Behind the Mask Read online

  Praise for Behind the Mask

  “Reeks (Love Hurts, 2015, etc.) and debut editor Richardson assemble a series of tales centered on superheroes’ constant struggles with saving the world and maintaining secret identities. . . . A momentous, readable collection, its sole downside being that there are only 20 superhero stories.”

  — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

  “Short fiction readers should seek out . . . Behind the Mask.”

  — John DeNardo, SF Signal

  Editor’s Pick, March 2017 — New Pages

  “Masterfully-written, this compilation lets us peek inside these people’s ordinary lives, and shows us that they may not be as different as we think. . . . Absolutely recommend it!”

  — Inky Reviews (4.5/5 stars)

  “In this world where cynicism and noir are popular . . . superheroes are the antidote. I found that hopeful vision in those particular stories of Behind The Mask.”

  — Shomeret: The Masked Reviewer

  “Very well-crafted anthology with lots and lots of amazing, thought-provoking stories, both by established authors (Kelly Link and Seanan McGuire for example) as well as authors who are less well-known.”

  — Hannah, Goodreads Top Reviewer (4/5 stars)

  BEHIND THE MASK

  an anthology of heroic proportions

  edited by

  Tricia Reeks

  Kyle Richardson

  BEHIND THE MASK collection, introductory materials, and arrangement

  Copyright © 2017 by Tricia Reeks and Kyle Richardson

  Copyrights to the individual stories remain with the authors, and each has permitted use of the work in this collection. “Ms. Liberty Gets a Haircut” by Cat Rambo, copyright © 2009 by Cat Rambo, originally published in Strange Horizons (October 26, 2009); “Destroy the City with Me Tonight” by Kate Marshall, copyright © 2017 by Kate Marshall; “Fool” by Keith Frady, copyright © 2017 by Keith Frady; “Pedestal” by Seanan McGuire, copyright © 2017 by Seanan McGuire; “As I Fall Asleep” by Aimee Ogden, copyright © 2017 by Aimee Ogden; “Meeting Someone in the 22nd Century or Until the Gears Quit Turning” by Jennifer Pullen, copyright © 2017 by Jennifer Pullen; “Inheritance” by Michael Milne, copyright © 2017 by Michael Milne; “Heroes” by Lavie Tidhar, copyright © 2016 by Lavie Tidhar, originally published in Strange Horizons (September 19, 2016); “Madjack” by Nathan Crowder, copyright © 2017 by Nathan Crowder; “Quintessential Justice” by Patrick Flanagan, copyright © 2017 by Patrick Flanagan; “The Fall of the Jade Sword” by Stephanie Lai, copyright © 2017 by Stephanie Lai; “Origin Story” by Carrie Vaughn, copyright © 2016 by Carrie Vaughn, LLC, originally published in Lightspeed Magazine (April 2016); “Eggshells” by Ziggy Schutz, copyright © 2017 by Ziggy Schutz; “Salt City Blue” by Chris Large, copyright © 2017 by Chris Large; “Birthright” by Stuart Suffel, copyright © 2017 by Stuart Suffel; “The Smoke Means It’s Working” by Sarah Pinsker, copyright © 2017 by Sarah Pinsker; “Torch Songs” by Keith Rosson, copyright © 2017 by Keith Rosson; “The Beard of Truth” by Matt Mikalatos, copyright © 2017 by Matt Mikalatos; “Over an Embattled City” by Adam R. Shannon, copyright © 2017 by Adam R. Shannon; “Origin Story” by Kelly Link, copyright © 2006 by Kelly Link, originally published in A Public Space (Winter 2006) and reprinted in Kelly Link’s Get in Trouble (Random House; 2015)

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be used, reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For information, contact Meerkat Press at [email protected].

