Collateral Damage

by Steve Beaulieu

  “You were lucky,” I finally say. “The raid tonight just shows you weren’t as good as you thought.”

  “So now what? I’m on the run for the rest of my life?”

  “You’ve been working with Darryl for a couple years, right?”

  He shrugs. “Yeah.”

  “So you know how he ran his operation, right? Who his clients were? Where he got the drugs? Stuff like that?”

  He shakes his head. “Look, man, I don’ know what you tryin’ to have me do. I’m no rat. I’m not goin’ to do my boy in like that.”

  “Your boy?” I ask. “Tell me, how was your boy there for you tonight? Did you see how quickly he turned on you?”

  Marcus mutters, “I shouldna hit him.”

  “You did the right thing. But besides tonight, let’s look at that supposed sweet deal he’s been including you in. The place to stay he promised you was the floor, right? And your cut for the drugs, I bet that dwindled. And I’d put money on the fact that he’s going to give your name to anyone who’ll listen to him once he wakes up. Your boy isn’t such a standup guy. He’s a lifelong criminal. But you, you’re better than this.”

  He’s quiet for a moment as he stares at the floor. Then he asks, “How can you be so sure?”

  “Last night you led me right to the rest of the guys in your crew.”

  “I knew they’d kick your ass,” he says.

  “You didn’t join in.”

  He turns away.

  “Anyone who has even a shred of street smarts knows not to run back to your home base if you’re being followed,” I continue. “You wanted me to follow you because you wanted me to bust you. And tonight, you could’ve let Darryl kill me, but you didn’t. You know he’s not a good guy.”

  He doesn’t say anything as he stares me down. Probably hating me for figuring him out.

  “Just think about what your loyalty to him is going to get you,” I add.

  “So, what? You sayin’ I should turn myself in?”

  I nod. “Yeah. You’re probably not going to get out of it with nothing, but they’d be more willing to work with you if you’ve got information they want.”

  He shakes his head again. “I don’t know, man.”

  Finally, it seems like I’ve gotten through to him, even if he’s not thrilled with the idea. I’ve said all I can for now. He’s got to make the ultimate decision.

  “Think about it.”

  • • •

  “You been out here all night?” Marcus asks me the next morning. I’m leaning against the wall in a small nook across from the hotel.

  “I’ve been moving around for different vantage points, but yeah. I’ve had my eye on you all night. Did you sleep well?”

  He grins. “Yeah. Never stayed in a hotel before.”

  “You think about what I said? About Darryl Hutchins?”

  Taking in a deep breath, he nods. “Yeah. You probably right. Should just go turn myself in.”

  “You weren’t the only one involved in this,” I say. “You certainly weren’t the ringleader. Don’t let them paint you as one. Tell them you were working for Hutchins and that you’d be willing to tell them everything they want to hear.”

  He looks down at the cracked pavement and then back up at me. “Nervous.”

  Since he can’t see my smirk, I nod. “You’ll be fine, though. Eventually this will all be behind you. You just have to be honest with them.”

  “Yeah. Guess I better get goin’, then.”

  “Good luck.”

  He clasps my hand and pats me on the back. “Thanks, man. Darryl, the room, everything.”

  Now I’m glad he can’t see my grin. “Just doing my job. Hopefully, we don’t run into each other like this again.”

  He nods. “We won’.”

  As he walks down the street to the subway stop, I can’t help but feel good about everything that happened. Even if I wasn’t exhausted, I’d rest easy tonight knowing that I made a difference in someone’s life. With so much that’s going wrong in my own life, it’s nice to know that it doesn’t carry over to the work I do as Fuse. I’m needed, even if it is my alter-ego. I guess in that sense, there’s still hope for me yet.

  A Word from David Neth

  Thanks for reading Fuse: On the Streets! As you could probably tell, this story actually takes place after the events of Book 1 (Fuse: Origin) but before the events of Book 2 (Fuse: Omertà). You can find the links for the first book here: DavidNethBooks.com/Origin

  I’m the author of the Under the Moon series (YA Urban Fantasy), the Fuse series, and the Small Town Christmas series (Holiday Romance). I live in Batavia, NY, where I dream of a successful publishing career and owning my own bookstore.

