The City That Heroes Built

by Daniel Pierce

  “Glory Knight threw him in prison, you think he came to talk to him?”

  “Glory Knight had coffee at the shop down the street, right? Got to be him. I've got the same list of ex-cons Glory Knight had.”

  “How'd you do that?”

  “I asked the same guy he got it from. Come on.”

  She got out of the car and I followed. We went inside the store. Calliope walked through to the back, where we found Salute helping a customer find drywall screws. He saw us, or mostly Calliope, finished helping his customer, and then walked over.

  “Can I help you find something?” he asked politely.

  “Trevor Jarman, right?” Calliope said. “My friend has some questions for you. I'd appreciate it if you'd help out.”

  “I'm clean,” he said.

  “It's not like that,” she said. “You know who I am right? I don't mean to sound snobby, sometimes people do, sometimes people don't.”

  “Yeah, I know you,” he said. “Don't know your friend, though.”

  “Some place we can go?”

  “Follow me,” he said. He led us into the paint section. Mixers were rattling away. “What is it?”

  Calliope looked at me.

  “Glory Knight came to talk to you. Now he's dead,” I said.

  “Don't even try to pin that on me.”

  “Wouldn't dream of it. Interested in what he was after. It might be what got him killed.”

  “I read he killed himself.”

  “Oldest story in the book, isn't it?”

  “So is someone insisting that the dead guy would never kill himself,” Trevor said. “But whatever.” The mixer stopped. He pushed the button to start it again. “He wanted to know about the Citadel, inside, how it worked, the lay out, whether I could communicate with anyone.”

  “Did you tell him?”

  “Sure, why not? I'm not sworn to secrecy, it isn't classified information, I mean, if I know it, how could it be? Besides, I didn't know he was Glory Knight until after. He told me he was working for the Supra Rights Watch. Kind of embarrassing, I guess. He was the guy who threw me in jail, take his mask off and I don't even recognize him.”

  “Did he say why he was asking?”

  “I assumed he was trying to make a case for cruel and unusual punishment, but I don't know that he said it. Not a whole lot of other reasons to ask, am I right?”

  “Did he mention Leonidas?”

  “Yeah, asked if I had seen him, how he looked. Truth is we only got put into the same spaces because solitary is cruel and unusual, so they do it only enough to keep the Rights Watch at arms reach.”

  “How would anyone know?”

  “Lawyers and families can visit. It's a secure facility, but if you're not on death row or a sleep farm you get a little face time. It's like regular jail if you're not a murderer.”

  “Did he ask about the drugs? The power inhibitors.”

  “I don't think so. My lawyer asked about them, got my doctor to check me out thoroughly when I was released. You know, they offer you a reduced sentence if you'll let them test you when you go in. I wasn't about to trade time for powers.”

  “They said they could take your power away?”

  “They didn't say it, but they've already got drugs that do everything else. I wasn't going to risk it.”

  “What about the unPersons?” I asked.

  “What about them?”

  “Did you see them or know what they are?”

  “Nah. Not while I was in there. Heard they've got a guy made out of gas, and some monster of some sort. I didn't exactly get a chance to explore.”

  “Anything else that you remember Glory Knight asking about?”

  “Nope,” he said.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “Have a great day,” he said. “Come back if you decide on a color for your study.”

  Calliope waited until we were outside before asking, “That any use to you?”

  “Yeah, turns out I was sort of right for the first time in my life.”

  “You want to call on someone else?”

  “Yes, please,” I said.

  “Binary is on the list, but he works for the FBI. Babble is crazy, and address is listed in the desert. Black Feather lives up north. The Nillionaire is probably our next local.”

  “He's still on the Supra Rights Watch list as being in the Citadel.”

  “He gets work-furloughs to help out the city with some of their problems. No point in having a supra-genius in a cage when you can put him to good use,” Calliope said. “Head to City Hall. They've got him working in the Transportation Department.”

  We found the Transportation Department. Bob Stuckey, aka the Nillionaire, cancelled a meeting to meet with us. I say us. Calliope opens up doors I could only dream of. Stuckey's suit coat was thrown over a chair, his sleeves rolled up. He had the thinning hair of a man in his late forties, and what he did have was frizzled. His desk was a mess. Charts and graphs hung on boards and walls all over the office. Books and more charts took up space on the floor and chairs.

  “Just clean those off, sit, sit,” he said. “I never thought I'd have the Guardian Angels in my office.”

  We sat.

  “We're not with the Guardian Angels any more,” Calliope said. “We're looking into another bit of intrigue.”

  “Do tell, do tell, I'm happy to help, this work isn't challenging at all. Well, the answers aren't. Convincing people to do the right thing is the trouble. What can I help with?”

  Calliope turned it over to me.

  “Benjamin Hanes came to visit you. What did you talk about?” I asked.

  “Ah, Glory Knight, yes, am I a suspect in his murder?”

  “We're not police,” I said. “And he committed suicide.”

  “Oh no, no no, no no no. You silly boy,” he said. “If you're here to talk about Glory Knight, then you must know that he didn't kill himself.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Have you ever hear people say they were shocked when a close friend commits suicide? Those people are idiots. Nothing about the man would lead him to suicide. He wasn't hurt or broken. He was unswayed by defeat, and most importantly, he was driven. People with things to do don't lie down and die. What killed him?”

