“One last stop on this level,” he said. “Our arboretum.”
He took me into a large, greenhouse-like area full of lush vines, bushes and trees, some like nothing I’d ever seen. There were plants with orange leaves and striped petals -- big, dripping white fruits and beautiful flowers. It was like standing in God’s flower garden.
The ceiling, like in the auditorium and the gym, extended past the top level where Morrie’s office was and all the way to the surface. Here, though, the ceiling was glass, allowing sunlight to filter in from the sky above. We must have been standing beneath the courtyard behind Simon Tower.
“The glass is polarized,” Hotshot said, answering my unspoken question. “It lets all the light in, but nobody can look through the glass and see us down here. It’s safe.”
“What’s this place for?” I asked.
“We’ve got some people here with unusual dietary needs,” Hotshot said. “Aliens, mystical creatures, that sort of thing. When Morrie built this place, he wanted to include a greenhouse so we could grow the foods they needed. As time went by, though, the whole thing got bigger and bigger until... well, until we got what you see here.”
I was standing underneath a tree that almost looked like a willow, but had strange, puffy flowers budding all over it. The buds resembled chrysanthemums, but the petals were in concentric rings of red, black and gold. There was also a blue cactus in here, I noticed. And a crystal palm. And over there...
“Wow.”
The centerpiece of the arboretum was a beautiful topiary garden, full of careful, hand-crafted sculptures made from cut leaves. Some were animals, but others were carefully-detailed recreations of Capes and Masks. There was a nice sculpture of Lionheart.
“Who does all this?”
“We’ve got a couple of guys who dabble in topiary sculpture,” Hotshot said. “Morrie likes everybody in his employ to be happy.”
“What a prince, that Morrie.”
I was already accustomed to the third level. It was the living area, where the lounge and cafeteria were located. We breezed through there and I saw Miss Sinistah, who gave me a smile and a wink before Dr. Noble showed up with a scowl and a snarl, dragging her away.
“Level four,” Hotshot said as we stepped off the elevator, “the dormitory.”
He led me down to an unoccupied apartment -- it consisted of a living room/kitchenette combo, a bathroom, and two single bedrooms. The furniture was plain and the decor Spartan.
“Morrie lets you decorate as you please,” he said. “Everybody is entitled to quarters, but some people prefer to live outside of the tower.”
“I’ve got my own apartment,” I said. “I think I’ll stay there for a while. Besides, my cat hates to move.”
The bottom floor was pretty frigid. “What’s down here?” I asked.
“Storage,” Hotshot said. “Of all kinds.”
“What does that mean?”
“This is where we keep all of our supplies and merchandise. Y’know, the stuff we haven’t gotten out to the stores yet. You should see how packed it gets in October, just before the Christmas rush. This is also where we keep prisoners waiting for arbitration upstairs. And, when the situation demands it, the morgue is right down the hall.”
“I don’t suppose you mean ‘morgue’ in any sort of newspaper sense, do you?”
“The most writing you’ll find in there are on tags.”
“Beautiful. I really hope you don’t have to use that often.”
“It’s been years.”
“Good to know.”
“And that’s pretty much it,” Hotshot said. “Any questions?”
Yeah. How long did you wait after Lionheart was dead before you drove the knife in his back?
“No, I think I got everything.”
“Great.” We wandered back to the lounge area and he clapped me on the back. “It was nice getting to know you, Josh.”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“If you need anything else, let me know.”
He was friendly, courteous and a real nice guy to be around. But one little thing overshadowed everything else. As he left, my eyes followed. If anybody nearby had heat vision, I would have wound up frying the guy.
It was the kind of stupid, irrational anger that has no explanation and, once it has passed, you simply cannot understand. But while you feel it, none of that matters.
For what he’d done to Lionheart’s legacy, I hated Hotshot. I couldn’t help it. Although, to my credit, I was sorry for it later.
