We Could Be Heroes 2

by Harmon Cooper

  But it was nothing like his sense of smell.

  It was much subtler, and Sam nearly cried tears of joy at the table as he looked at all the delicious food in front of them, his mouth watering. Zoe was already filling her plate, while Helena was waiting politely for Sam to start.

  “Well?” Helena asked.

  “I can’t wait to fucking eat,” Sam said, stabbing his knife into a slice of cheese in front of him.

  “No, not yet,” Ozella said. “We have to test the other abilities as well.”

  “Why?” Sam asked, practically drooling now.

  “Because we haven’t tested them in this environment,” Ozella explained. “Now power up your sense of sight.”

  “Ozella, I already know what that’s going to be like. Let me just eat. Please. It has been way too long,” he said, barely able to contain himself amidst all that yummy food.

  “Okay, how’s this?” Ozella asked. “Eat a little first, and then power up your sense of sight and taste, to see how strong it is.”

  “No way,” Sam said, going for the piece of cheese, enjoying the hell out of it. “No way. I can taste everything I need to taste now. And it tastes so good. So good!”

  Sam dropped his knife and used his hand to pick up a slice of meat, a dozen images coming to him at once. The animal’s life, how it was slaughtered, the butcher who made the cut. Sam dropped the meat almost immediately.

  “I think I should just use the silverware for now,” he said, reaching for his fork.

  “You think?” Zoe asked, already working on the salad she had thrown together. “Just because you can eat again doesn’t mean you have to shovel food into your mouth.”

  “She’s not wrong,” said Helena. “We have some work to do tonight, and we don’t need you to be too full. So mind yourself.”

  “So you want me to go easy on it, is that what you’re telling me?” Sam asked with his mouth full of meat and cheese.

  “I think that’s the best idea,” Helena said, her right eye starting to morph into a spinning bullseye. “Don’t eat too much, Sam.”

  Chapter Nine: In the Ghetto

  (Zoe shares a glimpse of her childhood.)

  Sam Meeko hung back, letting Zoe scramble off into the alley.

  The tiger girl was in her element now, suited up, her hood on her head, a similar hood to Sam’s aside from the two tiger ears poking out of it. She was the one who had chosen the location, an area known for its urban blight, urban warfare, urban desolation.

  Sam could sense Ozella on his left, the woman in the superhero schoolgirl uniform watching intently as Zoe disappeared. Helena was on his right, a distracted look on her face as she dealt with something involving her company.

  Courteous as ever, Helena had warned them that she might have to send off some messages, and every time she did so she excused herself.

  Even with the distraction, one sniff in her direction and Sam could tell that she was slightly aroused, something he had noticed the first time they had done something daring, back when they had rescued Zoe from the warehouse.

  Interesting.

  How could just a few days ago feel like eons? The four of them star-crossed, even if Sam and Zoe’s former relationship had petered out. From zero to hero. Understatement of the year.

  That desire, though.

  Although Sam sensed that he would get some booty later, he couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to reunite with his ex.

  In her tiger form?

  Why the hell not? Sam was down to get down, not the most experimental in the sack, but definitely willing to throw something wild into the mix.

  “Stop…” Sam whispered to himself, canceling this thought.

  He was probably just horny; it happened to the best of them, male, female, non-binary alike, everyone’s juices wet every now and then. So for the time being, he planned to focus on the mission at hand, which was to gather some information.

  He could deal with his desires the old-fashioned way, and besides, he really didn’t want to screw things up with Helena. She was way too awesome.

  The four would-be heroes were in a sketchy part of Centralia, a straight up war zone where rival gangs squatted in old row houses, windows were boarded up, and families moved out as soon as they could afford to. A place where shadows were overreaching, omnipresent, the sad tale of Centralia’s non-exemplar working class carved into the crumbled sidewalks.

