“Down boy,” I said.
“What?”
“Not you, mom. I can’t really say that’s what I’m looking for. I never... I dunno, started to float around the room or got bathed in some kind of highly-experimental radioactive fluid, did I?”
“Josh--”
“Mom, I’ll cut to the chase, am I the product of a top-secret government conspiracy?”
She gave me the sigh that let me know I had gone too far. “Josh, I know you’ve always wanted to be a superhero. I blame your father.”
“Dad never said anything to me about superheroes.”
“Your dad never said much of anything to you, that’s why you adopted guys like Lionheart as surrogates. I promise you, Josh, you have led a perfectly normal life, utterly devoid of radiation baths, magic spells and alien abductions. I’m sorry to disappoint you.”
“Meow,” said Achilles. He still wasn’t convinced my latest project wasn’t edible.
“That’s okay, Mom.”
“Why are you bringing all this up now? Did something happen at work?”
“Yeah. I was writing a story about Capes whose powers didn’t manifest until late in life and I was just thinking...”
“Maybe you could be one, right?”
I held out the tunic I’d just finished stitching my superhero emblem. “Yeah. That’s it exactly.”
“All I can say, son, is that if you start emitting radiation, it’s not my fault.”
“Okay. I guess I should go; I’ve got work to do. Oh, and I’m sorry if I wasted your time.”
“Any time, Josh. Oh, and son?”
“Yes?”
“If this is the last time I hear from you before your birthday, you don’t get a present.”
“It’s a deal, Mom.”
After the line was disconnected, I wiggled into the half-finished uniform I’d been stitching. It was exactly as I’d envisioned it. “Well, Achilles?” I asked. “What’s the verdict?”
“Meow,” he observed.
“My thoughts exactly.”
PATROL
You write about superheroes long enough and you learn that the first thing, the most important thing any new hero needs is a good costume. Something proud and strong. Something that makes a bold statement. Something that strikes fear in the hearts of evildoers and inspires awe and respect amongst the peace-loving general populace.
“You look like a dork,” Sheila said.
“Is it the trenchcoat? Is it too much?”
“Oh, I think you crossed the ‘too much’ line when you decided to go with the gold trim,” she said.
I turned back to the full-length mirror Sheila had in her apartment and ran my eyes along the improvised get-up. Wisely choosing to eschew the tights, I’d elected for black trousers and boots and a pair of black leather gloves. My domino mask was the same royal blue as my tunic and a line of gold trim formed the initials “GP” on my chest. I’d topped off the whole ensemble with a black trenchcoat -- partially to give myself a more imposing look and partially in the hopes that any evildoers I ran across would find it distracting enough not to notice they were being jumped by a 250-pound reporter.
“I think it looks pretty good,” I said.
“You look like a dork,” she reiterated.
“You know, my mother always says that clothes do not make the man.”
“Your mother is far more forgiving than our editor will be if you turn in a story about some geek in a trenchcoat with gold laces.”
“I’m not going to write about this! A reporter who’s really a superhero and turns in stories about himself? How unethical would that be?”
To be perfectly honest, I kind of felt like a dork, too, but there was no way I’d admit that to Sheila. Instead I just flexed my leather-clad fists and said, “Open the window.”
“The window? For what?”
“So I can go on my first patrol.”
“Josh, you’ve read way too many comic books. What happens if you come across a mugger? Or a bank robber? Someone with no powers for you to duplicate? You could get killed.”
“So I only go after Masks. No non-powered opponents.”
“Oh, that’s better. Now it’s between you -- a novice with no clue as to what he’s doing -- and people who have dealt with these abilities every day of their lives.”
“Come on, Sheila. It’ll be a massacre.”
“That’s exactly what I’m afraid of.”
Frowning at her skepticism, I went and opened the window myself. I had already scrambled halfway out onto the fire escape when I felt her warm hand wrap around my arm.
