Wind roared in my ears.
Whining motors wound me forward.
Ammeters on my wrist twitched.
Petons snapped back into their launchers, jolting the motors.
Pain thrummed through my legs.
Soaring.
Swinging.
Riding a ballistic trajectory along the street.
My stomach hung at apex.
Feet forward.
The roof rose up.
My feet touched concrete at a running speed, a jolt running up through my bones. I stumbled, running forward to catch myself, arms forward to stop the fall.
A whirring air-conditioner condenser did the job for me, clattering against the left spool, digging into my ribs.
Third time lucky so. A scrappy landing, but no broken bones or twisted ankles, just another ache in my chest where the corner of the condenser had jabbed.
I called it a pass, just to keep moving.
A moment’s rest let me catch my breath, building the nerve to go again. My batteries still had a good charge. The phone found a good signal from a nearby mast. My legs had taken the worst of it, but I could, as they say, deal.
I walked to the parapet, picking my route across the street to apartment block on the far side. A few steps back gave me a runup. My heart stopped as I jumped, ten stories above hard concrete.
The ground rushed up.
I aimed my body.
A twitch on the triggers fired both petons.
Motors whined as they spooled out cable under power, keeping the weight off the flying peton.
Both latched onto glass, van-der-waals forces locking them in place.
Flicking two switches reversed the spools. A jerk at my waist pulled me forward, turning an accelerating fall into a turning swing.
I forced myself to look at my target, ignoring the traffic flashing below. Don’t look at what you don’t want to hit.
A camera strobed.
Caught.
Fuck.
Fuck it anyway I’m in costume.
Leaning into the strap pulled me away from the wall, a thumbed adjustment to the motors turning me parallel to the street.
Full power pulled me upwards, swinging up in a tight arc into the vertical, accelerating under electric power.
Two red switches released the petons, spools revving up with a shriek.
Momentum carried my body in what could almost pass as a graceful arc to a position barely a meter above the building roof.
For the first time, I landed on the first try.
My legs hated me for it. Pain shot up from my ankles, ringing in my knees.
I pushed on, too focused on the basic practicality of moving to think about anything else.
With a few weeks dedicated practice, some parkour lessons from a good traceur and maybe a new pair of legs from a random act of Panacea, I could see myself actually achieving a fluid rhythm with the gear.
On my first night out it took five hours to make the half hour journey.
I leave it up to yourself to do the sums.
Five. Bloody. Hours.
Barely able to walk, I chanced a few minutes rest, pacing slowly to keep muscle from going stiff. Every step crushed my knees in a vice.
I could take it. My legs couldn’t, but I could.
Pacing the roof gave me time to think, time to clear my head. Ideas sparkled in my mind, little hints of ways that my gear could be improved. Step one, something to take the shock of landing and running off my legs…
Maybe another time.
The phone rang in my ear. Step 2 on the road to heroism; get Solid Snake’s codec as a ringtone.
“Akiko…” I said.
“You made it,” her voice answered. “That looked awesome.”
Of course it did, she got the edited version where everything went right first time, rather than the other four and a half hours left on time’s cutting room floor.
“Yeah,’ I breathed, my voice pulling tight as another lightning pain shot up my leg.
I pushed myself to keep walking, step by step.
“Anything on the scanner?”
“No police,” she said.
Good.
“Nothing to do but wait then.”
“Call’s messing with the stream, hang up.”
‘Right, right.”
Nothing to do but wait. And wait.
And watch the clock grind past midnight, second by second. Breath by breath. Heartbeat by heartbeat. My mouth parched. My body soaked. My legs ached. My mind spun through possibilities.
How do I fight her?
Why am I really doing this?
I shook it off. Down that road lay madness. I’m doing it because if I don’t, Sophia’ll force me. She’ll take it out on my friends. Now I’ve backup. I’ve friends. I’m going into this with open eyes and…
Wham!
It bolts through my knee, kicking me off my feet with a scream of pain that cut through the knee. Landing hard on metal, I catch myself with both hands having just enough presence of mind to look for where the attack had come from.
A body, formed in black, silhouetted by red light, aiming at me.
That was quick. I used to be a cape too, but then I took an arrow to the knee….
My power triggered and I spun to face he. Something popped in my knee, a bite of pain shooting up the muscle. I stepped through it, swallowing it down. The glint of an arrowhead drew my eyes to the crossbow aimed at where I had been standing.
She stood there, a human whisp of smoke backlit by the neon glow of a Budweiser ad. The light filtered through the particles of her body, shimmering as she stepped forward. A shadow coalesced on the rooftop, expanding from her feet as her body turned solid, reaching forward to touch me.
That randian sneer turned to face me
‘I knew it,” the mask hissed.“Precog, huh? Some sort of spider-sense?”
My Power gave me some headspace to think, to come up with something better than ‘You shot me’, something that didn’t give too much away.
“You read comics?”
No answer.
She stepped to the side, making to circle around, her steps singular and tense, giving a moment to pounce between each. The crossbow aimed at my mask. Energy crackled across the back of my neck, begging to turn and run. Muscles in my body pulled tight, asking to fight.
I stood my ground. Running gives the predator what they want. It triggers the instinct and starts the chase.
“You going to shoot me?”
The mask’s expression didn’t change. Reset. Try again. Something that gives me more control.
She circled. She raised her crossbow again. I raised my blade to guard, again.
“You going to try shoot me?”
“Not yet,” she answered, her voice calm and even.
A threat?
Both blades sparked blue lightning off each other, a friendly reminder that I had options too.
She paused mid-stride, betraying a moment’s hesitation. I saw the thought. ‘He could hurt me with those’.
She could be faster. She had range. But I could dodge. She had the energy advantage, but I had the awareness. She had the backup, I had video evidence. She had skill, I had size.
I had a weapon that’d fucking damage her if I took the chance and made it stick. She knew I’d take it too. The blades might be blunt pieces of steel, but enough weight moving fast enough against the tip would deal some bloody pain.
She’d probably win the fight. I just had to make the risk of losing high enough to not make it worth the effort. You might be the predator, the panther circling around, but this fucking bull’s got horns big enough to hurt if you fuck it up. Ones I haven’t even shown her yet.
I’m missing something, amn’t I?
I held one blade across my body, with another in-front, aimed at her. She circled, keeping her crossbow between myself and her body. I put a blade between myself and her, stepping forward. The other held by my side, ready for a follow through.
“What do you want?”
“Same thing you do.”
It sounded like an accusation.
“I doubt that,”
“No. I’m right,” she said. The mask hid the smirk I could hear on her lips. “You wouldn’t be here in costume if you didn’t want it. You wouldn’t have hurt yourself to get here…”
The crossbow aimed at my knee. I put the other leg in front of it.
“You’re going to have to fill me in,”
I played dumb.
“You’re the genius, you figure it out.”
Fuck’s sake.
“I thought you were trying to trap me. Stitch me up as the newest villain in town.”
“I thought about it,” she said, her voice dangling the possibility that maybe she’s still thinking about it. “But they’d just suck you into the Wards anyway and then they’d either brainwash it out of you in San Diego, or stick you in some shithole like Madison where you won’t cause trouble. That’d be a waste.”
Didn’t tell me anything.
My Power set me back. The crossbow aimed at my knee. She doesn’t want me in the Wards. She doesn’t want to frame me either – she wanted something about me…
Plink. The penny dropped.
‘You want to work with me?”
“Got it in one,”
She almost sounded impressed.
“Why?”
“Because of all the rogues in this city, you're the only one who really gets it.”
“What the fuck is it?” I snapped at her.
“What it means to be a survivor. To stand up and fight for the last breath, no holds barred. Real life or death. You or him. I saw it, in your eyes.”
My blood chilled. She knew…
“When you get right down to it, none of the Wards will do that. Too concerned about public opinion to do what needs to be done.”
Something rang deep inside me. I snorted it down, borrowing a Tattletale-line from an old fanfic I remembered. “Did you have the snail dream too?”
Her head turned. “Snail dream?”
“I saw a Snail, crawling along the edge of a straight razor. This is my dream. This is my nightmare. Crawling along the edge of a straight razor, and surviving.”
“If you actually read biology, you'd know the snail doesn't care. It can deal.”
Somebody’s not a fan of the classics, then. Even after I went through all the trouble of matching Brando’s delivery. I folded my arms.
“Answer’s No.”
Because seriously, that’s the answer I’m supposed to give, isn’t it?
“And why not?”
As if it’d be the most natural thing in the world.
Shouldn’t it be obvious? I mean really?
“Because I trust you about as far as I can throw you, that’s why.”
“Shame,” she shrugged her shoulders. “This is your one shot at freedom. Work well enough as a rogue, the protectorate’ll leave you alone. None of the pretence. None of the bullshit. Just the freedom to act. Or you wait and let them catch up to you and become some marketer’s toy, a stuffed man with no mind of your own.”
She struck me to the core and I knew….
There it sat, all served up on a plate like roomservice, exactly what I wanted. All I had to do was say yes.
My heart stopped. Something felt wrong, right at the back of my mind, a warning screamed. A sick feeling in my stomach. A feeling of rats crawling across my skin.
Sophia’s the enemy. Sophia’s everything we hate. The apotheosis of a fandom’s impotent fury and desire to do something to help a fictional character as penance for all the times we turned our backs on real ones.
Yeah, I went there.
So….
…when Sophia bloody Hess turns around treats you as an equal, maybe it’s time to take a look in a mirror and ask what the fuck you’ve done wrong with your life.
When the shit she says makes a horrible sort of sense…when it resonates in your soul and finds some sort of home in your bones that has you listening. I know I’m supposed to disagree with her. I’m supposed to turn around and spit in the face, and turn my nose up and be the good person, But…
I needed space.
Time to get my head straight.
More than I’d get from fifteen seconds glaring at that sneering mask waiting for the answer to her offer.
An offer I couldn’t refuse. The reason I came still stood She’d push me into it if I didn’t say yes. I’d pave the first flagstone to hell if I did.
Time for a third option. A single step and a shot of pain up the bone gave it to me. Turn it back, make it her fault.
“Dealing with this bollocks fucked my legs and you know it.”
Your fault, not mine. You fucked your own golden goose. I would’ve done it if you hadn’t hurt me.
The mask considered. I held my blade, daring her to attack. She stepped forward. I stood my ground. The moment she’d moved, I’d step-back and hit first.
The crossbow aimed. I braced.
She took a step back
“I don’t need a lame duck slowing me down.” Shadow Stalker scorned. “Offer stays open until your legs heal up, or you fuck something up on your own and get swallowed by the Protectorate.”
Her body faded out with each step away, crossbow still aim at my face until nothing but a faint whisp remained, a vaporous ghost fading out like a double-exposure on an old film camera.
The phantom launched into the air, vanishing into the afterglow of the city lights.
I waited.
And waited.
Nothing.
A sigh of relief escaped my lips. The phone’s chime broke the silence in my head. A button-press answered the call.
“Wow,” Akiko’s voice said.
“You heard that?”
“Yes.”
“Fucked up, huh?”
“Yes.”
“I wish it was a fucking fight she wanted.”
She groaned. “Now we will get no subscriptions.”
What?
I growled through the mic. “So, the secret’s out,”
“Nyah~….”
“I’m going fucking home,”
“Buses have stopped.”
“Fuck sake,”
Well, I’d walked kilometres on a hurt leg before so what the fuck, I could do it again. I needed the time.
“My apartment is closer,” she suggested. “And my parents are away.”
Score! The pain in my legs retreated. Standing up again brought it back with a vengeance, grinding to the bone as muscled pulled.
One step convinced me I wouldn’t be using the manoeuvre gear to do more than get down off the roof.
Nobody saw me do a reverse-batman down the wall, thankfully. Step by step, feeding the cable out, riding the spool-motors the entire way down. The scent of hot plastic filtered through the mask, motor windings slow-cooking themselves.
Each step shot stabs and jabs up through my legs, bolting up my back. My panting breath accompanied each step, forcing myself to keep moving. I’d done it before.
I could do it again. No big deal.
One foot in front of the other. Step by step, black cold concrete passing underfoot.
Tapping that memory tapped everything that came with it. The hunger. The dread. The desperation. The reminder that objects in the rear view mirror were always closer than they appeared.
You or him, she said.
Him….
The image of that man, tired grey eyes fixed on the brown bags I carried. The sensation of his hands grasping at my jacket, reaching for the rations, begging, attacking, pleading. A pang of hunger bites deep and I’m just so hungry and so is everyone else and I can’t stand the idea of being this hungry anymore and I want him to just fuck off and leave me alone and in a thrill of panic it just happens.
My arms swing. I hear the crack of a man’s temple and feel the shock run up my arm. He drops dead to the ground with a meaty thump, pink blood trickling from his nose. One last breath rattles through the lips and then…
Nothing.
I killed him. Dead as disco in one shot. Either the concrete or the hurley, it didn’t matter. One of them did it for him. One moment there and starving the next, dead and nothing. Stilled. Face down on the footpath. Glass eyes stared at their own reflection as my soul chilled, the realisation settling in like winter frost.
Cold and slow, clinging on in the shadow. A desolate sensation bigger than my mind, but concentrated in my body, rippling through every muscle and leaving me sick.
Not quite regret.
I don’t regret surviving.
Not quite joy.
I amn’t glad I killed him.
I still don’t know. Can it be both? What do you think?
How I felt didn’t change the fact. I killed him. I did that.
In the dark, that’s who I am.
He died.
I lived with that.
Sophia Hess saw it. She saw me in the dark and liked it. On some level, Sophia had the ugly measure of me.
How fucked up is that?
I could see my final destination. It’d happen in a flash – a moment’s panic with my back against the wall.
Trapped by time.
Trapped by circumstance.
Another bloody case of Skitter syndrome.
Alright. I can deal with that. Can I?
I think you’re laughing. You’re right too. Really, being sober, one option remained.
Salvation sat in the bay, lit up with shining searchlights reaching for the heavens screaming join the Protectorate you fucking gobshite rather than take the retarded edgelord route.
Get your shit together and go.
But when you look out over the black water of the bay and see that rig sitting there, light up as paragon of a steel Christmas tree, glimmering with manicured hope and feel nothing but sick?
You think of being hollowed out.
Being stuffed with a marketer’s branding.
Being ground against the media schedule; look good, keep up the image, be the shining paragon of hero for all the little kiddies, now, go stop Lung. Of having to work with Sophia and treat her like human being. Being close to people who might figure out my little secret.
