by Various
I rolled my head to the side, wincing at the stiffness in my neck.
Some off-the-books surgeon with a deep Soviet accent, an associate of Mihailo’s, had removed the TCA-implanted chip.
”Zis vill be pinless, okie-doke?”
Riiight.
I glanced at my laptop’s live feed outside of Juggernuke's Washington, D.C., home. I'd paid to have his gated community's nanny-state cameras hacked.
Meanhile, Miha—er, Captain Bullet, sat on the leather couch, channel surfing an impressive 80-inch 4k UHD widescreen. He was in full costume, still, with a big yellow ribbon mask around his head like a Ninja Turtle. I was getting a little worried about him, given I wasn't sure he'd taken his costume off in the past two days. Still, both of us were enjoying some badly needed time off before we started thinking of our next heist.
“Is it time yet?” Captain Bullet asked.
“Not quite,” I said, watching. “Still a couple of minutes.”
“And you're sure this is going to work?”
“Nothing is certain in life, which is why it's interesting.” I reached over to take a drink of my margarita as the masseuse packed her lotions and oils. “Thank you, my dear. That was awesome.”
“If there is nothing else, Mister…Oilman?”
“Oh, heh. No. Thank you.”
“Tomorrow? 10 a.m.?”
“Better make it 11…I plan to sleep in.”
“Of course.”
As she excused herself from the suite, I sat on the couch in just a towel, with my laptop in one hand and margarita in the other.
Captain Bullet looked over at me. “I'm sorry you had to abandon everything back home,” he said, surprising me. “Especially your pretty wife, eh?”
“I understand she’s refusing witness protection and, additionally, intends to sue the government.”
“Probably already has a book deal lined up. I was the Freelancer's Sex Slave.” Captain Bullet laughed at his own joke.
“Right.”
I had to admit I was missing my wife. Lisa may have been a sociopathic bleach-blonde debutante who only cared about the money I'd brought in, but that was why I'd fallen in love with her. There were plenty of women whose values were similar, yet none would ever be able to replace her.
Maybe I should look to date a lawyer next.
Or an aspiring politician.
Ooh, a Wall Street executive.
Eh, who was I kidding? I'll likely be dating supervillains from now on.
“You know, Argyle will come after you once he sorts everything out,” Mihailo said. “I think maybe you should have killed him.”
I smiled. “No, this is much better.”
It was time. My laptop feed showed Juggernuke driving up to his house in his second car. I set the empty margarita glass on the side table, grabbed the burner phone laying there, and dialed.
I watched him pick up.
“Hey, Juggers.”
“You little shit. We're going to find you. You should have taken our deal.”
“Oh, like you weren't going to toss me behind bars as soon as you were done with me. I understand it's a media circus around Motor Hills these days. The Night's King getting credit for defeating interdimensional invaders and all that, even if they are all cartoons.”
“I'm hanging up now.”
“Before you do, you might want to check your trunk.”
The expression on his face was hilarious. Going over to his other vehicle, Juggernuke opened the trunk before reeling back in disgust. The tattooed body of the late Thrax, minus most of his bald head, was probably pretty ripe by now. That was something I'd arranged to dispose of myself. In the distance, sirens were heard, as I may have dropped a tip about it.
Juggernuke glared at his phone before saying. “Do you really think this is going to hurt me? I'm the fucking authorities! This is nothing, you little shit!”
“Probably,” I said. “But given Thompson knows you're responsible for trying to kill him, he knows exactly who to send his friends in Congress after in the resulting investigation. Given I've told all of the various supervillains in Motor Hills his secret identity, and that you're responsible for any problems they ran into during our heist, I think you're both going to have your hands full dealing with the resulting fallout, probably for the rest of your lives. Certainly, I doubt either of you will be able to operate freely anymore given the increased scrutiny. You can't go half-superhero.”
“Who the hell do you think you are?!”
