Yesterday's Heroes (Consortium of Chaos Book 1) (20 page)

She looked down at the cards and
then walked over to her bookshelf and tossed one of the binders on the table in
front of him.  “One hundred and ninety-
five
, actually.”

He stared down at the binder and
gaped at the small identical card sitting in its Mylar sleeve.  “…Why?”

She flopped down in the couch next
to him.  “Because he was a hero.  And although he stood against everything I
stand for, he was by all accounts a nice guy.  Hell, even Tyrant liked him.”  He
gave her a dubious look and she backpedaled.  “Well…I think his
exact
words were that he was not the Ferral brother MOST worthy of being killed on
live TV….”

Wyatt nodded.  “…Still…that’s
saying a lot coming from him.” 

“Yeah, I thought so too.  Very
sweet.”  She stopped, looking for the right words.  “…But Peter…he didn’t
deserve that.  No one does.  So, I broke into the ceremony beforehand to swipe
one of these.  Figured they’d run out pretty quick…”  She stopped again.  “…I…I
was just as surprised as you were that they didn’t.  I’m so sorry.”

 “Well…don’t worry.”  He picked up
the binder and started flipping through it.  “His ‘
friends’
will still
be receiving them.  I fully intend to give them
each
one before they’re
incarcerated, deported or killed.  I figure knocking those sanctimonious
bastards down a few pegs is a good memorial too.”  He shook his head. 
“Heroes.  Fucking
heroes
.”  He angrily turned the page.  “I mean, I
killed someone on LIVE TV, but I walk away, simply because I’m a ‘hero’.  What
kind of system is that?  Huh?  That’s not justice.”

She gaped at him.  “You can’t
HONESTLY be angry that you weren’t punished!  You didn’t know what you were…”

He laughed and cut her off.  “I’m
really not looking for a pep talk, okay?  You misunderstand me; I don’t feel
bad.  I knew EXACTLY what I was doing.  Hell, if I had it to do over again, I’d
do
exactly
the same thing, only I don’t think I would have cut off his
leg so fast.  He lost too much blood, and then couldn’t really FEEL it as I cut
off his te…”

“Okay!  Yeah, I don’t need to hear
that.”

He shrugged.  “Just trying to clear
the air.  No.  This isn’t a self-hate thing; I’m not looking for punishment. 
But if the system
worked
, I would have been punished anyway.  I wholeheartedly
believe in heroism…but there are no heroes anymore.  They’re all gone, and now
there are just people like the Freedom Squad.  People like me.  ‘Heroes’ like
us have gotten away with too much for too long, and someone needs to stand up
and stop it.  They’re not above the law.  Period.”  He turned the page and
pointed at a trading card.  “I remember the day that photo was taken.  Peter
and I showed up to the shoot late, right?  And the director was
pissed
,
and Peter just didn’t care at all.  The guy was screaming and Pete he just…he
just didn’t care.”  He smiled sadly as he thought back on his late brother. 
“He…he would have appreciated that you showed up, Harlot.  That would have
meant a lot to him.”

She felt close to tears.  “Well…I’m
just sorry I didn’t know him better.”

“Well, let’s introduce you then.” He
reached into his pocket and tossed a small stack of letters at her.  “Read
one.”

She picked the pile up. “Which
one.”

“Doesn’t matter.  Pick one at
random.”

She pulled an envelope out of the
middle of the pile and carefully opened it.  Inside were several lines of
carefully handwritten text:

Hey, Harlot!  It’s nice to
finally meet you.  Thanks for showing up at that boring funeral thing by the
way.  That was above and beyond from a sworn enemy.  Even *I* was bored. 
Totally would have skipped it myself, but…well, the whole “being a corpse thing”
kind of got in the way of my other plans for the day.

She looked over at Wyatt. “What
does this mean?”

He turned another page in the
binder.  “It’s from my brother.”

Her eyebrows soared.  “Peter?  The
dead one?”

He nodded.

She folded the paper back up and
returned it to its envelope.  “Do they all say that or something?”

“Read another one and see.”

She pulled a new letter out from
the bottom of the stack and read it:  “
Nope.  Each letter is unique.  By the
way, my brother likes you.  Shhhhh……don’t tell him I told you. 
J
”

She reached for another letter in
the rapidly dwindling pile and he laughed.  “Take it easy!  I don’t have many
of those left, okay?”