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the authors’ imaginations or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  ISBN-13 978-0-9966262-6-2 (Paperback)

  ISBN-13 978-0-9966262-7-9 (eBook)

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2017904179

  Cover design by Keith Rosson

  Book design by Tricia Reeks

  Printed in the United States of America

  Published in the United States of America by

  Meerkat Press, LLC, Atlanta, Georgia

  www.meerkatpress.com

  Contents

  Introduction

  Ms. Liberty Gets a Haircut

  Cat Rambo

  Destroy the City with Me Tonight

  Kate Marshall

  Fool

  Keith Frady

  Pedestal

  Seanan McGuire

  As I Fall Asleep

  Aimee Ogden

  Meeting Someone in the 22nd Century or Until the Gears Quit Turning

  Jennifer Pullen

  Inheritance

  Michael Milne

  Heroes

  Lavie Tidhar

  Madjack

  Nathan Crowder

  Quintessential Justice

  Patrick Flanagan

  The Fall of the Jade Sword

  Stephanie Lai

  Origin Story

  Carrie Vaughn

  Eggshells

  Ziggy Schutz

  Salt City Blue

  Chris Large

  Birthright

  Stuart Suffel

  The Smoke Means It’s Working

  Sarah Pinsker

  Torch Songs

  Keith Rosson

  The Beard of Truth

  Matt Mikalatos

  Over an Embattled City

  Adam R. Shannon

  Origin Story

  Kelly Link

  About the Editors

  Introduction

  Tricia Reeks

  I recently visited my grandson, Brady, whose crib—in the few months since I’d seen him last—had been replaced by a “big boy’s” bed. And the trains, planes, and automobiles decor? Gone, in favor of wall-to-wall superheroes. The boy eats, sleeps, and breathes Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and a whole host of heroes and villains that my kids, my husband, and I all grew up with.

  A three-generational superhero fan club.

  That night, Brady orchestrated a hero/villain showdown on the coffee table, declaring that I would be Catwoman. I immediately complained that Catwoman was a bad girl—I mean I know it’s just a game, but couldn’t I at least be Wonder Woman? (I’m happy to say this anthology is not limited to only two female superheroes!) Brady quickly dashed my hopes, however, and with the unwavering confidence of a three-year-old, advised me that Mommy was Wonder Woman (silly Nana) and that Catwoman was definitely a good girl. So, for the night at least, as we lined up our plastic action figures for yet another clash between good and evil, I was Catwoman—reformed villain. Black leather, whip and all.

  The idea for this anthology came about back in 2015, when Kyle Richardson, my co-editor, suggested with enthusiasm that the world could always use more superheroes. (That may not have been his exact words, but he definitely said superheroes, and he definitely said it with enthusiasm.) Soon after, I read and fell in love with Kelly Link’s “Origin Story,” and the idea for a collection of superhero stories focused on the (super)human condition quickly took root.

  We received over seven hundred compelling submissions for Behind the Mask, so narrowing the book down to its current form took a super-heroic effort. In the end, we whittled it down to twenty wonderful stories, set in worlds inhabited by heroes, sidekicks, villains, and comic book artists—all straight from the minds of twenty incredible authors. Four of the stories are reprints that we couldn’t wait to read again. The other sixteen are previously unpublished gems.


  Some of the stories feature characters who might not be superheroes in the traditional sense, yet are heroic nonetheless, such as Sarah Pinsker’s imaginative “The Smoke Means It’s Working” and Stephanie Lai’s majestic “The Fall of the Jade Sword.”

  Some shine a unique, captivating spotlight on supervillains, like Keith Frady’s dramatic “Fool” and Carrie Vaughn’s romantic “Origin Story.”

  Some are somber, ponderous works, where our heroes consider their impact on the world, like Lavie Tidhar’s regret-tinged “Heroes” and Nathan Crowder’s resonant “Madjack.”

  Others tread more light-hearted waters, with heroes adjusting to the sometimes-comical, sometimes-stressful life in the public eye, like Seanan McGuire’s entertaining “Pedestal” and Patrick Flanagan’s lively “Quintessential Justice.”

  And then there are the softer, quieter moments between heroes, as they navigate their extraordinary lives in their own unique ways, such as Ziggy Schutz’s tender “Eggshells” and, of course, Kelly Link’s captivating “Origin Story.”

  Combined with the stories of ten other terrific authors, we hope this is a collection you’ll enjoy. And who knows? Maybe someday my grandson will read this or some other collection of superhero stories and remember with fondness the night when Nana was Catwoman, and Catwoman was a good girl, and superheroes were still as real as Santa.

