by Drew Hayes
“Evacuating now. Any guess on how long I’ve got?”
“I’m watching the western side of the building crumble as we speak. You have no time. Get out of there any way that you can.”
“Was afraid you’d say that,” Titan mumbled. He turned down the hallway and took off at a sprint, no long concerning himself with the integrity of the floor. If he went through it now then it would just put him closer to the ground, which would make escape easier. As it was, he was already in a time-crunch. If it had just been him then he could have blasted through the walls and crashed to the ground, no problem. Having humans with him complicated matters. They could get seriously injured if he went smashing through bricks. Of course, they were still going to be in harm’s way even with his current plan, but better a few broken bones than a building’s worth of rubble coming down on top of them.
He rounded a corner just as the building gave up a shake so powerful that the walls around them momentarily buckled. It was going to be a close one, but Titan at least had his goal in sight. At the end of this hallway, directly in front of them, was the busted wall that he’d seen when first reaching this floor. Through it, Titan could already see the other rescue workers retreating from the collapsing building. That was good, because he needed a clear landing area. As he reached the end of the hallway, Titan pushed himself off with the tremendous powerful in his sizable legs, pulling his people in as close as possible.
Titan rocketed out of the side of the collapsing building, hurtling through the air as both of his rescued citizens screamed bloody murder in his arms. He paid them no mind, all his focus on getting his body’s orientation right. The landing was key: it would determine if these two ended the day facing lumps, bruises, and bad memories, or life-threatening injuries. Titan lifted them both, one in each arm, while tilting his legs downward. He needed to absorb as much of the fall’s force as he could with his legs and try to dissipate the rest by letting his arms stay flexible. This was a technique he’d developed many years ago for rapid evacuations, but it had been a very long time since he’d used it.
Dust and rocks flew upward as Titan came smashing down, long legs sliding a bit across the terrain as he tried to bend them upon landing. Once or twice he nearly lost his footing, but old habits and a steely will allowed him to stay upright. When he finally came to stop his charges were shaken, coughing, and clearly scared out of their minds, but alive and relatively unscathed.
“Everybody okay?” Titan asked. Both the man and the woman gave weak but recognizable nods to the affirmative. He’d probably have them checked out by a healer just to be safe; however, for the moment, self-diagnosis would have to suffice.
Behind them, a loud crackling sound filled the air. Titan turned around just in time to see the building he’d just been in collapsing in on itself like a film strip on fast-forward. Dark swirls of energy surrounded it as it fell, and within moments the building was nothing more than a pile of rubble in the center of its former slab. The energy dissipated, and a small-statured man in a black and white costume headed back toward the area where Scope and Afterthought were coordinating things.
“That was pretty cool,” said the man still clutched in Titan’s hand. His voice finally snapped Titan back to the situation. The large Hero lowered his passengers gently to the ground.
“Galvanize, do we have any healers on hand? I’ve got a citizen with a busted leg, and after the day he’s had, a patch-job seems the least we can do.”
“We’ve already got two heading over. You just sit tight and they’ll come to you. Nice job with the exit, by the way.”
“Well, the elevator was out and I just can’t stand the tediousness of stairs.”
“You did good work, plus I’m sure Mr. Greene will be happy that the press was on hand to document your efforts.”
Titan had to bite back the urge to groan out loud. He hadn’t been showboating in the slightest, but once the media started playing the clip of him leaping from the building, Gale was going to be impossible to deal with.
As he ruminated on his poor fortune, Titan noticed Aether floating down a few feet away, a young man holding onto her like she was. . . well, like she was the one keeping him afloat after escaping a collapsing building. Their eyes met as she landed, and Titan flashed her a wide grin.
It might not have been the most graceful exit in the world, but it had won him five bucks.
36.
