And that’s how I met Harrison Moore, the only decent man in the entire Department of Metahuman Affairs.
The DMA started as a government agency – a bloated, sprawling mess of a government agency with unlimited power and an unlimited budget, charged with the most dangerous job in the world, regulating metahuman crime in the United States. Please note, I did not say “fighting.”
DMA organized Bluestar teams coast to coast, maintained Metahuman Response Teams fitted with tantalum armor and experimental weapons, and employed a million shady bureaucrats who tracked every purchase, every cab ride, and every bowel movement a criminal or potential criminal ever made.
Local laws meant nothing to them, and the Bill of Rights was a running joke, even before the corps took over. Even powerful metahumans were scared of them because there was nothing, absolutely nothing, these guys would not do to get their job done.
They didn’t call it kidnapping when they took your wife and kids into “protective custody,” but any metahuman who tried to go villain would quickly find his loved ones behind bars, even if they did get to enjoy decent food and a nice bed while they were waiting.
I had seen the DMA glorified in a hundred TV shows growing up. Even the ones who tried to make them look scary ended up making them look cool, mysterious men in black armed with crazy gadgets and superhero sidekicks, fighting the good fight, protecting the human race from gifted criminals.
Everybod y knew these guys were terrifying fascist assholes, so when Denise said she had a guy I could trust, I thought she was insane.
I was ready to trust demons more than I was ready to trust this guy, until I met him.
* * *
Harrison Moore is the guy you wish your dad was. Brown hair and a graying beard, fat in a way that made him look gentle and friendly, fat the way old football players get, still carrying himself like someone who knew how to move.
His suit looked like it had been tailored when he was a lot smaller and had been let out a dozen times over the years as he put weight on. How does somebody get fat on carb blockers? Was he making a fashion statement? Or maybe he knew something about blockers that the rest of us didn’t.
He hugged Denise and nodded his head to me. Not a full-on bow like Danny Carter, just a friendly acknowledgement that he knew I had powers, and he knew what that meant, probably better than I did.
His office was a boring beige cubicle with a tiny square window. You’d think these guys could afford better offices now, now that they were paid from a trillion-dollar corporate slush fund.
He ushered us inside, but he didn’t sit in any kind of power position. We just pulled up chairs on the open side of his cube, close enough that our knees could have touched.
I was keeping my distance, but Denise had no problem being close to him. I had never seen her behave like this around anyone before. Is this how she acted around her dad? Where was her dad? Denise and her mom talked like she never even had one.
Harrison chatted with Denise for a few minutes before getting down to business, asking about Cecilia in a way that made me think they had been way more than friends, back in the day.
Then he pulled up video on an ancient widescreen monitor and made me watch myself rescue Charlie on the bridge. His version showed my face just fine.
“So,” he said, “how long have you wanted to do that?”
“Since I saw my first Captain Cobalt cartoon.”
“Yeah,” Harrison smiled. “I’ve heard a lot of guys say that.” He shifted in his chair and let his jacket fall open, revealing a belly and an archaic gun holster that made him look like a detective from 20c TV. “Hardy has told me a little bit about you, but I’d like to give you a chance to tell me about yourself. I need to know how you see yourself. And if you’ve been thinking up ways to justify what you’ve done here, now is the time to tell me.
“Let’s start with the bridge. You knew you were breaking the law when you saved that man. Why did you do it?”
“Because he needed me, and there’s no way the crane was gonna get there in time.”
“And you didn’t just break the law yourself, you got Officer Howell to break the law with you, which is pretty damn impressive by itself. I’ve heard the audio, but I want to hear you describe it. How did you talk him into letting you cross that line?”
“I reminded him that this guy was a human being, and human beings help each other, no matter what the rules say.”
Harry didn’t smile, but he nodded. “And what if I told you that healing stunt you did backfired, and that Charlie was in the hospital now, while doctors try to fix what you did to him?”
“I’d say you’re a lying piece of shit. My spell worked fine.”
He nodded. “So, you didn’t just get lucky. You cast it because you knew it would work. Because you’ve cast it before.”
He pulled up video of me levitating outside a hospital window at Mass General, taking the magical equivalent of a running start, bouncing off and spinning away like an idiot three times before I finally figured it out.
“You hid yourself pretty well here,” he said. “We didn’t connect this footage with you until you did it again on the bridge. Luther Hill is a friend of yours?”
“Yes.”
“And do you know where he is right now?”
“Yes.”
“What would you do if I asked you to tell me where he is?”
“I would tell you to suck my dick.”
Harry smiled, and I got to watch grainy washed-out footage of myself fighting Baalphezar, taken from an ancient camera still mounted on Trinity Church.
