Capes

by Drabble, Matt

  The past few weeks had been crazy enough to make him question his own sanity, let alone fear for his own incarceration.

  Now that the dust had settled and Clermont had won the election, he just wanted out. His work was done and no one could begrudge him slipping away to sunnier pastures, preferably ones without an extradition treaty with the UK.

  The money that Cynthia Arrow had paid him, or whoever the hell she was, was more than enough to set him comfortably for the rest of his life. He had paid his dues, rolled the dice, risked everything and pushed his luck to the very limit; it was time to cash out.

  He clicked the mouse and sat back as the computer did its thing and planned out his escape.

  He knew that it was not in Clermont’s best interest to keep poking around for answers. The man had struck a deal with the alien and they had agreed to keep each other’s secrets. The alien was getting his own division paid for by the government and Clermont had his election win.

  There was one thing, however, that kept on sticking in his mind, Clermont’s father had died the day that the alien had landed, and Cynthia Arrow had told him that the alien had, in fact, murdered Miles Clermont. He had known Simon Clermont for long enough to know that that fact would continue to eat away at him until he discovered the truth about his father; that could be the thread that shouldn’t be pulled upon, or at least not until he was very far away.

  The flight was in a little more than 13 hours, but his bags were already packed. He was travelling light with barely more than the clothes on his back, leaving everything to do with his old life far behind. He was done with aliens and superheroes, religious fanatics and ideologists. He was done with all of the craziness, especially politics.

  The next couple of seconds were a blur. One second he’d been alone in his private office, the next, someone had been standing next to him.

  The crackling purple electricity that surrounded him was terrifying and exhilarating all in one breath-stealing moment. The hairs all over his body stood up on end like a massive current had just been run through him.

  A very large silhouette stepped out of the shadows and placed a green hand down on his arm. He found himself looking up into the yellow reptilian eyes of the alien who never said a word.

  There was then a second flash and crackle of electricity, and the next thing he knew, the cold night wind was pummelling his pyjama-clad body.

  He looked around in sheer shock as he suddenly found himself on top of his apartment building, being held firmly on the edge of the roof.

  “What…?” was all he could splutter before the powerful hand holding him let him go, and he was falling hundreds of feet to his death.

  ----------

  21 hours ago

  Summer Sloan powered through the last twenty feet of her swim, ignoring the cramping in her legs and the weakness in her arms.

  The pool was deserted at this time of night which was how she liked it. Even at an exclusive facility like this, she still found staring eyes wandering over her whenever she came here.

  Her arms felt like jelly now as she gripped onto the side of the pool and tried to catch her breath.

  If she’d had any real friends in her life, someone by now would have expressed concern over her declining weight and growingly gaunt appearance. But as it was, hers was a solitary existence filled with subordinates and peers and no one to talk to.

  She hadn’t been sleeping much of late… too many dreams of Bruce Manners stealing back out of the grave to find her. Her food intake had declined to almost nothing and she’d been drinking increasingly heavily. At nights, she’d started to pass out rather than actually sleep.

  As the thought of Bruce flickered through her mind again, she pushed off from the pool edge and started to swim another length, ignoring her aching limbs and their protestations.

  Her professional stock could not have been higher. She had been presented to the public as an integral part of the government’s undercover operation to fight a new menace threatening the very safety of the country.

  She had been inundated with book offers and talk-show appearances, and there was solid interest in the movie rights to her life. Everyone wanted a piece of her. It was everything she’d ever dreamed of, and yet she just couldn’t seem to get centred.

  The more that people praised her and her actions, her heroism, her sacrifice, the more she hated herself and what she’d done, what she’d become.

  She sliced through the water, powering on. Maybe if she exercised herself into oblivion, she might just sleep tonight.

  Dimly, she grew aware of a change in the lighting of the water. There was a green LED glow around the edges of the pool from the soft lighting, but now there was an odd purple light effect.

