your doing is trading a future sitting behind a desk for a future beating people up. And getting beaten up. You’re going to get hurt. You are. Physically and emotionally. Look, let me show you something,” he offers, leading her out of the room and into an office down the hall. “Over here,” he says, stopping at an old filing cabinet, “are the medical files.”
Jason pulls open the top drawer, where Francis keeps the files about himself. He motions to the hundreds of files inside the drawer. “Read these. They go back to 1981, when Francis made his debut. They’re the hidden story of all his triumphs and tragedies. Broken bones, concussions, alien viruses, torn muscles, psych evals …”
He shakes his head. “I want to be honest with you, Colbie, which I know is probably the wrong thing to be with a 15-year old kid, but I want you to know what’s coming in your future if you put on a costume. Most of the capes from the ‘40s went in with noble aspirations and came out darkened by what they saw in the war. The idealistic heroes of the ‘60s were passé by the end of the decade, as the reality about what a fucked up world we’re living in hit home. The ‘70s heroes? Most of them are dead or drug addicts.”
Jason thinks of his own affinity for drugs and offers a clarification. “And I don’t just mean cocaine and heroin, either, but painkillers and other big pharma drugs.” He closes his eyes and wants to be anywhere but here, yet he thinks he owes Colbie something because if it wasn’t for his decision to leave, then there would be no reason for Colbie to even have this life as an option.
“The whole super community runs on twenty-year cycles, give or take,” he says, putting on as professional a tone as he can muster. “The noble ‘40s, the idealistic ‘60s, the grim ‘80s, and the reality double zeroes.”
“Aughts.”
“What-the-fuck-ever,” he grumbles. “The in-between decades are where things got confusing, where the generational shifts start happening, and that always causes tension. There’s always going to be tension between a hero and their sidekick, and it was made worse with me and Francis because he was already an older hero by the time he started in with me. He first put on his costume in ’81, but I wasn’t even adopted until ‘94 and didn’t know the guy making me do chores was Rapscallion for another couple years.”
“Until Sandra died.”
“Yes!” Jason snaps, and then calms himself. “Until after fake mom died. It was during an attack. The Ten Demons. But you know this,” he sighs, sitting on top of the room’s desk. “What you may not know is that during that attack I was hurt. Bad. Bad enough to be put into a coma.” Jason meets her gaze. “He injected me with a prototype of his performance steroid to wake me up and keep me alive. It was still a couple years before I put on a costume, though, so you probably shouldn’t expect to be in the field before —”
“The first of the year,” Colbie says, hugging herself. “I’ll be ready in six months.”
Jason shakes his head. He doesn’t know whether to knock her down or build her up and then decides to do neither. It’s Francis he needs to have the talk with, to take his anger out on, and not some 15-year old girl.
“If you’re going to do this life,” he finally says, “then embrace it. Francis always wanted to keep me contained and maybe that’s why I’ve already bolted this place,” he says, motioning around to the mansion. “He’s going to fill your head with the old ways — the need for secret IDs, why you shouldn’t get romantically involved with anyone outside the life, all that jazz — but I’m telling you this, kid: Embrace it. All of it. If some super hot alien warrior wants to take you around the universe in more ways than one, do it.”
“Ew.”
“Let Francis shape your abilities,” he says, standing back up and wincing on his twisted ankle, “but don’t let him
Jason pulls open the top drawer, where Francis keeps the files about himself. He motions to the hundreds of files inside the drawer. “Read these. They go back to 1981, when Francis made his debut. They’re the hidden story of all his triumphs and tragedies. Broken bones, concussions, alien viruses, torn muscles, psych evals …”
He shakes his head. “I want to be honest with you, Colbie, which I know is probably the wrong thing to be with a 15-year old kid, but I want you to know what’s coming in your future if you put on a costume. Most of the capes from the ‘40s went in with noble aspirations and came out darkened by what they saw in the war. The idealistic heroes of the ‘60s were passé by the end of the decade, as the reality about what a fucked up world we’re living in hit home. The ‘70s heroes? Most of them are dead or drug addicts.”
Jason thinks of his own affinity for drugs and offers a clarification. “And I don’t just mean cocaine and heroin, either, but painkillers and other big pharma drugs.” He closes his eyes and wants to be anywhere but here, yet he thinks he owes Colbie something because if it wasn’t for his decision to leave, then there would be no reason for Colbie to even have this life as an option.
“The whole super community runs on twenty-year cycles, give or take,” he says, putting on as professional a tone as he can muster. “The noble ‘40s, the idealistic ‘60s, the grim ‘80s, and the reality double zeroes.”
“Aughts.”
“What-the-fuck-ever,” he grumbles. “The in-between decades are where things got confusing, where the generational shifts start happening, and that always causes tension. There’s always going to be tension between a hero and their sidekick, and it was made worse with me and Francis because he was already an older hero by the time he started in with me. He first put on his costume in ’81, but I wasn’t even adopted until ‘94 and didn’t know the guy making me do chores was Rapscallion for another couple years.”
“Until Sandra died.”
“Yes!” Jason snaps, and then calms himself. “Until after fake mom died. It was during an attack. The Ten Demons. But you know this,” he sighs, sitting on top of the room’s desk. “What you may not know is that during that attack I was hurt. Bad. Bad enough to be put into a coma.” Jason meets her gaze. “He injected me with a prototype of his performance steroid to wake me up and keep me alive. It was still a couple years before I put on a costume, though, so you probably shouldn’t expect to be in the field before —”
“The first of the year,” Colbie says, hugging herself. “I’ll be ready in six months.”
Jason shakes his head. He doesn’t know whether to knock her down or build her up and then decides to do neither. It’s Francis he needs to have the talk with, to take his anger out on, and not some 15-year old girl.
“If you’re going to do this life,” he finally says, “then embrace it. Francis always wanted to keep me contained and maybe that’s why I’ve already bolted this place,” he says, motioning around to the mansion. “He’s going to fill your head with the old ways — the need for secret IDs, why you shouldn’t get romantically involved with anyone outside the life, all that jazz — but I’m telling you this, kid: Embrace it. All of it. If some super hot alien warrior wants to take you around the universe in more ways than one, do it.”
“Ew.”
“Let Francis shape your abilities,” he says, standing back up and wincing on his twisted ankle, “but don’t let him
Similar Books
