In Hero Years... I'm Dead Delux Edition

by Michael Stackpole

  And more simple.

  Vicki held up the coroner’s report. “Says here it was his heart.”

  “He had no heart.”

  She glared at me. “You’re not supposed to speak ill of the dead.”

  “I’m not.” I rubbed my forehead. “He literally had no heart. He had it replaced years ago. If they said it was his heart, it was poison. Probably a neurotoxin. He smothered to death.”

  Vicki frowned. “But why would they falsify…?”

  “Because they were paid to do it.” I pointed at the packet. “My father could have had a bus dropped on him and that same packet would have gone out. He couldn’t stand the idea that an enemy could have gotten the better of him. He probably has four or five plans in place, ready to nab whoever it was. As far as Santiago is concerned, having his death appear peaceful means more people like him will take up residence and pay lots to be protected.”

  “How can you be so cold? He was your father.”

  I bit back my first response, and then snarled so no tears would come. “You remember what you first called me?”

  She blushed. “A sperm donor.”

  “If Sinisterion ever showed a hint of positive human emotion, I don’t remember it. He’d go through the motions. Every year, on the anniversary of her death, we’d visit my mother’s grave. We’d place flowers. He’d encourage me to say a prayer. I never heard him say one. It was duty for him, not to honor someone he loved, but to pay homage to someone who had given him an heir.”

  Selene squeezed my forearm. “There must have been one time…”

  “No.” I shook my head, adamantly. Too adamantly. A dim recollection came to me. “Okay, maybe, once. I was very young. Three, maybe four. My mother was with us. We stood back away as my father knelt at a grave. It was my grandparents. They’d been murdered when my father was very young. And maybe he was weeping.”

  It came back to me more through emotion than visuals. The fear. My father, crying. Fathers weren’t supposed to cry. You cried when you were scared. My father could never be scared. He was the bravest man in the world. But there he was, sobbing, hands covering his face.

  “His parents were murdered?” Vicki shook her head. “But that’s just like…”

  “Nick Haste, right. Could have been twin sons. Him born to privilege; my father to a working-class family with pretensions of middle class. He had a kindly butler to raise him; my father had an uncle with a criminal record that included breaking every law on the books. Nighthaunt ended his career, how’s that for irony?”

  Vicki searched my face for something, then her eyes sparked. “Can’t you feel anything?”

  “For my father? What should I feel? Gratitude for making me what I am today? Even before my mother died I was shipped off to boarding schools. Breaks while she was alive would involve my seeing them in a setting that was just too perfect. It was sterile and artificial–perfect for a child, but I might as well have been living in a doll-house. Then, after she died, all I got were ‘opportunities.’ I got to study with the world’s greatest experts in every deadly art known to man. Other people travel Europe to expand their lives. I traveled there to learn how to contract lives. Then he sent me out to kill someone. When I failed at that, he let people use me for twenty years as a weapon and bargaining chip against him. So, you tell me, what should I feel?”

  Vicki’s expression had slackened with shock. Her lower lip quivered for a second.

  I reached out and caught her wrist. “Vicki, I’m sorry. That’s not what you asked, is it? You asked if I could feel anything.”

  She pulled her arm from my grasp. “And you answered.”

  “I don’t think you heard my true answer.”

  “You’ve made your feelings abundantly clear. You’re cold and unfeeling, just like him. And you justify being that way because he was. He was that way so he couldn’t ever get hurt. Fine. You don’t want to be hurt. Fine. I get it. Just don’t care about anyone, don’t feel anything and you’ll be fine.”

  I buzzed the driver. “Pull over.”

  Selene squeezed my arm again. “You don’t have to go.”

  “Yeah, I should. I need to walk, to think.” I looked at our daughter. “Victoria has a point, a very good one. I never wanted to be my father, but it looks like the apple didn’t fall very far from the tree. The two of you deserve something better than rotten fruit.”

