Hero Engine

by Nader, Alexander

  “Perfect.”

  “Report back to me if you come across anything significant. “ Vince starts down the stairs. “We are going to work through the night, but once everyone is found, I’m pulling all heroes back to SHI to be on alert for another attack.” He leaves before either of us have time to argue.

  “Do you think that’s such a good idea,” I ask Ann. “Pulling all the heroes out that quick?”

  She shrugs. “Once people are clear of the wreckage, the worst is dealt with. The city will clean up and the heroes need to rest in preparation for another attack. By the time word comes it may be too late, but they will be ready just in case.”

  That makes sense, I guess. As long as all the people are safe, but SHI will still be leaving one hell of a huge mess in its wake. I stand up and head for the exit. “You ready to make a house call?”

  Ann grabs the GPS device and follows. “Anything, yeah, as long as we aren’t going back to Tennessee.”

  Chapter 20

  ANN CALLS ADRIANA to get the address for Tess’ parents uploaded to our GPS.

  “We need a car,” I say, after she hangs up.

  “Over there.” Ann points to an unmarked police car. “It’s official business, we can borrow it.”

  “Yeah,” I say slowly, “I’ll let you take point on this one.” I’d be damned if I let some stranger walk up and take my cruiser on ‘Official SHI business’.

  The car is a nifty little Chevy Camaro. Ann steps in front of me. A plainclothes officer waits near the car, talking into a microphone stretched from the dash.

  “Excuse me, Sir,” Ann says, in a polite enough voice.

  He gives us the finger. No, not that finger, the ‘Just a minute’ finger.

  Ann sighs. “Excuse me. Sir,” she says, a little louder, more direct.

  Mr. Houston Detective gives us a much more impatient ‘just a minute’ finger.

  Ann’s shoulders drop. She takes three precise steps that bring her chest-to-chest with the cop. Her left hand slaps down on the hood of the car while her right reaches for the pocket of her pants to pull out an official ID.

  The cop drops his mic and squares toe-to-toe with Ann. His chest swells and his mouth opens for a good ol’ bitching-out for disturbance of an occupied police officer. But before his tongue starts clucking, his eyes land on Ann’s ID. He freezes, like a freshly stupefied moron.

  “If you’ll excuse me, Sir, my partner and I are on official SHI business. We find ourselves without transportation. Super Hero Initiative Director Larson has assured me that HPD will do anything in their power to assist in our efforts of saving the city.” She turns her proper English accent on full blast with a quiet demand that would make any prime minister quiver.

  “I-I…um…” The cop nods, his face one of softening denial.

  This is the part where I would expect Ann to bat her eyes a few times, but she’s not that kind of girl. Brute force over feminine wiles seems to be her modus operandi.

  “Yes, I know. You would love to help in any way you can. My name is Special Agent Ann Pretorius and my partner is Special Agent James Quig. Tell your superior that we borrowed your vehicle if you like. We’ll only need it for an hour or two, and it seems like your hands will be full while you wait on us with…”Ann sweeps her hand out across the wreckage of the city.

  Cop looks at the torn down block and then at Ann. His nose crunches and it looks like he’s about to spit, but he sucks in a deep breath and steps away from his car.

  “The Initiative thanks you for your assistance, Officer.” Ann takes the driver’s seat. I drop into the passenger seat.

  “Special agents?” She really pulled the bullshit over the guy’s eyes on that one.

  “Yeah.” She affixes the GPS to the dash. “It’s close enough, all right. We didn’t have time to argue.”

  “We could have just called Vince to get a ride.”

  “We can handle this.” She drops the car into gear and pounces on the accelerator like a pissed-off cheetah. The engine revs and the back tires break loose as she swings the car around, following the arrow on the screen.

  “So did Adriana say anything about Donovan?”

  “She gave me a good earful. She said it takes more than an hour to pull the correct name out of seven billion. There wasn’t much I could say after that.”

  “Good point. Hopefully she has something for us when we get back from Tess’ parents.”