  And of this I am certain: the world could always use more superheroes.

  Kyle Richardson

  I met my first superhero when I was twelve years old.

  It was one of those sticky-hot summer afternoons, made all the more unbearable by the stubbornness of my Chinese grandmother (who I lived with at the time), her peculiar lack of fans, and that obligatory disdain of hers for opening windows that, as far as I know, inevitably develops in everyone’s old age.

  When I whined (and I whined a lot back then) my grandmother would simply backhand the humid air and say, in that taut and twangy Cantonese-Pidgin accent of hers, Fans just blow da hot air around! Or, if the conversation veered toward the topic of windows: Windows just let in all da dust!

  For preteen me, there was no arguing with this kind of bulletproof, built-upon-decades-of-experience logic. My only defense was to throw up my hands and groan.

  So the house was hot and sticky, and hot and sticky it would stay. My Gameboy’s batteries had died, as well—probably from some form of an alkalized heat stroke. And I, like any boy my age, had a restless curiosity to quench.

  Cut to: the unexplored closet lurking in the slightly cooler basement.

  At this point, you might be expecting some kind of supernatural event. A chemical explosion. A ruptured gas line. A freak storm that swelled around my grandmother’s home, blasting an interdimensional gust of wind through a crack in the house’s foundation.

  Me? I found a dead millipede, half curled on the dusty linoleum floor. Like a question mark missing its dot.

  Not much of an inciting incident.

  The closet, at least, held more interesting things—like the cardboard boxes, stuffed to the point of overflow, stacked in the back corner of the closet where the shadows and cobwebs were the thickest.

  I knew the boxes weren’t mine—but at the same time, they were. They were my discovery. My McGuffin. My golden idol, abandoned in some ancient, mystical cave, left behind by some long-lost civilization.

  I opened the boxes, of course, without hesitation. Or permission. I expected jewels, or elixirs, or unhatched dragon eggs. What I found was something else entirely.

  I found a heartbroken man made of silver—a man who sailed the cosmos with energy crackling from his hands, his shiny feet planted firmly on his mercury surfboard. I found a brilliant scientist who turned green and monstrous when angered. I found a sarcastic young photographer who had the power to crawl up walls.

  I’d found my uncle’s stash of comic books and the characters living within them—in all their face-punching, spandex-clad, word-bubbled glory. More than anything, though: I found life, through the eyes of others. Here, in exchange for saving his home planet, a man was doomed to love his fiancée from a galactic distance. There, a young girl struggled as a thief on the streets of Cairo, with no parents to guide her, and no home to call her own.

  Kinship. Empathy. The human experience. Above all else, these are the things I discovered that afternoon.

  I returned to the boxes every day that summer, until I’d ransacked the entire collection. At some point, I told my uncle of the discovery. He responded with a casual shrug, un-angered by my intrusion (much to my relief). Rather, he seemed embarrassed by the age of his collection. “Oh, those are old,” he said, almost apologetically. “The comics these days are much better.”

  His comment rang hollow to my ears, like being told of other fish in the sea when you only have eyes for one. “Better” was impossible. To me, those stories were the best.

  Decades have since passed. I eventually moved out of my grandmother’s home. (Now in a cooler climate, I sometimes find myself longing, almost irrationally, for a stuffier, stickier heat.) I met a girl. We fell in love. We brought a child into the world. And through all that time, illustration-laden fiction slowly abandoned me. Some stories were set on park benches, their pages limp and dog-eared, with the hopes that someone else would come along and give them a new home. Others were tossed, reluctantly, into library donation bins. In their place, books with fatter spines appeared on my shelves, books with covers that boasted the authors’ last names in tall, brash fonts. But no matter what direction my tastes have taken me, that first foray into the world of comics still lingers, like a knot somewhere inside me that refuses to untie.

  So when Tricia approached me with the idea of co-editing an anthology and asked if I had any thematic suggestions, my mind, naturally, went back to that dust-filled closet. To the day my imagination took flight.

  Behind the Mask is, partially, a prose nod to the comic world—the bombast, the larger-than-life, the save-the-worlds and the calls-to-adventure. But it’s also a spotlight on the more intimate side of the genre. The hopes and dreams of our cape-clad heroes. The regrets and longings of our cowled villains.

