Don't Be a Hero: A Superhero Novel

by Chris Strange

  She fished out her now-crumpled cigarette pack and extracted a Pall Mall. Frank frowned at her, but he didn’t say anything when she lit up.

  “All righty,” the Carpenter said. He crossed his arms and perched himself on the edge of a table. “Maybe you should explain to us kids at the back of the class how the heck Dr Atomic managed to get himself an extra son no one knew about.”

  “Not to mention one apparently born years after Robert’s death,” she added.

  If the subject of his brother’s death was painful to him, Frank didn’t show it. “It’s complicated.”

  “Simplify it,” the Carpenter said.

  Frank sighed. “The world considers Dr Atomic to be the world’s most multi-talented superhero, as well as the most powerful. Speed, flight, telekinesis, bullet-resistance. The jack of all trades, and master of them all, too. But really, all his powers were manifestations of a single ability. He was a psychic, an impossibly strong one. There was almost no limit to how he could manipulate the world around him.” He locked eyes with her. “Like I said, in those early days, we were weapons. Los Alamos, the Manhattan Project, they were military projects, and so were we. No one could kill Nazis like Dr Atomic.”

  His eyes caught the glint of a lamp’s bulb, and she could tell Frank wasn’t there in the room with her. She breathed out a lungful of smoke into the silent room, and waited.

  “One night in forty-five we were hiding out in a farmhouse a few miles from Berlin. I found him huddled in the corner, crying. I hadn’t seen him do that since we were children. It took a while before I could get him to tell me what was wrong. But in the end it came out. He’d been hearing voices. And not just any voices. The voices of those he’d killed. For the last two months, there had been an ever increasing chorus of babbling and screaming and begging inside his head.”

  “Psychosis?” she said. “Or a tumour?”

  He shook his head. “When we were stateside again, the metahuman doctor gave him a psych evaluation and brain scan. No tumour, no atrophy, no simple psychosis. But with Mr October’s psychic help, the doctor figured it out. It wasn’t a hallucination. Whenever my brother killed someone, their mind left an imprint on his hypersensitive psyche. Like voices on a gramophone record. And each new imprint fractured his mind a little more.”

  She’d never heard this story. It wasn’t impossible. Psychics often had problems with mental instability. But in all the comic books and propaganda films, Dr Atomic was infallible. If there was someone standing in the way of freedom, he could always be counted on for a quip and a fast right hook. Through the haze of her cigarette smoke, Frank started to look old again.

  “What do you know of Dr Atomic’s retirement?” he asked.

  “His wife and kids got caught in a bomb meant for him.” It was one of the earliest events she could still remember since the Blind Man had taken her memories. The papers ran the story on Dr Atomic’s family for weeks. The assassins were never caught, though the Manhattan Eight had shaken down every major supercriminal they could get their hands on. Dr Atomic withdrew from the public limelight after that. A few years later, he was dead from throat cancer, and the world mourned.

  “I never thought everyone would buy the story, but Mr October sold it. They’d left the world in our hands for years by then. They’d believe anything we told them.”

  “Believe what, Frank?” she said.

  “There was no assassin, no bomb,” he said. His voice was thin. “It was Robert. Dr Atomic killed his wife and children with his own hands.”

  Her cigarette had almost burned down to nothing. Ash dropped onto her boots, but she barely noticed.

  Frank closed his eyes. “He didn’t mean to. To this day, I believe that. My brother was a good man. He was the best of men. But the voices in his head did things to him. Those last few months, he never knew what he was doing, where he was. He screamed through the night. We all tried to help; we thought we could fix him. But after he killed his family, we knew what we had to do.

  “It took all seven of us to bring him down. Protos and Mr October were in intensive care at the base for nearly three months after his psy-blast hit them. Protos left the hospital in a body bag. In the end, it came down to me and Iron Justice to bring down Robert. Hayne was the only one tough enough to take his attacks, and I was the only one quick enough to get behind him.”

  “You killed him?” The Carpenter sounded incredulous. She wasn’t sure she believed it either. “You killed Dr Atomic?”

