Chapter 3

We meet our heroes and learn of a particularly heinous black market trade.

It was the late afternoon into the early evening.  The sun beat down on the city, coating the buildings with an iridescent glow the color of rich honey. Inside, the inhabitants hustled and bustled, working with the buzz and hubbub of an ant hill that is anxious to get back home. It was almost rush hour, meaning that the streets were more deserted than usual with an emptiness like the ocean receding before a tsunami; when the offices, labs, and businesses would spew forth their employees in a tidal wave of humanity. Outside of one particularly empty intersection, I sat in a parked car with my friend and waited.

We sat with our arms crossed, staring at a building on the other side of the street. A laser etched sign announced that it was the Law Offices Of Pulitz, Pulitz, McReedy, and Pulitz, a law firm known for dealing almost exclusively with small claims court. It was Sunday, and the entire office had been given the day off in celebration of the winning of a particularly important case involving the mayor, a horse, and a jar of extra hot chipotle pickles. This was not common knowledge to anyone outside of the firm, but in the age of technology almost anything was possible with enough patience.

“How long do you think it will take him?” I asked.

“Dunno,” replied my friend. “But he’s been in there for two hours now, so probably not much longer.”

I put my head against the headrest and sighed. After a moment, my friend started to tap out a tattoo with his fingers on the steering wheel. I pursed my lips and buzzed in imitation of a kazoo. This went on for some time.

A commercial for a blood pressure drug with particularly heinous side effects came on the radio. Outside the car, a pigeon flew into a window and fell away, leaving a dusty outline on the glass.

“Did you see that?” I asked.

“What?” said my friend.

“That bird just flew into a window,” I pointed at the pigeon, which had gotten up and was glancing around furtively to see if anyone had noticed.

“Maybe it’s an undercover window inspector,” my friend replied.

“That’s ridiculous, dude.” Satisfied that it could be free of embarrassment, the pigeon squawked its way into the air in a cloud of feathers and urban filth.

“Pigeons can have dreams, too.”

“If I didn’t know better, I’d ask if you were high.”

“High on life, chum,” was all he said. “High on life.”

The sun lowered itself further behind the skyline, and we squinted with the shift of light.

“Okay, seriously, this is getting ridiculous-” I began to say.  

“Wait, there he is!” my friend cut me off. “On the rooftop!”

I followed his gaze up to the top of the building, where a caped figure had just come out of the rooftop exit and was making its way to the edge.

“Go,” said my friend, fiddling with the door handle.

I opened my door and stepped out, breaking into a jog away from the building we had been casing. I started unzipping the jacket I had been wearing. As I pulled my arms out of the sleeves I picked up speed and tore my ballcap off of my head, flinging it behind me. My surroundings were a blur now as I tore through the empty street. Finally, I hung a u-turn and headed back toward the law firm, settling a domino mask onto my face which covered my eyes. There were clear lenses set into it which kept the wind out, which was now whooshing past my face and ruffling my hair. Faster and faster I went as I approached the law firm until finally I was close enough to the wall and I leapt, feet hitting the side of the building. I continued to run, my momentum carrying me up the building toward the roof.

I’m really fast.

I ran over the big office windows, laughing in the face of conventional physics, crested the parapet surrounding the roof and landed, knees bent, on the gravel. I stood up and, lo and behold, there was a man standing by the rooftop door. He was wearing a leather tunic and boots, with a long green cape, a pointy hat with a feather in it, and a waxed mustache. He was right out of a medieval storybook. Aside from looking like a total doof, he also looked very surprised.

“Yoiks!” he exclaimed. He had a burlap sack thrown over his shoulder. “‘Tis the sheriff!”

There was the sound of a bassy explosion coming from the street below, and with the expression of a man determined not to look down, my friend soared into view and came down onto the roof. He was wearing a white costume with crimson boots, gloves, and a cowl which was pulled over his head to form a mask. There was a golden symbol on his chest that looked like a jagged shockwave, the kind that might have said ‘POW!’ or ‘ZAP!’. He was in his late thirties and built like a brick house. He was not strikingly tall, standing around six feet, but he was remarkably solid looking, with biceps the size of small children, pectorals like really big muscles, and a jaw you could crack rocks on. His chin even had a cleft in it. His name was Doug. He called himself Meteor. He was good hero material.

My real name is Jake. My hero name is Quickdraw. No, I am not a cowboy, nor do I use a gun; I’m just fast. Really fast. Fast enough that this one time, I slapped a bullet out of the air with a brick. Granted, I saw the guy’s finger squeezing the trigger so I knew it was coming, but I still did it. Sometimes if I focus hard enough, I can actually see bullets as they whizz through the air. I was born with my powers, and I don’t know how Meteor got his. He doesn’t like to talk about it.

