Zephyr I Read online

  She glances up and shrugs, “Second floor, somewhere near the front.”

  “OK. Let me have a try.”

  There’s not much left in the way of actual windows any more. I crouch and then fly in through one of the sagging frames and almost straight away spot the dude standing with his legs wide apart and his hands waving megalomaniacally, as these fucking guys tend to do. He doesn’t have the decency to wear an actual costume. Instead, he wears these god-awful brown slacks, a Brooks Brothers t-shirt and a wrestling mask.

  “Dude, give it up,” I say loud and clear.

  Earth-boy snaps his head in my direction. He’s solidly built tending to heavy, though he’s probably not as tall as me, which is a nice change. I’m a respectable five-eleven – a height frequently eclipsed in the superhero world.

  “Man, go away, alright?”

  “Go away?”

  I make a show of clearing my ears and walk a few steps closer. As I drop my right hand, it fills with a nimbus of blue-white power.

  The tough guy’s stance reminds me of the captain on the deck of a ship and I almost laugh. The earth-controller drops his chin and repeats himself more sternly.

  “Yes, go away.”

  I’m actually about to laugh when the whole world turns brown. Like a flushed turd, forces beyond my control vacate me from the building, and like, to continue the metaphor, down through the bowels of the bank I go, slamming and smashing through walls, floor and furniture beneath a gigantic tidal wave of torn up city street, until suddenly I hit something hard enough it doesn’t want to give way. I’m crucified, bent backwards over the solid metal arch of the bank vault, and the crushing earth washes over and off me. I struggle for air. Battered but not bruised, I drop from the top of the recently exposed vault and onto what remains of the bank floor. There are massive gaps in the stone and wooden supports, the churning earth passing by beneath me. Whatever clever architecture once kept the vault concealed from prying eyes has now been reduced to so much kindling. The enormous circular door as well as its stainless steel chamber sit like an uncomfortable passenger in the bank’s ship’s hold.

  Vulcana tumbles in thanks to her unusual body chemistry, unharmed after flinging herself curled in a ball through the bank’s oncoming doors and doing the human pinball thing. She springs up straight and clasps me by the upper arm.

  “Are you good?”

  “Oh, now you give a shit?”

  “Jesus, give it a rest, Zeph. I just saw you swallow a ton of dirt.”

  “I’m not a kid in a swimming pool, Connie.”

  “Don’t call me by my fucking name, Zephyr!”

  “Sorry,” I mince. “Old habits die hard. I haven’t seen you for . . . ages.”

  “I’ve been away,” she concedes.

  Exhausted of speech, we turn and regard the vault.

  “Do you think this is what he wants?” she asks.

  “Well, I don’t know,” I admit. “Why else do you hijack a bank?”

  “Did he say anything to you?”

  “Not a lot.”

  She turns away. “Calls himself the Terraformer.”

  “Terraformer?” I don’t get it and just as well, because she’s not about to explain.

  “Maybe we can get him to leave the bank behind and just take the vault?”

  “He needs the bank,” I reply with rare insight. “Vault’s metal. He’s an earth-controller. . . ?” I shrug.

  “Seems reasonable.” Vulcana nods. “OK, plan B: we kick his ass.”

  I can’t help but grin, and it almost feels like old times when Connie turns to me and holds out her arm like a lady and asks, “Fancy giving me a lift?”

  *

  WE DON’T EXACTLY catch the Terraformer napping, but he’s distracted by flashes of light out the front of the bank.

  At first I think the cops have called in the National Guard or something, and a whole platoon is taking pot-shots at the bank – and then I hear the harsh, amplified, mechanized voice that really takes me back to the old days.

  “Stop the bank and come out with your hands up!”

  “Jesus, it’s Chamber,” Vulcana says, voicing my thoughts precisely.

  “Jeez, this really is getting like This Is Your Life or something.”

  The flashes of light are actually streams of densified laser coming from the rotating cannons on Chamber’s forearms. I get a glimpse of the bulky former Sentinel hovering out the front of the bank, his torso that big characteristic metal box thing with the panel in the front, and that’s all I have time for. Vulcana whispers in my ear for a “slingshot” and I sort of have to comply. It would be rude, otherwise, and sort of ruin the camaraderie of the moment, so grasping her opposite wrists and spinning around several times extremely fast, I hurl Connie at the distracted villain.

