Don't Be a Hero: A Superhero Novel (49 page)

At the sight of the Blind Man, grief and anger swirled inside her. The Carpenter had still been alive the last time she’d spoken to the psychic. There was still hope for Sam, then. She still had her memories. But she suppressed the feelings. “What, then?”

“Come.” He turned and shuffled slowly towards the hotel, heedless of the blasts still raining around him. How did he know where he was going? No matter. Gabby must’ve been following the conversation, because she nodded her insectoid helmet at Niobe.

“I’ll stay here and deal with this lot,” Gabby said, the voice slightly robotic through the speakers. She gestured to Quanta and the other prisoners. Niobe touched her armoured chest, smiled, and followed the Blind Man.

Inside the hotel, civilians huddled in the lobby, crammed together on couches and mattresses raided from the rooms. They spoke in whispers in the gloom, and the sharp scent of sweat pervaded everything. The Blind Man moved to the back of the lobby. It was nearly empty back here. Hine-nui-te-po hovered in the corner, still dressed in the same woollen garments Niobe had last seen her in. The woman nodded at Niobe as she approached.

“Spook,” Hine-nui-te-po said. “I’m sorry about the Carpenter. He was a great man.”

“How did…?” She shook her head. “Yes. He was.”

The Maori woman tended to a pot-bellied man lying motionless on a couch. His eyes were open, but they stared at nothing. His jaw was slack, his breathing slow. At a motion from the Blind Man, Niobe approached the man. She waved her good hand in front of his face. Nothing.

Her stomach knotted, but she had to know. “Sam did this?”

“Those we get free quickly are fine.” The Blind Man shuffled alongside her. “Especially if the victim is young. Then the psychic damage is minor. The mind is remarkably capable of regeneration. Quick-fire and some others have been trying to free who they can before they’re taken out of reach. But it seems that those we are slow to retrieve from the boy’s grasp are…” He seemed to struggle for the right word, which was so unlike him her stomach grew tighter. “…empty.”

She remembered what she felt like after the Blind Man had taken her memories, and her thoughts grew dark. “Amnesia.”

“More. I’ve searched these people’s minds, and there is nothing left. No memory, no personality, no will. They will eat, breathe, drink, walk if you guide them, but they no longer retain anything that makes them human.”

Jesus.
“Why’s Sam doing it? Just to shield himself?”

The Blind Man was quiet. The loose skin around his neck wobbled, and she realised he was shaking a little. “Perhaps. He has only used this technique on non-combatants. Perhaps it’s just to protect himself. Perhaps he gains energy from them as well, using them to fuel his powers. But I believe there’s something else. I believe deep down he’s trying to keep them safe, away from the fighting. And then he takes them inside himself, so he’ll never be alone.”

What the hell did Doll Face do to you? What’s going on in your head?
She sighed. She could still remember being inside that scared little boy’s head as O’Connor attacked him. She still wanted to save that boy.

She couldn’t look at the man’s blank face anymore, nor those of the others gathered around the room. She turned away from the Blind Man and Hine-nui-te-po without another word and strode back out into the night, where the battle still raged.

Sam was getting closer. She could feel his energy in the air. How many people were under his control now? Five hundred? Six?

She recalled an old story device from the comics. They called it the Hero’s Dilemma. The villain kidnaps both the hero’s sidekick and the girl he loves, and puts them in two separate death traps. There’s only enough time for the hero to save one. So which is it going to be?

Of course, in the comics, the hero always cheated. That was the answer to the dilemma. The hero couldn’t let anyone die. He had to save everyone. And he was always smart enough, or strong enough, or fast enough to do it.

