Corpies (Super Powereds Spinoff Book 1) (21 page)

“We’re not machines,” Hexcellent said. “Supers, sure, but we still get tired and worn out. The last thing anyone needs is a PEERS rescue team too tired to do their job well; we’d just be in the fucking way. Probably why the DVA made that rule.”

“If they didn’t, you know Greene would have us running all over the place three hundred and sixty five days a year,” Zone muttered between bites of organic oatmeal.

“I’m sure
Mr
. Greene would use our time wisely, even without oversight from the DVA,” Galvanize said quickly. “However, I know we all enjoy our day off and are grateful to have it. Personally, I’m going to head upstate and visit some friends from college. What does everyone else have planned?”

“Dicking around,” Hexcellent said with a shrug. “Maybe buy some new video games, hit up a comic shop, the usual.”

“I’ve got an audition for a spot on a local commercial,” Bubble Bubble said. She was eating a bowl of what appeared to be fresh strawberries and drinking a cup of green tea, taking each bite with a practiced delicacy.

“You’re not supposed to work,” Galvanize reminded her.

“No, the company cannot
compel
me to work. What I do with my own time is my business. I booked this audition through a non-Mordent representative and Mr. Greene approved the role as image-acceptable.”

“I guess that’s fine then.” Galvanize didn’t look particularly fine with it, but without a point to actually object to, he seemed resolved to not starting a fight. “How about you, Zone?”

“Gym, training, then maybe heading down to the lake,” Zone replied. “My cousin’s renting a house out there and says it’s a good place to relax. Plus, why bother having a body like this if I’m not going to show it off?” Zone accentuated his point by lifting his arm and flexing his bicep, which was indeed large and well-defined.

“Try to behave yourself. After the last pregnancy scare you know Mr. Greene is keeping abreast of your extracurricular activities,” Galvanize cautioned. Zone gave a half-hearted nod and went back to eating his oatmeal, so Galvanize turned to the final member of the team.

“How about you, Titan? I know you’re new in town, but is there anything you think you’ll do with your day off?”

“You’re welcome to tag along with me,” Hexcellent offered. “You know I hate carrying shit, and Big Henry isn’t exactly crowd friendly.”

“Much as I appreciate it, I think I’ll have to decline,” Owen said. “If I have a day off I should probably use it trying to dig into what’s been discovered about those robots attacks.”

“That sounds more like a day working a side-job than a day off,” Galvanize told him.

“Heroes are generally shitty at taking days off. We’re the type of people who need to be up in the action constantly, otherwise we wouldn’t have chosen this sort of career.” Owen left out the other aspects of it: the guilt, the fear, the constant unease. At least when a Hero was doing something, they felt there was a certain amount of control. After taking a decade off, Owen wasn’t really itching to get back to a life of leisure.

“Try and rest a little bit, if you can,” Galvanize said. “I know physically you’re always in tip-top shape, but mental health is important too.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that. See, I don’t have any real resources for research, which means I’m going to have to bum information off other Heroes. Since I don’t really know any here, at least none that don’t actively distrust me, there’s only one way for me to make those connections and get that info.”

“You going to tease us with this shit all morning or you going to tell us what mysterious Hero technique you’re going to employ?” Hexcellent asked.

“Nothing fancy or mysterious. I’m gathering information the same way people have been doing it for centuries,” Owen said. “I’m going to a bar.”

38.

A rookie Hero might have been surprised by the amount of people in Brin’s Gate despite the early afternoon hour, but Owen had been around enough to know that Heroes didn’t live on set schedules like people working normal jobs. They worked as needed, slept when they could, and took time to socialize whenever they could manage to find the opportunity. To someone who worked a nine-to-five, the idea of having beers with friends at one in the afternoon was scandalous, but to a team coming off a twenty-hour patrol shift, it was a chance to unwind.

