The City That Heroes Built

by Daniel Pierce

  “You look like you need this,” the-barista-who-might-have-been-Moccasin said.

  “I do, I really do,” I said. “Thanks.”

  “How's the writing going?” she asked.

  “Good,” I said. “Keeping me busy. How are you?”

  “Cautiously optimistic,” she said. “You never asked my name.”

  “I didn't need to,” I said. “Your name tag says 'Isabelle'.”

  “And your coffee cup says, 'Tom'.”

  “Yes.”

  “So are you going to ask me out, Tom?” she asked.

  “I thought I'd let you ask me out,” I said. “That way it wouldn't be awkward every time I come here for a cup of coffee.”

  “That's very thoughtful,” Isabelle said. “Want to have lunch with me?”

  “Sounds great,” I said. “I'm on the third floor. Come up and knock on my door when you're free.”

  “Okay,” she said.

  “Okay,” I said. I exited awkwardly.

  I was reading about suicide notes when Isabelle knocked on my door about one in the afternoon. Things went really well, really fast. She ended up leaving around 11 or so. I was too amped up to sleep. My phone had a half dozen messages from the team hours ago. They were still hanging out at Murphy's so I showered and got there around midnight.

  The bar was nearly empty, but the table was crowded. Cal, Jen, and Matthew Weall were there with a young white guy I didn't know, East Coast Steve, and two women I didn't know. They were in their early 20's, I assumed they were friends of Jen's. Everyone at the table wore t-shirts and jeans and had a beer in front of them. They looked like a beer commercial. There were two empty chairs between the women I didn't know, I sat in one.

  “Tom!” Cal yelled as if I stepped onto the set of Cheers. “Hey, this is Tom!”

  I was introduced to Hilary and Emma, re-introduced to East Coast Steve, and formally introduced to Mike Baylor, who I had last met as Slowburn. “Yeah, we go way back. Pizza. Internet forums. All that.”

  “Ah, yeah,” I said. Mike the guy from the internet who I had beers with in May, who supposedly had a bunch of good information on the New Powers was actually one of the New Powers, and now the partner of a most wanted vigilante. Small world, I guess.

  “Let's get you a beer, man. What are you drinking?”

  “Any porter would be great,” I said.

  “Listen, I've been 21 for exactly one day, dude. I don't know anything about beer. How about you order and I pay for it?”

  “I don't pay for drinks here.”

  “Perfect,” he said. We walked to the bar. Simon was pouring beers.

  Mike looked like a goofy kid, not someone who had been a supra for 6 years. I liked him immediately.

  “So you know everyone here?” I asked.

  “Well, I know Matt, of course. Just met Jen. Emma and Hilary are friends of my sister. Steve, I just met. He was hanging out with Fiver when I got here.”

  “Where's Fiver?”

  “Uh, I think he's off somewhere making out with my sister.”

  “Uhm.”

  “Yeah, not even a thing, dude. We're all adults here.”

  “So you guys go way back.”

  “Yeah, way back. Well, you know.”

  “I mean I've got an idea. Everyone is hush-hush about everything.”

  “Well, yeah, got to stay safe. Look what happened to my partner.”

  “Yeah, that's a shame.”

  “Right? By the way, super cool that you're helping out with the logistics even though you don't have any powers.”

  I shrugged. “It's kind of cool to be around. I probably wouldn't be saying that if Fiver had been melted by Demolition Condition yesterday, admittedly.”

  “Yeah, I wouldn't worry about him,” Mike said. “I'm pretty sure his power is getting lucky.”

  “Sort of an odd thing to say while he's off somewhere with your sister.”

  “I'm just saying that's his power in combat as far as I can tell.”

  “I thought he was just really fast.”

  “He's not that fast, actually,” Mike said. “He just never gets hit, and when he hits someone, it's always in the right spot to knock them down or out. He's lucky. Why do you think he always wins at cards?”

  “I thought it was ESP,” I said.

  “Nah, people with ESP are always nerds. Fiver can't count past five.” He grinned. “Funny name he stuck himself with. I knew him by something else, back in the day.”