In contrast to Meteor, I’m slender and favor black, gray, and blue. Mostly black and gray to mask my movements with a little blue because hey, even superheroes have to have a little fun now and then. I don’t have a cowl or a hood or anything, just my small mask because it leaves my head free and, I confess, I like to feel the wind in my hair when I run. The mask’s lenses are a necessity. I learned very quickly that getting a bug in your eye when you’re running toward a villain at fifty miles an hour just ends badly for everyone involved.

“Quickdraw!” Meteor shouted, straightening up from his landing. He was about twenty feet away from me.

“I got him, Meteor!” I shouted back, staring down the man by the door.

“Give it up, Robbin’ Hood,” said Meteor. “We know all about your plan.”

“We caught the Mathlete and he ratted you out, so there’s no one to back you up,” I said, folding my arms. “You might as well come with us.”

“Ne’er shall I willingly accompany such ruffians!” shouted Robbin’ Hood, brandishing the sack.

Meteor began to close the distance between them. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

Robbin’ Hood stepped toward me and swung the sack, which looked full and very heavy. Time slowed down as I went into super speed. I leapt forward and ducked underneath Robbin’ Hood’s clumsy swing, my arm curled to throw a punch. I was aiming for his stomach, but the loose gravel under my feet threw off my aim, and Robbin’ Hood’s body was oriented such that my fist landed squarely in his groin instead. Time sped back up as I ceased concentrating, and Robbin’ Hood fell over into the fetal position. He made a small noise of high pitched pain.

“Aw, geez,” I said. “Sorry about that. I meant to hit you in the stomach.”

Meteor walked over and picked up the sack, opening it to examine its contents.

“Just as I thought,” he said. “Office supplies.”

“Black market office supplies; come on, man,” I said, shaking my head. I bent over and grabbed something that was sticking out of Robbin’ Hood pocket, pulling it out. “And what’s this?”

“I shan’t tell thee anything!” Robbin’ Hood squeaked. Meteor hauled him to his feet and smacked him upside the head. “Ow! It’s a USB drive, ok?”

“What’s on it?” Meteor asked.

Robbin’ Hood chuckled. “Wouldn’t thou like to- aah, stop that!” he shouted as Meteor smacked him again. “It’s got a virus on it that wipes hard drives.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Why would you do that?”

“Pfft,” said Robbin’ Hood. “For funsies, why else? Can I go now?”

“You can go all right!” Meteor said. “You can go straight to the police station!” He pulled Robbin’ Hood’s hands behind his back, keeping a firm grip on his arms.

“But you’re going to have to show us the way down,” I said.

The officer behind the desk looked up, blinked slowly, and sighed.

“Another one?” he said. “Alright, you know how it goes. Lemme see your licenses.”

Meteor and I stood in the front of the police station by the desk, where sat a craggy old officer who looked like he had seen too much. He tapped a pencil on the desk with a wearied look on his face. It can’t be much fun being a police officer in a city with such a high concentration of metahumans, I mused, not for the first time.

“This is the Mathlete’s accomplice,” said Meteor, as we dug out our hero licenses and handed them over. “They were lifting office supplies from Pulitz, Pulitz, McReedy, and...uh...”

“Pulitz,” I finished.

“That’s right,” said Meteor.

“Office supplies?” said the officer, who was now copying down our license numbers. The nameplate on his desk read Simon Goode. “That sounds kinda stupid to me.”

“You don’t see me judging you,” Robbin’ Hood said, which earned him another smack on the head from Meteor.

“There’s actually a pretty bustling black market trade for them,” I said informatively.

“Izzat so?” said officer Goode as he handed back our licenses. “By the way, these expire in a couple months.”

“Thanks,” I said, and pocketed mine.

“Well, there’s no office supplies up the river, Locksley.” He scooted his chair away from the desk, getting to his feet with a grunt. He slapped a pair of handcuffs on Robbin’ Hood and took him by the arm. “It’s no monastery, but I think you’ll find the cells just to your liking. We even have a guard named Marian, although he benches two-fifty and likes tequila.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Robbin’ Hood protested.

Officer Goode stopped and stared at him. “You tellin’ me you don’t get what I’m referencing?”

“Nay, verily,” said Robbin’ Hood.

Goode seemed speechless. “What’s a matter with you; you never went to high school or nothin’?

“I have my GED,” Robbin’ Hood said.

“Get goin’ before I drub ya,” said Goode, pushing Robbin’ Hood in front of him. “GED, he says.”

