Ever The Hero (Book 1): Ever The Hero

by Harn, Darby

  “Funny. That’s what he said.”

  His hand falls away. “Be smart, Kit. I’m begging you.”

  Something thuds above, up on the roof. Light blazes in my chest and I wait, for a Responder to crash through it. No one comes. I relax my defensive posture. Maybe it’s the birds.

  “Did you tell them where I am?”

  “No,” he says. “You going to check that out?”

  A small chrome cylinder the shape of an egg rests in the dimple it left in the roof, as if it fell out of the sky. Someone should really get up there and plug the leaks. I’ve never seen anything like it before. Certainly isn’t like any artifact I’ve scavenged out of the ruins, though it does appear vaguely alien. The ship might have dispatched it, in search of me. Not to communicate with me; I can hear the ship just fine.

  We must continue.

  Piller picks up the object. “You don’t know what this is?”

  “Should I?”

  Piller presses the cone at the top. The ends of the device came away as headphones. Inside, a small screen flickers on. The GP logo appears on screen, followed by the words EYES ONLY.

  “This is a communications buoy, from the space station.”

  The fierce hold I’ve kept on my heart crumbles. “What?”

  He touches the screen. “It’s coded, though. Why would she code it… well, she probably imagined someone like me trying to play it. I think I should leave it to you.”

  “It’s from her?”

  He smiles. “It can only be from her, Ms. Baldwin.”

  I cradle the buoy in my arms. The screen blinks DENIED with every touch but I don’t care; I have something to hold on to, again. I have some hope, once again.

  I have Valene again.

  Nineteen

  I sit in the muted light of my own heart, searching through the entirety of the GP database I acquired from Nosedive’s PEAL. Hours go by looking for some key or indication to the code I need to unlock the message stored within the buoy. I keep going back to Valene’s personnel file, thinking I’ll find it there.

  RESPONDER (SONIC)

  Code Name: OVERTURE

  File Name: BLACKWOOD, VALENE

  ERN: 087-06-3947

  Classification: E-10

  Power: Sonic spectrum

  DOB: 9/8/87 H: 5’9” W: 120

  Mission Status: CLASSIFIED

  Remarks: Insubordination

  I enter Val’s ERN. Her birthdate. Mine. Nothing. I press my memory for every moment, every word or phrase, any date of meaning to the two of us. Most of it is a blur. Most of it is me in the dark depths of the garage, working on Val’s salvation, and the few hours I’d surface in the tower, coming up for air.

  I can save you, I said, over and over and over like a mantra, as Valene covered her ears.

  When I get frustrated with the code, I follow a different branch through the delta of underground rivers streaming through all the information I acquired. The raids aren’t entirely random. Memos and emails keep referring back to some plan called ‘Pirate Jenny.’ Numerous contingency plans exist for all kinds of scenarios. Blackouts. Outbreaks. Asteroid strikes. One in particular imagines a scenario where the federal government is incapacitated in a surprise attack, and GP steps in to provide law and order. The playbook is eerily the same as what’s unfolding in the city: martial law. Assumption of governance.

  Nowhere do I read anything about giving it back.

  I go back to fussing with the code. Nothing opens the cylinder. I get bored and tired and angry so I leave the zoo, though I don’t know exactly where I’m going. What I’m doing. This buoy opens, and she says, I miss you, or Come up here, and what am I going to do? Reactions. I need to work on them. A few days ago, I was thinking she’s gone, it’s over, this is my life now, doing – Piller might have had a point, I’m not sure what I’m doing – but I’m doing something. Trying to do what’s right. This is right. I can still save Valene.

  I can still make it right.

  The sky confetties in red and black. Leaflets paper the streets and walks. YOUR SECURITY. YOUR CHOICE. I manifest inside the auto garage, out of sight, and go down into the basement. The new sonic suit I started for Val dresses the mannequin I left it on, unfinished. I roll it up and stuff it in my bag with the rest of my supplies and ghost out of the garage, down Shelley, gliding just off the ground. Watching. Before, I just hurried past everything. Now, a Responder could drop out of the sky. A message from Valene. Now I have to see. Everything.