  “Samantha Higgins.” Ann takes a screeching left turn at just passed the point where the tires can hold traction. My stomach lurches as I’m thrown against the car door. “Who? And is there a reason to drive so fast?”

  “Gravitess’ name is Samantha Higgins. I imagine her parents would appreciate us referring to her as such, yeah? And we need to get this over with as quick as we can. Besides, with everyone working back at the park, who’s out here to pull me over?” Ann has to slow down to get through a side street packed with parked cars on either side.

  “Looks like they feel the same way.” I point at a group of teenagers busting the window out of an electronics shop. On instinct, I reach over and give the lights and siren a quick blip.

  The kids jump and take off running through an alley. Hopefully that puts an end to their looting. For tonight, anyway.

  Ann pulls the car back onto a main road and guns it again. Lucky for us, it’s getting late and the attack on the city has probably scared most people indoors for the night.

  I’m too tired to keep up any form of conversation. The rest of the fifteen-minute drive to Tess’ house is occupied by nothing other than the sound of squealing tires and burned dinosaur bones.

  Large offices and businesses of the city give way to smaller mom-and-pop places, and eventually those give out to rural housing. Mostly rundown brick houses with front porches just big enough for a couple of folding chairs. I’d be willing to bet there is a lot of front porch snooping, I mean, front porch sitting that goes on here in the daylight hours. At this time of night, though, it’s all just dust and a quiet kind of despair.

  After a couple more streets, the GPS politely informs us we have reached our destination.

  “John and Carol Higgins.” Ann gets out of the car, gently closing the door behind her.

  I do the same, respecting the peaceful quietness of the neighborhood. “How the hell do you know that?”

  “Adriana told me over the phone.”

  We walk up three concrete steps and across the tiny front porch. The stoop has two folding metal chairs with woven, plastic seats. A radio that looks like it came straight out of 1950 sits on a table. I wonder how long John and Carol have lived here. Was this place always inhabited by two-job poverty, or did the Higgins used to sit on their porch and barbecue for the neighborhood while the kids played baseball in the street?

  Ann’s soft knock on the door pulls me out of my retro reverie.

  After a minute or so with no signs of life, Ann knocks harder.

  There is a fumbling sound at the other end of the house followed by a light popping on, just barely visible through the curtains. A few moments later, another light turns on and the door swings inward.

  A gentleman in his late fifties, give or take, stands there in Houston Astros pajama pants and a Texans t-shirt. He squints to examine our faces in the dim light of the evening—no moon tonight. “Can I help you?”

  “Yes, Sir. My name is Ann Pretorius and this is my partner James Quig. We work for the Super Hero Initiative. I apologize for the late hour, but do you think you would have the time to speak to us about your daughter?”

  John Higgins’ expression contorts, easily doubling the amount of wrinkles on the man’s weathered face. “Are you here to talk down to us about how our daughter is the first hero to go off the deep end? No thanks. I don’t think I have the time.”

  “John, Honey?” A soft voice comes from farther back in the house. “Who is it?”

  “It’s nothing,” he croaks.

  “Mr. Higgins,” I say,
“I know this has to be hard, but we don’t think that Tess, excuse me, we don’t think Samantha has gone off the deep end. We aren’t sure if something has happened to her or if she is in danger right now. We’d like to talk so we can get a better idea of the situation as a whole, before we jump to any conclusions.” As if any of the information makes enough sense to jump to conclusions. I couldn’t put all this mess together if my first name was Sherlock.

  “Let them in, John.” A woman near John’s age steps up behind him. She sets a hand on his shoulder. “Come on in. If you two are working this late, I’m betting you’ll need some coffee.”

  “Ma’am, I could use coffee like a starving man could use a piece of bread.” I tilt my head in thanks and step inside as Carol moves to the kitchen. John takes a seat in an old recliner.

  Carol bangs around a couple cupboards and runs some water before the glorious sound of coffee brewing touches my ears. Massive amounts of caffeine are the only thing that got me through my first couple years on the force. As the low guy on the totem pole, I always drew the overnight shifts. With the coffee started, Carol takes a seat in a wooden rocker next to John. She sets a hand on his thigh.

