An Ex-Heroes Collection

by Peter Clines

  He looked around. There was no one in the office but him and the mayor. No sign of Smith that he could see. The mayor was wearing a pant suit and a dark tie. She finished reading the document in her hand, scribbled a quick note on it, and looked up at him.

  “Well,” said Christian Nguyen. “I can’t say I’m surprised you came back early.”

  St. George stepped up to the desk. “Where is he?”

  “He who?”

  “Smith. Agent John Smith, from Project Krypton.”

  Christian pursed her lips, then shook her head. Each movement looked rehearsed, like she’d practiced to get the maximum effect from each one. “Last I heard, your lot accused him of being some kind of traitor and he escaped to another military base.”

  “He’s here now,” said St. George, “and I’m betting he’s working with you, even if you don’t realize it.”

  She shook her head. “I can already see where this is all going,” she said. “First you’ll convince everyone that the government representative you claimed was some kind of supervillain is here at the Mount.”

  “Everyone from Krypton knows he—”

  “Then you’ll seize power again,” she interrupted. She stood up behind the desk and gazed at him with cold eyes. “ ‘Just for a little while,’ you’ll say, ‘until we’ve got everything under control again.’ And then you’ll ‘discover’ some flimsy evidence that says Smith and I were part of some conspiracy and the election’s invalid.” She shook her head. “You’ll say anything to get me out of this office and one of your little spineless sock puppets in here.”

  He closed his eyes and counted to five. Then he opened them and glanced around the office again. They were still alone. “Christian,” he said, “this isn’t about you. Agent Smith is here somewhere and—”

  “No, he isn’t.”

  “He’s here somewhere and he’s dangerous. He kills people for kicks, Christian. No one’s challenging the election, but if he’s not with you we need to figure out where he is. Who he’s using.”

  She shook her head again. “You’re so desperate to start trouble. You just can’t stand the fact that people can depend on me when things get tough.”

  “Christian, please … if you aren’t going to help, I’m going to have to do this without you.” He paused for a moment and decided to risk pushing one of her buttons. “That’s not going to look good your first week in office.”

  She stared at him for a moment. Then the faintest hint of a smile crossed her face. “You still don’t get it,” she said. “You honestly don’t understand what’s going on here.”

  “I think I’ve got a better idea than you.”

  She shook her head. “No, I don’t think you do.” She gestured at one of the big chairs on his side of the desk. “Sit down. I’d like to explain something to you.”

  “We don’t have time for—”

  “This won’t take long. Humor me, please?”

  He sighed and dropped into the closest chair.

  She sat down in her own chair and waved her hands at the desk. “This gives me power,” she said. “This office puts me on par with you. All the people who listened to me before have been validated. All the people who listened to you, like it or not, are listening to me a little closer. Because they know I’ve got power now.”

  She reached out, set her hands on the desk, and laced them together. Then she pushed her two index fingers forward. It was like she had a gun pointed at St. George. “Not power like yours,” she said. “Nothing physical. The secret about power—real power—is that it’s all up here.”

  One hand came away from the other and she tapped the center of her forehead.

  “People think power is a thing. Something they can seize or gain or take away from others. Knowledge is power, money is power, strength is power.” She waved her hand, brushing the words and phrases out of the air. “They’re the ones who never get real power, because they’re always chasing the wrong thing.”

  St. George nodded once and tried to make it seem polite. “I think we’ve got more important things to be doing right now.”

  “You said you’d let me explain, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, I did,” he admitted, although he wasn’t sure why he’d agreed.

  “Real power is a concept,” she said. “It’s an idea. You go out, and you spread your idea with whatever means you can. Posters, newspapers, commercials.”

  “We haven’t had a newspaper in Los Angeles for over four years,” he said.

  Christian shook her head. “I’m just giving examples. What it really comes down to is talking to people. That’s how you get your idea out there. Through communication.”

  St. George’s brow wrinkled. “I’m not sure I follow.”

  She put her hands out, gesturing like a politician giving a speech. “If someone asks the right question,” she explained, “they can suggest a certain answer. Plant an idea in your mind. Maybe it’s not much at first—most ideas aren’t—but it’s there, tickling the back of your mind. And over time that idea grows and gets stronger. And eventually it becomes more than just an idea. It becomes something bigger. It overwhelms rational thought. It becomes power.”

  St. George stood up. “We don’t have time for this,” he said. “If you’re not going to help, that’s fine. I’m going to get the scavengers and the guards to start a search.” He headed for the door.

  “I’m not done talking yet, George,” said Christian. “Could you stay seated?”

  He stopped halfway across the room. The hero looked at the doorway, then back at her. He shuffled back and sat down in his chair.

  She smiled and adjusted her tie. “Thank you.”

  It was a broad, fake smile. She beamed it at him for a moment until his eyes widened with recognition.

  “Yeah, I know,” she said. “It freaked me out at first, too.”

  I STOOD OUTSIDE Stage 32 and waited for St. George to appear in the sky. Any minute now. This was going to be fun.

  Being out on the streets of the Mount reminded me of another day out in the sun with St. George, almost a year ago. I look back on it a lot, even though it’s still confusing as hell. The moment that I can remember from two different points of view.