  Now I want to.

  The old pharmacy closed not too long after Dad died. Vandals broke in, leaving it open and exposed for years. I went in there sometimes, not to take anything, but to see the only thing they left. At one point in the 70s, the pharmacy had been a roller rink. They left the disco ball in the ceiling. So did the looters. I don’t know. I guess everyone shares some kind of odd respect for it. Holy ground. The disco pharmacy. Always something strange about it. Any time I’d go by on the bike, I’d stop and the diamond star glittering in the calved sunlight through the roof became a marker. A point of reference as I reeled from the loss of my dad, and the uncertainty of home.

  I drift down the long scavenged aisles, to the back. The floor descends into a ramp, as it curves into the bowl where the rink had been. Above, the disco ball hangs, eternal. I zip down my jacket a little, the front of the suit, and ruby stars float across the walls. The ceiling. I have no church. No faith. Only getting by. Avoiding catastrophe by losing myself in the indiscernible landscape of ruin that’s surrounded me all my life. I’ve lost myself in the ruins. My hands shake. The saddlebag heavy with Valene’s suit rattles against my hip. I want something more than checking my position to see how far I’ve fallen. Something more than distraction. I want to be something more than a patch or ghost or battery for an alien.

  I want to live.

  “Where are we going tonight?”

  Vidette studies the constellation of pins I made in the map of Break Pointe, representing GP’s raids, and she smiles, excited, all her bracelets jangling with energy.

  “We?” I say, putting a pin in the sonic suit.

  “Right, let’s split up,” she says. “That will really cook their noodle. These red ones are the ones they have planned for tonight? I’ll take Hugo. You go up to Parker. Sound good?”

  “I don’t want anyone else to get hurt, Vi.”

  “We’ll just scare ‘em a little.”

  “I mean, anyone I care about.”

  She turns around from the map, her smile intact. “I’m a big girl, baby. I can handle myself.”

  “I know. Piller obviously told you everything.”

  She nods. “Tends to happen when he shows up drunk.”

  “Blackwood knows who I am. Who I care about.”

  Vidette pinches the sleeve of the sonic suit, dangling off the mannequin. “Is that why you haven’t called Abi?”

  Things with Abi have always been easy. Simple. To the point. The more I get to know her, the more Abi pushes me past it. What’s the point? Where am I going? All my life, I’ve orbited the apartment, and then the tower, caught in the web of the two poles that compel me and now I don’t know.

  “I don’t know,” I say, and smooth out the crimp in the fabric Vidette left in the sleeve of the suit.

  Vidette brushes my cheek, bare handed. Light snaps at her, and then recoils, denied the promise of energy. “It’s scary, isn’t it? The future. It’s easier to stay with what you know, way past when you shouldn’t, because at least you know it.”

  “Valene is still the best plan,” I say.

  Vidette’s smile is sad. “Do you know what the worst part about being a hero is? It’s not the people you can’t help. It’s the people you hurt, because you’re never home or you do something for the greater good that isn’t good for somebody. We have to stop Blackwood. And Valene will pay for that, somehow.”

  I leave the suit. “I will never do anything to hurt her.”

  “At the very least,
everything she knows about her dad is a lie. That’s going to leave a mark. When the truth comes out about him, it will put a dent in their net worth. Not trying to be cute, but it’s going to bring her down to earth a bit.”

  “He threatened her,” I say.

  “What?”

  “He implied it, anyways.”

  She shakes her head. “He would never hurt her. She’s everything. The future. The company. He knows that, regardless of where his power actually comes from. Most of it comes from her. Without Valene there to take over when he’s gone, Great Power turns into the War of the Roses in a hurry.”

  The future is like the Myriad. A million different things. All of them equally possible, and equally terrifying. I drift to the map of the old city, and push a pin to mark the future location of the Blackwood Building in the tip of the peninsula.

  “I can’t risk anyone getting hurt, Vi. Not because of me.”

  Her bracelets slide down her arms and clang together as they crash around her wrists. “I need to be doing something.”

