Superhero Universe: Tesseracts Nineteen (19 page)

I stood up and threw the remote across the room. “It’s
jujitsu
!”

“Maybe if you had a better job than at a pet store, you could get out of my apartment.”

“It’s not a
pet store
. Birds, exotic birds. And maybe it’s my apartment and I let
you
live here.”

She snorted. “Yeah, and maybe you pay less than a third of the rent. You think you’re all set, the creepy little brother I’m going to float for life. Guess what?
It ain’t happening.
”

“I’m putting fifty dollars more to the rent starting next month. A hundred.” I had some money saved up, but I wanted to save it for equipment. Maybe a scuba tank, I was thinking I probably needed an underwater suit. Just in case.

I went into my room and slammed the door, hard. I’d taped headlines from the
Star
on
the
wall, floor to ceiling: BLUE TITAN SAVES GRADE SCHOOL. SOLON GIVEN KEY TO CITY. LEAGUE OF RECTITUDE FOILS MOLEMEN. When it was me, I’d buy the whole stack of papers.

“Almost twenty-one years old,” she yelled through the door. “Twenty-one years old, living off your sister and working at the pet store.”

Living with a secret identity is a special hell. But those closest to you, the people you love, even when they’re being a bitch and won’t let you watch a major operation on the national news, they can never know. For their protection.

“Exotic birds.”

* * *

Valkyrie, the Red Veil, I don’t know what they do. Los Fantomas. Mostly, when I’m in the field I carry my equipment in a backpack, go by a dumpster to change and just hide my clothes and hope they’re there when I get back. I carried a little bag for my street clothes for a while, but you could tell it wasn’t part of the suit, it just looked stupid.

I’ve lost a couple pairs of jeans.

I walked fast down 46th Street. I was late for my class at Ken’s Academy of Jujitsu, my dojo. Ken wasn’t somebody who waited, and I was supposed to practice katas for my blue belt.

A roar ripped the air overhead. I cupped my hands over my eyes. A yellow slash of light snapped through the sky, maybe a hundred feet up, and the sonic boom rolled down the corridor of buildings and shook in my lungs.

A woman in a business suit jumped and spilled coffee down her blouse. “Well shit,” she said, and threw the paper cup on the sidewalk.

“The Bolt,” I said. I tapped her on the shoulder. “That’s the Bolt.” I took off running. The trail hung in the air like vapor, the smell of burning hair and electricity, and I followed it for four, six blocks. In the wake people ducked into doorways and hid under bus benches. An old lady was crying with a magazine held over her head, like she was keeping out of the rain.

The trail broke ninety degrees right, but I kept on running, the boots in my pack kicking my lower back. I wanted to see him, feel the power.

The trail finally faded, and I stopped at a newsstand. I bent over with my hands on my knees and sucked air. The old man behind the stacks of magazines squinted up into the air and shook his head. “Fucking monsters,” he said. “Murderers, it’s what they are. And nobody can stop them. Not even human, half of them.”

I shook my head, tried to talk. There had been incidents where civilians got hurt. That school bus in Buffalo, the mall in Vancouver. Can’t be helped. But they were heroes. They were heroes. My legs ticked and shook.

“I hear the Black Rider eats homeless,” an old woman whispered. “The curfew’s so we can’t see what they do.”

“Not for nothing lady, but you are cray
-zee
,” said a teenage girl in a domino mask and a Silk Serpent tank top. “If you’ve got some reason to be out at night you can get a
permit
.”

“You can take every last one of the bastards,” the old man said. He was wearing an old Expos cap, from back when they still had sports.

“Easy, Pop.” The other man behind the counter had the same busted nose and thick neck. “They hear.”

My wind came back and I started walking back the way I came. That close to the power, you could still feel it crackle in the air. I reached out, tried to close it in my hand, keep the feeling forever. The hair on my arms stood up. I looked at a street sign. I was miles from the dojo. No way I was making my workout.

Maybe I should buy a gun.

* * *

Maria was snoring on the couch with the light from the TV flashing on her face. She’d left a plate on the table under tinfoil, and I peeled it back to look. Enchiladas with the can sauce I like. It was October and cold. I knew she didn’t like to run the heat, so I draped Mom’s old afghan over her. Her mouth was open and she looked twelve years old.

