Masked

by Lou Anders

  “I’m without ambitions,” Ban said.

  “Liar.” Preatus said it with a familiar smile and a tone devoid of authentic accusation. Ban let his fingers brush across his signet ring, but didn’t activate the illegal destroyer beam concealed within it. “Our king will be in the bubble all day. We won’t be missed here. Swim with me awhile and let’s talk further.”

  And they did.

  Months later Ban requested a private audience with the young King, which was granted immediately, because Warren had always admired the legendary deep lord, hero of so many old battles. Warren was only slightly put out to see that Preatus, the furtive, gar-faced Baron of Gliss accompanied the Deep Blue Prince.

  “With respect, sire, I can’t help but notice your dilemma,” Ban said. “And I’m grieved by your unhappiness. You long to visit the surface world, but you can’t.”

  “By ancient tradition, our civilization has had no formal relations with the surface countries,” Warren said. “I’ve already caused too much disruption to the realm by the simple fact of my existence. I can’t further exacerbate the problem by being the first one to break that tradition. Perhaps my son, someday…” Warren let the statement trail off unfinished.

  “Then don’t visit in an official capacity,” Preatus said. “Go informally instead. Or better yet, go anonymously.”

  “How?” Warren said.

  “Those strange lands are overrun with their costumed heroes, each one an oddity possessed of bizarre powers and abilities,” Ban said. “Why not become such a character? The differences in strength and speed and such will simply be accepted as your particular set of superpowers—if I understand their delightful vernacular correctly. No one will suspect that your seemingly unique and extraordinary abilities are natural to us and our kind. And in this guise you’ll be able to learn firsthand about their world, while fighting for their causes. A young king should have adventures and military escapades, but unfortunately, our realm is too much at peace these tides. You govern too well.”

  Warren was still young then and susceptible to flattery from one of his heroes.

  “But I can’t simply abandon my responsibilities,” Warren said.

  “Then don’t. Return as often as you need to. Many of those super characters are reputed to have their secret lairs and fortresses, where they retire sometimes to recuperate or enjoy their occasional need for solitude. Let this city be yours. I dare say, after so many ages to perfect it, most of the great engine of government swims along just fine on its own. I suspect you’ll find that you’re needed less often than you currently imagine.”

  “A man should have his adventures,” Preatus said. “It’s a vital part of what makes him into a man grown.”

  “All of the really memorable kings have them,” Ban said. “The stronger metals are only refined in the cauldron. Go out and make yourself strong to better serve your kingdom. If you happen to satisfy your own desire to learn more about the dryskins as a byproduct of such devotion, then so much the better.” His smile was most sincere.

  A week or so later Underman, the mysterious champion from the depths, made his debut, battling Korakan the Time Warrior (whose twenty-fourth-century weapons were still primitive stone knives and wooden clubs compared to Atlantean technology) in the streets of Seattle, defeating him soundly. No one knew that Underman’s sleek and colorful costume was just a simplified version of the standard Atlantean military uniform. In time the Aquatic Ace was invited to become a member of the Fidelity League, where he served with distinction, twice as their leader, until they disbanded in the waning days of the ’90s. Even after the League disbanded, Warren fought often at the sides of his friends Achilles, Doc Jerusalem, Saint George, and so many others, and had the time of his life doing so.

  Down in Atlantis Under, the two conspirators had occasion to meet privately once in a while.

  “Year after year the absurd Underman keeps failing to die,” Preatus said.

  “Patience, dear baron,” Ban said. “He plays at a dangerous profession. Swims continuously in treacherous waters. The odds will catch up to him sooner or later. In the meantime, he never stays down here long enough to meet a girl with whom he might be inspired to continue the royal line. Our lives are long and our plan is intact, so all is well. We’ll prevail in the end.”

  And so they did, but that again is a tale for another time.

  V is for Visionary

  Whose Eyes Brightly Glow

  With the battle largely over, and time to really concentrate, Visionary turned his remarkable sight to other matters. He’d gotten a good look at Professor Hell a few times during the day, and was concerned at what he’d seen. The man had a lot of conversations when no one was around to hear him. True, he could have been talking into a communicator of some sort, but Visionary hadn’t spotted one. What he had done was take up lip reading of late. He wasn’t very good at it yet, but he had a skilled instructor and was making weekly progress. He was almost certain he’d caught Professor Hell repeating one frightening name over and over again.

  When he wasn’t distracted by city-engulfing battles, when he was really able to concentrate his powers, Visionary could track the progress of a single mote of dust in a hurricane, ten thousand miles distant. He could look past worlds and stars and galaxies, to the worlds and stars and galaxies beyond them. Given enough effort, he could look through the Earth entire and see what was on the other side.

  He started looking here and there for a moon where there shouldn’t be one.

  W is for Wonder Child

  Mightier Than the Rest

  After throwing Thunderhead into space in a fit of pique, she remembered her real responsibilities and went back to saving innocents. There were more than two dozen dying, crumbling, burning buildings that needed clearing. She could still hear too many cries for help. So she flew and she lifted and she never stopped until all were safe or confirmed as being beyond her aid.

  Afterward, when she was looking about for some other way to be of use, Visionary came up to her.

  “I wonder if you could do me a small favor,” he said.

  X is for Xenoboy

  He Tries His Best

  Strange visitor from an alien planet, he came to Earth with amazing powers. Raised from a young age by foster parents—his mother, Laura, and his other mother, Anne—our world became his adopted home.

  He could fly, but not as fast or as far as Wonder Child. He was strong, but once again, not as strong as she. He was tough, but not completely invulnerable like Achilles. And his senses weren’t quite as acute as Underman’s hearing or Visionary’s incredible sight.

  But not one of those heroes could interrogate a stone, talk poetry with a pond, or have a meaningful conversation with a tree. So he had that going for him.

