Used to Be: The Kid Rapscallion Story (12 page)

The young man shakes his head. He has black hair and piercing, black eyes, and a physique that makes her think he’s an athlete, which makes her think of Lazlo, which makes her think …

“Excuse me,” she asks, “but do I know you?”

“You’re Nancy Cathall,” he says. “I’m Andres Campos, ma’am. I used to play baseball with Lazlo. I’m sorry what he did to you.”

“Um … if this is all …”

“It’s not,” he says, shaking his head. “You really need to let me in,” he whispers.

“I don’t think.”

“Fine,” he says. “I won’t give you a choice, then.”

Nancy tries to shut the door, but Andres sticks his foot in the way. She looks down to his foot and then back to his face. Between her face and his, he holds up a 20-sided die.

Every number on its 20 faces is an 8.

“Unlike Kid Rapscallion,” he whispers from the other side of the die, “I won’t make you blow me to get this story.”

8

“Villains need reporters, too,” Andres says.

Nancy has opened the curtains and blinds and thrown her covers back up over her bed. She is wearing pajama bottoms and a Mr. PiBB t-shirt, and has her hair tied back in a messy ponytail. The small hotel notepad is on the table before her, and Andres sits opposite from her. The mute button has been hit on the TV, but images from New York play on without sound.

“This isn’t a Bond movie,” he smiles nervously, “so I’m not going to tell you all our plans, but I think a working relationship between you and me will be good for both of us.”

“There’s been rumors of a new group of villains in town,” Nancy says, pen poised over the notepad. “You call yourselves the 20-Sided Dice.”

Andres nods. “Not the best of names but when the guy paying the bills wants you to call yourselves the 20-Sided Dice, or 20SD for short, you do it. It’s better than Ickysomething that he wanted to call us originally.”

“So there’s 20 of you?”

“Thirteen, now,” he says. “Maybe fourteen. We’re recruiting and keeping things small.”

“How does your organization —?”

“Forget that,” he says, wiping her question aside. He’s got the #8 die in his hands and is playing with it nervously. The sound of it rolling back and forth on the table is driving Nancy nuts, but she doesn’t tell him to stop. If she can come back with a story of a new super villain group, her bosses will forgive her for not having a story about the 9/11 cruise.

Maybe.

“Listen,” Andres says, “I heard something, something I wasn’t supposed to hear.”

“And?”

Andres points to the TV behind him as pictures of the two fallen towers roll past.

9

“One of the women, #10, and no I don’t know her name,” Andres explains, “says she was selected to go to Los Angeles and pick up a package that was going to be on United Airlines Flight 11.”

“Was it related to the terror attack?”

Andres takes a few breaths and shakes his head. “I don’t know,” he says, “but I do know the person #10 was going to contact was Middle Eastern.”

“I’m going to need to talk to #10.”

Andres purses his lips, pulls out his flip phone, and shows Nancy a picture of a woman with three bullet holes in her face.

10

“Nancy, where the hell have you been?” one of her producers says on the phone. “Can you do a live remote? The cruise ship says there’s—”

“I’m not on the ship,” she says.

“But—”

“I’ve got something better,” she says. “A story I’m following.”

“It’s better than reactions to 9/11?”

“It’s connected to 9/11,” Nancy says confidently. “I need a complete list of passengers of everyone on board Flight 11, including their age, their ethnicity, and their profession. Put Rosa and Xanthus on it. I’m chasing something but I’ll be in by 5 tonight.”

“You want airtime?”

Nancy looks to Andres. “Have you told anyone else about this?”

He shakes his head, “No.”

“Let’s sit on it for a few days,” Nancy tells the producer, “but what you can do is clear off space of a shelf for the awards we’re gonna win.”

11

“Kid, pick up the phone, Kid. It’s Nancy. Pick up the phone, damn it, this is important. Jesus, where the hell are you? Oh, are you in New York? Yeah, you’re probably on your way to New York. Well, look, call me when you can. I’ve got a line on something related to New York that you need to know about.”

12

It’s after 1 PM when Jason wakes up, after 2 when he makes his way to the shower, and almost 3 when he leaves this room and heads up to his own suite.

The Duplication Girls have all gone back inside the original, who’s passed out on his bed. He thinks about waking her but figures she needs the sleep.