  She stopped her front crawl and bobbed for a moment, pulling up her goggles to get a better look at what was causing the distortion. It was then she realised the change in light colour was not coming from around her; instead, it was coming from beneath.

  Looking down in confusion, she couldn’t tell what the light was, but as she did so, something grabbed her hard from under the water and pulled her down effortlessly.

  She fought and kicked hard, but it was useless as whatever it was simply dragged her down to the bottom and held her there. The last thing she saw before her lungs gave out in the darkness was a pair of glowing yellow eyes.

  ----------

  Now

  Jamie-Lyn stared at Link’s now lifeless body and then at CJ, going back and forth as her shattered mind tried to process what she’d just witnessed.

  She opened and closed her mouth several times to speak, but she couldn’t find any words. There were a million questions, but she couldn’t vocalise any of them.

  “Jamie-Lyn?” CJ enquired. “Are you okay?”

  She stared back at him again before rushing over to a nearby bin and throwing up into it as the burning smell from Link’s cauterised open wound overwhelmed her.

  “That’s good,” CJ said, nodding his head. “Always better out than in.”

  “What…? Why…? How could…? Oh Jesus Christ…, CJ…,” she stammered incoherently.

  “I need you to be calm, Jamie-Lyn; can you do that? Can you do that for me?”

  She allowed him to touch her shoulder and lead her to a chair to sit down before she fell down.

  “There we go,” he said kindly. “That’s better. Can I get you some water? Perhaps something stronger?”

  “CJ…,” she started. “What…, what did you do?”

  “What had to be done.”

  “What?”

  “I’m afraid that I was both right and wrong about Mr Link. He really would have made an excellent Queen’s Guard member, too good unfortunately. It’s in the eyes, you see. You can always tell. Our Mr Link here has – excuse me, had – that look, that truth seeker’s look.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “He wouldn’t have stopped, you see. I can tell. He would have just kept on pushing and pushing, digging and digging, no matter what he promised, no matter what he signed.”

  “Please tell me that he was a bad guy, CJ? You thought that, right? You found some evidence, something no one else knew about, right?”

  “Oh no. I’m afraid that he was a good man, one of the best, in fact. Remember, he could have walked away at any time and he never chose to. He stayed and fought the good fight.”

  “I don’t understand,” she said, risking a look back at Link’s body.

  “I did so wish to avoid this, Jamie-Lyn, honestly I did. I hope that you can believe that. It’s important to me… you’re important to me.”

  “But you…, you were supposed to be the good guy, the hero…,” she pleaded.

  “Oh, but I am,” he replied with genuine hurt lacing his voice. “How can you think that I’m not?”

  Jamie-Lyn answered by casting a glance towards Link.

  “A necessary evil, I can assure you.”

  “And the others?”

 
; “Others?”

  “The camera crew, Summer Sloan? The prime minister’s aide? Was that all you as well? Were those all necessary evils?”

  “Quite so,” he replied sadly. “You see, the problem is that there are too many loose ends floating around. I thought that I would be okay as long as I had a certain amount of coverage, but it’s hard to keep that level of faith, especially in people that are happy taking payoffs to keep their silence. It’s hard to sleep at night worrying about who might come popping out of the woodwork at any given moment. In the end I thought that a clean break all round was probably best.”

  “So that’s it then, is it? You’re working for Gustafson? For how long, CJ? How long have you been working for him.”

  “Oh, I’m not working for him.”

  “Well excuse me,” she sneered. “With him? Is that better? Or is he working for you? Is that it?”

  “Oh no, my dear, you misunderstand. I am Olaf Gustafson. I always was.”

  Jamie-Lyn stared up at the giant alien with incredulity robbing her temporarily of speech.

  “Ah, I see that it has finally registered.” He smiled.

  “But…, but you’re…”

  “An alien? From outer space? No, I’m afraid not. You saw my home town… not quite a distant planet, was it?”

  “You can’t be,” she said, her eyes bulging at his appearance.