  For a moment, he didn’t move. Then, slowly, he shook his head. “Hayne wanted to. We probably could have. But when I went before the House Un-American Activities Committee and they accused me of being a Communist, Robert spoke for me. He was the one who brought me onboard at Los Alamos. We shared summers at the family cabin in New Mexico. The world loved Dr Atomic. But I loved Robert. He was my brother.”

  “What did you do with him, then?” she asked.

  “We imprisoned him. We built the strongest prison the world has ever seen, right in the middle of New Mexico, and we left him there. And there he stayed, out of his mind, never knowing what he had done, until the cancer got him.” He shrugged slowly. “Perhaps that was all the mercy we could hope for.”

  She stubbed out the pitiful remnant of her cigarette, flicked it into the kitchenette sink, and stood awkwardly in place, hands in her pockets. She still didn’t trust Frank, but she couldn’t exactly be angry at him, either. She could barely remember her own brothers, but she tried to picture herself in Frank’s situation with Gabby or the Carpenter on the other side. The thought sent ice through her veins.

  The Carpenter stepped up and put a hand on Frank’s shoulder. “Sorry, Frank. Really. That’s rough.” Solomon glanced at her and nodded towards the man.

  “Yeah,” she said. “Condolences.”

  Once more, the room was silent. She had a head full of questions, but interrogating him now seemed a tad on the insensitive side. She ran through what she knew of Dr Atomic’s deeds in her mind. It was around 1950 when he “retired”, and maybe ’53 or ’54 when he died. The accident at Los Alamos that led to the creation of the first heroes was in ’44, so Dr Atomic was active for around five or six years.

  The Manhattan Eight had their share of enemies back in those days. The Russians weren’t too happy to get beaten in the race to Berlin, and there were rumours that at least some of the Manhattan Eight were sent on covert missions in the Soviet Union soon after the war. They were nearly sent to Japan as well, but Truman and his generals decided to show the world their other secret weapon, the atomic bomb. The US was making it clear that it wasn’t to be messed with.

  But when the war was done, public support for military-backed superheroes waned. The Manhattan Eight—like many of the other fresh-faced heroes emerging at the time—were scientists at heart, not soldiers. Eventually, the government relented, and the Manhattan Eight became independent, dedicated to protecting the world and the innocent, not the interests of any one nation. Or so the comics went. Dozens of corrupt politicians, rogue states, supercriminals, and organised crime rings fell to them.

  The Carpenter was the first to break the silence. “Question,” he said, raising his hand like a schoolboy. “If Dr Atomic killed his wife and kids, where does Sam come in?”

  Frank nodded. “Kitty—Robert’s wife—figured out how sick he was long before the rest of us. When she found out she was pregnant again, she came to me. She was so scared. I don’t know what he’d done to her, and I didn’t understand then, not really, but I agreed to keep the pregnancy a secret. Robert was away for months at a time in those days, on mission after mission. Even when he was in the States, he barely visited her.” He shook his head. “God, I don’t know why it took me so long to understand how sick he was.”

  He touched his fingers to his temple and continued. “Kitty had the baby alone, just her and her doctor. All she gave the child was a name before she passed him onto an old schoolfriend. Looking back, I think she knew that wou
ld be the last time she saw him.

  “After Robert…after Kitty died, I tracked Sam down. Whatever had driven Robert to do those things was still driving him. I think he could sense the baby, even if he didn’t know what it was. If we failed to capture him, he’d find Sam. Future Girl had been leading the research on a cryogenics rig, and I went to her. Sam screamed his little lungs out when we put him in the machine. Ten minutes later, he was silent. Flash frozen. I didn’t unfreeze him until a couple of years after Robert’s death, when I could ensure his safety. I was worried bringing Sam out while Robert was still alive would give his broken mind the incentive he needed to mount an escape. I couldn’t risk it.”

  “And since then, you’ve been on the move,” she finished for him. “Sheltering him.”

  He nodded.