  “Named himself after a rabbit,” I said.

  “Weird dude. But I like him,” Mike said. “Trustworthy. Keeps a secret. Even the scumbags trust him.”

  “Which scumbags are those?”

  “He's got a reputation as a middleman. Not a bad way to keep your ear to the ground. Going to be hell for him if he gets back in the supra-business.”

  “How's that?”

  “He's basically an accomplice to all sorts of illegal activity. People trust him. If he suddenly is something they didn't expect, and he's beating up bad guys, the rest of the bad guys aren't going to take too kindly to that. If his identity gets compromised, he's dead.”

  Mike sipped his beer. We walked back over to the table. I went back to the free seat next to Emma. Fiver and Mike's sister Renee came back a minute later. He took the open seat next to me. Renee sat on his knee. We were all talking for a while when Jen pulled me aside.

  “I just need a minute,” she said. I got up and followed her to a corner near the payphones in the back. They were an odd addition, but Cal insisted that every good bar has a payphone, and everyone in the country carrying a cell phone didn't change that.

  “What's up?” I asked.

  “So, I'm dating Matt,” she said.

  “Our Matt? Matthew Weall, the supra whose secret identity has been revealed?”

  “Yes. That Matt. The one at the table next to me.”

  “Bold move. But cool. I'm guessing this is a plea to not be awkward, right?”

  “Something like that,” she said.

  “It's totally cool,” I said. “Like I said before, you're great but we're not that into each other.”

  “It's just if we're on the same team, I'd hate for it to be weird.”

  “It's more weird that you hooked up with Cal.”

  “I didn't hook up with Cal. We were hanging out because we are on the same team. He's like twice my age. Jesus,” she said. “Not that it should even matter.”

  “Oh. Yeah, cool,” I said. “No drama.”

  “Great,” she said. We joined the others back at the table. To the delight of the others, Fiver was recounting the winning hands at the end of his successful World Series of Poker run. Renee subtly gyrated on his lap. For a split second I wished that I was a supra with incredible luck, but then I remembered Isabelle coming on to me, coming up to my place and my getting lucky all afternoon. I didn't actually have the worst luck, but in all honestly it was weird sitting at the table with Jen and Matt. At least I didn't have to feel weird with Cal around.

  Simon pulled up a chair and joined us. Fiver finished his story and I finished my beer. Cal poured, and I carried beers back to the table for everyone who needed one. My last trip to the bar, I told Cal I hooked up with Maybe-Moccasin.

  “No kidding?” he said.

  “Yeah.”

  “You're not the kiss and tell type,” he said. “So why are you telling me?”

  “Why did you think that I should ask her out?”

  “It's a good way to get over a girl. You needed to get over Jen.”

  “Because you were hooking up with her.”

  Cal laughed out loud. “I took her shooting once and we did a couple of rooftop patrols to show her around. Seriously? I'm putting together a suprateam, I'm not going to be sleeping with my teammates.”

  “Fiver told me Valor and Apparition were dating,” I said. “Valor was the leader of the New Powers.”

  “I'm 35, not 16. That's not how I was taught to lead a team. We don'
t do that in the military. Stop trying to talk yourself into being miserable. A minute ago we were talking about your new girl, but here you are thinking about the old one still.”

  “Yeah.” I wasn't as chilled out as I thought. I didn't think about Jen when she wasn't around, but it sucked seeing her with Matt in front of me.

  “So tell me about the coffee shop girl.”

  “Yeah, we hit it off,” I said. “I guess we've been flirting for a while and I didn't really realize it.”

  “That's how it goes, right?” Cal asked. “So what's the problem?”

  “I feel like you guys are collecting supra-friends. Jen was the sleeper recruit. East Coast Steve is on the hook. Now you've got Skyborne and Slowburn in the fold. If I get involved with the-girl-who-might-be-Moccasin, that gives you one more.”

  “I don't know that we'd rely on the old honeypot to get people to fight evil,” Cal said. “Especially if they were already doing it.”

