How to Defeat a Hero

by J Bennett

  “Of course. I will watch over you all,” she says, smiling again. Her whiskers glow in the sunlight from the window.

  Clutching the Goggs, I leave the office with my thoughts whirling. What’s happening to me? Why do I feel like Mermaid, Gold, and even Kitty are becoming almost like a family to me? This is all fake, all just a drooling show, right?

  I pass the open doorway to the master bedroom. Inside, Ash Anders sits on the floor, back straight, eyes closed, hands resting lightly on each knee. His coat hangs on the bedpost and the dress shirt he wears is rumpled and stained in the armpits. Sequoia offered to print him a new shirt, even a new suit, but Anders refused.

  “That’s canny,” I say softly as I step in the room. “Wearing the same clothes. It makes you look weathered.”

  Ash Anders doesn’t open his eyes. I notice that he holds the pale pink seashell in his left hand. “People would notice if I were wearing a different outfit when I escape,” he says. “They would say my captivity must have been comfortable.”

  “We can’t have that.”

  “Are you leaving to grandly rescue your producer?” he asks.

  “Yes. Right now.” I wonder if I should say goodbye or wish him luck on his impending escape from our clutches. It’s been strange getting to know him over the past day. Despite the fact that he’s spent most of his waking hours testily lecturing to someone on his Band, it almost seems as if he really cares about his city and its inhabitants.

  “You’re not very cam savvy, you know,” he says.

  I lean against the doorway. “I’m getting better.”

  He opens his eyes and appraises me with a penetrating stare. “You have good ideas. Good instinct for plot, but you never seem to have that spark on cam. You don’t like being in front of the lens.”

  “If that were true, I wouldn’t be a very good henchman, would I?” I say the words sarcastically, but I feel like his eyes can see right through my pretense.

  “I’ve been wondering about you,” he says. “The others I understand. Arsenic wants power and control. Gold wants love and adoration.” Ash’s voice is soft but weighted with surety. “Nitrogen wants a family.”

  “And what about me?” I ask. “What do I want?”

  Ash Anders smiles. “You’re a paradox.”

  “A paradox?” I have to leave, but my feet stay planted in the doorway of the bedroom.

  “I think you want to change the world,” Ash Anders says. “Like me.”

  I cross my arms over my chest and force out what I hope is a casual laugh “Why would you say that?”

  “The classes you’re taking at the university. The things you’ve posted on your personal Stream.”

  I frown. “You’ve been spying on me.”

  “I like to know who I’m working with,” Anders replies casually. “My new security firm has performed thorough evaluations of all of you.”

  “And yet I’m a paradox.”

  “I can’t quite figure out how this henchman thing fits into your plans,” he admits.

  I don’t owe Ash Anders an explanation, especially since he’s paid people to dig around into my past. And yet he seems genuinely curious.

  “The money,” I say roughly.

  Anders shakes his head. “That’s not it. Your Universal Basic Income could cover a room in a smaller town. If you shared the room, you could even afford gov nutra-packs with a little left over for a pair of Goggs.”

  “That’s not a life,” I hiss.

  “It is a life for roughly 19.4% of the population. But you…” he wags a finger at me. “You’re fighting for something.” He smiles at me. “A hidden mission?”

  I don’t like this inquisition.

  “It’s about Alby, isn’t it? About what happened during The Ends of the Earth.”

  I grab the doorframe to hold myself up. It feels like he reached inside and pulled the secret right out of my living, beating heart.

  I should have been prepared. After all, the semi-reality show credit is permanently attached to my Stream, though I deleted all my own personal mentions of the show and those foolishly optimistic vids I posted during our training.

  I imagine some bored, low-ranking security intern digging up season six of Ends of the Earth from Media Sector 3. That person would have no idea that I begged and begged Alby to try out with me; that I promised him we would win and use the prize money to move out of our cramped cargo container and into a beautiful house with a yard and separate bedrooms. Then our mother would smile.

