Truman glanced at me before returning his eyes to the road. “Sarcasm?”
“Maybe. I think you’re rubbing off on me.”
“You could’ve emulated my dashing good looks or my flair for modesty, but instead you’re imitating one of my worst traits. I hope you stop there. One of me is bad enough. Two would be more than the world could stand. To get back to hybristophilia, you have to remember that though humanity has moved from grunting around a fire to an age of smartphones and satellites in a relatively short amount of time, our genetic evolution hasn’t begun to catch up with our technological evolution. Our biological hardware and software are still pretty much the same as that of our cavemen ancestors. Because of that, despite their rational minds telling them it’s not a good idea, women are often viscerally attracted to big, strong, dangerous, dominant alphas. Guys like that were great to have around when you needed protection from saber-toothed tigers and the other scary predators that stalked around in prehistory. Those guys and their dangerous, violent impulses are less great to have around in modern society where the ability to program a computer is more important than being able to lift a log or outrun a bear. A lot of the guys who would be tribe chieftains tens of thousands of years ago because they were the biggest, baddest guys around are thugs and criminals now.”
“Do you know how fast bears can run?” I interjected. “I used to see black bears every now and then back in South Carolina, and that got me interested in them. They can get up to thirty-five miles an hour for short distances. Grizzlies are even faster. I doubt even the fastest of cavemen could outrun a bear.”
“Don’t interrupt my theorizing with facts. I’m giving you a brilliant theory that explains attraction and human sexuality, and you’re going all Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom on me.”
“Mutual of what?”
Truman sighed. “Sometimes I forget how young you are. They shouldn’t let people become Heroes until they’ve lived through at least four Presidents and sprouted a couple of gray hairs. Maybe then you all would understand my references.”
We passed a bright street light which illuminated the interior of the car for a few seconds. Truman’s shirt was tight around his big chest and arms. I wondered if he needed to get his shirts specially tailored to accommodate his musculature. Though Truman was dressed like a cowboy turned businessman out for a night on the town, a faint air of menace clung to him. Even when he was doing something as pedestrian as driving a car, something about Truman made you think he was capable of violence at any moment, like he was a coiled spring. That air of potential violence, combined with Truman’s battered face and scars, made him seem more than just a little dangerous. He reminded me a little of Antonio that way.
“No offense,” I said, “but you’re a pretty scary looking guy yourself. Like Antonio, you look like half a caveman. And yet you’re not a murderous piece of crap like him.”
“True. Then again, I’m more like Antonio and people like him than I’d care to advertise. Frankly, I think I have to be. We’re Heroes. To protect society from Antonio and people like him, sometimes we must act more like them than we want to. If you’re the sheep dog charged with protecting the sheep, you can’t simply appeal to the wolf’s better nature when he comes around to jack the sheep. If you do, you’re going to wind up with a lot of dead sheep on your hands. Wolves don’t have a better nature. They’re wolves. You can’t lecture or shame or guilt them into behaving like Golden Retrievers. The only thing they understand is a good, hard bite.”
Truman’s words lightened a bit the guilty load I’d been carrying over Hannah’s death. “So you think I did the right thing by confronting Antonio.”
“Oh no. That was incredibly stupid. You pissed into the wind, and now it’s blowing back into your face. Hannah’s face actually, which is infinitely worse. You voluntarily signed up for risking death when you donned a Hero’s cape. She didn’t.”
So much for lightening the load. “Thanks for sugarcoating it for me.”
“If you want sugarcoating, go to a confectioner instead of asking me. Look, I get that your heart was in the right place when you went to Antonio’s apartment to try to scare him away from Hannah, but if you had looked before you leapt, you might have realized that a guy like Antonio wasn’t going to take a threat lying down and just meekly do as you told him to do. If you had looked into Antonio’s background before confronting him, you might have seen that a guy with Antonio’s history wouldn’t back down. He’s a professional tough guy. Ninety percent of being a tough guy is making sure everyone thinks you’re a tough guy. Otherwise, no one’s going to fear you and do what you tell them. A guy like Antonio won’t meekly take his ball and go home when you punch him. His first instinct is to punch somebody back. You and your friend Myth weren’t available, so Antonio punched back at Hannah instead. Since Hannah was already Antonio’s personal punching bag before you lit the match to Antonio’s powder keg, it shouldn’t have been hard to guess that would happen.”
