Pinnacle City Read online

  Copyright © 2018 by Matt Carter & Fiona J. R. Titchenell

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data in available on file.

  Cover illustration by Corrie Phillips

  Cover design by Jason Snair

  Print ISBN: 978-1-945863-16-5

  Ebook ISBN 978-1-945863-17-2

  Printed in the United States of America

  For all those fighting the never-ending battle for truth and justice.

  CHAPTER 1: THE DETECTIVE

  Of all the cities in all the world to be thrown through a plate glass window into a rain-soaked gutter swirling with garbage, Pinnacle City’s gotta be my favorite.

  I’m sure there’re gutters in other cities that’d do the job in a pinch, but they wouldn’t have that feeling of home.

  I also got my doubts any other town could have such storied windows to be flung through.

  Take the fine piece of glass I was just forced to use as an impromptu emergency exit, for instance.

  Though I didn’t touch any of its shards long enough for my superpower to give a solid history (thank God), here’s the highlight reel of what led up to my exit:

  • An hour ago: a drunk put a CARD FOR SENATE sticker on the bar’s window before skipping the alley and just pissing right outside the door.

  • Three hours ago: a dealer cheated some junkies on a badly cut batch of Montage, ignoring the bloody, badly beaten gene-job trying to crawl away.

  • Four hours ago: three skinheads beat a gene-job to a pulp at the base of the window, yelling some damn vile (and inventive) slurs at him.

  • Four hours five minutes ago: the same gene-job tore a CARD FOR SENATE sticker off the window, pissing off the skinheads.

  • Six hours ago: a nicely dressed woman who didn’t belong in West Pinnacle City put a CARD FOR SENATE sticker on the bar’s window.

  Like I said, a storied window.

  Storied until Harold Berryman decided to throw me through it, though some might say decided is an exaggeration since I did everything possible to encourage him to do this.

  Him taking a shortcut to the street by smashing through the barroom wall after me—tearing through bricks and wood like gift wrap, followed by his friends whooping and cheering him on—that I didn’t encourage.

  The way his fists are glowing green at this moment, this is also something I didn’t intend to encourage.

  Unfortunately, his friends—plus about eight or nine beers—offer all the encouragement he needs.

  “Get ’im, Harry! Fuck his beaner ass up!” one yells.

  I’d share what the others say, but it’s more of the same with only slight variation, mostly in their choice of ethnic slurs and level of drunkenness.

  I stumble to my feet, rain pouring down around us. Old aches take over as pain rockets up my left arm, from the middle finger all the way up to my ear. It’s a fire, almost paralyzing.

  Shakily, I toss a couple pills from the bottle in my pocket into my mouth and crunch down on them.

  According to the docs at the VA, they shouldn’t kick in yet, but I feel instant relief.

  Doctors. What do they know?

  When everything feels like it oughta, I’m relieved that Harriet’s still in my left hand. While she may not look all that impressive as most wooden baseball bats go, she’s got a hollowed-out core with a couple pounds of solid lead inside. Being that I’m not legally allowed to have a gun, she’s helped me out of a few tight spots.

  Probably not this one, though.

  Berryman tears off his shirt, revealing an upper torso glowing with green light. He might’ve looked impressive about ten years back, but his beer gut (about the only part of him not glowing) and thinning hair covered in a ratty Santa hat do him no favors.

  “You’re the one’s been following me, aintcha?” he taunts, cracking his knuckles.

  “You workin’ on a point?”

  “Don’tcha got nothin’ better to do than follow honest people ’round, spyin’ on them and shit?”

  “Don’t you have anything better to do than beat your wife in a piece of shit bar?”

  “FUCK. YOU!”

  Well, at least he’s a sucker for the classics.

  More people exit the bar, some filming on their phones, some egging the fight on, others trying to break it up.

  They don’t try to stop him, of course. A glowing green drunk with superhuman strength, that’s a job you leave for the superheroes—when and if they decide to make an appearance at this end of town. Until then you enjoy the show, post it online, and hope you don’t get too hurt.

  Icy rain sizzling off his glowing skin, Berryman yells and runs toward me.

  One thing’s for sure: If I survive, I’m charging extra.

  The name’s Eddie Enriquez, Edgar if you wanna get formal (don’t get formal), and I’m a private investigator, primarily working out of the Crescent in glamorous Pinnacle City, California.

  It’s not a sexy job like the old movies wanna make it out to be, and mostly means me following people around, watching them cheat their insurance companies on disability, but I gotta knack for it.

  By which I mean I sneak into a place I know a target was, use my powers and implant to record their past dirty deeds, get the job done in a couple minutes, and pad out the rest of my invoice for a gig with some reasonable-sounding expenses and hours close to what a norm would bill.

  At the end of the day, I still charge less than everyone else and get the job done, so everyone walks away happy.

  Well, almost everyone.

  It’s not exactly the future I dreamed of growing up, but for a former henchman to a terrible (as in incompetent, not evil) supervillain, it pays the bills.

