Collateral Damage

by Steve Beaulieu

  “Ah, hello, Max Factor,” Shore huffed, “or should I call you Quinton?” Huff. Huff. Wheeze. “As I’m sure you have no doubt deduced by now,”—wheeze—“I have tracked you and your darling sister down using a trojan hidden on the flash drive I provided you.” Huff. “The moment the files were accessed,”—wheeze—“the IP trace algorithm used your internet connection and allowed me to track your location. Now don’t worry. I haven’t laid a hand on Carrie,”—wheeze—“nor have I leaked your identity to the world. That, Mr. Monroe, is between you and me.” Huff. “I did, however, hire a couple of nasty men to abduct your sister seeing as how I could not do the deed myself without accidentally killing her.”

  I was squeezing the voice recorder hard enough, its casing crunched in my grip. I forced myself to relax so I wouldn’t break it.

  “Come to City Hall, and come sober.” He huffed, and I wanted so badly to rip his throat out. “I’ve called a press conference. There, you’ll either watch your sister die, or you’ll publicly announce your retirement.” Wheeze. “The choice is yours.”

  As the recording ended, I crushed the recorder, and its mechanical guts rained to the carpet.

  NINE

  The media and thousands of onlookers were in a frenzy. Police manned the barricades to contain the crowd. A podium with strategically placed microphones was erected before a sea of news cameras. Standing on the landing above the podium, with Carrie on her knees before him, was Shore. Two thugs, decked out in body armor and each brandishing an AR15, flanked them. Across the street, on the rooftops, I noted several police snipers in position. They were there for the thugs; they knew, of course, there would be no neutralizing Shore.

  I hovered high above the scene for nearly two minutes before someone noticed my presence, and soon everyone’s attention was on me. The crowd alternately cheered and jeered. Protestors waved signs at me, many of them demanding I retire, others calling me foul obscenities.

  I descended, landing behind the podium to face Shore, my back to the crowd.

  Shore nodded. “Max Factor.” His voice boomed across the square; he was fitted with a wireless boom mic. I thought of it, and the flash drive, and his clothes, and realized he had control of his abilities. Otherwise, he’d never be able to touch anything solid. Recalling how I’d phased into his shoulder, however, I realized I had also slipped through his clothing. He could make anything he wore comprised of antimatter as well, it seemed.

  If there was a way to use this to my advantage, I couldn’t see it.

  “Dr. Shore.”

  “You came here with a choice to make.” Huff. “What is your decision?”

  I looked at Carrie, and our eyes locked. I gave her a brief nod, and she closed her eyes. I turned back to the podium, gripped it, and spoke to the people of Carnival City. “These past few days have been tragic, trying times for the people of this city. I apologize to those whose lives have been irrevocably altered and remember those whose lives have been lost at my expense. I tried to be the hero you deserved, but I failed. No one else will die because of me. Therefore, from this moment on, I will no longer serve as a guardian to this city.”

  The media and the crowd rose in a furor.

  I turned away from them. I half expected to find Shore grinning, victorious, but he remained somber. He gave me a curt nod and stepped away from Carrie.

  “I will uphold my end of the bargain,” Shore called, looking out over the crowd. “I will go with the authorities willingly. Let it be known, however, if Max Factor should end his retirement, no cell can hold me. No prison can contain me. I will come back, and I will make sure he pays for breaking his vow.”

  To his right, the thug in the body armor turned. “I’m not going to prison. You said you’d grant us safe passage out of here.”

  Shore turned, frowning. “Did I? Mr. Henry, you are a murderer. While I may have said you wouldn’t go to prison, I had no intention of simply letting you go either.”

  Shore moved quickly, his hand passing through Mr. Henry’s where it rested on the AR15. He began to scream, but Shore’s other hand passed through his face, and the scream was abruptly silenced. He fell to the ground.