  Join my mailing list at DavidNethBooks.com/Newsletter or find me on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

  Thanks again for reading!

  THE CONSEQUENCES OF WISH FULFILLMENT

  BY MICHAEL DAVID ANDERSON

  THE CONSEQUENCES OF WISH FULFILLMENT

  BY MICHAEL DAVID ANDERSON

  ONE

  THE DREAM IS A MEMORY, although its clarity and sense of reality have long since faded and dulled with the passage of time. The torches we carry illuminate the dark tombs. I remember my father taking my hand as we push through a narrow crevice connecting one chamber to another; coughing as the walls and the cobwebs close in on us, the claustrophobia holding me in its ever-tightening grip; and the shift of the earth beneath us as it gives way. One second, we’re squeezing through the tight passage; the next, we’re plunging through an avalanche of rock and dirt. The torch falls from my father’s grasp, its end still alight but sputtering.

  Soon, everything settles. I’ve landed in a room full of gold coins and artifacts. The torchlight burns still, but I know it will go out before long. I turn to my dad, feeling for him in the shadows, calling for him. When I find him, he says nothing, does nothing. His eyes stare into the dark, and I realize that’s all he’ll see for the rest of eternity. I hitch a sob, but turn away, determined to find a way out.

  My hand lands upon something smooth, rubbing its grimy surface, but I think nothing of it. I need to get out. “I wish I was a superhero,” I say, thinking of the cartoons I’d often watch at home. Superheroes would know how to escape this place. They’d use their powers and zip out of this tomb in a flash!

  The air pressure changes as if the air itself has ruptured, and in the following blast of wind, I sense something else in the tomb with me. “As you wish,” an ominous voice says, and the tomb is filled with light.

  TWO

  I opened my eyes, wincing against the morning sunlight as it filtered through the window blinds, illuminating dancing dust motes. I rolled over, cast the sheet aside, and swung my legs out of bed. My body ached. Yesterday was rough, but no matter how much my body hurt, my heart hurt worse.

  A bottle of Stolichnaya and a small glass smeared with my greasy fingerprints rested on the mini-refrigerator I used as a nightstand. I bent down, opened the door, and retrieved a couple of ice cubes from the freezer compartment. Dropping them into the glass, I haphazardly poured until the glass was full, spilling some onto the fridge in the process. I glanced at the glass and decided to drink directly from the bottle instead, draining most of it before setting the bottle down with enough force to crack it. Oops.

  I stood, stretching, and wished doing so would make the body aches subside, but they intensified with every movement. A full-length mirror stood in the corner of the room, and I examined myself in it. Super strength was great, and so was advanced healing, but all the same the bruises from yesterday’s battle were prominent. Although my face had been largely spared, an anguished spider-web of black and yellow markings extended from my chin along the left curve of my jaw. I’d be back to normal in a couple of days, but until then I’d certainly feel the bruises, and I’d do so gladly. If an ordinary human had gone through what I had, they would have died.

  A knock came at the door.

  “Yeah?�
�

  My sister Carrie opened the door, her face obscured by her curly walnut hair. Her mouth was a grim line, and her visible eye fixed on me in a way reminding me of the killer ghost from The Grudge films. Had she been pale and vocalized that horrid, deep-seated croak, I might have feared for my life. “It smells like a dorm room in here.”

  “What is it, Carrie?”

  “News,” she said. “Now.” She disappeared down the hall.

  I sighed. I could only imagine what the reports were saying.

  I left the bedroom, walked down the short hall to the living room, and dropped onto the cheap sofa we’d acquired from a second-hand shop. A busted spring thrust against my rear, sending a twinge of pain up into my back. Even my ass, it seemed, was badly bruised. I shifted off the spring and directed my attention to the small television, its screen inundated with dead pixels. The audio in the set didn’t work; we had to watch with closed captioning turned on, and the black bars of text struggled to keep up with the reporter commentary.