What would you do?
That’s not for me.
That’s fucking terrifying.
What sane person wants to be a celebrity? A celebrity with a chance of death and dismemberment every Thursday night. Bugs. Bombs. Behemoth.
Standing in the drizzle, I see my reflection in a pool of water on the footpath. This is who I want to be. Who, or what that is I don’t know but it feels right, right down through my bones. Fast, swift, striking, moving. Riding my Power like a motorcycle. Given time and practice, that’s what I’d be.
Almost soaring. Free. Happy.
That’s the heart of it, I think. Maybe you can understand?
So. That’s my plan. Get some space. Think it through. Because right now I'm on the road to hell and I know it. And knowing's half the battle, right? Thanks Sophia. You kept me from going to a really stupid place.
A whooping cheer congratulated me from high above. Startled, I looked up to see the source – a heeled boot attached to a lithe, toned leg extending up a pair of white panties, accelerating towards my face.
Not again.
My Power triggered.
Fifteen seconds to impact. I already had a plan. My hands tightened on both grips, checking the blades were still locked in their sheath.
I focused myself on walking, trying to play dumb, listening for the attack. Moisture fogged the inside of my goggles, sweat trickling down the bridge of my nose. My footsteps counted out the seconds, adrenaline drowing out the pain in my knees.
I looked up, raising both blades across my face.
No panties?
She hit the road instead, fragments of concrete pattering off my jacket The dust cleared, revealing Glory Girl in all her majesty, crouched in the superhero pose with her fist drilled into tarmac.
I stood, awestruck, gazing as she drew herself up to her feet, long strides of toned legs carrying her inexorably towards me with the steady tak-tak of high-heels on tarmac. A shining white leotard clung to her body the way I desperately wanted to, cheerleader’s skirt swaying with her hips as she stepped. Golden hair cascaded from her shoulders, shining white cape streaming behind her.
Crystal eyes fixed mine, staring through me.
I raised my blades, rooting myself to the ground. Fight back, my body urged. My heart raced. My trousers went taught. My feet moved. The wall behind drew closer.
“I got one name for you. Andrea Young. Ring a bell?”
Her voice hit like a slap.
My lips moved. “Who?”
“Don’t play ignorant.” She loomed, the world around her receding into the shade of her radiance. “An innocent college student. One of your boys beat her within an inch of her life this afternoon.”
I blinked. “Huh?” Caught in the spotlight, it took a moment for the penny to drop. She couldn’t have? “Do I look like a fucking Nazi?”
Dressed in black armoured leather, wearing a helmet with a flair over the neck, a pair of tinted goggles and a facemask with a filter on either side….
No, I see no resemblance. Do you?
Her arms folded beneath her chest.
“Yes.”
Ahm…How many villains happened because some overzealous hero spotted a newbie who couldn’t afford a shiny sparkly glam-metal costume or didn't like the idea of being the obvious target and decided to judge a book by its cover.
Some bloody cliché.
“Well…….” Fixed in place by that steel eyed glare, my mind struggled to find the words, any words to convince.Every impulse screamed to just nod. Gears ground, but the thought slammed home. “I amn’t alright!”
She leaned over. Looking for anything other than her iron gaze, my eyes fell down to the shadow between her breasts.
She pushed. “Then who the hell are you and what’re you doing out here?”
Ah, a ward called me out here to fuck with me and waste my time and try start some fucked up Frank Castle vigilante yoke. I wanna be a hero. I want to fight. I stopped dead, mind firing blanks, looping through ideas. Words died on my lips as she loomed large above me, crushing me down with awesome power.
“You going to say something?”
Eventually. Whenever my mouth stopped goldfishing for something to say. When the truth won’t be believed, maybe a half assed lie.
My lips moved.
“I built some stuff, came out to test it and hurt my leg,” I said, my voice gaining strength “I’m walking home because the poxy busses don’t start until four!”
“Oh….” She broke the spell, despite not taking a step, giving my mind more space to work “So why’d you try fight back then?”
“Because I had no idea who the fuck you where!” I barked.
She blinked owlishly.
“Oops,” she smirked, feigning shame while not really being sorry. My fault for not caring what I looked like, not hers for jumping to the wrong conclusion. “Tell you what .To make it up to you I’ll call my sister, she’ll fix your legs.”
Wait.
Wow.
…”Thanks.”
I guess. What else could I say?
What am I supposed to say? I stood, transfixed as she fetched a mobile from her belt pack, flicking it open. She pinned it between slender shoulder and delicate neck, waiting for it to wring though.
“Hey sis. Yeah, it’s me….. I need your help..”
A pause. She flinched.
“No, no… I missed this time.” Glory Girl almost sounded sheepish.“This one’s actually a new hero on his first night out. He hurt his leg.”
My nerves fizzled. She called me a hero.
“Well it’s not my fault. He looked like a Nazi,”
“Hey,” I protested. She held up a hand. Shush!
One arm went to her hips. “No I did not have a blonde moment. He totally asked for it dressing like that”
She scowled.
“That’s a completely false parallel and you know it.”
An exasperated sigh.
“Fine. Next time, I promise.”
The phone clasped shut in her hand and she returned it to her pocket.
“See. Told you. Sorted.”
Wow.
…”Thanks.”
I guess. What else could I say? Even the chance of having the pain in my knees just vanish after a whole year of living. It went beyond excitement and straight through to disbelief.
One single thought filtered through.
How would I explain that to my parents?You’re not half crippled anymore, how’d that happen?
Glory Girl broke into my thoughts. “So what’s your Power anyway?”
“Thinker,” I said, without thinking.
She smirked. “I can see that. Manoeuvre?”
Now, I hate to explain the joke but I realise not many of you would have the worldly experience to know this. An important thing you need to know about my native accent is that it has an atrocious habit of making ‘th’ sound like a hard ‘t’, three, sound like tree.
So, she probably heard ‘Tinker’
“Yeah,” I nodded, knocking on the metal of the spool.
She paced around, body racing to fight. “Still don’t know how you managed to see me coming I was coming in wicked fast over your shoulder…”
A sour look from her burned, like I’d hacked the game on her. Smirking inside my mask, I kept stumm.
“Still don’t know how you knew I knew.”
Her eyes zoomed in.
“You had a limp.” A finger pointed at my leg. “Then you didn’t, right after you grabbed both handles. Figured they were a weapon of some sort and you were trying to hide that you spotted me by playing cool.”
“Shit,”
You sure she’s a blonde?
“Yeah, that’s experience.”
Her chest swelled with pride. She figured that all out just by watching me? Glory Girl’d been doing this for years, of course she knew. Amazing,
“Fuck,” I said, feeling like I’d shrunk on the spot.
The phone chimed in my ear. I cancelled the call. It chimed again. I cancelled again. A text message chirped up onto the screen
:: Sugoi Sugoi…. Ne.
Glory Girl’s head snapped around. Dread rolled up inside me. “What’s that?”
The phone chirped again.
::Busted
My hand covered the screen. Tension rippled through my body, bracing for the hit. She could cartwheel a skip with a half-hearted kick and I knew it.
“I amn’t an idiot.” I ground through gritted teeth. My hands tended towards the blade handles. I caught them, getting a handle on myself. “I have a livestream camera feed going in my helmet in case something went wrong, so someone could call the Protectorate. You’ve a fan”
The smile came out forced. Her aura dimmed, easing the pressure.
“Hmmm….”She inspected me, looking for obvious lenses or cameras. I stepped back. So this is going on the internet?”
I shrugged., failing to look her in the eye “Wasn’t planning on it.”
“Too bad, …”
Another chirp brought a new message on screen.
::It is. It will now.
“You want it?”
“Sure, tag along and take some video of us nailing some Nazis”
::Sugoi [][][][][]….
The phone couldn’t display the rest.
She paced between the pools of orange light thrown down by the streetlights. I sat on a bollard in the shade, ignoring the shooting pain in my knee. Gone, just like that, all I had to do was wait.
A signing bonus for the good guys? I flexed my knee. Bones ground. Tendons screamed. It hurt so much more than it ever had before, getting its last licks in before being erased for good.
Panacea emerged from the shadows of a side-street, face shaded by the cowl of her nurses habit. She kept to the dark, lurking behind the radiance of her sister.
“What kept you?” Glory Girl asked, sounded almost exhasperated.
“The homeless,” she sighed, slipping around her sister. She took one look at me, sizing me up. I tried to stand straight. “I see what you mean.”
“I don’t look like a fucking Nazi!”
She shrugged. “Yeah. You sort of do.”
Glory Girl giggled.
“Fuck’s sake.”
Panacea’s tired eyes just glared. Heavy bags hung beneath, adding years to her face. “Just give me your hand,”
Tentatively, I pulled my sleeve back,
“Do I have your permission to heal you?”
A lump crawled up the back of my throat.
“Please,”
Sure, she only ever turned people into her willing lesbian love slaves in that one fanfic. Panacea’s fingers brushed like a live wire, energy pulsing through my whole body at once. My Power died, leaving me naked against whatever she decided to do. Tendrils of energy numbed my arm, a thrill of terror rising up as her grip firmed, spreading through my body.
Instincts begged to fight. The world shrunk away. Glory Girl went dark. Nothing remained but Panacea and me, her mind crawling over every atom of my body.
Pinpricks danced through my knees. Panacea’s jaw hinged open.
“How are you still walking?”
A nervous smile came to my lips. “One foot in front of the other, one at a time,”
Her head slowly shook. My phone chimed another message. It went unread. My knees bubbled, cords of Power tracing up and down muscles, centipedes skittering through my veins.
A gasp rose through my throat. The connection broke. Exhilarating sensation crashed back.
Then…
Nothing but the sound of my own gasping breath inside my facemask.
“That should undo the worst of it,” she said, not even looking up at me.“It’s better to heal the rest of the way naturally, or the limp will stay.”
I swallowed, hinging my knee. Stiff, tight, like I'd just spent the last hour sat on the toilet reading fanfic on my phone, but pain-free. Nothing
“Thanks.”
Panacea said nothing, looking up to her Sister, rather than bothering to listen to me. For her it was Thursday. Glory Girl stepped forward, growing in stature as she took another breath.
“Now we’re supposed to give you the speech about accountability, the value of heroism and doing the Right Thing and then offer to join, but I think it’s better to just go beat up some bad guys instead.”
That broad, shining grin on her face couple with the spark in her ice-blue eyes drew me in. I could barely nod.
Both hands went to her hips. “So what do we call you anyway?”
Ahm. Cape names are hard. Under the spotlight,my mind came up blank, offering my own name first before realising just how stupid that’d be. My hands clenched both throttles. Pulled deep from the depths of my arse the answer emerged…. Sie sind das essen, wir sind die….
“Jaeger?”
I liked it immediately.
Glory Girl rolled her eyes. “Again with the Nazi,”
“You put it into my bloody head!” I snapped.
Her broad shoulders shrugged. “It suits for tonight.”
Panacea said something, lost behind her sister. I paced, trialling my new legs, bouncing, jumping, shocking the knees, just to make sure.
A quick jog across the street, then back again, did nothing. No pain. No grinding. No aches. No bruises.
The laughter didn’t stop, half manic, half insane, almost giggling inside the mask. No black mark on my soul. No dark bargains. Just one spark of good luck that made putting on the costume worth everything.
All copacetic, like, as the locals say.
Life’s not all naval-gazing, self-deception and edgelord bollocks. Sometimes good things happen.
“So, Jaeger, let me fill you in….”
My cape-name.
The mask hid the stupid grin I wore.
----
Just following Glory Girl made everything worthwhile.
Mind, body and soul sang in harmony, the last year of my life drifting from my back as I swung through the streets. None of it mattered. The stress, the doubt…
I should’ve done this sooner.
Building to building, building confidence each time, hours of trial and error reduced by my Power to moments. Another swing ended with a bone-crunching thump.
My Power left only the ghosts of pain behind, carrying me up to next roof. Fresh legs carried me across to the next parapet, leaping into free space.
::Wer u goin?
I looked up at Glory Girl making graceful weaves through the sky.
“Following that arse.”
A draught of a sea breeze filtered through my mask, tickling inside my nostril leaving the trace of salt on my mouth. Sweat tickled down my forehead, prickling at my nose, crawling down my neck.
::700mb
Otherwise known as hurry the fuck up. Four hours me arse, it had taken fifteen minutes to eat through it all.
“Yeah, Yeah,”
At least I won’t have to worry about stumbling across Lung or something.
Another swing brought me crashing through the roof of the old Redmond Welding building, dropping into the gloom with a heartstopping scream. Shards of rust followed me into the black, my Power triggering in terror before the final splatter.
My second attempt clattered my body onto the apex of the roof, adrenaline echoes ringing. A moment’s pause let me catch my breath and plan. Rust had eaten the lower levels into steel swiss cheese, but the top of the roof above the loft had been shielded from the sea air by the bleached-pink sign looming over. Unlike the faded reminder of the city’s former glory, it almost looked new.
Dogs barked in the distance. My panting breath drowned them out. My heart drilled through my chest. Every part of me would hurt in the morning. No part of me cared.
My feet rattled the galvanised steel sheets, carrying me over the loft to the far end of the building.
I launched.
Petons latched onto the building opposite.
A fat bug cracked its guts across my goggles, followed by a second, then a third. Something pattered against my shoulder, buzzed in my ear. I didn’t swat, aiming for the building head.
A clean landing kept my momentum, kept me running.
The hulk of an old chiller gave me cover to take my goggles off and clear the guts off with the back of my glove.
::ew.
“Yeah. Downside of moving fast.”
Tipping my facemask up drained the worst of the sweat, a few wipes cleaning the worst of it.
Stiff legs carried me away, running full pelt. Sheer adrenaline swung me across the gap between buildings, putting distance between me and escalation.
Glory-Girl circled above, looking to see if I’d finally splattered myself.
Not in this timeline.
She feathered onto the roof beside me, her feet not making a sound as she touched down.
“Problem?”
My skin prickled, the weight of her aura pushing into my mind. I breathed, breaking eye contact, body at war with itself trying to sort out naked relief, the echo of terror and teenage kicks all at once.
“Nobody ever said anything about costumes being sweaty, sticky messes.”
A lie that had the benefit of being true.
“And people think we only wear this getup for PR reasons,”
She planted herself on the roof, the single-piece leotard she wore beneath her skirt stretching taught against firm muscle. Her chest swelled to the rhythm of her breathing Sweat-sheened bare skin glimmered under the electric light.