  “Some modifications to be sure, a little genetic alteration.”

  “JESUS, A LITTLE?”

  “Okay, a lot.” He beamed back. “But rest assured, I am Olaf Gustafson, born in 1932 near Stockholm and taken to that ghastly place when I was four. You know this is all rather lovely being able to talk about it. You have no idea how many times I wanted to confide in you when we first became friends.”

  “Why, for fuck’s sake?”

  “Because I liked you,” he replied, confused.

  “I MEAN… WHY…?” she exclaimed, shaking both hands violently at him, unable to express herself verbally at that precise moment.

  “Oh, you mean all of this,” he responded, pointing at himself and making a circle around his face. “Well mine is an original story, perhaps the first real one of its kind.”

  “Oh my god, you’re nuts,” Jamie-Lyn whispered under her breath then prayed that he hadn’t heard her.

  She was in luck as his face seemed to grow distant as he started to speak.

  “I watched my parents brutally slain in front of my eyes, Jamie-Lyn. Two good people ripped from this world by religious fanatics, the very people they only ever wanted to help.”

  “Erik and Astrid,” she offered.

  “Quite right. I see that you have been doing your homework; I suspect with the help of Mr Link.”

  She didn’t risk looking over at Link again, she couldn’t.

  “So there I was, just four years old and scarred for life, but never fear, it did, after all, make me the man I am today.”

  “Man?”

  “Well, of sorts,” he admitted.

  “Link read through the journals. Gustafson’s – yours, I guess.”

  “As I of course intended. Freja took me in, saved me from the mob and raised me as her own. Perhaps I don’t need to startle you with the sort of upbringing I received in that…, place. I had to grow up surrounded by the very people that had brutally slain my parents, Jamie-Lyn, all the while smiling and playing the good boy. No one will ever know what that was like,” he said, darkening.

  “You had Freja.”

  “Ah yes,” he replied, lightening. “She really was a good woman. It was my new mother that introduced me to the world of the superhero. She managed to keep a stash of comic books hidden from the rest of the townsfolk. For a young child living that kind of life, those colourful pages were my only friends outside of Freja. A visitor once came to stay at the research centre, a visitor from America, and he brought an early Superman comic from the late thirties with him. Freja met him. She was the town’s resident welcome committee to ascertain what newcomers’ intentions were. I suppose that she was the least suspicious person.”

  “She sounds wonderful.”

  “She was,” he replied with a wide smile. “Anyway, once I’d read my first comic book, I was hooked. With Freja owning the general store, she was able to add a few secret items to her regular deliveries and my collection grew. You see, those books spoke to me, Jamie-Lyn, spoke to me on the most primal of levels. It was like someone had written my life’s story, drawn in what I was going through in order to show me the way forward.”

  “You were a traumatised child.”

  “I WAS NO VICTIM!” he suddenly roared in anger, and she saw a glimmer of the wounded child under the clearly insane man he’d become.

  “Freja gave you your father’s notebook?” she asked quickly to defuse him. “I mean, that’s what it said in Gustafson’s journal… wait, your journal. Did you write that or plant it?”

  “Both. I don’t think that she was aware of what was in it, but I spent most of my formulate years decoding it, studying it, learning to understand it.”

  “But you got out, right? You got away, left for college? Started a new life?”

  “My new life started when I was four years old, Jamie-Lyn; that was the day when I was truly born.”

  “Okay…, so then at some point you went back.”

  “After a long time, a long, long time. I was blessed with both of my parents’ intelligence, Jamie-Lyn. That was always my greatest superpower; a genius mind, set to the task of becoming the hero I was always meant to be.”

  “You butchered people, used them as science experiments. How many? How many people died when you returned to reopen your father’s lab?”

  “Omelettes and eggs, my dear.”

  “How? I mean, how the fucking hell is any of this science fiction shit even possible?”

  “You’d like me to explain?”

  “Why not?”