  I slipped my arm from her hand, gave her a kiss on the cheek and got out of the limo. I set off along the street, not watching the limo go. Part of me wanted to flee back to the sanctuary it offered, but that would have destroyed me. Selene would have told me that my past didn’t matter but if I ignored it, it would keep punching its way back into my life.

  And addressing it would likely get me killed.

  My uTiliPod beeped. I pulled it out. E-mail from a law-firm with an attachment. Dr. Sinisterion had requested the attached file be sent to me upon the event of his death.

  I’m not sure what I was hoping for when I opened it. It was a PDF. Five columns, nine rows of letters randomly arranged in blocks of five. A coded message, unintelligible and uncrackable unless you had the device to decipher it and the key.

  I had the key. Trevor, the name he’d given me when he signed the book. His little joke. I had one of the devices too, locked away. Just like Nighthaunt’s bottle, the message would give up secrets I didn’t want, and entice me to do things that would destroy me.

  I looked at my wrists, willing myself to see the invisible strings attached there. Somebody was jerking them. Several somebodies. My father I expected. Nighthaunt, in his way, was doing it, too. He and Sinisterion were like those cartoon angels and devils sitting my shoulder, each whispering advice.

  And then there was Puma. He wasn’t going to pull strings. He was just there to remind me that I could be better than whatever was going on. I could rise above it, if I just had confidence. If I focused.

  But I couldn’t focus. Others were pulling strings, but why? All the people who had come into the shop to sell me information, they were just dangling bait. And Becker, he was there taunting me, daring me to explode. Becker was too much of a coward to do that on his own.

  And the protection racket, that was more provocation. They probably did the rest of my building, and even most of the block, but there were places they’d not have gone. I was meant to find those places, and to wonder why they’d been exempted. There would be clues there, clues I was meant to follow. But to what end, and for whose benefit?

  I started making assumptions I didn’t want to be making. Someone saw me as a threat. Why? What had I done? Absent bashing some Zomboyz with a yo-yo and getting the crap beaten out of me in return, at best all I’d done was sell some memorabilia. I wasn’t any more of a threat than Nighthaunt had been. Less, in fact, because I wasn’t out looking for information.

  But, what if…? What if it wasn’t me they were afraid of per se. What if my danger was not being me, but being a Felix? What if they were afraid that Nighthaunt would pass information along to me that would let me interfere with their operation? Dealing with me, feeling me out preemptively, made a lot of sense.

  That also meant my father’s murder wasn’t connected to me. Sinisterion had likely been out there doing exactly what Nighthaunt had been doing. Nighthaunt would have wanted to take the organization down. Sinisterion would have wanted to take it over. They were both threats, but of a different nature entirely. Both had to be killed, however.

  This made a certain amount of sense, but also meant they had to know that Nighthaunt and I had spoken. They had to have bugged my apartment. And if you find a bug in your apartment, you’ll know that Nighthaunt was on to something–something that killed him and your father, both. Something that was also responsible for Puma’s death.

  But I didn’t care.

  I kept telling myself that as I entered the CRAWL and traveled cross-town to my building. I cut through alleys and used the fire escape to ascend to my apartment. I unlocked a
window and slipped in, laughing at my caution and yet pleased with it.

  It was probably best that I didn’t have a sweeping device for finding the bug. It was a really good one with secondary circuitry that sensed sweepers and shut everything down. And they’d placed it near enough to a crosspiece between studs that I could have put any magnetic response down to nails.

  But I found it. And its satellites. They’d collect sound and beam it all to the main unit. It would compact the data and then pulse it out over my upstairs neighbor’s wireless network. While he was downloading porn, the bugs would upload compressed sound files including my conversation with Nighthaunt.

  I checked the cupboard. His bottle of Scotch was still there. I added water to the other bottle until it looked a couple tumblers shy of full and put it in the cupboard. I wrapped the other bottle in plastic and sank it in my toilet tank. I flushed to make sure it wasn’t going to hang anything up.

  Being thorough, that was my undoing.

  I never heard them come in over the sound of the flushing.

