Other People's Heroes (The Heroes of Siegel City) (5 page)

She led me to a table near the middle of the cafeteria and we sat down. From every direction I could feel rising and falling energy levels. On any other day I’d be falling all over myself trying to see how many powers I could duplicate, but sitting that close to her... well... the powers just didn’t seem that important anymore.

“Nope. But it’s the best you’re gonna get for now.” She said it in sort of a teasing, singsong voice that seemed to imply I’d have a shot at her real name later. She smiled and I once again began feeling an entirely different sort of Rush from her.

Damn. Those
eyes
.

“Okay, Sindy then. All ethics of misleading the public aside, what if somebody gets hurt during one of your
faux
rumbles? This isn’t the safest job in the world.”

“Oh we train. And we rehearse. A
lot
. Morrie’s tough on Hotshot but he really does take it seriously. The chances of one of us getting legitimately injured are pretty slim and, on those rare occasions it
does
happen... well, he knew the risks.”

“What about innocent bystanders?”

She almost laughed at that. “Josh, you’re a reporter, right? When’s the last time you heard about an innocent bystander getting hurt during a rumble?”

“Well yeah, it’s rare, but it
does
happen. About once or twice a year we get a report--”

“Plants,” she said. “Every so often we slip one of our own into the crowd to fake an injury or a death. It keeps up the necessary drama and maintains the public distrust of super-villains.

“And what’s more, at every scheduled rumble we have a few speedsters or fliers or tekes hanging out incognito, just in case there’s an accident. You know, the type that could jump in and lend a hand but still have a fairly small chance of being noticed.”

“And if they
are
noticed?”

She grinned. “Haven’t you ever wondered why there are so many superhero team-ups?”

“Well what about property damage? You guys are
always
wrecking things.”

“We’ve got under-the-table deals with every insurance company in Siegel City. Anyone whose property we wreck is covered, whether they know it or not.”

I let out a sigh and sank my teeth into the corned beef sandwich I’d gotten (which, I had to admit, was pretty good. I wondered if there was a Cape in the back with food preparation powers.)

“It just... it seems so
wrong.
”

“A lot of people feel that way at first, but eventually they realize it’s just a form of entertainment, not that different from pro sports or kid’s cartoons. Plus, we all get some pretty nice residuals when our likenesses are licensed for toys and books and the like. That’s also how Morrie bankrolls this entire operation, by the way -- the merchandising. You’d be surprised what people are willing to pay for a Miss Sinistah Action Ace figure.”

No I wouldn’t. I had one on my nightstand. Paid $16.95 for it at a comic book store. “And nobody
ever
figures you out?” I asked, rapidly changing the subject.

“Mental Maid’s powers are strong enough to cast a field of susceptibility over the entire city.”

“A
what
?”

“A susceptibility field. It makes the general populace a bit more susceptible to suggestion.”

“They’ll swallow any line Morrie feeds them, in other words.”

“If you want to be blunt about it. And should anyone find out find out the truth, Mental Maid can blank that part of their memory.”

“You mean... like
I
just found out?”

For the first time, her lovely smile left her face, replaced with a look of concern. “I
really
hope you take the job,” she said. “I’d hate to see you... damaged.”

“Damaged?”

“Mental Maid’s the best, but even
she
goofs up sometimes.”

I felt an audible gulp arise in my throat.

“Come on, Josh. It’s not so bad, really.”

There was a squelching pat on my back and I nearly jumped out of my skin. There were too many Masks around for me to be really comfortable yet and the rapidly rising and descending Rushes had me confused -- I was still waiting for Dynaman to show up and blow me to smithereens or something.

“Sorry about that, chap. I just wanted to apologize for nearly bowling you over this afternoon.”

I looked back at the man attached to the arm on my shoulder. And the three other arms it was attached to.

“
Gunk?”

“Everybody
always
reacts like that,” the Gunk said. “Really, my boy, you’ve already learned we just play parts. We’re
actors.
You didn’t
really
think I was that monosyllabic brute that bounds around the city, did you? By the way, you may want to think about your costume, that’s not much of a mask you know.”

He smiled, patted me again and walked off with a tray of what looked like oatmeal, except it was green and something was moving in it. I turned back to Sindy.

“The Gunk...”

“Is a Rhodes scholar. He w
as
a scientist before the accident that gave him his powers, you know.”

“Then why such a... drastic act?”

“Morrie says that people
expect
a monster to sound stupid.”

“That’s awful.”

“Not really. Gunk actually enjoys playing the part. He says it challenges his thespian skills.”

“And Goop?”

She swallowed. “You know, even
we
don’t know just where Goop came from. The older guys tell me he just started hanging around the Gunk one day.”

“No, I mean... is he playing a part or is he really... the way he is?”

“
Hey!
It’s
you
again!”

The smaller, slimy Goop squished into my lap and threw an arm around his neck. “Hey, there, little guy. Good to see you again. I
never
forget a face, did you know that? You might wanna change the mask though. I can see right through that. Gunk! Wait for me!”

He mussed my hair with one gooey hand and bounded off to the table where the Gunk was already eating with Nightshadow.

“Goop is pretty much himself,” Sindy said.

“This is a lot to take in. I just... I wanted to
help
people, you know?”

“You don’t think we help people? We usually provide
much
better role models than, say, NFL pros. And Morrie lets us do a little freelancing on the side -- anyone in Cape can stop a legitimate crime or help put out a fire -- anything they want, so long as it’s not out of character.”

“And the Masks?”

