Don't Be a Hero: A Superhero Novel (6 page)

4: Fight Dirty

You don’t believe me. No one ever believed me. I came to terms with that many years ago. You lock me in this asylum and call me a lunatic, a madman, but it is of no consequence. You ask me again who I am, so I will tell you. I was the pilot of the HMS
Cheetah
in 1701. We had narrowly escaped attack by pirates when a storm took our mainmast and wrecked her off some uncharted island in the Caribbean. Only I survived. To this day I cannot explain the effect the island had on me. Perhaps there was some radioactive substance there. All I know is that I prayed to the Lord God to survive, and I did. I survived for two hundred and fifty years.

—Transcript from psychiatric evaluation of [NAME REDACTED]

Niobe gunned the engine. The road peeled away in front of them as they pulled out. The police were taking the Northwestern highway, the one constructed to maintain a line to the ports after the bomb hit. So Niobe pulled back onto the same route they’d taken to get here, cutting through side streets and making their way north.

“How many do you reckon?” Niobe said as she pulled sharply around a corner.

Solomon gripped the dashboard and wedged his legs in place to keep himself upright. “Gotta be half of Met Div out there. I saw a bunch of Tactical Unit vans.”

“Crap.”

“Tell me about it.”

A lone early-morning driver leaned on his horn as Niobe brought the old Ford sweeping past, missing by inches. The Ford was older than most, but she still had some guts left in her. The streetlights flashed above as they raced down the street.

She squinted north and made out the police dirigible floating over the main checkpoint to the Old City. It had its spotlight on, guiding the ground teams in. She couldn’t see the coppers now. Too many miles and buildings between them. The police had a head start, and their road was easier. The coppers would beat them there. Damn it, damn it, damn it. The Metahuman Division of the police weren’t known for friendly community policing.

She didn’t have a clue what the raid was about, but that didn’t matter. To Met Div, one meta was the same as another. If they were going in with numbers like that, they were doing something that was going to cause trouble. And Gabby was home alone. Bloody hell. She glanced over and saw the lines running through Solomon’s stubble. He’d pushed his mask up to massage his forehead. His wife wasn’t a meta and his three kids hadn’t starting showing signs yet. But that might not be enough to protect her from Met Div. It just meant his family had no way to defend themselves.

While they drove, she filled him in on what Frank had told her, more to distract herself than anything else. It seemed to loosen the tension in Solomon’s back as well. He whistled when she mentioned the dollar figure Frank had given her.

“He must be some kind of business tycoon to have that much cash to throw around. Or a bank robber. Were you there that time that math whack-job tried to rob the Reserve Bank? What was his name, again?”

“Captain Calculus. No, that was before my time.”

“Oh yeah,” he said. “Kate doesn’t like that I still run around in a costume. But that might change if I can bring home enough to get the kids through uni and have enough left over for a colour TV or fifty.”

She nodded and shifted gear to take another tight turn. “It’s not the money I’m worried about. I don’t like the feel of this. He’s keeping too much back.”

“So do most of the people we deal with. Secrets are part of the game. Hell, I’m your partner, and I don’t even know where you live.”

That was true. It wasn’t personal. It was just reasonable caution. He never pried, though, which she was thankful for.

“Tell you what,” he said. “We see what we can fish up. If it stinks, we throw it back. It it’s clean, well, we’ve got ourselves a nice juicy paycheque wriggling on the end of our hook.”

She chewed her lip. She wasn’t convinced. Could they really walk away from the money when they’d already put time and sweat into it? It’d be better to break away now, leave it clean. If Frank Julius was telling the truth, he’d find another way to get his nephew back. Someone with the resources to do the job proper.

“I can see police lights,” Solomon said, cutting through her thoughts. She saw them too. The road had opened up, and now it was a straight line all the way home. Back into the Old City. Blue and yellow flashed off the buildings. They were in Epsom. Her neighbourhood.
Shit.