  The footage was easy to follow. I recognized myself flying—or, more appropriately, being flung—through the air, driven into the side of one of the skyscrapers downtown by a fiery meteor about six feet in diameter. The impact pulverized the structure, causing it to collapse inward as glass and steel rained to the streets below. The headline read MAX FACTOR: HERO OR MASS MURDERER? The sub-heading read, 43 Dead in Battle with Meteos. The footage was replaced by one of the station’s reporters, Brad Wilhoyt.

  Carrie stood in the dining room, nibbling nervously on a protein bar. “The court of public opinion is crucifying you, Quinton.”

  “Let them,” I said. “After yesterday, sis, I deserve it.”

  THREE

  I showered, dressed, and stepped out into the world as the persona listed on my driver’s license: Quinton R. Monroe. The backpack slung over my shoulder carried my change of clothes for if I needed to change into my alter ego, the superhero Max Factor. In the comics and cartoons, the superhero often wore his costume under his street clothes, but it was summer, and there wasn’t a chance in hell I was doing that. I sweat profusely as it is, and two layers of clothing would cook me as thoroughly as a Thanksgiving turkey.

  Looking back on it, I should have made wiser choices when I made my wishes to the genie in the lamp, like a higher tolerance to heat and cold, but I was a scared kid stuck in a tomb when I discovered the magic lamp; I wasn’t in the best position to make smarter choices.

  I walked to work. En route, I saw the devastation from yesterday’s battle. An entire city block was shut down, and debris lay in the street. A company called Obsidian had won the bid with the city last year to undertake any clean-up and restoration projects related to superhuman battles in Carnival City, and they were already on the scene.

  Forty-three dead. My heart ached for them, and the guilt weighed heavily on me. I found no comfort in the fact I’d apprehended Meteos. He was being held by the authorities, heavily sedated, until he could be transported to Poseidon, a special prison facility offshore. The facility used dampening technology I hoped would be sufficient to subdue his abilities and prevent him from calling down a meteor and smashing the place to bits.

  I didn’t understand how these supervillains obtained their abilities. Before I became Max Factor, there wasn’t a history of supervillains in the world. Since my emergence, however, an unprecedented twenty-nine of them had been documented, all with vastly unique abilities.

  Years ago, in that tomb, the genie told me every wish had unforeseen consequences. I’ve long wondered if the consequences for my wish to become a superhero was the arrival of a seemingly endless stream of supervillains for me to combat.

  FOUR

  Eccentric Eddie’s stood on the corner of 4th and Main, and the eponymous owner leaned against the counter as he watched over his empty diner, his salt-and-pepper hair slicked back in an imitation of greasers from the fifties. When I walked in, instead of his normally vibrant, toothy grin, he offered me a strained smile. He knew today I wouldn’t be in proper spirits. “Hey, kiddo,” he said. “How are you holding up?”

  Eddie, of course, knows all about my superhero alter ego. How else was I going to explain my absences from work? You can only call out sick so many times before you lose your job. Lucky for me, Eddie is the epitome of an understanding boss, and he’s kept my secret now for over three years. Eddie isn’t your typical shop owner, he even pays me for the hours I miss. He won over five hundred thousand dollars in the lottery a few years ago, quit his office job, and fulfilled a lifelong dream by opening the diner. He supports me, to an extent, because he wants to give back to the community; he figures one way he can do so is by giving me a somewhat steady paycheck.

  “I’m not doing so hot, Eddie.”

  He leaned against the counter, the display beneath his hairy arms showing a wide assortment of meats, cheeses, bread, and other toppings for our subs. “You didn’t have to come in, Quinton. After that mess downtown, I would’ve understood.”

  I shook my head. “No, no, you need all the help you can get. The world doesn’t stop for Max Factor, nor should it for Quinton Monroe.”

  Eddie frowned. “You take on too much.”

  “I don’t do enough.”

  He paused, then sniffed. “You been drinking?”

