Hero Blues

by Michelle L. Levigne

  "Have you ever checked on the next generation?" Jane asked, after several minutes passed and all her two teachers did was grin at each other, their eyes bright with memories. She suspected that despite constant denials through the years, Reginald and Demetrius did indeed have telepathic powers, or at least a mental bond that let them talk behind their students' backs.

  "Hmm, no, unfortunately." Demetrius reached for his neglected tankard.

  "How could we?" Reginald added. "It didn't occur to us until just now that they might be—how do you say it? Interbreeding? Combining their alien genetics until something unusual crops up."

  "It's not like we can pop in and snatch the children in actual families away for training, like we could with the orphans."

  "How about some honesty?" she asked, when she sensed that thoughtful silence settling back over the room.

  Both of them sat up straight, eyes widening slightly, almost in shock. She laughed. She couldn't help it, despite the growing discomfort in realizing that she was thinking ahead of her old teachers and had brought up something they had missed, or at least never seriously considered before. What was wrong with this picture?

  "Oh, yes, of course. Total strangers, drive into town and start walking around, introducing ourselves and asking if any of them have developed mutant powers like in the comic books. That won't get us run out of town," Reginald grumbled. "Or worse, sedated and thrown into a room with mattress wallpaper." Fortunately, amusement sparkled in his eyes.

  "Why couldn't you go in with your Hoax identification?" Jane said. "You have quite a reputation for debunking the fakes and con men who claim to have powers and otherworldly talents. Wouldn't that give you some credit, some standing so people have to believe you when you present your theory?"

  "Problem, cookie." Demetrius locked gazes with Reginald as he spoke. "Hoax is too public a face. Whenever we roll into town, people are watching. We don't want to draw attention to Neighborlee or the Gifted who we might find. What we need...is someone they consider their own, someone who will present the idea and be believed." He sighed. "Or at least given a fair hearing. Reggie, old boy, I think it's time to call a meeting of the Council."

  "Could take months, getting everybody here from the overseas offices. Depends on how busy they are," Reginald offered.

  "Speed is never wise in these circumstances." He nodded to Jane. "Thank you, Janie. This has been a most...enlightening evening."

  "You're not mad at me, going back to Neighborlee?"

  "When did we ever tell any of you that you couldn't go back?"

  "Well, it was sort of implied that you didn't want us—" She groaned. "Why do I have the feeling you were hoping some of us would get curious enough to go investigate?"

  He chuckled and saluted her with the tankard before tipping it back and emptying the last mouthful.

  Chapter Three

  "And here's the Ghost, defender of the weak and defenseless and...the really stupid," Jane muttered as she made her nightly rounds a week later. She spread her arms, effectively stopping her leisurely glide over the town of Fendersburg. Her down mood was a definite result of no word yet from Reginald and Demetrius in response to the meeting they had, not a whisper of rumor about the Council meeting at the Sanctum, and no change in her circumstances in Fendersburg.

  "What did you expect?" she muttered as she looked up at the moon and turned over for a few seconds to fly on her back. "To be given instant permission to dump this Popsicle stand and hop the next train out of town, permanently? You have responsibilities. You are the Ghost, and the Ghost belongs to Fendersburg." Sighing, she turned over to look down at the layout of streets she knew so well, she swore the grid was imprinted on the inside of her eyelids.

  A typical late August evening in Fendersburg meant not a cloud in the sky, and everybody under the age of twenty-five out on their bikes, motorcycles, scooters and junker cars, cruising until the moon started to set. Didn't anybody believe in sleep? Just once, Jane wished she dared settle in for the night before midnight. But, the longer she lived in this nowhere town, the lower the IQ points dropped. And that meant more work for her to do.

  Reginald and Demetrius were right, she had to admit. It was her own fault. The more she protected the people of Fendersburg, the less responsibility they felt for their own welfare and to think for themselves. The more risks the idiots took, too. Why not be daredevils, when they knew the Ghost would swoop down just in time to save their worthless hides? She wondered more often now, did Superman ever get disgusted with Lois Lane for taking all those stupid risks, knowing he would save her? Unfortunately, Lois Lane had some good points to make up for her sticking her nose where it didn't belong. Jane couldn't think of more than ten people in this town she didn't mind helping. The rest weren't worth the powder it would take to blow them to Kingdom Come.