  “Poison.”

  “An odd way to do it,” Nillionaire mused.

  “Not if you're practically invulnerable.”

  “It is if you've lived through poisonings in the past. The Bride of Scorpions wounded him severely when he first joined the Guardian Angels. He lived through that, and her poison was especially powerful and deadly, why would he poison himself? It would be torturous and painful.”

  I looked at Calliope. She was texting. “I'm on it.”

  “You really should be careful,” Nillionaire said. “They collect everything, you know. Everything. They can break any cypher.” He looked around at the walls, as if the mysterious “they” surrounded us.

  “Not my first rodeo,” Calliope said.

  “So if you don't think that Glory Knight killed himself, why do you think he would be killed?”

  “Well, you clearly don't think he did either, which is why you're pursuing your investigation. You suspect that it had something to do with his visit to me, but I'm afraid that is a red herring. He asked about my furlough, how it was arranged, physically, not administratively.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The Supra Rights Watch worked out the details of the administration. Physically, I return to the Citadel every weekend, and during the times I'm not working. During the week, I'm held in a different jail each night. Out on Monday morning, in on Friday afternoon. I have no powers of violence, you see, but they still want to keep me from being an asset to an evil organization. My guards routinely threaten to kill me should any sort of rescue happen. I've only got a year left, so I'm naturally happy to reduce congestion until my time is up.”

  “But Glory Knight wanted to know about your return each weekend?�
�

  “Yes, whether I was isolated, drugged, etc.”

  “And are you?”

  “No, they would make it too difficult for me to work during the week if I was broken on the weekends. I get the normal time with the others. I have my normal chess matches with the second Hyperion and Fat Tiger and sometimes Black Warlock, but he hates to lose. I read, I write, I think on the projects they have me working on.”

  “That's all he cared about?”

  “Oh no, we talked at length. Some about my projects.”

  “What are your projects?”

  “It's all in the papers and city council notes. High speed rail, effective public transport, possibly a monorail.”

  “That's more of a Shelbyville idea,” Calliope said.

  “Anything contentious about those projects?” I asked. “You're not planning on bulldozing Toon Town to put in a new freeway to the coast or anything?”

  “Please. I've been called an Evil Mastermind and a Criminal Guru, but I am a genius. I'm not bragging, by the literal definition I am. My plans will revolutionize the city's transportation at a fraction of the cost of modern options, be far more environmentally friendly and use less energy. Nothing will be bulldozed and no one will be inconvenienced. It's a perfect plan. Only politics will hold it up.”

  “Interesting. Okay, I guess that's all we want to know.”

  “Hmm, well, no, there's more,” Nillionaire said. “I know something that only Glory Knight and I know. And two other people.”

  I waited.

  “It's very valuable, I think, the answer you're looking for.”

  “Okay.”

  “I'll tell you, but there is price. I've been in there for so long.”

  “I'm not going to fuck you,” Calliope said.

  “Aw.” Nillionaire looked legitimately sad.

  “I'll have a drink with you after you get out,” Calliope said. Nillionaire brightened. “If it's not shit information.”

  “Glory Knight asked me to carry a message to Leonidas. Keep in mind that I didn't know he was Glory Knight. I thought he was Supra Rights Watch.”

  “What was the message?”

  Nillionaire drew on a piece of paper. “I couldn't carry anything in or out. He asked me to draw this and show it to Leonidas.” It was a simple outline of a bird.

  “What does it mean?”

  “I don't know. It cheered him a little, though. A code perhaps.”

  “Why Leonidas?” Calliope asked.

  “He didn't say. But he's the guy they've been working on getting free.”

  “Thanks,” I said. We left.

  “The Bride of Scorpions definitely poisoned Glory Knight when they fought,” Calliope told me. “Got him bad, too. Took him weeks to recover and he might have lost a step permanently. It's a serious deal.”

  “The poison they found in his system was a serious unique and potent type. The coroner couldn't identify it.”

  “How is Leonidas a factor?”

  “Glory Knight was dating Leonidas' sister, Marissa Courtney. It might have happened after she asked him to get involved in helping free her brother.”

  “How did they know each other?”

  “One of Glory Knight's ex-teammates put them in touch.”

  “To break him out?”

  “It's possible. Maybe a back up plan. The new DA is aggressively going after supras.”

  “Why would Glory Knight help with a break out? Not like he can walk through walls.”

  “The Guard might have had blueprints of the Citadel.”

  “How the fuck do you know that?”

  It suddenly occurred to me that I talk too much. Calliope had no idea that her ex-lover was a teenage supra-hero.

  “I've been trying to solve the murder,” I said. “I've got access to Glory Knights hard drive, and a bunch of other stuff. I've got a FOIA copy of the investigation.”

  “You're talking about knowing secret identities of the Guard, dating habits of retired Guardian Angels, items that were secretly possessed by a secret group. Are you serious?”

  “Yeah, I'm trying to figure out what happened.”

