by S. J. Delos
I floated up slowly, turning a full three-sixty as I ascended. I paused to stare down at the city below. Charlotte had been my home since birth. The only time I’d been away from it for more than a couple of days was my two-year stint in the Max.
It might have only been six months since I made the choice to keep watch over the city and her citizens, but I couldn’t help but feel a twinge of apprehension at the thought of leaving it without my watchful eye. Sure, Greg, Richard, Alexis, and Darla had been protecting the Queen City and its suburbs for years without my assistance. However, that didn’t completely assuage my anxiety.
I remained in place for a few moments. Then, with a slight nod to the world below, I zoomed off on a northern trajectory, leaving my comfortable, familiar world far behind.
CHAPTER 23:
A WINDY CITY WELCOME
I could have made the whole trip in less than an hour if I wanted. It was only about six hundred miles, but I wasn’t in any hurry. Plus, I didn’t need the additional scrutiny that breaking the sound barrier across state lines would bring.
I soared over the small Appalachian communities, keeping well south of the boundaries of Roanoke’s airspace. The lush, rural countryside passed below in a flurry of reds, browns, and oranges. I couldn’t resist swooping low over a large Kentucky lake to run my fingers through the crystal-clear water.
I swung wide around both Cincinnati and Indianapolis. Crushette was responsible for billions of dollars in property damage in both cities. The parameters of my pardon with the EAPF, and my status as a sanctioned hero, protected me from any criminal and civil prosecution for my previous actions, I doubted the citizens of those metropolises would be so forgiving.
About three hours after departing Charlotte, my destination appeared in the distance.
Chicago. The Windy City. Chi-town.
The suburbs below lay spread out in a large plain of smaller structures and grassy neighborhoods that stretched for miles, leading to the iconic mountain range of towering skyscrapers nestled along the edge of Lake Michigan.
The deep blue of the water and the glimmering green of millions of omni-plex windows gave the scene a peacefully surreal aspect; as if an incredible artistic talent had captured the metropolis at its most serene. Just looking at it made my trepidation about the trip melt away, and I began to look forward to enjoying my visit.
Then a beam of bluish-white energy blasted up at me from somewhere below, knocking me out of the sky.
The discharge struck just above my left hip and surged across my entire body. Spinning out of control, I came down in a flail of arms and legs, hitting the ground back-first at nearly a hundred miles an hour. The street cratered at the first impact, with several additional cracks opening in the asphalt as I flipped over twice to end up lying against the curb in front of a row of houses.
It took me a couple of seconds to shake off the tingling that swarmed over my body and get back to my feet. Every inch of my flesh seemed to vibrate, and I realized my hair was standing up. I had fought Enhanced with electrical powers before, but this was something else entirely. Like the difference between a nine-volt battery and a high-power line. It wasn’t a normal electrical bolt that brought me down. It was lightning.
I looked up, examining my surroundings.
The neighborhood was a quiet collection of two-story structures painted in various shades of white and gray. Some of the browning yards sported scraggly trees with a few stubborn leaves still attached. A couple of the closest front doors were open, revealing wide-eyed occupants who stared outside at all the commotion.
The sound of something rather large being smashed echoed from somewhere nearby. I gave a small wave to the gawking residents, then took back to the air, soaring over the rooftops in search of the source.
I spotted a battle taking place in the parking lot of a large building a couple of blocks over. Several of the cars were damaged, a couple were completely totaled. One had flickering flames coming up from under the hood. Thankfully, the area seemed clear of any InBees.
I guess when the fracas started, they all retreated to a safer location.
Three of the combatants surrounded a fourth. The lone fighter was dressed in a teal and purple uniform with the silhouette of a beetle on the front. The parts of her body not covered by clothing glinted in the afternoon sunlight.
It’s never a good idea to rush into a fight that’s not yours. You could make the mistake of backing the wrong side, turning potential allies into lifelong enemies. Better to hang back, examine the situation first, before making any decisions about joining the fray.
