Rogues

by Darius Brasher

  The UWant Building’s thin spire was behind me. Flashing airplane warning lights mounted near the top of the spire blinked off and on, supplementing the light of the full moon overheard. Isaac said I looked like a gargoyle when I stood up here like this. A shame he didn’t think I looked like a werewolf. With the moon hanging so low and bright in the night sky, the temptation to howl at it was almost irresistible.

  It was a few hours after midnight. I was wide awake despite the early hour. Ever since absorbing the Omega suit, I did not need much sleep. I would grab some shut-eye for a few hours after I finished doing this final sweep of the city with my telekinetic touch. I came to the city’s tallest building to do it because, from up here, there were fewer things in the way to obstruct my telekinetic touch. Thanks to my Omega suit augmented powers, I did not have to always physically patrol the city like I used to. As that old Yellow Pages’ commercial said, I often let my fingers do the walking. Maybe referencing outdated television commercials was manifesting as a secondary superpower.

  My telekinetic touch brushed past several minor crimes in progress. Car break-ins, vandalism, prostitution, illegal dumping, that sort of thing. In a sprawling big city like Astor City, crime was a twenty-four hour a day, seven days a week enterprise. But the crimes I sensed were nothing terribly serious the police could not handle. So, I kept my nose out of the criminal brush fires and let the cops deal with them. I would only intervene if something big happened or if someone was in physical danger.

  My hands-off approach to being a Hero was relatively new. In the immediate aftermath of Neha’s death, I had jumped on all wrongdoing, no matter how big or small. I’d done that partly to train myself in the use of my newly augmented powers to prepare for the world-threatening crisis supposedly on the horizon, and partly out of the desire to help and protect people. However, another reason I instantly transformed into a one-man anti-crime spree was to drown myself in work to keep from dwelling on Neha’s death. Mission most definitely not accomplished on that last part.

  I had soon realized, though, that the city and the surrounding area were coming to rely on me and my crimefighting efforts too much. It was a like a parent spoiling a child by giving him everything he wanted and doing everything for him. When the parent died, the child would be up a creek without a paddle because he was too reliant on the parent. I didn’t want the same thing to happen to Astor City if I bit the bullet. Being a Hero was a dangerous vocation. I wasn’t going to live forever. Frankly, I would not want to even if I could. After all the deaths I had seen and caused, life had lost most of its luster.

  I sensed a presence behind me. Isaac?

  No.

  I lowered my hands and turned around. Shadows cast flat geometric patterns all over the surface of the roof. I didn’t see anyone. Not with my eyes, at least.

  “I know you’re there, Ninja,” I said, looking into the dark gloom of two converging shadows. “You’re not fooling anybody. Why are you skulking in the shadows? You’re not Batman.”

  Ninja’s lithe black-garbed form melted noiselessly out of the darkness. If I had not known she was there, it would seem like she appeared out of thin air like a restless wraith. A scabbard sheathing a katana was slung across her chest; the hilt of the sword poked over her right shoulder. Ninja was a licensed Hero. She was the current chairwoman of the Sentinels. Though tradition and the Sentinels’ charter mandated there be seven Heroes on the group roster, the team had been decimated. Avatar had been murdered. Mechano had been destroyed by me. Seer was imprisoned at MetaHold. Millennium was nowhere to be found, presumably on the run from the authorities. Ninja, Tank, and Doppelganger were the only Sentinels who remained. They had tried to recruit replacement Heroes, but public opinion, once adoring, had turned against the team when I had exposed Mechano’s, Seer’s and Millennium’s crimes against me and others. Most Heroes had no interest in associating with the Sentinels’ once glorious but now tainted name.

  “Of course I’m not Batman,” Ninja said. Her voice held a whisper of an accent. Only her narrow Asiatic eyes were visible through the black cloth wrapped around her head. “Batman is not real. Plus, my boobs are bigger than his.”

  My eyes flicked to her slight chest. “Only marginally,” I said acerbically. The Sentinels’ hero worship I had grown up with had died with Neha.

  “We Japanese tend to not be a busty people.”

  “Sneaky though.”

  “That racist.”

