Live With It

She glides over the city like an angel, looking benevolently down on her flock. Nothing seems to be going wrong today, so she’s just doing a few lazy circles overhead, reassuring people with her presence. Despite all the warnings, despite what’s happened to so many other costumed heroes lately, she insists on making herself seen.

I would go on a little inner rant about what a stupid, narcissistic bitch she must be, but I know it isn’t true. She thinks she’s helping. She thinks she’s inspiring hope. She saw some show on television, or read a comic book, or one of those insipid hero vlogs, or god forbid, watched one of the old Team’s press releases, and got inspired. She woke up with powers one day, and because she was already a fan girl for the lifestyle, knew how to get one of those crazy outfits, and that put it in her head that this was meant to be.

I did the research. Flight, laser-beams, x-ray vision, can create force fields, but has to concentrate on it. When she puts up the shield, it creates opaque fields of hard light. That’s how I know she has her guard down right now.

Stupid kid.

I line up the sights. I pause for a moment as I focus on her through the scope. An up close view really makes it hard to ignore just how beautiful she is. Beautiful and weird. That strange silvery hair that glimmers violet in the light, the pale skin, the hazel eyes that almost seem to glow. The silver cape and the pale blue aura that ripples over her body. The way her purple and pink costume hugs her figure, impossibly tight yet not holding back her curves. It’s more like body paint than spandex, but it is cloth.

Where do these freaks find these costumes? We still don’t know. We think there’s a rogue Technician who makes them, sells them on a black market channel we haven’t yet cracked. Gives these stupid kids big ideas, lets them buy into their delusions.

She’s a good kid. That’s the worst part about it. She’s spent the past five months helping kittens out of trees, helping rescue people from fires, distributing food and blankets to the homeless. She never kills any of the criminals she fights, and she never just barges onto the scene of a crime if the police are already on top of it. She’ll show up and offer to help, and she’ll defer to the professionals judgment. She’s a real team player; I’m sure back in the day, one of the Teams would have already scouted her.

We tried to contact her with offers. She ignored us, ran away from all our agents, insisted she wouldn’t be tied down by bureaucracy. Just like all the others.

She’s too young to get it, despite being one of the most level-headed of these freaks. She doesn’t do live interviews, but she has a blog where she answers questions. She’s not an attention seeker or glory hog like others of her kind. Not one of those Golden Boy “heroes” in it for the fame, nor a Spoiled Princess expecting tribute for her good deeds. She just encourages people to help their community when they can, and says she’ll do her part, but she can’t fix everything, so we all need to just use common sense and treat each other decently within our capabilities. Just a level-headed do-gooder making the best of the gifts she was given.

As far as these freaks go, she’s a good girl. A good hero.

And now… she’s dead.

I’ve been doing this job so long, it’s automatic. I set up the shot and pulled the trigger before I could even get to the part where I say “It’s a real shame she has to die.”

Yeah. It is a shame. From my vantage point on top of the city’s highest building, I watch her tumble from the air, her blue aura flickering out, blood trailing from her temple. I watch until she disappears behind another building. I hear the distant crash as her body hits a car, causes it to swerve, and several vehicles collide. That’s unfortunate. I hope the bystanders aren’t too hurt; the streets are busy enough that no one was going too fast. Still, the job allows for a bit of collateral leeway.

I’m not going to pretend it’s her fault. I know some of the others justify it to themselves, that if only these stupid freaks just kept their heads down and registered with the government to do proper contract work like a good citizen, they wouldn’t find themselves getting shot out of the sky, and landing on innocent people. How dare they.

No. It’s not really her fault. It’s mine. I could have waited until I made sure she was directly over a high roof top, and let her drop there. If no one was watching her at that moment, her body probably wouldn’t be discovered until a few days later by maintenance workers. I could have done that. But the point of these jobs is to send a message. A hard drop into the middle of a crowded street made a much bigger spectacle to warn any other idiots with delusions of grandeur.

It doesn’t matter how special you are. It doesn’t matter how good you are. You don’t get to operate outside of the law. You don’t get to be a comic book superhero on your own terms. You don’t get to become that focal point of chaos that inspires so-called supervillains to rise up to fight you, or to become the symbol of anarchic justice that mobs of pissed off civilians rally behind.

So if you don’t heed the warnings, if you go gallivanting off to be some fantasy figure with no regard to the systems society needs to keep functioning, you’re asking for the bullet. I don’t know if that girl just didn’t believe in the warnings, or if she just thought if she was good enough, she could get away with it.

I take my time walking down the winding stairs of the building. The elevator is too confining, and the methodical spiral of the stairs gives me something to focus on while I work out my feelings. You’d think after three dozen of these jobs, I’d be numb enough to not have to. But just because I’m good at suppressing them in the moment doesn’t mean they aren’t there. The stairwell gives me the isolation and quiet to sort it all out before I have to re-enter the world I just helped make a little bit darker.

I don’t drop my cloak until I get to the pick up point. A utility van is parked at a corner, some men working on a light. I tap the side three times; the back door opens, someone comes out with some tools and makes himself look busy, and I slip into the vehicle before the door is shut. Then I release my own power, and to the outside observer, I seem to simply appear inside the van.

Total invisibility, total silence, cuts off my scent, dampens my psychic signature. My cloaking power is so perfect, even most telepaths and those with super-senses don’t know I’m there until it’s too late. I used to be the best spy and saboteur in the hero game. I helped save millions of lives just by being in the right place at the right time, getting the right information to the right people, and putting a wrench in the gears right under the villains noses.

Nothing’s really changed. I’m still saving lives. I’m just doing it more efficiently now, helping nip problems in the bud before we get to that point where mad scientists are pointing death rays at cities in demand for a superhero’s surrender. All I had to do was shift my aim at a different target. All I have to do was turn on my fellow freaks.

Not heroes. Not villains. Freaks. At least I don’t have to deal with them knowing the betrayal is coming. That helps blunt the sting a little bit.

But only a little.

I take my seat across from a man in electricians outfit, but who sits with the bearing of a general. He takes a moment to look me over. “All good?”

I match his gaze. “It’s done.”

“I know it’s done. You wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t done. I’m asking if it’s all good.”

I glance out the window. I see the flickering of police lights of the side of a building a few blocks down.  “No. It isn’t good. But it has to be done.”

He nods. The other “electricians” finish their work within half an hour, and we drive off. I’ve already pushed my concerns out of my mind. It has to be done, or the world will fall apart again. It has to be done. And I can live with that.

It would just be nice if these stupid kids could live with it, too.