Chapter 5

A daring escape is staged, a horrible bus ride takes place, and Meteor and Quickdraw meet possibly the most pathetic villain ever.

The woman in the red dress held the snub nosed revolver in her trembling, manicured hands, leveling it at the well dressed man across the room. Her mascara ran in lumpy wet streams down her cheeks and her face was puffy and blotchy from crying.

“Jessica,” the man in the suit said, holding his hands up. “Jessica, don’t do anything rash.”

“You b*****d,” Jessica sobbed. “You absolute b*****d. How long did you think you could keep this from me?”

“Jessica, she meant nothing to me,” said the man in the suit. It was grey with pinstripes and had a handkerchief poking out of the breast pocket. “It’s been you all along, baby. You’re the one for me.”

“You lied to me!” Jessica shrieked. “I thought you cared about me, but you only care about yourself!”

The man in the suit clenched his upheld hands into fists. “Alright, fine, you got me,” he said. “I was going to run away with Natalia. We were going to take the jewels from the safe and make a life together in Brazil, spending our days tanning on the beach and drinking mojitos and playing canasta.”

“Why?” Jessica wailed. “I thought we had something special! What about our son Dylan?”

“We used to have something special, Jessica,” the man in the suit shook his head. “But ever since Dylan was in that car wreck, you’ve been different. You’ve changed, Jessica. You’re like a hollow shell, and when I look at you I only see our adopted Chinese son lying comatose on that hospital bed. When I met Natalia, it was like I could finally feel again. She makes me feel alive, Jessica, in a way that I haven’t for years.”

The muzzle of Jessica’s revolver wavered back and forth through the air. Her sniffles were loud in the empty study.

“You don’t have the guts to shoot me, Jessica,” sneered the man. “You’ve always been a wimp, and you’ll always be a wimp. There’s nothing left for me if I stay with you. Face it, you’re middle aged and homely now, and our son will never walk again. But I can, Jessica. And I’m going to walk right past you, out that door, and into a life full of sun and sand and coconut oil based suntan lotion!”

Abruptly, the revolver ceased its trembling. An explosive roar shattered the peace in the study as Jessica pulled the trigger, and the man fell backward into the desk behind him, knocking over the stacks of books and the wine glass, which spilled its deep red contents onto the white carpet.

“Au revoir, Jessica,” gasped the man with his dying breath. “Au revoir.”

There was nothing but silence in the room for a long, long time.

“Dang,” said Meteor as the screen faded to black and dramatic music started playing over the rolling credits. “I guess you were right.”

“I knew she’d do it in the end,” I replied. “She was obviously on the brink of a total mental breakdown since Eduardo slipped and fell into the pool during the country club’s annual tupperware party.”

Meteor and I lay in beds in the Saint Dulcimer Sisters of Perpetual Mercy And Combined Order Of The Wailing Spirit hospital, where we had been admitted since we got our butts kicked three days ago. The last thing I remembered was blacking out on the street after some unknown something saved us from the Syndicate of Pandemonium, which legitimately was a really stupid name, and then I woke up in a bed wearing a hospital gown that was very drafty in the posterior region. At least they had let us keep our masks on. The healing process had been pretty boring so far; full of accommodating tender bruises while watching daytime television.

All in all we had gotten off easy from the fight. I had bruising around my neck and Meteor had cracked a few ribs and had a very mild concussion, and we had been asked to stay in the hospital for a day or two longer to make sure we were okay. This didn’t sit well with Meteor, who was a man of action. I found it relaxing for the first day or two, and now I thought it was just boring as hell.

“I wonder when we’ll get to find out who shot Diego,” I said.

“I think it was Carmen,” Meteor replied. “She’s been jealous of Diego’s relationship with her sister since Mario was born.”

We fell silent again. A crappy detective show started playing on the television.

“Man, this is dull,” I said. “And I don’t just mean the terrible tv programming.”

“I agree,” said Meteor. “And my butt itches.”

“Are you kiddin’ me?” a policeman on tv asked a forensic specialist. “She had a necklace made of wieners?”