  I snapped off the lights and emerged into the darkened apartment. The second it took for my eyes to adjust was one second too long. The bigger guy threw one of my shock-rods, catching me in the gut. It discharged, tightening every muscle in my body and shoving glass splinters through every nerve.

  I hit the floor harder than a dead fish hitting the deck. The man came over, pumped another jolt through me, then grabbed me by the wrist. His compatriot–could have been a woman–grunted and grabbed my legs. They smashed my shoulder into a door jamb, then dumped me on the elevator floor.

  We went down to the workshop. She dragged me out by my feet, letting my head bump over the place where the elevator missed the floor by an inch. The big guy hauled me up and strapped me into a metal chair that had been welded to a hand-truck. I didn’t like that at all.

  She held the shock-rod at my neck. Her companion shined my work lamp full in my face. When Mr. Big walked in, all I caught was the silhouette of a trench-coat with the collar up and a fedora pulled low.

  He began with a sinister laugh. “And I had hoped for more from you. Your reputation has preceded you. It was exaggerated.”

  He began to pace. Other than a vague sense of his height and general build, I got nothing.

  “Cat got your tongue? Good. I don’t want you talking, just listening. Listen good.” He stood right behind the light, his arms folded tightly. “You’re a troublemaker. So am I. Takes one to know one, and I know you. You think you’re smart enough to figure things out. You aren’t. You’re way out of your league here, and will do well to remember that. You should want to remember that, too. We’ll even give you incentive to remember.”

  He snapped his fingers. His minion wheeled me into the shop.

  “Take a good look.”

  Selene hung there in the vault right next to Puma’s uniform. Her hair was mussed badly, makeup smeared, dress torn. She was bleeding from a split lip and her left arm hung wrong.

  At least she was still breathing.

  I’d regained enough control of my body to make fists, but the straps held. “What do you want?”

  “You’re out of this, understand?”

  “I understand. I’m out. Completely. Gone. Never knew I was here.”

  “Good, just what I wanted to hear.”

  “Now let her out.”

  “No.” Mr. Big hit the vacuum button with his elbow. The motor started chugging. “Next time it will be her daughter.”

  “No. No!” I struggled against the straps. One began to tear. “You can’t do that.”

  “I can. I have.” He laughed again. “And there ain’t a damned thing you can do about it.”

  That’s when the woman zapped me with the shock-rod. My body jerked. The strap parted more, but not enough. Then she kicked the hand-truck and it went over.

  And I lay there, helpless and drooling, as the last of the air hissed out of the vault.

  Chapter Thirty-four

  There is no Hell like being trapped in a body that doesn’t work. My left wrist was almost free. I could see it. The strap was nearly torn through. My watch’s second hand swept along serenely. I willed it to slow down. I tried to believe it was abnormally fast, but I’d just rebuilt the workings.

  It was dead on time.

  And Selene was dying.

  I told myself to struggle. I gave in to panic, hoping adrenaline would pump life into leaden limbs. My heart pounded. Fingers trembled. It was nothing, but I took hope in it. My ring finger curled in just ever so slightly. Then the opinion finger and the pointer. I fought to make a fist and failed.

  But time sped on. Thirty seconds had elapsed. Selene would be unconscious. Brain damage would start. Irreversible brain damage. She’d be like me, trapped in a body that no longer functioned. Three minutes, five, maybe six, and the damage would kill her.

  I made a fist. I held it. Muscles in my forearm bunched. I tried to pull back, but my biceps defied me. Somewhere from within I groaned and snarled and whimpered, the sounds all mixing inarticulately and hopelessly. I tried to rock the chair, but couldn’t do that. It might as well have been granite and the leather straps steel.

  A thousand different plans raced through my mind. The uTiliPod in my pocket, if I could get to it and punch up a call with my nose… If I could tap out Morse code on the floor. If I could make time stop and go backward. Each plan was more ridiculous than the previous, yet desperation made each seem viable.

  Then my forearm jerked. Weakly, but it moved. My head moved, too, closer. I rotated my hand and opened my fist. If I could take my fingers in my teeth, I could pull. If I could get my mouth down there, I could gnaw the restraint. I could do something, maybe.

