Wearing The Cape: Villains Inc. (9 page)

Lunette’s is on Santa Monica Blvd, along the old Route 66. It’s a club for superheroes, like The Fortress in Chicago, and I’d expected something the same when I got there. It couldn’t have been more different.

The low building squatted behind a strip-mall, out of sight of the street. It had obviously started life as something else, and its windows were covered and painted over. The sign over its steel doors was just a crescent moon, and both the doors and the sign looked old.
 
The only splash of color came from a pair of low concrete pylons that stood sentry in front of the doors—obvious barriers to anyone who wanted to try crashing the gate with a car. Those looked new.

It was Saturday morning and I’d raced the dawn to the coast, so only a few forlorn vehicles huddled in the nearest corner of the fenced-in parking lot. I pushed through the doors and blinked. If not for my ability to see into the infrared spectrum, I’d have been blind till my eyes adjusted to the low interior light. The club had a long bar and an open dance floor surrounded by tall club tables, and I saw doors that probably led to private rooms. Everything looked cheap, purchased from timely bankruptcy sales, and hip-hop music played to a nearly empty room. Where The Fortress was filled with superhero memorabilia, Lunette’s was bare of decoration. It could have been any hole-in-the-wall club (not that I’d been in many).

Orb didn’t look like she had either. She sat at one of the club tables, wearing a cream colored business suit and lime green tie, legs crossed, one foot hooked on the rung of her chair, the other foot bouncing gently in its designer shoe. I joined her, ordering the club’s best bottled water while she watched me.

“Watched” didn’t quite describe it. I couldn’t see Orb’s eyes; her golden hair, swept around her head and curled on one side like a conch shell, as hard-set as a punk rocker’s
mohawk
, completely hid the top half of her face. A silver orb about the size of a softball floated by her shoulder. To most people the hovering sphere probably looked smooth, chromed and featureless, but I could see micro-tiny waves rippling across its surface. Shelly had briefed me during my flight; Orb was blind and deaf, the sphere her eyes and ears. I smiled at it instead of at her.

“Thank you for seeing me so quickly,” I said.

She sipped her drink and the ripples deepened.

“For Astra of the Sentinels? Anytime.”

The words, spoken in a pleasant, low contralto and with an edge of amusement, came from the orb.

She set down her glass.

“So, what can I do for you?”

I took a breath. “I need to find someone, quietly, and I don’t have much time.”

She smiled. “I can do it fast, and quiet, and cheap. Pick two out of three.”

“A and B.” I pulled out a stack of hundreds and a picture Shelly had printed for me. “His name is Dr. Cornelius, but he may not be using it yet.”

The orb floated over the picture. For only a second, she froze.

“I’ve never seen him.”

“Please.” I took the picture back. “He isn’t in any trouble and I don’t want to make any, but—” I wanted to say
a life might depend on it
, but it sounded too cheesy
.
And desperate.

She softened a fraction.

“He’s already in trouble,” she sighed. “And I doubt he can help anyone.”

She held out her hand, and I reluctantly gave her the photograph. The orb dipped close, like she was drinking it in, and I wondered what she saw. Dr. Cornelius was a reasonably attractive man, tall, thin, his narrow face a striking mix of African-European features. His dark hair and beard were neatly trimmed, his eyes intelligent and good-humored. He looked like someone I’d be glad to know, but not an object of fascination.

“Where did you get this?”

“From a friend. Can you tell me where he is?”

“No. But I can pass a message. Put your money away.”

I was forced to be happy with that. We left the club, Orb telling me to stick around for her call before she got in her car. Back out in the morning sun and lacking anything better to do, I decided to check in at
Restormel
.

I hadn’t thought to bring
civies
, and wouldn’t have trusted a hotel anyway. Fortunately I had a standing invitation to crash at
Restormel
anytime. Seven had been one of them, more movie star than superhero, and I still didn’t know why he decided to take Blackstone up on his offer to join the Sentinels after the Whittier Base Attack decimated our ranks. I hadn’t been interested in much when he switched teams, and now I wasn’t sure how to ask.

Restormel
sat in the Beverly Hills, overlooking LA. The Hollywood Knights were up north shooting for their latest movie,
Hollywood Knights VI: Bloody Dawn
, but the staff and accommodations were as high-class as I remembered; I showered and relaxed as well as I could, even chatted a bit with Dr. Carlson, the team’s resident physician. She’d treated me back in January when I’d come in with plasma burns after an enraged breakthrough shot me out of the sky.

At nightfall I got the call; Cornelius would meet me at Lunette’s.

And what a difference night made.

Lunettes’ was the same pale shade, but lit by tracks of silver-white LED lights I hadn’t noticed in the daytime. Its open doors let in the cool night air and spilled music into the surrounding lot. There was no club line, just a doorman who nodded some through, stopped others. Most weren’t in costume, and disappointed would-be-partiers didn’t stay around. Cars filled the guarded lot, parked and retrieved by a team of watchful attendants.