  I remember being Christian Nguyen and seeing John Smith nod.

  I remember being John Smith and seeing Christian in front of me. “I’m glad to know there are people like you here in the Mount. People we’ll be able to depend on even when things are tough.” I remember feeling the words slide off his tongue, and echoing in her ears. “I can depend on you when things get tough, can’t I, Christian?”

  I remember being Smith and feeling the ever-so-faint tingle that told me the question was burrowing its way into her mind, planting ideas.

  I remember being Christian and smiling. “Of course you can,” I’d said. “I’m always honored to serve the people.”

  I said, “Excellent.” I used my confidential smile, the one that made people think we were sharing a small secret, and I remember seeing the smile as Christian and feeling proud.

  It’s a weird sensation, I’ve got to admit. Remembering it all through two sets of eyes, two sets of ears. I’m stuck with it, though. It’s the one part of her that’s held on, the single most important moment of her life. The moment she met me.

  Of course, I wasn’t expecting this. I just planted a few deep thoughts and ideas and figured I’d have a happy sock puppet at the Mount. Someone in my hip pocket if I ever needed them.

  It turns out Christian had a little secret of her own, though. Nothing big on its own, nothing huge. Every time you hear about someone who could’ve been the greatest physicist in the world if they put their mind to it, it stands to reason there’s a few dozen people who would’ve been tied for the fiftieth- or hundredth-greatest physicist in the world. If they’d put their minds to it. Hell, I’d bet there’s a good chance she never even realized she had it. She was in deep denial, half the reason it never worked on anything past a subcon
scious level. And even then, it was a timid thing.

  Christian had her own superpower. She taps into the gestalt, if I remember those old Psych 101 terms. She brings people together, connects them on a subconscious level. I mean, how else could someone with zero charisma and interpersonal skills be a successful, honest politician?

  Of course, if I’d known that ahead of time, things might’ve gone differently. Instead, we had two sets of mental abilities overlapping and amplifying each other to crazy levels. A harmonics thing, I think. Maybe her gestalt thing, too. The whole being greater than the sum of the parts or something.

  I ended up planting a very big idea. Much bigger than I’d planned. And she brought us together.

  Of course, being in this body took a lot of adjusting. There were all those mornings Christian woke up and couldn’t figure out why her face didn’t look right. Plus all the old things she couldn’t remember, and the new things she could. Most people would start panicking about Alzheimer’s or something, but she was so focused on rallying the After Death movement and her steamroller-style mayoral campaign that she just kept brushing it aside. And she kept saying the phrase I’d given her again and again, like an error-loop glitch that keeps popping up.

  People can depend on me when things get tough.

  She started forgetting her life and started remembering mine.

  St. George appeared in the sky and dragged me back to the present. He spun around in a circle like a kite whipping through the air. Then he dropped down and landed on the pavement a few yards away.

  “What’s up, Christian?” he said. He always sounded so sincere. It’s incredible how fast that can get grating.

  “I need to show you something,” I told him.

  He glanced back across the Mount. “I’m kind of busy,” he said. “We’re trying to juggle a couple of things before—”

  “It’ll just take a moment,” I said. “You can spare a minute, can’t you?”

  “Yeah, of course.”

  I turned away and fumbled with the lock. It was a show. I’d done it three times already at this point. “I’m glad you made that announcement,” I told him without looking back. “I’m sure a lot of other people are, too. It will make the vote go much smoother, don’t you think?”

  “Yeah,” he said.

  The lock popped open and I pulled the handle. I glanced back at St. George. “Are you coming?”

  He reached over and held the door open, then followed me in. One thing I’ve got to say, men treat women differently. It’s a bunch of little stuff, but it’s there. It threw me at first, but I’ve gotten adjusted to it.

  St. George walked behind me toward the center of the stage. I’d set up some blankets, just to make things a bit homey. People are always a bit confused when things look homey, and confusion usually works in my favor. Three of the blankets already had people stretched out on them.

  “Danielle?” he called out. “What are you doing here? I was trying to reach you for half an hour.”

  My favorite redhead didn’t move, of course. She’d been the second one I’d grabbed. I couldn’t risk her recognizing some speech pattern or habit of mine. It was tempting to use her once or thrice for old time’s sake, too, but I don’t have that equipment anymore. Still getting used to that part of this, I’ve got to admit.

  “Sorry about that,” I told St. George. “She was helping me with something. You don’t mind, do you?”

  He was going to say no, of course, but by then he’d noticed Danielle wasn’t moving. And he’d seen Freedom’s bulk spread out on the farthest blanket. And, just past Danielle, a third person. In the dim light of the stage, she blended in and was hard to spot.

  To give him credit, he didn’t shout her name or anything melodramatic like that. He just charged across the room. Leaped, really. A noble man of action.

  I took my time and walked up behind him. He had the cloaked bitch in his arms. He tried to wake her up, pressed his fingers against her throat, and listened to her breathing. I was maybe five feet behind him when he glanced back. “Did you know about this?”

  I nodded and smiled. “Do you want to lie down next to her?”