“Josh, just... be careful.” She placed a chaste kiss on my cheek and gave my arm a squeeze. I smiled back at her.
“I’ll be fine,” I promised.
To my chagrin, I soon found that “fine” was a relative term. Usually the urban superheroes without some method of flight or propulsion carried cables and grappling hooks that allowed rapid transportation from rooftop to rooftop. In my case, what you had was a fat guy scrabbling up and down fire escapes with a pair of binoculars banging against his chest. I wasn’t going to be instilling fear in any crooks anytime soon, but I was hoping I’d at least have them paralyzed with laughter long enough to leap down and take them out with their own powers.
Remembering what Sheila said about a bank robber, I decided the primary place to survey on my patrol would be the First National Bank. Two fire escapes and a pulled shoulder muscle later, I decided that was way the hell too far away and I’d go to the Fourth National Bank instead. After nearly slipping on a ladder and falling to a grisly death, I cut my losses and held patrol over a nearby ATM.
I sat on the fire escape glaring at that ATM for about three hours -- most of which I spent trying to concoct a story to feed to Sheila to avoid ridicule: “Well there I was, surrounded by Herr Nemesis and the Tantric Trio, when I remembered Aura’s weakness to magnifying glasses...”
It was about two a.m. at this point and the worst crime I’d seen thus far was a stray dog peeing on a fire hydrant. I was ready to pack it in and go home when God smiled on me and the woman in the brown coat showed up. She had short-cropped blonde hair that fell into her face every so often, and she’d brush it aside with her blue-gloved hand. Her mask was familiar, but it wasn’t quite clicking where I’d seen this tiny woman before.
Standing on tiptoes, she glared into the two-way mirror that masked the ATM’s security camera, as if she was making sure it saw her. Then she tossed her coat aside and I realized where I’d encountered her before. It was that afternoon in the Powerlines office.
“Miss Sinistah,” I hissed.
The villainess craned her arm back and shattered the face of the ATM with a superhuman punch. Cash was flying everywhere. I didn’t know how she’d escaped Dr. Noble, nor did I care. It was going to feel great to bring in a Mask that had evaded our Beloved Champion.
As I scrambled down the fire escape, I began to feel the now-familiar Rush (it was important enough, I’d decided, to capitalize) come over me. My muscles toughened and the exhaustion drained from my limbs. I was ready to take her down.
Apparently, though, one of Miss Sinistah’s powers was not super-coordination, because my attempt to leap from the fire escape and land in a dramatic pose wound up with me dangling from the ladder by one foot and my head rattling around inside a garbage can.
My head clunked against the metal and I grunted, more from habit than from any actual pain. I hung there, banging my head against aluminum and smelling what must have been a mix of orange peels, coffee grounds and certain feminine hygiene products, and the only thing I could think of before a hand wrapped around my ankle and lifted me out was, “Well this is stupid.”
I stared at a pair of red boots and wondered why on Earth anyone would choose stiletto heels for combat. Despite the blood rushing to my head, I managed to bend my neck until I was looking at her knees. Then the blue trunks that only just covered her thighs. Then her bare midriff. And
then slightly higher I saw...
“I’m up here, lunkhead,” she said.
With Herculean effort I bent my neck a bit farther so I could look into a pair of the iciest blue eyes I’d ever seen.
“And who are you supposed to be? I wasn’t told there were any new guys on this assignment.”
I twisted my leg, breaking free of her grip, and somehow rolled myself into a standing position. “I’m one of the good guys.” I grabbed the lid off a trash can and, using Sinistah’s own super-strength, drove my fist clean through it. This, along with my brilliant dialogue, was intended to be impressive. Instead, as Sheila doubtlessly would have informed me, I looked like a dork with my fist in a garbage can lid.
“One of the good guys? Please.” There was a new Rush and a shape descended from the sky. He took a spot next to Sinistah, folded his arms and frowned.
