Hero Engine (17 page)

“Let them in, John.” A woman near John’s age steps up behind him. She sets a hand on his shoulder. “Come on in. If you two are working this late, I’m betting you’ll need some coffee.”

“Ma’am, I could use coffee like a starving man could use a piece of bread.” I tilt my head in thanks and step inside as Carol moves to the kitchen. John takes a seat in an old recliner.

Carol bangs around a couple cupboards and runs some water before the glorious sound of coffee brewing touches my ears. Massive amounts of caffeine are the only thing that got me through my first couple years on the force. As the low guy on the totem pole, I always drew the overnight shifts. With the coffee started, Carol takes a seat in a wooden rocker next to John. She sets a hand on his thigh.

A couch that might have been new when disco was cool sits at the opposite side of the living room. I perch on the front edge of it, afraid to lean back and break the aged sofa. Ann takes a seat in a similar position next to me. I glance around the house. Everything is old but well-kept for its age. And clean. This makes it seem very much like visiting my grandparents or something.

“So, what would you like to know about our daughter?” John’s words are harsh. He still thinks we are here to break down his daughter and he hates us for it. I can’t blame him.

I clear my throat. “We are having a hard time finding out what she is like. We were just wondering if you could fill us in on her personality, maybe some shining moments or what-have-you.”

John sits forward in his recliner. He combs a wispy patch of gray hair over the bald spot on top of his head and stares. His chin juts out. “I’ll tell you why you are having a hard time finding out. It’s simple. That dirt-bag bunch of
heroes
hated Sammy. She couldn’t get along with any of them from the start. She said they were the most unpleasant, bitter group of people she had ever met in her life.” His voice starts quiet, but rises to a cold reprimand by the end.

Carol squeezes her hand on his leg. He takes a deep breath and sets his hand on top of hers. The affection seems to calm him a little. With her free hand, Carol pulls down on the edges of her floral print nightgown. “John’s right. Samantha, she just never seemed to find her place among the others. That struck us as odd, she always got along with everyone she met around here.”

Ann and I exchange a quick look. Getting along with the melting pot that is Houston is one thing, getting along with the leaders of a multi-national secret organization is a-whole-nother thing.

In the kitchen, I hear the coffee pot gurgle that righteous sound of a finished brew. As I make my way toward it, I ask, “What was she like, growing up?”

“She was everything.” I can hear the smile and pride in Carol’s voice, even without seeing her expression. “First cabinet on the left, dear.” I open the cabinet and find a slew of mismatched coffee cups.

“Would you all like any?” I turn to see their response.

“No, thank you,” Carol says. “At our age, if we had a cup now, we would be strung up until tomorrow afternoon.” She gives a light laugh and pats John’s leg.

I reach past a ‘#1 Grandpa’ cup and grab an Astros mug and a Mickey Mouse mug with a chipped edge. Mickey is in his wizard outfit from the movie Fantasia, but the bottom half of his body has been worn away with time. “You were saying?” I reply over my shoulder as I fill the two cups with the best part of waking up; or never going to sleep. Whichever, really.

“Oh, yes,” Carol says. “Samantha was a straight-A student and worked with lots of local charities. She helped poor children who couldn’t afford tutors with their homework and taught immigrant children English for school. Helping people meant the world to Samantha. It was all she ever wanted to do.”

“So she had her sights set on that damned Initiative since she was old enough to understand what it was,” John’s gruff voice continues.

I walk back to the living room and hand Ann the Mickey cup before resuming my seat.

“Sammy did everything she could to practice for that exam. She got sick the night before the test. Poor kid put so much pressure on herself to ace the thing.” John’s fingers trail absentmindedly over the back of his wife’s hand as he speaks. “She fretted for the entire two weeks it took to get the results back. Sammy worked nonstop, probably to keep her mind off what she scored on the test.”

“And when the scores came in?” She made it through the Engine, so the answer is obvious. But I feel like they need encouragement to keep going.

“She passed with flying colors,” Carol says.

“Local recruiter, or whatever you call it, said it was the highest score they had ever seen. One look at Sammy’s school and volunteer record and the recruiter said he would be sure that the higher-ups got a look at Sammy,” John adds.

