Killing Capes Read online

  A final uppercut on the screen sent the last enemy airborne in defiance of any physics Dwight was familiar with. Ian twisted in his seat as he pressed a sequence of buttons long enough to pass for a bank vault combination. The masked woman Ian was controlling fired a blast of energy from her eyes and disintegrated the descending foe. Nothing but ashes and a skull were left; she caught it in her hand before placing a kiss on the still-smoking bone. Dwight disliked Ian’s games almost as much as actual Capes.

  Ian looked over, having caught the light from the hallway as the door swung closed behind Dwight. “Oh! Hey buddy! Long night?”

  When Dwight left his wife, it had been her brother who set him up with Ian. It was quickly apparent why it was so easy to move in. Ian’s standards of cleanliness would have embarrassed certain species of farm animals, but his collection of all things Cape bothered Dwight more. Every corner of their shared space was littered in memorabilia. Every inch of the wall’s original color was hidden behind oversized posters of the most famous heroes of New Haven’s past and present. There wasn’t a day that more of the crap didn’t appear in the tiny space.

  This confused him because Dwight was fairly sure the man did not have an actual job. As far as he knew, Ian rarely moved from his seat in front of the television. Whenever a super-powered brawl broke out, Ian would be recording the fight from the news. Any other time, he would be playing some game or reading one of their memoirs. Admittedly, Dwight realized he had no right to complain about honest work, but he had no idea where Ian came up with the money to pay for his half of their apartment in addition to his ever-expanding collection.

  Dwight considered the best course of action was a controlled engagement before a careful escape to his half of the apartment, “Yeah, stuck in an A.C. unit; back and shoulder are killing me.” He came up with the hobby some time ago to tell Ian as many half-truths as he could about his work. Vague hints were never a part of Wulf’s non-disclosure agreement.

  Ian lifted the lid off one of the boxes sitting on the sofa, and pulled out a cold slice of pizza. Dwight did not want to think about when the contents of that box had been delivered.

  “You need to relax more,” Ian said, chomping away at the slice. He held out the controller. “Wanna play? It’s the new Legion of Heroes.”

  Dwight declined, “No, thanks, I’d rather just try to get some sleep.” He started heading for the hallway that connected the living room with his bedroom and office when a thought occurred to him. Peering back over his shoulder, he saw that Ian had resumed playing, pizza in one hand, controller in the other. “Hey, is the Immortal Phoenix in that one?” Something grim had piqued his interest.

  Ian paused his game. “Yeah, but he’s not very good. He’s more of a gimmick character. The point is to run in, do as much damage as possible, then use your finisher to blow up and respawn.”

  “Show me.” Dwight turned around. He pushed the boxes off of the couch to make room for himself. Some of the containers still held the cold remnants of meals forgotten, which spilled onto the threadbare carpet; he doubted that Ian would notice or care. Dwight suspected that they had a cleaning person who came while he was working, though he had never bothered to confirm this theory.

  As requested, Ian backed out of his game to the menu system. After a few commands, he was on a character selection screen. In the lower left corner, the Phoenix’s face snarled at nothing in particular. Ian selected it, and a full size render of the hero did a quick flourish, then filled the screen. The digital representation threw several punches, followed by a low sweeping kick, like the one that knocked B over in the jewelry store. The next option let Ian choose from a variety of the hero’s past outfits. He settled on the current version, what the game called his “modern” costume, the one he had been wearing last night. Next, he started clicking through different scenarios, finally choosing one called “Street Brawl.” The game began.

  The first thing Ian’s game produced was a group of generic thugs threatening an elderly woman. In the cinematic, one of them menaced her with a knife; another pulled her purse away from her. As they turned to run, a shadow from the roof drew their attention upwards. The Phoenix stood on the ledge. It was all very dramatic. Having seen the Cape in reality, Dwight was fairly sure he would have been embarrassed by this representation.

  “The flames of justice will consume you!” the character shouted before leaping off the ledge. He landed with a roll in front of the gang, bouncing into his fighting pose; at least they had gotten that much right.

