Just Cause Universe 3: Day of the Destroyer

by Ian Thomas Healy

  She felt a lot less self-conscious once they were among the crowd. Several women wore far less; indeed, one seemed to be wearing only string bikini briefs, pasties, and a large snake that coiled around her torso.

  They reached the front of the line and the bouncers looked them over. “We have passes,” said Gretchen. Shane dug them out of his pocket and showed them off.

  The larger bouncer took them and examined them in detail, looking for anything out of place. His eyes went from passes to Gretchen and Shane, who put on their best smiles. The bouncer handed their passes back and yelled over his shoulder, “Gordie! VIPs.”

  The smaller guy with the mustache rushed up to the doors from inside the Trade Center. “Right this way, sir and ma’am.”

  The bouncer unclipped the velvet rope. As she passed through the doors, Gretchen imagined a giant was swallowing her up.

  She just hoped she wouldn’t be chewed up and spit out in pieces.

  Chapter Thirteen

  July 13, 1977, 9:00 PM

  The Trammps pounded on the expensive speakers set up by the disc jockey. Each thump of the bass drum added to Faith’s throbbing headache. The aspirin she’d taken had done very little to alleviate the pain. In spite of her general dislike of the party scene, she was nursing a tumbler of rum and Coke—heavy on the Coke. The sides of the glass sweated in the hot, humid air of the dance party in the Just Cause offices and dampened her glove. Maybe as many as two hundred people were crammed into the conference room, lobby, and side offices. Furniture had been stacked out in the hall to make room for dancers. At some point, the disc jockey and his crew had arrived, wiring speakers into the rooms and setting up multicolored flashing lights for atmosphere. A bartender had set up shop in a corner and mixed drinks for cash. The music played, people danced, drank, or made out with each other in the darker corners of the room. Being among the celebrities of Just Cause was a great aphrodisiac to many, and Faith had walked in on couples—or threesomes or even once an orgy—making love in the back offices or bathrooms.

  She hated Wednesday nights.

  Back when it was just the heroes getting together and playing poker, she enjoyed the camaraderie. It was fun. It was quiet. It didn’t smell like sweating bodies, spilled alcohol, cigarettes, and pot.

  She wondered where Bobby was. He might be lurking two floors up in the administrative offices—close enough to be able to say he was there but far enough away that the blasts of noise from the sound system wouldn’t drive his ultrasensitive hearing crazy. She thought maybe she ought to seek him out, but then she caught Lionheart’s eye. He smiled at her in a way that made her shiver. He raised the hand that wasn’t wrapped around a large stein of the thick German beer he preferred and motioned for her to come closer. She approached him.

  “Hey,” she said, keeping her voice quiet enough so only he could hear it.

  He bent down and whispered in her ear, hot breath tickling her neck. She almost hoped he was going to proposition her, because she felt ready to accept it, but instead he said, “Irlene looks like she’s about to get into trouble. You take her, I’ll take Javier.”

  Faith turned to look and saw that Irlene was engaged in close conversation with Javier. She swayed on her feet and had to keep drifting up into the air a few inches to keep from falling, which Javier found quite amusing. His gaze kept dropping to Irlene’s tight body underneath her form-fitting raspberry-and-cream costume. There was no mistaking his intentions. “Jesus Christ, doesn’t he ever quit?”

  Lionheart and Faith pushed through the crowd. Faith took Irlene by the elbow and led her under protest toward a wall while Lionheart took the simpler expedient of smacking Javier’s head.

  “Whuh-whazza matter?” slurred Irlene.

  “The matter is you’re drunk and about to be another notch on Javier’s bedpost,” said Faith. “Listen, the man has no shame and no self-control. He could have any number of diseases. Do you really want to let him near you?”

  “Diseases? He’s got th’ clap or somethin’?”

  “I don’t know,” said Faith. “And I hope you never find out. He may be a superhero, but he’s also a scumbag and I don’t want to see you getting dirtied up by him. Fair enough?”

  “Oh-kay,” said Irlene. She looked down at her empty glass. “Mebbe I need another drink.”

  “You better slow down,” said Faith.