  “Yeah, and I'm not a pretty young thing. I'm pretty normal. Sort of chubby.”

  “Aw, chubby? Naw.” Cal said.

  “I like carne asada burritos. I'm not ashamed,” I said. “Still, I know almost anyone would bet the cute barista would reject me, and that's not a good way to get over a girl.”

  “Rejection is it's own therapy,” Cal said.

  I carried the last two beers over to the table and set them in front of Jen and Matt. The group had gone quiet and focused on their phones.

  “Anyone else need anything?”

  Simon shushed me. I looked over his shoulder at the screen. Black Reign, I presumed, in her dominatrix outfit, with a new victim, a young, blonde woman. I didn't recognize the costume.

  “Who is that?”

  “Southern Pride,” Steve said. “She's from back east.”

  Black Reign went about her methodical domination of the young hero. I felt guilty watching.

  “Shouldn't we do something?” I turned to Jen.

  “It's on an auto-delay,” she said. “We're 24 hours late. She learned her lesson from last time. This automatically uploaded as it was recorded, but wasn't live until now.”

  “Should we be watching this?” I looked to Matt. He didn't seem particularly traumatized. The video made me uncomfortable. The women at the table were all watching. Fiver and Cal put their heads together for a quiet conference. I guessed they felt equally upset, but were powerless to act.

  “She's faking,” Matt said.

  “How can you tell?” Jen asked.

  “She's reacting differently now.”

  Everyone gave a sudden shout. I looked back at the screen. Southern Pride had thrown a punch at Black Reign's head, knocking her tormentor down, out of the camera's view. Southern Pride's costume had been cut away. Her body showed the marks of the sadistic villain at her feet. She stood up from the chair, gripping it like a club as she did. She brought it down hard on Black Reign off-screen. The metal chair bent. She swung it down again. Blood sprayed across Southern Pride and the camera. Southern Pride kept swinging the chair until it ceased to resemble anything that could be sat upon. Blood-dotted her costume and face. She wiped it from her cheek, smearing it instead of cleaning it. Only then did she appear aware of the camera. She knocked the camera on to the floor. There was a jarring change of perspective. Black Reign's body, beaten and bloody filled the screen, her dead eyes looking directly at the viewer. Everyone watching reacted in horror. The camera went dark.

  “Jesus,” Emma said.

  No one else said anything. Mike pulled a small notepad out of his back pocket, crossed something off with a pen, and put it away again.

  The night came to an uncomfortable end. Everyone drifted away. I drank with Fiver and Cal until the early hours of the morning.

  July 7, 2021

  The sun woke me up. I found myself on Fiver's couch without remembering how I got there. It took me most of the morning to find a burrito and my car. Isabelle wasn't working when I stopped in for a coffee. Passing Calliope's office, I heard her on the phone inside. I wasn't sure if she ran the kind of office you could walk into, or you knocked from outside it. I thought that since she had an office in the back, I could walk in, but I knocked anyway. She answered the door still talking on the phone.

  She let me in while she finished her conversation. Hanging up she asked, “What can I do for you?”

  “I heard that Glory Knight died. I thought you might have known him and I wanted to pass my condolences,” I said.

  “Glory Knight and I were on the Guardian Angels five years apart.”

  “I know that. I also know that you both were involved with the First Families Foundation. You donated a uniform to the last fundraiser. Benjamin Hanes was invited but didn't make it.”

  “I didn't know him.”

  “Do you think Sentinel might talk to me about him?”

  “For what?”

  “I'm writing a book about supras. I need a good source.”

  “You're not a good liar, kid.”

  “I am writing a book.”

  “I hope you're a better writer than a liar,” she said. She let that hang in the air. I doubted that I was.

  “What makes you think I'm lying?”

  “I'm a former member of the longest running supra team on the west coast,” Calliope said. “You don't say anything to me for a month and then you start asking about a retired supra who killed himself. If you were really a writer you would have exhausted me as a source before asking about Sentinel or anyone else. You're obviously after something more specific.”

