Trainee Superhero (Book Three) (9 page)

I see the long spines of a blob-cacti lying
in a park, so I know my squad must be around here somewhere. A
house is on fire, its neat front gardens disrupted by a severed
triclops arm. A squad of octo-apes swoop towards us. I get one, and
Phoenix
gets the other with her sword.

“I’ve been trying to get out of
Hollywood
, actually, but the Corps doesn’t want me to
transfer.”

I’m not used to so much small talk during a
mission. Normally people are either yelling at me or ignoring me,
so I guess it makes a nice change.

We find
Never Lies
, but she isn’t
excited to see us.

“This isn’t bring your girlfriend to work
day,” she says scathingly.

Phoenix Pink
giggles and sticks her
hand out.

“I’m-”

“-I know who you are, now shush. What are
Hollywood
doing in a real battle, I thought you guys were
ornamental only?”

Dark Fire
flies up to us and nods at
Phoenix
. She seems in awe, and surprised to see him.

“What’s the play?” he says.

“
Dange
r and me to draw east into that
park and make as big a distraction as we can. You wait until
everything is headed our way, then loop behind and plant a bomb.
It’s going to get messy.”

Dark Fire
nods.

“Messy,” he agrees, and takes off.

“I don’t mind messy,” I say, “I think I’m
suited to it.”

Never Lies
shakes her head and flies
towards the park, shooting an alien she sees along the way. I join
her, and to my surprise so does
Phoenix Pink
.

“Don’t you have a team photo shoot you should
be at?” asks
Never Lies
with a whole lot of acid.

“You really don’t like me, do you?” says
Phoenix
Pink
without concern.

“I do not.”

“And yet you know nothing about me.”

“I have read your file.”

“Really? It doesn’t matter, the file is
rubbish. I’m the best fighter in the
Hollywood Nine
, you
know. No one else comes close.”

I can tell that
Never Lies
is about to
make a snarky comment about how that’s like being the toughest baby
bunny rabbit, so I pretend to take a hit and drop down through the
sky and into the road.

“Incoming!” I call out, and
Never Lies
and
Phoenix Pink
both scan the skies.

“Liar!” they say together.

Our antics are attracting attention: three
more rhinotanks are heading our way.
Never Lies
takes them
down with a shower of plasma bolts, and we land in the park as
medusas fly towards us. I blast them out of the sky, but there are
more heading our way. Some get close enough for
Phoenix Pink
to hit with balls of plasma or cut with her sword. She does well
with her teleporting attacks, although she’s not yet in the same
league as
Bad Day
.

I’m just starting to get tired when a shriek
rises up from across town and all the creatures around us fly off
towards it.

“
Siren Blaze
has this power where she
can call all the nearby aliens towards her,”
Phoenix Pink
explains. “It’s almost never a good idea, but she does it anyway.
All that happens is we fight for a few minutes and then retreat so
she can do it again. Pretty lame tactics. I keep saying we should
make some kind of lure out of it, but no one listens to me.”

I guess that’s where the dog whistle
Small
Talk
used came from.

“Well… that’s an unexpected bonus. Let’s go
help the boss,” says
Never Lies
.

We fly towards the saucer. I’ve never been
trusted with the bomb before, so I’ve never actually been close to
a real saucer. The others use me as a shield as we approach the
nest of turrets. We land on its gently curving roof where
Dark
Fire
has burnt a hole through the thick hull, exposing a thin
tunnel beneath. I drop my bomb into the hull while
Never
Lies
and
Phoenix Pink
keep the sky clear, and then we
take off into the sky to a safe range. The bomb automatically goes
off after five minutes, but
Dark Fire
also carries a remote
detonator.

“That was hard,” say
Phoenix Pink
as
soon as we get clear.

Her armor isn’t shiny and smooth anymore, and
the tip of her sword has broken off. She doesn’t seem worried by
it, if anything she seems excited, and probably keen for more. I
recognize that special kind of madness in her eyes that leads us
humans to strap on flying armor and face the hostile universe.
Dark Fire
winks at me.