Though Titan’s high-flying exit did mark a high point in the rescue efforts, it by no means signaled the end of them. Before the work was considered complete, several more buildings were evacuated, dozens of cars pulled open or moved, and two more unstable structures had to be collapsed. Cleanup would be a whole other ordeal, one that the city’s services would have to handle. PEERS and Heroes were willing to pitch in on small scale things downtown, but one glance at the ravaged cityscape made it clear that this was work for professionals.
Despite the many hours it took, Titan was feeling fairly upbeat as they arrived back at the penthouse. They’d managed to save nearly everyone still alive in the rubble, and he’d personally only encountered one person that was already gone. Titan had done his best to get put on the jobs with a high likelihood of encountering a dead body, so the one poor soul represented a surprisingly decent ratio. He didn’t, by any stretch of the imagination, enjoy discovering corpses, but he’d been a Hero for a long time. Better he did it than someone who’d never experienced a thing like that. The first time could be traumatic, and was best handled in private, surrounded by teammates and friends. After all his years, Titan could hide the way seeing the bodies affected him; he just couldn’t stop their faces from haunting his most terrible dreams.
His team stepped into the penthouse, everyone too worn out, physically and mentally, to bother talking. Instead of finding an empty place to relax in, however, they found Mr. Greene waiting with his arms crossed. Galvanize immediately pulled himself up straight and stepped toward their boss.
“Evening, sir. What can we do for you?”
“Most of you can go take the night to unwind; you did exemplary work this afternoon. Titan, however, needs to have a discussion with me.”
“She called, huh?” Owen said. Deep down he’d been hoping Gale’s last outburst had been nothing but bluster, even after hearing Granite’s reasons for her concerns.
“If by ‘she’ you mean Gale, the leader of Elemental Fury, then yes ‘she’ most certainly did. Why, exactly, would you think to agree to a publicized power assessment without taking it through us first?”
“I knew it! I fucking knew it!” Zone whirled around, all exhaustion suddenly absent from his face. He thrust a long finger mere inches from Owen’s eyeball. “You were just using us to get your profile up, log a little good will, and now you’re trying to jump ship to the most popular team in Brewster. I told Galvanize you’d pull this shit!”
“Calm down there; you can walk to conclusions instead of jumping at them.” Owen greatly disliked having Zone’s finger so close to his face, but if he knocked it away then it would seem like a sign of aggression, and right now he needed to appear as peaceful as possible. “Gale insisted on doing a power assessment on me. I never once asked to join her team, nor did she offer. The woman is almost as suspicious of me as you, thinks I’m here to grand-stand at the expense of doing the job right.”
“So she indicated on the call,” Mr. Greene confirmed. “But that doesn’t explain why you agreed to it without proper clearance, let alone upped the ante to a public event.”
“The event part was my agent trying to call her bluff and get her to call the whole thing off,” Owen said. “I’ll be the first admit, that one sort of backfired on us. As for why I didn’t get clearance. . . why don’t we go to your office for that discussion?”
It was a simple request, one that Owen tried as hard as he could to phrase as a mere bit of propriety. Unfortunately, as he watched Greene’s face and the looks of his team, Owen knew they’d all read it as a powe
r play. They thought he was trying to force Greene off balance and shift the field of battle to his own terms. Of course, this left Greene only one response, which was a damned shame. Owen really hadn’t meant it as some sort of verbal dick-joust, but no one would believe that once he actually answered Greene’s question.
“Right here is fine, Titan, or do you not feel like your team deserves to hear your reasoning?”
Owen shook his head. Damned fool had held his ground and brought team loyalty into this. Greene left his caged Hero only one way out, and it was not a pretty one.
“No, I just thought it would be more respectful to bring this up in private,” Owen replied, keeping his voice as even as he could. “But since you want to go there, right here and now, I’ll tell you why I didn’t get clearance from you: because I don’t need any. I don’t work for you.”
“The pay and accommodations we’re providing tell a very different story.”
