8FOLD/ACRA: Jolt City Collected Vol. 1: The Verdant Vigilante!
Tom Russell
milos_parker at yahoo.com
Wed Apr 16 14:54:31 PDT 2008
EIGHTFOLD COMICS GROUP PROUDLY PRESENTS THE
////////////// 2006 & 2007 RACCIE WINNER FOR
//// ////// /// ////// FAVOURITE ACRA SERIES
// //// // // /// //
////// ////// ///// //
Jolt City
////// /// ////// \ // # 2-11
/// /// // \//
////// /// // //:THE VERDANT VIGILANTE!
COLLECTED VOLUME ONE//
AUTHOR'S NOTE
My thanks to all the readers who have deemed JOLT
CITY to be their favourite "Acra" series for two years
in a row-- both years of its existence. Here's hoping
the third doesn't disappoint.
An extra special thanks goes to Saxon Brenton,
whose comments in END OF MONTH REVIEWS let me know
what I was doing right when I was doing it right, and
wrong when I was doing it wrong. Ditto to young
Mitchell Crouch, for much the same reason.
I'd also like to thank Martin Phipps. I might not
agree with everything Martin has to say-- and I dare
say that the feeling is mutual-- but there were times
that he made very good points. Some of his comments
were instrumental in giving this story its current
shape, particularly in the first and seventh chapters,
and so I'd like to tip my hat to him here.
INTRODUCTION BY SAXON BRENTON
Let's start with a bang. After due consideration I
think I'll describe this collection of _Jolt City_
issues 2 through 11 as 'The Green Knight gets his act
together'.
Now, that may make it sound as though Martin Rock,
the Green Knight, is somehow incompetent. Well,
that's not the case. He's a highly skilled crime
fighter, and in any case when someone is framed for
murder and thrown into a supervillain prison from
which no one has been able to escape, then gets into a
number of fights which cause the authorities to assign
him to the highest level of security and still manages
to bust free, then the notion of him being incompetent
is demonstrably nonsense.
However, he's not omnicompetent. As the events of
this story arc, and the backhistory that is laid out
along the way, show, he's tried various ways of doing
what's best. Some of them have worked out better than
others. Indeed, some of them are matters of regret.
But the Green Knight is driven by the need to serve
the community and help bring justice to its members,
and so he doesn't give up. He simply moves on as he
searches for a better way to fulfill his self
appointed task. Perhaps the most important thing - and
here I return to my opening thesis that he's getting
his act together and demonstrate that I'm not using
the description in the pejorative - that the Green
Knight has found a way to do his self-appointed task
in a way that is more than mere onerous duty, but
which he finds satisfaction, even joy. In fact, this
is the culmination of a change of life for him that
he's be undergoing ever since we first met him back in
_Green Knight_ issue 1.
Along the way there are situations both serious and
funny. Fights against drug dealing cartels, and
attacks by superpowered criminals, and death traps,
and saving lives, and moments of insight into the
social dynamics of a how the superhuman community
operates, and team-ups with other four-colour heroes,
and a trip to parallel Earths ruled by snails, and
encountering Apelantians.
And through it all there's the Green Knight looking
for a way to do some good and make a difference. Does
he succeed? Well, that depends, doesn't it? The
mega-arc collected here ends with the triumph over one
persistently thorny problem, and that's a resolution
that should be emotionally satisfying to the reader.
However, there are always other thorny problems to
deal with. Out of little things big things grow.
Fortunately that's a truism that applies to the
forces of virtue just as much as it does to those of
vice.
1. THERE WAS A CROOKED MAN!
September. Martin has a real costume now, and a
real purpose.
The officer working at the front desk is glad to
see the Green Knight entering.
"Is Danielle Handler in her office?" Martin asks.
"No, sir." The officer is quick to add: "But she's
been expecting you. I'll tell her you've arrived, if
you want to wait in her office."
"Thank you."
"I was wondering... my brother's a bit of a fan..."
The officer produces a scrap of paper and a pen.
"What's your brother's name?"
"Barry."
Martin jots down: To Barry, From The Green Knight.
"Thanks," says the officer.
Martin nods. "You're welcome, Barry."
It's not until Martin has left the room that the
officer blinks.
Danielle Handler, forty, an ever-shifting
swiftly-tilting mass of scraggly hair, perennially
brushed from a soft face: a loose curl always dangling
defiantly down to her broken nose. Brown eyes, coffee
skin, still pretty, even with a broken nose. Girl
cop. (Girl detective.) The Green Knight's partner in
his newly-declared war on druglord Samson Snapp.
"What's up? More from our friend Snapp?"
"Not exactly," says Danielle. "We've had a number
of Snapp's dealers delivered to us by a third party."
Her voice is uncharacteristically flat.
"I want to say that that makes our job easier,"
says Martin. "But something tells me I should wait
for the other shoe to drop."
"Five dead and counting," says Danielle.
"Now, look at this one," says the coroner.
"Simon Reed," says Danielle. "Sixteen years old.
Alias..."
"Joey Jericho," says Martin. He looks at the
gaping tear in the neck, the way the head is bent
backwards and perpendicular to his body. "He was an
asshole, but no one deserves this. What did he use?
The hole's too oddly shaped for any knife I'm familiar
with."
"He was punched in the chin," says the coroner.
"What?"
"Hell of a left hook," offers the coroner. "Punch
nearly took his head clean off. And in a couple other
of these cases? I think it did just that. If you
could find the heads, it'd go a long way towards
identifying the bodies."
Martin patrols Joey's territory, and is disturbed
but not surprised to see that other dealers are
already taking his place. In an alleyway, he finds a
fresh splattering of blood. This is the place, then.
The blood forms a rough delta shape; Joey must have
been standing near the base of the delta, facing the
direction that the blood fans outwards. But this
doesn't make any sense. A punch hard enough to break
Joey's neck and open up his gizzard wouldn't have left
him standing. There's no way Joey could have landed
on his feet.
Martin looks forwards and sees deep dark streaks in
the pavement, stretching some fifteen feet into the
alley. Tennis shoes, leading up to the delta.
Was Joey dragged? Or pushed? That wouldn't be
consistent with the neck injury, or with the coroner's
assessment.
If it is a punch, there's no way the assailant
could have kept the force and the momentum behind it
going long enough and fast enough to cover the fifteen
feet and leave those streaks. And yet, there's no
indication that Joey ever left the ground.
"We're looking for a speedster," announces Martin
as he enters Danielle's office. "I hate speedsters."
Her phone rings. The conversation is terse and
over in a matter of seconds. "Looks like you're
wrong, hero," says Danielle. "There's a dealer
running for his life from a man with fifteen-foot
accordion limbs."
"Well, that was my second guess."
"Come on. We'll take my car." She starts towards
the door. He puts his hand on her wrist to stop her.
"It's four floors down," says Martin. "I know a
quicker way."
Martin knows this is a serious situation, and he
chides himself for the sudden surge of child-like glee
he feels as he pulls Danielle towards her picture
window. He opens it and fastens his grapple securely
to the frame. He holds the grapple gun with one hand,
and uses his free arm to hold Danielle around her
waist.
He pushes the reel on the grapple, and leaps out of
the window. They speedily descend, and touch the
ground. At the push of another button, the grapple
detaches from the window frame, reeling back into the
grapple gun.
Danielle smiles at him, and he thinks to himself, I
know it's serious, but why can't it be fun, too?
Several police cars and an ambulance are waiting.
One of the officers crooks his thumb towards an old
boxing gym. "Kid ran in there. Daddy Long-Legs
followed."
Martin tries to get a handle on the situation.
"How long has he been in there?"
"Maybe five minutes."
"Dealer's still alive?"
"As far as we know," says the officer. "We've been
trying to get in to the gym, trying bullets, trying
tear gas. Guy just keeps throwing it back at us.
Couple of the guys got hit with their own shots, just
bounced right off him." He nods towards the
ambulance. "They're stable, nothing serious. But all
we're doing here is managing to distract the guy."
"There a back way in?"
"Yeah, but he's whipping us over there, too."
Martin turns to Danielle. "Pull the men from the
back and concentrate all your efforts at the front
entrance. Just keep right on distracting him, but
don't be stupid about it. I want an ambulance at the
back in five minutes. No sirens, no noise, got it?"
Danielle nods. "Do your stuff, hero."
Amid the roar of gunfire upfront, the sound of
Martin's grapple finding purchase is thankfully lost.
He slowly reels it in, ascending upwards, until his
head is level with the row of dirty windows wedged
underneath the roof. The first thing he sees, of
course, is the bad guy, a weird and distorted figure,
part alien tripod and part jack-in-the-box, dressed in
black tails and a top hat. As Martin had planned, all
of the figure's attention is focused on the entrance,
and on the cops trying to breach that entrance.
He quickly scans the layout of the gym, hoping the
kid's making it easy for him. But no such luck. He
leaps down from his perch and quietly slides his way
in through the back-door.
A couple of the officers spot Martin and they stop
firing for the briefest of moments, a dead giveaway if
you're looking for it, if you're smart. Martin
notices it because he's been trained to; what about
this guy, this monster? Martin doesn't want to take
the chance, and so he immediately leaps to the floor,
rolling towards one of the two boxing rings and
flattening himself up against it.
"Come out!" Martin doesn't recognize the voice,
but he'll bet dollar-to-doughnut that it's the man
with the wonky limbs, and that he was able to pick up
on the officers' hesitation. "Come out, come out,
whoever you are! You can't hide from the Crooked
Man!"
The sound of gunfire has diminished. The cops must
be confused. Their target-- this Crooked Man-- is
ignoring them, turning his back on them. They're
unsure of how to proceed, and so their shooting is
less regular. Martin would know what to do in that
situation: if the enemy is ignoring you, exploit it.
Fan out, search, find better ground, and complete your
objective.
One benefit from the confusion is that, with less
noise, Martin can concentrate on the sound of the
Crooked Man's footsteps, getting significantly louder
with each step. From the sound of it, his stride is
impressive. Martin closes his eyes to try and get a
fix on his opponent's position. Coming from the left.
Maybe ten feet away...? Maybe twenty...?
It's hard to place, and the distance is really
meaningless because it can be covered in a manner of a
few dainty steps. The cops are still firing, and the
kid's still MIA, which means that engaging the Crooked
Man now is not an option. But staying here isn't
smart, either. Sitting behind the boxing ring is the
most obvious place to hide, it's the first place a
reasonably intelligent person is going to look.
Quickly and quietly, Martin reaches into his belt
and produces a gas-release capsule. He wedges it
between his thumb and prime finger and sets it on the
ground. He twists it like a top, sending it spiraling
away from him and to his right, moving so small and so
fast that the untrained eye won't pick it up. It
strikes the wall near a doorway (the showers? the
office?) and explodes, a veil of gas rising into the
air.
"Eh?" The Crooked Man's footsteps become much
louder, changing direction towards the gas. The
gunfire has stopped altogether. One of his thunderous
feet digs into the canvas, and Martin feels a sudden
chill when he realizes that the Crooked Man is right
above him. A moment later, the sound begins to
recede.
The gas will only keep him distracted for a moment.
Mere seconds to act, and Martin still doesn't have a
plan. But he knows that staying near the ring is not
an option. He springs up from hiding and runs towards
the front, sneaking a peak over his right shoulder
(the Crooked Man's twisted, elongated neck is firmly
entrenched within the open doorway). The officers
spot Martin and he makes a motion for them to fan out;
they misinterpret and begin to make their exit.
I can't say anything, thinks Martin. That'll alert
the Crooked Man to my presence.
Martin steals another glance at his foe, and sees
that he is backing out of the doorway, his long
stair-step neck gently pulling out. Martin steals to
a darkened corner, sequestering himself between the
wall and a vending machine.
"Alone," says the Crooked Man as he turns into the
room. Martin can see the man's smudgy face out of the
corner of his eye.
"Just you and me," the Crooked Man says. "Come on
out now."
Can he see Martin as well?
"Come out, Derek. Come out so I can kill you, the
way you've killed so many daughters and sons."
The kid! Of course, he's still looking for the
kid! The dealer.
Martin has to find him first. Only now he must do
so without the benefit of police cover.
The Green Knight decides he'll have to have a stern
talk with the police department about non-verbal
communication.
He doesn't know anything about this kid, about his
intelligence, his habits, his thought processes.
"When you don't have a template," Ray had said, "use
your own. Just because he's a criminal doesn't mean
he's dumb."
So, Martin thinks, where would I hide? The Crooked
Man obviously has an advantage out in the open; that's
one reason to head indoors. At the same time, Martin
wouldn't seek out a tiny room like an office or a
locker room, because then there's no way out. He'd be
trapped, like those people in slasher movies who run
upstairs.
No, the best thing to do would be to leave open as
many avenues of escape as possible. Martin would find
a hiding spot in the main room, because either way
he'd have access to one of these two doors. Now,
assuming the kid hasn't ran already...
The Crooked Man snakes his limbs into the cold
metal bleachers. Well, if the kid's there, we'll know
soon enough...
Assuming the kid hasn't left already... he wouldn't
be hiding behind the ring. First off, that's a stupid
move, he'd be too easy to spot. Secondly, Martin
would have seen him. It's impossible for him to be
behind one of the punching bags: where would his feet
be?