  He set her back down on the blanket, placed a fold of it under her head, and returned my nod. “Yeah,” he said. “I think I’d like that.”

  His brow wrinkled, and I saw a spark of fear deep in his eye. He recognized what was happening. What he was doing. It’s always more fun when people realize what’s going on.

  “Just stretch out and relax,” I said. “Wouldn’t that be a good way to spend the afternoon?”

  St. George looked down at one of the open blankets, flipped the edge over to double it up, and sat down on it.

  It’s a little risky, doing this. Getting them alone one by one and then dropping them. One quick response, one of them puts it together before I can speak, and this fun little experiment is over.

  But it’s still better than the alternative. I’d heard stories about what happened to me out at Project Krypton. Well, to other-me, I guess. I pushed for details where I could, eavesdropped when I couldn’t. I heard about other-me getting dragged out from behind the curtain. Colonel Shelly dying. Professor Sorensen dying. Stealth planting a knife in other-me’s throat before I could escape to Groom Lake.

  I couldn’t risk that happening here. First rule of building your new empire—get rid of the people who brought down your last one. The people who know how to beat you.

  I’m still amazed I got Stealth. Granted, I took her out first so she wouldn’t have a chance of being suspicious. Well, any more suspicious. She’s so damned fast. But she never saw it coming and four minutes after walking into the stage to check out “safety concerns” she was unconscious on the floor.

  Danielle was next. And Freedom’s still the same clueless idiot, deferring to anyone he considers above him. God bless the military mind-set.

  St. George stretched out on his blanket and shifted a few times to get comfortable. He glanced over at Stealth, then up at me. “You’re right,” he said. “This is kind of nice.”

  I plastered a smile on my face. “Why don’t you take a nap?” I suggested. “A good long one.”

  He yawned and blinked twice.

  “Wouldn’t it be nice to dream about a world where there aren’t any zombies?” I asked him. “No exes, no ex-virus, nothing ever happened. You could forget all of it. Just the plain old world where you’re a normal guy, doing whatever the hell you did before you became a superhero. Wouldn’t that be nice?”

  “God, yes,” he said, and yawned again.

  One great thing about this new, overpowered skill set is the dreams. The old me, the other-me who’s out at Groom Lake or somewhere, could force someone to sleep, but eventually they’d wake up. I couldn’t control their subconscious. But with Christian’s powers in the mix, I can make people combine their dreams and build on each other’s memories. Two or three people together can make a great, rich world, each of them filling in the gaps for the others. A world they never need to wake up from.

  St. George managed to turn his head toward Stealth before his eyelids got too heavy. Then he just rolled back to center. His breathing leveled out.

  I whispered a few more suggestions. I wanted them out of the way, lost in the dreamworld. But any good jailer knows you want a wall around the prison, too, just in case people get out of their cells. Just in case they start to wake up. Nothing too elaborate, just a believable tweak on reality, enough to keep them busy for a few—

  “What are you doing?”

  I turned around and saw Sorensen’s brat halfway between me and the door. The Corpse Girl, she likes to call herself. I should’ve guessed she’d be here. She follows St. George around like a dog. I wonder if he’s doing her. Necrophilia’s really not my thing, but I can see the appeal of a body that’s almost-eighteen forever.

  She marched across the room. In the dim light, her skin looked pure white. Even walking, she had a stillness to her that had taken me days to
pin down. Sometimes she stops breathing. It’s one of those subtle things, a person’s chest moving up and down. You don’t realize you register it until you meet someone who doesn’t do it. She doesn’t blink sometimes, either. It’s kind of eerie, and I say this as someone who’s been mentally cloned into another body.

  I’ve got to admit, it creeped me out when I became conscious enough to realize who the Corpse Girl was. Little Madelyn, the daughter Sorensen would not shut up about, even after I’d arranged to have her killed in front of him. It was like some bad horror movie. The dead come back to life, you turn around, and there’s the girl you killed in act two, back for zombie revenge.

  Of course, she had no idea who I was. Then or now.

  Granted, I didn’t know enough about her, either. She’s dead, but she’s not your standard ex-human. Twice I’ve given her simple commands, as a test. They last about a day with her and then she just seems to shrug them off. I’ve heard she’s got some sort of memory problem, which makes sense in a way.

  It meant I was going to have to be harsh with her.

  She was twenty feet closer when she saw the heroes stretched out on the floor. Her sneakers chuffed on the concrete floor as she stopped. There was just enough contrast to her iris that I could see her eyes flitting back and forth over all the figures. Mostly St. George, of course.

  I gestured with my hand. “Could you come here?”

  The Corpse Girl started moving again. She took a few more steps, then stopped again. She looked at me. “Did you do this?”

  “Of course not,” I said. “Could you come over and help me, please?”

  That was enough. She walked over next to me and I pointed at one of the blankets. “Don’t you want to take a nap? You can sleep on St. George’s other side, if you like.”

  She blinked and trembled for a moment.

  “Don’t you want to go to sleep?” I asked her again.

  Her eyelids drooped down, sagged lower and lower, and then snapped open. She glared at me. It was kind of eerie with the dead eyes.