“Recheck your contracts. You’re providing all that as part of compensation for the time I spend working with you. Heroes aren’t for sale; we’re for rent at best. An active Hero, in fulfillment of his duties, is only beholden to one entity: the people he protects. The Department of Variant Human Affairs is the proxy representative of that group, and they’re the only ones we have to get clearance or permission from to do our jobs. Jobs that, sometimes, include working with other Heroes or teams and doing things like power assessments. You may have sway over how things are handled on a PEERS operation, but I’ll say it again: I don’t need your clearance for anything Hero-related.”
Mr. Greene’s normally composed face was flushed red. Whatever he’d been expecting Owen to offer up, it had not been an open challenge to his authority. He stayed silent for a moment, glaring at the mountain of a man and undoubtedly wishing their physical capacities were reversed.
“I could terminate your contract and have you kicked out of this building faster than you could pack your masks in a makeshift sack.”
Owen was tempted, for the slimmest of moments, to back down and let Greene save some face. Unfortunately, that time had already passed. He’d tried to give Greene an out where they could talk this through peacefully and the manager had rejected it. Owen was a fan of peaceful resolution whenever possible, but if someone was going to push him into a fight, they were going to get everything he had to throw. And Owen Daniels, much like Titan, could throw damn heavy.
“That’s your right as overseer of this team, but what you can’t do is tell me how to do my job. If you can’t square with that, then go sign whatever you have to sign to end this deal. I’ll tell you right now, though: the next Hero you bring on payroll is going to draw the same line that I just did. We fight goddamned monsters and keep innocent people safe; there is no time in our world for anyone to try and impose extra bureaucratic bullshit on that process. I’ll try to keep you in the loop on things, as a courtesy, but if you expect me to run and ask permission for what I have to do to fill my role as Hero, then we’re going to have a problem. So, Mr. Greene, do we? Do we have a problem?”
The entire room seemed to hold its breath as Owen and Mr. Greene stared at one another. Either this would end, right here and now, or it would be allowed to fester in the weeks to come. One thing was certain, though: the relationship between these two men had been fundamentally altered in a way that could never be undone.
“Everyone go to bed and rest,” Mr. Greene said at last. “It was a long, very disturbing day for all of you, and I’m sure we can have cooler discussions once your emotions have calmed.”
Placating as his words were, the ferocity in his eyes as he glared at Owen was unmistakable. He’d been called out in front of his employees, and he’d backed down. Mr. Greene might be willing to let that slide for now, but it was only a matter of time until he made a play to turn the tables.
Owen shook his head and walked toward his room. He seemed to be pissing off everyone he met lately. If he had the self-control, he’d have resolved to just stop talking. Instead, he took a very long shower and tried not to think about all the pitfalls he’d already manage to surround himself with.
37.
The first thing Owen did upon waking the next morning was to call Lenny and officially get the ball rolling to set up the power assessment with Gale. Much as a part of him was inclined to hold on to the hope of getting it canceled, after his stand against Greene the night prior, Owen either had to do it or look like he was giving in to what the company wanted. That was a precedent he refused to set, for himself and for any new Hero Liaison that might ultimately get his job when Greene finally decided to toss him out.
The second thing Owen did was try and reach Topsy to talk about the carnage his team had caused, but Topsy proved to be impossible to contact. He didn’t pick up his phone or answer e-mail. Even Dispatch couldn’t patch their communications together, saying he was registered as inactive for an indefinite period of time. If Dispatch couldn’t reach someone, it usually meant they were dead, held prisoner by someone who really knew what they were doing, or dealing with the DVA. Given what had happened, Owen’s money was on the last option. He’d been in more than one of those meetings himself, and truthfully, he’d probably pick going toe-to-toe with an Armageddon Class over being in another one. All the same, he hoped the DVA was putting the fear of God into those kids, because from the damage he’d seen, they clearly needed it.
With his calls made, Owen suited up in his Titan outfit and headed down to the common area. With the previous night’s chaos, he hadn’t gotten the chance to see what was on the schedule for the today. He walked in to the kitchen area and found all of his team there eating breakfast. Galvanize took one look at him and gave himself a small thump on the forehead.
