"So they locked him in a padded cell?"
"Not initially. At first they locked him in solitary. Then a serial killer called The Red Death broke him out to complete a series of Poe-themed killings. With a ball-point pen and a piece of paper, he drew himself a hero mask and beat the tar out of The Red Death, who was a strong tier-two threat. Then Masquerade took his mask and completed the spree. I was part of the team that arrived on the scene to find the recently-recovered Red Death trying to extract vengeance for his humiliation. He didn't survive that encounter. That's when they moved Ron the Second to a padded cell. I once heard your father describe Masquerade's fighting style as 'losing until he wins.' It makes him easy to underestimate."
"So how did he get involved with Doctor Omicron and his employers? Omicron's a mercenary, but that doesn't explain Masquerade."
"You know, that's a very good question. That's something we're going to have to ask him when we catch him."
Part 9
The representatives from the Fund board were two heroes I barely recognized. Torquespiral was an old, retired crime fighter from the early days before masks became standard. When criminals started targeting families, he'd been forced to move out of the public eye. He was a pudgy, little old man in a business suit with only a few scraps of his original hair left. No one wanted to tell him that his toupee was unconvincing. He helped found the Fund and was one of the pillars of the community. Besides, with the way we dressed, we weren't allowed to be critical. I didn't know if Torquespiral could still whip up a tornado on demand, but that wasn't what had earned him respect anyway.
Agent Six, on the other hand, was still on active duty. He was a heavyset man with short white hair dressed in SWAT blue fatigues and conventional tactical gear. He wore a full face mask with a filter and red optical sensors. He also had the demeanor of someone who'd had a stick surgically implanted up his backside.
I pulled out a chair for Torquespiral and he took it politely. Agent Six didn't look like he wanted to do anything but stand and glower, so I let him. As I sat down, Torquespiral folded his hands over the head of his cane, a warped piece of wood twisted almost into a corkscrew.
"Do you know what the tragedy of the commons is?" Torquespiral asked, his voice soft and grandfatherly.
"It's the effect where, when a resource is made free for the public good, there is a tendency to over-consume for short-term personal benefit instead of nurturing the resource for future public gains."
"Most young heroes need the concept explained to them," he said. "The Community Fund was set up with rules to prevent it falling victim to the tragedy of the commons. Everyone who benefits from the fund must give back so that it remains solvent and relevant. We call this contribution 'Community Service,' though for some it takes the form of technology or capital instead of time."
"I have heard of it. I was sort of warned you'd be coming."
"Well, yes, our arrival should never come as a shock."
"So what can I do for the Fund?" I'd started to ask what the fund wanted me to do, but that sounded too much like I was begrudging the obligation. I saw my insurance premiums, I'd never be able to afford those on my own. And with my family, I'd never be able to get away from them.
"Agent Six here has been part of a sizable investigation into a slaver ring operating almost coast-to-coast."
"Slavers?"
"Selling people off-world, actually," Agent Six said, his voice less gravelly than I'd expected.
"We're going to raid their base in a joint operation with the government," Torquespiral said. "The community will be taking point, because fighting aliens is more up our alley. The feds will roll in behind to secure the site and sort out the pieces. We just need more boots on the ground because of the scale of the facility. It's also the sort of positive publicity that keeps the public on our side. There's little ambiguity in beating up alien slavers."
"I see."
"I made this a personal visit only because your place is on the way to the airport," Agent Six said. "Your role will be that of a foot soldier. Follow orders, subdue the aliens and don't screw up."
"I take it we're leaving sooner rather than later."
"Young people these days, always in a hurry," Torquespiral said.
"The longer we delay, the more people end up out of our reach," Agent Six replied. "We leave now." He practically yanked me out of my chair.
"Where are we going?"
"Minnesota. Torquespiral can see himself home." As we left, I heard the elder hero mutter something unflattering about Agent Six. I managed to avoid getting thrown in the waiting car by virtue of the fact that the passengers had climbed out and were lounging against the vehicle exterior. I tried to suppress my mirth at Agent Six's obvious frustration at the newest delay. I only vaguely recognized the other passengers in that I'd seen them before, but couldn't name them.
As it turned out, they were still fueling the jet when we arrived at the charter terminal. Then we idled for another half hour waiting for takeoff clearance. While we waited, I messaged Jack and Nora that I was off on community service and that they shouldn't be surprised to not find me at the hideout. Then we were asked to turn off electronic devices. Some of us took longer than others due to the sheer mass of gadgets. The flight itself was uneventful. I don't think we landed in the twin cities; not enough lights. It was dark, and we were hurried onto a convoy of Humvees waiting near the hanger. They were painted black and the drivers looked military.
At first I didn't realize that the driver of the Humvee I rode in was actually a girl because of the bulky and all-concealing combat gear she wore. Score one for practicality, I guess. "I thought there'd be more capes," she said as we waited to fill the gas tank. "Isn't that the image you strive towards?"
