The City That Heroes Built

by Daniel Pierce

  Fiver got to his feet. Cal re-appeared. The Bandits went to the hole in the glass wall they had used to enter and flew away. Anyone who hadn't fled already did now, moving quickly to join those running for the stairs or crowding at the elevator.

  Fiver ran towards Liberty. Cal teleported, arriving instantly. He was stabilizing her when I got there. “Broken back,” he said. “How's Concord?”

  “He's over there groaning,” I said. “Fiver's getting him on his feet.”

  Concord brushed Fiver off and stormed over.

  “Get your hands off her.”

  “You can't move her, she has a broken back. She landed with several tons of force. I'm stabilizing her, and I'll medevac her.”

  “I'm not letting you take her,” Concord said. His face had been smashed pretty badly by Skyfall's kick. His white uniform was covered with blood from his broken nose. He had one of those nose and eyes masks that left his mouth uncovered, blood saturated the mask around the nose and dripped around the edges of his mouth to fall on his uniform.

  “Bro, he can teleport,” Fiver said.

  Concord looked at Fiver. “I remember you.”

  Providence flew back into the Sky Garden, carrying a conscious Paragon. She flew all the way to Concord, putting Paragon down, and striding around Concord. I backed away.

  “Get your hands off her,” she said to Cal.

  Fiver talked quickly. “She has a broken back, you can't move her.” He stepped in front of Providence. Paragon rushed forward. Fiver backed off, hands raised up and open to show he wanted to diffuse this situation. “He's a medic. He'll teleport her to a hospital.”

  Paragon tried to push past Fiver, but Fiver did some judo move that took him off his feet.

  “Bro, if you move her, she's going to die.”

  Paragon came to his feet swinging a mighty uppercut. Fiver leaned back just enough to avoid it. Providence grabbed Paragon by the shoulder. “Wait!”

  Paragon held his next punch.

  “I remember you,” Providence said to Fiver.

  “Listen, he's trying to keep your girl alive, and possibly able to walk again. But he needs to take her to a hospital, or she probably won't.”

  “No hospitals,” Paragon said.

  “She's not going to get better from this.”

  “No hospitals!”

  “What are your other options?”

  “I'll find a healer,” Paragon said.

  “You'll find one or you know where to find one?”

  “Ready,” Cal said.

  I was well away by now, having steadily backed up until I could just make out the conversation.

  “Look, let him medevac her to a hospital, then come back and get you and you can guard her. The hospital can do a preliminary look and advise you. Then when you need to get out, he takes all you guys out.

  “I can do everyone at once,” Cal said. “One trip in, you never have to leave her side.”

  Paragon gave it a thought. “Okay. You try anything, and I'll crush you.”

  “Sure, tough guy,” Fiver said. He stepped aside.

  “Everyone needs to touch me,” Cal said.

  Free Force gathered around him and put their hands on his shoulders. Cal touched Liberty. They all disappeared.

  Fiver came over to me. “Let's find Jen and get out of here.”

  I called and sent her texts. No answer.

  “Check the ladies' room,” Fiver said.

  “I'll text her.”

  Fiver poked his head into the ladies'. “She's not there. Let's go. We'll find her downstairs.”

  But we didn't find her downstairs. We went back to Murphy's and met up with Cal. The theft and the supra battle in the Sky Garden was all over the news, though the only participants mentioned were the Sky Bandits and Free Force.

  “Those guys are hard to fight,” Cal noted.

  Fiver nodded. “Would have been even tougher if they were outside in the open.”

  I finally got a text from Jen around 11:30.

  Home.

  “She's home.”

  “Safe?”

  “Doesn't say otherwise. I'll see you later.”

  “Yeah, man, sounds good.”

