The City That Heroes Built Read online

  The City that Heroes Built

  By

  Daniel C Pierce

  Copyright © 2016 by Daniel C Pierce

  All rights reserved.

  First Edition: December 2016

  For Mikey:

  a great brother, loyal friend, and horrible roommate;

  thanks for reading my stories.

  Santa Maria, California

  May 2021

  This isn't a supra story. Just so we're clear. It's a detective story, and it's not about me. I just happened to be in the middle of things. For the record, I'm not a writer, and I'm not really sure about points of view and telling things in the right order, so I'm just going to start at the beginning.

  I was born in the middle of a supra battle on Valentine's Day, 1997. The Merchant of Menace attacked Captain California at the restaurant on the 38th floor of the Golden Tower. My mother and father were celebrating their anniversary, and were caught up in the chaos. Mom went into labor, and having thrown the Merchant of Menace from the tower, Captain California delivered a healthy baby boy.

  I've been at a dozen banks that were robbed, by everyone from Catchpenny, to the Sky Bandits, to the Big Blue Meanie. Firestorm and Radiac were hospitalized at Saint Mary's the same day I had my tonsils out.

  My parents were killed in our apartment one morning in 2013 just as I was walking out the door to go to school. The Local Heroes and Innovation Nation had been fighting all night, and when they returned to their respective homes, discovered that both groups lived in the same apartment building. My parents were collateral damage.

  They had lived in the city their whole life, and of course had insurance against Acts of Supra-Humans. They had always sort of been in the middle of things, so they left me with what, as a kid, I thought was a lot of money. It was enough to let me shuffle through a couple of majors and travel Europe before getting to the point where I needed to figure out what to do with my life.

  The only thing that I knew I wanted was to be around superheroes. I'd seen enough of the superheroes in Europe, and had even been in the Shard when the Ultra-Nationals took everyone hostage there. When it was over, I got to meet Black Knight and Iron Duke, and I saw a couple of the people in MI-0. The Brits do sensationalism right and I got into the way they did their fanzines. There were a million blogs with pictures of this supra or that, but there wasn't really any good information about them. I didn't really have a direction that I was going when I went back to Santa Maria, but I knew that I wanted to know more about supras.

  I love Santa Maria. Some people say it's devoid of character because it was built so fast, and there's some truth to that. People try to put us down by saying we are a suburb of LA and San Francisco. I get that the high-speed rail lets people get into LA in an hour and, SF or Oakland in ninety minutes, but Santa Maria is it's own city. It may not have the history of LA and San Francisco, but it's not like those cities have long histories, and what they do have is deeply rooted in Hollywood and pop culture. Anyway, people call Santa Maria the City That Heroes Built, and that's fine.

  I had an idea to build a library of supras, something way more specific than a search engine. I didn't need to get on the Internet to see a hundred picture of Medic, I wanted to know how her power worked. I wanted to know if the barista downstairs was the same height and build as Moccasin, and if she was late to work the mornings after Moccasin beat up street gangs in Lompoc. I didn't know what I would do with the database, but I started it because I thought it would be fun and interesting.

  I had an apartment on the third floor of a coffee shop and dry cleaners in Vandenberg Village, which sounds fancy, but it isn't. It was just outside of the new housing areas that had been built on the old Vandenberg Air Force Base for the refugees from the LA and San Francisco earthquakes. The government gave up the base so Clemson Enterprises could build affordable housing that started the upward spiral for the area in the early eighties. By the time I was born, there were half a million people in Santa Maria, and there were just over two million when I moved back in 2021. Most of them live in housing much newer than I do, but the place I'm in is near the home where I grew up, and I sort of like the way the village is run down with a pre-gentrification vibe, amazing second hand stores, and reasonable rents.

  When I bought the building with the last of my trust fund, the only occupied space was the cleaners. I rented out the space for the coffee shop in a week, after it had been unoccupied for a year. I rented out two of the second floor offices the week after. I didn't have much else to do, so I started getting into my work.

  The thing about research is that it takes you down all sorts of rabbit holes, reading this article and that, clicking through jump after jump on the internet, trying to get through the fluff to the real data. Most of what I was doing was organizing data. A few people had been down this road before. The Supra-wiki contained a lot of information, but little was collaborated, many sources were dead links, and the public posted a lot of speculation instead of facts. A popular theory among users was that supras would edit their own pages. The public relations division of Supras for Hire was notorious for it. The constant distortion of articles had birthed a spin off that was run by a group and not by the public.

  The Supra-Encyclopedia went off line a short time after the death of a couple members of the group, but archived fragments still existed on the web. Police were slow to say that their murders were linked to the website so the Axis of Evil said it directly. A few prominent libraries went offline, but thousands of others replicated the databases and shoved the information into every corner of the internet in an act of defiance that makes you proud, though it made it impossible to confirm which information was accurate. I'd find out something about Leonidas, but the source was another wiki, which would source an article that sourced the original wiki. Frustrating and not helpful, but not entirely unsolvable. The problem was that in 2021, the Internet had too much information; finding what you needed was impossible.