  Irlene glared at her. “I don’ need another mother. One’s enough. I can take care of myself.”

  “I hope so,” murmured Faith as Irlene shrank down and flitted over the crowd.

  Someone pulled at her elbow. She turned to see a slender blonde girl in a denim bikini, cotton mask, and cut-up tank top. A wiry, shirtless young man stood behind her with a heart drawn on his chest in lipstick. Something about the girl looked familiar despite her makeshift mask.

  “Ms., uh, Pony Girl? I need to talk to you.”

  She had a Midwestern accent, like she’d just stepped off the bus from Hicktown, USA. Faith’s eyes widened. Not Hicktown; Dyersville. “Are you Gretchen Gumm?”

  The girl looked behind her at the young man, who shrugged. “Y-yes. How did you know that?” She put her hands to her mouth in surprise. “Can you read minds?”

  Faith laughed. It was such a surprising, innocent thing to hear. “No, I can’t, but I’ve been looking for you. Will you come with me so we can talk somewhere quieter?”

  “I guess so.”

  The young man, certainly Shane Clemens, stuck to Gretchen as Faith led them back to the stairs to the upstairs offices. The bouncer guarding the stairs let them through without a fuss.

  “Bobby, are you up here?” Faith spoke in a normal tone; Bobby would hear her even if she whispered.

  “In the boardroom,” he said.

  Faith led Gretchen and Shane to the room where Lane Devereaux handled Just Cause business on a day-to-day basis. Bobby sat in one of the large, overstuffed chairs, his feet up on the table, reading a copy of Time magazine. He straightened up as Faith and the others walked into the room. “Bobby, I’d like to introduce you to Gretchen Gumm. And you would be Shane Clemens, sir?”

  “Yes,” said the mystified young man.

  “I’m Robert Thompson, also called Audio. I’m the administrator of Just Cause,” said Bobby. “What in the world are you doing here? We’ve been combing the city looking for you.”

  Gretchen sounded surprised as she pulled the mask off her face. “For me?”

  “You’re the subject of a federal investigation,” said Bobby. “You’re in a whole lot of trouble, young lady.”

  Gretchen started to cry. “I didn’t mean to kill him. He just wouldn’t stop breathing on me.”

  Faith put a hand on her shoulder. “Easy, Gretchen. Nobody’s accusing you of anything right now.”

  “Maybe she should have, like, a lawyer?” asked Shane.

  All the lights in the room shut off, plunging them into darkness. The faint thumping music from two floors down ceased. Gretchen squealed in fear. A few of the overhead lights flickered back on, with a red bulb illuminated over the door. “That’s emergency building power,” said Faith. “What just happened? Did we blow a fuse or something?”

  “Worse than that,” said Shane quietly. He was standing by the windows looking out over the city. It looked wrong.

  New York had gone dark.

  #

  Blood sluiced down Momma’s chest, soaking her blouse and the afghan she had folded over her lap despite the heat in the apartment. She thrashed but Harlan held her shoulders down, keeping her helpless. After what seemed like eternity but couldn’t have been more than a minute or two, her struggles subsided and blood stopped leaking from the large cut he’d made across her throat.

  Harlan looked at the blood on his hands. It sickened him, not because of the terrible thing he’d just done, but because it was unclean. Death was messy, stinky, sticky business up close and personal. He thought perhaps if he were inside his armor, he wouldn’t mind it so much. Then he could
just hose off the remnants when he was finished.

  He went to the bathroom to scrub his hands and arms. While standing at the sink, washing away the blood from his knife, he stared at his reflection. A certain hardness showed on his face where before he’d seen nothing but vestigial baby softness. He was becoming a man, he thought. No, he’d already become a man from his deeds today. He smiled, proud of his accomplishments, and then the bathroom plunged into darkness.

  He thought perhaps Momma hadn’t paid the electric bill. Then he glanced outside and what he saw stole his breath away.

  The city had gone black: no streetlights, no building lights. Only car headlights and strange, bright speckles in the sky. Harlan gasped as he realized he was seeing stars for the first time in his life. They were so beautiful that tears came to his eyes.

