Other People's Heroes (The Heroes of Siegel City)

by Petit, Blake M.

  “I don’t know, Josh. I don’t know what’s enough or what’s too much or -- God, I’m so confused.”

  “When I met you, Annie, when I first began to learn who you are underneath that mask, I was thanking God for finally bringing someone that wonderful into my life. And then I found out about you and Todd, and I’ve spent every day since then raging against Him for placing you out of my reach.”

  She began to tremble, still crying. I placed my hands on her shoulders and turned her to face me. At first, she tried to look away, but when I started talking, her eyes met mine.

  “I love you, Annie. I’m sorry it came out this way, but I’m not sorry it came out. I love you. I need you. I’d do anything to make you smile or to hear you laugh. When you’re not around, I wish I was with you, when I am with you I never want it to end. I love you. And I’ll never regret saying that.”

  She smiled, just for a second, then began to cry again. “You don’t know. You’ve got me on a pedestal--”

  “No! That is NOT it. I know your faults. Some of them -- such as your incessant tendency to put yourself down -- really upset me. But dear God, I wouldn’t care if you had no powers, waitressing in the filthiest greasy spoon in Siegel City and always had a hairnet on, as long as it was you.”

  “I don’t know... I don’t know what to think. I don’t know what I want. I need to sort all this out.”

  “Then go ahead. It’s okay. I’m not afraid of waiting, I’ll wait as long as you need.”

  She put her head on my shoulder then and we both squeezed out the last of our tears. As I felt her, the nearness of her, I never wanted to let go, because I was scared I wouldn’t get her back.

  This must be love, I thought, I can hear violins playing. And then I noticed the fir tree with the white-clad arm giving me a thumbs-up. I opened my mouth, but Annie beat me to punch.

  “Go away, Ted.”

  “Darn it,” said the tree. Once he was gone, we just stood there for a while longer.

  We just stood there.

  ISSUE ELEVEN

  THE CALM

  It’s amazing, how sometimes the simplest things can be the hardest to do. For instance, ringing Sheila’s doorbell the next day. I thought it would take my arm off. It was almost as hard as standing there, on the steps of her apartment building, waiting for her to click the damn intercom button and acknowledge my existence.

  Finally there was an electric hiss and Sheila’s scratchy voice crackled, “Who is it?”

  “Sheila, it’s me. It’s Josh. Come on, I need to talk to you.”

  There were several more moments of quiet static before she replied. “I’m sorry, the sneaky bitch you have requested is no longer in service.”

  “Oh come on, Sheila! I never called you a sneaky bitch.”

  “You were thinking it.”

  “Sheila, please, this is important! I need your help.”

  “Why, all of a sudden, do you need my help? I wasn’t good enough to trust with your little secret about the Magical World of Morrie Abadie.”

  “Look, I’m sorry about that, okay? I should have trusted you and I’ll never make that mistake again, I promise. But Sheila, listen, I’ve gotten myself into a real mess here. Noble wants my blood, Annie’s as stable as a nuclear power plant with Homer Simpson on staff, I’ve got to buy a new pool table if you can believe that and any minute now a swarm of pissed-off troll dolls with neon blue hair from the center of the Earth are going to attack the city, so I don’t have a lot of time!”

  No response.

  “Okay, I’m making up the part about the troll dolls, but the rest of it is all true. I need you, Sheila. I need your help. I can’t talk to anyone who can be objective about this whole, stupid mess! Please, just hit the buzzer and let me come up there.”

  No response.

  “You want me to beg? Is that what you want? I’ll do it! I’ll make a fool out of myself in front of the entire street! Sheila, I was wrong and I’m sorry. I’m a blithering idiot. I’ll do whatever it takes to make it up to you. I’ll cook! I’ll clean! I’ll bear your children! I’d be down on my knees if I could reach the intercom button from there! I’ll erect a shrine to the wonderfulness that is Sheila Reynolds, if you’ll just let me talk to you!”