“That’s it,” I said, heaving myself up. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Yes!” Meteor hopped out of bed. “Any longer in here and I think I would have melded with the sheets.”

We turned our backs on each other, untied our gowns, and began to slip on our suits. There was a time when it had been hospital procedure to throw away a super suit when the owner was admitted, just like they do with normal clothes in an emergency situation, but that changed after complaints flooded in from angry superheroes. Super suits were super expensive. In addition to that, there were some super suits that nothing short of an industrial buzzsaw could cut through, much less hospital shears. Of course, that depended on how loaded the hero in question was. Certainly wealthy enough to afford an expensive lawyer.

I had never actually seen Meteor in anything other than his super suit (or a hospital gown, in those occasions when we got our asses totally handed to us...and trust me, that happened). He was extremely secretive about practically everything. We didn’t even really hang out, at least outside of doling out violent justice.

Now adequately clothed, we strode out into the hallway and made for the hospital’s entrance. We passed elderly people with walkers, people learning how to walk again, and people milling around holding onto their IV stands. We made it all the way to the elevator before we were stopped by a large, angry sounding nurse who undoubtedly noticed our ripped and soiled suits.

“Excuze me!” she said loudly. “And where do you sink you are goink?”

“Out of the way, woman!” Meteor exclaimed. The nurse was a head taller than he was, with very angular features and a large mole on the side of her nose. “The shepherds of justice must tend to the flock of destiny!”

“No no no,” the nurse said, gripping us both by the shoulder. “You must be staying hier until you are being discharged!”

“Unhand us, nursewoman!” Meteor said. “The city languishes without its protectors!”

The nurse wheeled us around and pointed us toward our room. “Marching back to bed now, please!” she said.

“Quickdraw! Execute maneuver code name ‘Tricky Spaniard’!” Meteor shouted.

When the bossman speaks, I listen. Fast as blinking, I slipped out of the nurse’s grasp and dashed away, coming to a halt about twenty feet down the hallway. All eyes were on me now, including those of the patients who had heard the disturbance.

For the record, I’m not the one who names the maneuvers.

“You will not get away so eazily!” the nurse said and lumbered towards me. “You will be healed if I have to be tying you up!”

Behind her, Meteor had reached the elevator and was jabbing the down button repeatedly. The elevator dinged and the doors slowly started to part. The nurse was close now, her hands outstretched. Right as they were about to close on me, I ducked underneath her grasp and zipped inside the elevator where Meteor was already.

“Close, rectangular steed of expeditious freedom!” urged Meteor. The doors started to close again, the big angry nurse running down the hallway toward us, and the last thing we saw before they came together was her mid-shout, waving her hands at us. “Deliver us unto the city’s waiting bosom!”

Light muzak played as we descended, and Meteor started humming along under his breath.

“That was close,” I said.

“The righteous always prevail!” Meteor said. “And being stuck in this place is  righteously boring!”

I sat in the park a short walk from my apartment with my laptop, getting some writing done and enjoying the weather. The sun hung like a big ball of flaming hydrogen in the sky, the birds sang, dogs barked and frolicked, and children ran around, screamed, and hit each other with sticks.

Just another day in the big city.

“Jellyfish,” I said aloud as I wrote. “An exploration into plankton colonies that form a single predatory organism.” I thought about that for a minute, then decided it was too high-brow. I didn’t want my article to sound like a thesis. “Facts about jellyfish that will blow your mind!” I amended, then swiftly deleted it. That title was too far on the other side. “Jellyfish: the silent cnidarian menace from outer space with lasers and stuff! They’re coming to get you!” Whatever, man. Everybody knew the titles were the hardest part of writing something. I would fix it later.

My fingers flew across the keys as I typed, like a line of tap dancing tarantulas on my keyboard. This was one of my favorite parts about my power: I could write something in an hour that would take anyone else an entire day. “With tentacles covered in spring loaded, stinging cnidocytes, no one is safe!” I liked to be outrageous with my first drafts, and then tone it down when I edited it later. It helped me to think. “Let me tell you about the australian irukandji jelly. These mothers are super tiny! You think a net is gonna keep you safe; you’re wrong, sucker!” Ok, I would have to tone this one down a lot. It was beginning to sound like a clickbait article.

