The Good Fight Read online

  “Nope, not true. The other pylon was fine, and most of the structure held, but it was full of vehicles and people, and wasn’t designed to hold itself up with one pylon.” Liza tried to show with her hands how she had to twist to hold up the bridge. “There wasn’t a good place to brace myself or get a grip. It’s not like they build handholds or paint big X’s that say ‘Lift Here’. I used my back and braced my feet against the remainder of the pylon, after I lifted it a foot. That alone almost broke me. I had to keep changing my position because the metal would bend or the concrete would crack and crumble. The thing made the most horrible groaning and whining sounds. It was so loud I had no idea what else was going on. Control was speaking into my ear piece but I couldn’t hear him. The smoke and dust from the explosion and crumbling concrete was making my eyes water. I had to close them and couldn’t rub them. I kept holding my breath so I wouldn’t choke and cough, but when I did I’d almost lose my grip. But I never gave up. My shoulders and back were on fire with pain. My gloves and the back of my costume shredded whenever I repositioned and changed my grip. My body kept screaming at me that I couldn’t do this, but I never gave up.”

  Liza’s gesturing had gotten so elaborate that Markie almost fell out of her lap.

  “What I didn’t know, was that Sci-mage had seen what was happening on the news, and recognized the hypnotic control was based on a crowd control system he’d been developing. He also knew there was a counter to the effect that could break it—a strobing light pattern at the right frequency would snap most people out of it.

  “While I was straining away, Control connected Sci-Mage to Shokkuchan. The Defense Force flew her out over the bridge in a chopper and she hung out the open door on a tether. They lowered her down on a cable and she strobed the sky with lightning flashes. I heard the effect was almost instantaneous. People snapped out of it and immediately knew what was going on. They all attacked the Serpent Lord. Some of the first people enthralled were police and they cuffed him and removed that mask.” Liza shuddered. “Then the police took charge and directed people towards the end of the bridge that was still attached and started directing traffic backwards off the bridge. They rescued people in the wrecked cars. They were helped by helicopters lowering in emergency help. Slowly but steadily the load got a little lighter.”

  Gail wagged her finger, “Nuh-uh. You and the Serpent Lord had a huge argument on the bridge. Then when he threatened to kill everybody, you knocked him out by clapping. You made a huge sonic boom with your hands that knocked him over. He’s also supposed to be half snake and there was no mask, and he makes half snake people that you had to fight.”

  Liza rolled her eyes. “Don’t believe the internet. The snake people came later, years later, and none of that other stuff happened. The sonic boom was probably the explosion, and I can’t knock someone over by clapping. I can make a loud enough noise to blow out an eardrum, but that’s about it.”

  Gail frowned. “If none of its true, why don’t you fix it? They’re telling lies about you.”

  Liza shrugged. “I’ve tried, but people change it back. Myths become more true than truth over time. People believe and remember what they want to. Besides, it doesn’t matter. I held up the bridge until Cinaed and Shokkuchan could weld the metal pylons together enough to hold before a real repair could be made. We know what we did. It doesn’t matter if people remember what really happened, what matters is that they lived to remember it.”

  Markie yawned. “Thas it? No fights? I wanted a real super story. Ugh! So boring. Imma going to bed.” He crawled down from his mom’s lap and into bed, shoving his sister out of the way in the process. Gail began to yell about it, but Liza scooped her instead and flew her into her own room.

  “Can I still stay up a bit and read?” she asked as Liza lowered her onto her bed.

  “Well, as long as you get up for school in the morning.”

  “Mom! I always do. I want A’s.”

  Liza smirked. She knew it was true, her daughter was an overachiever of the first order. “Then yes, you may.”

  Liza turned out the overhead light as Gail turned on her bedside lamp. As she began to shut the door behind her, she heard, “Were you scared?”

  “Hmm?” Liza asked, pausing at the door.

  “Holding up that bridge. Were you scared?”

  Liza nodded as she turned back to her daughter. “Terrified. I didn’t think I could, and if I didn’t, hundreds would have died. It was the hardest thing I ever did.”

  “Markie’s wrong. It wasn’t a bad story. Even if there was no fighting, you were still a hero. Thanks.”