When I landed the big guy just nodded to me, light from the crescent above the door shining off a matching tattoo on his skull. Inside, the club wasn’t any brighter than it had been during the day, but I drew looks. Just like at The Fortress, club-goers looked away; I’d be “invisible” unless I talked to somebody. Orb sat at the table she’d occupied earlier, and now she had company.

Shelly popped into virtual existence beside me.

“That’s him,” she said. “And we’re screwed.”

Not all breakthroughs follow the superhero stereotypes; there are lots of other “supernatural” breakthroughs based on older myths and stories. Chakra, with her tantric magic, is the perfect blush-inducing example of the Merlin-type (do
not
talk to her about the source of her powers!), but there are witches in San Francisco,
voodonists
in New Orleans, English druids, Italian
strega
, Native American medicine men, Appalachian conjure-men, and enough others to fill books. And because their beliefs shaped their breakthroughs, their magic works.

Astra,
Notes From a Life.

Using my eyes Shelly could see what I saw, and she was right. This was our guy, but not yet, if ever. We could only see his back, but his long hair was shiny in a bad way and pulled into a ratty tail. His shoulders hunched like he expected the world to smack him for no reason. He wore an old evening coat, blue so dark it looked black and glinting with light off of dozens, maybe hundreds of silver pins. All kinds of pins: award pins, logo pins, event pins, even tie and lapel pins as long as they were small and silver. If the night sky went slumming, it would look like this. Even in a club full of sweaty dancers, I could smell the odor of too many missed baths on him.

“Astra,” Orb said when I stepped out of the crowd. She held up her hand and a server took my order of a virgin cooler before I took the unoccupied chair. Her guest was even more unpromising from the front. His dark skin was an unhealthy gray, and the lines around his veined eyes aged him. I was looking at a longtime crack addict or meth-head.

He looked up from his drink, and tired eyes lit with interest. When he didn’t say anything I extended a gloved hand.

“Dr. Cornelius?”
                                                                                                  

He grimaced, but we shook. He wore fingerless gloves, and he looked at his hand after letting go.

“I don’t know any Dr. Cornelius,” he said. “Sounds like a hero name.”

“Shit. Let’s go, Hope,” Shelly said beside me. I shook my head, putting on a smile. She was right, but we were here and I wasn’t going to be rude.

“A friend of mine told me it was yours,” I said. “Or will be in a few years.”

“That would be the impatient one there? Red hair, green eyes, mouthy?”

Shelly squeaked and slapped her hands over her mouth, eyes wide.

“How—” I gripped the table, felt it creak. “She’s a virtual-reality projection in my
head
, not really here! How can you
see
her?”

“She’s with you, and you’re here,” he said, his voice too strong and deep for his thin body.
 
“So she’s here, metaphysically. That’s physical enough for me. Would you like an orange?”

He pulled one, slightly squashed, out of his coat pocket and started peeling.

I shook my head weakly. Orb just smiled and slid a snack bowl under his hands.

“Orb says you need something,” he said, focusing on the fruit.

I looked at Shelly, then plunged in.

“According to a book of contingent prophesy, in two or three years, maybe sooner, you’re going to make a name for yourself as an occult investigator called Dr. Cornelius. You’ll specialize in hunting supernatural breakthroughs, their projections and creations.”

“Will I?”

“Yes. And in an interview you’ll speculate about the murder of one of my friends. In the article you’ll say he was likely killed by a projection, a summons, but that after so much time you can’t prove it.”

“Must be a high-profile killing for me to talk about it. Does the victim have a name?” The orange was half-naked.

I swallowed, nodded.

“Blackstone.”

Orb twitched, and Cornelius stopped peeling. My drink arrived.

“That’s a very interesting book,” he said after the server left.

“It’s more of a time-traveler’s database,” I said. Shelly nodded solemnly.

“You’re trying to change history? That’s taking on a lot.”

“It’s not history yet.” I took a sip of my cooler and explained all about temporal superimposition and the privileged present. He nodded when I finished, back to peeling the orange.

“So it’s like in Dickens’
Christmas Carol
: the shadows of things that might be.”

“Yes. But Blackstone’s d— That’s a pretty solid shadow.”

“That’s tough. Wish I could help you.”

“But you’re— I mean, you can see Shelly. Obviously you’ve had your breakthrough.”

He dropped the last peel in the bowl and split the orange.

“Got it the day of the Event. Been trying to give it back ever since.”

I could only stare. “
Why?
”

He sighed, tired, and looked at Orb.

“Ten years ago I was a snot-nosed grad student studying metaphysics and getting high in pursuit of chemically-assisted enlightenment. The Event gave it to me. The world around us? As real as your friend here. It’s a hologram, an image created by the intersection of thirty-six emanations. Like light. You combine red, yellow, and blue light and you get white light. This world—”