Also, he doesn’t want to deal with her right now. He’s been a shit to her and he knows it, but there’s just something about being with a hot woman with access to alien cocaine who can make copies of herself that he finds impossible to walk away from and impossible to fully embrace. This isn’t a relationship that he wants to last forever. He thought maybe it was. He says, “I love you” to her on occasion, but he thinks what he meant a month ago he doesn’t mean now.

He’s angry with her for lying to him about the effect cocaine has on her because it means she can’t keep up with him in that area. Maybe he should try feeding more to the duplicates and less to the center? Would that work?

“Ugh,” he says, thinking that’s for later. Like, when he can find a scientist who can answer that for him.

His cellphone rings and he absently looks at it, planning to ignore whomever it is that’s calling, but the caller ID brings a name he wasn’t expecting, and it’s the one name he always stops everything for:

Belle Flower.

13

“Belle?”

“Hi Jason,” she says, her voice weak and shallow. “I need to talk to you.”

“Of course,” he says, sitting back on his bed. He glances over his shoulder at Deege just to make sure he didn’t wake her up and then he decides to leave the room — best not to talk to the old girlfriend in the presence of the new girlfriend. “So … what’s up?”

“Can we meet?”

“Are you in town?”

“I’m on the roof.”

14

“Hey,” he says, his voice catching in his throat at the sight of the first woman he ever loved. Belle Flower is blond, shortish, rounded. Every part of her — face, eyes, lips, chin, breasts, butt — seems to be rounded. She’s in a new costume: blue on one side, white on the other, and a long image of a blue tulip on the white half. She hasn’t bothered with her mask, and it’s clear she’s been crying.

“Hey,” she says, the wind taking her short, curly locks and sending them across her face. “Thanks for coming up.”

“Of course,” he says, stopping just out of reach. He decided to come up in his costume. “What’s going on?”

“No one else came,” she says. “Well, almost no one.”

“Who …?”

“Hello, Jason.”

He spins to see Becca Rokers, dressed as Fake Out, moving into view from behind a large ventilation shaft. “What’s going on?”

Becca moves past him to stand with Belle, who says, “This was supposed to be an intervention.”

“An intervention? For what? Are you serious right now?”

“Jason,” Belle says, gathering strength from Becca, who reaches over to hold her hand, “I think you’re a nice guy, underneath it all, I really do. So does Becca. And I’m guessing DG does, too, but you use the women you date. Becca, DG, even that reporter.”

“I didn’t use you up,” he says, clouds rolling across his mind. This is bullshit, he thinks, but part of him is soaring because it’s Belle who’s behind this, and if she still wants him …

“No, you didn’t,” she admits, taking her hand from Becca’s to hug herself. “But maybe you would have, if I believed in that behavior.”

Jason cocks his head to Becca. “She means sex,” he says, feeling poison dripping from his words. “Belle doesn’t believe in sex.”

“In premarital sex,” Belle corrects him.

“I don’t see a ring on that finger,” he points out. “So what’s the difference?”

“Jason,” Belle says, stepping forward, “you’re out of control. Ever since you broke away from Rapscallion, your behavior is becoming increasingly dangerous and non-heroic.”

“Non-heroic?” he asks, shaking his head. “For you and the morality squad up on the moon? I don’t want to be a Revolutionary, Belle. Never did. Never will. And you,” he points to Becca, “how the fuck did you get out of the Stockade?”

“I’m working with the Revos now.”

“Of course,” Jason rolls his eyes. “They need a new puppy to save with Deege down here.”

“Where is Duplication Girl?” Belle asks.

“None of your business.”

Belle shakes her head. “Dang it, Jason.”

“Careful with the language, Belle,” he says, wanting to find a way to hurt her like she hurt him. He knows these words can’t do it, but he also knows the emotional history that lies beneath them is like a dagger to Belle. He loved her. She loved him. He wanted things she didn’t.

“You make it sound like doing the right thing is something to be ashamed of.”

“Shit piss cock motherfucker,” he says. “Am I less of a person now than I was five seconds ago?”

“Hey,” Becca snaps, “she might play with kid gloves, but I don’t.” She waves her hand and the entire building disappears from under Jason, leaving him standing on a small ledge, looking down at the pavement below. He knows this is an illusion, but it’s still unnerving. “Where the hell is Duplication Girl?”

“Where do you think?” Kid asks. “She’s in my bed downstairs.”

“Are you sure?” Becca asks.

