Ex-Heroes

Nine NOW

The pipe clanged down across the gate, and the dead resumed their eternal grasping though the bars. The clatter of their teeth trembled in the air.

St. George stood and watched them. Big Blue was getting unloaded behind him. Lynne had just punched Jarvis hard in the back of the head. Mark was already halfway to the hospital.

“She wants to see you,” said Gorgon. “First thing.”

“I’m covered in shit,” the other hero said without looking away. “Infected blood. Rotted meat. I think some actual shit.”

“Yeah, I noticed.”

St. George studied one ex, a rough-bearded man caked with as much dirt as blood. It had a gold tooth that flashed every time its jaw snapped shut. “What happened with the Seventeens?”

Gorgon shrugged. “About fifty. I just got up on the wall and dropped half of those imbeciles.”

“So you’re feeling pretty good.”

“Better than I have in ages.” He cracked his knuckles. “Tier five, easy. Want to go a few rounds?”

“I want to burn these clothes. And then get in the shower until sometime tomorrow.”

“She said first thing,” echoed Derek from the guard shack. He sighed and spat a stream of fire at the ground.

* * * *

It was a five minute walk to “city hall.” He could’ve made it in one good leap from Melrose, but he wasn’t in the mood to rush. Instead he shrugged out of his jacket and tried to wipe some of the gore from it.

The building was named Roddenberry, after the man who created Star Trek . Like most of the newer structures in the Mount, it had been built without any consideration for what was around it. The lines and windows belonged on a college campus, not wedged between warehouselike workshops and the old water tower.

The elevators worked, but the stairs took more time and he could tell himself he was going easy on Barry. His boots echoed in the empty stairwell.

Stealth had claimed the entire executive fourth floor as her own. Most people in the Mount thought it was a status thing. St. George knew it was because it was central, had the best sight lines, and was already wired for mass communication. She wasn’t the type who cared about status.

He rapped on a polished door and walked in. There was a large table people once sat at and discussed syndicated television shows and DVD box sets. Now all the chairs were gone and it was covered with maps and reports from across the lot. She’d moved over two dozen screens into the room, showing every street and every entrance into the Mount. She kept the curtains pulled, and the lights were dim if they were ever on.

Somewhere up here, past the low-profile door at the far end of the room, was a small suite where she lived. Or at least, where she slept, ate, and showered. The office of some high-end producer who just wanted his own full, private bathroom and a place to take a nap. St. George had never seen it, and only knew it was there because she’d let it slip once seven months ago. He knew it pissed her off to think she’d admitted to any sort of need or weakness.

“You smell horrible.”

Stealth stood in the shadow of the open door behind him. As always, she wore her full uniform, even the mask. Her face was a tight, black surface of vague features, hidden even further by the shapeless charcoal hood shrouding her head. As far as St. George knew, no one had ever seen her face.

“You told Gorgon you wanted to see me first thing,” he said. “So I’m here wearing four or five liquefied exes.”

“You could have showered.”

“That’s not how they heard it.”

She stood an inch or two shorter than him, but her cloak and hood made it hard to be sure how much. They wrapped her like a flimsy toga, barely disguising her figure. Her charcoal and gray uniform could’ve been body paint. “Would you prefer to clean up and speak later?”

“Are you actually offering me a choice?”

She stared at him for a long moment. “No,” she said, “but I know you like to feel you have one.”

He smirked. “What happened with the Seventeens?”

“You first, please. Mark Larsen. How was he attacked?”

“Just bad luck. An ex stuck in a shower. They didn’t see it or hear it until it was on top of a rookie.”

“Lynne Vines?”

“Yeah. Mark tried to pull it off her. It broke its own neck to bite him.”

“Nothing they could have done differently?”

“Not as I understand it.”

“Is he going to live?”

St. George looked at his boots. “I wouldn’t put money on it, but anything’s possible.”

She nodded. “Now, the trap.”

“Not much to tell. They knew we’d be heading back that way. They dropped a jammer and a spiked chain across the road.” He described every detail he could remember about the road, the time, even the chain itself. She prodded him now and then. He talked about waiting for the ride and killing the exes.

“So you were protecting yourselves for twenty-five minutes and then your team fired several bursts on full auto to save you.”