  Dwight wondered how the game’s creators had gone about their research. Did they follow the masked man on his patrols? Was there a team studying videos of his fights? Did they even need to get his approval to create a character based on him?

  As the fight began, Ian frantically dodged the Phoenix around his opponents. A punch here, a dive, a kick to another; he never landed two hits on any one opponent. Each time he dove away, one of the others would land a blow on the hero. Slowly, the bar over his head began to get low.

  “Aren’t you going to block?” Dwight asked. He had seen Ian complete entire games without getting hit. “You’re almost dead.”

  Ian smiled, “That’s the point. He wants to lose as much health as possible before you trigger his super skill. The more hurt you are, the bigger the blast.” He leaned forward, excitement building for the big moment. “Here! Here! It’s show time!”

  Just as the Phoenix’s life bar hit nothing, there was a flash. A cut scene interrupted the gameplay. The Phoenix held his fist in front of his eyes, then punched himself straight in the chest. An x-ray view revealed his fingers clutching his heart. The organ exploded as he clenched his fist. Outside of his body, flames erupted from the wound, engulfing him. There was an explosion that consumed the thugs surrounding him; when the smoke cleared, his body was gone. The men lay on the concrete, clearly dead. A few feet away, a column of fire burst from the ground. As it died out, the Phoenix stood proudly, reborn from the flames. The bar at the top of the screen filled itself to its maximum volume.

  Ian set down the controller, “There ya go, cheaper than grenade kills. Suicide in and you’re back to full health. It’s so bullshit to play against online.”

  Dwight scoffed, “Yeah, you’ll have to show me sometime.” As he got up to resume his plans of attempted rest, he came up with one last question. “Hey, if someone dies, do they leave them in the game?”

  “Nah,” Ian exited back to the selection menu, “They just rotate them for someone else. There’re hundreds of heroes who’d kill to get a spot in a Legion game. Maybe they’d be put in a Legends game.”

  Dwight didn’t reply. As he headed to his bedroom, he thought of the Phoenix, and of how many programmers he had pissed off by doing his job.

  Sleep didn’t come easily. It wasn’t only because of his roommate’s inability to purchase a pair of headphones. Over and over, Dwight kept going back to the look on the Phoenix’s face the second before it was annihilated. If he had realized that the end was literally flying toward him, then why hadn’t he self-destructed? It was the acceptance that bothered Dwight so much. As he finally faded into unconsciousness, Dwight thought of the things that could drive an immortal man into that kind of surrender. He thought of Molly.

  A knock on his door woke him just as he had reached a state of tranquil rest. It had been long established that Ian was under no circumstances to go into either of Dwight’s rooms. While he had never felt the need or desire to intrude on Ian’s spaces, Dwight assured his roommate that he extended him the same courtesy.

  Rising from his bed, there was an immediate and sharp protest from his shoulder. As expected, the entirety of the joint had turned a deep purple. He pushed through the pain to answer the door. Before turning the handle, he paused to give himself a once over. Seeing that he had not bothered to undress himself before he laid down, he cracked the door to see Ian’s worried face.

  “Dwight, uhm, there’s someone at the door for you.” He w
as shaken. Something about their visitor had clearly spooked him.

  Without thinking, Dwight reached to the wall mount behind the door for his handgun. It was a leftover from his time in corporate security, something taken with him when he left that life. Some people would consider bringing a .50 caliber pistol to a security job excessive. Dwight, however, understood the kind of people who would break into a StarPoint facility.

  “What’s wrong, Ian?” Dwight cocked the weapon with his other hand. He knew that someday his work would come back on him. Preparing for it was one of his routine mental exercises.

  Ian swallowed hard, “Rampage is outside. It said it wants a word with you.” There was a hint of apology in his voice, as if he thought this was a death sentence.

  Dwight uncocked his gun and returned it to its holster. “Oh, that’s fine.” He had expected Wulf to send someone serious to retrieve him, but a full Power was actually quite flattering. “Thanks for the message. Tell her I’ll be right out.” He shut the door in Ian’s face.