THE ARENA
Part of me, the stupid part, wanted to be matched against Hotshot for my first professional rumble. I really wanted to hand him his head. Then I thought for a while about Hotshot’s main power -- the ability to take any solid object and break down the atomic bonds within, turning it into a particle stream whose strength was proportionate to the mass of the original object. In short, he could turn anything into a zap-ray. So a much larger portion of me was relieved to draw a match against half of the Spectacle Six. First Light, Fourtifier and Five-Share were supposed to meet me outside the room called The Arena.
I spent a week practicing the powers I would use in that first rumble. I copied both Flux’s gravity powers and the inertia-controlling abilities of LifeSpeed. Between the two I could pretty much contradict everything Isaac Newton ever said. Fortunately, rather than dressing me up like a giant apple or something, Morrie gave me the semi-respectable stock name “Shift.”
First Light, a thin, albino woman in gossamer robes, was the first to meet me outside the training room. She was practically glowing, and there was a Tolkienesque look about her somehow, with her pointed ears, high nose and narrow eyes. “You, then, are the new Shift?” she said in a high, hollow voice that made me think of elves.
“For the moment, anyway,” I said. “Josh Corwood, nice to meet you.” I stuck out my hand to shake, but she blanched away, eyes bulging in terror.
“No! I must not sully myself with human contact. It would shatter the purity of the Light.”
I dropped my hand, bashful. “Sorry. I guess that makes swing dancing difficult, right?” She raised an eyebrow in confusion and I surrendered the lame jokes.
There was an intense grinding noise sidling up to us and a gruff voice said, “I’m the dancer on this team, boyo.” The rock-creature called Fourtifier smiled a dusty grin at us, sounding all the time like someone dragging a chunk of granite across a cement patio. I couldn’t help thinking any attempt this guy made to move faster than a 12-year-old boy at a junior high dance would drown out any music.
“Aren’t we one short?” I asked. “Or rather, five short?”
Just then, though, turning the corner down the hall was Five-Share. He was a skilled martial arts master with the ability to divide into five independent bodies at a time. I was surprised to see him approach me as a mob -- I would have thought he’d have stayed consolidated until he entered a combat situation. Instead it was like watching a group of kids on their way to a stickball game.
“Josh Corwood,” I said to all of Five-Share. “Nice to meet you.”
They answered as a mob, talking over each other, making it almost impossible to tell who was saying what. “Hi.--Hiya.--Yo.--Wassup?--How’s it going?--Hey man.”
I froze.
“You’re Five-Share?”
“Yep.--Uh-huh.--You betcha.--Bingo.--Heard that.--Bright, ain’t he?”
Something was still bothering me. I turned it over in my head half a dozen times before I realized what it was.
“There are six of you,” I said.
“Smart guy.--Swift...--Quick study--”
“Now cut that out!” I bellowed. “What’s the deal here?”
The one in front reached up and pulled off his full, blue and red face mask, revealing an athletic-looking man with brown hair and eyes and a nicely-cleft chin. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Why can somebody called Five-Share split into six people?” I asked
<
br /> “Actually,” said the next one over, pulling off his mask, “we are six people.” His face was the same as the other, at first, until I realized his chin was full. A definite resemblance, but not the same guy.
“The amazing Cochinsky Brothers,” said the third, pulling off his mask to reveal a blonde.
“Our real power is to teleport,” said Four, whose hair was black. “The problem is, we can only teleport to a location where one of us already is.”
“If we do it right, it looks like we’re one guy with multiple bodies,” Five said. He had the pocked remains of an old scar on his cheek.
“One of us sits out each fight here at Simon so the others can teleport home in an emergency,” said the last one. “It was Morrie’s idea.”
Six sported the same brown hair and eyes as One, Two and Five, but I couldn’t help noticing a fundamental difference.
“You’re a girl!”
“Boy, nothing gets past you,” she said. “It’s a padded suit, genius.”