  “You are. The clinic has never been more important.”

  “I’ve waited my whole life for this moment, Kit. And now you want me to sit on the sidelines because you’re worried about me being hurt? I appreciate that, but no one can hurt me.”

  “They’ll come after the clinic. Your staff. Dr. Piller.”

  Her smile is short lived. “You got this all figured.”

  “Please, Vi. This is my fight.”

  Her eyes fell heavy on me. Most people stare into my chest and the strange light there. Vidette’s focus is on something else. She pinches the fabric on my sleeve, and watches as it smoothed back out. I’m a foot taller than Vidette, a different shape entirely, but the uniform Vidette wore as a member of The Vanguard fits me now as if it had been made for me.

  “You can’t do it alone,” she says.

  “I can’t do anything about Blackwood without proof,” I say. “And I can’t go to war with him thinking no one will get hurt.”

  She rests her hand on my shoulder. “You are at war.”

  Dust grits under her shoes as she leaves the office. Part of me wants to go with her, out into the ruins, the suffering, and set the pieces all back right. My poles aren’t places now, but people. Vidette. Dr. Piller. Hold it together. Burn it down.

  Thousands of people flood the streets around City Hall, shouting for the vetoing of the resolution. Security guards block the way in but people try and push inside. More come up Wilson. More signs. WHY DO THEY CALL THEM BLACKWOOD? EVERYTHING THEY TOUCH BURNS. More chants. More shouts. WHOSE STREETS?

  OUR STREETS.

  I know better than to stay but the sight of them all, so angry, so passionate, so ready, draws me in. The life. I’ve never seen so much verve here. So much energy. Part of me thinks the magnitude of it pulled on me like the magnet I am. I hope that’s not the rest of my life; a miller buzzing around streetlamps. I pull my hood down low. Make a needle as I move through the crowd. Even with Vidette’s old suit, I’m still afraid of getting too close. Elbows brush mine. Hands.

  Someone grabs my hands. “Kit. Hey. Hey, it’s me.”

  “Abi…”

  “You just disappeared on me.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t – ”

  “I thought we were kind of, I don’t know. Making progress.”

  “Progress?”

  Abi frowns. “I thought we made a good team.”

  I never click with people. People fluster me. Not Abi. I don’t know if that’s more frustrating. Scarier.

  “I’m sorry, Abi. I didn’t want to put you in any danger. Honestly. What I’m doing is… I don’t know what I’m doing.”

  She smiles. “You’re a frickin’ superhero and stuff.”

  I lead Abi out of the crowd. “Not so loud.”

  “Shit. Sorry. You’re not here for this?”

  “I’m just sort of taking it all in. You are?”

  Abi beams. “Duh.”

  “Won’t you get in trouble at work?”

  She shrugs. “I’m probably going to quit. I should just quit. I don’t know why I haven’t. My mom wants me to move back home, which, whatever. I told her about you. Not like, about you, because obviously secret identity and stuff, but… I’d like her to meet you, actually. I’d like to take you home.”

  “Oh.”

  “But she’d think you being black is like me making some kind of statement. On top of you being a girl. And an alien.”

  “Right.”

  “She tries. She doesn’t get it. She thinks it’s a phase. I’m like, ‘Yeah, Phase Two, muthafucka’ and it doesn’t help. Like at all. I’m basically making it worse.”

  “What is Phase Two?”

  “Exactly.”

  I shake my head. “How about your dad?”

  She looks away. “I don’t see him. He’s… a violent person. He hit my mom. He hit us. Just all the time.”

  “Abi, I’m so sorry.”

  Abi shrugs. “I’m a tough chick. Like you.”

  “I’m not strong.”

  Abi squeezes my hand. “Then nobody is. March with me. Dude, if these people knew you were here right now, they’d plotz.”

  I step back to the curb. “It’s not safe to be around me. I shouldn’t be seen here. It was good to see you.”

  Abi throws her hands up. “Kit. C’mon. We’re a team.”

  “There’s no team.”

  Her arms crash back to her sides. “There is. Look around.”

