Ex-Superheroes

by A. J. Markam

  What can I say. I wanted to dress the part of a bad guy.

  All that was missing was the black hat… but I hate hats, so fuck that.

  I looked over at Nova. “We can get you some clothes at another shop, you know. Something you could go clubbing in.”

  “I told you, this suit is specifically designed for my powers.”

  “What happens if you wear something else?”

  “It’ll burn right off.”

  I grinned. “Then we should definitely get you some new clothes.”

  She just rolled her eyes.

  After I paid, we got back in the waiting car outside and continued onwards.

  Just before midnight, the driver rolled up to our destination: a glass skyscraper in downtown Tokyo. Madame’s was in the penthouse at the top.

  It was a swanky area – lots of high-rise buildings all around, plus a nice little park across the street with grassy lawns and a bunch of cherry blossom trees. An urban oasis in a glass and steel jungle.

  We got out of the car. As we entered the lobby of the building, I saw Kaichi, the 30-something guy who controlled access to Madame’s. He looked up from his little maître d’ stand and broke out into a smile. “Hunter-sannnn! Good to see you!”

  “Kaichi.”

  “Are you working with Tonmonoshitsu?”

  Nova looked at me quizzically.

  “Japanese for ‘Antimatter,’” I explained, then turned back at Kaichi. “No. Not yet, I’m not.”

  “Weren’t you sent to Karkarin?”

  “Jailbreak yesterday.”

  “Reeeeeallyyyy,” Kaichi said in surprise.

  Nova raised one eyebrow. Now she knew that everybody was full of shit around here.

  “Yup,” I answered. “So you might spot a few more familiar faces over the next couple of days.”

  “I see. Well, all the same rules apply since your last visit. No use of powers on pain of death. That goes for your lady friend, as well.”

  “Got it. Thanks, Kaichi,” I said, and tipped him the equivalent of $200.

  As the mirrored elevator door closed behind me and Nova, she whispered, “Do you know everybody in Tokyo?”

  I smirked. “I know everybody everywhere, darlin’. As long as they’re on the wrong side of the law.”

  9

  After a ride up 80 floors, the elevator doors opened up on the fanciest little whorehouse in Tokyo.

  Actually, that’s misleading. Madame’s was arranged much more like a super-high-class restaurant – because it was. $300 an entrée on the low end, and some of the best chefs in all of Japan.

  There were dozens of linen-covered tables in the dimly lit, wide-open floor space. In the background, floor-to-ceiling windows provided a 180-degree view of Tokyo shining in the dark. The only reason it wasn’t 360 degrees was because half of the 10,000 square foot penthouse was divided into rooms for clientele and the high-priced prostitutes.

  But out front, everything was on the up-and-up. A couple of bars for folks to wet their whistle, lots of tables for them to eat filet mignon and lobster, and some cozy couches by the windows to meet beautiful women wearing very little.

  And if you wanted to cut an illegal deal, Madame’s was the place to do it.

  Even on a weeknight, the restaurant and bar was filled with criminals. Superpowered or not, they were hanging out in their suits – Armani or brightly colored spandex, didn’t matter which. I hadn’t been bullshitting Nova earlier. Some of the douchier SPCs wanted everybody to know they had powers, and their clothing reflected it.

  As I was scanning the crowd for familiar faces, I heard a familiar voice instead.

  “Hunter-san!”

  I looked over to see Mama, the madam of Madame’s and one of the most connected criminals in all of Tokyo. You wouldn’t know it to look at her. She was a 60-year-old grandma in a traditional kimono, with ebony chopsticks through the bun in her hair. She was brassy and ballsy, with lipstick-stained teeth and badly applied geisha makeup. No whore like an old whore. But it was all a gimmick, a schtick. If you judged her solely by her appearance, you did so at your own peril.

  “Hey, Mama-san,” I grinned back.

  She hustled over to me and hugged me as she laughed – and copped a feel of my ass while she was at it. “You come to see me?” she asked in slightly broken English.

