by Various
No. The shapeshifter murdered them, tearing into our plane. Noah…I mean, Hero, had done what he could as everything splintered around us, his powers manifesting in the same moment as mine. We were connected in a way no one else could ever be, the twin survivors of Quintara 311, the crash that ended both of our lives and forced us into new ones.
I’d followed his example unconsciously—at first—sneaking out to stop petty crimes and burn off some energy so I didn’t go mad thinking about it. He’d been all over the news after the crash, but later he explained how he’d kept me out of it, as far as the public was concerned. Noah knew what I was, but he never told anyone, and he’d struck some deal with the TCA to leave me alone; guess I had to give him props for that.
Bursts of energy streaked toward him, and he batted them aside with ease, like he always did, not so much as wavering from their impact. I held my breath as he swooped out of sight, a great boom rumbling after.
The fight was over before it had even begun, but it would take hours for traffic to resume its normal flow. I settled in to wait. It seemed Noah was good at disrupting lives.
#
Finally home, the news reports had set me to thinking.
In addition to national coverage of the death of the Red Wraith, local news reported on Noah putting another chimeric down, this one named Bolt. Turned out to be another kid, the police withholding most of the details because he was underage. Noah hadn’t been so circumspect, claiming Bolt had been maybe fifteen, `…barely into his balls,’ he’d said, and the news had left it in, which made me chuckle. I guess since Hero had ditched the Expandex and his TCA PR, he didn’t have to monitor every word out of his mouth, and the media was starved for any and all appearances.
So this Bolt, though. Just another kid from the neighborhood…just like Stone. Was it coincidence?
Noah didn’t seem to think so.
“The kid was under someone’s influence, so we might expect more of the same,” he told the reporter before leaping back into the sky, not bothering to elaborate. He rarely did.
I’d fallen asleep dwelling on that, and woke up with an idea.
THREE
The hours crept by, and I’d realized early on that my idea had been great in theory but pretty lousy in practice. I hated waiting.
I’d donned my costume, which I’ll admit was still a work in progress, and headed out for a tour of downtown Port Haven’s rooftops. The thin bulletproof vest I’d customized and wore over my outfit served to protect my vitals and disguise my shape a bit at the same time. Sadly, there was no way to hide the fact that I was a woman, my superhero ‘yoga pants’ were unforgiving, and way too revealing, but whatever; not to mention I was five-foot-nothing. Still, with the thin mask I’d devised to cover my whole face without smothering me, I’d managed to keep my identity a secret, which was the important part.
The skin-tight outfit didn’t do much to keep me cool in the California summer, though; I couldn’t afford Expandex or any other kind of nano-threads like most four-color types. I moved through the shadows of the buildings as I made a slow sweep across the areas where the last two chimeric incidents had taken place. Working on a hunch, an incident for each of the last two days, both involving kids, it seemed possible that something else was going on. I wanted to be there if I was right.
My enthusiasm waned at about the same time the afternoon rush hour traffic clogged Central Freeway. I was tired, hot, and cranky, and the only thing I’d managed to do was give myself a rash, my cheap-ass Spandex whistling as I moved.
“What the hell was I thinking?” I asked aloud, starting to go stir-crazy.
It wasn’t like I had super senses, or any way to pick out the sounds of a crime in progress, but I’d convinced myself that whatever was going to happen would be loud; that I’d hear it all the way across town. I groaned, berating myself for my stupidity, and launched myself across the space between buildings.
A gunshot rang out as soon as my feet touched the ground.
I spun about and ran to the ledge, staring down at 15th Street, heart racing. It sped up even faster when I saw where the shot had come from. An officer was on the ground, blackness pooling underneath him; a slip of a girl stood over him. Silvery tendrils sprouted from her back like great spider legs coming to razored points. Even from where I crouched, four stories up, I could see blood coating at least one of her appendages.
And like that, it was as if the flood gates of terror had opened.
The people on the street screamed and broke into panicked flights, flinging themselves away. Their movement seemed to spur her into action. Where she’d just hovered over the officer, watching him bleed out, she spun about and sprinted down the sidewalk, scattering people in her wake. An overfull backpack hung awkwardly over her shoulder, bouncing as she ran. The door to the rare coin and stamp shop hung broken on its hinges.
I was right!
I poured a little kinetic juice on and surged over to the next roof, and then the next, waiting until she was clear of people before I engaged her, but a flash of movement on a roof across the way drew me up short. My gaze settled on a tall man, watching the girl from his perch on the roof. There was no mistaking he was a chimeric. He wore a mask that had a white skull image printed across the face, standing out starkly against the black of the fabric. His black leather jacket was adorned in spikes and chains and blended in perfectly with his black pants and calf-high biker boots, also covered in small, chrome spikes. If I hadn’t been so surprised to see him there, I would have been impressed. It was a cool getup.
His gaze followed the girl below. There was something…predatory about him. Hunched over the ledged, he was oblivious to the world around him, focused solely on the action happening at street level. He stood there for a few moments, stiff and dialed in. Then he was on the move, running for the next roof. He slipped out of view behind the stairwell hut as I followed, hurtling across to the roof. I darted around the hut as soon as I touched down, but he was gone.
