Vigilante (7 page)

M
arko was rattling off a series of accounting numbers, a standard part of Yuri Vasko’s daily routine. But for once, Vasko wasn’t listening.

He leaned forward on the edge of his chair, his face glued to the flat screen television set mounted on the side wall in his office. Live news coverage was replaying footage of a brawl in Times Square from only minutes ago. It showed the mysterious figure dressed in black, who appeared as if from nowhere to defend the people from the threat of a gang war. Vasko was riveted by the images.

When the report cut back to the news anchor, Vasko hurriedly located the remote on his desk with his good hand and rewound the broadcast to watch it again.

His assistant was still talking, but Vasko finally cut him off without looking away from the TV. “How can you still be talking, Marko?
Look
at this man! The way he moves, the way he fights. His skill is without equal. . . .”

Marko, in his late thirties, with round glasses and a small mouth, glanced up from his clipboard to inspect the man on the TV screen, then dispassionately turned back to his work. “You are preoccupied with the actions of a madman?”

Very few people in his organization were allowed to speak to Vasko with such a tone of voice, but Marko’s talents with numbers and figures far outweighed his social shortcomings. He was also one of Vasko’s closest friends, despite the slight age gap between them, and understood him in ways that few could. Their bond was based on a common past of growing up in poverty.

“No no no. This man is no fool,” Vasko replied. “He’s ingenious.”

“He desires fame, Yuri,” Marko said with a scowl. “An unworthy act of the self-absorbed.”

“How do you not see it?” Vasko leaned in further to the television footage, his enthusiasm rising. “He’s executing a plan. A well-thought-out plan. The mysterious billboards. They foretold his appearance on this day. This footage is barely twenty minutes old, yet it’s on every channel. He’s igniting the fascination of the populace.”

“A man you do not know fascinates you so completely?”

“I am fascinated with the actions of
all
men,” Vasko replied. “But this one is something new. What would compel a man of such skill to rise above the law and take justice into his own hands? He’s doing exactly what he promised to do: he’s showing the people a better way.”

“Now you sound like you admire him, Yuri,” said Marko. “What is he showing them if not violence?”

Vasko finally looked up at his friend. “You miss the point. He’s a gifted fighter, for certain. I’ve noted mastery of at least three different martial arts disciplines. But he’s not showing off his skills, he’s sending a message to the criminals. A very clear message. And he’s doing it before the eyes of the city—the world, even, so that they will know too.”

“Know what?”

“That he’s come. He’s here, to fight for the innocent. He will defend them and he will show them how to live. And he’s not going anywhere.”

Marko looked at the screen with new eyes, considering what he saw there more seriously than before. “Perhaps we should find his price. The crime bill is days away from passing, and if it goes through, we’re going to need talent like his.”

Vasko shook his head again. “This man is a believer. A fanatic. His confidence in his actions and motivations is absolute. He has no price.”

Marko examined his boss. “Again your words betray admiration.”

“
Understanding,
” Vasko corrected him. “I understand him, Marko. That is not the same as admiration. He’s acting on a plan that he probably put into motion years ago, and we are witnessing just the first steps.”

His vocal modulation had changed, and he knew that Marko had noticed. Instead of enthusiasm, he was now expressing distaste.

“He thinks himself righteous enough to influence the behavior of others. Probably believes he is on some kind of divine mission. He thinks the rest of this godforsaken city can be as ‘good’ as he is. Give him time. He will come to see things differently. ‘Good’ does not exist here. Not in this world. No merciful creator would cobble together a place so viciously cruel as this. No loving creator would sit by and do nothing while there is pain and suffering.”

Marko said nothing, waiting for his boss to get his thoughts off of his chest.

Vasko paused the image on the screen, showing the best image of this “hero,” but still his identity was well hidden. “This man thinks he is different than the rest of us. Better. He is wrong, Marko. He is no different at all.”

P
atch me in to the police band, General. I want to hear what they’re saying,” said Nolan as he zipped to a lower level behind the Paramount Building and then shot the grappler to another rooftop across the way.

Arjay had been right about the grappler. It was invaluable.

Branford did as he was asked, and overlapping chatter filled Nolan’s ears. Branford spoke above the din. “Near as I can tell, there’s a sort of crime wave breaking out. It’s like the criminals got their heads together and realized that the city is wide open for the taking, thanks to the influx of tourists all through Manhattan, and the cops having their hands too full to deal with them all. I’m hearing reports of multiple robberies-in-progress, assaults on police officers, a shootout of some kind in Harlem. . . .”