“I'm Keyser Soze, Lex Luthor, and King Kong. I’m the Freelancer.” I hung up on him and tossed the phone to Captain Bullet. He caught it. “Throw that out the window for me, would you? I think we should rob some casinos today. What do you say?”
Bullet grinned.
It was time to go all in.
We Could Be Heroes
Eloise J. Knapp
Now…
Vlad reached out to give the cashier money for his candy bar. A chipped name tag pinned to the cashier’s shirt read “Dimitri.” When Vlad’s skin made contact with the old man’s hand, he saw what Dimitri had for dinner. He saw his thoughts during his smoke break, the agony he was in over the recent loss of his wife, how he replayed seeing her on her deathbed six times before his break came to an end.
The memories and sensations were fleeting. Vlad saw as much as he could in the split seconds his fingers brushed Dimitri’s outstretched palm. He was used to this now. His face didn’t betray what he’d just seen, though his own heart felt the phantom burden of the old man’s feelings as if they were his own.
Dimitri blinked slowly. “Did you say something?”
“No, why?” Vlad asked, curious. People normally didn’t feel his presence inside their minds. Over the years he’d only encountered one or two.
Dimitri shook his head, made Vlad’s change, and shoved the candy bar towards him. “Have a good night.”
Vlad took the treat and left the shop. By the time he crossed the street and resumed his position outside the nightclub, he’d mostly forgotten the old man’s memories. When he was a boy, he clung to all kinds of memories, from mundane thoughts to life changing events. Especially the good ones. But keeping them clouded his mind.
As much as he wanted to keep some of them, it was best to free them. It was too easy to stay in the ghost word they offered, and they didn’t belong to him anyway. If it were up to him, he’d never use his powers. It would mean no physical contact with another human being, but it also meant he wouldn’t be violating their deepest, darkest thoughts.
His attention drifted to the front of the nightclub. Bass thumped inside the windowless, squat building. A sign hung behind the bouncer on the club’s metal door, ‘No chimerics!’, as if there was a need for it. As if a chimeric in Moscow, or anywhere in Russia, would feel comfortable enough to even walk the streets. He was willing to bet the only chimeric with enough guts to show his face was Pecos, the hero from Texas in America. Now there was a superhero. He was tougher than any chimeric Vlad had heard of. He used a steel cable lasso like a cowboy. Many Russians fancied the idea of the American Old West and cowboy culture. Vlad was one of them.
If he had any choice in the matter, he’d be thousands of miles away from Russia. Like every other night they spent in Moscow, he did not want to be there. He didn’t want to be home, either, but at least here he had some feeling of freedom. Here Cheslav wasn’t breathing down his neck, beating him senseless because he was unhappy with what they’d brought home.
The club’s neon green sign cast an odd glow on the snow drifting from the sky, heaps of it pushed aside on the sidewalk and road. Vlad stared at it like a moth to light while he gnawed on the candy bar. Lucy was late. Typically, when they hit a club, she tried to get a mark in the first hour or two. It was nearing four. Vlad stood no chance of getting into the club—not with his over-sized, beat-up parka and ripped jeans—and had to wait for her.
Music swelle
d and became clear as a group stumbled out of the building. They looked about his own age, eighteen, perhaps students. Curious, Vlad watched them. There were two girls and three guys. The guys helped both girls, obviously drunk from their sluggish, uncoordinated movements, with their jackets. They laughed and nudged each other, joking, then headed in the direction of the university. Vlad wondered what it would be like to go to school, to make friends, to…
Lucy exited the club after the group, hanging off the arm of the mark. The mark wore a striped suit, the collar loose, tie nowhere in sight. Even from where Vlad stood, he saw the slack expression of drunkenness on the man’s face. His hand was set firmly on Lucy’s hip, sausage-like fingers pressing into her flesh.
Vlad swallowed the last of his candy bar, shoved the wrapper in his pocket, and trailed the two. Lucy’s giggle was clear and high pitched. It was fake. She used it on marks who were too stupid to see through it. She teetered a bit, her high heels slipping on the icy sidewalk. She must have been freezing in her small, sparkling dress.