“Yeah,” he says. “I just saw her right before coming up.”

“So you won’t mind if we check in on her?” Belle asks. He hears something in her voice he has never heard before — fear.

“Of course,” he answers, taken aback. What the hell is in Belle’s mind to cause her to worry?

15

Belle can barely give voice to the words she has to say as she kneels by the bed, softly stroking Duplication Girl’s hair.

“She’s dead,” Belle whispers, as tears begin to roll down her cheeks. “What have you done, Jason?” she asks, and wonders how much sympathy she can muster for a good boy who’s become a bad man.

1998

1

“Good evening, Miss Flower,” the butler says at the open door. “Please do come inside.”

“Thank you, Winton,” Belle Flower says. She wears a pleasant summer dress, black and covered with a pattern of daffodils, her superhero costume nowhere to be found. “But it’s Miss Christensen, tonight. No need for masks and capes this evening, let us hope.”

Winton gives the young woman a polite bow, closing the door behind her, and leading her into the foyer of Flack Mansion. A grand staircase sits in the back left and a spiral staircase, covered in vines sits opposite it in the back right. Straight ahead is an entrance to an arboretum, and several hallways lead off both right and left walls.

“Thank you for coming, Miss Christensen,” Winton says. “I hope things are well between you and Jason.”

“Yes,” she says, blushing slightly. This is not the conversation she expected to have with the butler of the house and it makes her slightly uncomfortable. “Where is Jason?” she asks, and then adds with a nervous laugh, “Or is he trying to impress me by making a grand entrance?” she asks, pointing to the staircase.

Winton smiles politely. “It is not Jason who asked you here, Miss Christensen,” he informs her. “It was me.”

“But …” she absently pulls out her phone, looking for reassurance that it was Jason who texted her.

“Yes,” Winton says, pulling Jason’s phone out of his pocket. “Caller ID only tells a person which phone is contacting them, not which person.”

“Winton, I …”

“Relax, Miss Christensen,” he says politely. “I apologize for the subterfuge, but I thought it important that we talk.” Winton moves to the side of the room, where a painting of Sandra Flack hangs on the wall. “This was Jason’s adopted mother. Has he told you about her?”

“Only that she was murdered three years ago,” Belle says quietly. “The gardner, was it?”

Winton’s hands go behind his back. “The gardner was actually a super villain. C
orazón
S
angrante
.”

“Bleeding Heart,” Belle says, confused. “But the papers said …”

“Yes, the papers,” Winton nods, “but you are in the business and you know who Jason’s adopted father is, and you know that the public does not know this. It is not uncommon, in cases where a villain attacks a hero through his private identity for these details to be obscured in the press.”

“So Corazón killed Mrs. Flack?”

“No, Miss Christensen,” Winton says. “He was, to use a rude colloquialism, a patsy.”

“Then who …?” she asks, but she already knows.

“I need to show you something,” Winton says.

“I don’t think …” Belle starts to protest.

“Have you ever seen this before?” Winton asks, pulling a golden amulet out of his coat pocket.

Belle’s will is drained from her body.

2

Fingers snap.

Belle awakens in a bedroom somewhere inside Flack Mansion. She stands at the foot of a bed, and she sees Winton standing on the right of the bed, near the window. Before the command of “run” moves from her brain to her feet, she sees two people standing on the left of the bed: Eagle ’62 and Striped Star. He wears a United States military uniform with a camouflage design, but colored red, white, and blue, and she is in her traditional leather armor.

“I don’t …”

“Belle,” Striped Star says gently, “do forgive Winton for his dramatics, but we were delayed and he had to improvise.”

“What’s going on?” she asks, wondering what Jason could have done to bring both Eagle ’62 and Striped Star to Flack Mansion. She has known Jason for a year and knows he has been in love with her from the moment they met at a performance and training center run by yesterday’s heroes to create tomorrow’s capes. They have been dating a few months and other than the fact that he is 17 and wants to have sex with her and she is 20 and won’t have sex until she’s married, it has been a rather normal relationship. “Am I in trouble?” she asks weakly.

“Not at all,” Striped Star says. “Winton, in fact, thinks you have done a world of good for Jason.”

“Winton … why are you in conversation with Jason’s butler?” she asks, feeling defensive. “And why—?”

“Winton is more than a butler,” Eagle ’62 explains. “He was, in fact, me before I was me.”