“I shall return!” shouted Robbin’ Hood as he was taken away. “No cell can hold the prince of thieves! By the way, what time is dinner?”

“Good work, chum!” Meteor’s hand fell on my shoulder. “That’s two villains in as many days!”

I nodded, and my stomach rumbled. “Let’s get some food.”

Meteor chewed loudly, something that bothered me every time we ate together. It wasn’t with his mouth open; it was closed the entire time except when he put a forkful of food into it. The problem was that he somehow managed to smack and slurp and chew audibly even through closed lips. I never mentioned it, as I assumed that he didn’t do it on purpose, but it bugged me nonetheless.

The offender this time was a slice of apple pie at Tolstoy’s, a local diner that was known to be particularly welcoming to a metahuman clientele. It also served amusingly named dishes such as the Death Of Ivan Sandwich and Bologna Karenina, but that was beside the point. That’s what you get when you go to a restaurant opened by an english major. Anyway, the world accepted us for the most part, but it wasn’t unusual to be treated like a freak or an outcast. Then there’s the whole ‘vigilante justice’ thing, but superheroes had been a part of human history for so long that we were officially welcomed, if not entirely sanctioned. People learned a long time ago that when there are other people running around who can blow up buildings just by thinking about it, it’s best to have them on your side. All the same, it was nice to be able to hang your hat somewhere friendly sometimes.

“So, two villains down,” Meteor was saying. “That should help to get our names out there.”

“I’d never heard of those guys before we went after them, though,” I said. “They didn’t seem like they were big name.”

“Still, it’s like money in the bank,” Meteor waved his finger in the air. “Every little bit helps.”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” I said. “We bagged a high schooler and an idiot dressed like a woodsman, and they were stealing staplers.”

“Don’t be downhearted, my stalwart companion! It’s a long road to victory indeed, but we’ll make it before you know it!”

I looked at Meteor’s face with a resigned expression as he noisily masticated his pie, practically aglow with enthusiasm. It wasn’t that I cared about being famous; not really. There were enough all star heroes around that the world didn’t really need any more. It just seemed sometimes like we weren’t making a dent in the common criminals. Too many villains, not enough time, and more small-time baddies popped up every day.

Meteor and I had been partners for about four years now, give or take a couple of months. I had never been interested in being a superhero, even though I had super speed my entire life. There were always other things that were more important to me: school, or sports, or girls, or whatever else young boys are interested in. Most of the time I never even used my speed, unless it was to do my homework quickly or to win a game that I didn’t feel like losing. I did a few good deeds in college; stopped a couple of muggings, pranked the campus preachers, and I even stopped a rape one time (which actually wasn’t superpower related...I was at a party and saw a guy slip a roofie into an open beer. I “accidentally” nudged the bottle onto his loafers.), but I mostly just tried to fit in and stay under the radar. I really just wanted to be an ordinary guy.

After I graduated with a degree in biology, I landed a job as an article writer for an online science magazine called The Quirky Quark, which paid my bills and left me enough free time to realize that post-college life was pretty damn boring. One day, while in the middle of my nightly ritual of eating crappy food and doing the newspaper’s crossword puzzle, a post in the personals section caught my eye. HERO SEEKS PARTNER FOR CRIME FIGHTING FUN, it read, explaining that a small time superhero was looking for someone to help him combat the forces of evil, usually between the hours of nine a.m. to seven p.m. On a whim, I responded. The superhero, as you’ve probably guessed, was Meteor, and we got along like a house that isn’t on fire, because house fires are dangerous and no laughing matter. I found that using my powers to help people on a regular basis was pretty rewarding, emotionally if not financially. The whole sidekick thing was never explicitly addressed, but Meteor’s got a big enough personality that I got the idea pretty quickly.

After about two years of villain-squashing we picked up a sponsor in the form of Baldino’s, a small company that made shaving products. Every time we got enough publicity, they put a little money in our pockets. The emphasis there is on ‘little’, but I’m not one to complain about any extra cash coming my way. At least they didn't make us put their logo on our costumes.

“You ever feel like we aren’t making any headway?” I asked.

“What do you mean?” Meteor responded, shoveling another bite of pie into his mouth full of perfect, shiny teeth.

“Can you remember the last time we took someone out who was a real threat to the city?” My slice of pie was still on the plate, one forkful taken out of it.

“Well, Quickdraw,you know that-”

“I know, I know,” I cut him off. “Every villain we put behind bars makes things that much better. But I’m talking about the last time we fought someone really dangerous, who was really out to take a chunk out of the city. Not someone whose MO is to slash tires or throw garbage at people.”

Meteor scratched his chin and chewed thoughtfully. “Three months ago. Iron Vulture and Mercury Hawk at city hall. They were going to kill the Mayor.”