  He’d spent the day destroying robots, putting out fires, and holding up collapsing buildings long enough for emergency workers to finish the evacuations. When the Brandon Tower, burning from the middle floors upward, looked like it was going to finally collapse, and trapped people started jumping from its uppermost floors, Xenoboy flew to the rescue. He caught seven before they hit the ground. Of course every one of those seven died from the terrible impact with his harder-than-steel arms.

  “Have to work on that,” he said to no one.

  Y is for Yesterday

  Old Time Hero of Tomorrow

  Captain Yesterday, of the Galactic Space Rangers (which so far included only her, but it’s early days yet).

  She wore a red metal helmet with a golden fin on its crown. Her hair was long and glossy black, hanging in a ponytail out of the back of her helmet. Her eyes were hidden behind green shaded goggles. Her skin was pale, her lips crimson. She wore a brown leather jacket, with twin rows of golden buttons. Twin red straps formed an X over her chest. She had khaki jodhpurs, knee-high red leather jackboots, and red leather gauntlets. There was an art deco ray gun on her hip, and a Buck Rogers spaceship at her beck and call.

  Just about the
time she’d run out of robots to burn out of the sky, she received a transmission over her cosmotron wrist radio.

  “Can you rendezvous with Wonder Child up in space?” Visionary asked. “I’m not certain what’s going on, but she seems to be having some trouble up there.” Captain Yesterday was strapped in and ready to launch before he’d finished his request. Her trusty and ever loyal ship was named Avenging Star. Together they blasted off for adventure.

  Following Visionary’s radioed directions, Captain Yesterday and her Avenging Star homed in on a bright speck that became a round yellow dot, which became a small moon. Small is a relative term. It had grown as big as a bustling rural town, having fed often and abundantly off the fears, hopes, and desires of an unwary populace.

  Moving closer still, she saw the young girl called Wonder Child pushing the moon deep into space, away from the Earth.

  Help me, the rogue satellite sent directly into her mind. I’m being moonnapped!

  “I don’t think so,” she said into her radio, not knowing, and not much caring, if he could receive her broadcast.

  Eyes the size of soccer fields turned to her, pleadingly. I insist! I command you to do what’s right! A mouth the size of any given Main Street attempted a sad frown of despair, but only managed to show rage and frustration. This creature has no jurisdiction over me! Especially out in space!

  “I do,” Captain Yesterday said. It was true. She’d recently completed work on her Outer Space Patrol Code and Ranger Manifesto, granting herself all of the jurisdiction she’d ever need.

  Wonder Child broke off from pushing the big Bad Moon farther into the void and flew toward the Avenging Star, signaling silently, and a bit frantically, that she wanted to come aboard. When she emerged from the airlock, her expression showed abject misery and defeat. Her face and costume were powdered with yellow moondust, but it seemed to have no affect on her.

  “I tried to push Bad Moon into the sun, to end his depraved life of crime for all time,” Wonder Child said. “But I couldn’t bring myself to do it. No matter how evil he may be, I can’t kill a sentient being in cold blood.”

  “Don’t worry, Child,” Captain Yesterday said. Her smile was both jaunty and confidence-inspiring. “No one needs to force a sweet child like you to become a killer.” She punched a bright button on the control panel, loading one of her planet-buster torpedoes into Avenging Star ’s firing tube number one.

  Z is for Zero Men

  Custodians of Death and Sorrow

  When it was all over, Fagan Faust returned to Liberty. His Zero Men moved in, in great numbers, to evacuate the injured, remove the bodies, and begin the cleanup. They swarmed over everything. When more were needed, they appeared, each one a duplicate of the others, strong, handsome, dashing, all-American—everything that Faust wasn’t. When all that they could do had been done, they faded away, retreating back into Fagan Faust’s oft-troubled but fertile imagination, vanishing once more into the nothingness they always were.

  About the Editor

  A 2010/2009/2008/2007 Hugo Award nominee, 2008 Philip K. Dick Award nominee, 2009/2007 Chesley Award nominee, and 2006 World Fantasy Award nominee, Lou Anders is the editorial director of Prometheus Books’ science fiction and fantasy imprint Pyr, as well as the editor of the anthologies Swords & Dark Magic (coedited with Jonathan Strahan, Eos, June 2010), Fast Forward 2 (Pyr, October 2008), Sideways in Crime (Solaris, June 2008), Fast Forward 1 (Pyr, February 2007), FutureShocks (Roc, January 2006), Projections: Science Fiction in Literature & Film (MonkeyBrain, December 2004), Live Without a Net (Roc, 2003), and Outside the Box (Wildside Press, 2001). In 2000, he served as the Executive Editor of Bookface.com, and before that he worked as the Los Angeles Liaison for Titan Publishing Group. He is the author of The Making of Star Trek: First Contact (Titan Books, 1996), and has published over 500 articles in such magazines as The Believer, Publishers Weekly, Dreamwatch, DeathRay, free inquiry, Star Trek Monthly, Star Wars Monthly, Babylon 5 Magazine, Sci Fi Universe, Doctor Who Magazine, and Manga Max. His articles and stories have been translated into Danish, Greek, German, Italian, and French. Visit him online at www.louanders.com.

  Table of Contents

  Cover Page

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Contents

  The Golden Age

  Cleansed and Set in Gold

  Where Their Worm Dieth Not

  Secret Identity

  The Non-Event

  Avatar

  Message from the Bubblegum Factory

  Thug

  Vacuum Lad

  A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows

  Head Cases

  Downfall

  By My Works You Shall Know Me

  Call Her Savage

  Tonight We Fly

  A to Z in the Ultimate Big Company Superhero Universe (Villains Too)

  About the Editor