CheapLit: Free ebook sample of "Other People's Heroes" by Blake Petit

Then I felt a rush. The water, which by now was beginning to bubble, wasn’t burning me anymore, and my muscles were filled with an energy, a strength I’d never felt. That’s when the smoke parted and Lionheart appeared. He was tall and strong, with his red, military-cut coat tucked into his black slacks. His blue cape and mask were buttoned securely to the tunic, and the proud yellow lion’s head he wore on his chest seemed to be looking straight at me as he approached.

“Are you all right, little guy?” he asked as he lifted me out of the tub. I was surprised -- he had a British accent. I would have expected a full-out, All-American Hero. Not that it bothered me. He was there.

“We’re getting you out of here, okay?”

I nodded. He dipped his cape in the water and wrapped it around me, made sure that I had no exposed skin and flew me out of the burning building into the chilled night air. When I dared to brush the cape from my eyes and look, I saw we were dropping down to the paramedics below -- but medical attention was the last thing I needed. I had never felt so good in my life.

“Cool-ness,” I whispered while in the air. There was sort of a tingle and my rescuer smiled down at me.

“Got the heart of a lion yourself, don’t you?”

When he handed me over to the paramedics, I didn’t want to go. “Don’t worry, little guy,” he said. “You’ll be okay now.” Then he gave me a wry grin and a quick, dry salute, put his drenched cape back on, and flew back into the inferno. As soon as he was gone, the energy rush I felt subsided and I collapsed into the medic’s arms. I suffered some smoke inhalation, they later told me, but there was no permanent damage. I would be fine.

Except that once you’ve been saved by a Cape, you’re never quite the same again. Once you’ve flown with a man like Lionheart, you can’t be satisfied back on the ground.

APPOINTMENT

When I was born, my mother called me Joshua Corwood. My father called me a slew of other names, the kindest of which was “Little Bugger.” But then, the man was fairly unpleasant to begin with and, soon after he fell asleep with a cigarette in his hand and burnt down our entire apartment complex, Mom divorced him. We considered ourselves better off for it.

I was given my second name by a man named Morris Abadie. The first time I spoke to him I was 23 years old, still a reporter for a superhero-focused newsmagazine called Powerlines. I’d been there for nearly a year and I was still stuck on feature articles and follow-ups. Nothing that could gain me much attention, nothing that would get me out in the field, with my heroes.

I was plodding around in my cubicle (which at least was against an outside wall and offered me a window), polishing up my retrospective piece on the LightCorps when Morrie called me. His calm, sensitive demeanor was a comfort right from the start.

“You Cordwood?” he asked.

“Corwood,” I said. “Yes it is. What can I do for you?”

“I hear you’re looking to do a story on Doctor Noble,” he said. “I’m his publicist.”

“His publicist? Since when does a guy like Doctor Noble need a publicist?”

“You’re new, aren’t you, kid?” Morrie grumbled. “Look, there are only two ways to get a hold of any of the major Capes in this town. You either gotta catch ‘em while they’re putting a Mask in the slam or you go through guys like me.”

“Okay,” I said. “I’d be happy to go through you, Mister Abadie.” I’d been working on the Dr. Noble profile piece for weeks, but without an interview with the man himself it would never make it beyond a sidebar on page 64, only to be read by guys on the can too preoccupied to turn the page.

“Here’s the deal, then. I can give you fifteen minutes at a time and place of my choosing. We supply you with the photographs -- Doc doesn’t trust your camera guys -- and we get approval before you turn the story into your editor. Oh, and no questions about the incident with Photon Man, the Doc doesn’t like to talk about that.”

Photon Man was one of dozens of energy-based Masks who operated in Siegel City, and all I really knew about him is that he had not been seen since his last public battle with Dr. Noble, a few weeks ago. I wasn’t thinking about that, though, I was just thinking about how slick Morrie was. “You aren’t new at this, are you?”

“Look, you want the interview or not?”

“Yes!” I interjected. “Of course. Sure, you get approval and no questions about Photon Man. I can do that.”

“And no photographers!”

“Right, of course. I wouldn’t dream of bringing a photographer.”

“All right, then. Roof of Simon Tower, 1 p.m.”

“Thank you, sir, of course sir.” I hung up the phone and took a glance at my watch. It was already 12:50 and Simon Tower was about fifteen minutes away. Fortunately, cab drivers in Siegel City are notorious for driving at three times the posted speed limit, so after bolting out of the office and nearly dying in the attempt to get one, I made it to Simon Tower just in time.

INTERVIEW

I hadn’t even made it to the glass doors that looked out from the lobby when I heard a whistling sound. I looked up, hoping to see Dr. Noble. The more I looked at the humanoid shape, though, the less he looked like he was flying and the more it looked like falling. Then I started to wonder where Dr. Noble’s cape had gone. And when he’d grown four extra arms. And why there were two of him.

I ran from Simon Tower just as a pair of orange, gelatinous creatures splattered into the pavement. Their viscous flesh coated the sidewalk, the building, the cars parked in front and about half a dozen people like they’d been dipped in orange wax. It also managed to splatter directly in my face like a pie in an old Three Stooges routine. All around, innocent bystanders began flinging goo from their faces and limbs.

“Ah geez...”

“Look at this mess.”

“Guy’s a menace I tell you...”

I had written about these two before -- the Gunk and his companion, the Goop, were basically a pair of skeletons covered in thick, orange slime rather than flesh. The slime, however, was now covering the sidewalk, the building and the spectators. Gunk’s appreciative public stood around much the way I did, trying to clean themselves off. I wiped away the orange ooze from my eyes and shook my limbs, spraying the goo everywhere.