The Crooked Man snarls as he frees his limbs from
the bleachers. Which means that that's out, too.
Martin's eyes run along the walls, looking for any
other places to hide. He sees a large cabinet in the
corner next to the locker room, and apparently the
Crooked Man spots it at the same time, his wobbling
limbs grabbing for the handle. The kid's not in
there, of course: only some jump ropes and spare
gloves. Besides, one wouldn't hide there for the same
reason one wouldn't seek out the locker room or
office; there's nowhere to run if someone opens the
door.
Unless... unless the kid was planning on not being
found. On the hiding place not being obvious. Like
hiding behind a vending machine, Martin thinks.
Even as the Crooked Man continues to wander through
the room, Martin keeps his eye on the cabinet in the
far corner. He does not blink, but concentrates
until, as if he willed it into existence, he can see a
quivering shoelace emerge from behind the cabinet.
Smart little son of a bitch, Martin muses. He's
behind the cabinet. The Crooked Man didn't even think
of looking there! Now, the question is, how to get
him out of here?
If he can get the Crooked Man into that locker room
on the other side of the gym, that should buy the kid
enough time to make a run for it. But he'll have to
let the kid in on the plan before he implements it.
He has to get to the kid without alerting the Crooked
Man to his presence or his message. He'll need a
distraction.
He reaches into his belt and retrieves his electric
torch. His arm moves like a sideways catapult,
throwing the torch towards a punching bag near the
back door. The torch bounces off of the brown
leathery uvula and rolls along the floor. Wasting
nary an instant, the Crooked Man is there,
investigating the slightly-swinging bag.
As soon as he's out of the Crooked Man's line of
sight, Martin dives from his shadows and behind the
boxing ring once more, now facing the front door. He
quickly crawls to the shorter perpendicular side
adjacent to the locker room. Martin's eyes dart to
the cabinet and they make eye contact with the boy
flattened between it and the wall.
Martin points to himself and then to the locker
room; he crooks his thumb towards their gangly
opponent. He points to the boy and to the back door,
and mimes a sort of box he hopes the boy will take for
an ambulance. He hears the Crooked Man start to
pivot, and he knows his time is up.
Martin makes a run for it, dashing into the locker
room. If he's lucky, all the Crooked Man saw was the
movement, the blur, the shape of a human being without
recognizable features or colour. Martin steps into an
alcove of lockers and, using a bench as a harsh
unyielding trampoline, lands atop a bank of lockers
with a quiet but audible thud.
Sure enough, the Crooked Man rushes in blindly, his
arms waggling. "You can't hide from me, Derek," he
says as he passes under Martin's watchful gaze.
Good, thinks Martin. So he thinks he's chased the
dealer into a dead end. Which gives me the
advantage...!
"I'm from building and safety," says Martin as he
leaps down from his perch, talons ready. The Crooked
Man's arms turn before his head does, flowing like
kite tails through the windless room. Martin is
careful to dodge his opponent's fist, grabbing ahold
of the weirdly-jointed right arm with both his legs
and arms.
Martin takes a breath before continuing his quip.
"I'm here to see your crooked house, make sure it's up
to crooked code."
The Crooked Man swings his arm around him like a
great spinning yo-yo; Martin hangs on for all he's
worth, until the motion once again positions him above
his foe. As he descends, he considers saying
something about overlooking irregularities in exchange
for a crooked sixpence. He decides against it; this
is why Ray hired people to write one-liners for them.
So that they didn't have to think about it. So that
it was subconscious, like the movement of an arm.
Martin punches the Crooked Man in the face before
he touches the ground; at that point, he doesn't
actually come to rest but actually bounces right back
into the fray, wrapping his legs around his opponent's
torso as he pummels his face. With each punch, the
Crooked Man's face becomes larger and more distorted,
evolving from a slightly-askew rectangle into an
oblong zig-zag. One huge bulging eye even develops an
extremely geometrical bend in the center, like the
point at which an omelet may be folded.
"Your blows only make me stronger!" says the
Crooked Man. He grabs Martin in his jagged ribbons
arms, tossing him over his head and out of the locker
room. Martin sails like a missile, crashing into the
boxing ring's four-foot beachhead first.
He rolls over onto his stomach before deciding that
that was precisely the wrong thing to do: he groans as
the crooked leg digs deep into his belly.
"My quarrel's not with you," says the Crooked Man
as he closes his fist around Martin's throat. He
lifts Martin into the air. The weakened hero attempts
a few feeble kicks, but each time his foot makes
contact with the arm, it distorts further and grows in
size, a new joint at each point of impact.
"I only wish to rid the world of murderers," says
the Crooked Man.
"What about yourself?" Martin squeaks out.
The Crooked Man coils his arm like a spring, and
then releases it, sending Martin into a wall. The
cement floor fast approaching, Martin throws his arms
in front of him. They do little to cushion the blow.
"I'm working on that," says the Crooked Man.
That's when Martin passes out.
Martin wakes up and the first thing he sees is
Danielle, surrounded by white. "I'm in a hospital."
Danielle nods. "I've been with you the whole time.
Your mask is still on. They tried to do some tests,
but they couldn't get a clear result with the mask."
"I'll be fine," says Martin. "The kid?"
She leans forwards, lowering her voice. "Derek
Mason. We have him in custody, somewhere safe."
Martin nods. "And the Crooked Man?"
"Gone," says Danielle. "Any leads?"
"He's got a grudge against dealers."
Danielle smirks, a tiny pink paste of a tongue-tip
squeezed between her lips. "Truly, you are the
world's greatest detective."
"He's lost someone," says Martin. "A child.
Probably a daughter."
"How do you know?"
"Because he talked about 'daughters and sons'. Odd
to put one before the other. More common for people
to say it the other way around."
"I'll have my people start looking through the
archives," she says. "I'll bleep you if we find
anything. Do you need a ride somewhere?"
"I can manage," says Martin. "Though, if you have
some aspirin for my headache..."
She snaps her fingers and a nurse appears. "How
many do you need?"
"Oh, three or four thousand."
The Knight's Den.
There's a soft bruise on the top of his head, but
otherwise, Martin doesn't find any other injuries of
note.
He hears a knock above his staircase. "Martin?"
"Come on down, Roy."
Riddle opens the trap door and begins to descend
the stairs; the priest has a metal tray with him, and
he sets it down on a step so that he can close the
trap door behind him. The tray carries a plate of
linguine, drenched in what looks to be an extremely
rich alfredo sauce.
"Damn it, Roy."
"You're welcome," says Riddle as he sets the tray
at the foot of Martin's bed.
"I'm sorry," says Martin. "Thank you. Thank you
for dinner, and for letting me stay under your church,
thank you."
Riddle shrugs. "That's quite a bump you've got
there."
"Yeah, I was thinking I might add some padding to
the mask."
"Does this happen a lot?" says Riddle. "Do you get
beat up a lot?"
"You've been with me for nine months now," says
Martin. "What do you think?"
"I think you get beat up a lot," says Riddle. "I'm
just wondering if it's normal."
"It is in Jolt City," says Martin, between slurps
of linguine. It's a bit bitey, a bit undercooked and
sticky. It reminds Martin of Ree: she was a terrible
cook, too. "For a guy like me, who doesn't have any
powers? I'll probably get beat up now and again.
Especially when I'm up against a guy with powers.
It's like fighting a tank."
"But you still win," says Riddle.
"If you can call it winning," says Martin. "I
mean, I'm good at what I do. And I know that. But I
still can't help but envy those four-colours who don't
feel any pain. The invulnerable ones."
"Don't," says Riddle.
"I know. Don't envy."
"Eh, envy all you want," says Riddle. "It's like
committing adultery in your heart. Kinda hard not to.
But don't envy those who feel no pain. Pain is what
connects us to God."
"You're sounding awfully Buddhist there, Roy," says
Martin.
"Oh, no, it's very Judeo-Christian. For every sin,
there had to be a payment, a blood sacrafice. Animals
were blessed and slaughtered for this very purpose,
and it was the spilling of blood that absolved sins.
"Christ was the ultimate blood sacrafice, the
blessed lamb that was slaughtered for all sins, for
all men. But that doesn't absolve us completely. To
be redeemed, one must suffer. Guilt and remorse are
the most common means of suffering."
"So, you're saying getting beat up redeems you."
"I'm saying that physical pain is an offering to
God," says Riddle. "It's a blood sacrafice. It's a
way of paying for your sins."
Martin finishes eating his supper, but it's clear
from the expression on his face that something's
amiss. Riddle picks up on this, and asks him what's
wrong.
"When I moved in here, Roy, I said I would pay my
own way. That I would buy my own food and give you
money for rent and..."
"And I told you your money isn't good here," says
Roy.
"I'm serious, Roy," says Martin. "I'm just... I'm
getting tired of free-loading."
"Well, don't you have an interview coming up?"
"Day after tomorrow," says Martin. "But I don't
know why I bother. Twenty interviews since January
and all I've got to show for it is a collection of
rejection letters."
"So don't bother," says Roy. "Really, Martin.
It's fine with me, and it's fine with the Big Guy."
"Well, it's not fine with me!" says Martin. "And
you, you stop enabling me, damn it! I've got to be
able to stand on my own two feet. I've got to be able
to pay you room and board, I've got to pay my way. No
more free meals, got it? This is the last one." He
hands Roy the plate.
Roy shrugs and starts to head up the stairs.
"Uh, Roy...?"
"... yes?"
"For that interview Wednesday."
"Hmm?"
"Can I borrow a suit? Mine's still kinda ratty."
Roy smiles. "Sure thing, Martin."
"Lots of fathers with dead daughters," says
Danielle by way of greeting. She hands Martin a large
file. "Got my patrolmen looking into it already.
Nothing substantial, though. Unless we can narrow it
down..."
"I'm trying," says Martin. "Where's the kid?"
"This way."
Derek is spontaneously articulate, able to give
thoughtful answers without thinking. It's a trait
that Martin usually finds irritating, but there's
something about the kid's frankness that appeals to
him.
"He knew exactly where I was, where I had been, and
where I was going," Derek says of the Crooked Man.
"He knows how a dealer moves, and how a dealer
thinks." There's a flicker of regret across his face.
"You know," he says, "I know this is a rotten
business. And I've been meaning to get out of it for
a long time. But the money was easy, and that makes
it easy to drown out your jiminy-cricket."
"But after your run-in with the Crooked Man...?"
"Right. And that's what I'm ashamed of. That it
took a threat against my life to shock me out of my
apathy. I'm ashamed that I don't have it in me to
change myself."
"Derek's going to testify against Snapp," says
Danielle. "Seems really sincere about wanting to turn
things around."
"What's he getting in exchange?"
"He volunteered," says Danielle. "No plea bargain,
no deals. Says he deserves whatever jail time he
gets. But I suspect they'll go easy on him because
he's still a minor. Did he give you anything you
could use?"
"Not really," says Martin. "Just that the Crooked
Man knows the routine, knows the dealers, how they
operate, the territories. Hmm."
"Hmm?"
"I was just thinking, there's only two ways someone
could know so much about Snapp's business. One is to
be me or you."
"The other?"
"He worked for Snapp."
Three hours spent in fruitless search: leads
followed, dealers questioned, files consulted:
nothing! Martin throws his hands up in frustration
and decides it's best to go to the source.
Though Snapp's security has been ostensibly beefed
up, Martin circumvents it with no great difficulty.
He finds the druglord soaking in his tub, with what
looks to be a yellow rubber ducky.
"Whaddaya want?" Snapp barks.
"I want to save lives," says Martin. "The Crooked
Man has been slaughtering your dealers."
Snapp coughs.
"Your alleged dealers."
"That's better," Snapp nods. "And even if I was
involved in this drug-running, what then could I do to
stop this Crooked Man?"
"Tell me who he is, for starters."
"You think it's an inside job, huh?"
"Ex-employee with a grudge," offers Martin. "Or a
conscience."
"Which explains why he murders people."
"Didn't say it was a particularly well-developed
conscience."
"Even if I knew what you were talking about, why
would I help you?" says Snapp.
"Not to save human lives, obviously."
"That would require one of those, eh, what is it?
A conscience. And I don't got one of those,
well-developed or otherwise."
"Sooner or later, he'll run out of dealers to
kill."
"He'll never run out of dealers. Cut one down, two
ready to take his place."
"Still," says Martin, "what happens when he comes
after you?"
"If and when that happens, I'll give you a call.
Maybe even his name. Until then, get out of my
bathroom.
"Though on second thought," says Snapp, "maybe I
won't call you. Maybe I'll just rat to save myself,
maybe I'll give him an address. Maybe direct him to
room 12B, access code 355LM."
That's where they're keeping Derek Mason! Snapp
must have spies in the police department. Martin's
body goes stiff. "What is it that you want, Snapp?"
"Derek Mason doesn't testify, then I'll give you a
name."
"He's already agreed to..."
"Persuade him to disagree. Unless you want more
bodies. And they'll always be more bodies; dealers,
like I said, they're like trees, they're a renewable
resource. White kids... black kids. Boys, girls.
Sixteen, seventeen, twelve."
"Fine."
"Promise me. Because I know you always keep your
promises." He snorts. "Hero."
"I promise. Mason won't testify. Now give me the
damn name."