My mouth opened. Nothing came out.
I stepped. My hand clenched. All I had to do was reach. The pressure built, threatening to burst out. What if she saw? What if she knew?
“Yeah,” I managed. My whole body tingled, a shiver running through my spine.
She stepped into the air. A thousand teenaged fantasies took flight chasing after her, leaving my body shivering behind with my mind conjouring up a million million-to-one chances.
I chased them all, riding the wires, finding momentum. Trial and error had mutated into a solid foundation. Rooftop to rooftop, keeping pace, legs carrying me faster and faster, making more landings than I failed.
This is me.
This is what I’m meant to be.
Why I’m here, why I went through everything. No great plans, no world-saving shenanigans, this moment right here and now.
This one moment made it all worthwhile. The one thing mind, body, Power and soul agreed on. Somewhere I knew it had to be the backseat passenger grabbing at the wheel but I couldn’t care. It doesn’t matter why or how.
It felt right.
All good things come to an end. Hours collapsed into moments.
Glory Girl landed herself on the roof of an old shipping office, overlooking a dockside bar. The Protectorate’s rig watched over us both, shining in the night. Pink Neon shone above the bar’s shuttered front windows, spelling out the name. The Richmond
Taking a moment to catch my breath again, I paced to keep my muscles from going stiff. Waves lapped at the shoreline below, tongues of seawater wrapping themselves around steel pilings.
The whole world shone neon, glowing with new life.
Glory Girl looked to me. “You ready, Jaeger?”
Yes. With all my fucking heart. I just nodded.
“You got any gear that can see in there?”
No. Shit. The question stung, sounding more like an accusation. My mind added the ‘why dont’ in front of it. Panic in my chest begged for an answer, something to make up for it. An idea sparked, bringing a smirk to my lips.
“Info-chan?” I congratulated myself on remembering not to use Aki’s name. “You know anything about this place?”
Glory Girl gave me a puzzled look. A message came through a moment later.
::1 min ^^
Somewhere, I knew she giggled. Power or not, she’d gained a codename too. They’d talk about her on PHO. Verified Cape? Who is this Info-Chan?
“Wait a minute,” I relayed, finding it hard not to swagger.
Glory Girl held on hand on her hip, glaring at me, body taught and straining for action. A shiver crawled up my spine, my eyes switching between her and the building…
…maybe.
A chime in my ear killed the desire, trickling down.
:plans
Downloading slurped a whole fifty meg of data. My fingers tapped through a set scanned blueprints from when the bar had been last renovated, keypresses zooming in. Glory Girl’s gaze urged.
“2 floors. Living space upstairs – two apartments. Bar downstairs with the bar and a storeroom at the back. Basement cellar where they’d store kegs.”
“And no idea who’s in there.” she pushed.
Whatever part of my mind conjured up the idea, I hated it immediately. I couldn’t stop myself. Just to show her what I could do. The thought hung on my lips, begging to be spoken. I knew how to find out. She’d already given me the answer.
“You think I look like a Nazi?”
She caught the ball. “You really want to try that?”
“He’s panicking. He knows you’re after him.”
“They might’ve sent reinforcements,” she smiled.
“One way to find out?”
“But what about your accent?”
“Ayuh, I reckon I could do a wicked good impression though. Just gotta remember to hate the Yankees, talk like a Kennedy, and everythin’ will be copacetic.”
Never in my life have I seen so much hatred in a person’s eyes. Totally fucking worth it.
“Now, how do you get the information out without tipping them off,” she challenged.
The answer sat waiting on my head, ready to go.
“You have a mobile?”
Did I just ask Glory Girl for her phone number?
“A mobile?”
Right, America.
“Cell, what’s your Cell?”
Her lips pursed into a pout. “What’s yours?”
“603-867-5903”
She raised an eyebrow. “Really?”
“Yeah, what?”
“Nothing,” she murmured.
Something that made me cringe as she flipped her phone open, tapping with her thumbs. Was it something I said? Something about my phone number? A thousand anxious possibilities raced through my mind as I paced across the roof.
::My Cell. GG
If I’dve known she’d give mobile number so easily, I’dve put the cape on sooner.
“Going to forward it to Info-chan, so she can tell you what I’m seeing.”
A scowl flashed across her face, the objection hanging in her open mouth. She reached the same conclusion I did. Narrating ‘My first visit to a Nazi club’ would end it a quick and violent death.
“Fine…”
My fingers sent her phone number through with a few taps. Her phone buzzed an answer a moment later.
“Yeah,” she answered with a press of a button. Her eyes rolled as Aki assaulted through her earpiece.
“Ready?” I proposed.
“Fine…”
She didn’t sound concerned. My feet carried my body up to the parapet. My breath panted against the inside of the mask, hot and moist, sucking the sweat from my brow. My heart drummed in chest. Below, streetlights sparked off distant puddles simmering on the tarmac.
An echo of that night thrilled in my mind, resonating with my Power.
Again, I jumped. Wind rushed in my ears, accelerating.
Concrete realisation crushed down.
The real hell of being 16. Sometimes, you don’t realise important things until it’s far too late.
Like the fact that Glory Girl had tried to talk me out of pretending to be a Nazi just to scout out their base. Or, that I really didn’t want to pretend to be a Nazi just to scout out their base. Or that I really, really didn’t want to be on my own, surrounded by Nazi’s who might have more than baseball bats to hand.
Or who might be something other than human.
My Power hummed. I could trip it. Stand back up on the roof. Calmly realise that maybe, just maybe, pretending to be Empire might not be the smartest idea I ever had and ask Glory Girl if she had any other plan of action with her experience in the field.
But the idea of turning around an explaining that to Glory Girl somehow seemed ten times worse than running the risk of bumping into Hookwolf and friends and getting hammered by cold reality.
The hot fantasy of parahuman heroics won out as my boots made contact with the roof opposite.
I’m doing it.
I’m actually fucking doing it.
Steam drifted up from the vents beside me, cloaking around my body as I stepped onto the roof. Music thrummed through the floor, deep, driving bass firing the soul. Waiting on the roof, one single sentry jumped to his feet, stumbling over his own laces before catching himself on a vent.
He stood half a head taller than me. A Michelin-man jacket in midnight blue bulked him out to twice my size, big enough to hide a full-bore shotgun. A small voice inside asked if I really thought this was a good idea.
“Who the hell are you?” he demanded.
Alright. Time to look the GM in the Eye. Take a breath. Roll to Bullshit.
“Am I the first?”
Maybe not a complete match to the local accent.
“First?”
But good enough. Keep going. I could still run away if I blew it.
“Reinforcements,” I said. My voice rasped against the masks’s valves. “You’re lookin at New Wave droppin in any minute now.”
If you’re going to lie, cloak it in the truth. It’s easier. Especially if Info-chan had the sense to censor that bit.
“You with us?”
My right hand sheathed its blade, before offering a handshake.
“Yeah brother.”
His arms folded.
“So. In accord with Nature’s Laws. Nothing is more right….”
My hand hung there. Shit. Thunder-Flash bollocks.
Try again.
Back to touchdown.
“Info-chan. In accord with Nature’s Laws. Nothing is more right than?”
I waited. Michelin man jumped to his feet, tripping again. I stood my ground, blades held low in my hand. The screen in my googles remained blank.
He caught himself. My hands clenched tight on the grips of both blades. My Power recharged as my mouth parched dry. Seconds ticked.
“Who’re you?”
Shit! Try something else.
“In accord with Nature’s Laws. Nothing is more right”
He stopped, dead, caught off-guard. His eyes glanced around the roof, to the aircon vents, the water tower and the remains of the old billboard foundation. What lurked in the shade? Shadows danced at the edge of my sight, threatening a surprise attack.
“…than the preservation of one’s own race,” he said. One hand hovered over his waist, clawing to grab something in a flash.
Gun. My skin bristled. It had to be.
One thing that could beat my Power. Bullet in the brain-pan. Splat. Game over while waiting for the reset button to reset.
Fuck me, I mouthed. There sat proof. This was not your oulfella’s game of Villains and Vigilantes.
What now?
My mouth outran my brain, remembering the first time around.
“Am I the first?”
His hand hung. His eyebrow raised. His face came into sharp focus, rounded off by years of fast food, rough stubble begging for a razor’s edge under the jaw. Beady eyes fixed me in place.
“First?”
The phone chimed, a message popping up onscreen.
::Than preservation of ones own race.
“Damn,” I breathed, clenching my teeth. My Power latched, coming back to life. The safety-net untied the knot in my stomach.
“What?”
The hand clawed closer. A bulge formed in my mind around some imagined hand cannon.
“Reinforcements. You’re looking at New Wave droppin’ in any minute now.”
My eyes fixed on the hand. He fixed his belt.
“Didn’t hear we asked for any help.”
“You think you need to ask?” I tried to smirk, hoping it carried in my voice.
“Right, Right.”
I’d like to say I had the sang-froid to calmly step forward and plan through the entire conversation to get the exact information I needed. Really, my mind just stuck itself in the same thought-burning loop, churning over and over again.
Don’t fuck this up. Don’t fuck this up. Don’t fuck this up. Don’t fuck this up.
Another message onscreen broke the mantra
::Sry. How many + guns??
Right. Prizes for guessing where the prompt really came from. Take a breath. Try to sound like I belonged.
“So. How many guys you got up here?”
“Six,” he answered with a swagger, leading me towards a door.
“Guns?”
Holy shit. I can’t believe this is still working.
“A few. Got my glock.” He patted at his hip.
“18?”
Only Glock I knew. The GM stared at me. Roll the dice.
“15,” the sentry answered.
“Nothing heavy?”
“No. Who else Kaiser sending through?”
What other Empire capes could I remember off the top of my head?
“Hookwolf. Fenja. Menja….”
I counted them off with my fingers.
“Shame….”
“Shame?”
“What Hookwolf’d do…..”
I thought I saw fear. I thought I saw remorse. I knew that I really didn’t give a fuck about the deep personal motivations of an Empire thug. He turned his back to me. I drew both blades with a savage grin.
Crack.
One supercharged jolt from the batteries put him down like a dropped sack of spuds, spasming himself unconscious. A couple of quick borrowed zip-ties around his wrists and ankles made sure he wouldn’t get up again. On a whim, I pocketed his Glock to keep it from being used against me.
One down.
Now what?
Really. I didn’t have to do anything more. Honestly, I just couldn’t help myself. Standing at the door, I pulled it open. A pall of thin grey smoke rose up to meet, bringing the smell of burnt Mellow Virginia through my nostrils.
My stomach turned.
“Jacob?” A voice reached up.
My mind hung a moment, hovering around the threshold of the door.
“He’s fine,” I answered, finding the nerve to step through. It latched behind, sealing me in, just in time for a pair of tired eyes to greet me.
I looked up at a thin high-cheeked face with a sharp jaw, a single broken fag pinched between tight lips.
“Who the hell are you?”
“Jaeger. Kaiser sent me.”
The fag twitched as he sucked on his lips. He stared into the goggles.
“Never heard of you…”
Ahm….
“It’s my first day.”
His hand slipped towards his wallet. Gun! Flashed through my mind. My blades whipped free, one in each hand. His eyes spasmed wide. His hand drew. His body dropped with a crackle of raw electricity and a meaty thump. A crinkled fag-packet landed on the ground beside his pocket.
“CAAaaaape!” his friend beside me yelled. A body dived for cover behind a couch. Shouts rose up from below.
Shit.
My Power triggered. Now for a different approach. The longer they don’t realise I’m a threat, the more I can fuck them up. If I could stop them from getting downstairs, or lock a door
“Jacob….” A voice reached up again.
Adrenaline thrilled through my body, recalling the last time.
“He’s cool,” I answered.
Grey eyes looked down at me. “Who’re you?”
“Jaeger. Kaiser sent me.”
“Who?” His hand hung beside his pocket.
I couldn’t run. I had to push forward. I couldn’t imagine doing anything else.
“I’m new.”
I don’t know if he heard the smile on my lips.
“Welcome to the club,” he offered his right hand.
I took it with a hard grip and shook it. There was an irony there, when you think about it. How did Adolf Hitler get his start again?
::Find who beat Andrea??
Right. Mission.
“You stay up here. Wait for the signal…”
“Says who?”
He stood his ground, hand pressing against the bulge beneath his leather jacket. Yeah, I got a gun.
“Says the person with two swords and a fucking Power,” I snarled through my mask.“We got friends coming in. You think you can take on New Wave with that peashooter?”
Fuck me. Fuck me. Fuck me don’t call me on it. I’m so far out on a fucking limb here and this could go so fucking badly and thank Christ these fuckers can’t see my face because I’m bricking it…
All he saw were a pair of blank of goggles and a twin-can mask, breathing hard, a faint glow from meters built into the gloves. Steel blades glinted under the incandescent lights. A full harness of steel hung from my waist, two heavy containers slung by my hips.
The man took a breath, gauging me.
Black armoured leather. Flared helmet. Glaring goggles. Lightning flashes of metal clasps.
The man stepped aside.
Wow. This really works. This is working. What the hell do I do now? Keep going. Passed another open door on the first floor.
Holy fuck, I know that eejit.
He looked at me. Right at me. Right through me. I felt it. If he knew.
My Power loomed.
Earlier that morning, he’d asked me to join. The same kid, wearing the same orange jersey with same medhall sponsorship and that same best-mate smile which had asked me to join.
I looked him right in the eye, grabbing hold of my Power, daring him to recognise me. Hey Mick, nice costume. He shook my hand instead.
“Glad to have ya, brother.”
I nodded, swallowing the lump. A deep vader-breath pulled in dry, stale air. The filters cleared up the smoke, keeping me from coughing.
My goggles scanned the room. CNN on the telly in the corner broadcast the news, showing preparations for some event tomorrow. Two men, one tall, one short, circled a pool table, sizing up their next shots. Both had a decade on me or more.
Cigarette ash smouldered in the tray on the coffee table set in front of a worn leather couch. A scarred baseball-bat leant against it. Only the flag with the crossed grenades picked it out as anything more than a social club.
Right. Time to be the prick
“So, which one of you stomped the porch monkey?”
Don’t ask how I first heard that.
“Ayuh,” the shortest raised his cue. A crisp set of red laces decorated his steelcaps.
“New laces?” I said.
