An Ex-Heroes Collection

by Peter Clines

  “We have seen no evidence of such a thing,” said Stealth.

  “And I’ve never heard it,” said Barry, waving his half-sandwich in the air. “Even if they were all on the East Coast, I’d see something in the air now and then.”

  “I’m just saying it could be,” insisted the redhead. “Let’s not convince ourselves this is a bad thing before we have more evidence.”

  “Let’s not forget something else,” said St. George. “They know we’re out here now. We sent them a message through their Predator.”

  Barry nodded. “That we did.”

  “It seems safe to say they didn’t know what they’d find when they sent the drones,” St. George said. “Now they know we’re out here. I think we should wait and see what they do. Let them make the next move.”

  Stealth tilted her head at him. “And if they do not make a move?”

  “Then we can send Barry to check them out again. But for now, let’s play it cool.”

  Barry grinned. “Don’t want to call too soon after our first date?”

  “Don’t want them thinking we’re a threat,” said St. George. “They’re probably as freaked out by us as we are by them. And like you said, they’ve got a lot more guns. Let’s wait a couple days and see if the Predator comes back.”

  Danielle nodded. “When they do, we can use my call sign and codes. Even if they can’t verify it, they should be able to recognize it as our military without too much trouble.”

  Stealth gave a slow nod. “A sound plan for the present.”

  “There’s one other thing, though,” said St. George. “What do we tell everyone?”

  “What do you mean?” asked Danielle.

  “Everyone here at the Mount. Inside the Big Wall. Do we keep quiet? Do we tell them the military’s coming to save the day?”

  “I am sure that decision has been made for you, George,” said Stealth.

  He looked at her. “How so?”

  “Besides the four of us, fourteen scavengers know of the Predator drone. I find it unlikely all of them have remained silent on this matter. I would estimate at least two hundred people have been told the news during the course of this meeting.”

  St. George sighed.

  “Oh, joy,” said Barry. “That won’t cause any headaches.”

  “I would suggest we advise citizens against any premature assumptions as to the nature of this incident. Perhaps we can protect them from potential disillusionment and the corresponding blow to morale.”

  “Assuming, of course,” said Danielle, “there’s going to be a reason to be disillusioned.”

  The lights flickered. “That’s my cue,” said Barry. He swallowed the last crust of his sandwich. “Batteries are running low. I need to get back to the chair.”

  “They’re not lasting any time at all now,” muttered the redhead.

  “We’re supplying six times as many people,” said St. George. “We need to figure out a better way to do this.”

  “You’re telling me,” said Barry. He swung himself off the table and into his wheelchair. “You know it’s been three weeks since I slept in a bed?”

  “Come on,” said the hero, scooping up his patchwork leather jacket. “Let’s get you over to Four.”

  “Cerberus,” said Stealth, “if you could escort Zzzap back to the electric chair, I would like to speak with St. George for a few more minutes. Alone.”

  “Somebody’s in trou-ble,” sang Barry with a grin.

  The redhead took in a quick breath. “Will you be long? I was hoping to get the armor back on tonight.”

  “Take the rest of the night off,” St. George told her. “We’ll get you suited back up in the morning.”

  “Oh, sure,” said Barry. “She gets to sleep in a bed.”

  “Someone needs to check the gates, though,” said Danielle. “If you two are going to be here for a while—”

  “I will check the gates once our meeting is done,” said Stealth. “Will you see Zzzap back to Four, please?”

  Her elbows pulled in closer to her body. “Sure,” she said. “No problem.” She wheeled Barry around and out the conference room doors.

  St. George dropped his jacket back on the table and looked at the cloaked woman. “What’s up?”

  “How did the new chain mail armor perform?”

  “Nobody likes it, but Danny Foe let an ex get the drop on him and it stopped the bite. Not much past that. Everyone was on their game today.”

  “Is there anything else to report from your mission?”