  I played along, though there wasn’t enough money in the world to convince me to bang her. “You know it.”

  She laughed. “Too bad for you! Still retired.”

  “You can come out of retirement for me. I’ll make it worth your while.”

  “I am sure you think you would, but I am too expensive for you!”

  “Ah, you’ll give me a discount.”

  “I think not! But I set you up with nice girl, hai?”

  “Sounds good. I’ve been in prison a year, so I’m itching for some action.”

  “Karkarin break-out, eh?”

  Well, at least somebody wasn’t playing stupid. Made sense – Mama-san was the smartest of all the people I’d talked to today, and she knew I’d see through her lies, so she played it straight.

  “News travels fast,” I said.

  “Not fast enough. You be careful – no Aussies here tonight, but eyes and ears everywhere,” she warned me.

  “I’ll be careful.”

  “If you are not, then go be NOT careful somewhere else!” She laughed, then gave Nova an appraising look. “Who this?”

  “My associate.”

  “Ahhh – she no spread legs for you?” Mama-san asked, and wiggled her eyebrows lasciviously.

  Nova looked like somebody had just presented her with an open-faced shit sandwich.

  “Haven’t convinced her to yet,” I answered.

  “That why you need Mama-san!” the old lady cackled. “I go get girl ready for you. Beautiful girl, nice girl.”

  “Sounds good.”

  As she turned to go, I slapped her on the ass.

  “Hunter-san! Tee-hee!” she giggled like a schoolgirl, then scurried off.

  Nova raised one side of her mouth in a sneer. “Well that was crude.”

  “We’re in a top-shelf whorehouse,” I said. “Get used to it.”

  “She mentioned Karkarin.”

  “Yup.”

  “And she even brought up the Australian cartel.”

  “Yup.”

  “So she’s not going to betray you… right?”

  “Probably not,” I agreed. “Mama-san seems to be on the level… but I have no idea what the landscape’s like anymore.”

  “Now that all the do-gooders are dead?” a ghostly whisper of a voice asked.

  I turned around to see a figure all in black. When I say ‘all,’ I mean everything. And when I say ‘black,’ I mean like outer space.

  He was more of a silhouette than a person. He had no visible nose – at least none you could see when you were facing him head-on. Same with his mouth. No ears, either, just smooth sides to his black head.

  He wore a trench coat and fedora, except those were black, too, and seemed to just blend in with the rest of his body.

  The only thing about him that wasn’t black were his eyes. Instead, they were like two silver coins on a piece of black velvet.

  Nova stared at him, transfixed. She’d probably never seen an SPC made out of living shadow.

  “Shade,” I greeted him.

  The shadow assassin. Hitman extraordinaire. Able to slip beneath doorways, through cracks, into heating vents. You only ever saw him was if he wasn’t after you, because if he was after you, you were already dead.

  “Hunter. And who might this be?”

  Nova was about to answer when I stepped in front of her. “Nobody to be concerned about.”

  “Hey!” she said indignantly.

  “Go get a drink at the other end of the bar.”

  “But – ”

  I turned my back to Shade so he couldn’t go see my face. “Get the fuck out, darlin’,” I growled at No
va, and but made a face like PLEASE!

  She finally got the message and left.

  Shade watched her go, his head turning to track her. “Attractive girl.”

  “Don’t go getting ideas.”

  “That’s not the kind of thing I get ideas about.”

  It’s true. Shade was the only guy I knew who went to a whorehouse and never once looked at the girls.

  “How’s business?” I asked as I turned around.

  “Down a great deal as of three days ago.”

  “Really? I would have thought you were well-compensated for everything that went down.”

  “I didn’t participate.”

  “Really.” Unlike everybody else who had been bullshitting me about not knowing about the Karkarin prison break, I was genuinely surprised.

  “If I had, would I be drinking in an establishment like this? No. I would be ruling a city from a palace.”

  “Touché.” He had a good point.

  “But I didn’t come out tonight to discuss business.”

