“How many?”
“Uh, three,” said Anna.
“Three Three-Day City Roamers,” said Shanice, keying numbers into her pad.
“No. Three Day City Roamers,” Anna corrected.
Shanice raised her eyes and fixed her with a look that was somehow both utterly emotionless and brimming with contempt.
“Say what?”
“I want a Day City Roamer ticket for all three of us,” Anna said.
“Oh. So, what you mean is you want three One-Day City Roamers? Why didn’t you say?”
“I thought I did.”
“Well, you thought wrong, honey,” said Shanice. She blinked so slowly Anna thought her eyes might not be going to open again. She started speaking before they did. “Peak or off-peak?”
Anna gestured out into the darkness. “Well, it’s the middle of the night, so… off-peak?”
“So, you ain’t going to use them in the daytime?” asked Shanice.
“Shit. That’s a point.”
Anna turned back to Sam and Randy, who both stood on the sidewalk just beyond the open doors. “When will we be coming back?”
“I don’t know,” Sam admitted.
“Say we take an hour to get there, then… what? Another hour to beat him up, or whatever? That’s… what?”
“An hour?” Shanice snorted. “To get to Third? From here? Girl, you’re out of your mind. Trust me, you’re gonna need peak. If you’re lucky, you’ll get there by ten-thirty.”
“That’s, like, six hours!” Anna groaned.
“If you’re lucky.”
Anna chewed on her lip for a moment as she processed this. “Ah, fuck it,” she said. She hopped off the bus, placed two fingers in her mouth, and whistled. “Taxi!”
With a final glare from Shanice that suggested she didn’t appreciate her time being wasted, the bus’s doors hissed closed and it trundled off.
“When does the El start running?” Anna asked.
“The train?” Sam glanced up at the tracks of the elevated railway that ran through the city. “Not sure. Six?”
“Fuck!” Anna spat. She sighed. “Fine. We’ll get a taxi. But I’m billing Chuck for expenses.”
Sam and Randy stood at the curb, watching as Anna tried to flag down a cab.
“They’ll probably cut this scene,” Randy said.
Sam frowned. “Huh?”
“When they make the movie of our lives. They’ll probably cut this part.”
“They’re not going to make a movie of our lives,” Sam said.
“Hey! Taxi! Over here!” Anna called, waving and clicking her fingers. She muttered darkly as the cab swept past.
“I’m just saying, if they do, they’ll cut this scene. It’ll go straight from us leaving the base to us outside the Beef Chief’s lair,” Randy continued. “Mark my words.”
“You think?” asked Sam, not really listening.
“Of course. Why would anyone want to see this part? It’s pointless. From a story perspective, I mean.”
Sam considered his response. “Maybe if it’s a comedy…”
“Why would it be a comedy?” Randy snorted. “It’ll be a big-budget action blockbuster.”
“No, I mean, sure. I’m just saying, if it had comedy elements they might show this bit.”
“Why? It’s not funny,” Randy said. “It’s just us standing at a bus stop.”
Sam clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth and looked around them. “No, you’re right,” he conceded. “They’ll cut this scene.”
“Are we invisible here?” Anna bellowed. She lowered her arm and tutted. “Next time, we’re demanding a fucking Batmobile.”
Chapter Eighteen
One taxi ride spent in awkward, uncomfortable silence later, Sam and the others stood across the street from a boarded-up butcher’s store. Randy had insisted they all tuck themselves into a shadowy doorway, and Sam was now experiencing the mixed emotions that came with having Anna pressed up against his front, while Randy breathed heavily in his ear.
“So, do we think he’s in there?” Anna asked.
Even in the cab, and with light traffic, it had taken the better part of forty minutes to get all the way uptown. The sky was still dark, but it was a blue-gray sort of dark, rather than the oppressive blackness it had been when they’d first set out on the mission.
“I don’t know,” Sam said.
The place looked like it had been deserted for years. The wooden boards had been marked with graffiti, and weeds grew from cracks in the sidewalk outside. The paint on the sign above the door was faded and cracked. Despite this, and to Sam’s great annoyance, it was still possible to make out the words: ‘Meat Shop.’