She put the pile down.  “Where did
you get them?

“He left them on the table before
he went off to respond to the call on the day he died.  I honestly forgot all
about them for a week or so, but they gave them back to me when I was released
from custody.  Opened up the first one, and he was like;
Dying blows, man. 
How you been?”
  He laughed.  “Been using them ever since to help out.  Find
people who will help prosecute the heroes.  That’s also how I found this base
and knew the code to get in the doors.”

She frowned.  “Well…how did HE
know?”

Wyatt flipped another page and
smiled at an image of his brother and himself appearing at an elementary school
to teach them the importance of fire safety.  “Beats me.”  He turned the page. 
“He actually liked you, though.  That was one of our last conversations; what a
nice person he thought you were.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.  He said you were a nice
girl, and then I said…”  He stopped.

She frowned.  “What’d you say?”

He turned the page.  “I said I
thought you were an evil whore.”

She laughed.  “You really don’t
know what to say to women, do you?”

He shrugged.  “It’s the truth.”

 “So!?!  You don’t TELL someone that.”

He frowned in confusion.  “But it’s
what I said.”

“I don’t care! 
Make something
up!
”

 “Okay…”  He turned the page in the
binder.  “Umm…I said I thought you were a nice girl too.”  He shook his head. 
“This stuff’s not in the ‘Hero Manual,’ okay?  I missed my first date because I
was trapped in the
Dimension of a Thousand Agonies,
and my senior prom
was cut short because it was attacked by the psychotic train conductor, Casey
Bones and his army of steam powered robot people.”  He shook his head.  “They
got coal all over my date’s dress.”  He looked thoughtful for a moment.  “She…she
didn’t call me again, after that.”  He shrugged.  “So, sorry I’m not totally
suave.  To be fair though, I didn’t know you then, so I had no idea what you
were like.”  He flipped to the back of the binder and found a copy of his own
unauthorized biography.   He absently started flipping through it, and pointed
to a line.  “Lie.”

“Well, if it makes you feel any
better, my school days weren’t exactly the best either.”

He nodded, continuing to read his
book and pointed at something else.  “HA!  Nope.”

She looked down at her hands.  “They
asked us to do a report on our heroes once?  And I chose Primeval and the
ORIGINAL hero team?  You know, the Lovers of Liberty?  And I tried to compare
and contrast how they were actually fighting for the same…”

He pointed to something in his
book.  “That was Peter.  I didn’t do that…I
WISH
I had done it, though.”

“…thing and how if they’d just put
aside their differences and stop trying to kill each other, they’d see that
they could
ALL
be good guys.”

He blinked down at the page in
confusion.  “That never…..wait…..yes it did.  Shit, how do they know that?  I
never told anyone that…”  He turned the page.  “You get a good grade on it?”

“I got kicked out of school.”

He shrugged.  “Well…I think it
sounds like an interesting read.  It’s nice when people can shake things up
some and…”  He paused and pointed at something in the book.  “I don’t read
MINDS.  I’m not psychic; I’m a partial telekinetic.  Totally different.  And
Kimberly and I were only
friends
.  She was too into Peter to even LOOK
at me.”  He turned the book over and read the back.  “Who knew that my life was
such a roller coaster of thrills, chills and romantic adventures?  I should
show this to Narrator, so that he can see what a REAL biography looks like. 
Bet mine is
totally
better than his.”  He put the book back in the
binder.  “So, where’s this essay on heroism?  I need to see what you could
possibly say that would have gotten you kicked out of school.”

She thought it over for a minute…and
then retrieved another binder from the shelf and hesitantly passed it to him. 
He glanced down at the cover page.  “Angela?”  He looked up at her.  “You’re
name is Angela R. Ceigh?”

She nodded.  “I HATE that name. 
It’s SOOOOO embarrassing.”

He frowned.  “You’re embarrassed
because your name is ‘Angel’ and you’re a villain?”

She looked at him like he was the
stupidest person in the world.  “No, dumbass.  I’m
embarrassed
because
my dad named me ‘Ann R. Ceigh.’”  He stared at her blankly, and she sighed.  “Ann
R. Ceigh?  You know?  Anarchy?”

