Hero Engine (2 page)

I shove all that shit to the back of my mind as I walk to my car. Car number one-eighty-eight—the force specifically skipped one-eighty-seven. No one wants to ride in the car that shares its number with the code for a dead body. Car one-eighty-eight, my ride, is one of the few remaining Crown Vics. Everyone else has moved up to Chargers, but I kind of like my Ol’ Crownie, so I’ve skipped on the new ride and let the other guys have their fun with the Hemis. Besides, I’m more of a Ford guy, anyway.

I take my seat, perfectly adjusted as always, and start the car. I don’t even have time to pull into gear before the radio crackles to life. “We’ve got a fifty-one fifty. Vagrant out by twelfth and Henderson causing quite a stir. Available units, please respond.”

I grab the mic off the dash. “This is unit one-eight-eight, I’m in the area. I’ll check it out.”

The road in question is only a couple miles up, so I turn out of the lot and head toward the trouble. Since the operator didn’t say anything about immediate danger or weapons, I don’t bother with the lights. In city traffic they slow me down half the time. Too many morons see lights and sirens and stop, as opposed to the correct response of, ‘Getting the fuck out the way.’

I’m at the corner in three minutes. Sure as shit there is a guy with a knee-length beard, torn clothes, and a cardboard sign screaming something at everyone oblivious enough to walk within ten feet. I pull my cruiser over to the curb on the wrong side of the road so I can talk to him out the driver’s window.

His beard is waxy with old sweat and his hair is damn-near dreadlocked with grime—old white dudes should not have dreadlocks. A string leads from the waistband of his camo pants down to the neck of a shaking, bug-eyed Chihuahua. He has a sign in his hands that reads, “HEROES are taking over. END is NEER. PREY for salvation.”

The guy spots me and points a finger in my direction. “He can’t save you. No mortal man can save you from being left behind as the poor sinners we are.” Liquor-scented spit flies from his mouth as he screams.

Cute. Sidewalk preacher full of street-sweeper reveries is just how I wanted to start my day. “Excuse me, Sir?”

“We are all damned. We are all sheep to be slaughtered by the gods among us.”

“Sir, you’re scaring the nice folk within shouting distance of your holy lunacy.”

“The gods are rising up now. They will sweep this land of foul sinners, leaving behind only the most holy. Repent now or suffer the wrath of the gods!”

“Excuse me, Pope Bat-Shit Crazy, calm down with your End Times talk. If I have to get out of the car, I’m gonna be real unfriendly about this.”

“Your idle threats do not bother me,
Sinner.
I fear only the Lord and the Horsemen come to do his bidding.”

Goddammit. I open the door and get out of the car with my hand on my stun gun. There is entirely too much paper work involved with shocking the ever-loving shit out of a homeless guy, but at this point in my day, it might be worth it.

A man in a way-too-fancy-for-downtown-Atlanta suit steps in between me and the preacher. “The Horsemen you say?” He aims the question at the preacher in a cool, calm manner that even knocks my heartbeat down a couple beats.

“Why, yes,” the preacher says in a much quieter voice and scratches behind his ear. The dog on the string is still shaking and wide-eyed at his feet, but it’s a Chihuahua; that might just be its normal look.

“I believe the Good Book states that there are four Horsemen, correct?”

“Well yessir, there’s white, black, red, and the pale rider hisself.” The bum and dog both drop their heads to the side a little. The bum from confusion and the dog because, whatever.

“If you are saying the heroes are the Horsemen then I believe your counts are off. There are exactly twenty-one superheroes. Surely the Good Lord couldn’t have missed the number by that far, could he?” Suit Guy gives a little shrug, his hands never leaving his pockets.

“Well, um…”

The dog whimpers.

“Here.” Suit guy pulls his hand out and gives the preacher a twenty. “Why don’t you go get yourself and your friend a burger and think about it for a little while?”

The preacher takes the money and shuffles off, his little dog bouncing behind him on the way. Well, that’s solved. Paperwork-less to boot. Maybe today won’t completely suck. Maybe only one superhero has gone ape-shit and it’s already been dealt with and I will have a normal shift with no problems. Maybe the President will declare himself a Satanist and turn the Oval Office into Lucifer’s asshole. One can only hope.