Looking towards the point of impact, I thought for a moment that Gunk had landed on some people. As the figures in the epicenter of the slime reached up with three bony arms, though, I realized I was looking at Gunk and Goop’s skeletons -- the only solid part of them. As they stood up, the orange slime began to pull away from the bystanders and surroundings, reassembling on the form of its respective owner.

As the slime pulled off me I felt a little weak in the knees, odd considering the incredible adrenaline rush I had. As energized as I was, I couldn’t seem to make any of my muscles obey me, and I fell over. A six-armed shadow looked down over me.

“Gunk... hurt... man?”

The monster’s vocabulary wasn’t the particularly good, nor had it been since the experiment that turned him into an arachnid slime creature. His brain, it seemed, was the first thing to “gunkify.” Still, for all the mayhem he’d caused, there were those of us who believed he was more like a confused child than a malevolent beast, and the look of concern in his eyes would seem to bear that out.

“Is he okay, Gunk? Huh? Is he?” Goop, Gunk’s mysterious buddy, had appeared some years after Gunk first burst onto the scene. No one had ever been able to figure out who he really was or where he came from. His story was a total mystery, but not one most folks worried about, since the smaller slime man -- despite having a slightly higher vocabulary than his boss -- showed all the intelligence and loyalty of a good dog.

“Heeeeeeey...” Goop said, strolling up to me. “You’re a little guy. Who’re ya? Y’okay? Y’weren’t hurt, wereya?”

“I’m... okay,” I said, forcing myself up on one elbow. For some reason, that arm felt incredibly wet. I wanted to chuckle at Goop calling me “little guy” -- I was 250 pounds easy and stood at six-one when I hadn’t been knocked to the ground by a couple of slime-monsters.

“Okay,” the Gunk moaned. It was painful just to listen to his slow, tortured speech.

“Yeah. It’s okay, Gunk,” Goop said, bounding around. “It ain’t our fault, it ain’t, you see that.” He glared at me a bit. “I think I know ya from somewhere.”

“That’s... nice,” I said.

“Gunk... go... now.” The quasi-monster looked around at the blazing eyes of the public, crouched, and with a mighty leap returned to the air, Goop in tow. Once they were gone, my muscles seemed to solidify and I sat up on the pavement.

“You okay, mister?” asked another of the now-clean bystanders who’d just been bathed in Gunk’s body. “You want me to call an ambulance?”

“I’ll be fine,” I said. And I was. I felt perfect again already. “Besides, I’ve got to get upstairs.” Scrambling to my feet, I rushed into Simon Tower.

When I stepped out of the elevator onto the observation deck I was greeted by a man in a pit-stained white shirt and suspenders. His tie was crooked and his scalp was flaking out a few clumps at a time onto his snow-covered shoulders. I maneuvered myself upwind of him so as not to inhale the smoke drifting from his cheap cigar. As a publicist, the guy was awe-inspiring.

“You Cordwood?”

“Corwood,” I sighed. “Mr. Abadie?”

“Yeah, that’s me. The Doc will be here in a minute. Here’s yer press packet.” He handed me a red, white and blue folder with Dr. Noble’s insignia on the cover. Inside was a press release, a profile and about half a dozen staff photos, mostly headshots. There was only one full-body shot, and it wasn’t even a photograph -- it looked like Abadie had hired a comic book artist to draw it.

“Where is Doctor Noble?”

“Gettin’ a cat out of a tree,” he said, flicking ash from his cigar over the railing. “Keep yer pants on, kid.”

“Is it okay if I record the interview?”

“Audio or video?”

“Audio,” I said, taking out my hand-held recorder.

“Yeah, that’s okay.”

It was actually more like ten minutes before the Doctor showed up. After a few aborted attempts at conversation with the great publicist, I used the time to review the press packet. I’d read the information a thousand times, but I went over his again. Dr. Noble had been an ordinary MD before his alien abduction some years back. He managed to feign unconsciousness as he was taken into some spacecraft, and watched as the visitors began their experiments. Somehow (the press packet was vague on this point) he managed to escape the aliens’ clutches, free his fellow captives and pilot the spacecraft back to Earth. He was the only human left on the ship when he set the engine to self-destruct. Instead of killing him in a dazzling display of self-sacrifice, though, the alien energies gave him superpowers, including flight, telekinesis and limited electromagnetic manipulation. Endowed with these abilities, he embarked on a neverending battle for truth, justice and all the rest of it.

The next release in the packet was concerned more with his accomplishments since donning his tights for the first time: kidnapping victims saved, one-man rescue operations in the wake of natural disasters, terrorist attacks averted and a nearly endless list of Masks he had brought to justice. Photon Man, I noticed, was conspicuously absent from the list.

“Standard stuff,” I said out loud.

“It is in my life, son,” said a commanding voice. I turned my attention away from the packet and looked up to see the man who had just landed on the roof. He was broad-shouldered and the red and white cape he wore draped down from his mask. Wrapped in the colors of the flag, he stood erect, his jaw tilted upwards, with a smile that indicated he knew some great secret, some mystery of the universe that had never occurred to anyone else. I looked at Abadie and, in two words managed to convey the awesome respect and grandeur I felt at that moment.

“He’s fat,” I whispered.

“Hey, neither of us is gonna get a call from the Mister Universe competition either, pal. Just ask him your questions.”

