Halloween 2021 Prize: Out of Mind (Super Powereds Short)

Out of Mind was originally published as part of The Good Fight, a superhero short story anthology.

            “I’ll have the usual.” The man at Karen’s booth hadn’t bothered to pick up a menu. He sat there staring up at her, narrow frame and curiously wide shoulders, dressed in an uninteresting outfit of dark slacks, a grey shirt, and a black tie. Ordinarily, she’d have assumed she waited on him recently and simply forgot; neither his face nor his style were the sort of thing to leave an impression. The exception to all this mediocrity was his eyes: the irises were pale lavender, not the sort of thing that was likely to slip her memory.

            “I’m sorry, the usual?” Her auburn hair fell to the side as she tilted her head in confusion.

            The man sat silent for a moment, staring at her intently, then let out a small sigh. “Two eggs over easy, a side of bacon, and a cup of coffee.”

            “Right away.” Karen jotted down the order and headed off, perhaps a bit more quickly than she needed to. There was something off-putting about that man, more than just his strange colored eyes. Lots of people wore wigs or contacts to try and look like Supers, people who got irregularly-colored features naturally (along with abilities no normal human could dream of). But still, he seemed different. Maybe… maybe his eyes were the genuine article.

            Karen’s white non-slip loafers squished as she crossed the diner’s checkered tile floor. She tore the paper with the purple-eyed man’s order from her notepad and slid it across the metal counter at the window to the kitchen. A cheerful young man in a hairnet snatched it from her immediately. Julian ran the line while the rest of the cooks handled the bulk of the food.

            “Table eleven?” Julian asked as he placed the paper with the line of tickets waiting to be filled.

            “Yup,” Karen replied. She could see another of her orders being prepped, so she decided to wait for it to come up rather than to let it sit and get cold.

            “Someone always orders this on table eleven, almost every day.” Julian grabbed a pair of eggs and cracked them into a pan, a searing sound filling the air.

            “Doesn’t ring a bell,” she replied, watching a plate of pancakes make its way toward the window. “I guess all the orders run together after a while.”

            “Uh-huh.” Julian cast a curious glance at her, but the food required more attention than his coworker’s odd lapse in memory. By the time he looked back at the window, Karen had gotten her food and was gone. He meant to ask her about it again when she came back, but it slipped his mind.

            This was still better than Karen, who’d completely forgotten the odd man with the pale lavender eyes within ten minutes of him leaving the diner.

*              *              *

Establishing Link…
Link Established
Start Conversation

            Msg – 0734 – DV: Local gang is planning to try and rob the bank on 43rd and Bishop this afternoon. Five known members, at least three are Supers. One has enhanced strength, one has telekinesis, third ability unconfirmed. Pictures for identification are attached.

            Msg – 0735 – Dispatch: Notice put out. Will have three Heroes in area at time of robbery. Can you identify which people in the pictures are Supers?

            Msg – 0737 – DV: The bald one is the strongman, the one in the green bandana is the telekinetic, and the one with red boots is unidentified.

            Msg – 0737 – Dispatch: There are two men with green bandanas.

            Msg – 0738 – DV: The one holding his leg in picture number four.

            Msg – 0739 – Dispatch: Confirmed. Do I want to know why he appears to be screaming in pain?

            Msg – 0741 – DV: I decided it was time to leave. Telekinetics can be a handful, so I gave him something to focus on besides me.

End Conversation
Link Terminated

*              *              *

            The unassuming man with the pale lavender eyes put away his phone. He’d been busy with that gang for nearly three days now; it was time to move on to something new. This target would be a little more interesting than just a few Supers who thought they’d reached the level of strength where rules no longer applied to them. The man shook his head; it had been over twenty years that he’d been on this job, twenty years since he graduated from the Hero Certification Program, and in all that time people hadn’t gotten any smarter.