  He became aware of noises down on the street below. People shouting and screaming, glass breaking. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, Harlan could see dark shapes moving in and out of the corner liquor store. Someone tossed a rock through a window of the appliance store and soon people began to help themselves to the inventory there as well. Bright light flared as a fire started in a parked car.

  Anarchy, thought Harlan with glee. No, that wasn’t quite right. He tried again. Chaos. Better, but still not the feeling he sought. Destruction, he realized at last. As much as he wished for it, here he believed he was witnessing the collapse of society.

  He stood; he could help in his own, special way.

  He had an obligation first. He went into Reggie’s room and shook her awake.

  “Harlan? I was sleepin’,” she mumbled .

  “Get up, Reggie. We have to leave.”

  “Why?” She made no move to get out of her bed, a dark shadow on the lighter shadows of her sheets.

  “The power’s gone. Bad people are outside stealing things and setting fires. We can’t stay here in case they set the building on fire.”

  She sniffled and he knew she was moments from tears. “Where’s Momma?”

  “She’s outside somewhere, acting just like everyone else.” Harlan put his arm around Reggie’s shoulders and felt them quaking with sobs. “You got to be strong, Reggie. I’ll take you someplace safe.” He handed her the stuffed elephant. “Get your shoes on.”

  They found her sandals in the dark. Reggie squeezed her elephant with one hand and held onto Harlan with the other. “I can’t see nothin’,” she whispered as they moved through the dark apartment.

  Harlan hoped the power wouldn’t come back on while they were inside. It wouldn’t do any good at all for Reggie to see Momma sitting dead under her blood-soaked afghan. Fortunately, it stayed dark all the way down the stairs and out of the building.

  On the street, chaos reigned. People looted stores, fought one another over choice items, or caused wanton destruction. The economy had been in a slump and the poorer folks had really felt the pressure. With this blackout, they acted out their aggression and anxiety the way mobs have since the beginnings of civilization: by rioting.

  Reggie shrank close beside him. “Harlan, I’m a-scared. Why ain’t there any policemen?”

  “Because they don’t care what we do here.” Harlan tensed as a figure loomed out of the darkness at them. Two loud reports sounded even over the yelling of the looters. The man before them crumpled and fell to the pavement. A boy only three or four years older than Harlan brandished a Saturday Night Special at them.

  “Don’t touch my shit.” He bent to collect the items that had spilled beside the wounded looter: two cartons of cigarettes. The boy stuffed them into his pants and ran, leaving his victim behind.

  Reggie began to cry in earnest, and Harlan hurried her down the street toward the junkyard. It wasn’t safe to be where desirable goods could be found and looted. The man who’d fallen before them sold his life for twenty packs of cigarettes, and Harlan intended that his life would never go for so little.

  More fires flared up as he and Reggie ran. Landlords in Harlem were notorious for not keeping their buildings up to safety codes. Now, when it really mattered, people realized their homes were incendiary death traps. But even as fire consumed buildings, residents left to go steal more goods, like Nero fiddling while Rome burned.

  The uncontrolled greed displayed by his neighborhood disgusted Harlan.

  What was needed, he decided, was a more sophisticated type of destruction.

  “Where are we going, Harlan? I’m tired, and I want Momma and Irlene.”

  “We’re going to the junkyard,” Harlan said, panting. “You’ll be safe there because nobody will come there to steal anything.”

  Reggie coughed from the smoke. Harlan’s throat burned too. They dashed across a street where a small mob was rocking a police car back and forth. The officers within held on for dear life as the car threatened to overturn.

  Destruction, thought Harlan with a grim smile. They ain’t seen nothing yet.

  #

  The stadium lights went out in between pitches. Hoots and whistles echoed into the darkness. After a few minutes, the jeers turned into mutters of consternation as people realized the lights had also gone out on the skyscrapers.

  “We better do something,” said John. “We’re about to have a problem on our hands with all these people fumbling around in the dark.”

  Tommy stood up. “I’m going up to the booth to see if they have any generators and a radio.”

  “Hurry,” said Sundancer. “I smell smoke. Real smoke, not cigarettes.”