"It's hard to pull off wearing a cape," I said. "If you're not a flying brick, or an expert at moving with it, you tend to get tangled up in it."
"So it's a status symbol, or something?"
"Some people also look stupid wearing them." We rolled forward to the fueling station and the soldier manning the pump started filling the tank.
"So what's your code name?"
"Shadowdemon," I said.
"I'm sorry, I've never heard of you."
"I'm not surprised."
"What about you guys back there?"
"I'm trying to sleep," one of them called back.
"Excuse me then," the driver said. We rolled on into the night, following the taillights of the vehicle in front of us. Testing the night vision on my goggles, I looked out the window. I saw mostly trees and hills. Nothing all that distinctive.
"Soo..." I said. "Any idea how long this drive is?"
"No clue," the driver said, "Orders are to stay in convoy until we reach our destination. They didn't say where that might be, and we didn't ask."
"What made you join the military in the first place?" I realized that I had no idea what branch of the military she was with. She shrugged, a gesture all but lost under the bulky protective gear.
"Seemed like a good idea at the time. Why did you choose to fight crime?"
"Believe it or not, it's the family vocation."
She laughed. "And I thought military dynasties had it bad. Those officers at least have a decent uniform at the end of the day. Doesn't stop them from being assholes though."
"So do you pity them, or do they annoy you?"
"Both." Silence came back to the interior of the Humvee as miles of Midwestern highway vanished under our tires. I had nearly nodded off myself when the growl of an unpaved roadway brought me back to alert. I noted that the two in the back seat also perked up at the sound. We soon rolled into an unlit compound of camouflaged tents, parked, and climbed out of the Humvee. Agent Six wrangled us towards a single tent near the center of the cluster. Once we were inside and the doo
r zipped up, a single light was lit. There seemed to be a rather large collection of heroes assembled. I'd seen larger, but only at the Fund board elections, and those only happened every five years.
Standing next to an easel bearing a map was Dad. His colors were red and gold, and in the close quarters he had all of his blades retracted. He had no fixed number of blades, nor did they have a predefined form. Half of his artistry was finding new ways to mold the steel stored inside his body. He could form a great many shapes so long as they consisted of flat, bladed elements. In my opinion, his glider wings were one of the more impressive examples of his craft. Without any blades, he looked quite unassuming and ordinary, something we had in common. He acknowledged my presence with a nod, but didn't stop to catch up with me. It would have been unprofessional.
"I know a lot of you have been called in on short notice," Dad said, "But this operation is bigger than we'd counted on and we needed the backup. I'm sure you've heard the basics. Aliens have been working with local criminals to collect humans for sale off-world. This is their point of departure, and we're going to put an end to it in one stroke. We've got the army setting up a cordon around the area, and we've got the feds preparing to process anyone we pull out of there, and we've got point. The base is mostly underground, and has four points of entry." He pointed them out on the map next to him. "Alpha team will be stacked with heavy-hitters and will take the front door. We expect them to see the greatest initial resistance. Beta team will seal the secondary ventilation shaft before infiltrating through the primary. Gamma team will take and hold the hanger bay. Gamma will not move out from the hanger except on my explicit instruction, because we expect most of the terrestrial criminals to attempt to escape through that point."
He cleared his throat. "Delta team will infiltrate through this waste water pipe by the lakeside. Once inside, Alpha, Beta and Delta will each leave two members to secure their entry point and make their way into the facility. Our primary objective is to find and secure the teleport platform or portal generator which is being used for interplanetary transport, thus cutting off the aliens' escape route. Special ops will follow in behind Alpha at the front door as our primary backup. They will also send a team to infiltrate through the hanger bay once Gamma has secured it. While the military may resort to lethal force, never forget that we do not. Also, the criminal allies of the aliens have been known to use powered individuals as extra muscle, and we do not know what sort of tech the aliens themselves may present with. We don't even know which species we're dealing with here."
"Everybody we encounter is to be secured and tagged for later processing. It doesn't matter if they're human, alien, criminal or prisoner. It's going to be chaotic enough without the civilians running around loose. Zip ties and handcuffs will be made available for everyone. Molot will lead Alpha, I've got Beta, Minispell has Gamma, and Agent Six has Delta. We want this quick, clean, and decisive. Make sure you have a radio, that it stays on, and the chatter keeps to a minimum. Is that clear?"
There was a chorus of affirmatives. I paused by the equipment table to get an earpiece, a couple pairs of handcuffs, and a mess of zip ties. I knew I was not in the running for Alpha. I'd never met Molot, nor could I pick him out of the crowd, but he had a reputation as a blunt instrument. A lot of the heavies neglected strategy for force. Probably why his job was to take the horns of the defenses.
