Ex-Heroes

Seventeen NOW

It was eleven when they left. St. George sailed through the air, watching the streets below for any movement past the slow drift of exes. A few caught glimpses of him and tilted their heads to follow his path. One fell over backwards.

He couldn’t glide as well as he normally did. The backpack was filled with water bottles and a small first-aid kit. It was slim and light, but it sat wrong. His balance was off and he just couldn’t find the sweet spot on the air currents.

On the rooftops below, Stealth flitted like a shadow. She darted between pools of darkness and leaped from building to building. When they got to an intersection she would throw herself out into space, grab his outstretched hands like a trapeze artist, and flip herself across four lanes of open road. Her cloak never made a sound as it billowed in the air.

The two heroes cut across the Wilshire Country Club, the upper-class neighborhoods of Highland, and the wide swath of LaBrea. Stealth killed eleven exes in that first hour, their necks snapped with blinding kicks. St. George just twisted their heads around.

They paused to rest on the roof of a deserted diner. “You doing okay?”

“I am fine. We do not need to stop.”

“You look like you’re slowing down.” The cloaked woman shook her head. “I am fine.”

“Drink some water.” She held the bottle and paused. He felt her eyes on him. “What?”

“Turn around, please.”

“I’m sorry, what?” She gave a slight tip of her head. “I do not want you to see me drink.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No.”

“You’ve known me for over two years, I’m probably the closest thing you have to a friend, and you’re worried I might see your mouth?”

“Please, St. George. Turn around.”

He sighed, shook his head, and went to look over the edge of the roof. There were over two hundred exes scattered over the broad intersection. Every few yards on the sidewalk a squat wooden stump reached up between iron grates. A few of them were wide remains of huge palms, but most were as thick as his arm.

There was a deliberate crunch of gravel. She handed him the backpack. “Thank you.”

“I know you’re not scarred or disfigured or something, so why are you so obsessed with hiding?”

“How can you know I am not scarred?”

He smirked. “There are dozens of horribly injured people at the Mount. Half your face would have to be missing to be worse off than them, and I can see enough to know it’s all still there.”

“It could be a small scar. Perhaps I am vain.”

He nodded. “That would fit with the rest of the outfit, but I still don’t buy it.”

“You are still making suppositions. You have no evidence.”

“Two questions, then. When’s the last time someone called you by your real name?”

“I will not answer questions regarding my true identity.”

“Didn’t ask one. I just asked how long it’s been since someone called you by your real name.”

She tilted her head.

“I know ‘Stealth’ wasn’t your choice for a name. Wasn’t it someone in the LA Weekly or one of those that came up with it? You didn’t use any code name or secret identity or anything. So Stealth isn’t a name you picked. When was the last time someone used the name you were born with?”

Even in the dim light beneath the hood, he could see her expression shift under the mask. “Twenty-eight months ago.”

St. George blinked. “You know just like that?”

She gave a single, sharp nod.

“Okay then, question two. When was the last time someone saw you without the mask?”

“Someone who knew me?”

“Anyone. When was the last time anyone saw you without the mask?”

“Thirteen months. When we were getting settled in the Mount, I spent an evening walking the streets in civilian clothes to judge the mood of the population. October 31, 2009.”

“Halloween? The last time you didn’t wear a mask was Halloween?”

“The irony is not lost on me. However, it struck me amidst the many costumes one unfamiliar adult would be less likely to stand out.”

“So the costume says you have no problem with people looking at you. Staying masked and never having a name means you’re bothered by who you were and you’re trying to hide it. I’m going to go out on a limb and guess you were objectified a lot.”

She bowed her head. “Your deductive powers have grown considerably since we first met.”

“It’s all been your fine instruction, Mr. Holmes,” he said toasting her with a plastic bottle. He took another sip and pointed at one of the nearby remains of a tree. “D’you notice the stumps?”

She nodded. “Firewood. As Zzzap reported, they are using fires for heat, light, and food preparation. I would guess most bookstores, newsstands, and office suppliers in this area have suffered a similar fate.”

“They’ve got the country club, too, don’t they? And Century City.”

“And telephone poles. And several hundred thousand tires, I would guess.” She nodded at a row of wheel-less cars. “They would be unusable for cooking, but could still provide light and heat. Are you in love with me?”

He spit out a mouthful of water. “What?”

“You have regular sexual relations with Beatrice Strutton, but you remain emotionally obsessed with me. I believe she is aware of this as well.”

“Okay, how do you know—”

“There is nothing that goes on in the Mount I am not aware of, St. George. You know this. And you have not answered the question.”

“You’re so smart, you tell me.”

She turned her head to the exes below. “I believe you have allowed what began as a physical attraction and fascination with my superior confidence to develop into emotions you hope I will recipro—”

“I was being rhetorical, y’know.”

Stealth knelt against the edge of the roof.

“What?”

She stared down at the street below. “They are not moving.”

“Because we’re not.”

The crowd of exes stood frozen on the street. Their mouths were still. Dozens of hands hung limp at their sides. They locked eyes with the two heroes.

Her head shook inside the hood. “Not at all. Not reaching for us. Not even moving their jaws.”