  “I did. Maybe you could help.”

  “Perhaps. For a price.”

  “I thought you didn’t come out to discuss business.”

  “Well, now that we’ve already broached the subject, might as well.”

  “Alright. Any big heists here in town you’ve heard about?”

  “Maybe.”

  I peeled off the yen equivalent of $5,000 from my bankroll.

  Shade tilted his head slightly to one side. “Is that a joke or an insult? I can’t decide which.”

  I sighed and peeled off another $5,000.

  “Better,” Shade said as he took the money and pocketed it. I don’t know if ‘pocketed’ is the right word – it more or less just sank into his body. “Word is that Antimatter’s men are moving a shipment of Ephemera.”

  “From where?”

  “Yasuda Bank in Maranouchi. You know it?”

  “Close to Tokyo Station, right?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “When?”

  “Tomorrow morning, 10AM.”

  “You sure do know a lot about this,” I said suspiciously.

  “I was approached with the details. A work-for-hire situation.”

  “I thought you were into killing people, not robbing them.”

  “People who can slip through cracks are in high demand for MANY reasons.”

  “I’ll bet. What’d you say?”

  “I advised them to forget it. Antimatter is not a forgiving man.”

  “But now you’re selling the info to me.”

  “One tries to profit where one can.”

  “Fair enough.”

  Suddenly I felt a hand on my back.

  I whipped around, about to throw a forcefield –

  It was a Japanese woman. A very startled, very beautiful Japanese woman, wearing a black negligee and not much else.

  She stepped back in alarm.

  “Sorry,” I said.

  “Apologies,” she said with a tiny bow. “You are Hunter-san?”

  “I am.”

  “I am Aiko. Mada-san sent me.”

  I looked over to see the old lady leering at me and giving me a thumbs-up from across the room.

  “Ah. Right.”

  “I’ll leave you to it, then,” Shade said, and touched the brim of his fedora in farewell.

  “See you around,” I said.

  He chuckled. “Let’s hope not. The only time people see me outside of this establishment is when I come for them. And I’d hate to come after you, Hunter.”

  “Me too,” I muttered as I watched him go. Within five feet, his shadowy body collapsed like water and spilled across the floor. Then he seeped across the carpet and disappeared under a locked door.

  “Are you ready, Hunter-san?” Aiko asked with a hesitant smile.

  “Why not.” I took her arm and let her guide me to the back rooms.

  Nova shot me a furious glare from the other side of the bar.

  Ah, fuck her.

  Or not.

  But I was gonna fuck somebody tonight, and it might as well be the hottie on my arm.

  10

  We walked down a dimly lit hallway to a room in the back, making small talk all the way. How long she’d worked for Mama-san (six months), if she liked it (she said ‘yes’ whether she meant it or not), what she did in her off time (watched a lot of movies and traveled some). She studiously avoided the subject of Karkarin or anything about me. All Mama-san’s girls avoided asking about clients. Prying into a gangster’s life wasn’t the best way to keep on living.

  I used the time to look at her more closely. Her long hair was done up in a bun in the back and kept in place by a pair of metal chopsticks, exposing her graceful neck. Her arms were thin and toned, as were her slender legs. Her breasts were small, but looked firm and perky beneath the neck of her negligee.

  I couldn’t wait to get my hands all over her.

  We reached her room and went inside. It was a nice space, about 20 feet by 30, with a freshly made bed, a minibar stocked with top-shelf hooch, a sink, and a bathroom and shower behind a half-closed door.

  There was also a floor-to-ceiling view of downtown Tokyo. A couple blocks away, five-story-tall screens showed advertisements for soft drinks and cars, filling the room with an electronic glow of alternating colors.

  As soon as Aiko shut the door, I looped my arms around her waist and kissed her neck. Her hair smelled like cherries, which was about ten thousand times better than anything I’d smelled in the last year. Her body felt even better. I ran my hands down the small of her back, grabbed her firm ass, and squeezed. She was soft and feminine, and I got hard almost immediately.