Okay, I was a 44-inch waist and in no danger of going down. But at least I was proportionate. The weight was fairly evenly distributed, so I just looked like a typical, jolly fat guy. I’d even played Santa Claus a few times. Noble, on the other hand, had a slim, svelte frame with a distended belly that seemed to indicate when he wasn’t putting the bad guys behind bars he was throwing back a few brewskis with the Arrow Ace and Silverfish.

This was the first time I’d made contact with one of our superhuman protectors since Lionheart rescued me thirteen years before, so I was going to take advantage of it. I extended my hand and he took it in a firm grip. When we shook, I felt that rush again, that excitement, that burst of energy I’d gotten during my rescue.

“Wow,” I said.

Noble grinned and an errant ray of sunlight sparkled off his teeth. “I get that a lot,” he said.

POWER

About five minutes after I got back to the office there was a tap at the entrance to my cubicle. A head poked around the corner with a warm, welcome smile. “Hey,” she said, “How did the interview go?”

Sheila Reynolds, my copy editor at Powerlines, was a cute brunette with deep brown eyes. I’d considered asking her out when I was new at the magazine, but she seemed to be perpetually torn between our star reporter, Scott Elliott, and the solar-powered hero, Spectrum. In fact, she often suspected Elliott and Spectrum and being one and the same, until someone pointed out to her that Elliott had a beard and Spectrum didn’t. She finally gave up on it.

“It was... interesting,” I said.

“You don’t sound too enthused. What happened? I thought Doctor Noble was always one of your favorites.”

“Well... you know how I’ve always been really into the big, tough, beyond reproach heroes?”

“Like Lionheart and the United Statesmen?”

“Right. I admire guys who do the right thing just because it’s the right thing. No thought of reward, no ulterior motive... that’s my kind of hero.”

“And Noble?”

I flicked my computer on. “He’s the most pompous ass I’ve ever met.”

“That bad?”

I took my tape recorder out and hit the “play” button. Noble’s tinny voice filtered out.

“…shortly after I single-handedly put away the Bloodsucker Gang I returned to the homeworld of the aliens that originally gave me my powers and liberated their slave class from the aristocratic bourgeois elite which I learned has been manipulating governments on Earth for some time now. I drove them all away by turning the Washington Monument into a giant negatively-charged magnet but this suddenly left Earth without some vital energy programs, so I rounded up all the villains I could find with electrical powers and used them to power the entire town of Luling, Texas for six months. Well naturally they gave me the key to the city which I later used as bait in the ingenious trap I set for Colonel Coldsnap and his Refrigerator Rangers--”

I shut the recorder off. “The entire fifteen minutes was like that,” I said. “One long, rambling run-on ego-stroking session. I have no idea where to insert the punctuation marks in his quotes.”

“Geez,” Sheila said. “How many questions did you get to ask?”

“Just one.”

“What was it?”

“‘How are you?’”

She grimaced. “Ow. I’d better let you work, then -- you’ve got it cut out for you.”

“Thanks. Hey, are we still catching a movie tomorrow?”

“You bet.”

Sheila left and I turned my attention back to the interview. I was contemplating turning the story into an attack piece, but that wasn’t really my style. Besides, I’d promised Abadie approval. While I sat there trying to figure out how to make him look like less of a self-absorbed cretin, I felt that same rush (could it be adrenalin?) I’d gotten when I met the caped bozo on the roof. Even before I turned my head to see him hovering there, I knew I would find Dr. Noble outside my window.

I raised the glass. “Can I help you?” I asked.

“Morrie forgot to give you this. It’s my favorite.” He reached out and handed me an 8 by 10 glossy of himself, a full body shot. He was lean in this photo -- you could count his abs if you wanted to, and my immediate reaction was to assume it had been retouched. Then I saw a billboard in the background featuring a cigarette mascot that had been retired six years ago and I suppressed a chuckle. The guy was using outdated publicity shots because he couldn’t keep himself in shape.

“Thanks,” I said. “I’ll--”

“Where’s Elliott?”

There was a sound like a wall being ripped apart and the partitions that made up my cubicle began to tremble. I tried not to worry -- when I got the job I was warned that irate super-villains had a tendency to show up at the office hunting reporters who made them look bad, although this was the first time since I’d been there that one of them was tearing up my floor.

Before I even left my chair, Noble blasted in through the window and flew into the hall. I followed just in time to see him catch a rather satisfying blow to the jaw, sending him tumbling.

“Where’s that slimeball Elliott?” shouted his attacker. A shock of blonde hair fell across her eyes and she brushed it back with one blue glove, finally allowing me a good look at her masked face. It was Miss Sinistah, late of the Malevolence Mob. My mental reporter’s file clicked to her entry -- she’d been part of an illegal program to genetically enhance athletes, but it was only a partial success. She had highly increased strength, endurance and durability, but the more the used her powers the weaker she got and had to resort to periods of almost no physical activity to recharge. Still, when fully energized she was invulnerable, super strong... and shorter than I’d imagined.

“You!” She grabbed me by the front of the shirt and lifted me into the air. “All right, big boy, where is he?”

“Who--”

“Elliott! Scott Elliott!”

“He’s not here--”

“Stop trying to cover. He’s hiding, right? He knew I’d be coming after him for that piece he wrote about the Mob. We were never brought in by that milksop Lionheart! I never even met him! I’ll rip his arms off when I--”

She was only halfway through the rant when the sudden burst of energy broke us apart. I fell safely to the floor and she went crashing into a cubicle wall, making it collapse on Danny Cardigan from the graphic design department.

