by Nick Svolos
“I’ll go around to the other side and get their attention. You come in from this side and take care of the goons while I get the flamethrower outside where I can deal with him. Then we bring in the cops and call it a night.”
“Sounds good.” He paused to adjust how his bandanna sat on his nose. “What's the signal?”
“Oh, you'll know.” I rose into the air. A second or two later, I was at the front of the building, realizing I hadn't thought this part of the plan through. The front door was locked, as were all the windows. Of course they were locked. The cops didn’t alert the company we were coming, worried that the bad guys might have an inside man. I winced, knowing I'd hear about this from Ultiman tomorrow. I figured that windows are cheaper to replace than doors, so I flew through one as noisily as possible. A little waiting area was on the other side, and beyond that, an unlocked door. I strode through into a hallway and then the warehouse proper.
Past the pallets of stacked electronics and what-not, I saw the crew. One of them drove a forklift, while the others lined up stacks of product to load into the trailer. They were all armed—semi-automatic rifles slung across their backs. They hadn’t heard me breaking the window, so I cleared my throat. As one, they stopped their work and gaped at me in surprise.
I called out to them. “Did anyone order a pizza?”
I was still working on my banter. Cut me some slack. I was new at this.
As the burglars unlimbered their weapons, I stepped casually forward. “Wait! Let me try another one. Anybody here from out of town?”
In unison, the henchmen opened fire. Bullets from a half-dozen rifles struck my chest and bounced away. The force of their impact knocked me back a few paces, and stinging pain erupted all over my torso. It was nothing I wasn't ready for. Fortunately, I was bulletproof. Unfortunately, my costume wasn't.
“Hey! I just had this thing dry cleaned.” I recovered and raced toward the crooks.
“Who the hell are you?” one of the goons shouted. Nervous sweat beaded on his bald scalp.
“Whoever he is, he’s dead meat!” shouted the one I decided to call Crewcut.
“Call me … The Distraction,” I said with a bit of theatrical flair, earning myself another volley of gunfire.
A series of reports from Peacemaker’s right-hand Colt, named “Justice” (Yes, his guns have names. Don’t judge.), rang out, and three of the gunmen went down, wrapped in a fine mesh of polyweave fibers that only got tighter as they struggled to free themselves. Baldy, Crewcut and the other remaining thug, let’s call him Redshirt, panicked, spun, and opened fire without realizing there weren't any targets for them to hit. Peacemaker waited until they'd emptied their clips before sprinting through an open space to take cover behind a pallet of heavy crates, taking down Crewcut on his way.
By rights, I should probably have gotten involved in taking down the last two goons. Peacemaker wasn’t bulletproof, but damn, he was good. I have to admit, I was geeking out a bit, keeping an eye out for this Backdraft guy while watching the gunslinger do his thing. The cowboy didn't even bother to aim. He just pointed and pulled the trigger. The custom-made projectiles ended up where he wanted them.
The flameslinger made his appearance as Peacemaker sent Baldy to dreamland with a rubber bullet that bounced off a steel roof support, down to the concrete at the henchman’s feet, and back up to his chin in a beautiful, if somewhat showboaty, uppercut. Backdraft wasn't hard to miss. He was dressed in a red and yellow get-up that shouted, “Hi, I'm a supervillain. Ask me about my flame powers.” His hands and feet were bare, and his suit didn’t have any armor or padding to speak of, giving me a clue as to how his abilities worked.
Peacemaker, crouching behind a pallet of microwave ovens, was the first thing Backdraft saw as he stepped out of a little office set in the side of the warehouse. The cowboy was exposed, focused as he was on the remaining gunman, and an easy target. The villain raised both arms and unleashed a blast of fire from his hands. I was already in motion. In an instant, I flew into the flame-bolt’s path, shielding the descendant of a long-dead Texas Ranger with my body. I yelped from the sudden pain, but managed to force down the primal urge to panic. The flames couldn't actually damage me, but they still hurt like hell. I felt my skinsuit begin to melt.