“And that they did,” I say. “Samantha made it through all the testing and then through the Engine. She became the superhero she always wanted to be.”

Carol smiles, a warm friendliness in her eyes, but a quiver on her lip. She works her mouth around for a couple seconds, trying to get the right words out, I imagine. “She did. We were so proud when it happened. Our little girl, one of less than twenty-five superheroes in the whole world. The city threw a party for her. Lots of people around knew her for her love and kindness.”

“And the ones who didn’t were just happy that someone from Houston made it to the elite.” John rocks in his recliner. “They didn’t have any immediate openings, of course. So they took her to SHI Headquarters and gave her a desk job to keep her busy until a spot opened up. A lot of people would think they had it made and slack off, but not our Sammy. She put in as many hours as she could doing work for SHI. After about eight years, there was finally an opening.”

“She was so excited to go into the Engine. She wanted to come out as a healer, like the one woman, what’s her name?” Carol’s hand drifts in the air, physically searching for the name.

“Medica,” Ann offers.

“That’s right. Medica. Samantha wanted to be like her. She thought she could change lives that way.”

“Yeah, she wanted to be like a saint. Traveling around and touching people.”

Sounds to me like the girl in the beauty pageant who says, ‘world peace’, but actually thinks she can achieve it. This image is a bit different from what everyone else has given us on Tess, but what kind of parent wouldn’t be proud of their kid?

I sip my coffee. The steaming bitterness feels right at home in my mouth, amongst my thoughts. “If you don’t mind me asking, what exactly went wrong, after she became a hero?” Hopefully a little gentle prodding can get us moving in the right direction.

John and Carol turn to each other. That same quiver from Carol’s lip traces the contour of her cheeks before dissipating into the crow’s feet around her eyes. John clenches his body tight. His chin juts out like a square-jaw Marine. The man is built from a different era—from a kind of metal they just don’t make anymore—and he may be a softer now, but there’s still a grit about him that’s hard not to appreciate. This guy looks like he’s seen guerilla-infested jungles
and
factories closed out from under him and is still here, taking his shots.

“When Samantha worked the operation part of SHI, she didn’t spend a lot of time working with the heroes. She rode along with some of the charity events, but never held any substantial conversations with the heroes.” Carol’s hand shakes and John sets his on top of it.

“The heroes aren’t quite as heroic as people like to think,” John says, an edge in his voice. “They are petty and vain, and most of them couldn’t give two squirts of piss about humans.”

I check on Ann out of the corner of my eye. She doesn’t seem to have an argument against this. After the handful of heroes I’ve talked to in the last day-and-a-half, I’d have to agree with them too.

John continues. “At first Sammy told us she tried to make them help, try to see how they were heroes and role models, but they just blew her off.”

“Did you see her often,” I ask.

“At first, yes, but less and less as time drew on.” A car passes by outside and the lights shining through the curtains make Carol’s eyes glisten. “She didn’t come to visit as often, and then her calls slowed. We were worried and tried to talk her into speaking to the director.”

John’s hand clenches into a fist. “She told us she did talk to him, told him about the way the heroes acted, and treated her.” John snarls on the word ‘hero’ every time he says it. “But that guy didn’t give a damn about Sammy. He didn’t do a thing to help her.”

If she talked to Vince, that might be why he is so set on her innocence. He might also feel guilty about things going this badly. I’d be willing to bet the guy is dumping a lot of blame on himself for this one. To be fair, he might deserve it, or he might not. Useless to point fingers and play the blame game right this moment. There are still too many lives at stake.

The next question forms in my mind. I don’t want to ask it, but it needs to be said. There is a certain amount of tact and word wrangling I’ve learned to make these conversations easier, but I’ve got nothing for what I need to ask next.

I look around the room, trying to formulate a plan. Pictures line all the walls. Three little girls at the beach in one. The picture is old, faded. One of the girls is clearly Tess, the other two have enough resemblance to be sisters, or just friends. Another picture shows Tess on a pier holding out a large fish in one hand, fishing pole in the other. John’s standing next to her with his arm around her, beaming fatherly pride. My gaze settles on a small picture on an end table next to John’s recliner. The picture shows a young Tess standing in front of a classroom. She’s writing on the chalkboard that reads, “Hola = Hello”. There’s a smile on her face – the kind someone gets when they truly enjoy what they do.

