Peter Clines - Ex-Heroes

Five minutes and another couple dozen dead exes later, we were at the trucks. Families were packed in the back and into the cabs. A third of the rifle platoon was missing. Netzley kept trying her radio with no response. “Move out,” I shouted. “I’ve got point, everyone falls in behind me. Anything gets within ten feet of the trucks you put it down.

Clear?” There was a shout from the Marines, my optics flared to white, and I heard a dozen screams. The computer struggled to compensate and the airport reappeared on the screens. The light was all wrong. Everything was bright and washed-out. The civilians were looking up, their mouths open in awe, and two old Latino women were crossing themselves again and again. Hanging above us was the shape of a man. It sizzled in the air, like high-tension lines on a damp morning. The white outline gave a friendly salute to Carter and tipped its head at me. Howdy. The voice buzzed like someone talking with a kazoo, except you could understand him. I heard you were coming. Would’ve been

here sooner but a lot of people thought you were still landing at Burbank. The suit’s sensors were still going wild. “What about the other team? Did the other plane make it?” The burning wraith seemed to slump a bit. They didn’t. I’m

sorry. O’Neill fired at a distant ex and looked back up. “You’re Zzzap, right?” Here to guide you to relative safety. The figure nodded at me again. Doctor Danielle Morris, I presume? “No,” said Carter before I could speak. “That’s Cerberus.”

It was eleven when they left. St. George sailed through the air, watching the streets below for any movement past the slow drift of exes. A few caught glimpses of him and tilted their heads to follow his path. One fell over backwards.

He couldn’t glide as well as he normally did. The backpack was filled with water bottles and a small first-aid kit. It was slim and light, but it sat wrong. His balance was off and he just couldn’t find the sweet spot on the air currents.

On the rooftops below, Stealth flitted like a shadow. She darted between pools of darkness and leaped from building to building. When they got to an intersection she would throw herself out into space, grab his outstretched hands like a trapeze artist, and flip herself across four lanes of open road. Her cloak never made a sound as it billowed in the air.

The two heroes cut across the Wilshire Country Club, the upper-class neighborhoods of Highland, and the wide swath of LaBrea. Stealth killed eleven exes in that first hour, their necks snapped with blinding kicks. St. George just twisted their heads around.

They paused to rest on the roof of a deserted diner. “You doing okay?”

“I am fine. We do not need to stop.”

“You look like you’re slowing down.” The cloaked woman shook her head. “I am fine.”

“Drink some water.” She held the bottle and paused. He felt her eyes on him. “What?”

“Turn around, please.”

“I’m sorry, what?” She gave a slight tip of her head. “I do not want you to see me drink.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No.”

“You’ve known me for over two years, I’m probably the closest thing you have to a friend, and you’re worried I might see your mouth?”

“Please, St. George. Turn around.”

He sighed, shook his head, and went to look over the edge of the roof. There were over two hundred exes scattered over the broad intersection. Every few yards on the sidewalk a squat wooden stump reached up between iron grates. A few of them were wide remains of huge palms, but most were as thick as his arm.

There was a deliberate crunch of gravel. She handed him the backpack. “Thank you.”

“I know you’re not scarred or disfigured or something, so why are you so obsessed with hiding?”

“How can you know I am not scarred?”

He smirked. “There are dozens of horribly injured people at the Mount. Half your face would have to be missing to be worse off than them, and I can see enough to know it’s all still there.”

“It could be a small scar. Perhaps I am vain.”

He nodded. “That would fit with the rest of the outfit, but I still don’t buy it.”

“You are still making suppositions. You have no evidence.”

“Two questions, then. When’s the last time someone called you by your real name?”

“I will not answer questions regarding my true identity.”

“Didn’t ask one. I just asked how long it’s been since someone called you by your real name.”

She tilted her head.

“I know ‘Stealth’ wasn’t your choice for a name. Wasn’t it someone in the LA Weekly or one of those that came up with it? You didn’t use any code name or secret identity or anything. So Stealth isn’t a name you picked. When was the last time someone used the name you were born with?”

Even in the dim light beneath the hood, he could see her expression shift under the mask. “Twenty-eight months ago.”

St. George blinked. “You know just like that?”

She gave a single, sharp nod.

“Okay then, question two. When was the last time someone saw you without the mask?”

“Someone who knew me?”

“Anyone. When was the last time anyone saw you without the mask?”

“Thirteen months. When we were getting settled in the Mount, I spent an evening walking the streets in civilian clothes to judge the mood of the population. October 31, 2009.”

“Halloween? The last time you didn’t wear a mask was Halloween?”

“The irony is not lost on me. However, it struck me amidst the many costumes one unfamiliar adult would be less likely to stand out.”

“So the costume says you have no problem with people looking at you. Staying masked and never having a name means you’re bothered by who you were and you’re trying to hide it. I’m going to go out on a limb and guess you were objectified a lot.”

She bowed her head. “Your deductive powers have grown considerably since we first met.”

“It’s all been your fine instruction, Mr. Holmes,” he said toasting her with a plastic bottle. He took another sip and pointed at one of the nearby remains of a tree. “D’you notice the stumps?”

She nodded. “Firewood. As Zzzap reported, they are using fires for heat, light, and food preparation. I would guess most bookstores, newsstands, and office suppliers in this area have suffered a similar fate.”

“They’ve got the country club, too, don’t they? And Century City.”

“And telephone poles. And several hundred thousand tires, I would guess.” She nodded at a row of wheel-less cars. “They would be unusable for cooking, but could still provide light and heat. Are you in love with me?”

He spit out a mouthful of water. “What?”

“You have regular sexual relations with Beatrice Strutton, but you remain emotionally obsessed with me. I believe she is aware of this as well.”

“Okay, how do you know—”

“There is nothing that goes on in the Mount I am not aware of, St. George. You know this. And you have not answered the question.”

“You’re so smart, you tell me.”

She turned her head to the exes below. “I believe you have allowed what began as a physical attraction and fascination with my superior confidence to develop into emotions you hope I will recipro—”

“I was being rhetorical, y’know.”

Stealth knelt against the edge of the roof.

“What?”

She stared down at the street below. “They are not moving.”

“Because we’re not.”

The crowd of exes stood frozen on the street. Their mouths were still. Dozens of hands hung limp at their sides. They locked eyes with the two heroes.