In Hero Years... I'm Dead Delux Edition

by Michael A. Stackpole

Grant growled. “It does when both pairs are threes.”

  I threw an arm over Kim’s shoulder and guided him back toward the stairs. “You better go call your friends. Do something fun. We’ll see ourselves out.”

  Kim started up the stairs, then stopped and turned. “Hey, can I tell my dad I met you?”

  “It would be best if you didn’t, not just yet.”

  “Yeah, I guess.” He nodded a salute. “He’d want to thank you.”

  “And I, him. He should be proud of you, if he knows.”

  “He does and is. Thanks. Nice meeting you all.”

  Terry grunted and Grant waved.

  When Kim closed the door, Graviton turned to me. “You collecting strays for any particular purpose?”

  “Not me. I owed Puma. That kid saved my life. I pay my debts.”

  He ran a half-hand over his jaw. “Ever get that feeling there’s a big one out there you didn’t know about, and that it’s about to come due?”

  “All the time.” I shivered. “And this one has twenty years of interest attached. It’s going to be hell to pay.”

  Chapter Twenty-four

  I don’t like being bored. I think that is part of what attracted me to the hero game. While stake-outs might be tedious, preparation and research was exciting. I loved developing new gadgets and learning all about my foes. Finding solutions to villain problems was the equivalent of putting together big three-dimensional jigsaw puzzles.

  It was a huge challenge, and anything but boring.

  In comparison, being a shopkeeper was pretty much the height of boredom. I had to do things just to stave boredom off. I even managed to justify most by pretending they would improve the business.

  It was with this in mind that I began to look hard at the hero bidding system. I wanted to raise Kid Coyote’s profile and make him more money. The value of items associated with him would go up, and Castigan could corner the market. In addition, if I learned the system well enough–despite my misgivings about it–I could make extra money through the Superfriends leagues.

  Locating information wasn’t that difficult—zero hacking involved. Villains planned capers and posted their plans to websites. Heroes bid payment percentages to win the rights to oppose the villain. He could then sub-contract portions of the caper to other heroes, retaining control over who would fight whom. Poaching someone else’s foe was considered bad form and discouraged. The Hall, which ultimately calculated points and distributed money, often ignored a poacher’s contribution to a fight.

  My focus came down to finding foes for Kid Coyote that looked, in ones and zeroes, to be much tougher than he was. This would raise the power differential and spike his point production. Ideally I wanted a villain that had powder-puff minions, a huge vulnerability to electricity or a kick to the head, and tended toward flashy crimes where the chance of rescuing hostages was huge.

  For example, someone like Golden Guardian–were Terry to become a villain–would be a poor choice. His armor would insulate him from the shock-rods and most of the martial arts Kim could toss at him. That latter situation would change if Kim started training with Terry–and that was a condition I imposed for his employment.

  Baron Samizdat, on the other hand, would be a good choice. Kid Coyote had a history with the Zomboyz, though he’d never tackled their patron. Baron Samizdat was strong, but tended toward being slow and he’d not killed me outright with his magic. Kim would get a couple shots at him before he’d get tagged, all things being equal. With the right situation Kid Coyote could score some major points with a solo takedown.

  Kim was more than willing to let me do the research and, in essence, I become his manager. He offered to cut me in for a percentage, but I refused it in return for having rights to his memorabilia. He readily agreed, and then suggested I might want to do the same thing for Blue Ninja, since the two of them worked together fairly often.

  Kim set up a meeting with Blue Ninja for the day he and Diana were heading out to get Crusher. Kim never told me his partner’s name. I was good with that–I already knew enough about Blue to be able to connect the dots if I wanted to. I didn’t because it was a matter of trust with Kim. While he’d appreciated what we’d done for Dominic and Phil, it sunk in just how vulnerable he was. He became very protective of his partner and that was a good thing.