            It wasn’t like the concept should be that difficult to grasp: Supers with the most talent and power got to enroll in the HCP and try to become registered Heroes, the only people legally allowed to fight Supers committing crimes. Of the countless who applied, only ten from each school graduated with certifications. These were people who had brains, brawn, or raw power enough to be considered on par with unstoppable forces of nature. Yet almost every day some upstart with a decent ability thought they would be the one to buck the system. It wasn’t just that the HCP got the best Supers, which they did: it was that the HCP took those top-tier candidates and trained them to be worlds better. It should all be so simple, yet some people kept right on trying to use the gifts they’d been given to overpower regular humans who they saw as weaker.

            That was where the Heroes came in, giving such criminals a whole new outlook on the concept of “weakness.”

            Well, most Heroes did that. Those who graduated with a focus on the Subtlety discipline walked a somewhat different path. They worked behind the scenes, gathering information on all manner of topics to help the combat-oriented members of their community. After all, even the strongest, most powerful gang leader had to sleep sometime. It was the job of Subtlety Heroes to find out where and when.

            The man with the pale lavender eyes walked along in the early morning sunlight, enjoying the relatively moderate temperatures that would give way to oppressive heat when the sun rose in full. He stopped in front of a brick building’s glass doorway, reading the frosted letters denoting the address and occupant, then stepped into the marble foyer. At a circular desk sat a middle-aged man wearing a navy uniform and a laminated badge. His eyes watched the door without wavering, tracking this new person’s entrance.

            “Can I help you?” His tone was restrained and polite, but the distrust in his eyes betrayed the intent behind his question.

            “I hope so; I’ve got a meeting with Alderman Douglas. My name is DV; I should be his nine o’clock.”

            The guard, for that is what he was, nodded and pulled up a calendar file on the silver laptop that rested in front of him. As he did, the man with odd-colored eyes released something from his hand. It was out of sight when the guard looked back up.

            “Just DV?”

            “It’s what everyone calls me, though I’ve got a new secretary and she still messes things up on occasion. May also be under David Valance.”

            A few keystrokes brought up the alderman’s full day, and nowhere on it was a DV or a David Valance. The guard kept his expression neutral, but his suspicion was raised. “You sure it was today?”

            Those curiously-colored eyes flicked away from the guard, just for an instant, glancing at what should have been an empty wall behind the circular desk. “If it’s not, I’m going to fire that damn secretary as soon as I get back. Just to be sure, it may be under the company name: Marbonics Industries.”

            Relief washed over the guard as he spotted the name on the schedule. He loathed having to turn away people that were supposed to be there; it always resulted in him being chewed out, even though they paid him specifically to not let the unscheduled pass.

            “That’s the one. Let me get you a guest pass and you can head on in.” The guard pulled open a small drawer, removing a green badge that the man with the strange eyes would need to keep clipped to his shirt at all times in the building.

            While his head was down, he missed the hum of electric wings that zipped from the wall behind to DV’s waiting hand. Fingers curled around the strange creation, something the size of a dragonfly but made entirely from electronics, hiding it from view. By the time the guard rose from the drawer, all sign of the device was gone.

            “Here you are, Mr. Valance.” The guard handed over the small green badge. “Have a good day.”

            “Please, just call me DV.”

            The man walked past the security desk and stepped into an elevator, vanishing from sight as the doors shut and he ascended to the higher offices.

            Twenty minutes later, a tall gentleman with greying hair and a fine black suit stepped through the doors. He was also greeted with the guard’s stare; however, he did not bother affecting a facade of friendliness, instead proceeding to order the guard around.

            “Gregory Butler to see Alderman Douglas, here on behalf of Marbonics Industries. Let’s hurry this along; I’m already late due to some ruffian slashing all four of my tires when I stopped for coffee.”

            “Right away, Mr. Butler.” The guard went to pull up Alderman Douglas’s calendar then realized it was already on his laptop screen. Strange, he didn’t remember needing to check it for anything this morning. Must have hit a wrong button without noticing.

            “I’ll just get you a badge and you can be on your way.”

