A Hero By Any Other Name

by Stackpole, Michael A.

  Grant forced himself to smile. “Thank you, sir.”

  “Yes, thanks.” Polly pointed straight ahead. “There’s mom now.”

  Melody Stone, dark haired, blue eyed and slender, wiped her hands on a gingham apron as the Pierson truck rumbled into the main yard. Mr. Pierson gave their mother a quick rundown of the morning’s events, describing it as “a pinch of trouble.” He refused her offer of lunch as thanks, and headed off to his home.

  “Are you two okay?” The way his mother asked the question came layered with lots of meaning.

  Grant nodded. “I’m fine.”

  “The spots in my eyes are almost faded.”

  “Good. Polly, your father’s over on the creek field. He should come home for lunch.” Melody narrowed her eyes. “And you, Grant, fetch me the mending kit.”

  The siblings looked at each other and resigned themselves to fulfilling their appointed tasks. Grant could have run off and brought their father back—including the farm truck—before Polly crested the low hill behind the house. The fact that he’d not been given that task betrayed his mother’s worry.

  At a normal pace, Grant entered their white clapboard house, careful not to the let the screen door slam behind him. He took the stairs two at a time. In the sewing room he retrieved a rectangular basket from beneath a pile of two others and returned to the sitting room.

  His mother joined him on the overstuffed couch. “Don’t move a muscle. And sit up straight.”

  Grant did as he was bidden.

  She opened the mending kit. It contained no needle or thread, no spare buttons or scraps of cloth. She withdrew several small pots of cosmetics. “Which cheek?”

  Grant closed his left eye.

  Melody shook her head and went to work. Using purple, green, brown and yellow make-up, she carefully crafted a nasty-looking bruise on his left cheek, right where the shotgun butt had hit him. The bruise skidded along his cheekbone and welled in under his eye toward his nose. He couldn’t see it, of course, but the warmth of her touch lingered.

  As a finishing touch, she pulled out a big, wide bandage and slapped it at an odd angle across the heart of her handiwork. People would remember seeing that—and really didn’t want to see the bruise beneath—so she’d effectively connected the weak dot in the robbery story to something folks would easily call to mind.

  She closed the kit. “Now, you don’t move from that couch, young man.”

  “Mom, I’m not really hurt.”

  Melody Stone stiffened. “You’re my son, and if I think caution is necessary, you’ll stay there.”

  “But…”

  “No, Grant, this isn’t open for discussion. Not again.” She stood, clutching the kit against her stomach. “Your powers may have been growing. You’re certainly faster now than before, and stronger, but none of us know what’s truly going on. So sit you shall. You weren’t planning on doing anything today anyway.”

  Grant frowned. “Dad and I were going to go fishing.”

  “And the difference is?”

  “She has you there, son.” Hank Stone smiled as he came through the side door. Tall and thickly built, at first glance few would take Hank Stone for a farmer. Though years in the fields had deeply tanned his skin, he didn’t have the lean edge that a lifetime of hard winters and dry summers puts on a man. His knuckles had the scars of a man well versed in working with his hands, and the burn scar on his right forearm hinted at youthful misadventure, so farmers like Pierson accepted him and his family fairly quickly.

  Hank Stone slipped an arm around Melody’s shoulder. “Another great job. You know you’re an artist.”

  “Only out of necessity. Bob Pierson brought them home. He didn’t seem alarmed.”

  “Good. Polly filled me on the way back.” Hank kissed his wife’s cheek. “She’s in the barn feeding her goats.”

  “I’ll go help, since Grant is resting.”

  Neither Stone man said a word until Melody had left the farmhouse. Once the door closed behind her, Grant looked up at his father. “Dad, it’s all okay.”

  Hank sat beside his son. He scratched at the back of his neck, slowly shaking his head. His brown hair had sunkissed highlights, and proved as unruly as his son’s. “What did you do in there?”