"Alex Tyson."
Martin rushes back to Danielle's office with the
name.
"If you had stuck around," says Danielle, "we came
across his file and flagged it a half-hour after you
rushed off."
"Oh."
"What? What 'oh'? What's that look...?"
"I made a deal with Snapp."
"You what?"
"For the name," says Martin. "He gave me the name.
I made a trade."
"I have a feeling I'm about to kick you in the
nuts."
Martin shrugs, sheepishly. "I promised him Derek
wouldn't testify."
"Derek is going to give us Snapp on a platter, and
you want to toss that away?"
"Snapp's giving us the Crooked Man."
"We don't need Snapp! Or you, for that matter. We
found the name ourselves!"
"I didn't know that," says Martin. "Look. I made
the best decision I could with the information I had."
"It wasn't your decision to make," says Danielle.
"Where do you get off using Derek as a bargaining
chip? You're not a police officer, you're not a
lawyer, and you're not Derek Mason. You're a
volunteer. Okay?"
"Okay, I got it. I'm sorry."
She sighs. "It's not that bad. Since it wasn't
even your decision to make, it doesn't really matter.
It's not binding."
"No," says Martin. "I gave my word, Danielle."
"Oh, don't even..."
"I gave my word!"
"Don't even go there, hero! You gave your word to
slime like Snapp, it doesn't count!"
There was a time where Martin would see the logic
behind Danielle's argument. In fact, there was a time
that he had the same argument with Ray. Part of him,
then, wants to concede the point. But there's
something else in him, something new and ancient and
stubborn. "I gave my word. It counts. It always
counts. And I promise you, we will put Samson Snapp
behind bars."
"You give me your word, hero?"
"I give my word. Now. Show me what we've got on
Tyson."
Danielle crosses her arms against her chest. "This
isn't over yet. You're still in the doghouse." She
reaches behind her, plucking Tyson's file from the
mess on her desk with smooth and effortless
confidence.
"Alex Tyson was in Snapp's employ until early last
year. You could say that he was Snapp's R & D
department: manufacturing new drugs, improving old
ones."
"That's right," says Martin. He had a run-in with
the guy last summer, when he was still a nameless
vigilante. "So what turned him off of Snapp?"
"A little girl," says Danielle. "Twelve years old.
Not his daughter, not anyone he knew. But she had
gotten hooked, and she was dead all the same. They
just get younger and younger."
"If we know all this," says Martin, "why is he out
there killing people and not rotting in jail?"
"The same reason Snapp's out there," says Danielle.
"No evidence. Someone completely totaled his lab,
destroyed all traces. Someone with a grudge."
And that would pretty adequately describe Tyson's
run-in with the mask with no name. "So. What've we
got...?"
"A last address," says Danielle. "And before you
even ask: I'm going with you, doghouse."
"Doghouse? I liked it better when you called me
hero."
"Then earn it."
The rickety little house has been deserted for some
time, if the smell of mildew is any indication.
Within a few minutes, Danielle finds a lab.
"Thought he was done with chemistry," says Martin.
"The stuff in these test-tubes couldn't have been
sitting here over a year."
Danielle corks the tubes and slides them into an
evidence baggie.
It's nearly midnight. Roy Riddle comes down to
Martin's room to drop off the suit for tomorrow's
interview. "Would you like a cup of tea before
turning in?" says Roy. He leans in close, whispering
furtively: "I've got rye crisps!" (As if rye crisps
were the ultimate indulgence, a venal sin.)
"Alright," nods Martin.
The two of them begin to head up the stairs when
Martin's pager goes off. He consults it wearily.
"It's Danielle. Something must have come up in the
Crooked Man case. A rain check?"
"Sure," says Roy. "But I can't promise there'll be
any rye crisps left."
Martin rolls his eyes and begins to get changed.
When he arrives at the police station, Danielle is
waiting for him. It looks like she's been called from
home as well. "This way," she says, leading him into
a corridor. "The boys from the lab have finished
analyzing the samples we gave them."
"And?"
"I don't know," she says. "I thought it better to
wait for you."
There's something about this that touches Martin
deeply. "I just want to say again, that I'm sorry."
"That's alright," she says, perhaps because she is
too tired to be angry. "You'll just pay for it the
rest of your life," she adds with a smirk.
"Okay," says the head lab guy, "I haven't seen the
compound before, but I think it's highly-addictive.
Very painful withdrawal symptoms."
"So, it's a drug?"
"Well, anything you take into your body that's not
food or water is a drug," says the lab guy. "But if
you're asking does it get you high? As far as I can
tell, it's neither upper or downer. None of the
chemicals that stimulate the pleasure centers of the
brain are present. In fact, I'd have to say it was
intended to hurt."
"To hurt?" says Danielle. "Why would someone want
a drug that hurts?"
"It has some other effect, a lot of chemicals that
I don't understand what they're there for. I've tried
testing it on a few mice, but nothing's happened yet.
So it must either not work on mice, or have some kind
of delayed reaction: again, not consistent with the
goals of street pharmacology. I dunno, maybe the guy
just threw a bunch of stuff together, and there's a
lot of fluff."
"Could it be the source of his powers?" says
Martin.
"That's certainly possible." He looks over his
notes. "But why would someone as knowledgeable as
Tyson design it to hurt?"
"It's penance," realizes Martin. "He's making
himself pay for his past crimes."
"If I could get a blood sample..."
"I doubt it," says Danielle. "If bullets bounce
off the guy, needles aren't going to make a dent.
Look, these chemicals you don't understand, could you
reverse-engineer them, come up with an antidote?"
"Lady, I can do anything for you," says the lab
guy.
"Don't be getting cheeky," she says, but she
rewards him with a smile.
"You look awfully tired," says Martin. "You want
me to drive you home?"
"I can drive my own car, thanks," says Danielle.
She hops inside and starts it up. She rolls down the
window and gives him a forgiving smile. "Good night,
doghouse."
She drives off into the murky night.
Martin spends a couple hours on patrol, leaping
from roof-top to roof-top and looking for heads to
bust, robberies to thwart, or even kittens stuck in
trees. It is a quiet night; even the dealers are at
home in their beds, too scared of the Crooked Man to
ply their trade. And so, in a way, the Crooked Man is
doing some kind of good in the end, despite his
methods. Martin wonders if he wasn't right after all,
when he was working solo and outside of the law.
But no, the Crooked Man's brand of fear only works
when there is a Crooked Man around. And, after Martin
takes him down, the dealers will come out of hiding.
The cancer is still there, it's only in remission. He
has to strike at the root, he has to take down Snapp
and do it right and do it legal.
But what then? Won't someone else take the top
spot?
Martin shakes it from his head. An uneasy question
for another time. He has to stay focused in the
present, in physical reality, in the weight of his
arms and the aches of his legs. Something's going to
happen, and soon. Tonight, maybe...?
"Just let me do one thing," says Martin, "let me
help one person, let me stop one crime. Than I'll
call it a night. Just let me do something right."
But it's a quiet night, and slowly, he changes his
tune. "Okay, I'll stay out until I see a cat or a
dog. If I can help someone between now and then,
fine. But if nothing's happening, I'll only stay
until I see a cat or a dog."
He sees one within seconds of his pledge, and
readily dismisses it: that one didn't count. Just one
more. That should give enough time for something to
happen, to do something...
With the second one, he can't tell if it is a cat
or a dog, there's something obscure about its
features. After the third, he calls it a night.
He pulls the costume off and sets it in a pile on
the floor. Mindful of the suit resting at the foot of
his bed, he climbs in, setting his alarm in
preparation for tomorrow's nine o' clock interview.
That's when he notices a rye crisp on his night-table.
If he had the energy, he'd smile.
Martin straightens the tie he borrowed from Roy as
he approaches the desk, and he gives his name crisply
to the bosomy receptionist. "She can see you right
now," says the blonde, throwing her hair towards the
door behind her. Martin heads in, making eye contact
with the twenty-five year old woman within.
"Hi," he says, admiring her long silken black hair
and chocolate complexion. "I'm Martin R..." He's
interrupted by the shrill alarum of his beeper. It's
Danielle. "Ah, I know this doesn't look good as a
first impression, but I got to take this call. My
girlfriend. Had a doctor's appointment."
"Feel free to use my phone," says the woman. "I'll
just go and freshen up," she adds, wiggling her hips
as she sashays into an adjacent bathroom.
"Wow," says Martin under his breath. "That's a
whole lot of woman."
She peaks her head back in. "I thought you had a
girlfriend."
Martin blushes. He picks up the phone and dials
Danielle's number, lowering his voice into a deep but
quiet bellow.
"Hello?"
"Doghouse?"
"Yes," says Martin, a little icily.
"We've got the antidote."
"Already?"
"The guy works fast. It's a spray, so you don't
have to worry about shoving it down his throat. Just
a couple of quick spritzes and his body won't be quite
so ductile. Also, a strong sedative, so it'll knock
him out for you. At least, that's the theory."
"Okay, well, I'm going to..."
The door opens and the woman reenters. She walks
over to a huge refrigerator in the corner of her
office and procures two bottled waters. She hands one
to Martin and sits at her desk across from him.
Martin shifts his voice back to its normal
register. "Uh, listen, sweetie, I've got to let you
go."
"Sweetie...?"
"I'm glad everything checked out okay with the
doctor."
The woman nods slightly.
"Well, I've got to get to doing this interview,"
says Martin. "If I get it, maybe I'll take you out to
lunch. I'll meet you in about an hour, at your
place?"
Danielle's catching on. "Okay, sounds good," she
says.
"Um," says Martin, his throat quivering a bit. "I
love you, sweetheart."
"I love you too," says Danielle. "Doghouse."
Martin hangs up the phone and looks at his
prospective employer for approval. "We were worried,"
he says.
"Well, I'm glad it came to nothing after all," says
the woman. "Pamela Bierce, Bierce Bail Bonds."
"Martin Rock," he says, extending his hand.
"Hopefully soon to be of the same. I'm sorry if
things got off onto the wrong foot. I am very, very
serious about wanting this position."
"What about it attracts you?"
"The law," says Martin. "The whole process of it.
Doing good."
"Do you have any experience in law enforcement?"
asks Pamela.
"Oh," says Martin. He opens his little brown
accordion folder and produces his meager resume. "Um,
no, not really," he says. "I served in the first Iraq
war, but that's not exactly the same thing."
"You've got a good eleven years here where you held
no job at all," says Pamela. "Any reason why?"
Martin nods. This had been the problem with every
other interview, this unexplained block of time.
"Well, I worked for Cradle Industries since I was a
kid," says Martin. "And I didn't really have anybody
then, and so I basically hoarded my money. Now, it's
running a little thin... and I've got somebody to take
care of..."
"I understand, Mr. Rock," says Pamela. "But, to be
perfectly frank, I'm not sure if this is the job you
want to have, just re-entering the work force. You
seem nice enough, but this is a very dangerous job.
The men you'd be after are men who don't want to be
found. And, in good conscience, a man of your age,
who has no experience and has someone waiting at
home... I just can't give you this job. You
understand?"
"Yeah," says Martin.
"Now, don't be coming back here with a lawyer
calling age discrimination," says Pamela. "It's just
that if you were younger, you wouldn't be such an
insurance risk."
"It's alright," says Martin. He takes a swig of
the bottle. "Thanks for the water." He pushes
himself up and out of the chair.
That's when the fifteen-foot arm comes crashing
through the front door. And with it comes the Crooked
Man.
Martin turns towards Pamela; she's reaching into
her desk for a gun. He leaps over the desk and grabs
her roughly by the arms. "Bullets won't work," he
says. "Get in the bathroom." He shoves her inside
and shuts the door.
He squirrels himself under her desk, and takes a
deep breath. His costume is at home, the spray is at
police headquarters. He hears the Crooked Man
talking, saying something about the scum going free,
and that it's Pam's fault for writing their bonds.
Martin can't just run over and pick up the antidote,
not when Pam's life is at stake.
The Crooked Man has entered the room. "Where are
you?" he snarls.
Martin affords himself a silent chuckle before he
says, "Here!" He pushes up on the desk and springs up
his legs, sending the heavy piece of furniture into
the air.
It hits the Crooked Man right in his grotesque
bread-basket; the fleeting satisfaction Martin feels
will be little comfort to tomorrow's back-pain.
That's if he lives until tomorrow.
The Crooked Man flexes his belly like a pelvis,
sending the desk rocketing back towards Martin. He
leaps away, but the desk nicks him on the ankle. He
sprawls flat on his face and, adding insult to injury,
the wounded ankle collides with Pamela's refrigerator.
Those jack-in-the-box arms are coming at him now,
threatening to crush him. Martin twists his body on
the ground, moving like a serpent, narrowly avoiding
his opponent's blows. With his arms in the air,
flailing wildly and dangerously about, the Crooked Man
had the advantage; now that those arms are touching
the ground, the advantage is Martin's. He grabs the
elongated wrists and tugs, hard.
The Crooked Man comes flying towards him. Martin
situates his foot between the refrigerator and its
door, swinging it open with a powerful kick. He lets
go of the Crooked Man's arms as the murderer rockets
into the refrigerator, his weight destroying the
shelves and displacing the food within.
