Hero Sandwich
I really didn’t want to do this dinner meeting, but I didn’t have much of a choice at this stage of the game, and that was the damn truth.
That said, I was a bit shocked at how… normal the venue was.
Scan Da Navya was a family restaurant, tucked away in one of the smaller streets off Metro City’s east side. A lot of tight communities around there from back when people were immigrating to America after the Second World War.
I came dressed casually, alone. Psyren and Glacia had wanted to come, and I’d been tempted to bring them, but I was dealing with the Heroes of Earth here. The girls were brave, but I didn’t need the added pressure of having them there while I explained things to some heroes.
The restaurant was quaint, with an obvious nautical theme. Tables scattered around walls filled with paintings of ships, old wooden wheels, anchors, fishing nets and more. After agonizing over it a bit, I’d decided to come by wearing a suit, which made me look like a bit of a tool, but better to dress up than down for something like this.
“Magneron! Over here!”
Oh great.
I turned towards the voice to see Mister Invincible waving me over to a corner booth. Rick was dressed nondescriptly, in civilian style, and I had to say I was impressed. A lot of heroes that got as big as him tended to forget how to look like regular people, and I had a better eye than most. To the casual observer he likely looked like just another guy, one that looked after his health and would certainly turn some heads in a club, but was more likely married by now and hung around places called ‘smoking rooms.’ A vest and jacket, casual, but not too casual. Honestly, he looked far different from when he was in costume.
Valkyria was similar. She was dressed in smart, conservative blouse and shirt like she’d just come out of a business meeting. She was too stunning to ever vanish in a crowd, but she at least looked ‘normal.’ At least, she would have, except she still had her damn mace holstered at her side.
“Hey,” I said, coming up to the table, not exactly sure what I should expect from this whole thing.
“Your… women are not here?” Valkyria said, peering past me.
“No,” I said, a bit of a challenge in my voice. “They don’t need to be.”
Valkyria met my eyes for a long moment.
“Hey hey! No need for that. We’ve all been a bit in the wrong. Right?” Rick said, holding out his hands placatingly. “First off, Victor, I wanted to apologize for what John did in trying to recruit you for that job. It hadn’t been cleared with the core ranks of the Heroes of Earth, and I’m genuinely sorry.”
I raised a brow. An apology? That was a bit of a surprise. “It’s fine,” I said. “No harm done.”
“No no! I’m really sorry about it. And I won’t feel better until you take me out back and work me over with these spiked knuckles,” Mister Invincible said, laying the item in question on the table.
I stared at the knuckles, then awkwardly pushed them back towards him. “Uh, no. Really. It’s fine.”
“Oh come one! Just a few hits. Maybe drive a couple nails into my feet. Really make me regret what we did.”
I really wasn’t liking the slight flush he was sporting now. “No, really. It’s fine,” I said.
“He’s satisfied, Rick,” Valkyria said.
Rick sighed heavily and sat down, reluctantly taking the knuckles off the table. “Oh, fine. But you really have to forgive him. He was only looking out for the greater good.”
“Is that right?” I said noncommittally.
“We’ve apologized,” Valkyria said, her voice sharp as she glared at me. “Now, I believe you’d best explain these… incidents you’ve been involved in to us.”
I didn’t want to, but there wasn’t much weaseling out of it. I told them what I felt they needed to know. Not how I learned of the Brain Trust, but what I had and when. I explained what they were after, how, their evil plan, and everything else I’d learned from them. I debated revealing that I was going to brainwash them to have them leave me alone, but decided against it. There wasn’t exactly evidence for it anymore. Instead, I just talked about how… convincing I could be under the right circumstances.
As we talked, the waitress came and took our orders, returning with the food right around when I finished talked about the collapse of the Mind’s lair and my escape.
Valkyria’s face was impassive, but Rick’s expression grew more and more indignant as I went. “What!” he barked. “How? How could such a plan almost come to fruition? You should have told us about it.”
I shrugged. “And what?” I said. “You’d arrest them? Drag them off to prison? And then when they escape they can come back after me? Or worse, get their minions to carry on their plot? I can’t afford that kind of risk.”
“I… we would… um…” Rick said, trailing off, his lips pursing with anxious thought.