  Jen was sitting on the couch when I got home. She jumped into my arms and kissed me like we'd just narrowly avoided death, which I supposed we had, though I didn't really feel that I personally was in any danger. She dragged me to the bed, and I fell in next to her. She was shaking, and in a hurry. She tore off my shirt, then hers while I fumbled to undress the rest of the way. I didn't finish. She pulled me on top of her, nails digging in, pushing against me like there was nothing she needed more.

  Wiki Entry: Sky Bandits

  The Sky Bandits are supra-thieves with the ability to fly. Their first major heist occurred in 2008 when they stole over $100,000 in jewelry from a private collection. In 2009, the Sky Bandits became infamous for starting the Santa Barbara Firestorm, which killed 14 people and injured hundreds more. A fire had just been brought under control when the Guardian Angels interrupted the Sky Bandit's retreat. Tommy Dust used his power to dry out the surrounding area and evaporate the firefighters' water. The Guardian Angels turned to contain the damage of the rapidly spreading fire, allowing the Sky Bandits to escape. Jimmy Aces of the Bandits remained behind to aid the Guardian Angels' rescue efforts. His heroic efforts led to leniency and a pardon, but it wasn't enough to prevent 14 deaths and over a hundred serious injuries.

  The Sky Bandits are rarely active outside California.

  Jimmy Aces was the fastest of the group, extremely agile and able to evade most attacks. Has been known to break the sound barrier. He had briefly trained with Yankee Station before turning to a life of crime. Following the Santa Barbara Firestorm, he spent six months in the Citadel.

  Tommy Dust is a flying semi-pyrokinetic, and leader of the Sky Bandits. He can heat air in his vicinity to wear down potential adversaries, and can do incredible damage with the heat, but does not create fire.

  Windshear creates gusts of wind to fly and batter opponents. She can fly fairly fast, at over 100 MPH, but isn't highly maneuverable.

  Skyfall uses her ability to manipulate gravity to fly. Her own flight is very slow. She uses her ability to increase the weight of things to pin down opponents, or make them very lightweight.

  Wiki Entry: Free Force

  Free Force was formed in 2015 in San Francisco. Led by former New York hero Paragon, they were active there until 2017 when they moved to Santa Maria. It's unknown why they moved. Free Force does not give interviews or engage on social media. They mostly remain in the vicinity of Arroyo Grande, a wealthy suburb of Santa Maria. Free Force wears white.

  Paragon is a typical brick. Strong and big, reasonably fast, he is a talented fighter, and incorporates martial arts into his hand-to-hand fighting. He experimented for a time with thrown objects, such as heavy discus, but his inaccuracy created more collateral damage than successful attacks against the enemy. He may be more susceptible to energy attacks than physical attacks, as bullets and fists bounce off him, but he has taken notable damage from cold and fire. Paragon operated independently in NYC from 2013 to 2014, and in SF from 2014 until forming Free Force in April 2015.

  Concord has sonic powers, manipulating sound to damage opponents, as somehow converts the energy to allow him to fly. Concord can break the sound barrier, flying approximately 800 mph. He likely has an extremely keen ability to detect and isolate sound, allowing him to target as well as seek out crime in progress. Concord was active in Oakland prior to joining Free Force. Concord is of Asian descent, possibly Chinese American based on his early activity in San Francisco's Chinatown area.

  Providence was the first hero recruited by Paragon, having been active in Seattle beginning in 2012. A significant criticism of her in the Seattle papers and TV after she stopped the Zero Group and saved the hostages during the Space Needle Crisis caused her to leave Seattle for the Bay Area. She refused to return during the Haunting's we
ek of terror that resulted in the deaths of every member of the Puget Sound System and Sleater-Kinetics, as well as Psyclops and Grunge. She is capable of flight, and has enough strength to carry Paragon and Liberty. She is agile and acrobatic when flying, but does not appear to possess any offensive or defensive power.

  Liberty is a speedster, running at over 180 mph. She is incredibly agile, and able to run at full speed while remaining in combat, dodging and striking as she moves. She attacks quickly with a flurry of punches, occasionally using weapons such as bats or batons. She can use her speed to amplify her jumps. She is a competent martial artist, likely a master of Karate and competent in Brazilian Jujitsu. Liberty was not active before joining Free Force. Popular speculation is that Liberty is related to Paragon.