“Yeah men,” he grinned, bold as brass. “Man I just saw that bitch,” he laughed, nervous eyes scanning the room. “Fucking queen never worked a day in her life and she’s going through college on my dime because of some liberal affirmative action and I’m here working three goddamned jobs and can’t even afford a fucking dentist and so, Bam! No more teeth”
Every nodded sagely. An old story. I kept up appearance.
“Ayuh,” the tall one agreed, before taking a crack of a shot. “Freeloaders taking honest white men for a ride. What’s this country coming to? Fucking traitors get their day soon.”
Everyone nodded sagely. An older answer. I kept up appearances, scanning around.
Yes. Racist fucks really talk like this. This thing is not a parody. Poe's law lives and it stood right in front of me breathing through gleaming white teeth, wearing the strange air of civilised respectability.
Everyone looked to me. My mind struggled to scratch something together, gathering something from a past life.
“Yeah man, make America great again,” I said.
It really was the first thing I thought of. Honest. And totally not a commentary on an election I never saw finish.
“Make America great again. I like that,” said the kid beside me, placing a heavy hand on my shoulder. I shrugged it off with a grunt.
“Touchy,” he mumbled, holding both his hands up.
“Make America white again?” asked the taller.
“Yeah,” shorty agreed. ‘We could use that.”
Dear God, what have I unleashed? Someone’s going to call that a commentary on something, I guarantee it.
To be brutally honest, for a moment, I almost got it. Say the right words, make the right gestures, nod your head at the right time and kick the shit out of the wrong people and you were welcome.
You are one, with us.
We are part of something.
Still. No sympathy for the Devils, as the man says. They bought their ticket, now how do I take them for a ride? A fire axe sat in the cabinet beside me, alongside some old hose. I’d played enough games to know what they were really there for. I could strap the door shut, maybe break the handle
::!
I blinked, taking a moment to wonder what that meant. The window shattered an instant later with a whoop of joy, a cold draught dragging sparkling shrapnel behind a white blur. Something crunched against the wall beside me, landing with a thump and a groan. My eyes opened.
Shorty lay slumped over, looking like a doll broken in half.
Tallboy stood, pool cue in hand, not sure what’d just happened.
“Dad,” said the boy beside me, his voice shrinking in the background.
Glory Girl stood in her radiance, legs apart, thin red cape drifting on the breeze behind her.
“Nobody move!”
Nobody moved. Nobody breathed. My heart thumped.
Darkness encroached around, enveloping the room until only she remained, a human beacon holding back even our own thoughts. My hands hovered beside both sheathed blades, mind frozen on the last instruction.
Every thought crashed against the wall inside my head.
Nothing existed except Glory Girl and her awesome bodysuit, standing, daring someone to attack, powerful legs rooting her to the spot.
“Do something dude,” the kid behind me breathed, his voice shaking.
My thoughts ground against stone, muscles straining to work. Fingers found the grips of the blades. Their weight filled my hands, sliding free, gaining momentum. Metal scratched against metal, building momentum. Glory Girl’s eyes glanced at me, then the kid behind me. His breath shivered as the full force of her aura came to bear.
Tallboy’s hand reached for his waist, clawing at something. My mouth found a gear.
“Gun!”
Her head snapped. He drew. The aura collapsed. My mind sprung free. The kid beside me had enough time to realise how badly he’d been fucked before both blades shocked him off his feet.
Glory Girl launched tallboy into the ceiling with a swinging kick.
The body landed in a heap. His gun skittered across the floor.
Footsteps drummed down the stairs outside, door bursting open. The barrel of a gun met my face, sweeping through the room. Thoughtly, I lashed out. His eyes widened, mind taking a moment to process and wonder why a ‘friend’ was attacking. My first strike knocked the gun from his hand, sending it skittering across the floor.
He grabbed hold, wrestling me to the wall. Metal crashed against concrete. One, two three hard blows with my fist caught him on the nose. Just enough to knok him back. A stab at my stomach knocked the wind out of me but the adrenaline carried me through, grunting. The pommel of the sword met the side of his chest and he dropped with a crack of lightning. Yeah. I don’t need to use the pair to do it.
Glory Girl had disappeared. So had the gun. Two men lay on the ground. Shorty and Tallboy. A third from the stairs groaned at my feet.
The kid had gone missing.
I scanned the room. A shadow loomed behind me. The bat beside the couch had gone missing.
He swung the bat. My blade parried, shock running up the arm. The shot stunned my arm, my fingers spasming, shock grounding through my feet. My fist caught him across the side of the face. He stepped. I lunged, crashing into his body. He toppled with a yell. Hands grasped at my costume straps, pulling me off my feet with a yelp of fright.
We landed in a heap, my body across his.
A hard blow to the face cracked my mask against my nose, bringing tears to my eyes. Instinct took over. One. Two. Three. The shock ran up my elbow as it slammed down hard against something made of bone. I pushed myself off. He lay there, face bloodied, nose askew, struggling to move
Done.
Fucker.
A gunshot shook the building. Followed by another heavyweight thump as somebody soft met something hard.
Then nothing.
Only my own panting breath and the roar of blood in my ears. My body shook, driven by adrenaline to do more than just stand a wait. My eyes scanned round.
Three men, either groaning or unconscious. One kid curled up in a ball, blood gushing from his nose. My arm thrummed. My legs ached. My heart threatened to burst free.
A savage grin crossed my lips and I waited for the last one to make his way up. My blades hung ready by my side.
Glory Girl shouldered the door open, a flash of her aura stunning my mind long enough for her to stride past, long legs carrying her into the room. Her chest rose and fell in time with her breath, matching mine. Her grin shone radiant as she stood
“Tie ‘em up and I’ll call my sister.”
The rest of it happened much as you’d expect. You've probably read the original Interlude. Panacea arrived and made sure nobody’d had their life permanently ruined in her own sinister way.
Again.
I sat on the roof in the cold air, winding down from the greatest high of my life, a strange sense of disbelief swimming through my body. Every single hair on my body fizzled with excitement, my mind turning itself through loops begging to go again.
I just passed the fucking tutorial level, and I was ready to pay full price to play the game.
Fighting and winning.
It felt like life.
I’ve been such an eejit, haven’t I? My Power hummed in agreement. Somewhere deep inside, I knew better, I knew where the idea came from
It didn’t matter.
::That was so cool.
Info-chan summed it up in one line on my goggles.
A new life pulsing in neon colour, vibrant, thrumming with energy, beckoning, enticing – begging me to step forward and claim it. I got it. I finally got it. A diamond bullet to the brain. A brand new apocalypse.
I really could do things that mattered.
This made two. Twice I'd stood in the narrative and twice things had been different in some small way.
“First time’s always intense,” Glory Girl hovered beside me, winding down from the same adrenaline high. A shock ran through my body, grounding fast.
“It took me far too long to do it,” I admitted.
She dropped to her feet, standing with one arm held akimbo, the other brushing the breeze-blown hair from her face. “Mom’ll kill me for saying it, but the Wards really could use someone like you,”
“I want to wait a few weeks,” I said, making a conscious effort not to focus on her.
“The sooner, the better. Being a solo act in this city’s so dangerous you might as well commit suicide.”
That stabbed, a heartbeat snap into the moment, falling. Trigger warning. She caught the flinch immediately.
“Oh geez, I’m sorry.”
Her whole body seemed to shrink, the pressure on my mind receding. I saw the real her, wearing a sheepish smile, embarrassed in the moment. It drew a genuine smile to my lips, hidden by the mask. Maybe even a little ashamed myself for reacting so much.
“It’s okay, really,” I waved it off. Really. “I just have to work some personal things out first.”
Really.
Freed from her shame, she grew three size in my mind again, crushing me down.
I thought I could’ve said something else, something about looking after her sister or how fucked her mind might really be by the stress of it all, but it died inside of me. What if she got angry? What if I tripped her little trigger?
The aura loomed, smothering my words.
That’s my excuse.
I stood and stared over the city, just trying to hang on to the moment.
The whoop of approaching sirens and blue lights strobing in the street signalled the end of all good things. Reality had arrived to intrude.
“Now for the real fun,” she said, through gritted teeth.
“Yeah. No,” I said with a shrug, making for the roof edge.
One firm hard grasped the strap across my back. "Oh no you don't...."
Goddammit. I had better things to do than spend a half-hour explaining myself to blank-face stormtroopers in SWAT gear.
Just don't ask them if they know Governor Tarkin. They've heard the one before.
--
Aki exploded when I landed on her roof.
“That was so awesome,” she panted. Her mouth opened. Japanese came out. She stopped, blushed, and composed her words again. “Like. In the face. And Glory Girl…. Ano…. Ano…” she gasped, outrunning herself again.
Wearing only short and a t-shirt, she shivered against the cold. My eyes glanced down. Very obviously cold, too.
One free hand levered my facemask and helmet off, steam rising from my hair. The helmet clattered down onto the rooftop.. I stood opposite her, struggling to breath. Formerly fresh-legs burned from the exertion.
A thick smile crossed my lips, chased by a childish giggle.
“It fucking was, wasn’t it?”
She laughed, smothering it behind her hand, looking up at me with bright, shining eyes.
“Hai…”
We stood, catching our breath. She’d run up the stairs from her apartment below. I’d swung across the city. She placed her hands on my shoulders, light, almost imperceptible through the leather.
My heart stuttered at the possibility.
My own hands pressed against her waist, soft skin giving way, fuelling the drive to just pull her tight.
My mouth watered. She sucked on her lips, body turning tense in my hands. Sweat glistened across her broad face. Jim Steinman wrote whole operas about this moment. Both of us, sixteen years old and sparking in the dark, hungering for the taste of each other’s lips.
She pushed free.
The chill took hold of my body. Not tonight. That look of naked pain on her face stung.
“Your clothes are downstairs,” she said, her voice flat.
Why? What had I done wrong? She turned and walked, leaving me bewildered, standing in the cold with my helmet leaning again
“What was that?” I asked.
She glanced back, as if I should’ve known the answer
“What’d I do?” I demanded.
No answer.
I followed.
The roof door squealed shut behind me. My gear rattled with each step
“What happened?”
No answer. She turned a corner. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, throwing a hard blue light against the walls. Paint peeled in flakes beneath my touch.
She threw me a hard glance, pushing open a veneered door. Light poured out from inside, harsh and white. I followed her in, slipping out of my boots before the step up on to the timber floor.
She stood alone in a silent apartment, almost offering it as her explanation. That’s why, asshole.
I saw.
Dishes piled in the sink for days. Clothes scattered across the floor, unwashed. Cans of food left open and mouldering. Papers thrown on the table and the floor – dozens of typed sheets scattered haphazardly, dropped where they’d fallen. Shards of broken ornaments sat spilled on the ground.
The pieces crashed into place.
And I couldn’t ignore them.
I had the power. I could do things that mattered. Maybe, I could do this now. Maybe I could ask her.
“Your bag’s by the couch. Get changed in the bathroom.”
I stared down at the helmet in my hands. My costume. My other face. The hero I could be. I’d have to do it.
“Akiko,” my voice tried.
She just stood with her back to me, focused on the picture of her family hanging on the wall.
“I'm going to ask you a pretty hard question, and I need an answer quickly, or I can't do anything.”
She stepped away. Her head turned back over her shoulder, looking at me through the side of her eye.
“What is it?”
At least she listening. We did it again, just to set a marker with my Power. Now for step two.
Please God don’t let me fuck this up.
I looked right at her, stared straight through her skull with a laser gaze, and took a shaking breath “I know you're ABB.” And that slapped her across the face. She snapped to face. Her eyes golfballed, her mouth hinging open to protest, to scream a denial. If I’d been closer she’d’ve slapped me across the face. “I can try get you out with my power. Do you want me to try?”
I promised myself. I’d move hell to make it happen. I meant it.
She stood.
Completely blindsided. Hit by a brick.
Well sorry, I only have fifteen seconds, how fucking subtle can I be?
She turned. She looked away. She scanned the room. She eyed me, gauging my chances. Not just mine, but the whole Protectorate. I’d do it. I 'djoin. There's my fucking condition. They'd do it. They'd have to do it.
She gauged the whole world’s chances to save her, for something good to possibly happen and save her.
Tears welled up her eyes. My stomach turned. I knew the answer. I waited anyway, counting the timer down in my mind.
“No,” her head shook. Her face twisted into a mask of fear and pain and I hated it. “Please don't do anything, my par-.”
My Power triggered, gunning the moment, banishing it to dead time. Fuck it all. That’s all I needed to know. I won’t admit to feeling just a little relieved, released from my own unspoken promise.
I’ll admit to hating it.
“What is it?” she asked, again.
“I already asked,” I said, swallowing the truth. “I used my Power.”
“What'd you ask me?” she pushed.
My head shook slowly. “Nothing,”
She scowled at me. “Fine…”
I stood on that timber floor, turning it over in my head.
Damn them for doing this to her.
Damn her for getting into it in the first place.
And damn me for not being able to do anything.
“Akiko,” I said, my voice lost in the mess of the apartment. “Keep yourself safe, please.”
That’s all I could do. All I could hope for her.
Slowly, she turned to face me, tears glistening down her cheeks.
“Thank you very much.” I like to think she knew I’d figured out her secret, even if I didn’t need to say it. Maybe that’s why her smile came back. Soft, sad, stinging, but still welcome. “And you, please,” she breathed. “Good Luck.”
I bowed. “Arigatou Gozaimashtou.”
My eyes turned up just in time to see her do the same, dark hair cascading over her shoulders. We stood up, sharing an awkward smile and an uneasy squirm. Our hands reached out, tentative, testing the air between us. We touched. Hand to shoulder. A hot thrill through my bones begged for more, for a gentle moment threatening to pull in to something closer – warmer.
But no. Not tonight.
We stepped back, fatigue hanging from our bodies. It’d already been a long day. Neither of us needed to say any more. No denials. No excuses.
She went to bed.
So did I, taking the couch to myself in a t-shirt and shorts.
In the darkness before sleep, sanity returned. I tried to reassure myself that really, I couldn’t have done anything. Not against Bakuda or Oni-Lee or a thousand conscripts with shotguns and baseball bats.
No matter what I told myself, it just rung hollow.
Having a Power, couldn’t keep me from feeling utterly powerless.
No. To hell with it. I’m doing something.
I just need to figure out what.
And how.
The first one of you to say Good, the Bitch deserves it, gets a punch in the mouth. Seriously. Fuck you.
--
Whining motors wound me forward.
Ammeters on my wrist twitched.
Petons snapped back into their launchers, jolting the motors.