At the building’s edge, I glanced over and scanned the nearby rooftops. Nothing. The spider-leggy chimeric still fled below, gaining distance, her path clearing of pedestrians, but there was no sight of the skull mask man anywhere. He had vanished.
The first thing that popped to mind was that he was invisible, lying in wait somewhere, but he hadn’t even seen me, hadn’t known I was there. He’d been too focused on the girl. I stared after her. It was decision time. Stay and hunt the masked man down or follow her.
The girl won out.
She was fast, worming her way through the side streets and alleys, until she’d effectively slipped from the radar of the original scene and the buzz from the people who’d seen her pop the officer. Her extra legs were pulled tight against her body and looked like some weird decoration on her backpack.
Thinking herself clear of witnesses, she slowed and ducked down a narrow side street behind the rundown Mission Bowling Club off 17th, closed off by a fenced-in lot. She fumbled with a wire that released a section of the fence and slipped through, reconnecting the fence before heading past a long line of dumpsters and toward the nearest of the condemned buildings within the lot.
I watched her go inside and surveyed the property before following. There wasn’t any sign of anyone else about, but if what I suspected was true, there was a good chance she wouldn’t be alone when I found her. At the door, I tried my latest trick, triggering my power to move me an inch one way, then immediately back the other way to protect myself from a sneak attack. As long as I was in motion, I was safe, my power shielding me, but it was damn awkward. I’d never done it outside of my apartment, testing the theory. Guess I’d find out if it worked.
The door was unlocked, so I popped it open and zipped inside, concentrating on my defense. Turned out I hadn’t needed to. The girl stood a short distance into the empty room, her backpack at her feet, and there was no sign of anyone else around. A shocked expression marred her features. She wa
sn’t as young as the other two, but she sure wasn’t much older. Pretty, she had dark skin that complemented her wide brown eyes. A bit on the thin side, she was lithe, defined by wiry muscle that stood out against her regulation Spandex; we street-level chimerics seriously need a fashion union.
“Who the hell are you?” she shouted, her spare legs spreading out from behind her. They looked more ominous up close.
“Whiplash,” I answered, “and I’ve come to kick your ass.” As far as heroic introductions went, it was obvious I needed some practice. I blame comic books for taking all the good lines.
The girl laughed, her fear washed away by sly confidence at my ineptness. “I’m Serpentine, and that’s just not going to happen.”
“Serpentine.” A smile formed under my mask. “About damn time one of you guys had a cool name. You should really talk to those other losers about theirs. Must be a girl thing, picking great super names.”
“Right? Those boys. They need to…” she started, then went silent, realizing she’d connected herself to Stone and Bolt without meaning to. My grin widened. Now we were getting somewhere. She exhaled with a huff. “That wasn’t very nice.”
I shrugged. “Just confirming my suspicions. Girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.”
“You’re so right,” she said, her smile coming back. “I like your style, Whiplash. Too bad we gotta do this.” That’s when she came at me.
I met her halfway.
Serpentine’s legs lashed out and struck me in the chest, silver thorns glistening on the tips like fangs, but my power shrugged them aside. Her eyes nearly burst from her face at seeing her first attack so easily deflected, but I didn’t give her time to think about it. I drove my fist into her gut, followed by an uppercut that rattled her jaw.
I knew my obsession with the UFC would pay off one day. Mind you, I watched it mostly to see half naked men wrestling around, but I’d picked up a few things here and there. It also helped that I didn’t feel a thing as long as my power was activated. I threw those punches as if I were throwing a baseball with reckless abandon, the impact little more than a tingling on my end.
Can’t say the same on poor Serpentine’s side.
She whuffed and nearly bent in half, gasping for breath. My second punch hit her. There was a sharp clack as her jaw slammed shut, and she stiffened, shooting upright and flying back several yards. She hit the ground, flopping on her back like a discarded ragdoll, shuddering and weeping.
“Come on now,” I said. “If you’re going to play in the Big Leagues, kid, you need to be tougher than that.”
Serpentine sniffed and rolled to her side. Her extra legs lay limp across her back and legs. I went over and pinned them to her with my own legs, straddling the girl. She flinched as I raised a fist. Fortunately, she had no clue how my power worked, not knowing I was vulnerable just sitting there like that.
“Got some questions and, sweet nickname or not, I will beat you blue if you don’t tell me what I wanna know.” I felt a little bad about threatening the kid—she was obviously a few years younger than me—but she rolled over without another punch thrown.
Didn’t know whether to be proud or disappointed.
FOUR
Serpentine didn’t know much of anything. Mr. Skull Mask’s identity remained a secret, and I had no clue if he was involved at all. Seemed she and the boys were all street kids who’d grown up around my stomping grounds, Santiago Square, Parkside, all inner city, and they manifested very recently. Their powers hadn’t done much for their character, sadly, but it seemed to have opened up opportunities to them that hadn’t been available before. Like felony robbery, which is what the government classified as any theft aided by chimeric abilities.