The torch’s feet ignited and he rose into the air, preparing another blast. This was the sort of thing that could get out of control real quick, precisely what I was here to prevent.
Peacemaker gave me the opening I needed. Now aware of this new threat, he rolled into better cover. His left revolver (he calls that one “Mercy”) barked and coated me with some kind of fire-suppressing foam. It spoke again, covering the firefly’s hands in the same gunk.
I didn't waste any time. I hurled myself through the air into the villain’s midsection, did a quick spin, and threw him through a street-facing window in a shower of splintered glass. More property damage, but a lot less than if this guy torched the building while I tried to tango with him inside.
Out on the street, the cops were already showing up. Flashing lights lit the area in red and blue while sirens provided a wailing soundtrack. Damn. They were supposed to wait for my signal. The gunfire must have drawn them in like dogs to a can opener. That's the kind of people they are. Guns go off, and they come running. It's admirable, but in this case, not terribly helpful.
To validate that point, the man in red got to his feet, looked around, and smiled at the scene. His face broke into a cruel grin as he extended his arms toward the nearest two police cars. The officers, realizing their error, took what shelter they could behind their vehicles, aiming at the villain with their service pistols, for all the good that did them. The insignia on their cars identified them as local cops. Santa Fe Springs was a suburban town. They didn't get a lot of supervillains there. The officers didn’t have the training or the equipment for this situation.
I held up my hands. “Everybody be cool, now. There’s no need to make any hasty decisions.” The cops wisely held their fire. Backdraft just stood there, grinning. His eyes never left me.
I had a moment to read the scene and I took it. Backdraft had recovered from my attack without a scratch. He didn’t seem to be particularly concerned about the cops, either. I figured their low-load bullets weren’t a threat to him. That confirmed my assessment that he could take a punch. Good. When the time came, I wouldn’t have to hold back.
“I can see we have an understanding,” the flameslinger said. “You let me go, and I don’t fry these fine officers.”
“Can’t do that.” I took a couple of slow, careful steps forward. “They’d never let me hear the end of it back at the Tower. Besides,” I rose my voice a few decibels, “the cops know to haul ass when this starts.” In the periphery of my vision, the cops had already holstered their weapons and edged back from their cars. “How ‘bout you turn yourself in and cut your losses?”
It looked for a moment like Backdraft was about to do just that. His confident smirk faded to a concerned frown. Unfortunately, the universe got bored easily and was fond of throwing curveballs. It playfully tossed one my way.
“Look, Daddy! It’s Captain Stand-In!” a child’s voice sang out.
Ah, crap.
I turned my head to see a minivan behind the cops’ makeshift perimeter, windows rolled down, with a happily amazed family snapping pictures of the showdown with their phones.
Okay, here’s a helpful tip. If you’re driving along with your kids some evening and come across a police barricade with a couple of superhumans squaring off on the other side, keep driving. Don’t stop your car. Don’t take a selfie. For crying out loud, model some decent decision-making for your offspring and get the hell out of there.
Naturally, the flameslinger shifted his aim to the civilians. The smirk was back.
“How ‘bout now?”
I shrugged. “Okay, you win. Go on, fly away. I won't stop you.”
“Ah, ah, ah.” He wagged a finger at me. “I’m not
falling for that. You’ll just follow and jump me as soon as we’re clear.”
Well, yeah, that was my plan. Pretty obvious, when I look at it in hindsight.
“Think I’ll take one of the kiddies for a little ride,” he said, walking towards the family.
The dad tried to start his minivan, but all he got for his efforts was a whirr, whirr, whirr from the engine. Whether he flooded it in his panic or this was another curveball from the universe, I couldn’t say. The cops’ eyes were on me. Their guns were back out, and while they knew what would happen to them, there was no way they were going to let this guy get his hands on a kid.
Neither was I.