  My watch vibrated. Rotating the outer ring, I checked the text. By no means am I a billionaire playboy superhero, decked out with gadgets galore, however, Max Factor has been gifted with many charitable donations, including technology, to aid him in his crimefighting. One such donation was a case of identical smartwatches donated by Tech mogul Sam Silvestri. He designed them specifically for me, knowing that a single smartwatch would likely be destroyed in one of my many battles. To the average human, they would seem indestructible. He was right, I had already demolished five of them.

  The text was from Carrie: URGENT. CHANNEL 5.

  “What is it, Quinton?” Eddie asked.

  I pointed to the old tube television mounted above the back bar. “Can you change to Channel 5?”

  Eddie snatched the remote off the counter and switched to the station. I didn’t have to ask him to turn up the volume; he did so of his own volition.

  Whereas the newsroom normally would have been focused on the anchors at the desk, the camera had been pulled out to give a view of the floor. The anchors, along with other behind the scenes employees, kneeled in front of the desk, their wrists bound with zip ties. An overweight man stood, pontificating, between them and the camera. His hair was long and unruly, overrun with curls, giving him a deranged aura. His attire included a neon green dress shirt, no tie, and black slacks.

  “For too long I have stood idly by, watching with increasing dismay as the so-called superhero Max Factor has engaged in battle after battle with a stream of supervillains, causing millions in property damage and egregious loss of life. Max Factor is not a hero. He is a blight upon this fair city and the world!”

  He stopped, took a breath. He made soft grunting sounds between his sentences that made him sound almost like a pig laboring for breath. “Max Factor, if you’re watching this—” and he gave a deep, shuddering huff “—which I’m sure by now you surely are, my demands are simple. Resign. Retreat from public life and denounce your so-called heroism. Do that, and no one else will die. Until then, I will pick someone at random in this city every six hours, and I will kill them. Sooner or later, I will find someone you care about, and I will make you feel the pain I feel.”

  He held up a photo of a young woman, smiling and vivacious. “My sister, Erin Shore, was killed in your fight with Meteos yesterday. You will pay for what you’ve done, one way or another. You can find me, threaten me, do whatever you like, but you cannot stop me. I do not wish to kill you. I want you to live with the pain you’ve caused me and others like me.”

  The man huffed as he stepped next to Brad Wilhoyt, who sobbed and begged for his release. “Bradley, stop your sniveling. It’s unbecoming of you.” Regarding
the camera once more, the man continued. “Everyone in Carnival City knows Brad Wilhoyt. He is practically the face of Channel 5 News. It’s a shame they’ll have to find a replacement.”

  The man reached down, extending his hand with all four fingers rather than just one.

  “Please don’t do this!” Brad Wilhoyt cried. The others begged, pleaded and sobbed to no avail. The man’s fingers passed through the side of Wilhoyt’s head as if it were no more substantial than air. His flesh didn’t cave in or break apart, but it did not arrest the progress of the man’s hand. The reporter’s mouth grew slack and the entire right side of his face drooped as though he’d suffered a stroke. His eyes grew unfocused; his left eye turned as if lazy, drooped, and stared at the floor even as his right stared past the camera. His body slouched, fell sideways, and tumbled to the floor, leaving the man’s hand, clean as it had been before, in the space where his head had been. Wilhoyt’s co-anchor, Barbara Townsend, let out a blood-curdling scream.

  “Silence!” the man commanded, huffing once more. Turning back to the camera, he said, “My name is Travis Shore. If it makes you feel better, you may call me Antimatter.”

  Eddie tore his gaze from the television, fixed me with a mortified stare, and said, “Go.”

  I nodded and ducked into the back room, where I unzipped my backpack. I wish I could say my alter ego’s uniform was something special, but it wasn’t. It was comprised of cargo pants, a black shirt, and a blindfold from an adult novelty shop with the holes cut out for me to see.

  “When are you ever going to get a real outfit?” Eddie asked.

  “With what I make here?” I asked. “I can’t afford the dry cleaning, Eddie.”

  He shrugged. I pulled off my work shirt and put on my other work shirt. As I started to unbutton my work slacks, he said, “And get a damn breath mint. You may think vodka doesn’t have a smell, kid, but trust me, alcohol does. The last thing you need is for the world to think Max Factor is a lousy drunk after what happened yesterday!”