  “You must know something about what Quanta’s up to,” the Carpenter said. “You saw him on TV. The bugger wasn’t wearing much of a mask. You must recognise him. An old enemy. Someone you lot fought back in the good old days.”

  “No,” he said. His voice almost cracked. “I’ve spent the entire night searching my memory. There’s nothing. I’ve never seen that man before in my life.”

  “There has to be something,” she pressed. “Anything.”

  “I’ve told you everything. Everything. Only a handful of people in the world know what I’ve told you. The rest of the Manhattan Eight are dead, or lost forever, like Future Girl. Hayne and I were the last.” Pleading crept into his voice, and he took a step towards her. “Help me find Sam. My offer stands. Fifty thousand dollars. More, if you want. Please.”

  Niobe met Solomon’s eyes. She could tell he was thinking the same as her. This had got more dangerous than they’d ever imagined. Quanta had tracked down Omegaman and the son of Dr Atomic. Sam was in his hands, helpless. And now Quanta knew they were after him. How long before he struck back and hit them where they lived? How long before he came for Gabby?

  Gabby’s bloodied face flashed before her eyes, and her gut twisted. No. Niobe wouldn’t let him. She’d save Sam, return him to his uncle, and then get Gabby off this goddamn planet forever. She had to protect them. She had to protect everyone.

  Or they were all dead.

  The two of them were quiet on the drive back to the Old City. The day was growing warm as the morning wore on, but all Niobe wanted to do was sleep. Exhaustion seeped through her bones. Despite their best repair-work, the engine kept up a constant rattle. As long as she didn’t push it, she thought it would keep going all right.

  The radio spouted a pair of matching statements from the Prime Minister and the Secretary-General of the AAU, claiming they would not bow to any of Quanta’s demands. After that, the early morning news reported the events at the TV station in such repetitive detail that she was nearly ready to put her boot through the damn radio. Instead, she settled for changing the station to one that dutifully played a Beatles tune every third song. Solomon stared out the side window. No jokes from him. No nothing. Probably as lost in his thoughts as she was.

  They needed to regroup. Find somewhere to sit down and run through everything they knew. She still had the files from Met Div. They’d go through every page with a comb so fine a gnat couldn’t escape. There had to be something there that would lead them to Quanta. No one operated without leaving a trail.

  A hiss crackled through the radio, drowning out John Lennon.

  “Good morning, heroes.” The voice that came through the radio was distorted, but she recognized it instantly. She jerked upright in her seat and glanced away from the road to stare at the radio. No, it can’t be.

  “I had Screecher help me connect to your radio,” the voice said. It had a strange echo to it, not like any sort of radio distortion she’d heard before. “Don’t worry, no one else can hear us. This little conversation is a private chat. Well, I say conversation, but since I’m only transmitting, I suppose I’ll be doing most of the talking.”

  The Carpenter met her eyes. A beat passed, and then he was punching the button for the recording equipment while she pulled into a dark street corner. She killed the engine and a spool of magnetic tape began recording the transmission.

  “I assume you both know who this is, but I should introduce myself properly. I am, of course, Quanta. I suppose we are something of adversaries at the moment.”

  There was definitely something weird about the distortion. Maybe the echo wasn’t from the radio at all. Maybe it was on his end.

  “Don’t worry about introducing yourselves; I know who you are. I couldn’t miss the Carpenter’s skilful use of that tree. I believe a half-dozen of my people are in police custody thanks to you. And I won’t forget you, Gloomgirl. Or is it Spook now?”

  Her skin crawled.

  “Marvellous work with the tracking device. I confess, I didn’t even notice it until we’d parked and one of my associates pointed it out to me. I wasn’t expecting such an enthusiastic response to my broadcast from the local meta community. Truth be told, Carpenter, I’d assumed you’d be in the ground somewhere, and as for you, Spook, you weren’t even on my radar.

  “Now, I’m going to take a stab in the dark here, pardon the expression. You’re working with Oppenheimer, correct? You were at his boat, and it’s the only reason you could be onto us so soon after we hit the television station. And now I hear someone broke into the Metahuman Division’s headquarters and got into a bit of a kerfuffle with the good Senior Sergeant. My, you have been busy.”