I stomped down hard, sending a shockwave through the pavement. A nearby manhole cover bounced up about six inches, high enough for me to pluck it from the air and fling it at the firebug. A little trick Herculene taught me. One-hundred-ten pounds of spinning cast iron sailed through the air with me flying close behind and just underneath. Backdraft blasted the disc full force, melting it to slag that splashed harmlessly off his chest, but its job was done. I slammed into him with my shoulder, wrapping my arms around his waist and soaring into the night sky.
My head erupted in agony as he tried to burn his way through my skull. I freed one of my hands and punched him a few times in the gut, trying to keep him from catching his breath. We soared higher. The flames got weaker. Fire needs oxygen to work, so maybe this guy didn't have enough to work with at this altitude. Or, maybe my gut punches were making some progress. I didn’t take the time to ask.
Instead, I looked for a place to end this.
I spotted what I needed: a nice, deserted golf course. One crazy power-dive later, we splashed into a water hazard. It wasn’t very deep, but I held us both under the murky water until the other guy quit struggling and started tapping my shoulder in surrender. Good enough for me. I let us both up for air, clicked my jaw a couple of times, and tried to call Dawson to come and relieve me of my soggy captive.
It didn’t work. Backdraft, in his efforts to broil my brain, cooked the Angel communicator good. Not wanting to expose him to air again, I had no choice but to settle in and wait for somebody to find us.
***
I passed the time by keeping my prisoner submerged, leaving just enough of his head exposed to let him breathe. I didn’t want to think about what was in that brackish pond. It smelled like it served as a popular rest stop for waterfowl migrating through the area. Backdraft didn’t seem eager to talk, probably to avoid swallowing any of that questionable liquid, which suited me just fine. It took a while, but eventually a squad car, following up on a report of a falling meteor, found us and radioed it in.
A few minutes later, a containment team arrived to snap a set of power nullification handcuffs and helmet on Backdraft while a thrice-blessed officer took mercy on me, offering a towel to scrape some of the muck off what was left of my costume. “Nothing personal, Cap, but you need a shower,” she joked, stepping upwind.
“Occupational hazard. Say, is Dawson here yet?”
She jerked her thumb over her shoulder. “Up by the street. Careful, though. There’s a TV crew set up there.”
I ran a hand over my head. My mask was gone, burned away during the fight, along with all my hair. Damn, this was going to take some explaining at work. I turned my back to the indicated area.
“I don't suppose you have a spare balaclava laying around?”
She grinned. “Let me see what I can find.” She disappeared into the paddy wagon, emerging a few moments later with a black ski mask. “Here ya go. Just be sure to return it tomorrow. Otherwise, I’ll have to do a bunch of paperwork to get another.”
Cops. They’ll run into a burning building, race toward a gunfight, and risk their lives in a million other ways, but the mere thought of filling out forms gets their knees shaking. You gotta love ‘em.
I pulled the mask on, smiling my gratitude and promising to return it before it could be missed. I waited around until Backdraft was loaded into the wagon’s containment cell before striding off toward the hastily set up command center. Captin Dawson stood at the center of a little hub of chaos as he and a few of his squad worked to manage police activity at the links and at the warehouse. He waved me over as I approached. I clicked my jaw again and tested my voice with a low hum to make sure I still had the country-western singer setting engaged.
“Everything good down there?”
I nodded. “All under control, Captain. How ‘bout back at the warehouse?”
“Your cowboy buddy had everything all wrapped up and slipped off by the time we got in.” He got a wistful look in his eye. “We never even got a chance to thank him.”
“Yeah, well, the mayor over there hates him. Probably didn’t want to get into a debate over the Second Amendment with the local cops. Need me to stick around?”
“Naw, I think we’re good. Besides, your adoring public awaits.” He tilted his heavy head toward the news crew. Behind the police barricade, a woman waved to get my attention, a microphone clutched in her other hand. Her cameraman studied us with a rectangular glass eye. The logo on the side of their van announced that they were with the Channel 5 Action News Team. A large, bright red, exclamation mark made the logo more “action-y”.
Oh, good grief.