  A couch that might have been new when disco was cool sits at the opposite side of the living room. I perch on the front edge of it, afraid to lean back and break the aged sofa. Ann takes a seat in a similar position next to me. I glance around the house. Everything is old but well-kept for its age. And clean. This makes it seem very much like visiting my grandparents or something.

  “So, what would you like to know about our daughter?” John’s words are harsh. He still thinks we are here to break down his daughter and he hates us for it. I can’t blame him.

  I clear my throat. “We are having a hard time finding out what she is like. We were just wondering if you could fill us in on her personality, maybe some shining moments or what-have-you.”

  John sits forward in his recliner. He combs a wispy patch of gray hair over the bald spot on top of his head and stares. His chin juts out. “I’ll tell you why you are having a hard time finding out. It’s simple. That dirt-bag bunch of heroes hated Sammy. She couldn’t get along with any of them from the start. She said they were the most unpleasant, bitter group of people she had ever met in her life.” His voice starts quiet, but rises to a cold reprimand by the end.

  Carol squeezes her hand on his leg. He takes a deep breath and sets his hand on top of hers. The affection seems to calm him a little. With her free hand, Carol pulls down on the edges of her floral print nightgown. “John’s right. Samantha, she just never seemed to find her place among the others. That struck us as odd, she always got along with everyone she met around here.”

  Ann and I exchange a quick look. Getting along with the melting pot that is Houston is one thing, getting along with the leaders of a multi-national secret organization is a-whole-nother thing.

  In the kitchen, I hear the coffee pot gurgle that righteous sound of a finished brew. As I make my way toward it, I ask, “What was she like, growing up?”

  “She was everything.” I can hear the smile and pride in Carol’s voice, even without seeing her expression. “First cabinet on the left, dear.” I open the cabinet and find a slew of mismatched coffee cups.

  “Would you all like any?” I turn to see their response.

  “No, thank you,” Carol says. “At our age, if we had a cup now, we would be strung up until tomorrow afternoon.” She gives a light laugh and pats John’s leg.

  I reach past a ‘#1 Grandpa’ cup and grab an Astros mug and a Mickey Mouse mug with a chipped edge. Mickey is in his wizard outfit from the movie Fantasia, but the bottom half of his body has been worn away with time. “You were saying?” I reply over my shoulder as I fill the two cups with the best part of waking up; or never going to sleep. Whichever, really.

  “Oh, yes,” Carol says. “Samantha was a straight-A student and worked with lots of local charities. She helped poor children who couldn’t afford tutors with their homework and taught immigrant children English for school. Helping people meant the world to Samantha. It was all she ever wanted to do.”

  “So she had her sights set on that damned Initiative since she was old enough to understand what it was,” John’s gruff voice continues.

  I walk back to the living room and hand Ann the Mickey cup before resuming my seat.

  “Sammy did everything she could to practice for that exam. She got sick the night before the test. Poor kid put so much pressure on herself to ace the thing.” John’s fingers trail absentmindedly over the back of his wife’s hand as he speaks. “She fretted for the entire two weeks it took to get the results back. Sammy worked nonstop, probably to keep her mind off what she scored on the test.”

  “And when the scores came in?” She made it through the Engine, so the answer is obvious. But I feel like they need encouragement to keep going.

  “She passed with flying colors,” Carol says.

  “Local recruiter, or whatever you call it, said it was the highest score they had ever seen. One look at Sammy’s school and volunteer record and the recruiter said he would be sure that the higher-ups got a look at Sammy,” John adds.

  “And that they did,” I say. “Samantha made it through all the testing and then through the Engine. She became the superhero she always wanted to be.”

  Carol smiles, a warm friendliness in her eyes, but a quiver on her lip. She works her mouth around for a couple seconds, trying to get the right words out, I imagine. “She did. We were so proud when it happened. Our little girl, one of less than twenty-five superheroes in the whole world. The city threw a party for her. Lots of people around knew her for her love and kindness.”