Plus, if you’re a villain, the best advice is to forget about getting involved altogether and just move on along.
However, I recognized the gleaming participant in the mismatched fight as being the Silver Scarab, one of the Justice Brigade’s founding members. Just that tiny slice of information alone made it a safe bet I could pound on the other three as much as I liked.
One of Scarab’s opponents, a large, dark-skinned man built like a professional wrestler, raised his arm and pointed in her direction. The hand at the end of the muscular arm was surrounded by dark gray clouds. A flash of light formed within the swirling vapor as a bolt of bluish lightning jumped across the space toward the hero. A crack of thunder accompanied the blast.
So that was who brought me down.
Scarab managed to get an arm up in time, forming her hand into a large, gleaming shield that absorbed the lightning strike instead of her torso. The energy swarmed over the disk and arched down into the pavement, leaving an ugly black mark where it hit. A spot on her hand glowed a soft red hue.
The hero’s armored form might be able to take some abuse, but I doubted she could handle too many more blasts like that.
The three bad guys were facing away from me, so I rocketed straight toward the lightning thrower. As soon as my boots touched down behind him, I snatched one of his meaty arms in both hands, yanking with a twist of my hip. Not unlike the move I used on Princess Snow.
The huge man let out a surprised yelp as he came off his feet. The sound became a full-fledged scream when I turned to throw him across the parking lot. He slammed into the side of an already-dented Volvo, bouncing off to land on his face on the ground. He didn’t show any signs of getting up soon.
I spun around, looking at the other two criminals.
“So,” I said, cracking my knuckles “Now that the odds are a little more even, do you two assholes want to just give up?”
One of them, a skinny guy wearing blue jeans, a leather vest, and a diamond pattern mask over his face sneered with defiance.
“Downburst!” he yelled in an ear-aching nasally voice that reminded me of an insane Steve Urkle.
The other man’s head turned in my direction, and his eyes flashed a bright white color. Before I could react, a roar swooped down from above, bashing into my chest. My feet left the ground as the blast of wind sent me flying backward. I slammed into the same car as the Thor wannabe, only, unlike the unconscious villain nearby, I remained pinned against the vehicle rather than bouncing off.
I held up my hands against the relentless gale, feeling the vehicle behind me slide a few inches along the asphalt. Through squinting eyes, I looked past the hurricane-maker to the hero I had come to help.
Scarab was dug in where she stood, her arms morphed into shining stakes that disappeared into the broken pavement. She barely swayed as the air rushed over and around her shiny form.
As the pummeling continued, I considered trying to fly out of the attack. I was pretty sure, however, the attempt would send me careening into the building before I could get more than a few feet into the air.
Silver Scarab pulled one of the anchoring arms out of the pavement to slam it down a few feet closer to the villain. Once she was secure again, she did the same with the other arm. Her feet shuffled forward a couple of steps.
The two remaining bad guys were focused solely on me, rather than the hero cla
wing her way closer to them. Once she was within a few feet of the one called Downburst, Scarab shifted one of her hands into a metallic sphere shape. Then slapped it against the back of one of the wind-generator’s knees. The limb crumpled from the impact, dropping him onto the pavement with a heavy thud. The winds ceased instantly, replaced by the wail of an injured man.
The remaining thug looked down at his fallen friend, then over at Scarab. The older hero pulled her arms free of the pavement and resumed her human-looking, metal form.
I pushed off the car, stalking toward the slender man, whose face had taken on a pale pallor beneath the ridiculous-looking mask.
“Uh, ladies,” he said as he took a step back raising his arms defensively. “Can we talk about this?”
“Stop right there, Deluge,” Scarab said commandingly, pointing a finger at him. “You are under arrest.”
The villain turned to run, but I grabbed him by the back of his vest and pulled him back to me before he could go anywhere. His eyes widened with panic, and both hands reached toward the sky.
“Deluge?” I asked, pulling him closer. “You control…what? Storms? Floods?” I lifted him off the ground, bringing him in until we were almost touching noses. “So far today, I’ve been struck by lighting and assaulted by wind. So help me, if I feel so much as a single rain drop, I will put you in traction. Got it?”