  How did he know all this? He must have people everywhere, or maybe he had a few powerful psychics under his command. He has my picture, she reminded herself. Her throat constricted at the thought. He was going to find out her name, if he didn’t already know. It was a race now. If they didn’t find Quanta before he found them, everyone they cared about was at risk.

  “I just wanted to express my delight at having such worthy challengers against whom I can test my skill,” Quanta continued in his too-jovial tone. “There’s something traditional about all this, isn’t there? Like the old days. But you’d do well to remember these aren’t the old days. This is a neo-battle for a Neo-Auckland. War isn’t what it used to be.”

  She could see his dead-eyed smile on the other end of the radio. I’ll make you eat that smile, you smug bastard.

  He laughed like he heard her thoughts. There was a clang somewhere in the background, and then his echoing voice returned one more time. “I’ll see you soon. Try to keep up.”

  Static. Then nothing.

  17: Rest My Weary Head

  We never wanted this, but it has become unavoidable. We only wanted to help, to protect, to build, but it is clear that you no longer want us here. We will not submit to the barbaric practice of kill-switching. We will not. Before we leave, we extend an invitation to every metahuman on Earth who wishes to live free of persecution and fear. Join us on the Moon. It will not be an easy life, but it can be a good one. Perhaps one day we will return to Earth and be accepted for who we are, but do not hope for it. This world has given up on hope.

  —Statement from the Alpha League, 1961

  “No,” Niobe said. “No bloody way.”

  “What’s the big deal?” The Carpenter lounged in the passenger seat, unmasked like her. “You said it yourself. We need a place to gather our thoughts and go through all this paper you nabbed from the coppers.”

  She shifted down a gear and took the corner nice and easy, careful not to stress the damaged car. These abandoned roads wouldn’t be doing the old Ford any good, but she sure as hell wasn’t going to take the main highway back to the Old City, on this morning of all mornings.

  “Your place is better,” she said. “More room to spread out. Secure. Out of the way if Met Div throws any more raids in our direction.”

  “You didn’t hear my wife yesterday,” he said. “Kate, she…uh….” He paused.

  “She doesn’t like me.”

  “No,” he said. “Well, yeah. But that’s not it. Not all of it.”

>   She was too tired for this. “Spit it out, Solomon.”

  “She wants me out of the game. Says I should stop playing superhero.” He grinned. “She thinks you’re a bad influence on me. What’d she call it? Oh yeah, ‘enabling me’.”

  She snorted. “Me? A bad influence on you? You’re the one stuck in the past.”

  “Lemme finish, will you?” He put his arm out the window and tapped on the car’s exterior. “She’ll go along with it for now, but she won’t have me bringing work home anymore. Doesn’t want me exposing the kids to it. She thinks it’ll corrupt them or something, you know?” He shrugged. “She’s wrong. Those kids are so darned headstrong I couldn’t force them into a cape and mask even if I wanted to. And no kid wants to follow in their father’s footsteps anyway. But she made me promise that you wouldn’t come around anymore. She’s serious.”

  “How serious?”

  His mouth formed a line. “Serious enough that if we go to my house now, I’d better learn how to cook meals for one in an awful hurry.”

  Christ. This was just what they needed. Kate meant well, and Niobe didn’t dislike the woman, per se, but you couldn’t marry a damn superhero and then try to take the cape off him.

  She sighed. Where have I seen that before? Gabby was just as bad as Kate. It’d been easier back when Niobe was in the Wardens. She had no family to worry about her then; she hadn’t even met Gabby yet. If she got horny, her teammate, Madame Z, was always happy to oblige. Everything was simple.

  But in her heart, Niobe didn’t want simple. Gabby was more than her lover. She was her best friend, her partner. Niobe wanted to make it work. Hell, that’s why she was doing this damn job, so they could make a new life together somewhere they’d belong. But they were such different people in so many ways. Gabby didn’t understand that Niobe couldn’t just take her pension and live out her days. She didn’t understand that Niobe had to protect her.