  “First Pearl Harbor, now you creeping up behind me tonight. Facts aren’t racist. I stand by my statement.”

  “If I really had been creeping up on you, you never would have known I was here.” Ninja then said something in Japanese. It didn’t sound complimentary.

  “What did you just call me?” I demanded.

  “There’s no exact English equivalent. Roughly translated, I referred to you as a fish belly white barbarian.”

  “Now who’s the racist?”

  The cloth around her mouth twitched. She was smiling under her mask.

  “Takes one to know one,” she said.

  Despite myself, I almost smiled back at her. I twisted my mouth’s movement into a scowl instead. It was hard to not like Ninja, though I didn’t want to since she had the murderous stink of being a Sentinel on her. Unlike the other Sentinels, she did not take herself so seriously. And, unlike Seer, Millennium, and Mechano, she was not a murderous criminal camouflaged as a Hero. Truman had gone through the Trials with Ninja, and vouched for her. I had also investigated her on my own, and she had checked out okay.

  Though I did not know Ninja’s real name, her loose-fitting jet-black ninja garb could not hide her appearance from my telekinetic touch. She was slim but muscular, like a ballerina. She had to be at least middle-aged based on how long she had been on the Sentinels and her exploits over the years, but she didn’t look it. In addition to having the body of a woman decades her junior, her face was unlined, with a timeless quality many Japanese women were blessed with. Her Metahuman powers were twofold: she had a sixth sense for her opponents’ weaknesses, and she could surround the various weapons she carried with an energy field that allowed her to cut through literally anything.

  I said, “Let’s exchange schoolyard taunts some other time. I’m too busy protecting the city. Something you and the other Sentinels woefully failed to do.”

  “I hate to admit it, but I deserve that.”

  “Damn right you do.”

  “How many times do I have to apologize for what the bad apples on the Sentinels did to your family and friends?”

  “I’m not sure I can count that high.”

  The roof fell silent. A cloud crossed over the moon, darkening the roof. Ninja became nearly invisible in her black clothing. If I took my eyes off her, I doubted I would be able to find her again, at least not with my naked eye.

  Ninja glided soundlessly closer. I got the impression she could walk on eggshells without cracking them. “I understand we have you to thank for taking care of the bomb Amok terrorized the city with a few days ago. You saved the city.”

  “Again,” I corrected her. “I saved the city again.” I wasn’t bragging exactly, more like rubbing her nose into the fact that I was doing what the Sentinels were supposed to. Though apparently Ninja, Doppelganger, and Tank did not have anything to do with the other Sentinels’ nefarious activities, it was hard to be chummy with someone associated with the team behind the deaths of your father and the only woman you had ever loved.

  “You saved the city again,” she amended. “You’ve been quite the busy bee since you exposed the corruption in the Sentinels. I read that Meta-related crime in the city is down over eighty percent since you took up being a Hero full-time. Violent crime in general is down over thirty percent. What was it Mayor Stone called it the other day? Oh yeah: the Omega Effect.” The cloth around her face crinkled again. “I’m sure your action figure sales are through the roof.”

  My face got hot with embarrassment. The truth of the m
atter was that my action figure sales were through the roof. As someone raised to believe that modesty was a virtue, the fact I even had action figures embarrassed me. The public loved me, and anything my name was on sold like hotcakes. After Seer confessed to the crimes she, Millennium, and Mechano had committed, overnight I went from the despicable monster who had partially destroyed Sentinels Mansion to the daring Hero who had exposed the rot at the heart of the Sentinels. Public opinion was so fickle that watching it gave me whiplash.

  One good thing about suddenly being seen as the second coming of Avatar, Elvis, and Jesus combined was that State’s Attorney Willard Flushing, who had at first charged me with murder for destroying Mechano, dropped the charges with great fanfare. Flushing was an elected official, and he had seen which way the Omega wind was blowing. When he had announced the charges against me, he had used words like “monster,” “reckless,” and “no respect for due process or the rule of law” to describe me. When public opinion shifted after Seer’s full confession, Flushing then proclaimed that not only was my destruction of Mechano completely justified and entirely legal, but that I was a Hero cut from the same cloth as icons like Omega Man and Avatar. By the time Flushing finished gushing about me, if I hadn’t known better, I would have thought Flushing had been at Sentinels Mansion with me when the whole thing had gone down and he had fought valiantly at my side. Or at least held my cape for me. Truman said Flushing was positioning himself to run for governor, and that he already had his eye on the White House. God help us.