As I typed, trying to get my thoughts down before they disappeared into the aether, my laptop jolted in my lap and the lightweight screen closed down on my fingers. I looked up. A red frisbee lay at my feet, and three figures approached in the distance.

“Sorry, man,” said one, when they were close enough. They looked like college freshmen, wearing typical college clothes. Ripped jeans, baggy t-shirts, shaggy hair that probably hadn’t seen a pair of scissors in years, and thin, scruffy approximations of facial hair that might actually look like beards in a few decades or so.

“No harm, no foul,” I said, hoping that was true. That frisbee looked heavy.

As the college kids left, frisbee in hand, I opened my laptop back up. The LCD screen was now a bright rainbow of colors, with a big diagonal mark across it that looked remarkably like a slash.

“You have got to be kidding me,” I said to no one in particular. I briefly considered getting the frisbee kids to pay for my computer, then I dismissed the thought. People with money didn’t usually dress like that outside of a hippie commune.

I leaned back on the bench, looked up to the sky, and groaned inwardly. My bank account was not ready for this. I wasn’t even wearing my super suit, which meant that I had to figure out some way to get to the computer repair shop without using my speed.

I closed my hopefully-not-ruined laptop and shoved it into my computer bag. Standing up, I glared at the college kids and wished something unpleasant upon them, like a pop quiz after a night of drinking or a big pimple before a date.

Since my day job was entirely dependant upon my access to the internet, it was time to go to the local computer repair shop. This presented several irritations, on top of the fact that my laptop may have just become about as useful as the frisbee that assaulted it. Problem number one: I was in street clothes. That meant no using powers, which in turn meant that I had to find a way to make it across the city in a timely manner without running. Problem beta: I now had to choose between the subway and the bus, because there was no way I was taking a taxi. Too many bad experiences with loud, hairy drivers hellbent on putting both of our persons at risk of serious bodily harm. Both other options had me sitting in grungy seats in a confined space with people possessing questionable hygiene. You can see why I prefer to run.

That leads us to problem C,  which is that the consistency of Nova City’s public transit system is dubious at best. Think about it this way: if train A is headed east at forty miles per hour and train B is headed west at seventy miles per hour and they pass each other after three hours, the average Nova City bus will still be an hour behind schedule because the driver pulled over to have lunch and a smoke. Therefore, by the time I got to a bus stop, waited for a bus, boarded, and found myself up to my waist in other people’s grime in seats that looked like the pattern was designed by a colorblind four year old, the sun was ducking down behind the horizon.

The bus rattled and hissed as it pulled away from the bus stop. Metal squealed against metal and the passengers jiggled with the worn out shocks. The driver, an overweight, hirsute individual of indeterminate gender, grunted slightly as he/she turned the wheel.

I leaned back and stared at the seat in front of me. It seriously did look like they picked the artistic designer from kindergarten. Presumably the pattern was meant to hide the vomit stains. Across the aisle from me, an unblinking, be-hoodied teenager blasted music from a pair of headphones loud enough that I could hear the lyrics. At the back of the bus, a chorus of what sounded like no fewer than a thousand colicky babies struck up to practice their concerto, no doubt entitled “I’m hungry, angry, and tired” in three movements, which were probably bowel related. A man in an oversized trenchcoat huddled in a seat toward the front, and I decided that if there was a bomb underneath it, it might actually be a merciful conclusion to the bus ride.

The bus driver grumbled something as we came to another bus stop. A few people got on and a few got off, adding a fresh new layer of weirdness to the cramped atmosphere. A woman dressed in a horrible pink pantsuit clutched a tiny dog and a handbag covered in rhinestones. A guy who was either homeless or a liberal arts major struggled under the weight of a huge boombox and his lumberjack beard. A tired looking mother in sweatpants that said ‘juicy’ across the butt held the hand of a child who was ninety percent bowlcut. I felt like I was losing my mind. My vision swam as the madness gripped me and took me further from reality. I crested the event horizon and gazed into the darkness from which there was no return, and I clawed at the sides of my face in lamentation. Oh, the humanity! Tell my parents I love them, tell my ex girlfriends I’ll remember them fondly, tell Meteor to carry on without me! I prepared to lose myself completely, to toss and tumble down the whirlpool into the icy clutches of-

“Middle street,” farted the bus driver, as the bus squealed to a halt and the doors opened with a hiss.