  I was in the middle of composing a ballad entitled, “Why I Think Sheila is Really Keen-a” when the door opened and Sheila stepped out. “Hey.”

  “How long have you been away from the intercom?”

  “I started down the stairs as soon as you said you were sorry.”

  “So I’ve been begging the door for your forgiveness?”

  “I suppose. Why, what did you say?”

  “Nothing. Why didn’t you just buzz me up?”

  “Because we’re not doing this here. We’re going for some frozen yogurt. You have until we get back here to convince me you’re really sorry.”

  “Okay. But it’s on me.”

  “You’re damn right it is. That’s not quite going to be enough, though.”

  “Didn’t think it would.”

  It didn’t even take me until we got to the yogurt place to finagle forgiveness out of her -- Sheila’s always kind of had a sisterly soft spot where I’m concerned. I bought her a cup of strawberry cheesecake. It wasn’t enough to rebuild the bridge entirely, but it sure as hell laid the foundation.

  While she satisfied her sweet tooth I told her what happened with Annie -- the blowup with Todd, the tearfest in the arboretum, all of it. She listened with attention so rapt I thought she’d burst. Finally, she put down her cup and spoon.

  “It’s obvious, isn’t it?” she said. “All you can do is give her time.”

  “Time is going to kill me one of these days, you know that?”

  “Time kills all of us. You’ve just got to live with it.”

  “Time or Doctor Noble.”

  “Don’t let that guy bug you. Sounds to me like he’s all bark and no bite, Josh. If he was really going to go after you, he’d have done it by now.”

  “Tell that to Photon Man.”

  “Do you know what really happened to Photon Man?”

  “Well... not exactly, no. I know he did... something bad, I can’t really get people to talk about it. They chased him down and Noble found him, alone. He ‘accidentally’ hyper-intensified Photon Man’s powers and made him blow up.”

  “Ew.”

  “You’re telling me. That’s why Hotshot was so adamant about trying to find Icebergg before Noble got to him last month.”

  “Is that what happened to Icebergg?” she said. “I’d noticed he’d gone missing.”

  “You’ve really been paying attention, haven’t you?”

  “Well... once I learned it was all fake it’s sort of like watching a soap opera.”

  “You hate soap operas.”

  “That’s because Eric Braden doesn’t wear tights. So, what did Icebergg do?”

  “I don’t know if I should be telling you this, Sheila,” I said, but she shot me a look that seemed to indicate she knew precisely where she could hide the bodies, so I relented.

  “Okay, okay. But you don’t report--”

  “I don’t report any of this, I know. Go on.”

  I launched into another storytelling session, this time beginning with First Light’s holo-reproduction of Deep Six’s murder and concluding with Flambeaux’s incoherent babbling in the arboretum.

  “That is so weird,” she said. “Did you ever figure out what he was trying to say?”

  “You know, right after that was Copycat’s ‘capture,’ and right after that I threw Doctor Noble through a wall and confessed to Miss Sinistah that I was in love with her. I didn’t even think about Flambeaux again until just now.”

  “Josh, how could you not? It sounds like something huge is going to happen, you can’t keep this to yourself!”

  “Sheila, I have to keep this to myself. No reporting, remember?”

  “Oh, yeah. But still, how can you just sit on a mystery like th
is? I’m already climbing up the walls.”

  “I’m no detective, Sheila, I wouldn’t know how to begin digging this up.”

  “There’s only one way to do it. You’ve got to go to Flambeaux and pick his brain.”

  “He’s catatonic!”

  “Ah, how long can that possibly last?”

  I laughed. “Sheila, as grateful as I am that you haven’t told anyone – Anderson Cooper, for instance -- about Morrie’s little playhouse, I’ve got to ask something here. How can someone as inquisitive as you be sitting on a story this big and not go insane?”

  “I thought about that,” she said. “I guess the truth is I’m content to keep the secret as long as I know it. Solving the puzzle is more important than showing it off.”

  “Really?” I said with a ridiculous level of skepticism.

  “Well... also, I guess I’d rather have my best friend than a Pulitzer.”