But this was real life. She couldn’t cheat against Sam. He was too strong. So she had to choose. She’d promised to save Sam. She’d promised Frank Oppenheimer, and she’d promised herself. But he was killing people, or worse. It didn’t matter that he didn’t know what he was doing, that it wasn’t his fault. He was sick, he was out of his mind, but he was a threat. With his uncle’s power, he could fly through any wall in the world. If someone tried to nuke him, he could dive into the earth itself, letting hundreds of miles of rock and soil shield him from the blast. No one would be safe from him. He’d only grow stronger as the hours passed, until no one would be able to stop him. She couldn’t let him keep doing this. How many lives was a promise worth?

And if someone had to stop him, it should be her. She owed him that much.

If she was going to act, it had to be now, while her adrenaline was still up. The bandages on her hand were going red. She couldn’t keep this up forever. Her eyes fell on the spotlights pointing down the street, where the supercriminals continued to fight even as more heroes swooped in to join the battle. A plan took hold in her mind. It wasn’t the best she’d ever had, but against Sam, nothing would be.

She looked up into the sky once more, finding him amongst the stars and the bodies. With her goggles on maximum magnification, he was close enough that she could make out the pain in his face.

I’m sorry, Sam.

“Wallace,” she shouted over the gunfire and blasts. “We need to get Sam on the ground.”

“Kinda busy here,” he growled. Gabby was next to him, adding her own firepower to that of the others.

“It’s not a bloody suggestion, Senior Sergeant. Can you do it?”

“I can.” The voice was so quiet she barely heard it over the noise of battle. Niobe found the young girl in the blue bodysuit floating beside her, still telekinetically hurling rocks down the street. “I think,” she added, not meeting Niobe’s eyes.

Niobe chewed her lip. Bloody hell, the girl was young. “What’s your name?”

“Dancer.”

Niobe smiled behind her mask. “Dancer, eh? I like it. Where’d you get the costume?”

“It was my mother’s.”

“You really think you can get him to touch the ground? Or a roof?”

Dancer straightened her back. “Uh-huh. Um, I might need some help, though.”

“I reckon that can be arranged.” Niobe glanced around at the other heroes. “Hey, Brightlance.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m in,” he said without turning away from the barricade.

“Okay. Wallace. You think your people can hold here with only a couple of heroes? I need you to give me a hand with something.”

His scarred face betrayed nothing. “This better be good, vigilante.”

“You might wanna tell your people to keep an eye on Quanta and the other prisoners too.”

“Fine.” He barely stopped shooting to glance back at her. “I’ll tell ’em to put holes in the bastard if he so much as twitches. Just stop yapping.”

“One more thing.” She pointed to the spotlights. “I need to borrow those.”

She took her time, letting the cigarette smoke play on her tongue, drip down her throat, and slowly exit her mouth again. No one had offered her a blindfold or a last meal, so she was sure as hell going to enjoy this.

From her position back on top of the Unity Corporation building, she had a good view of the city, or what was left of it. The blasts of light in the streets were slowly dying off. Without the airship to extract them, Quanta’s metas were isolated in small groups. And as more and more heroes joined the fray, the villains were slowly being picked off. All the supercriminals who had been resting here on the roof had fled or been captured, so she had the place to herself. Well, almost.

“How’s that?” Wallace said. She exhaled a cloud of smoke and turned back towards the rooftop gardens. The pair of spotlights stood on either side of the stairwell door, casting a wide shine on the centre of the tile walkway.

She pushed her goggles up to study it with her own eyes. The lights were bloody bright. “That’s the low setting?”

“Low as it goes.”

Jesus. Her skin was already burning at the thought. She slipped her goggles back on and looked out over the city, where Sam and his shield of civilians drifted slowly closer. The rest of the city had gone quiet, like it was holding its breath. She took a last long drag of her cigarette, then flicked the smouldering butt over the side.

“I need you to do me a favour,” she said.

He came alongside her, his rifle at rest in his hand, and watched the city with her. His face was dark. “I’ve been doing you a lot of favours lately.”

“You’ll like this one,” she said. “If I’m not out in three minutes, I need you to crank up those lights to full power.”

He was quiet for a moment. “Is that safe? For you, I mean.”

“What do you think?”

