“You are not dreaming, Roger McFinty. This is very real. I’m in an unpleasant mood already, having had to drag your very heavy body from your house to my car, and then from my car out here into your office. I want information, McFinty. Information about an old man who purchased a wingsuit from your company.”
“What? No, you don’t understand- this is great!” McFinty said, jumping up from his seat. “I’m- I mean, my kid is such a fan of yours! And I- well, I’ve just loved superheroes, ever since I was a kid! I mean, only the real deal, not all the posers and the like. You, you’re the real thing! The real thing! And-”
“Didn’t you hear me?” the Dark said. “I said I wanted . . .”
“Yeah, yeah, information, I know. But listen, just listen! I’ve never been able to tell anyone this! Not my wife, co-workers, employees, for sure not my teenage kids! And now you’re here! Look, I was bullied a lot as a kid,”
“Saw that coming.”
“... and it was seeing you guys, you guys with the capes that taught me to stand up to those jerks! Of course I got my ass kicked, but you know what? I didn’t care! When I was fighting back, I didn’t care! I was something special! I was a superhero! I went out for martial arts, and then things were different! I learned a few moves, and the next time-”
“You kicked their assess.”
“No! They dusted me! But it took them longer this time! Eventually I did kick the major bully’s ass- you know he works for me now? True story! He doesn’t know this is my company! He just sees ‘MSH Inc.’ on his paychecks, but he doesn’t know it stands for ‘McFinty SuperHeroes’! I’ve made my fortune making the dreams of average joes like me come true- I sell gadgets and stuff that someone can be a superhero with, even if it’s just for a little while! So here, look, I can’t tell you how old a person was when they got the suit, but I can give you a list of who bought what on a day- it’s all networked!”
“I want it. Yesterday.”
“Yes sir! This is amazing! Oh, boy!” McFinty sat down back at his computer, his fingers flying over the keys. Suddenly, he paused. “Hey, you know what? I just realized something:I’m becoming that guy in your story. The computer guy, the one you go to for information when-”
“Now.” Henry growled. He used the voice.
“Ooh! Yes! The dark, scary growl! No problem, Mr. Dark! No problem! I’ll print it all out for you right here, right here and in just a few minutes, and . . .hey, could I get an autograph for my kid? Just one? An ‘x’ would be fine if you don’t wanna give yourself away or anything. Of course, if you-”
The Dark took a device out of his belt and pointed it at the desk. The desk’s corner exploded, a few inches from the plump man’s hand.
There was a short pause, and McFinty started screaming like a little schoolgirl. “Now you’re trying to intimidate me with your gadgets! Oh, this is the best night ever! It’s like something right out of the comic books! How cool is this? How cool is this?”
Inside his mask, Henry rolled his eyes, wishing for a second that the overgrown fanboy was a child molester or something so he could justify breaking his finger to make him move faster and stop talking. Thankfully, the printer began chattering as the paper began sliding out of its slot.
“Here’s the list of folks in the city. I can have it nationwide if you give me a-”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
Henry grabbed the sheaf of papers with a dark-gloved hand. He left through the door without a word.
“Hey, um, aren’t you supposed to knock me out again? And I wake up back at my house and think it’s all a dr-”
The door to the street slammed shut downstairs.
McFinty sat slowly in his chair and looked around.
After a few minutes, he scrunched his eyes shut and began screaming again while tap dancing his feet on the floor, his hands balled into fists as he pumped them into the air again and again.
#
“Ready yet?”
Jake was impatient. Happy to be walking again, sure. Who wouldn’t be? But he knew as well as anybody how easy it was to be eating pate-de-fois-gras on Monday and be down to mac-n-cheese by Thursday. And right now they were in a pate-stage, and he wanted his pocket to stay nice and fat by this Thursday.
“Give it a rest for five seconds, willya?” Mitch said. “You’re the first line here.”
“I know I’m the first line,” Jake said, itching the same spot on his chest for the fortieth or fiftieth time, “but I wanna be sure everybody else is ready, too.”
“They’re ready,” Mitch whispered.
Their car, a nice, dark-complected crown vic, slid through the night. Monty had boosted it with a gadget he’d cobbled together with a few odds-and-ends from Radio Shack. The new, computerized locks were even easier to crack, since they needed a specific frequency beamed out to them, “an of you know how to spin through those,” Monty said, “The world is your oyster in a matter of seconds.”
Whatever. Monty had always been annoying, but here at least he shone; guy was amazing with gadgets. Annoying and pretentious as all hell to deal with on a personal level, but great with gadgets. Mitch looked in the rearview. Satisfied with what he saw, he kept driving.
“How much further?” Jake asked.
“Five minutes less than the last time you asked me. Shee-oot, Jake, can y’all hypnotise yourself or something into staying quiet? I started out nice and calm, and now you got me all twitching.”
“I wanna ditch this clown suit I’m wearing, Don’t you?” He looked down as his security guard’s uniform, and then at the one Mitch was wearing. “How the hell does Monty do this for a living?”
“Same reason every office drone gets up, puts on a tie and a collared shirt and sits in a cubicle every morning: He needs the bucks. But if Jane’s got this down right, we’re gonna be rich as kings in about an hour.”
#
#
Eddie liked his life. He was a security guard. That was his job. It said so on the nice, shiny badge he had on the lapel of his shirt. When he wore the uniform, he felt happy, confident and accomplished. In school, he’d met with one failure after another from teachers kind and mean. He’d been called stupid, idiot, fool, moron, and a host of the kinds of names with words his mom would wash his mouth out with soap if she caught him saying them.
But here? He could tell people with pride he was a security guard. It was a name that was cool, had weight. Not like working at the car wash (“You want hot-wax, mister?”), or sweeping floors at night as a janitor. He’d gotten this job with the help of a friend of his dad’s and had managed to keep it. He was keeping people safe, he’d been told over and over again. He was keeping good people safe, people who’d worked hard all their lives and deserved a vacation, a rest. He was keeping them safe from burglars, home invaders, fires, leaky sinks, and a host of other threats he looked out for when he made his rounds through the old folks home.
It was also cheaper to pay him seven dollars an hour than to buy a quarter-million dollar security system, and just as big a break on the insurance. But they hadn’t explained that part to him and knew it would be futile to try and do so.
Eddie, having finished his rounds, sat down at the wide admin desk and took out the papers for his nightly report. He laboriously wrote the words “ALL WELL” after the printed numbers that spelled out 2 a.m. on the log sheet the company had provided him.
It was a good job. If they kept him on, he’d be willing to do it for the rest of his life. He took the brown bag out from the drawer and unwrapped the peanut-butter sandwich he’d spent ten minutes preparing after he’d woken up at five this afternoon.
While he ate and drank from his juice box, he looked at the brightly-colored pictures in his comic book, trying to puzzle out the action from the poses of the characters. Reading wasn’t impossible, but he could only really do it with smaller words, not the stuff he saw here. A name here, a phrase there, it all swirled around like bubbles going down the drain in his head. He liked seeing the poses the heroes made, especially the pretty women, and . . .
“Where is Icarus Conlan?”
The voice was cold and scary. Eddie yelped one of the words his Momma washed his mouth out with soap when he was younger, dropped his comic and knocked over his juice box, which his the floor with a hollow sound.
#
TO BE CONTINUED...