I thought back to the incident. Iron Vulture and Mercury Hawk were pretty tough customers, it was true. They were a pair of engineering geniuses who had too much free time and an intense dislike of the Mayor’s policies. They built themselves winged robot suits and decided to bypass the election process and take things up with the Mayor himself, in a decidedly violent manner. If Meteor and I hadn’t shown up when we did, who knows what would have happened. It took us an entire hour to fight the pair to a standstill.

“You remember how they could shoot lasers out of their wingtips?” Meteor said.

“Ok, you’re right about that,” I said. “But still, that was three months ago. We haven’t done anything important since then. Not really.”

“We’ve been cracking down pretty hard on the office supply chop shop trade,” Meteor said.

“I don’t think anyone’s really impressed with that, Meteor.”

Meteor sat up in his booth, folded his arms, and looked at me. “I think you’re just in a slump, champ. Remember, we’re the cogs in the machinery of justice! The bug zapper in Lady Liberty’s backyard!” He leaned across the table, hands gripping the edge, eyes fiery with righteousness. “We’re the janitors in the high school of life! Sure, it’s a messy, dirty, thankless job, and sometimes the kids look you in the eye and drop their ketchup packets on the floor then walk away, but without us then who would keep things tidy? By golly, it would be a nightmare! Vomit stains on the tiles, dust in the corners, feminine products stuck in the U bends of the girls bathroom! We’re the ones who keep things running smoothly!” He straightened up again, finger pointed in the air triumphantly. “And sometimes there’s a food fight in the cafeteria and life is exciting, but you can’t quit when the only thing you have to look forward to is getting to use the pressure washer to clean the schmutz off of the sidewalks! You have to hang in there! You’ve gotta roll up to the building in your crappy old car and prepare your cleaning supplies and just hope for the best! And if you do your job with a smile, and you squeegee the windows and scrub in between the tiles with a toothbrush, there just might be a fat bonus waiting for you at the end of the year!”

I stabbed a fork into my slice of pie and took a bite. “Sanitation technicians,” I said.

“What?” said Meteor, finger still pointed to the heavens.

“I don’t think they call themselves janitors anymore, I think they want to be called sanitation technicians.”

“Oh,” said Meteor. “Well, my point still stands.”

Despite what it might seem like, I actually liked Meteor a lot. He was kind, friendly, fun to work with, and always on the lookout for anyone who needed help, which often included me. He took a lot of energy to interact with, though, and sometimes I just didn’t have that energy. I think it would help if I actually knew anything about him, but he kept his personal life a closed book. Whenever I asked, he would always say that he was Meteor first and Doug second, so I knew everything about him already. His rationale was that the more people knew about his personal life, the easier it would be for enemies to find him. That seemed like a copout to me, and I always suspected he was keeping some deep, dark secret. There had to be a reason he was so devoted to crime fighting, right?

I laid my fork down and wiped my mouth with a napkin. “Well, I need to go home. It’s already pretty late and I have to finish an article and send it in by tomorrow afternoon.”

“Okey-dokey, partner,” Meteor stood up and punched my arm gently. “I’ll see you the next time the city needs its champions.” He pulled some cash out of his wallet and put it on the table, then walked out the door into the halogen-lit evening.

I paid for my dinner and went home.

“Quickdraw! I know you’re in there; come out and fight me like a man!”

I stood straight up from loading my sopping wet clothes into the dryer, causing me to smack the back of my head into the shelf that held the washing detergent. The fight on the rooftop the day before had gotten a lot of dust and gravel in my costume. It felt like when you get a rock in your shoe, if your shoe fit over your entire body.

Rubbing my head to take my mind off of the pain, I quickly ran through a list of villains who knew where I lived. There were three that I could think of, in fact, but Psychonetic was in jail for petty theft (which everyone saw coming except for him, ironically), Sneakthief was in the hospital with a bad case of appendicitis, and Quaghorg the Annihilator had hung up his loincloth and battleaxe to become an accountant. That left exactly no one.

As far as I could see, I had two options. One was to pretend that I wasn’t home, in which case whoever was out there might decide to come in after me, and there was no way I could minimize potential collateral damage to my neighbors. Besides that, I could kiss my security deposit goodbye. My other option was to go down to the street and draw, so to speak. The downside there, besides that fact that I was alone, was that all of my clothes were wet. That included my costume. It isn’t easy to clean custom body armor, and it takes a long time to dry.

Desperate times, desperate measures, I thought, and grabbed my mask. Putting it on, I rushed to the window and threw it open, ready to hurl insults as a distraction while I gathered my wits. Instead of a menacing supervillain, however, I was met with the leathery countenance of one Barry the Hatchet, age 71.

