. The Tub had enough armor to withstand depth charges and torpedoes, but knowing Soju, he had something else in mind. Something that would get him inside. An airlock and diamond auger bit, for example. He wanted to occupy, not destroy.
“Got it,” Zooster
said, also clearly concerned about Soju. “I’ll be right there. Don’t answer the door.”
As he hung up mid-chuckle, he switched back to our cowl-to-cowl comms, not knowing I’d already been listening in. I expected him to abort The Midshipman job and divert us to Soju.
Instead, he said, “Can you handle this one alone?”
I fingered the concussion tubes hooked to my belt, counting them as I went. “Sure, I got it,” I said, trying to sound more confident than I felt. Then I extended and retracted the wrist-mounted Taser. The Midshipman was one of his weakest rogues, but I had never gone in on my own before. Jesus, I was just a kid, a high school student. I could barely pass physics. Who would send me to fight a grown man with a riding tractor?
“First time for everything,” Zooster said, leaning into the turn.
“Piece of cake,” I said.
“Hit fast, hit hard. If he gains an edge, however small, disengage and wait for me,” he said. I think he was truly concerned. I wanted to give him a hug.
“I will,” I said. Seconds later, half a block from Ohio, Zooster jammed on the brakes and hopped off. I took the driver’s seat and watched as he yanked a manhole cover up, revealing a Zooster personal missile silo for his return flight to the Tub. He saluted and closed the hatch. I heard it lock, and then everything was burnt fuel and fire as he launched into the Chicago sky, leaving me alone.
#
Word got around the hero community quickly and around the sidekick community even faster. I was on the couch, watching a movie with Morning Myst in the Tub’s break room the following morning. Her hand played with my utility belt, and she occasionally dug her elbow into my bruised thigh. I reached down to unbuckle the belt for her when she said, out of nowhere, “Do you think he’ll be the one?”
“Who?” I said, sitting up.
She wouldn’t meet my eyes, and I thought she meant Zooster.
“No, he’s not the one,” I said. “I like girls. Girls my age. You, for…”
“I mean Midshipman,” she said, now looking at me squarely. “Is he yours?”
“My what?” I said.
“Your arch-nemesis.”
I adjusted my codpiece to buy more room and stood up. “He’s a fifty-year-old man in a pair of topsiders.”
Myst grabbed my hand and pulled me back to the couch. “I’m just jealous; you know that. We’re all wondering.”
She popped open my belt and pulled it out from behind my back. As she worked, I said, “Zooster always tells me that a hero is only as good as his rogues’ gallery. And the rogues’ gallery is only as good as the arch-nemesis—the one who never dies even after falling into the vat of acid or the fresh concrete for the bridge abutment. When that happens, that’s when you know you’ve found the one.”
Myst leaned forward to kiss me and said, “You’re going to have an awesome arch-nemesis. I just know it.”
#
Before I met Zooster, I was a tough bruiser of a kid with decent grades and an unmistakable ability to hack cell phones. Zooster was a hero who posted his email address on his homepage for a couple hours. And the fact that he didn’t want the pics of his hairy ass abutting five members of the Sterling, Virginia high school cheerleading squad made public didn’t hurt my campaign to work for him.
Truth be told, he needed the help. There were conventions nearly every weekend somewhere in the country, bi-weekly Association of Super Soldiers meetings, and new products to test and review for his tech blog. Zooster’s ability to run his hero-dom as a one-man show had been surpassed long before I stumbled along.
It sounds like I blackmailed him, but he was happy to put me on the payroll. Zooster and I started out with the typical hero-sidekick relationship. He taught me to fight, and I covered his back when we went up against the big boys.
Admiral Soju and the Bulgogis.
Hemingway’s Ghost.
Kitty Twister.
Churro.
And against the smaller fries, I still offered some assistance, particularly with RF comms disruption. But I never had to take the lead. At least not until that day with The Midshipman. Somehow, it became habit after that. So long as the call was to stop one of the minor characters, Zooster always had something else he’d rather be doing.
#
The second time it happened, it wasn’t nearly as dramatic as the first time. Zooster had something else on his calendar. A cosplay convention or a bi-weekly Association of Super Soldiers meeting. He was in the Tub, getting ready. He had his dress cowl and chest armor on, which worked together to pull his skin tight against his jawline. It give him the chiseled movie star look he was known for. This told me he would be spending time with Mama Athena at some point before dawn. Guppy and I sat at the stainless steel dining table, working a crappy hand of Gin.
Zooster got the call from Captain O’Malley. This time, I didn’t need to tap into the waves. I just listened to Zooster’s side of the conversation. It was The Arborist and his army of Saplings down at the State of Illinois Building.