  Tommy shook out his hair. He wished he had his costume; he hated flying without it. Winds swirled around him and he lifted away from the seats to flit over the field toward the announcers’ booth. People shouted and pointed as he flew through the darkness.

  He slipped in through the open windows of the booth. The frantic game announcers were trying to get any of their equipment to work, while a battery-operated radio babbled about a citywide power failure. The announcers looked up in shock as Tommy descended into their midst.

  “I’m Tornado of Just Cause,” he said. “John Stone and Sundancer are also here. How can we help?”

  “Oh, hell, I didn’t recognize you,” said one announcer. “The radio said Con Ed is completely down. All Five Boroughs are dark.”

  Tommy gasped. “I thought that wasn’t supposed to be possible after ’65.”

  “Do I look like a power guy?” grunted the announcer. “Hotchkiss went down to fire up the emergency generators. It’ll give us PA and emergency lightning but not much else.”

  “How many people you got here tonight?”

  “Aw geez, eleven, maybe twelve thousand. Lotta people in the dark.”

  A few desultory emergency lights lit up around the field. Tommy could see nervous people milling around in the near darkness. New Yorkers weren’t used to seeing the stars overhead and looked like they might be suffering a little agoraphobia. “We got PA,” shouted a technician.

  “We better do something before we have a panic on our hands,” said Tommy.

  The announcer leaned in close to his microphone. “Uh, ladies and gentlemen, your attention please. We apologize for the inconvenience. The power’s out all over. We ask that for your own safety you remain in your seats until it comes back on.”

  “Jesus Christ, Carl,” called a woman’s voice. A flame flared into existence as she struck a match and lowered it to a candle. “Are you trying to get these people killed? You’re going to cause a panic!”

  “But, Jane,” began the announcer.

  “Don’t you but, Jane me. You’re a fool.” She turned to Tommy. “You and your Just Cause yahoos keep people calm for another couple minutes.” She turned to hurry up a corridor.

  “What are you going to do?” Tommy called after her.

  “Keep them calm after that,” she yelled back over her shoulder.

  “Where’s she going?” Tommy asked.

  “Back to the loft,” said Carl. “That’s Jane, the organist.”

  “Okay,
you heard her. Keep these people calm.” Tommy flew through the windows, spiraling down until he could pick John’s bulky form out of the shadows. Numerous people had cigarette lighters out, and the stands looked like a mirror of the stars overhead.

  “What’s the word?” Sundancer hovered a few feet over the seats to keep any stray hands from getting a grope on her.

  “Power’s out across the city,” Tommy said.

  “Shit, we’d better get back to headquarters,” said Sundancer.

  John raised a hand. “No. First and foremost we have to protect these people here. If they stampede for the exits, we’re going to have folks crushed to death in the dark.”

  “Uh, ladies and gentlemen,” stammered the PA announcer. “We’ll have the lights back on just as soon as possible. Just Cause is here to make sure you are safe, so please stay in your seats.”

  “Shit,” repeated Sundancer. “I guess we have to stay here now.”

  “The organist said to keep people calm for a few minutes,” said Tommy. “I don’t know how to do that.”

  “I do,” said John. “Gloria, why don’t you give the people a little light show? Take their minds off the darkness.”

  “Well, for one thing, I don’t have my costume. These clothes will burn off in seconds,” argued Sundancer.

  “Glo,” said Tommy. “You were just in Playboy. Half the people in this stadium have probably seen you naked already.”

  “Oh, that’s true. I guess it’s different though when you can see them looking back at you.” Nevertheless, she flew out over the field and hovered somewhere over second base. A glow limned around her and people turned to look, murmuring. As she brightened, she spun around, leaving a trail of light behind her like a human comet. Her clothing burned away to leave her nude, showing off her taut dancer’s body, which had let her claim the title of Miss March. Some people averted their eyes and hid the eyes of their children. Others stared unabashedly at her beauty.

  Organ music swelled from the stadium PA. It was something familiar, bright and upbeat, and Tommy looked around as fans nodded and grinned at each other. People got the joke immediately and many started to sing along. Dashing through the snow… in a one horse open sleigh…