  She giggled and kissed my ear, then trailed caresses down my neck.

  “Let me get a look at you,” I said hoarsely as I backed away. I slid the straps of her negligee off her shoulders and watched the material fall away. Her breasts were small but beautiful – little brown areolas on pear-shaped tits, smooth and white.

  God damn.

  It had been a long time since I’d seen a naked woman. Like I said, there weren’t even Victoria’s Secret catalogs in Karkarin.

  I was hard as steel.

  She saw the bulge and smiled, then stroked my erection softly through the front of my pants. I pulled her negligee down over her hips and watched as it slid entirely off her body to the floor.

  God she was gorgeous. Creamy skin, soft black hair, thin arms, tiny waist, with an expertly landscaped tuft of pubic hair between her thighs.

  She giggled and feigned shyness, then reached over and picked up a fan from a nearby dresser – you know, one of those tchotchkes they sell at tourist traps, with a metal frame that folds out and a picture of cherry blossom trees painted on it. She flicked the metal fan open and held it in front of her face, hiding everything but her big brown eyes. She dropped her gaze to the floor coquettishly, then looked back up at me and batted her long lashes.

  The whole ‘I’m so shy’ thing was a pretty ridiculous show, considering she was bare-ass naked, but I wasn’t complaining. She looked cute as hell doing it.

  “Why don’t you get undressed and put your things over there,” she suggested, pointing to a small table and chair on the opposite wall.

  “Sounds good,” I said. I turned and started to take off my jacket.

  I think my time in Karkarin saved my life.

  After 24/7/365 of constantly scanning to see where the next shiv might come from, I was still subconsciously on high alert.

  As I started to take off my jacket, I saw something out of the corner of my eye.

  The light from the giant video advertisements cast soft shadows against the far wall. My outline was there, a single blurry shape – but her shadow was stretching out an arm and swinging the fan down towards me.

  I immediately threw up a floor-to-ceiling forcefield right behind me.

  A split second before impact there was an electrical tttZZZAP, and then it felt like
somebody had raked an arc welder across my brain.

  Of course, whatever the fuck she’d just done had only scraped across my forcefield, but the pain of trying to maintain my defenses was agonizing.

  Plus it didn’t work. My shield collapsed as I stumbled against the opposite wall and whirled around.

  Aiko was already bringing the fan back up, getting ready for another go at me.

  Her face was a mask of deadly focus, and the metal edge of her fan crackled and popped with tiny arcs of white-hot electricity.

  Small hot naked Asian chick?

  Not a prostitute.

  She was a super –

  And an assassin.

  SHIT.

  She lunged forward and swiped at my throat.

  I threw up another shield just in time.

  The fan slammed into the invisible barrier and squealed like white-hot iron plunged into cold water.

  I screamed in pain as my shield disappeared again.

  What absolutely sucked was that before I went into Karkarin, her little attack would have been no more than a tickle. I could have blocked everything she threw at me and then used two invisible forcefields as a vise to crush her head like a grape.

  But at the moment, it was all I could do to stay alive.

  I scrambled back towards the bed. She followed me, the fan crackling as she blocked off my path to the door.

  My mind raced.

  Was she working alone?

  Probably not – had Mama-san set me up?

  I had to get Nova –

  Shit, what if Nova was getting attacked out there?

  “Who hired you?” I snarled.

  Aiko didn’t answer, just lunged at me again.

  I jumped back even closer to the window. I was going to have to choose how I used my forcefields judiciously. Another couple hits from her arc welder and I’d pass out, and then it would be game over.

  I feinted left, then tried to come around right as she overcommitted.

  I tried to punch her, but she was too quick. She brought her crackling fan up again –

  But this time, instead of blocking her attack, I used a forcefield to shove her body back against the wall.

  THAT was the ticket. All I had to do was keep her pinned there –

  Suddenly electrical energy sparked across her entire body. It wasn’t as bad as the arc-welding fan, but it was enough to be fucking painful.