“Thanks.” I duck back into the car, grab the radio, and call into dispatch to clear the situation with the preacher. As I put the car into gear, Suit Guy pulls open the passenger door and takes a seat next to me. My right hands snaps to the gun on my hip. “Is there anything I can do for you, Sir?”

Suit Guy smiles. “Yes, Officer Quig, you can.”

Okay, fancy suit and he knows my name. This guy works for someone. His clothes are too sharp for regular police work and the guy’s face reads too likeable to be IA I’m pretty sure FBI don’t dress like this, either. And damn if this guy doesn’t have a cool smile. The kind of smile that says, “Come on, you can trust Ol’ Uncle Sammy”. I’ve seen the type before, slapped across the face of every military recruiter I ever came in contact with. Only, those guys were decked out in fatigues, and this guy’s looking suave in Armani.

My hand drifts from my gun back up to the steering wheel. If my guess is right, this is going to be a long fucking day. “You work for the Initiative?”

Suit Guy smiles wider. “Why yes, yes I do. Very perceptive of you. Anyone ever tell you that? Tell you you’re smarter than the average cookie?”

“Only the last one of you guys I talked to. My answer is still the same, no. And has anyone ever told you you look like the guy from that one superhero movie?”

“The guy with the bow and arrow?”

“No, the guy in the suit.”

“Ah, yeah, I’ve got that before.” He smiles down at his hands.

“My answer’s still no.”

Suit Guy pulls out a pack of gum, offers me a piece, which I decline, and pops two cubes in his mouth. “You haven’t heard my proposition. Before you judge me and my offer, why don’t we take a ride so you can hear what I have to say? If you still don’t want anything to do with me, I’ll walk away and you can go back to your patrol.”

I’ve got no reason not to believe him. The last time a recruiter came my way, I told him no and never heard from SHI again – until now. I’d like to tell the guy to shove off, but he’s got a good smile so I guess I can hear him out. “Where to?”

“Oh, anywhere is fine. By the way, my name’s Vincent Larson, but everyone calls me Vince.” He sticks out a hand and we shake.

I roll the car into traffic and make for a quiet part of town. Hopefully this Vince can explain to me why, of all the fish in the sea—the fish creaming over the idea of being super-fish—the Initiative feels the need to come back to me again. The answer will still be no. I’ll be leaving the heroing to the heroes.

THERE’S A SUBDIVISION
not far from the street-preacher’s corner altar. The owner of the land had intended to build some Richie Rich subdivision for Atlanta’s elite, but then the bottom dropped out of, well, pretty much everything. You can’t quite buy 10,000-square foot mansions with food stamps as a down payment. The houses all stand there waiting, some fully finished and some barely with foundations down before the workers figured out the well ran dry and split.

I drive toward this subdivision for our quiet place to chat.

Vince rolls his window down, spits his hunk of gum out, puts the window back, and pulls two more pieces. He holds the pack my way. “Gum?”

“I’m trying to cut back.”

Vince laughs. “Man, you’re a cool one. Anyone ever tell you that?”

I raise an eyebrow and take a glance at the guy. Is he serious?

“That’s what I’ll call you if you take this job, Cool Jim Quig.”

That’d be real original, seeing as how that’s what everyone calls me anyway. “I told you guys before, I don’t want to be a hero.”

“Ah, that you did, Son. That’s exactly why we’ve come back to you. We’re not looking for a hero, we’re looking for an investigator. A perceptive, cool investigator, and being a cop would add some extra icing to the dessert. It never hurts to have firearm and combatives training for things like this either.” Vince chews his gum and grins at me from the passenger seat.

This guy smiles way too fucking much.

“If you aren’t talking about me being a hero, what
are
you talking about?” I take a right into the abandoned subdivision and park in front of the first house.

“SHI needs someone to investigate a problem involving superheroes. Your name showed up at the top of the list.”

I open my door and stick my leg out, hoping to get some air in the car. “Why me? Does this have anything to do with Gravitess in Seattle?”

Vince sighs. “It’s got to do with that and a lot more, I’m afraid.”

“What could be bigger than a hero flipping out and razing an entire city?”