Nolan stopped listening as his soaring spirits plummeted. Of course, it was way too early to tell if his debut in Times Square had had the desired effect, but he’d never intended it to actually make the city a more dangerous place.

Well. Only one thing to do, then.

“Tell me you’ve already got a sim-map running,” he said.

“
Grid’s in place, overlaying the police reports now,
” Branford replied.

In his mind’s eye, Nolan pictured one of Branford’s biggest screens inside the Cube being transformed into a wire-frame map of the city, with red dots popping up one by one to illuminate locations where reported crimes were taking place right now.

“We’ll take them one at a time. What am I closest to?” he asked.

———

Two minutes later, Nolan was pounding the pavement, enjoying the sensation of speed. He felt incredibly agile. Graceful, even. He was sprinting down another part of Seventh Street, away from Times Square, chasing a pair of thieves who had raided laptops and money from an accountant’s office.

His quarry doubled back across Fortieth Street and ran past a tiny tchotchkes dealer, ducking into the next doorway, which led to a back staircase that went up to the second floor of the building. Not taking notice of where the stairs led, Nolan hustled to keep pace, and soon burst into the retail space that occupied several thousand square feet on the second floor.

It was an enormous comic-book store. Punk rock music blasted from speakers in the ceiling, and a dozen or so geeks milled about, filing through bagged-and-boarded collections of their favorite superheroes’ exploits.

For the first time in his life, Nolan felt conspicuous and uncomfortable, making a big entrance in his customized military garb and gadgetry. A pair of grungy slackers to his left had been having an enthusiastic discussion of some kind, gesticulating with gusto and laughing hard, but they came to a sudden stop at the sight of him. Every eye in the building turned.

And then, as if because of some unwritten geek code, they all seemed to know exactly why he was there. As one, they pointed to the far end of the room, where a spiral staircase led to the third floor.

One of them, a pale boy dressed in black with a mop of blond hair that nearly covered his eyes, muttered “bad guys” softly as he pointed.

Nolan looked up and tapped the side of his glasses until the X ray came online. He saw two human skeletons that were darting frantically right over his head, through what looked to be another retail level of the same store, trying to find a route of escape.

Nolan ran and ascended the stairs two at a time. His prey were trying to find a way out on the other side of the room, but the only door appeared to be locked. Spotting Nolan, one of them turned and grabbed a store patron by the back of his shirt and held a blade up to the kid’s throat. The teenage boy was a good head and a half shorter than the two much older crooks.

“Back off, man!” the man with the blade shouted. “Somebody let us out of here!
Now!
”

With a snap of his wrist, Nolan had his staff in his hand and, in one motion, twisted and flung it, backhanded. It expanded in midair, allowing its six-foot length to catch both men across the face. Their disorientation gave Nolan all the time he needed to get a running start toward them.

The one with the knife recovered quickly, reaching out to grab the staff and preparing to use it against Nolan.

Nolan never slowed, he merely held out his right hand and activated the focused electromagnet there. The staff soared right out of the man’s hand and into Nolan’s, and he caught up with the two men just in time to slide down on his knees and knock both men off their feet. Spinning fast, Nolan sent a punch into one man’s jaw, followed by a similar blow to the other.

He hoped he hadn’t hit them too hard; Arjay had outfitted his gloves with a special chemical compound that, when electrically activated by wires embedded in the gloves, made their flexible material turn hard and solid upon impact. Arjay had set the electrical leads to activate automatically whenever Nolan made a fist. It effectively gave him a fist that was as hard as metal.

He hadn’t practiced as much with the gloves as he had with the rest of his equipment—Arjay had only completed them a few days ago. His intention had been to hit these two thieves not hard enough to do any permanent damage, but enough to keep them unconscious until the authorities could arrive. At least they were still breathing, and a quick look with the X-ray setting on his glasses confirmed neither of their skulls was fractured.

As he ran back through the store, he saw that the clerk on the second floor was already on the phone with the police. He also noted that most of the patrons had gathered in a small crowd near the checkout counter, where they were talking excitedly. They froze when Nolan came into view, and the way they gaped at him with big excited eyes told him exactly what they’d been discussing.