Pain thrummed through my legs.
Soaring.
Swinging.
Riding a ballistic trajectory along the street.
My stomach hung at apex.
Feet forward.
The roof rose up.
My feet touched concrete at a running speed, a jolt running up through my bones. I stumbled, running forward to catch myself, arms forward to stop the fall.
A whirring air-conditioner condenser did the job for me, clattering against the left spool, digging into my ribs.
Third time lucky so. A scrappy landing, but no broken bones or twisted ankles, just another ache in my chest where the corner of the condenser had jabbed.
I called it a pass, just to keep moving.
A moment’s rest let me catch my breath, building the nerve to go again. My batteries still had a good charge. The phone found a good signal from a nearby mast. My legs had taken the worst of it, but I could, as they say, deal.
I walked to the parapet, picking my route across the street to apartment block on the far side. A few steps back gave me a runup. My heart stopped as I jumped, ten stories above hard concrete.
The ground rushed up.
I aimed my body.
A twitch on the triggers fired both petons.
Motors whined as they spooled out cable under power, keeping the weight off the flying peton.
Both latched onto glass, van-der-waals forces locking them in place.
Flicking two switches reversed the spools. A jerk at my waist pulled me forward, turning an accelerating fall into a turning swing.
I forced myself to look at my target, ignoring the traffic flashing below. Don’t look at what you don’t want to hit.
A camera strobed.
Caught.
Fuck.
Fuck it anyway I’m in costume.
Leaning into the strap pulled me away from the wall, a thumbed adjustment to the motors turning me parallel to the street.
Full power pulled me upwards, swinging up in a tight arc into the vertical, accelerating under electric power.
Two red switches released the petons, spools revving up with a shriek.
Momentum carried my body in what could almost pass as a graceful arc to a position barely a meter above the building roof.
For the first time, I landed on the first try.
My legs hated me for it. Pain shot up from my ankles, ringing in my knees.
I pushed on, too focused on the basic practicality of moving to think about anything else.
With a few weeks dedicated practice, some parkour lessons from a good traceur and maybe a new pair of legs from a random act of Panacea, I could see myself actually achieving a fluid rhythm with the gear.
On my first night out it took five hours to make the half hour journey.
I leave it up to yourself to do the sums.
Five. Bloody. Hours.
Barely able to walk, I chanced a few minutes rest, pacing slowly to keep muscle from going stiff. Every step crushed my knees in a vice.
I could take it. My legs couldn’t, but I could.
Pacing the roof gave me time to think, time to clear my head. Ideas sparkled in my mind, little hints of ways that my gear could be improved. Step one, something to take the shock of landing and running off my legs…
Maybe another time.
The phone rang in my ear. Step 2 on the road to heroism; get Solid Snake’s codec as a ringtone.
“Akiko…” I said.
“You made it,” her voice answered. “That looked awesome.”
Of course it did, she got the edited version where everything went right first time, rather than the other four and a half hours left on time’s cutting room floor.
“Yeah,’ I breathed, my voice pulling tight as another lightning pain shot up my leg.
I pushed myself to keep walking, step by step.
“Anything on the scanner?”
“No police,” she said.
Good.
“Nothing to do but wait then.”
“Call’s messing with the stream, hang up.”
‘Right, right.”
Nothing to do but wait. And wait.
And watch the clock grind past midnight, second by second. Breath by breath. Heartbeat by heartbeat. My mouth parched. My body soaked. My legs ached. My mind spun through possibilities.
How do I fight her?
Why am I really doing this?
I shook it off. Down that road lay madness. I’m doing it because if I don’t, Sophia’ll force me. She’ll take it out on my friends. Now I’ve backup. I’ve friends. I’m going into this with open eyes and…
Wham!
It bolts through my knee, kicking me off my feet with a scream of pain that cut through the knee. Landing hard on metal, I catch myself with both hands having just enough presence of mind to look for where the attack had come from.
A body, formed in black, silhouetted by red light, aiming at me.
That was quick. I used to be a cape too, but then I took an arrow to the knee….
My power triggered and I spun to face he. Something popped in my knee, a bite of pain shooting up the muscle. I stepped through it, swallowing it down. The glint of an arrowhead drew my eyes to the crossbow aimed at where I had been standing.
She stood there, a human whisp of smoke backlit by the neon glow of a Budweiser ad. The light filtered through the particles of her body, shimmering as she stepped forward. A shadow coalesced on the rooftop, expanding from her feet as her body turned solid, reaching forward to touch me.
That randian sneer turned to face me
‘I knew it,” the mask hissed.“Precog, huh? Some sort of spider-sense?”
My Power gave me some headspace to think, to come up with something better than ‘You shot me’, something that didn’t give too much away.
“You read comics?”
No answer.
She stepped to the side, making to circle around, her steps singular and tense, giving a moment to pounce between each. The crossbow aimed at my mask. Energy crackled across the back of my neck, begging to turn and run. Muscles in my body pulled tight, asking to fight.
I stood my ground. Running gives the predator what they want. It triggers the instinct and starts the chase.
“You going to shoot me?”
The mask’s expression didn’t change. Reset. Try again. Something that gives me more control.
She circled. She raised her crossbow again. I raised my blade to guard, again.
“You going to try shoot me?”
“Not yet,” she answered, her voice calm and even.
A threat?
Both blades sparked blue lightning off each other, a friendly reminder that I had options too.
She paused mid-stride, betraying a moment’s hesitation. I saw the thought. ‘He could hurt me with those’.
She could be faster. She had range. But I could dodge. She had the energy advantage, but I had the awareness. She had the backup, I had video evidence. She had skill, I had size.
I had a weapon that’d fucking damage her if I took the chance and made it stick. She knew I’d take it too. The blades might be blunt pieces of steel, but enough weight moving fast enough against the tip would deal some bloody pain.
She’d probably win the fight. I just had to make the risk of losing high enough to not make it worth the effort. You might be the predator, the panther circling around, but this fucking bull’s got horns big enough to hurt if you fuck it up. Ones I haven’t even shown her yet.
I’m missing something, amn’t I?
I held one blade across my body, with another in-front, aimed at her. She circled, keeping her crossbow between myself and her body. I put a blade between myself and her, stepping forward. The other held by my side, ready for a follow through.
“What do you want?”
“Same thing you do.”
It sounded like an accusation.
“I doubt that,”
“No. I’m right,” she said. The mask hid the smirk I could hear on her lips. “You wouldn’t be here in costume if you didn’t want it. You wouldn’t have hurt yourself to get here…”
The crossbow aimed at my knee. I put the other leg in front of it.
“You’re going to have to fill me in,”
I played dumb.
“You’re the genius, you figure it out.”
Fuck’s sake.
“I thought you were trying to trap me. Stitch me up as the newest villain in town.”
“I thought about it,” she said, her voice dangling the possibility that maybe she’s still thinking about it. “But they’d just suck you into the Wards anyway and then they’d either brainwash it out of you in San Diego, or stick you in some shithole like Madison where you won’t cause trouble. That’d be a waste.”
Didn’t tell me anything.
My Power set me back. The crossbow aimed at my knee. She doesn’t want me in the Wards. She doesn’t want to frame me either – she wanted something about me…
Plink. The penny dropped.
‘You want to work with me?”
“Got it in one,”
She almost sounded impressed.
“Why?”
“Because of all the rogues in this city, you're the only one who really gets it.”
“What the fuck is it?” I snapped at her.
“What it means to be a survivor. To stand up and fight for the last breath, no holds barred. Real life or death. You or him. I saw it, in your eyes.”
My blood chilled. She knew…
“When you get right down to it, none of the Wards will do that. Too concerned about public opinion to do what needs to be done.”
Something rang deep inside me. I snorted it down, borrowing a Tattletale-line from an old fanfic I remembered. “Did you have the snail dream too?”
Her head turned. “Snail dream?”
“I saw a Snail, crawling along the edge of a straight razor. This is my dream. This is my nightmare. Crawling along the edge of a straight razor, and surviving.”
“If you actually read biology, you'd know the snail doesn't care. It can deal.”
Somebody’s not a fan of the classics, then. Even after I went through all the trouble of matching Brando’s delivery. I folded my arms.
“Answer’s No.”
Because seriously, that’s the answer I’m supposed to give, isn’t it?
“And why not?”
As if it’d be the most natural thing in the world.
Shouldn’t it be obvious? I mean really?
“Because I trust you about as far as I can throw you, that’s why.”
“Shame,” she shrugged her shoulders. “This is your one shot at freedom. Work well enough as a rogue, the protectorate’ll leave you alone. None of the pretence. None of the bullshit. Just the freedom to act. Or you wait and let them catch up to you and become some marketer’s toy, a stuffed man with no mind of your own.”
She struck me to the core and I knew….
There it sat, all served up on a plate like roomservice, exactly what I wanted. All I had to do was say yes.
My heart stopped. Something felt wrong, right at the back of my mind, a warning screamed. A sick feeling in my stomach. A feeling of rats crawling across my skin.
Sophia’s the enemy. Sophia’s everything we hate. The apotheosis of a fandom’s impotent fury and desire to do something to help a fictional character as penance for all the times we turned our backs on real ones.
Yeah, I went there.
So….
…when Sophia bloody Hess turns around treats you as an equal, maybe it’s time to take a look in a mirror and ask what the fuck you’ve done wrong with your life.
When the shit she says makes a horrible sort of sense…when it resonates in your soul and finds some sort of home in your bones that has you listening. I know I’m supposed to disagree with her. I’m supposed to turn around and spit in the face, and turn my nose up and be the good person, But…
I needed space.
Time to get my head straight.
More than I’d get from fifteen seconds glaring at that sneering mask waiting for the answer to her offer.
An offer I couldn’t refuse. The reason I came still stood She’d push me into it if I didn’t say yes. I’d pave the first flagstone to hell if I did.
Time for a third option. A single step and a shot of pain up the bone gave it to me. Turn it back, make it her fault.
“Dealing with this bollocks fucked my legs and you know it.”
Your fault, not mine. You fucked your own golden goose. I would’ve done it if you hadn’t hurt me.
The mask considered. I held my blade, daring her to attack. She stepped forward. I stood my ground. The moment she’d moved, I’d step-back and hit first.
The crossbow aimed. I braced.
She took a step back
“I don’t need a lame duck slowing me down.” Shadow Stalker scorned. “Offer stays open until your legs heal up, or you fuck something up on your own and get swallowed by the Protectorate.”
Her body faded out with each step away, crossbow still aim at my face until nothing but a faint whisp remained, a vaporous ghost fading out like a double-exposure on an old film camera.
The phantom launched into the air, vanishing into the afterglow of the city lights.
I waited.
And waited.
Nothing.
A sigh of relief escaped my lips. The phone’s chime broke the silence in my head. A button-press answered the call.
“Wow,” Akiko’s voice said.
“You heard that?”
“Yes.”
“Fucked up, huh?”
“Yes.”
“I wish it was a fucking fight she wanted.”
She groaned. “Now we will get no subscriptions.”
What?
I growled through the mic. “So, the secret’s out,”
“Nyah~….”
“I’m going fucking home,”
“Buses have stopped.”
“Fuck sake,”
Well, I’d walked kilometres on a hurt leg before so what the fuck, I could do it again. I needed the time.
“My apartment is closer,” she suggested. “And my parents are away.”
Score! The pain in my legs retreated. Standing up again brought it back with a vengeance, grinding to the bone as muscled pulled.
One step convinced me I wouldn’t be using the manoeuvre gear to do more than get down off the roof.
Nobody saw me do a reverse-batman down the wall, thankfully. Step by step, feeding the cable out, riding the spool-motors the entire way down. The scent of hot plastic filtered through the mask, motor windings slow-cooking themselves.
Each step shot stabs and jabs up through my legs, bolting up my back. My panting breath accompanied each step, forcing myself to keep moving. I’d done it before.
I could do it again. No big deal.
One foot in front of the other. Step by step, black cold concrete passing underfoot.
Tapping that memory tapped everything that came with it. The hunger. The dread. The desperation. The reminder that objects in the rear view mirror were always closer than they appeared.
You or him, she said.
Him….
The image of that man, tired grey eyes fixed on the brown bags I carried. The sensation of his hands grasping at my jacket, reaching for the rations, begging, attacking, pleading. A pang of hunger bites deep and I’m just so hungry and so is everyone else and I can’t stand the idea of being this hungry anymore and I want him to just fuck off and leave me alone and in a thrill of panic it just happens.
My arms swing. I hear the crack of a man’s temple and feel the shock run up my arm. He drops dead to the ground with a meaty thump, pink blood trickling from his nose. One last breath rattles through the lips and then…
Nothing.
I killed him. Dead as disco in one shot. Either the concrete or the hurley, it didn’t matter. One of them did it for him. One moment there and starving the next, dead and nothing. Stilled. Face down on the footpath. Glass eyes stared at their own reflection as my soul chilled, the realisation settling in like winter frost.
Cold and slow, clinging on in the shadow. A desolate sensation bigger than my mind, but concentrated in my body, rippling through every muscle and leaving me sick.
Not quite regret.
I don’t regret surviving.
Not quite joy.
I amn’t glad I killed him.
I still don’t know. Can it be both? What do you think?
How I felt didn’t change the fact. I killed him. I did that.
In the dark, that’s who I am.
He died.
I lived with that.
Sophia Hess saw it. She saw me in the dark and liked it. On some level, Sophia had the ugly measure of me.
How fucked up is that?
I could see my final destination. It’d happen in a flash – a moment’s panic with my back against the wall.
Trapped by time.
Trapped by circumstance.
Another bloody case of Skitter syndrome.
Alright. I can deal with that. Can I?
I think you’re laughing. You’re right too. Really, being sober, one option remained.
Salvation sat in the bay, lit up with shining searchlights reaching for the heavens screaming join the Protectorate you fucking gobshite rather than take the retarded edgelord route.
Get your shit together and go.
But when you look out over the black water of the bay and see that rig sitting there, light up as paragon of a steel Christmas tree, glimmering with manicured hope and feel nothing but sick?
You think of being hollowed out.
Being stuffed with a marketer’s branding.
Being ground against the media schedule; look good, keep up the image, be the shining paragon of hero for all the little kiddies, now, go stop Lung. Of having to work with Sophia and treat her like human being. Being close to people who might figure out my little secret.
What would you do?
That’s not for me.
That’s fucking terrifying.