  A minute and a half of struggle and the restraint parted. Then my arm lay there, free but exhausted, pins and needles playing all through it. Slowly I dragged it to my chest. Fumbling, I opened the buckle on the strap there, then my waist. I freed my right hand, flexed it, then worked on my legs.

  Two and a half minutes.

  My legs remained dead. I raised myself on my arms, then lunged. A foot closer to the vault. Another one, smashing my chin into the floor. I reached out, damning myself for not having carpet. I could have sunk my fingers into the pile and dragged myself along. My fingernails couldn’t hold in the wooden floor joints. Up again, lunging, this time getting a knee under me.

  I was almost there. Dread crept up my spine. I looked back toward the workshop. I expected Mr. Big to emerge from the shadows to kick my hands from beneath me. I waited for his cruel laughter. His mocking laughter. The heel of his boot smashing my hand against the vault door before I could open it.

  But all the while I worked my way closer. I got up to my knees and hit the green button. I spun the wheel. It clicked. I tugged. The door didn’t move. The vacuum held it shut!

  Three and a half minutes.

  I screamed through clenched teeth. I threw my entire body back. I prayed to the gods of physics. My mass had to be enough to break the seal. It had to.

  My hands slipped. I fell, landed flat, smacked my head. I saw stars. Bit my tongue, tasted blood.

  I lay there for a second, tried to roll up. I couldn’t, but I had to. An elbow, levering myself up. Rolling to a hip, then to my knees. Catching myself on my other hand, then crawling. Dragging myself around and extending a foot. I braced it against the door jamb and I pulled again. Pulled for all I was worth.

  Air hissed. The door cracked, just a bit, just a thumb’s-width. It wanted to close again, but I held it, clinging to it like a drowning man to a spar. I hung on for as long as I could, then slipped to the floor again. My chest heaved.

  Four minutes, ten seconds.

  Too late. Too late. I knew it was too late. I rolled over again and forced myself up. I hooked a heel against the door and tugged it open, then came up on my knees. She’d be hanging there, all blue, her eyes shot through and bloody with petechial hemorrhaging. I’d have to summon the strength to pull her
down and try to breath life into her. I’d have to.

  I staggered to my feet and supported myself on the door.

  There she hung. Limp and lifeless. Her eyes closed. Her face swollen. Her arm still broken.

  But her flesh wasn’t blue.

  Her chest expanded and contracted with breath. With life.

  If not for my hold on the door, I’d have been on my knees again. “Oh, clever girl.”

  Third pouch, the one Puma had worn at the small of his back. His rebreather. The bronze mask even had whiskers and a black button nose. It had saved her life.

  The EMTs got there quickly, administered oxygen and bundled Selene off to Haste Memorial. I traveled in the ambulance, calling Vicki and Grant as we went. They each agreed to meet us at the hospital. In the emergency ward the staff stabilized her, set her arm, and then sent her up to the Intensive Care Unit as a precaution. While preliminary tests found no indications of brain damage, they wanted to hold her overnight for observation and do a full neurological work-up the next day.

  Vicki consented to all that and sat with her mother. Not being next of kin, not being anything, I was consigned to the waiting room. The look Vicki gave me when she came in said I was back to jerkface status, or worse.

  And that was okay. Her opinion and mine were unanimous.

  Colonel Constitution arrived with Kid Icthy and a short, fat elasto-stretcher who called himself Superball. The two of them wore C4 II uniforms, with the blue star moved to the right shoulder. Constitution spoke with the head nurse, nodded once, then came over to me.

  “Castigan. You, me, the Doctor’s Lounge. Secure it, boys.”

  I’m not sure why I went with him. I guess I was just in shock and very suggestible. He probably knew that, or sensed it, more like. He pulled me into the small room and directed me to a black vinyl couch that had long since molded itself to sleeping residents’ bodies. He took up the middle of the room, towering over me, his tricorn hat firmly in place and his shield on his back.