Is that the face of a mass murderer? Portrait of a Young Sociopath? Or Dying Light of a Misunderstood Hero?

It’s always the last person anyone expects. Such a nice boy. (Psychopaths can fool anyone.) She got along so well with everyone. (They are also extremely adept at fitting in, like social chameleons.) He was always playing with the neighborhood animals. (Beating them with sticks or shutting them up in a microwave, most like.)

I never take my eyes off the picture, never lift my gaze to the Higgins’, as I ask, “Does Samantha have any history of violence?”

Carol takes in a small gasp that almost sounds like a muffled yelp. I don’t have to check to know that John is giving me the stiff-jawed look of rage. I wait a minute, let them have their moment of fury. They have every right to it. I am the stranger in their house, asking painful questions.

“What do you mean, violence?” Carol’s voice is far off, quiet.

“What I think Mr. Quig is asking,” Ann says, in an almost apologetic voice, “is, did Samantha ever strike out against anyone or did anyone ever do anything violent towards her?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” John says. I finally take my eyes off the picture to make sure John’s look matches the one in my head. It does. “Everyone loved our Sammy. She was the shining light of this shit town when she was here and the SHI threw all that away. They pushed our daughter to this, this madness.” John blinks, touches a finger to the corner of his eye. There are no tears. John is not the kind of man built for crying. Men weren’t born with tear ducts in his day.

“That’s not exactly true.” Carol moves from her husband, looks him in the face. “There were people,” Carol sighs, “a lot of the locals were upset with Samantha teaching the immigrant children. They said her time would be better spent teaching ‘white children’ as opposed to anyone else.”

“A few of the more bold ones got pretty mouthy with her.” John’s face is solid as stone again. “Once they even spray-painted some pretty nasty things on her car. I wanted to round up a few friends with baseball bats, teach those racist punks a lesson. But our Sammy, she wouldn’t let me. She wasn’t like that. It took a whole night’s worth of arguing just to convince her to carry a stun gun. Even still, I followed her. Didn’t tell her of course, but if I knew she would be working after dark, I drove out to the Boys and Girls club where she taught and followed her home.”

“But, the hooligans didn’t need darkness to cover their cowardice,” Carol says. “On her way in to teach a class, she heard some noise so she went around the side of the building to investigate. She found a group of boys beating up a sixteen-year-old student. She yelled and scared all but one of the boys off. This kid, he was maybe twenty, he wanted to prove he wasn’t afraid of a sixteen-year-old girl. He came at Samantha, but she had her stun gun ready…” Carol’s voice trails off and John picks the story back up.

“In her panic, she got the guy in the neck. We didn’t have a lot of money, so the stun gun was old, secondhand, and didn’t have the auto-off feature that newer models do. She held down the button for so long the guy quit breathing. The punk deserved worse than that if you ask me.”

If I wasn’t already on the edge of the couch, I would be on the edge of my seat. The half-empty cup of coffee sits forgotten between my hands. “Did the guy…”

“Die?” John scoffs. “Hell no, the bad ones never die. They hang around to plague the rest of us. That delinquent probably went on to raise a delinquent family on the tax dollars of hard-working Americans.”

Well, least she didn’t kill the guy. I sit back in my seat. “Anything else like that ever pop up?”

Carol and John both shake their heads. “No,” John says, a papa bear smirk on his lips, “after sending one goon to the ICU, no one else wanted to mess with her.”

There will always be a special place for a woman who finally sends the fucker who wronged her to the hospital, or the morgue. Some people don’t deserve to breathe oxygen, let alone exist with the humans who at least try to cover up their fucked-up-ness. I swallow the last of my coffee; it has cooled and bites a little harder now. My throat and my conscience crave something smoother and barrel-aged to even out this mess in my brain. “I think that’s about all the questions I have. Ann, have you got anything?” I look over at her.