Yesterday's Heroes (Consortium of Chaos Book 1) (14 page)

The older man’s eyes narrowed, but
his reply was cut off by the closing doors. 

Harlot quickened her pace to catch
up with Wyatt as he stalked down the hallway.  “Sorry about Uncle Roach…” 

Wyatt glared back at the closed
elevator doors.  “You shouldn’t let him talk to you like that.”  His eyes
narrowed.  “If he wasn’t on death’s door already, I would have used that oxygen
line to strangle him.”

She laughed nervously.  “…he’s
actually a sweetie once you get to know him better.”  She smiled brightly. 
“One time, he bought me a
pony
.”  She paused.  “Well, he
gave
me
a pony anyway…I doubt he technically
bought
it, but...”

Wyatt made a noncommittal sound.

Infernal walked up and hit the
button for the elevator.  Harlot stopped, trying to decide how best to handle
this…  “Umm…Gia?  Doug’s looking for you, he says that…”

The woman’s eyes narrowed, the
cigarette in her mouth instantly burning down to ash.  “I got a pretty good
idea of what that asshat said, Harlot, thanks.”  She stepped into the
elevator.  “I’m going to go kill him, so I hope you said your goodbyes.”  She
waived at Wyatt in an absent greeting.  “Hey, New Guy.”  She paused and then
took another look at him.  “Huh…Aren’t you that hero guy that Harl’s obsessed
with?”

“No!”  Harlot cried, a little too
loudly.

A smile slowly crossed Gia’s face,
obviously thinking her mortification was amusing. 

Wyatt frowned.   “Wait…who’s
obsessed with me, now?”

Gia shrugged.  “No one.”  She
laughed.  “Sorry.  Thought you were someone else.  In any case, whoever you are
New Guy, in case no one has told you yet,
don’t touch the….
”

He cut her off.  “Yes, I have been sufficiently
warned to keep clear of it, thank you.”  He paused. 

She shrugged.  “Just trying to help
you out, Cape.  Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”  The doors to the elevator
started to close.  “Little fucker’s
pure evil
.”

Harlot led him down the corridor explaining…something. 
Honestly, she wasn’t sure exactly what.  It had started out as an explanation
of their super-laser which was designed to blow up the Sun, and how they had FINALLY
convinced Holly that it was a bad idea to test it out, but somewhere along the
line her words sort of drifted into gibberish about his life.  For his part,
Wyatt didn’t seem to be especially annoyed by her words…well, he ALWAYS seemed
a LITTLE annoyed, but he didn’t seem any more annoyed that his usual baseline
levels.

“…So, anyway, THAT’S how I finally
found your action figure at retail.  I don’t know if you know it or not, but
you were the hard to find figure that year.  You were going for
seventy
bucks
on eBay.”

He blinked at her.  “You broke into
a store just to steal my
action figure?”

She nodded.  “I needed to complete
my team.  I mean, they never did actually MAKE the Continuum figure, but I
managed to make my own by popping the head off of a…”  Her smile faded as he
looked upset for some reason.  “What’s wrong?  The store didn’t…”  Shit. 
Mentioning his dead brother PROBABLY wasn’t the smoothest thing she could have
done at this point in time.  What to say?  What to say?  Better change the
subject.  NOW.  “Anyway, you ready to see your room?”

He looked relieved for the subject
change.  “Yes.  I would LOVE to see my room.  Where have I been assigned?”

She frowned at him.  “Assigned? 
What do you mean?”

They rounded a corner and he
watched several members of the Excessive Force stroll by.  Wyatt glared at them
suspiciously; waiting for them to attack.  They did the same to him.  Finally,
they had passed, and he looked down at her again.  “Where am I required to
live?”

She laughed.  “Wyatt, you can LIVE
anywhere you want.  We don’t really ASSIGN rooms or anything.  I can show you
several that are currently open and you can pick from them.”

He still looked confused.  “Meaning
you’re going to let me
choose
my living quarters?”

She rolled her eyes.  “Yeah, what
did I just say?  Jeez, man.  Where have YOU been living that you expect us to
force you to room somewhere you don’t want?  Hell, you don’t even have to live
HERE, you can live in one of our apartment houses in the city.  We have a few
of them.  One in the Bronx and one in…”

He cut her off.  “I will be fine
here, thank you.”

