Masked Read online

  I found Gallo among the wreckage, half buried. His breathing was loud and harsh, like a broken bellows. There was blood trickling out of his nose and the side of his mouth.

  “Davey,” he quavered, his voice weak and ragged. “Did anyone get hurt?”

  I nodded solemnly. “A lot of people got hurt, Rizzo. Kids and all. A lot of people. You think you can turn your powers off?”

  His face took on a distant look for a moment or two as he concentrated. Then he shook his head. “No,” he said. “Too scared. And it hurts too much. I have to be quiet, by myself, to make it stop.”

  He noticed the gun in my hands for the first time. He stared at it in total mystification for a moment, as though it was a copy of The Sound of Music he’d inexplicably found in his porn stash. Then he looked up at me, and we sort of understood each other.

  “Oh,” Gallo said. “Oh.”

  “I’m really sorry, Rizzo,” I said. “I shouldn’t have dragged you into this.”

  He shook his head wordlessly. I don’t know if he was disagreeing, or if he just meant it wasn’t worth talking about. I started to explain about Zen-tity and the healing thing, but I think he got the broad idea without needing to know the details.

  “I’m scared,” he said. “I’m really scared. I don’t want to see it coming.”

  “Close your eyes,” I said. He closed his eyes.

  “Now count backward from a hundred.”

  “A—a hundred—”

  The gun was on full automatic. At that distance, it turned his head and shoulders and upper torso to paste.

  That’s the meat and potatoes, isn’t it? Armed robbery. Assault. Murder. Anything else you want, feel free to add it on: it won’t make any difference at this stage.

  We worked with the heroes to excavate the survivors from under the bullion bags and deposit boxes. Zen-tity did his miraculous thing, and most of them were okay again: the woman with the twins, the fat man, even Naseem. The movie star stayed dead, though, and so did Gallo: even miracles have limits. And it turned out the guard on the stairs, who Tin had trampled down, was dead too. So there you go. Even if everything had gone according to plan, we’d still have had blood on our hands.

  Look at us, eh? The endoclasm turned us into gods, and all we do is play cowboys and fucking Indians. I reckon we deserve what we get. Most of us, anyway. I feel a little bit sorry for the likes of Gallo, who don’t want to play but get sucked in anyway.

  That’s all I’ve got to say. You’d better put the gag back on, now, and lock it tight. Otherwise I’m going to start sweet-talking these manacles, and you’ll have a jailbreak on your hands.

  This the transcript? Okay, somebody give me a pen.

  I’m all yours, fuckers.

  Best known as the creator of Nexus (with artist Steve Rude), multiple Eisner Award–winning author Mike Baron is also the cocreator of Badger, Feud, and Spyke, and has written for such mainstream comics as Marvel’s The Punisher and DC’s The Flash and Batman. In addition to his Eisner Awards, he is a multiple nominee for Best Writer in the Kirby, Harvey, and (additional) Eisner awards. A longtime martial artist, he applies this knowledge to what might happen if a “superhero” ever arose in our own world.

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  MIKE BARON

  Hoyt Beryl, tall and gangly, flowed through the intricate precision of Bo Sai like water flowing downhill. He’d been testing for three hours, but if he was fatigued he didn’t show it. Finishing the form with a flourish, he snapped into the ready position and bowed toward a table where three men sat: head instructor James Gilfoyle, Gilfoyle’s master Sun Pak Kim, and Filipino Eskrima master Fenton Garcia.

  When Hoyt finished there was a moment of silence. Then the applause began, led by Garcia. The whole school, plus friends and family, had gathered for the test, four men and one woman earning their black belts. Hoyt had no friends except for those he made at karate. Hoyt’s father had been an alcoholic cocaine abuser who’d bugged out when Hoyt was five.

  Hoyt’s mother, Ashley, was in Blackhawk gambling with her new, younger boyfriend. Hoyt was on his own, as he had been through most of his life. His decision four years ago to step inside the storefront dojo had marked a precipitous change in direction and had probably saved his life. He’d slept many a night on Gilfoyle’s sofa, gone to school with Gilfoyle’s son Charlie, currently a Marine in Fallujah, and trained every day at Gilfoyle’s Karate.