Martin leaps to his feet, wincing at the pressure
he's putting on his bad foot. He grabs the spill-over
confetti limbs and quickly shovels it back into the
fridge. The Crooked Man, all twisted together inside
the refrigerator, tries to fight it. Martin slams the
door shut in time.
He turns towards the bathroom door, only to see
that Pamela has been watching for some time.
"Bring that desk over here," he barks, aware only
afterwards that he's using his Green Knight voice.
With surprising speed and strength, Pamela pushes
the largest remaining chunk of her desk towards the
airless refrigerator. Martin props it in front of the
door. "Thanks," he says, consciously employing his
Martin voice. "Better check on your receptionist and
call the police. Tell them to hurry. We don't want
him to die in there."
Pamela nods. "You start Monday."
2. MY ENEMY, MYSELF!
Martin enters the office of Bierce Bail Bonds and
folds his coat under his arm. The receptionist, Anna,
looks up from her desk. "Coat rack's over there, Mr.
Rock," says the blonde.
"Thanks, but I'm going to ask for the rest of the
day off," Martin says. "Is Pam in her office?"
"Pam!" Anna bellows. "Are ya in?"
"No," calls Pam.
"She's not in," says Anna with a shrug.
"Thanks," says Martin. He starts towards Pam's
office. As he passes by Anna's desk, she grabs his
arm. "What?"
"I was wondering if I could have an autograph."
"Sorry. I don't do autographs. But I'll tell you
what, I'm going to try and see the Green Knight today,
he's got this public appearance at this church in my
old neighborhood. I'll see if I can get his autograph
for you."
"No thanks," says the blonde. She drops her pen
effortlessly back into place. "The Green Knight
didn't stop the Crooked Man."
Martin sighs. "I know. My whole class this
morning, the teacher kept looking to me and asking me
what I would do."
"Well, that's flattering, isn't it?"
"No, it's not," says Martin. "I really like to
have my privacy. I can't stand everybody gawking at
me like that, and it makes it hard to learn."
"You got certified, though," says Anna.
"Yeah," says Martin. He reaches into his folded
jacket and produces a folded piece of paper. He
unfolds it and presents it to Anna.
"I'll have to make some copies of it," says Anna.
"What, for the records?"
"No." She points to the bottom corner of the
certificate. "You signed it. I got my autograph."
Martin throws up his hands and heads in to see Pam.
The first thing he notices is her new desk: smooth
and clean and flat and long, flanked by sturdy
cardboard boxes containing the personal effects and
business papers rescued from the wreck of its
predecessor. There's also a new fridge.
Pam's at the fridge (more properly, the freezer),
her back to Martin, tight creaseless leather pants
hugging her tight creaseless legs and round fleshy
ass. She closes the fridge (an industrial upgrade,
huge and silver-gray steel) and pivots away from it.
She's wearing a dark brown sweater, big and baggy and
formless, strangely complementary to the leather pants
and clunky wedge shoes.
"Hey," she says by way of greeting. She walks
towards the desk, her waist twisting to and fro like
an oscillating fan. She leans against the side of the
desk, her ass squeezed against the ledge, and leans
her arm back behind her across its length, setting an
ice-cold bottle of water onto its oak frame.
"Shouldn't you have a coaster under that?"
"I guess."
The fingertips of her free hand begin to lightly
tap-dance on the table, her long fingernails beating a
sturdy rhythm.
Martin reaches into one of the boxes and, with a
minimum amount of effort, finds a coaster. He puts it
under her bottle of water. "It's frozen solid," he
says. "How are you going to drink it?"
Pam's smiles are made of lip-gloss and eye-shadow.
"I'll let it melt," she says. "Just a little. I like
having that pillar of ice in there, just squeezing out
a few drops now and then. Makes me more appreciative
of the water I can get out of the bottle. How was
your class?"
"Everyone treated me like some kind of celebrity,"
says Martin.
"But you passed?"
"Yeah. Anna has the certificate."
"I wouldn't worry about being in the spotlight,"
says Pam. "At the very least, it's good PR for us.
And Lord knows that bail bonds isn't exactly a
business that engenders good PR."
"Well, I don't like it," says Martin. "I'm a
private man."
"As long as you don't have anything to hide," says
Pam. She puts her palms on the edge of the desk and
hoists her ass up onto it; once seated, she swings her
legs and body around the corner, so that she's facing
Martin dead-on. She slips off her wedgies and kicks
her feet slowly, like a little girl on a swing. "So.
Martin. How's the girlfriend?"
Before he answers, her features become hard and
adult.
"I don't like liars," she says.
"What? I..."
"You made the front page again," says Pam. She
points with her painted toes to a newspaper that sits
atop one of the boxes.
Martin reaches down and grabs the paper,
consciously keeping his eyes off of Pam's soft feet
and dainty toes. He looks at the front page:
Mr. Rock is no stranger to heroism: he served
honorably during the first Gulf War, and several
soldiers credit him with saving their lives. He is as
modest about his war record as he is about his victory
over the Crooked Man. "I did what anyone would [do],"
said Rock.
Mr. Rock is single and apparently lives alone. He
would not
Martin looks up from the paper at Pam, her arms
crossed against her chest, giving her some form within
the floating sea of sweater.
"Well?" she says.
"We broke up," says Martin. "Couple days after..."
He points to the fridge with his open palm. "... all
this. Didn't really think you needed to know about
it." He glances at the paper. "Didn't think the
reporter needed to know about it, either."
She drops her arms, resting her hands on her
leather-clad thighs; the pressure relieved, her shirt
billows out again where it once was taut. "I'm sorry,
Martin. I just... Look. You're a private person,
that's fine, and I respect that. I won't pry. Hell,
I won't even ask you if you've seen any good movies
lately or how your weekend was."
"Well, I'm not that private," says Martin.
"I respect your privacy," she says. "As long as
you're straight with me. No bullshit excuses, no
lies, okay?"
"Okay, fair enough," says Martin.
Pam grabs her bottle of water, unscrews the cap,
and squeezes a couple drops of water from its
unyielding pillar of hard, rigid ice. "Look, you
finished your class, and there's no work for you to
do, so why don't you take the rest of the day off?"
"I actually was going to ask you if I could have
the afternoon to myself," says Martin. "I'm going to
go see the Green Knight." Which is (mostly) the
truth.
"I heard about that," says Pam. "Want to take me
with you?"
"Um, actually... you know what, I think I better
not go."
"What?" says Pam, stepping down from her perch.
She puts her hand on Martin's arm. "Do I make you
uncomfortable?"
"No," says Martin. "I just... now that I think
about it, after all this publicity and everything, I
don't want people thinking I'm trying to upstage him.
Last thing I need is another front-page story."
Pam nods, not entirely convinced.
"Besides, I should be finding a place to stay, now
that the old lady's kicked me out."
"Where have you been staying?"
"With a friend," says Martin.
"Okay," says Pam, withdrawing the slight pressure
of her hand. "You want me to come with? I'm pretty
good at spotting flaws in real estate."
"No, that's okay," says Martin. "You go ahead and
see the Green Knight. If. If you want."
"Just might do that," says Pam. She brings the
water bottle to her lips once more, sucking at the
bottle neck, her lip gloss forming a slight pink
circle at its tip.
Martin pulls his new mask over his face.
"How do you like it?" asks Roy.
"I'm still getting used to it," says Martin. "The
padding makes me feel confined. But it does give me
more protection than just the cloth."
"Well, the number of times you manage to land on
your head..."
"It takes years of training to ensure such
accuracy," says Martin. He pulls on his belt and his
gloves.
"You nervous?" asks Roy.
"A little," says Martin. "I was never big on the
whole PR thing. In either identity."
Roy opens the door, confronting Martin with a
teeming, cheering crowd of two. Pam's one of them.
The other is Derek Mason.
Martin turns to Roy. "Is this it?"
The priest shrugs. "Gotta start somewhere."
"I mean, I don't want to be egotistical or
anything, but I'm Jolt City's only four-colour. I
figured there would be a bigger turn-out."
"I think you might still have egg on your face,"
says Roy.
"Yeah, but I didn't think it would be this bad,"
whispers Martin. "I mean, Pam wouldn't even be here
if I hadn't mentioned it this morning."
"GK? They're staring."
Martin pivots away from Roy, smiling at the 'crowd'
underneath his mask. "Well," he says, adopting his
Green Knight voice, "thank you for coming, uh,
everybody.
"I am the Green Knight. And I'm here to talk to
you about this community. I grew up in Jolt City, in
a neighborhood much like this one." In fact, it was
this one; but better to play it safe. "Over time,
Jolt City has changed and in some ways flourished.
But other parts of Jolt City-- my Jolt City-- poverty,
crime, and drugs have been strangling the-- they've
had a stranglehold.
"Fighting crime is part of it, but we have to
strike at its roots. And together, I think we can do
that. Work. Working together." Martin feels the
sweat piling on his face, compounded by the hot heavy
padding of his new mask. As it itches his way across
his face, he has to resist the urge to tear the mask
off and scratch.
He means these words that he's saying, means them
with all his heart. But they way they're coming out,
it's insincere. It's hard to be a public figure, an
icon, a rallying point for a community, when you're a
terrible speaker.
"So, I'd really like to hear to your-- to listen to
you and your concerns. Who. Who's first?"
Pam raises her hand nonchalantly. Martin notices
that her leather pants are now complemented by a
leather top. It's molded to her torso like plastic;
as she approaches to make her voice heard, her body
does not move so much under the clothes as with it, as
frozen in place as a plastic doll's too-perfect molded
anatomy.
"My biggest concern is gun violence," says Pam. "I
lost my father to a man with a gun. The thing is,
what can you or I do about it? That's not a community
issue. It's a political one. And unless you're
planning on running for office, I don't really see how
you can address that."
"That's a good point," concedes Martin. "And
certainly something we have to work on."
"But how? Are you even listening to what I'm
saying?"
"Yes, I'm listening," says Martin.
"You're just evading the question," says Pam.
"Because there's no answer."
"Well, look, what can we do?" says Martin. "You're
right, it is a political issue, and voting for the
right candidate doesn't mean he's going to make the
right decision, or that enough other people are going
to agree. But that doesn't mean we're helpless. If
we can't eliminate the guns, or enforce stricter gun
controls, we can eliminate the need for guns.
"There's a lot of young men on the streets, and
they think in order to be men they have to have guns.
I'm a man. I don't have a gun. Neither does Father
Roy here. What about you?" Martin nods towards
Derek.
"No, I don't have a gun," says Derek. "But I don't
feel safe, either."
"I hate guns," says Pam. "But I still carry one.
I'd be a fool not to."
"It's not something that has an easy answer," says
Martin, feeling more confident and at home with his
words. "And I'm not pretending there is one. But
we've got to try. And to be absolutely, uh,
transparent about it?
"This is what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to show
young men that you don't have to be part of a gang,
don't have to... run drugs or have a gun, in order to
be a man. To show them that there is a different
path, that you can live clean and be an example.
That's what I'm trying to be."
"Sounds good in theory," says Derek. "But how good
of an example are you when you screw up?"
Martin nods. "It's a valid criticism. And it's
something I'm aware of. But I'd like to think that by
jumping right back into the fray after I take a few
lumps, I'm showing people something about
perseverance. And I actually think this business with
the Crooked Man and Mr. Rock shows that ordinary
people don't have to be afraid, that they can surprise
themselves, that they can act."
"That's not the kind of screw-ups I'm talking
about," says Derek. "But you're right. Why depend on
some dude in a costume? You can only count on
yourself." He walks away.
"What's that about?" says Roy quietly.
"I'll tell you later," says Martin.
Pam touches her hand to his green-clad chest.
Martin turns towards her. She looks into his eyes,
the same eyes she sees at her office every day. He
gets a sudden chill as he realizes this: maybe Ray
Cradle had a point, after all, when he told him to
make a mask that covered his entire face. He hopes
that Pam can't tell that they're the same eyes, just
as he hopes she can't tell it's the same voice.
"I didn't mean to come down hard on you," says Pam.
"I really do appreciate all the things you do. I
just don't know what you're going to accomplish here.
Maybe you should leave the real work to real people,
and just go about your way beating up the Psychopomp
and whoever else."
"I can't believe that that's all I'm good for,"
says Martin. "I won't believe that."
"Well, good luck then," says Pam. She grabs his
arms and kisses the exposed bridge of his nose. She
relinquishes the psuedo-embrace and licks her lips,
tasting the salt of his sweat. Then she leaves.
"And what was that about?" says Roy.
"I don't know," says Martin.
Martin pulls off his mask once they get inside the
church, his face covered with sweat and the faintest
trace of pink lip gloss. He puts his hand into the
basin, intending on washing his face.
"Ahem," says Roy. "Not with the holy water."
Martin sighs and pulls his mask back on, heading to
the Knight's Den.
"What do you want for dinner?" says Roy.
"I'll get a burger," says Martin.
"You got a lead or something?" Roy is very
enthusiastic; it's times like these that the fanboy,
long kept at bay by the frock and collar, asserts
itself.
"No, more of a personal day," says Martin. "I'm
going to find a place to stay."
Roy exhales loudly.
"Don't start with me," says Martin. "I've made up
my mind. And especially with all this..." He picks up
a newspaper, the first front page story, from last
week. His photo in full colour on the front, right
next to the Green Knight's. "My whole professional
life, I've been protecting my secret identity by not
having one. I mean, who the hell is Martin Rock?"