She beamed.  “Excellent!  If I may
make a suggestion though?  I would advise picking based on whose room it’s
next
to.  You do NOT want to live next to Chef or Cynic, let me tell you.  And Gabe
will keep you up all night with that damn drum set of his and…”

He glanced at the nameplates on the
doors as he passed by.  “Well, where do you live?”

Her mind went blank.  Life had
simply not prepared her for any answer to that question. 
HE
was asking
HER
where
SHE
lived in an effort to be closer to her.  Her mind raced as she
frantically tried to think up something to say…anything…
ANYTHING!

Suddenly, the Puffin waddled
through the intersection of corridors in front of them, providing a much needed
distraction.  The pigeon-sized, stocky black and white bird shuffled slowly
down the hall.   Its beady eyes unexpectedly turned to glare at them.  Harlot’s
body stiffened; she held her breath.  She instantly put her hand out to stop
Wyatt’s movements so that he kept a safe distance and didn’t get too close to
it.  “
Don’t touch it.
”  She warned; her voice a frightened whisper.

Wyatt watched the creature very gradually
make its way out of their path on its tiny webbed feet, and then he rolled his
eyes.  “Mmmm….Yes, I shall try to restrain myself.”

Once the Puffin was safely out of
their way, Wyatt didn’t give any indication that he remembered that he was
waiting for an answer to his question.  He was probably still too shook up from
being so close to the Puffin.  It often had that effect on people; a bird of
true malevolent darkness.

He cleared his throat.  “So, would
it sound too much like a pick-up line if I asked what a nice girl like you was
doing in a place like this?”

She snorted…again, not exactly the
most attractive thing she could have done.  Damn.  She was really bad at this. 
“What do you mean?  I’m here ‘cause I’m evil.”

He shook his head.  “Ummm…not so
much.”

She scowled, feeling oddly
insulted.  “I am
VERY
evil.  It’s just that thus far the world has
simply been spared the full force of my super-villainous ways, because I’ve
been busy with other things.  But one day the world will see what I can
really
do.”

He frowned.  “But WHY do you do
it?  You seem like a reasonably sane person….nice….attractive…why dedicate your
life to evil?  You could do whatever you wanted.”

Attractive?  Wow.  No…keep it
together…be cool…be cool…

She tried to sound calm.  “Well… I
asked my dad about that when I was a kid.  Asked him why we went into it in the
first place.  He said that on his deathbed, Geronimo is quoted as saying that
he regretted his decision to turn himself in to the government years earlier, saying:
I never should have surrendered.  I should have fought until I was the last
man alive.
  My father became obsessed with that idea, believing that
Geronimo was saying more than just that he should have fought for his way of
life until the end.  To him, what Geronimo meant was that there was a
difference between living and being alive.  He was saying that most of the
world was already dead.  That they’d sealed themselves off in their little
boxes; slowly killing themselves in jobs they hated, and living lives they didn’t
like, but were too indoctrinated and too scared to do anything about it.  They
were no longer allowed to be themselves; no longer allowed to
live
.  To
my father, Geronimo was saying that you should never surrender your life, in
exchange for simply being allowed to live.  You should fight to remain truly
alive
. 
So, with that in mind, my dad decided to stop the process and strike back
against the system.  Wake people up from their apathy and orthodoxy, and remind
them that life was worth living, and that you had a choice in how you lived it. 
Live it YOUR way, no matter what anyone else says. 
LIVE,
not merely exist
.
” 
She paused.  “…Plus, he really didn’t want to go out and get a job, and
stealing stuff he wanted was just easier than paying for it…But mainly I think it
was that Geronimo thing.”

Wyatt nodded humoringly.  “Yes, I’m
sure it was.”  He paused.  “I’m just shocked he didn’t quoted Charlemagne, or Caesar,
or Cleopatra, or someone.”

She frowned.  “Why?”

He opened his mouth to reply, then
simply sighed like it wasn’t worth it.  “No reason.  Forget it.”

She laughed.  He was such a
confusing guy.  “In any event, I was the only little girl who got
The
Anarchist’s Cookbook
for her eighth birthday.”  She nodded.  “That and an
action figure of my dad. 
Cutlass Attack Commodore
.  It was pretty cool;
he could swing his sword and knock all the other figures down.  He was the only
one of us that got his own figure though.”  She looked down at the floor. 
“Which was totally unfair. 
I
should have had an action figure, you
know?  I would have been the BEST toy in the world.  I would LOVE to have been
an action figure.”