  After the belt presentation they posed for pictures. Fellow classmates slapped Hoyt on the back and Gilfoyle said, “Come on, kid. I’ll buy you dinner and a root beer.”

  “No, thank you, sir,” Hoyt replied. He’d learned to use the honorarium in karate. His mother would have been shocked, if she were capable of shock.

  “You’re not going home to an empty house, are you?” Gilfoyle asked.

  “No, sir,” Hoyt lied. “My mom’s taking me out for dinner.”

  “When am I going to meet your mother, Hoyt? You’ve only been with me for four years.”

  Hoyt shrugged, smiled. “She’s a busy woman, sir, what with her two jobs and all.”

  “Well, she must be some kind of saint to raise a kid like you while holding down two jobs. Say hello to her for me and let’s see if we can’t get together next week sometime.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Hoyt hit the showers, changed into his civvies, and left the storefront dojo on West Colfax in Denver. He was stoked. He was pumped. He was fifteen. He’d wanted to be a martial artist since seeing Enter the Dragon on a friend’s DVD player. It was a warm June night, perfect for what Hoyt had in mind. He ran, leaping over parking meters, cutting through an alley where a cat squalled in protest, over a fence, off a Dumpster onto the roof of a commercial mall like a chimp launched from a catapult, down again onto a concrete landing on all four limbs like a cat, past the scary apartment building where the gangs hung out to a shabby two-bedroom wood-frame house in a largely Latino neighborhood south of Colfax. The dirt yard served as a comfort station for dogs.

  A light had been left on in the living room to discourage bur glars, not that Hoyt or his mother had anything worth stealing. It was their third dwelling in three years, all in the neighborhood, all obtained through desperate pleas and federal assistance. Like they were some kind of white trash.

  Well, we are white trash, Hoyt thought as he slipped silently into the kitchen through the back door. The first time he and Ashley had moved it was because a pair of tweakers broke into their apartment, trashed everything, tipped the refrigerator over, shit on the dining room table, pissed on the beds, and stole twenty-three dollars and Hoyt’s Street Fighter IV. He’d play that sucker for hours, losing himself in his avatar, Thunderhawk. It was make-believe, and the robbers took it away.

  Hoyt had suffered nightmares for months afterward. All his life he’d been kicked around like a soccer ball. When they’d first moved to Denver from Cheyenne, Hoyt had been easy pickings for the neighborhood bullies. The karate studio had sucked him in like the gaping maw of a jet engine and had yet to spit him out. During the interim he had grown six inches and packed on forty pounds of muscle.

  It was “Uncle” James who marched down to the local school and helped Hoyt enroll, forging Ashley’s signature on the application. It was Gilfoyle who’d partnered Hoyt with his son Charlie, who tutored him in math and history.

  It was Gilfoyle who gave Hoyt his First Dan in Tae Kwon Do.

  Had Gilfoyle known what Hoyt planned to do with it, he might have taken it back.

  Each class began with three oaths.

  “I promise to develop myself in body, mind, and spirit, and avoid anything that would limit my mental growth or physical health.

  “I promise to develop self-discipline, to bring out the best in me and those around me.

  “I promise to use the skills I learn in class constructively and defensively, to never be abusive or offensive.”

  Hoyt was about to break the third oath. He had waited many years for this night, postponing gratif
ication until he was ready, living deep within himself, content with being ostracized, and then as he grew in prowess, size, and grace, content to distance himself from other students who, cognizant of his change, made overtures. Including girls.

  Hoyt was ready. He’d been waiting his whole life for this moment, this brief window of opportunity that opened between the wildass dreams of youth and the wisdom and hindsight of maturity.

  Hoyt turned on the light in his bedroom. His tightly made bed, a mattress with hospital corners, lay on the floor next to obsessively neat stacks of books and comics. Tolkien, Jack London, Mark Twain, Marc Olden. Batman, Spider-Man, The Badger. The stacks were tightly squared away with no overlap or spillage. A rickety wooden desk held a used PC that one of the black belts who worked at Hewlett-Packard had given him and helped him set up.

