Don't Be a Hero: A Superhero Novel by Chris Strange Page B

bowler hat to keep it from flying off. Her heart started to thump, spurring on her legs even as her brain told her to stop and think. She hadn’t acted like this for years. Police raids weren’t that uncommon in the Old City. People got arrested. So what? Brightlance was right. These weren’t the old days. Justice died along with the superhero.
    But the McClellans were decent folk. Hotheaded, sure, but decent. They’d probably never seen her in the building, but she’d seen them. This was their first kid. Metas going into labour were supposed to present themselves to one of the Neo-Auckland hospitals. Newborns were typed and gene-tested for any signs of metahuman mutation. Tier two and three metahumans had kill-switches implanted before they turned ten. And if parents were unlucky enough to have a tier one metahuman for a baby, they didn’t even get a chance to name them. The Seoul Accord stated that metahumans with the strength of Mr October or Kingfisher presented too great a risk to be allowed to live.
    The McClellans had tried to hide their baby. They’d failed. The cape coppers were good at their jobs.
    Niobe crouched and peered around a low brick wall. The officers were dragging Mrs McClellan to their Black Maria police van. The woman was hysterical, barely able to walk. Her powers had no combat use. All she could do was read auras to determine someone’s mood and personality.
    The woman collapsed to her knees a few feet from the van. The coppers exchanged a look. “Get up, damn it,” one of them said. He slapped her across the face with his open hand.
    The sun was slowly rising, but the coppers were in the shadow of the building. In full light, Niobe’s powers were useless. It’d kill her to turn to shadow in full sunlight. But there was still enough darkness here. She took a deep breath, held it, and slipped into shadow.
    It was harder to make out figures during the day when she was in shadow form. Everything was bright, almost painful. But it wasn’t hard to follow the vibrations as the coppers stomped their boots and gave the woman a few good whacks.
    “Bloody freak,” one of the coppers growled. “You’d think these bitches would learn to keep their legs closed.” He gave her another half-hearted kick. “Get the fuck up.”
    The other one pressed his hand to his nostrils for a moment. “Goddamn it. I think the rubber man broke my nose. It won’t stop bleeding.”
    “It ain’t broken. You just got smacked around a bit.”
    “No, it’s broken!” He raised his rifle, aiming the butt at the woman. “Your fucking husband broke my nose!”
    Niobe reformed behind him, wrapped her arm around his neck, and pressed the barrel of her modified revolver against his temple.
    “I wouldn’t do that,” she said, and aimed her revolver at the other officer’s head. “Not if you don’t want me to break some more bits off you, anyway.”
    The copper she held stank of sweat. The other one snarled behind a thin moustache, hand moving to the rifle slung across his shoulders.
    “For the love o’ God, don’t!” the one she held yelled at his companion. “She’ll kill me.”
    The copper was taller than her, so she kept her knee pressed into the back of his leg, bringing him into an unbalanced half-crouch. The moustachioed copper scowled, eyes narrowed. He let the rifle slip from his shoulder and clatter to the ground.
    “Freak,” he said through gritted teeth.
    “Spare me,” she said. She nodded to the red-haired woman still sobbing on the ground. The woman didn’t seem to know what was happening. Blood trickled from the corner of her mouth. “Pick her up—gently—and put her on the bench over there.”
    He paused. Niobe pulled back the hammer of her revolver. That got him moving. Grudgingly, he took her under the arms and led her to a rickety bench on the side of the road. She’s walking all right, Niobe confirmed. No serious damage. Thank God.
    Niobe put her gun arm across her whimpering