I sighed with relief. “Barry, what are you doing here?”

Barry waved his tiny axe over his head. “I’ve come to battle you once again, my archnemesis!”

He was wearing his customary faded brown overalls and stained button-down shirt, with a mask that was really just a bandanna he had cut eye holes in over his face. His gray hair ruffled in the slight breeze, giving him a cowlick on top of his head. He must have forgotten to take his medication again.

“Does your wife know that you’re here?” I asked.

“You leave my wife out of this!” he shouted, “I challenge you to a battle! This time, I won’t fail!”

Barry worked as a janitor (or a sanitation technician) at the local high school. I don’t know how he got my address, but one day he just showed up and wanted to fight me. I walloped him pretty hard and when he didn’t fight back, I asked him his address and took him home. Turns out that he just gets a little funny when he doesn’t take his medicine. He still shows up periodically, demanding that I fight him. It hadn’t happened for a while, so I guess I was due for another visit.

“Barry, come on,” I said. “I was in the middle of washing my clothes. If you make me come down there in my underwear then neither of us is going to be happy, and I’ll write a very stern note to your wife. Just go home, alright?”

“You’ll be washing blood out of your clothes soon enough!” Barry yelled. Across the street, I saw a window open and a face peer out at the commotion. This was getting embarrassing.

“Alright, alright,” I conceded. “Just let me find something to wear.”

“Yippee!” Barry shouted. “I mean, whahaha!”

I glanced around my apartment. I had shoved all of the laundry I could find into the washer, and had been in the middle of hand washing my suit. I had, as far as I knew, my mask and the pair of boxer-briefs I was wearing. They were black with little red polka dots on them. Something. There had to be something I could wear. I had about five seconds before Barry started shouting again, which would attract lots of unwanted attention. It’s not a good idea to advertise where you live when you’re a superhero.

My eyes settle on a variety of objects, all quickly dismissed. Bedsheets were bulky and too thin, and the same went for blankets. I considered tearing down the shower curtains, but they were stiff and not quite opaque enough for maximum decency.

Wait. Shower...towels. It wasn’t ideal, but it would have to do.

I went into the bathroom and grabbed a bath towel, wrapping it around my waist like a skirt. I probably looked quite a sight as I rushed through the apartment building down to the ground floor and out onto the street, a skinny man wearing nothing but a bath towel and a domino mask. I just hope no one would call the police to report an axe-wielding bandit and a flasher duking it out outside their apartment.

“Okay, let’s do this,” I said to Barry, one hand holding the towel to keep it closed.

With a cry, Barry brandished his axe and rushed at me. I stepped to the side and he missed me completely. He wheeled about and came at me again, and I responded with another dodge. It usually took about three minutes of doing this before he got tired and I could send him home, but sometimes he made it to five if he was feeling particularly spry.

“You have no chance against me, old nemesis!” Barry said, already starting to pant.

“You’re pretty powerful, Barry,” I said, sidestepping another clumsy swing. To this day, I’d never figured out if he actually intended to hurt me, or if whatever compelled him during these episodes just made him seek out excitement. I could sympathize with him on that one.

The minutes passed fairly quickly, with Barry running around swinging his axe and me letting him vent his energy, and before long he had stopped and was bent over, panting, his hands on his knees.

“Are we done?” I asked.

“Never!” Barry shouted. “I’ll hound you to the ends of the earth!”

“Yeah, but are we done for right now? Because I really need to finish washing my suit.”

“Well, I guess I am pretty hungry…” Barry’s stomach rumbled in response.

“Okay, so we’ll pick this up again later,” I said.

Barry nodded. “Our fight will continue ad infinitum.” He turned to go.

“Tell Muriel I said ‘Hi’,” I said to his retreating back.

“You haven’t seen the last of me!” he responded as he jogged away, clutching his hip. “Oof, my lumbago!”

I shook my head, hands on my hips, and was about to head back inside to finish my laundry when a police car came roaring down the street, sirens blaring. It shrieked to a halt and a pudgy cop stepped out as I turned around, the sidewalk warm underneath my bare feet.

“Yeah, uh, I got a call that there was a scrap going on between a lumberjack and a pervert,” he said. “Are you the pervert?”

I whistled a little tune as I scrubbed a stubborn patch of dirt on the shirt of my suit. The speed that my hand was moving at made it sound like a power sander. I had the television on in the background, and I listened to it absentmindedly while doing my laundry.

