#

“What’s up with her?” Peter asked. His face was puzzled- not that it could be easily read through the red cowl.

Jason, aka Primus, sighed and adjusted the ‘P’ on his shirt for the sixth or eighth time since he sat down. “Pete, I think she just had a rough morning. Someone rattled her cage on her patrol today and it’s got her bent outta shape or something.”

“Rough don’t cover it, Jason. I just asked how she was doing, and I think she swore at me; first in Latin, then in some kind of Swahili.”

“Pete, you were born in a shithole- or whatever they’re calling Bayonne these days, but it’s paradise to where she came from. She was born in a totally different place, died there, and suddenly woke up here. She’s only been here a year. She’s gonna be adjusting for a while. Got my contact with the TV news- she grabbed some old guy flying around- turned out he was some kind of old villain, like fifty years ago, and he gave her the spiel on the Constitution. Everybody jumped on his side and she got upset.”

“What, she can’t take it? I thought she killed people all the time in the arena, or the Colosseum or whatever it was.”

“Yeah, but don’t forget where she started. She was living in a village in Africa, happy enough from what I gathered, and then another African tribe attacked, wiped them out, and then she got enslaved and sold to the Romans- and all this before she was eighteen. Then somehow she ends up being put into the arena because her master had money problems, and the emperor at the time liked seeing black women fight each other. She got something like a day’s training and then got tossed in, fought for a while, and then she died. And she thought she was gonna go to Heaven, or some fields or wherever they told her she was gonna go, and instead she wakes up here and now, in a place where they don’t speak the language, and everything, everything works different. It’s gonna be a longer while at least before she norms up- maybe never. So cut her some slack.”

Peter stopped for a bit, slid off his cowl and rubbed his eyes. “So, right now, we’ve got you, a cape with serious daddy issues, me who’s gotta eat fifty burgers a day or I’ll waste away, a six-foot-two shrinker, a rich punk who won’t walk out in the sun, and now a super-strong Roman gladiator who has a meltdown when an old guy yells at her. And we’re the ones who are supposed to save the world all the time?”

“Yeah, kind’ve messed up, huh? Makes me wanna read comics all day,where they make me look like I’ve got my act totally together all the time. It all seemed ‘way simpler back when we were teenagers, didn’t it?”

“What did you say about an old villain?”

The last sentence sounded somewhere, out of the room. Both Jason and Peter looked around, then back at each other with rolled eyes. “Henry,” Peter said, “willya stop with the hiding thing again? It’s good for scaring street bums, but it’s just annoying here.”

Henry stepped out from behind a doorway. As usual, he was in full costume even though he was off duty. His black cloak hid his hands, and even Primus was just a little worried about something accidentally and deadly launching out at them one day.

“Fine,” Henry said, “I’m here. But what was this about a villain?”

“Some old guy in a wingsuit. You know, the kind you can get mail order nowadays? Why? I thought you were busy with the kidfuckers?”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

“I’ve finished with that, Peter. The assholes at the top of that particular food chain are done for. It’s been a while since I’ve had to take on a cape.”

“Well, talk to ‘Neesha if you want answers on that, but be sure your insurance is paid up first. I can move at the speed of sound last count, and she just about took my pretty, cowled head off when I tried.”

“She won’t hit me.” Henry said this last statement with the kind of quiet, immovable surety that had become his trademark for the past year or so. He’d practiced it in front of a mirror with a recorder for hours at a time until he’d gotten just the right, gravelly tone that struck chills into the hearts of evildoers, and made his teammates roll their eyes at his pretentiousness.

“Whatever, Henry. I’m gonna go see what’s in the fridge.”

“You do that, Streaker.”

“It’s The Streak, Henry. And you know that. It’s copyrighted, it’s the name my dad used, and unlike some folks I take pride in doing what I do in broad-”

“Both of you assclowns shut up. Pete, go eat. Again. Henry, save it for the eighty-year old supervillain you’re-”

A red light flashed on the control board; the widescreen monitor flashed a dark shade of crimson with bold, white letters atop a map of the city, with a target of concentric circles over a spot in the docks district.

“Well, what have we here- an armored car just slid through traffic and hit the water. Cops are en route- any takers?”

“Igotit!” yelled Peter, who disappeared in a splash of red and white.

“That was convenient,” said Henry.

“Fortunate,” said Jason. “I don’t like playing ref when you two start to needle each other. You gonna talk to ‘Neesha or go look for more kidfuckers to drop off buildings?”

“I’ll talk to her for a little bit. See who this old guy is. Hearing that made my neck get all prickly, and that means something’s up.”

#

After I finished with the black chick, I headed back. A long walk, but an easy one once I ditched my suit and took a shot of the blue crystal gunk that Jane suddenly had a great supply of.

Once I got back to the house, we had a party. The kind we wished we’d had many a time over the past few years, and that we shoulda had back when we were eking out a living in the subway tunnels. Booze, cards, great food, movies in the background, laughter, remembering old times, boring stories, the works.

And the next morning? The first real hangover I’d had in maybe two decades. Was it worth it? In retrospect, hell, yeah.

We kept our paws offa Jane. No worries there. Even though she was straight, the only guy we knew she’d ever carried any kind of torch for since Mitch was that cowboy guy, Aces n’ Eights. We kinda guessed even back then he wasn’t her type, but there’s no talking to a man or a woman in love.

It wasn’t until about three in the afternoon that we were all doing well enough to meet in the living room and talk to each other about the gig.

Jane, still always the organized one, tossed out bags of money to each of us. “Half of what we got’s going to the big one, boys,” she said, “but everybody did their part an’ so you all got an equal share of what’s left.”

We got our canvas bags and opened them. No one complained. Miguel swore softly in Spanish, Mitch said something about Hawaii. Jake whooped, and said he just might buy the old circus he used to tour with.

I didn’t think it was crazy much, but unless you’re some kind of Wall Street banker type, eleven grand is a pretty nice chunk of change for a day’s work.

Still…

“There was only how much in it”

“A bundle, a little under 150 grand.”

“Those trucks can transport something in the neighborhood of a half bil when they’re full to the brim. I knew a guy who used to work for one. Why’d we hit it when it was so little?”

“Half a billion?” Jake said slowly.

Nobody spoke. It was very, very quiet in the room. In the distance, a dog barked and a car honked its horn.