“What?”
“You’re collecting trash on a Saturday?”
Any tension left him. “Oh, I just started the job on Wednesday, but I had to get the backlog settled before the weekend was up.”
Heather approached with the hose. “Oh, good, so this isn’t a regular thing? I didn’t want to have to worry about parking.”
Tony smiled brilliantly as he took the hose from her hands. “Naw. You’re slated for Thursdays on a regular basis.” His smile became a grin. “Of course if you want it on a different day, I know a guy who can arrange that.”
Heather squared her shoulders and fixed him with a glare. “Soliciting bribes is illegal.”
Tony went white. “What? No! I was… I was just trying to help. It doesn’t matter to me what day. I just… I…” He looked to Molly for help.
“I think Tony was just trying to be neighborly, Heather. I taught him. He’s a good kid.” Based on the look on his face, he didn’t like being called a kid, but he was too panicked to make an issue about it. Suddenly, Molly put together what was happening. Tony was trying to flirt with Heather. He was failing, but he was trying.
“Uh, is the water on?” Tony ducked with a panicked look on his face and began screwing the hose to the spigot which stuck outside the building.
Heather’s frown never quite went away. “Oh, right. Molly, there’s a valve over on that far wall. Would you?”
Molly was closer to the valve and didn’t mind. She took a few steps and began to twist the knob. She stopped when she heard the shouts.
When she dashed back to the door, she saw that Tony was covered in a dark wet stain which spread out over most of his chest. He had managed to fix whatever part of the hose was improperly threaded, and the water was coming out of the end of the nozzle of the hose in a slow trickle.
“Oh crap.”
Tony looked up in chagrin. “Yeah. That… that kinda sucked.” Then, to both women’s astonishment, he picked up the hose and turned to spray the dumpster.
“Tony,” Molly shouted. “Are you crazy?”
“You’re going to freeze to death.” Heather put in sternly.
Tony tried to laugh it off, but his teeth were already chattering. “It’ll only take a minute, and I’m already soaked.”
He was right. A simple spray had already cleaned off the dumpster, and the wall of the store next door was the work of only a few seconds. The eggshells collected in the rain gutter, and Tony turned to the women. “Close the door so I don’t get you wet. I’ll leave the hose behind and then use the lift in the truck to empty the dumpster.”
Heather smiled, though it barely reached her eyes. “Thank you,” she said with very little sincerity, and then she closed the door. She gave Molly an imploring look. “What the heck was that?”
“I think you have an admirer.”
Heather’s eyebrows shot up. “What?”
“Well, that was my take on it.” Molly kept most of the smile off her face. “He was at the Cat last night, and you did win the sexiest costume.”
Heather shook her head and headed to the counter. “Too young for me.”
“He’s four years younger than you,” Molly pointed out. “We have about the same difference in age, and I still hang out with you.”
“You’re not trying to ask me out.”
Molly arched an eyebrow. “I’m wearing away your resistance.” She stuck her tongue out at Heather and gave her a wink.
Heather started playing dirty. “If we’re talking about love lives…”
“No.” Molly let the word hang, and Heather shrugged.
“All right. So what do you want to talk about?”
The pause was awkward.
“Maybe I should get going,” Molly said.
“Sweetie, I’m not trying to chase you out. I’m sorry if I got short…”
“It’s all right.” Molly smiled gracefully. “I wasn’t planning on staying long. I’m guessing you didn’t remember anything else about The Aerialist?”
Heather blushed, and Molly got the general idea of what her thoughts about the man had been the night before. “Not really.”
“Even if I buy one of those shawls?”
Heather smiled. “Even then. And they’re cloaks.”
“Don’t ruin your sale. Cloak is too close to cape, and I don’t wear capes anymore.”
“You really want one?”
Molly picked the russet brown one she’d wanted since Heather had gotten them in. “I spent less than I planned to at the Bagboy.”
Her package in hand, Molly left and headed back to her car. She passed through the town square in time to hear someone speaking at the podium but paid him little mind.
“Now, ladies and gentlemen, the debate won’t be until six thirty tonight, but our new candidate for Senate wants to give everybody a chance to meet him as soon as possible.”
Molly had already made it to the edge of the town square before she whirled around, eyes widened. She couldn’t have just heard those last words.
“Let’s give a warm welcome to District Attorney Matthew Nelson!”
Chapter Four
He was a good looking man. There was no doubt about that. A close-up of his face was broadcast on large screens on either side of the podium. His hair was a deep copper color, matched by a bronze tan that had no business on anyone in November. He waved to the crowd with a confident smile made of teeth which seemed to sparkle.
If Molly didn’t know from some reliable sources that this man was a crook, a liar, and a murderer, she might have been impressed.
“Thank you. Thank you.” His voice was a clear tenor. “It was an honor when the Governor selected me to stand in the place of a man who has given so much to this state. And now that honor has become a painful duty for me. I received a text a few moments ago from Joe Horton’s family. Joe passed away a few hours ago. I hope everyone will join me in a moment of silence.”