  He leaned back against the table. “Pretty much just what we expected to find in the Valley,” he said. “Exes seem more numerous but spread out more. Most everything’s looted along Cahuenga, but it’s hard to tell when, so it doesn’t help us figure out if there are other survivors out there.”

  “Did you listen?”

  “What?”

  “You launched a flare that would have been visible throughout most of the southern San Fernando Valley. If survivors saw it, there is a reasonable chance they would have made an effort to attract your attention.”

  He sagged a little. “I didn’t even think of that. I was so excited about the plane.”

  “The fault is mine,” she said. “I became focused on the flare as a signal for our own purposes. I did not consider the possibility it would serve as an indirect beacon to others until after you had left.”

  “It’s not your responsibility to think of all this stuff.”

  “Someone must be responsible,” she said, “and I am the best suited to the task.”

  “Well,” he said, “maybe it won’t be for much longer. If it really is the Army we’re all off the hook. Someone else will be in charge.”

  She tilted her head at him. “I did not realize you were eager to be relieved of your responsibilities.”

  “Aren’t you? I mean, let’s face it. There’s got to be people better qualified than us to rebuild civilization.”

  “Perhaps,” she said. “Perhaps not. To my eyes, you are eminently qualified.”

  They looked at each other for a few moments, then a few more, and then she turned and moved to the bank of monitors. St. George picked up his jacket. The doors were closed behind him when he realized he’d missed another opportune moment.

  “So,” said Barry as the wheelchair rolled along the garden, “you want to hang out for a bit? It’s boring as hell just sitting in the chair all the time. I’ve got tons of movies.”

  He felt Danielle shake her head behind him. “I’ve got to get back,” she said. “A couple things to do.”

  “Like what?”

  “What?”

  “What do you have to do?”

  “Just … stuff. You know. I spend so much time in the armor a lot of stuff gets neglected.”

  “So you’re doing laundry? Please tell me you’re doing laundry, because it’s way overdue.” He gestured to the open street as they turned onto 3rd. “Hey, use the center of the lane. It’s smoother. Easier on the chair and my butt.”

  “Whatever.”

  She leaned and the wheelchair worked its way out into the center of the road. “Yeah,” he said. “Much better.”

  Danielle gave a grunt. To their south was the Melrose gate. They could hear the distant chattering of teeth in hundreds of mouths.

  “So no movie, eh?”

  “No, sorry.”

  “I’ve got a couple games, too. Finally figured out how to run an optical mouse remote, so I can use a laptop.”

  “I told you, I’ve got to get back to my place.”

  “Well, if you want you can swing by my place and take all the cushions off the couch. Keep ’em if you like. I’m never there.”

  “What?”

  “I just figured you’d want to build yourself a little fort to sleep in.”

  She stopped pushing the chair. “Fuck you.”

  “If only someone would,” he sighed. He spun his chair so he faced her. Without the handles to hold on to, her arms pulled
in close to her body. “But let’s talk about you. How long were you in the armor for this time?”

  “As long as I needed to be.”

  “How long?”

  She sighed. “Four days. More or less.”

  “More or less?”

  “Almost five.”

  Barry looked at her. “It’s only built for three, right?”

  “It can do more if it needs to.”

  “No wonder you stink. Have you even eaten?”

  “I can stand to lose some weight.”

  “Yeah, you and all the other fat people running around after the apocalypse.”

  “The suit’s getting tight in the legs.”

  “Whatever,” he said. “Look, you know you’re safe in here, right? They can’t get you.”

  She glanced over her shoulder toward the gate. Toward the big white cross.

  “I’ve got your back,” said Barry. “George and Stealth have it. Hell, most people here love you.”

  She smirked. “Not everyone.”

  “Well, there’re a few idiots in every crowd,” he said. “Point is, you’ve got to stop hiding in the damned suit.”

  “Mr. Burke,” called someone behind him. Barry rolled his eyes at the sound of the voice and Danielle winced.

  “Christian,” said Barry, turning his wheelchair. “We were just talking about you. What’s up?”