That wasn’t so bad, I thought to myself as I stepped onto the sidewalk.

A short walk later and I found myself in my most frequented computer shop, a combination retail outlet and repair workshop, where I took my computer whenever it had a problem I couldn’t solve via search engine. It’s not that the service was particularly exceptional or anything like that, but one of the clerks was a college buddy of mine so he would always give me a discount.

The store was crowded, with big signs all over the walls advertising the latest phone that had just come out. Apparently it had been released that morning, unbeknownst to me, which is why the small shop currently had the population density of Japan.

I got in line behind a particularly sweaty, overweight man who looked like he had been a jock in his youth, before the muscle turned into fat and the six pack became a beer gut. He was agitatedly messing around with a tablet the size of a small television.

“You here for the uComp 14?” he asked, not looking up.

“No, just need my laptop repaired,” I replied.

“You should think about getting yourself one, man. It’s gonna be sweet.”

“Oh yeah?” I replied with the air of a man who is not invested in the conversation.

“Yeah.” The guy was oblivious. “It’s equipped with an extra three rows for apps on the screen, from nine to twelve, but really that’s just aesthetic, you know? The real appeal comes from the upgraded processing power.” He continued to punch away at the tablet, as if it had offended him. “It comes pre-installed with Brazil IX and has the option to switch between that and RaInFoReSt, which really optimizes the coding capabilities in a way that hasn’t been done before. It’s a real game changer.”

“Is that so?” This line was not getting any shorter.

“Yep. It’s one of those things that has to be seen to be believed. I actually suggested the same program switch to some of my friends a few years ago, but they didn’t think it could be done. Between you and me, they’re short-sighted. They’re happy with whatever’s put out but they don’t think about it, right? They aren’t true techheads.”

I grunted noncommittally. The guy was really sweaty.

“You’ve got to stay ahead of the curve. It’s the only way to truly utilize the future technology when it’s released, instead of having to familiarize yourself with the interface before you can actually get it going.”

I listened with half an ear. How does someone get so sweaty in an air conditioned building?

The guy pulled his hand away long enough to push his glasses up on his nose, then it immediately snapped back to the tablet. “It’s true. You have to stay current, or it’s like overclocking stock tech and you never reach the true potential, and you’re just like all the plebs who carry around the tech in their pockets without ever knowing the kind of power they have at their fingertips.”

“I totally agree,” I lied. The person who was at the counter when I got in line left, and the next person stepped up. The sweaty guy continued to talk, but I had zoned out while staring at a box of nano SD cards and didn’t register anything that he said. Five terabytes of memory on a chip the size of a little girl’s fingernail. Who needed that kind of thing? Was technology just going to keep getting smaller and smaller until you couldn’t find it anymore, and you’d pay hundreds of dollars for a phone the size of a penny? How would you press the keys? What if you were surfing the net at night while lying in bed, and it fell from your hands and into your nose?

“Goddamn metahumans,” the sweaty guy said.

That sure got my attention.

“What?” I said, looking up from the SD card box.

Sweaty guy gestured at a television mounted from the ceiling. A reporter was chronicling the scene of a fight between Backfire and Chickenhawk, who was a nice guy and a good hero despite having a silly name. The street on the tv was pockmarked with craters from the fight and soot from laser fire. A few windows were smashed on adjacent buildings. The reporter was interviewing an old woman in a mumu, who was saying that she didn’t feel safe.

“Those goddamn metahumans always rushing around, destroying things and beating the s**t out of each other, and us normal people always come out the losers no matter who wins!” Sweaty guy ranted. “They don’t care about us, they just want to flounce around and throw their super powers everywhere!”

I sighed. Here we go again. “I don’t think that’s why they’re doing it.”