“It’s classified. I can’t tell you until you choose to accept the mission. Should you accept, you will be given all pertinent details.” Vince opens his door and spits his glob of mint into the yard of the house.

I step out of the car and try to wrap my head around this. Investigating superheroes? Has that ever been done before? Like I would know if it had been. I imagine the SHI keeps things like that under pretty tight lock and key. I rap my fingers across the roof of the car and stare past Vince at the vacant house behind him.

A face appears in one of the windows, looks directly at me, and then the guy takes off running through the house. The back door slams. Vince turns over his shoulder to glance at the house before turning back to me with a cocked eyebrow.

“Squatters. Afraid of cops come to run them out.”

Vince nods.

“Why not have another hero investigate?”

“They tend to stick together, especially the heroes that have been around a while. None of them would ever be able to give a truly impartial report.”

“Why me?”

Vince grabs another two pieces of gum, again offers me some. Third time’s the charm and I pop a piece out of the package and throw it in my mouth.

Vince tucks the pack of gum back in his pocket. “You remember what you scored on the SHI-QE?”

The Super Hero Initiative Qualification Exam, an entrance exam to see if a person is capable of becoming a superhero. Every person within any kind of government system is given one on their eighteenth birthday, mandatory. The test was part IQ, part personality profile, part Rorschach test. They say it gives a proper glimpse into whether or not a person can handle the trauma of going through the Engine and coming out the other side with superhuman abilities. Word is you need to score over two thousand before SHI will even take a glance at you.

“That was a long time ago. My memory’s a little hazy.”

“You scored a twelve.”

I slap the roof of the car. “That’s right. Twelve. My lucky number.”

Vince chews his gum.

I try to wait him out. I said something, now it’s his turn. If this punk recruiter thinks he can out-wait me, he’s wrong. I chew my gum.

He chews his gum.

Fucking hell. “So, I ask again, why me?” I never was much for waiting.

“Being a hero is a great responsibility. Do you really think SHI would leave that to one multiple choice test?”

“There was an essay question on there too.”

“Do you remember your question?” Vince spits his gum out again. This wad lands right next to the last one. He takes his package out and finds it empty, sticks it back in his pocket.

I scratch behind my ear. “In five paragraphs I was asked to explain what I would do with my super power.”

“And do you remember your answer?”

“I believe I wrote, ‘World peace’ and nothing else.”

That gets a chuckle out of Vince. “We have tracked everyone over the course of their academic careers. How their history stacks up against their SHI-QE score is part of how we judge them. Say someone has low performance their entire lives, but happens to get a pretty good score on the test. Do you know what that tells me?”

“They studied hard.”

“Man, you are a cool one. I hope you take this job, Jim. I could get to like you. And you’re right, they did study hard. Their entire lives they felt no need to put any effort in, but all of a sudden they do for the SHI-QE? Do you think they would continue that effort after they became a hero?”

“Bit of an optimist, you are.”

“I prefer realist and you know as well as me, someone who doesn’t give a damn before the Engine won’t give a damn after. Now, what does it tell me when someone who has slightly above-average marks for his entire life monumentally flunks the test?”

“He’s a fuckup.”

Vince stares straight into my eyes. Time for the ‘real talk’ recruiter face. “It tells me, he’s not worried about glory or fame. It tells me he’s not trying to get in the program to get laid. When that very same person goes on to become a cop, it tells me he wants to help people. That’s why we came to you the first time and that’s why I’m here again.”

“Right. And that’s all you need to know to think that I’m qualified for this top secret, whatever–the-hell you’ve got going on?” I spit my gum over the car and into the yard with Vince’s.

“Actually, I do have one question.”

“Shoot.”

“Why don’t you want to be a hero?”

I walk to the front of my car and take a seat on the hood. “When I was younger, The Patriot was trying to stop a robbery. A bunch of wise guys thought it would be a good idea to steal an armored car. Patriot got in front of the armored car and they tried to run him over.”

Vince cringes. “Bad idea.”

“Yeah, bad idea. They hit him head-on. The armored car flipped into a crowd of people. Killed quite a few. I was one of the lucky ones. The impact shattered my hip, but I lived. I had to relearn how to walk. Now I just have a little limp, but running isn’t my best friend. Took months of training to get ready for the physical exam to be a cop.”