The bartender greeted Owen’s entrance with a familiar nod. Even having only come in once before, having Gale vouch for him had effectively set up Owen as a known customer, and that meant he’d be able to get real drinks and service. When he was younger he’d worried about going to the bars where Heroes congregated unmasked; after all, what if someone managed to get hold of the staff and torture out information? That was when his mentor explained that these establishments tended to be owned and run by former Heroes, people who weren’t quite so easy to coerce. Even with that, there was still a certain amount of risk, but it was one most Heroes made peace with. No one could be the job full-time. Owen had learned early on that if you didn’t make time for the person under the mask then both identities quickly burned away.

Owen got a beer, dropping a few bills on the counter to pay for it. These places didn’t take cards or checks: too easy to create a paper trail of clientele. It was cash-only, though some establishments let the more trusted and frequent patrons run tabs. He leaned back against the bar and scanned the room, taking note of each patron.

In one corner was a group of four people leaning in and talking in hushed voices. A team no doubt, and probably discussing some matter they should have dealt with at their base. Against the far wall was another cluster of people, this one so large it needed two tables to seat everyone. This group was laughing and seemed to be enjoying themselves. Owen guessed they were either all old friends who had met up or a group that just finished a successful team collaboration. Either way, he wasn’t likely to find anyone in there he could talk to.

His best bet was a solo drinker, someone who wasn’t already encompassed by the shell of a conversation. At the bar were two such people. One sat near Owen nursing a glass of scotch, while the other sat several stools down sipping on some light blue cocktail. Scotch was an older man, face a bit haggard and eyes a touch sunken. He was a man who’d been in the life for a long while, and it had taken its toll on him. Cocktail was male too, but he was younger, with a bit of cheer still shining through as he texted on his phone. It seemed a good bet that Scotch was here just to drink, while Cocktail was waiting for people to join him.

Owen took his time deciding which one to approach. Scotch would be skilled and smart, not to mention open about sharing resources with a fellow Hero. The problem was, Scotch had the look of a man who’d seen too much, and wasn’t eager to get any more action than he had to. That meant he probably wasn’t proactive; more likely he just took calls from Dispatch and did his job. While Scotch was probably the better overall resource, Cocktail still had vigor and optimism. That would make him a better connection to have in the long-term.

“Mind if I ask what you’re drinking?” Owen said, sliding a few seats down the bar. “I don’t recall the last time I saw that shade of blue in anything non-toxic.”

“This might still qualify as toxic; it’s got enough alcohol in it to turn me flammable,” Cocktail replied. “It’s called an Adios Mother Fucker, basically a Long Island except you add Blue Curacao, switch the Coke for Sprite, and double up on all the booze measurements.”

“Damn, sounds like somebody named that thing well. I admire your courage putting that in your body.”

“I’m heartier than I look,” Cocktail replied. That was probably saying quite a bit, because he looked hearty to begin with. Every Hero worked out constantly—that part of HCP training was never forgotten—but even by Hero standards Cocktail had a wide set of shoulders and well-defined arms. He struck one of them out to shake Owen’s hand. “Name’s Jeremiah.”

“Real name? You’re a trusting fellow.”

“No, Jeremiah is my code name. Long story.”

“Aren’t they all?” Owen chuckled. He reached over and took the younger man’s hand, giving it a gentle but firm shake. “Pleasure to meet you. I’m Titan.”

Jeremiah’s eyes went wide, but thankfully he didn’t jerk his hand away or recoil. Instead, his smile deepened and he stared at Owen more carefully, clearly trying to imagine the man before him in costume. “I’d heard scuttlebutt that you were back in the life and setting up shop in Brewster no less, but I didn’t really believe it.” They finished shaking hands and Jeremiah picked up his cocktail again. “Then again, that’s assuming you’re really him.”

“I’d offer to lift something heavy, but I just started coming to this bar and I’d rather not piss off the owner. Besides, who would really want to fake being Titan?”

“Someone trying to scare the crap out of villains, probably. Or trying to win respect. But I’m inclined to believe you; you definitely have the stature of Titan. Pair that with the rumors, it seems to add up nicely. Tell me something: are you really running around with a group of corpies these days? I assumed that part had to be people making shit up.”