  June 13, 2021

  Coffee was waiting when I woke up, along with more news about last night. The police had Skyfall in custody after Windshear dropped her teammate off at Saint Mary's with her insides torn out. Catchpenny was spotted in Guadalupe by police, but the machine worked well enough to leap away from pursuit. Twitter users tracked it running east on the 166, before it disappeared.

  We talked about everything that happened after I had written it down. I wanted to get it written down while it was fresh in my head. I told her the same story that I've told you, though she filled in the blanks on where she was: running down the stairs with everyone else.

  I got a text from Nigel. His website was back up. He had to re-start from old servers, having lost his battle against a serious computer virus. I showed Jen the text.

  “Fuck,” she said. “Well, hopefully no one else will be outed by him.”

  “Probably not anyone even on the site in the first place,” I said. “What are the odds?”

  “Way higher than you would expect.”

  My phone rang, unknown number. It was Tina from Kids Remembered.

  “I'm sorry to call you on Sunday morning,” she said, “but your background checks came through on Friday, and I really need some help today.”

  We hurried through our morning routine and showed up about 10. The police had an alley near by marked up as a crime scene. A couple of kids were answering questions. The Kids Remembered House was basically split between a couple of barracks style sleeping quarters and the dining room, which was filled with picnic tables. Between meals it was a place to play games, read, or socialize. Sometimes kids could be seen doing homework, or filling out job applications. There was also the parking lot that had a few picnic tables so the young people could get sunshine. A chain link fence separated the lot from the street. No one paid too much attention to the cops in the alley, but a couple of beat cops were asking questions to the kids that were eating breakfast.

  Tina put us to work helping with breakfast. We couldn't do any cooking without having food handler certificates, which meant cleaning and carrying. The kids were supposed to handle their own clean up, which left us to take dishes into the kitchen and empty the trash. We worked for a couple of hours. Breakfast merged into lunch. The cops asked us if we saw anything, we explained we weren't around last night.

  “This happened this morning,” one said.

  “Do you know if anyone is missing? Maybe a regular?”

  “Our first time volunteering,” Jen said. “What happened?”

  “Found a dead supra in the alley, might have been fighting crime, we're looking for leads.”

  “You think that he found the kidnapper?”

  “I can't comment on the investigation, but no one said anything about a kidnapper.”

  They went on to ask the kids, but none had any better answers.

  Jen found a moment to make a report on Suprastories, as it was back up and running. There was already a thread about it, since someone had been on the police scanner and heard the report. The police made the man's identity via fingerprints and executed a search warrant on the apartment of William James. Before we finished working, they released a statement confirming that the vigilante known as The Kick was found dead in an alley in east Santa Maria.

  We had a chance to observe the kids for a while. Groups of smokers huddled in twos and threes around the parking lot. Jen nodded in the direction of one group.

  “Girl in the middle is shaking and chain smoking,” she said. “Looking down the alley and at the cops five times as much as the other kids. See the others around her? Protective circle. Everyone else joins up for a smoke, this group is walking to the meals together, huddled up, still feel threatened.”

  “How do you have time to notice this?”

  “This is what we came here for,” she reminded me. “We're not here to empty the trash, we're hear to solve the crime.”

  “Oh yeah.”

  “I'm going to talk to them. I'll catch up in a minute.”

  “I'll go with you.”

  “She'll trust me more if I'm alone.”

  “I'll take out the trash.”

  Jen managed to have a quick conversation with the group while I made a dumpster run. Lunch finished and our volunteer shift ended. Tina dragged a commitment out of us to help out again next Sunday. We were back in the car before Jen said anything about her conversation. She handed me a napkin with a quick sketch on it.

  “Abraham Lincoln?” I asked.

