CHAPTER 23 - FISHER

They pulled Sabra from her suit, and still she fought. She managed to get Bushranger on the ground, only to take a stun baton to the gut. From there, Bushranger cuffed her, grabbed her by the neck, and slammed her into the back of their armored truck.

After that, Fisher raised his hands and went without complaint. Bushranger still shoved him inside the secure section like he was a sack of shit. Sabra sat across from him, sweat beading on her forehead, green eyes alight, a fierce shape in her athletic gear. Well, wherever the truck was going, they were at least going there together.

Great.

“Hey!” Sabra shouted, as soon as the truck was under way. “Can I get some help in here? You’re cutting off my circulation! I can’t feel my hands! Hey!”

Fisher sighed.

“You can stop shouting, Sabra,” he said. “That’s the oldest trick in the book. Heard it myself more than a few times.”

“People still fall for old tricks,” she replied, “that’s why people remember them.”

Fisher considered that for a moment, considered arguing against it. Then, decided he shouldn’t. He got the impression that Sabra would be willing to argue about anything and everything at this point. Besides, he was pretty sure his drive to provoke her, to see if he could trigger something, hadn’t helped her decision to take on the Star Patrol capes.

Way to go, coach.

But if he didn’t say something, she’d just keep shouting, and there was already a headache threatening his temples. And his goddamn belly still ached. He deserved that, he supposed.

“First time in a police truck?”

Sabra smiled wickedly. The blood at her lip only helped the look. “Nah. You?”

“No,” he replied. “Just not usually in the back.”

“First time punching a superhero, though.”

“Not that Revenant girl?”

“Doesn’t count. I mean, one of those government types. How about you, huh? Ever put a superhero on the ground?”

“I’ve punched a few in my time. Sometimes, it was even the right thing to do.” And sometimes, he’d just done it because he wanted to. Or he was drunk and needed someone to blame.

Sabra leaned over the gap between them, fist extended. Fisher shook his head and, despite himself, tapped her fist-to-fist.

“We’re really in this together, I suppose.”

“Hell yeah,” Sabra said. “Come a long way from buying cat food, haven’t you?”

Fisher sat back, thought about that.

“Not really.”

Sabra shrugged. “So, what happens now?”

“I figure we’ll be processed at the Citadel. I’ve always wanted to be an accomplice to something. We’ll get a nice little cell until they decide whether we’re a threat to public security or not. Given the pace of bureaucracy, and that they’ll want to make us sweat, then I’d say we’ll be bunkmates for the near future.”

Sabra nodded, teeth at her lip, listening.

“Cool,” she said. “Then I call the top bunk.”

“You’re awfully unconcerned about this.”

“I’ll get a slap on the wrist,” Sabra replied. “I’ve been arrested before, I know how it goes.”

Fisher shook his head. She had just the right combination of confidence, impetuousness, and morality that made him want to reach across the aisle and strangle her. She thought she could save the world by punching her way out of her problems. But, shit, at her age, hadn’t he?

“Do you?” he asked. “You’ve been arrested for assaulting two government capes? Breaking and entering a secure corporate facility? Being a suspect in a bank robbery? Attacking cops?”

“Christ and Allah, Pavel...”

“Sabra, if you want this partnership to work, then you can’t just throw down because you feel like it.”

“I didn’t do it because I felt like it.”

“Sabra—”

“I did it because those cops were laughing about the murder of my friend. I did it because they only think we’re worth helping if we’re polite.”

“Sabra, I get it, but—”

“You get it?” she snapped. “The APD ain’t my friends, Pavel. You expect me to care about people who’ll only do their jobs if I’m nice to them? Is that what the Golden Age heroes did? Only saved people because they kissed their feet? That’s a fucking joke.”

She wasn’t half wrong.

“I was fighting Taurine. I’m tracking down those Animals. I’m doing their job for them! And they want to ask me fucking questions? Just look on the news!”

“Sabra.”

“Don’t. Maybe you get the luxury of believing in the authorities when you’re some Geneva private security hotshot, but that doesn’t work here. It’s all just a game, Pavel. The Animals, Taurine, Star Patrol—all of them. Playing stupid games with my home.”

Fisher sagged forward, shutting his eyes. “Sabra, listen to me. I agree with you. The world sucks, but this is the only one we have.”

“Then it should be better. What’s the point of having superheroes if we don’t make the world better?”

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

“Yeah, it should,” Fisher replied. “Okay, so, you think Star Patrol is a pack of thugs. The track record of this team during their time here bears that out. Yeah, Bushranger probably needs to get humbled. But all the righteousness in the goddamn world doesn’t mean a thing when they have the law on their side!”

Sabra was silent, glowering off somewhere to Fisher’s right. She rolled her shoulders about and let out a long growl of a breath.

“You won’t get anywhere, you won’t save anyone, you won’t fix anything,” Fisher said, “if the powers-that-be decide they need to stomp you down. Do you know how many heroes learned that governments and corporations hold all the cards during the last days of the Golden Age?”

“I don’t know,” Sabra said. “Six?”

Fisher sighed, irritated. “You’re not listening.”

“Neither are you.” Sabra shut her eyes, evening out her breathing, like she was meditating. “I’m going to make it to Geneva one day, Pavel, you’ll see. And then I’ll make sure stuff like this never happens again.”

Her anger came from a place of disappointment and frustration. She still believed in the system, like he had when Impel was an ideal and not a millstone. If only because she didn’t truly understand how the system had failed her. An idealist who saw mistakes but not malice. Or worse, apathy.

“Anyway,” Sabra said. “I would’ve won, too, if not for that trick Defenda pulled.”

