So Not a Hero (29 page)

Thermal nodded. “I understand, Doctor.” That smoky gaze fell on me again. “See you soon, Kayo.”

We entered through the service entrance since the last thing I think Martin would appreciate would be having his face on the evening news. As we climbed the stairs, I gave him a quick run-down of what Alexis’ doctors had concluded. He responded exactly the way I’d expected.

“Those morons wouldn’t know the first thing about how to make her solid again,” he said with a snort. “Most of them probably slept through Enhanced Biology 101.”

When we exited the stairwell, I noticed that Rocket was gone and the remaining three were huddled on a bench outside the ER. Greg stood up as we approached, his gaze wandering suspiciously to Martin.

“Kayo,” he said, stopping a few feet away. “We thought you’d gone back to the tower.”

“I had to make a phone call.” I drew in a slow, deep breath, readied my resolve and gestured at the man beside me. “Greg, this is … uh … Martin.” The words seemed to get hung up in my throat. “You know, my ex.” I gave him a look that I hoped conveyed the depths at which desperation had driven me.

“Your ex?” he asked and then his eyes widened to the extreme. “You mean—”

Martin smiled that charming smile that had always had a habit of disarming almost everyone who’d ever met him. “It truly is a pleasure to meet you, Mister Manpower. You can call me Doctor Maniac, if you prefer.”

Darla shot over to us so fast I was sure she’d developed super speed. If I hadn’t put myself between her and Martin, it would have been a good bet that the villain would have been short a head.

“Are you crazy?” she yelled. “You actually brought Doctor Maniac here?”

Richard walked over and I found myself standing between the three of them and Martin. “Wait,” I said. “Regardless of everything he’s done, he is the only one who can help Alexis.” I bounced my gaze from all three of them, finally settling on Greg. “No one knows Enhanced biology better than him. Nobody.”

“If you think we’re letting that lunatic anywhere near Alexis,” Darla said, “you’re as crazy as he is.”

Greg stared at me, occasionally cutting his eyes over at Martin. After a few moments, his gaze focused solely on the villain. “What does he want in return?”

Richard and Darla both looked at Greg, mouths agape. “What?!” they said in unison.

Greg didn’t take his eyes off Martin. “Karen is right. Doctor Maniac is quite possibly the only person who can get Alexis solid again. And we need that to happen so the doctors can save her life.” He sighed and looked at the two of them. “Now, while I wished she’d discussed this with us ahead of time, I trust her judgment.”

I didn’t know what to say. I wanted to beam and smile and dance a jig. At the end of the day, after everything I’d been through, Mister Manpower really did believe in me. But with my best friend dying fifty feet away, my heart wasn’t in it. Instead, I turned to Martin. “Well?” I asked.

“How about we promise not to beat him up when we arrest him?” Richard offered.

Martin smiled. “My safe passage was guaranteed by your newest recruit before I ever stepped foot in the door. If she reneges on that deal, then my associate may have to make things a little hot for the crowd gathered outside.”

I looked at the three of them. “Thermal’s out there. And if he doesn’t come out in a half hour, she will cause trouble.” I sighed. “Martin, what do you want as payment?”

He clasped his hands together behind his back, steeling his gaze on me. “Only a few answers. I have three minor questions. Respond truthfully and I will put your Little Miss Humpty Dumpty back together.”

“Fine,” I said. “Ask.”

His smile never faltered. “Very well. Question number one: boy or girl?”

I didn’t need a mirror to know I blanched. Unconsciously, my hand moved to my lower abdomen. Then I recovered, blinked a few times, and shrugged my shoulders. “I’m not sure what exactly you are talking about.” I didn’t know how he knew. But I should have known better than to believe that anything could really be kept secret from Doctor Maniac.

He nodded. “Okay, then. I guess we’re done here.  Just remember that when the poor girl dissipates into a cloud of loose atoms, there won’t be a body to bury.” He turned towards the stairwell.

“Wait!” I glanced over at the heroic trio, who seemed to be trying to follow Martin’s cryptic questioning. “Girl.”

