Collateral Damage

by Steve Beaulieu

  The rest awkwardly shuffled backward. He needed to teach them how to politely duck out of a situation to don their superhero personas. “I hope somebody nearby can save the day.”

  “I think I forgot my business cards at home,” a man jumped to his feet and scurried toward the door. The applicant barely shut the door behind him as he tore away at his dress shirt, throwing buttons across the hallway.

  “Oh sorry, I already have a job,” said a woman with a mousy grin. She turned and ran. The rest of the applicants stood up and hustled to the door. Did he catch a glimpse of a crossbow and an energy staff in the crowd? All the muscle straining to fit through the doorway caused a slight chuckle. At least the city would be safe now.

  He strolled into his office with a newfound purpose. Their contact information sat on his desk, home addresses and cell phones. What if superheroes worked for him on a superhero detection app? It wasn’t enough to spot them while “heroing,” he would be able to help them adapt to the non-super world. He smiled at the thought, ordinary Steve Robinson with the potential to be a hero for heroes.

  “Ahem.”

  Steve spun about to a young kid in his office. “Perhaps there is a real applicant?”

  The kid sat down in a chair as Steve walked behind his desk. The developer ignored the dozens of flying heroes assaulting the bug army. The kid’s hoodie, the zipper down enough to reveal his tie and dress shirt. The kid swiped a button on his phone while Steve took a seat. With each swipe or jab at the electronic device, the kid’s eyes rolled back, obviously annoyed at whatever taking place on his phone.

  “Hi, I’m Nate Nicholson,” the teen reached across the desk to shake his hand. “I’ve been looking for an opportunity to work with a tech startup.”

  “How old...”

  Nate held up his finger. With his right hand, he swiped through his phone, clicking on the screen. After a few seconds of furious clicking, he returned to smiling.

  “I’m sixteen. I have a work permit.”

  “So, how did you...”

  The finger again. Furious clicking. Exasperated sigh. “Your software is impressive. I deconstructed your code. There are definitely some areas you could improve upon. Did you consider adding a scrolling Rolodex of superheroes? What about geolocating them using military satellites?”

  “This is a customer service opportunity, not for a coder.”

  “Hold on.”

  More clicking.

  “What are you—”

  Steve jumped as a giant ladybug landed on the office window. One of nature’s most adorable insects had an ax to grind, and at two hundred pounds, the bug had the opportunity. Perhaps in an effort to change its good girl image, the ladybug started to thump against the glass, causing it to crack.

  “We should run,” Steve said as he started for the door. Perhaps because he lived in a world where reality only existed on the screen, Nate didn’t budge from his seat. Steve wondered if he should grab the child and run.

  More. Furious. Clicking.

  Steve stopped reaching for Nathan as a drone hovered near the insect. A nearly invisible line of red light shot from the hovering robot, piercing the lady bug’s thick hide. With a quick swipe, its head fell off, leaving the giant body clinging to the window.

  “Did you...”

  “Build a small robot army to combat King Mite?”

  “Yeah, that.”

  “Do I get the job?”

  Steve straightened his jacket and pulled at his tie until the fabric firmly hugged his neck. He gave a slight nod to Nathan. Steve smiled as he admired the disengaged teen. Peeking over the kid’s shoulder Nathan liked a selfie of Feral stepping on Killsy’s neck on Instagram.

  Steve pressed the button on the intercom. “Janice, can you call Sam Supreme and Felicia Fierce and let them know they’re hired?”

  “Can’t pay me, but you’re hiring more customer service reps?”

  “I’m changing the game for Secret Identities Incorporated.”

  “Does this mean I finally get paid,” asked the irate sister-in-law. His husband swore if he tried to fire Janice again, he’d be sleeping on the couch. Will would be baffled to hear Steve say he was keeping Janice on as the office manager.

  He watched as the bug army fell to the ground belly side up. Eyebeams. Super strength. Freeze rays. Magical portals. With so many do-gooders out in the city, King Mite didn’t stand a chance. He marveled at the grandeur of their powers.

  “I’m feeling generous, Janice,” he yelled into the lobby, “dinner is on me.”