  “The bruise, it’s because one of them was going to club Mrs. Anderson with his shotgun. I told everyone I was okay, and mom has fixed it now.” Grant glanced down. “Then, when the guy from the vault used smoke and a flash grenade, I wasn’t blinded. I nudged two of the robbers into walls, basically. They never saw anything. No one did.”

  “Don’t say that because you don’t know it’s true. And they don’t have to see anything. If they felt the air move, or heard a whoosh.”

  “They didn’t. I can’t break the sound barrier, dad.”

  Hanks brown eyes narrowed. “The man from the vault?”

  “Kind of looked like Robin Hood, sort of. That kind of hood, gray. He had big gloves with claws, but I didn’t see him claw anyone. He had those little grenades and a short staff, like a cane without a hook. He didn’t say anything. I think Mr. Gardner was surprised he was there.”

  Grant’s father sighed. “That hooded man, he knows he didn’t take out those last two robbers. We have to assume, then, that he knows that someone else in the room did. Mrs. Anderson would be ruled out. You and Bob Pierson are the most likely targets.”

  “He could think it was Polly if he was from around here.”

  “That is not much of a comfort, Grant. None at all, in fact.” Hank glanced up, then shook his head. “You should have just left things alone, Grant. That was not your fight.”

  “But they could have shot us all, dad. I had to do something.”

  “No, Grant, you didn’t. First off, you’re not bullet proof. Second, you weren’t thinking.” Hank pointed northwest, toward Lyttleton and beyond. “Do you remember what happened when you were seven, when the sugaring house caught fire?”

  Grant closed his eyes and nodded. “I used my speed to run back in after you got us all clear because Polly had left Mr. Snuggles behind.”

  “Right. And you do you remember what happened?”

  “Yes, dad. My running that fast created a draft which made the building burn that much hotter and faster.” Grant shook his head. “I didn’t know what I was doing.”

  “Son, your instincts were right, even as a seven year old. Look at me.” Hank rested both hands on his son’s shoulders. “You’re not seven anymore. I’m proud of how you’ve helped people, and that you want to help people. I’m happy to think that even if you didn’t have your special talents, you still would have saved Mrs. Anderson. But you have to realize that people don’t age only in years. When you were seven, you knew more about farming than some graduate of City College over in Capital City. If I were to drop dead tomorrow, you’d know enough to keep this place going. But superheroing you don’t know anything about. I’m not sure the man in the vault knows that much, either. That was a very dangerous situation, and a lot of people could have gotten hurt.”

  Grant reluctantly met his father’s gaze. “Dad, if my instincts are right, and I’m going to use my powers to help folks, shouldn’t I be learning how to be a hero?”

  “That’s a valid question, but you’re assuming one thing: that only by being a hero can you help people. Three years ago, when the Pierson barn got hit by lightning, you helped.”

  “I ran more slowly and got some livestock out.”

  “Sure, you did that, but I meant after.” Hank smiled. “We did the barn raising, and you did your part. More, in fact. And there are those times you help others. I only hear about it at church, when someone says you just happened along when they’d blown a tire and you fixed it. Look, you may not be Puma rounding up gangsters, or Black Cyclone stopping some giant robot’s rampage, but you’re helping people.

  “But I need you to look at it from the other side, Grant. Look at it from my perspective. If you become a hero and someone decides to
strike at you, your mother and your sister become targets. Heck, if some nutjob bent on world domination learns who you are, he could attack all of Lyttleton. Helping people is one thing, son, but can you do things that actively put people in jeopardy?”

  “No, Dad.” Grant shook his head, blowing that errant lock from his forehead again. “But where’s the balance? How do I weigh the possible harm that might be done against knowing that if I don’t act, someone will die?”

  “The balance point exists, son, but it’s different for every man. Shifts during your life, too.” His father smiled. “When your mother came into my life, when you and your sister came, my balance point shifted. And, while you’re under my roof, under my care, you really need to be very conservative. It will hurt if strangers die when you could have saved them. It will kill you if your family dies because you saved strangers.”

  Grant slowly nodded. “You’re telling me that this isn’t the kind of decision a high school kid should be making, right?”

