“That’s what I wondered. So after hearing today about the new robberies and his earlier release, I went to the police precinct we had turned Silverback over to. I flashed my press badge and told them I was researching a story about Metahuman criminal activity. The cop I spoke to said Silverback had been released because the Heroes who had brought him in had violated Silverback’s civil rights in apprehending him. Supposedly we had used excessive force.”
Isaac snorted. “That’s a load of bull. We captured Silverback by the book. Besides, you didn’t hear me complaining about excessive force when Silverback tried to screw my head off like it was a bottle top.”
“You’re preaching to the choir. The whole civil rights violation thing is baloney. So, when I got back to the office, I used the Times’ computer databases to run a few checks on the cop who authorized Silverback’s release. A Sergeant Martin O’Donnell. Turns out that, a little over a week after Silverback’s release, O’Donnell registered a brand-new sailboat with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. Now how does a lowly police sergeant afford a six-figure sailboat?”
“Maybe his wife is loaded. I hope she has a cute sister. My retirement plan is to marry into money. Depending on how much money she has, she doesn’t even have to be cute. If she has enough loot, she doesn’t even have to be a she.”
I ignored most of what Isaac said. I did that a lot. “Maybe, but since his wife is a secretary driving a fifteen-year-old car, I doubt it. I checked her out too. I think it’s more likely money changed hands between Silverback’s attorney and O’Donnell, and a week later O’Donnell goes from being a landlubbing sergeant to a sailboat captain.”
Isaac took his feet off the table and leaned forward. He carefully examined my face. “Who is this cynic and what has he done with my innocent friend Theo?”
I shook my head. “This city is killing my innocence. What little was left of it after the Trials.” The funny business that had gone down during the Trials was a recurring subject of conversation between me and Isaac. Not only had Mechano twice tried to kill me by tampering with Overlord, but I strongly suspected Pitbull had broken Trials protocol by pitting me against Isaac in the final test when our opponent for that test was supposed to be picked at random. I had angered Pitbull by mouthing off to him before the final test and by refusing to apologize for punching Lotus, another of the Trials’ proctors. On top of all that, several people had died during the Trials, including our friend Hammer. Though I hadn’t thought while I was in the Trials too much about the implications of those deaths—trying to not follow in Hammer’s footsteps had afforded little time for philosophical reflection—time and perspective had made me question how the Trials were conducted. Were Heroes who sorted through Hero candidates by killing them worthy of being called “heroes”? That was another reason why I hadn’t gone to the Guild about Mechano: I wasn’t sure I entirely trusted the Guild anymore after what it had put us through during the Trials.
Was I any better, though? After all, I was the guy who had just beaten Antonio bloody. How far would I have gone had Isaac not stopped me? I was also the guy who cheated during the Trials. Yeah, maybe Pitbull had himself broken the rules by making me go up against Isaac, but my parents didn’t raise me to believe two wrongs made a right.
I let out a long sigh. “Silverback, Mitch, Antonio, Mechano, the Trials, life in the big city . . .” I trailed off, shaking my head in frustration. “Being a Hero is not as I expected it to be.”
“What were you expecting?”
“I was expecting there to be a clear right thing to do, and a clear wrong thing to do. A Hero would do the former, and avoid the latter. When I was a kid thinking about what the life of a Hero must be like, I figured they were the good guys who had life figured out. That to them, things were either black or they were white. Now that I’m both an adult and a Hero, nothing seems black and white. Take Deshaun, our friendly neighborhood pharmacist. If the world worked the way I thought it did when I was a kid, he’d either be working an honest job or in jail. Instead, he’s lounging around outside, bold as brass, corrupting society one clear baggy at a time. And as crazy as it seems, the neighborhood’s probably better off because he’s there. Or take Mechano, a renowned inventor who’s helped save the world more times than we probably even know about. And yet, he’s tried to kill me at least twice. What other nefarious things has he done that we’re ignorant of?” I shook my head again. “Makes it mighty hard to figure out who’s the bad guy, and who’s the good guy.”