What sane person wants to be a celebrity? A celebrity with a chance of death and dismemberment every Thursday night. Bugs. Bombs. Behemoth.
Standing in the drizzle, I see my reflection in a pool of water on the footpath. This is who I want to be. Who, or what that is I don’t know but it feels right, right down through my bones. Fast, swift, striking, moving. Riding my Power like a motorcycle. Given time and practice, that’s what I’d be.
Almost soaring. Free. Happy.
That’s the heart of it, I think. Maybe you can understand?
So. That’s my plan. Get some space. Think it through. Because right now I'm on the road to hell and I know it. And knowing's half the battle, right? Thanks Sophia. You kept me from going to a really stupid place.
A whooping cheer congratulated me from high above. Startled, I looked up to see the source – a heeled boot attached to a lithe, toned leg extending up a pair of white panties, accelerating towards my face.
Not again.
My Power triggered.
Fifteen seconds to impact. I already had a plan. My hands tightened on both grips, checking the blades were still locked in their sheath.
I focused myself on walking, trying to play dumb, listening for the attack. Moisture fogged the inside of my goggles, sweat trickling down the bridge of my nose. My footsteps counted out the seconds, adrenaline drowing out the pain in my knees.
I looked up, raising both blades across my face.
No panties?
She hit the road instead, fragments of concrete pattering off my jacket The dust cleared, revealing Glory Girl in all her majesty, crouched in the superhero pose with her fist drilled into tarmac.
I stood, awestruck, gazing as she drew herself up to her feet, long strides of toned legs carrying her inexorably towards me with the steady tak-tak of high-heels on tarmac. A shining white leotard clung to her body the way I desperately wanted to, cheerleader’s skirt swaying with her hips as she stepped. Golden hair cascaded from her shoulders, shining white cape streaming behind her.
Crystal eyes fixed mine, staring through me.
I raised my blades, rooting myself to the ground. Fight back, my body urged. My heart raced. My trousers went taught. My feet moved. The wall behind drew closer.
“I got one name for you. Andrea Young. Ring a bell?”
Her voice hit like a slap.
My lips moved. “Who?”
“Don’t play ignorant.” She loomed, the world around her receding into the shade of her radiance. “An innocent college student. One of your boys beat her within an inch of her life this afternoon.”
I blinked. “Huh?” Caught in the spotlight, it took a moment for the penny to drop. She couldn’t have? “Do I look like a fucking Nazi?”
Dressed in black armoured leather, wearing a helmet with a flair over the neck, a pair of tinted goggles and a facemask with a filter on either side….
No, I see no resemblance. Do you?
Her arms folded beneath her chest.
“Yes.”
Ahm…How many villains happened because some overzealous hero spotted a newbie who couldn’t afford a shiny sparkly glam-metal costume or didn't like the idea of being the obvious target and decided to judge a book by its cover.
Some bloody cliché.
“Well…….” Fixed in place by that steel eyed glare, my mind struggled to find the words, any words to convince.Every impulse screamed to just nod. Gears ground, but the thought slammed home. “I amn’t alright!”
She leaned over. Looking for anything other than her iron gaze, my eyes fell down to the shadow between her breasts.
She pushed. “Then who the hell are you and what’re you doing out here?”
Ah, a ward called me out here to fuck with me and waste my time and try start some fucked up Frank Castle vigilante yoke. I wanna be a hero. I want to fight. I stopped dead, mind firing blanks, looping through ideas. Words died on my lips as she loomed large above me, crushing me down with awesome power.
“You going to say something?”
Eventually. Whenever my mouth stopped goldfishing for something to say. When the truth won’t be believed, maybe a half assed lie.
My lips moved.
“I built some stuff, came out to test it and hurt my leg,” I said, my voice gaining strength “I’m walking home because the poxy busses don’t start until four!”
“Oh….” She broke the spell, despite not taking a step, giving my mind more space to work “So why’d you try fight back then?”
“Because I had no idea who the fuck you where!” I barked.
She blinked owlishly.
“Oops,” she smirked, feigning shame while not really being sorry. My fault for not caring what I looked like, not hers for jumping to the wrong conclusion. “Tell you what .To make it up to you I’ll call my sister, she’ll fix your legs.”
Wait.
Wow.
…”Thanks.”
I guess. What else could I say?
What am I supposed to say? I stood, transfixed as she fetched a mobile from her belt pack, flicking it open. She pinned it between slender shoulder and delicate neck, waiting for it to wring though.
“Hey sis. Yeah, it’s me….. I need your help..”
A pause. She flinched.
“No, no… I missed this time.” Glory Girl almost sounded sheepish.“This one’s actually a new hero on his first night out. He hurt his leg.”
My nerves fizzled. She called me a hero.
“Well it’s not my fault. He looked like a Nazi,”
“Hey,” I protested. She held up a hand. Shush!
One arm went to her hips. “No I did not have a blonde moment. He totally asked for it dressing like that”
She scowled.
“That’s a completely false parallel and you know it.”
An exasperated sigh.
“Fine. Next time, I promise.”
The phone clasped shut in her hand and she returned it to her pocket.
“See. Told you. Sorted.”
Wow.
…”Thanks.”
I guess. What else could I say? Even the chance of having the pain in my knees just vanish after a whole year of living. It went beyond excitement and straight through to disbelief.
One single thought filtered through.
How would I explain that to my parents?You’re not half crippled anymore, how’d that happen?
Glory Girl broke into my thoughts. “So what’s your Power anyway?”
“Thinker,” I said, without thinking.
She smirked. “I can see that. Manoeuvre?”
Now, I hate to explain the joke but I realise not many of you would have the worldly experience to know this. An important thing you need to know about my native accent is that it has an atrocious habit of making ‘th’ sound like a hard ‘t’, three, sound like tree.
So, she probably heard ‘Tinker’
“Yeah,” I nodded, knocking on the metal of the spool.
She paced around, body racing to fight. “Still don’t know how you managed to see me coming I was coming in wicked fast over your shoulder…”
A sour look from her burned, like I’d hacked the game on her. Smirking inside my mask, I kept stumm.
“Still don’t know how you knew I knew.”
Her eyes zoomed in.
“You had a limp.” A finger pointed at my leg. “Then you didn’t, right after you grabbed both handles. Figured they were a weapon of some sort and you were trying to hide that you spotted me by playing cool.”
“Shit,”
You sure she’s a blonde?
“Yeah, that’s experience.”
Her chest swelled with pride. She figured that all out just by watching me? Glory Girl’d been doing this for years, of course she knew. Amazing,
“Fuck,” I said, feeling like I’d shrunk on the spot.
The phone chimed in my ear. I cancelled the call. It chimed again. I cancelled again. A text message chirped up onto the screen
:: Sugoi Sugoi…. Ne.
Glory Girl’s head snapped around. Dread rolled up inside me. “What’s that?”
The phone chirped again.
::Busted
My hand covered the screen. Tension rippled through my body, bracing for the hit. She could cartwheel a skip with a half-hearted kick and I knew it.
“I amn’t an idiot.” I ground through gritted teeth. My hands tended towards the blade handles. I caught them, getting a handle on myself. “I have a livestream camera feed going in my helmet in case something went wrong, so someone could call the Protectorate. You’ve a fan”
The smile came out forced. Her aura dimmed, easing the pressure.
“Hmmm….”She inspected me, looking for obvious lenses or cameras. I stepped back. So this is going on the internet?”
I shrugged., failing to look her in the eye “Wasn’t planning on it.”
“Too bad, …”
Another chirp brought a new message on screen.
::It is. It will now.
“You want it?”
“Sure, tag along and take some video of us nailing some Nazis”
::Sugoi [][][][][]….
The phone couldn’t display the rest.
She paced between the pools of orange light thrown down by the streetlights. I sat on a bollard in the shade, ignoring the shooting pain in my knee. Gone, just like that, all I had to do was wait.
A signing bonus for the good guys? I flexed my knee. Bones ground. Tendons screamed. It hurt so much more than it ever had before, getting its last licks in before being erased for good.
Panacea emerged from the shadows of a side-street, face shaded by the cowl of her nurses habit. She kept to the dark, lurking behind the radiance of her sister.
“What kept you?” Glory Girl asked, sounded almost exhasperated.
“The homeless,” she sighed, slipping around her sister. She took one look at me, sizing me up. I tried to stand straight. “I see what you mean.”
“I don’t look like a fucking Nazi!”
She shrugged. “Yeah. You sort of do.”
Glory Girl giggled.
“Fuck’s sake.”
Panacea’s tired eyes just glared. Heavy bags hung beneath, adding years to her face. “Just give me your hand,”
Tentatively, I pulled my sleeve back,
“Do I have your permission to heal you?”
A lump crawled up the back of my throat.
“Please,”
Sure, she only ever turned people into her willing lesbian love slaves in that one fanfic. Panacea’s fingers brushed like a live wire, energy pulsing through my whole body at once. My Power died, leaving me naked against whatever she decided to do. Tendrils of energy numbed my arm, a thrill of terror rising up as her grip firmed, spreading through my body.
Instincts begged to fight. The world shrunk away. Glory Girl went dark. Nothing remained but Panacea and me, her mind crawling over every atom of my body.
Pinpricks danced through my knees. Panacea’s jaw hinged open.
“How are you still walking?”
A nervous smile came to my lips. “One foot in front of the other, one at a time,”
Her head slowly shook. My phone chimed another message. It went unread. My knees bubbled, cords of Power tracing up and down muscles, centipedes skittering through my veins.
A gasp rose through my throat. The connection broke. Exhilarating sensation crashed back.
Then…
Nothing but the sound of my own gasping breath inside my facemask.
“That should undo the worst of it,” she said, not even looking up at me.“It’s better to heal the rest of the way naturally, or the limp will stay.”
I swallowed, hinging my knee. Stiff, tight, like I'd just spent the last hour sat on the toilet reading fanfic on my phone, but pain-free. Nothing
“Thanks.”
Panacea said nothing, looking up to her Sister, rather than bothering to listen to me. For her it was Thursday. Glory Girl stepped forward, growing in stature as she took another breath.
“Now we’re supposed to give you the speech about accountability, the value of heroism and doing the Right Thing and then offer to join, but I think it’s better to just go beat up some bad guys instead.”
That broad, shining grin on her face couple with the spark in her ice-blue eyes drew me in. I could barely nod.
Both hands went to her hips. “So what do we call you anyway?”
Ahm. Cape names are hard. Under the spotlight,my mind came up blank, offering my own name first before realising just how stupid that’d be. My hands clenched both throttles. Pulled deep from the depths of my arse the answer emerged…. Sie sind das essen, wir sind die….
“Jaeger?”
I liked it immediately.
Glory Girl rolled her eyes. “Again with the Nazi,”
“You put it into my bloody head!” I snapped.
Her broad shoulders shrugged. “It suits for tonight.”
Panacea said something, lost behind her sister. I paced, trialling my new legs, bouncing, jumping, shocking the knees, just to make sure.
A quick jog across the street, then back again, did nothing. No pain. No grinding. No aches. No bruises.
The laughter didn’t stop, half manic, half insane, almost giggling inside the mask. No black mark on my soul. No dark bargains. Just one spark of good luck that made putting on the costume worth everything.
All copacetic, like, as the locals say.
Life’s not all naval-gazing, self-deception and edgelord bollocks. Sometimes good things happen.
“So, Jaeger, let me fill you in….”
My cape-name.
The mask hid the stupid grin I wore.
----
Just following Glory Girl made everything worthwhile.
Mind, body and soul sang in harmony, the last year of my life drifting from my back as I swung through the streets. None of it mattered. The stress, the doubt…
I should’ve done this sooner.
Building to building, building confidence each time, hours of trial and error reduced by my Power to moments. Another swing ended with a bone-crunching thump.
My Power left only the ghosts of pain behind, carrying me up to next roof. Fresh legs carried me across to the next parapet, leaping into free space.
::Wer u goin?
I looked up at Glory Girl making graceful weaves through the sky.
“Following that arse.”
A draught of a sea breeze filtered through my mask, tickling inside my nostril leaving the trace of salt on my mouth. Sweat tickled down my forehead, prickling at my nose, crawling down my neck.
::700mb
Otherwise known as hurry the fuck up. Four hours me arse, it had taken fifteen minutes to eat through it all.
“Yeah, Yeah,”
At least I won’t have to worry about stumbling across Lung or something.
Another swing brought me crashing through the roof of the old Redmond Welding building, dropping into the gloom with a heartstopping scream. Shards of rust followed me into the black, my Power triggering in terror before the final splatter.
My second attempt clattered my body onto the apex of the roof, adrenaline echoes ringing. A moment’s pause let me catch my breath and plan. Rust had eaten the lower levels into steel swiss cheese, but the top of the roof above the loft had been shielded from the sea air by the bleached-pink sign looming over. Unlike the faded reminder of the city’s former glory, it almost looked new.
Dogs barked in the distance. My panting breath drowned them out. My heart drilled through my chest. Every part of me would hurt in the morning. No part of me cared.
My feet rattled the galvanised steel sheets, carrying me over the loft to the far end of the building.
I launched.
Petons latched onto the building opposite.
A fat bug cracked its guts across my goggles, followed by a second, then a third. Something pattered against my shoulder, buzzed in my ear. I didn’t swat, aiming for the building head.
A clean landing kept my momentum, kept me running.
The hulk of an old chiller gave me cover to take my goggles off and clear the guts off with the back of my glove.
::ew.
“Yeah. Downside of moving fast.”
Tipping my facemask up drained the worst of the sweat, a few wipes cleaning the worst of it.
Stiff legs carried me away, running full pelt. Sheer adrenaline swung me across the gap between buildings, putting distance between me and escalation.
Glory-Girl circled above, looking to see if I’d finally splattered myself.
Not in this timeline.
She feathered onto the roof beside me, her feet not making a sound as she touched down.
“Problem?”
My skin prickled, the weight of her aura pushing into my mind. I breathed, breaking eye contact, body at war with itself trying to sort out naked relief, the echo of terror and teenage kicks all at once.
“Nobody ever said anything about costumes being sweaty, sticky messes.”
A lie that had the benefit of being true.
“And people think we only wear this getup for PR reasons,”
She planted herself on the roof, the single-piece leotard she wore beneath her skirt stretching taught against firm muscle. Her chest swelled to the rhythm of her breathing Sweat-sheened bare skin glimmered under the electric light.
My mouth opened. Nothing came out.