  A groan. “So, no paycheck.”

  As another drone flew by the window, projecting lasers here and there, Steve held his hand out to the kid. “Welcome to Secret Identities Incorporated.”

  A Word from Jeremy Flagg

  I authored the Children of Nostradamus dystopian science fiction series and Suburban Zombie High young adult humor/horror series. I take my love of pop culture and comic books, and focus on fast paced, action packed novels with complex characters and contemporary themes.

  Children of Nostradamus and Suburban Zombie High are both available from Amazon.

  FIRE PRINCE

  BY SCOTT MOON

  FIRE PRINCE

  BY SCOTT MOON

  “NO ONE CAN PRONOUNCE MY REAL NAME,” Huegransguax said. “Hueg works for most people.”

  He towered over his new boss, a woman wearing hiking boots, jeans, and a padded flannel shirt. Her hair was a repulsive shade of honey-blonde—a color humans enjoyed. They liked lots of strange things and none of them were fire giant children like Huegransguax.

  “You can look me in the eyes, big guy,” she said, edging closer.

  Her scent did things to his young body, despite how her hair reminded him of the poison that killed his father in the Hall of the Burning King.

  She was human.

  He was lonely and far from home. He wanted to cry and curse like a dragon slayer.

  “My sincerest apologies, boss’s daughter,” he said. “I’ve never flirted before.”

  “Or kissed a girl!” shouted one of the lumberjacks having lunch on a fallen tree trunk.

  “You assholes shut up,” she said, then smiled upward at Hueg. “My name is Amy Holcomb.”

  “You’re not the boss’s daughter?” Hueg asked.

  “Yeah, I am, but that’s rude. Where’d they grow you at?”

  Hueg flinched.

  She waited for him to say something, then grew cold when he just looked at her. “Well, Hueg. You’ve shown you’re strong enough for the job. No surprise there. Fortunately, we don’t require maturity or social tact, so you can continue to work for us. The dry season is over but I still need you to review these training brochures regarding fire safety. You can read, can’t you?”

  “I think so,” Hueg said.

  “Didn’t you go to school?”

  “I had private tutors and sworn bodyguards. The script of my people is more elaborate,” he said.

  Amy, the boss’s daughter, stared at him for several seconds. “You say the strangest things. It’s like you’re an overgrown child. Are you afraid of fire?”

  He smiled. “Fire is afraid of me.”

  Amy shook her head. “Are all the men in this godforsaken land crazy?”

  “You make us crazy!” one of the tough looking men yelled to rounds of laughter.

  “I’ll make you out of a job, Smith,” she said, then stalked toward the site trailer.

  Hueg’s co-workers waited until she’d stayed inside a minute, then sauntered over to him.

  “That was beautiful, Hueg. Way to shut her down. Make her squirm. She doesn’t go for any of us ‘mere mortals,’” Smith said. “You got to be six feet four and two hundred and forty pounds of raw man to even catch her eye.”

  “Is that big?” Hueg asked. He was still adjusting to the measuring systems of this world.

  Smith and his friends laughed. “Not as big as you, my man. Where are you from, anyway? What’s your story?”r />
  “I was raised in Ansguax, a world not far from this one. My father was assassinated and my family was slaughtered in the Hall of the Burning King. His champion brought me here to hide and plot revenge on the traitors who did it.”

  Smith and the others stared at him, then burst into laughter.

  “Nice, Hueg. You must be one of them gamers. Keep that nonsense to yourself. We’ll take you to Mort’s again tonight for beers. You keep your pretty mouth shut and let the girls come to us.”

  Hueg shrugged. He’d been making his own way in this world for over a year and learned quickly how these people disdained the truth. Holding fire in his hands caused some to run and others to call him a monster. Regenerating broken bones sent doctors into a frenzy of questions.

  In his world, such powers were merely the attributes allowing his kind to survive to adulthood.

  Smiling at their jokes and making crude sounds seemed to amuse some of them. Most of the lumberjacks were generous and shared their work, even offering him a place on the ax team. Human technology was simple. He could have improved their chainsaws, vehicles, and computers, but didn’t enjoy puzzle work. Long ago, before it all happened, he’d been a fan of such things. Now he desired the peace and quiet of exercise.

