Corpies (Super Powereds Spinoff Book 1) (13 page)

“Could someone at least tell me what I’m in trouble for?”

“You’re not in trouble, dumbass. You’re just not our little secret anymore.” Hexcellent made this announcement just before she drilled her finger into the television’s volume button, filling the room with crystal clear sound from expensive surround-sound speakers.

“
-which were cleaned up less than an hour later. Neither Elemental Fury nor Shifter’s Assembly were able to be reached for comment.

“If you’re just joining us, today in downtown Brewster several automated robots attempted to carve a path of destruction before being thwarted by several of our local Hero teams. Later tonight our team will tell you what this most recent uptick in violence will mean for your weekend.

“In related news, the most surprising part of today’s attack was not the robots themselves, but who appeared to help stop them.”

The picture on the television switched from the anchor with perfectly-sprayed hair and unnervingly white teeth to shaky footage clearly taken by someone with a cell phone. It only took Owen a glance to recognize what was happening on the film. It wasn’t hard to remember; after all, he’d been there only a couple of hours ago.

“Sources have confirmed that the man in the picture is in fact Titan, a Hero formerly associated with the Chicago area and known for both his strength and the scandal that drove him out of the public eye over a decade ago. Already people are having powerful reactions to his reappearance;, let’s go to Janice-”

Hexcellent hit mute, then turned to Owen. “Seems you still look enough like yourself to get recognized.”

Owen allowed himself a brief moment’s chuckle. “I bet that kid from the store opening is pissed he didn’t grab an autograph.”

“I’m glad you two find this so amusing, because your little escapade has torched our entire plan for announcing your new position and controlling the spin of the story,” Mr. Greene snapped. “Dozens of carefully planned, focus-group-tested events and promotions all rendered useless because you couldn’t stop yourself from punching some robots.”

“Hang on now, are you trying to give me shit for doing my job? Hero Liaisons are still Heroes, we have responsibilities to the public. I’ll say I’m sorry that this made controlling your precious image harder, but if you’re waiting for me to apologize for stopping threats to innocent people and property then you better have a toilet and a novel handy, cause it’ll be a while.”

“No one is upset with you for stopping those things,” Galvanize said, hurriedly stepping in. “Mr. Greene just wishes you’d told us as soon as it happened so he could have gotten ahead of the story. It’s my fault as much as anyone’s. I should have briefed you on that policy before you and Hexcellent went out this morning. It just didn’t occur to me that anything would happen.”

“Are you kidding?” Zone said from the couch. “How could it not? Once he was away from us I bet Titan couldn’t wait to get the cameras on him. He probably called in favors specifically to have them routed to him, all so he could play big bad Hero for the camer- OW!”

The last bit came as Hexcellent took the remote still clutched in her hand and brought it down on Zone’s well-gelled head. It struck so hard that the back flew open and one of the batteries popped out.

“Cut the fucking temper tantrums, Zone. He didn’t do shit. Titan came with me, stayed properly to the sidelines, and minded his manners the entire day. The only reason he took on those robots is because they were literally coming right for us. I’ve watched videos of what those things did to downtown, and if he hadn’t hung around to tear them up, that mall would be in pieces and at least some people would be dead. Even at that, he still took the time to try and get me away to safety before fucking those things up. Be a pissy bitch all you want about real shit, but there was a situation that needed handling and Titan handled it. End of story.”

For a moment, the air between the two teammates grew very tense. There was a second, a very long and dangerous second, when Owen thought Zone was legitimately going to take a swing at Hexcellent. Thankfully, the moment passed, and Zone leaned back into the couch, a sour expression on his face but otherwise silent.

“Right then. Since I’ve already spoken with the DVA and they confirmed that you were pulled in out of necessity, you didn’t violate any protocol with your actions.” Mr. Greene didn’t need to add the “this time” to his statement; his tone already implied it perfectly. “Please do a better job of keeping us in the loop in the future, though. I’d like to remind you that it isn’t just our ‘precious image’ that I’m here to manage, it’s yours as well.”

“Appreciate the concern, but I already pay someone for that.”

“And I’m sure he’s just as good as an entire staff of trained and experienced public relations professionals,” Mr. Greene scoffed. “Regardless, you need to tell us when these incidents happen,
especially
when one of our people is on the scene with you.”

Owen bit back his planned retort, a very graphic description of what Greene could do to his “public relations professionals,” and made himself calm down. While Owen was the new guy and couldn’t be held too accountable for not calling things in, Hexcellent didn’t have his excuse or his level of fame. Making waves might end up with her head going below water, and he wouldn’t be responsible for that.

“I’m sorry I didn’t call it in,” Owen said slowly. “In the future, I’ll make sure to report these sorts of things as soon as they happen.”

“That’s all I wanted to hear,” Mr. Greene said. “Now go fill out an incident report. I have damage control to do.”

Owen just nodded. He didn’t trust his tongue with the freedom to speak.

22.

              Owen had barely finished filling out the incident report when he heard a soft knock on his bedroom door. After no one immediately came through, he realized the person on the other side was waiting for permission, not announcing their entry. These kids were a lot better about personal space than his first Hero team had been, though given the way some of them got along, that might have been out of necessity.

“Come in.”

The door opened and Galvanize stepped through, already suited up in full costume. “Titan, we’ve got some work to do.”

“No voice over the speaker this time?”

“Mr. Greene only uses the emergency alert system when we have assignments of a time-sensitive nature,” Galvanize explained. “Today we’re going downtown to help with the cleanup efforts. No one is in immediate danger.”