I stepped. My hand clenched. All I had to do was reach. The pressure built, threatening to burst out. What if she saw? What if she knew?
“Yeah,” I managed. My whole body tingled, a shiver running through my spine.
She stepped into the air. A thousand teenaged fantasies took flight chasing after her, leaving my body shivering behind with my mind conjouring up a million million-to-one chances.
I chased them all, riding the wires, finding momentum. Trial and error had mutated into a solid foundation. Rooftop to rooftop, keeping pace, legs carrying me faster and faster, making more landings than I failed.
This is me.
This is what I’m meant to be.
Why I’m here, why I went through everything. No great plans, no world-saving shenanigans, this moment right here and now.
This one moment made it all worthwhile. The one thing mind, body, Power and soul agreed on. Somewhere I knew it had to be the backseat passenger grabbing at the wheel but I couldn’t care. It doesn’t matter why or how.
It felt right.
All good things come to an end. Hours collapsed into moments.
Glory Girl landed herself on the roof of an old shipping office, overlooking a dockside bar. The Protectorate’s rig watched over us both, shining in the night. Pink Neon shone above the bar’s shuttered front windows, spelling out the name. The Richmond
Taking a moment to catch my breath again, I paced to keep my muscles from going stiff. Waves lapped at the shoreline below, tongues of seawater wrapping themselves around steel pilings.
The whole world shone neon, glowing with new life.
Glory Girl looked to me. “You ready, Jaeger?”
Yes. With all my fucking heart. I just nodded.
“You got any gear that can see in there?”
No. Shit. The question stung, sounding more like an accusation. My mind added the ‘why dont’ in front of it. Panic in my chest begged for an answer, something to make up for it. An idea sparked, bringing a smirk to my lips.
“Info-chan?” I congratulated myself on remembering not to use Aki’s name. “You know anything about this place?”
Glory Girl gave me a puzzled look. A message came through a moment later.
::1 min ^^
Somewhere, I knew she giggled. Power or not, she’d gained a codename too. They’d talk about her on PHO. Verified Cape? Who is this Info-Chan?
“Wait a minute,” I relayed, finding it hard not to swagger.
Glory Girl held on hand on her hip, glaring at me, body taught and straining for action. A shiver crawled up my spine, my eyes switching between her and the building…
…maybe.
A chime in my ear killed the desire, trickling down.
:plans
Downloading slurped a whole fifty meg of data. My fingers tapped through a set scanned blueprints from when the bar had been last renovated, keypresses zooming in. Glory Girl’s gaze urged.
“2 floors. Living space upstairs – two apartments. Bar downstairs with the bar and a storeroom at the back. Basement cellar where they’d store kegs.”
“And no idea who’s in there.” she pushed.
Whatever part of my mind conjured up the idea, I hated it immediately. I couldn’t stop myself. Just to show her what I could do. The thought hung on my lips, begging to be spoken. I knew how to find out. She’d already given me the answer.
“You think I look like a Nazi?”
She caught the ball. “You really want to try that?”
“He’s panicking. He knows you’re after him.”
“They might’ve sent reinforcements,” she smiled.
“One way to find out?”
“But what about your accent?”
“Ayuh, I reckon I could do a wicked good impression though. Just gotta remember to hate the Yankees, talk like a Kennedy, and everythin’ will be copacetic.”
Never in my life have I seen so much hatred in a person’s eyes. Totally fucking worth it.
“Now, how do you get the information out without tipping them off,” she challenged.
The answer sat waiting on my head, ready to go.
“You have a mobile?”
Did I just ask Glory Girl for her phone number?
“A mobile?”
Right, America.
“Cell, what’s your Cell?”
Her lips pursed into a pout. “What’s yours?”
“603-867-5903”
She raised an eyebrow. “Really?”
“Yeah, what?”
“Nothing,” she murmured.
Something that made me cringe as she flipped her phone open, tapping with her thumbs. Was it something I said? Something about my phone number? A thousand anxious possibilities raced through my mind as I paced across the roof.
::My Cell. GG
If I’dve known she’d give mobile number so easily, I’dve put the cape on sooner.
“Going to forward it to Info-chan, so she can tell you what I’m seeing.”
A scowl flashed across her face, the objection hanging in her open mouth. She reached the same conclusion I did. Narrating ‘My first visit to a Nazi club’ would end it a quick and violent death.
“Fine…”
My fingers sent her phone number through with a few taps. Her phone buzzed an answer a moment later.
“Yeah,” she answered with a press of a button. Her eyes rolled as Aki assaulted through her earpiece.
“Ready?” I proposed.
“Fine…”
She didn’t sound concerned. My feet carried my body up to the parapet. My breath panted against the inside of the mask, hot and moist, sucking the sweat from my brow. My heart drummed in chest. Below, streetlights sparked off distant puddles simmering on the tarmac.
An echo of that night thrilled in my mind, resonating with my Power.
Again, I jumped. Wind rushed in my ears, accelerating.
Concrete realisation crushed down.
The real hell of being 16. Sometimes, you don’t realise important things until it’s far too late.
Like the fact that Glory Girl had tried to talk me out of pretending to be a Nazi just to scout out their base. Or, that I really didn’t want to pretend to be a Nazi just to scout out their base. Or that I really, really didn’t want to be on my own, surrounded by Nazi’s who might have more than baseball bats to hand.
Or who might be something other than human.
My Power hummed. I could trip it. Stand back up on the roof. Calmly realise that maybe, just maybe, pretending to be Empire might not be the smartest idea I ever had and ask Glory Girl if she had any other plan of action with her experience in the field.
But the idea of turning around an explaining that to Glory Girl somehow seemed ten times worse than running the risk of bumping into Hookwolf and friends and getting hammered by cold reality.
The hot fantasy of parahuman heroics won out as my boots made contact with the roof opposite.
I’m doing it.
I’m actually fucking doing it.
Steam drifted up from the vents beside me, cloaking around my body as I stepped onto the roof. Music thrummed through the floor, deep, driving bass firing the soul. Waiting on the roof, one single sentry jumped to his feet, stumbling over his own laces before catching himself on a vent.
He stood half a head taller than me. A Michelin-man jacket in midnight blue bulked him out to twice my size, big enough to hide a full-bore shotgun. A small voice inside asked if I really thought this was a good idea.
“Who the hell are you?” he demanded.
Alright. Time to look the GM in the Eye. Take a breath. Roll to Bullshit.
“Am I the first?”
Maybe not a complete match to the local accent.
“First?”
But good enough. Keep going. I could still run away if I blew it.
“Reinforcements,” I said. My voice rasped against the masks’s valves. “You’re lookin at New Wave droppin in any minute now.”
If you’re going to lie, cloak it in the truth. It’s easier. Especially if Info-chan had the sense to censor that bit.
“You with us?”
My right hand sheathed its blade, before offering a handshake.
“Yeah brother.”
His arms folded.
“So. In accord with Nature’s Laws. Nothing is more right….”
My hand hung there. Shit. Thunder-Flash bollocks.
Try again.
Back to touchdown.
“Info-chan. In accord with Nature’s Laws. Nothing is more right than?”
I waited. Michelin man jumped to his feet, tripping again. I stood my ground, blades held low in my hand. The screen in my googles remained blank.
He caught himself. My hands clenched tight on the grips of both blades. My Power recharged as my mouth parched dry. Seconds ticked.
“Who’re you?”
Shit! Try something else.
“In accord with Nature’s Laws. Nothing is more right”
He stopped, dead, caught off-guard. His eyes glanced around the roof, to the aircon vents, the water tower and the remains of the old billboard foundation. What lurked in the shade? Shadows danced at the edge of my sight, threatening a surprise attack.
“…than the preservation of one’s own race,” he said. One hand hovered over his waist, clawing to grab something in a flash.
Gun. My skin bristled. It had to be.
One thing that could beat my Power. Bullet in the brain-pan. Splat. Game over while waiting for the reset button to reset.
Fuck me, I mouthed. There sat proof. This was not your oulfella’s game of Villains and Vigilantes.
What now?
My mouth outran my brain, remembering the first time around.
“Am I the first?”
His hand hung. His eyebrow raised. His face came into sharp focus, rounded off by years of fast food, rough stubble begging for a razor’s edge under the jaw. Beady eyes fixed me in place.
“First?”
The phone chimed, a message popping up onscreen.
::Than preservation of ones own race.
“Damn,” I breathed, clenching my teeth. My Power latched, coming back to life. The safety-net untied the knot in my stomach.
“What?”
The hand clawed closer. A bulge formed in my mind around some imagined hand cannon.
“Reinforcements. You’re looking at New Wave droppin’ in any minute now.”
My eyes fixed on the hand. He fixed his belt.
“Didn’t hear we asked for any help.”
“You think you need to ask?” I tried to smirk, hoping it carried in my voice.
“Right, Right.”
I’d like to say I had the sang-froid to calmly step forward and plan through the entire conversation to get the exact information I needed. Really, my mind just stuck itself in the same thought-burning loop, churning over and over again.
Don’t fuck this up. Don’t fuck this up. Don’t fuck this up. Don’t fuck this up.
Another message onscreen broke the mantra
::Sry. How many + guns??
Right. Prizes for guessing where the prompt really came from. Take a breath. Try to sound like I belonged.
“So. How many guys you got up here?”
“Six,” he answered with a swagger, leading me towards a door.
“Guns?”
Holy shit. I can’t believe this is still working.
“A few. Got my glock.” He patted at his hip.
“18?”
Only Glock I knew. The GM stared at me. Roll the dice.
“15,” the sentry answered.
“Nothing heavy?”
“No. Who else Kaiser sending through?”
What other Empire capes could I remember off the top of my head?
“Hookwolf. Fenja. Menja….”
I counted them off with my fingers.
“Shame….”
“Shame?”
“What Hookwolf’d do…..”
I thought I saw fear. I thought I saw remorse. I knew that I really didn’t give a fuck about the deep personal motivations of an Empire thug. He turned his back to me. I drew both blades with a savage grin.
Crack.
One supercharged jolt from the batteries put him down like a dropped sack of spuds, spasming himself unconscious. A couple of quick borrowed zip-ties around his wrists and ankles made sure he wouldn’t get up again. On a whim, I pocketed his Glock to keep it from being used against me.
One down.
Now what?
Really. I didn’t have to do anything more. Honestly, I just couldn’t help myself. Standing at the door, I pulled it open. A pall of thin grey smoke rose up to meet, bringing the smell of burnt Mellow Virginia through my nostrils.
My stomach turned.
“Jacob?” A voice reached up.
My mind hung a moment, hovering around the threshold of the door.
“He’s fine,” I answered, finding the nerve to step through. It latched behind, sealing me in, just in time for a pair of tired eyes to greet me.
I looked up at a thin high-cheeked face with a sharp jaw, a single broken fag pinched between tight lips.
“Who the hell are you?”
“Jaeger. Kaiser sent me.”
The fag twitched as he sucked on his lips. He stared into the goggles.
“Never heard of you…”
Ahm….
“It’s my first day.”
His hand slipped towards his wallet. Gun! Flashed through my mind. My blades whipped free, one in each hand. His eyes spasmed wide. His hand drew. His body dropped with a crackle of raw electricity and a meaty thump. A crinkled fag-packet landed on the ground beside his pocket.
“CAAaaaape!” his friend beside me yelled. A body dived for cover behind a couch. Shouts rose up from below.
Shit.
My Power triggered. Now for a different approach. The longer they don’t realise I’m a threat, the more I can fuck them up. If I could stop them from getting downstairs, or lock a door
“Jacob….” A voice reached up again.
Adrenaline thrilled through my body, recalling the last time.
“He’s cool,” I answered.
Grey eyes looked down at me. “Who’re you?”
“Jaeger. Kaiser sent me.”
“Who?” His hand hung beside his pocket.
I couldn’t run. I had to push forward. I couldn’t imagine doing anything else.
“I’m new.”
I don’t know if he heard the smile on my lips.
“Welcome to the club,” he offered his right hand.
I took it with a hard grip and shook it. There was an irony there, when you think about it. How did Adolf Hitler get his start again?
::Find who beat Andrea??
Right. Mission.
“You stay up here. Wait for the signal…”
“Says who?”
He stood his ground, hand pressing against the bulge beneath his leather jacket. Yeah, I got a gun.
“Says the person with two swords and a fucking Power,” I snarled through my mask.“We got friends coming in. You think you can take on New Wave with that peashooter?”
Fuck me. Fuck me. Fuck me don’t call me on it. I’m so far out on a fucking limb here and this could go so fucking badly and thank Christ these fuckers can’t see my face because I’m bricking it…
All he saw were a pair of blank of goggles and a twin-can mask, breathing hard, a faint glow from meters built into the gloves. Steel blades glinted under the incandescent lights. A full harness of steel hung from my waist, two heavy containers slung by my hips.
The man took a breath, gauging me.
Black armoured leather. Flared helmet. Glaring goggles. Lightning flashes of metal clasps.
The man stepped aside.
Wow. This really works. This is working. What the hell do I do now? Keep going. Passed another open door on the first floor.
Holy fuck, I know that eejit.
He looked at me. Right at me. Right through me. I felt it. If he knew.
My Power loomed.
Earlier that morning, he’d asked me to join. The same kid, wearing the same orange jersey with same medhall sponsorship and that same best-mate smile which had asked me to join.
I looked him right in the eye, grabbing hold of my Power, daring him to recognise me. Hey Mick, nice costume. He shook my hand instead.
“Glad to have ya, brother.”
I nodded, swallowing the lump. A deep vader-breath pulled in dry, stale air. The filters cleared up the smoke, keeping me from coughing.
My goggles scanned the room. CNN on the telly in the corner broadcast the news, showing preparations for some event tomorrow. Two men, one tall, one short, circled a pool table, sizing up their next shots. Both had a decade on me or more.
Cigarette ash smouldered in the tray on the coffee table set in front of a worn leather couch. A scarred baseball-bat leant against it. Only the flag with the crossed grenades picked it out as anything more than a social club.
Right. Time to be the prick
“So, which one of you stomped the porch monkey?”
Don’t ask how I first heard that.
“Ayuh,” the shortest raised his cue. A crisp set of red laces decorated his steelcaps.
“New laces?” I said.
“Yeah men,” he grinned, bold as brass. “Man I just saw that bitch,” he laughed, nervous eyes scanning the room. “Fucking queen never worked a day in her life and she’s going through college on my dime because of some liberal affirmative action and I’m here working three goddamned jobs and can’t even afford a fucking dentist and so, Bam! No more teeth”
Every nodded sagely. An old story. I kept up appearance.