  “Shimmy up there, Hueg. Trim back those branches so they don’t tangle when it falls. Some nice wood up there,” Smith said.

  Hueg nodded and climbed the tree, forgetting the safety belt. Smith and the others traded money. One man shook his head and cursed. Hueg had forgotten these lumberjacks were gamblers.

  He looked across the valley and saw a large vehicle moving up the winding road.

  “No lallygagging up there, man. Get to work!” Smith yelled, good humor in his voice.

  Hueg watched the prison truck slip behind trees. It might come this way, or it might not. Normally he wouldn’t care. This rolling iron box, however, was huge. Without naming the fear he felt, he searched the valley for other signs of danger. There was only the truck he could no longer see, obscured behind tall trees.

  He went to work on the branches, finishing them quickly and climbing down without a word to his human friends.

  Where are you Tegerst? Why are you not by my side as you were by my father in his times of need?

  • • •

  Snow fell in lazy patterns as Hueg climbed onto the back of the flatbed truck with the others. A security guard driving a Jeep, young even by human standards, pulled into the logging camp and eyed them with a mixture of timidity and resentment.

  “He will protect the camp?” Hueg asked. The boy looked like Hueg felt inside—alone and far from home.

  A moment passed while the men stared at him, then they burst out laughing and went back to their conversations.

  Hueg watched the human boy, small and soft and uncertain as a fawn in the woods. He wondered how such a creature could survive, then remembered few of the humans were being hunted by assassins and traitors. Some of his brothers and sisters, even younger than he, had been forced to flee into the forests of Ansguax.

  Falling snow brought two daydreams into his mind. One was of Yani, Hana, and Tii running and laughing as they escaped. The other was grim, but he always pretended they made it to Tegerst’s stronghold.

  They had been children and loved treats, and all the treats had been poisoned. Hueg knew they couldn’t have escaped the plot. Reality was too painful to endure, so he focused on the stink of the truck’s exhaust fumes and how the snow stung his cheeks.

  The road twisted into town, passing a clear cut from a rival logging company. Hueg and the other lumberjacks stared in silence as they passed the wasteland—stumps of trees stuck out of the mud.

  The moment of silence ended when the truck drove onto a narrow blacktop highway. “Gives me the creeps,” Smith said.

  Hueg thought about the armored prison truck he’d seen earlier in the day and tried not to look nervous. The men around him were not bound to him, but they were friends. Or something close to friends.

  None of them deserved to die because of him.

  He thought of Amy, the boss’s daughter, then pulled off his stocking cap to feel the evening chill. New snowflakes melted on his face. The wind of the speeding truck caused Smith and the others to curse the driver, who apparently had a date in town with a woman named Maggie.

  “Button up, Hueg,” Smith said. “You’ll catch chill, and I can’t have you calling in sick tomorrow.”

  “I won’t,” Hueg said.

  Smith frowned. “Catch a chill or call in sick?”

  “I don’t get sick unless you plan to poison me,” Hueg said.

  The crew shifted awkwardly and stared at each other for a few seconds, then laughed and created loud versions of his story that became wilder and more ridiculous as they neared town. They had him flying, shooting lasers from his eyes, and clawing people with knuckle blades.

  It was almost dark when the truck cruised down Main Street.

  Hueg saw many of the more serious guards of the town, police they were called, stringing crime scene tape around the bank. Some of the men and women wore windbreakers with the letters FBI across their backs and on their baseball caps.

  “Ain’t seen a bank robbery before,” one of the men said.

  “I have.” Smith stood at the edge of the flatbed, balancing easily as the truck continued to move. “This isn’t a heist. This is what comes after.”

  Hueg wanted to join him but remained seated. He didn’t want to be seen by the FBI. He didn’t know why, but he thought they would blame him for the bank robbery.

  The last things he saw of the crime scene were the missing front doors and shattered glass.