  For a woman made of rubber, she hits him pretty hard. The moment the guy goes down, Vulcana starts pummeling him with her blue fists. The Terraformer gasps and shrieks and the bank grinds to a treacherous stop, the back catching up to the front in the worst way possible, the whole thing pitching forward on its axis, collapse imminent. Although I’m mildly worried about being buried alive, I’m not going to miss my shot to unload on our shit-eating villain, especially since Vulcana and I always had this neat understanding that, being rubber, she’s mostly immune to my electrical powers. So I jog up and grab one of the Terraformer’s flailing joggers and cram a few volts into him. He squeals appropriately, not quite reaching what I like to call “operatic”.

  “Jesus, I think you broke him,” Vulcana says, standing as smoke comes gently off her, or maybe from him.

  I don’t say anything, though the idea of tires burning springs to mind. I don’t think she has any sense of smell in her rubber form so I guess I can relax as long as the smoke dissipates. I look down at the guy on the ground and mostly out of irritation lean down and snatch off his mask. Of course I don’t recognize the lightly-bearded blonde guy unconscious at my feet. He could be anyone, as long as you use the word “ratty” – a friend, a work colleague, an actor on TV, some guy at college, some twink on the Internet.

  There is a sizzling noise and the brick wall in front of us basically vanishes. Chamber slowly hovers in and comes to a rest.

  “Zephyr. Vulcana.”

  “Long time no see, Chambermaid. How’s it hanging?”

  “Um, fine?”

  I laugh and wait for the wisecracks, but none come. The familiar mechanized voice of the man inside the powered suit clears its throat and says, “I think this building is probably going to collapse. You should consider coming out.”

  Then he leans down and picks up the unconscious Terraformer in his arms and retreats from the building.

  “Is he allowed to do that?”

  “It does seem like a . . . lapse in etiquette,” Vulcana concedes.

  It’s not like we’re going to do anything about it. There are cameras outside and the world’s watching, or at least those who are still awake. I can hear a few choppers hovering outside getting footage for the inevitable voice-over. Vulcana and I make a few adjustments to out costumes and she fusses with what’s left of her hair.

  “I liked it short,” I smile. “Remember when you had that bob? It was sexy.”

  “Jesus, Joe,” she smiles tiredly, just a trace of genuine irritation. “When haven’t I had a fucking bob?”

  Holding hands like in days of yore, we jump from the second floor windows and into the camera lights.

  Zephyr 1.4 “Spilling My Guts”

  IT TAKES TWENTY minutes before I corner the new girl.

  Imogen Davies resembles an Irish milk-maid with her long dark hair, dark blue eyes and fair skin, just a smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose dark enough that I can see them by the streetlights once emergency services gets the power back up on the street. Possibly number one on my top ten, at least this week. Away from the camera crew and without her microphone she’s just a teenager, nervous and adorable and I can’t help fal
ling into the smug, confident, all-powerful role she expects and will probably fantasize about later tonight. Or that’s what I tell myself. She’s new to the job, but is quick to remind me she’s not fresh out of college, which isn’t something I really want to hear with what I have in mind. But I reassure her it’s the night news shift when all the cool stuff happens just as It’s Raining Men starts emanating from my lower back, and if I look horrified, Imogen Davies looks completely gobsmacked. I make a pained face and mutter something about having to change that ringtone and then I back the hell out of there.

  On the phone, it’s my wife.

  “Where are you?” She sounds sleepy. “It’s 2am.”

  “Downtown, honey. Playing hero.”

  “Are you OK? Are you safe?”

  These questions are rehearsed. I think the fear wore away long ago. I think she’s forgotten I’m risking my life out here. I guess that’s what I get for being too good at my job.

  “Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine. A bank went on a rampage, nothing major.”

  “Oh.” She’s vaguely interested and I can hear her switch on the TV and mute the sound.