His tone was measured and solemn. Molly wasn’t buying it. Another cape, Damselfly, had told Molly how corrupt this man was. Matthew Nelson was responsible for the death of the girl’s parents. In a flash of insight, Molly was now certain that Joe Horton’s car accident had not been accidental.
“Please let me say from the get-go, I’m not here to try to replace Joe,” Nelson continued. “I know he was the representative for this district for a dozen years, and I know a lot of the people here in Capetown had a personal relationship with him. That’s why I’ve come here today. In the city, they know me. They know who I am and what I can do for this state. But I’m not just here to represent one part of the state. I’m here to stand up for all of us. All of us, working together, can be an example for the whole country, and we can be a legacy that Joe Horton would have been proud to call his.”
The cheers from the people in the stands were genuine. They sounded like people who wanted to get behind someone, and Matthew Nelson was making a good first impression.
“But like I say, they may know me in the city, but you folks don’t. You have no reason to. You might be saying to yourself ‘Hey, who is this guy who just came in off the train? What makes him think he can represent the people of this state?’ I get that. I do.” He spread his arms to indicate their location. “When it comes to name recognition, as far as this part of the state is concerned, I may as well not have a name at all. Now, I’m not a vain man by nature, but that’s certainly no way to win an election.”
Molly realized she had been walking closer to the stage and the podium. It was a good thing that the traffic was closed on the street, as she had no conscious memory of crossing it. She was now only about a hundred yards from Matthew Nelson, and the hand holding her bag from Heather’s shop was shaking. She had such a tight grip on the handle of the bag that it took a conscious act of will to force her fingers to relax.
“My opponent has been gracious enough to agree to a debate later on tonight. That shows a kind of class you don’t see in politics all that often. I’m hoping this
debate will give you a chance to fairly decide which of the two of us you want to represent our state, but in the meantime, let me introduce myself to you.”
She wondered if Tom Garman, the other candidate had, in fact, agreed to the debate or had been somehow coerced into it. It might be a sign of paranoia, assigning every wicked possibility to Matthew Nelson’s machinations. At the same time, somewhere deep inside, she knew she was right in her suspicions.
How could this be happening? She had devoted years of her life to protecting people from men like this, and while she had mostly retired from that fight, others she knew should have brought this man down long before this. This murderer stood on the cusp of gaining tremendous power. How could that happen in a place where men like Major Maximum and The Grim Detective were still saving the day on a regular basis?
Her instincts screamed at her to take action. She could rush the stage. There was security there, but nothing she couldn’t literally walk right through. If she were willing to compromise her secret identity, she could pass through his cordon of police officers and… and what? For a moment, she indulged in fantasies she knew she could make come true. She could reach through his neck, grab the hair on the back of his head, and shake him until he had whiplash. While her very being cringed away from the thought, she also knew she could come up with an even more permanent solution.
She forced herself to unclench her fists again. Sadly, none of the options in front of her were worth considering. Killing him wasn’t in her nature, and anything less would serve no purpose. Breaking his nose would not end his candidacy. She could take over the microphone, announce his corruption before the world, but to what end? She had no proof, only hearsay.
Even if she could get people to take her allegations seriously, the next logical question was where she had heard this information. It would probably mean she had to reveal the identity of the person who told her. Not only was Damselfly a friend, she was still a child, only about seventeen. Worse, Matthew Nelson had cottoned onto her secret identity and was using it to manipulate and blackmail the girl.
All this was on top of the fact that Molly could do nothing without revealing her powers and her secret identity. That would cost her the low, low price of just about everything.
When Molly had retired from wearing the cape, she had signed up for a Federal program called the Vigilante Amnesty Act. She had received a lump sum payment which she used to purchase a house and pay for college courses and get her teaching certificate. She had also been given blanket immunity to criminal prosecution or civil liability for anything she had done as Etherya.
Molly’s end of the deal had been to make Etherya cease to be. She could not use her powers to fight crime nor assist another cape who did so. Wearing, or even owning her old uniform was out – although she had one costume remaining in a bank vault that her handlers didn’t know about.
Molly had been allowed to keep her identity a secret. It wasn’t mandatory that she did so. The Dark Eagle had gone public after securing his legal protections. After publishing a tell-all, he had earned an insane amount of money, and retired into obscurity. It had only lasted a few months before news reports of drunken benders, high priced prostitution, and a painfully messy divorce had begun to surface.
Most of the capes who had signed up for the VAA, however, had stayed anonymous. It probably had something to do with a serial killer known as the Gray Judge who had killed a score of capes before disappearing. His appearance on the scene had made the concept of a public identity less than appealing. Molly was the only person who’d survived the Gray Judge’s attack.
She shook her head slightly and decided to draw her attention back to Nelson’s speech.
“… and I believe in making use of our resources. There’s an amazing amount of untapped power that we simply aren’t using to its full extent. I’m not talking about oil, natural gas, or anything that powers your refrigerators. Our cities are full of men and women who can perform what would, in a less confusing world, be considered miracles. I read this morning that Capetown has recently gained its own super-powered protector.”