  Christian Nguyen had been an LA councilwoman and had hung on to her small amount of power when society began to rebuild itself inside the Mount. Now she was district leader for Southeast and all of Raleigh, and some people thought she had a good chance of being mayor if everyone could agree on a fair way to do elections. She was also “super-phobic,” as some called it, and made no effort to hide her feelings.

  Danielle kept it simple and called her a bitch.

  Christian marched across the cobblestones with a half dozen or so people behind her. She stopped in front of the wheelchair and glared down at Barry. “What’s this about a helicopter flying over the Valley?”

  “It was a Predator,” he said. “Not a helicopter.”

  “Don’t try to dodge,” she snapped. “Why weren’t we told about it?”

  “If you weren’t told about it, how do you know about it?”

  “Everyone knows,” she said. “What I want to know is why nothing official’s been said.”

  “Well,” said Barry, “Stealth figured you’d all find out in a few hours—like you did—so there was no need to make some proclamation from on high.”

  Christian’s lips twisted into a smug smile. “What you mean is St. George ordered people not to talk and Stealth realized they would anyway.”

  Barry felt a faint tremor as Danielle took hold of the wheelchair’s handles again. Part of him hoped she was going to ram the chair into Christian’s shins. “Yet again,” he said, “you know it all.”

  “Are you going to tell us what the pilot said?”

  “The pilot?”

  “The helicopter pilot.”

  He sighed. He made sure it was a loud sigh. “One, it wasn’t a helicopter, it was a Predator drone, and b, a Predator doesn’t have a pilot.”

  “What do you mean, it doesn’t have a pilot?”

  “It’s a drone, Christian. A robot.”

  “A robot plane? How stupid do you think I am?”

  One of her followers, a scrawny man, stepped forward and muttered something to her. She glared down at the man in the wheelchair.

  “Did you want me to answer that last one,” said Barry, “or was it rhetorical?”

  “I think you need to start being a bit more respectful,” she snapped. “Whatever it was, it was a symbol of the American government.”

  “It was a drone,” interrupted Danielle. “Nobody knows who was controlling it. Could’ve been anyone.”

  Barry nodded.

  Christian’s scowl turned into a smirk. “Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you? To convince everyone help isn’t on the way. That the rest of the world isn’t pulling itself out of the godless state Los Angeles has been left in.” She threw back her shoulders and tossed a glance to her entourage. “The days of Stealth’s little dictatorship are numbered,” she said. “Your power over all of us is coming to an end and you’ll make up any lie you can to hang on to it.”

  “Seriously,” said Barry, “why wouldn’t we want that? You think I like spending seven days a week in a metal ball so you can read at night?”

  She waved off his comments and pushed her hand at his face. He felt the chair shift on the cobblestones and he was sure Danielle was about to ram it forward. “Things are getting back to normal,” Christian said. “We’ll see where that leaves all of you.”

  A murmur of consent rose from the followers. She tossed her head back, glared at Barry and Danielle in turn, and stalked off with her minions.

  Barry took in a breath to shout something after her and settled for giving the finger with both barrels.

  “What a bitch,” muttered Danielle.

  “What are you complaining about? You got off easy.”

  “She doesn’t know who I am,” said the redhead. “Most people think I’m always nine feet tall and fifteen hundred pounds. They see a skinny, helpless woman and I’m just a face in the crowd.”

  He twisted around to look at her. “You’re not helpless.”

  “We’re all helpless, Barry,” she said. “As long as things stay like this, we’re all screwed.”

  THE LAST THING I could remember was trying not to shiver with all of them standing around me. I’ve got no problem with airdrops, live-fire training, even being under enemy fire. I’ve been caught in two explosions in my six years of service, and still have scars and a Purple Heart from one of them. But lying on an operating table, wearing nothing but a paper smock and underwear while they pumped tranquilizers into my arm, that freaked me out.