“She didn’t ask if he was in there,” said Randy, his voice a guttural growl in Sam’s ear. “She asked if we think he’s in there.”
He brought his mouth in even closer. Sam shuddered as Randy’s bristly beard brushed the back of his neck. “Do you, Kid Random?”
“Call me Sam,” Sam replied, shuffling aside to try to make more space between them. Anna deliberately pushed back against him. Even though he could only see the back of her head, he could tell she was grinning.
“We don’t use real names when on a mission, Kid Random,” Randy insisted. “That’s Superhero 101.”
“Well, don’t call me Kid Random. I’m not a kid anymore,” Sam pointed out.
“What should we call you?”
“Sam.”
“King Random?” Randy said. “Changing ‘kid’ to ‘king’ worked for Butterfly King.”
“It really didn’t,” said Anna. “Anyway, it’s OK for me to be Allergy Girl but you can’t be Kid Random?”
“What? No, I mean… It’s not…”
Anna pushed back into him and wriggled her hips a little, really winding Sam up and turning the rest of his sentence into an incomprehensible mush of mutterings.
That done, she stepped out of the doorway and onto the street. “I’m going to go knock.”
“What? Wait! No, you can’t!” Sam protested, waddling after her to try to disguise the bulge in his suit. “We don’t know if he’s in there!”
Anna stopped and looked back at him. “That’s kind of the whole point of knocking. To find out if he’s in there.”
Randy shook his head. “Kid Random’s right,” he said. “It’s too dangerous. We need to be subtle. We need to get eyes on the inside.”
“Then we’re in luck!” said Anna. She nodded up to a nearby street light, and the little fluttering insect silhouetted against its glow. “There’s a butterfly. You can send that in to scope the place out for us.”
Randy regarded the bug, then shook his head. “That’s not a butterfly. It’s a moth. I can’t commune with moths.”
“Oh,” said Anna. “Well, is there a Moth King? Can we get his number?”
“Aren’t they the same thing?” Sam asked.
Randy snorted. “No. Of course they’re not the same thing. Are cows and pigs the same thing?” he demanded. “Snakes and fish? Chickens and hens?”
Sam opened his mouth.
“OK, maybe that last one. But moths and butterflies aren’t the same. They’re not even similar.”
Sam opened his mouth again.
“OK, they’re a little similar. But they’re not the same. Butterfly King can no more control moths than Duckman can control geese.”
Sam and Anna both opened their mouths.
“No, there isn’t actually a Duckman. I was just giving an example of…” Randy sighed. “Fine. Know what? Fine. I’ll give it a try.”
The others waited while he placed his fingers to his temples and glowered up at the moth, his face twisting with the effort of concentration.
For a long time, nothing happened.
For a longer time after that, nothing still happened.
The moth fluttered around the light, occasionally bumping into it, then bouncing off again to resume its haphazard flight.
“OK, so
we’ve established that it doesn’t work on moths, then,” said Sam.
“Wait…” Randy grimaced. “Almost… got it…”
The moth bumped into the light again, then circled around the lamp’s glass casing, lining itself up for another charge.
This time, however, instead of flying toward the glow, it banked off and began a leisurely fluttering in the direction of the meat shop.
“Yes… Yes!” Randy whispered.
Anna and Sam both watched in a vague, low-level sort of amazement as the moth jiggled gently through the air toward the—
A bus plowed past in a cloud of dust and fumes, splattering the insect against the windshield.
Randy stared in horror as the bus trundled off, then let his arms fall limply to his sides. He turned to Sam and hissed at him through gritted teeth. “You see what you made me do? That beautiful creature’s blood is on your hands, Kid Random! You killed that butterfly!”
“Moth,” Sam corrected.
Randy blinked. “Huh. Oh. Yeah.” He shrugged. “Fuck it, then.”
“Was that…? Was that Shanice?” Anna cried, watching the bus pull away along the street. “That lying bitch!”
