by S. J. Delos
His friends took immediate advantage of the change in the situation. Two of them pulled Mark to his feet and headed away from the warehouse as fast as they could manage. A third boy followed after them, pointing in the direction of the more civilized part of town.
The redhead walked over to me and stood there looking down at me. I gave him a half-glance before looking at the people I’d shared a meal with only hours before. All of them had the same fearful expression on their faces. It was a sharp contrast from the pleased amazement they’d shown when I crushed the pipe. I guess it’s one thing to imagine someone going all Hulk on your behalf and another when it actually happens. Witnessing some guy nearly get ripped apart takes the magic out of the show.
“Thank you,” the boy said softly, “for not hurting him.”
I refused to look at him, too afraid of the fury rising back up. “He’s a punk and a rapist.”
“It’s not like that. Mark just got a little carried away–”
“I don’t care.” I said, clenching my jaw tightly. I risked turning my eyes on him. “There is no excuse you can use that will make what he’s done okay. The best thing you can do, if you’re really his friend, is make sure he never does it again.” I grabbed the slab behind me and pulled myself to my feet, leaving a hand-shaped dent in the metal. “If not …” I pointed at the car.
The boy nodded and walked past me after his friends. “It won’t.” I turned to watch him leave, waiting until he vanished in the darkness before turning back to the group. They were huddled around Derek, whispering and occasionally glancing in my direction. I sighed and walked past them back into the warehouse.
I headed towards my stuff and rolled up my blankets, shoving them into the backpack. I added the jacket I’d been using for a pillow and the Spidey clock.
“Leaving?” Derek said as he came up behind me.
“I don’t want to be here when the EAPF show up. Besides, I figured I’d save you the trouble of throwing me out.”
“No one’s throwing you out, Karen. And I think you don’t need to worry about the police. Not yet. If those punks have the slightest bit of sense, they’ll sober up before reporting this.”
I looked up at him and then across the room to where the others sat watching me. “You’re telling me that they don’t want me to go? After I nearly killed a boy in front of them.”
“You didn’t, though. That’s what they saw. They saw an angry, powerful young woman restrain herself from badly harming someone who more than deserved it.”
“I don’t understand.”
“If you didn’t kill some punk who’s hurt women the way you’ve been hurt, why would they think that you would hurt them?”
“Who are you? I mean, I’ve been feeling like I know you from somewhere. Then you said something I hadn’t heard in a long time. How did you know telling me about defining the moment would get my attention?”
Derek frowned and sat down next to me. “He said that to you. Several times. Didn’t he?”
“Yes. It was like a philosophy he tried driving into my head.” I sighed. “You worked for Martin?”
He nodded. “Yes. Doctor Maniac and I went way back. Almost ten years.”
“So you knew who I was earlier. When I was asking to stay?”
“Yes.”
“Then why the show of thinking it over?”
He gestured at the others. “It wasn’t a show, Karen. These people are my responsibility and I had to make sure that you were safe.” Derek tapped his temple. “I’m Enhanced Mental. I can look at someone and tell if they’re being honest or not. Helps to figure out potential threats.”
I nodded. “Martin told me once that he had someone who vetted people. It was you, wasn’t it? How come I never actually met you?”
“Martin didn’t keep many secrets from you, Karen. I was one of the few.”
“Does he know you’re here?” I looked around the warehouse. “Living on the street, practically.”
“I’m sure he does. The man is meticulous about keeping tabs on people. Of course, I haven’t actually seen him in about a year.” He leaned back, resting against a crate. “When you got locked up in the Max, it really messed him up. Then he heard you gave them information to get parole and he totally lost it.” He chuckled softly. “While he was dealing with that, I decided to take off.”
“Oh.” I looked at the fire. The flames were barely dancing above the glowing coals. “I didn’t think about how he’d take it. I wasn’t trying to hurt him. I just needed some … concessions to go with my parole and information on his operation is the price they charged.”
“I can understand that, girl. I think the Doc did too. Eventually. What I don’t get is how you ended up with him in the first place. You never seemed like that type of girl.”
I could have told Derek that he didn’t have the slightest idea what type of girl I was. But then again, if he’d been around the entire time I was with Martin, he probably did have an idea. I shrugged, not taking my eyes off the fire. “I don’t know. I guess I was young and reckless and Martin seemed to care. Mix all that together with first love and stupid choices are usually the result.”
He laughed softly and I turned to stare at him. After what I’d shown my temper of being capable of, he still had the guts to mock me and my feelings. Then I realized that there wasn’t any malice in the sound. Just … amusement. He noticed my expression and nodded. “Sounds like every blues song ever written. Only thing that would make it more cliché is if you went back to him.”
I shook my head. “To Martin? No, I’m positive that that’s not going to happen. There’s been … too much.”
Derek smiled and reached out to pat me softly on the shoulder. “Well, I hope he has the decency to leave you alone, then.”
I canted my head to the side, looking at him. “What about you? You seem like a decent, caring person. I followed him because I was in love. What would make someone like you purposefully side with Doctor Maniac?”