The silent crowd stared up at them. White eyes. Cloudy eyes. Single eyes. Empty sockets.

“Okay,” murmured St. George. “Just when you thought the walking dead couldn’t get any creepier.”

The dead things and the heroes stared at each other for another moment. Then the exes nearest the diner trembled, and the subtle shift rippled though the crowd. Dozens of feet shuffled on the ground. Their teeth snapped together. Their arms rose up as they clutched again and again for the people they could not reach.

“Well,” he said, “that didn’t seem at all suspicious.”

She stood up from the ledge. “It is apparent something is altering the behavior of exes across the city,” she said. “Are you ready to move on? We need to reach the Seventeens’ territory at least two hours before dawn.”

He tugged the backpack over his shoulders. “We’ll be fine.”

Stealth nodded and hurled herself across the rooftop, leaping up onto the next building. St. George threw himself into the air after her.

The exes watched them go.

* * * *

Gorgon walked up Avenue C into the North-by-Northwest area. The name had started as a joke and stuck. Now the residents used it with pride.

He cast a long, fuzzy shadow in the streetlights. As it always did, the mental image of an old western flashed through his mind, the sheriff’s shadow stretching up Main Street to some gunslinger’s boots.

Near the edges of New York Street a figure waved to him from a small group. The bearded man, Richard-something. North-byNorthwest was his area. He stepped away from his group and toward Gorgon.

“What’s up?”

“Do you have a moment?”

“Sure.” The bearded man gave a faint nod and took another half-step away from the other conversation. The men kept talking, but their eyes followed the district leader and the hero. “There were a lot of rumors flying over dinner,” Richard said. He twisted the big ring he wore on his middle finger. “I was hoping you could put them to rest.”

“I guess that depends on what they are,” said the hero.

The older man nodded. “Is it true you found some exes who can talk?”

Behind his wide goggles, Gorgon rolled his eyes and gave a silent sigh. The news hadn’t taken long to get out at all. “Where did you hear that?”

“It’s been floating round since Big Red got back yesterday. One of the men said it was a talking ex that killed Tyler O’Neill.”

“Yeah, see …that’s how rumors go crazy and why you shouldn’t talk about stuff you don’t know anything about.” He swung the duster back and set his fists against his hips. The sheriff pose. “Ty was killed by the Seventeens. Regular punks using regular weapons. Doctor Connolly could confirm that if anyone bothered to ask her.”

“We tried. She and Doctor Garcetti said Stealth asked them not to discuss it.”

Gorgon closed his eyes and thought of a few choice profanities. “Well, I can. He died of a gunshot wound to the throat. He bled out in under two minutes. You can look in the back of Big Red for the stains.”

The bearded man shivered and one of the ones lurking in the background stepped forward. “But there was an ex there. I’ve heard from a couple people there was.”

Another silent swear or three. “Yes. Yes, there was. You’re …Mr. Diamond?”

“Daimint. I run the leatherworks.”

“Right, of course. Sorry.”

“So the exes can talk now? Is that new?”

“We don’t think they can all talk. Just some of them.”

“Did you say exes can talk now?” echoed a woman. She dragged her husband over with her. Another couple followed them.

“They found a talking ex last night.”

“You mean they’re intelligent?”

“If they can talk, I’d guess so.”

“Holy shit,” said a newcomer, “what if we’ve been murdering them?”

“Hey, if it’s us or them, I say—”

“PEOPLE!” Gorgon punctuated the bellow with a quick snap of his lenses. He saw half a dozen people tremble and felt the faint kick of borrowed strength. The scattered conversation vanished.

“Here are the facts, to the best of my knowledge.” He threw a victory sign up for them all to see. “We have found two exes that appear to be intelligent. That’s it. Two, out of five million here in Los Angeles alone. We’re not even sure they’re real exes. It may be a trick. All of us standing here know this has never been seen before. It’s something new we’re all trying to figure out.”

A few of them looked at him but most of them examined their feet or the pavement.

“The medical team’s going to examine our prisoner tomorrow. Once they get any answers, you know we’ll get them to you. The safety of everyone here is always the priority. There’s no point getting worked up over this, okay?”

There were a few half-hearted nods and grunts. The woman who had spoken before cleared her throat. “So there really are smart exes?”

“Yes,” he said. “And here’s something else—-neither of them tried to bite anyone. I’ve talked to the one here in the cell. So has Stealth. It just stood there and talked with us. St. George, Cerberus, a bunch of the team that was out the other day, they all talked to the one out there. No attacks.”

“St. George got shot by the one out there. I’m trying to repair his coat.” This from Daimint.

“It shot him, yeah,” agreed Gorgon. “It didn’t bite him. The two we’ve seen don’t act like smart exes, they just act like people. Unfortunately the people they’re acting like are Seventeens. So get the word out, okay? All of you.”

He let the coat swing closed and crossed his arms across his chest, just below the silver star. The all-done gunslinger pose. They took the hint and began to scatter.

“Thank you,” said Richard-something.

“No problem. Let’s try to keep this sort of thing down, okay? That’s why we’ve got district leaders. Last thing we need is for people to think there’s some army of genius exes out there trying to kill us all.”