“They can help as long as they can do it without being noticed. And under
no
circumstances can they commit unsanctioned crimes.”

“Sanctioned crimes,
un
sanctioned crimes,” I muttered. “Do you realize how this all sounds?”

“Of course.”

“Some role models we are. I always wanted to be one of the good guys -- Lionheart, the LightCorps... and now to learn all of this--”

“Well
they
were legitimate.”

“What about Hotshot?
He’s
part of your little menagerie.”

“He wasn’t always a... well... one of us. None of the original LightCorps members were. Not Tin Man, not Oriole, not the Defender. When Lionheart vanished, the rest of them lost their spirit and, one at a time, decided to retire. Finally, only Hotshot was left. That’s when Morrie came to him with his original proposal. Once the deal was made, most of the remaining heroes in the city signed up.”

“Most of the major ones are scripted now... New York, Washington D.C., Boston... oh, and Los Angeles, naturally. We mine a lot of our writers from Hollywood.”

“That explains why most of the fights seem exactly the same.”

“Every so often we even do a trade with another city. V3OL, the robot, came from Detroit, for instance. We traded for the Cluemeister and a sidekick to be named later.”

“What about the villains? How did you get
them
to sign up and play nice?”

“Well it’s not like it was me
personally,
Josh, I’ve only been here for a few years. I’m only 22 myself.”

“Okay, not you, I’m sorry. How did it happen?”

“Well, from what I learned, Hotshot and the heroes rounded up most of the really hardcore villains -- the sadistic, violent ones and the world-conquerors -- and put them away. Security was beefed up and, although one of them may still escape from time to time, when that happens he’s got Morrie’s whole force after him. Escapees never last long.”

I must have been wearing the hurt puppy dog face again, because she placed her hand on my arm and for what may have been the dozenth time said, “It’s really not that bad.” At least, that’s what I
think
she said. The moment she made contact with my arm an electric jolt raced through my entire body and every sensory device I was equipped with was suddenly focusing on the fact that a beautiful woman was voluntarily touching me.

When my head finally began to clear I gave her a weak smile. “I feel sort of silly now, I guess. I thought...” my voice trailed off as I tried to figure out how to express what I thought without looking like even more of a dork than my costume would seem to convey. She rescued me.

“You thought you’d be able to help people. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

It was then that I realized she was leaning remarkably close to me.

“You know, that is a
great
trait for a guy to have.”

“It... it
is
?” I felt the sweat beginning to pool in my hands.

“Yeah. Concern for other people is
very
desirable.”

I steeled myself like a man staring down the barrel of a gun and gave her the suavest, most sophisticated line of my life: “Abbabbabbabbabbabbabba...”

“Seriously, sometimes I think my boyfriend wouldn’t show concern if his own mother got body-slammed by the Gunk.”

Have you ever actually
felt
your tongue swell to the size of a sea lion? It’s really a rather interesting sensation.

As she turned her attention back to her tuna melt, my rapidly-disintegrating brain tried to process what she’d just said. This was horrible. This was terrible. This was the worst thing that could possibly happen. The only way this could be any worse was if--

“You done with this loser yet, babe?” said Dr. Noble, approaching the table. He spun the chair next to Sindy backwards, plopped down and threw an arm around her shoulders like a caveman protecting his territory. I’d always believed God had a sense of humor. Now I had evidence.

THE CONDUCTOR

If Sindy’s presence had me drunk, that of her boyfriend was the world’s best hangover cure. I couldn’t get another bite of my sandwich down -- part of me wanted to rip open my esophagus to escape the lump that suddenly appeared there. “Listen,” I said, “is there a ‘Little Cape’s Room’ around here?”

Noble stuck his thumb towards a pair of doors in the far corner of the cafeteria and I quickly picked myself up, wanting nothing more than to get away as soon as possible.

The doors to the bathroom were revoltingly inappropriate -- one had a picture of an overly-muscled cartoon hero bursting out of his tights, the other featured a generously-endowed heroine whose halter top was in serious danger of being torn apart by the “forces of evil,” if you get my drift. I ducked into the men’s room, washed my face a dozen times and proceeded to stare into the mirror as though that would change me into an entirely different individual.

“What does she
see
in that asshole?” I finally asked the man in the mirror. He didn’t know, either.

As I stepped out of the bathroom I caught another Rush and a wave of empathic powers. Somebody nearby was feeling genuinely sorry for somebody else. And there was music playing... it sounded like a trombone disturbed by a cup mute -- a sort of
“wha-wha-wha-whaaaaa...
” such as you’d hear right after the coyote fell off the cliff trying to catch the roadrunner.

“Tough break, man,” said a Cape in what looked like a modified drum major’s uniform. He had his blue bucket hat tucked beneath his white-clad arm, and a blue cape dangled behind him. His pants and boots were black, and the whole, military-cut ensemble had blue and gold trim that didn’t look nearly as ridiculous on him as it did on me.

“For what it’s worth,” he said, “you’re not the first guy around here to notice that Miss Sinistah is settling for a guy that the term ‘weasel excrement’ would flatter.” He stuck out his hand. “Men call me the Conductor. Women never call me. I blame my mother. And you?”

“The Great -- Josh.”

“The Great Josh? Got kind of a high opinion of yourself, huh?”

“Josh. Just Josh. I had a code-name, but I’m rethinking it now.” I accepted his hand and we shook. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard of the Conductor. What do you do?”

He frowned. “Oh, like a hero named ‘Josh’ is all the rage?”

“Um... I’m sorry, I--”