  The community of supra followers is pretty broad, with niches for all sorts, from supra-fandom to law enforcement, to groupies, or other supras looking to connect. There's a whole community that tries to match up supras for unique problems, but it is rife with fraudulent healers, fortunetellers, outright liars and thieves. It wasn't always like this. Supras used to put on capes and fight crime, or put on masks and commit crimes. Like anything else, it became an industry. That industry took a lot of risk, and the supra-historians were a big part of that.

  Generally, the first authors of supra-histories were good sources. Mary Chandler wrote the big expose of the Guardian Angels. It was called Dinner is in the Oven, the source claimed to be Sentinel's ex-wife. While the team may have felt personally betrayed, they didn't refute the material. The early chronologists were newspapers and they stood firm in resisting any attempts to influence their reporting, though a couple of reporters tried too hard to get the big story and ended up dead or harassed for their trouble. These sources were very good for things that they reported, but information was tough to get on the supras before the 1980s. The community of supra-historians holds these early sources as canon. Everything recent is suspect, and the time in between these eras is questionable.

  For those early reporters, there was little risk in negative reporting. Evil masterminds and bank robbers expected and even welcomed bad press. The information collectors had it rough, even if it was just a collection of other items in the public domain, when compiled the results could be revealing. It's one thing to harbor a guess at Captain California's identity; it's another to spread around information about regular people. There were two big incidents that made things dangerous. The first was when supra-fanboys found their way to White Hear
t's gym. Some were happy to take covert photos, but others stalked and harassed her. Her subsequent rape and murder by Devilkin was horrifying. The New Powers ended up finding the fanboys involved and breaking bones for days. It was a bit of a joke when I was in high school. A quarter of my senior class graduated in a cast. The second incident was the Carly Isolode murder. She wasn't even a supra, but someone started the rumor she was Cat's Paw. That's what led to the Supra-Encyclopedia going off-line. You don't fuck with a supra's secret identity, and you don't create a tool that puts innocent people in danger.

  For my part, the collecting was personal. I wasn't going to share the data, wasn't crowdsourcing ideas, and wasn't driven by profit or even a sensible motive. I tried to reason that knowledge is power and eventually profit, but really I did it because like so many others I was obsessed with supras.

  I plugged away at it for weeks after I started, barely coming up for air. The baseball season started without my noticing. I had a standard routine until the first day of May, when someone knocked on my door. Sometimes I meet someone and I just assume they're a supra. Weirdly, this happens with beautiful women a lot. Not that I meet a lot, but when I do, I just assume. The woman at my door was beautiful and a supra, but I knew that from my reading, not because of my lonely single guy prejudices and hopes.

  “I'd like to see the office you've got available downstairs,” she said.

  “Hello, yeah, okay,” I walked halfway down the hall before I remembered the keys. “I'm going to get the keys,” I said. I walked back into my apartment, grabbed the keys and joined Calliope in the hallway. She led the way down the hall and stairs and waited at the door.

  I racked my brain for the news clips of her, but I had too many things running around at the time. I reached as I unlocked the door.

  “You're Calliope, right? The private eye?” Everyone knew her as a former member of the Guardian Angels, part of the original team when it was founded in 2000. I thought I would distinguish myself by showing I knew a little about her recent activity, which I really did not.

  “Bodyguard,” she said. She strolled in to the room like she owned it, relaxed, but ready to pounce. She wore tight black jeans, a bomber jacket, hair pulled back in a ponytail and a Giants cap low over her eyes.

  “It's not much,” I said. “Reception area. Office through there. Pretty big bathroom and closets.”

  She surveyed, glanced into the office, peeked past the shade for a long look at the street. “How's the internet?” she asked.

  “High speed cable, and the universal Wi-Fi tower is a block down. Service takes a couple days to set up.”

  “How's the coffee shop downstairs?”

  “Great coffee, questionable service.”

  “Uh huh.” She let the blinds drop.

  “Cleaners are good, too,” I said. “Local family, been here for years. They'd probably give you a discount.”

  She looked at me like I was an idiot, and I am. I get nervous around supras and women. Yeah, I was twenty-four. I was a late bloomer.

  “I want to pay cash, and I don't want any paperwork, or any questions,” she said. “I don't advertise, I don't want anyone poking around, I just need a place to meet clients. If you want paperwork, just make something up and I'll sign it. Cool?”

  “Yeah, cool, but you've got to put down a serious deposit.”

  “I'll pay the first year up front. Plus internet in your name.” She handed me a stack of cash. “Let me know when that runs out.”

  “Yeah, okay,” I said. I tossed her the keys.

  She caught them effortlessly and walked out. I went upstairs and peeked out the windows. She rode away on a massive motorcycle. I jumped on the Internet and started to build her file.