“Bad guys?” asked the boy who’d whispered it before.

Nolan threw the kid a nod before dashing out of the store and back onto the city streets.

H
ours passed, and Nolan stopped a bank robbery in progress and three muggings, and put an end to a violent disturbance between two women at Grand Central Station. He’d even intervened in a police car chase using his grappler on the vehicle tearing through the Fashion District, though he’d nearly popped his shoulder out of its socket in the process.

Everywhere he went, people seemed to realize who he was, or rather what he represented. He was there to show them “a better way,” and they gawked as he saved the day, again and again. He’d had to quickly get used to the sound of tourists’ cameras clicking in his direction. Yet he never stayed around long enough to talk. He didn’t want to talk. The action was enough so long as fear didn’t define their existence. If they felt peace, even for a second, he’d done his work.

It had been a very long afternoon, and although he wanted to keep going, Branford insisted that he pack it in so they could check his shoulder for injury and so Nolan could rest and refuel. Arjay was also itching to give the equipment a once-over to see how well everything was holding up. Nolan removed his goggles, grateful for the advantages they’d given him. He pulled his hood back up, keeping his disfigured face obscured.

As Nolan neared his underground home, satisfied no one was watching, he ducked through a small set of scaffolding. Behind it was a storefront, well hidden by a large renovation tarp covering the entrance and windows. He pulled back the tarp and froze.

Someone was sitting in front of the door, wearing an old fedora, a trench coat, and a dark scarf that obscured his face.

He’d considered that something like this could eventually happen: some obsessed person who was determined to find him would somehow track him back here.

But it was only his first day on the job, for crying out loud. If someone had already managed to find him, this whole thing was going to be a lot harder than he’d expected.

Then he noticed that the trench coat was dingy and frayed, the hat was smeared with grease and condiments, looking as though it had been pulled from a trash bin, and the scarf was ripped. This was no crazed fan. This was a squatter who’d located a comfy spot, oblivious to the fact that it was the entrance to Nolan’s underground home.

“Get out of here,” he said in his most intimidating voice, and took a threatening step forward. He thought it would be enough to deter all but the most dogged of unwanted guests.

The squatter slowly got to his feet but was moving much too slow for Nolan’s liking. He didn’t have time for this.

“I said
get lost
!” he thundered, stepping even closer. He winced slightly as the expansion of his chest caused his aching shoulder to flare.

His visitor unwound the scarf to reveal a familiar face. A black woman in her late fifties.

“I
am
lost,” she said weakly.

“Alice!” Nolan shouted, reaching out both arms to steady her as she swayed dangerously. “What are you doing here? Are you all right? What happened?”

Her eyes, which seemed to have aged at least another ten years in the weeks since the night he saved her life, found his and were filled with sorrow and hurt. “My husband—he, he’s got the police looking for me. I can’t get away from them, been running for days. . . .”

“Your husband?” Nolan replied, feeling stupid. Of course, her husband had been a police officer. She told him that night. “He’s not looking to reconcile,” he said.

Alice shook her head, and the huge fedora flopped awkwardly to one side of her head. “I didn’t know where else to go,” she said through her tears.

“It’s all right, you’re safe. But how did you find me?” he asked. “You couldn’t have followed me. . . .”

She was evidently proud of this next part, because for a moment the tears were withdrawn and a wry smile appeared on her face. “Your white-haired friend is a very private man, but I lived next door to him for thirteen years,” she explained. “All I had to do was wait outside the building and watch for him to come home. I waited a long while, but he showed up eventually, so I followed him here. Watched him go under this tarp, but the door was locked by the time I got to it. Been waiting here ever since.”

“You’re lucky I got to you first,” he replied. “If Branford or Arjay had found you here . . .”

“Who?” she said, but the strength had drained from her voice. She was so weak she was about to fall over.

He considered the options, and once again while in this frail woman’s presence, found that there was only one. It took enormous effort not to betray his frustration, to find that compassion deep in himself. “I uprooted you from your home. I guess that makes me responsible for your safety. Come with me.”

A metal plaque was on the brick wall next to the heavy metal door, bearing the street number of the building. Nolan took off his glove and pressed his full hand against the metal. Several clicks resounded within the metal door after a few seconds.

For the second time, Nolan took Alice Regan by the hand and led her into the light.