When he turned back to me, the look on his face was one of genuine interest, rather than an expression of smug arrogance. “Question two: did you see her before you let them take her away?”

I opened my mouth. Closed it. Opened it again and then settled for just nodding. The memory of that day, that moment—that second—sprang back into my mind as if it were yesterday. A crown of crimson hair, so like mine. Steel-blue eyes, just like his. A tear slid down my cheek.

Martin’s features slid from calm inquiry to volcanic hardness. An anger I’d never had thrust in my direction before radiated from him. “And the last one,” he said through gritted teeth. “When you ran away and let the police put you in a cage, did you know you were carrying my child?”

Darla gasped, and I promised myself that if Richard made any asinine ‘knocked-up’ comments, I was going to put him in the ER beside Alexis. Greg merely crossed his arms over his chest.

I arched a brow at Martin. “It’s the very fucking reason I ran.” I shook my head and pointed my finger at him. “Do you honestly think you’re father material? You’re a damned psychopath with delusions of grandeur! You’re quite possibly the only person on the planet who would be a worse parent than me.”

Greg moved so that he was almost between Martin and me. “Karen, calm down, okay? I know you’re upset right now, but this isn’t going to help Alexis.” He stared into my eyes until I gave him a curt nod, then he looked at Maniac. “She fulfilled her end of the deal. Now, hold up yours.” The underlying threat in his words was obvious.

Martin smiled and reached into his pocket, pulling out his phone. “Sarah? Please add another thirty minutes to the clock. Thank you.” He put it away and looked at Greg. “If you’ll excuse me, I suppose I’ll go see to my patient now.”

As he walked past, I grabbed his arm. Not tight enough to injure, but with enough force to get his undivided attention. “Just make her solid. If you so much as alter a gene or modify an Enhancement, I will punch a hole through you.”

He glanced down at my hand and then back to my face, wearing that superior smirk. “I always loved it when you got rough, darling. It made the sex so much more refreshing.” He removed my grip from his arm and resumed his journey towards the ER. “Have you been forceful with Detective Braddock yet?” He opened the door and stepped through, giving me a grin before closing it behind him.

I walked away from the three of them and slumped against the wall, sliding down until I was sitting on the floor. I drew my knees up, wrapped my arms around my legs, and put my chin down.

“Richard,” Greg said, “why don’t you and Darla go back to the tower? I’ll stay here with Karen and keep an eye on Maniac.”

Darla wasn’t happy about being sent away, especially when one of the world’s most notorious super-villains was in the next room, operating on our teammate. However, Richard managed to “convince” her that we had things under control and they left a few minutes after my big announcement. Greg sat down beside me and leaned his head back against the wall. I waited for him to start his questions, but the only sound that passed between us was breathing.

Finally, after about ten minutes, I couldn’t put up with the silence any longer. “It was the right thing to do,” I said as I turned my head to look at him. “I was a stupid kid way over her head, dealing with the most unsavory of characters. I couldn’t bring a baby into that environment.” I nodded towards the closed door. “Couldn’t let her fall into his sphere of influence.”

“Sounds like the responsible choice,” he said softly.

I didn’t want to smile, but something about the way he said it made me. “If I’d been responsible, I wouldn’t have ended up getting pregnant in the first place.”

Greg arched a brow. “Do you want to talk about it? I mean, how you ended up being Crushette? Not how you got pregnant.”

I sighed. “I told you I had a little brother who died, right? The truth is, I caused Tomiko’s death.” I turned my face to look at the floor, unable to recount the story while looking at him. “I Activated my senior year of high school. My mother thought it was an embarrassment and my father didn’t have an opinion one way or the other. But Tomiko … Tomiko thought it was the greatest thing ever that his big sister had superpowers.” I glanced up for a second to see Greg smiling.

“He was younger than you?”