“Cherry pie, apple pie, blueberry...piiieee!” I sang under my breath. “Meedly meedly meedly meedly weedly weedly weedly weedly-” I stood up and held my shirt like a guitar, miming a solo. There was something that sounded like an explosion on tv, which immediately threw up red flags because I was watching the news.

I looked down at the tv. The reporter on the screen was standing downtown. She was saying something, but I wasn’t paying attention. I was too busy looking at the street and buildings behind her, which looked like they had just been subjected to a full scale riot. There were cars overturned, holes in the road and sidewalk, broken windows in the buildings, and a few small fires here and there.

“Meedly?” I said.

“- ter chaos,” the reporter was saying. “The carnage started when a resident of one of the apartments that you see behind me called the police, reporting an ongoing act of vandalism. The vandals turned out to be a group of three heretofore unseen metahumans, damaging with impunity as much property as they could. There seems to be no end in sight for the trio , and-”

Without warning, the reporter was shoved sideways as a brunette woman dressed in a glittery white and silver costume appeared in front of the screen and snatched the microphone. The screen jolted sideways as the cameraman began to run, then stopped suddenly when the woman barked “Hold still!”

“Listen up, maggots!” She continued. She had a bossy tone in her voice, and I immediately disliked her. Well, also because it looked like she had just decimated half of downtown... but mostly because she sounded like a jerk. “We’re the Syndicate of Pandemonium, and we’re here for one thing, and one thing only! We want the so called hero known as Meteor! You’re gonna meet us here, at the corner of Met and Turlough, in twenty minutes,” She drew her thumb across her throat, “Or we’re gonna destroy downtown completely, and that includes everybody who lives here.” She stepped forward and put her face right into the camera. “See you soon.” With that, she drew back her fist and threw it past the camera’s screen. The view promptly pitched backward and went black.

“Really?” I said, as soon as I overcame my shock. “Can’t I just clean my clothes in peace? Is that so much to ask?”

Immediately, my phone began to ring an upbeat, triumphant little trumpet and violin piece. That meant it was Meteor, which meant it was hero time.

I crossed the room in an instant and picked up the phone.

“Tell me, Doug, does the universe hate clean laundry?” I said.

“What?” Meteor asked.

“In your experience, does fate tend to conspire against those who only wish to practice proper hygiene?”

“I don’t know about that, partner,” said Meteor without missing a beat. “But did you see the report on the local news just now?”

“I saw it.”

“Then you know what to do! Met and Turlough, as fast as you can make it there!” There was a little click as he hung up.

I looked down at the sopping wet shirt still clutched in my hand and over at my pants, which were hanging over a bucket on a line strung across the room. As I watched, a drop of water gathered at the hem and plinked into the bucket. I pursed my lips and wished for the first time in my life that I owned a hair dryer. I would just have to hope that a brisk run through the city would be adequate.

I pulled on my soaked supersuit, shivering as the cold fabric touched my skin,  and zoomed out into the city.

Downtown was worse than it looked like on tv. Cars flipped over, windows smashed, holes punched into buildings, deep cracks in the street, fires everywhere...whoever did this really meant business, and it was anyone’s guess what they wanted Meteor for. He had put a lot of people in prison, even before we teamed up. He certainly wasn’t popular with the villain crowd, even for a junior league hero.

“Holy crap,” I said, looking around at all the damage. As usual, I had arrived before Meteor could. I had gotten used to it; super speed is useful, but you tend to live slightly ahead of everyone else. It had taken a long time for me to learn to slow down to normal speed in my everyday life just so I didn’t outdistance other people.

When Meteor and I were first working together, I would rush into situations as soon as I arrived on the scene, which was ordinarily five or ten minutes before Meteor. Sometimes it worked, but a lot of times it was dangerous or just a plain bad idea. I was pretty green at the whole superhero thing. Since then I’ve learned to stop and take stock of a situation. “Never run onto the ice before you know how thick it is”, Meteor used to tell me. I wouldn’t say the guy is an intellectual heavyweight or anything, but he knows what he’s doing. He’s more than a friend to me; he’s a mentor as well.

“But mentor or not, he’s being a damn slowpoke!” I said out loud.

No sooner had the words left my mouth than Meteor rounded the corner; his costume resplendent in the mid-afternoon sun, shining like a beacon of truth and justice. However, even combined with the fact that he was built like a wrestling champion, the effect was dampened by him huffing and puffing like a chain smoker who just took up competitive morris dancing.

“Sorry to be late,” he gasped. “I had a hard time finding parking.”

Meteor actually does own a car and uses it to get around, but he parks it and then jogs over to a battle. I think it’s for appearance’s sake. You probably would too if you owned his car; the Meteor Mobile was a weird shade of chartreuse and looked like something that would be driven around a big top, when approximately thirty-seven clowns and a monkey would climb out of it.