  I’m not supposed to freak out. Girls freak out. I’m a soldier before I’m a girl. I was born to be a soldier. It was what Dad wanted. His dad had been in the Army, and his dad before him, and his dad before him, and his before him. A line of Kennedys serving their country all the way back to the Civil War, long before someone else with our name became president.

  Mom says having three girls was murder on him. He loved us, don’t get me wrong. He was the greatest dad in the world and he spent every minute he could with us, but it was rough on him not to have a son to keep up the military tradition. It killed him when Ellie, my oldest sister, decided to be a kindergarten teacher and Abby announced she was going to school to be a lawyer.

  I was the youngest. And the tomboy. As soon as I was old enough to understand Dad’s quiet disappointment, I knew what I was going to do with my life. I just wish he’d lived long enough to see me make sergeant. To see how good a soldier I’d become.

  So of course I jumped up when they offered to make me an even better soldier. Out of about 500 volunteers, 108 made the final cut, two large companies’ worth. A month of shots and now some surgery. Dr. Sorensen tried to explain it to us but it was a lot of high-end words none of us understood. He told us it would be easier to explain after the operation.

  I woke up in a hospital bed. Sorensen was sitting next to me, reading a letter covered with flowery, teen-girl writing. I found out later, talking with the rest of my squad, he was there when everyone woke up. No idea how he timed that out.

  His monkey-boy was hovering in the background, trying not to look like he was reading over the doc’s shoulder. I blinked a few times, tried to move my arm and found out how stiff it was. When I winced I discovered how bad the headache was.

  “Ahhh,” said Sorensen. “Awake at last. Get her some water, John.” He said that last bit without even looking back at monkey-boy.

  “I’m sore,” I said.

  “You’ve been unconscious for almost twenty hours, sergeant,” he told me. “It’s normal.” He folded up his letter.

  I met his eyes. “Any problems, sir?”

  “Just my daught
er,” he said. He slipped the papers into his coat pocket. “She’s starting to pick colleges and everyone in the family has different ideas where she should apply.”

  I smiled. “I meant with the surgery.”

  He gave me a wink and a penlight slipped out of the same pocket. “I don’t think so,” he said, “but we’ll know for sure in a few moments.” He flicked the light back and forth across my eyes. “Focus on my finger.”

  I followed his index finger as he moved it around my face, then up and down in front of his own chest. No problems. Monkey-boy came back with a paper cup of water. I reached for it and my wrist clanked. I was handcuffed to the hospital bed’s railing.

  “Just a safety precaution,” said Sorensen. “People can be disoriented after surgery and we didn’t want you wandering off and hurting yourself.”

  “What if I need to use the latrine?”

  “Do you?”

  “No.”

  “We’ll have you out in a few minutes anyway. Make a fist with your left hand. Good. Now, your right. Good. Hold this pencil as tight as you can.”

  It was a cheap pencil. It snapped into three pieces. He smiled at that.

  The more tests he did, the more I realized I felt fine. Aside from a splitting headache and stiff limbs, I couldn’t sense anything wrong with me. And that made me suspicious, because this wasn’t the first time I’d woken up from surgery in my life. My appendix when I was fifteen and a torn meniscus in my knee four weeks after Basic ended. I knew some part of me should hurt more than everything else.

  “No dizziness?” asked Sorensen. “No funny tastes in your mouth?”

  “No, sir. Just really dry.” I sipped the water.

  “It’s a side effect of the anesthesia. You were in surgery for sixteen hours.”

  I let my eyes slide down to my bare arms. Handcuff on one. Basic IV on the other. No stitches. No butterflies. Nothing. “Did something go wrong, sir? Why didn’t they complete the surgery?”

  “Do you know why my predecessor’s attempts at this project failed, Sergeant Kennedy?”

  I shrugged. The handcuffs jingled.

  “He thought you had to force the body to achieve the performance levels we’re hoping for. He spent weeks pumping soldiers full of myostatin blockers and somatotropin and other things that made a mess of their biochemistry.”