Roy clears his throat.
Martin rolls his eyes. "Who the heck is Martin
Rock? A nobody. Sure, he could be the Green Knight,
but so could a thousand others. There's nothing for
people to look at, no dots to connect, because Martin
Rock doesn't have any dots.
"But now? Now I'm under scrutiny. If I don't have
a place to live, people start to wonder where I hang
my hat, maybe they follow me around. I don't want
this new Knight's Den compromised."
"So live upstairs," says Roy. "I've got a spare
room in my manse."
"You're being naïve," says Martin. "People already
know that Roy Riddle is a friend of the Green Knight,
thanks to today's press conference. If Martin Rock is
living with the guy, I'm screwed. What-- can I say
screwed in a church?"
"I suppose it depends on the context," says Roy.
"Look, I'll still base my operations here, I'll
still come to you for advice, I'll still be your
friend-- but as the Green Knight. Martin Rock has to
have a different life."
The first place he tries is a house about three
blocks from the church. There's a room for rent. The
homeowner is eighty years old, rail-thin, dignified
with a full head of blaring white hair. Her name is
Ida, and she recognizes Martin immediately.
"You're the man who stopped that awful Crooked
Man," she says.
"Yes," says Martin through gritted teeth. "I've
come about the room."
"Where's your stuff?" asks Ida.
"Excuse me?"
"Well, let's get you moved in."
"What about references, rent...?"
"I've got all the references I need right here,"
says Ida, pulling out the newspaper. She's
practically beaming. "As for rent, how about fifty
dollars a week?"
That's ridiculously cheap, even for a room on this
side of Jolt City. But Martin readily accepts it.
Martin finds that she's a gracious host. She
spends most of her time baking, and has no less than
seventeen loafs of banana-nut bread in her house, with
three more in the oven. She seldom receives visitors,
and keeps most of the bread frozen.
She pushes him until he agrees to take a slice.
Well. At least it's good, as far as banana-nut bread
goes.
He doesn't go on patrol this night, opting instead
to get a few hours of sleep.
The next morning, she insists on arming him with an
umbrella, despite the fact that it is unseasonably
warm and clear outside. "You have to be careful," she
says as she foists the bumbershoot into his hand.
Martin hurriedly makes his exit before she can whip
out the galoshes.
"There's a Fed in Pam's office," says Anna as
Martin enters and hangs up his umbrella. As if
emphasis is required, she points to the closed door.
"What about?" says Martin.
"About you."
As if on cue, the door swings open. The agent is
balding, grizzled and poc-marked, but not
unfriendly-looking. "Mr. Rock?"
Martin simply nods.
"I'm Special Agent Michael Reynolds. Could I speak
to you in private?"
"Can I see some ID?"
Reynolds nods with his hands. He digs out his
badge. Martin looks at it, checking for the four most
common signs of forgery, and nods his head curtly.
"Okay."
"Miss?" says Reynolds, turning to Pam.
She's standing in her doorway, arms against her
chest. "Be my guest." She steps out of the way,
looking at Martin. She is not happy.
Martin shrugs, mouthing, I dunno.
"After you, sir," says Reynolds.
Martin heads in first. Reynolds follows, closing
the door behind him. "Take a seat."
Martin sits down in Pam's chair; it's the most
psychologically advantageous position, the position of
power. He's behind the desk, leaving Reynolds in
front. Martin's not sure what the gesture will
accomplish: Reynolds still has the authority and still
holds all the cards. But at the very least it shows
Reynolds that Martin isn't scared of him.
Pressing the advantage, Martin doesn't wait for
Reynolds to speak. "May I ask what this is in
reference to?"
"In 1994, a friend reported you missing. In 2001,
you were assumed dead. All this time, no one hears
anything about you. Not your old marine buddies, not
your friends, certainly not the IRS. You haven't paid
taxes in ten years. That's a pretty sizable gap of
time. I'm wondering how you'd account for it?"
Martin leans slightly over the desk; he doesn't
want to overdo it. "And I'm wondering why I'm talking
to the FBI and not the BMP?"
"What, a bitmap?"
"No. Bureau of Missing Persons."
"That's at the local level, Mr. Rock," says
Reynolds. "I'm not even sure if Jolt City has a...
BMP."
"They do," bluffs Martin. "I'm just wondering why
I've attracted federal attention. Is it the-- the
taxes?"
"Partly," says Reynolds. "But this isn't the first
time you've been on the front page, Mr. Rock. Back in
January, you were questioned about the disappearance
of Anders Cradle. Then you disappeared again. Until
now."
"Actually, I was arrested for his murder," says
Martin.
"Well, they were mistaken," says Reynolds. "The
Cradle case was very high profile."
"Rich white people often are."
"You got a chip on your shoulder, Mr. Rock,"
observes Reynolds.
"I'm a private man," says Martin. "I don't like
all this prying, and I don't like being on the front
page. Now, is there something that you want?"
"I want to know where you've been the last ten
years, for starters."
Not having an alibi ready, and with it now
abundantly clear that he can't stall any longer,
Martin tells as much of the truth as he can, in
clipped, staggered statements. "Here, mostly.
Squatting. Living on the streets. Doing odd-jobs for
food." He takes a deep breath before he starts lying;
he hopes it won't give him away. "I fell on hard
times, ran out of money, couldn't really find work."
"You had family," says Reynolds.
"My father and I never had a good relationship."
"What about Ray Cradle?"
"What about him?"
"His will's a matter of public record, whether you
washed your hands of it or not. He was going to leave
you his house, most of his money."
"Anders needs it more than I do," snorts Martin.
"That's not what I'm asking," says Reynolds. "Why
would a billionaire like Ray Cradle leave you
everything in the first place?"
"We were friends," says Martin. "I didn't make a
big deal of it, and neither did he."
"Well, excuse me for being skeptical, Mr. Rock, but
if I had a friend like Cradle, I wouldn't have lived
on the street for ten years like a bum."
"I'm not going to beg for money, or a job," says
Martin. "I wouldn't ask Ray to do that, and if he
offered, I wouldn't take it. I wasn't proud of what
became of me, sure. But I wasn't doing anything
illegal and it's really no one's business but my own.
I didn't make any money in those ten years, but now
that I am working, I will be paying my taxes come
April."
"You're still legally dead," says Reynolds.
"There's papers to file in court, that kind of thing."
"Fine, then I'll do that," says Martin. Feeling a
little more confident, he leans over the desk: "Are we
done?"
"Not just yet," says Reynolds. "I'm going to be
looking into you, asking questions, and if any
discrepancies come up, if I find out you're
bullshitting me..."
"Look," says Martin. "You're the FBI. You're the
best. If there was anything to find, I know that
you'd find it. It would not profit me one bit to be
anything else than forthright with you."
"That's damn right," says Reynolds. "I just get
the sense that you're hiding something. If you're
hiding from someone, if you have any enemies..."
"Nothing like that," says Martin. "Like I said,
I'm a man who likes my privacy."
"Fair enough," says Reynolds. He stands up and
pulls out a business card. "Anything you forgot to
tell me, give me a call."
Martin neither nods or shrugs, but simply pockets
the card. Reynolds opens the door, tips an imaginary
hat to Pam, and is on his way. Pam lingers with Anna
for a few moments before entering the office.
She snaps her fingers. "Out of my chair."
Martin smiles and makes a show of it, slowly
walking around the desk and sitting in the other
chair. Pam sits in her chair and smirks a little.
"Nice and warm," she purrs.
The pleasantries, however, prove to be brief. "So,
Mr. Rock, care to tell me what that was about?"
"Not really," says Martin.
She glowers.
"What? You said no bullshit, I'm not bullshitting
you."
"Fed walks into my office, asking what I know about
you, asking about your references..."
Shit. It's only now that it occurs to Martin that
the two references he listed were Roy Riddle and
Anders Cradle. More dots. How could he be so stupid?
"You said you wouldn't pry into my personal
business," says Martin.
"Look, I have to know I can trust you," says Pam.
"We're not a babysitting service, we're bail bonds.
We're dealing with criminals here. And the job I
hired you to do is to find these criminals when they
skip out on bail. Most of these men, Mr. Rock? They
don't want to be found."
"You can trust me to do that job," says Martin.
"Yes, but can I trust you?" says Pam. "And that's
more important. I don't like secrets. I need to know
that when I ask where you are, that you'll tell me
where you are."
"You can trust me," says Martin.
"Fair enough," says Pam. She reaches into her desk
and pulls out a folder. "Larry Strode, failed to
appear this morning at his sentencing hearing. Plead
guilty to theft from JCU."
Martin pops his eyebrows, waiting for her to
continue.
Find him," says Pam, as if it's obvious. "Bring
him here, and I'll go with you your first time to
Sharp County."
"I know where it's at," says Martin. He was there
many times in his other identity.
Pam sighs. "You know, you said on your application
that you have no criminal record. If you're lying,
that's perjury."
"I don't have a criminal record," says Martin.
"And I'm not going to lie to you. And you're..."
"Not going to pry, I know," says Pam. She reaches
into her desk again. "Strode's got a few priors,
nothing dangerous. Still, to be safe, you better take
this with you."
She foists a gun in his general direction. He
doesn't take it; the sight of its black handle makes
him nauseous.
"I won't need it," says Martin. He adds: "I don't
like guns. Personal reasons."
"Yeah, me too," says Pam. "You be careful, Martin.
Don't get in over your head. Don't make me regret
giving you this job."
"Thanks for your vote of confidence," says Martin,
taking the file.
He already knows Strode won't be at his apartment,
but you've got to start somewhere. The landlord is
congenially balding and eager to help out the guy who
stopped the Crooked Man. (Nonpayment of rent might
also have something to do with it.)
"He's a quiet guy," says the landlord as he unlocks
the apartment. "Only time I ever heard from him was
when he was complaining about the noise upstairs."
"Were they noisy?"
"Not really. But he's real, uh, sensitive."
Martin steps into the apartment. The floor is
clean, dirty laundry's in a basket, the bed is made.
Looking under the bed, he finds a stash of
pornographic magazines: mostly cheesecake stuff,
airbrushed bosoms with artful lighting. It takes a
moment to realize that they're organized in
alphabetical order, followed by issue number.
"Was he real meticulous about things?" Martin asks.
"Did he like them just so?"
"He was fussy," says the landlord. "Very punctual.
Always left the apartment at the same times, always
came back at the same times." He snorts. "Only thing
he was ever late with was my money."
"Did you know where he went?"
"No. Like I said, I didn't talk to him much."
"Well, thanks anyway," says Martin.
"Not a problem," says the landlord.
"I just need a few more moments to snoop around and
concentrate," says Martin.
"Sure, sure."
Martin stares at him, waiting for him to leave.
The landlord smiles. "Say, could I have your
autograph, Mr. Rock? I'm a big fan of what you did."
"I don't give autographs, sorry."
"Then that will make mine twice as valuable, won't
it?" He grins, all teeth.
"What, you going to sell in on E-Bay or something?"
"Well, you ain't gonna be in the news forever.
C'mon. Please?"
Martin sighs and relents.
"Just tell me when you're leaving, so I can lock it
up," says the landlord as he departs to whore Martin's
John Hancock.
Martin shakes his head in disgust and disbelief,
and in doing so his eyes light upon that most
wonderful of things, the incongruous detail. For
though the bed is made, it is made sloppily, the sheet
is slightly crooked and is wrinkled instead of flat.
He was in a hurry when he made this bed, probably
realizing that Pam or the cops would come after him.
"The question is," Martin says aloud, a habit
that's becoming increasingly disconcerting, "if you're
in such a hurry, why make the bed at all? Is it
because you were undecided and desperate, you didn't
know what to do...?" He lets the question hang, as if
expecting an answer from the molecules floating around
him. He looks around the room, hoping for another
detail that might volunteer this information.
Now that the landlord's gone, a new sound comes
into focus: the dribbling of a faucet. He heads into
the bathroom and turns it off. On the sink, there's a
cup full of razors, toothbrushes, and combs. They're
all arranged neatly and proud, with one exception. He
touches the toothbrush with his thumb. Is it still
damp? He can't tell. He thinks he can detect a tiny,
tiny drop of water upon the bristles, but he's not
sure if it's really there, or if he's fooling himself.
He notices that the seat is up, but that doesn't
really tell him anything; guys seem to be split
fifty-fifty on that. He pulls back the shower
curtain. A soap scrungee lies at the bottom, and it
certainly is still wet with a mixture of soap, sweat,
and water.
Maybe he takes a shower everyday. Just like maybe
he makes the bed. He has a routine.
And even in a hurry, even when his freedom depends
on his speed, he keeps to that routine. Not because
he's still deciding what to do or still coming up with
a plan of action.
But because he can't help himself. Regardless of
anything, he must follow his routine.
"If only I could figure out what that is," says
Martin. It's eleven-thirty. "If I can just figure
out where he'd be everyday at twelve."
Chances are he'll still be there, whether he wants
to be or not.
He begins to rifle through the drawers (all the
clothes are arranged and folded very, very neatly) and
upon opening the drawer to the night-table finds
several hundred match-books stacked in piles of ten.