  “It should be on NBN.”

  “They have a helicopter view . . . and an interview with Nightwind.”

  “That fucking. . . .”

  I want to crush the phone, but the Enercom people were surprisingly firm when they had to replace the last one. It occurs to me I should get them to change the ringtone.

  “Are you coming home soon?”

  “It’s my job, honey –”

  “Your job doesn’t pay the bills, Joey,” Elisabeth says.

  I shut my mouth and grind out my annoyance on my teeth.

  “I’ll be home soon,” I hear myself eventually say. “Go back to bed, Beth.”

  NBN and the radio reporters have gone by the time I tuck the phone away and turn at the sound of the White Nine van arriving. “Van” isn’t really the word. If the armor was just on the outside you would call it a tank, though it is that and so much, much more. Along with a crack squad of five SWAT officers, the enormous six-wheeled van disgorges technicians in coveralls and an honest-to-God scientist in a white coat. She’s about sixty and appears to have a goatee, so I’m not that interested, though I do drift close enough to where Vulcana oversees them strapping Earth-boy to his stretcher, an awkward metal thing that slots into a cabinet within the van’s insides.

  “Is he still out?”

  “Yeah, you zapped him good and proper.”

  Vulcana turns and acknowledges me with something akin to a smile.

  “Well, you know, just wanted to make sure he was down for the count.”

  “I think I had it handled,” she shrugs.

  “Hmmm, where’s Chamber?”

  “Where does he ever go?” Vulcana asks. “I don’t think we ever really settled that one.”

  “It was creepy, being absorbed into his chest like that whenever he teleports. I was never that comfortable with it.”

  As I say it, I know it seems like a moment’s true confession and I guess it is. I sense rather than watch Vulcana regarding me for a long moment.

  “Me too,” she says slowly. “Still, we had to get around.”

  “I guess,” I reply, thinking about our many trips shrinking down into the N-space void that filled Chamber’s torso and reputedly fuelled his powered armor. I shiver. Connie’s still watching me. How the fuck did we survive that and why were we so calm about it at the time? I blame the inevitable nihilism that accompanies any fin de siecle.

  “I guess I’ll see you tomorrow,” she says.

  Vulcana starts crouching to do her own “spring into the sky” trick, but I hold out a hand.

  “Wait, what do you mean, ‘tomorrow’?”

  “The mayor’s thing,” she replies.

  “Oh, that Eros Foundation . . . uh . . . thing?”

  “Yeah. It’s kind of a get-together of the old gang. I’ll see you there, OK?”

  I’m still grappling with this concept when Vulcana does her trick and flings herself into the night with the vague noise of a tire being depressed. I’m left surrounded by the technicians for the prison van and cops and a few late-night spectators and a few TV stringers filming the scene for additional footage “just in case” before they go back to their soy frappuccinos and file their reports. There doesn’t seem to be anything else for me to do except I don’t really want to go home.

  Nightwind appears out of the shadows, but I still refuse to believe it’s due to any “ability” he might possess. I secretly imagine luring him to a rooftop and teaching him to fly. He grins as he comes across the buckled street to me. The smug cut of his mouth is all I can see below his goggle mask.

  “How do you think they’re gonna get rid of this building? It’s kinda in the way, don’t you think?”

  “Man, I could care less. . . .”

  “Do you wanna get a drink? I hear Chloe Severigny’s at De Lux.”

  “It’s Sevigny, man. And no I don’t wanna. Sheesh. If maybe I needed a fucking blowjob then I would go to De Lux to see Chloe Sevigny thanks very much, Ass-wind.”

  “Wow, you’re such a jerk, it actually hurts,” the other guy responds.

  “You want to start a slugfest, motherfucker?”

  “A slugfest? What the hell does that mean?”

  “That’s when two masks go at it and wreck a few city blocks,” I snap.

  “Christ, you’re wasted.”

  Nightwind then has the gall to turn his back on me and walk off. There’s a few too many cops around for me to do something stupid so I turn away as well. I’m still thinking about my reply, but after a few moments, Nightwind is nowhere to be seen.

  “This is such a pile of balls. I’m going home.”