  Liza choked up, but got out the words, “Thank you. G’night honey.”

  A sleepy, “I love you,” came from behind the door as Liza pulled it closed.

  Back to Table of Contents

  Two Hearts

  Frank Byrns

  Frank Byrns lives in suburban Maryland with his wife and children, where he writes short stories and comics about superheroes, outlaws, and sometimes baseball.

  He has seen stories published in a wide variety of markets, including Strange Horizons, Electric Velocipede, Everyday Fiction, Stymie, Powder Burn Flash, and the WW Norton Anthology of Hint Fiction.

  Byrns has chronicled the continuing adventures of classic pulp characters like Jim Anthony, Super-Detective and The Black Bat for Airship27, and will soon be sharing a collection featuring his most popular original character, Adonis Morgan, through Pro Se Press.

  His superhero fiction has been collected into three volumes: My Father’s Son (2004), Requiem (2006), and Things to Come (2009), all recently re-released for the Kindle.

  In a previous life, he was the publisher and editor-in-chief of A Thousand Faces, the Quarterly Journal of Superhuman Fiction, which ran for 14 issues between 2007 and 2010.

  You can visit him online at www.frankbyrns.com.

  * * *

  As the last of Black Rhino’s goons were dispatched, Scott turned to his partner, eager to finish the conversation that had begun earlier in the night on this same shadowed rooftop, before they were so rudely interrupted by an attempted bank robbery.

  “I . . . well, uh . . . phew. This is tougher than I thought. OK, here goes.” Lindsay looked away, then back up again. “I’m pregnant.”

  Scott’s mind raced to a million different places, some of them a lot darker than he’d care to admit. Not for the first time, he found himself thankful for the thin mask that covered his eyes and face. “Shit,” he said, the word slipping out before he could stop it.

  “Wow,” Lindsay said. Scott was glad for the mask covering her face, as well—her green eyes burned angrily enough in his imagination.

  “Sorry,” Scott said. “You surprised me, is all.”

  “I guess I hoped you’d be a little more supportive,” Lindsay said. Scott could tell by the set of her jaw—even underneath the mask—that she was still pissed.

  “I’m sorry, all right?” He pinched the top of his mask, pulling it up slightly, trying to get some separation between the fabric and his face. He was burning up in there. “Does Max know?”

  “What are—Are you kidding me?” Lindsay turned her back on him. He’d seen this move before—she was gathering herself, trying to measure her response. When she turned back, he could see that it didn’t work. “What kind of question is that? Of course he fucking knows.”

  Lindsay began pacing the rooftop, a bit carelessly for Scott’s taste. The sirens were growing closer—the Containment Unit would be on the scene below any minute now to wrap up Black Rhino and his henchmen. If they were spotted up on the roof, it would only lead to a wholly different set of headaches.

  Then, as if she were reading his mind, Lindsay turned on a dime and ducked back into the shadows. “Wait,” she said softly, her anger subsiding. “You really thought I’d tell you first?”

  Scott shrugged. Did he?

  “I’m your partner,” he said.

  “And Max is my husband,” she sa
id.

  “Does he even know about us?” Scott asked.

  Lindsay looked away again—but this time she didn’t look back up. She stared at the rooftop gravel, unable—unwilling—to answer.

  This time, it was Scott’s turn to be angry. Lindsay always told him not to bottle up, to let it out every now and then. But he never did. “Goddamit,” he said softly.

  “Look, I was going to tell him—a hundred times I started to, but something always came up, something got in the way. It was never the right time.”

  “You’ve been married for eight months.” Scott kept his voice even, his neck quivering from the effort. “Where does he think you go every night? Where does he think you are tonight?”

  “At the lab.”

  “At the—with me?” Scott closed his eyes, hoping for a different answer than the one he knew he was going to get.

  “Yeah.”

  The Containment Unit roared up the street below. Standard dispatch—two rovers, two bikes, a prisoner transport. Lights and sirens blazing—subtlety was not their specialty. Tonight would be an easy night for them—Black Rhino was bound to the vault door inside the bank, his unconscious thugs scattered around him.

