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

by Michael A. Stackpole

I rolled and came up in the middle of the road. The manhole in front of me exploded upward. Kid Icthy shot into the air riding a gush of raw sewage. “I will save you, Vixen!”

  He looked heroic for the half second it took her expression to sour, then my heel connected with his chin. He spun through the air and flopped into the gutter. His gills spasmodically opened and closed.

  They were the only parts of him moving.

  Vixen’s eyes blazed. “You’re going to pay for that, too.”

  “Stop it, Vicki! Think, girl, think.”

  My daughter snarled and launched herself. She clawed at my face, but I caught her wrists and rolled back. Posting a foot in her stomach, I heaved and let her fly. She’d land hard, but a dozen feet away, which would buy me some time to explain.

  At least that was the plan.

  Plans never survive contact with the enemy.

  Especially when that enemy stands six and a half feet tall and is encased in red and silver, flow-metal armor.

  Red Angel, one of the Russian heroes, cradled my daughter in her arms. The armor absorbed the wings back into it. She set Vicki down gently on a bus stop bench, then turned toward me.

  The armor had been modeled on experimental battlesuits that covered the retreat from Afghanistan, but considerably updated. Not quite as good as what Terry wore, but still impressive. No visible joints, no muzzles on the forearms, no bulky battery-packs. The flow-metal looked closer to latex body paint, save for the jet-boots, gloves and mirror-faced helmet.

  I raised my hands defensively. “Vicki, think. How long has this operation been planned? Six months? A year? More?”

  My daughter propped herself up on an elbow. “Maybe you just work fast.”

  “How could I set up the Hall of Fame hit before I even knew the Hall existed?”

  Red Angel held a hand up, palm-forward. “You will be coming now.” The eerie red glow of a blaster lens emphasized the adamant tone of her digitized voice.

  I told her to stuff herself. In Russian. Just to make her feel at home.

  The blaster flashed. I dove right. Tarmac bubbled in a wedge behind me.

  That would have left a mark.

  I had one advantage over her. The armor slowed her down. I could be faster.

  You’ll have to be.

  I went straight at her and flicked a shock rod out as I came. It caromed off the curb and hit her right shoulder. The needles popped, electricity flowed and the metal rippled just enough to distract her. I spun low and swept her left leg. It was like kicking a sapling, but it worked. She toppled backward and landed with the force of a Buick falling ten stories.

  Alas, she didn’t stay down.

  Speed is the advantage a baseball has over a bat. Unfortunately, that doesn’t stop bats from smashing a lot of balls.

  From her perspective, I came in like a high, hanging curve ball.

  And she got all of me.

  I leaped above a kick, then she nailed me with an open palm strike. My breastbone cracked. Worse, I never touched ground. I twisted through the air, then wrapped my spine around a street light. Lightning shot down my legs. Energy unspent, I spun around, flew off and scattered garbage cans.

  I came up with a lid. She melted it. Coming hard, she crushed a stoop with a kick. I whirled away, snatched a fist-sized stone and heaved it as hard as I could.

  It hit, snapping her head back. Gouged the metal over her forehead, too. She staggered, dropped to a crouch then blasted away.

  Her aim was off. She was seeing double, and fired right through the one of me that wasn’t there. A car exploded down the block. She shook her head and tracked me again.

  By the time she was ready to shoot, the flow-metal had healed the gouge. Deciding to handle me personally, she drove at me, fists flying. The attacks came quickly, but obviously. Despite her greater bulk and strength, dealing with this flurry shouldn’t have been a problem.

  Without thinking, I used aikido to turn her attacks against her. Grab a limb, move, allow the force of her attack to twist her up. If she kept going, something would shatter or twist off. Human joints aren’t built to take that pressure.

  Her armor, on the other hand, was. Limbs stiffened, locking into place. All motion stopped, meaning I was hanging on to parts of someone who wanted to break me into small pieces. Moreover, because momentum had stopped, she was no longer fighting against herself. We were back to square one–and I was up close when I really wanted to be in the cheap seats.

