Ex-Heroes, Peter Clines [reading like a writer txt] 📗

I’m working on a script, like half the people in town. Home to sleep until eleven. Patrol as Gorgon for four or five hours. Two-hour nap, and then back to work. Catch up on any lost sleep over the weekend, and be seen enough to keep people from wondering why Nikolai started wearing dark glasses for his sensitive eyes around the same time an optic-themed superhero appeared.

Of course, half a dozen comic-book types have appeared all across the country these past few months, even some in Europe, and they’re all a lot more interesting than me. Somebody flipped a switch and wham, superpowers are showing up everywhere. The Mighty Dragon was the first, but I think the morning after my first night out the big story was a man made of electricity in Boston. The Awesome Ape is in Chicago. Here in LA, in addition to the Dragon, there’s some kind of monster terrorizing drug dealers in Venice Beach, and a dominatrix-ninja type cleaning up the Rampart district. Over in Beverly Hills there’s an immortal guy who heals instantly from everything. Just the other night I heard about some kid down in Koreatown who’s wearing a rainbow-striped karate uniform and bouncing around like a superball.

Wearing spandex or bright colors wasn’t my thing, though. There’s so much more practical stuff you can get when the agency you work for represents celebrities. The body armor? It’s a gift for Colin—he’s playing a SWAT cop and wants to get used to the weight. I know it’s bending the rules, thanks so much. Reinforced leather duster? Hey, you-know-who has a weird fetish, what can I say. Storage locker under an assumed name? Ms. Lohan has some things she’d like to keep out of sight, but doesn’t want to get rid of. Your discretion is appreciated, thanks. Custom motorcycle helmet? Military-style utility harness? Kevlar gauntlets? People hand you stuff so they can tell their friends someone famous touched it.

It was the end of my Christmas bonus and the start of my night job.

These three Seventeens were out for at least an hour. Stupid fucks, barely into high school and already throwing their lives away. I flipped them over and took their wallets. Then I dragged them to a sign post and zip-tied them to it with their arms behind their backs. I took their driver’s licenses and their cash (crime fighting isn’t cheap).

“See this?” I growled. I held up the IDs. “I know who you are now. I know your names. I know where you live. In an hour I’ll know your families, your dogs, your girlfriends. What I’ve done to you, I can do to all of them. And worse.” The licenses vanished into a pouch on my belt.

Yeah, I stole the whole gag from Fight Club. Sue me. If I was that creative I really would be writing a script and I wouldn’t have to finance all this with drug money.

The goggles were the hardest thing. I knew what I needed, but had no idea how to make them. Through a friend of a friend I found a retired prop-builder out in Van Nuys. Guy used to design and make stuff for all sorts of sci-fi films before everything went digital. I told him they were for a movie being shot somewhere in Hungary. He complained for half an hour about film jobs leaving Hollywood and then asked when I needed them by. He built the goggles from old camera irises and dark-mirrored sunglasses, and made three sets of them so I’d have spares. I got the blueprints and design notes, too, in case they needed to do on-set repairs. On the movie.

I walked back to my motorcycle and pulled a road flare from the saddlebags. It hit the ground a few feet from the punks, casting a flickering red light over everything. People ignore gunfights, screams, and drug deals, but for some reason everyone calls the cops if there’s a flare burning in the street.

I gunned the engine, spun the bike around, and gave them one last flash, the goggles snapping open and shut just like a camera. Somebody told me the moment I make eye contact is a lot like getting hit in the back of the head with a baseball bat, just without the actual pain. Then comes the fear when you realize I’ve got you locked. When someone’s in my sight, they can’t blink or look away.

“Get out. You don’t want me to catch you again.” And I roared off in what I hope was a terrifying display of ice-cold bad-assery. It’s worked so far. Half a year at the night job and I hear crime’s down six percent in my territory.

Of course, that doesn’t mean a lot. There’s always two or three gangs fighting over this part of the city. Sometimes it’s just tagging. Sometimes it’s drive-bys. The City Council would brag in the papers that gangs and drug dealers and homeless people had been driven out of this neighborhood or that one. No one would ever discuss the fact they’d all just moved somewhere else.

So my goal wasn’t to drive them out. It was to eliminate them. To make every current and potential member of the South Seventeens—a gang that proudly referred to themselves as “the SS”—run in terror at the sight of a green gang scarf or bandanna.

The bike shot down the street, slipping through intersections and around corners. I tried to cover as much ground as possible each night. The trick was to be seen as many places as possible, but never be moving so fast that people thought I wouldn’t stop for something. There’s a reason police cars seem to move at “hanging out” speed a lot.

I’ve also learned moving targets are harder to hit. There’s a chip in my helmet where someone tried to blow my head off with a rifle. Knocked me off the bike, and that was when I learned my power can drain someone from a block and a half