  Calliope is a hero for hire. She got her start with Yankee Station, got her training and ran as a sidekick before breaking off on her own. She spent a bit of time defending the poor, but quickly became a target of gangs and the mob. She joined the Guardian Angels, and was a target of Mary Chandler's second book, which focused on heroines. Accused of being a slut and home wrecker, Calliope quit the Guardian Angels and retired. A few years later she came out of retirement when her secret identity was revealed. She was a bodyguard for several notable pseudo-celebrities; the mayoral candidate Alex Luton, the rockstar Hesper Finn, World Series of Poker champion Edison Quinn, and movie star Zha.

  Damn, a former Guardian Angel working in my building. I went through the Guardian Angel stories I had already filed. Calliope wasn't a prominent member. She was fast and bulletproof, but didn't have excessive super-strength or anything else flashy. I scrolled through a hundred photos from nearly to decades ago to present day, and she barely aged. I don't know if that's a power, or good - normal - genes, but she was fit as hell, and had been since before I was born.

  I spent a hell of a lot of time in the next couple of days fantasizing about her. A good portion of that was ridiculously mundane, as I tried to imagine a conversation that would lead to anywhere. I saw her coming a week later when a furniture company was delivering her things. I waved from down the hall. If she noticed, she ignored me. The movers brought in a pair of desks, lamps, rugs, bookshelves, and a globe, of all things. Basically, her decorating tastes were in the mysterious Harvard professor category.

  When I wasn't exercising my imagination, I looked up her background. I got sucked down a rabbit hole reading about the Yankee Station.

  Calliope's affiliation with them probably started around 1995, and she joined up with the Guardian Angels in 2003. She had a pretty good run with them, and plenty of time out of the spotlight. I was still excited. Even an old ex-hero was an amazing supra to have working nearby.

  I had a bit of a come down after that. I really wanted to bump into her in the hallway and have an amazing conversation. I found myself going for coffee a lot more often than I would have before she rented the office space. For a two-day stretch at the end of the month, she was in the office. A dozen people came by to discuss business. She must have accepted a contract because after those two days, she didn't come in to the building and no one else was around.

  I put some thought into getting a security camera system put in. That would let me watch for her comings and goings, and I'd finally be completely creepy. I refrained.

  I did finally bump into someone in the hallway at the end of the month. I had the jitters from all the caffeine I'd been drinking as a result of my frequent trips to the coffee shop.

  The guy in the hallway wore his hat low, a red t-shirt, jeans and red Converse All-stars. He leaned his head next to the door and knocked softly. Then again. He looked up as I walked towards him.

  “Hi,” I said. I could smell the booze on him as he looked up. Something about him screamed frat boy, but he looked a bit older than me. He glanced my way and knocked again.

  “I don't think she's in,” I said, displaying the astute powers of observation that separated me from the rest of the pack.

  “No shit,” the man said.

  “It's just that you were still knocking,” I said.

  “Who are you?” he asked, and so naturally I lied.

  “Burt Hammer, Private Eye,” I stuck out my hand.

  He stood up straight as he shook my hand.

  “I doubt it,” he said.

  “Eh?” I said. Razor wit, I've got.

  “There's a reason PIs are always old guys in the books. California PIs need something like five years investigation experience to get licensed,” he said. “You don't look twenty. I doubt the math works out to back up your story.”

  “I totally lied,” I said. “I live upstairs. You intimidate me. I thought I might act cool for a minute. It didn't work. But incidentally, she's not in. She hasn't been in for a while. Maybe you could try her phone?”

  He pulled out a phone, and sarcastically pressed a button. Inside Calliope's office, a phone ringer buzzed. He sarcastically put his phone back in the front pocket of his jeans.

  “Fucking fuck,” he said.
<
br />   “Indeed.”

  “Who are you really?” the man asked.

  “I live upstairs.”

  “You're the landlord?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You got a car?”

  “Yes…”

  “Do me a favor. I need a ride.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah, come on. You're not doing anything, I need a ride.”

  “I. I mean. What if I'm busy?”

  “Busy doing what? Walking down to get another cup of coffee? Come on, you're not doing anything, I need a ride.”

  “Yeah, I'm kind of doing something?”

  “Is that a question? Look, man, do me the favor, I owe you one, and in the meantime you've got an icebreaker with our lady here for the next time you see her.”

  “Yeah, okay.”

  I mean, I didn't have anything else to do, and maybe the request was weird enough that I went along with it just because.

  We walked to my car. I finally asked, “Where are we going?” when we got to the Mini.

  “East Santa Maria,” he said. We both got in the car.

  “I feel like you should tell me your name,” I said. “If I'm going to do you this favor and all that.”

  “Fiver,” he said.

  “Like the rabbit?”

  “Yeah, like the rabbit.”

  He gave me the address. I typed it into the GPS and we drove. It was a Sunday morning and traffic was light. We arrived in the suburbs without another word being said until we arrived.

  “Park over there,” he said, indicating a space a couple of houses away from the address he had given. I parked. He didn't move.

  “You're still drunk,” I said.

  “I'm not sure what you mean by 'still',” he said.

  “When did you quit drinking?”

  “I didn't.”

  “I mean last night.”

  “So do I,” he said. “Look, here's the favor I need.”