  The other thug saw this happen and, knowing he couldn’t stop Shore, turned toward me. Saying nothing, he opened fire. The bullet ricocheted off my chest. Another shot cut across the square, this one from a sniper rifle. The round found its mark, staggering the gunman, but he didn’t go down. The shot drove him back a couple of steps, then he regained his footing. I darted forward before he could open fire again, seized the AR15 from his grasp, and punched him in the chest. He flew back, struck the building, and collapsed, unconscious.

  Behind me, Carrie said my name—not Max Factor, but my given name—and immediately I knew something was wrong. I turned and saw she had collapsed on the landing, her chest a scarlet blossom.

  “Oh God, no.” I went to her, sliding across the ground and lifting her into my arms. She coughed, and bloody spittle landed on her lips, on my face.

  “Go,” Shore said, and when I looked up, his expression was one of remorse. “Let this be your last act as Max Factor.” Huff. “Save her.”

  I nodded, and without another moment’s hesitation, I leaped into the air with Carrie in my arms, and I flew faster than I’d ever flown before.

  TEN

  The following morning, I sat in the hospital, dressed not as Max Factor, but as Quinton Monroe. Eddie had stopped by earlier and left a bouquet of flowers for Carrie. We talked, but most of the conversation passed in a haze for me. When he left, I couldn’t recall most of what we’d talked about.

  From my chair, I watched as the news reports announced my true identity to the world. Carrie’s hospitalization allowed the truth to leak much faster than it otherwise would have once doctors and nurses learned who I really was despite confidentiality clauses and agreements. The hospital was besieged by an onslaught of reporters and protestors, but I didn’t care.

  I only cared about Carrie.

  She was rushed into surgery immediately. When she’d been hit by the ricochet shot, her left lung had collapsed. She’d been under the knife for hours, and I’d been forced to wait, hopeless, as the doctors worked.

  She now lay in the hospital bed, unconscious, but her prognosis was good. It would take time, and there would be a long road of recovery ahead, but she’d pull through. If I hadn’t gotten her to the hospital as fast as I had, I would have lost her.

  The news transitioned to Dr. Shore. He held true to his word and turned himself into the authorities. I watched silent footage of him entering a prisoner transport. He was unrestrained and his captors kept their distance. He sat, head held high, his fingers interlaced. His gaze bored into the cameras and, through them as if he knew I was watching, daring me to break my vow, promising swift retribution if I did.

  Prison wouldn’t hold him. He could walk out whenever he wanted. The only thing keeping him there was his word. How do I know he’ll keep it? I wondered.

  Another thought occurred to me then. How does he know I’ll keep mine?

  I turned the television off. Shore blinked out and was replaced by my reflection on the dark screen. It was distorted, but it was still me… yet I hardly recognized myself. Who was I if not Max Factor? What would I do now with that part of my life over?

  I didn’t know. I looked at Carrie though, and I knew if I’d lost my sister, I would’ve never forgiven myself. I’d been so caught up in what it felt like to be a superhero that I’d never considered what I’d do if I truly lost her. Losing Dad the way I did had devastated me, but Carrie, I knew, would have broken me.

  We’d have to leave Carnival City. It was no longer safe for us here. We’d have to disappear and make a new life for ourselves elsewhere. I didn’t know how we’d be able to afford it yet, but we’d figure it out. We had to.

  I reached over, took her hand in mine, and squeezed it. I leaned back in my chair, still holding it, and closed my eyes. As I drifted off to sleep, exhausted
from the tumultuous past forty-eight hours, I felt her hand squeeze mine in return.

  A Word from Michael David Anderson

  I, like many other children, grew up with a fascination of superheroes. I watched Batman: The Animated Series regularly. Spider-Man and X-Men were also popular mainstays. I wasn’t exposed to the comics in depth at a young age, but I did accumulate a few here and there over the years. It wasn’t until I was an adult that I began to delve into them.