  The bar welcomed them. A few of his comrades talked about the bank robbery with patrons who were several beers into their night. Others played darts, fed the jukebox, or chatted with friends...usually female friends who wore a lot of makeup and short skirts.

  “I am telling you the freak dragged the safe out and loaded it onto a truck,” a man said.

  Smith snorted. “No way. That bank and everything in it is an antique, but the safe had to weigh five tons.”

  “Go back and look at the sidewalk if you don’t believe me. Cut a groove straight into the street where he dragged it.”

  Hueg listened to the argument and drank whiskey like it was water. Several men from town watched in fascination as he handed shot glasses back to the bartender in a regular cadence.

  “You better slow down, man. Ain’t no real hospital around here to deal with alcohol poisoning,” one of the townsmen said.

  Hueg turned his head at the word poison. “What did you say?”

  Smith grabbed his shoulder. Unable to move Hueg, he pulled himself between Hueg and the men. “They’re just talking. Never seen you drink before.”

  “Is this dragon piss? Mead from the forests of Ylulugon? If not, I’ll be fine,” Hueg said, staring over Smith at the men.

  They laughed awkwardly. Silence spread across the room until only the jukebox played. The song ended and everyone stared at the division of lumberjacks and townsmen.

  Hueg stood, bumping Smith aside. “Is it dragon piss?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, you brush ape, but you need to relax,” the man said. His friend, who was even bigger than Hueg, if a bit soft, moved forward.

  The bartender slapped a pair of shot glasses on the bar. “Whiskey is free for Hueg until someone can outdrink him. You two want to beef, do it my way.”

  “Roger will take that bet,” the leader of the townsmen said. “But he pays for our drinks if he loses.”

  The bartender shrugged.

  Hueg turned to the bar and started tossing whiskey down his throat in a rhythm that had Roger scrambling to catch up.

  It wasn’t long before the big human pushed away from the bar, roaring a curse. “This is some kind of trick. You trying to scam me?”

  “The alcohol of this world tastes like water,” Hueg said. “A baby could drink
it.”

  Smith grabbed him and pulled. Two other lumberjacks helped. “Come on, Hueg. Let’s get gone. Long day tomorrow.”

  “What do you know of poison?” Hueg asked the townsman.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, you crazy freak,” the man said as he shook his head side to side to express all the sarcasm and disdain in the world.

  Hueg pushed him.

  The man flew backward through the ranks of his friends. Lumberjacks and townsmen clashed like rival clans of Northmen in a shield wall. Hueg fought to control his anger and mostly succeeded. Tegerst had warned him many times not to fight angry. He was lifting Roger, big as he was, over his head when the loudmouth that started the fight stabbed Hueg in the thigh with a broken beer bottle. Blood spurted onto the floor. The bartender fired a shotgun at the ceiling and took the Lord’s name in vain as he shouted the room down.

  Hueg dropped the very large, very drunk man on the floor. He ignored his wound and faced the bartender. “I don’t like it when you curse like that. You should not blaspheme.”

  The bartender swallowed, then pumped another round into the shotgun as he faced the stunned patrons. “Drink or leave. Fight’s over.”

  “Come on, Hueg. You’re stabbed,” Smith said as he pulled at his arm.

  Hueg covered the wound on his leg with one hand. Hoping his friends wouldn’t see how deep it went—nearly down to the bone, he limped toward the door.

  “Amy is going to kill me,” Smith said. “Ben, get the truck we got to take Hueg to the emergency room.”

  “It’s not so bad,” Hueg said.

  “He stabbed a bottle into your leg!” Smith said, not sounding like himself. He was the Bull of the logging camp, toughest man in the area until now.

  “It only looked like he did. Doesn’t feel deep. Take me to my room and I’ll wrap it up. Call in sick tomorrow. Tell Amy I’m hung-over,” Hueg said.

  Smith and the others laughed but it sounded like a deranged bunch of choirboys.

  Hueg closed the door to his hotel room and sat alone in the dark. He wanted to cry like a child because he was a child. Smith and the others talked to him through the door for a while. Hueg thought Smith told someone to sit outside and watch his door but didn’t care.