  “And of course you’d understand it? Gene splicing? Quantum mechanics? Molecular cloning? DNA manipulation? Biochemistry? Atomic physics? I mean, you’d be able to fully comprehend the nuances of my work, right?”

  “Okay, fair enough,” she had to admit. “But didn’t you land in a bloody spaceship? I was there. I saw it.”

  “A simple craft capable of light flight and all for show. All of my work, my science, my equipment, was quickly removed for study, but most of it didn’t actually function. Once the government were unable to operate any of my paraphernalia, they simply deemed their best minds incapable of understanding it. The fact that it never worked didn’t matter. My mind was the only thing that mattered, and my mind was already the single greatest on the planet in spite of being created in Stockholm. But can you imagine the world sitting up to take notice of a superhero from Stockholm?”

  “And what about your father? Your mother too, for that matter? Was that how they envisaged their work being used?”

  “My parents were hacked to pieces, Jamie-Lyn, so I suppose we’ll never know. I certainly never got to ask them.”

  She felt his anger grow as she evaluated what his triggers were and just how insane he really was.

  “So once you perfected the work, what then?”

  “I became what I was always meant to be, what destiny demanded of me: I became a hero.”

  “But this? I mean, why this? Why not just be you?”

  “Now where’s the fun in that?” He smiled while his yellow eyes sparkled. “I was the great visitor from beyond the stars, a beacon to the world, a real life Superman come to save you all.”

  “What about Cynthia Arrow? The first one, I mean. Was any of that real?”

  “Of course,” he replied, sounded offended. “I knew that my appearance required… an opposite,” he said thoughtfully. “After all, what’s the point of a hero without a villain?”

  “And the prime minister at the time? What about her? Was any of that so-called exposé real?”

  “Believe it or not, Jamie-Lyn, my abilities are ra
ther limited. I do not have the power to control minds. My existence merely inspires them, for good or bad, right or wrong; that was always my plan. Cynthia saw what she wanted. She was a deeply disturbed woman with a very distressing past who saw me and headed down a dark road. Her organisation, the whole SOUL thing, was all her doing. Rosemary Williams saw an opportunity to exploit the situation for her own benefit and she did just that.”

  “But…, people died. Lots of them.”

  “That was always their choice, Jamie-Lyn. As I said, I can only inspire the people.”

  “The ones you didn’t make, that is.”

  “Well yes, there is that.”

  “So why all of this now? If Cynthia died at Havencrest, why bring her back? Why start all of this again? Why?”

  “Because they forgot,” he replied stonily.

  “Forgot what?”

  “Me.”

  She stared at him, her brain divided in two. Part of her was trying to get the truth out of him while keeping her head from spinning off her shoulders with every revelation. The other part of her brain was trying to spot a way out of her own predicament.

  He turned away from her and placed his hands behind his back, interlacing the fingers.

  “They forgot about everything that I did for them, Jamie-Lyn. They forgot about what I did, what we did, all of us. The war, the lives we took, the lives we saved. I gave them a real-life superhero. I gave the world an alien come down from the stars to change the course of human history, and it only took them 20 years to forget.”

  “So you wanted to remind them again?”

  “I wanted it back. I wanted all of it back. You can’t tell me that you didn’t miss it, being a hero: the limelight, the adoration. Yes, I’m not too deluded to admit that. I had their love and it was warm, Jamie-Lyn. I basked in it and then they took it away, leaving me out in the cold.”

  “So you brought back Cynthia and gave her a daughter.”

  “Oh, but she was so much more than that.”

  “You made Cynthia’s daughter a weapon.”

  “A mystery!”

  “A mystery?”

  “Every good story needs one, Jamie-Lyn. Think about it. We had it all: good guys on the run, a mysterious beast out there hunting us; we had Cynthia Arrow return from the grave seeking bloody vengeance. We had the people believe us to be villains before our triumphant resurrection. I gave the people everything that they craved. It was a masterpiece, Jamie-Lyn, a masterpiece.”