Killing Capes (3 page)

It was the coming of the superhumans – people born with extraordinary mutations – that had been the breaking of the floodgates. Within three years of the first public demonstration, the Sorcerer’s League revealed their magical arts to the world. Anyone with a hidden talent for magic was suddenly a witch or wizard capable of harnessing the hidden ether all around them. Next came the extraterrestrials, refugees from a distant civil war they refused to speak of. Their great ships seeded their people all across the planet before disappearing again into the night sky. With nowhere to go, they integrated themselves into society as if they had been there all along. It was a small matter of concern that they were easily on par with the strongest “Powers,” as they had collectively come to be known. And so it was: mutant, mage, and alien, all living beyond the normal.

Walking home through New Haven wasn’t as bad as some of the other places Dwight had lived. With the highest population of Capes of any city in the world, it made sense that they also had the lowest incidence of street crime. Typically, any of the low-end stuff was committed by the up-and-comers: young Powers with something to prove. They usually formed little bands of evil and got their mischief on until they became enough of a problem to be noticed by one of the major players. The game was pretty simple from there: Capes break up the fun, beat up and arrest a few for the papers, the rest flee. After being held a few days having their abilities evaluated and registered, the young punks would be released to their parents.

The courts had discovered by then that attempting to imprison a Power was more costly than it was worth, so they turned to the other Powers to police their own kind. On that day, one of New Haven’s empowered became the first Cape, then formed the first team.

Soon, there was another, then another, and so on until the skies were filled with young, superpowered factions. They were all eager to show their stuff to a public that saw them as their saviors and idols. Overnight, movie stars and musicians just became so boring; who cares about a simple human singer when you can follow someone who can literally burn like a solar flare? This, however, often meant ignoring the fact that super-powered fights created casualties in similar fashion to minor natural disasters. As long as the survivors were compensated, no one seemed to mind for long.

Dwight hated them. He had seen into their world for long enough to know how they felt about the normals. Mr. Wulf’s grand concern was with the balance, the game he saw them all playing. As long as that kept going, he was content to let them be. It was when one of them didn’t follow the rules that Dwight’s phone rang and a briefcase appeared at his door. By now, he realized it was only a matter of time before all their names passed through his hands. His boss’s scheme of an endless chase of hero and villain disgusted him because it meant that anyone without powers was just a spectator: someone to run for cover and watch the carnage. He had known too many people killed in the spectacle of the show, too many killed to make the players feel special.

As Dwight’s feet found their way to his apartment, he couldn’t stop thinking of the Phoenix. The man had lived a hundred times only to kill himself over and over when things got too rough. Was it possible that he had been able to tell that his death was coming, and chose not to stop it? Was killing himself this one last time just too much? All it would have taken to completely undo their efforts was a fist to his own chest. Dwight had seen the videos of the Phoenix’s methods. One moment, he was alive and fighting a hopeless battle – the next, he was up in flames, burning to nothing. A week or so later, the Immortal Phoenix would be back, fighting his endless war.

              Dwight’s path carried him up the concrete stairs that led to his building. He briefly checked his mail on the way in, finding three bills and an unmarked letter. Tucking the bundle into his pocket, he trudged up the steps to the sixth floor where he shared a unit with Ian, the only person he wanted less to do with than Wulf.

The sounds of explosions and high-frequency lasers coming from behind their door informed Dwight that there was no getting in without being noticed. He unlocked the door and stepped inside, finding Ian planted firmly on the sofa in the dark, television blaring away.

On the screen, a scantily-clad heroine pummeled a group of about thirty street punks, spouting witty banter every few punches. From the piles of takeout boxes and soda cans, Dwight could tell this had been going on since he left yesterday morning. Ian still wore the same Justice Guild t-shirt from yesterday. His dark hair hung loose, partially obscuring his features. He didn’t have his standard ponytail in today. From Dwight’s observations and the lingering smell, he could guess Ian was about three days from his last shower.

A final uppercut on the screen sent the last enemy airborne in defiance of any physics Dwight was familiar with. Ian twisted in his seat as he pressed a sequence of buttons long enough to pass for a bank vault combination. The masked woman Ian was controlling fired a blast of energy from her eyes and disintegrated the descending foe. Nothing but ashes and a skull were left; she caught it in her hand before placing a kiss on the still-smoking bone. Dwight disliked Ian’s games almost as much as actual Capes.

Ian looked over, having caught the light from the hallway as the door swung closed behind Dwight. “Oh! Hey buddy! Long night?”

When Dwight left his wife, it had been her brother who set him up with Ian. It was quickly apparent why it was so easy to move in. Ian’s standards of cleanliness would have embarrassed certain species of farm animals, but his collection of all things Cape bothered Dwight more. Every corner of their shared space was littered in memorabilia. Every inch of the wall’s original color was hidden behind oversized posters of the most famous heroes of New Haven’s past and present. There wasn’t a day that more of the crap didn’t appear in the tiny space.

This confused him because Dwight was fairly sure the man did not have an actual job. As far as he knew, Ian rarely moved from his seat in front of the television. Whenever a super-powered brawl broke out, Ian would be recording the fight from the news. Any other time, he would be playing some game or reading one of their memoirs. Admittedly, Dwight realized he had no right to complain about honest work, but he had no idea where Ian came up with the money to pay for his half of their apartment in addition to his ever-expanding collection.

Dwight considered the best course of action was a controlled engagement before a careful escape to his half of the apartment, “Yeah, stuck in an A.C. unit; back and shoulder are killing me.” He came up with the hobby some time ago to tell Ian as many half-truths as he could about his work. Vague hints were never a part of Wulf’s non-disclosure agreement.