Gamma also sounded like an improbable choice for me. Minispell was a sorceress about the size of a doll unless she used magic to grow to normal size for a few hours. It was important for her group to hold the line, not my strong suit. No, I was probably destined for Beta or Delta, the search teams slipping in through narrow passages. Though I hoped for Beta, the nagging voice in the back of my head told me I'd get Delta and have to crawl up a sewer with Agent Six instead of rappel down a vent with Dad. That damnable voice turned out to be right.
We ended up hiking downhill for about half a mile to the lakeside. A loose jumble of slick, fist-sized stones stained with algae marked the limits of the slowly rippling body of water. The "waste water pipe" turned out to be a three-foot plastic culvert hanging six feet over the rocky shoreline of the lake. From the reek, their waste was being dumped untreated onto the stones. Whatever it was, it was so foul that it killed all the plant life in a wedge-shaped path to the water.
"Omegaburn," Agent Six said, "You've got point, Shadowboy, after her." I wanted to correct him on my current code name, but I also didn't want to be that guy. Instead I just interlaced my fingers to give Omegaburn a boost up. Her yellow-and-orange flame-patterned catsuit wasn't all that stealthy, and pretty much advertised her powers at fist sight.
"You're a gentleman," she said with a bit of a twang, "but I can fly." She floated into the pipe as if she were swimming in air. Agent Six boosted me up and I began crawling down the corrugated plastic tube. It took far too much effort to not stare at Omegaburn's ass as she drifted along ahead of me. While it might seem silly to fly in such an enclosed space, she did avoid contact with the walls. The corrugations formed either rings or a spiral around the outside of the tube, and waste water collected in the grooves. It was impossible for me to avoid contact with the muck. Some of it was clearly terrestrial, others, not so much. Lacking a face mask also meant I was choking on the stench. Thankfully, I was wearing gloves.
That obnoxious analytical side of my brain told me that the drainpipe was short, but it felt interminably long. It ended in a cistern, where there was a standing puddle of sewage of unknown depth, surrounded by a narrow ledge. Pipes of between four and six inches jutted out randomly from the walls, some still dripping unidentified fluids. A row of rusty rungs ran up the wall on the far side to a similarly rusted hatch in the ceiling. I edged out onto the four inches of concrete while Omegaburn simply floated above it all. Agent Six poked his head out of the pipe. If he reacted to the cesspit, I couldn't tell. Another advantage of a full face mask.
"It'll be a few moments to cut us an exit, team lead," Omegaburn said.
"Get on it," Agent Six said. Omegaburn turned her attention to the hatch. Holding out her index finger, a flame appeared just past the tip. I looked away as she focused it down to a bright blowtorch. While my gaze was averted to protect my eyes, she carved through the lock and the hatch clanged open.
"Sorry about the noise."
"Alpha is going to be a hell of a lot louder."
Omegaburn flew up through the hatch. "Clear." Using the pipes as handholds, I worked my way to the ladder. As I did so, I was struck by a gush of foul water that had to be a toilet flush. I made a note to relate this story the next time someone makes the suggestion that hero work is glamorous. Sputtering, I leapt for the ladder. I climbed out of the cistern into what could be described as a waterworks. Row after row of massive water filtration units, each ending in an electrically fired distillation stack.
"Someone doesn't like the local water," I said.
"You going to drink the water on an alien world without treating it first?" Omegaburn asked. "Speaking of water..." She pulled a hose from a wall cabinet and sprayed me down. I stared at her in shock and disbelief as I dripped on the concrete.
"Thanks, but warn me next time."
"Right," Agent Six said, emerging from the cistern. "Shadowboy, hold this position. Everyone else on me."
"Didn't Razordemon call for two sentries?" I asked.
Agent Six leaned in close to my face. "I said hold this position." After a long moment of waiting for my next complaint, he led the rest of the team off into the compound. I kicked the hatch closed and leaned against the wall. I did understand his reasoning. Most people won't react "I have to escape-- to the sewer!" when their base is being stormed. Not when they have aircraft and an interstellar transit device. That left me alone, listening to an eerily silent radio channel. Definitely not a glamorous calling.
A few minutes passed before the first soun
d chirped over my earpiece. It was a heavily accented voice calling, "We're spotted, drop the hammer on them!" It was followed by a loud metallic clang that shook the entire base. Molot probably. I stopped holding up the wall and climbed atop the water filtration unit nearest the door. It would give me the literal drop on anyone coming in. The clanging grew more frequent as Alpha hammered what had to be a high-grade blast door. "Try harder! You think bullets will hurt me?" the voice over the radio called.
"Molot, comms discipline," Dad called.
"Yes, boss," Molot said. The ominous clang died in the shriek of shearing metal and a crash which reverberated through the whole structure. "Alpha has breached the perimeter." Molot's unnecessary announcement was accompanied by an alarm, complete with klaxon and flashing red lights.
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