  A vein spasmed in Scott’s neck. He closed his eyes as he spoke. “Max probably thinks we’re sleeping together.”

  “He doesn’t.”

  “No?”

  “He knows me better than that.”

  Scott took a look at Lindsay: the blue mask, the matching cape, the boots, the whole bit. He choked out a bitter laugh. “Sure he does.”

  “Oh, you do not get to do that to me.” Lindsay stalked towards Scott—for a brief moment, he thought she might punch him, but she pulled up short. The point was still made. “Just . . .just don’t. That smug, condescending, passive aggressive bullshit.”

  It was a fair point, one she’d made before. “You have to tell him,” Scott said.

  “I know.”

  “They’re gonna do a Lampe Test on the baby, you know th –”

  “I know.”

  “Max will know that’s not his half of the DNA testing positive.”

  “I know.”

  There was a loud roar down in the street as a couple of the ConUnit’s bruisers brought a bareheaded Black Rhino out of the bank in shackles. Without his helmet, the metacriminal was nearly powerless.

  Scott shifted his feet, watching the action below. As he did, he was poked in the back by the corner of a small envelope, one that he had tucked into the pouch inset beneath his cape before he left home for the night. He had nearly forgotten.

  “Hey, I almost forgot,” he said, pulling the envelope out and holding it up for Lindsay to see. “Probably a moot point now, but . . .”

  “What is it?” Lindsay’s hands rested on her stomach, a protective posture. Scott wondered if she was conscious of their position.

  “The original thing I wanted to talk about,” he said. “We’ve been shortlisted for membership in The Order.”

  “Really? I didn’t know they had an opening.” Lindsay shook her head. “I wouldn’t have thought they even knew who we were.”

  “They have two openings, actually,” Scott said.

  “I’m going to be no good to anybody in a few months . . . They won’t want me for long.”

  Scott shrugged. “It’s a package deal,” he said. “Both of us, or neither of us.”

  The fabric in Lindsay’s mask crinkled around the eyes. “What are you saying?”

  “ . . . nothing.”

  “What are you asking me, Scott?”

  “Nothing.” Scott leaned over the edge of the building, watching the police wrap up their operation, not caring who saw him. “I’m not asking you anything.”

  Lindsay walked over to Scott. She stood beside him, watching the scene below.

  “You could go it alone,” she said, breaking the silence. “I could talk to them, explain the situation. Oceanna, maybe. She’d understand.”

  Scott was silent a long while before answering. “I don’t know if this, this thing that we do, these powers,” he said finally. “I don’t know that they would even work if we were apart.”

  “I don’t, either.”

  Scott shook his head. “The way it all happened in the lab . . . I just assumed that neither would work without the other.”

  “Me, too. You’re going to have to find out, though.” Lindsay took a deep breath. “Soon.”

  Scott began to agree, then cut himself short, his head frozen mid-nod. “Wait, what? What are you saying?”

  “I . . . I, uh . . .” Lindsay turned her back on Scott, walked across the rooftop. Standing in the shadowed darkness of the far side of the building, she reached up and pulled off her mask. Scott watched as she shook out her hair, the long auburn tresses he’d give anything to run his fingers through one more time. “I can’t do this anymore,” she said.

  Scott started towards her, then stopped. “Do what anymore?” he said.

  Lindsay waved her arm in the air, a rough semicircle. “All of this,” she said. “Any of this. I’m going to be somebody’s mother, for crissakes. Can’t exactly be jumping from roof to roof and throwing Black Rhino through a plate glass window, now can I?”

  “Hey, c’mon, don’t talk like that,” Scott said, trying not to let the panic he was feeling creep into his voice. “You guys’ll have this beautiful baby, and a few months later, you’ll be right back out here, same as it ever was.”

  “You think so, huh?”

  “I know it,” Scott said. “I know you, Lindsay. You told me not even a month ago that you’d never felt more alive—that you knew, as sure as you’ve ever known anything in your life, that this is what you were born to do. That this is what you were put on this planet for. You remember saying that?”

  “I remember.”

  “What was that guy’s name? The one with that stupid water blade –”

  “Hydrax,” Lindsay said. “I said I remember.”