“Man, this place is just one fake after another, isn’t it?”
“Ah, what is ‘real’?” asked Three.
“Just a state of mind,” Four said.
Two piped up. “Sophocles said--”
“Do you guys always talk like this?” I moaned.
“Yeah.--I suppose.--Pretty much.--It’s a gift.--It would seem.--You got it.”
It was beyond a blessing, a few seconds later, when Flux and LifeSpeed finally arrived. With them was another Cape, one I hadn’t been told to expect -- the veteran called Particle. He’d been on the front lines as long as anybody -- even as long as the LightCorps, and although he’d never officially joined any teams he was well-known and respected in the Cape community as a technological and biochemical genius. Particle had the ability to shrink himself down to near subatomic levels. At least, that’s what I’d always been told his power was -- the way my day was going I was probably going to learn that he just made everything else big.
“Nice to meet you Josh,” he said. “Or do you prefer ‘Shift’?”
“Well, since we don’t know how long ‘Shift’ will last, let’s stick to ‘Josh’ for now, okay?”
“Good deal. Did Morrie explain to you how this was going to work?”
“He said we’d rehearse the combat in a replica of Siegel City, and that the two guys I’m drawing power from would wait it out on the side. What I don’t get is where this replica comes from... do we have a hologram room or virtual reality setup or something?”
“What is this, a Keanu Reeves movie?” Flux said. Particle let out an amused chuckle.
“Nothing quite so elaborate, son,” Particle said. “Here, it’s best to show you.”
Next to the door was a computer keypad, into which Particle fed a series of numbers. Then he was given a palmprint, retina scan and voice analyses. “Only Particle can access the rehearsal area,” LifeSpeed said to me as we waited. “He runs all the training sessions, so Morrie’s got the whole system keyed into him. Only two or three people can get in.”
“Is he afraid of someone stealing all the high-powered equipment or something?”
“Nah, he’s just such a tightass he’s afraid we’ll break the thing if we go in without a chaperone.”
Finally, Particle was finished with the ridiculously over-elaborate entry sequence and the steel doors glided open along their tracks revealing an empty doorframe and a tunnel. We headed down a hall and Particle waved Flux, LifeSpeed and one of Five-Share (they’d put their masks back on, I couldn’t tell which) into an observation area off to the side. Finally, Particle led us to another steel door.
“Your first day in the Arena, Josh,” Particle said. “Hope you like it.”
He slid the portal open and I saw it for the first time -- Siegel City. A perfect duplication. Oh, it was empty of people and movement and, well... life, really. But there were cars and street signs and billboards just like the real Siegel. The gleaming presence of Simon Tower, the subtle elegance of Barks Plaza, the peaceful centerpiece of Lee Park. It was incredible.
“It’s two feet tall,” I said.
“How else do you think we could duplicate an entire city in this complex?” Particle said.
“How do we rehearse without pulling a Godzilla all over Kirby Square?”
“You forget who you’re talking to, Josh. I’m Particle. I’ve been doing this for years.”
He wasn’t even scolding me, not really, but for some reason being spoken to in that tone by him made me feel small. Very small.
“You’re shrinking me, aren’t you?” I said.
I was looking, at eye-level, directly at Particle’s belt buckle. Then his knees. Then his boots. Behind me I could hear a similarly shrinking Five-Share chuckling at me.
“You didn’t think I could only shrink myself, did you?” Particle said, his voice booming. He wasn’t coming down on me, he just enjoyed his job and didn’t mind having a little fun with the new guy. It sort of made me more comfortable to know that not everybody I encountered would be a Dr. Noble. “How do you feel, Josh?”
“Like G.I. Joe,” I shouted.
Particle sat down at a control panel at the edge of the mock city. He hit a couple of buttons and a small, open-topped transport with long rows of cushioned seats along the sides rolled up beside us. It may have been a foot long. To our perceptions, it was like a bus.