“What was that?” she spat out as she scrambled to her feet.

“It looked like Noble used his telekinesis to break them apart!” Sheila shouted.

Sinistah grumbled. “How is it somebody always has the time for expository dialogue during these fights?”

Her next announcement was cut short when Noble slammed into her. I pulled myself to my feet and half-walked, half-stumbled to the stairwell. I wasn’t concerned about the fight, Noble would catch her. Those guys always did. All I wanted was for the rush to fade, which it did as I put some distance between myself and the superhumans.

It was logical to accept Sheila’s explanation, just as it was typical of a winning fella like Noble to take credit. But she was wrong, I knew it. The whole time Noble had been there, I’d felt the rush. When Sinistah showed up, it lanced upwards on me, and I felt stronger than ever before.

Then, when she insulted Lionheart -- a genuinely good hero -- I’d felt a veil of anger like I’d never experienced. And when that happened, something inside me exploded.

The teke-burst that bowled over Miss Sinistah didn’t come from Dr. Noble. It came from me.

ISSUE TWO

ACCIDENTS HAPPEN

How many people ever stare at a quarter? I mean really stare at it? Do they wonder why Washington is facing the left instead of the right? Why it looks like he’s not wearing anything but that stupid bow in his hair? I didn’t think about any of those things either, until I spent the better part of an hour staring at a twenty-five cent piece that night, trying to make it move with my mind.

“It’s just sitting there,” Sheila observed.

“I know it’s just sitting there,” I hissed. “Maybe it’s a magic quarter or something.”

“Yeah, there are lots of those in circulation.”

“Hey, we’ve seen stranger things. In this office. Today. Sheila, I know I fired off that telekinetic burst this afternoon.”

“Doctor Noble did that.”

“That overstuffed moron couldn’t hit anything that didn’t come from a keg. Move, dammit!”

“Maybe you should try being polite to it.”

“Oh be quiet.” I slapped the quarter away and it rolled under the desk. “Maybe it needs to be sparked by anger or something.”

“You’re not mad enough at it?”

“You’re getting on my nerves right now. How do you feel about being a guinea pig?”

Sheila sighed and planted a light, sisterly kiss on my forehead. “Aw, Josh, sweetie, we all know how bad you want to get into the game. Heck, that’s why most of us came to work here in the first place. But sooner or later, you’re just going to have to accept that it’s not going to happen, okay?”

“Hey, Sheila,” Danny said, poking his head into my cubicle. “We’ve got a rumble in the streets between Deep Six and Flambeaux. You might want to pull out those files to prep the story.”

“Okay, Dan. Where’s the rumble, anyway?”

“Right outside. I think Flambeaux read Scott’s last column.”

“I tell him to think before he writes that sort of thing. Later, Joshie-bear.” Sheila patted my hand and left me alone.

“Darn quarter,” I mumbled, fishing in my pocket for another one. I cleared everything else off my desk, sweeping it into my already-cluttered top drawer, and placed the quarter dead center. As I concentrated on it, I heard a whistling sound outside -- Flambeaux used his fire powers to make himself lighter than air. The result was, he could fly, and apparently he was doing so right outside the building. I didn’t catch this yet. I was staring at the damned quarter.

I didn’t notice it at first, but as the whistling sound rose and fell, I started to feel minor peaks in energy -- like the rush was starting to creep up on me. With each minor scale in the energy I redoubled my concentration. Finally my eyes were beginning to hurt and I was ready to throw the blasted thing just to get it to move. I didn’t listen to the whistling outside, paid no attention to the crescendo of a human body hurtling through the air at supersonic speeds. I paid no heed at all to the fact that it was getting louder and louder and I was feeling stronger and stronger.

Two things then happened at once. The first is that the whistling got so loud, so intense that Flambeaux must have flown directly past my window. I could hear this, even though I was paying no attention to it.

The second thing that happened was, as the whistle reached its loudest point, a massive burst of flame erupted from my eyes and charred off the top of my desk. My concentration broke immediately -- in part because the flames were threatening to burn my face off -- and I fell back in my chair.

The fire alarm went off just as I flopped out of my cubicle shouting incoherent syllables with the intent of alerting people to the situation. “Fire! Gha! Cubie! Fire!” were my exact words. Fortunately, between this and the four-foot wall of flames that was roaring behind me, Sheila was able to translate the message.

She grabbed the fire extinguisher and rushed into my cubicle. There was a spitting sound and the light was replaced by smoke. Sheila came back out and shoved the extinguisher in my hands.

“Some hero,” she chuckled. Crisis averted, the rest of the staff was returning to work. This sort of thing happened far too often around here.

“How did Flambeaux blast you like that? The window is still closed,” Sheila said.

I dropped my voice and leaned into her. “It wasn’t Flambeaux. Sheila, it was me.”

“Josh...”

“No, come on, I swear. I was trying to move that damn quarter again and... the quarter!” I grabbed her by the arm and dragged her into my slightly-used work area. The top of my desk was black and burnt, except in the center. There, puddled on the desk, were the molten remains of twenty-five American cents.

“You see that?”

“Okay, Josh, this is going too far. Maybe you should see the company counselor--”

“Dammit!” I grabbed her by the arm again and tugged her into the stairwell, hitting the steps and going straight for the roof.

“Josh, what are you doing? Let go!”

“I’m proving my point! I know I’ve got something going on!”

When we made it to the roof we could see Flambeaux smoldering at the top of Barks Plaza across the street. Deep Six’s partners in the Spectacle Six had arrived, and he was getting a lift from the robot called V3OL.

