Zephyr I

by Warren Hately

  I zip my lip too late after hastily landing us all in it.

  I won’t say anything else. I hardly want to indict Twilight for murder.

  *

  THE AIR SCREAMS at that sweet spot just below Mach. Presumably my eardrums are adapted to the effects, just like the rest of me, hurling my physiognomy through the air at hundreds upon hundreds of miles per hour. For a constant recharger like me, the real effect is one of borderline orgasm as I suck up the kinetic tension that producing such a slipstream creates.

  None of this will distract me from my replacement ringtone, or at least the vibration alert, which could intrude on the thoughts of a dead man. Casting around quickly for shelter, I alight on the SBSCC UK building roof and startle a handful of foreign office workers playing boules and smoking joints. Although I wave my hands across the roofspace for them to relax, within seconds all have “scarpered,” as the Brits would say. The call is from Beth and as I answer it, I sashay in the workers’ wake and collect a smoldering roach from beneath an exhaust unit.

  “I’m glad I caught you,” she says.

  There’s no “How is your day, honey?” so I ask her myself. The response is a stammered garble she eventually uses all her lawyerly ways to escape. I can hear her mentally backtracking to the origin of the call and resuming the path she planned in the first place. A Doberman with curls. No more curve balls from me today – like actually giving a damn.

  “What’s up?”

  “George and Max called,” she says. “We’re on for dinner.”

  I groan and she adds, “Hey, these are your parents. I know how you feel, but you know how persuasive they can be. And persistent. Have you told them about Tessa’s school? It seems like they know. Georgia insisted on ‘bringing the girl’.”

  I close my eyes and look down, bemused for a moment, refreshed to know I can still love my wife when she dusts off her disrespectful imitation of my mother. It’s been a while, and the lack of visitations would be a factor in that. I nod, blow on the roach to keep it alive, and take a healthy belt before answering back.

  “Figures. I’m sorry to drag you into it. Their place? And what time?”

  When I exhale the smoke in that pained, Mickey Rourke sort of way, it just sounds like regular street-level deflation, the pressures of the world and yadda yadda yadda. Perhaps it is. The joint stub tastes like I’m smoking a shoe, and a wet one at that.

  “Dinner’s at eight. Do you think you could manage that?”

  “I’ve had a busy day, but sure.”

  “You can? Miracles happen. I haven’t seen anything on the news.”

  “I’m able to have a busy day without trashing half of downtown, Elisabeth. Sheesh,” I say, sucking the end of the butt and flicking it away, disappointment now the predominant flavor in my mouth.

  “OK. Tessa’s in my office this afternoon monopolizing the photocopier. I guess I’ll take charge of getting us both to Queens by eight.”

  “Sounds swell,” I say.

  “Joe, don’t be late, OK?”

  “Sure, sure.”

  In my own lawyering books that’s a “no undertaking” – and nowhere near like a promise.

  Beth rings off and I stare around the building top for a while with the phone clutched thoughtfully in hand, trying to determine the presence of a buzz without much luck. I don’t know what the bankers are smoking these days, but they obviously need to upgrade their gear.

  As I step to the edge of the banister, I see Seeker flash by in an impresario of ghostly vapors, a tiny man in a blue costume, no more than eight inches tall, riding the middle of her back. I shrug at myself and carefully clear my mind of the awful thoughts such a thing sets off. She’s a classy lady and I’ve never quite worked out where her visionary powers begin and end or really how they function at all.

  *

  THERE IS MUCH ado at home with no-one there to distract me, the time’s creeping on, I’ve downed a six-pack of JD mixers and a bowl of Hang’s noodles I picked up in Grant on the way across town, unlikely to disturb my evening meal and more likely to give me the squirts for an hour or two before the old metabolism kicks in and does its thing.

  Home alone, I have the freedom to leave the crawlspace door open and I’m smoking one of Beth’s cigarettes wearing just a towel and thumbing through my copy of Teenscene and walking in and out from the computer terminal to check email and wincing as Hang’s noodles do their thing and the police scanner is on loud when I hear the panicked call from the bank robbery in process.