“Of course it is.” Sweaty guy’s tablet was really taking a beating now. “If you had that kind of power, wouldn’t you take advantage of it?”

“...Probably not,” I said, perhaps a little shiftily.

“But we’re the ones who pay for it,” sweaty guy ignored me. “They fight, they get fame and money, and we lose either way.”

“You don’t think things would be pretty terrible if no one policed the supervillains?” I was protesting, but it was really just for my own sake. There was a big prejudice against metahumans because of something that happened forty years ago. An incredibly powerful villain rampaged across the States with the intention of holding the U.N. summit hostage. He killed a lot of metahumans, and even more regular people through collateral damage. It caused a deep-seated distrust of metahumans that was still evident after all this time. Sometimes it made being a superhero feel more like a crappy job than a noble pursuit.

“I think they should all just go back to where they came from and leave us alone,” sweaty guy sweated.

The familiar old ‘go back to where you came from’ argument. It doesn’t even make any sense. I was born here, a*****e. I dropped the conversation. There was no use arguing with people like that. Fortunately, sweaty guy was up next at the counter so he didn’t have time to be an idiot at me anymore. I waited in peaceful silence for him to be finished, then I handed my laptop over when it was my turn. The clerk’s face when I gave him the laptop told me what I already knew, that there wasn’t much hope for my poor computer, but he said he would give it a shot anyway.

I’ll spare you the account of the bus ride home, but suffice to say that it was no better than the first one. When I got back to my apartment, head reeling from gum-covered seats, smelly people, and loud music from headphones, I was tired enough that I decided to eschew working from my desktop and just go to bed. I still had to get my suit fixed from the last fight, but that was a problem for another day.

My cellphone started ringing its triumphant little classical song, rousing me from my sleep. I had dozed off on my couch while watching tv. I looked over at the clock on the little table next to my couch. It read 7:30 pm.

“Hey Doug,” I said, picking my phone up.

“We’ve got trouble, Quickdraw!” Meteor’s voice boomed from the other end of the line.

“Yeah?” I rubbed my eyes. It had been two weeks since we staged our daring escape from the hospital, and I hadn’t heard from Meteor since then. It had been sort of relaxing.

“Without a doubt!’ Meteor said. “I received a phone call from the police station.  I’ll send the recording to you. You’re going to want to hear this.”

It came as no surprise to me at all that Meteor recorded his phone calls. ‘You can never be too careful’ was his philosophy.

There came the sound of shuffling and beeping on the other end of the phonecall. After a few minutes of this, I heard Meteor muttering under his breath.

“Do you need some help?” I asked.

“No, no, I’ve got it,” he replied.

There were a few more minutes of nondescript noises. I heard Meteor say something that sounded like ‘rada frada technology’.

“Look, you have to go to your contacts section first,” I said.

“I know, I know,” he said.

“Click on the recording and then there should be an options button.”

“I’m at the recording; I don’t see any buttons.”

“It looks like a cluster of dots.”

“There aren’t any- wait, I found it.”

More shuffling and beeping.

“It should say ‘send to’, or something like that,” I said patiently.

“I can do this!” Meteor said. “A mere cellphone is defenseless against my mighty technical know-how!”

“Did you find the ‘send to’ option?”

“There’s one that says ‘share’.”

“Click on that.”

More beeps. Meteor breathed loudly like his face was close to the receiver.

“Just add my number to the blank space,” I said.

“Okay, it says it’s sending.”

“That’s all you need to do; I should get it soon.”

“Excellent! Call me back after you listen to it.”

He hung up and I headed to the kitchen to pour myself a glass of water. After a bit, my phone beeped. I picked it up and played the message.

“Hello!” Meteor boomed enthusiastically.

There was the sound of a quick sigh at the other end, like someone steeling themself to do some unpleasant task.

“Meteor, this is Captain Torres of the Nova City police department,” a familiar female voice said. Captain Torres, Meteor, and I go way back. Probably farther back than was to Torres’ liking. “I have just received a phone call from an anonymous source who says he has taken hostages and will hurt them unless I relay a message to you. He refused to identify himself.”