  “Son, if I ran the world, no one would have to make that kind of decision.”

  “I see your point.” Grant met his father’s gaze easily. “Do you think you might be able to rescind a decision mom made? She wants me to stay here and ‘rest.’”

  “You know she made that decision because she’s anxious for your safety.”

  “Yeah, but I will go out of my mind insane here. Polly and I were going to hit the Lyttleton Free Library after the bank but before we went fishing.”

  Hank Stone frowned. “Do you know what your sister was going to take out?”

  “Yep.”

  “Okay. Ride your bike. Slowly.” The man patted his son on the shoulder. “You’ll double up on chores tomorrow, and will be on time for us to leave for church.”

  “Count on it.”

  “Check the fridge to see if your mother needs anything, too.”

  Grant nodded. “What can I do for you?”

  “Just keep being a good man, Grant, and you’ll give me everything I need.”

  Grant clambered onto an old Schwinn bicycle that he’d found rusting in a gulley, brought home and fixed up. Unbending the frame hadn’t been difficult, and he saved up for new wheels a couple summers back. He’d painted it red—using left-over paint from the last time they painted the barn. Some kids at Lyttleton Union High School laughed at it and him when he rode it to school. Grant didn’t mind. They would have laughed at him for living on a farm anyway, since they lived in town. The odd bike just became one more bit of camouflage concealing his secret.

  There wasn’t much Grant could get past his father, so he figured that Hank knew part of his reason for wanting to go to the library. Aside from getting books, that was. Though his father didn’t talk much about his childhood, Grant figured he must have been a handful. He envied kids who had grandparents who could spill the beans on their parents.

  Despite his abilities, Grant really didn’t harbor a secret desire to be a superhero—at least, he didn’t think he did. The fact was, however, that the very circumstances of his life and origin meant he had to deal with a core problem for superheroes: the secret identity. Aside from the few times that Janet Pierson got a bee in her bonnet about learning his secret—and she was sure everyone had a secret—hiding what he was had not been terribly difficult. He figured it was kind of like being allergic to bees—as long as you stayed away from bees and got help whenever you were stung, chances of getting badly hurt weren’t great.

  The bank robbery hadn’t been like any other incidents—not even the time of the big forest fire. His father had been right to worry, not only for Grant and Polly, but others with whom Grant made contact. He’d barely grazed the robbers, but that was enough to slam them into the wall and knock them out. Moving any faster or shoving any harder and he might have killed them. Not only would that have exposed his abilities to the public, but he’d have to deal with the legal and emotional consequences of his actions.

  With fictional heroes, it was always so easy. To protect the innocent they battled against the forces of evil. In most stories, the bad guy—after being warned by the hero—did something that caused his own destruction. That kept the hero’s hands clean, physically and morally.

  Life and reality were never that clean. There were some kids in Lyttleton who owned pet rats, loved them, fed them, and played with them. On the farm, rats were vermin that ate feed, gnawed everything, and could spread disease. With his speed and ability to see in the infrared spectrum, Grant was able to do a fair amount of rat-catching. While he killed the rats humanely, he didn’t think much about it. Saying that, however, would have horrified the town kids who only saw rats as pets.

  He’d read enough stories and editorials in the Capital City Chronicle to make it plain that some people thought of criminals the way he thought about rats. They were missing a key point, which was that criminals are humans and capable of thought. As did his father, Grant felt there was some inherent goodness in everyone. Given a chance, they’d work toward building a better life and society.

  But was there any good in the robbers? The willingness to club an old woman indicated that at least one of them had gone pretty far off the rails. There might be no saving him. The others, however, hadn’t fired a shot even when the man in the vault had used his flash grenade and sent smoke billowing into the room. Why not? Could it have been that their better nature prevented them from shooting for fear they’d accidentally kill someone?

  Grant accepted that such issues were not something he was experienced enough to make decisions about. At least, not without learning a lot more about them. Superheroes had faced such issues, and it was possible, in an interview, article or book, that they’d discussed it. Philosophers, too. Heroes would be most on point for his thinking, however, and in Lyttleton, there was really only one source for information about superheroes.