After flipping the bus the bird, Anna began marching across the street. Sam scurried after her, with Randy skulking along behind, his cape raised to cover his face.
“I really don’t think we should just go right up and knock,” Sam said. “You saw what he did to those people on the TV. We need to get the jump on this guy.”
Anna nodded. “You have a point,” she admitted. “We’ll sneak round the back and see if there’s another door. And you know what else we should do?”
“Call the police?” Sam guessed.
“Workshop some witty quips,” Anna said.
Sam frowned. “Uh, I’m not sure that’s really vital.”
“Sure it is,” Anna insisted. They reached the sidewalk a little way along from the meat shop, then headed for the entrance to an alleyway a couple of stores along. “If we’re doing this, we should do it properly. So, let’s think. Beef Chief. What does that say to you?”
“Twisted criminal madman who I’m taking down!” Randy seethed.
“OK, OK. Right. But maybe more light-hearted?” Anna said. “Like… ‘Where’s the Beef, Chief?’ Only not as outdated a reference.”
The alleyway was dark and narrow, but the approaching dawn was enough to help them pick their way along it toward a network of fenced-off yards at the back.
“How about, ‘We’re going to make mincemeat out of you’?” Sam suggested. “Or is that too on the nose?”
“Ooh, no, I like it,” said Anna. “Threatening and witty. Ish.”
“I got one! I got one!” said Randy. “Sell the sizzle, not the steak!”
Anna and Sam both stopped to look at him. “How is that a quip?” Anna asked.
“You know. Steak. Beef.”
He made a hiss through his teeth that suggested a sizzling sound.
Sam shrugged. “I mean, it’s a step in the right direction, I guess.”
Darting ahead, Randy stopped at the end of the alleyway and held up a hand. “Stop,” he urged. “Wait.”
Sam lowered his voice to a whisper. “Again, Randy, you don’t have to keep explaining. These are basic universal gestures. We understand them.”
“Right. Good. Good to know,” Randy said. He extended his pinkie finger and thumb, flicked his hand sharply left and right a couple of times, then pointed upward.
That done, he slipped out of the alleyway and vanished around the corner.
“OK, that one I do not know,” Sam admitted. He looked hopefully to Anna.
“Don’t look at me,” she said.
They continued to the mouth of the alley and peeked around the corner at the yards and fences. Randy was nowhere to be seen.
“Where did he go?” Anna asked.
“Randy!” Sam hissed. “Randy?”
They waited.
“No, he’s gone,” said Anna. She gave a dismissive wave of her hand. “He’ll turn up. Come on.”
They spent a couple of minutes clambering over fences and through yards until they found the rear of the meat shop. They’d neglected to count how many doors it was along from the alley, but were able to identify the place thanks to the large rusted dumpster with ‘Warning: Contains Animal Parts’ painted on the side in faded red lettering.
There were no windows at the back, just crumbling brickwork, a heavy door, and the lingering aroma of death. Sam’s pulse quickened as Anna crept toward the door.
“Should we power up the suits?” he whispered. He didn’t want to use the words ‘Battle Mode’ in case that kicked it into life.
“Not yet,” Anna replied. “We don’t know if he’s even in here yet or—”
“Leave me alone!”
The voice rolled out from just the other side of the door, freezing them both in their tracks.
“Is that him?” Anna whispered.
“How should I know?” Sam mouthed back.
Anna cleared her throat. “Hello? We’re looking for the Beef Chief.”
“I didn’t do it! They said I did, but I didn’t!” the voice said. “So, go away, leave me alone!”
Anna turned to Sam. “Are we taking that as a ‘yes’?” she wondered.
Looking around, she spotted a broken piece of brick in the tangle of weeds. She picked it up and held it behind her back, then winked at Sam. “We just want to talk to you, that’s all.”
“I don’t want to talk! I don’t want to talk to anyone! Leave me alone!”
His voice faded a little, like he was moving away from the door. “I’m warning you. You don’t want to mess with me!”
Anna widened her eyes at Sam, urging him to contribute.