  I like the gig … mostly. Not having anyone looking over my shoulder telling me what to do and not to do, setting my own hours, working with clients I chose instead of ones some boss wants to make nice with, that’s a life I can live.

  But like anything else, it’s got its drawbacks. For instance, being an ex-con with my skin color and trying to not look suspicious in a lot of the places I need to be is next to impossible. The cops, the DSA (Department of Superhuman Affairs), and, less frequently but still enough to be a problem, the pro-heroes enjoy hassling me to no end. I show them my paperwork, my PI license, my DSA-issued R-SAL (Registered Superhuman Ability License) card, and, though that should be enough, the moment they run my name and see I’ve done time, my day gets a whole lot longer.

  That’s bad enough as it is.

  Then there’s days like this when things get rough, and working solo is more dangerous than convenient.

  When your back’s against the wall, you gotta decide if the fight’s worth it or if it’s safer to run. I usually run—especially when my arm’s flaring up like it is now.

  But there’s times, like right now with Harry Berryman, where I just can’t do that.

  For the past year, Berryman has been collecting disability on a supposed back injury. While no one’
s doubting the construction accident he was in, with an R-SAL stating he’s got superhuman strength and a low-grade regenerative power, his insurance company had doubts and called me in to verify just how bad his “constant, debilitating pain that keeps him in bed most days” was treating him.

  Three days in and I’d collected enough footage of him playing softball, moving furniture, and hitting up some pretty active strip clubs to prove he was gaming the system. I could’ve cut it off after one day, easy, but something in what I’d seen made me stay on. A kind of anger and tension I’ve seen too much in this line of work.

  Something I knew I had to keep an eye on.

  Tonight, I’m glad I did.

  He wasn’t any drunker than usual tonight, and nothing out of the ordinary happened. It was just a night out with the wife and his boys.

  But then a disagreement became an argument, an argument escalated to shouting, and shouting became him glowing and punching his wife to the floor.

  Standard protocol’s not to interfere in cases like this—let others intervene or, if you’re feeling really proactive, call the cops.

  I’ve never been much for standard protocol.

  That probably explains why me introducing Harriet to the back of his head ended with being thrown through a window.

  Still, I’d rather be his punching bag than her.

  Which brings us back to the present; him charging, hitting me like a freight train, and sending me through the air and onto the hood of a parked car.

  Believe it or not, this isn’t the first car hood I’ve ridden. One thing I’ve learned from experience is that, no matter how much you think it’s gonna hurt, it always hurts much worse.

  I roll, and my trench coat takes a lot of the impact, but it still sucks.

  I’m hardly able to get my feet beneath me—something the rain’s not making any easier. Sliding off the hood, my shoe catches on the decorative Rudolph nose on the front of the car. Kicking free, I rip the sodden, fluffy red toy loose and toss it at Berryman.

  He laughs. I do too.

  He charges and swings for me, but I dodge, with the car taking most of the impact.

  The clumsy kick he spins at my back, however, hits home and I’m sprawled out in the middle of Fuerte Street. Harriet rolls from my grip and I crawl for her, but another kick flips me onto my back.

  Then there’s a boot on my chest, and all I can see is that glowing green beer belly and Santa hat. He’s staring down at me, rivers of rain still streaming down his chest, steaming from whatever makes him glow.

  “Had enough? Had enough, you scrawny piece of shit?” he says while grinding his boot into my chest.

  If he wants an answer, he’s gonna have to let off the pressure, but I’m guessing his question’s more of the rhetorical type.

  A bolt of lightning lights up the sky. A figure, dark and indistinct with a billowing cape, is lit up. By the time the thunder cracks she’s already off the roof and coming toward us.

  Well, this should be fun.

  A small explosion lights up Berryman’s back. He screams and is immediately surrounded in a fast-expanding foam, hardening around him like cement. His boot lifts off my chest and I crawl away.

  Berryman breaks out of the foam quickly, but the dark figure is on him in a flash, tossing blinding, disorienting explosives. The figure charges before Berryman’s eyes can clear, bashing at his weak spots—knees, lower back, temple—with a pair of twin, foot-long clubs.

  He’s down at once, and soon bound tightly by a thin yet powerful net from the dark figure’s utility belt.

  A few of Berryman’s buddies look like they want to take her on, and the dark figure welcomes them. When they get a good look at her, at her slender physique bulked out with heavy body armor, utility belts full of weapons and ammunition that criss-cross her chest, the billowing cape, the glistening black helmet that covers her head, two glowing white eye pieces piercing the darkness, they recognize her and stop in their tracks.

  “Boo,” she says softly, her voice distorted by digital filters in the helmet to sound like a computerized nightmare.

  This gets the desired response.

  “It’s Dissident!”

  “She’ll kill us all!”

  “Let’s get the fuck outta here!”

  With most of the crowd dispersed, Dissident looms over to me.