  The protest grows. The thunder. The energy. One voice. WHOSE STREETS? OUR STREETS.

  “I don’t want to get anyone hurt,” I say.

  “I didn’t come here expecting to see you,” Abi says. “And neither did any of these people. They made the choice to march. And they know that it’s a risk. I’m not afraid, Kit.”

  I don’t fear. At least I didn’t before.

  Her lips draw towards mine. The iron tumbling through her veins pulling on me. Fillings in her teeth. This electric want between both us I can’t deny. I want to say more. Open up. Let go. If I do, I don’t know what I’ll be releasing.

  I bite my lip. “I’m no good for people.”

  Abi caresses the thin, droopy fabric of my hood against my cheek. She presses her lips to it. To me. “Be good for me.”

  The protesters move as one down Ford, toward Shelley. Abi tugs on me, pulling me along, forward, always.

  I pull the motorcycle helmet off. Light curls in the air after it. “I feel like I’m on a bobsled team.”

  Abi looks up from her laptop. The mixed light of the computer and the Myriad cast the zookeeper’s office in wan violet. “Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Nope. It’s a bobsled.”

  “Strange she only strikes from uphill.”

  “And in winter.”

  Scarves and ski masks line the edge of the desk. None of them feel right. Most of them make me look like an extra in a bad 80s music video. I don’t know there are good 80s music videos. I’m tired of hiding. I’m tired of being someone else.

  “None of this is right,” I say.

  “The suit can change shape?”

  “The material is a shape memory polymer.”

  Abi’s fingers tug at the fabric of my collar, paint thin. The collar comes away like a strand of gum and she stretches it up and over the back of my head. The fabric adjusts over the bramble of my curls, hugging, masking the contours of my face.

  “Nah,” Abi says, and peels the mask down my face.

  “Whoa, whoa – be careful, Abi.”

  Abi lets go. “Sorry.”

  The fabric relaxes back into its usual shape. “I’m not worried about the suit, I’m worried about you.”

  “You worry about me?”

  “You know I do.”

  Abi laces her arm around my waist. She brings me close, her fingers circling my back, massaging, caressing, nothing between the two of us but fabric so thin as to be negligible.

  “Do you feel that?”

&nbs
p; I squirm in her embrace. “Yes.”

  “Does it feel good?”

  I rest my head on her shoulder. “Yes.”

  Abi kisses my neck. “Does that?”

  “Abi…”

  Her breath purrs into my ear. “Shh.”

  She peels the collar away again, stretches it out and over my lips. My laugh muffles and Abi kisses me through the spongy skin of the suit. Her lips press against mine. Her want.

  “I want to kiss you for real,” she says.

  “Abi, we can’t.”

  “Somehow you’re controlling this thing, and I’ll bet you can control whether or not you acquire someone, too.”

  “You think so?”

  “I know you can. You can do anything.”

  She kisses me again. The urge to draw down this mask is overwhelming. The hunger for the taste of salt. Skin. A woman. I’m weeks now without eating anything proper but I’ve always been hungry. My entire life starved of affection.

  I step back. “I wish I could.”

  “You don’t exactly observe limitations, so this probably isn’t you thinking you can’t touch me. You don’t want to.”

  “Abi.”

  “I mean, I get it. I know what it’s like to pin everything on one person, and I know I’m fucking this up right now, but… I know I’m not her. She’s Fifth Avenue, I’m Main Street. Ok. But I’m here, Kit. You know what I mean? I’m here, for you.”

  I go to the desk, and take the buoy from out of the bottom drawer. “Abi, I need to be honest with you.”

  “Ok.”

  “This is from the space station. From Valene.”

  Abi’s smile is easy. So is her disappointment. “Ok.”

  “It’s a message. I think. I can’t unlock the code.”

  “Can’t you just hack this thing?”

  I slump to the chair. “I don’t know what to do. I’ve wanted to hear her voice, to have her reach out and lift me up for so long… and now here she is when I need her the most, and…”

  Abi kneels before me. “I know.”

  “I don’t want you to think I’m hiding something.”