He nodded wildly, dropping his arms harmlessly to his sides. When I let go, Deluge sank to his knees to place his hands on top of his head. He remained there, staring at the pavement while several police officers rushed over from the building and put a set of durasteel cuffs on his tiny wrists. Another group of law enforcement roused the other two onto their feet, hauling them off with their partner.
Scarab became flesh and blood again, turning to me with a smile. When in her metal form, her features had been smooth and glossy. Now I could see that she was probably in her early forties, with olive toned skin and bright green eyes. There was a hint of a Middle Eastern flair to her appearance.
“Thanks for the help,” she said. “The Storm Front aren’t very bright, but together they can be really dangerous.”
I returned the smile. “I didn’t even know anything was going on until I got struck by lightning. Otherwise, I probably would have flown right on past.”
She shrugged, looking a bit embarrassed. “I’m afraid that’s partially my fault. When I punched Discharge, his attack went wild. Sorry.”
I shrugged. “It’s okay. Nothing really hurt but my pride.” I stuck out my hand toward the famous hero, fighting against the rampaging fangirl within me. “Oh, I’m Kayo by the way.”
She took it my hand, smiling. “I know. All of us on the Justice Brigade are looking forward to having you hang out for a few days.” Then she frowned, leaning closer to look behind me. “It looks like more than your pride that got hurt. Hopefully there wasn’t anything really important in your backpack.”
Backpack? I had completely forgotten that I was wearing it.
I scrambled out of the shoulder straps, holding the black leather bag up for inspection.
The lightning strike had hit my side, sparing the bag from getting zapped. However, my crash landing into the street had ripped a giant hole in the front of it. A bra strap hung out through the opening, and the pungent smell of several co-mingled chemicals wafted from inside. I was certain every cosmetic container inside was busted, soaking my spare clothing completely through.
“Shit,” I said, shoving the strap back out of sight, holding the tear closed with my hand. “There goes my spare clothing.”
Scarab put her hand on my shoulder. “Don’t worry. We have a kick-ass clothes cleaner back at the Tower. We can also manufacture some new stuff for you if that’s what it comes to.” She nodded down at me. “You’re already going to need a new uniform as it is.”
I followed her gaze down to my side, spotting the blackened fist-sized hole in the side of my uniform. Discharge’s lightning bolt had hit right on the seam, the weakest part.
“Double shit,” I hissed.
“We’ll take care of later, I promise,” Scarab said. Then she nodded toward the building. “Right now, I need to go make sure that those three dumbasses remain secure until the ECMP can come to take them off our hands.”
ECMP. Enhanced Canadian Mounted Police. Also known as the Super Mounties.
Canada’s adopted a law-enforcement model was similar to that of many other countries around the world. Anyone who wanted to be a superhero was required to join the governmental police force for training and duty.
There were no individually sanctioned superhero “teams” in Canada. Enhanced vigilantes working solo often found themselves jailed right alongside their super-villain nemeses as guests at the Hudson Bay Enhanced Penal Facility.
As Scarab walked away, I noticed for the first time that the building nearby sported durasteel bars covering all the windows. The sign on the front that read: CHICAGO HEIGHTS DETENTION CENTER.
“Excuse me,” a voice came from behind me. I turned to see an officer in a dark brown uniform standing there with a tablet in his hand. “If you have a moment, Miss, I need to get some information from you about the incident and your involvement.”
I arched a brow, pointing in the direction of the building to the hero just heading inside.
“Uh, I’m not from around here,” I said to the policeman. “I just dropped in to give Silver Scarab a hand. She can give you better details than me.”
“I see,” he said, tapping on the screen before looking back up at me with an inquisitive gaze. “But you are a sanctioned hero, right?”
“Yes. Based in Charlotte, North Carolina.”
He nodded, continuing to press on the tablet. “Okay then. Your number?”
“My number?” I asked.