  “Hey.”

  “Hey.”

  “You look like hell, Eddie,” she says, reaching down for me.

  “I feel it.” I take her hand and let her help me up. “You seen Harriet?”

  Without even looking, she flicks her wrist, shooting a small grappling hook out and pulling it back, Harriet in hand.

  “You really like showing off your toys, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can I have her back?”

  “Say it.”

  “Do I have to? I’ve really had a helluva night.”

  “Say it …”

  Sigh. “Oh thank you, Dissident, for saving me from this dangerous rogue, I don’t know what I would do without you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “Harriet?”

  She tosses me my bat.

  Dissident’s what the media calls a “non-powered vigilante,” being that she doesn’t have any powers aside from a bunch of cool (read: expensive) toys, and isn’t legally licensed for heroing. However, given what the cops are like and that the heroes don’t make it into WPC (West Pinnacle City) or the Crescent unless there’s something happening that’ll get their faces on the news, Dissident’s about all that keeps the peace on the streets most nights.

  As a rule, I hate heroes, but Dissident’s reason enough to make an exception.

  “So what brings you to my neck of the woods?”

  She aims one of her gauntlets at a nearby alley and illuminates its wall.

  Fresh, rain-streaked graffiti reads:

  MILGRAM TERRITORY

  “Same old, same old,” she says.

  I hadn’t heard Milgram had expanded his territory this far; I thought Little Lemuria was as far south as he went.

  “He’s here?” I ask.

  “Already took down two of his dealers just four blocks from here, and I’m following a lead on his human trafficking operation working out of one of the old hotels on Miller Street. He’s a cockroach, but all cockroaches die eventually with the proper boot.”

  “Town’s going to hell,” I mutter, rubbing my aching head.

  “Not if we stop it first.”

  “Not if you stop it first,” I correct her.

  She sighs, which through her helmet’s digital filter sounds like a growl. “I keep telling you, the city needs good people to fight for it. There aren’t enough vigilantes to keep the people safe, and the heroes couldn’t care less. You could make a major difference if you worked with us.”

  This isn’t the first time I’ve heard this speech, and I know it’s not gonna be the last.

  “Pass.”

  “Then why keep doing this?” she asks, putting one foot up on Berryman, who moans in pain.

  “He was beating on his wife. Dick had it coming.”

  “No doubt,” Dissident says, stomping down on Berryman’s crotch and making him cry out. “But there’s a lot of bastards out there who have it coming even more, and for even worse reasons.”

  I’ve had a long night and an even longer day trying to work off the hangover my pills only put a moderate dent in; I don’t have time for this shit—well-intentioned though it may be.

  “Look, Dissident, until vigilanteing pays enough to cover my bills and bar tab, I won’t—”

  Lights overhead, bright enough to cut through the storm. This time not lightning.

  People.

  Superheroes. The Pinnacle City Guardians.

  I only expected cops, but people must’ve called in Berryman’s power, and anytime you got a power that dangerous involved …

  Motherfucker.

  Dissident’s already gone, hiding
in the darkness and putting as much distance as possible between her and the pro-heroes who’d treat her no better than a common minion.

  Every instinct tells me to do the same—to run before they find a convenient enough misunderstanding to take me in or kill me. After all, I’m just another ex-villain from the Crescent. Why shouldn’t they kill me too just to be on the safe side? What kind of world would miss a guy like me?

  I nearly bolt, but then I see her.

  Berryman’s wife, staring at me with two of the saddest damn eyes you’ll ever see (even if one’s swollen shut). She stands beneath the bar’s faded awning along with the last few looky-loos who didn’t bolt when Dissident intervened. Pulling her coat tight, her lip quivers—whether from the cold or from fear it’s tough to say.

  But I know that look. I know the confusion in her eyes. The anger, the hurt, the love she still feels for the bastard tied up by my feet for what he did to her, has done to her, and may do again if he doesn’t get locked up for this.

  I know the slight nod she gives me is all the thanks I’m gonna get, and more than I need.

  I also know it’s the best possible reminder to play this by the rules, since it’s the only way it’ll go on record.

  As the superheroes circle in for their landing, I pull my necessary paperwork from my trench coat, hold my hands over my head, and hope this won’t take too long.

  CHAPTER 2: THE SUPERHERO

  The grand ballroom of the Rose Terrace Hotel never looks more inviting than it does when you’re sneaking in.

  I touch my heels down on the holly-decked balcony with a muted click and, as usual, Mason instantly releases his death grip on my hips, straightens up, and adjusts his black and crimson body suit to look as if he didn’t need me to fly him up here in the first place.

  Cory and Derek run and parkour their way up to join us, while Leah drifts intangibly up through the floor.

  I can hardly wait for her hands to become solid before grabbing one to lead her inside, into the delicious aromas of cinnamon and sage, the chords of the live string quartet playing “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen,” and the sparkling light of the crystal chandelier across the polished tiles of the dance floor.