Not for the first time, I wished Dad were still alive. Though he had not been an educated man, he had wisdom you couldn’t get from a book. I just knew he would be able to point me in the right direction. I missed Mom too, but she had been more of a nurturer than an advice dispenser. At least she had been before cancer had hollowed her out, sapping her of her vitality, making me and Dad her nurturers instead of the other way around.
I started tearing up at the thought of my parents. Feeling like the world’s biggest baby, I yawned and stretched, pretending like I was tired so I could rub the tears from my eyes before Isaac saw them. A 20-year-old licensed Hero and I still got misty-eyed over my deceased parents? Maybe I would change my code name to Crybaby.
If Isaac noticed my tears, he had the good grace to not say so.
“People are neither all bad nor all good,” he said. “Nobody’s just one thing. Take you for example. You’re a good guy, but you still lost it with Antonio last night.” His gaze was uncharacteristically serious again. “You know that can’t happen again, right? We’re Heroes. Even if there are some who don’t follow the rules, that doesn’t give the rest of us the excuse to not follow them too. If we stop following the rules, that means we’re no better than Antonio or Silverback.”
“Yeah, I hear you. I’ll try to not let it happen again.”
Isaac sat back, again putting his feet up on the table. “Good. As for all that other stuff, I don’t have a good answer for you. I’m not all-wise. Who do I look like, black Buddha?”
“Then what good are you?”
Isaac chewed on that for a few moments. Then he brightened.
He said, “I have a gallon of unopened rocky road ice cream in the freezer.”
I grinned. “I withdraw the question.”
We went to look for answers in the bottom of Isaac’s ice cream. Though we didn’t find any, it was still a pretty good time.
CHAPTER 7
Hannah did not show up for work the next morning. There was no email to her supervisor, no call, no anything. I did not think much of it. I just assumed Antonio had done as I demanded and had broken up with Hannah, and that she was too upset about it to come to work. Even so, I thought it was weird that Hannah did not contact her boss. She was normally very responsible. I guessed Antonio breaking up with her had really knocked her for a loop. Oh well, I thought. Better to be knocked for a loop than continue to get knocked around.
Hannah did not come to work the following morning, either. When I discovered her absence again during one of my usual trips to the art department, I started to get worried. As the day before, Hannah had not contacted her supervisor to tell him she was going to be out. None of her other co-workers had heard anything from her, either. I called both her cell and home phones several times during the workday. She didn’t answer or return my calls.
As the day dragged on, I progressed from worry to near panic. If it hadn’t been for the fact Mr. Langley had given me a research assignment he had emphasized he needed as soon as humanly possible, I would have left during lunch to go check on Hannah to make sure she was okay. As it was, I didn’t finish Mr. Langley’s assignment until about an hour before quitting time.
Despite the fact he oversaw the Times’ annex, Mr. Langley didn’t have an office. Rather, he had a desk in the middle of the busy press room bullpen just like the reporters and editors under him. He always said it was so he could “try to nip in the bud you youngsters’ constant attempts to kill American journalism
and replace it with a slang and misspelling-filled Twitter thread.”
With the sound of the newsroom’s clattering keyboards in my ears, I put the completed project on Mr. Langley’s desk. It was a summary I had hastily written about the Corruption Cabal, plus a copy of all the press clippings I could find about them. The Corruption Cabal was a team of Rogues the criminal division of the U.S. Department of Metahuman Affairs had announced this morning were the main suspects in the recent murder of Blaze, one of the Gulf Coast Guardians.
Mr. Langley’s fingers flew over his keyboard as I stood there. Thin in the chest, thick at the waist, and skinny in his arms and legs, Mr. Langley looked like a pear with pipe cleaners for limbs. His blue eyes flicked over to the folder I put on his desk, to me, and then back to his computer screen as I lingered, waiting for him to stop typing. He didn’t.