A cursory glance reveals that they're all the same:
Amory's Bar & Grill. They open at eleven and they
serve lunch.
Ray Cradle always told him, match-books never tell
you anything, they're only clues in mystery books.
But with this many, Strode had to have been a regular
customer.
There are no beer bottles in the apartment. That
doesn't mean Strode couldn't do all his drinking at
the bar, but at the same time, obsessive-compulsive
behaviour usually doesn't go hand-in-hand with
alcohol: it disrupts itineraries and distorts
character. So, he probably just goes there to eat.
Dinner, or maybe lunch...
It's not much, but it's a lead.
"I'm done up there," says Martin. "Say, about what
time does he get home?"
"Four-thirty, maybe," says the landlord. "And he
pretty much stays in most nights."
Lunch, then. "Thanks," says Martin.
"No problem," says the landlord. "And thanks for
the autograph," he adds, "bidding's up to two hundred
already!"
Great.
Strode's left by the time he gets to Amory's. One
of the waitresses waits on him regularly. Her name is
Cheryl and she has frizzy red hair. She talks to
Martin on her break, at the bar. She points out into
the nonsmoking area, at Strode's regular table.
"Always gets the same thing, a beer and a
tilsiter."
"Tilsiter?"
"Turkey breast with tilsiter cheese," she says.
"He was real nervous this time, ate it real quick.
Felt kinda sorry for him, he always seemed kinda in
control before, always took his time and talked with
me. Real quiet this time, not much to say."
Martin nods; all this fits the profile he had made
in his head. "He talked with you?"
The bartender grunts disapprovingly.
"When I talk with him, he tips better. Lousy tip
this time. Guess he didn't feel like talking."
"What would he talk about? Just stuff?"
"Yeah," says Cheryl, "just stuff."
"He didn't happen to mention where he was going
after lunch?"
"No, but he didn't have to. Today's Wednesday,
every other Wednesday he goes to the barber's, gets
his haircut."
"Do you know where?"
"No, but it can't be far. I see him walking
sometimes, so it's within walking distance."
"Thanks," says Martin.
"Hey," says Cheryl, "any chance I can get your
autograph?"
"I don't do autographs," says Martin. "Sorry."
"Whaddaya mean?" says the barkeep. "I just bid
three-hundred fifty on it on the E-Bay. Don't tell me
it's a fake...!"
Martin grumbles and borrows a pen and a piece of
paper from the waitress.
Martin finds a franchise hair-place a couple blocks
down from Amory's. He consults the file again,
studying the picture, and then gazes inside. Yep:
there he is, Larry Strode. Martin opens the door.
As he's about to go in, two elderly women are
coming out. They recognize him immediately: you're
that guy, aren't you, the one in the paper, you look
just like him, it's you, isn't it, Martin Rock, the
one who stopped the Crooked Man!
Martin nods and tries to push his way past them.
They are unyielding. "Could we trouble you for an
autograph?"
Martin sighs and hurriedly scribbles off a couple
autographs. Sated, the women move to the side and
Martin pushes his way in.
Strode's gone.
"Where'd he go?" he demands. "The white guy with
the buzz-cut?"
"Just left," says the hair-stylist. "He went out
the back," he adds, pointing to the back exit. Martin
runs to it, mindful of the clumps of shucked follicles
that sleep on the grimy tile.
Gone. He must have heard the old women.
He jogs around the adjacent blocks, hoping to catch
a glimpse, but it's too late. He heads back to the
barber's and asks if anyone knew where Strode usually
went after his hair-cut.
"How should I know?" says the barber. "I just cut
his hair! Say...! Aren't you Martin Rock?"
"No!"
He calls Pam and lets her know the bad news.
She's jovial. "Maybe we can have the police find
those two women, charge them with being blue-haired
accomplices."
"I'm sorry, Pam," says Martin. "This is so
frustrating."
Martin stops by the apartment building again. It's
unlikely that Strode will come back now, but you never
know. He gives the landlord Pam's card. "Call this
number if you see him come back. Don't talk to him at
all."
The landlord nods. "I sold it for four
twenty-five. You want half of it?"
"No thanks," says Martin.
"I was expecting to make more," says the landlord.
"But some lady put your bounty-hunting certificate up
there and it's eating up all the bids. Already up to
nine-fifty!"
"Yeah," says Martin.
Anna...!
About a block away from his new home, it begins to
rain and Martin realizes that he left the umbrella at
the office. As he opens the door, he opens his mouth
to announce as such; before any sound can issue forth,
a fist drives it way into his jaw.
Another man grabs Martin by the shirt and hurls him
inside. He collides with the staircase at the same
time the door slams shut. Martin opens his eyes:
there are three men in the living room, two in front
of him and one standing next to poor shivering Ida.
More than that, he recognizes the men: they're
muscle for Samson Snapp. Snapp couldn't have figured
out his secret identity... could he...?
"Ida, are you okay?" Martin asks.
"Well, I've been better."
Martin nods and turns towards the muscle. "Look,
just let her go. This has got nothing to do with her.
Whatever it is."
"We're friends of Larry Strode," says the muscle.
"He's under our protection, understand?"
The thug punctuates his question with a right hook.
"I understand," says Martin.
"You lay off of him," says the thug. "You stop
looking for him, and the pretty little slut who signs
your checks better stop looking for him, if she knows
what's good for her."
"Okay," says Martin. "Message received. Now leave
the old lady alone."
The thug nods towards his accomplice. The trio
kick Martin a few times in the stomach; he knows how
to protect himself, how to take the damage, but he
also knows how to sell it, how to make it look like
he's been badly hurt. They figure he's had enough and
make their exit.
"Mr. Rock?"
"Yes, Ida?"
"I'm going to call the police now."
"Okay."
"Are you alright?"
"Yeah, I'm fine." He catches his breath.
"You can come back and pick up your things in the
morning," she says. "I'll return your money then,
too."
Martin nods. "Keep the money, Ida. You need it
more than I do."
She nods and begins to dial the phone. "Had no
idea housing a celebrity could be so bothersome."
Martin makes a mistake when answering the officer's
questions: he refers to the men as Snapp's. They call
Danielle Handler as soon as the name is mentioned, and
she asks that they bring the "reclusive Mr. Rock" in
for some further questioning.
"So, you ever work for Snapp?"
"I told you already, no."
"Ten years you live on the streets, doing odd-jobs
for money. One of those odd-jobs couldn't have been a
drug-run, could it?"
"I never did anything illegal!" says Martin.
"Well, you still haven't answered my question."
"I just know, okay?" says Martin.
Danielle exhales, regarding him coolly. "Fine,"
she says. "But I'll be keeping an eye on you." She
nods to someone behind the plexiglas and the door is
opened.
"Everyone's keeping an eye on me," says Martin,
sourly. "I just want to be left alone."
"In that case," says Danielle, "why don't you leave
the hero stuff to the professionals, huh?"
Martin can't resist. "What, like the Green
Knight?"
"I said the professionals," says Danielle.
Ouch. Guess that means she's still mad about Derek
Mason.
A pleasant surprise: Pam is waiting for him in the
lobby of the police station.
"Heard about those guys," she says. She touches
his jaw: a small bruise is forming from the first
punch.
"Rest of me's alright," says Martin. "A little
sore, but no scratches."
"Getting slow in your old age," says Pam.
That hurts more than it should. And not for the
first time today, Martin is reminded that he's
forty-five years old.
Pam sees the hurt, and she feels sorry for having
said anything.
"This is why I didn't want to hire you," says Pam.
"You could get killed. This is not a safe
profession."
And these words hurt too, because not only are they
true of bail-bonds, but also of crime-fighting.
Martin wonders why he chose a profession that was
as dangerous as his life. The likes of the Crooked
Man not enough for him? He has to go and be a
bounty-hunter, too?
So much of his life, so many of his decisions, they
seem so random, so stupid. His whole approach to a
secret identity is laughable and slipshod. Why hasn't
he worked at it more, why hasn't he put more thought
into it? He's not a dumb guy. He should know what
he's doing at this point in the game.
Maybe these decisions are made at a subconscious
level: maybe he want to fail, he wants his identity
revealed, so that his story has an ending. Maybe
that's why he's putting himself in danger, even though
at forty-five he's taking more pain than he's giving.
He wakes up some mornings with a bad back, and that's
not just from a life-time of roof-top jumping. It's
age, and he feels it in the strain of his muscles.
He wants to be a symbol, he wants to inspire: and
the best way he can come up to do that is some phony
PR thing, a question-and-answer session that only two
people attended?
And they had Derek Mason, they had Snapp, they had
Snapp!: and Martin let him get away, Martin
practically insisted on letting him get away, and for
what? To maintain the integrity of some washed-up kid
sidekick who doesn't know when to quit?
"What kind of man am I?" Martin wonders, and it
takes him a moment to realize he's said it out loud.
Pam, however, provides a ready answer. "I think
you're a good one. And no matter what? You saved my
life, you're my hero."
"What do you mean, no matter what?" he says.
"Well, whether you keep working for me or not."
"Oh."
"I'm not saying I'm firing you. Not yet, anyway.
We'll keep you in the office until this whole thing
blows over, then we'll see how you do. Until then,
let's keep you out of trouble."
"I understand."
"So, hero," says Pam, grabbing his arm. "You got a
place to stay tonight?"
"I got some friends," says Martin. He really
doesn't want to come back to Roy's doorstep so soon,
and some of his reluctance must come through in his
voice.
"Why don't you stay at my place?" she asks. "Hero."
"You got a couch I can sleep on?"
Behind her sealed lips, her tongue moves from one
side of her mouth to the other, heavy and pensive.
"Yeah," says Pam. She's not used to being rebuffed.
But Martin hardly knows her and, besides, he's never
been attracted to younger women.
Pam suddenly gives him a hug, pressing against him.
Her flesh underneath her blouse yields to the
pressure of his hard muscles. Martin realizes, with a
smirk he cannot hide, that she's not wearing a
brassiere.
(Well, maybe never is too strong a word.) Still,
he behaves himself and tries not to stare down her
blouse when she leans over to tuck him in on her
couch.
"I'm leaving my bedroom door open," says Pam. "If
you need anything, feel free to wake me up. I'm a
light sleeper anyway."
Martin simply nods, thanks her, and gets settled,
turning over on his side and staring at the blank
television set. He seems Pam's reflection as it
recedes towards her bedroom doorway: a rectangle of
light disrupted only by her soft and bountiful curves.
She stays within view of the door-frame, and her
flickering shadow-self is burned into the television
set, into Martin's eyes. She begins to undress.
First, she pulls off her pants, letting them slide
down her legs like water. Underneath, she wears not
form-fitting panties, but boxer shorts that are
capable of asserting their reality even in silhouette.
They too come off. She starts to pull up her blouse,
and Martin, his mouth dry and breathless, closes his
eyes, hard and tight.
"Good night," she says. "Remember, anything at
all..."
Martin sucks saliva from the corners of his mouth,
bringing it to his dry and heavy tongue. "Good night,
Pam."
Martin dreams, though when he wakes, he cannot
remember what it was about.
When he does wake, he finds that his muscles are
sore and taut; before he opens his eyes, he tries to
shift around and become more comfortable. But nothing
happens.
He becomes aware of his own shallow breathing, and
it dawns on him that he must somehow be paralyzed.
His eyes flicker open, and even that takes some
effort.
He wishes he had kept them closed.
He's not in Pam's living room anymore. He doesn't
know where he is, or where Pam might be.
All he can see is the rifle pointing at his face,
and the grizzled man doing the pointing.
"Hello, Martin," he drawls. "Been awhile. If your
picture hadn't been in the paper, I don't suppose I'd
ever have found you.
"Yeah... it's been a long time, Martin. A long
time since you left me to die in the desert."
3. THE GREEN KNIGHT-DARKHORSE TEAM!
Ninety-one: Iraq.
"God-damn sand niggers."
"Excuse me?"
"Sorry, Martin. No offense. Just... I mean, what
kind of war is this, anyway?"
"War's over, Nate. We're just here to help."
"Then they need to get the Salvation Army or some
shit in here, y'know? We're snipers, man."
"We're still snipers," said Martin. He looked
through the sight on his gun, trolling the Kurdish
countryside for any sign of Saddam's forces.
"Hey, hey Martin! Look at two o'clock!"
"My two o'clock, or your two o'clock?"
"My two o'clock. Uh..."
Nine o'clock. "Okay. What am I looking at?"
"You see that woman?"
"Yes."
"Bet she looks good underneath all of those robes."
Martin sighed. "Keep your mind on the work, Nate."
"Hey, Martin, you ever been with a sand nigger
woman before?"
"No, Nate. Can't say that I have."
"Man, I wonder if their titties have pink nipples
or brown ones."
"I don't know, asshole. Why don't you ask?" He
clicked off his radio.
Nathan yelled from the adjacent rooftop. "Why'd
you turn off the radio? And why'd you call me
asshole?"
Martin clicked it back on. "Jesus Christ, you're
going to get us killed shouting like that."
"Why'd you turn off the radio?"
"You're breaking my concentration," said Martin.
"To do this job, we have to have complete focus.
Maybe that's why you're so shitty at it." He clicked
the radio off again.
"Rock, I understand that you turned off your radio
today while on active duty."