“Doctor Noble!” I suddenly felt lightheaded, trying to imagine myself slugging it out with Siegel City’s Sweetheart. “I knew you were a jackass,” I said, “but I didn’t think you’d be in league with the Malevolence Mob!”
“Don’t tell me...” he mumbled.
“I think so,” she said, frowning. “What’s your name, honey?”
I steeled myself and spat out the introductory line I’d rehearsed in Sheila’s apartment.
“You can call me,” pause for dramatic effect, “the Great Pretender!” I pointed a thumb at the insignia on my chest. “And I’m going to use your own powers to put you both out of commission!”
There was a long, hideous silence.
And then Noble started to laugh. Not quite as loudly as Sheila had.
Sinistah slapped him on the arm. “Now cut that out,” she said. “He doesn’t know.”
“Know what?” I shouted. “Look, I don’t need to know any more than I already do. People deserve to know that their ‘hero’ is corrupt. You’re not walking away from here.”
I launched my fist at Noble’s jaw, but it stopped in midair some inches from his face. That’s when I knew guys with telekinetic powers really honked me off.
“Amateur,” he said in the tone of voice you use to describe intestinal discomfort. He squinted and I felt a pinching inside my neck. The world swam around me, dissolved into a haze, and I collapsed.
“What did you do, Todd?” I heard Sinistah ask.
“Don’t get ‘em in a bunch,” Noble growled. “I just cut off the blood to his brain to knock him out. He’ll be fine.”
“Should we take him to Morrie?”
“Standard protocol,” he said. “Hey... his eyes just moved. I guess I didn’t whammy him good enough.”
The pinching resumed, and the last thing I wondered before I blacked out was where I’d heard the name “Morrie” before that day.
ISSUE THREE
OFFICE PARTY
I awoke to the gentlest brushes on my cheek and a sweet voice saying, “Preten -- um -- honey? Whatever your name is, come on, wake up. It’ll be okay, I promise.”
The voice alone was enough of an incentive for me to pry my eyes open. As the universe returned to me I saw an incredible woman wearing Miss Sinistah’s costume. She looked warm, tender -- it was like having my own personal angel to welcome me back to consciousness. As my head began to clear I realized it was Miss Sinistah. Somehow I hadn’t recognized her without her mask.
Dear God, she was beautiful.
“Are you all right?”
“Oh, sure,” I said, hoping I sounded more sophisticated than I felt. “That’s the last time that train will try to hit me.”
“I’m sorry about To -- Doctor Noble. He’s not aware of this new technique we have called ‘talking to people’.”
“Oh, like he would have listened,” Noble grumbled, alerting me to the fact that Sinistah and I were not alone. I blinked a few more times, extinguishing the sleep in my eyes, and I was in an office, lying back in a swiveling chair in front of a desk. I was turned to the side so I could see the door to my right and the desk to my left. Noble was sitting on a couch next to the door, mask down, moping. With his mask off I saw that he had, in addition to his nasty attitude and ugly, stupid eyes, one massive eyebrow marching across his forehead. Actually, that’s not doing it justice -- it looked like his lauded aliens had grafted a mutant caterpillar to his face while they were busy giving him his powers. It felt slightly gratifying.
I could still feel the Rush coming from Noble and Sinistah (actually, I felt considerably more than just the Rush from Sinistah), but I was also feeling more power hitting me from the left. Standing next to a desk was a woman in magenta robes with a blood-red medallion around her neck. Her skin was a lighter shade than her clothing but still quite a satisfactory purple and her eyes were white and pupil-less -- she looked like some bizarre mutation of Little Orphan Annie. Her pointed ears probably could have been covered by her hair if not for the fact that she was completely bald. A guy who didn’t work for a superhero news rag probably would have found her familiar but be unable to place a finger on her identity. One of the first things you go through when you get a job at Powerlines, though, is an intense rundown of all known Capes and Masks in the city -- this girl in particular, because people had an interesting tendency to “forget” her. She was the mysterious heroine known as Mental Maid.