Denise and I watched as I stepped out onto St. James Avenue and fought Lydia’s Master in the street.
Harrison watched the fight like he was watching the Super Bowl, absorbing every detail like he had money on it. It was hard to make out the action from the shitty old camera, but Harry paused the video as I brought Baalphezar to his knees and put my hands on either side of his head.
“You had him,” Harry said. “You could have ended that fight with one spell, but you broke off. Why?”
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
“You already know, don’t you?”
“I think I know what happened, but now I want to know why. Why did you break off in the middle of a fight you could have won?”
“I had a friend in trouble. He needed me.”
“And you didn’t hesitate. You turned your back on a nine-foot demon prince and broke off to help a friend.”
I said, “Yes.”
“Why?”
“Why?” I repeated. “How is that even a question? He was my friend, and he was in trouble. I already told you why.”
“Yeah, that’s the immediate reason, but I’m asking for the real reason, the reason deep down that explains why I’ve got three videos of you risking your life or your freedom to help other people.”
“Because that’s what Captain Cobalt would do.”
Harry nodded. “And you think, if he had the choice, do you think Captain Cobalt would have tried to save a demon from Hell?”
I said, “Fuck” and turned to Denise. “Denise, dammit! Did you fucking tell him?”
“No,” Denise said. “Mom did. As soon as you left the store.”
“Your mom snitched on me?”
“Yeah,” Denise said softly. “She does that. She fooled me, too. I thought we had managed to hide it from her, but I should have known better when she let it go. She never lets anything go.”
“I won’t let you take her,” I told the fed. “I guess you can take me if you want, but I won’t let you take her.”
The fed nodded. “Hardy, I already asked you once, but I want you to say it again in front of him. Has your friend here been compelled by a demon?”
Denise said, “No.”
“Is he a lovesick moron blinded by the best sex he’s ever had?”
“No.”
“Could he walk away from this thing if he wanted to?”
Denise said, “Yes.”
He turned back to me. “So, why aren’t you walking away? What kind of deal have you made with this thing?”
I sighed. “Denise, if I tell this guy the truth is he gonna throw me in jail?”
“No.”
“Can I trust him?”
Denise said, “Yes.”
“You said yes way too quick there. Tell me why I should trust him.”
“Because he got my mom in rehab when faeries tried to kill her, and he’s bailed me out of jail so many times, I think he earned a free sandwich.”
I sighed again. “The demon’s name is Lydia, and she betrayed her Master for me. There’s no such thing as ‘a good demon,’ okay? I’m not an idiot. But her Master is dead and now she obeys me. She’s got no choice but to obey me, because she knows if I get pissed off and kick her out my front door, she’s gonna get snatched up by another Master in ten seconds. So, even if you don’t believe she’s loyal to me, trust her to act in her own self-interest, and stay out of trouble.”
Harry nodded and stretched before he answered. “Well, here’s the real reason you get to keep the demon. If I decided that demon had to go, I would call in my best resource to deal with it, and that resource is sitting right here, telling me I can trust you. She’s not telling me I can trust the demon, but Hardy says your roommate is not ‘an active threat to public safety’ so that part of the report stops at my desk, unless you give me a reason to send it up.”
I shook my head. “There’s no way a DMA agent is gonna let me keep a demon, no matter what you told her. What are you setting me up for?”
“I’m setting you up to be a superhero, kid, because I need you, and I think you saved that demon for the same reason you saved Luther and Charlie and whoever your buddy was that day in the Zone. I’m setting you up because that woman on your right is a real hero, from a family of real heroes, and she says you want to be Captain Cobalt so bad; you turned a succubus into a housewife and turned her Master into dog food. And if that’s not a superhero, man, then I don’t know what is.”
* * *
“Here’s the first thing to know about managing superheroes,” Harry began. “All superpowers come from trauma. You lose a limb or you almost die, you catch your true love in bed with your best friend, you watch your parents get gunned down in front of you, you are overwhelmed by the biggest fight or flight reflex your body has ever felt, you make a divine connection with the god-thing in the center of the universe, and suddenly you can shoot fire out of your hands – fire that burns hotter somehow, whenever you think about the asshole who killed your parents.
“Superheroes are, by definition, traumatized people. And what do traumatized people do? They drink, they smoke, they start fights, and they start fucking things that human beings are absolutely not supposed to fuck!
“My roster includes twenty alcoholics, twelve drug addicts, eight sex addicts, and four guys who claim to be hooked on alien porn. I spend half my day bailing these idiots out of jail.