  That poignant, solitary view of the world that can only be experienced from behind the mask.

  The authors in this collection, both established and new, are all dexterous and wonderfully imaginative, each deserving of their own form-fitting uniforms and capes. Some of the stories pulse with social commentary, like Cat Rambo’s whimsical and deft “Ms. Liberty Gets a Haircut” and Keith Rosson’s haunting “Torch Songs.”

  Others twist the genre into strange and new territories, like Stuart Suffel’s atmospheric “Birthright,” Kate Marhsall’s moving “Destroy the City with Me Tonight,” and Adam Shannon’s reality-bending “Over an Embattled City.”

  Some punch with heart and humor, like Matt Mikalatos’s satisfying “The Beard of Truth” and Chris Large’s adventurous “Salt City Blue,” while others bite and grind, such as Michael Milne’s evocative “Inheritance,” Aimee Ogden’s poignant “As I Fall Asleep,” and Jennifer Pullen’s heartfelt “Meeting Someone in the 22nd Century.”

  The list goes on—in this case, with ten more wonderful authors and their own dazzling stories, rounding out a collection that I hope instills in you the same wide-eyed thrill I experienced in that closet, some twenty-odd years ago—the thrill of falling in love with a new character; the thrill of discovering a new favorite author; or perhaps, simply, the thrill of turning the page to find out what happens next.

  Happy Reading!

  BEHIND THE MASK

  an anthology of heroic proportions

  Ms. Liberty Gets a Haircut

  Cat Rambo

  The superheroes sit in a back booth at Barnaby’s Ye Olde Tavern and Pizza. It’s not the usual sort of superhero hangout and they’ll probably never eat here again. They’ve had four autograph requests: two from customers, one from their waitress, and one from the manager, who also insisted on
taking their picture with his cell phone.

  It’s a shame that they won’t be coming back, Ms. Liberty thinks. The cheese pizza is hot and greasy, the sensation of consuming it agreeable. It’s enjoyable, even, to sit around talking about the world, bullshitting and comparing stories and wishes and pet peeves.

  “You know what I hate?” she says, pouring more beer. “The porn star superheroes. And nine times out of ten, they’re female.”

  “Yeah, I know what you mean,” Dr. Zenith Arcane says. “Names like Pussy Whip and BangAGang.”

  “And Cocktail.”

  “Goddess, yes. Cocktail.” They swap wry smiles.

  X, the superhero without a shape, shaves away pizza triangles, slurps down high-octane root beer. Ms. Liberty and Kilroy are splitting a pitcher and well on their way to ordering a second. Alphane Moon Bass. Most places don’t have it.

  Dr. Arcane eyes X and Ms. Liberty. She says, “Must be nice to be able to eat like that.” She’s got a watery salad and a glass of apple juice in front of her. She doesn’t usually complain. But lately she’s been downright snippy.

  “I need to remind you about your hair,” Dr. Arcane continues. “It’s so early eighties.”

  Ms. Liberty’s hair falls in frosted blonde waves, a mane, unexpected against the strict lines of her red, white, and blue jumpsuit. She touches a tendril at her shoulder.

  “Are you her parent now?” Kilroy says, pouring herself another foamy mug. “By the sands of Barsoom, back off, good doctor!”

  The children two booths down gasp in horror and delight as X changes shape while still eating. Now she’s a wall-eyed, dome-shaped creature, purple in hue.

  “A ghost from Pac-Man,” Dr. Arcane tells X. “Celebrating the cultural patriarchy. Embrace your chains!” She takes a sip of apple juice.

  “Did something crawl up your supernaturally sensitive ass?” Ms. Liberty asks.

  “Don’t piss me off,” Dr. Arcane says. “Nobody likes me when I’m pissed off.”

  Ms. Liberty takes another pizza slice, eats it in five quick bites. She knows why she likes eating. It’s not about the fuel. Anything will do for that. (Literally.) It’s her programming that makes her enjoy the sensation of something in her mouth. And elsewhere. She can achieve orgasm in 3.2 seconds by saying a trigger phrase.