  “Primeval, Pogo, the Praying Mantis. You remember all those, too?”

  “A lot can happen in a month, Scott.”

  “Dreamcatcher. Remember him? How scary was that guy?”

  “People change, Scott.”

  Scott bit back the word that rose in obvious response, then changed his mind and said it anyway. “Obviously.”

  As he said the word, Scott braced himself for the angry response he was sure would come. But Lindsay’s response was anything but. “Look, I don’t know what I can say, other than I’m sorry,” she said softly.

  It was Scott’s turn now to pull off his mask. He balled it up, squeezing it rhythmically, if only to give his hands something to do. “I don’t think I can do this alone,” he said.

  “You’ll be fine,” Lindsay said, giving him a half-hearted smile. “Find a new partner, maybe.”

  Scott swallowed a laugh. Like it was that easy.

  “I just . . .” He shook his head, started over. “You never even wanted children.”

  “I know,” she said, chewing on her bottom lip. “But now I do.”

  “With Max,” Scott said. “You want to have children with Max.”

  “Yes,” Lindsay said, looking him directly in the eye. Scott could tell from her look—she knew what was coming next. He took a deep breath, steadying himself for what he was about to say.

  “But you never wanted children with me,” he said, his voice stronger and clearer than he thought it would be.

  “Scott . . .”

  “No, it’s fine. I get it. Why would you?”

  “Scott . . .”

  “No, I get it.”

  “People change, Scott.”

  “Yeah, you said that already.”

  Somewhere in the distance, a siren sounded. Lightning flashed across the sky—horizontally. Lindsay looked up at the sky, then back down at her partner. The electricity was reflected by the twinkle in her eye. “One last ride?” she asked. “For old times’ sake?”

  Scott tried to smile, b
ut found himself unable. He nodded instead as he pulled on his mask, watching as Lindsay did the same. Lightning filled the sky again, this time from the ground up.

  “Let’s do it,” he said, reaching a gloved fist out towards his partner.

  Lindsay took Scott’s hand in hers and gave it a firm squeeze. He squeezed back, as hard as he ever had. A familiar faint blue aura enveloped her body; a comforting deep crimson energy washed over him from head to toe. Scott held on to Lindsay’s hand a moment longer than he needed to, and then let go.

  “Let’s do it,” he said again, and they launched into the sky.

  Back to Table of Contents

  Omega Night

  A Wearing the Cape Story by Marion G. Harmon

  Marion G. Harmon turned from financial planning to professional writing in 2010. He self-published Wearing the Cape on Amazon.com in mid-2011 and it quickly rose in the Amazon rankings to spend most of 2012 as #1 in its Amazon Category. He followed Wearing the Cape with Villains Inc. (2011-12), Bite Me: Big Easy Nights (2012), and Young Sentinels (2013), and all have enjoyed similar success. Omega Night is an Astra-adventure which takes place between the events of Villains Inc. and Young Sentinels. Marion is currently working on Astra’s next adventure, Small Town Heroes (2014), as well as Wearing the Cape: the Roleplaying Game, a tabletop roleplaying game set in his superhero world.

  * * *

  The world turned into a stop-motion movie set in the middle of Julie’s punch line, which meant the hand on my shoulder wasn’t Megan’s or Annabeth’s. “We have to go now, Astra,” Rush said when I twisted to look up from my chair. I dropped my pizza slice and it froze halfway to my plate. Rush was in full costume, his red and white racer’s jumpsuit and helmet, but the unserious smirk that usually showed below the edge of his eye-covering visor was missing.

  “Bike’s outside.” His grip slid down to my arm when I stood up, and he led me away from my friends, through the frozen crowd, out the door half-opened by a guy for his date, into the cool night and up the stairs to the street.

  “What’s happening?” I focused on not bumping into anybody—not that I could hurt them in their time-frozen state. It had to be bad, real bad if Rush didn’t even have time to text me and let me get away to the lady’s room. I tried not to think what it was going to look like to a room full of diners, mostly students, when I disappeared from our table. The Bees were going to be pissed—between my patrols and new training schedule, this had been the first night in two weeks that I could go out with them.