Once the stuff of the front page, public interest in superhuman activity dried up after the United Nations updated the Geneva Conventions to outlaw the use of supers in military conflicts in 1973. Follow that up with the Watergate scandal, and thousands of news cycles since, and there were just too many other stories competing for column inches and airtime. Supers became yesterday’s news.
Recent events in Los Angeles, most of which were reported by yours truly, sparked an uptick in public interest. It wasn’t exactly a groundswell. Most of the big news outlets still turned up their noses at all but the most spectacular stories. This worked out well for the Beacon, since my coverage of the superhuman community gave us a nice niche all to ourselves. When the big stories hit, we were already all over it while everyone else scrambled to catch up. It sold papers and justified my meager salary.
As a newspaperman, I’m not a big fan of TV news in the first place, but Channel 5 was just the worst. A supermarket tabloid with pretty anchor-people. They’d hired a new station manager last year to address their flagging ratings, and he’d jumped on the anti-super bandwagon. It turned out there was a vast market of frightened people out there, concerned about these living weapons in their midst, and KCNR was all too happy to feed those fears.
Knowing these guys, they’d probably bury me behind three stories on sex scandals and the weather forecast from their perpetually perky meteorologist, Barbi. That’s right. She spelled it with an “i”.
Of course, if I screwed this up and gave them something to make me look bad, I’d be on at the top of the hour.
“Ah, geez,” I muttered. I really didn't want to do this, but I knew I would anyway. Call it professional courtesy.
Dawson chuckled. “Just don’t forget this is an active investigation.”
“No prob,” I grunted and walked over to face the press.
“Captain Stand-In!” she called as soon as she saw me heading her way. “Rachel James, KCNR News. Can you spare a moment?”
“What can I do for you, Ms. James?”
“What can you tell us about tonight’s activity? Is this connected to the string of burglaries in San Pedro and Long Beach?”
“It’s possible. The investigation is ongoing. There’s not a lot I can say beyond that.”
“How about your involvement? Did you know there would be a supervillain at the scene?”
“The LAPD asked The Angels to send support, so I believe they suspected something was up.”
“Your costume’s largely burned away. Are you hurt? Did he get some shots in on you?”
I took a look down at my torso. The front of my shirt was gone, and the hair was burned off my chest. Fortunately, the damage hadn’
t spread any further south. “Yeah, you could say that. But I’m fine.”
“Have you learned his name?”
“I don’t think there’s been a positive ID yet. I’m told he goes by the name Backdraft, but I suppose the police will verify that.”
“You think he might be somebody else?”
“I doubt that’s his Christian name. Best wait for the police to ID him.”
“How about the property damage at the warehouse? Couldn’t you have taken action to prevent that?”
“You know how this works, Miss James. Until someone starts using violence or powers, there’s not a lot I can legally do. The police were quite clear on when and where I could get involved.”
“Did the same rules of engagement apply to Peacemaker?”
“Those rules apply to all of us. Thanks to Peacemaker, we got it done without any injuries.”
“We have reports that some members of the Santa Fe Springs Police ‘jumped the gun’ and almost got caught in the crossfire.”
“You’ll have to speak with them about that.” Though that’s how it looked to me, I didn’t want to throw the officers under the bus. They’d get enough grief from their watch commander. They didn’t need the press piling on.
“We also have reports that some civilians were endangered.”
“That’s true, but not because of us. Once the suspect realized he was in trouble, he communicated a threat to take a hostage.”
“Should they have been there?”
“That’d be a question for the police.”
“Why did The Angels send you? You’re their rookie member.”
“Temporary member,” I said, trying not to sound too forceful as I corrected her.
“Yes, ‘temporary member.’ Wouldn’t a more experienced member have been a better choice?”
“Anyone on the team could handle it. I think it was just my turn.”
“But wouldn’t it have been safer to send a stronger force rather than one untested ‘stand-in’?”
I ignored the veiled insult. She was just trying to get a rise out of me. It’s something we do in the reporting business. “I drew the assignment, and I’ll be happy to answer for how I handled it. As for second-guessing the team’s decisions, I’ll leave that to the press.”