“Shall I press the button?” he said, clearly trying to suppress a smile.

Bloody man-child. “Do it.”

He stabbed the central button on the dashboard, and the car let out a groan. She held the steering wheel tight as weight shifted in the back. Solomon flipped the switch next to the button.

The miniature rocket engine in the back of the car screamed to life. It felt like someone had punched her in the chest. The car roared and leapt forwards, throwing her back in her seat. Her stomach churned. The road markers on either side became a blur, and she struggled to keep the car from skidding off the road.

Solomon whooped and grinned. She would’ve hit him if she was willing to take a hand off the wheel.

The first of dawn’s fingers were clawing their way over the horizon, streaking the sky with pink. She guided the rocket-propelled car down the increasingly narrow street as buildings streaked past. It gained them a few minutes. Maybe, maybe they’d be in time.

They were back in the Old City now, and the contrast between here and Neo-Auckland was staggering. She flew past the made-in-bulk apartments that took up half the street. They were built after the bomb hit, when the government in Wellington wanted to get the city back on its feet. Of course, after the Nagasaki incident, they changed their minds in a damn hurry.

Funny how things turned out.

“Now.”

At her signal, Solomon disabled the rocket, and the pressure on her chest eased as the car slowed. They topped a small rise and looked over the neighbourhood. People were emerging from their homes, staring at the Met Div lights a mile or two away. They kept driving.

Niobe pulled over before they were close enough for the coppers to spot them, parking inside the garage of an abandoned villa they sometimes used as a safe house. If someone recognised the Ford, she didn’t want them to track it back to Solomon’s family. Or to her and Gabby, either.

They trotted the rest of the way on foot, keeping to the dawn shadows. People milled outside their homes and apartment buildings, most dressed in pyjamas and robes. Some pulled on costumes as they emerged from their buildings. Those who used to work as heroes were required to wear their costumes when interacting with the authorities. It made them easier to identify. Occasionally, a meta would make the sign of the First Heroes and utter a quiet prayer. It was a stupid religion. Dr Atomic was long dead, and he wasn’t going to be saving anyone anymore.

Solomon tugged on her coat. “I’ll scout ahead.” She nodded and he jogged away, moving amongst the growing crowds with ease.

Niobe jumped a broken fence and passed across two abandoned properties, coming out on the street alongside. Nearly there. A group of coppers were a couple of hundred metres behind her, pushing the crowds along the street. Niobe fell into line and nudged a woman with a child in each hand. “What do the coppers want?”

The woman scowled at Niobe, her eyes narrowing as she looked over her costume. “How the hell should I know?” the woman said. “They’ve got warrants, they say. Registration violations. That’s all they’ve said.” She hurried away, dragging the gawking children with her.

“Bloody hell,” Niobe said to herself. She glanced around to make sure none of the coppers were watching her, then slipped away from the crowd.

She found the Carpenter perched on the branches of a half-dead tree a block away, using the vantage point to see over a series of fences. A tui whistled, then took off and fluttered past him, paying him no more attention than if he were part of the tree himself. He descended when he saw her. “I count fifty cops altogether. They’re gathering everyone out of the apartment buildings at this end of the street.”

She looked where he pointed, and the knot that had been forming in her stomach suddenly tightened. It was her building.

“Come on.” She made her way along the street running parallel to hers, trying to stay inconspicuous while her heart hammered. Solomon jogged behind her, boots pumping on the footpath. They came to an abandoned architect’s office she knew gave a good view of the street outside her building, and she clambered through the long-broken window. Solomon grumbled as he followed, and together they climbed the darkened stairwell and reached the windows on the upper floor.

Solomon was right. There must’ve been about fifty Met Div coppers out there. The street was cordoned off, with Met Div vehicles at either end. They operated in units of four or five, splitting up groups of people and comparing them against rosters.