"Sir, yes sir! I'm sorry sir! Permission to speak
freely, sir!"
"Granted."
"Willis is a racist, sir!"
His commanding officer sighed. "Why is it every
time you boys have a problem with somebody, you call
it racism? Hmm? Answer me that."
"I don't know. Sir."
"This isn't the first time Willis has complained
about you. If I was a betting man, I'd say you're
still upset about his earlier and quite valid
complaints, and so you want to call it racism.
Dismissed."
"Sir."
"I dunno, Martin," said Jesse, "but this thing
between you and Nathan can't keep going on like this.
Why don't you apologize, bury the hatchet."
"What for, for being black?"
"Look, we all know he's a racist. We don't like it
anymore than you do. But we still got to work with
the bastard. Why not work smoothly?"
"He's the one causing the problems."
"You're the one that insulted his shooting."
"His shooting sucks, that's why."
Martin took his place on his rooftop. Willis was
nowhere to be seen. Maybe he was removed from duty?
If only he could be so lucky. He called the base.
"He was there ten minutes ago," they confirmed.
"Probably went off for a smoke," said Martin.
"Don't worry, I can handle it."
That's when he saw Nathan Willis in his gun-sight,
inside a little house at nine o'clock, tearing a
blouse off. Martin didn't call the base. Instead, he
leapt into action, bounding off the adjacent building
before touching ground.
He ran to the little house and grabbed Willis by
the wrist. Nathan's pistol fell to the ground.
Martin punched him, propelling him away from the
woman.
She thanked him profusely. Martin told her in
Kurdish to get dressed as he kicked Nathan in the
face.
"What're you doing?" said Nathan. "She never said
no!"
Martin snarled and tossed Nathan out of the little
house and onto the ground. He picked up Nathan's
pistol.
"Give me one reason," said Martin. "One reason why
I shouldn't kill you."
"You don't got the guts," said Nathan. "How many
people have you killed in this war? Three? Four?"
"Five," said Martin. "I can easily make it six."
That's when the world came crashing down around
them, that's when gunfire and bombs lit up the streets
and brought down the buildings.
Martin came to.
"Martin! Help me! I'm trapped!"
Martin turned and saw that Nathan was pinned
underneath a large beam about a yard away from him.
Martin pulled himself out of the wreckage. "Hold on a
minute."
A new voice: the woman Nathan had tried to rape.
She's crying in Kurdish, crying for help. She, too,
is pinned underneath the rubble, some twenty yards
away.
Martin turned and started for the woman.
"Wait!" said Nathan. "Where are you going?"
Martin dodged a beam as it came crashing down.
"It ain't safe all the way over there," said
Nathan. "I'm closer, you can save me!"
The floor gave way, and Martin leapt across the
chasm. Almost there.
"Don't you dare!" said Nathan. "Don't you dare
save that cunt before you save me, you fucking
nigger!"
Martin pulled the woman out of the wreckage. He
held her in his arms and began making his way to the
exit.
"I'm sorry," said Nathan. "I'm sorry I said that.
I was just angry. I'm in a lot of pain here. You
gotta get me out, man."
Martin carried the woman past Nathan.
"You'll come back for me, won't you, Martin?"
"Triage decision," said Martin. "Guess this makes
six."
"I'll tell you one thing," says Nathan Willis, "I
can't miss from this range. And you can't do a damn
thing. Your whole body is paralyzed."
Martin smuggles a shallow breath to his lungs,
trying but failing to steady it. He doesn't want to
appear nervous. It would give Nathan the upper-hand
psychologically.
"Fifteen years of hate," says Nathan. "Do you have
any idea what fifteen years of hate can do to a man?
"After you left me to die, I was captured by Iraqi
forces. Tortured. And I should have died. I would
have died. But the difference was, I hated you." His
face tenses up, vibrating with anger. "Hated you so
bad. And it kept me going. Helped me escape.
"I became a soldier of fortune. Honed my craft
with the sole purpose of finding you and killing you.
No other thoughts, no other hobbies. Fifteen straight
years of hate and practice. And I got good, Martin.
"I can pick off a fly on a steeple, and I'll leave
that steeple just the way it were. I know poisons, I
know how to survive, how to plan, how to kill. Only
problem was, I couldn't find you for so long. And
that made me hate you even more. Made me even better.
"And then about a year ago, you pop up. They say
you killed Anders Cradle. Now, I knew that wasn't
true, since you don't have any guts to kill a man.
You'll leave him to rot. But you won't kill him. And
as it turns out, you were innocent.
"Didn't matter. I had my lead on you. And I've
been in Jolt City ever since, trying to find you. And
a couple weeks ago, you turn up again. Only this
time, you're gainfully employed. That made it very
easy to follow you.
"And to see what mattered to you."
Pam.
"You son of a bitch!" Martin's body jerks forward,
straining against the paralysis. He hardly moves at
all. His muscles contract and he falls to the floor,
rigid again.
"You're a strong young buck. But it won't do you
much good. Not even will power can beat this toxin.
It'll wear off after a spell.
"And, don't worry, you will live that long. I'm
going to show you, Martin Rock." He takes a black bag
and slips it over Martin's head. "I ain't shitty at
all. I'm going to show you that I'm the best damn
sniper that ever was."
Martin feels his body being lifted into the air.
They're moving. A door opens and closes. (A sliding
door.)
Suddenly, his body is bouncing up and down: stairs.
They come to a sudden stop. Nathan takes in a deep,
sharp breath. (Waiting. For something, or someone.
A close call. But what?)
There's noise, people laughing and talking, dozens
of them. And a strange sound Martin can't quite
place: rhythmic, quick, smooth and yet metallic.
Suddenly, they're moving again. The noise gets
louder and then disappears. They must have passed
through a hallway. He must be avoiding the group of
people.
More stairs. His legs butt up against something
hard and metal and yet yielding. The sound of cars.
It was a door. They're outside. Another sound. A
car trunk? Yes.
Martin's body falls in a clump into the trunk.
Nathan slams it shut. A moment later, the car is in
motion.
He can't get a handle on where the car is going,
whether its turning left or right or going straight.
Everything's discombobulated.
He steadies his breath (his lungs don't feel so
tight now) and begins counting seconds. If he can
figure out how far apart wherever he was and wherever
he's going are, he might be able to trace his way back
after he gets out of this mess.
It's no use. The drug makes his brain hazy. He
loses count more than once, starting over only to
realize he has done so.
The car comes to a stop, the trunk opens, and
Martin is carried and then rolled onto the grass.
Martin lies there and waits for his body (his best
and most accurate weapon) to come back under his
command. As he waits, he tries to formulate a plan.
But there's not enough information. To try and put
something together without knowing what the score is
would be folly. He knows himself well enough to know
that he would try to stick to whatever plan he came up
with. Better not to have a plan. He has to take
things as they come. Be free to improvise.
"Mister? Are you okay?" It's a girl's voice, very
small.
"Janie, stay away from that man!"
"I think he's hurt." The black hood is lifted from
his head. She's five years old, maybe six, pretty
little dress. He tries to open his mouth to speak,
but his jaw still won't cooperate. He can feel his
fingers twitch, though. Just a few minutes longer...
"Are you okay?" asks Janie.
Martin hears the bullet coming, soft and terrible,
a second before it rips through her skull. There is a
quick spurt of blood, pirouetting in the air. She
falls backwards with a dusty thud.
Her mother screams her name, over and over, and is
silenced by another bullet.
More screams. Panic. People rushing, their feet
digging into gravel and grass... and bullets, bullets
whizzing through the air and hitting trees and flesh
and metal. I'm in a park, Martin realizes. Bunch of
kids. He's going to kill them, going to kill a bunch
of kids and their parents.
He can't let that happen.
His joints are still locked up, his muscles still
turgid solid rock. Just a few more minutes. But he
doesn't have that long. He made himself move before,
he can do it again. He has to do it again.
He was angry when he did it, he wasn't thinking,
wasn't trying. Must have been a surge of adrenaline.
If he can get himself angry again...
But he is angry, he is keyed up. They're kids!
His body quivers with outrage, and all he manages to
do is flops onto his side.
What kind of hero are you?, Martin asks himself.
Come on, get up! Get up! People are dying! Because
of you. Their blood is on your hands, Martin. In
this place...
This place...
The park. The one park in Jolt City that Martin's
been avoiding since he was twelve years old. This is
where it happened. This is where another white man
with a gun changed Martin's life forever.
"No! Not again!" Martin throws his body up on its
feet violently. His body's still in the rapture of
the toxin, still fighting him. His muscles lock up
and shake with every step. It hurts so bad, he has to
grit his teeth. Even through gritted teeth, though,
he still manages to scream.
"Everybody get down!" he says. "It's me he wants!
Me! Leave them alone!"
The shooting stops for a moment. Martin surveys
the blood-stained grass and counts four bodies in
addition to Janie and her mother. Jesus. His eyes
dart around, looking for Nathan and his perch.
They both had the same training, both had been
taught how to pick the most strategic spot possible
for sniping. Martin spots the bastard in a
second-story house window, gun poking out of the
alcove. The house is positioned diagonally from a
clearing in the trees.
Martin runs towards the house, hoping to catch
Nathan off-guard. Unfortunately, his legs still
wobble and his muscles still spasm. He hears a shot.
Bullet's coming his way. Got to get down...
Too late. Martin grunts as the bullet grazes his
arm. If it hadn't been for his erratic shaking, it
would have went through his heart. Something to be
thankful for, he supposes, as he falls to the ground,
a quivering, shaking heap.
More bullets.
No. No. No... Get up, get up...
And then, another sound, like a tornado moving
through the grass. It lasts for about three seconds.
That's when Martin realizes he only heard the bullets
fire; he didn't hear any of them make any kind of
contact.
Shaking and bleeding, he rolls to his other side,
coming face to face with a sleek, pitch-black boot.
It's not a fancy boot, not a dress boot, or a style
statement. No, from its cut and design, Martin
recognizes it as belonging to a member of the spandex
crowd.
He looks up, sweat heavy on his eyelids, to see the
tall, svelte, and dynamic figure before him. His mask
reveals the lower half of his face. He smiles at
Martin with his white teeth in his white face.
"It's alright, citizen," says the man as he
disintegrates the bullets he's caught by rubbing them
together at super-speed. "You're safe now! The
shooting's stopped!"
"He's in the house," says Martin. "White one,
third from corner." He shivers, suddenly very cold.
He feels something inside his brain, gaping and
terrible and ready to swallow him whole. Before he
succumbs to it, before he lets himself fall to sleep,
he focuses his eyes on the speedster. "And you're not
Darkhorse..."
Martin dreams.
He can't remember an image. But a sound haunts
him.
That weird sound he heard en route to the trunk.
That rhythmic metal sound he couldn't quite place.
It spins around in his head, regular and
relentless.
Martin awakens in the hospital. He feels his lungs
swell up to full capacity; he feels a certain
languidness in his muscles that tell him that his
control of his body has returned.
"Good afternoon, Mr. Rock." It's Michael Reynolds,
the federal agent. "In answer to your unspoken
question? Yes, you are in deep shit."
"Did you catch him?"
"Who, the shooter? No."
"I told him where he was."
"Yes," says Reynolds, allowing his eyebrows to
squat against his squinted eyes. "Unfortunately, by
the time Darkhorse got there, there was no one inside.
We found some cigarettes. Other than that, no
traces. How did you know he was there?"
Martin bristles a bit, knowing where Reynolds is
going with this. "We both served in Iraq, sniper
unit. For what he wanted to do, that would be the
most advantageous spot."
"That's where you would go, huh? If you wanted to
shoot up a park full of kids."
Martin doesn't dignify that with a response.
"So you know who this guy is?"
"Nathan Willis," says Martin.
Reynolds starts to jot the name down.
"Military will say he's dead," says Martin. "I
left him behind in the field. Triage decision. I
could only carry so many people."
"So he's a little pissed at you?"
"I guess you could say that, yes."
"So why didn't you tell me about this yesterday? I
asked you point blank if there was anyone you were
hiding from."
"I wasn't hiding. I thought he was dead. Everyone
else seemed to think so."
"Everyone thought you were dead, too," says
Reynolds. "But here you are. And there he is, some
psychopath with a gun, killing children. I'm going to
ask you this once, and only once: did you know about
this?"
"Of course not," says Martin. "One minute, I'm
asleep, the next, I wake up in some room I've never
seen before, paralyzed. I had no idea he was still
alive. He blindfolds me, stuffs me in a trunk, drops
me off in the park, and starts shooting."
"Do you remember anything about the car?"
"No."
Reynolds exhales. "What about the place he kept
you?"
"There were a lot of people," says Martin. "Maybe
he was hiding in an attic or something?"
The door opens. Danielle Handler. She's
completely exhausted. "We meet again, Mr. Rock."
She's not happy about it.
"We've got a name," says Reynolds, passing his
notepad to Danielle. "Apparently, the hero here left
him for dead back in Iraq. Now he wants revenge." He
turns to Martin. "You'll want to tell us the whole
story, from the beginning."
Martin nods. "After that, can I go?"
"There are dead children," says Danielle.
"I didn't do it," says Martin. It comes out a
little colder than he wants. Perhaps a little more
desperate, too.
"You brought this monster into my city," says
Danielle.