Streaks of light began to dart across the city sky. If Sam noticed them, he didn’t give any sign. Niobe pulled her mask down to cover her lips. The pain in her right hand was really starting to hit her. She hoped the second dose of morphine she’d taken would kick in soon.

“My wife and daughter are somewhere out in this,” Wallace said.

She glanced at him. He could have been talking about the rugby game he’d watched in the weekend.

“Yeah?” she said. “You see them much?”

“Not much.”

At maximum magnification she could make out Gabby burning through the sky. To either side of her were the twin fliers in purple, weapons whirling. Dancer, Brightlance, and a dozen more heroes would be in position by now as well.

Wallace spat over the edge. “It was never personal, you know.”

“Fuck you, copper.”

The lines on his face became less jagged for a second. She could’ve sworn he smiled.

“You’ll do what I asked?” she said.

He nodded. “Three minutes.”

“I hope your wife gets out all right.”

He shrugged. “I’m not fussed either way.”

A boom exploded across the city. Even from here, she could see the flash of Gabby’s shoulder cannon. The blast passed between a pair of floating civilians and crashed into Sam’s side. His skin shimmered for a second, and then he was covered in steel. Lightning crackled around him.

The purple fliers darted in from the other direction. Each of them grabbed a pair of the smallest bodies under their arms and sliced at the fibres. An instant later, they came free.

Sam’s scream put shivers down Niobe’s spine. He spun away from Gabby and raced towards the fliers, his hostages following like balloons. Damn it, he was fast.

“They’re not going to make it,” Niobe said. Her fist clenched in her pocket.

Sam struck. One of the purple fliers flitted away clean, but the other caught a fist that sent him into a spin towards the earth. The civilians under his arms came loose as he fell. A flash of fire came from Gabby’s rocket-pack as she zipped through the night to grab the civilians before they hit the ground. But the purple flier wasn’t so lucky. Niobe imagined she could hear the sound of his bones crunching as he hit the concrete.

“Was that part of your plan?” Wallace said.

She bit the inside of her cheek so hard she tasted blood. Every death was on her. And if Gabby fell….

Come on, baby
.

Gabby and the remaining purple flier released their civilians on the roof of a building and jetted backwards. Sam didn’t even seem to feel the bursts of chaingun bullets that hammered him through the holes in his human shield as they retreated. His scream of rage rolled over the city like thunder, and he gave chase.

He was faster than the heroes, Niobe knew at once. The Silver Scarab and the flier broke ranks and went into evasive manoeuvers. A crackle of lightning shot forth from Sam’s hand and hit Gabby’s armour. The fire of her jets fizzled out. For a moment, she hung suspended in the air. Then she began to fall. Niobe couldn’t breathe.

An energy beam shot from a rooftop, catching Sam in the chest before he could chase Gabby into the earth.
Brightlance
. Sam changed course and swooped towards the rooftop, his civilians forming a solid wall in front of him to protect him against any more blasts. The remaining purple flier trailed after, managing to snatch another civilian away.

But Niobe’s eyes were fixed on Gabby’s falling form. She dropped through the sky, limbs still flailing.

No.
Niobe couldn’t move. Knives stabbed her heart. Her stomach was a burning oil spill in the middle of a sea storm.

Then a flash of fire sparked from Gabby’s back, died, and sparked again, stronger this time.
Come on.
Niobe’s fingers fumbled with the focus on her goggles.
Please, let it be….

The rocket flame caught. The Silver Scarab changed direction at the last minute, soaring upwards, leaving a jet stream behind her as she raced back into battle. A choked noise escaped Niobe’s throat, and the burning ocean in her stomach settled.

“It’s working,” Wallace said. She’d nearly forgotten he was there. “He’s coming this way.”

He was right, she saw. The purple flier had rescued another pair of civilians, and Brightlance was picking his shots, cutting through fibres. Each time a civilian began to fall, Gabby swept in to catch them, all the while firing on Sam.