  I blushed. “Aaaw... Sheila. I don’t know what to say.”

  “Just accept the compliment. Jackass.”

  “Whore.”

  “Creep.”

  “Skank.”

  She hugged me and we both fell into outrageous fits of laughter which, now that I look back on it, may have saved my life. Or at least my sanity. I was happy there. It was quite some time before I was happy again.

  BEFORE THE STORM

  “What I don’t get,” Ted said to me the next day, “is why you’re going to visit the catatonic pyro instead of trying to talk to Annie.”

  “We’ve talked, man. Believe me, we’ve talked. Fact is, we both need some time to decide what else there is to say.”

  “Pessimistic way to look at it.”

  “Realistic, I’d say.”

  We were back in the lounge and, although I had no more rumbles on my docket for a while, I was in costume, like most of the others. While I was in Simon Tower it made more sense to be Copycat than Josh Corwood.

  The broken pool table had been replaced and the only sign that there had been a scuffle at all was a white patch on the wall that hadn’t been painted yet. Morrie’s repair crews were even faster than Powerlines’. Still, staring at the new pool table, I found myself desperately praying the Copycat action figure would be a top seller -- there was going to be a big hole in my royalty checks until that thing was paid for.

  “Still, why talk to Flambeaux? The guy’s practically a vegetable.”

  “He was trying to tell me something back there, Ted, before he blanked out on me. Maybe if I can snap him out of his... trance, whatever it is, he can finish.”

  “I still don’t know what you hope to find out. Icebergg is gone, Deep Six is still in a block of ice in the morgue -- case closed. Come on, stick around here and help me break in the new table.”

  “Very funny.”

  “Josh, think about this. Morrie’s got the best doctors and psychiatrists in Siegel City on his payroll. What makes you think you can snap him out of it where they all failed?”

  “I’m going to try something I’ll bet they never even considered.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I’m going to bring him flowers.”

  I went down to the infirmary with my recent purchase resting comfortably in my hands. It was a bonsai tree -- one of those little things people could trim and shape. I remembered how Flambeaux said working on the topiary garden somehow helped him to concentrate -- clear his head. Since I couldn’t bring him to the garden, I figured this would be the next best thing.

  The on-call nurse simply waved me through to Flambeaux’s room. “Who knows?” she said. “Maybe you can get a rise out of him. It certainly can’t hurt.”

  I sat next to Flambeaux’s bed and placed the bonsai on his nightstand. Except for some beard stubble, he looked very much like he had when Hotshot brought him in -- cold, empty and not really there. His eyes were still orange, but even moreso now, as though it were fluid gushing around inside the vitreous humor and not just an energy build-up.

  “Hey man,” I said. I glanced down at his chart to remind myself of his real name -- Benjamin Costanza. And his brother, Deep Six, was Lance. I wondered if they had any family besides each other. I wondered if the rest of the family knew.

  “Hey, Ben. I brought you something.” I slid the bonsai closer to him, hoping at least some part of his vacant brain could see it. “I realize it’s no giant topiary giraffe, but when I tried bringing that bad boy in, the nurse gave me such a dirty look... I tell you, it’d chill your blood to ice, man.”

  I found this joke considerably funnier than Flambeaux did.

  “Look, I know you’re probably busy and all, but I was wondering if maybe you could shed a little light on the whole ‘find him’ thing we were talking about the other day. Ring any bells? Wanna share anything else? Come on, Benny, who is ‘he’? Who do I find? Who do I stop? Who do I save?”

  Flambeaux just lay there, beeping periodically through a monitor. It was like watching the world’s most boring pinball machine. In exhaustion, I buried my face in my hands and groaned. “I give up. I could have a more meaningful conversation with the Goop.”

  “Josh?”

  The voice was slow and soft, like someone learning to speak the language, but it was there. My ears pricked and my head shot up. Flambeaux had turned his head and was staring at the bonsai tree. His eyes looked the same, like an orange hurricane was playing itself out in there, but all the same there was a presence, a consciousness, that wasn’t there before.

