Daniel Peterson

I was aware of someone shaking me before I woke up. It was annoying, and I could already feel the nasty hangover. I tried to pull the sheets over me, but they were violently ripped from my hands. Bright lights suddenly came on, and I rolled over, trying to bury my face in the pillow. My head hurt bad, and I just wanted to sleep.

“You have to get up.” I heard Atomic Girl’s voice.

“Tell… uh, Walter, I’ll be down in… an hour.” My voice came muffled from the pillow. “Give me just a few more minutes.”

“Walter called an emergency meeting. The others have already left the hotel. You need to get up. Now.”

“Screw the Ghost. I don’t fucking care. I’m sure the Blue Justice can handle him.” I lifted my head and blinked my eyes. There was more than a little resentment dripping from my voice.

“It’s not the Ghost. There’s been a class five attack on the city.”

That finally got my attention. I tried to sit up, only to feel a sharp pain behind my eyes. I crawled up on the bed, sitting against the headboard as I collected myself. I saw a blurry Atomic Girl come into focus in my bedroom. She was in full costume.

Sarah wore a green and black spandex uniform. It was skin tight, and honestly a little too revealing. On her chest was a black symbol of an atom, and her blond hair was pulled back with a green headband. She looked cute when she was angry. I liked the way she scrunched up her button nose.

“You serious? There really is a class five?” I asked, focusing again.

“Yes.”

I groaned and swung my legs off the bedside. I made to stand up, but my feet gave out, and Sarah rushed to catch me. I saw there were four or five empty liquor bottles on the floor, and a considerable amount of vomit. Holding my head in my hands, I really wanted the pounding to stop.

“Daniel.”

“I know!” I held up my hand. “I know. Just give me a minute.”

“We can’t be late. The car is waiting for us to take us back to StarCorp.”

“Well, Hic,” I burped a little. “That’s the neat part of teleportation.”

It so happened that I was still in full costume since last night. And as luck would have it, my uniform was miraculously spotless. Not that I could recall anything, mind you. I just knew the smell of vomit wasn’t coming from me. Say what you will about my constitution, my aim was impeccable. After all, a superhero can’t get caught with throw up on himself, otherwise he might look undignified.

I waved my arm, trying to get some feeling back in it. I think I slept on it funny.

“Daniel!”

I ignored her, and I placed my hand on Atomic Girl’s shoulder. Still holding my eyes closed, I took my usual route from the hotel to the Hero’s Room. Our workplace was situated a few blocks away, so it was a bit out of range for a single jump. Quickly taking short stops at a few rooftops, we were back in the Defenders’ Tower. A blink later, and we were in the Hero’s Room before anyone had even gotten there.

Atomic Girl glanced around, shocked that we had arrived so quickly. “How many times…?”

“How long it took me to figure out the best route? Shorter than you would think.” I blinked my heavy eyes, and I left her there.

Suddenly, I was in Cheryl’s empty office, and I started a cup of coffee. Little was it known that Cheryl had purchased a ten thousand credit coffee maker when she went on vacation to the Bahamas. While I was waiting, I teleported over to the bathroom to do my business and splash my face with water. Returning to my full cup, I teleported three floors down to the lunchroom to grab a bagel. Back up in the Hero’s Room again, still no one had arrived.

Atomic Girl had taken a seat at our mighty conference table with her arms crossed. She watched as I yanked out a chair with my foot and collapsed into the seat. Throwing my legs on the glass table, I enjoyed a very delicious coffee and bagel.

“I know you hate it here, but people are getting hurt,” she said. “Can you take this a little seriously?”

“If there’s a class five running around.” I spoke with mouth full of bagel. “There’s absolute jack you or I can do about it. Only one who might be able to put up that kind of firepower is the Blue Justice. We’re effectively on the bench for this one.”

“We can at least try to save lives.”

“And when Walter puts me on civilian duty, I’ll go and do my job like everyone else. Until then, I don’t see you rushing out to save the people. Getting a bagel and coffee is no different than when Walter makes us pose for photoshoots.”

Sarah sighed. “I know. You’re right. But we have an obligation to make this situation as less worse as possible. And… it makes me feel guilty.”

Guilt is exactly what you should feel. At least, that was what I wanted to tell her. But I just didn’t have the heart to do it. Sarah wasn’t a bad person. She was caught up in the exact same situation I was. The difference was she tried to play along to see if she could make things better. I didn’t agree with it, but it wasn’t the worst thing.