“Ayuh,” the tall one agreed, before taking a crack of a shot. “Freeloaders taking honest white men for a ride. What’s this country coming to? Fucking traitors get their day soon.”
Everyone nodded sagely. An older answer. I kept up appearances, scanning around.
Yes. Racist fucks really talk like this. This thing is not a parody. Poe's law lives and it stood right in front of me breathing through gleaming white teeth, wearing the strange air of civilised respectability.
Everyone looked to me. My mind struggled to scratch something together, gathering something from a past life.
“Yeah man, make America great again,” I said.
It really was the first thing I thought of. Honest. And totally not a commentary on an election I never saw finish.
“Make America great again. I like that,” said the kid beside me, placing a heavy hand on my shoulder. I shrugged it off with a grunt.
“Touchy,” he mumbled, holding both his hands up.
“Make America white again?” asked the taller.
“Yeah,” shorty agreed. ‘We could use that.”
Dear God, what have I unleashed? Someone’s going to call that a commentary on something, I guarantee it.
To be brutally honest, for a moment, I almost got it. Say the right words, make the right gestures, nod your head at the right time and kick the shit out of the wrong people and you were welcome.
You are one, with us.
We are part of something.
Still. No sympathy for the Devils, as the man says. They bought their ticket, now how do I take them for a ride? A fire axe sat in the cabinet beside me, alongside some old hose. I’d played enough games to know what they were really there for. I could strap the door shut, maybe break the handle
::!
I blinked, taking a moment to wonder what that meant. The window shattered an instant later with a whoop of joy, a cold draught dragging sparkling shrapnel behind a white blur. Something crunched against the wall beside me, landing with a thump and a groan. My eyes opened.
Shorty lay slumped over, looking like a doll broken in half.
Tallboy stood, pool cue in hand, not sure what’d just happened.
“Dad,” said the boy beside me, his voice shrinking in the background.
Glory Girl stood in her radiance, legs apart, thin red cape drifting on the breeze behind her.
“Nobody move!”
Nobody moved. Nobody breathed. My heart thumped.
Darkness encroached around, enveloping the room until only she remained, a human beacon holding back even our own thoughts. My hands hovered beside both sheathed blades, mind frozen on the last instruction.
Every thought crashed against the wall inside my head.
Nothing existed except Glory Girl and her awesome bodysuit, standing, daring someone to attack, powerful legs rooting her to the spot.
“Do something dude,” the kid behind me breathed, his voice shaking.
My thoughts ground against stone, muscles straining to work. Fingers found the grips of the blades. Their weight filled my hands, sliding free, gaining momentum. Metal scratched against metal, building momentum. Glory Girl’s eyes glanced at me, then the kid behind me. His breath shivered as the full force of her aura came to bear.
Tallboy’s hand reached for his waist, clawing at something. My mouth found a gear.
“Gun!”
Her head snapped. He drew. The aura collapsed. My mind sprung free. The kid beside me had enough time to realise how badly he’d been fucked before both blades shocked him off his feet.
Glory Girl launched tallboy into the ceiling with a swinging kick.
The body landed in a heap. His gun skittered across the floor.
Footsteps drummed down the stairs outside, door bursting open. The barrel of a gun met my face, sweeping through the room. Thoughtly, I lashed out. His eyes widened, mind taking a moment to process and wonder why a ‘friend’ was attacking. My first strike knocked the gun from his hand, sending it skittering across the floor.
He grabbed hold, wrestling me to the wall. Metal crashed against concrete. One, two three hard blows with my fist caught him on the nose. Just enough to knok him back. A stab at my stomach knocked the wind out of me but the adrenaline carried me through, grunting. The pommel of the sword met the side of his chest and he dropped with a crack of lightning. Yeah. I don’t need to use the pair to do it.
Glory Girl had disappeared. So had the gun. Two men lay on the ground. Shorty and Tallboy. A third from the stairs groaned at my feet.
The kid had gone missing.
I scanned the room. A shadow loomed behind me. The bat beside the couch had gone missing.
He swung the bat. My blade parried, shock running up the arm. The shot stunned my arm, my fingers spasming, shock grounding through my feet. My fist caught him across the side of the face. He stepped. I lunged, crashing into his body. He toppled with a yell. Hands grasped at my costume straps, pulling me off my feet with a yelp of fright.
We landed in a heap, my body across his.
A hard blow to the face cracked my mask against my nose, bringing tears to my eyes. Instinct took over. One. Two. Three. The shock ran up my elbow as it slammed down hard against something made of bone. I pushed myself off. He lay there, face bloodied, nose askew, struggling to move
Done.
Fucker.
A gunshot shook the building. Followed by another heavyweight thump as somebody soft met something hard.
Then nothing.
Only my own panting breath and the roar of blood in my ears. My body shook, driven by adrenaline to do more than just stand a wait. My eyes scanned round.
Three men, either groaning or unconscious. One kid curled up in a ball, blood gushing from his nose. My arm thrummed. My legs ached. My heart threatened to burst free.
A savage grin crossed my lips and I waited for the last one to make his way up. My blades hung ready by my side.
Glory Girl shouldered the door open, a flash of her aura stunning my mind long enough for her to stride past, long legs carrying her into the room. Her chest rose and fell in time with her breath, matching mine. Her grin shone radiant as she stood
“Tie ‘em up and I’ll call my sister.”
The rest of it happened much as you’d expect. You've probably read the original Interlude. Panacea arrived and made sure nobody’d had their life permanently ruined in her own sinister way.
Again.
I sat on the roof in the cold air, winding down from the greatest high of my life, a strange sense of disbelief swimming through my body. Every single hair on my body fizzled with excitement, my mind turning itself through loops begging to go again.
I just passed the fucking tutorial level, and I was ready to pay full price to play the game.
Fighting and winning.
It felt like life.
I’ve been such an eejit, haven’t I? My Power hummed in agreement. Somewhere deep inside, I knew better, I knew where the idea came from
It didn’t matter.
::That was so cool.
Info-chan summed it up in one line on my goggles.
A new life pulsing in neon colour, vibrant, thrumming with energy, beckoning, enticing – begging me to step forward and claim it. I got it. I finally got it. A diamond bullet to the brain. A brand new apocalypse.
I really could do things that mattered.
This made two. Twice I'd stood in the narrative and twice things had been different in some small way.
“First time’s always intense,” Glory Girl hovered beside me, winding down from the same adrenaline high. A shock ran through my body, grounding fast.
“It took me far too long to do it,” I admitted.
She dropped to her feet, standing with one arm held akimbo, the other brushing the breeze-blown hair from her face. “Mom’ll kill me for saying it, but the Wards really could use someone like you,”
“I want to wait a few weeks,” I said, making a conscious effort not to focus on her.
“The sooner, the better. Being a solo act in this city’s so dangerous you might as well commit suicide.”
That stabbed, a heartbeat snap into the moment, falling. Trigger warning. She caught the flinch immediately.
“Oh geez, I’m sorry.”
Her whole body seemed to shrink, the pressure on my mind receding. I saw the real her, wearing a sheepish smile, embarrassed in the moment. It drew a genuine smile to my lips, hidden by the mask. Maybe even a little ashamed myself for reacting so much.
“It’s okay, really,” I waved it off. Really. “I just have to work some personal things out first.”
Really.
Freed from her shame, she grew three size in my mind again, crushing me down.
I thought I could’ve said something else, something about looking after her sister or how fucked her mind might really be by the stress of it all, but it died inside of me. What if she got angry? What if I tripped her little trigger?
The aura loomed, smothering my words.
That’s my excuse.
I stood and stared over the city, just trying to hang on to the moment.
The whoop of approaching sirens and blue lights strobing in the street signalled the end of all good things. Reality had arrived to intrude.
“Now for the real fun,” she said, through gritted teeth.
“Yeah. No,” I said with a shrug, making for the roof edge.
One firm hard grasped the strap across my back. "Oh no you don't...."
Goddammit. I had better things to do than spend a half-hour explaining myself to blank-face stormtroopers in SWAT gear.
Just don't ask them if they know Governor Tarkin. They've heard the one before.
--
Aki exploded when I landed on her roof.
“That was so awesome,” she panted. Her mouth opened. Japanese came out. She stopped, blushed, and composed her words again. “Like. In the face. And Glory Girl…. Ano…. Ano…” she gasped, outrunning herself again.
Wearing only short and a t-shirt, she shivered against the cold. My eyes glanced down. Very obviously cold, too.
One free hand levered my facemask and helmet off, steam rising from my hair. The helmet clattered down onto the rooftop.. I stood opposite her, struggling to breath. Formerly fresh-legs burned from the exertion.
A thick smile crossed my lips, chased by a childish giggle.
“It fucking was, wasn’t it?”
She laughed, smothering it behind her hand, looking up at me with bright, shining eyes.
“Hai…”
We stood, catching our breath. She’d run up the stairs from her apartment below. I’d swung across the city. She placed her hands on my shoulders, light, almost imperceptible through the leather.
My heart stuttered at the possibility.
My own hands pressed against her waist, soft skin giving way, fuelling the drive to just pull her tight.
My mouth watered. She sucked on her lips, body turning tense in my hands. Sweat glistened across her broad face. Jim Steinman wrote whole operas about this moment. Both of us, sixteen years old and sparking in the dark, hungering for the taste of each other’s lips.
She pushed free.
The chill took hold of my body. Not tonight. That look of naked pain on her face stung.
“Your clothes are downstairs,” she said, her voice flat.
Why? What had I done wrong? She turned and walked, leaving me bewildered, standing in the cold with my helmet leaning again
“What was that?” I asked.
She glanced back, as if I should’ve known the answer
“What’d I do?” I demanded.
No answer.
I followed.
The roof door squealed shut behind me. My gear rattled with each step
“What happened?”
No answer. She turned a corner. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, throwing a hard blue light against the walls. Paint peeled in flakes beneath my touch.
She threw me a hard glance, pushing open a veneered door. Light poured out from inside, harsh and white. I followed her in, slipping out of my boots before the step up on to the timber floor.
She stood alone in a silent apartment, almost offering it as her explanation. That’s why, asshole.
I saw.
Dishes piled in the sink for days. Clothes scattered across the floor, unwashed. Cans of food left open and mouldering. Papers thrown on the table and the floor – dozens of typed sheets scattered haphazardly, dropped where they’d fallen. Shards of broken ornaments sat spilled on the ground.
The pieces crashed into place.
And I couldn’t ignore them.
I had the power. I could do things that mattered. Maybe, I could do this now. Maybe I could ask her.
“Your bag’s by the couch. Get changed in the bathroom.”
I stared down at the helmet in my hands. My costume. My other face. The hero I could be. I’d have to do it.
“Akiko,” my voice tried.
She just stood with her back to me, focused on the picture of her family hanging on the wall.
“I'm going to ask you a pretty hard question, and I need an answer quickly, or I can't do anything.”
She stepped away. Her head turned back over her shoulder, looking at me through the side of her eye.
“What is it?”
At least she listening. We did it again, just to set a marker with my Power. Now for step two.
Please God don’t let me fuck this up.
I looked right at her, stared straight through her skull with a laser gaze, and took a shaking breath “I know you're ABB.” And that slapped her across the face. She snapped to face. Her eyes golfballed, her mouth hinging open to protest, to scream a denial. If I’d been closer she’d’ve slapped me across the face. “I can try get you out with my power. Do you want me to try?”
I promised myself. I’d move hell to make it happen. I meant it.
She stood.
Completely blindsided. Hit by a brick.
Well sorry, I only have fifteen seconds, how fucking subtle can I be?
She turned. She looked away. She scanned the room. She eyed me, gauging my chances. Not just mine, but the whole Protectorate. I’d do it. I 'djoin. There's my fucking condition. They'd do it. They'd have to do it.
She gauged the whole world’s chances to save her, for something good to possibly happen and save her.
Tears welled up her eyes. My stomach turned. I knew the answer. I waited anyway, counting the timer down in my mind.
“No,” her head shook. Her face twisted into a mask of fear and pain and I hated it. “Please don't do anything, my par-.”
My Power triggered, gunning the moment, banishing it to dead time. Fuck it all. That’s all I needed to know. I won’t admit to feeling just a little relieved, released from my own unspoken promise.
I’ll admit to hating it.
“What is it?” she asked, again.
“I already asked,” I said, swallowing the truth. “I used my Power.”
“What'd you ask me?” she pushed.
My head shook slowly. “Nothing,”
She scowled at me. “Fine…”
I stood on that timber floor, turning it over in my head.
Damn them for doing this to her.
Damn her for getting into it in the first place.
And damn me for not being able to do anything.
“Akiko,” I said, my voice lost in the mess of the apartment. “Keep yourself safe, please.”
That’s all I could do. All I could hope for her.
Slowly, she turned to face me, tears glistening down her cheeks.
“Thank you very much.” I like to think she knew I’d figured out her secret, even if I didn’t need to say it. Maybe that’s why her smile came back. Soft, sad, stinging, but still welcome. “And you, please,” she breathed. “Good Luck.”
I bowed. “Arigatou Gozaimashtou.”
My eyes turned up just in time to see her do the same, dark hair cascading over her shoulders. We stood up, sharing an awkward smile and an uneasy squirm. Our hands reached out, tentative, testing the air between us. We touched. Hand to shoulder. A hot thrill through my bones begged for more, for a gentle moment threatening to pull in to something closer – warmer.
But no. Not tonight.
We stepped back, fatigue hanging from our bodies. It’d already been a long day. Neither of us needed to say any more. No denials. No excuses.
She went to bed.
So did I, taking the couch to myself in a t-shirt and shorts.
In the darkness before sleep, sanity returned. I tried to reassure myself that really, I couldn’t have done anything. Not against Bakuda or Oni-Lee or a thousand conscripts with shotguns and baseball bats.
No matter what I told myself, it just rung hollow.
Having a Power, couldn’t keep me from feeling utterly powerless.
No. To hell with it. I’m doing something.
I just need to figure out what.
And how.
The first one of you to say Good, the Bitch deserves it, gets a punch in the mouth. Seriously. Fuck you.
--
I love the smell of rotaries in the morning. You know one time, I got to work early, before the rush hour. I walked through the empty carpark, I didn't see one bloody Prius or Golf. And that smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole carpark, smelled like.... ....speed.
One day they're going to ban them.