Our door was right next to the stairwell, and I climbed the eleven stories to the roof. An alarm was supposed to ring, but I’d disabled it. This was the Falcon’s Nest. Gravel crunched under my feet as I tiptoed to the old-fashioned air vent. Behind the rusty grate, I pulled out a duffel bag.

Bodysuit, check. Cowl, check. Combat boots, check. Utility belt, gauntlets, cape, check. Dang, it really was cold. Maybe I should build a little shelter out here. Nobody else ever came up. The outfit was all black, with a gold beak at the front of my cowl— menacing, but you could still tell what I was. When they saw me, the criminals, they’d know to run. I balled up my street clothes and stuffed them in the vent. Maybe a space heater.

With a foot on the ledge of the roof and my fists on my waist I felt strong, perfect. My city lay out there below me, millions of people sleeping and eating and watching TV, knowing that
we
were up here watching over them. It felt good.

I slid a leg down onto the old fire escape and shinned down to the first landing. Fourteen more floors to go.

No, Falcon’s
Perch
.

My rounds were still pretty simple, I hadn’t found my turf. I mostly stuck to the alleys around my building, making sure there was a pair of eyes. Vigilance, that’s one of Black Falcon’s watchwords.

The streets have stayed pretty quiet since the curfews, and after a couple hours of nothing I decided to finish my patrol and head home. Last thing every night I headed down to my grade school, Church Street Junior. People tossed their filth over the fence, needles and condoms and half-pint bottles of liquor where the kids had to walk in the morning. I pulled a supermarket bag out of my utility belt and bent over, stuck my hand through the gate to pick it all up. The gloves protected me.

Good night’s work.

* * *

I loved CloudCuckooLand right when I opened, before the customers and my stupid coworkers. Just me and the birds.

I wandered between the cages, stopping to fill empty water droppers from a plastic pitcher. Green-cheek conures, cockatiels, a scarlet macaw, a pair of black-headed caiques. In a big cage by the register was Captain Mike, a beautiful African grey I was teaching to say his name.

I could tell they felt the bond, knew that I was one with them. I whistled and cawed to them sometimes, even flapped my arms and bobbed while they swivelled their heads to watch.

The bells over the door jingled and the birds squawked at them. Gary walked in, shambling and scrawny and picking at his nose. “Hey Manny,” he said. “So’d you buy it?”

“Shut up,” I said. It was Gary’s friend, the guy he bought pot from, who sold me the gun. A stringy, jumpy guy with too many teeth in his mouth and a fishhook-shaped scar on his cheek. Observance. That’s another watchword.

He took four hundred of the dollars from the shoebox in my closet, the Falcon’s War Chest. Not the kind of citizen a hero should consort with, but sometimes we have to get our hands dirty. Can’t be helped.

I stacked 25-pound bags of seed, hoped Gary would leave me alone. I could hear him coming up behind me, smelled his breath. He ate a lot of cheese, too much. I could turn right now and flip him into the rack of flax and palm oil, snap his neck as he flew over my shoulder. But I didn’t. Even though anyone with the tiniest bit of information about Black Falcon and his connection to mild-mannered Manny Hinojosa was dangerous. With great power comes great responsibility.

“I didn’t even buy it,” I said. “Too expensive.” It was in my pack, rolled up in a towel like a heavy, happy prize, like a secret bar of gold.

“I already know you did,” he said. “I knew you’d fucking lie.”

“It’s for hunting,” I said.

“A pistol. What do you know how to hunt?”

“I could hunt stuff. Elk.”

“Right.” He laughed like a donkey. “Thin the herds in Queen’s Park.”

“Look, I just need it, okay?”

“I know what you’re doing,” Gary said. “I know your secret.”

I didn’t say anything, kept moving bags of Goldenfeast Australian Blend, but I was sweating. What would I do if Black Falcon was revealed this early in his career? I’d barely even started, no one would remember me at all. I didn’t strike fear in the hearts of men or anything.

“You’re going to rip off Drakos.” The owner, an old Greek who checked our pockets for thievery whenever he came in, which wasn’t a lot. “Come back on your off day, mask, gun, you know where the safe is, you’re home before the nighttime curfew.” He nodded. “I see you casing the place.” He arched his eyebrow and looked at me weird, and said, “
The Living Eye sees
.”

