Ник Харкуэй: Tigerman

The boy looked at him as if he were a barbarian or an idiot. ‘Stay here. I will show you.’ He walked to the door through which the Sergeant had come in, and closed it behind him.

A few moments later the Sergeant realised he had locked it and taken the car.

His first reaction was a sort of weary resignation. He was, genuinely, not cut out to be a costumed hero. This proved it. You’d never see the pros in this situation. Batman would never have managed to get himself locked into a dilapidated hotel lobby while someone nicked his car, any more than Superman ever woke up and found that Lois Lane had sold naked pictures of his body to the tabloids. Not even the Blue Beetle had ever had to deal with that sort of crap. But here he was, and the person who had created him, the evil boy genius who was both his herodaddy and his nemesis, had turned the key and left him standing by a plastic fern like a pillock.

It occurred to him that he was upset about this because for as long as he concentrated on it his heart would not actually break into a thousand pieces and kill him.

And then it occurred to him to wonder where the boy was going with his vehicle. Away, obviously, although there was nowhere which was away enough for a moment like this, for discovery and revelation and the end of a friendship.

Some part of him objected that they had never truly been friends, they had been something else, and the distinction was important. But leave that aside for now, the car was worrying at him, and the locked door. Away, yes, was a fine place to go when you were in pain, but where away? The boy was escaping in possession of a car full of explosives and equipment. Well, so. A child driving a load of military gear was no more likely to crash than a child driving anything else.

Not friends. Something else.

And the boy was not fleeing with the nearest vehicle to hand. He was answering a question. The plan, after all, was still a good one. It lacked only a sacrifice, a lynchpin. Would ‘child-criminal emperor slain by Fleet’ clinch the deal? It would certainly create a story, hours and hours of coverage, endless debate. Dead children always lead, always require soul-searching by organisations which on most days cannot locate their soul, let alone interrogate it. But someone would still need to deliver the coup, to accuse and to interpret.

Say, a heroic non-commissioned officer, recently seen in action helping fleeing refugees. And if that NCO also happened to reveal that he was the mystery man who had quelled a riot, who fought crime on those outlaw streets…

He stared in horror at the nearest table, at the papers spread out upon it like a map drawn for an idiot. Stages of a media campaign. And documents, too, showing his adoption of the boy, needing only his signature.

Not friends. We were never friends.

And now he thought about it: of course not. ‘Friends’ with your kids was a modern invention, the stuff of daytime talk shows and quality time, of that craven insistence that children make their own decisions while you lurked in the shadows to penalise the ones you didn’t like. It was all so much nonsense. ‘Friends’ did not mean what it meant between adults, a balance of selves and strengths. It meant setting standards your children could not maintain, because if they could you wouldn’t need to set standards for them. It meant child-rearing by remote and by phone. It was an abdication, for parents who never wanted to admit they were grown-ups, who dressed from shops which were too young for them and listened to the new music to stay in the swim.

To do the job right was something else, older and different and patient and endlessly enduring, something which got stronger the more it was clawed and scratched, which bounded and uplifted and waited delightedly to be surpassed. Which knew and understood and did not shy away from the understanding that there would be pain. Which could accept shattering, could reassemble itself, could stand taller than before.

No, not friends at all.

He laughed, and knew exactly what to say.

Jack.

I am your father.

He used the sharkpunch on the door, and stepped through.

WHEN THIS WAS over, Lester Ferris promised himself, he would never run anywhere, ever again. He would walk. For the bus, for exercise, for fun. In battle, even, if it should ever come up. He would just walk. He would never gasp, never burn like this again, with the heavy suit weighing on his shoulders and the mask’s tongue flopping back and forth across his chest. Never again.

He had considered calling for help, but there was no one he could really explain the situation to, not with the Tigerman outfit on, and no one he trusted anyway. A child with a consignment of ordnance was a present threat, and would be treated as such. They would take him down from a distance and worry about the blowback later. The apparat had a long experience of blurring the deaths of children. Male insurgent, not yet a full adult, killed in action. And that was that.

So he had no one to call, and he ran: out of the utility door and down the hill, through the shanty and down to the waterfront. Some of the houses were burned, some of them were pristine, and some had scaffolding up as if the people intended to rebuild them, as if the island was not in its last hours. He reached the water without seeing anyone: the streets were empty. The rain was coming down hard now, and there was nothing for the press pack to look at. The Fleet was just a distant collection of lights, even if they’d been disposed to look at it, and nothing was happening outdoors. He was just a man running.

He reached the Portmaster’s office, and went in, water streaming from his clothes.

Beneseffe sat in front of his communications gear, listening and talking, his voice very tense. The storm was rising and it had come in fast, the ships were out of place. Was he working them? Had the boy reached out to him? Or was he doing his best?

‘I need a boat,’ the Sergeant said, and saw Beneseffe jump. ‘Give me a boat. Now.’ He wondered whether it would speed things up if he shouted or did something violent, broke something.

‘You’re here,’ the Portmaster said.

‘Yes.’

‘He said you would not come.’

‘He was mistaken.’

In ten seconds, the Sergeant was going to tear him apart. He wondered if he could afford to wait that long. What if he was three seconds too late? Would he come back and kill the man? Wring his neck, and tell himself that was somehow absolution? ‘It wasn’t my fault, guv’nor, he kept me hanging on .’

The Portmaster handed him a set of keys. ‘Red button, green button. Then it drives like a car.’ And then, with something like shame: ‘Do what you can.’

Lester Ferris ran through the back door of the office and onto the dock, went out onto the black water.

The speedboat was light and strong, but the waves were higher than he had realised and it was terrifying. Twice the boat nearly flipped over before he learned how to make ground through the troughs and peaks, when to change direction and when to slow or accelerate. Even so, he was pounded with spray, and salt built up on the eyeholes of the mask so that he had to keep wiping it. Without it, he thought, he would have been blind. His clothes were sodden and heavy. They wrapped around things and billowed in the wind, trying to take him overboard. If he did go over, he would die. He was simply wearing too much that was heavy and would drag him down.

He could see the Fleet about half the time, had no idea how the boy might be doing or where he might be, but Jack was experienced on this water, knew the shape of the land and the shallows, knew the ships of the Fleet and might even seek shelter aboard one if he needed it. That might even be his plan for boarding: simply ask and be admitted, as a gesture of friendship. Sailors held to their obligations, even secret ones.