Omega Superhero Box Set

by Darius Brasher

  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. When you come in tomorrow, be sure to remind me exactly what those talents of yours are. I can’t remember.”

  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 lined 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 from 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 telekineti
c 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 barely suppressed dread I had felt on my way here 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. I closed the door behind me with my powers.

  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. 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 was 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.

  There was also a gaping hole, bigger than a softball, right under Hannah’s ribcage. Even from across the room, through her charred flesh, I caught a glimpse of the wall behind her.

  “Oh my God!” I exclaimed. As the condo was silent as a tomb, my voice sounded like a yell.

  I quickly floated over to Hannah. I hovered in the air in front of her. Though the hole in her torso and the paleness of her skin made it obvious it was an exercise in futility and wishful thinking, I ran my telekinetic touch over her body to check for a pulse. I felt like a filthy necrophiliac. My stomach churned threateningly. My mouth filled with saliva. I tasted bile in the back of my throat. I swallowed, willing myself to not throw up.

  There was, of course, no pulse. The muscles of Hannah’s body were stiff. Rigor mortis. Though I was no coroner, I knew enough about how the human body decomposed to know that Hannah’s stiffness indicated I was hours and hours too late for there to be a pulse. Today was Friday. Isaac and I had confronted Antonio in the wee hours of Wednesday morning. The extent of the rigor mortis indicated Hannah probably died sometime Wednesday.

  Hannah’s face was bruised and puffy. There were abrasions and dried blood on her neck and arms. There was so much blood, it looked like magma oozing out of an erupting earth. Blood splatters were on her shirt, like a white canvas paint had been repeatedly flicked on. The edges of the shirt surrounding the hole in her abdomen were charred, like the charred edges formed if you held a piece of paper over a lit candle.

  Hannah’s lifeless eyes stared at me. They seemed almost accusatory. Her skin, normally a light golden brown, was deathly pale. Except for her legs. Her legs were a dull mottled crimson. Livor mortis, the fourth stage of death that followed rigor mortis. It happened when the heart stopped pumping and gravity pulled on the blood’s red cells to make them pool in the bottom of the body. The next stage was putrefaction, where Hannah’s body would break down and her organs would liquify. From ashes to ashes, from dust to dust.

  On the wall above where Hannah’s body sat, there was a pattern at about eye level that marred the otherwise pristine eggshell white color. In the center of the pattern was a scorch mark. Around that black and brown scorch mark was dried blood and a yellowish-green discoloration. The colors trailed down from the largest part of the pattern down to Hannah’s body. Bits of Hannah’s black hair and something that reminded me of cooked liver dotted the pattern. I realized the stuff was bits of Hannah’s flesh and organs.

  Antonio must have done this. It had to have been him. What were the chances of a vicious Metahuman with energy-based powers who wasn’t Antonio beating Hannah up and then killing her right after I had a run-in with Antonio? Close to zero.

  It was all my fault.

  Though I was no crime scene investigator, I didn’t need to be one to figure out what had happened. The scene played out in my mind’s eye like a horror movie. At some point after I beat up on him, Antonio came here to confront Hannah, thinking she had put me up to it. Hannah denied it. Antonio didn’t believe her. The frustration I had seen in his eyes after I had beaten him he had turned on Hannah. They fought. Antonio knocked her around. Then, perhaps in anger, perhaps on cold-blooded purpose, he had spat one of his Metahuman energy balls at her. The blast from it had flung Hannah through the air, just as it had done to me and Isaac. The difference was Hannah didn’t have one of my force fields to protect her. She had slammed into the wall, with the ball of energy boring a hole through her insides. She had hit the wall with such force that the television was jarred from its mountings. Hannah had then slid to the floor, like a discarded doll a child didn’t want to play with anymore. Antonio then left, not bothering to lock the door behind himself.

  It was all my fault.

  The hate-filled glare Antonio had given me before Isaac and I left his apartment loomed up my memory. Since Antonio had not known who I was and therefore couldn’t do anything about me, he had turned his hate onto Hannah instead. If I had not gone to his place to confront him, none of this would have happened. I was as responsible for Hannah’s death as Antonio was. No, I was even more responsible for her death than he was. Antonio was a piece of shit. Shit was supposed to stink. I was a Hero. I was supposed to know better. To be better.

  I had intended to help Hannah, to save her from Mad Dog’s abuse. I had instead killed her, just as surely as if I had done the deed myself. If I had reported Mad Dog to the authorities as an unregistered Metahuman like I was supposed to and he had been arrested, Hannah would still be alive. If I hadn’t gone to Mad Dog’s house in the first place, Hannah would still be alive.

  It was all my fault.

  Hannah’s dead eyes still stared at me accusatorily. I couldn’t bear the sight of her and what I had done to her anymore. I turned away in midair, sick at heart and sick to my stomach. The movement stirred the air, bringing my partially acclimated nose a fresh whiff of Hannah’s body. It pushed my stomach over the edg
e. It churned like an erupting volcano. My throat burned. I threw up so hard, it felt like the vomit was coming from my feet instead of my belly. Fortunately, I had the presence of mind to activate a force field to avoid contaminating the crime scene. The first thing I’d done right in a while. My force field caught all the foulness as it surged out of me. The sharp stench of it mingled with the smell of decay and death.

  I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. I had thrown up more than I thought humanly possible. My teeth felt fuzzy, my throat raw, my mouth acrid. My nose ran. I tried hard to not cry. My blurred vision turned the vomit floating in the air in front of me into something out of an impressionist painting. It looked the way I felt. Perhaps I’d call it Portrait of a Young Man as a Friend-Killing Loser.

  Some Hero I was.

  8

  I floated near Hannah like a deflated helium balloon for several eternal minutes, full of sorrow and self-loathing and self-pity. With an effort, I tried to shake off this waking nightmare. Moping here wasn’t doing anyone any good. Certainly not me, and most definitely not Hannah. She was gone. Though it was my fault and my responsibility, there was nothing I could do about the fact she was dead now.

  A sudden surge of anger cut through my sadness like a hot knife through butter. I felt a stab of pain in my hands. My fists had clinched so hard that my nails were digging into my skin.

  I couldn’t do anything about Hannah. There was plenty I could do to Mad Dog, though.

  I pulled out my cell phone, intending to call the police. Though I hadn’t met Hannah’s parents and didn’t know how to get into touch with them, Hannah had told me about them. They were still alive. Hannah had a brother as well. He was in graduate school somewhere. The police would track them all down and notify them of Hannah’s death. Though I was to blame for her death and by all rights should shoulder the responsibility of notifying her family, I couldn’t bear the thought of doing it. Besides, the first thing I needed to do was to find Antonio. I wanted to get to him before the police figured out he was responsible and take him into custody.