  For instance, those were the McCreedy boys driving around below her. Poster children for mandatory sterilization. Someone should have dumped chlorine into that particular gene pool a long time ago.

  The six McCreedys crammed into Willy's rust-bucket truck, hanging out the windows and two standing up so their heads poked through the sun-roof. That sun-roof was non-standard equipment on the truck, and proved the unfairness of life in general because no McCreedy ever came down with tetanus. Jane swooped down to watch the boys, sure that they were up to no good. The only time they weren't busy trying to send each other to the hospital was when they teamed up to cause trouble for someone else.

  In this case, she immediately saw tonight's victim was the reservoir. Even from twenty yards above the trees and phased out so she was invisible and could fly, Jane could smell the stink of scummy water through the protective field enclosing her. The extremely dry summer, low water level and the recent budget cuts in the police department were all an invitation to trouble. The reservoir was a neglected sitting duck.

  "Looks like another busy night for the Ghost," Jane muttered as she swooped down through the crystal-clear, stifling hot night air, and came in for a landing. "Goody gumdrops."

  Bald tires, a road badly in need of patching, and overgrown bushes and trees hanging over the edges of the crumbling blacktop meant the McCreedy boys had to drive slowly up the steep hill and follow the hairpin turns instead of bouncing up and over. Jane appreciated their caution. She was in a bad enough mood without carrying the guilt and dismay of saving a McCreedy's life tonight. She had just painted her nails and didn't want to risk chipping them, if she had to lunge to catch a rusty bumper and keep the truck from going over the edge.

  With her luck, she would get tetanus or hepatitis or any of a dozen diseases hiding in the thick coating of filth that kept the McCreedy truck from falling apart.

  Unlike the other Gifted she had grown up with, Jane wasn't bullet-proof or made of steel. She could fly, she could go invisible. She could walk through solid objects and heal broken bones within a couple hours. That didn't mean she was impervious to pain or disease, and she needed a decent night's sleep even more desperately than most people. Or at least, most people in the backwards town of Fendersburg.

  "Told ya it was broke," a whining McCreedy voice crowed, just before the truck crashed into the lopsided gate of the reservoir.

  "Told you to get it fixed," Jane muttered, and stepped back as the truck skidded to a stop in the gravel yard of the reservoir. How many times had the Ghost made surveys of all public property, listed the necessary repairs, the accidents waiting to happen, and gave those lists to the town council? She had lost count. She had even sent the list three times to the Fendersburg Trumpet, and the newspaper actually printed the lists and demanded action. Nothing had happened.

  As evidenced by the broken lock on the fence and the lack of a single spark when Willy's truck hit it open. That fence was supposed to be electrified, to stop mutants like the McCreedy boys from breaking in.

  "Let's go have some fun!" Willy chortled, and slid out of the driver's seat. He reached into the back of the truck and pulled out tools
for his brothers.

  Most of the tools had price tags still attached. Jane sighed at that evidence that Joe-Bob over at the hardware store still hadn't repaired his burglar alarm from the last time someone broke in. She supposed she'd hear an angry tirade in the morning, about how the Ghost hadn't stopped the burglars. Honestly, how could anybody resist when the door wouldn't stay locked and Joe-Bob left the lights on half the time, so anybody walking by could see what was waiting to be stolen and no one was in the store?

  How many times had she retrieved Joe-Bob's property for him? How many times had she heard him bragging about reporting the thefts to the insurance company and getting money for his claims, even though the merchandise was returned? Jane decided now was as good a time as any to make an honest man of Joe-Bob. She had already sent one letter to the Trumpet, warning the people of Fendersburg that the Ghost would no longer pick up after them when they didn't use common sense, such as making sure doors were locked, irons and coffee pots were turned off, and they kept their gas tanks filled. She had noticed some grumbling, but enough people scolded the grumblers, she thought she had gotten through.