  It was one of the only areas of Centralia that looked like this. There were some other border zones that were less than ideal, but even a country as grand as Centralia needed an entrance to its underbelly, and the Army Oaks region served as the gate, its residents the gatekeepers.

  “Looking lost,” a man with a limp barked over at them.

  If he had been standing there just a few moments ago, Sam wouldn’t have seen him. The man was practically made of shadows, the creepy guy licking his lips, eyeballing Ozella and Helena.

  “We’re fine,” Helena told him politely. “But thank you for asking.”

  “A pretty girl like yourself doesn’t usually end up in these parts, unless she is looking for something. Tell me, little mama, are you looking for something?”

  “Actually, we are,” Helena said, turning to him, her eye twisting into a red bullseye. “We’re looking for information about vampires. Does that mean anything to you?”

  “Vampires?” the man glanced around for a moment, as if there were a friend prepared to step out of the shadows and join him. “I damn sure hope there aren’t any vampires around here!”

  “He doesn’t know anything,” Sam said, looking to Ozella for confirmation.

  “Lobby Robson. Known trigger points? Talking about his family. Exemplar or Non-exemplar? Non-exemplar. Astrological sign? Mortem. Known lovers and sexual preferences? Lobby has erectile dysfunction, but he tries on occasion to visit a prostitute to see if he can get it back up.”

  “That’s not quite the information we’re looking for,” Sam told Ozella, trying not to laugh. If she could only see the conviction in her face as she rattled off her information, maybe she would see why he found it funny.

  “Sorry, I was just reading off what I was seeing,” she said. “But I don’t think he knows anything.”

  “I’ve already established that,” Helena reminded Ozella. “Lobby, why don’t you run off now and get to bed early tonight. I want you to see the doctor about your erectile dysfunction. Don’t be ashamed; there’s medication for that.”

  “How do you know he doesn’t already take medication?”

  Helena shrugged. “You take medication?”

  “Just a blood thinner at night,” Lobby said. “Heart doctor said it was helpful.”

  “Great…” Sam turned to the alley that Zoe had disappeared into. His nostrils flared, and he tried to cut through all the scent memories that came to him.

  The air seemed thicker here, polluted in a way, a haze to everything that was unlike the other parts of Centralia. Looking up Sam saw a light on in a third story apartment, the shadows of a man and a woman fucking painted across the curtains.

  He almost jumped out of his skin when Zoe appeared to his right, telling him to follow her.

  “What about the others?”

  “Them too,” Zoe said, whistling for Helena and Ozella. Helena took quick strides as she caught up with Sam and Zoe, Ozella behind her, her skirt flapping in the wind as she matched Helena’s pace.

  Sam could have never found his way out of the alley once they got deep enough into it. But Zoe seemed at home; navigating drunks; slipping around fat prostitutes talking to each other (their bellies practically touching); stepping over a body every now and then, the person either asleep or dead; a mischievous look every time she glanced over her shoulder and saw Sam watching her.

  A man stepped out of the shadows with a knife. He grabbed Ozella and brought it to her throat, his free hand falling onto her tit. “Fuck, we got a busty one here,” he called out, two other men appearing on a fire e
scape and quickly lowering to the ground.

  “How do you want to do this?” Zoe asked Helena, who now stood at her side.

  “Ozella?” Helena asked. The look on Ozella’s face was already morphing from fear to fury.

  The team’s statkeeper didn’t have to say anything. She didn’t have to direct Dinah, ask for assistance, or sic the ghost woman on the man holding her at knife point. Dinah was already on him, the man’s grip loosening as he fell, his blade lightly grazing Ozella’s neck.

  Springing into action, Helena performed an aerial, landing in front of one of the guys who had jumped down from the fire escape.

  He swung at her, and Helena used forward momentum to throw him into Zoe, who introduced her fists to his face in a way that instantly broke the man’s nose, and possibly some of the bones in his cheeks too.

  He fell to the ground in a heap, Sam cringing at the loud crack caused by Zoe’s fist.