And, of course, sitting behind the desk, gnawing on an imported la repulsiva cigar, was my old pal Morrie Abadie.
“Mister Cordwood,” he said, “a pleasure to speak to you again.”
“For the last time, it’s Corwood, not -- hey! How did you --” My hand went up to my face and traced the outline of my domino mask, still firmly set.
“You don’t really think that’s much of a disguise, do you?” he chuckled. “I can still see your eyes, nose, cheekbones -- every distinguishing feature. That kind of mask gives you about as much anonymity as a pair of glasses.”
“Yeah? What about guys like Hotshot? Jackal? The Marauder? It’s good enough for them.”
“They have a gal like Mental Maid to make sure nobody pays too much attention. You don’t got that yet, kid. Even half-masks wouldn’t protect you for long without her doin’ her thing.” He expelled a gray-blue ring of smoke into the air from between his fleshy lips. “So, ‘Pretender,’ what do you do, anyway?”
My intended response was to invite him to perform a certain anatomical impossibility, but instead I found myself answering, “I can duplicate other people’s powers if I’m in close range.”
Morrie’s eyes lit up and, for the first time, I detected a hint of cunning behind them to match his greed and lack of scruples. “Really?” he said. “And can you do anybody’s powers?”
“Everyone I’ve tried so far.”
“Yeah? Gimme a list.”
“Miss Sinistah. Flambeaux. DoubleGum Man. The Gunk, now that I think about it. Doctor Dunderhead here.” Noble blanched at that, but I saw a sly grin trace its way across Sinistah’s face.
“And I’m not sure how they work,” I finished, “but I can feel Mental Maid’s powers running through me right now.” A light went off. “That’s how you’re doing this, aren’t you? She’s forcing me to answer your questions.”
“Better than any truth serum,” Morrie said. “So how long have you been aping powers off my boys?”
“I only realized I could do it today,” I said. “But I think I did it once when I was a kid. When Lionheart saved me from a fire.”
“Oooh, Lionheart. ‘Course, you’re still practically a kid now, musta been just before he took a powder.”
“Bite me.” I’m still not sure if Mental Maid’s truth powers made me say that or not. I rather hope not.
“Don’t get cocky, kid, I haven’t made up my mind about you yet.”
“What are you babbling about? Look, I don’t know how you warped these heroes into your schemes, but if you’re going to kill me just go ahead and do it or I’ll --”
Morrie and Noble exploded into laughter. Sinistah shot them both a dirty look.
&
nbsp; “What? What did I say?”
“I’m sorry,” Sinistah said. “They never act civil to people from the outside.”
“What the hell is going on?” I shouted.
“Morrie?” There was a knock at the door and a man in red, black and gold poked his head in. Even if it weren’t for the sunburst emblem on his belt buckle and the freshly-ridiculed half-mask, I would have recognized this guy. He was Hotshot, the last active member of the now-defunct LightCorps, the team Lionheart had founded.
And in his hands was what appeared to be a script.
“Hey, Minister Malice and I had some questions about Tuesday’s rumble. Have you got a minute?”
“Not now, ‘Shot,” Morrie said. “We’re having a discussion with our friend Mister Corwood. We’ll go over it later.”
“Okay, Morrie.” He grinned straight at me on his way out. “Good luck, kid,” he said.
“What...” I said.
“The hell...” I continued.
“Was that?” I added for clarity.
“That was Hotshot goin’ over his next fight with Minister Malice. And it’s a damn good thing, too. Usually it’s like pulling teeth to get any decent rehearsal time outta Mister ‘I Was In the Original LightCorps...’”
“No,” I said. “I mean... what the hell was that?”
“It’s like having a parrot isn’t it?” Noble smirked.
“He’s a hero!” I shouted. “He’s not supposed to be in cahoots with people like Minister Malice or... or you.”
Other People's Heroes (The Heroes of Siegel City) Page 3