  I don’t normally write stories about superheroes. I tend to deal with the things that go bump in the night. If my stories can get under your skin, yet convey a message, I feel like I’ve done my job as a writer. Patricia Gilliam, a fellow author who wrote for Steve Beaulieu’s last round of superhero anthologies, told me about this opportunity to dive into the world of superheroes, and I saw a chance to play in a totally different playground. The idea I had was rather simple, and it appealed to my sensibilities. Some heroes are born with their abilities; others train for years, or they are afflicted with their abilities through other extraordinary means, like gamma radiation or a radioactive spider bite. How many kids wish they could be a superhero though? What if one’s wish came true?

  Enter Quinton Monroe, otherwise known as Max Factor. In my opinion, he has no business being a superhero, but is any of the superheroes we love ready to be a superhero when they first set out? What would you do if you were in his shoes and faced with an unbeatable nemesis and a seemingly impossible choice? No matter which choice he made, whether selfless or selfish, he would lose. The moral quandary is what interested me the most about writing this tale.

  I do hope you enjoyed The Consequences of Wish Fulfillment. You can find more information about my work at www.michaeldavidanderson.com and on Amazon. I am the author of the Teddy Dormer novels, Teddy and Wake, as well as their tie-in story Desynchrony. I also have a story called The Cleaner set in the world of Hugh Howey’s Silo Saga available exclusively on Amazon Kindle. By the end of 2017 or early 2018, I will be releasing my third novel, In the House of Wolves. You can follow me on Facebook and in the Facebook group Michael David Anderson Fiction. You can also follow me on Twitter @shadeofmidnight.

  I currently reside in Knoxville, TN with my significant other Christine and our two dogs, Bandit and Rory. If you follow me on Twitter, you’ll undoubtedly see my Instagram posts of their antics shared there.

  MINDHOPPER

  BY ED GOSNEY

  MINDHOPPER

  BY ED GOSNEY

  MOST CUSTOMERS PROBABLY didn't realize Jake Connally hated people. Which was fine with him, because if they knew, it wouldn't be good for business. And business came in two parts. His mother's used bookstore and comic book shop, The Magic Attic, where he worked the late afternoon and evening shift so his mother could go home and watch her afternoon soaps and talk shows she faithfully recorded on the DVR, and Jake's after-hours work as a finder of things.

  The Magic Attic job didn't pay much, and anyway, it was a family business. However, Jake had raked in several million over the last few years as a finder. Mrs. Connally knew nothing about it, and as far as Jake was concerned, it needed to stay that way.

  Mrs. Connally made sure The Magic Attic's front door activated a chime, so she and Jake would always know when customers came in. Wednesdays were the busiest days. New comic book issues became available, and all kinds of loyal customers would come marching in to buy the latest adventures that occupied their lives. The chime seemed to go off every few seconds between five and seven p.m. and Jake sometimes thought about how he'd love to have a laser beam aimed at the door, disintegrating every person as they came in. Of course, he'd need a Roomba to clean up the ashes every so often, but it would be worth it.

  "One more find, one more mindhopper mission, and I'm gone from The Magic Attic for good," he whispered under his breath just after the chime went off. Oh well, he thought to himself, at least it's a Friday night and not Wednesday.

  A young teen couple made their way over to the comic books and started talking quietly, pointing out some covers to each other. It seemed safe enough, so Jake decided to do a quick email check on his phone. Most of the time he'd wait until he got back home to look at this particular email account. Home being his mother's basement, which pretty much sucked.

  One message. This would be it, the final finder job, then his life would completely change.

  Before he opened it, a shadow crossed over his view. The young couple was standing on the other side of the counter now, with several comics in their hands.

  "Dude, we're ready to pay." It was the guy. Jake looked him over and forced a smile. He immediately took a dislike to the kid. Nice hair, nice clothes—he was everything Jake wasn't about ten years ago. "Put your comic books up on the counter, Shelby. I'm buying." The girl, Shelby, was a cute little blonde, the kind who never seemed to realize Jake was a living person. Not that he actually cared, since he tended to hate people. From appearances, the kid who offered to pay had both money and good looks, so why wouldn't she be with him? Times like these, Jake was tempted to use his powers and mindhop into the kid. Would it really be so bad? One time, just to experience what it was like, being young and seeming to have everything go your way, your future assured via daddy's trust fund.