  The second guy that had dropped down from the fire escape took this into consideration, along with the fact that his homeboy with the knife was passed out.

  He backed away slowly, and once he saw that they were coming after him, he took off, nearly colliding with a guy who was stepping out of the back entrance to a building, a box full of metal pipes in his arms.

  The pipes hit the ground, loud and jarring as they settled.

  “Should I try to take him out?” Sam asked, lifting his wrist guard.

  “Put that down,” Zoe said, pushing his arm down. “There are civilians around, and I know that this area isn’t like Helena’s neighborhood,” she said with some disdain in her voice, “but most of the people here are innocent. They are just living their lives, aside from the occasional thief. Come on, let’s go.”

  “You still haven’t said where we’re going,” Helena told Zoe as she caught up to her.

  Dinah had already healed Ozella’s small knife wound, both of them walking next to Sam now.

  Zoe nodded. “I’ll know when we get there.”

  ***

  “It’s not much further now,” Zoe told the group.

  “You still need to tell us a little more about where we’re going,” Helena said. “It would be nice to be a little prepared for what we’re getting into.”

  “Look, I’m from this area, well not exactly this area, but a few neighborhoods over,” Zoe told Helena, turning to her. “We’re fine.”

  There wasn’t a lot of light in the area, but Sam could see the tiger side of Zoe’s face, the beast morpher baring her teeth slightly as she waited for Helena’s response.

  “I’m aware that you grew up in an area around here,” Helena finally said.

  “Never seen a place like this before, huh? Well, stay close, not everyone will bite.”

  “Hey…” Sam started to tell Zoe.

  “Actually, I have,” Helena said. “There’s a soup kitchen and shelter not too far from here. Are you familiar with its name?”

  “No,” Zoe said.

  “It’s the Knight Soup Kitchen and Shelter. It was one of the first projects I put in place after becoming head of the Corporation. I know it’s not much, and there is more that can be done, but it’s a step in the right direction. Anyway, when I was an intern at my own company, I became fascinated with this part of Centralia. So it’s a project I am actively pursuing.”

  “I’m glad that where I come from can be part of a ‘project’ that you’re pursuing,” Zoe said, and even though she meant for this to have some bite behind it, it didn’t have as much as she would have hoped.

  It was clear from her tone, at least to Sam, that Zoe was realizing the error in assuming Helena didn’t understand Centralian poverty. Then again, Zoe had seen the worst of it, parts that Helena likely couldn’t imagine. So maybe there was some reasoning behind her defensiveness.

  “Anyway, to answer your questions, I’m looking for a gang leader,” Zoe finally said.

  “Does that mean were going to have to fight people?” Sam asked.

  “Maybe, but nothing we can’t handle.” Zoe turned to an apartment block, at least fifteen stories high, dozens of windows on each floor. “The lower-level members are the ones who fight,” she explained. “The older members are usually more engaged in preserving their legacy, and gaining territory through legal means. It’s amazing how it changes people, growing older. Many go from fighting in the streets to seeing what they can cobble together, and if they’re lucky, what they can cobble together is enough to cobble even more. I’ve never met him myself, but this should be the location of the leader of the Army Oaks gang. He’s definitely the guy we need to talk to.”

  “Will my powers be of service here?” Helena asked.

  “Most definitely.”

  “That’s them!”

  Sam turned to see the man who had run off earlier returning with a whole crew of thugs, a few of them with wrist guards, others with chains and anything they could get their hands on to cause damage.

  Ozella’s eyes went wide. “They have an exemplar!”

  “Bring Dinah out,” Helena said, activating one of her energy blades. “That should throw them off!”

  “Power-up, on,” Ozella whispered just as the men started to charge at them. Dinah appeared in all her naked glory, immediately running to the men as Ozella pointed and screamed.

  Seeing the naked woman run through their midst threw some of them off, a couple of the gang members jumping out of the way, the gravel parting as a blade created by an exemplar cut through the ground.