“Ah.”  Realization crossed his
face.  “Now I get it.  Yeah, that’s pretty weird.  I’m surprised you didn’t go
with that as a code name thing.”

She rolled her eyes.  “Yeah, I
think that’s what Dad was going for, but it wasn’t my style.”

“Well, look on the bright side, he
could have gone with Cecelia or Charlene or Cindy or…”  He trailed off as he
saw her blank expression.  “…Yeah, you’re just not getting at
all
what
I’m trying to say there, are you?”

She frowned at him in confusion
again.  “What is it with you and ‘C’ words?  It’s like your obsession or
something.”

He made a noncommittal sound and
continued reading.  Fifteen minutes later he carefully closed the folder and
cleared his throat.  “…Yeah…uh….yeah…”

She smiled down at him.  “So,
what’d you think?”

He cleared his throat again. “…It’s
umm…umm…”  He coughed.  “Sorry, Angel.  I would have kicked you out of school
too.”  He silently mouthed the word; “Wow.”

“And what’s
that
supposed to
mean?”

“Oh, come on!  When you said ‘put
aside their differences’, I had assumed that you meant that Primeval would stop
killing things, and the Lovers of Liberty would have testified on his behalf at
his death sentence hearing or something.  I didn’t know you meant that they
should have let the man
join them
.”  He shook his head.  “I
don’t
think
he was trying to angle for a job when he put that bomb on the Statue of Liberty,
and tried to hold it for ransom.”

“I didn’t say he
was,
just that
it was something that the L of L could have
tried. 
If they had given
him another outlet for his talents, he might have become a hero.  He certainly
had nothing
else
in his life, and if they could have given him someplace
to…”

He shook his head again.  “Wouldn’t
have happened.”

“And why not?”  She crossed her
arms over her chest in irritation.  “He’s got powers, he could have been a
great help to the city!”

“Oh, yeah.  He did a hell of a job
on that.”  He laughed.  “I mean,
he killed them all
, Angel.  Explain to
me how that’s any way for a job applicant to behave?”

She cleared her throat and shifted
in her chair.  “I’m sure there were…
extenuating circumstances.
”

“What, like they criticized his
resume?  Spilled coffee on him during the interview? 
They’re
dead
. 
At no point in their organization’s history would they have allowed him to
join.  Murders
aren’t
heroes.  …They…they can’t be.  They knew who he
was, and they never would have let him in the door.”

“And maybe that’s
precisely
the reason why he thought that he had no other choice but to strike at them
first.”  She nodded sharply, feeling like she was really onto something now. 
“This is labeling theory.  That’s what this is.”

He stared at her blankly.  “Huh?”

“You’ve labeled him a
‘super-villain’ and there’s no way you’ll ever let him escape that, so he might
as well become one.  You
made
him a criminal.”

He blinked at her in disbelief.  “Peer
pressure made him kill a dozen super-heroes in the middle of Central Park.”  He
deadpanned.  “Is that really what you’re going with?  Really?”

“You know, for a man who complains
constantly about how he can’t escape his OWN media label of ‘super-hero’, I
would think that you’d be far more understanding of Primeval’s struggles.  If
he had applied at the Lovers of Liberty, you said yourself that there was
no
way
they would have let him join.  Bad guys aren’t bad
people
, just
because they’ve done bad things.”

“Good guys are good people, because
they do
good
things.  See how that works?”

“Well, how about me?  You’re saying
that I’m a bad person?”

“What?  No…I don’t think you’re a
bad person.   But there’s a big difference between you and someone like
Primeval.”

Her frown deepened.  “So, now he’s
BETTER at being bad than I am?”

“I didn’t say that either…just….” 
He made an aggravated.  “He’s a deranged madman, and you’re…”  He gestured to
her.  “You know. 
You
.  When you try to be truly evil, it just comes off
as…umm…..”  He paused, looking for the right word.  “…hot.”  He winced. 
Obviously that was no the word he had intended to use.

She blinked at him.  “Hot?”

He cleared his throat, looking uncomfortable. 
“…Yeah.”  He quickly tried to get the conversation back on track.  “Heroes help
people, and he never helped anyone in his entire life.”

“Oh, forget him.  I want to talk
about how hot I am.”  She smiled wider, suddenly very interested in this
conversation.  “So, how long have you
noticed
that I was hot.”