  The first punch caught me over the short ribs, left side. Something popped. A rib, maybe two. Then that sick sensation. Something else. Spleen, probably. I didn’t have an immediate need for it, but I was fond of it nonetheless. Another punch doubled me over. A forearm shiver drove me to my knees. That hurt, too, but not quite as much as the kick that deposited me beside Kid Icthy.

  “No more nonsense.” She moved to cut off any escape, trapping me between her and Vixen. “Come now and you will not be hurt.”

  That voice. Modulated though it was and coming in broken English, I caught something. A chill ran up my spine.

  Then I coughed. Pain. Blood in my mouth.

  And no sympathy on Vixen’s face.

  That hurt the most.

  I dropped my utility belt as I came up on a knee. The other shock-rod clattered beside it. I staggered to my feet and glanced at my daughter.

  “No power on earth could make me hurt your mother.”

  Vicki shook her head. “I don’t believe that.”

  “Your mother does.” I coughed again, hunching over as Red Angel approached.

  The Russian settled a glove on my shoulder. “You come now.”

  I glanced up at that faceplate. “I trusted you, tovarish.”

  “What?” The faceplate flowed back. A beautiful blonde woman stared at me. Horror-filled her eyes. “Who…?

  I gave her a clean look at my face. “You abandoned me. Khirgizstan.”

  Her eyes widened with shock.

  I lashed out, catching her square in the nose. Blood gushed. She reeled back, tripping over Kid Icthy.

  I went the other way, diving through the manhole. It was my only chance. Her bulk wouldn’t let her follow. I banged off rusty iron rungs, then plunged head first into a river of raw sewage.

  Which sucked me down greedily.

  I fought. It refused to let me go.

  I did the only thing left to me.

  I died.

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  It wasn’t the first time.

  It probably should have been the last.

  I’d actually had a plan that ran beyond breaking Raisa Anazova’s nose. I dove for the sewer because she wouldn’t be able to follow. Kid Icthy was out colder than a mackerel on ice. Superball, if he showed up, would get stuck and, God love her, I didn’t think Vicki would willingly bathe in a brown sludge slurry for all the money in the world.

  Puma wasn’t the only hero who carried a rebreather. Mine was modified from Puma’s original design, making it smaller. I carried a pair in the same pouch he did. I’d palmed one when I dropped the belt. Problem was that one of those iron rungs broke my left hand. The rebreather splashed down about the same time I did.

  So, I really should have died. And I would have, save for one minor miscalculation. That’s why, instead of being greeted by Satan in Hell with a towel, I woke up on a table in my old lair. Listerine covered the lingering taste of human effluent. For some reason I wasn’t stinking to high heaven. More importantly, my bones weren’t hurting and my spleen had managed to unrupture itself.

  If mouthwash could do that, I was going to work an endorsement deal.

  Vixen emerged from the old subway station’s woman’s-room wrapped in a towel. Kim, his hands encased in rubber gloves, was feeding her C4 II uniform into a garbage bag. My clothes, cut from me while I was out, had already been deposited there. In fact, aside from the key around my neck and a small towel covering my lap, I was as naked as a body in the morgue.

  Vicki looked pa
st me. “He’s awake.”

  Grant’s hand pinned me to the table. “Don’t try to get up.”

  “We are almost done.” A golden-haired woman in a professional khaki suit and latex gloves, squirted serum from a syringe. Before I could protest, she jabbed my thigh and pumped me full of antibiotics.

  “Ouch.” Though I’d not seen her in two decades, I recognized her easily. The accent helped. “Merci.”

  Dr. Julia Angle shook her head. “I do not know why I do this. I never liked you.”

  “Seems like a majority opinion.”

  Vicki growled. “You earn it.”

  I sighed and felt my ribs. “You magicked the tough stuff back into place?”

  Julia nodded. “Collapsed lung, broken ribs and hand, bruised spine. Your spleen, poof, but now better. Several days rest and you will be as good as new.”

  “Why not do the same for the bugs?”

  She rolled her eyes. “We don’t want magic resistant bugs. Besides, I wanted to stick you with a needle.”