Zooster’s face looked like a man not believing what he was saying. “I’m tracking Soju as we speak. He’s on the move, buying up antique furniture. I don’t know exactly. Something about the finish lacquer. No, I’m pretty tied up with this. No time. But you know… Z-pack is available. I can send him.”
Guppy folded her hand and opened the cabinet to our selection of flame throwers, “Better get ready.”
When Zooster ended his call, I said, “Tracking Soju?”
“It’s just The Arborist,” he said, shrugging. “Guy’s got a glass jaw and a wooden leg. Call if you have trouble.”
“If I can’t get through to you?”
“Leave a message.” He smacked his cheeks with aftershave and flicked his fingers at me as he headed out.
#
The third time was because Zooster had a date with Mama Athena again. A new guy was climbing the Sears Tower with suction cups on his hands, threatening to rain down bags of pennies from the fiftieth floor. Zooster showed up late and brought coffee to the cops down on the street. They sipped and slurped while waiting for me to deliver the Arid Arachnid with grappling hooks and steel cable. Afterwards, you could see Zooster’s hickey sprouting on his neck in the Daily News’ cover shot. I didn’t make the paper.
The fourth time was because Zooster had another date with Mama Athena—a double date along with the Cardboard Cowboy and Dame Mayday—but the fifth time, he was out with both Mama and Auntie Athena, dealing justice two sisters at a time. I was left dealing with prison breaks in Joliet both times and both within a week of each other. I put Frisco Filly down on my own, once in Manteno and once in Orland Park outside the Home Depot. Zooster gave the victory interview from outside The Pump Room in Chicago even though Frisco came nowhere near the city limits. Nobody asked about me, and once again, Zooster didn’t offer.
By the time I trounced Whoopie Pete, Zooster had stopped sparring with me. He also stopped answering O’Malley’s calls all together. I’d get a call forwarded to my cell during dinner at Gino’s East or while at Comisky Park, and it would be O’Malley himself. “Where’s Zooster?” he’d say, and I wouldn’t know how to answer. When you’re the side-kick, your job is to know, to hand the phone over to the hero. But Zooster was out there, somewhere, probably savoring his time away with another lady friend or giving an interview, leaving me to hold the keys to the family station wagon.
So I got accustomed to covering. I’d say, “I’m ready, Captain. Where do you need me?”
Twenty-four hours later, it was always Zooster in the papers, Zooster in the news, Zooster invited to New York for the early morning interview shows.
That was the worst, when Zooster was out of town. The idiots came out of the woodwork. New guys or guys who had been bounced from smaller cities and wanted to make names for themselves in Chicago. But Zooster never bothered to ask Sergeant Squid to slide over from Green Bay to cover the city while Zooster trav
eled. He expected me to cover, and it came with a cost. That’s how I failed trig.
#
That July, the astronaut wing of the Museum of Science and Industry announced a temporary exhibit starring an actual Apollo space capsule. Earlier in the year, a New York villain known as Swinging Richard had tried to swipe the same capsule from the Bronx Academy of Science, and Star-blazer had stained the mortar on the Brooklyn Bridge red with Dick’s guts. Rumor had it that cosmic residue on the capsule could be used to manufacture a low-grade dirty bomb, and it was arriving in Chicago for a short stay. But Zooster had a costume-design conference in Minneapolis and left the city to me as the exhibit opened.
When O’Malley called in the robbery attempt, by Kitty Twister and Hemingway’s Ghost this time, I swore I’d get Zooster’s help.
“Kitty and the Ghost,” I said to the conference vid-screen.
Zooster’s nostrils flared widely. He had his back to the table in Frostline’s conference room up in St. Paul. His wrist-camera picked up the Athena sisters in their bras and panties behind him, cycling through wardrobe racks, hunting for outfits.
“You can handle this one, Z. I’m confident.”
“What if I can’t? It’s two of them this time. Biggies.”
One of the Athena sisters giggled. Zooster checked behind his back then brought the camera in closer to his face.
“You don’t have to beat them. You just have to stop them. Look for the missing details. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
#
Outside the museum, I hid behind the U-505 sub’s command tower. Ghost and Kitty had a big flatbed parked on the lawn, ready to drive the capsule out of town. Kitty’s helicopter hovered above, waiting to lift the capsule out through the museum roof. The Ghost’s henchmen, the well-armed Ex-pats, circled the flatbed and museum entrance. I had no prayer of taking them head-on or even sneaking past, so instead, I mucked with the comms between the Ghost and Kitty’s helicopter pilot. When Ghost ordered it left, I sent the helo right. When he called for the helo to climb, I had it descend. Finally, when he shouted for it to “hold still, don’t move, we’re getting hung up on the building framework,” I gave the helo pilot a clear order.