Stone and Bolt were looking at some serious time in the local DCD ‘care facility’ despite their ages; the organization didn’t much concern themselves with how old you were. They’d be isolated and locked down and likely either experimented on or trained to be operatives, maybe turned over to TCA. Either way, it wasn’t the brightest future.
Of course, their future hadn’t been all that bright to begin with, but someone had recently made things worse for them under the guise of selling them an opportunity. Though the only one that got away with it was Serpentine. Well, sort of. I’d called the cops after knocking her out. It would be hard to claim I played on the side of angels if I let her get away with it, regardless of her circumstances. She’d wounded an officer in her robbery—the news reported he wasn’t dead after all, thank goodness, and said he’d recover—but that was more than I could tolerate.
As for what was happening, an anonymous man offered cash up front plus whatever merchandise the kids could get away with if they were to rob a predetermined place in the Market Valley district on a certain day and time. Serpentine didn’t know anything else beyond that there were a bunch of street kids who’d been part of their group who’d manifested in the last few weeks. She was pretty sure they’d been in on the offer, too, and she’d given me their names and where I might find them normally. Wasn’t much to go on, but if I made a liberal attempt at connecting the dots, it made me think the man I’d seen on the roof was involved in the overall scheme, whatever it was.
Now all I had to do was wait…again.
#
And I did, but the next attempted robbery happened earlier than the rest, before the morning traffic cluttered the streets. I’d zeroed in on the likely area by checking the other locations out on Google Maps, and it seemed the others had formed a basic upside-down L shape—or a 7 if you wanted to be technical—which made me think it might form a nice tidy square around 15th and Church Street with the fourth attempt. I was right, but that only made me more cautious as I heard the ruckus of a blatant robbery erupt below.
If I could figure out the pattern, the police had to have done so as well. They might even know about the man paying the kids, so I expected a much quicker response this time. I was pretty certain, however, that they didn’t know about the man in the mask.
And sure enough, he peered over the edge of some Church Street tenements about two blocks south, poised where he could see the latest crime unfold and follow the progress of some unfortunate chimeric street kid.
I circled around fast as I could, doing my best not to be noticed, and to get to him before he ran off again. There was no certainty he didn’t have super speed or teleportation or some power that would help him get away, but I didn’t have any choice. I had to confront him blind. Whatever his powers were, I’d just adapt.
Focused on the drama, he didn’t notice me until I was right on him. I thought about slamming into his back, but not knowing his powers kept me from doing so. If he wasn’t resistant, I’d end up paralyzing or killing him; instead, I tried to creep up on him, putting me in range should he try something. Try being the operative word.
“If it isn’t the hero from the other day. The one who battered the poor rock boy into a sad heap of pebbles. Quite the performance. Didn’t think you had it in you when you first showed up, I have to admit,” he told me, turning to face me. The skull grinned while sirens pealed in the distance. “Your presence here suggests you’ve caught on.”
Good thing he couldn’t see my face or he’d know I hadn’t caught on to much of anything beyond him playing some role in whatever was going on around here with these idiot kids. “Guess we’re not all as lost as the cops.”
“An interesting epitaph,” he said. “Smarter than the police, yet still dead.”
A chill ran through me at hearing him speak calmly about murdering me, his tone so casual that he could have been ordering a cup of coffee. While I’d known it was a possibility, part of the business of playing hero like I’d told Serpentine, I’d never had anyone openly threaten to kill me before…and sound so sincere about it. My confidence drooped a little, but I stood my ground. Still, my hands trembled; I clenched them into tight fists.
“Not so bold when your opponent isn’t
a child, are you…Whiplash?”
The use of my name caught me off guard; then I remembered shouting it out to the crowd before I ran off, plus it was right in the title of that sweet YouTube video of me being kinda bad-ass. Maybe even in the local news, but it still threw me for a loop to be known. I scrambled to keep him talking, to give myself a moment to recover. “Nice to see I’m leaving an impression. Now, how about you tell me who you are so I can stop calling you Skull Face Guy.”
He obliged. “Monger’s the name, but you’ll be calling me by another soon enough: Master.” The conviction in his voice was terrifying, forcing me into fight or flight mode, adrenaline surging through me, vision blurring.
So I attacked.
Let’s face it, I’ve never been real good at running. My Spandex-covered ass could attest to that fact.
There wasn’t much of his eyes to see, but I don’t think he expected me to come at him so quickly. White showed behind the black holes of the mask, and he scrambled to avoid me.
Too late.
I hadn’t needed my full speed to deal with Stone, and I’d held back to keep from burning out against the rocky behemoth. There was none of that caution this time around, and Monger hadn’t known what I was capable of. My fist landed center mass. Something crunched beneath the blow, his breath streaming out, and Monger took flight, hurtling from the roof, arms swinging wildly. An acrid, chemical stench lingered in the air, stinging my nose and stirring up memories. I ignored it, keeping my eyes on Monger. The adjacent tenement building stopped his momentum, a meaty thud resounding just before he bounced and toppled headlong toward the ground three stories below. His head hung limp and he fell in silence.