“I didn’t need saving.”

“They thought you did and acted accordingly, that is what matters. How much ammunition?”

“All together?” He ran some numbers through his head. “Three-fifty, maybe four hundred rounds.”

“The truck?”

“It’s a landmark right now. Needs all new tires, possibly new wheels. If we can get a crew there in the morning before the Seventeens strip it, it should be salvageable.”

Beneath the mask her face shifted. She pushed back the hood a few inches and pressed slim fingers against her temples, turning her eyes up to the ceiling and pushing her chest out ever so slightly. After a year and a half, St. George could talk to her without his eyes straying when she struck a pose. When they strayed now, it was a deliberate choice.

“Tell me it was worth it.”

He leaned against the table. “We got around four hundred pounds of food. A third of that’s a big bin of wheat flour. Some basic medicine and first aid stuff. Lee and Andy found a shotgun with about thirty shells and a bunch of 30.08.” His fingers did a quick drum roll on the table. “We only had two-thirds of our usual time.”

“I understand.”

“So what happened here?”

“They attempted to rush the gate. I counted twenty-three of them.”

“Gorgon said fifty.”

“Gorgon enjoys a degree of exaggeration where his own exploits are concerned.”

St. George almost made the laugh sound like a cough. “What gave it away? That we were a decoy?”

“Your situation made no tactical sense,” she said. She tapped her maps, running a finger down the same stretch of Vermont he’d been on earlier. “If they knew what was or was not in your truck, they either would have attacked when you were further away from the Mount or not at all. If they did not know, it was foolish to set a trap at all since they know you go out with almost every mission, often with another hero. Since theft was not the motive, the next would have been just what they accomplished—-leaving you, Cerberus, and Zzzap stranded.”

“Getting us out of the way for an attack,” he mused. “You are amazing, my dear Holmes.”

Stealth pointed to a section of the map south of Century City, making a slow circle with her finger where she had marked several streets and blocks with green ink. “They are becoming more aggressive and frequent in their attacks. We may need to take offensive measures.”

“You mean, go after them?”

“I mean locating and eliminating them.”

He furrowed his brow. “In what sense?”

“In the sense of eliminating them.”

“We’re not killers,” he said. “We sure as hell can’t be saving mankind if we go out and murder a couple hundred of them.”

“By my estimates the Seventeens have grown well into the thousands,” she said. “And unlike our group, they are mostly fighters.”

“That doesn’t matter.”

“It will.”

He slammed his hand down on the map and felt the table crack. “We aren’t going to stoop to that,” he said. “We’re the good guys. The idea is to save everyone, not just the people we like.”

There was a flurry of movement on one of the monitors. Van Ness Gate. A small ex, a boy, had squeezed through the barricade of trucks, and was staggering toward the gate guards. They tripped it with a pole and pinned it down with their rifle stocks. A woman ran into frame with a sledge and crushed the little skull.

St. George and Stealth watched in silence as they wrapped the small figure in plastic and started hosing down the pavement.

“If that is your feeling on the matter,” she said, “we can proceed in that direction for now. You know I value your opinions.”

The hero let out a breath and twin trails of smoke curled up from his nose. “A year and a half ago I was doing maintenance at UCLA,” he said. He stared at the map, at the dozens of green crosses and lines south of Wilshire. “You see movies where society collapses this quick and you just laugh it off. You figure there’s the police, the military, the feds …I mean, they couldn’t all lose it at once, right?”

Stealth looked at him. Even through the mask, he could feel her skeptical stare. “They did.”

“But not everyone loses it at the same moment,” he insisted. “You’d think people would’ve helped each other, tried to hold on to things.”

“Do you remember Katrina?”

He tossed the name back and forth. “Which one? We’ve lost two or three, I think.”

“Hurricane Katrina,” said Stealth, “which decimated New Orleans in 2005. The levees collapsed, brought the floods, and what happened? No one came to help and the city fell into chaos in mere days. Looting. Gangs. Militias. There were hundreds of thousands of citizens who had spent years believing their government did not care about them and were now seeing the proof of it. Then the same government that left them to drown for a week came in, imposed martial law, and ordered them all into what were essentially concentration camps without food or water.”