I nodded. “He was fifteen and thought the sun rose and set on superheroes. General Mighty. The Green Cape. Photonic. He had all the posters, comics, and action figures. My life had taken this unexpected, and to me horrific, turn. I needed someone to be happy about it. Someone to help me see what had happened as a positive thing. That person was Tomiko.”

“What happened?” The concern in his voice caused me to turn away again.

My vision blurred. “I thought that if I became a hero, like his idols, then maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to be an Enhanced. I thought that maybe, you know, if I could make my little brother proud, that my mother would be, too.” I wiped at my eyes. “So, I put on a pair of workout pants over a bright green leotard, threw on a homemade mask, and went to go do some good.” I looked back at him. “To be a hero. I thought I might stop a robbery. Or break up a drug deal. What I ran into, though, was a battle between Photonic and Excavator.”

The look that appeared on his face told me that he knew which fight I was talking about. “Your brother was the In-Bee that died in the building collapse, wasn’t he?” he asked with a frown.

I nodded. “And Photonic didn’t even care. When the EAPF told him that he’d knocked a building down on a child, and he said that Tomiko shouldn’t have been there to begin with.” I sniffled, as the tears finally broke free. “Then he said that my interference was what caused his attack to miss. That I was the one who’d really dropped a building on my brother.”

Greg nodded and his frown deepened. Behind his kind eyes, eyes looking over at me, I could see seething fury. “That’s when you met Doctor Maniac?”

I nodded. “He found me a few days later. I’d run away from home and was living on the street. I was consumed with guilt and self-hatred, and Martin offered me a place with him. Where no one would ever hurt me again. He promised to teach me to use my powers and make Photonic, and heroes like him, fear me. I was so stupid.”

“No, Karen. You were in pain. Scared, and alone. And he took advantage of that. Turned you into a weapon of his choosing.”

“That doesn’t excuse what I did after. And it certainly doesn’t excuse falling in love with the lunatic.”

Greg laughed, and I lifted my head to stare at him.

“Karen,” he said, still chuckling. “People have been falling in love with people they shouldn’t since the dawn of time. Don’t beat yourself up about it. The point is, you realized that you didn’t want to be a villain anymore and turned yourself in.”

I shrugged. “I’m not sure I would have if not for the … you know. When I found out, I knew that what happened to me didn’t matter. I just had to get us away from Martin.”

“That was the deal that got you released?”

“Yeah. I turned myself in and told them that I would give them any information they wanted on Doctor Maniac in exchange for the baby’s safety. I wanted her as far away from me and Martin as she could be. The funny thing was, they only asked about his associates, hideaway locations, and any long-term plans I might be aware of.”

“They didn’t ask you his identity? Or what he looked like?”

“Nope.” I shrugged again. “I figured they already had that information somehow and were keeping it from the public.”

“So the deal was they take the baby and put her someplace where Doctor Maniac can’t find her and you tell them what you know? How does that tie in with your parole?”

“When they were sure I’d given them everything they wanted to know, they told me that I was getting paroled. Hell, man, I didn’t argue with them. I just wanted to start my life over, you know? Leave Martin and Crushette and the whole super-powers thing behind. Just be … plain old Karen Hashimoto. Just an ordinary girl trying to get by.” I pointed at my dirty and torn uniform. “I guess I was stupid for believing in that, too.”

“No.” It came out as more of a command than a statement. “You are not stupid.” He shook his head. “You know why you couldn’t just live an ordinary life? Because you are not ordinary. You said your brother had always looked up to you, even before your Activation. That’s because he saw you as a good person. Someone he believed in. When you became Enhanced, he knew it was a chance for the world to see you the same way. You might have drifted off that path for a while, but I think now you’re back on the road you were always meant to walk.” He placed his hand on my arm. “You can’t be plain old anything. It’s not who you are. You’re a hero, Karen. Tomiko saw that. I see that. All that is left is for you to see it.” He squeezed gently. “Believe in yourself. You are a hero.”

“Truly, a tender moment. Someone should make a card,” Martin said from across the hall. “I agree that she’s special. I’ve known that from the beginning.”