  “Technically, I am. But I also didn't lie.”

  “Your pretense for calling on me was a lie.”

  “If you want to get technical.”

  “You're not the first person to ask me about the Guardian Angels,” she said. “One of the things about keeping a low profile is people only know you from your high profile days. Anyway, Sentinel's had enough books written about him. He's not going to sit down with you and give an interview.”

  “I really just want to know about Glory Knight,” I said.

  “You writing an obituary?”

  “I don't think he killed himself,” I said. “Do you?”

  “I haven't given it any thought at all,” she said. “Suicide can be impulsive. It's a nice way to tie up some strings. Pretty hard to fake in this day and age, forensics being what they are.”

  “I've got a copy of the police report, but it's the bare bones. It doesn't give cause of death past suicide, it just references the coroner's report,” I said.

  “What did you do? Hack in to the desk sergeant's log? You looked in the wrong place. All police have to report these things to the FBI's national statistical centers, as well as the state police. They have detailed records. They might take some time to get the electronic version up, but they're going to have cause of death, age of victim, etc. all there for easy cataloguing.”

  “So hack them again and see if they've filled it all in later?” I asked.

  “Kid, it's a public record. You can just go ask. Or drop the FOIA request.”

  “I don't know what that is.”

  She sighed. “And you're still trying to sell that you're writing a book? Freedom Of Information Act. The cops can't keep that stuff secret. When they try, the courts get them, or they attract the attention of people who will make the information public. FOIA for the records and you'll get them.”

  “Oh, well, thanks, that's very useful,” I said.

  “Anything else I can do for you?”

  “No, that's great, thanks.”

  Calliope opened the door for me as she shook her head. “You want to sell yourself as a writer you need to ask questions until you're exhausted. You're writing about supras, you know I teamed with the Guardian Angels, and you've got nothing? Come on.”

  I didn't have a response. I walked out, then thought of something and turned around to the door shutting in my face.

  Back in my apartment, I texted Fiver asking if we could use h
is favor Bobbi Cannon owed him to get her to FOIA the police records, or maybe ask for it from the cops. He texted back, Roger. Wait. Out. Which is the way that Cal texts. I wasn't sure if Cal was responding or Fiver had caught on to doing that, too. A few minutes later, Fiver followed up with 4 at your place. I played video games until someone knocked on my door at 4pm.

  I let Bobbi Cannon in.

  “Coffee table okay?” she asked.

  “Sure,” I said.

  She sat on the couch and pulled a 2-inch thick file from her backpack. She put half of it in front of her, half of it next to that. She started reading the papers in front of her. I went to work on the other stack. We read into the night. I had pizza delivered and we took a break to eat and discuss.

  “Let's start at the top,” she said. “Autopsy says poison. He was found slumped in his recliner. Alcohol in his system. BAC of .085. Neighbors say had had a visitor until at least 10pm, gone in the morning. Fingerprints put that on Marissa Courtney. Her latents were all over the place. Interview with her says she left before midnight. They were acquaintances getting to know each other. They met through a charity they were involved with. She says she didn't know he was Glory Knight. She's not a suspect. No other fingerprints found. No cleaner, no friends, no other visitors, okay?”

  “I'm in agreement,” I said. “Inventory of his things doesn't show any firearms. No costumes. No indication of living beyond his means, no last minute purchases or giveaways. No prescription drugs. Nothing that points to suicide ideations.”

  “Except for the dead body, the poison and the note,” she said. “And the demographics. Men kill themselves 4 times as often as women. White and Asian males twice as likely as blacks and Hispanics. Suicide is high for older people living alone, divorced, unemployed, retired, but frankly that correlates with age, peaking at 40.”

  “There's that,” I admitted.

  “Let's go back to the body. Home alone, unlikely to be found. No reason to believe that anyone would find him in any sort of timeliness. Also, poison isn't flashy. No reason to think he accidentally killed himself, i.e. not a suicide cry for help that went too far.”

  “Unless Marissa was coming back.”