Owen resisted the urge to tell Jeremiah that the official term was PEERS; he needed to stay on his new friend’s good side if he wanted to start asking for favors and information so soon. “That part is completely true. They’re all good kids, doing the best they can to give back, and I’m enjoying working with them.”

“Of course you are.” Jeremiah took a long draw from the glass of blue liquid. His voice had been somewhere between sincere and mocking, just between the two enough that it was impossible to pin down which had been intentional. “Tell me, Titan, what brings you out today?”

“Can’t a man want a beer?”

“Certainly, but that’s not why you’re here. You cased the room as soon as you walked in, then spent two and half minutes debating whether to approach me or the other gentleman down there. Now you’re trying to ingratiate yourself to me. Obviously you’re either after new friends, teammates, or information; I just thought I’d save us some time and cut to the quick of it.”

Owen looked the man over once more, with newfound respect. “Telepath?”

“Not even a little bit. Let’s just say I majored in one of the less respectable options for people in our careers.”

Owen didn’t need any more than that: Jeremiah was a Subtlety Hero. That explained the keen observational skills. They were the Heroes who focused on code cracking, information gathering, and certain unsavory activities that were necessary for Heroes, but not quite as respectable or flashy as punching out a bank-robber. Many Heroes treated those who focused in Subtlety as inherently untrustworthy, at least until they’d been around long enough to see what the Subtlety Heroes brought to the table. To Owen, however, this was the best possible profession for his new acquaintance to have. Subtlety Heroes were all about information, and that was exactly what he’d come out looking for.

“How about I buy you another one of those blue drinks, and you tell me what you know about robots?”

39.

              “By my count, we’re up to number five,” Jeremiah said after slowly draining a portion of his bright blue drink. “Of course, that’s a bit of speculation; whoever this is certainly doesn’t have monopoly on robots. But going by style and evolution of their design, it seems safe to say we just put down the fifth generation.”

Owen nodded and took a sip of his own beer. “Seeing as that’s hardly common knowledge around town, I’m guessing the others were easier to beat?”

“The first few were, but the fourth generation gave us a bit of trouble. That’s why some of us started doing the research and keeping a log of when these showed up. Each time is always the same: robots show up, cause enough destruction or disturbance to draw out some Heroes, then go to town on them. For those of us with some wits and experience, it’s not a giant issue, but this time they got hold of a team of rookies. That upped the collateral damage considerably.”

“From what I saw yesterday, Wild Bucks going down early in the fight may have been the best thing for everyone,” Owen said.

“Maybe so, but it made the rest of us a lot more cautious. These things were a big leap ahead from generation four. Learning as they fought was bad enough; add in the healing abilities and you get a bot that can catch even a seasoned Hero off guard.”

“Five generations, all with no other goals than fighting Heroes. Has to be a refinement game then,” Owen said. It might be a criminal organization training new members or tech-geniuses testing out designs; either way, there was no shortage of people who used Heroes to refine their abilities. It was a dangerous game to play; every asset lost could put Heroes closer to the main inventor or organization. The flip side was that such a trial-by-fire method could significantly increase the power and knowledge of those pulling the strings.

“That’s what we’re hoping,” Jeremiah said. “The other option is that someone is trying to get enough information on how each Hero in Brewster fights so that they can try and do a purge.”

“In a town this hot? They’d have to be more than crazy, they’d have to be stupid, and whoever built those things is far from stupid.” Owen had only personally witnessed one attempted purge in his lifetime: a coordinated effort by nearly every criminal, Super or mundane, to simultaneously kill off all the Heroes in their city. That had been when he was starting out, fresh off his internship, in a city smaller than Brewster where The Gentle Hammers were one of only three Super teams. To their credit, the criminals had been smart, prepared, and well-coordinated. What they hadn’t been, however, was counting on the new team to be as unstoppable as they were. The effort was foiled, though each of the other teams lost people in the process. It had been a hard, bloody introduction to the world of Heroes, one that Titan had never forgotten.