After a while he said, “What, do you want a cookie for doing your job? Maybe you’ve got a Facebook post about how hard you work that you want me to like?” Mr. Langley’s tobacco-stained teeth flashed dully in his mouth as he spoke. His eyes were still intent on his screen. He often said his once brown hair had turned grey since coming to the Times annex “from riding herd over a bunch of wet behind the ears kids who know more about emojis than about journalism.” I didn’t mind his tone. I’d learned months ago that his bark was worse than his bite.
“No,” I said. “I wanted to ask if I could leave work a little early today.”
“Got a hot date?” His eyes still on his screen, his fingers continued to dance.
“Something like that.”
“Then get out of here. Never let it be said I stood in the way of a young man’s throbbing loins. The fourth estate in general and this newspaper in particular can hobble along without your talents until tomorrow.”
I gathered my things and beat a hasty retreat to the elevator. It seemed like forever before the elevator made it from the sixty-first floor down to the ground floor. If I had simply busted open a window and flown to Hannah’s, I would almost be there already. But, I hadn’t brought my costume. Since I was costume-free and did not want to risk Theodore Conley being spotted soaring in the Astor City sky, I walked hastily up the block and then down the stairs into the closest subway station. Using my monthly subway pass, I got on the train toward South End, the neighborhood Hannah owned a condominium in. Besides, it was likely that I was overreacting and that Hannah was just fine.
Even though it was only early rush hour, the subway was packed. I stood elbow to elbow with thousands of other commuters in the eight-car train. A stiletto-heeled lady’s oversized luxury purse dug into my stomach; a tall man’s elbow kept tapping my shoulder; a young Hispanic woman’s ample derriere pressed into my groin. Under normal circumstances I might have enjoyed the latter a little. As it was, I wanted to punch all three of them. Even with the subway car’s air conditioner running, the air was hot and sticky thanks to the press of people. The smell of mingled perfumes, colognes, ethnic foods, and body odor filled the air. I was used to riding the subway, but since I was in such a rush to get to Hannah’s, the sights, smells, and sounds I was so accustomed to annoyed me like they usually never did. Though I knew taking the train was still faster than grabbing a cab during rush hour traffic, I felt a fresh surge of irritated impatience every time the train rumbled to a stop.
After what seemed like forever, the train reached the South End stop. Dozens of people and I spilled out of the subway car, joining hundreds of others from other cars making their way to the exit. As I slowly advanced to the turnstiles leading out of the station, I suppressed the strong urge to use my telekinesis to clear a path through the people in front of me like Moses parting the Red Sea.
Finally, I made it through a turnstile and then onto the escalator leading outside. I rapidly clambered up the left side of the escalator. My damp dress shirt was plastered to my back thanks to mounting anxiety and the heat of the subway car. Three people—no doubt tourists since natives knew you stood on the right and climbed on the left—blocked my path. I impatiently told them to move out of the way. I wasn’t overly polite about it, either. My mother, who had oozed Southern charm, would have been horrified.
I exited the escalator. I squinted, blinking at the bright late afternoon sun. Trees lines the sidewalk on both sides of Mulberry Street. Cars zipped by. It took me a moment to orient myself. I had been to Hannah’s condominium a couple of times before with some of Hannah’s other work friends, but this was the first time I had taken the subway here.
I got my bearings due to the landmarks of Star Tower and the UWant Building which, thanks to their towering heights, were visible from most parts of the city. I set off toward Hannah’s building. Hannah’s fine, I assured myself as I hastened toward her address on Hanover Street. I wove through the throng of slower pedestrians. She probably just got sick from the stress of Antonio breaking up with her and forgot to call in to work.
Why, then, did I have an increasingly sick feeling in the pit of my stomach? It was with an effort I kept myself from breaking into a run.
I arrived at Hannah’s multi-story building on Hanover Street. It was red brick with black metal accents. Flowerpots in full bloom dangled from many of the units’ balconies, giving the building a festive look. You needed either an access card or to be buzzed in to get through the front door. I had been prepared to use my powers to open the door if I couldn’t get Hannah to answer the intercom mounted next to the door.
