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Fred Warren works as a government contractor in eastern Kansas, which is a lot like being a superhero minus the special abilities and cool costume. His short fiction has appeared in a variety of print and online publications, including A Fly in Amber, Mindflights, Bards and Sages Quarterly, Brain Harvest, Kaleidotrope, and Allegory, and his first novel, The Muse, debuted in November 2009. You can find him online at http://frederation.wordpress.com

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PROMISES
(continued)

I was supervising the final touches on World Trade Center Four when it happened. The Devastators were fighting Baron Tempest, a pesky weather-controller who should have been well within their capabilities. He was giving them a run for their money that day—he’d added directed lightning to his repertoire, and brilliant arcs of electricity crisscrossed the stormy sky over New York Harbor. Rain pelted my office window as I watched the live news broadcast, sipped my coffee, and tallied up the damage.

Blue Streak dashed hither and yon, dodging thunderbolts as Bulldozer tossed automobile parts and building materials in the general direction of the Baron’s cloud platform. After ten years or so of practice, I mused, he should have been a better shot. Calculus stood safely in the lee of a mothballed Navy cruiser, chattering orders into his communicator. Maybe it was all part of the plan, though it didn’t look like a very good plan at that moment.

He stopped talking and looked up. Rockette blasted out of a cloudbank and arrowed in on Tempest from behind, tranq gun at the ready. I smiled as she flashed across the vid screen. I thought it was all over.

At the last second, the Baron whipped around and flung a thunderbolt at Rockette, transfixing her in a crackling auriole of ionized air. She plummeted from the sky, like Phaeton struck down from the chariot of the gods, a smoldering ember quenched in the roiling black waters of the harbor below. A moment later, Bulldozer connected with a concrete block, plucking Baron Tempest from his cloud and flattening him against the Chrysler Building. Emergency crews converged on the urban battlefield, and the broadcast went black. My stomach clenched. Voice shaking, I ordered my salvage team to begin the cleanup.

---

Rockette survived, but invulnerability wasn’t one of the prizes she’d won from her spin of the mutagenic wheel. She healed incompletely. Scar tissue marred the left side of her flawless face, and she walked with a limp. Only in the sky was she as graceful as before, but she flew with none of the joyful abandon that was her trademark.

Her trademark. In the end, it was all about her trademark. Perfection was the essence of a superhero’s allure, and demand for Rockette’s image in any form dropped to zero. She tried adopting a rakish mask that concealed most of the scarring, but everyone knew what lay beneath. To the marketing wizards, she was damaged goods, and they dropped her from the team. Calculus issued a convoluted press release. Trimmed to its essentials, it thanked her for her service and declared it time for the Devastators to move on.

They signed a fresh new teenager named Sirene. She was a sonic screamer, and pretty. She couldn’t fly, but Calculus bought himself a jetpack and began directing battles from the air. Sirene also wasn’t much of a public speaker. Calculus assumed that role, adjusting his speech subroutines to make his orations more audience-friendly. He was almost charming, in a shiny, green, insectoid sort of way. His numbers rose in the polls, and the ad agencies plastered his picture on billboards and cereal boxes.

Soon afterward, Rockette disappeared, leaving the world to wonder about her fate. There were whispers of a lady in red who flashed from the dark crevices between buildings to catch suicide jumpers and steelworkers who missed their footing. I believed the rumors. Perhaps it was wishful thinking, but it is exactly what she would do, because for Rockette, it was never about the cheers, or the honors, or the money. She saved people because they needed saving.

I found a note on my desk one morning. Old school—a plain white paper envelope with a little card inside. Handwriting full of loops and curlicues in bright red ink.

I have to go away. None of the other teams want me, and the Empowerment Monitoring Agency plans to bring me in for re-evaluation. It’s what they do with villains, and nobody ever comes back from that. I thought you should know. Guess my luck’s run out—the first time Calculus ever makes a mistake, and it’s with me. Tell the folks back home goodbye, and I’m sorry.

Your friend,

Donna

P.S. If you still have the coin, I still remember my promise.

Finally, it hit me. Nothing escaped Calculus’ computations. He anticipated every scenario and planned every countermove. I went to my computer and pulled up the video file of the battle with Baron Tempest. I watched it over and over again, from every camera angle, not sure what I was looking for, certain only that something was there that would reveal the truth.

On the twentieth replay, I found it. As the Baron spun around to attack Rockette, I saw a tiny flash at his wrist. I zoomed in and cranked up the magnification. The edge of his gauntlet had flipped over in the wind, revealing a silver bracelet with a cluster of LEDs.

A Devastators wristcomm. Custom electronics from the government labs. Every team member had one, and only the team leader had the authority to make another.

The Baron hadn’t sensed Rockette’s approach in the air currents, he’d been listening to Calculus’ orders from the beginning. He knew she was coming.

The video played on. As Rockette tumbled earthward, I forced my attention to Calculus, who looked on in icy cybernetic detachment as she dropped from the sky like a shotgunned swan, his eyes tracing her trajectory all the way into the greasy black water, showing no sign of alarm, making no effort to help.

Every action he’d taken since that moment served to boost his public image. It seemed so obvious now. Calculus wasn’t content to lead the Devastators. He wanted the acclaim, the glory, and perhaps even the love that flowed past him to his charismatic teammate. So he set her up.

Somehow, I should have seen it coming. Somehow, I should have saved her, like I promised. I switched off the computer and stared out the window for a long time, watching clouds gather over the city, and remembering.

That evening, I planted a vial of construction nanobots, with a very particular taste in building materials, inside the ventilation conduits of Devastators HQ, timed to release during Calculus’ recharge cycle. Let him try to compute that.

His teammates discovered an attractive abstract sculpture in his command chair the next morning, iridescent green chromalloy contorted into an intricate knot. I left his brain untouched. Calculus understood jealousy and treachery. Perhaps, fused inside that twisted metal prison, he’d learn about pain, and regret, and loneliness, like Rockette. Like me.

The world collectively shrugged, writing off the incident as some supervillain’s revenge, and the Devastators began shopping for a new leader. They’re still looking. Maybe this time, they’ll find someone with both a brain and a heart.

---

It ends in New York, as I suppose these stories always do. Atop the rebuilt Trade Center, polished onyx surfaces shine with mirrored moonlight, testament to my small, mundane power to mend what has been broken. It is glistening and perfect, as she once was, as she still is within.

I have wealth enough to hide her, and people of influence owe me favors—people with the skill and leverage to exonerate her. This time, I have the power to act, and I won’t miss my chance again.

The wind howls, and the platinum disk is ice between my fingers as I reach skyward and press the button again and again, calling to Rockette, to Donna, my Donna, praying that she’ll hear and answer, because without her, I’m lost, and my world is no world at all. We’ll save each other, like we promised.

That’s what friends do.

 

Promises by Fred Warren - 1 2
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