Derek sighed. “I owed him.”
“For what?”
“I used to be married. Years ago. My wife Activated a few years after our wedding.”
“You were both Enhanced?”
“No. She was a Slip.”
I looked away, unable to respond.
When someone went through Activation, several sequences of their genetic makeup morphed into a configuration that could absorb the cosmic energy constantly bombarding the Earth and use it to fuel the new Enhancements. For most, that same alteration to their DNA granted them an immunity to their abilities. Fire generators, for example, gained a resistance to the effects of flames.
However, about .01% had a seriously negative reaction to the sudden influx of energy and that protection against themselves didn’t come with the rest of the package. In which case, the fire manipulator from the previous example? Well, they better invest in some asbestos underwear and a shitload of aloe, because every time they conjured a flame, they’re were going to get burned.
These poor people were known as “Slips”. It’s short for “slip-up” and isn’t the most politically correct term. Even if it was pretty accurate.
I finally dared to ask. “What was her power?”
“Entropy Acceleration.”
“Oh god.” I put my hand over my mouth. Anytime someone had the ability to control the way things—or people—aged, it never ended well.
Derek nodded. “Happened while she was at work. Her boss was berating her for not catching his mistake and she thought she was going to get fired. He put his hand on her shoulder and … poof. Poor guy went from being an early thirties up-and-coming hotshot to a senile, octogenarian in the span of a half hour.”
“I guess the EAPF showed up?”
“Yeah. But there were witnesses, so they didn’t press charges. They were going to detain her, but something got messed up in the paperwork and they let her go. It was a few weeks later that I noticed her hair was going gray.”
“Her
Slip Effect,” I said. “Let me guess, Martin showed up and offered to help?”
“Yes. The doctors, the EAPF, no one was able to help Susanna. Except Martin.”
I nodded. If there was anyone on the planet that understood Enhanced physiology better than Doctor Maniac, I’d never heard of them. “He fix her?”
“Yeah. He helped her get some control over her Enhancement and even managed to roll back some of the years she’d put on herself.”
“All out of the goodness of his heart.” I sneered. Martin never gave away his services.
“He didn’t ask for anything in return. Not at the time.” He gave a little shrug. “After she passed, he came to the funeral, offered his condolences, and asked me for a little favor.”
“That’s how he operates, Derek. We both know that.” Martin had an uncanny knack for finding an Enhanced in need. The ones with particular abilities would eventually be recruited into the organization.
“Now. I’ve seen him do it enough after I joined that I understand his methods.” His dark brown eyes fixed on me. “But he gave me a few more good years with my wife, so I decided to help.”
“But why stay? He did something for you and you did him something in return. Why stay with someone you knew was so … evil?” I hated the cliché taste of the word. When there were people running around the planet with abilities straight out of comic books, evil took on a whole new meaning.
“To preserve the peace.” I must have made a face because he continued to explain. “There were plenty of people who wanted to join Martin’s group. Many of them had aspirations of toppling him and taking control. We both know that wouldn’t have worked, but the attempted coup could have been bad for the general populace.”
I snapped my fingers. “So you weeded out the ones who had devious intentions against him?”
“Exactly. Then he brought you into the fold. Depressed, lost, and broken. I could see the good in your heart, buried under the anger and hate. So I told him that he couldn’t trust you.” He patted me on the leg. “Karen, I tried to get him to leave you be.”
“You did?”
He nodded. “After I was through with my spiel, Marin put his arm around my shoulders and told me that there was something special in you. Something he’d been looking for a long time. And if I ever lied to him again, I would be months in dying.”
“Holy shit,” I breathed.
“So I stayed in the shadows and did my best to keep you from going so far you couldn’t come back. Then the EAPF had you and before Martin could start to work out a plan to rescue you, you’d been shipped off to the Max.”
I didn’t say anything. It wouldn’t do any good to tell him that my expedient transfer to the most secure prison on the planet had been my own doing. Less chance of Martin finding out why that way. I trusted Derek. I just didn’t trust him.
So,” he said as he stood up and looked down at me. “What are you going to do? Going to resurrect Crushette and do your own thing?”
I shook my head. That last thing I think I could ever do would be to put on that costume again. Crushette had been taken away in dura-steel shackles. As far as I was concerned, once she’d gone into the Max, she’d never seen the light of day again. “No. No more Crushette.”
“What then?”
I sighed and looked back to the fire. “Maybe I’ll give the other side of the street a try.”
“Be a hero?”
“Yeah. You know, if I can keep from thrashing Norms. I kind of ran into Mister Manpower this afternoon and helped him take down Nite-Star and his group.”
“The Brickwall Gang?”
“Yeah. It’s him, Behemoth, and the Electro-Twins.”
“Nite’s always hated you, you know that?”
I laughed. “He made it perfectly clear while he was bashing me around like a tennis ball. But since I knocked him on his ass and handed him to a hero, I’m sure his dislike has moved to a whole new level. Anyways, Manpower said that there was an opening on the Good Guys. He insisted that I come down for an interview.”