“It was foolish nonetheless,” Valkyria said.
I shrugged. “Heroes can’t solve every problem,” I said. “The Heroes of Earth are busy enough these days. And I wasn’t going to feed this to some hero looking to get some exposure. Odds are they’d just let Denton or the Mind escape in the fighting. I couldn’t afford that.”
Rick grimaced, then sighed. “You may be right,” he said sadly. “Heroing isn’t like it used to be…”
I glanced over at Valkyria, but her lips were pursed, her eyes riveted on the menu before her. But the less talked about the whole thing with the Mind the better, in my opinion.
“It’s not?” I said, grateful for the change in subject. “Pretty sure you guys are still out there, fighting the good fight and all.”
Rick shook his head remorsefully, using his finger to idly sketch something from the ring of water left by his glass. “It seems that way, but it’s become so… complicated. We need principled heroes,” he said. “Courageous ones. Heroes who are incorruptible despite all the menaces thrown at them. Heroes to be looked up to. Heroes whose job is to inspire others. Not… shills.”
“Shills?”
Rick frowned at the table and slowly looked up at me. “Do you know how many of our current batch of sidekicks will stay on at the Heroes of Earth once they finish their apprenticeship?”
“Not really,” I admitted.
He shook his head. “Few,” he said sadly. “Very very few. It’s a changed world now. Few get into the business of heroism to be a hero anymore. It means little to them. Far more often, it’s a springboard. A way to buff a resume. Vultures lurk around the Hall of Heroes every day.”
“I though the Vulture was in hospice?” I said.
“Not him. It would be better if it was him,” Rick said with a wave of his hand. “No. I mean agents. They just swarm around the place. No sooner do we have a hero who’s grown experienced than some brand wants to sign them to push their product. It’s the entire point for so many now. Not many people want to become heroes because it’s the right thing to do. They want to do it because it’s the profitable thing to do.”
Quite the confession from him. “There’s still plenty of streeters,” I said.
“Nihilistic vigilantes are hardly what we aspire for the profession to be,” Valkyria said dryly.
“Nope,” Mister Invincible said. He sighed, leaning back in his chair, gazing wistfully over my head. “It wasn’t always like this. No. Not at all,” he said. “I remember when it was enough to fight for good. For right. For freedom and safety of all.”
“When was that?” I said.
“The nineties. And that’s not just for nostalgia. Ah,” he said whimsically, his eyes misting with remembrance. “We had purpose in those days. Conviction. Unity! It was why I started the Heroes of Earth. Did you know? It was just me, John, and Valkyria when we first grouped together. And look at us now!”
“You’ve certainly built an impressive body,” I said.
“We have, haven’t we?” Rick chuckled, but his face dropped again. “But, the new generation isn’t coming to the business with the same mindset. They’re all disjointed. Out for themselves. Mark my words, Victor. In a few years, you’ll have heroes fighting heroes. And where do you think the super industry will be in twenty years?”
“Uh…”
“The trend is clear,” he said mournfully. “By then, every hero will be backed by big money brands. They’ll be funded by corporations looking to turn a profit. Used and discarded as soon as they get too old. And those who aren’t will become little more than weapons for government bodies. Heroes will become ever more risk averse. They won’t risk life and limb because their backers will cut them loose if they get too badly injured. There’ll be no real incentive for protecting the weak. Villains will be rampant. Those heroes who can fight will either be streeters or only work for hire, protecting those who can pay. Not fighting for the greater good.”
I picked up a fork, rubbing my thumb along the metal for lack of something to do. It’s not that Rick wasn’t wrong, that was the worst bit. It was true. Private superheroing had certainly become more common in the last couple decades. But I wondered how much of this was just nostalgia talking? Not a lot of heroes were exactly pining for the days of WW2. Sure, everyone wanted to punch a Nazi or defend Hawaii from a Yamato class Kaiju, but going to total war wasn’t exactly something to aspire to.