I already had been feeling lower than a snake’s belly about Hannah’s death. I felt lower still after Truman’s mini-lecture. Perhaps sensing my mood, Truman added, “With that said, try not to beat yourself up too much. You made a mistake. In this business, mistakes come with the job. Hell, they come with being human. Unfortunately, because we have superpowers, our mistakes often have outsized consequences. You’re young still, and new at this. You’ll learn. Once you know better, you can do better. Assuming you don’t get yourself killed beforehand.”
“You’re saying if I dodge death long enough, I’ll start having a better idea of what the right thing to do is. Great. Very inspirational. You should quit the detective business and take up motivational speaking.” I was annoyed, but more at myself than at Truman. I knew he was right. “Have you made mistakes that have gotten someone killed?”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
“How did you cope with it?”
“Well, one time it happened I consulted with Dr. Feelgood. He prescribed a strict diet of vodka for breakfast, scotch for lunch, bourbon for dinner, and beer for the in-between times when I got thirsty.”
“I see. Did drinking help?”
“In the short term, yes. But drinking is like taking a painkiller when you’ve got cancer—it dulls the pain, but doesn’t cure the underlying cause. So in the long term, no. In fact, it made things worse. Drinking led me to make yet another mistake that resulted in another death. It’s why I stopped. Guilt is a powerful motivator.”
“You know how I’m feeling, then.”
“I do.”
I felt like a weak swimmer about to drown in a sea of guilt. It was almost more than I could stand. “When does the guilt go away?”
Truman was silent for a moment. “It doesn’t,” he said frankly. “Time dulls the sharp edges of it, but you still carry it around inside of you the rest of your life. Like herpes.”
Fantastic.
I changed the subject before the impulse to slam my head through the windshield became too much to resist. “If Heroes and people like Antonio are just different sides of the same coin as you say, then what’s the difference between them and us?”
“We don’t kill. It’s what separates us from them. But to be honest, if the dominos of my life had fallen a little differently, perhaps I’d be just like Antonio. After my family was killed, I certainly was on the path toward being like Antonio before I met a Hero named Zookeeper. He helped keep me on the straight and narrow. He sponsored my admission to the Trials, as a matter of fact.”
“Your family was killed too?” I had already told Truman about Dad’s murder at the hands of Iceburn. “By a supervillain?”
Truman smiled grimly.
“Unless that supervillain’s name is Jack Daniels, no,” he said. “My father drove drunk with my mother and sister in the car. He plowed into a tree, killing all of them. I was fourteen at the time.”
“That’s terrible. I’m so sorry.”
“Why be sorry? It’
s not like you poured the liquor down his throat.” Truman shrugged. “Besides, it was a long time ago.”
In my mind’s eye, I saw Dad’s charred and smoking body as clearly now as I had over three years ago when I pulled his body out of the fire set by Iceburn. I couldn’t imagine that image ever fading or losing its grievous luster. Sadness whirled with anger inside of me, a potent cocktail of emotions over wrongs both past and present. “I don’t think it matters how long ago it happened,” I said.
Silence.
“You’re right,” Truman said. “It doesn’t.” Truman’s voice was uncharacteristically subdued. Then, the moment passed, like a swiftly moving dark cloud getting out of the way of the sun. “On the other hand, what kind of superhero doesn’t have a tragic backstory? The Flash, Batman, Superman, Spider-Man, Daredevil, you and me. We’re in good company.”
“Yeah, we’re all orphans. What a fantastic thing to have in common.”