  Instead, that intern would have seen a young, brother-and-sister team, fraternal twins, trekking throughout parched California, searching for clues and resources on a carefully designated course. They would have heard the show’s host sneakily admit that the big twist this season was that our maps were incomplete. One by one, the teams got lost, wandering off course, far from the caches of supplies they needed, those precious bottles of water.

  I can almost feel the heat beating down on me during the day and the cold leeching into my bones as soon as the sun sunk beneath the horizon. On that final day, the unrepentant sun practically burned through my eyelids as Alby and I slogged through the endless, cracked land of Death Valley. I wonder what the intern thought when I finally fell despite Alby’s determination. Did the intern feel anything when Alby picked me up and kept walking and walking until he collapsed into seizures? Our last scene shows the producers finally sending an ambulance chopper to cart us to a medical facility. They never follow up, never tell viewers that Alby was in the hospital for two months, that his organs nearly failed and he suffered brain damage that couldn’t be fixed.

  That is the price of semi-reality. PIC – Pain Is Currency, and we paid so much to the cams. More than we had to give.

  I force myself to meet Ash Anders’s eyes and I see pity. I look away.

  “I’ve got to go,” I say roughly.

  “Wait.” Ash Anders unfolds his legs and stands. Even in his rumpled outfit, he looks strong and in command. Like a president, I think.

  “I’m sorry for what happened to you,” he says.

  I grimace.

  “You want to change the system. That’s why you’re here. I don’t know how this show fits into your plan but it does.” Anders takes a step toward me. “Ironically, we’re on the same side.”

  I snort a laugh. “You want to go up against PAGS?”

  “That’s a dangerous thing to say.” He picks his coat up from the bedpost and tosses his arm through the first sleeve. “I wanted to let you know that I have magnanimously decided not to criminally prosecute you and your associates as soon as I complete my daring escape to great fanfare.”

  I shake a finger at him. “A vil is never supposed to reveal their true plan to their enemies.”

  “Despite what you think, Alice,” he says, pointedly using my real name, “I am not a villain, and we are not enemies.”

  I don’t know what to say to that or to anything Ash Anders has revealed. Can it really be true? Is he against PAGS? The conglomerate practically bought the Oval Office for his mother.

  Anders slips his other arm through the jacket, and I watch him drop the seashell into the left pocket of his pants.

  “It was a gift,” he says.

  “What?”

  “The shell. It was a gift from Val.”

  Valerie-Rhyn. I know that name from the research I performed on Anders before our kidnapping. Val was his college girlfriend. She and Ash overdosed together on some rocky beach in Washington. Ash survived. Valerie-Rhyn did not. That was when he finally got clean.

  “We all have our own reasons to fight for a better world,” Ash Anders says.

  My chest is tight. I nod like we’re agreeing to something. A secret pact of some sort, but I don’t know what it is. Only that it feels big, more important than all the chaos swirling around us. And then I push those feelings away. I need to concentrate on the here and now, on surviving the next few hours.

  “I’ve got to go,” I say in a tigh
t voice.

  Ash Anders gives me a killer smile, the same one I’ve seen a thousand times on top gossip Stream stories when I was researching him.

  “Shining luck, Wholesome,” he says softly.

  Sequoia is fretting in the living room. His green lab coat stretches over his big chest, and the torn sleeves make his shoulders look huge. He would look menacing, big hands and rocky muscles, if he didn’t give me a relieved smile when I entered the room.

  “The rental car is here,” he says.

  “Had to get the Goggs,” I tell him, holding them up. I don’t have the processing space for my convo with Ash Anders right now and all the painful memories stirred up in my mind. We’ve got a mission to complete and a savvy cape to outwit.

  “Let’s go,” I say to Sequoia. I turn on the Goggs and hear the soft buzz of the cam drones in the office coming online.

  The Professor still stands next to the window. A wisp of steam rises from the pale yellow coffee mug in his hand. As we head to the door, he turns to us. “Please do bring back our producer,” he says, “but don’t be late to the Square. Infamy awaits us today!”