“I think you’re giving a bit too little credit to new heroes,” I said. “Whenever aliens invade or a really big emergency happens, heroes band together and still fight them. And streeters are… well intentioned,” I said, and even that was hard to say. Though I’d be the first to admit most streeters were idiots and fucking pests, their whole schtick was that they refused to become paid shills for corps, so I’d give them credit for conviction, if not execution. Mainly because their efforts of execution usually involved trying to put a bullet in the back of my head. Not to say I was advocating for the anarchy he clearly envisioned, but times changed. It was what they did.
“I suppose you do have an interesting perspective,” Rick said with a tired smile.
I twanged the prongs of my fork. “Fighting for truth and justice is good and all,” I said. “But you can hardly blame heroes for wanting some cash out of the deal. Living expenses are hard enough. Someone’s gotta pay for all the thematic caves, giant computers and eccentric cars. Not to mention gas. When you fit a jet engine on a convertible, that eats up a lot of money. And there’s only so many billionaire trust fund babies looking to brawl with working guys who fell into some atomic sludge.”
Rick shook his head, leaning back in his chair and looking across the table at me, his expression wistful. “I suppose you may have a point. Though I can’t say I’m sharing the optimism. Little ironic considering who we are.”
I shrugged, picking up my knife and slicing into my steak. “Well, I do have an economic interest in the whole thing, I’ll admit. I fight heroes for cash, not fun. If heroes stopped working for corps, then I’d lose my income.”
A smile quirked his lips. “You’d make a good hero,” he said
I had to laugh at that. “If you say so.” I took a bite from my steak, savouring the flavour of the meat. Damn, that was good. “Mm. But if you feel that way, then why was John trying to hire me?”
“John seemed to believe we might be able to retain more younger heroes if they believed we’d be able to build their careers in the Heroes of Earth,” Valkyria said, and the disdain in her voice indicated just what she thought of that idea.
“Hey now. Don’t be so rough with him,” Rick said. “He was just doing what he thought was best. For the greater good.”
“The greater good does much legwork,” Valkyria said grimly. “And inevitably, it leads only to ruin.”
Damn straight. I never trusted someone who talked about ‘greater goods.’ “So he was trying to partner with Razer to keep some of the new blood in the Heroes of Earth?” I said.
Rick shrugged his broad shoulders. “So he said. I believe him, at any rate.” He gave me a close look. “Is that partly why you didn’t report this… Brain Trust to us?”
It wasn’t, but that was a useful opening. “Not really. I just wanted to make sure they left Psyren and me alone. But it seems like the Mind wiped his own brain before we could find out where he hid the Mind Spike.”
“A troubling machine,” Valkyria said grimly. “Do you have any more information where it’s gone?”
“If there was any, it was buried with the Mind’s lab,” I said.
“We will investigate,” Valkyria said firmly. “We will discover what this… Brain Trust was up to, find the Mind Spike, and take care of it before it can be used for evil.”
“Sorry if I’m not entirely convinced,” I said.
“I already have some leads,” Valkyria said.
That was a surprise. And not just for me, judging by Rick’s expression. “You do?” the hero said.
“Perhaps suspicions best describe them,” Valkyria said. “But yes. I do. And rest assured, Magneron, the Heroes of Earth will resolve this matter. And soon. I will inform you once it has been closed.”
Hm. Well, she sounded sure at least, though I wasn’t quite sure about that. Still, the HoE had a very good track record for thwarting evil. I should know.
“There. You see?” Rick said, turning his smile back on me. “You can rely on heroes.”
“I guess I’ll have to,” I said, not quite convinced. But hell, they’d clearly taken it out of my hands regardless, so I guess I didn’t really have a choice on this one. They’d dig up the lab, and if there was a clue in there, I supposed the heroes would handle it now. But with the members of the Brain Trust dead, that hopefully meant the Mind had just stashed the thing in storage. “Let me know how it all works out.”
“Of course,” Valkyria said.
Rick shook his head again. “It truly is a shame you remain a villain.”
Afterwards, the conversation mostly meandered around comfortable topics like the new dockyard project (I liked it) to the latest movies showing (Valkyria politely and chillingly hated them, and Rick had choice words about the new ones about various heroes dramatizing their big events.) It was comfortable, which was more than I expected a conversation between two heroes and I had any right to be, and afterwards we said goodbye and I drove home.
An evening odd in its normalcy, in my opinion. But I was relieved to be done with them.