  “If you have his hard drive, you've got a piece of equipment that the Guardian Angels would kill to recover. Do you know that?”

  “That seems a little dramatic.”

  “People die every day because their identities get compromised. People go to jail. And you're just blurting out that you read Glory Knight's files that he kept on his hard drive?”

  “Not all of them,” I said. “What? It's just us. Are you saying I can't trust you?”

  “Luckily you can. But I'm also not with the Guardian Angels. They will do whatever it takes to get that hard drive back if they find out you have it. They're good guys, but that doesn't mean they're going to let their weaknesses be exposed. Cracking their crypto makes you dangerous.”

  “We didn't really know.”

  “We who?”

  Careful, Tom. “Me and the hacker.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Where to now?”

  We went looking for Black Feather. We found her at home. She looked worse for wear, far removed from her days as a gymnast. She took one look at us and closed the door.

  “Let's not push our luck,” Calliope said.

  We found the second Full Tilt in a garage, feet sticking out from under a jacked up car.

  “Nelson Cortez?” I asked. I was ignored. “Just a quick question, if you don't mind.”

  “Fuck off.”

  I looked at Calliope. She shrugged. “Glory Knight would have yanked him out and hung him by his ankles. I'm a little slower to anger,” she said.

  “I'm thinking about kicking the jack over and letting the car crush him,” I said.

  Cortez slid out from under the car and got up with a wrench in hand. “Listen, asshole, you want to make threats like that I'll beat your ass.” He stopped when Calliope stepped in front of me. “Who the fuck are you clowns?” he asked.

  “I'm the bodyguard,” Calliope said. “He's the journalist.”

  “Fuck him threatening me like that. Who the fuck are you pal?” Cortez was covered in tattoos and muscles. His shirt smudged with grease, coveralls tied at his waist. Anyone else, I might have been scared. This guy just made me angry.

  “I'm Tom Garza,” I said. “We used to be neighbors until you and your friends got into a fight with Innovation Nation and destroyed the building. My parents were inside, so were Marty Suarez and his sister, and the super, Mr. Young. You've been an asshole since I was a teenager. I'd beat the shit out of you right now, if I didn't think it'd be more fun letting you wonder when I was going to come in and crash a car down on your head.” I'd held a grudge against the Local Heroes my whole life. I think it was justified.

  “Everyone relax,” Calliope said. “We're not here for that. That was in the past. We're here for something else. Give you a chance to make up for past transgressions.”

  “I did my time,” Cortez said.

  “Barely a nickel,” Calliope said. “Doesn't cover you for people who are still dead.”

  “I wasn't responsible. I don't even have any offensive powers. You can't put those bodies at my feet. I was trying to survive.”

  “Sure, and you're done with the game now.”

  “Nothing in it for me.”

  “So why did Glory Knight come around looking for you?” Calliope asked.

  “He didn't.”

  “Sure he did, a couple of months ago, right before he was killed.”

  “I read in the paper he killed himself,” Cortez said.

  “Did he sound suicidal when you talked to him?”

  “How do I know what a suicidal person sounds like?”

  “They don't come around trying to recruit former heroes,” she said.

  “Ha, you trying to get me to violate parole? That why you're here?”

  “Just curious about your visitors. Glory Knight came to see you, that's enough of a parole violation right there.
”

  “I didn't know he was Glory Knight until a couple of days ago. He said his name was Ben. Said he knew my Innocence Project rep.”

  “We're not trying to bust you,” Calliope said. “Look, you know of me. I'm not saying trust me, I'm just saying that's one angle I'm not going to be coming at you from. Now, all we want is to know what good old Ben was working on.”

  Cortez gave me a mean look. I was fired up myself.

  “He wasn't working on anything. Just asked about my time in the Citadel.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “I said it was boring as hell and I'll let the cops do their job from now on. Not a little bit ironic, is it? You're here doing the cops' job. They find a dead hero and they chalk it up to suicide because they know they'll never solve it. Makes them look good, makes the hero look bad,” Cortez said. “Cops doing that all the time. Tried to take credit for breaking up a child slavery ring a couple months ago, until that news reporter broke the story they were lying. You know how much credit they took for work the Local Heroes did?”

  “Yeah, cops suck,” I said. “Were you drugged when you were there?”

  The anger in his face faded. “Yeah, the syrup. That's what it feels like. Numbing your brain, sticky like, slowly spreading. Yeah, I was on it. Innocence Project was trying to get me off, said my power wasn't offensive, I didn't need to be shut down. Citadel argued that I could use my power to escape, so they could keep me under.”

  “Could you?”

  Cortez smiled. “Electronics are my playground. The whole place is run with a high tech security system, cameras, locks, biometric identification.”

  “You talk with Catchpenny in there?”

  “Yeah, a little. Not shop talk. Just baseball, some books, getting out. He'd been in there since 2004.”

  “How about Leonidas?”

  “Yeah, him and I talked. He looked at me and saw his future. Except for the manslaughter bit. His rap sheet is little cleaner than mine.”

  “He's drugged up, too?”

  “I didn't ask.”

  “Glory Knight ask about him?”

  Maybe some hesitation. “Nah, man.”

  “How did they do the drugging? Pills?”