“The title on my door is Metahuman Resource Liaison. That means I’m the guy they call when they need someone with people skills. I’m the guy they call when an invisible teenager gets caught in the locker room. I’m the guy they call when an invulnerable superhero wraps her Ferrari around a tree.”
He pointed at Denise. “I’m the guy they call when her boyfriend accidentally electrocutes somebody’s dog at an outdoor concert. I’m the guy they call when Doctor Baggage stops on a bridge and threatens to kill himself again. And I’m the guy they call every time Sonny Mao gets divorced.
“You think you’re the weirdest thing on my roster today?” Harrison continued, letting some annoyance creep into his voice.
“My schedule for this week includes a djinni, a dragon, a faerie princess, and a god damn talking dog who says he used to be Neil deGrasse Tyson. The dog is at Harvard right now, taking exams with a proctor.
“And you think you’re gonna freak me out by shacking up with a demon? Kid, I’ve had to ignore so many crimes and cover up so many accidents, VBC offered me two million for my movie rights.
“I spend every day doing superhero daycare because I need them. You think I’m gonna stop a thirty-foot kaiju with a handgun and harsh language? I can’t do my job without people like you, and if that means I have to cover up your little living arrangement, I’m gonna do it, because if I applied every rule in every rulebook, next time I see a dead god headed for my baseball field, I would be out there all alone, wondering what kind of zombie he’s gonna turn me into!”
Harrison handed me an old, laminated business card. “Yeah,” he said, reading my mind, “it’s laminated because you guys get doused in fluids a lot. I want you to hold on to this card, and next time you have a problem with a cop, a bureaucrat, or a meter maid, you pull out that card and tell them to call me.”
“You want to be a superhero?” Harry pulled out a clear plastic rectangle from his top drawer and ran it over some kind of laser projector built into his desk. The card lit up with a picture of my face, taken in real time as I was sitting in his chair.
He handed it to me and said, “Congratulations, you’re a superhero, cleared for animal control, disaster response, and heavy rescue. You’re allowed to heal people if they’re about to die in the street, but don’t ever let me catch you casting a spell in a hospital again.
“You are not allowed to fight crime, and you are not allowed to get shot! You hear a shots fired call on that radio, you stay the fuck away! You see a purse snatcher running down an alley, you step out of his way and call the cops! You want to help a crime victim? Donate your twenty bucks like everybody else.
“This badge says you are now a Bluestar Adjunct Trainee, under the supervision of Field Adjunct Denise Hardy.” He dug around his desk for a minute until he finally cussed and gave up. “Shit, I’m out of lanyards! Ask the guy at the desk!”
* * *
“Admit it,” Denise said as we rode back in the cab. “You liked him.”
“Yeah, I liked him, but every fed is a lying piece of shit until proven otherwise. I think he was doing his sitcom dad impression, putting on a show for you, but I’d say there’s still a fifty-fifty chance I’ll wake up in a black van tomorrow.
“I keep forgetting how powerful your mom is. Like, how connected she is, and how much of this city owes her favors. I think everything that just happened is because of you and your mom, and if I was just some random guy who got powers last month, this guy would be shipping me off to Quantico right now.”
“Tim, Harrison is a good guy. Yes, he’s a fed, but he’s the human face of a system you cannot avoid.”
“I guess I owe him for letting me be a superhero,” I said, staring at my shiny blue badge with the word PROVISIONAL stamped in red across my face.
But the lanyard and the logo were still Bluestar blue, and I really was about to be a certified superhero, riding around in a cab with another superhero who happened to be the hottest girl I’d ever put my hands on.
Life was pretty great, all things considered, so why did I still feel like I had an army of demons breathing down my neck?
It’s a weird feeling, having a dream come true. You spend so long dreaming about stuff, when it finally happens, it doesn’t feel real at first. You keep waiting for yourself to feel it, waiting to feel the sense of pride and accomplishment you were expecting, but that part doesn’t show up right away.
You accomplish something big and it kind of makes you sad, to realize even though you did it, you’re still just you. I kept waiting to be proud of myself for killing Baalphezar, proud of myself for landing the job I’d dreamed about since I was eight. But there was just this weird empty feeling, like none of it was real yet.
I had an idea why it didn’t feel real yet, and I resolved to fix that problem, as soon as it got dark.
The cab landed and Denise escorted me to my front door. “Get some sleep and don’t eat anything heavy, in case you have to throw up tomorrow. I’ll be back to pick you up at 7 a.m. And for god’s sake, wash that demon off you every morning before you come to work. I am not gonna sit in a car with you for twelve hours a day, smelling that damn thing.”