They stopped at the entrance of an alley where the man pushed Lucy against a wall and buried his face in her exposed cleavage. Lucy turned her head and gave Vlad a nod. It meant they would not be returning to the man’s apartment. Their dupe was too aroused and obviously wasn’t much for discretion. They had to act now. Vlad returned the gesture. After a moment, Lucy pulled the man’s head up and led him in to the alley. The man followed eagerly and disappeared from Vlad’s sight.
They’d gotten him this far. Even if the mark spotted Vlad, it wouldn’t matter. Once a mark was out of public view, he was theirs. Vlad walked to the alley, once he was sure no one was watching, and darted in.
“Here!” Lucy called. Her British accent clung to the edges of her Russian when she spoke. “Quick. I’m tired.”
The man sat in the snow between two dumpsters, mostly obscured from the main road. With a disgusted expression, Lucy gripped the man’s limp wrist in her hand, keeping it as far away from her body as she could. She was tall in her shoes and had to hunch over to maintain her hold on him. Now that Vlad was closer, he saw her shivering. The heavy makeup she wore made her look much older than eighteen.
Lucy could keep the man asleep as long as she was awake and maintained physical contact. Unlike Vlad, she was able to use her power at will. It was a strange ability; Vlad imagined most people would be unimpressed. Not Cheslav. For him, it was the perfect accompaniment to Vlad’s powers.
Vlad went down to one knee in the snow. He grabbed the man’s free hand and closed his eyes. It was easier to sift through a mark’s memories when Lucy had them under. It reassured Vlad they wouldn’t wake up while he worked. The memories sped by like a river. Vlad watched, looking for anything of use.
He saw Lucy dancing with him. Her hips swayed, the curve of her bottom pressed against the man. Before that, a day at work. The mark was some kind of lawyer or businessman. Vlad felt his stress decrease as time continued backwards and the day’s events rewound. A private car, the man waiting on the street, breakfast, shower, dressing…
There. Vlad forced the memory to pause. The mark was in a walk-in closet getting dressed. There was a small dresser at the end of the closet with thin drawers. One was pulled out. Vlad spotted rows of beautiful, gleaming watches.
He flicked through more memories. Minutes flew by as he looked at weeks of the man’s life. At that speed, Vlad only picked up on vague sensations. This man was usually stressed and horny.
Finally, he found what he hoped for and paused. In the closet surrounded by shoe boxes was a small safe. The man kept his passport, other documents, and some jewelry inside. More importantly, two large stacks of money. Vlad went farther back, then let the memory play in real time. He watched the mark key in his code. He was thinking about lunch and if he’d go out that night, if he did go out, if he’d find a woman to sleep with. He needed to buy toilet paper, but not the same brand as last time because it was rough.
Vlad watched the memory a second time to memorize the code, then let himself resurface.
When he was inside someone’s memories, he was unaware of his conscious body. Now back in the real world, he was more aware of how frigid it was. Lucy’s teeth chattered.
“Fuck. I wish we could’ve gone to his place. I could tell he wasn’t going to though. What a rotter.” She switched her grip on the man to her other hand and tucked the freed one under her armpit for warmth. “Did you get anything? Please tell me you did.”
“Fancy watches. A safe in the closet, lots of money.”
“Brilliant. His keys are in his pocket. Does he live nearby?”
“Two streets over.” Vlad already knew where he kept his keys, and reached into his right pant pocket to pluck them out. “I’ll be fast. I promise. Do you want my coat?”
“Just go. I want to get out of these clothes and get something to eat.”
Vlad didn’t waste another second. He left the alley and ran as fast as he could to the man’s apartment. It was above a fashion boutique. He let himself in, disabled the alarm, and stole everything he could fit into his backpack, including a clean set of sheets from the linin closet. This was always the strange part. Being in his mark’s home felt like the worst case of déjà vu. He could never shake the feeling even though he knew exactly where he was and that he’d never been there before.