“Hop in,” Particle said. “The transport will take you to the rumble site.”
TRAINING EXERCISE
My first rumble was scheduled for the tall, glass-and-steel structure of the First National Bank -- the same one I decided not to stake out that first night when I’d met Sindy. The plan was for me to go in, steal some quick cash, allow an unsuspecting teller to trip the alarm and rush outside just in time to meet my opponents from the Spectacle Six, who would subsequently “capture” me.
I was worried, at first, about doing this dry run with no actual civilians involved -- “How can I prepare for the bystanders?” I’d asked Morrie.
The manager simply blew a smoke-ring and scowled. “No point in worrin’ about our audience, kiddo. There are only two things civilians ever do during a rumble. Nothing, or something so ridiculously unexpected that there’s no way to prepare for it. Either way, you’re gonna just have to play it by ear.”
I smiled and nodded, trying to remember his precise phraseology so I could write it down later. I had a notebook of all the illicit activities I’d run across in the week since I’d been there. I didn’t have a plan or any idea how long I’d be there. Until I got everything I could use, I supposed.
Or until Mental Maid decided to point the finger at me.
“Nervous, kid?” asked Fourtifier in his rock tumbler voice.
“A little,” I said. “Be kind of stupid not to be, don’t you think?”
“At first, maybe,” he said. “But you get used to it.”
“Goody.”
The transport dropped me off outside the miniature replica of First National and pulled away, taking my “opponents” to their own starting location.
“How are you over there?” asked Particle. I was hearing his voice, now, through a micro radio woven into my mask. With more experienced, more reliable Capes, full scripts were sometimes written, because guys like Hotshot could be counted on to stick to them. I was the rookie, though. In order for the battle to be both spontaneous and realistic, we were going to improvise large chunks of it, with Particle giving us commands at various points that would take us to the preordained conclusion -- my defeat.
“I’m doing fine,” I said. On the horizon I could see what looked like a mile-high wall of glass, through which was the observation area. LifeSpeed and Flux were flanking the last member of Five-Share. Apparently my diminutive size had no effect on my powers -- even though those guys seemed miles away I could still feel the Rush they provided as if I were standing at their gargantuan feet.
“Okay,” Particle finally said. “They’re in position.
Go ahead and rob the bank.”
“Do you know how bizarre it is to hear you say that?”
He laughed. “You’re on, kiddo.”
It was a typical robbery, worthy of any poorly-scripted movie. I was supposed to barge in, scream out some supposedly intimidating phrase and begin juggling around security guards to prove my point. To be perfectly honest, I wasn’t sure what my point was, but I was going to prove it regardless.
I kicked the miniature door open and shouted, “Everybody on the floor, this is a stick-up!” The scene was not exactly what I was expected. The scene was, in fact, a shoebox-sized room full of paper dolls. Some with smiley faces. There was laughter outside and I wondered if this was part of some hazing ritual or something.
“Oh, veeeeeery droll,” I said. Still, sticking with the plan, I used Flux’s gravity power to hurl one security guard doll against the ceiling and simultaneously used LifeSpeed’s inertia powers to slam the other into a wall more than hard enough to incapacitate even a non-cardboard opponent.
Behind the counter one of the teller-dolls was already holding out a tiny bag with the words “This is money” written on it.
“Uh-oh,” Particle said in my ear. “Some well-meaning teller has just triggered the silent alarm. What are you going to do about it?”
I played along, pretending to roll my options over in my head. “Well... let’s see... Herr Nemesis would probably blast her head off and call her an ‘insolent dog’... the Squid would trip over his own tentacles in the escape attempt... but something tells me Shift would simply... take the money and run!”
I think I did a pretty good job, too. I grabbed the cash (that doll didn’t even put up a fight), clocked the guards together and got the hell out of there. I still think it was totally uncalled for when a Five-Share clotheslined me on my way out the door.
Other People's Heroes (The Heroes of Siegel City) Page 7