*              *              *

            It took three hours before DV managed to get noticed in the wrong way. People saw him, certainly. Alderman Douglas was in the midst of a campaign for state senator, which meant that even here, in his personal business, the halls were frequently frantic with activity. Many of his aides and employees saw the man dressed in dull business-casual attire, but since he was wearing the proper badge, they had no reason to question his presence. True, it might have roused their suspicions to see him time and time again, led them to wonder just what it was he was doing that had him wandering about. That certainly would have gotten him busted sooner; however, it never came to pass.

            Every time someone saw DV, they were seeing him for the first time.

            It was an electronic safeguard that tripped him up in the end. Those were the bane of his existence, for they weren’t as easily influenced by his particular talent. DV was captured in a server room that was locked, alarmed, and secured against exactly the type of entrance he’d perpetrated. Getting in had been simple; it was downloading the last of the incriminating files that had caused a digital alarm to sound and resulted in three armed guards, far less pleasant than the one downstairs, storming in and drawing their weapons.

            Really, he had no one to blame but himself. Gearbox had furnished him (albeit not always knowingly) with equipment so cutting-edge that it should have easily bested these security measures; the trouble with tech-genius stuff was that it was only as good as its user, and DV was too old to keep up with all the advances in electronics. Luckily, he was not so old that his hearing had failed him, so as he noticed the stampeding footsteps converging on his location, DV pulled the small device free from the server and slipped into a hidden pocket in his belt. It wouldn’t buy him much time, but sometimes a little was enough.

            “At ease, boys.” DV raised his hands in surrender as soon as the first lackey burst through the door. “You caught me, I’ll come along peacefully.”

            “What are you doing here?” The biggest guard was the one talking; he must be in charge or too dumb to keep his mouth shut. Either worked for DV.

            “Nothing much, just planting a virus. A virus that, by the by, will wipe your entire system in the next hour. Of course, I might be persuaded to stop it, if Alderman Douglas asks really nicely.”

            Any idiot could guess this was probably a bluff; not that it mattered. If the guard was in charge, he would run this up the line to avoid getting heat for his decision. If he was stupid, then he wouldn’t catch on to the bluff. Or, if DV got lucky, he’d been so dumb that he’d try and attack the would-be-hacker. Having one of them within reach would open up all sorts of wonderful opportunities.

            As it turned out, his guard was the responsible type. Without taking his eye, or his gun, off of DV, the guard tapped an earpiece on his right side. “Sir, can you get me the alderman? We’ve got a situation and he needs to be made aware.”

            DV let out a disappointed sigh. Oh well, this could still prove to be entertaining.

*              *              *

            Alderman Douglas had an unsurprisingly nice office. Millionaires tended to enjoy their creature comforts, and Bertrand Douglas certainly had the money to qualify. A man who started his career as a lawyer then went in to investment and corporate accounting, Bertrand Douglas had made a fortune while helping other wealthy people protect theirs. All of which was perfectly legal, on the books. In the data DV had seen, however, there were more than a few anomalies. It wasn’t what he was looking for, but leverage was leverage, regardless of how it came about.

            DV sat in the very plush chair, hands zip-tied to one another behind his back, and marveled at the décor. Very chic, minimalist, with a few vintage accoutrements scattered about. DV had been in the lair/office of many a wealthy, wicked person over the years, and this was easily one of the better decorated. The guards behind him had no eye or appreciation for their surroundings. All they cared about was the man they’d been instructed not to let out of their sight.

            They were so wound up and focused that when the door finally flew open, two jumped and one nearly squeezed off a shot by accident. Alderman Douglas paid them no mind; his employees may as well have been pieces of unwanted furniture for how often he looked at them.

            “So, you’re the man who claims to have taken my computers hostage.”

            “That I am. Derrick Vindreck is the name, but you can call me DV. Everyone does.”

            “DV, you say?” Alderman Douglas crossed the room and settled in to his own chair, positioned behind the wide wooden desk separating him from the clearly lying man with the strangely-colored eyes. “Well, Mr. DV, my technicians have been sweeping every server and servo since you leveled your threat and have uncovered nothing that matches the virus you described. Care to explain?”

