The Hero Beat

by Nick Svolos

  “Sure, what’s up?” I leaned back against the commentary desk.

  “When you gave your report this morning, you did not mention the name of Gail’s granddaughter. I assumed you were trying to protect her identity. Would you be willing to tell me who she is?”

  “Yeah. Her name is Kelly Page-Crenshaw. You gonna go talk to her?”

  “Yes. I believe it is time for an uncomfortable conversation. I owe her that much.” He added, “I have to go to the hospital first, to check on the team.”

  I figured out what was different about his tone. He was scared.

  “Far be it from me to give advice to a man of your unspecified years, but if you’re going to do it at all, you should go see her first. I got her name off her company’s website. It won’t be long until word gets out about who Gale was. It might be preferable for someone from The Angels to talk to her before people do the legwork to link her to Gail. She can find out from a cop, a reporter, or you.”

  He considered this for a moment before turning away with a wince. “You are right, of course.” He changed the subject, “Do you have everything you need for your story?”

  “There’s one more thread I’m gonna tug on, but yeah, I’m pretty close to wrapping things up.” It was my turn to change the subject. I pulled the pouch I’d taken from Longshot from my pocket. “What do you want to do with the bullets? Your guys are pulling them out of the stadium, and the cops aren’t happy about it. This is gonna come to a head, and soon.”

  Ultiman reached into his waistband and pulled out the slug that killed Phoenix Fire. “I think that is a question for you to answer.” He placed the ugly, deformed bullet on the table. “Archangel has an advanced predictive analytics engine. It allows the AI to consider a situation and the parameters affecting it and predict the outcome fairly accurately. I used it after Phoenix Fire’s autopsy. No simulation resulted in a better than ten percent chance of avoiding a war between the Federal Government and my kind. The scenario that scored the highest involves you making the decision.”

  I was stunned. That’s a lot to dump on a guy. “Are you sure it wasn’t Archdemon skewing the results?”

  “No, but I think the prediction was legitimate.”

  “Why?

  “The same prediction showed you as the only person who could get this far with the investigation. That is why I approached you in the first place.” He turned and started to walk from the room.

  I called after him. “Hey, wait! Did Archangel say what decision I’m supposed to make?”

  “That would be telling, Mr. Conway,” he called back from down the hallway. There was a whoosh of displaced air and he was gone.

  I finished locking up the Telemundo studio and met Herculene as I stepped out of the press booth.

  “Hiya, handsome!” she said cheerfully as I came down the steps to meet her.

  Seeing her lightened my mood. I felt my face return her smile. “Hey gorgeous. I thought you were long gone.”

  “Naw, just having a chat with Sinfonie.” She grinned impishly.

  “Uh oh, this can’t be good.”

  She giggled. “Now why would you say that?”

  We started walking down the steps back down to the field. “Because you’re grinning and giggling like crazy. Like you know something I don’t.”

  She took my arm. “Oh, you know it, Rube. You just don’t know you know it.”

  I looked at her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Sorry, sworn to secrecy. Besides, I’m having way too much fun.” We walked on for a bit, and she turned a bit more serious. “So, not to be a bring-down, but I was thinking of going to the hospital to check on the team. Wanna come with?”

  “Sure. I’d like that. I need to have a word with Dawson first. I also have to get over to the Tower at some point, too. There’s something I want to follow up on, but there’s no rush. The person I need to talk to isn’t going anywhere.”

  “Ooh, sounds ominous. I like it.” She gave my arm a little squeeze and released it, getting back into character. “Okay, let’s go talk to your cop buddy.”

  We found him talking to Ben and a couple of officers by the sideline. More like arguing, if you wanted to be precise. It looked like the cops had finally had enough of the Angel Security guys digging bullets out of the stadium and decided to make a stink about it. Ben, of course, was defending his team’s actions, since losing control of the bullets could lead to disaster. Both sides were right, and the conversation looked like it was getting heated. I cursed Archangel for putting the decision in my hands, especially since I didn’t actually have any authority in this situation. I guessed this meant that I was supposed to somehow influence things in another way.