“Let this be another lesson then,” Fisher said. “Battles are won and lost before they’re fought. And you didn’t win.” He shook his head, hoping that something could get through to her. “I don’t know what they’re going to do to you. It’s one thing to bruise someone’s body, but another to bruise their ego. Have you killed anyone?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“Christ and Allah, Pavel, no! I haven’t killed anyone!”

“Okay,” Fisher said. “Then that gives us some leeway.”

Sabra nodded.

“You were a cape, yeah? You don’t have any insider information?”

“Yeah, well, were is the word you should notice there. Everything changed after the Collapse, Sabra. Part of the reason why I didn’t go back to it. Anything I might be able to tell you is just old news. For now, though, let’s just slow down and think about our next steps.”

Sabra shook her head. “Don’t need to think about next steps when you’re running, and slowing down is for when you’re past the finish line.”

“Or if you’re about to run off a cliff.”

“If you’re going to fall off a cliff, you might as well try to fly. Got nothing to lose, hey. That’s what my dad always said, anyway.”

“And your mom?”

Sabra leaned forward, peering at him. “You say that like you know her.”

“I just get the feeling that you only remember the things you already agree with.”

“Wow, harsh.” For a time, Sabra was silent.

“Hey, Pavel.” Her tone was apologetic, if not her words. Fisher figured he’d take what he could get. “What was it like? The Golden Age, I mean?”

Fisher shrugged.

“Wasn’t old enough to see the whole of it. I was six when Preceptor revealed himself. I got the end of it, mainly. The Collapse. Your parents haven’t told you about it?”

“They’re from Africa. I don’t think they ever really saw it.”

Oh, no, Sabra. They saw it. Perhaps more clearly than most.

But Fisher let her keep her story. “Yeah, well, it’s not like people just started using the term when Preceptor showed up. I think people started to use it during the Collapse, like, as a reminder of what we were losing. Maybe some capes like Demigod called it a Golden Age from the start.”

“Yeah,” Sabra insisted, “but, what was it like?”

“It really wasn’t that different to now, Sabra.”

And yet it was. In Fisher’s mind, he could see his old team. Katherine, before she ended up stuck in her comfortable coffin. Before Faye had met her end in the court of The Nightmare King. Before Yuri had decided to cast in with those Eternal Dawn zealots. And Mark...

“No,” Fisher said, voice soft. “No, I think it was different. Like a time where you could wake up and always find something new. Maybe we did think we could leave all the bad stuff behind. Where it felt like the future hadn’t been written. But reality just... fell short, I guess.”

Sabra nodded. “Well, it sounds pretty exciting to me.”

“Sure. When it’s a new clean energy source that can power a city, something like that, that’s the kind of exciting thing that people think about when they say Golden Age. But it was less exciting when it was someone with the power to wipe one from the map.”

“You sound like you could give a lecture on this.”

Fisher gave her a look. “Sorry, am I boring you? You did ask.”

“No, I mean, you know shit. That’s cool. I feel like you and my dad could talk for hours.”

“Maybe when he gets out of hospital,” Fisher said. “Seriously, no updates on how he’s doing?”

“No,” Sabra replied. “And I don’t want to talk about that where those assholes can hear us. No offense, Pavel.”

“None taken. How far do you think we are from the Citadel?”

The truck slowed, the rumbling taking on a different tone.

“About this far, I think,” Sabra said.

The door at the back of the truck opened. Outside, Fisher spied armed and armored APD officers, before Bushranger stepped up through the door and into the back of the truck proper.

Bushranger stood there, lit from behind. He held his stun baton casually against his leg, tapping a quiet rhythm. Fisher couldn’t see his eyes past his helmet, but he hadn’t paid one glance in his direction. It was obvious that Bushranger’s eyes were on Sabra, and they did not waver.

“So, little lady,” Bushranger began, “Are you going to play nice, or are we going to have a problem?”

Fisher watched Sabra’s eyes. She was staring right at Bushranger, her gaze only shifting to notice the stun baton.

“Do I look little?” she asked. “Put your dick down and we’ll go round two.”

Bushranger took a step forwards, tilted his head and lashed out, tagging her in the belly with the shock prod. Sabra folded around her middle, groaning and twitching in an ozone haze.

“Hey!” Fisher shouted. “She’s still cuffed!”

Bushranger whistled and a pair of APD officers entered the truck, squeezed by him, closed in on Sabra. They hauled her to standing and frogmarched her out of the truck. Separate cells it was, then.

“You’re a real piece of work. You know that, right?” Fisher told him.

“Nah, mate,” Bushranger replied. “Way I see it, she’s a danger to herself and others.” He took a step closer, lowered himself to Fisher’s height. “This is a cute little sidekick thing you’ve got going on here, Impel, but she’s got a proper attitude problem. This what you came out of retirement for?”

Bushranger grabbed hold of Fisher and hefted him to his feet, shoved him towards the exit of the truck and the imposing light of the Citadel beyond. “Don’t look so surprised. Defenda couldn’t believe it was you. Anyway, fairly sure the boss wants to get you on the first flight back to Geneva. Bit of a mercy, that.”

Fisher dropped out of the trunk and onto a concrete slab. He was inside the Citadel, in whatever cavernous garage that housed the APD motor pool. Technicians and service robots were going about their duties, attending to the various bikes, cars, trucks, and one intimidating battle tank. One section of the wall was a blast door, impenetrable to all but the strongest empowered methods — and maybe the main gun on that tank...

What was he doing, fantasizing about escape methods? He had to stick by Sabra. It wasn’t like he wasn’t somewhat to blame for the whole situation. And yet, would it be so bad to go back to Geneva? Or would he just be proving that he couldn’t even be trusted to just waste time?

Bushranger pressed the shock baton—mercifully unpowered or, perhaps, mercilessly out of charge—to Fisher’s back.

“Get moving, superhero.”