  “The Kick stopped her from being grabbed by this guy. Tall, lanky, big head.”

  “Looks like the Red Barber,” I said.

  “I think so, too.”

  “There are like twenty Red Barbers in the Citadel.”

  “And more in the ground. They executed one of him,” Jen said.

  “He's killed a lot of people, but I don't remember him kidnapping anyone. Massacres, slaughters, serial killing.”

  “You don't think he could kidnap someone and then kill them?”

  “Sure, but no one found any dead bodies. Just missing kids who were already missing.”

  “And we figured he was doing it here because no one would notice that runaways were missing, right? Why not mix it up and target kids elsewhere? Other shelters?”

  “There aren't a lot of places for kids like this. None close by.”

  “So let's go ask around the other shelters, even if they are far away.”

  “Who do we ask?”

  “I'll dress really young and go in like a kid looking for help, just ask subtle like.”

  There were two shelters within an hour drive towards Santa Barbara, and another in Bakersfield. We went south, then back east. Jen hit up a thrift shop for baggy clothes, changed her make up and brushed her hair down in her face. She tied up her shirt to show how skinny she was, and went to work blending in with the kids. She was only 22, and I'm not good with ages anyway, so to me she fit in just fine. She wasn't convinced, but she pulled it off. Of course, the only information we took away was a negative. None of the other shelters had the same issue.

  “Now what?” I asked on the drive back from Bakersfield.

  “We're pretty confident that the Red Barber is in the neighborhood near Kids Remembered. It's not that far from Murphy's, so we turn it over to Fiver and Cal.”

  “You think that they'll care? I mean it seems like they'll have to walk down a lot of streets and sit around just in case. That's the same thing the cops are doing.”

  “I'll bet they are way better at it than the cops. Besides, the Barber killed the Kick. That means he's not just a simple clone of a regular guy. He's something a little more dangerous.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “I just wonder if we should be telling the cops instead of the supras.”

  “The cops already know.”

  “They might not know that it's the Red Barber.”

  “They won't do anything unless there is an actual crime,” Jen said. “Right now, they've got a dead vigilante, and most cops think that vigilantes have it coming anyway. That just gives them a reason to stay away. Besides, I think it's in Cal and Fivers best interest to watch the neighborhood. They own half of it.”

  “What?”
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br />   “I've got the details on my computer. They've opened up a real estate investment company and bought up a ton of property in the neighborhood. Murphy's was the start. All the shops around there, some of the worst and the best housing, it was all really low value, and crime was really high. Gangs were everywhere. Now they're still around, but they're being moved away from the places their group owns. Also, it's hard to see when you look at the crime reports, because assaults are still happening, but it's a lot of gang members that are victims. They're carving a gang-free niche in the worst part of the gang held territory.”

  “So they're profiting from cleaning up crime?”

  “Not yet, at least not a lot, but they bought the Dive, the music venue across the street. It stopped being a venue because they couldn't get bands or customers. Then Cal bought it, it re-opened, and there's no issue? There are no broken streetlights, no gang graffiti. Oh, and all these business they opened? Cash based.”

  “For laundering the money they're making.”

  “Or the money they already made.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Well they had to have money to start this project, and I can't find it. I found out a lot, this is well past Google.”

  “You're a hacker,” I said.

  “Yeah, and I got deep, but I can't find out anything about where their money came from. IRS shows a lot of gambling winnings for Edison Quinn, and a lot of losses. Some of that went to buy a financial company that loaned the money back to the real estate company that Fiver and Cal own. They're paying interest to themselves.”

  “Is it illegal?”

  “Not that I can tell, but I don't know anything about finance and banking. But it's suspicious, and I think it was the plot of Lethal Weapon 2. You wouldn't do this unless you were financing a lot of stuff with cash.”

  “And making charitable donations.”

  “In the last three years he donated $400,000 to First Families.”

  “He gets all of this money gambling and in real estate?”