He shook his head. “Yeah but that was—”

“And now the dead are walking,” she said. “Exes, zombies, ghouls—whatever you wish to call them. There were epidemic warnings and hazmat teams everywhere, dead people getting up to attack their friends. The police could not stop them. The military could not stop them. We could not stop them.” She ran a finger across the zip codes of Los Angeles. “If people in one city reacted as they did to rising water, is it a surprise things collapsed during a worldwide crisis like this?”

He took a slow breath and set his jaw.

She turned back to the monitors. “Is there anything else to report?”

“No.”

“Go take a shower.”

He glanced across the room at the low-profile door. Her head tilted beneath her hood.

“Go home and take a shower,” she said.

* * * *

St. George cleaned his hair, then scoured his body, then cleaned his hair again. Even through the steam and the soap, he could smell death. He scrubbed and shampooed and rinsed and repeated until the hot water ran out, and then stood in the cold for another ten minutes.

His apartment in the Mount was a penthouse compared to the place he’d had before, back when the world was alive and he was paying rent. Like most of the living quarters, it was a large office converted into a passable apartment. A living room with a couch and an overstuffed chair, a decent kitchen, and a separate bedroom. He even had some of his own clothes and belongings, not just stuff he’d scavenged since they all moved to the Mount. Being a superhero had a few perks, even after the Zombocalypse. He’d been able to fly home and loot his small studio.

He was half-dressed when someone rapped on the door. He knew the knock.

“Hey,” said Lady Bee. She held up a battered box of CheezIts. “Thought I’d stop by and check on you. And I brought food.”

“Thanks.”

“You looked like shit when we got back.”

“Well,” he said with a smirk, “there have been one or two missions when things went better.”

She let her coat slide off her shoulders. She was still wearing the too-small shirt. He could see her bright red bra. “You going to invite me in?”

He examined his bare feet. “I don’t think I’m in the mood, Bee.”

“You know you say that almost every time, right?”

“I’m serious.”

“I know.”

“People trusted me to get them home safe.”

“I know. I was holding his arm, remember?”

He sighed and stepped away from the door. She tossed her coat on the chair before flopping on the couch. “You want some crackers?”

“Not that hungry. Go ahead.”

She unzipped her boots and kicked them at the door. “Nah. They’re one of those weird flavors nobody ever liked.” She stood up, two inches shorter without the heels. “Want to watch a movie or something?”

“I don’t have anything new.”

“So what? We never see more than the first half hour anyway.” She pulled his face down and kissed him.

He pulled away. “How am I supposed to relax?”

“Well,” Bee said, “usually we take off our clothes, find a handy piece of furniture, and spend half an hour or so thinking very naughty and improper thoughts.” She tugged at the bottom of her shirt and two buttons popped open. She gave him a wink and pulled at another one.

“Seriously.” He ran his fingers through his long hair. “This was a fucking disaster. What are people going to think?”

She sighed and let go of the shirt. “They’re going to think you’re human.”

“I’m not human. I can’t be.”

“Trust me, I’ve checked. You match up. Just a lot more stamina.”

“We’re symbols. All of the heroes. People look at us and think we can still fix everything.”

“You’re a symbol, yes,” she said. “But you’re still a guy. A guy who just had a very shitty day and needs to remember there’s more to life than that. If you want to mope all night, fine, that’s your choice. We’ll eat stale Cheez-Its and watch a movie and not talk. Personally, I’d like to get over today with a hard, fast fuck, maybe followed by a long, slow one.”

“I’m still not sure I’m in the mood.”

She yanked the shirt open the rest of the way. The red bra was low-cut and edged with little satin frills. “Give me five minutes and I can change your mind.”

“Bee …”

“Two minutes if you let me take your pants off,” she said and ran her tongue across the edge of her upper lip. “If you like, I could even wear a cape and a black pillowcase over my head.”

“Cute.”

“You’re not saying no, though.”

Bee pushed him back into the chair and climbed on top of him. He could feel things stirring in his pants, despite himself, and he pushed his palms up along her warm, smooth back. “You realize we’ll be up all night,” he said as she kissed his neck. “Exhausted all day tomorrow.”

“We’d better be if you know what’s good for you.”

She pressed herself against him, he grabbed her, and they forgot the day.