  Castigan left the shop early in the afternoon and headed for the Lower East Side. Snuggled right close to the Market Square, the Asian District had been remade in my absence. As had been done with Argus Square, corporations had come in and rebuilt things into a flashing, authentic-looking but totally artificial Chinatown, including narrow winding streets and shops crowded with exotica. Countless Western commercial outlets had been remodeled to reflect their counterparts in Beijing, Tokyo or Bangkok. Each block had a different ethnic makeup. From south to north it ran along the southern edge of Asia, beginning with India and ending with China. Pakistan got grafted on to the Indonesian section to keep it away from the Indians. Tibet had even gotten a slice. I felt comfortable there, even though the monuments reflected the way they’d looked before I’d been through Lhasa.

  I waited at a tea shop on the Chinese side of the Tiananmen Square replica, just in the shadow of a statue of Chairman Mao. The square has once been Haste Park, and still included a small monument to Thomas Haste and his wife–both of whom had been gunned down on the spot. The statue made Mao look an awful lot like a Buddha, and the reduced Haste memorial an offering by devotees.

  Blue Ninja would be coming from the other side of that divide-I assumed he was ethnically Japanese. I figured I could pick him out of the tourist crowd, as most of them were gaijin looking to buy knock-off watches and strings of pearls at incredible discounts.

  I had done my homework. Blue Ninja was a Felix of sorts. His swords looked to be venerable blades from Japan which had been modified to vibrate very quickly. This gave them more slicing capability. When he laid the flat of the blade against someone, the vibrations could stun and, as with most Japanese swords, clipping someone with the blade’s dull-side could just hurt without drawing blood. I wanted to assume he’d modified the blades himself, and that they were technological as opposed to magickal. Magic tends to fail when it would be most useful.

  He’d clearly had martial arts training–and not only working with the blades. I also detected some preternatural sensory action going on. There were times he reacted before an enemy shot. Precognition, even at a subconscious level, was a great benefit, so I needed to know how much he was aware of it.

  Of course, all of my research had not prepared me for one thing.

  That’s why I was taken totally unawares when Blue Ninja found me.

  “You are Castigan?”

  I looked up over my cup of ti kwan yin and nodded to the young woman standing there. “Join me, please. You are…?”

  “The one you seek.”

  “Kim did not mention…”

  “…that I am a woman?” The petite Asian woman smiled. “He was protecting me.”

  “Hardly necessary.”

  She barely cracked five feet and, while very well toned, couldn’t have weighed more than a hundred pounds. Aside from being very pretty, her long, black hair being gathered with a bow at the nape of her neck, she appeared utterly unremarkable. If I’d seen her on the street or on a university campus, I’d not have given her a second thought.

  In fact, the only anomalous things on her were her two rings. While fashionable, they’d been set with stones that would have been mistaken for sapphires save that lightning moved through them. I’d not seen such stones before.

  She sat and ordered a cup of tea. “I shall be direct, Castigan. Kim has outlined what you will propose. I am not inclined to accept your offer.”

  I raised an eyebrow.

  “Kim is living a dream. I am completing my doctorate. This is my thesis.”

  “Castigan does not understand.”

  “I work in nanotechnology. I’ve had a breakthrough.�
�

  My mouth fell open. “Nanite armor and augmentation?”

  “With real time diagnostics and repair built in. The money furthers my research, but my research will be of benefit to everyone. Imagine armor which can protect people as needed.” Her eyes sparkled. “In a car crash, nanites convert the vehicles into armored shells cradling people and protecting them from the titanic forces of the crash. A plane falls from the sky, and your underseat cushion becomes a paraglider. In a war zone, a bullet is transformed into the threads needed to repair the hole it tore in the uniform.”

  I blinked. “Castigan understands, but has a hard time believing you have not already begun larger-scale testing of this technology. There are corporations that…”

  “There are, Castigan, but they all are heavily invested in the so-called ‘defense industry.’ If they get a contract to make a bomb, the only way they get another contract is if that first bomb is used up. They profit from war. If they had my technology, they could virtually guarantee warrior survival on the battlefield…”

  “So no one would scruple about going to war, since it wasn’t their blood that would be shed.” I nodded. “Castigan applauds your reasoning. Would Castigan not be of service arranging more ‘clinical trials?’”