“Look! I’ll bet I can send up a flare.” I thrust my hand towards the air and started thinking hot, heat, fire, flame... even mad and angry when nothing else worked.

“Josh, you look like an idiot.”

“Did Edison look like an idiot when he invented the light bulb? The Wright Brothers? Einsteeeaaaaaiiiigh!”

The scream wasn’t of pain, but of shock -- my hand was rocketing away into the air. I didn’t go with it, mind you, I stayed right there on the roof. Nor did the hand separate itself from my body. Instead, my arm stretched out to a length of at least twenty feet. The flesh hung in the gap like overstretched taffy.

When I realized what was happening, I shouted even louder, falling back into Sheila’s arms. She didn’t catch me, though. Instead I puddled through her fingers into a gooey mess on the roof.

“Josh! Josh, what’s going on? JOSH!”

Taking a deep breath (and feeling my lungs inflate like balloons) I tried to imagine myself whole again, 44-inch waist and all. I thought of myself as solid as human as complete.

And when I managed to stop panicking, I felt my body pull itself back together, and I was me again.

“Oh God, Josh, what the hell was that?”

“I don’t know what’s going on, Sheila. I don’t. I--”

As I rambled, a purple-gloved hand stretched up onto the roof, pulling behind it an overly-long individual, wadding all over the place like mint and purple Silly Putty. As he stretched up onto the roof and solidified, we managed to place him as another of the Spectacle Six, DoubleGum Man.

“You people shouldn’t be up here,” he said. “It’s not safe. Get back inside the building and let us handle it.”

“Right,” I gasped, feeling that same old rush and, at the same time, feeling my knees turn to jelly -- literally. “We’ll... we’ll get downstairs.” I grabbed Sheila and headed for the door, just as DoubleGum bounced away towards the rumble. Once we were back inside, the door slammed behind us. I dared to test my limbs, flexing all my muscles and waving my arms around. They were solid. I was normal.

“Josh, what’s going on?”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you!” I shouted. “Sheila... it’s happening. I’ve got super powers.”

“But so many? Teke-bursts and fire and stretching and... Josh nobody has powers that diverse, they say it’s impossible.”

“That’s not it, Sheila, don’t you see? I don’t have any of those powers.”

“I just saw you stretch.”

“But I can’t do it now. And I could only do the teke-burst while Dr. Numbskull was in the room, and that fire thing only worked while Flambeaux was right outside the window. Don’t you get it?”

“Get what?”

“That’s my power. I can duplicate other people’s powers, so long as they’re nearby. It’s like I’m... I don’t know, picking up on ambient energy or something. Man... if I could get around a big, mess of heroes at once I’ll bet I could do anything.”

“Well... what are you going to do?”

I felt another rush this time... not the one that meant I had powers welling up on me... one of pure adrenalin. And I gave her a smile to indicate I knew exactly what I was going to do.

“You’re going to get yourself killed,” she said.

CALLING HOME

I spent the rest of the day shopping, getting materials together for my uniform and facing more than a little ridicule from Sheila in the process. I was ready to put the whole thing together, but there were a few things I was more than a little curious about -- and for all my reporting skills there was always one method of information gathering I turned to when all else failed.

“Hey, Mom, it’s me,” I said when she finally picked up her phone.

“Joshie! How are you, sweetheart?” she asked.

“Not bad--”

“If you’re calling to remind me of your birthday next month, I’ll have you know I already got your present, so you can just stop hinting around, mister. And no, it’s not as good as the Defender footie pajamas you got when you were seven, so you’ll just have to lump it.”

“Nothing like that, Mom.” I had her on speaker phone so I could work with the laces and accessories I’d bought while I talked. “I was just sort of wondering about... things.”

“What sort of things, honey?”

“Well... I had a normal childhood, didn’t I?”

“Let’s see, your father was creep, you nearly died in a fire, you were saved by a Cape... I guess you’d call it normal in a ‘Daytime Talk Show’ sort of way.”

“No, I mean... did anything really bizarre ever happen to me? Or did I ever do anything really bizarre?”

“You used to pour 7-Up in your chicken soup before you ate it. Does that count?”

My cat, a plump tabby, tried to hop up into my lap as I spread out my tunic. He looked up at me with big, wondering eyes (wondering, no doubt, if what I was working on was food and, if so, how was he going to get some). I called the cat Achilles. To this day I don’t know what he called himself, but he certainly never responded to his given name.

“Down boy,” I said.

“What?”

“Not you, mom. I can’t really say that’s what I’m looking for. I never... I dunno, started to float around the room or got bathed in some kind of highly-experimental radioactive fluid, did I?”

“Josh--”

“Mom, I’ll cut to the chase, am I the product of a top-secret government conspiracy?”

She gave me the sigh that let me know I had gone too far. “Josh, I know you’ve always wanted to be a superhero. I blame your father.”

“Dad never said anything to me about superheroes.”

“Your dad never said much of anything to you, that’s why you adopted guys like Lionheart as surrogates. I promise you, Josh, you have led a perfectly normal life, utterly devoid of radiation baths, magic spells and alien abductions. I’m sorry to disappoint you.”

“Meow,” said Achilles. He still wasn’t convinced my latest project wasn’t edible.

“That’s okay, Mom.”

“Why are you bringing all this up now? Did something happen at work?”

“Yeah. I was writing a story about Capes whose powers didn’t manifest until late in life and I was just thinking...”

“Maybe you could be one, right?”

I held out the tunic I’d just finished stitching my superhero emblem. “Yeah. That’s it exactly.”