  Ben was saying, “Look, if these bullets get into the wrong hands, we could be facing a civil war.”

  I interrupted with a question to the detective. “What did the DA say?”

  Dawson answered, “She wants ‘em.”

  “Is she pressing charges?”

  Dawson nodded and I turned to Ben and Herculene. “Let’s cut to the chase. Are you guys willing to fight these cops to hang onto the bullets?” Everyone around me tensed. I had voiced the question nobody wanted to ask, but my blunt question forced them to confront it. I directed my next question to Dawson and the cops. “You guys, too. Are you really willing to start a war with the Angels?”

  Nobody answered. “I’ll take that as a ‘no’ on both counts. Let’s try to come up with another way.” I gave myself a moment to think. “If the DA goes forward with the prosecution, all of the bullets are evidence, right?” Dawson nodded. “Doesn’t that mean they have to stay in local custody?”

  “Yeah, that’s right. Feds could take over the prosecution, though.”

  “Right. But, based on what you told me about Wells, the Feds are trying to distance themselves from this whole thing, at least on the surface. So, we can reasonably expect that they won’t try to take jurisdiction as long as the DA is on the case. A case like this could take years to conclude. As long as everything stays local, we can buy ourselves some time.”

  There were a few nods and no major objections, so I kept rolling. “Those bullets would be a pretty attractive target for an armed robbery.” I looked at Dawson. “Doesn’t it seem like extra security on your evidence locker would be in order?”

  The chunky detective caught my drift and grinned. “Yeah, some extra security would be helpful. Especially if it didn’t come out of the city budget.”

  “You’d have to sell it to the DA and your chief.”

  “It’ll ruffle some feathers, especially with the union, but I think it could be done. Might be easier if Ultiman is in the meeting.”

  Herculene said, “I think we can do that. He’s off comms right now, but we can send him over when he gets back. Ben, can you spare the manpower? Say, two men, round the clock until this thing is settled?”

  Ben nodded. “Yeah, we can make that happen.”

  I smiled. “OK, then. I think we’ve got the best possible solution, under the circumstances.” I reached into my pocket, opened the pouch and removed one of Longshot’s bullets. I handed the rest to Dawson. “Here’s the bullets I took from Longshot and the slug they dug out of Phoenix Fire.” The detective produced an evidence bag and dumped them in. “Your turn, Ben.”

  Ben shrugged. “I hope you know what you’re doing, Reuben.” He handed the bag of bullets and slugs over.

  “So do I,” I answered.

  ***

  With things wrapped up at the Coliseum, Ratna took off to get the pictures back to the Beacon. I told her I had a few more things to run down, and to let Harry know I’d be filing my story later in the day, hopefully in time to make the morning edition. Herculene and I caught a ride to California Hospital with Ben Jefferson in one of the Angelmobiles. I wondered how many of these they had. The comfortable leather seats and air conditioning threatened to put me to sleep as the Lincoln purred its way down the surface streets.

&n
bsp; “Do you think they’ll honor the agreement?” Ben asked.

  “Dawson will. Can’t speak for the rest of ‘em.” That prompted an idea, “Hey Archangel, are you listening?”

  The AI responded, “How may I serve you today, Mr. Conway?”

  “Do you still have the parameters from the predictive analytics you ran for Ultiman the night Phoenix Fire died?”

  “Yes, Mr. Conway.”

  “Can you re-run them with additional parameters?”

  “Certainly.”

  “Great. One hundred ninety-nine of the bullets are in police custody with two Angel Security men standing watch over them. Assume that an agreement is in place to allow that situation to continue through the conclusion of all trials and appeals. What’s our probability of success?”

  “Processing,” the AI said. After a moment, she came back with the results, “I calculate that there is a fourteen percent chance, with a standard deviation is one point eight percent, of avoiding a civil war between the Federal Government and the superpowered community.”