Gary from work thought he was a super, this pig-faced jerk who I knew for a fact kept skin magazines under the passenger seat of his hatchback?

The bells on the door jangled again and the birds all made their squawk and a man came in, tall with dirty red hair and arms that seemed to jump around by themselves. “Fly free above huddled masses!” he said. “Ark of the covenant, ark of the covenant!”

“Oh great,” Gary said.

The guy ran from cage to cage, fumbling with the gates and opening the ones he could figure out. “Ask the birds of the air, and they will tell you!” he shouted, and tripped over a box, knocking over a stack of empty cages and spilling a basket of cuttlebones.

Crazy Gene came in every couple of weeks to liberate the birds.

“Fly with the wings you are given!” He was almost done, stuck on the big macaw’s gate. He gave up and ran for the door, missed the handle, banged his head, and stumbled out holding his eye. “Take your freedom, share it with me!” he shouted.

The door banged closed and the bells jangled again. Me and Gary started cleaning up, and the birds stared from their cages. A cockatiel that had hopped out to peck at a ball on a string flew back to his cage when he saw me coming, and Captain Mike clacked at him and said “Captain Mike.”

“Come on,” Gary said. “Let me see it. Don’t be a dick.”

I let him hang. Secrecy’s one of my watchwords, too.

* * *

It was the first of the month and I was going to give Maria her extra rent in cash, brand-new bills counted out right into her fat hand, so I walked to the bank on my way home from work. It was right after five, the bank machine was out of service, and the line was long. The janitor already had his big floor polisher drifting over the tiles and the security guard was hanging over the counter talking to one of the tellers, flirting and smiling and touching her hair.

I wasn’t getting out of there soon, so I went down the hall to the bathroom and clicked open the big handicapped stall, took off my backpack, slid down my pants, and sat. A magazine was folded over the handrail, the gossip rag Maria read. LADY MAGPIE LOVE NEST, the cover teaser said, and I lifted the corner to see.

Then I heard a shout, or a bang, or a clap. I listened, but it was quiet. Then something high pitched— a scream, a baby crying? I pulled up my pants and grabbed my pack and peeked out into the hall. It was empty, quieter than it should be. I crept along the hall until I could see out into the bank lobby, where people were stretched out on the floor, hands on their heads. The only ones standing were two guys I hadn’t even noticed. Normal clothes I guess, but in masks now, like Mexican wrestlers. And one had a pistol and the other had a shotgun.

“We don’t
want
to hurt you,” said the one in the red mask, a devil with a black sequin beard and little gold horns. “But we don’t really give that much of a shit.”

The security guard was unconscious with a fat swollen eye, handcuffed to a desk.

“Phones in the bag,” the other one said, a black cat with pipe-cleaner whiskers and a dirty green sweater. “Anybody’s pants starts ringing, you’re shot in the face.” He held out a pillowcase and walked down the line.

It was really happening, and I was ready. I was ready. In the hallway I opened my pack and pulled out my cowl. One of the women on the floor could see me, and her face was like
what
? I turned around, no time to worry about my secret identity. No time for my boots, all those laces, why didn’t I ever think of that?

I strapped on my utility belt and when the buckle clicked in, everything went kind of quiet behind me. Shit, they didn’t hear that, they couldn’t, I oiled the clip with WD-40 twice a week just for exactly that thing.

I turned around and the one with the red mask was right there in front of me. I dug for the gun, all tangled up in the towel, then thought no: crescent kick into Indian Death Lock. Then the stock of his shotgun cracked my face in two. My feet slipped on the floor and I fell and the shined-up tile whacked my head. The pain was like. It was like. There was a new mind in my same head that could only scream but did not have a mouth.

“The fuck are you supposed to be?” he said. The barrels of his gun looked at me like two more eyes.

The windows blew out, not in — the panes left their frames and shattered, the shards sucked out into the street — and they were there.

Blue Titan glided into the room, six inches off the ground. I’d never seen him in person. His skin really was blue like it looked on TV, but clear, like glass. His black hair looked like glass too. Volcano glass.

“No, no,” cat-mask said. “Robbie, you said they only show up for shit like alien invasions.” A wet stain lagooned down the front of his jeans, and we all pretended not to notice.