  Schviick!

  Dinah was sliced in half, her two halves falling to the side as Sam and his crew tried to get out of the way. But before Sam could finish cursing, and almost before he could jump, Dinah’s body started to come back together, even though it had been cut in half from head to toe.

  Moving faster than ever, Dinah jumped for the exemplar, a crazed grin on her face.

  Zoe brought her claws out, Helena flipping and kicking into her full combat dance routine. Sam aimed his wrist guard at a man with a large metal pipe, triggering the weapon and tearing the man off his feet.

  He shot down another, and another, feeling like an utter badass as he cut the gangsters down, the air filling with shrapnel, exploded bits of concrete, splintered wood.

  Of course some of them started to return fire, but by this point, Sam had taken cover behind a large mailbox, peeking around it, looking for his opening, and taking a shot.

  “Everyone get ready!” Helena called to the group. More men were approaching now from the other direction, and from the north as well, cutting through an even smaller alley. “Power-up, on!”

  They had already been over this before.

  Since Helena’s power-up didn’t differentiate between them and their assailants, Sam simply closed his eyes, cupping his hands over his face, listening as the men’s cries picked up, as the sounds of boots on concrete dissipated, everyone getting the hell out of the area.

  The shouting stopped, and after giving it another moment, Sam removed his hands and opened his eyes, slowly peeking around the mailbox with his wrist guard still aimed before him.

  In that moment he saw Zoe standing next to Helena, a hand still over her face, Ozella with both hands over her eyes, Helena with her arms cast down, her legs spread wide, her head bent forward as the carnage dissipated all around her.

  The only people left after the brief melee were those who had been injured. And it was only a moment later that they heard someone whistle from one of the balconies. Zoe looked up, her tiger ears twitching as a man called down to them.

  “What did he say?” Sam asked.

  “That’s who we’re looking for,” Zoe said as she turned to the building. “Let’s get up there.”

  Chapter Ten: Gangster-in-Chief

  (Now it’s time for some answers!)

  Acting under the assumption that it might be a trap, Vigilante Justice—boy, did it feel cool as shit calling them that—took the stairs, Sam a little winded by the time they reached the te
nth floor.

  “How should we do this?” Zoe asked as they came to the gangster in question’s floor.

  It was clear that Sam’s ex was trying to be a better team player, even though her instincts were to kick down the door, run in there, and start opening up cans of whoop-ass like they were on sale at a grocery store going out of business.

  “Let me see if I can hear anything first,” Sam said as he caught his breath. “Power-up, hearing.” Sam’s hand fell on Ozella’s shoulder for a moment as all the sounds came to him at once, a cacophony of noise ping-ponging in his skull.

  He took a lumbering step forward, hearing the low bass of the step he’d taken vibrating the bones in his foot. One more step and he figured he probably should activate his power once he got closer to the door.

  “Power-up, off.”

  Zoe couldn’t help but laugh. The tiger girl shook her head at Sam, trying to cover the fact that she thought he was cute.

  “It would probably be better to do that in the hallway, possibly in front of this guy’s door,” Helena said, stating the obvious.

  “Yep, I don’t know how many steps there are between here and there, but that was a lot louder than I thought it would be.”

  “Well, we’re in a pretty populated building, and not a very well-made one either,” Helena said, looking at the cracks in the corner. “I believe there may be some structural damage as well.”

  “Gee, you think?” Zoe said as she peeked into the hallway, making sure the coast was clear before she stepped in.

  “I’ll get ready to activate Dinah,” Ozella said.

  “I don’t know if we will need her in such close quarters,” Helena said. “Also, what you did back there was brilliant. Dinah simply appearing out of nowhere and running around naked was incredibly distracting.”

  “Thanks,” Ozella said, her cheeks growing red as she looked away from Helena.

  Zoe moved to the nicest door on the floor, crouching as Helena approached, the deadly ballerina cartwheeling one-handed over to the other side of the doorframe.