“All I can say, son, is that if you start emitting radiation, it’s not my fault.”

“Okay. I guess I should go; I’ve got work to do. Oh, and I’m sorry if I wasted your time.”

“Any time, Josh. Oh, and son?”

“Yes?”

“If this is the last time I hear from you before your birthday, you don’t get a present.”

“It’s a deal, Mom.”

After the line was disconnected, I wiggled into the half-finished uniform I’d been stitching. It was exactly as I’d envisioned it. “Well, Achilles?” I asked. “What’s the verdict?”

“Meow,” he observed.

“My thoughts exactly.”

PATROL

You write about superheroes long enough and you learn that the first thing, the most important thing any new hero needs is a good costume. Something proud and strong. Something that makes a bold statement. Something that strikes fear in the hearts of evildoers and inspires awe and respect amongst the peace-loving general populace.

“You look like a dork,” Sheila said.

“Is it the trenchcoat? Is it too much?”

“Oh, I think you crossed the ‘too much’ line when you decided to go with the gold trim,” she said.

I turned back to the full-length mirror Sheila had in her apartment and ran my eyes along the improvised get-up. Wisely choosing to eschew the tights, I’d elected for black trousers and boots and a pair of black leather gloves. My domino mask was the same royal blue as my tunic and a line of gold trim formed the initials “GP” on my chest. I’d topped off the whole ensemble with a black trenchcoat -- partially to give myself a more imposing look and partially in the hopes that any evildoers I ran across would find it distracting enough not to notice they were being jumped by a 250-pound reporter.

“I think it looks pretty good,” I said.

“You look like a dork,” she reiterated.

“You know, my mother always says that clothes do not make the man.”

“Your mother is far more forgiving than our editor will be if you turn in a story about some geek in a trenchcoat with gold laces.”

“I’m not going to write about this! A reporter who’s really a superhero and turns in stories about himself? How unethical would that be?”

To be perfectly honest, I kind of felt like a dork, too, but there was no way I’d admit that to Sheila. Instead I just flexed my leather-clad fists and said, “Open the window.”

“The window? For what?”

“So I can go on my first patrol.”

“Josh, you’ve read way too many comic books. What happens if you come across a mugger? Or a bank robber? Someone with no powers for you to duplicate? You could get killed.”

“So I only go after Masks. No non-powered opponents.”

“Oh, that’s better. Now it’s between you -- a novice with no clue as to what he’s doing -- and people who have dealt with these abilities every day of their lives.”

“Come on, Sheila. It’ll be a massacre.”

“That’s exactly what I’m afraid of.”

Frowning at her skepticism, I went and opened the window myself. I had already scrambled halfway out onto the fire escape when I felt her warm hand wrap around my arm.

“Josh, just... be careful.” She placed a chaste kiss on my cheek and gave my arm a squeeze. I smiled back at her.

“I’ll be fine,” I promised.

To my chagrin, I soon found that “fine” was a relative term. Usually the urban superheroes without some method of flight or propulsion carried cables and grappling hooks that allowed rapid transportation from rooftop to rooftop. In my case, what you had was a fat guy scrabbling up and down fire escapes with a pair of binoculars banging against his chest. I wasn’t going to be instilling fear in any crooks anytime soon, but I was hoping I’d at least have them paralyzed with laughter long enough to leap down and take them out with their own powers.

Remembering what Sheila said about a bank robber, I decided the primary place to survey on my patrol would be the First National Bank. Two fire escapes and a pulled shoulder muscle later, I decided that was way the hell too far away and I’d go to the Fourth National Bank instead. After nearly slipping on a ladder and falling to a grisly death, I cut my losses and held patrol over a nearby ATM.

I sat on the fire escape glaring at that ATM for about three hours -- most of which I spent trying to concoct a story to feed to Sheila to avoid ridicule: “Well there I was, surrounded by Herr Nemesis and the Tantric Trio, when I remembered Aura’s weakness to magnifying glasses...”

It was about two a.m. at this point and the worst crime I’d seen thus far was a stray dog peeing on a fire hydrant. I was ready to pack it in and go home when God smiled on me and the woman in the brown coat showed up. She had short-cropped blonde hair that fell into her face every so often, and she’d brush it aside with her blue-gloved hand. Her mask was familiar, but it wasn’t quite clicking where I’d seen this tiny woman before.

Standing on tiptoes, she glared into the two-way mirror that masked the ATM’s security camera, as if she was making sure it saw her. Then she tossed her coat aside and I realized where I’d encountered her before. It was that afternoon in the Powerlines office.

“Miss Sinistah,” I hissed.

The villainess craned her arm back and shattered the face of the ATM with a superhuman punch. Cash was flying everywhere. I didn’t know how she’d escaped Dr. Noble, nor did I care. It was going to feel great to bring in a Mask that had evaded our Beloved Champion.

As I scrambled down the fire escape, I began to feel the now-familiar Rush (it was important enough, I’d decided, to capitalize) come over me. My muscles toughened and the exhaustion drained from my limbs. I was ready to take her down.

Apparently, though, one of Miss Sinistah’s powers was not super-coordination, because my attempt to leap from the fire escape and land in a dramatic pose wound up with me dangling from the ladder by one foot and my head rattling around inside a garbage can.

My head clunked against the metal and I grunted, more from habit than from any actual pain. I hung there, banging my head against aluminum and smelling what must have been a mix of orange peels, coffee grounds and certain feminine hygiene products, and the only thing I could think of before a hand wrapped around my ankle and lifted me out was, “Well this is stupid.”