  Sending his roommate to play telephone with one of the worst villains the city had ever seen was amusing. He could visualize Ian’s pants-wetting terror as he relayed the information to the eight-foot-tall lizardwoman. Rampage wouldn’t hurt Ian, not while she was under orders from Wulf. Now, what she did when she was off-the-clock was her own business.

  Dwight was not the least bit concerned for Ian’s safety as he gave himself a quick sink shower in his private bathroom and changed clothes. He paused to examine himself in the mirror as he considered whether or not there was time for a shave. His stubble would be socially acceptable for at least another day, but while taking a comb through his deep-brown hair, he had a moment of concerned vanity. Upon close examination, he found two thin patches of gray at his temples. He was not a young man anymore. His shoulder confirmed this, as he pulled his jacket over his spreading bruise.

  When he finally entered the living room, he saw that Rampage had let herself in and was helping herself to Ian’s leftovers from the comfort of the sofa. Ian was seated as far as possible from the creature, still playing his game. There was something funny about watching Ian finally get face-to-face with an actual Power, never mind that this Power happened to be a documented cannibal.

  Dwight sat down between them. “Hey, lady, how’s the grub?” Dwight wondered if the lizard’s taste buds functioned like a normal person’s. Obviously, if that had been the case, she’d consider eating the greasy, unwashed Ian as an alternative to the cold, stale takeout she was currently tearing through.

  She stopped long enough to answer, “Tastes like shit. How can you humans eat this crap?” At least the lizard had the good manners not to talk with her mouth full; perhaps he could enlist her aid in educating B.

  Ian kept playing his game, trying to ignore the man-eating monster in his living room. He reached a point where the action stopped. A cut scene triggered in which his Cape, a frost-type identified by his logo as Coldsnap, was ambushed in a sewer. A digital rendition of Rampage burst from the murky water, taking a savage swipe at Ian’s character. Coldsnap barely dodged the claw and rolled to the side. Ian paused the game, realizing that the actual Rampage was intensely watching him.

  “You win this and I’m making you my second course.” She tossed the entire container in her mouth and chomped down, swallowing it in a single gulp.

  Four

  Rampage’s preferred method of transportation was a heavily-modified pickup driven by one of Wulf’s Associates. All of them wore the same style of business suit; Wulf had an obsession with maintaining order, and so created a color code for them based on position. The cleaners wore gray, navy for muscle, black for drivers. Dwight sometimes mused what color Wulf would put him in, if he was ever required to wear the uniform.

  Rampage’s dark blue outfit would have appeared comically small on her gigantic frame – that is, if laughing in any way at the eight-foot-tall lizardwoman wasn’t a death sentence. The garment had unmistakably been constructed for a normal-sized person. Consequently, Rampage’s huge body burst through the seams, leaving it a tattered wreck.

  The driver paid no attention to either the man or lizard climbing into the custom rear cabin. The design made the vehicle into more of a limousine than a truck, its flatbed replaced with extra seats and accommodations for its passengers. Rampage filled the back seats facing the driver. Dwight took a position opposite her. This hadn’t been the first time one of Wulf’s Associates had come to retrieve him, though this was certainly the most intimidating. Ian watched them from their apartment’s window as they left. Dwight gave himself fifty-fifty odds as to whether Ian was currently looking for a new roommate.

  Rampage pulled the custom rear door shut with a heavy thud. They were already moving as Dwight began searching for a seat belt. His sofa, as it turned out, was not designed for safety. The mutant pointed a clawed finger at the refreshment table on the side of the cabin. “Water, Mr. D?”

  “You know, being chauffeured around by a cannibal half-lizard isn’t the best way to show appreciation for a job well done. Wulf could have just sent a car.” Dwight fished a bottle from the cooler and twisted the top off. “I don’t need to be fucking scared into line. I know to follow the boss’s instructions.”