“Maybe you should work on your cardio a little bit more often,” I remarked. Not to be mean, of course; the noises he was making were a little worrying.

“No time for that now, comrade!” he wheezed, once again pointing an index finger straight up into the air. “There’s evil afoot, and we’re just the heroes to shoe it! The foot, that is,” he continued, seeing my puzzled look.

“I think they might be long gone, honestly,” I said, worry creeping into my voice. “We haven’t seen them around, and normally villains are throwing stuff or taunting us by now.”

Meteor straightened up and put a reassuring hand on my shoulder. “Not to worry, my high velocity companion! We’ve just got to lure them out!” With that, he strode into the middle of the intersection, climbed on top of an overturned car, and started to shout.

“Show yourselves, villainous vandals! We’ve come for a showdown of epic proportions, and deity of your choice as my witness, we will not be denied!”

I put my hand over my face. Believe it or not, this wasn’t outside the scope of Meteor’s normal behavior. He was a good leader, to be sure, but sometimes he was a little...overly dramatic.

“Meteor, I don’t think being that loud is a good idea,” I called to him.

“What was that?” he shouted from his perch.

“I said I don’t think it’s a good idea to- WHOA!” I ran forward to tackle him off of the car just as an suv sailed past, right where he had been. We hit the asphalt, groaning.

“Thanks for the assist!” Meteor said as I looked over at where the car had come from. In the middle of the street stood a huge man dressed in black with a beer gut, muscles like a powerlifter, and a thick mane of hair. He was wearing leather pants and a shirt with the sleeves ripped off. There was a wild look in his eyes. Next to him stood the woman from the news report and another woman, much smaller, dressed in a brown costume. None of them looked friendly.

“There’s two of ‘em,” growled the man, dusting off his hands. My guess was that he threw the car. “Nobody told us he had a sidekick.”

“I prefer to think of it as a mutually beneficial partnership on more or less equal terms,” I said, back on my feet.

“It doesn’t matter,” said the haughty woman in the glittery white costume. “There’s three of us.”

“We’re here, as requested,” Meteor said. “What do you want?”

“I’m Streak,” said the woman in white. “This is Knuckle,” she jerked her head toward the man, “And that’s Faultline,” she motioned to the other woman. “Together we’re the Syndicate of Pandemonium. Which is exactly what we’re about to cause!”

“The Syndicate of Pandemonium?” I repeated. “That’s like, one of the top ten dumbest names I’ve ever heard. Maybe even top five.”

“It’s not as dumb as ‘the Organization of Individuals with Villainous Intent’,” Meteor said.

“It’s not,” I agreed. “But it’s pretty close.”

“It’s an awesome name and you’re just jealous you didn’t think of it first!” Streak snapped. “Plus I don’t care what you think!”

“Okay, but it kind of sounds like you do care,” I said.

“Shut up!” Streak howled. “Knuckle, Faultline, get Meteor! I’ll take care of smarty pants!”

This was always the part of the fight that was the most dangerous, in my experience. One of these bozos threw a car at Meteor so I knew there was super strength involved, probably from the guy they called Knuckle, but who knew what else they could do? You couldn’t always surmise someone’s powers just from their name.

Knuckle leapt at Meteor, fists raised, clearing the distance easily with big, powerful strides. Meteor already had his scarlet aura around his hands, and he smashed his fist with such force into Knuckle’s face that Knuckle went flying down the street, coming to a rolling stop about twenty yards away. Faultline watched as Knuckle ate asphalt and then raised her hands toward Meteor and shouted something. The ground in front of her rippled and twisted, forming itself into a peak which sailed toward him like a shark fin. Meteor braced himself, legs bent in anticipation, and then smashed through it as it reached him.

Satisfied that Meteor was okay, I turned my attention toward Streak, who hadn’t moved.

“So, what can you do?” I asked. “I hope your name doesn’t mean you pee yourself, because I just washed this suit.”

“Anybody ever tell you you’re really annoying?” she growled.

“Once or twice,” I shrugged.

Without warning, she shot toward me like a bullet. I was so surprised that I almost took her fist to my chin before I moved out of the way. Her knuckles passed so close to me that I felt the wind on my five o’clock shadow.

She was fast just like me. I took a moment to let that sink in, because believe it or not, I had never met anyone else with super speed. Laser vision, sure; flight was a dime a dozen, and super strength was so common as to be practically a certainty, but I was the only person I knew who could move at metahuman speeds.