“Would you like the honor?” he asks, offering
me the remote.

I hit the big red button and the saucer below
us explodes, sending a plume of flame high into the sky. The saucer
splits into pieces that crash down to the ground. Fragments of
saucer rain down on the town, and some lucky kid is going to find a
triclops head in his backyard.

“That was sweet,” I say, “I could get used to
doing that.”

I may only be a trainee superhero, but I’m
not going to let that stop me from saving the world.

The danger doesn’t end when a saucer goes
down.

The danger doesn’t end when the superhero
teams track down the last wounded triclops and blast it into
dust.

No, the danger only ends when every alien is
destroyed, and sometimes that takes weeks. The bigger creatures are
easy to find, but the lesser creatures often go to ground in areas
surrounded by civilians. They may be smaller, damaged, or
dysfunctional, but they are still dangerous. It still takes a
superhero to bring them down safely, a superhero like me. I know
those of us who specialize in the cleanup work are looked down on
by the other superhero teams, but what we do saves lives.

And it isn’t easy.

I do a lot of my killing in public places, so
I have to keep a low profile. My work requires stealth and
accuracy, not the raw power required for open battle. I’m not a
soldier, I’m a hunter: a meticulous, patient, relentless
hunter.

You have never heard of me, which just shows
how good I am at my job. I’m always active, never seen.

I’ve fought the saucers’ lesser creations on
the roofs of malls while you shop below. I’ve made kills in the
sewers below your favorite restaurant, fought in the park where you
walk your dog, followed my quarry through the place your parents
take their car to get serviced. I may have been in your house,
tracking down that last metal serpent hiding amongst your family
memorabilia. If I do my job well - and I always do - you won’t even
notice the burn marks.

I’m the one who gets called for all the
hardest hunts.

I once killed a scout bomb at the White House
while the president was giving a speech on the lawns. If you check
the footage carefully you might see a blur on the roof when the
president starts talking about how safe the Super Corps has made
the world.

That was me.

And I hunt alone.

I’ve been chasing a wounded octo-ape for the
last three days. It’s a dangerous beast, and fast, but it’s not yet
ready to fight again. Its current priority - as far as we can tell
- is to hide and repair itself. Many of the saucers’ creations
simply fight and die without regard for their own safety, but a few
are more careful.

More intelligent? I can’t say. More difficult
to deal with? That I know for sure.

I am trying to chase the octo-ape out of the
city, but it is an elusive creature. It spent last night doubling
back through the city, attempting to find a place to hide during
the day, and I lost its trail for a few hours. We have been playing
this game for too long, and I am tired. I’ve only had six hours’
sleep since this hunt started, and I ran out of food yesterday.
This kind of work is better suited for two people, but I have yet
to meet another person I can trust not to screw up.

Do you think I’m being too harsh? You could
ask the opinion of the families of the eighty-three people who died
when my last partner got sloppy. His mistake was taking a lunch
break when the ghostwalker we were tracking decided to go on a
rampage. That’s how fine the line is between success and disaster
in this line of work.

My stomach rumbles at the thought of food. I
should be eating lunch right now, but there is no time. I have to
keep searching for this ape before it’s ready to start fighting
again.

“Anything?” says a voice in my helmet.

I don’t reply out loud - too noisy - but I
click the
No
button on my gloves.

Radios don’t work when the saucers are
around, but that’s not a problem for me. I have a team of
assistants who use satellites and local CCTV to keep an eye out on
the area. They do good work, but it’s not the same as having help
on the ground.

“You must be hungry,” says another of my
assistants, “can we organize food for you? Pizza delivery like last
time?”

The pizza guy is paid to drop his delivery on
a park bench and I take it from there. He has no idea where I am,
and neither does my quarry. It normally works fine, but I have a
bad feeling that this ape is about to make a move.