Derek was silent for a few moments. When I turned to look up at him, he was staring with a sly little smile on his face. “I think you should do it.”
I scoffed. “You’re joking. Did you miss the point where I nearly killed a kid tonight? Do you see me trying to pull off being a superhero?”
“Yes,” he said as he nodded, “I actually do. Sure, you have anger issues, but that can be handled. Especially in a positive group environment.” He stared directly into my eyes. “Let me ask you this. What’s stopping you from trying?”
I thought about it for a second before shrugging. “Not a damn thing, I guess.”
“There you go.”
CHAPTER 4: INTO THE HEROES’ DEN
The next day, a mere thirty hours after being tossed out onto the street, I stood in front of the main entrance of the Paulus Building wondering what the hell I was thinking.
The structure that served as the headquarters of the Good Guys was located in the middle of downtown Charlotte, in the heart of the business district, and looked like any of the other gleaming glass towers around it. The large window panels adorning the sides reflected the afternoon sunlight with a faint greenish-grey hue that hinted their being Omni-Plex rather than ordinary glass. Which, come to think of it, made sense considering who resided inside.
The Paulus Building was owned by Richard Paulus, one of the richest men on the East Coast. He was a billionaire trust fund kid who’d been rather successful picking the right companies to acquire and invest in. He was wealthy, easy on the eyes, and–according to rumors–very charming. He was also leader of the Good Guys, Captain Awesome. The name sounded like something a douche might call himself. I seriously hoped he wasn’t a douche.
Concessions have to be made when it comes to picking a code name. Twenty years ago, when Enhanced individuals started popping out of the woodwork, it seemed like every city sported a ‘Superman’ or a ‘Hulk’. Understandably enough, comic book companies got a little miffed. After all, when someone is causing damage and injury while using your copyrighted character’s moniker, it can tend to piss you off.
So the lawyers and pundits lobbied Congress like there was nothing more important under the sun than their clients’ intellectual property. It took less than a week for them to come up with the Enhanced Naming Convention Act. Basically, the ENCA said that unless officially sanctioned by the owners of said character, code-naming yourself after an individual already present in hero media won you an automatic five years’ stay at the Max.
An addendum, added a few months later, created the ENCA database. Every new hero and villain had their name added to the roster and unless someone died or retired, that name was off-limits to anyone else. I honestly felt sorry for the next person to decide that they wanted to be ‘Crushette’.
As I hovered in front of the double doors–the Double G symbol etched into each–the citizens of the city, on their way back from lunch or to a meeting, hurried past. Even though several of them mumbled about me standing in the middle of the sidewalk, none of them really gave me a second look. They had no clue that Crushette was back and standing there as indecisively as a preschooler.
I fidgeted while the debate about whether or not I was actually going to do this raged in my head. Had Mister Manpower’s offer been genuine? What if this was some sort of trap? No, I’d been out of play for a couple of years and was probably no longer on any hero’s radar. Plus, I’d done a pretty good job of keeping a low profile since I got out of the Max.
Except for that battle with Nite-Star. Oh, and destruction of personal property and communicating an Enhanced threat. Okay, so my profile wasn’t being kept as low as I’d hoped.
Still, I sighed and stared into the mirror-like surface of the doors at the girl who was either about to make the most logical decision in her life. Or the stupidest.
I reached for the handle and paused. Maybe I should have worn something other than jeans and a t-shirt
. Even though my current wardrobe was less than extensive, the uber casual nature of my clothing didn’t come anywhere close to screaming ‘superhero’. Well, at least my hair was being cooperative today. Untamed bed-head was the last thing my slacker attire needed as a companion.
I pulled open one of the omni-plex doors, stepped into the lobby, and froze.
Apparently the opening had drawn a great deal of interest. Inside was a hero smorgasbord.
The lobby was packed with hopeful potentials, all eagerly awaiting their opportunity to prove they had what it took to be a member of the Good Guys. Some of them I recognized. Many, I didn’t. There were only a dozen or so chairs in the room, all fully occupied. As was the narrow padded bench running along one wall. Behind a tall wood and metal desk near the elevators, a six-armed receptionist answered multiple phone lines like a whirlwind.
I kept my head down and my face mostly hidden by my hair as I headed across the polished tile floor to the receptionist’s desk. When I cleared my throat, the multi-limbed brunette put down both of the phones she was holding and peered at me over the top of her 60’s retro cat’s-eye glasses. “Can I help you?” Her tone practically screamed that it wasn’t cool to just walk up to the counter like that and that helping me was not of the highest priority.
I glanced up and put on what I hoped was my friendliest, most disarming smile. “I’m Karen Hashimoto.”
She continued to stare at me so I leaned over and tried to see if my name was on some sort of list. She covered the appointment book in front of her with three hands and arched a brow. “Is there something you need, Miss Hashimoto?”
The silence that sprung to life behind me told me I didn’t need to turn around to feel everyone’s eyes on me. After all, I was the only one not sitting and being patient for their turn and that obviously warranted attention. Unwanted attention.