  ***

  Our rental car takes us to the middle of Iconic Square. Yesterday, the Square was half dead, but things change quickly here in Biggie LC. Even this early in the morning, townies and tourists mill around the sidewalks in droves. Some line up to take selfies in front of The Hero statue. Today, she looks even more like Beacon than usual, with her flowing locks and proud stance. Though her arm drapes around the shoulders of a small child, the statue seems fierce, even menacing. Then again, it’s probably just my imagination. I try not to remember how Shine described the pain of Beacon’s Aura Arcs.

  As we pull off the road, a tourist trolley rumbles by, filled to capacity. This is a vil trolley, decorated with the faces of Evil Santa, Cleopatra, and members of the Dark League. Will The Professor’s face be plastered on the side of those trolleys someday soon?

  “It’s busy,” Sequoia observes, glancing out the window. He’s been fidgeting next to me the whole ride over. I think even his freckles are shivering.

  “They’re here for the showdown between Beacon and The Professor,” I say.

  “Really? Don’t they know it’s going to be dangerous?”

  I glance at Sequoia and remind myself that despite all his recent progress he’s still city soft.

  “That’s the point. Some will try to steal lens time. Others just want to be part of something, anything.” I look across the square. On the opposite side of the street, half a block down, one building slumps at an odd angle. Its windows have been boarded up, the glass shards swept away, but the pitted, broken sign still tilts drunkenly over the entrance.

  The Redemption Café.

  Sequoia follows my gaze. “What happened there?”

  “Shadow blew it up,” I whisper as I watch several touries pose in front of the building while their personal cam drones take pics and vids. One woman pretends she’s fleeing in fear. Maybe they wonder what it was like to be there the night Shadow slipped into the building and terrorized the diners with a holo-clock that slowly counted down from ten minutes.

  I could tell them. The memory of Shadow’s grease-covered face flashes through my mind. His eyes, tinted unnaturally red, seemed to cut right through me. I remember the rotten yellow ribcage tattooed over his skinny chest and the mutilated face that sat in place of his heart.

  Looking into his eyes, I saw only darkness and depravity. It’s been nearly three weeks since he attacked a tourist trolley, murdering five touries and two police officers. Police Chief Memphis McDonald is still in serious condition in the hospital, but it looks like he’ll live. The authorities still haven’t found Shadow. I swallow. It’s only a matter of time before he strikes again, and now with the Castillo vs. PAGS case decided, the last vestiges of restraint are gone.

  How far will he go next time? How many more people will die?

  “We should probably do the stickup,” Sequoia says, shaking me from my icy memories.

  He’s right. I force myself to focus on the task at hand. This job should be simple, but I can’t let myself get too cocky. A confident henchman is a defeated henchman, Tickles wrote on his blog yesterday.

  I turn to Sequoia. “This’ll be good for you,” I tell him. “Just remember, be aggressive. Be mean.”

  “Mean, aggressive,” he whispers. I glance out the windshield. We’ll need to move fast to escape the notice of all the people milling about. Fortunately, most of them are either staring at their Bands or grinning for selfies. I put my hand on Sequoia’s arm and wait. A minute later, the coast is mostly clear.

  “Now!” I hiss.

  Sequoia goes first, flinging open the door of the car and walking purposefully into the shop just in front of us. I slip Sequoia’s Goggs over my eyes and quickly follow, cradling the small cam drone in my arms.

  “Welcome to the… oh,” says the proprietor of the shop. I glance around the small space. No other customers in the shop. I let out a small, relieved breath.

  Colorful bottles line the shelves. My Goggs helpfully magnify their labels as my eyes focus on them. I see arthritis medication, generic carcinoma blockers, sexual enhancers.

  “Don’t move!” Sequoia barks and flourishes his stun laz as I manually lock the front door.

  “We are being robbed,” says the person behind the counter.

  “Yeah, you are,” Sequoia says. “So don’t do anything dim.”

  “I understand,” the proprietor says. “I have significant experience with burglaries. In fact, this pharmacy has been robbed exactly 26 times in the history of our business, though I have only been present for eight of those robberies. I was not allowed to work here until four years ago.”