Belle’s eyes go wide. “You were Eagle ’41?”

Winton nods. “But we are not here to discuss my life, but Jason’s life. This house,” he explains, “is one of deep secrets, and tonight you will learn one of its darkest.”

Winton pulls the amulet out of his pocket and Belle turns away.

“Rest your mind,” Striped Star assures her. “The amulet can put a mind to sleep and then allow its holder to walk through the relaxed memoryscape. The wielder can then leave with a specific memory, trapping it inside the amulet.”

“Playing with someone’s mind is wrong,” Belle protests.

“Would you rather Jason remember this?” Winton asks.

The amulet glows and a stolen memory from Jason’s past plays again in the room where the incident took place. It is the memory of the night Jason fell off the cliff. He is laying in this bed, his adopted mother at his side.

“Thank you, ma’am,” Jason says, “for adopting me.”

Sandra smiles at that. “So like your father when he was younger.”

“My …”

“Francis was always such a handsome boy.”

“Ma’am, I …”

“I told you, call me Sandra,” she says, and her hand reaches under the covers of his bed.

3

“Ma’am, I don’t think you should …”

“Your body does not agree with your mouth,” Sandra says, and her hand does not stop moving up and down beneath the covers.

4

“Make it stop!” Belle yells, tears on her cheeks.

“End it,” Striped Star orders Winton and the butler nods, rubbing the amulet and whispering an incantation. The image disappears.

Belle opens her mouth to speak but there are no words. The older heroes give her a moment to gather her thoughts but all she can say is, “Why …?”

“If it were up to me,” Winton says, “I would have ended her life that night. That was my intent, but this body does not work as well as it once did.”

“Francis found him,” Eagle ’62 says, “and stopped him.”

“He swore it would never happen again,” Winton explains, “and, as far as I know, it didn’t. Until the night of April 19, 1996, at least.”

Realization comes to the young hero. “You killed her.”

Winton nods. “This time, however,” he says, his voice low but steady, “it was Jason who found me. We fought and he … he slipped. Fell into a coma,” Winton frowns. “Francis saved him, but only by injecting him with the Peak drug that he was taking to make him Rapscallion. When Jason recovered, his training began.”

5

“Does he know?” Belle asks Winton in the kitchen after Eagle ’62 and Striped Star have left.

Winton shakes his head. “I was planning on telling him when he turned 18,” he says.

“I just … how can things like this happen?” she asks.

“Kids are abused all over the world,” Winton answers.

“That’s not what I mean,” she says, shaking her head.

“Oh,” Winton says, nodding. “The cover-ups.”

“Yes!” Belle says, banging her fist on the island counter. “Sandra should have been in jail! You should be in jail! The cops should have been—!”

Winton sighs and rubs his eyes. “The Revolutionaries think highly of you, Miss Christensen, but even the most idealistic of capes sometimes make questionable decisions. They never knew about Sandra’s abuse because Rapscallion never told them. Should I have told them?” he asks. “Perhaps. Perhaps I am so far gone from who I used to be that I thought too much like a butler and too little like a cape. Perhaps that is just an excuse,” he admits. “But what if this had gone to trial? What if Eagle ’41 was put on trial for killing a woman who sexually assaulted a 14-year old boy? Do you really think any jury would find me guilty?”

“That doesn’t make what you did right!” Belle insists.

Winton puts the amulet on the countertop and slides it across the marble to the young hero. “Jason’s memories aren’t the only ones in there. Some of Sandra’s memories have been taken, too. Abuse,” he says sadly, “is a cycle that not even the Amulet of Anamnesis can break, it seems.”

“So Jason will … Jason will …”

“Let us hope it never comes to that,” Winton says. “I leave the amulet with you now. Perhaps I am too close to the situation. Perhaps you are too far away. When you are ready,” he says, walking to a door that leads to the pantry, “the Witches of Avalon City will train you how to use the amulet.”

Winton opens the door to the pantry, but instead of food and kitchen items behind the door, Belle sees a bridge of light leading to a glimmering white castle.

6

A week later, Belle shows Jason the memories that Winton had taken from him.

Without discussion, he breaks up with Belle and takes someone else to that night’s Pearl Jam concert.

He never discusses any of this with Belle.

He breaks Winton’s nose.

He decides he will stop being Rapscallion’s sidekick as soon as he can make it on his own.