"Besides," says Reynolds, stepping in, "you're his
primary target. It wouldn't be advisable to have you
on the streets while he's still loose."
"Yes," agrees Danielle, cooling down to her
professional simmer. "The Green Knight will want to
talk to you. We're going to keep you here under
police custody until he arrives."
"You get a hold of him yet?" says Reynolds.
"Not yet," says Danielle. "But he's never let me
down before. Darkhorse has offered to help, and he's
out searching the city now."
"Goody," says Reynolds bitterly. "Maybe if we're
lucky, he can destroy more evidence. What kind of
idiot disintegrates the god-damn bullets?"
"Okay, hero," sneers Danielle as she takes a seat.
"So why don't you start at the beginning?"
He goes through the story roughly a half dozen
times. Danielle occasionally steps out to call the
Green Knight. Martin wonders if he left his pager at
Pam's, or if Nathan has it. Either way, it's a bad
situation: police are scouring Pam's now for clues.
And, blip, that's the end of his secret identity. But
what if Nathan is able to trace the pager to the cops,
what if he puts two and two together?
Either way, not good.
Danielle enters the room again. "Still no answer.
I don't understand it."
"What do we need him for anyway?" says Reynolds.
"We've got the police searching the crime scenes.
They'll turn something up. Things get too hard, we've
still got that other dipshit in tights to take him
down for us. What difference will the Green Knight
make?"
"If he's not going to show," breaks in Martin,
"then can I go?"
Danielle snaps her fingers. Two police officers
enter. "This piece of shit does not leave this room
under any circumstances. Not until the Green Knight
has talked with him." She makes her exit. Reynolds
tips his hat and follows.
Martin knows why police will have witnesses recount
events again and again, from the beginning: it helps
them to structure the events, it frees up the memory.
The surest way to solve a problem is to understand it.
So, he thinks to himself, very careful not to say
any of this aloud: here's the problem.
There's a psychopath on the loose. He's after you.
It's your fault. He has Pam. You have to stop him.
But.
You can't leave this room until the Green Knight
shows up to talk to you. But.
You are the Green Knight. So, until you arrive to
talk to yourself, he's still free. So, that's the
situation. What are the solutions?
He could try to escape, try to overpower the
guards. But then Reynolds and Danielle would
certainly suspect him of being somehow involved with
Nathan, that he's hiding something. Likely, they'll
divert resources and make it a two-man man-hunt.
And, beyond that, it just makes life ten times more
difficult for Martin Rock once this whole thing is
over. The last thing he wants is more attention, more
legal bullshit. And he can't run away from that. The
last thing that he needs is to be a fugitive from
justice.
He could sit this one out. The police are more
than competent, and this white guy claiming to be
Darkhorse can probably handle Nathan. Hell, he can
handle him better than Martin can: Martin can't catch
bullets in mid-air or phase through matter. Martin
doesn't have any powers at all.
Assuming he does get out of this room and confront
Nathan, Nathan will undoubtedly have the advantage.
As the Green Knight, Martin's armed with a grappling
hook and some gas pellets and an electric torch:
that's it. Hardly anything that can stop a bullet.
But Martin's had the same training as Nathan.
What's more, he's better at it. It's been more than
ten years since he's fired a gun, but he knows he'd
still be the best damn shot that ever was. He could
meet Nathan, gun to gun, sniper to sniper.
But when you bring bullets into the game, there's
more of a chance that people can be hurt, that
innocents can suffer. Besides, he cannot and will not
take a human life. Not again. Not now that he's the
Green Knight.
So, really, maybe the best thing to do would be to
sit it out. After all, he's getting older, he's only
a man. Better to let the cops take down the gun-man.
Hopefully too many of them wouldn't get shot down in
the process.
Only, and he knows this: he made this bed. He
can't, in good conscience, ask others to lie in it.
He has to stop Nathan. He has to get out of here
to do that. To get out of here, the Green Knight must
show up. Or...
Or he must reveal his secret identity.
Okay. So what are the consequences of the big
reveal? First, it gets him out of here, and it gets
Nathan off the streets. That's a plus, but that's
only the immediate picture.
The larger picture? Everyone's going to know that
Nathan Willis was going after Martin Rock. That it's
Martin Rock's fault that there are dead children. If
he reveals that Martin Rock and the Green Knight are
one and the same, people will blame the Green Knight
for what happened. The chance of him making any kind
of impact on the community is reduced to nil. So
that's out. He can't reveal it publicly unless there
are no other options. But maybe... maybe just to
Dani?
If he confides in her, it doesn't damage the Green
Knight's reputation, at least not publicly.
But at the same time, it would damage their
relationship. Both the Green Knight and Martin Rock
are already skating on thin ice with her. To conflate
the two identities would only increase her anger. And
she couldn't respect, couldn't work with someone who
unleashed Nathan in her city.
Either way, he's no longer as effective as he used
to be. No longer able to make a difference. But is
that really that important? Or is it more important
to him? Is he being selfish by trying to maintain
that status quo? People have died. Pam's in danger.
All this suffering, and all because of Martin Rock.
That's ironic. The whole reason to maintain a secret
identity is to keep your loved ones from reprisal.
But when it's the civilian identity that's targeted,
it renders the whole thing kind of moot, doesn't it?
Who is Martin protecting by wearing the Green
Knight's mask? What person could possibly be in
danger if his identity was revealed, that wasn't
already in danger because they were known
acquaintances of Martin Rock? Roy.
Roy Riddle!
"Hey," says Martin.
The guards blink.
"Can I make a phone call?"
The guards exchange looks, trying to figure out the
protocol.
"You can listen in," offers Martin. "Put it on
speaker phone. Just want to call my priest. I was
going to meet him tonight for Wednesday mass, but it
looks like I'm going to miss it."
The guards have blank faces.
"I'm real religious," says Martin earnestly, hoping
that will seal the deal.
"Tell me the number," says one of the guards,
picking up the phone. Martin gives him the number and
he dials.
"Saint Plechelm Church," Roy's voice pips up over
the speaker phone. "You sin, we absolve."
"Who is this?" barks the guard incredulously.
"Father Riddle," says Roy. "May I ask who's
calling?"
"I got a Mr. Martin Rock here, wants to talk to
you."
"Martin?"
"Hi, Roy," says Martin.
"What's going on?"
"I'm in the hospital," says Martin. "I was shot in
the arm."
"Are you okay?"
"Just grazed it a bit. That was a police officer
you were talking to."
"Really?"
"Yep. I was shot by a sniper, and they're keeping
me here as a witness."
"Oh?"
"Yeah," says Martin evenly. "They're keeping me
here until the Green Knight shows up to talk with me."
"Oh," says Roy. "You'll get his autograph?"
"Sure thing, Father Riddle," says Martin. "Just
wanted to let you know I won't be able to make it
tonight. I don't know when the Green Knight's going
to show up. But I have a feeling I'm going to be here
a long time."
"Well, let me know how it all turns out, Marty,"
says Roy. "Take care."
"You too," says Martin.
Roy hangs up the phone. Martin thanks the guard,
takes a deep breath, and waits.
An hour later, Danielle enters the room. She nods
at the guards, who exit. "You're free to go," she
says.
"Did you catch Willis?"
"No," she says testily. "The Green Knight will
only talk to you in his lair. His, uh, public liaison
is downstairs. He'll escort you."
The elevator door opens, and Martin steps out,
followed by Danielle. He can see Roy at the end of
the hall. As he gets closer, he sees that Roy is not
alone. Standing next to him is Derek Mason.
Derek shakes Martin's hand. "My name is Derek," he
introduces himself. "I'm one of the dealers the
Crooked Man was after. I just wanted to thank you for
saving my life."
"You're welcome," says Martin.
"Now remember your promise," says Roy. "No
following."
"The Green Knight can trust me, just like I trust
the Green Knight," says Danielle. "Though more and
more, I'm wondering why I trust him in the first
place."
Martin climbs into the passenger seat.
"So," says Roy, "what's this all about?"
"You first," says Martin. "What did you tell
them?"
"I told them I was the Green Knight's go-between,"
says Roy. "That you needed to be brought to, uh, your
lair."
"Did they ask why?"
"Yes," says Roy. "I figured it wouldn't be very
seemly for me to lie, and, to be frank, I'm a bad liar
besides. So I just said that you had your reasons,
that I couldn't disclose them, that they should trust
you. And Miss Handler obviously does."
"What was Derek Mason doing there?"
"Well, just because she trusts you, doesn't mean
she trusts me," says Roy. "She knew somehow that he
had attended your press conference on Monday. He was
able to confirm that I was there with you."
"Thanks, Roy," says Martin. "You really got me out
of a tight spot."
"You're welcome," says Roy. "I'm just glad to be
of service. Now, it's your turn. What's this all
about?"
"What is it always about?" says Martin with a deep
sigh. "The past coming back to bite me in the ass."
Roy clears his throat. "Martin. Language."
The Knight's Den.
Martin winces as he slides his injured arm into his
costume.
"You think maybe we should make it bullet-proof?"
Roy asks.
He hands Martin a green sack of cloth. Martin
pulls it over his face and creates a Mask, a skin that
covers his whole body. The only parts left of him are
his eyes, his soul: his essence, the essential
Martin-Rockness of Martin Rock.
"No," says Martin, finally. "There's no time."
"But in the future," says Roy. "Someone's bound to
shoot at you again."
"And I'm sure someone will try and use fire as a
weapon," says Martin. "Should I line the suit with
asbestos? Someone will use a knife. Should I make
the padding extra thick, should I wear steel armour?
"This is a dangerous job, that's true. It's also a
dangerous world. But do you walk around with a Kevlar
vest?"
"No," says Roy.
"Do you feel safe?"
"Sometimes," says Roy. "Sometimes I don't."
"I can't plan for every eventuality," says Martin.
"And I can't be scared. Otherwise, I'd just keep
covering myself, protecting myself, and what message
does that send to ordinary people? If a hero needs
that much protection, shouldn't they need more? I'm
not going to scare mothers and fathers."
"Not to play devil's advocate," says Roy, "but is
sending a message, being a symbol, more important than
being alive?"
Martin considers climbing up the side of the
building, making a dramatic entrance through
Danielle's large office window. But he doesn't dare
use his grapple, not with his arm. It only got
nicked: he still has to be careful not to let it show.
It'd be another dot for someone to draw a line to.
He is quickly escorted to Danielle's office, in
which she is already waiting, along with Reynolds.
"You just better have a good explanation for this
Rock business," says Danielle.
"Rock... it's complicated. And maybe I'll explain
it to you, someday."
"That's not the way it works," says Reynolds. "You
don't get to keep your secrets, carte blanche."
"I'm sorry," says Martin. "But you've just got to
trust me."
"You keep giving me fewer reasons to," Danielle
retorts. "Where is he?"
"Rock's in a safe place," says Martin.
"You better keep ahold of him," says Danielle. "We
got some questions that don't have answers yet. We're
going to want you to turn him back over to us after
this is done."
Martin exhales deeply, hoping the pause will sound
natural and afford him some time to think. "He's
innocent," he gambles. "Completely innocent. You
have my word on that."
"Not the way it works," Reynolds says again.
Gamble failed. "You turn him back in. After the two
of you capture Willis."
"Two of us? Who? Me and Danielle?"
"You and Darkhorse," says Reynolds.
"I don't think so," says Martin. "I work alone."
"Whatever happened to your sidekick, the Acro-Bat?"
says Reynolds.
Before Reynolds can demand an answer, a blur of
motion catches Martin's eye. The sleek, black-garbed
Darkhorse appears.
"Great, you're here," says Darkhorse. Martin
observes a pink pimple on his pasty white face,
divided in half by the tight line of his spandex.
Reynolds clears his throat. "Darkhorse is an
employee of the Federal Government, and has been asked
to assist in the apprehension of the sniper. He'll be
tagging along on your investigation."
Martin sighs. "Fine. Let's get down to business,
then. Any leads?"
"Beyond what Martin Rock told us?" says Danielle.
"No."
"Then we have to look for more clues. We'll hit
Bierce's residence first, as it's closest. Then the
house and the park. Hopefully, we'll find something
that will lead us to him."
Before he can say anything further, Martin finds
himself weightless, the world spinning around him, a
sudden digging pain in his arm.
Two seconds later, Darkhorse sets Martin down in
front of Pam's apartment. Surprisingly, he doesn't
find himself to be dizzy or disoriented, though the
arm stings. Absent-mindedly, he rubs it.
"Are you okay?" asks Darkhorse.
"Yeah," says Martin, withdrawing his arm. "Just a
cramp."
"I can rub it at super-speed," offers Darkhorse,
putting his words into action before they echo into
the air.
"No, thanks," says Martin, withdrawing in agony.
"I, uh, don't like being touched."
Darkhorse reaches his vibrating hand into the door,
popping open the lock with his immaterial fist. He
vibrates through the yellow police tape. Martin
grumbles before ducking under it.
Darkhorse is zipping to and fro inside, opening
drawers, turning over cushions and replacing them in
the same instance, giving the entire scene a strange,
squiggly static quality.
"Stop," says Martin. "That is not the way you
conduct an investigation."
"Might not be the way you conduct an
investigation," says Darkhorse. "But when I can
process information at super-speed, I..."
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