  And I take to the air.

  *

  EXCEPT I DON’T go home. God knows, I know I should. My internal pedant, who I have pretty much strangled the fucking fuck out of my whole life, waggles the stumps of his fingers about my appointments in the morning, the thought of re-uniting with my other ex-Sentinels making my asshole completely tighten up, not to mention knowing I’m now past that time where I can actually get a full night’s sleep anyway. It sucks, and the whole aftermath of the Terraformer thing just bums me out and I don’t have any drugs that I can actually metabolize. I fly aimlessly over the city until I realize my unconscious has been nudging me towards the islands.

  I hover over Twilight’s pad. The tennis court and the twin swimming pools forming the yin-yang symbol are still lit up even though it’s now well after 2am. I think Twilight normally likes guests to alight at the helipad, but for some reason it’s not illuminated, so I descend among the spruce trees lining the edge of the cliff overlooking the sea.

  There’s a guy in a charcoal suit holding an Uzi and I crackle loudly, tracers of light running over my body as a courtesy to let him know I’m there. He recovers pretty admirably from being spooked, and then it’s my turn to recover from being spooked as three more guys with laser sights on their various weapons emerge from the bushes nearby.

  “You’re Zepha?”

  They’re all Italian Americans, heavyset but well-built, their suits Armani or Louis Vuitton, cut-down versions of Twilight himself. Keeping it in the family, I guess. You can’t really accuse the Mob of nepotism. That’s the nature of the beast. These aren’t Sicilians though, small, dark and murderous. Twilight told me where the family came from, but I’m never able to remember. They’re northerners, anyway. I can only wave a hand as the sentries appear.

  “Is the big guy around?”

  The one who spoke before shakes his Rolex out from under his cuff and then looks at me.

  “It’s half-past two in the morning.”

  “Uh, so?”

  “He’s in the sanctum.”

  “OK.”

  I stand there a moment more feeling stupid, which is weird since if I was invading some villain’s base I fancy I’d wipe the floor with these guys. Reminding myself o
f this, I clear my throat to avoid any imminent falsetto and ask them to tell Twilight I’m here. Reluctantly, one of the younger guards peels off from the others to do as asked.

  The remaining trio escort me to the edge of the pool. There are a few deck chairs around, which seems odd given the cold night. There’s nothing as tardy as wet towels or empty glasses to suggest the area’s been recently used, nevertheless I get that sense. The water is heated, steam curling off it like a giant mug of warm milk. The goons don’t waste the effort trying to make conversation and I don’t bother either. Mafia and heroes don’t normally mix. Or not normally, anyway.

  “Zephyr.”

  Twilight mostly has the diction of a well-educated New Englander and if you didn’t know his background, you at least wouldn’t guess he was Italian mafia through and through. He looks more like a Greek god, which is to say he looks like the Anglo idea of such a god, something over six-and-a-half feet tall with a lantern jaw, dark blue eyes and impeccably groomed blonde hair tending ashen. He is possibly the best-looking man I’ve ever seen in my life and I don’t mean that in a gay way. Twilight is the best of us, that’s all. As a hero, he is perhaps the best. As for the rest of it, especially the mob thing, it all gets a little murky. Oh, and let’s not mention the consorting with demons part.

  He appears at the other end of the pool wearing a Chanel robe unbelted over his work costume, a dark grey bodysuit that imperceptibly turns black in the upper body, going into a high collar like a Star Trek uniform or something. Normally there are gloves, but these are removed, though the face mask remains in place, larger than the simple domino I wear. He’s well turned out as always. The man’s sheer physical presence conceals any signs of wear or tear or the lateness of the hour. In the body and shoulders he is enormous, possibly even deformed. I have to turn away after a moment because I feel like a midget or something compared to him. I’m in awe. It’s embarrassing and gay.

  “Hey, I thought I’d see you at Mechano’s tonight, or Halogen.”

  “Is that where you were?”

  He strolls down the edge of the pool and crouches to dip his fingers in the warm water before running them through his hair. Then we shake hands, mine with his other one and he grins, teeth practically sparkling.