  Another letter was due at the newspaper. How many could she send before people got used to being scolded and ignored her, and slid back into their lazy, oblivious practices?

  Kicking off, she floated up over the McCreedy boys' heads and snatched three shovels, two picks and a bag of blasting caps from outstretched hands. The items turned invisible the moment she pulled them inside her Ghost field. Jane snorted, muffling laughter as the McCreedys just stood there, hands grasping at empty air, their mouths dropping open. She didn't pause to hover in mid-air and enjoy the moment, but darted away to the crumbling face of the reservoir. A little extra oomph to her Ghost field, and she parted the cement molecules enough to shove the tools into the center of the reservoir's retention wall. There they would stay until the Ghost came to retrieve them, or the sub-standard construction finally eroded. Without the pressure of the scummy lake behind it, Jane estimated the wall would last another four or five years. More's the pity.

  She flew back and found the McCreedy boys stumbling around, trying to find their tools. Did they actually think they had dropped their stolen booty and couldn't find anything in the open gravel yard, in the light of the nearly full moon? What kind of idiots was she dealing with tonight?

  "That's a rhetorical question if I ever heard one," she said, and didn't bother to keep her voice down.

  "Who's there?" Slick, the oldest McCreedy boy bellowed.

  "Who do you think?" she shouted back.

  Coming through the Ghost field, her voice dropped nearly two octaves. One of these days, she considered doing something to the field so it would sound like her own voice. Until then, the residents of Fendersburg would continue to believe the Ghost was a man.

  "Hey, Ghost, long time no see," Jeff, the third boy said with a vacuous grin.

  "Idiot," Clint, the fourth, snarled. He tried to elbow his older brother, but misjudged the distance and nearly fell off his feet. "Nobody can see the Ghost."

  Jane didn't wait for the usual fight to break out among the McCreedy boys. She swooped down among them and picked up the rest of their demolition tools. Spray-paint cans, two hoes, charcoal lighter fluid and three boxes of matches. Those joined the other tools in the center of the retaining wall.

  When she came back to the truck, she found the boys had scattered, running along the edges of the reservoir. Ten IQ points higher, and they might have had the sense to jump back in their truck and get out of there. But no, the McCreedy boys were intent on doing damage. It was hard to decide if they considered it their right, or their duty. Jane flew over the stinking water of the reservoir, trying to ignore the smell of pea soup algae gone out of control, and listened to the boys shouting directions to each other.

  Some people seemed to think that if they couldn't see the Ghost, then the Ghost couldn't hear them.

  She stopped Slick from climbing down the rusty ladder to the control house. She caught Hill and Roddy as they ran along the top of the retaining wall, trying to find the sluice gates. She picked up Willy and Jeff when they found some chains and tried to use them to lower themselves down into the main channel of the outflow—after they yelled to their brothers their intention of climbing up into the workings of the old, abandoned electrical generation station.

  When Clint fell into the slimy, knee-deep water of the reservoir, Jane left him there and flew away to call the police.

  "One of these days, I'm going to send a bill to these morons," she told the starry night. "The only problem is, they'd probably try to take me to court for overcharging."

  She sighed when she reached the highway payphone she always used to call the police, turned off the Ghost field, and made her voice falsetto. As far as she knew, no one yet tried to set up a tracing program or recorded the voice of the "female assistant to the Ghost," who always notified the police of "his" latest activities.

  Jane wondered if people as lazy and stupid as the majority of Fendersburg deserved the protection of anyone.

  "Another rhetorical question," she said as she flew away. Idiots needed twice as much watching as anyone else, if only to protect the rest of the world from them.

  An hour later, Jane wondered if she was the idiot here. She had flown back to the reservoir to make sure the police actually showed up to take away the McCreedy boys. She had left them trapped by their own stupidity, tangled in chains, wedged inside the control room, slipping around in slimy water. They couldn't seem to find the keys to their truck, to drive away. It never occurred to them to run when the police finally sauntered in through the broken gate below the speed limit, without lights flashing or sirens blaring.