“Why would we go help with cleanup? There’s already people for that.” Collateral damage from fights between Supers was a constant issue in any major city, even with Heroes doing their best to keep situations contained. Decades ago, some enterprising people with useful abilities had recognized that this situation had the potential for profit and founded companies specifically to handle the cleanup. With a few Supers whose talents lent themselves to quickly moving or fixing rubble and a teleporter who had decent range, anyone could land contracts with a city to fix what the Supers broke.

“They handle the large-scale issues: clearing streets and making sure no buildings come crashing down. There’s still a lot left to do after a conflict like what we saw today. Streets to sweep, glass to clear, small repairs to be made, that sort of thing. The cleaners are there to make sure the city stays up and running, they’re far less concerned with helping everyone impacted by a battle.”

“Well, that seems a lot like bullshit to me,” Owen said. “I thought the city paid them to take care of everyone.”

“Some services do exactly that, but they also charge more for it. Brewster’s mayor and city council decided to use companies that get the bulk of the work done and let the citizens handle the small stuff on their own.”

Owen let out a sigh and got up from his chair. Once upon a time that sort of thing would have set him off on a tirade, but he was too old and too jaded to get worked up over it now. Government officials were always going to find ways to move money from essential services to things they thought were more worthwhile. . . usually their own pockets. Heroes might be able to lift buildings and defy gravity, but no one could keep greedy, self-serving shitheads out of government. Some things were simply too impossible.

“How long do I have to change?”

“Fifteen minutes. We’re meeting in the garage again.”

“Gotcha. I can be there in five.” Owen grabbed the papers off his small desk and walked over to Galvanize, thrusting them toward the younger man. “Here’s my report about the robots. I think it’ll get Greene off my ass.”

“Mr. Greene is just worried about the team,” Galvanize assured him. He took the papers from Owen and gave them a quick scan. “But speaking of Mr. Greene, I feel it only appropriate to warn you that there will be a very large media presence when we get downtown. He wants you out in the limelight under the company’s approved plan.”

“Of course he does.” Owen shook his head; it was becoming more and more apparent that Greene was going to be a problem. It wasn’t an issue when he pulled this crap in regards to Owen’s Hero Liaison duties, but if he got uppity every time Titan was seen doing Hero work then they were going to quickly come to an impasse. “Don’t worry about me and the cameras; I used to deal with them all the time. Are you guys going to be okay, though? There’s going to some people mighty pissed off that your Hero Liaison is me.”

Galvanize smiled, showing two perfect rows of bleached-white teeth that were both impressive and unnatural. “Oh no, you mean people might not think that highly of us? We might become the butt of the Super community’s jokes, or treated like a bunch of loser wannabes? How on earth would we ever handle something like that? Personally, I can’t even get out of bed in the morning unless I’m roused by screaming fans outside my window.”

“Okay, smartass, you made your point. I guess being associated with me won’t be that bad.”

“I’m sure we’ll still catch a fair amount of crap,” Galvanize said, tucking Owen’s report under his arm. “We’re just used to muddling through it. Being a corpie isn’t a glamorous life, despite what the companies are hoping for. But at the end of the day we make the world a better place. No amount of people being jerks or looking down on us can take that away. I’m sure I don’t have to explain that to a Hero.”

“I’ve known a few who could have benefited from hearing that,” Owen replied. “I’ll be down in the garage in a few minutes, just need to change into a shirt that doesn’t have robot laser scorch marks.”

“And here I didn’t take you for the vain type.”

“Like I said, I used to do this a lot. What we have today is an unveiling, and you always go to those looking your best,” Owen said. “As my agent told me back when I started: you want to look clean, put-together, and ready for anything. You want to make the regular people fall in love and the criminals shit their pants. Always be bigger than life.”

“Sounds as though your agent and Mr. Greene would get along.”

“Yeah, I sort of doubt that,” Owen replied.

“Well, do what you need to do; just be ready to go soon. All media attention aside, there really is work to be done.” Galvanize took Owen’s report and headed out of the door, leaving the large man to change.

Owen walked over to his closet and pulled it open. He still had four unmarred Titan shirts left. The things were durable as all hell, but no one doing Hero work could keep an outfit clean for long. One of the first things a Hero learned to budget for was all the new costumes they would need. He’d thought six would be enough to last him a while, but between Alexandria’s flames and the robot’s lasers, his shirts were dropping fast. Tonight he’d call Lenny and see about getting hooked up with a new distributor.  

In the meantime, he had rubble to clear and cameras to greet.

23.

Despite Galvanize’s warnings, there wasn’t an enormous media presence when the giant SUV pulled to a stop on a slightly-cracked downtown street. In fact, there were fewer reporters than people in costumes. Many of the latter had trash cans and brooms positioned near them. Owen recognized a couple of people from the recent research he’d done about Brewster’s current lineup (being caught off guard by Gale had been quite the wake-up call) and was surprised to realize there were actual Heroes involved in the efforts and not just other corpies. He wondered if Chicago had been worked by cleaners who handled the little stuff, or if he’d just been too caught up in the action part of the job to realize there were people in need even after the fighting was done.

Though there were fewer reporters than Owen had been expecting, it seemed that those who were present really had been waiting for him. No sooner had his giant boots touched down on the broken pavement than a flurry of people with inhumanly perfect skin and professionally tailored outfits descended on him. It was like being attacked by department store mannequins. Owen held up a single hand and they halted their charge, though it didn’t keep their voices from ringing out.

“Titan! Is it true you’re really the original Titan and not a legacy?”

“What Hero team are you looking to work with?”