“Titan, I’m so sorry. In all the confusion of yesterday I completely forgot to tell you: we’re off today. No PEERS team is allowed to work more than six days consecutively, unless there are extenuating circumstances on par with a national emergency. Mordent gives us Sundays totally off: no appearances, no promos, no emergency response work. As Hero Liaison, there’s nothing for you to supervise, so I’d assume you’re off as well.”
“You guys get regular days off? That’s a pretty nice perk.” Owen was accustomed to the Hero system, where one simply didn’t go active or report to Dispatch if they needed a personal day. Most Heroes tried to take them semi-regularly, but it was often very difficult. Each time one went off-duty, they were left to wonder who their friends and teammates were fighting, if everyone would be there the next day, and if they could have made the difference in keeping someone they cared about alive.
“We’re not machines,” Hexcellent said. “Supers, sure, but we still get tired and worn out. The last thing anyone needs is a PEERS rescue team too tired to do their job well; we’d just be in the fucking way. Probably why the DVA made that rule.”
“If they didn’t, you know Greene would have us running all over the place three hundred and sixty five days a year,” Zone muttered between bites of organic oatmeal.
“I’m sure Mr. Greene would use our time wisely, even without oversight from the DVA,” Galvanize said quickly. “However, I know we all enjoy our day off and are grateful to have it. Personally, I’m going to head upstate and visit some friends from college. What does everyone else have planned?”
“Dicking around,” Hexcellent said with a shrug. “Maybe buy some new video games, hit up a comic shop, the usual.”
“I’ve got an audition for a spot on a local commercial,” Bubble Bubble said. She was eating a bowl of what appeared to be fresh strawberries and drinking a cup of green tea, taking each bite with a practiced delicacy.
“You’re not supposed to work,” Galvanize reminded her.
“No, the company cannot compel me to work. What I do with my own time is my business. I booked this audition through a non-Mordent representative and Mr. Greene approved the role as image-acceptable.”
“I guess that’s fine then.” Galvanize didn’t look p
articularly fine with it, but without a point to actually object to, he seemed resolved to not starting a fight. “How about you, Zone?”
“Gym, training, then maybe heading down to the lake,” Zone replied. “My cousin’s renting a house out there and says it’s a good place to relax. Plus, why bother having a body like this if I’m not going to show it off?” Zone accentuated his point by lifting his arm and flexing his bicep, which was indeed large and well-defined.
“Try to behave yourself. After the last pregnancy scare you know Mr. Greene is keeping abreast of your extracurricular activities,” Galvanize cautioned. Zone gave a half-hearted nod and went back to eating his oatmeal, so Galvanize turned to the final member of the team.
“How about you, Titan? I know you’re new in town, but is there anything you think you’ll do with your day off?”
“You’re welcome to tag along with me,” Hexcellent offered. “You know I hate carrying shit, and Big Henry isn’t exactly crowd friendly.”
“Much as I appreciate it, I think I’ll have to decline,” Owen said. “If I have a day off I should probably use it trying to dig into what’s been discovered about those robots attacks.”
“That sounds more like a day working a side-job than a day off,” Galvanize told him.
“Heroes are generally shitty at taking days off. We’re the type of people who need to be up in the action constantly, otherwise we wouldn’t have chosen this sort of career.” Owen left out the other aspects of it: the guilt, the fear, the constant unease. At least when a Hero was doing something, they felt there was a certain amount of control. After taking a decade off, Owen wasn’t really itching to get back to a life of leisure.
“Try and rest a little bit, if you can,” Galvanize said. “I know physically you’re always in tip-top shape, but mental health is important too.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that. See, I don’t have any real resources for research, which means I’m going to have to bum information off other Heroes. Since I don’t really know any here, at least none that don’t actively distrust me, there’s only one way for me to make those connections and get that info.”