  “My research is ending soon. I have two problems: while energy is gathered from the environment, the nanites can be overwhelmed. That can cause a catastrophic failure. Things come to pieces. I have measured well those against whom I can compete. Under most battlefield conditions the suit will work well, though a sustained pounding prevents repair and can also contribute to a fail…”

  I caught the explosion’s flash a half-second before the shockwave blasted the table up and over me. The tea-shop’s windows blew back through the shop. People screamed. People bleeding and broken carpeted the sidewalk. Others ran, shrieking, knocking people down, trampling them.

  Fire guttered from the Pearl Exchange across the park. I shoved the table off me and started to stand.

  The girl shoved me back down. Bleeding from a cut to her forehead, she gave me a hard stare. “Don’t be a hero.”

  She inverted her rings, then pressed the stones together and twisted. A pulsing blue mist expanded into a cloud. It suffused her body, covering her in a fog that resolved into the figure of the Blue Ninja. Taller than she’d been by a foot and easily two and a half times her weight, his shape armored her. The uniform looked like cloth and the exposed skin around the eyes looked like flesh. Even the wink she threw me seemed natural.

  Then Blue Ninja leaped into the fray. The crowd had fled the square, save for the wounded and trampled, who cried out for help. Beyond them a gang of minions, half in red, the rest in black, fanned out. They used tasers and sonic shotguns without compunction, shooting anything that moved.

  The guys in black were Zomboyz and they fell easily enough to Blue Ninja’s tactics. Her hands came up and throwing stars materialized in them. She flicked them out. Similarly blunted like Nighthaunt’s, the shuriken flew straight, dropped their targets, then evaporated. She slashed one sonic shotgun in half, then whipped that Zomboy around so he caught the taser barbs aimed at her back.

  The kids in red leathers were the Red Devils, and worked with a villain called Mephistopheles. All of a dozen feet tall, with horns on his head and cloven hooves for feet, he looked like the bastard child of Dionysus and a mechanical lobster. Baron Samizdat came right beside him. Neither seemed too concerned with Blue Ninja blowing through their minions like a tornado through a trailer park.

  Smiling, they turned to one another. Each swung a fist back and forth three times. Mephistopheles shot two fingers out, but Samizdat kept his hand balled. He tapped it against his partner’s fingers.

  Rock beats scissors.

  Then he turned to face Blue Ninja.

  That wasn’t a match-up the Baron should have been happy with. All the reasons why Kid Coyote could tag him still applied, and Blue Ninja could take lot more pounding. She’d face her real challenge with Mephistopheles.

  Then I noticed the difference. Samizdat’s right hand came up, palm forward, fingers cocked. Unlike when he’d dealt with me, he was wearing a glove. And, just for a second, light glinted from a circle in the palm.

  Just like Terry’s laser projector.

  The black beam caught Blue Ninja square in the chest and smashed her back against Mao’s belly. Samizdat kept the pressure up, slowly dragging her down over the exaggerated curve. Blue mist rose as armor ablated. Lightning flickered within the blackness, then a girl fell, her clothes smoldering, her hair half singed off. She landed limply, but her leg snapped against the edge of the Haste Memorial. She rolled onto her back and lay there staring up at the statue.

  A hundred yard, tops, from me to her. I could be there in fifteen seconds, grab her, and get back inside forty-five. Maybe I could get the rings to work and the armor would save her.

  Maybe I could use the rings to stop these clowns.

  A Zomboy swung a sonic shotgun at me and fired. He missed low, putting a dent in the table. It smashed against me, knocking me back.

  The Zomboy kept coming, and was clearly coming for me. He reloaded and snapped the gun shut. Having cut the distance in half, he raised the gun and took deliberate aim.

  And then, a half-second before he stroked the trigger, something distracted him. He spun to the left and fired. His shot dropped one of Capital City’s finest as the cop emerged from an alley.

  And a police crossfire cut the Zomboy down before he’d recovered from his weapon’s recoil.

