“You ever gonna tell us where those come from?”

She paused. “Not today, Mitch. Ennaways, that kept-a-goin’ on. We did actually stop a robbery, but it warn’t no cape. Some fool was running out of a casino with a couple a’ bags of dough, and we were driving by on Ace’s motorcycle, the one he called Silver.”

“Good Lord.”

“Yeah, I know. The other one was called Bullet. Any cheesier an’ we coulda had a pizza. We just stopped, drew on the fool an’ made ‘im stand there until the Security guards got ‘im. Poor idjit. The security guards in that place were a bunch of 800 pound gorillas who just beat the shit outta him until the cops showed up. Ace’s people sent out press releases, pictures, the comics took a whole new tack ‘bout how Ace’s love had reformed me . . . suddenly, I just hadda sign a few papers and I had my own title, my own damn comic with me as the hero.”

“I remember that- I saw your comic one day, after I finished filling up my car with gas. Your title was on the rack, right next to Ace’s.”

“Yeah, well, the sumbitch wanted to keep me as his little pet forever, it turned out. And he wasn’t keepin’ outta my drawers ‘cause he was a gentleman; it was ‘cause he had something goin’ on with Blackjack. I walked in on the pair of ‘em one time and- you’ll laugh, but that’s something you just hear people talk an’ joke about when you’re livin’ the life I did. You never see it, never really believe it, you know? Gawd almighty, I left ‘im that day, moved out’ve the room, got my own lawyer, threatened to expose it all if’n he didn’t gimme rights to the title, my action figures the works. And I got it, and he faded away- got sick from someone with something, died a few years back. And I’m still here.”

Mitch waited a few seconds for the words to process before he spoke. “Jane, you’re a tough woman. And a good woman. One who’s had a lot of tough breaks in your life. I’m sorry I wasn’t- that I couldn’t be-”

“You were wonnerful, Mitch. Your wife’s a lucky, lucky woman to have a man good as you. Me, I woulda been a shitty wife and a shittier mother. I make a better stick-up gal than I’d ever of made any man happy forever. And- you’re still handsome, Mitch. Even without the blue rocks, you still make me think of that prairie sunset ”

“Well, you know, I-”

Jane kissed him. Suddenly, her lips were on his, and for perhaps three seconds he was hers again, a seventeen year old boy with dreams, hopes, wants and needs far from what reality’s world had given him.

And then, reality was all there was again.

“Wait- just, wait a minute . . .” he said, disengaging and pulling back, his hands raised palms-out. “Jane, I still love you- part of me always has and always will. But I’m married, and, well, my wife’s not perfect, sure. But I can’t hurt her this way; I just can’t.”

Jane looked down. “Sorry.”

“No, no need for sorry, just- whaddyasay we head back to the game, huh?”

A cheer sounded up from the living room. They looked at each other for one more second. They stood up, still with eyes locked on each other, and turned to leave the kitchen.

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The TV was on, the volume blasting something fierce. “There’s a cape on,” said Jake, “the Streak’s boy. He got there a little bit after we left, sounds like.”

The set kept blaring, as the hero got interviewed. He was a talking head, basically saying how the armored car was expertly taken by a group of shapeshifters . . .

“What?” says Mitch, “We’re shapeshifters now?”

“Watch and see,” Jake says. “The kid Miguel sent me ended up being my best work in a while.”

Police sketches flashed on the screen, then photos of young teenage boys, looking tough while glaring at the camera. The interviewer spoke about how a witness saw the perps transform from elderly people in their forties or fifties into teens, and . . .

“Ah, my stupid, stupid boys,” Miguel said. “They wanted in on the life, now they got it.”

“What if they get nabbed?” Russ said. “Won’t they drop the dime on you?”

“Nope. How can they? Jake twisted up their heads, no memories to use at all. We’re safe.”

Then the doorbell rang. Everyone looked at each other.

“Oh, shit,” said Jane.

#

“So, you’re doing what now?”

Jason looked at Henry’s face on the screen. Henry liked to think of himself as unstoppable, but they both knew that Jason could blast the fellow into next week with even a pulled punch if he wanted to. Henry’s whole ‘Dark’ persona turned comic books and movie tickets into paper gold, but in reality Henry “The Dark” Huang was a fifth-generation American Born Chinese with a lot of inherited money and a pretentious attitude that was becoming more and more the new normal as of late.

“I’ve got a serious hunch there’s a lot more to this than you know, Jason. That old man was all over the grid like anybody else up until a few weeks ago, and suddenly he dropped off. Then he reappears and tells off one of us? There’s something that just isn’t right here. Do you remember who Calamity Jane was?”

“Henry . . .”

“She’s in town too! She was a member of his old crew, back over a half-century ago! I’m telling you, something funny’s going down here. We had an armored car robbed while the old guy was chewing out Gladiatrix!”

“And for an amount of money, Henry, that puts it squarely in the domain of the local police, not us. Remember, we’re civilians, we’re not deputized.”

“But-”

“Henry, you’re talking about putting millions of dollars worth of resources into something a cop on the beat's gonna solve in a couple of days. Look, you did a great job breaking that ring of kid traffickers, can’t you spend the time and resources you have on something just as big? I don’t want to have to put in my weekly report to the boss that one of us is spending our money looking at some eighty-year old with a wingsuit and an attitude just because he made one of us cry on national TV. Let it go and save your strength for the next giant robot that starts stomping around downtown.”

“You know I can’t let something go, Jason.”

“Yeah, I know you’re not gonna let something go when you use that dark, creepy voice you’re always working on when you think no one’s around and can’t hear. Fine, go find the old guy, but just be sure you answer if an alert goes off. Understand?”

“Acknowledged,” Henry said, his face disappearing from the screen.

Crap, this always happens, Jason thought. Whenever Henry got into something stupid he was like a rabid dog with a bone. Or, in the recent case where his quarry was that cute little super-villainess who liked to dress in a red leather fetish suit, Henry was like a teenage boy with a new girlfriend.

But this? Jason already knew this was rabid dog territory.

#

“Are you gonna answer it?” Jake asks. Everyone had gone silent at the noise at the door.

“Did anyone call for a pizza?” The question came from Mitch.

Again, silence.-

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TO BE CONTINUED...