I stared at a pair of red boots and wondered why on Earth anyone would choose stiletto heels for combat. Despite the blood rushing to my head, I managed to bend my neck until I was looking at her knees. Then the blue trunks that only just covered her thighs. Then her bare midriff. And then slightly higher I saw...

“I’m up here, lunkhead,” she said.

With Herculean effort I bent my neck a bit farther so I could look into a pair of the iciest blue eyes I’d ever seen.

“And who are you supposed to be? I wasn’t told there were any new guys on this assignment.”

I twisted my leg, breaking free of her grip, and somehow rolled myself into a standing position. “I’m one of the good guys.” I grabbed the lid off a trash can and, using Sinistah’s own super-strength, drove my fist clean through it. This, along with my brilliant dialogue, was intended to be impressive. Instead, as Sheila doubtlessly would have informed me, I looked like a dork with my fist in a garbage can lid.

“One of the good guys? Please.” There was a new Rush and a shape descended from the sky. He took a spot next to Sinistah, folded his arms and frowned.

“Doctor Noble!” I suddenly felt lightheaded, trying to imagine myself slugging it out with Siegel City’s Sweetheart. “I knew you were a jackass,” I said, “but I didn’t think you’d be in league with the Malevolence Mob!”

“Don’t tell me...” he mumbled.

“I think so,” she said, frowning. “What’s your name, honey?”

I steeled myself and spat out the introductory line I’d rehearsed in Sheila’s apartment.

“You can call me,” pause for dramatic effect, “the Great Pretender!” I pointed a thumb at the insignia on my chest. “And I’m going to use your own powers to put you both out of commission!”

There was a long, hideous silence.

And then Noble started to laugh. Not quite as loudly as Sheila had.

Sinistah slapped him on the arm. “Now cut that out,” she said. “He doesn’t know.”

“Know what?” I shouted. “Look, I don’t need to know any more than I already do. People deserve to know that their ‘hero’ is corrupt. You’re not walking away from here.”

I launched my fist at Noble’s jaw, but it stopped in midair some inches from his face. That’s when I knew guys with telekinetic powers really honked me off.

“Amateur,” he said in the tone of voice you use to describe intestinal discomfort. He squinted and I felt a pinching inside my neck. The world swam around me, dissolved into a haze, and I collapsed.

“What did you do, Todd?” I heard Sinistah ask.

“Don’t get ‘em in a bunch,” Noble growled. “I just cut off the blood to his brain to knock him out. He’ll be fine.”

“Should we take him to Morrie?”

“Standard protocol,” he said. “Hey... his eyes just moved. I guess I didn’t whammy him good enough.”

The pinching resumed, and the last thing I wondered before I blacked out was where I’d heard the name “Morrie” before that day.

ISSUE THREE

OFFICE PARTY

I awoke to the gentlest brushes on my cheek and a sweet voice saying, “Preten -- um -- honey? Whatever your name is, come on, wake up. It’ll be okay, I promise.”

The voice alone was enough of an incentive for me to pry my eyes open. As the universe returned to me I saw an incredible woman wearing Miss Sinistah’s costume. She looked warm, tender -- it was like having my own personal angel to welcome me back to consciousness. As my head began to clear I realized it was Miss Sinistah. Somehow I hadn’t recognized her without her mask.

Dear God, she was beautiful.

“Are you all right?”

“Oh, sure,” I said, hoping I sounded more sophisticated than I felt. “That’s the last time that train will try to hit me.”

“I’m sorry about To -- Doctor Noble. He’s not aware of this new technique we have called ‘talking to people’.”

“Oh, like he would have listened,” Noble grumbled, alerting me to the fact that Sinistah and I were not alone. I blinked a few more times, extinguishing the sleep in my eyes, and I was in an office, lying back in a swiveling chair in front of a desk. I was turned to the side so I could see the door to my right and the desk to my left. Noble was sitting on a couch next to the door, mask down, moping. With his mask off I saw that he had, in addition to his nasty attitude and ugly, stupid eyes, one massive eyebrow marching across his forehead. Actually, that’s not doing it justice -- it looked like his lauded aliens had grafted a mutant caterpillar to his face while they were busy giving him his powers. It felt slightly gratifying.

I could still feel the Rush coming from Noble and Sinistah (actually, I felt considerably more than just the Rush from Sinistah), but I was also feeling more power hitting me from the left. Standing next to a desk was a woman in magenta robes with a blood-red medallion around her neck. Her skin was a lighter shade than her clothing but still quite a satisfactory purple and her eyes were white and pupil-less -- she looked like some bizarre mutation of Little Orphan Annie. Her pointed ears probably could have been covered by her hair if not for the fact that she was completely bald. A guy who didn’t work for a superhero news rag probably would have found her familiar but be unable to place a finger on her identity. One of the first things you go through when you get a job at Powerlines, though, is an intense rundown of all known Capes and Masks in the city -- this girl in particular, because people had an interesting tendency to “forget” her. She was the mysterious heroine known as Mental Maid.

And, of course, sitting behind the desk, gnawing on an imported la repulsiva cigar, was my old pal Morrie Abadie.

“Mister Cordwood,” he said, “a pleasure to speak to you again.”

“For the last time, it’s Corwood, not -- hey! How did you --” My hand went up to my face and traced the outline of my domino mask, still firmly set.

“You don’t really think that’s much of a disguise, do you?” he chuckled. “I can still see your eyes, nose, cheekbones -- every distinguishing feature. That kind of mask gives you about as much anonymity as a pair of glasses.”