  “And the ones who didn’t were just happy that someone from Houston made it to the elite.” John rocks in his recliner. “They didn’t have any immediate openings, of course. So they took her to SHI Headquarters and gave her a desk job to keep her busy until a spot opened up. A lot of people would think they had it made and slack off, but not our Sammy. She put in as many hours as she could doing work for SHI. After about eight years, there was finally an opening.”

  “She was so excited to go into the Engine. She wanted to come out as a healer, like the one woman, what’s her name?” Carol’s hand drifts in the air, physically searching for the name.

  “Medica,” Ann offers.

  “That’s right. Medica. Samantha wanted to be like her. She thought she could change lives that way.”

  “Yeah, she wanted to be like a saint. Traveling around and touching people.”

  Sounds to me like the girl in the beauty pageant who says, ‘world peace’, but actually thinks she can achieve it. This image is a bit different from what everyone else has given us on Tess, but what kind of parent wouldn’t be proud of their kid?

  I sip my coffee. The steaming bitterness feels right at home in my mouth, amongst my thoughts. “If you don’t mind me asking, what exactly went wrong, after she became a hero?” Hopefully a little gentle prodding can get us moving in the right direction.

  John and Carol turn to each other. That same quiver from Carol’s lip traces the contour of her cheeks before dissipating into the crow’s feet around her eyes. John clenches his body tight. His chin juts out like a square-jaw Marine. The man is built from a different era—from a kind of metal they just don’t make anymore—and he may be a softer now, but there’s still a grit about him that’s hard not to appreciate. This guy looks like he’s seen guerilla-infested jungles and factories closed out from under him and is still here, taking his shots.

  “When Samantha worked the operation part of SHI, she didn’t spend a lot of time working with the heroes. She rode along with some of the charity events, but never held any substantial conversations with the heroes.” Carol’s hand shakes and John sets his on top of it.

  “The heroes aren’t quite as heroic as people like to think,” John says, an edge in his voice. “They are petty and vain, and most of them couldn’t give two squ
irts of piss about humans.”

  I check on Ann out of the corner of my eye. She doesn’t seem to have an argument against this. After the handful of heroes I’ve talked to in the last day-and-a-half, I’d have to agree with them too.

  John continues. “At first Sammy told us she tried to make them help, try to see how they were heroes and role models, but they just blew her off.”

  “Did you see her often,” I ask.

  “At first, yes, but less and less as time drew on.” A car passes by outside and the lights shining through the curtains make Carol’s eyes glisten. “She didn’t come to visit as often, and then her calls slowed. We were worried and tried to talk her into speaking to the director.”

  John’s hand clenches into a fist. “She told us she did talk to him, told him about the way the heroes acted, and treated her.” John snarls on the word ‘hero’ every time he says it. “But that guy didn’t give a damn about Sammy. He didn’t do a thing to help her.”

  If she talked to Vince, that might be why he is so set on her innocence. He might also feel guilty about things going this badly. I’d be willing to bet the guy is dumping a lot of blame on himself for this one. To be fair, he might deserve it, or he might not. Useless to point fingers and play the blame game right this moment. There are still too many lives at stake.

  The next question forms in my mind. I don’t want to ask it, but it needs to be said. There is a certain amount of tact and word wrangling I’ve learned to make these conversations easier, but I’ve got nothing for what I need to ask next.

  I look around the room, trying to formulate a plan. Pictures line all the walls. Three little girls at the beach in one. The picture is old, faded. One of the girls is clearly Tess, the other two have enough resemblance to be sisters, or just friends. Another picture shows Tess on a pier holding out a large fish in one hand, fishing pole in the other. John’s standing next to her with his arm around her, beaming fatherly pride. My gaze settles on a small picture on an end table next to John’s recliner. The picture shows a young Tess standing in front of a classroom. She’s writing on the chalkboard that reads, “Hola = Hello”. There’s a smile on her face – the kind someone gets when they truly enjoy what they do.