  Normally I might let it go, but it happens to be my bank, and no more than four blocks from home. Grasshopper, Sun Man or even Seeker are likely in the area, going by the afternoon’s play-by-play, but on my home turf and with the six-hundred dollars in my savings account, I definitely feel this is a job for Zephyr. It’s also five minutes to six o’clock, which means a good time for a live feed during the evening news, but frankly only a total card would consider that a reason to abuse his super-speed powers and change back into costume and head out the window all in under sixty seconds flat. My only hesitation is to roll up the combo of emergency civvies I keep on the shelf in the office to slip into my jacket back-flap as a just-in-case in case this makes me run late for dinner.

  I’ve got two hours, right?

  Once safely elevated from the home-front, I bomb the pavement, hitting Mach gently just to let the bad guys know I’m coming. The feed from the scanner cuts out as the ear-piece dangles out-of-place and I’m not too perturbed, knowing the layout well, the bank inside and out. There’s just a solitary cruiser blocking the intersection and two black cops frantically trying to hurry all the pedestrians out of there. For only the briefest moment does it occur to me to wonder who hits a bank after office hours, and then the whole front of the building explodes outwards in a storm-front of dust and debris.

  I land behind the crouching police officers just as chunks of concrete and marble render smash into the cruiser, breaking glass and causing the siren’s ululations to give a heave. The dust cloud rolls over us, and over the cops’ coughing, I tell them to keep the area cordoned while I go forward to examine the carnage. I’m so freaking brave, I impress myself, hehe, but no really, these guys just look up at me like I am insane and for just the briefest second I see myself through their eyes and even I am impressed. But I shake my head to clear delusions of grandeur. If they really understood what I can do they would probably admire less and demand more, which is just human nature, really.

  The bank’s alarms ring through the haze, but I can still hear voices. Particularly there’s a female one, loud and insistent, yelling shrilly at person or persons unknown. I still can’t see to save a bug, and that’s why Eris manages to flatten me with the first concussion wave.

  One moment I’m advancing cautiously on the front of the four-floor granite hard-stone I pinch pennies from every second day of the week. The next I’m like a grand prix motorbike rider acting out the stuff everyone secretly watches motorsport waiting just to see, rocketing along on my leather-clad ass with just enough momentum that I’m not able to gracefully get up and start running. While there is no motorcycle chasing me, I hit the side of the same cop car I’ve just cleared, and glass and more imprecations rain down, so I figure I’m about even as far as that goes. The force of the contact is enough to jolt the vehicle sideways and I’m thrilled the guys sheltering on the other side are quick enough to scramble free, though the looks they shoot me could kill and the visibility has dropped just sufficient to put my stuff-up in the spotlight while continuing to cloud Eris and a handful of other figures moving like ghosts of trench warfare at the edge of the street.

  Identifying the villainess is all largely the work of post-game hindsight thanks to the concrete-powder fog cloaking everything. My bodysuit could pass for a mid-life crisis redesign, white instead of my customary black as if that might make me “fresh”. The dust just pisses me off though, and I lope back into the confrontation hoping not only for answers, but some
one tough enough I can work out my frustrations on.

  Looming from the clouds comes a quartet of balaclava-clad clowns, literally, ghoulish masks in place, shotguns and Tek-9 machine-pistols in gloved hands. The first one catches just a glimpse of my fist as I swing at him; and while he’s sailing through the air with a broken jaw, I kick the legs from beneath a second goon, grab him by the back of the mask on momentum alone and toss him through the yawning wreck of the front of the bank.

  Over it all I can hear the woman’s voice.

  “Louder, you guys! Come on. Make it crazy!”

  There’s a handful of people still nearby, crouching behind street furniture, a phone box, a taxi unlucky to be caught in the explosion with its tires now shredded. I’m still working my way in slow motion through the underlings as a burst of 9mm automatic fire resounds. I don’t have time to question why the guy fires into the air instead of trying to get a bead on me. He makes retching noises as I karate chop him on the side of the neck and all but put my fist through his ribs.