  Two armored personnel carriers roared up from the south and another form the north. East and west the police filled alleys. Armed with tasers, sonic shotguns, and the infrared disruptors on the APCs, the police presented a show of force that had me smiling.

  But they were just the sideshow.

  Colonel Constitution skidded his motorcycle to a sideways stop. Trailing him–some flying, most running and one hopping–the heroes of the Capital City Costumed Constabulary boiled into the battle. Aside from their unique logos on their chests they wore identical, skin-tight uniforms–white with red gloves and boots, and blue stars on their foreheads.

  Poor design choice, the blue stars. They made excellent, eye-catching targets.

  For all of a second it looked as if there was a chance of a peaceful resolution. Constitution hopped off his bike, resplendent in a red, white and blue uniform, complete with a tri-corn hat and a knight’s-shield emblazoned with a star. That star, too, made an irresistible target. Before Constitution opened his mouth, Mephistopheles vomited a solid column of fire that sent Constitution flying and exploded his bike.

  Everyone cut loose at once. A web of taser-wires criss-crossed the park, tangling innocent and criminal alike. People dropped, twitching and mewing. Sonic blasts pulverized concrete and dented APCs. One shot shattered a cop’s faceplate. Another dropped a mother as she tried to drag her bleeding child to safety. Cars crumpled. Ruptured gas tanks leaked and taser shorts ignited burning rivers. Smoke and dust choked the park.

  I struggled to my feet, but an unconscious Zomboy’s rolling body cut my legs out from under me. I landed on him hard. I’d have cracked a rib, but he wore body-armor under his leather jacket.

  I thought for a second about grabbing his sonic shotgun and trying to help, but anything moving became a legitimate target. I’d have to be a fool to do anything but stay where I was. Until it was over, there wasn’t anything to do.

  That wasn’t an opinion shared by everyone. It took me a moment to recognize him, but Redhawk dashed through the smoke and got to a downed tourist. With one hand he tossed a Spookstar that cracked a Red Devil in the knee, and with the other he lifted the woman over his shoulder. Ducking and dodging, he carried her to safety, then went back for another person, and another.

  Paving stones exploded around him. Baron Samizdat twice missed with black beams. Redhawk dove, snatched up a sonic shotgun and fired, forcing the Baron to duck back. Then he hoisted one k
id onto his back and cradled another in his arms before weaving his way from the battlefield’s heart.

  The Zomboyz and Red Devils pulled back in good order, then concentrated their fire to the north. That drove the constabulary back, but only temporarily. With a singed Constitution leading the counter-attack, the villains’ breakout failed. The police advanced from all sides, firing as they came. Even Mephistopheles and Baron Samizdat went down under the onslaught.

  The police took no chances. They tightened the perimeter and shot people at close range. Granted, the Zomboyz and Red Devils had armor on, so it might take more than one shot to put them down, but the police didn’t know that until later.

  By then everything was over. Two dozen lay dead, hundreds had been injured and millions had been done in damage. Just over fifty people were hospitalized and among them was Barbara Nimura–a promising doctoral candidate studying nanotechnology. She lay in the intensive care unit.

  She was not expected to survive the night.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Selene, barely visible in the shadows, kept her voice to a whisper. “You do know how stupid this is, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And you know why you’re doing it, right? Aside from the saving-a-life thing?”

  I nodded. “Penance for not having saved people at the park.”

  “And yet you know that if you’d done anything, you could have ended up as badly hurt as the Nimura girl?”

  I gave her a hard stare. “I’m not saying your analysis isn’t right, but it doesn’t matter, does it? If it did, you wouldn’t be here. You have no excuse.”

  “Sure I do.” She smiled and finished tying off the climbing line. “We had a date to go dancing. You lead, I follow.”

  “Uh huh.” I shook my head. “Besides which, you don’t think I could make it through this alarm system without you.”

  “Let’s go.” She slipped her night-vision goggles on and plugged a custom keypad into the alarm panel. She hit buttons and I grasped the edge of the skylight. A diode pulsed green and I lifted.