That actually presented a large problem, I realized as I barely dodged another punch. I was so fast that I had never had to learn how to fight. I could hit like a champion, but one-and-done was the name of the game. You didn’t have to know how to block a swing when you could put the other person on the ground before they had time to move. Whoever this woman was, she clearly knew what to do when the chips were down. I guessed that she hadn’t always had powers.

“Let’s see how flappant you are when you’re missing some teeth!” she said.

“It’s pronounced flippant,” I said, but it was a knee jerk reaction. I could be in big trouble here.

“God d****t, just stop talking!” She threw her shoulder into my chest, knocking me backward. Trying to regain my footing, I tripped over some loose rubble and fell hard on my a*s.

“Ugh, you’re all wet!” she exclaimed in disgust.

“I told you I just washed my suit!” I replied. “I never said I had time to dry it.” I rolled out of the way to avoid a kick aimed at my face, using my momentum to jump back to my feet. I was going to have to figure out some way to win this, or it was curtains for me. And not pretty curtains, either. Think mustard yellow gingham.

I had two options at this point. I could either continue with a defensive tactic and try to look for openings where I could land a few blows, or I could take the offensive and hope that she wasn’t as good at dodging as I was. I tried to weigh both options without thinking about their infeasibility. The truth was that the longer this fight went on, the more likely I was to lose. And Streak probably wasn’t looking for just a knockout.

An errant punch struck its mark across my chin. Fortunately I was used to pain; there are plenty of things I confront on a regular basis that you can’t outrun: lasers, explosions...the list goes on and on.

“You can’t fight worth s**t,” taunted Streak as she hit me again, in the chest this time.

“Yeah?” I shot back. “Well, your costume makes you look like a disco ball, but you don’t see me talking about that.”

“Are you calling me fat?” Streak was livid. “I shanked b*****s in prison for less than that!”

“You said it, not me,” I said. “But that does explain why you smell like a cafeteria.”

Across the street, Meteor was slowly losing ground. The combined powers of Knuckle and Faultline were proving too much for him. Despite being made of the same tough, durable fabric that my suit was made out of, his suit was shredded in numerous places and his left arm hung limp at has side. I was still concentrating on my fight with Streak, so I saw everything happen in slow motion. Meteor blocked a hit from Knuckle with his good arm and while he was busy, Faultline sent a torso sized chunk of rock into his back. He stumbled and Knuckle body slammed him, sending him flying into the side of a nearby building. He didn’t look like he was going to get back up again. It was sink or swim, I had to do something.

I went on the attack. I dodged past a wild swing from Streak and elbowed her in the stomach. When she doubled over, I looped my arms underneath hers so my shoulders were in her armpits and my fingers were laced behind her head, locking her in a full nelson.

Hey, maybe this wouldn’t be so hard after all.

She began to push backwards against me, her legs flailing in the air when she kicked.

“Hey, stop that!” I said. “You’re going to knock us both down!”

Which is exactly what happened. We hit the concrete and my hold broke. I struggled to regain control as she fought to get a hold on me, and we ended up rolling around on the ground, me trying to get my arm against her neck while she grasped at my throat with her legs wrapped around my waist.

Normally I would make some sort of joke here, like ‘that’s just a typical Friday night for me’, but I really think the situation speaks for itself.

“Urgh,” I grunted. “You are making this...ow...look...unf...really awkward!”

“I’m gonna strangle you,” she gasped. “And...agh...wear your eyeballs as...oof...earrings!”

Her hands found purchase on my throat and she began to squeeze. I hammered on the side of her head with my fist until she looked like one of those dashboard bobble heads, but she kept throttling me. My vision swam and began to go dark.

“That’s...really gross,” I choked, as tunnel vision took its toll on my peripherals.

Right as I started to lose consciousness, I heard a sudden sharp crack and then a loud gushing sound,  like a fire hydrant rocketing off of the sidewalk from a fast increase in pressure.

“Now, my dear, now!” A nasally voice off to my right shouted. A thick jet of water slammed into Streak and took her right off of me, her nails scratching me as her hands left my throat.

I lay on the sun-warmed street staring up at the sky, too stunned and oxygen-deprived to move. All around me came the sound of a battle: the rush of fast moving water, the creaking groan of the concrete moving, thumping as of someone huge jumping around, and a high pitched crackling noise that I could have sworn sounded like lightning. This went on for some time and then died suddenly, voices shouting angrily in departure, as the wail of police sirens grew closer until it was almost too loud to bear. There came the sound of doors slamming and people running around, barking orders at each other. Suddenly there were hands on me, lifting me onto a stretcher and checking my pulse.

“Meteor,” I said to no one in particular, and then blacked out.

Author's Note

Seriously, does no one care about the literary classics anymore?