  Posters of Bruce Lee, Barb Wire, John Elway, the Watchmen, and Carmelo Anthony were thumbtacked to the shabby plaster wall. Hoyt slid the vinyl accordion closet door to one side with an arid squeak. He gathered the black BKs, the loose-fitting black cotton trousers from Asian World of Martial Arts, a black sweatshirt, the black leather gloves, and lastly, the sheer black mask that covered his head completely but allowed full vision due to its diaphanous nature. Like Rorschach.

  Hoyt understood the difference between comic book heroes and real life. He understood physics. He wore a cup. He didn’t kid himself that he could fly or burn holes through walls.

  But Hoyt was confident he could kick the shit out of anyone who wasn’t a professional fighter. For the last three years no one had messed with him. The last person who tried ended up with a broken wrist and Hoyt ducking suspension because his assailant had been a well-known troublemaker.

  Hoyt’s heroes were Batman, the Punisher, Rorschach, and especially Badger, a deranged war veteran who identified with animals.

  Hoyt had a puppy for two weeks before his mother acciden tally left the gate open. A day later, Hoyt found the puppy burnt and disemboweled behind an upholstery shop. Someone told him the Alameda Posse had done it for shits and grins. Their tags were all over the neighborhood. Some merchants didn’t even bother to remove them until the city bitched.

  Hoyt had made good money every summer cleaning the graffiti off local businesses. Peers sneered and jeered. Hoyt didn’t care. He earned the money he needed to (a) keep the house and (b) fund the Project.

  The Project that began tonight.

  Project Tagger.

  Hoyt stood in front of the mirror and pulled the mask over his head. Like a condom. Protecting him from viral evil. A stylized letter T leaped from its black background like a hungry face hugger. Tagger turned off the light. In shadow he was darker than the devil’s asshole.

  He hefted the ’chuks in one hand, the sai in another. Carry them or not? He replaced them in their canvas bag and took an iron device that looked like the sign for pi and fit in the hand like brass knuckles. Two of the points protruded between the fingers. Finally he took the aerosol can of red paint. A powerful magnet clung to the base, holding the interior rattle in place so that it wouldn’t make a sound when he moved. He slipped the punch and the paint into a black fanny pack.

  “I am nothing,” he swore in the darkness. “I am nothing if I am not helping people.”

  Hoyt had learned by age six that self-pity did no good. He’d learned that all things were relative, that his own misery was nothing compared to some of the kids he’d seen on the street, feral kids whose parents were crack whores and syphilitic losers.

  He had his youth. He had his skills. He had direction and the will to back it up.

  Look out, Denver.

  Tagger flowed soundlessly from his house, a black snake in a gutter. He moved in the shadows, hugging walls and climbing buildings. Ahead lay the Carlton Arms, a rundown four-story apartment block, the last outpost of civilization before Rock Creek Park, a serpent winding its way through Denver’s tenderloin, a conduit for rapists, murderers, and thieves.

  Tagger hunkered in the shadow of an ancient cottonwood twenty feet from the rear of the Carlton. An iron fire escape hung ten feet over the alley. The fire escape went all the way to the roof.

  The French art of parkour consists of moving swiftly and gracefully from object to object, using the full range of human motion. It was specifically designed to deal with obstacles by turning them into advantages. Those who practice the art are known as traceurs.

  Tagger took off running and leaped, his gloved hands clamping securely to the frame of the fire escape without touching the ladder. No sound betrayed him as he effortlessly chinned himself, gripped the top of the rail and pulled himself up and over.

  He ascended the iron stairs, stepping close to the side to avoid the slightest squeak. Gangsta rap belched from an open window. Christina Aguilera from another. Tagger hoisted himself onto the roof. He wasn’t even breathing hard. He’d been running five miles a night for the past two years.

  Tagger had the roof to himself. Empty beer bottles and smashed crack vials littered the black-topped surface. A few dead plants sprouted from desiccated pots, a gardening project long since abandoned. As Tagger flowed to the opposite side of the building, the only sounds were the telltale crunch of broken glass beneath his feet and the wail of sirens, like crazed banshees, crisscrossing the city. Tagger crouched on the parapet above a sheer eighty-foot drop and gazed into the heart of darkness. Rock Creek Park lay across the street, an urban jungle watered by snow melt from the nearby Rockies. Even on the hottest days the water ran dark and cold.

  The air smelled of garbage, pine, honeysuckle, and diesel.