  “Glad you’re having a good time.” I sat up, keeping the towel in place. “If you never liked me, why are you here?”

  “It was not for you.”

  Grant clapped me on the back. “I called her when Selene was hurt. She came as quickly as she could. Luckily she was still here for you.”

  “Yeah.” I rubbed my thigh. “How is she?”

  “Out of trouble and mending. She was very fortunate, too.”

  “Good.” I glanced at Vicki as she dried her hair. “Thanks for the save. Why?”

  She glared. “I’m still pissed with you, but what you said kinda got through.”

  “About your mother knowing I’d never hurt her?”

  “No. She’s in love with you. What does she know?” Vicki tossed the towel aside. “What you said about not having enough time to set all this up. You became a target of opportunity when your father went public and took himself out of contention.”

  “So you grabbed the utility belt, dove in, and we shared the other rebreather?”

  “Got to an air pocket, called for some help.” She opened a small gym bag and started pulling out costume components. “I got to thinking. If you’re not Mr. Big, there are two other choices. It could have been Constitution staging a military-coup, but he’s out of it. Only guy left is the mayor.”

  “Nope, he gets a pass, too. All three of us were being played.”

  “Then who is Mr. Big?”

  “I think I know, but I need to check.” I looked around. “Did my uTiliPod survive?”

  Kim brought it over. “I salvaged it.”

  “Thanks.”

  He nodded.

  “And, Kim, thanks for letting them bring me here.”

  “Where else, right?”

  I pulled the key from around my neck and tossed it to him. “The Chaser. You might want to unlock the weapons-systems.”

  His face brightened for a second, then the scowl returned. “You gonna be taking it out?”

  “Nope, you are.” I swung my legs over the edge of the table and hung on. A wave of dizziness washed over me. “I forgot to tell you that I was enormously flattered that you chose to be Kid Coyote. I was. I am. I said some things the other day that just weren’t right. You didn’t deserve any of that.”

  He shook his head. “Look, you were right.”

  “No, I was wrong.”

  “Go with him, Kim.” Vicki shook her head. “It’s the only time you’ll hear him admit it.”

  Grant and Julia looked each other. “We never have.”

  “Yeah, great, thanks.” I squeezed Kim’s shoulder. “I was telling you the truth. I never asked to be a hero. I wasn’t trained to be one. I was trained to be a tool of vengeance. A true hero turned me from that path. If he hadn’t, you’d have been seeing me in nightmares.

  “But you, you chose to become a hero. And, you know what, kid? You made it.” I smiled. “You’re a better hero than I ever could have been. And I know you said you’d be getting a new identity. I have a suggestion.”

  “Yeah?”

  I reached over and tore the K from his jersey. “I think you should just be Coyote. You’ve more than earned it. The Chaser’s yours now, too.”

  He stared at me. “But then, who will you be?” His voice tailed off. “Oh, right. Retired.”

  “Retirement’s overrated.”

  I got up, wrapped the towel around myself, and padded across the floor. Over by the bathrooms, I dropped to a knee beside the rusty water fountain. Reaching down beneath it I undid one of the U-joint’s couplings, then twisted the pipe ninety degrees.

  Mortar cracked. A tile panel beside the fountain slide down revealing a cubic-yard recess. Two brushed aluminum cases waited in the shadows. I slid both of them out.

  Grant’s eyes narrowed behind his glasses. “I never knew that was there.”

  “Lead-lined.”

  “You didn’t trust me?”

  “Didn’t trust your reaction.” I hefted both cases. “I’m going to need a moment. Vicki will explain. Tell them about meeting your grandfather. That’s one part of the story they don’t know.”

  I retreated into the restroom and set the smaller case on a sink. I undid the latches and opened it. I flipped a switch and the device lit up. A small LCD screen rotated up beside six rotors. The screen and rotors occupied the top third of the device. The rest of it was nothing more than a keyboard.

  I spun the rotors. Glowing letters lined up on the screen. Trevor, the name my father had signed the book to, flashed there for a moment, then the keys lit up. I used the uTiliPod to retrieve the last message from my father. Very carefully, I typed the coded message into the KH-11m, my father’s variant of an old Enigma ciphering machine.