  The person behind the counter is Ollie, of course. This is why I make a point of standing behind Sequoia, my face turned away. With the Goggs over my eyes, I can’t wear my tinted goggles to help protect my identity.

  Without prompting, Ollie unlatches his Band, lays it on the counter, screen down, and gives it a small push so that it slides out of his reach. Hunched behind Sequoia’s back, I subvocalize a command. Rise. The cam drone in my arms hums to life, its blades spinning on both wings. As it lifts up slowly into the air the video feed washes across my Goggs.

  Quarter window, I command and the video feed shrinks into a box that slides to the right side of the frame.

  “You are Nitrogen,” Ollie says, “a henchman for The Professor. And behind you is Iron, also a henchman for The Professor.”

  “Uh,” Sequoia stutters.

  “I was most impressed with your recent kidnapping of Ash Anders,” Ollie says. He keeps his hands raised in the air. “Your hostage video was interesting. Very reliant on close-ups. I assume this is due to the fact that your producer is currently the prisoner of Shine.”

  “Uh,” Sequoia says.

  The drone hits the ceiling and flutters to the ground. On my Goggs, the video whirls and shakes.

  “Blight,” I hiss.

  “Operating drones requires practice,” Ollie informs me.

  “What’s going on?” a voice calls from a door behind the counter.

  “We are being robbed by Nitrogen and Iron, two of the The Professor’s henchmen,” Ollie explains to the voice. “I am handling it quite well.”

  There’s a pause and the door behind the counter swings open. Sequoia crouches and points his laz pistol at the tall, thin man who emerges. I crouch with him, and the drone wobbles as it lifts back off the ground.

  “Hello, hello,” the man says, “or ta, as the kids say.” Like his son, the pharmacist unlatches his expensive Band, slides it down the counter, and then raises his hands. “No need for violence, I assure you. We are happy to assist with whatever pharmaceuticals you need.”

  “I am not happy to assist,” Ollie corrects his father. “I do not believe we should support villainous activity. I was just now attempting to stall them.”

  His father chuckles easil
y, as if he has a lot of practice ignoring his son’s oddness. I zoom in the cam and see that telltale glaze in the older man’s eyes. Just like the last time I visited, he’s clearly popped or vaped a few Mellows.

  “Fortunately, I’m in charge,” he says to Sequoia. “We actually have quite a bit of experience working with the more villainous element of the city.”

  “We have been robbed 26 times,” Ollie says. “I already told them that, though this would make 27.”

  I elbow Sequoia.

  “Uh, no funny business,” he stammers.

  “Of course not,” Ollie’s dad says. He possesses his son’s pale blue eyes, blond hair, and beaky nose. “I am happy to assist you with your needs. After all, injuries don’t pick sides.” He laughs at his little joke. “Last month, the Vengeful Knight broke in here demanding several medications for zir sister, Scarlet Paladin, who I believe was injured in a fight with Lobo. I was able to provide some excellent blood clotters and generic stem cell injects, though of course genomically personalized stem cells are always recommended.”

  I elbow Sequoia again.

  “Uh, clap it,” Sequoia says and then barks out our drug request.

  “Patch form,” I cough out.

  “Yes, as a patch,” Sequoia says. “Please.”

  “Oh, excellent choice,” Ollie’s father says. “Yes, those are quite a popular robbery target. Might I make a professional recommendation?”

  “What?” Sequoia asks.

  “Go with two patches,” the pharmacist suggests. “Application can be a bit tricky if you haven’t done it before.”

  “Sure, sure.” Sequoia wipes his forehead with his other hand.

  The pharmacist’s voice is calm and soothing as ever. “I just need to turn around here and pull them off the shelf.” He moves slowly, keeping his hands in full view. I suppose 26 robberies will teach you not to get twitchy.

  “I will box them up,” Ollie says and ducks behind the counter.

  “What’s he doing?” Sequoia asks, stepping toward the counter.

  “As I explained, I am procuring a box,” Ollie’s voice replies, slightly muffled. “Here is the box.” He pops back up holding a small paper carton.