I took my legs off the conference table and wiped the crumbs off the glass. Straightening my purple costume, I tried to make myself a little more presentable.

“Thank you,” she said.

I suppressed rolling my eyes. I finished up my bagel, and just as I was halfway through my coffee, the rest of the Urban Defenders walked in. The Blue Justice didn’t even look our way as he took his seat at the second of the table. Yellow Bolt followed close behind, though he waved to us as he sat down farther down. The final member of the team, The Ranger, was the youngest out of all of us.

He came out of the stupid idea that normals could be superheroes too. It was a tale as old as the Democratic Union, but no matter how many times people got splattered, they couldn’t help but chuck more guys into dangerous positions they shouldn’t have been in to begin with. The Ranger—Carl—was a seventeen-year-old. They plucked him out of enlistment because he was good looking. Nevermind his abysmal physical scores… or his shoddy marksmanship… or his lack of confidence.

And the worst part was he knew it. He barely said a word during meetings, and thankfully, Walter never assigned him to do any actual grunt work. He was a prop for the media page, and that was it. I felt bad for him in so many ways. It was one thing to be a celebrity. It was quite another to be the useless one among celebrities.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

We were all seated in silence, unsure of what to say to one another. I looked over to The Blue Justice. He seemed like he was thinking up of a rousing speech in his head, but just as he opened his mouth, Walter walked in.

We were all looking down on him from our position at the table, but he somehow made each and every one of us squirm in our seats—except for The Blue Justice.

“At ten thirty today, there was an incident on twenty-seventh street.” Walter climbed the steps and took his seat at the head of the table. “A homeless man suddenly demonstrated class five super powers and broke out. He is currently at large, and all attempts to track him down have failed.” Walter clicked a remote, and a projection appeared before us. It was a video recording of a newscast.

A woman narrated in front of a green screen of the city street. “As you can see, the damage to Precinct 11 is catastrophic. The criminal known as Adam Mason was arrested for trespassing and public intoxication. Upon being read his rights, the individual flew into a violent rage and murdered his lawyer in cold blood. His rampage has so far claimed over a dozen lives and leaving more injured. Social services have confirmed records of Adam Mason, but it appears this individual was never on the Registry. We’ve reached out to the ASA for—”

Walter shut off the newscast. The conference room was dead silent. I glanced from Walter to the Urban Defenders. For the first time in my life, I saw the Blue Justice visibly unnerved. I couldn’t blame him, seeing as he was the only one on the team capable of standing toe to toe with that. It was going to be on him to bring super hobo to justice.

“So how does this affect our media campaign on the Ghost?” I asked, genuinely curious about Walter’s game plan.

“Affect!?” Walter laughed bitterly. “It killed it stone dead. No one is going to care about the Ghost now that we have ultraman on our hands—and no, that is not what the media are going to be naming him.”

“But isn’t this a good thing?” Yellow Bolt asked. “This is way more dramatic than some class two super villain.”

Walter looked at Yellow Bolt as if he was an idiot. “The Ghost was a non-threat. He was a bone to toss to our bored audience. This is a class five. Do you think the higher-ups are going to let us bag him? We’re going to get fucking steamrolled by a B-Rank team, or worse. If this catches national attention…”

I saw the numbers playing in Walter’s head in realtime, the millions of lost credits in advertising revenue being gobbled up by some bigger name. It was his worst nightmare. And on the other end of the stick, The Blue Justice visibly eased up.

“That’s only if they get to him first,” I suggested, teasing our leader. “If we track this Adam Mason down fast, we can nip this in the bud and get all the credit.”

“If I knew where he was, that’s where you would be,” Walter snapped. “City is being ridiculous with its surveillance system. Billions of credits in tax money and they can’t track down one stupid hobo!” He slammed his fist on the table.

“Is there anything in his background? Maybe something that can clue us in on what he’s planning?” Atomic Girl asked.

I know some people can glare daggers, but Walter genuinely looked like he was going to strangle Atomic Girl and throw her out the window for good measure.

The problem was none of us were supposed to be asking questions. There was no real decision making or investigation that was supposed to be done in this room. That was for Walter’s staff. We were supposed to obey orders and look pretty.

And you know what? I was perfectly fine with this arrangement. Let them try to sort this mess out. I hoped they wouldn’t ever find this Adam Mason, whoever he was. I certainly didn’t want to fight him.

“What do you need us to do?” The Blue Justice asked, hoping to calm Walter down.

“You, the Ranger, and Yellow Bolt are going to be giving interviews. We need to get our faces in this situation as much as possible. If we can get in front of this early, it’ll make it harder for anyone to sideline us. This is our city, and any of the vultures who want this story need to remember that.”