He nodded.  “Yes, I’m sure you
would have been a good one.”  He was quiet for a moment as if thinking about
something he hadn’t thought of in a long time.  “Know what I got for my eighth
birthday?”  She shook her head and he continued.  “I got a dog attack.”

Her eyebrows went up.  “What?  Like
a dog bit you that day?  I’m sorry.  That was a terrible way to…”

He cut her off.  “No, I mean that’s
what I literally
got
.  That’s what my parents gave me; an angry dog in a
box.  I opened it.  GROWL.  Scream.  Blood.  Fucking box even had this big bow
on it.”

She struggled not to laugh, but she
couldn’t help it. 

He glared at her.  “It’s not
funny!  Damn thing hurt!”

She tried to regain her composure. 
“I know!  I’m sorry!  I just can’t help but think of your little hands
unwrapping the box all excited, and then…”

He gave a half smile and then it
grew into a grin.  “Okay…I guess it is a
little
funny in retrospect.” 
He gave a humorless laugh.  “But it certainly wasn’t at the time.  Fucking dog
tore open my arm.  Dad and his bastard friends…
my future teammates…
just
sat there and watched as it tried to kill me.  Peter finally helped me wrench
it off, and I still remember the look on my dad’s face.  He pulled me aside,
and I’ll never forget what he said, he says, ‘
This is a lesson, James
….’ 
He always called me James, ‘…
This is a lesson that an attack can come at any
time, and you have to be prepared for that.
’  And at this point, I’m on the
floor bawling my eyes out, because my arm is in shreds and there’s blood
everywhere.   And I’m like, ‘
You sicced a vicious dog on me?!?  What the
hell, Dad!?!
’  And he shakes his head and goes, ‘
Pain is a disease of
the mind, James.  It’s a weakness.  It is an enemy which you can’t let get the
best of you.  Rise above it.  Stand and fight
.’”

Harlot’s amusement faded and she
felt sick.  “And stuff like that…was it the first time?”

He turned to look at her. “For a
dog attack?  Yeah.  But there was always some sort of fun going on at the
Ferral house.  It was all part of this one period of my life where my parents
did cruel and random shit to me.  I have a special name for that period.  I
call it:
my childhood
.”

“So, that’s what happened to your
arm then?”

He looked down at the series of
horizontal burns scarring his arm and laughed.  “Nah.  That wasn’t the dog. 
That happened when I was 14 and was fighting this completely lame villain named
‘The Tailgater’ or ‘The Grill Master’ or something, I forget.  Anyway, I’m tied
up on this giant barbeque grill, wearing that IDIOTIC yellow costume they used
to make me wear, and my parents bust in with plenty of time to save me.  So, I
let out a sigh of relief that they’re there and start to relax.  I mean, they’ll
cut me loose, right?  I’ll be fine.  …
Unfortunately
, they don’t bother
actually
freeing
me before they leave again to chase what’s-his-name. 
They just sort of ran out after him, leaving me there as the damn grill was
getting hotter and hotter.  It actually took me a minute or two to realize that
they weren’t coming back.  I mean, who
does
something like that?  I
couldn’t free myself in time, so, my arm got charbroiled.”  He shook his head. 
“I wasn’t their favorite, so they never really went out of their way for me.”

“So, they favored Peter, then?” 

He smiled.  “No, they didn’t
particularly like him either.  No, they favored themselves, actually.”

“THEY were their favorite
children?”

He nodded as then turned down
another corridor.  “Yeah, kind of.  For example, they always gave each other
awesome stuff on their birthdays.  Us?  Well, we got dog attacks and sent to
jail for a few weeks to learn how to ‘
handle ourselves in a real world
environment
.’  On the family ‘camping trip’ they ditched us in the woods
and then hired mercenaries to try to kill us in order to ‘test our survival skills.’ 
Peter once got thrown from a Ferris wheel at a carnival they took us to and to
this day I have no idea why.”

“So what happened to them?  I mean,
the papers were always kind of vague, and I never could get into the tales of
your guys’ space adventures.  Too out there for my tastes; I always preferred
the terrestrial heroism stuff.”