  The hulking creature leaned forward in her seat, “You misunderstand. I’m not here because he’s worried about you behaving. The boss is protecting his assets. He doesn’t want his prize killer getting offed in retaliation.” She reached forward, across the impressive distance of their ride, and pressed a claw into Dwight’s chest. “If I wanted to scare ya, I’d have bitten an arm off, for starters.”

  The pressure became painful, “Retaliation? For what?” Dwight asked, “No one knows who was on that rooftop. If anything, it would be B that they would come after. Why not guard him instead of making my roommate piss himself?”

  “B doesn’t need protection. You’re the normie in all this.” The force of the nail at his chest pinned Dwight back into the cushion behind him. “Personally, we don’t give a shit what they do to you. You’re just lucky Wulf likes your work.” Rampage let go and returned her hand to her lap.

  Dwight touched his chest; a trickle of blood ran from the hole forced through his shirt. “I swear, if any of this comes back on me-”

  Rampage interrupted, “You’ll what? You’re Wulf’s toy in all this. Another weapon in the man’s game.” She grunted and went silent. It was clear that the lizard was done with this conversation. She glared out the window at the passing city streets.

  Dwight decided it would be in his best interest to do the same. It was approaching eight, when the wage-slaves of New Haven reported to their cubicles to run down the hours of another day. He didn’t envy that life. There was constant danger and misery in his existence, but at least he knew what he was doing had some lasting effect, even if it was a terrible one. Better to be a monster than a ghost. Sitting across from Rampage, Dwight thought about which of them was more dangerous.

  The creature broke the silence as they pulled up to Wulf’s building, “And I ain’t a cannibal. I’d have to eat my own kind for that, and there ain’t nothing else like me out there.” The car stopped, “Get out, meat.”

  Dwight did as she said, letting himself out of the vehicle onto the front landing of Wulf’s StarPoint Tower. Taking in the impressive scene in front of the street, he couldn’t help but look at the enormous statues lining the walkway. These had been the great protectors of the city, each built to honor some fallen champion – how ironic that they stood in front of the headquarters of the criminal tyrant of New Haven.

  Rampage followed, the vehicle bouncing on its suspension as her weight left it. They traversed the path up to the entrance without another word, Rampage at the front. As she walked, Dwight couldn’t help but study her movements. She had a slight limp in her right leg, the remnant of some past battle. The scales at the rear of her neck had a slight discoloration to them, and seemed to be slightly thinner than the rest of
what covered her visible body. Dwight imagined himself striking the beast’s leg to knock her forward, then piercing those scales with a gleaming blade.

  He physically shook off the thought. “What the hell?” he said aloud. Rampage ignored him. As they approached the doors, the lizard dug a small keycard from her vest pocket and swiped it through the reader beside the door.

  Inside, the lobby was decorated to induce a sense of nostalgic awe. Memorabilia of some of the greatest crimes ever committed within New Haven’s borders filled display cases lining the cavernous room’s outer walls.

  Dwight recognized a few of them. He briefly stopped in front of a piece of cloth hanging from a broken post. Even Dwight, as unimpressed with the Capes as he was, didn’t need to read the plaque to identify the original Justice Guild’s banner, torn and riddled with holes. It was taken during the first Powers War, when every villain in the city rose up in a single night of carnage. They said that three hundred Capes were killed in the few hours the actual fighting took place. There never was an accurate account of how many normal citizens had perished in the battle and the mass fires that followed.

  There were more: a piece of wreckage here, a ripped cape, or some broken weapon there – all prizes of a war his kind wasn’t meant to be involved in. They were trophies of something he was supposed to duck and run from. It made him sick the way all this played out around him. He wanted them all to just leave.

  Rampage nudged his shoulder. “The boss is waiting. Best not to give him time to think about what to do with you for being late.”

  Nodding, Dwight continued with the lizard to the bank of elevators. He realized that there weren’t any employees entering the building as there had been with the other companies on their route. This was StarPoint Industries; there were no cogs in this machine. There was only the Wulf at the top.