  Even after the criminal charges were dropped, the Heroes’ Guild had kept me on probation for several months until Ghost finished his probe into whether I should retain my Hero’s license. Ghost was the Guild’s chief investigator. During my probationary period, Ghost turned up unexpectedly from time to time to observe me in action, looking like a restless spirit in his off-white costume that covered him from head to toe. There were not even holes in his mask for his ears, eyes, and nose. I didn’t know how he didn’t suffocate to death. The grim reaper was probably too scared of him. A giant man who was seven feet tall if he was an inch, Ghost’s mere presence was terrifying. Every time he had shown up to observe me, it felt like a surprise rectal exam performed by a doctor with extra-large hands and no lube. I had been very careful to mind my Ps and Qs until Ghost cleared me and lifted my probation. It was a good thing Ghost did not discover I had cheated during the Trials and had illegally imprisoned Mad Dog in The Mountain, Avatar’s former lair. If Ghost merely observing me felt like a rectal exam, I shuddered to think what him punishing me might feel like.

  Another good thing about transforming overnight into an international superstar was that it enabled me to become a full-time crime-fighter. At the suggestion of Laura Leonard, the attorney who represented me when I was charged with Mechano’s murder, I had leveraged my newfound fame to make a few bucks. I had only gone along with it because having the money to quit my job at the Astor City Times would mean I could devote my efforts full-time to mastering my augmented powers so I would hopefully be ready for the major crisis Seer, Mechano, and Millennium had told me was coming.

  Thanks to Laura’s legal and business savvy and a boatload of licensing deals, I now had more money than I knew what to do with. Among other Omega brand merchandise that flooded the market, there were Omega comic books, games, posters, tee shirts, Halloween costumes, underwear, and, as Ninja had alluded, action figures. I even had a book coming out in a couple of months. Though my publisher marketed it as an autobiography, in reality the professional author Abby Ackers had ghostwritten the book. Abby had gotten the material for the book over the course of numerous interviews with me. Abby told a few whoppers in the book and made me seem a lot more heroic and fearless than I was, but mostly she stuck to the facts. I had been careful to not reveal to her anything that would compromise my secret identity, of course. The book’s title was Zero To Omega Hero: My unbelievable journey from a license to till to a license to kill. “It’ll sell books,” my publisher had assured me when I protested the idiotic title. I certainly did not have a license to kill, nor did I have a license to till when I lived on the farm in South Carolina. Not that there were such things anyway. I wished I had been savvy enough to negotiate the right to approve the book’s title. Publishers were trickier than Rogues.

  I had not jumped at every money-making offer, though. For example, I had been offered an absurd amount of money to star in a series of pornographic films. I turned that proposal down. There were limits to how far I would go in prostituting myself, like when asked to literally prostitute myself. Unfortunately, there were some unscrupulous people who capitalized on my fame without my permission. Some enterprising soul was selling an Omega brand dildo. “The next best thing to Omega actually being there,” read the ad for the sex toy. Isaac had gleefully pointed it out to me after discovering the toy for sale on the Hero Hags website. It was doing a brisk business with the cape chasers who frequented the site. I was not at all pleased about having my name associated with it. Laura told me that a certain amount of trademark infringement was to be expected, and that I should ignore it. Easy for her to say; she had not seen the damned thing. Out of morbid curiosity, I had. Once seen, it was impossible to ignore. The very long box it came in assured the consumer it was anatomically correct. It most definitely was not. I had heard of penis envy, but suffering from dildo envy had been a new low.

  Irritated, I tried to shove thoughts of action figures, pornos, and dildoes aside. Easier said than done once you’ve seen the monstrosity that was the Omega brand dildo.

  “I wonder if vibrators think dildoes are lazy,” I said.

  “What?” Ninja’s puzzlement at the non sequitur was obvious.