  Hardin Peck, and Grant could find him at the library.

  Grant rode right up to the library. He put his bike in the rack in front of the two story, redstone building. It had towers and wings and looked a lot like an old Victorian Mansion, save that it had always meant to be a library. Arlington-Jones, an eccentric architect, had fashioned it so every category in the Dewey decimal system had its own space, but he’d organized them on a strictly idiosyncratic system. Stories suggested Arlington-Jones had ended up in an insane asylum, but others suggested he had entombed himself in subterranean rooms below the library itself.

  Grant bent over the bike and fiddled with the bolt on the front fork. He tightened it so the wheel couldn’t turn. He’d never locked the bike since he figured no one would steal it, but taking that precaution couldn’t hurt. Besides, it let him use his powers in plain view and no one noticed. He felt a little less freakish that way.

  He bounded up the steps and into the main hallway. He nodded at Hardin’s mom, the head librarian, as she helped Mrs. Anderson check books out. The librarian nodded and glanced up toward the second level, wordlessly telling Grant where he could find her son. Grant headed up the broad stairs covered with a long Persian runner in red, greens and blues, then headed off left at the landing, past the big stained-glass window, and through a dark corridor that opened into the small periodicals room.

  Hardin Peck turned his head slowly to look in Grant’s direction. He wore his sandy-brown hair short, and his slowly developing smile carried all the way up to his brown eyes. Had he been standing, he’d have been of average height. Grant would still have towered over him, and had a much more muscular build, but such sharp physical contrast was normal for young men of their age.

  Unfortunately for Hardin, standing up wasn’t an easy thing to do. He’d been diagnosed with an extremely rare form of muscular dystrophy which meant his voluntary muscles—especially the long ones—responded to commands at a sloth’s pace. That Hardin usually styled himself “more tortoise than hare,” and smiled while doing it, spoke volumes about his good nature.

  “I heard you saw the excitement at the bank this morn
ing.”

  Grant smiled and nodded toward the microfilm reader before which Hardin was seated. “You researching things for yourself or your father?”

  Hardin’s shoulders rose and fell gently. “Both. Want to know what I found?”

  Grant pulled up a chair. “Every bit of it.”

  “Okay, but you have to share about the guy who caught them.”

  “Deal.”

  “The robbers were part of the NVA—New Vision Army. They are a left-leaning, anarchistic group that wants revolution. NVA also stands for North Vietnamese Army, and the Reds are rumored to have provided support. So far their biggest success was kidnapping Marta Coulden, heiress to Kenyon Coulden, the industrialist.”

  “Wow.” Grant frowned. “They had a woman with them…”

  “Shhhh. My dad says it is probably her. The FBI will be sending folks from the Capital City or Gotham offices to pick her up. Very hush hush.” Hardin raised a finger to his lips with great effort. “You might have to identify her.”

  “If I can help, I will.” Grant’s eyes tightened. “Why were they in Lyttleton? Our bank can’t hold that much cash.”

  Hardin’s hand returned to the knob controlling the microfilm reader. He gave it a twist and blurred newspaper pages scrolled up the screen. The machine’s motor whined and clicked. Hardin knew it so well; he didn’t even have to glance at the screen when it made it stop.

  The viewer displayed the front page of the Capital City Chronicle. “Black Cyclone Smashes Anarchists” topped the page above a picture of the hero standing tall over scattered bodies in camo. Grant didn’t remember having read that story, but he’d read plenty of others that covered similar ground with other groups.

  “Black Cyclone, Puma, and others are making it tough for criminals in the big cities. Towns like Lyttleton might be slender pickings, but we do not usually have superheroes to fight them.”

  “Good point.”

  “About the one you saw…”

  Before Hardin could finish his question, a slender man with wild white hair and wilder eyes entered the periodicals room. He wore an old trench coat with belt knotted at the waist. It might have once been beige, but years of using it as everything from a lab coat to quilt had covered it in a mesmerizing array of stains.