“It’s better to light a candle instead of cursing the darkness,” Truman said. “But to go back to how women are often attracted to alpha males. That doesn’t apply to just thugs and criminals. Male Heroes get their fair share of admirers. Female Heroes too, for that matter.”
“Cape chasers,” I said, using the common vernacular for people who were Hero groupies. “Or for women specifically, sometimes Hero hags.” There was another two-word alliterative phrase that began with the word “cape” and ended with a vulgar word for female genitalia that was also often was used to describe women who were obsessed with Heroes. I was too much a product of the genteel South to actually say that phrase aloud, though. If I did, my mother would likely crawl out of her grave to wash my mouth out with soap.
“Exactly. In fact, there’s even a website called Hero Hags. Ever checked it out?”
“My friend Myth has told me about it, but no.”
“The next time you’re feeling low, you should look at it. Ever since you became active in Astor City, there’s a section dedicated to you, just as there are sections devoted to just about every Hero who’s in the public spotlight. Fan art, fan fiction, comments on your adventures, that sort of thing.” Truman grinned. “There’s even a growing collection of erotica describing your . . . how shall I say? . . . exploits. The gist of it seems to be that your powers aren’t the only thing about you that are super.” He made a big show of looking over to my lap. His teeth flashed in the city’s lights as his grin got wider. “If what I’ve read is true, it’s amazing you’re able to walk without tripping over that thing.”
My face got hot with embarrassment. I didn’t doubt the truth of what Truman said. Ever since I had donned a costume, I had noticed that women had reacted to me much differently as Kinetic than they did when I was just plain old Theo. The first time I had noticed it was during my Apprenticeship when a woman I had just saved from being assaulted near D.C.’s Union Station had flirted with me. I had been so clueless about women at the time that I hadn’t even realized she had been flirting. I was more worldly now about women than I had been then. That wasn’t saying much. I was no Casanova. After all, I still had only slept with one woman. Even so, when women flirted with me now, I usually realized it. They only seemed to do it when I was dressed as Kinetic. That told me that they were attracted more to the costume and what it represented than to the guy in the costume. It only served to make me more heartsick for Neha, who knew the guy behind the mask.
Truman slowed, and pulled into a parking spot on the street. We were now deep in Dog Cellar, in a part of it I had never been to before.
“I said before I’ve been a busy beaver,” Truman said. “Speaking of busy beavers, we’re here.” He pointed to the building across the street.
As naive about women as I still was, even I knew the building housed a strip club. I would have to be blind, stupid, and raised in a cave to think otherwise. The windowless, two-story building was painted a garish hot pink. The club’s name, Areola 51, flashed in bright neon lights above the illuminated outline of a naked women with massive breasts and buttocks. A cluster of pink bulbs represented her areolae. Classy. “Girls, Girls, Girls,” was also lit up in flashing lights on the left front of the building, as were the words “All Nude, All the Time” on the right side. Two big beefy guys identically dressed in jeans and black leather jackets checked people’s IDs before they passed through the front door. The front of the club and the customer line extending from it were lit up like an airfield compared to the surrounding darkness.
“That’s a strip club,” I said to Truman in disbelief.
“It is. That’s a deduction worthy of Hercule Poirot. Are you sure you’re not a detective?”
“If this is your idea of a joke, it’s not funny. I’m interested in finding out what Mechano has against me and how to deal with him, not in ogling a bunch of strippers.”
“Why not do both and kill two birds with one stone? Considering all the bare breasts across the street, I almost said ‘Kill two boobies with one stone,’ but I didn’t know if you know that a booby is a type of bird in addition to a female body part. I hate to waste a booby pun on the ignorant.”
Despite the fact Truman was a lot bigger than I, I was tempted to punch him. “I’m paying you to help me, not make stupid puns.”
“I am helping you. The puns I throw in for free.” Truman jerked his chin toward Areola 51. “The Meta I told you about works here. Her name is Cassandra. She’s a clairvoyant whose powers allow her to answer any question asked of her. But, she can only answer one question per person, so choose your question wisely. Short of asking Mechano directly, asking her is the quickest way to find out what Mechano’s beef with you is.”