He glanced up, squinting at me. “Yeah. What’s your number?”
“My phone number?”
He sighed, shaking his head. “No, ma’am. Your EAPF number. The one you were given when you signed up for hero duty. It should be on your badge.”
Badge? Crap! I remembered getting a thick, official-looking envelope in the mail about a week after I joined The Good Guys. I remember how pleased Greg was to hand it to me. Of course, I also remembered tossing it somewhere in my room on my way to change clothes after a long patrol.
I could only guess my paperwork and badge had been inside. Since I had never been asked about it back home, I hadn’t given it any further thought.
“Uh, I don’t have my badge on me.”
The officer lowered the screen to look at me. “Cook County statute 616.21 requires all sanctioned heroes have their proof of EAPF registration with them at all times.”
I smiled as widely as I could. “Officer, I’m in the system, though. Couldn’t you just look me up?” I nodded at the tablet in his hands.
He sighed again. “I swear, if it’s not one thing with you heroes, it’s another. Name?” He glanced up from the screen, fixing me with a gaze as hard as durasteel. “Your real name. Not your code name.”
“Hashimoto. Kaori Hashimoto. That’s K-A-O-R-I,” I said, smiling. “Do you need me to spell ‘Hashimoto’?”
He gave me an annoyed frown, tapping on the screen. As the seconds ticked by while we waited on a response, a nagging thought rose up in my mind. When I registered with the EAPF did I put my name as Karen or Kaori?
The clatter of the tablet hitting the sidewalk jerked me out of my daydream, my eyes going immediately to the gigantic hand-cannon being pointed in my face. The end of the weapon trembled. I glanced over the barrel to the wide-eyed officer, who looked like he might have just swallowed an apple whole. Or maybe an entire cart of them.
“Get down on your knees with your hands behind your head, Crushette!”
Yeah, I must have used Karen.
I stared at the officer without moving for several tense heartbeats. A couple of years ago, I probably would have let him shoot me, laughed in his face, then thrown h
im across the lot just to teach him a lesson about confronting a super-villain without appropriate backup.
However, as Kayo, I handled things differently these days. I slowly raised both hands, palms out.
“Look, there’s been a bit of a mistake,” I said as calmly as I could. “Yes, I used to be Crushette. Emphasis on the past tense there. But I’m a hero now. I’m a member of The Good Guys.” I widened my smile, hoping it didn’t come across like I was planning on eating the panicking policeman. “I’m Kayo.”
“If you’re really a hero, where is your badge?”
I really needed to stop ignoring thick envelopes with a Federal agency’s return address.
“It’s back in Charlotte. Look, Officer …” I leaned forward to look at his name tag. “Officer Michaels. If you’ll just pick up your tablet, use it to search the database for the name ‘Kayo’, you will see that I really am a hero now.”
“Yeah. You’re a hero and I’m Major Freedom. Get on your knees. Now!”
I almost made a crack about the portly officer not having a hope in hell of fitting into Major Freedom’s costume when a strong voice came from nearby.
“Is there a problem here, Officer?”
The lawman and I both glanced over simultaneously to see the head of the Justice Brigade himself standing there, arms crossed over his barrel chest.
The red, white, and blue uniform seemed brighter than possible in the sunlight, and the star-spangled mask covering most of his face did nothing to hide the displeased expression in his eyes and on his mouth.
“Major Freedom,” the policeman said with obvious relief. “Thank god you’re here.” He waved the barrel of the pistol at me. “I’ve just captured Crushette.”
Major Freedom looked from the officer to me. I could swear it seemed the cheeks beneath the mask reddened.
“That’s not Crushette, Officer. Not anymore.” He turned his face to look at me, grinning. “That’s Kayo. She’s a hero now. She’s also a special guest of the Justice Brigade.” He took a step closer, siding right up next to the gun-wielding patrolman, placing his hand lightly on the lawman’s shoulder. “If you would be so kind as to put away your weapon before it accidentally fires. The bullets won’t hurt her or me, but a ricochet might injure someone else.”