  “Never mind. A friend of mine seems to be rubbing off on me.”

  “If she’s handling dildoes and vibrators, you should get her to wash her hands first.”

  “He’s a he, not a she.” I shook my head at thoughts of Isaac. “Shouldn’t you be out looking for Millennium instead of stalking me and piggybacking on my stupid jokes?”

  “I’m an experienced Hero. And a woman. I’m a master multitasker. I can do all three.”

  I was curious despite my irritation. “Any new leads on Millennium?”

  Ninja shook her head. “The Sentinels and the investigative arm of the Heroes’ Guild are looking for him. So far, nothing. I’ll let you know if that changes. Right now, it’s as if he’s dropped off the face of the Earth. Since he’s capable of both time travel and dimension-hopping, maybe he has.”

  Isaac and I had looked for Millennium too from time to time since Neha’s death. We hadn’t been able to find him either. In addition to me wanting to bring him to justice, it made me uncomfortable knowing there was an Omega-level Meta out there somewhere with an ax to grind against me. I had chopped his hands off, after all. I had the feeling I had not seen the last of him.

  “If you aren’t here to tell me you’ve apprehended your teammate, to what do I owe this intrusion?” I asked. “Looking for Hero tips, maybe? Here’s one: Don’t associate yourself with a bunch of psychopathic killers.”

  “You know why I’m here.”

  I rolled my eyes. “This again? I admire your persistence if not your tastelessness. For the thousandth time, I’m not going to join the Sentinels. Ask some other schmuck whose father and friend weren’t killed by your team. Weren’t you listening to the tip I gave you? I’m going to follow my own advice. I wouldn’t join you guys if you were literally the last Heroes on Earth.”

  “I’m not here to ask you to join the Sentinels. We’ve disbanded.”

  I was struck dumb with surprise for a moment. The Sentinels were the oldest team of Heroes and admired worldwide, or at least they had been until my confrontation with them. Them breaking up was the Heroic equivalent of The Beatles breaking up.

  “What? Why?”

  “The public doesn’t trust us anymore. And I can hardly blame them. Without the public’s confidence, we can’t
be as effective as we should be. Plus, we haven’t been able to recruit a single new Hero to replenish our ranks. We had hoped to turn public opinion around, but we’re as reviled now as we were when you first exposed what Mechano and the others had been up to. Tank, Doppelganger and I took a vote yesterday. We agreed to go our separate ways.”

  “So if you aren’t here to again ask me to join the Sentinels, why are you here? To ask for my autograph? To have me run a ‘How to be a non-murderous Hero’ seminar for you and the other former Sentinels? Talk to my publicist Margot Barron.” The fact I even had a publicist still blew my mind.

  “Mechano didn’t have any family. Consequently, in his will, he left his vast fortune to the Sentinels. Since Tank, Doppelganger and I are the last members standing, all that money plus Mechano’s intellectual property rights and royalties are being divided equally among us. We’re now among the richest people in the world. Doppelganger is retiring. He says he’s going to buy an island somewhere and, I quote, ‘Get all the tropical tail money can buy.’” Tank doesn’t know what he’s going to do yet. As for me, I’m going to use my newfound fortune to start a new team. I’d like a chance to make up for the fact so much nefarious activity went on right under my nose without me being aware of it. I can still do a lot of good in the world.” Ninja paused. “And I want you to be the first member of the new team.”

  Ninja’s offer took me aback for a second. Then I laughed.

  “Though I get you didn’t have anything to do with my father’s or Smoke’s death, I’m not interested. Remember the Omega Effect? It’s not called the Omega and His Amazing Friends Effect. I’m doing just fine on my own. Besides, why do I get the feeling you’re only asking me to join to help scrub you of your Sentinels stench? ‘If Omega is willing to join forces with Ninja, then she must be okay,’ you’re hoping the public will think.” I shook my head. I left out the fact that I was afraid to get close with anyone. Dad, Hannah, Neha . . . people associated with me had a nasty habit of getting killed. I had even stopped fighting crime alongside of Isaac a few months after Neha’s death. I didn’t want a single other person hurt or killed because of me. “No thanks. I’m not going to be your public relations prop.”