The process looked ordered, clean. No one made a fuss. The coppers were all in uniform, with dark blue, silver-buttoned tunics and round-topped custodian-style helmets. Most standard New Zealand coppers were unarmed apart from a nightstick. That wasn’t enough for taking down metas. In addition to the pistols at their belts, each Met Div officer carried an L1A1 self-loading rifle. The black plastic frames shone in the early morning light. Few metas were bullet-resistant. A few rounds from one of those guns would put most down easy.

Niobe scanned the crowd, looking for familiar faces. She could make out several people who lived in her building. But she couldn’t find Gabby. She had to be safe. Damn it, Niobe should’ve been there to protect her.

“We’ve got the ringmaster himself out to conduct today’s circus,” Solomon said in a low voice. He pointed with two fingers.

She saw who he was pointing at. Senior Sergeant Raymond Wallace was speaking into a car radio while he watched the proceedings, his free arm gesturing as he spoke. He wasn’t a tall man, but he was built like a rugby player, with broad shoulders and a thick, muscled neck. His handlebar moustache hid whatever limited facial expression he was capable of showing, and a scar cut through the thick brown hair on his head. She’d had cause to conduct her own investigations into Senior Sergeant Wallace before. He was a veteran of the war, took a bullet in the arse in Italy. He still limped a bit. Clean record, for the most part. Like that meant anything.

A shout cut through the ordered hubbub, and her heart rate kicked up again. A pair of coppers appeared in the doorway of her apartment building, escorting a skinny man in his late twenties. The man hollered and tried to twist away from the coppers, but they met him at every turn with a nudge and a gun barrel to the back.

For a moment, all she could feel was relief that it wasn’t Gabby. Then she looked closer.

“Son of a bitch,” she whispered.

The Carpenter shot her a look. “You know the kid?”

“That’s the McClellan guy.”

He rubbed his chin for a moment. “McClellan? You mean the stretcher? Amorph?”

She nodded. They’d encountered him a few times back in the old days. The guy had had a complicated life, living on both sides of the law. But when he met his wife-to-be he’d settled down and gone straight. He was a hell of a sportsman, and he’d even been on track to get into the Black Capes, New Zealand’s metahuman cricket team. He’d been out of trouble for years. What were the coppers doing with him now?

And then it dawned on her.
Oh, shit.
“His wife gave birth last week.” She scrunched her cigarette pack in her pocket. “It’s a goddamn cradle-snatch.”

McClellan screamed and twisted. Niobe knew what he was about to do before the coppers did, and her heart went to her throat.

The stretcher wrenched his arm away from one of the coppers, slammed an elbow into the man’s nose, and grabbed his rifle by the barrel. Instantly, the surrounding coppers raised their weapons.

“Idiot,” Niobe whispered. “Stop it.”

McClellan pointed the rifle at the coppers and shouted loud enough for Niobe to hear. “Leave her alone, you goddamn pigs. She’s just a baby!”

Out of the apartment doorway came more coppers. Two escorted a hysterical red-headed woman. McClellan’s wife. The other copper carried a swaddle of white cloth in his arms. Niobe could just make out the pink flesh of a baby.

Senior Sergeant Wallace snatched his helmet from the top of his car and approached McClellan, making soothing gestures with his hands. The other coppers fingered their rifles nervously.

“Spook,” Solomon said, “we gotta get lost. This is going to get crazy.”

She ignored him. She couldn’t move away if she wanted to.

Everything happened in slow motion. McClellan made a grab for the baby as the officer passed. A single gunshot rang out. She couldn’t tell who fired. A spray of red flew from McClellan’s flank. He dropped the rifle and screamed.

McClellan spun, his arms stretching like a rubber band. A moment later, they were ten times their normal length. They flew out and knocked a group of coppers from their feet. McClellan continued to scream as his body stretched, flattening out like putty. He tried to envelop the officer carrying his baby with both rubber arms, but the officer broke into a sprint. The rest of the coppers opened fire. The morning rang with the thunder of gunfire.