“I’m happy to be of assistance, Captain!” Meteor said. “Play the message!”

“Dios mio,” Torres muttered.

There was the click of a button and a muffled, whiny voice started to speak. “Meteor!” the voice expectorated. “It is I, your soon to be archnemesis! I will not tell you my name, for you shall come to know me soon enough! Not being in possession of your personal number, I have decided to contact you by way of the police station.” the voice grew a little faint, as if he had leaned away from the phone. “What’s that? No, no, decaf. You know what happens if I have too much caffeine too soon before bed. What did you say?...Insubordination! Leave my presence, child, and do not return without dark roasted sustenance!” The voice got louder again. “Sorry about that. I have hostages, Meteor! You will meet me at an address that I will relay to you, or things will not go well for them, I assure you! The building you will go to is 1248 Kindl-”

“Wait, wait,” Torres said. “Slow down, I can’t understand what you’re saying.”

“Oh, sorry,” said the voice. “It’s 1248 Kindling Avenue. It’s a beat up old factory, you can’t miss it. Come without the police, Meteor! Be there at eight o’clock and not a minute later, or I shall find out how long these captives can hold their breaths!” With a cackle that was strained and wooden, like it had been practiced in front of a mirror, the person on the other end terminated the call.

“We can’t send you any backup,” said Torres. “You heard him. He might actually have hostages and I can’t risk it.”

“Not to worry, Captain!” Meteor said. “The situation is in the capable hands of my partner and I!”

“Ugh, deliver me, por favor,” Torres said, and hung up.

I dialed Meteor’s number.

“Did you listen to it?” Meteor asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “That dude sounds really familiar, for some reason. He also sounds like an idiot.”

“Indeed,” Meteor said. “But we can’t risk him hurting anyone. I’ll meet you at 1248 Kindling Lane ASAP!” He hung up.

I finished my water and suited up.

The door was big, and metal, and locked. Very locked.

“That’s three padlocks, four chains, and a keypad that probably leads to at least one deadbolt,” I said, folding my arms.

“It’s almost like someone didn’t want us to get in,” said Meteor with a grin.

“I think this is your department,” I said. Sometimes it’s all about the banter.

He grinned wider, until the top of his head threatened to fall off. He cracked his knuckles and drew back his fist as a soft red glow began to emanate from it. After a couple of seconds, when the light had grown stronger and encompassed his hand in a scarlet nimbus, he struck the door.

It exploded inwards, the chains and locks and other assorted security measures useless against the might of my large friend.

I threw up my arms to protect my face against the resulting shrapnel. It was the only part of my body not covered by my costume, but when you’re as fast as I am you don’t usually have to worry about getting hit.

“All right, let me go first,” Meteor said, massaging some life back into his hand. “I want you to give me a couple of seconds and then come in behind me.”

It’s times like this when it was abundantly clear that our partner relationship was really more like a superhero-sidekick kind of thing.

“All right, it’s go time!” Meteor shouted, and ran into the very dimly lit passageway.

Come to think of it, I guess it made sense that I was the sidekick, and not the guy who can punch through a foot of steel.

I sighed, counted to five, then calmly entered the building.

“Do you have any guesses as to who’s behind this?” I asked, coming up on Meteor. He was just inside, peering into a doorway. I would make a much better scout than he does, but I guess it makes him feel better to face the danger himself when we aren’t explicitly in a fight.

“Not a clue!” he said.

“Right,” I said. “So all we know is that we’re walking into a trap.”

“Yes,” he replied. “But hey, it’s good for our sponsorship.” Apparently satisfied that the room was secure, he slipped through the doorway.

“I don’t think Baldino’s shaving cream cares what we do, as long as it’s exciting to the public or promotes hair trimming,” I muttered.

Sometimes I can’t tell whether Meteor is fearless or just dumb. Given this, I decided to take matters into my own hands. See, I don’t just move fast, I can process things super fast as well. This helps me out in situations exactly like this, where I feel like Meteor has probably missed something.