“Yeah? What about guys like Hotshot? Jackal? The Marauder? It’s good enough for them.”

“They have a gal like Mental Maid to make sure nobody pays too much attention. You don’t got that yet, kid. Even half-masks wouldn’t protect you for long without her doin’ her thing.” He expelled a gray-blue ring of smoke into the air from between his fleshy lips. “So, ‘Pretender,’ what do you do, anyway?”

My intended response was to invite him to perform a certain anatomical impossibility, but instead I found myself answering, “I can duplicate other people’s powers if I’m in close range.”

Morrie’s eyes lit up and, for the first time, I detected a hint of cunning behind them to match his greed and lack of scruples. “Really?” he said. “And can you do anybody’s powers?”

“Everyone I’ve tried so far.”

“Yeah? Gimme a list.”

“Miss Sinistah. Flambeaux. DoubleGum Man. The Gunk, now that I think about it. Doctor Dunderhead here.” Noble blanched at that, but I saw a sly grin trace its way across Sinistah’s face.

“And I’m not sure how they work,” I finished, “but I can feel Mental Maid’s powers running through me right now.” A light went off. “That’s how you’re doing this, aren’t you? She’s forcing me to answer your questions.”

“Better than any truth serum,” Morrie said. “So how long have you been aping powers off my boys?”

“I only realized I could do it today,” I said. “But I think I did it once when I was a kid. When Lionheart saved me from a fire.”

“Oooh, Lionheart. ‘Course, you’re still practically a kid now, musta been just before he took a powder.”

“Bite me.” I’m still not sure if Mental Maid’s truth powers made me say that or not. I rather hope not.

“Don’t get cocky, kid, I haven’t made up my mind about you yet.”

“What are you babbling about? Look, I don’t know how you warped these heroes into your schemes, but if you’re going to kill me just go ahead and do it or I’ll --”

Morrie and Noble exploded into laughter. Sinistah shot them both a dirty look.

“What? What did I say?”

“I’m sorry,” Sinistah said. “They never act civil to people from the outside.”

“What the hell is going on?” I shouted.

“Morrie?” There was a knock at the door and a man in red, black and gold poked his head in. Even if it weren’t for the sunburst emblem on his belt buckle and the freshly-ridiculed half-mask, I would have recognized this guy. He was Hotshot, the last active member of the now-defunct LightCorps, the team Lionheart had founded.

And in his hands was what appeared to be a script.

“Hey, Minister Malice and I had some questions about Tuesday’s rumble. Have you got a minute?”

“Not now, ‘Shot,” Morrie said. “We’re having a discussion with our friend Mister Corwood. We’ll go over it later.”

“Okay, Morrie.” He grinned straight at me on his way out. “Good luck, kid,” he said.

“What...” I said.

“The hell...” I continued.

“Was that?” I added for clarity.

“That was Hotshot goin’ over his next fight with Minister Malice. And it’s a damn good thing, too. Usually it’s like pulling teeth to get any decent rehearsal time outta Mister ‘I Was In the Original LightCorps...’”

“No,” I said. “I mean... what the hell was that?”

“It’s like having a parrot isn’t it?” Noble smirked.

“He’s a hero!” I shouted. “He’s not supposed to be in cahoots with people like Minister Malice or... or you.”

Morrie sighed. “You still don’t get it, do you kid?”

“What is there to get?”

“It’s all a fake. A fraud. The battles are staged. The villains are actors. The stuff you’ve spent your life following and reporting on has all the legitimacy of a pro wrestling match.”

“Liar!”

“Afraid not. There hasn’t been a real superhero battle in Siegel City for nearly ten years.”

LUNCH BREAK

Morrie’s office, as it turned out, was part of a much larger underground complex that housed dorms, studios, laboratories, various workout, training and rehearsal areas and, apparently, a first-rate cafeteria, all buried in the superstructure of Simon Tower. Miss Sinistah took me for some food to ponder the offer Morrie had laid on the table.

“I just don’t know about this,” I said. “It seems so... dishonest.”

“We’re just actors, Josh,” she said. “It’s like being on a movie or on a soap opera.”

“Except that the audience knows a soap opera is fake. Superhero rumbles don’t get interrupted by Proctor & Gamble ads.”

We were in the food line with about a dozen other Capes and Masks getting their late-night lunches. Many more were already seated and eating. This was a nocturnal crowd, I realized. I recognized the Squid and DeVinity right away, and Merlin Junior was sitting with his legs crossed, hovering along and picking up food as he went.

Swordplay and Whipstar, supposedly mortal enemies, were in line ahead of us, laughing and clapping each other on the back like they were kids in summer camp, and the Justice Giant had his massive arms wrapped around the death-masked Solemna, a villain I knew had tried to kill him at least seven times in the past week. I’d even managed to get a telephone quote from the guy: “When I get my hands on that horror movie reject, I’m going to send her back to whatever unmarked grave she crawled out of.”

He was saying considerably different things to her in the cafeteria line. “More pudding, sweets?” for instance, and, “Of course I don’t mind if your mother comes for a visit.” I kept expecting Rod Serling to make an appearance.

Aside from the sudden surprises I’d gotten just from a visual standpoint, I was feeling a stronger influx of power than I’d ever known before. Each time one of these guys walked past me I felt a new Rush, a new power, that faded as they moved away. Now I could walk through walls. Now I could disintegrate them. Now I could speak any language ever written. Now I could dance the Alligator faster than anybody in the world.