  "Hey, Ghost!" one of the officers shouted. "When are you gonna fix this gate? How many more kids have to get in trouble before you do something about it?"

  Jane groaned and shook her head and flew away. The first time someone had demanded that the Ghost take care of something that was their responsibility, she had nearly dropped down to the ground to confront them with their demands. She had sent a letter to the editor, pointing out the responsibilities of the people who demanded extra work from her. Half the town had laughed, but the other half had agreed with them, and regularly yelled at the Ghost for allowing burglar alarms to stay broken or tires to go flat or their cars to run out of gasoline. Jane gave herself a mental slap on the wrist for being foolish enough to revisit the scene of her latest rescue.

  Did she really think, after all this time, she would hear a single word of gratitude?

  She repeated the question, aloud, when she got back to her apartment and Katie, her roommate at the Sanctum, called to make arrangements for a visit on her way through town.

  "I bet those kids brag about the Ghost catching them," Katie said, when Jane related the events of the evening.

  "Yeah, they're just dumb enough to do that." Jane sighed and stretched out on her back on the futon in her tiny living room. "The people here are lazy or they're stupid. If I went on a vacation longer than two days or even quit, they'd probably kill themselves by the end of the first week. How come the superheroes in the comic books never go through this?"

  "They do," Katie said with a snort of muffled laughter. "It just never gets written into the comics because it's boring."

  "Boring is a nice way of describing what I'm going through."

  "Hey, at least you get a little variety, even if it's mostly frustration. I spend my whole life zipping from one town to another, playing glorified Go-Fer. I'm the Pony Express without a pony."

  "Don't complain. I think you have it a lot easier than the rest of us." Jane closed her eyes and contemplated, just for a few seconds, the glorious thought of walking away from the superhero life. If Fendersburg vanished in a puff of smoke tomorrow, would anybody really notice? "I almost asked the Old Poops to let me retire."

  "When? What happened?"

  An hour later, after discussing the visit to Neigh
borlee and the meeting with their teachers, Katie promised she would ask discreet questions and find out if anybody else had heard about the Council having a meeting. The idea of descendants of other lost children marrying and raising up a new generation of Gifted, outside the guidance of the Old Poops, fascinated her. Katie came from the town outside Three Mile Island, and had been brought to the Sanctum four years before Jane was discovered. She was even more curious about Neighborlee than Jane had been, just because most of their fellow students, who were all older than them, had come from the town. Now though, Jane decided her curiosity had been awakened and was growing.

  What sort of influence did the Wishing Ball in Divine's Emporium have over her life? How much power did it have to convince the Old Poops that she needed to leave Fendersburg behind, permanently, and set up shop in Neighborlee?

  * * * *

  "Did you see what that Ghost did last night?" Even without the nasal twang, the hack-splat identified the speaker as Rufus Holcomb, deep into today's first pouch of chewing tobacco.

  Despite herself, Jane's ears pricked up. She shook her head and deliberately turned her back on the big bay window of Lazy Days Spa and the wide-open door that let fresh air and conversations through. No, she did not want to hear any gossip about the Ghost. It was bad enough being the Ghost, without hearing all the misconceptions and warping of reality that went along with being the resident guardian of Fendersburg.

  "That boy's gonna get himself in trouble, one of these days," Junior Barnes' gravelly voice drawled. Another hack-splat showed he had joined Rufus in their daily spitting competition. "Interfering where he ain't wanted. Ain't normal for people to get yanked out of trouble they brought down on their own heads."

  Jane sighed. She hated it when she agreed on anything with the geezers slouched in front of her shop. She turned back to her work, resisting once again the temptation to sabotage the support posts for the awning out front. The lack of shade might make the August heat inside the shop unpleasant, but that was what air conditioners were built to combat, right? She might have heat, but she wouldn't have green-black tobacco stains and the stink of tobacco juice all over the sidewalk. The trade was definitely a step up, in her favor.