I didn’t need to. Right as I approached the glass door, a professionally dressed white woman came out of it. She held the door open for me with a slight smile. I gave her a tight smile in return as I breezed past her. I guess I didn’t look like a criminal. If I had been with Isaac, I doubted she would have been so quick to let us in. Hanging out with Isaac so much had taught me racial profiling was all too real even though he was no more a criminal than I was. Less so actually, since I had been to jail and Isaac had not, as he was fond of reminding me. Life in Astor City had opened my eyes to how the wider world often was. It was not always a pretty sight.
I ignored the elevator, rushing past it to enter the stairwell. I pounded up the stairs to the fifth floor. I exited the stairwell and turned the corner, entering the hallway where Hannah’s doorway lay. I took a long breath in front of her door, trying to calm down. Everything’s fine. Everything’s fine. Everything’s fine, I repeated in my head like a mantra. I knocked on the door. I listened intently. There was no answer. I knocked again, harder this time. Still no answer.
I was about to unlock the door with my powers and go inside when I hesitated. What if Hannah was inside taking a bath or something and I barged in on her? I imagined she would enjoy unexpectedly flashing me far less than I would. I lifted my hand slightly. I gave the interior a quick scan with my invisible telekinetic touch. All was still inside. I glanced around the hallway. No one was around. And, if there was a security camera somewhere, it was hidden so cunningly that I couldn’t see it.
I reached out again with my powers, feeling the door’s lock. To my surprise, it was already unlocked. I was about to put my hand on the knob to twist it open when some instinct made me hesitate. I instead turned the knob with my powers, opening the door without leaving my fingerprints behind.
The smell hit me as soon as the door was open. The feeling of dread I had felt on my way here that I had been trying to suppress climbed out of the pit of my stomach and constricted my breathing. I had smelled something like this before. Though Dad had only grown fruits and vegetables, his brother Charles who had lived up the road from us raised livestock. Every year, Dad helped Uncle Charles slaughter his pigs. One year I helped. Under Dad’s watchful eye, I had used a small blowtorch to burn the hair off the pig carcasses before Dad and Charles cut them open. The smell of the pigs’ dirty hair burning and their skins scorching was one I would never forget—an acrid, foul, and yet somehow sweet smell. It was like the smell of a barbecue restaurant which desperately needed to clean its bathrooms.
That was the smell that hit me as soon as I opened Hannah’s door. It was the sweet smell of cooked meat mingled with the stronger stench of offal and death.
My heart, already pounding, rose to my throat. After again glancing around to make sure there was still no one around, I levitated off the ground a few inches and then into Hannah’s condo. If I found what I now feared I would find inside, I didn’t want to contaminate the scene by walking in and touching stuff. Using my powers, I closed the door behind me.
Though there were no lights on, I could see well enough with the sunlight streaming in from the partially open blinds in front of the glass door that opened to the balcony. Mustiness lay underneath the decaying meat smell, as if the condo had been sealed up for a while. As it was hot outside, the air was warm in the condo, uncomfortably so. Someone needed to turn the air conditioner on. I floated forward, passing through the condo’s short entryway.
Straight ahead was the closed door to Hannah’s guest room. To the right was the kitchen. To the left was her sunken living room, decorated in shades of white and light brown. Despite the fact Hannah was a neat freak, the living room was a mess: the coffee table was overturned, the magazines normally on that table were ripped and strewn around the room, all of the couch cushions were on the floor, and the wall-mounted flat-screen television dangled precariously from a single bolt in the wall.
On the far side of the living room, against the wall near the dangling television, Hannah sat. One leg was folded under; the other was splayed out in front of her. She wore a plain white tee shirt and grey shorts. Her head was tilted slightly to the side, as if she were studying something from a different angle. Her eyes were open, her Cupid’s bow lips slightly parted. She had on that stupid blue and white conductor’s hat she always wore that Antonio had given her, though it was askew and looked to be on the verge of falling off. A slight breeze would have been enough to jostle it off her head.
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