“How about me and Atomic Girl?” I asked, groaning inwardly that I was probably getting put on field duty again.

“You two are staying at the Tower. We’re keeping all our pieces close. The last thing I need is one of you getting killed and making the team look incompetent. I can’t replace any of you on short notice.”

I rolled my eyes. Thanks for the concern, Walter. But deep down, I was glad I could just go back to sleep. I really didn’t want to do anything today, especially not with a raging lunatic on the loose. I did feel a little bad for the CitySec grunts who would be on the front lines while we were lounging around, but hey, that was life in City 57. This was what superheroes did, relax and look pretty. And besides, anyone who signs up to be a CitySec officer is just asking to be killed nowadays.

The rest of the meeting was relatively short. Cheryl came in and handed scripts out for those who were doing interviews. Walter gave out some more verbal lashing, especially to me, and then he walked off to wherever he was going next. The others filed out while Atomic Girl and I stayed in the empty conference room.

“I just wish we could do something,” she quietly said.

“Yep.”

“Do you think—”

I raised my finger. “Before you finish that thought.” I teleported over to her, leaving my watch in my chair. A few seconds later, we were on the rooftop of the Defenders’ Tower. It wasn’t much more than a flat stretch of gravel, but at least we didn’t have to worry about being overheard.

“The answer is no,” I said. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, and I know it’s rich coming from me, but please don’t do anything stupid.”

“Why’d you bring me up here if the answer is no?”

“Because you’re going to argue with me, anyway.”

Atomic Girl threw up her arms. “Listen! I’m not asking you to be a superhero or the Nighthawk or whatever. I’m just saying that this is no way to live!”

I could feel the frustration in her voice.

“I know. Believe me, I know. But there are certain lines even I don’t cross. One of those is screwing around when Walter’s mad.”

Atomic Girl snorted. “You can tell the difference?”

We stared at each other in silence for a minute. I broke down first and soon we were both giggling like maniacs on the rooftop. We looked over City 57, the rotting corpse of a city it was. I wondered if anyone got to live a “good” life anymore. Was there someone—anyone—out there who was happy? Maybe happy was the wrong word. Was there anyone left who felt like they were doing the right thing? Old people say the world changed when the bombs fell—that it became crueler. I don’t know. Maybe the bombs fell because people were always that cruel to begin with.

“Do you ever think about just running away?” Atomic Girl asked.

“All the time.”

“Why don’t you?”

“Nowhere to go.”

“There’s gotta be somewhere.”

I shrugged my shoulders. “Maybe, but if I got there, and that is a big if, who’s to say I won’t have to run again? I don’t think cutting and running is the answer. At least, it’s not for me. There are too many things I care about.”

“Like what?”

I turned to her. “Like Walter’s good charm.”

Atomic Girl laughed again. That was one of the only things that made me happy anymore—hearing her laugh. But she turned to me and looked expectantly. “I’m serious. Do you honestly think there’s anything worth sticking around for?”

I shook my head, sighing. Here’s the thing. I knew the right answer. It was something I desperately wanted to say, but it couldn’t be here, and it couldn’t be now. I don’t know if I would ever get the chance to say it, but I knew it wouldn’t be right unless I had a future I could fight for. Until then, I couldn’t promise a damn thing.

“I think… a chance to live our lives the right way. I don’t know how. I don’t know when. But I think that’s worth sticking around for.”

I remembered what Seattle Vance had told me in the armored truck. Learn to say no. I couldn’t help but think he was about ten years too late. I pretended to be the rebel, but I lost that real fight in me a long time ago. I was just fucking around, waiting for who knows what.

Atomic Girl seemed a little disappointed in that answer, and to tell you the truth, so was I. But I couldn’t bring myself to lie to her like that. I had lied so many times to so many people. I just couldn’t do it to her.

“How long do you think we have before we need to head back?” She suddenly asked.

“A few more minutes, I think. Remember, we’re supposed to be doing passionate lovemaking right now.”

Atomic Girl giggled, but her smile slowly faded. “What are we going to do next?”

I didn’t know quite what she was referring to. “With our super hobo? I don’t know what’s going to happen. I just hope nobody gets hurt. I don’t care about our views on social media. It isn’t worth risking one of our lives over. Even The Blue Justice.”

“You think Walter would really do that? He’s always been… vindictive. But do you really think he would go that far?”

I looked over the city pensively. “We’ll see.”