Ian lifted the lid off one of the boxes sitting on the sofa, and pulled out a cold slice of pizza. Dwight did not want to think about when the contents of that box had been delivered.

“You need to relax more,” Ian said, chomping away at the slice. He held out the controller. “Wanna play? It’s the new
Legion of Heroes
.”

Dwight declined, “No, thanks, I’d rather just try to get some sleep.” He started heading for the hallway that connected the living room with his bedroom and office when a thought occurred to him. Peering back over his shoulder, he saw that Ian had resumed playing, pizza in one hand, controller in the other. “Hey, is the Immortal Phoenix in that one?” Something grim had piqued his interest.

Ian paused his game. “Yeah, but he’s not very good. He’s more of a gimmick character. The point is to run in, do as much damage as possible, then use your finisher to blow up and respawn.”

“Show me.” Dwight turned around. He pushed the boxes off of the couch to make room for himself. Some of the containers still held the cold remnants of meals forgotten, which spilled onto the threadbare carpet; he doubted that Ian would notice or care. Dwight suspected that they had a cleaning person who came while he was working, though he had never bothered to confirm this theory.

As requested, Ian backed out of his game to the menu system. After a few commands, he was on a character selection screen. In the lower left corner, the Phoenix’s face snarled at nothing in particular. Ian selected it, and a full size render of the hero did a quick flourish, then filled the screen. The digital representation threw several punches, followed by a low sweeping kick, like the one that knocked B over in the jewelry store. The next option let Ian choose from a variety of the hero’s past outfits. He settled on the current version, what the game called his “modern” costume, the one he had been wearing last night. Next, he started clicking through different scenarios, finally choosing one called “Street Brawl.” The game began.

The first thing Ian’s game produced was a group of generic thugs threatening an elderly woman. In the cinematic, one of them menaced her with a knife; another pulled her purse away from her. As they turned to run, a shadow from the roof drew their attention upwards. The Phoenix stood on the ledge. It was all very dramatic. Having seen the Cape in reality, Dwight was fairly sure he would have been embarrassed by this representation.

“The flames of justice will consume you!” the character shouted before leaping off the ledge. He landed with a roll in front of the gang, bouncing into his fighting pose; at least they had gotten that much right.

Dwight wondered how the game’s creators had gone about their research. Did they follow the masked man on his patrols? Was there a team studying videos of his fights? Did they even need to get his approval to create a character based on him?

As the fight began, Ian frantically dodged the Phoenix around his opponents. A punch here, a dive, a kick to another; he never landed two hits on any one opponent. Each time he dove away, one of the others would land a blow on the hero. Slowly, the bar over his head began to get low.

“Aren’t you going to block?” Dwight asked. He had seen Ian complete entire games without getting hit. “You’re almost dead.”

Ian smiled, “That’s the point. He wants to lose as much health as possible before you trigger his super skill. The more hurt you are, the bigger the blast.” He leaned forward, excitement building for the big moment. “Here! Here! It’s show time!”

Just as the Phoenix’s life bar hit nothing, there was a flash. A cut scene interrupted the gameplay. The Phoenix held his fist in front of his eyes, then punched himself straight in the chest. An x-ray view revealed his fingers clutching his heart. The organ exploded as he clenched his fist. Outside of his body, flames erupted from the wound, engulfing him. There was an explosion that consumed the thugs surrounding him; when the smoke cleared, his body was gone. The men lay on the concrete, clearly dead. A few feet away, a column of fire burst from the ground. As it died out, the Phoenix stood proudly, reborn from the flames. The bar at the top of the screen filled itself to its maximum volume.

Ian set down the controller, “There ya go, cheaper than grenade kills. Suicide in and you’re back to full health. It’s so bullshit to play against online.”

Dwight scoffed, “Yeah, you’ll have to show me sometime.” As he got up to resume his plans of attempted rest, he came up with one last question. “Hey, if someone dies, do they leave them in the game?”

“Nah,” Ian exited back to the selection menu, “They just rotate them for someone else. There’re hundreds of heroes who’d kill to get a spot in a
Legion
game. Maybe they’d be put in a
Legends
game.”

Dwight didn’t reply. As he headed to his bedroom, he thought of the Phoenix, and of how many programmers he had pissed off by doing his job.

Sleep didn’t come easily. It wasn’t only because of his roommate’s inability to purchase a pair of headphones. Over and over, Dwight kept going back to the look on the Phoenix’s face the second before it was annihilated. If he had realized that the end was literally flying toward him, then why hadn’t he self-destructed? It was the acceptance that bothered Dwight so much. As he finally faded into unconsciousness, Dwight thought of the things that could drive an immortal man into that kind of surrender. He thought of Molly.

A knock on his door woke him just as he had reached a state of tranquil rest. It had been long established that Ian was under no circumstances to go into either of Dwight’s rooms. While he had never felt the need or desire to intrude on Ian’s spaces, Dwight assured his roommate that he extended him the same courtesy.

Rising from his bed, there was an immediate and sharp protest from his shoulder. As expected, the entirety of the joint had turned a deep purple. He pushed through the pain to answer the door. Before turning the handle, he paused to give himself a once over. Seeing that he had not bothered to undress himself before he laid down, he cracked the door to see Ian’s worried face.

“Dwight, uhm, there’s someone at the door for you.” He was shaken. Something about their visitor had clearly spooked him.

Without thinking, Dwight reached to the wall mount behind the door for his handgun. It was a leftover from his time in corporate security, something taken with him when he left that life. Some people would consider bringing a .50 caliber pistol to a security job excessive. Dwight, however, understood the kind of people who would break into a StarPoint facility.

“What’s wrong, Ian?” Dwight cocked the weapon with his other hand. He knew that someday his work would come back on him. Preparing for it was one of his routine mental exercises.