  “Well, that’s a little better. How about if I kept one of the bullets? What are the odds that we’ll be able to find a countermeasure?”

  “Processing. There is a thirty-seven percent chance that a countermeasure can be found within two years. The probability of avoiding civil war has risen to sixty-two percent.” I pulled the last bullet out of my pocket.

  Herculene giggled. “Reuben, you sly devil.”

  I grinned as I put it away. “Anybody know a good scientist?”

  ***

  The California Hospital Medical Center has a level II trauma center, complete with a nullifier-equipped surgical theater that allows surgeons to operate on invulnerable patients without resorting to a jackhammer. If you’re a super and you get hurt in the downtown area, California Hospital is where you go.

  The downpour from Gale’s rain clouds had washed the parking lot clean as they passed through the area on high-altitude winds after her death. Ben found a spot and as we walked to the ER entrance, we dodged a few puddles that hadn’t evaporated in the mid-morning sun.

  I was again surprised to notice the air was almost cool, compared to the previous few weeks. Herculene noticed it too. “Well what do you know? It’s actually nice out.” She looked at me, “Do you think it’s been Gale messing with the weather all along?”

  “At this point, I don’t know what to think,” I replied as I scanned the nearly cloudless sky. “I can’t imagine she was powerful enough to bring a all that moisture up from Mexico, but what do I know?”

  “Yeah. Guess we’ll never know, now.”

  We entered the ER through the sliding glass doors, and several heads turned as they noticed Herculene with her muddy costume and fading bruises. One little girl, she looked to be about seven, processed the information quicker than anyone else and ran up to her while rummaging in her backpack. Her little hands emerged with a pen and a little notebook. “Can I have your autograph, Herculene?” she asked hopefully.

  Herculene smiled and knelt down to the child and asked, “What’s your name, sweetie?”

  “Shawntelle,” the kid replied. Another kid hurried up, a scrap of paper and a crayon clutched hopefully in her tiny hands. It looked like Herculene might be busy for a little while.

  Ben and I left her to her adoring public and moseyed up to the front desk. He introduced himself and asked if we could visit the injured Angels. The nurse told us that someone would escort us back in a few minutes, so we found an unoccupied section of wall to lean against and watched Herculene regale the saucer-eyed children with tales of her adventures. She seemed to be having as much fun with it as the kids.

  “I don’t mind telling ya, man, I’m beat. Once this is all over, I think I’m gonna sleep for a week.” Ben leaned his head against the wall and closed his eyes.

  I did the same. “Tell me about it. Sadly, I still got a mile or two before I sleep.”

  “Really? What’ve you got left? Seems like this story’s pretty much done.”

  “Still gotta write it. There’s also one more little thing I gotta get confirmation on.”

  “Ah. Guess you gotta be thorough in your line of work.”

  “Only if you want to be good at it.”

  A nurse in scrubs emerged from some swinging doors and called us over.

  Herculene disentangled herself from her admiring fans, saying, “I gotta go see my friends now, ‘K? You guys be good.”

  The nurse led us through a maze of wide white corridors to the area where they treat superhumans. They had a whole section dedicated to taking care of people like them, funded by Galestorm. I wondered if it would still be here next month. There were a half-dozen Angel Security troopers there, matched by a similar number of uniformed policemen.

  I figured the additional security was probably warranted, what with what had gone down that morning. This would be a disastrous place for someone to come looking for revenge on the recuperating Angels. The nurses were none too pleased with all the armed men standing around in their already crowded workplace and made it very clear that the guards were to stay out of their way. Mentalia’s irritated voice echoed down the hall. “I’m fine, I tell you! There’s no reason to keep me here!” Ben groaned and trotted down the hall to Mentalia’s room.

  Another voice responded patiently from the room, “Ma’am, you’ve suffered a concussion. We have to keep you twenty-four hours for observation.”

  “Well, you can just observe the back of my—,” we heard Mentalia break off as Ben walked into the room. “Ben, would you tell the nice doctor here that I’ll be just fine back at the tower?”