I ducked low, leaned inside, and quickly examined the doorframe. Almost immediately, I located a wire that looked like it didn’t belong. It began from a tiny box set on the wall, disappearing into the ceiling and running by a large slot at the top of the frame where a blast door would be. You see this kind of thing a lot in my line of work; some sucker would walk into a room, trip a laser set on one of the walls, and a door would drop down after a few seconds, trapping them. It’s a classic. Using a small penknife I always carry with me, I deftly cut the wire.

I accomplished all of this before Meteor could have noticed, but I doubt that he would have anyway. He’s usually a pretty alert guy, but he tends to miss the small stuff. Satisfied with my work, I stepped fully inside the room.

It was small, and I have no clue what it would be used for normally. The floor was set a step down from the hallway we had just come from. At the far end, there was a walkway hanging from the ceiling that ran parallel to the wall behind me.

As I stepped down, I heard a splash and felt water lapping around my boot. I looked down and saw that it was about six inches deep. I wondered if it was part of the trap or just bad plumbing; this old factory hadn’t been used in years, after all.

I heard muffled shouts coming from somewhere in the room. It was hard to tell because of the echoes, but they sounded like they were originating from above me. The room was very dimly lit, but as I looked up I could just make out a large metal platform suspended from the ceiling. It was swaying slightly, and I could see the silhouettes of three people strapped to chairs on it.

“Well I’ll be,” I said to Meteor. “There actually are hostages.” His gaze followed my outstretched arm to the platform.

“Everything is going to be a-okay,” he shouted, cupping his hands around his mouth. “Quickdraw and I will have you down before you know it!”

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that!” came a nasal voice from above, the same as from the recording that Torres played for Meteor. I looked over at the walkway and saw two costumed figures standing on it; a tall one gripping the railing tightly, and the other small with its arms crossed.

I squinted into the darkness to see them better. “Do you recognize them?” I asked Meteor.

“I dunno,” he muttered, apparently having the same difficulty seeing them as I did. “It’s so friggin’ dark in here it could be my granny for all I know.” He cupped his hands around his mouth again. “Hey, do we know you guys?

The tall figure looked taken aback for a moment, then regained his composure. “If you don’t know us by sight, you will certainly know us by name, for we are infamous!” He drew himself up, and I could almost see his ego. “I am the illustrious Doctor DeLuge, and this is my associate Teravolt!”

I thought for a moment, but drew a blank. I had never heard those names before. Meteor looked at me quizzically, and I shrugged. He turned back to the walkway.

“I don’t think we’ve ever heard of you guys!” he called.

The tall figure sagged noticeably, and it looked like the short one sighed.

“Seriously?” said tall guy. “Never?” His voice was still infuriatingly familiar, but there was no way I was going to tell him that.

“Nope,” said Meteor. “I’m pretty sure I’d remember names like those.”

“Hey, do you actually have a doctorate, or did you just like the alliteration?” I asked.

Tall guy didn’t respond for a bit, then said quietly: “Mechanical Engineering.” I don’t think things were turning out as he’d planned.

“Oh, that makes sense,” I said, thinking back to the door trap.

“You’ve really never heard of us?” tall guy asked again, incredulous. “We did that heist a while back, at the Museum of Science and History?”

Meteor took a moment to think.

“Was that the one where everything was flooded, and they were having that exhibit on sherpas in the Himalayas?” he asked.

“Yes!” Tall guy, or Doctor DeLuge, sounded almost ecstatic. “Yes, that was us!”

“I thought that was Darkquamancer, to tell you the truth,” Meteor said bluntly. “It wasn’t really done very well and it seemed like his sort of thing. I mean, a bunch of pieces got water damage. Not what I’d call a clean robbery, to be honest.”

“Not clean?” Doctor DeLuge was beside himself. He slammed his fist on the railing in front of him. “We made it out with six million dollars worth of artifacts!”

“Yeah, but everything else was ruined,” Meteor said. “Pretty haphazard if you ask me.”

“Enough!” Doctor DeLuge raged. “I’m going to show you just exactly how clean I can - wait, why isn’t the door closed?” He turned to the short figure beside him, Teravolt. “Why didn’t the door trap spring?”

Teravolt spoke in a female, decidedly exasperated voice: “I don’t know, you wired it. Besides, I told you this was a bad plan.”