  The fourth guy just runs. I flick open my palm and an agonizing blue spray erupts. He doesn’t make the step to the sidewalk, and the only compensation for him is that Eris now makes her own exit from the bank, a vision of the bizarre in her two-tone banded tights. She directs a blast of concussive force straight at me and it feels like I’ve just been caught out by a bus while crossing the road.

  I pull myself from the window display of the H&M across the road. The dust gradually dissipates. Eris is a spritely form amid the flashing blue lights, short black hair jutting out in dreadlocked spikes, long legs wrapped in zebra-stripe stockings, wrestling boots, black shorts and singlet over a white lycra under-suit. There are metallic bits and bobs around her neck and attached to her knees and shoulders, though they serve no obvious purpose. Some fucked-up symbol rests in white between her perky breasts, but I don’t recognize the thing as a stylized apple or understand the connection to – or Eris’s psychotic obsession with – Greek mythology until I hit Google in the small hours of the morning some days after this crazy, torturous, ridiculous day has ended. All I know is she looks like a cross between a deranged cyclist and a slightly sexy garbage lady and when she looks at me there’s a smile no sane person has a right to produce.

  Still halfway to standing, I retaliate with a mid-range electrical blast. The girl is quick, motioning downwards to ride a wave of pillowing force that sees her clear of my attack. First I think she can fly, and I run forward, hurling another lightning bolt only to realize her momentum has a definite gravitational arc. Then I run into another wall of force and I am extricating myself from the side of a second, newly-arrived police car before Eris has legged it down the block toward the Subway.

  It’s not hard to get ahead of her, travelling at the speed I do. There are many more people down the street, drawn to the chaos of the bank explosion like moths to a flame. I’m appalled to see the villainess lob an object like a hard black tennis ball into the middle of the nearest congested knot. That’s how she gets below ground, leaving me like a sucker to dive after the concussion grenade. It goes off harming no-one, but it’s only later on that selfsame web search that I learn she feeds off the psychic energy generated by strong radiant emotions like fear, in turn powering her kinesis. Her concussion powers are as wild and untamed as she claims and quite genuinely appears to be herself. The Interpol notes available via Wikipedia back up the suggestion she has more than one screw loose.

  By the time I get clear of the horrified crowds in fearful paroxysms over their near-death experiences, there’s only a few startled rail commuters around who are unable to give me a precise direction in which the strange villainess decamped. I return to the surface in time to walk right into the flash-bulbs of that Irish twit from the Post and then Imogen Davies appears trailing a camera crew, beatific like followers of a strange religion to which I might consider a subscription. I engage the milky-looking honey in a witty banter she seems not to appreciate and I slip her a card at the conclusion of the interview in a none-too-subtle move that lets her know what I am metaphorically wishing I could slip her instead.

  If the delectable Miss Davies has any doubts about my latent homosexual tendencies after this then I will be amazed. If it requires her to find me totally repugnant, so be it. First off, I have attracted way more women in my time flaunting my own bastardry than I would care to admit. Second, if I have to burn one pert-breasted, adorably-blushing sweetie to make sure no-one at News Central decides to keep pushing rumors I’m a back-door lock-pick, that’s a price I am willing to pay.

  It gets dark. The clean-up crews hose down the streets, deterring even the most lethargic and ardent admirers. I’m surprised White Nine doesn’t make an appearance until I remember the villainess got away. While I shouldn’t be so ready to front the media in the wake of this less-than-stellar accomplishment, there’s something mutually magnetic about the cameras so that once they are packed away, I find myself strangely at a loss.

  I say strangely because of course I’m meant to be at dinner halfway across Atlantic City. I have the spare clothes in my concealed back-flap, so I bid farewell to the cops packing up the cordons and rocket into the air.

  Suffice to say it is some time later before I recall the only loot Eris appeared to take from the bank was a small wooden urn with a metal plaque.

  But of course, this is the night everything changes.