“Uh, come on out,” he said. “Or we’ll make mincemeat out of you.”
“Seriously? You’re doing the quip now?” Anna whispered. “We’re trying to get him to open the door. You’ve quipped too soon. That was premature quippage.”
“Well I didn’t know!” Sam whispered back. “I thought… Wait. What’s that?”
They listened. There was a sound from beyond the door. It was a thudding sort of sound. A rubbing, too, like something large moving through a narrow gap.
“What is that?” Anna wondered.
She was about to put her ear closer when the door exploded, sending her stumbling back into the tangled jungle of the yards’ weeds.
A large black bull was wedged in the doorframe, snorting, and stomping as it struggled to free itself. Judging by the size of it, it had to be some sort of mutant, Sam reckoned. Its head was the size, if not quite the shape, of an oil barrel. It thrashed around, swinging its long curved horns around like sword-blades.
“Jesus Christ!” Sam spluttered.
The bull’s baseball-sized eyes bulged in their sockets, showing off its bloodshot whites as it thrust its shoulders forward, splintering the doorframe.
“I warned you!” called a voice from further inside the building. “I told you to leave me alone! Get them, Russel!”
“What do we do?” Sam yelped.
Anna looked at her rock, then at the bull’s head.
“God knows,” she admitted, letting the stone drop. “Run away?”
“Pah!”
Randy’s voice came from behind the animal parts dumpster. He stepped out, swishing his cape dramatically. “Butterfly King isn’t running away from some dumb horse.”
There was a moment of silence, broken only by the snorting and grunting of the beast in the doorway.
“It’s a bull,” Sam pointed out. “It’s not… That’s not a horse.”
“It’s not?” asked Randy. He leaned left and right, studying it from different angles. “You sure?”
“Pretty sure.”
“Wait! I got it!” said Anna. She gestured from the bull to Randy’s bright red supersuit. “Ta-daa!”
Randy looked down. “What? What’s ‘ta-daa’? What do yo
u mean?”
“I mean, this big bastard…” she replied, pointing to the bull. “It’s totally going to kill us all, unless you step in and save the day.”
Randy straightened, his chest puffing out. “I’ll save the day, alright. I’ll save the day until its head spins.” He raised his fists and lunged. “OK, you vile, filthy beast, let’s do this!”
Anna put a hand on his chest, stopping him before he could take a swing. “No. That’s not going to work. You need to lead it away.”
Randy kept his fists raised, appearing unconvinced. “Away where?”
“Just… I don’t know. Anywhere,” said Anna. “Somewhere that’s not here.”
“That sounds like I’m fleeing,” Randy pointed out. “Like a filthy coward.”
“It isn’t,” Sam insisted. “You’re protecting us. It’s what the Justice Platoon would do.”
Randy lowered his fists and somehow found the lung capacity to swell his chest even further. “You’re goddamn right they would,” he said.
There was a definitive crash as the doorframe gave way and the bull stumbled out into the yard, eyes bulging, steam snorting from its nostrils.
Anna and Sam both neatly sidestepped out of its line of sight, leaving only Randy standing before it in his red suit and cape.
“You want me, you horsey bastard?” he growled, pulling his goggles down over his eyes. “Come get me!”
Randy turned and bounded clumsily over the fence. The bull sprang after him, horns lowered, smashing through the wood with one thunderous lunge.
Sam and Anna waited for the snorting and crashing to fade, before emerging from cover. “Think he’ll be OK?” Sam asked.
Anna puffed out her cheeks. “I don’t necessarily think he won’t be OK,” she offered, which Sam agreed was probably the best they could hope for.
They turned to the wrecked doorway, and the dark hallway beyond. “Should we go in?” Anna asked.
“That seems reckless,” Sam said. He shuffled from foot to foot, wringing his hands. “Maybe he’ll come out.”
They waited.
“I don’t think he’s coming out,” Anna said. “Hold up, I’ve got an idea.”
She cupped a hand around her mouth. “Hey! Beef Chief!” she hollered. “Come out.”
The Sidekicks Initiative Page 19