“It’s an excellent plan!” Doctor DeLuge shouted, turning back to where we were. “We’ve got them right where we want them! Where’d they go?”

See, this is the kind of thing that really gets me about supervillains. The overconfidence. Overconfidence leads to mistakes, which lead to failure. Nine times out of ten, it’s the reason a plan fails. It seems Doctor DeLuge hadn’t done his homework on Meteor and me, and didn’t know what our powers were. With a boom that was muffled by the water, Meteor shot upward, landed on the suspended platform, and started untying the hostages. They don’t call him Meteor for nothing.

I got a running start and built up speed, the soles of my boots hitting the wall and carrying me straight up. I zoomed upward and landed with a quiet thump onto the  walkway. Doctor DeLuge had looked back at Teravolt, and I think he must have noticed from the look in her eyes that I was standing right next to him. As he turned around, I socked him right in the jaw, and he went down like a marionette with its strings cut.

I exchanged a sympathetic glance with Teravolt. Sometimes the leader just doesn’t think things through. After a second, I lunged for her.

I found myself flat on my back the next instant, an unpleasant tingling sensation running through my entire body. I groaned and sat up, muscles spasming lightly. It felt like I had been tasered. Teravolt. Electricity. Got it.

I got up in time to see Teravolt running out a door on the side of the walkway, in the direction that I was facing. I didn’t see Doctor DeLuge anywhere.

“Quickdraw!” Meteor landed heavily on the walkway. “Go after Teravolt! I’ll apprehend the good Doctor.” Without another word, he took off running through the door behind me, on the other side of the walkway.

Hero vs. villain, sidekick vs. sidekick. Okay.

It took me less than a second to cross the walkway and get through the door, and I caught a fleeting glimpse of Teravolt hightailing it around the corner. I ran after her and rounded the corner to see her just...standing there.

I narrowed my eyes suspiciously. Was this another trap?

It was then that I noticed the water lapping around her ankles. Mine, too. In fact, the entire corridor was flooded.

Damn.

I had just enough time to register her hair lifting slightly, like someone had rubbed her head with a balloon. Streaks of electricity crackled across her body, and out went the lights.

I awoke to Meteor shaking me by the shoulders. He looked worried.

“Tell me you got Dr. Dumbass,” I said, rubbing my forehead. My tongue felt like it filled my entire mouth.

“He got away,” Meteor told me. “He had some kind of escape tube that closed up after him.”

“Why didn’t you bust through it?” I asked.

“I did, and it was flooded. DeLuge can probably control water, or generate it or something.”

“You think?” I said, struggling to my feet. Sometimes working with Meteor could be a little trying. “What do you think it says about them that their escape plan was better than their main one?”

“It means they’re green,” Meteor replied. “Very green. But they might be a threat in the future if they get their act together.” He put his gloved hands on his hips and sighed theatrically. “We might as well both go home; the trail is cold.”

I agreed and we left, with Meteor escorting the hostages to the police station for statements.

I ran back home through the dimly lit streets. I’ve never actually had a car; never felt the need to get one. I used to have a bike, until the tires melted one time when I hit the brakes while going too fast. Now the frame sits in the closet of my apartment, collecting dust. It’s a shame, too, it was a cool bike. I just never got around to fixing it.

It took me ten minutes to run to my apartment from the industrial district, which tells you all you need to know about the size of the city I live in. Sometimes I think if New York, like the actual city, became obese, it would look something like Nova city. I think it’s why there are so many heroes in it. It’s pretty nice, actually. It takes the burden off of small time guys like me and Meteor, and makes it so we actually can have jobs, and don’t need to be millionaires or some crap like that. And that’s assuming that Doug does have a job. Like I said, I know basically squat about the guy.

As I walked up the steps of the apartment complex to my place on the third floor, I glanced at the clock on my cellphone. 9:30 pm. Not late enough to go to bed, but not early enough to really do anything. Oh well.

I unlocked the door, microwaved dinner, and watched tv until I fell asleep.

Author's Note

That's why you don't use a toaster as a bath toy.