            “Oh, sure. I made it up.” DV kept eye contact with the alderman, carefully working his hands in between the chair and his back. Nothing in his shoulders gave away the procedure currently underway, not even when his skin began to tear. Sometimes he wished he’d gotten one of the physically adaptive abilities like so many other Heroes, that way he wouldn’t end up so sore after every job. Still, he shouldn’t complain; at least the high-backed chair meant the guards didn’t have direct line of sight on him. That would make this much easier.

            “You made it up?” Alderman Douglas arched one of his well-shaped eyebrows, a motion he’d clearly practiced countless times in the mirror.

            “Had to. I didn’t think your goons would understand any of the real threats I could level.”

            “But of course; you had to dumb it down for the guards.” The alderman started to motion for those same guards they’d been discussing, indicating he was done with this mad intruder’s prattling. DV was tempted to let him – it would play well in to his plans – but he needed a little more time first. Besides, he wanted to bastard squirm at least a little.

            “Sure, it’s not like they even know about you hiring those Super thugs to intimidate your political competition. Pretty sweet gig, scaring the others out of the race so you run unopposed. Telling them I knew about that might seem the more clever option, but that’s the sort of threat that only works when the person understands the truth behind it.”

            The manicured hands stopped in mid-air, the alderman’s attention suddenly rapt on his still-seated guest.

            “Or I could have used the financial stuff, but again, I seriously doubt they’re plugged in enough to understand terms like fraud, embezzlement, and larceny. No, the virus was the way to play it. Big enough to get your attention and broad enough that even a layman would understand the threat.” DV hid a wince of pain with a theatrical wink and his left hand slid free. Everyone thought zip-ties were so much better than cuffs, but anything could be broken if a person was willing to do enough damage to their hand. That was one step toward freedom down, two to go.

            “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

            “Come on, Bertrand, you’re going to need to do a lot better than that when the reporters are hounding you. A canned response following a long pause? They’ll tear you up for that kind of amateur-hour shit. Of course, it doesn’t ever have to reach the press if you don’t want it to.” He gave the alderman a reassuring smile, hoping the ambitious politician wouldn’t notice the slight change in DV’s appearance.

            “You’re after a bribe, then? Forget it. I admit to no wrong-doing, and even if you did find some anomalous files, they’ll be inadmissible in court. Breaking in to my office without a warrant is hardly proper procedure.”

            “Boy, if I were a cop you’d be spot on with that. Sadly, the rules I play by are a bit different. Let me ask you something; are you familiar with the Hendricks v. DVA case?”

            “Any lawyer worth his salt knows it. It upholds the admissibility of preemptive investigations if the crimes directly involve violent Supers, but that only applies to…” That was when it clicked for Alderman Bertrand Douglas: those nearly-purple eyes were darkening, ebbing toward a shade that bordered on black. This was no man embracing the nation’s trend of imitating Supers; he was the real deal. And if he’d come here investigating the Super violence Bertrand had funded, that meant he was the worst possible thing that could walk in the office: a Hero.

            “Guards! Kill him!” There was still time to save things, still time to clean up this mess if he could stop his captive from telling anyone what he’d found.

            “Um, kill who?” This was the first guard, who was looking at his coworkers with an expression of sudden confusion. The others were mirrors of him; not one of the three knew what their boss was talking about.

            “Out of sight,” DV muttered just before he sprang to action. In a single motion he leapt to his feet and kicked the chair back, sending it skittering along the floor and crashing into one of the guard’s kneecaps. Without giving anyone a chance to react, DV continued his escape, racing toward the frosted glass door that secured the alderman’s office. He slammed into it, propelling himself outward and smashing the door into the adjacent wall so hard that the glass shattered to bits.

            The words “get him” died on Alderman Douglas’s tongue as his brain scrambled to remember what had just happened. He’d been doing… something. There were guards here, one of whom was clutching his knee, and the door to his office was broken. That must be it; he’d called them in and one of the oafs had plowed his knee through the door, shattering the glass.