  Tagger listened, cupping his ears with his hands. Sounds of the jungle began to emerge. A cat’s scream. Barking dogs. A vulgarity hurled into the night. Booming bass in a tricked-out Honda. Tires squealing.

  Tagger knew he would find what he sought in Rock Creek Park.

  It was time.

  He walked to the roof entrance and pulled the broken door open with a shriek of protesting metal and crunching glass. The interior was unlit and stank of piss and disinfectant. The bulbs had given out long ago and no one had replaced them. No maintenance man entered the stairwells. Faint light from the landings showed the walls covered with graffiti.

  Two gangbangers were smoking crack on the third landing. Hoyt ran at them two steps at a time. The gangbangers, tribal tats peeking out of their gray wifebeaters, looked up. Their hair had razor cuts and highlights. Eighty bucks of haircuts each.

  “What the fuck—” one said before Hoyt’s heel smashed into his face, bouncing his head off the cinderblock wall with a moist thunk. The other gangbanger instinctively reached for something in his pocket as Hoyt spun expertly, lashing out with a reverse backkick that slammed the banger’s head off the wall like a squash ball.

  The first banger moaned and held his hands to the back of his head. Blood poured down his back onto the wall. He looked up. Hoyt grabbed his ears and zoomed in six inches from the banger’s face. Three-D effect. He jammed the banger’s Adam’s apple with a leopard claw strike, reached down and yanked loose the big Harley wallet attached to the banger’s belt by a chain.

  Forty bucks. The other banger was coming around.

  Hoyt withdrew the small aerosol can from his belt pouch, yanked the banger’s head upright by his oily black and purple hair, and painted a red T down the middle of his face while the man gasped and spat.

  “Tell them Tagger was here,” he hissed, and bam, he was outta there.

  The first blow had been struck. The first chord of fear had sounded. Project Tagger had begun.

  It had been so easy—so easy to overwhelm the crack-addled gangbangers in the stairwell. It didn’t seem real, like playing a video game. He was his own avatar. Like he was hovering somewhere up above the action and could see himself. Down the staircase on spring-green legs, into the stinking lobby awash in garbage, crushed crack vials and empty wine bottles, out the door onto the stoop, past the five bangers intimidating pedestrians, past them so fa
st they shut up for a second in amazement.

  As Hoyt disappeared into the dark he heard one of them say, “What the fuck? Was that a vampire?”

  “No, man, it was a zombie, dude. Dint you see 28 Days After ?”

  The spruce and cottonwoods swallowed Tagger whole as he headed south, adjacent to but not on the concrete path. He’d read the police reports off the computer. A gang had been haunting the park, stealing bikes by whacking riders in the back of the head as they rode by. Four rapes in two months. Stabbings, drug deals, murder. Rock Creek had it all.

  Tagger was more likely to make noise stepping on crack vials than grass. The banks of Rock Creek, which could change overnight from a sleepy sewer into a raging river, were covered with rock and devoid of grass. Buffalo grass grew in the shade of the cottonwoods, and the Parks Department had planted thousands of blue spruce and Douglas fir to create a green belt that wound through Denver, past Invesco Field, underneath the Interstate, by the state capitol, and on into the arid plains of the east.

  Tagger moved silently but swiftly, alert to any sign of criminal activity. He startled a coyote, which lifted its snout from its business, leaped the creek in one bound, and was gone. Most of the path lamps overlooking the concrete trail had been shot out by gangbangers.

  Tagger stopped. There was something not right about a cluster of bushes fifty feet ahead. Tagger went into a crouch. He looked and listened. The dark bulk of the shadow shifted itself to get more comfortable, inadvertently displaying an aluminum baseball bat. It was a bicycle batter in the warm-up bin. Tagger tensed, sensing he was about to go into battle. He willfully relaxed his abdominal muscles, seeking a calm cool spot in the middle of his gut. Hysterical glee nibbled at the edge of his consciousness, as it had the first time he’d won a fight. His blood hummed. But from which direction would the victim come? Should Tagger sneak up on the dude and take him out? Was it right to take preventive action before a crime had occurred? What did Gilfoyle call it, “prior restraint”?

  I ain’t no cop, Tagger thought. I am the dark conscience of the city, the embodiment of its victims’ prayers and a summons for others to follow.