By the time he got back to Lucy, she’d given up on standing and was crouched beside the man. Her knees were scuffed and red. She’d switched hands again. Less than an hour had gone by.
“Done.”
“Money? Watches? All there?”
“Yes.”
“Then make him forget. One more mark then we’re finished.”
Vlad grabbed the man’s hand again. He went into his memory, to when he first laid eyes on Lucy, and erased any memory he ever had of her.
Then. Ten years ago…
Mother and Father walked ahead of the children, talking in low voices Vlad couldn’t hear. Oleg and Artur were tasked with keeping track of their younger siblings. Each time Vlad slacked too far behind on the dirt path, Oleg threw a pebble at him. One hit his eye and he saw spots for minutes after. There were specs of dirt in his tears. He considered telling Mother and Father, but knew they wouldn’t care.
It was spring. Only a few patches of snow remained in the shadowed areas of forest around them. At eight years old, Vlad was more aware of the world around him than any of his peers. He tasted the freshness of the air, appreciated the bright green of new plants. Even his sibling’s obnoxious jostling and laughter couldn’t ruin it.
It was strange to think there were places Father called ‘concrete jungles’. Vlad had been born in the Community and had never seen a concrete jungle himself. Oleg had since he was five when Mother and Father moved from a place called St. Petersburg to the Community, but didn’t remember much. Just loud noises and lots of people.
No one explained the world outside of the Community to the children and they didn’t ask.
Today they were off to the Yenin’s house for dinner. Once the snow was gone and the paths between homes were easier to walk, the families spent many evenings together. Vlad didn’t enjoy the company of other kids as much as he knew he should. His own brothers and sisters were tiresome and these ones were no different. Except Petor. One day, once Petor was older, he’d look up to Vlad like how Vlad looked up to his next oldest brother, Vasily. Vlad looked forward to that.
The family descended a gentle slope into the clearing the Yenin’s built their home in. At three bedrooms it was much bigger than Vlad’s place. Kids were already playing outside and Vlad and his siblings joined them. The only kids missing were Alina and Lev. Vlad wondered if they were sick. His entire family had been last week and illness spread quickly amongst the families.
Mother and Father entered the house to do whatever it was grownups did. Eventually they’d call them in to eat. Vlad hoped for stew. He heard Father say the Dorofeyev family s
laughtered one of their goats.
He took to turning over slabs of rocks to see what bugs were underneath. Still not quite spring, there weren’t many. It was while he was alone behind the house that he heard the grownups talking. The windows were cracked open to let the spring breeze in.
“I heard it has black eyes,” a woman’s voice said.
“Black? That doesn’t mean—” This voice was Vlad’s father.
“No, completely black eyes. No whites. It never cries,” the first woman said. “What newborn doesn’t cry?”
A new voice entered the conversation. A man. “My daughter offered to watch the thing in exchange for eggs. That was before anyone knew what it was. She was afraid to pick it up and stayed across the room most of the time. It reached out for its bottle, but it was too far away. Then—I swear! My daughter wouldn’t lie—it opened its hand and the bottle slid off the table onto the ground.”
All the adults, both men and women, gasped and cursed.
Vlad’s mother said, “Mind powers. Many of them have them. They’re the most dangerous.”
“They are all dangerous. They should all be killed,” the first woman said.
The conversation was strange to Vlad. He’d never heard adults speak of anything with such fear before. Whatever they spoke of, it scared him, too. A baby that had black eyes and could move things with its mind? Certainly it was of the devil. Mother made sure all her children understood who the devil was and how he worked.
“We all moved here from the big cities for a reason; to protect ourselves and our families from these abominations,” Vlad’s mother said. ““Living in the country is difficult enough as it is. The last thing we need is a monster in our midst, putting the children in danger.”
Vlad shivered. Monsters? It must be a joke. The adults were trying to play a trick on the kids. They had to be. They were waiting to see which child would cave to fear and admit to snooping first. It wouldn’t be Vlad. Instead, he swallowed his fear and got on his tiptoes to peek through the window. His heart sank.