            “That will be deducted from your paycheck,” Alderman Douglas said, slamming his fist onto the desk. “How many times must I tell you idiots to be careful? Honestly, you’ve gotten me so angry I can’t even remember why I asked you in here. Get out, and send someone from maintenance up to take care of this.”

            For a moment, the guards stared at him with dumbfounded gazes, but soon their own brains began filling in the memory gaps as well. The human mind abhors a vacuum, and memory is already such a pliable thing. It was almost no task at all to shift a few facts around until they formed a story that made sense.

            “Sorry about that, sir,” the first guard said, grabbing his injured coworker by the elbow and dragging him out of the room. “We’ll get it taken care of right away.”

            “See that you do.” Alderman Douglas sat back down at his desk as the last of the three exited the office. There was still a tickle in the back of his mind, some nagging sensation that there was an important thing he’d forgotten. He brushed it off as overactive worry. When one was as busy as he, there were bound to be a few things that slipped through the cracks. That was what the little people were there for: to clean up after him.

            In the hallway, the guards passed a man whose dark-purple eyes cusped just on the verge of black who was calmly waiting on the elevator. They gave him a business-appropriate nod, which he returned, and then continued on their way, immediately forgetting about him.

*              *              *

Establishing Link…
Link Established
Start Conversation

            Msg – 1422 – DV: Sending a data upload via the usual channels. Alderman Bertrand Douglas has been hiding and stealing quite a bit of money to finance his election. Some of it was going toward paying off a gang of Supers to scare or injure his opponents out of the race.

            Msg – 1423 – Dispatch: How did that escape us? Those incidents are usually reported as soon as they occur.

            Msg – 1423 – DV: From what I saw in the files, one of them can muddle memories. Not a full wipe or negation, but enough to leave victims confused.

            Msg – 1444 – Dispatch: We’ll send Heroes with appropriate resistances. Apprehension will occur within the next three hours.

            Msg – 1445 – DV: While you’re at it, can I get Fix-Up or someone to come patch me? Got captured during my recon and the escape left me short some blood and skin.

            Msg – 1446 – Dispatch: If it’s critical priority, we can get a healer and teleporter to you in five minutes. If you’re stable and safe, it will be a few hours.

            Msg – 1446 – DV: Hours it is, then. Also, I’ll need to borrow some new toys from Gearbox soon. Running low on gadgets.

            Msg – 1448 – Dispatch: I’ll put something on the books, but you know he hates when you raid his armory.

            Msg – 1448 – DV: Guess it’s a good thing we’re the only two who remember that.

End Conversation
Link Terminated

*              *              *

            “I’ll have the usual.” The man at Karen’s booth hadn’t bothered to pick up a menu. He sat there, narrow frame and curiously wide shoulders, dressed in an uninteresting grey shirt, a black tie, and a white-cloth bandage wrapped around his left hand. He had bruises beginning to show just along his hairline, small cuts running down the side of his face, and what looked a lot like dried blood splattered on his tie. Karen was so distracted by his evident injuries that she didn’t even notice the pale lavender color of his eyes.

            “I’m sorry, the usual?” Her auburn hair fell to the side as she tilted her head in confusion and concern.

            The man sat silently for a moment, then let out a heavy sigh. “Two eggs over easy, a side of bacon, and a cup of coffee.”

            “Right away.” Karen jotted down the order, doing her best not to stare at his injuries as she scooped up his menu and headed toward the kitchen. This was a relatively safe city, but things still went wrong on occasion. If he’d been jumped or something, she didn’t want to make him feel more self-conscious about it. The diner was almost empty; it was too early for the late-evening rush. Thankfully, Karen would be gone by the then, the last hour of her double-shift finally over.

            She grabbed a carafe of fresh coffee, a clean glass, and some cream, then brought the whole assortment to the injured man’s table. He was staring at the television hung in the corner when she arrived, reading the closed captioning about some local politician’s arrest that had gone down earlier in the day. Karen had been a bit interested at first, but after seeing the same minimal footage cycle several times, all her captivation had waned.

            “Looks like some Heroes brought down a crooked politician.” He didn’t look over at her as he spoke, instead grabbing pink packets to dump in his coffee cup.