  Zephyr 2.11 “This Masquerade That Offers No Escape”

  LARGE TRACTS OF Queens remains untouched, even if the name itself was consigned to history, along with so much else when the Atlantic City Redevelopment Authority kicked into action. We got a new civic center, pool, library and a 40,000-seat stadium as a result of the rebuild, but the streets are much the same now as when I was growing up. Astoria is the same generic stand-in for any number of urban locations across the country, with its leafy side-streets, corner grocers and many picturesque laundromats-cum-shooting galleries. I shouldn’t take for granted the fact Hauser, where the old house stands, is one of the lucky streets with walnuts and elms lining the road – especially now as it gives me great cover from the streetlamps and other prying eyes as I jet down in the dark – with shop-heavy streets beginning just a couple of blocks over on the way to the river and the Hell Gate Bridge (yeah they really call it that, perhaps because of the resident troll, Nigel, who only gets to stay on thanks to my sufferance).

  The house is set back from a street lined with darkened parked cars. A warm hospitable glow radiates through the venetians in the front room, and I’m walking up the drive and trying to reach around behind myself to free my hidden clothes and my breath is spilling out of me in plumes and my ribs ache from the long day. When the woman’s voice calls my name, Zephyr, I should be more surprised than I am.

  I turn and see Frost in the driveway of my childhood home, the air condensing around her like an arctic nimbus in the lamp-light.

  “What the fuck are you doing here?”

  “I needed to see you,” she says, sounding unsure.

  “I’m just, you know, doing my rounds. I heard there was a burglary nearby.”

  “Been a while since you were fighting crime in the old neighborhood, isn’t it Joseph –”

  “Hey,” I interrupt. “What the hell is this?”

  It’s not because I’m feeling sociable that I grab her by her leather-bound wrist and drag her out of view and into the hedges crowding the side windows of my mothers’ parlor. The merest glimpse reveals Tessa and Beth inside, all four of them standing around uncomfortably nursing hot drinks. Beth’s Beamer sits further up the drive under the shadows of the greenhouse.

  Frost has a look on her blue-lipped face like she’s just about to make the sort of wisecrack that will tip me into cold-blooded murder, so I give the lady a heroic shake. As icicles bloom across the windowpanes and the violets in the window-box start looking brittle, somewhere upstairs a penny drops and the gentle shake turns into a full-force about-face as I pull the s
lim villainess in toward me.

  “You were at Mys-tech, weren’t you?”

  “To paraphrase the Oracle: ‘but not too clever, hmmm?’”

  I shake Frost again and she pulls her arm free only because I allow it. The moonlight is kind to her painfully thin figure, her face framed by long silvery hair somehow Elven rather than freakish. If I had a D&D fetish, she’d be all mine, especially in that corset and boots. Having taken that ride once before (or sure, actually I was the ride), I’m not in any hurry to get in the queue again.

  “This is serious, lady,” I hiss, almost slurring my words in an effort to keep my voice pitched low and even. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “I told you I had to see you.”

  “Why?” I ask, then snap, “Forget that, tell me how?”

  She shrugs like an embarrassed sorority pledge. “Tracer bug?”

  “You’re kidding me.”

  “Don’t you ever, like, wash that suit?”

  “It’s leather,” I spit back. “Where is it?”

  A thousand thoughts tumble kamikaze through my mind as I track back every damned place I’ve been, all my regular haunts since last Frost took me out for a shakedown.

  “Your phone,” she says apologetically.

  I pull the Enercom gadget free and turn it over. Sure enough the tiny black sticker is barely visible on the underside. I’d peel it off then and there if only dumping the beacon at my childhood home doesn’t seem the wisest move.

  “So you know everything?” I ask.

  “Afraid so, Mister –”

  “Hey, enough with that,” I snap. “Who else is in on it?”

  “Damned if I know, Joe. But if you play ball, we don’t have to have things go unpleasantly.”

  “If you know, the whole world knows,” I reply.

  “That’s not true.”

  “If they gave this information to a psycho like you, then anybody’s game. Fucking hell, Frost. Don’t you understand I have a family? Parents?”