  "So why call this place The Magic Attic when you have to walk down half a flight of stairs to come inside?"

  Jake hit the power button on his phone and put it in his back pocket. Knowing there was a job waiting for him would make the last hour of work go quickly—unless he ended up strangling this kid for asking the same question he'd heard a thousand times before. He really did despise people.

  "You'll have to come in between ten a.m. and three p.m. and ask Mrs. Connally. She owns the shop and can answer your questions.”

  Shelby, the pretty blonde, snorted with laughter. "You mean, you don't know? Aren't you her son or something?"

  If there was one thing Jake hated more than people, it was being laughed at by them. He really wished he had that laser right now. He reached out to a small cast iron frog sitting next to the cash register, gave it a quick stroke, then began ringing up the comic books.

  "The original location burned down in a fire before I was even born. My parents kept the name but moved their store in here. That'll be $21.20."

  • • •

  Later that evening, after his mother had her nightly gin and tonic—along with a handful of pills that Jake had no idea what she needed them for and didn't really care—he could finally lock himself into the back room of the basement where he kept his computer, along with his sanity. Living in your mom's basement when you’re twenty-eight isn't too cool, he knew. Yet if things worked out with his next find, this could be it. He'd been stashing away money in an offshore account for a few years, and his financial goal was close to being reached.

  He signed in to his computer, then his special email account. No one had this address, but he had a very illegal Darknet site set up with a "Contact Me" section that would bounce the message around to various online channels, then finally a scrambled message came into this email address. Though his customers found his services via the Deep Web, he avoided it as often as he could. Hence, the sophisticated setup to have messages sent to a legitimate email server. The process might be a little tedious, but being in the Deep Web could get you locked up if you weren't careful. Jake's finder service was crazy enough without taking even more chances.

  Copy the garbled email, put his computer in airplane mode, then open up the software program he'd created for himself in college. It was safe. At least he hadn't been caught. Yet.

  Jake leaned back in his chair and pulled a long sip from his can of Coke while the software did its thing. Many of his finder jobs had involved stuff he enjoyed, like getting someone Action Comics #1, the first comic book with Superman, or a first edition copy of Catcher in the Rye, and once an actual Hemingway manuscript. Sometimes it would require a little travel, but his mom had a friend—Agnes—who enjoyed working at The
Magic Attic whenever Jake took a few vacation days. Half the time he'd lie to her about where he was and what he did, but that never weighed on his conscience. Finding the item and getting his money was all that really mattered.

  His easiest find of all-time might have been the Mickey Mantle rookie card. Within a half hour of receiving the job request, he'd taken a bus downtown, walked into a baseball card shop when there weren't any customers, and mindhopped into the owner before he even saw Jake. With a new set of eyes, he looked down in the case from behind the counter, slid it open, pulled out the Mantle card. He walked over to his own body lying on the floor and slipped the Mickey into his jacket pocket just as the door opened and a father and son walked in. Jake hopped back into his own head, pretending to wake up slowly, acting very woozy. The father and son knelt down next to him, along with the shop owner who seemed a little confused himself.

  After a few seconds, it was time to go, and Jake jumped up quickly and said he better find his wife so she could take him to see his doctor. Without turning around, he made his way to the bus stop and soon was on his way back home. As he took a seat, he patted the outside of his jacket pocket, felt the hard plastic of the baseball card protector, and that was that.

  The delivery of the items themselves was a little time-consuming. He'd usually drive from just outside of Cleveland, Ohio, to a storage facility near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, using a new combination lock each time. Once a customer wired the finder fee into his offshore account, he'd communicate back with the location of the item and the combination to the lock. Sometimes customers would try to get him to deliver the item closer to their location, but his reputation on the Deep Web was excellent, and he could pretty much call the shots. Of course, none of them knew about his special ability.

  The software finally unscrambled the code. Jake always got a little excited about each new job. His regular life at The Magic Attic and evening TV with his mother couldn't have been more boring. Hopefully, this finder job would be a fun one.