No
, I signal.

“Sure? You must be hungry?”

I push the
Shush
button I had
installed for situations like this.

“Your call. We haven’t picked up anything
here, so you may as well take a break. Or we can send you the next
list of likely hideouts in your area?”

Yes
.

“Okay, we are sending them to your GPS
now.”

Even superheroes need a GPS when they are in
the city. I check the list of targets and my heart sinks: one of
the targets is a high school. It would have been quiet last night,
and I bet it has lots of places to hide. I get a bad feeling in my
stomach that has nothing to do with being hungry. I start flying,
jumping from roof to roof while the people below me continue their
lives without noticing me.

No one sees me; there are reasons I was
chosen for this job.

“The school?” asks one of the voices on my
radio.

“The school,” confirms the other, “there
should be about a thousand students there. I’ll start the
evacuation protocol.”

The rules are that we don’t evacuate
buildings until I see my quarry. It's not my rule, but has been put
in place by the Super Corps to prevent undue panic.

“This is just a gut feeling, right?” asks my
radio.

Yes
.

“So you could be wrong?”

No
.

“Ah. This is not good.”

No
.

The school looks like any other: green
fields, older buildings, students everywhere. The only thing that
makes this school unusual is the massive hole in its roof.

Likely
, I send.

“Um… okay. Get a confirmed sighting and we
will start the evac.”

I don't enter the roof through the hole; that
is the fastest way, but not the best. I fly into the school through
its main doors, drifting along corridors and rising through
stairways. I’m just a ghost in the corridors, unnoticed as I find
my way to the attic.

The attic is enormous and cluttered. Dusty
boxes of old textbooks make cardboard columns that tower
precariously over old gym equipment. Old posters and murals line
the walls, and the whole place smells of damp paper. The only light
I can see is coming in from the hole in the ceiling, and it casts
deep shadows in every shape. I am surrounded by hiding places. The
light is too bright for my night vision; the shadows too dark for
my normal eyes. I have my huge silenced pistol in one hand and a
knife in the other. My pistol only holds six bullets, but I also
carry a plasma shotgun for if things get messy and loud. I’ve only
had to use it three times, and each time it saved my life.

“And?” my radio asks.

Uncertain
, I signal.

“Okay but-”

Shush
, I send.

Something moves in the shadows and I swing my
gun towards it. It’s just a cat. I freeze in place until the little
feline walks past. It stops and turns its head to me, smelling the
air below my feet and wrinkling its nose in puzzled thought. I wait
for it to pass, but it sits and stares up at me.

This is not good; the octo-ape might realize
I’m here.

I have to keep moving. The cat keeps track of
me. I fly over a wall of boxes to lose it, but find myself in a
part of the attic with dozens of wind chimes hanging from the roof.
My shoulder catches one of them and it rings out once. I freeze in
place and curse my clumsiness; people have died for less.

The cat meows loudly and the octo-ape
explodes from its hiding place amongst the boxes. It charges right
at me with three of its arms outstretched. I shoot it twice in the
leg and bury my knife in its side as I twist away. It lands
awkwardly and I shoot it again in the back of its head until it’s
dead.

I breathe out slowly and reload my gun. I
pull my knife out of the octo-ape’s chest.

The cat walks over to investigate the noise.
It doesn’t look alarmed, merely surprised. Our little skirmish has
knocked over some of the boxes, but otherwise there is no
damage.

Killed
, I send to my team.

I know I could talk to them now, but silence
is a hard habit to break.

“What? You didn’t even let us evacuate-”

“We aren’t picking up any sign that you were
noticed,” interrupts my other assistant, “so it looks like a clean
job.”

Yes
.

Although that cat almost got me killed.

The cat keeps me company until night falls.
We guard the octo-ape’s body until the world outside falls silent.
A Comet should be arriving soon for the pickup. It is all standard
recovery work, really.