            “My mother always says ‘crooked politician’ is a redundant term.”

            The man dropped his pink packets as he barked out a laugh of surprise. He glanced up at her, and for what was the first time and also very far from the first time, Karen noticed the strange color of his eyes.

            “Your mother is a smart woman.” He said it with more certainty than she’d expected, as though he knew firsthand just how right she was. “I’m glad to see the Heroes sweeping up the worst of them.”

            Karen nodded. Supers could be a troublesome bunch, and Powereds were a category all their own, but it was hard to dislike Heroes when they were out and about every day saving people. “My mother also said they were people doing God’s work.”

            “Did she now?” This time he didn’t laugh, but he did give her a gentle smile as he filled his mug with coffee. “And what do you think of them? The Heroes, I mean.”

            “I think they do great things, but they’re also lucky sons-of-bitches,” Karen admitted. “Flying around in beautiful costumes, greeted by crowds of people cheering when they arrive, knowing each night they go to sleep that they made the world a better place; who wouldn’t want a life like that?”

            “Do you ever wonder if they get lonely?”

            “Lonely? With all those fans begging for their attention?”

            “Fans and friends are different things,” the man pointed out. “To me, bearing all the power and responsibility, it would get hard after a while.”

            “Still, seems a far sight better than being a regular old person, doesn’t it?”

            “Maybe for some. There’s bound to be a few who are burdened by it, though. Ones who take the responsibility to heart, who live their lives so completely as Heroes that it consumes the other side of them. Heroes who never take off the mask, or remove all the reasons for needing one in the first place. Maybe they don’t start out that way; it just sort of happens after too many close calls. They realize that the only way to protect others from the consequences of their choice is to ensure there are no others to protect.”

            The man paused to take a sip of his coffee, breaking the spell Karen all at once realized she’d fallen under. He seemed to sense it to, as his mood suddenly lightened.

            “Sorry about that, I’m slowly reaching the age where I’ll give my opinions to anyone whether they want them or not.”

            “No, it’s an interesting thought. I never looked at Heroes that way. I mean, I always assumed Powereds were the only ones who had it rough, not being able to control their abilities and all, but Heroes may have some drawbacks too. You’re pretty smart, Mister…”

            “Verdant. Devin Verdant.”

            “How funny, my last name is Verdant. We might be related,” Karen said.

            “Could be, but I doubt it. There are a bunch of Verdants in this area.”

            “Tell me about it; I went to high school with three of them, one whose name was Kasey. Teachers got us mixed up all the time. Well, you sip on the coffee; I’m going to go see if your food is about ready.”

            “Thank you, Karen,” Devin Verdant said.

            His food was ready, and she quickly brought it over to him. Though she meant to talk more with the odd man, her tables began filling up. The longer she worked, the harder it was for her to remember why it was she’d wanted to speak him, or what they’d talked about in the first place.

            He finished his food quickly, keeping an eye on her as she scuttled about. She’d forget him soon: his ability was far more dialed down than it had been at the alderman’s office, but it wasn’t off completely. No one had ever really been able to figure out what his power was; it overcame telepathic and illusion defenses with no trouble at all. Only those with outright immunity to mental alteration were able to hold on to their memories of him. Even on film, he would be seen and forgotten in the same minute; the same would happen even if it was just his voice. Of course, he could have always turned off his ability if he really wanted to be remembered.

            With minimal rummaging in his wallet, DV produced a hundred dollar bill and set it on the table to pay his eight dollar tab. She wouldn’t remember which table had given this to her; that was for the best. If she’d known, she might have realized he always tipped in such a way, and that would have led to questions that he didn’t want her asking.

            He headed out into the early evening air and checked his watch. Fifteen minutes until his meeting with Fix-Up, and then on to recon work for his next project. DV wasn’t a fan of downtime; it gave him time to dwell on all the things he’d sacrificed along the way. With a final glance through the diner’s window at the young auburn-haired waitress scurrying about, DV headed off toward his next meeting.

            There was work to do.