“This Cassandra is a stripper?” I couldn’t believe my ears.
“She sure ain’t a nun. If she is, she’s doing it wrong.”
“What kind of licensed Hero works as a stripper?” The answer came to me before Truman opened his mouth to respond. “She’s not a Hero, is she?”
“Nope.”
“Were you drunk the day they taught you in your Heroic training that suborning the use of powers by a non-licensed Meta is a felony? If we were doing our jobs as Heroes, we’d be taking Cassandra into custody for unauthorized superpower use instead of consulting with her.”
“This from the guy who illegally entered Antonio’s apartment and beat him up.”
“And look how well that turned out. I’m trying to learn from my mistakes.”
“Look,” Truman said, “I get that you were taught to follow the rules. And that’s a good thing as the rules are there for a reason, to keep those of us with powers in check. But if you follow the rules all the time, you’ll find yourself outmaneuvered by the people who aren’t as scrupulous as you are. Look at Mechano. ‘Try repeatedly to kill a young Meta named Theodore Conley’ is hardly an entry in the How To Be A Hero handbook. If you really want to find out what the deal is with a Hero as prominent and powerful as Mechano, you’re going to have to do what you’ve got to do. What was it Machiavelli wrote in The Prince? ‘Any man who tries to be good all the time is bound to come to ruin among the great number who are not good.’ Besides, Cassandra isn’t using her powers to hurt people. If she were, I’d be the first person to turn her in to the Guild and the USDMA. She uses her powers to help people by answering their questions. Well, and to enrich herself. She readily admits the latter motivates her more than the former, but I can hardly blame her for that. She’s a businesswoman, not a Hero.”
I sighed. I had already broken a bunch of rules since my powers manifested: using my powers without being licensed to defeat Iceburn; cheating during the Trials; and beating up Antonio. There were probably other little things here and there I’d forgotten. Though breaking the rules had seemed to be the best thing to do at the time I broke them, I wanted to get to the point where I walked the straight and narrow path. I didn’t want to do something like what I had done to Antonio that would lead to someone else getting hurt or killed. I wanted to be the kind of Hero I thought ever
yone with powers was when I was a kid. Maybe Truman was right, though. Maybe, to be effective, you couldn’t follow the rules all the time. But how far over the line was too far?
I shoved the thought aside. Cassandra was the only lead I had gotten since moving to Astor City on how to find out what Mechano had against me. Tonight, I’d do what I had to do. I’d try to walk the straight and narrow path tomorrow.
I said, “I’m not sure what to make of someone who makes a boob pun one minute, and then quotes Machiavelli the next.”
“I’m eclectic.”
“That’s one word for it. Weird is another. So how does this whole thing with Cassandra work? Do I just walk up to her and ask her about Mechano while trying to not stare at her breasts? That sounds way too easy. The asking part, not the staring part.” Since I had seen exactly one woman naked in person, namely Neha, not staring would probably be the hard part. I flushed at the thought. And it was likely to not be the only hard part.
“That’s because it is too easy,” Truman said. “Cassandra will only tell you what you want to know if you’re willing to pay the price for the information. Nothing in life is free. On that note, I hope you brought the money I asked you to. Unlike me, Cassandra doesn’t take checks. She’s not as trusting as I am. Or as attractive, depending on your glandular bias.”
“I did.” Between paying Truman and Cassandra, my savings were taking sizable hits. If the money got results, though, I didn’t mind. “Why can I only ask one question? If this lady has the power you say she does, she could tell me where Antonio is in addition to what the situation is with Mechano.”
“For the same reason you have to move your hands when you activate your powers and I can’t turn water into wine despite how hard I’ve tried.” Truman shrugged. “Everyone’s powers have limits. I don’t know why that’s so, I just know that it is. I’m a detective, not a scientist specializing in Metahuman powers.”
“How did you know I have to move my hands when I activate my powers? I never told you that.”
Omega Superhero Box Set Page 60