  “It’s nice.” He raised an arm in a slow, tortured movement. It was in the air just long enough for him to brush a leaf with a fingertip before he had to drop his arm to the bed again.

  “Thank you.”

  “Hey, any time, man. Just glad I could help. So come on, can you talk? How do you feel?”

  “Scared,” he said. I hadn’t heard him sound so totally sane since before his brother died. “Is he still out there?”

  “I don’t know, Ben. I don’t know who he is. You’ve got to tell me.”

  His eyes fluttered and his face contracted in on itself, down his neck, as though he were trying to cough up something. “Gha,” he said. “Glarg.” His face relaxed and he exhaled with a long, low moan. “Can’t tell you. He won’t let me.”

  “Then how can I possibly find him?”

  His head rolled to the side again. “Tree?”

  “Huh?” I looked at the small plant, wondering how there could be a clue there, but when he whispered “Tree?” again, I realized he was asking for it. I took it from its spot on the nightstand and placed it on his bed, near his hand. With Herculean effort, he lifted his hand and began to burn off a leaf here, a branch there, giving the tree its shape.

  “See... my brother,” he said clearly.

  “Your brother? Ben, your brother is--”

  “See him. And not the costume. See him. See th’ truth.”

  I shuddered as I realized what he was asking. He wanted me to go examine a corpsesicle.

  “Ben, are you sure? Isn’t there some other way?”

  “No way! Can’t say it, even now, even with a clear head. You’ll see. You’ll know.”

  The look in his eyes had changed dramatically. It had gone not only from vacant to occupied, but now conveyed a wealth of emotions ranging from terror to grief to desperation.

  “Okay, Ben,” I said. “I’ll go to your brother.”

  His eyes shifted to relief in the split-second before they closed and he slumped back against the bed, exhausted. He waved at the bonsai tree with a finger, asking me to take it away, and I returned it to the nightstand.

  “Thanks, Benny,” I said. “I hope I can find whatever it is you want me to.”

  “Wait--”

  “What? Is there something else?”

  “He’s here,” he whispered. “Part of him. With you?”

  “What?”

  “Look,” he said. Then his eyes rolled back in his head and the expression of sanity was gone. Flambeaux was empty again.
>
  “Get some rest, man. You’ve done your part.”

  Three hours later I was sneaking into the Simon Tower morgue.

  THE FIRST BAR

  An interesting thing about Morrie Abadie was that as much as he liked to splurge on certain amenities like the lounge or the gym, there were other things he didn’t spend a nickel more than he had to on. At 9 p.m. not only was there nobody at the morgue, but there wasn’t even a fancy security system in place, just a deadbolt.

  Even the few lessons I’d gotten in subterfuge from Nightshadow were enough to get me into the morgue and to find the drawer Deep Six was in. I steeled myself as I gripped the handle, took a deep breath and slid it open.

  He was literally still a corpsesicle -- they hadn’t even bothered to thaw him out before the put him in the drawer. They just chipped away enough of the ice to fit the poor guy in there. “I’m gonna regret this,” I mumbled to myself. I dug around until I found a screwdriver to use as an icepick and a paper towel to wipe off the ice chips that would undoubtedly spatter my face.

  The body was closest to the surface of the ice around the head and, even with the helmet cracked, it would still keep me from accidentally jabbing into... well... anything soft. There was a scarlet cloud in the ice surrounding Lance Costanza’s head, where his blood had leaked out of the broken helmet and frozen. Of course, it was right where I would be chipping.

  I raised the screwdriver into the air and jabbed it into the ice. Shards flew everywhere and I wiped the water from my face. The towel was still white then.

  I kept chipping, kept wiping. The towel was getting wet but it wasn’t changing color. Once I started chipping into the crimson, I stopped looking at the towel.

  Finally I heard a clang as the screwdriver impacted the helmet. It didn’t really take as long as I’d thought it would. I used that point of contact and chipped outwards, finally exposing the crack in the armor. I wondered how so much blood could flow through such a small crack.