Molly felt a chill of foreboding. It could not be good that this man was talking about the capes.
“Every day, I am honored to know these people want to give so much of themselves to our country. I’m the last one who wants to bring that to an end, but the fact remains that we can do a better job of working with our superhuman population.”
Nelson leaned into the podium just a little. “Last year, in this state alone, we had over seventy million dollars in property damage related to meta-human and vigilante activity. Don’t get me wrong, it’s easy to Monday morning quarterback and say ‘Well, you shouldn’t have thrown that’ or ‘You didn’t need to punch him that hard.’ I’m not here suggesting we have someone standing over a cape’s shoulders telling him how to do his job. What I’m suggesting is that we help them learn to do better before they even step out onto the streets of our cities. If I am elected, the first bill I will present to Congress will be for a program – a completely voluntary program – where those with special abilities can come to stations around the country to receive training to help them do their work. If they can make even a five percent savings in the amount of property damage, this program will have paid for itself with money left over.”
Molly shot a glance at the crowd. She had not been a teacher for several years without learning to identify the body language of people who were interested in the topic. They had hardly been completely sold on the topic, but so far, they hadn’t heard anything they disagreed with.
Thinking back to her days as a cape, Molly wasn’t even sure that she would have had a problem with such a program. Molly had been trained by the Defender Squad, the best of the best, but she’d fallen in with them more or less by accident.
“Moreover,” continued Nelson “these stations will help coordinate communication. Now, I love the fact that the President or any governor can call on the Defender Squad for help, but think how much better things could be if every city had a way to contact their local defenders for help. I don’t know about you, but I’m a little frightened by the number of times when a superhero has mentioned in news reports that he or she came to the scene of a tragedy because they happened to see something when they looked out a window.”
Molly had been looking for his ulterior motive and had just latched onto it. There were a limited number of ways that kind of coordination could take place. All of them presented an opportunity for someone to use that information to discover the identity of the capes who signed up for the program. Perhaps they would go so far as to make releasing your identity – on a need to know basis only, of course – a prerequisite for signing up for the program.
With information about the identities of the capes, someone in the know could put pressure on their loved ones, leak their identities to super-villains, or, if a less subtle hand was called for, simply blow up their houses as they slept. Nelson would be able to eliminate or neutralize the superheroes, which was tip-top for an arch criminal’s to-do list.
Nelson flashed another smile at the cameras. “Some of you might be wondering if I might be too optimistic. I mean, let’s face it, every costumed crime fighter is ultimately breaking the law, so why would these people suddenly rush over to sign up for a government program? That’s a fair point, but I believe that it comes down to a matter of trust. We need to trust that these men and women really want to help ordinary citizens, and we need to earn their trust in our system. To that end, I would like to present a young woman who has agreed to help me establish this trust. When you meet her, I think you’ll see why she’s uniquely qualified to help with this effort.”
In retrospect, Molly shouldn’t have been that surprised. Her logical mind might already have guessed who would be stepping, or rather flying, out from the small shelter where Nelson had come from before stepping on the podium. She just couldn’t believe that fate could be so baldly unfair.
�
�Come on out, Damselfly.”
The young woman Molly knew as Beth Baxter flew out on her insectoid wings. Her uniform, a red so deep it was almost black, was marred by a bright white button on the right side of her chest. Molly could read the writing on the monitor over the podium, “Vote Horton for Matthew Nelson.”
Molly shuddered. If Beth was disgusted with the concept of shilling for the man who’d killed her parents, it wasn’t apparent by the look on her face. The girl had a brilliant smile behind her domino mask. Molly hadn’t noticed before, but Beth was a positively beautiful young woman. She’d probably have a line of potential prom dates stretched around the block.
Nelson took a step away from the podium to let Damselfly step up to the microphone. The girl wasn’t much taller than Molly, and on top of that, part of her powers included the ability to reduce her own size. Matthew Nelson was moderately tall, so it took a few awkward moments to adjust the microphone for the girl.
“Thank you,” said Damselfly as she stood next to the microphone. “I first met Matthew Nelson after a great tragedy in my personal life. It’s my hope that all of you can come to know him the same way I have.”
Molly cocked her head. There was more than one way to take those words if someone knew the whole story.
“I speak for a lot of other capes when I say we would love to be able to better coordinate with those in need, and any assistance we could have in saving lives and property would be welcome. It’s been my honor and pleasure to work with some shining examples of the human race… and a few other species.”
The crowd chuckled, though there was a darker overtone to it. The fact that some capes were robots, aliens, or other non-humans wasn’t something most people wanted to think of.
“This election day, you’ll be choosing someone to potentially have the responsibility of developing and leading this initiative. Choosing the right person for that task is so vitally important. I truly hope you’ll join me in making the right choice this election.”
Ex-Cape | Book 2 | Ex-Cape From A Small Town Page 5