  Ben said, “Mentalia, the Tower’s all tore up, you know that. We got six supervillains down in the Vault. This is the best place for you to be.”

  “Et tu, Benjamin?”

  Herculene walked into the room. “Et tribus. We don’t have the manpower right now to cover this place.” She looked surreptitiously over the doctor’s shoulder at the clipboard she held. “Who’s gonna protect Bill and Suave if we’re all at the Tower standing watch over the Omegas? If you’re ready for action, we need you here.”

  Mentalia couldn’t refute the warrior goddess’ logic and sagged back down on the bed. Herculene continued. “’Talia, when I first joined the team, you told me, ‘Take the downtime when you can get it,’ remember that?” The petite superhero nodded, which I could see made her woozy. She sighed in resignation. “Good. Now stop giving the poor doctor so much trouble. Listen, we’re gonna go check on Bill and Suave. Be back in a jiff, ‘K?”

  Ben sank heavily in the chair by Mentalia’s bed. “I think I’ll just stay here for a bit.” He was asleep before Herculene and I left the room.

  We found Suave sitting up in his bed in the next room over. He was watching a replay of the footage of the battle at the Coliseum on a local Spanish-language station. An IV was feeding a saline solution into his arm and his chest was bandaged, but other than that, he looked like he was ready to leap back into battle. He noticed our arrival, muted the TV and grinned, “Your Spanish is atrocious, Señor Conway.”

  I smiled. “Don’t I know it. I’m surprised they let me stay on the air that long.”

  “Well, do not feel too badly. It appears you got the point across.”

  Herculene asked, “How are you? It looks like you’re ready to get outta here.”

  “Oh, I’m fine. They say they will release me tomorrow. They tell me that my friend is upstairs. The nurses will not allow me to go up there. Would you be willing to check on her? Her name is Janet Flynn.”

  “Of course,” Herculene replied. “Is there anything else you need?”

  “Perhaps a couple of books to pass the time? Anything would be fine.”

  Herculene assured him she’d find some and we went to go check on Three Dollar Bill, who was still asleep. He had three broken ribs and some pretty bad burns, and since he didn’t possess the accelerated healing of some of the other Angels, it looked like he
might be in the hospital for a few more days.

  I asked one of the nurses were we might find Baron Guapo. She told me he was in the ICU and under heavy guard in the room next to Electric Spider. We wouldn’t be allowed to visit him. Janet, the girl I found in Suave’s room, looked to be fine and would probably be ready to leave later in the day. We stopped by Suave’s room on the way out of the hospital and relayed the news, which he received with great relief. Our last stop was Mentalia’s room, where we found the hero sound asleep despite Ben’s snoring. Herculene woke him up long enough to get him to give us the keys to the Lincoln and we were soon driving back to the Tower.

  As we drove, Herculene finally got around to asking, “So, what’s this big lead you want to follow up on? Seems to me this story is done.”

  “I might be loopy from lack of sleep, but there’s something about Omega’s involvement in all this that has me curious. I mean, The Angels have been fighting them off and on for over a decade, and you guys have never been able to take them down before. None of those guys strike me as potential members of MENSA, so how’d they pull that off?”

  “Hmm. Good point. Gale set them up pretty easily, and they just went along to their doom like good little soldiers.”

  “Exactly. So, I figure I’ll ask Glowstikk and see what he says.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Think he’ll talk to you?”

  “Not willingly, but I’m good at getting things out of people.”

  “I’ll say. Took you less than an hour to get me to blow my ID “

  I felt a little guilty at that. “You know I wasn’t trying to trip you up that night, right?”

  “Oh, I know. That one’s on me.” She smiled over at me and gave my knee a little squeeze, sending a thrill up my leg. “Anyhow, I’m glad you know. It’s good to have someone I can trust.”

  “Alright, Helen. You’re grinning like a cat that just polished off a big fat canary. Just what the heck did Sinfonie tell you?”

  She just grinned and remained silent.