  The translated message needed one more pass for decoding, but I understood it.

  My dear boy,

  So the wheel has turned. You return to your original purpose. The hero is villain. The past to become the present. You will save the city that you should have ruled as my heir and close the books on a great injustice. I would wish you luck, but no son of mine needs it.

  I shut the ciphering engine off, then pulled the other case up beside it. I snapped the latches open, but kept it shut. He may have dealt the hand but you can play it however you want.

  I’d found both the cases there, in that lair, right after C4 had announced that I had been admitted to the group. While my becoming a member of C4 had to infuriate him, my father easily spun it into a victory. I was, after all, his son. He gave me the two cases as proof that he had been merciful by not destroying me, and that he would accept me back if I would do but one thing for him. I had failed to destroy Puma. If I was to destroy C4, I could be redeemed.

  Salvation at a price beyond countenance.

  And yet, in his message, he was right. I’d not been shaped to be a hero, but to be a hero-killer. My father may have underestimated me and surely had underestimated Puma; but he’d been a shrewd judge of the others. Never again had he been caught. Never again put in jail. Though his plans may have been thwarted, never again were his delusions of divinity challenged by heroes.

  As my father had shaped me, so had he shaped an identity for me. He meant me to be his vengeance. As much as I had no intention of avenging him, saving Capital City would require me to do just that.

  I opened the case and brushed my hand over the insignia blazoned over the jersey’s breast. Rendered in black, the letter R merged with the all-seeing eye of Horus. The pupil hung down into the loop of the R, with the iris an emerald green. That and the white of the eye made an excellent target, which is why carbon-nanotube armor plates had been fitted beneath it.

  The uniform’s body, including a featureless, full-face cowl, was midnight blue. The trunks, gloves and boots were dark grey. The insignia was repeated on the clasp of the hooded cloak, the utility belt-buckle and incised into the shock rod holster’s leather. My father had never liked me wearing the rods on my forearm, leading to the design
change. He had relented, however, and replicated my boot-knife sheath in the left boot.

  Sinisterion had thought of everything. The uniform’s fabric had been impregnated with a liquid which solidified with sudden impact. Much in the same way water might as well be concrete when something falls into it from, say, the height of the Fishkyll Bridge, so this liquid becomes armor. A bullet would leave a bruise, and might even crack a rib, but it wasn’t getting through.

  I pulled the uniform on. It fit perfectly. Too perfectly. I hated that it felt so good and so right. Sinisterion knew me too well.

  That would never be a comfortable idea.

  I looked at myself in the cracked mirror. Shattered image, somehow fitting. I’d been a weapon. I’d been a hero. I’d been so many things, and now I was remade in the image my father fashioned.

  But the reflection really didn’t matter. Just as Kim had made Coyote into a hero he never was, I didn’t have to live up to my father’s image or intention. I was free to be myself.

  I emerged with the cape billowing around me. I’d not yet donned the cowl, so my surprise was easy for everyone to read. That brought smiles to faces, save for those of Grant and Julia, who found themselves looking at Sinisterion’s son. I, on the other hand, looked at a half-dozen people who’d not been there before.

  I recognized Gravé and Golden Guardian immediately. Blue Ninja stood beside Terry. The tall, statuesque blonde woman standing next to my daughter wore a costume reminiscent of Graviton’s. I’d actually seen something similar, but it took me a second to make the connection. Tony Ramoso had been wearing it as Gravilad.

  “But you’re not Gravilad.”

  She sighed. “Gravilass. I would have been someone else, but getting a good costume on short notice isn’t easy.”

  Grant smiled. “It’s my daughter, Andromeda.”

  “But I thought…”

  Gravilass smacked a fist into her open palm. “I still believe in pacifism, but they hurt Vixen’s mom. Someone has to pay.”

  Next to her stood a small woman in a scaled down Puma costume. She’d double-looped the utility belt around her waist. The Crusher sat beyond her, nose to nose with The Chaser.