The mob in the plaza looked on edge, with zero police officers in sight, and there were placards made to varying degrees of professionalism. One had ‘Give a Bop the Chop!’, another ‘Down With Fascist Capes’; the most inventive, so far as Psyborg-9 was concerned, read ‘Once You Bop, the Fun Does Stop’.
At the back of the crowd he spied two young boys setting fire to an imitation Equalizers banner.
While he might’ve been unceremoniously evicted from that group, along with two-dozen others, enough was enough.
“Citizens,” Psyborg-9 announced on his automated loudhailer, as he stepped up to a plinth in front of one of Heropa’s supposed founding fathers, a statue of Joseph Kubert, “disperse this place in orderly fashion or there will be…trouble.”
“More trouble than you know, mister,” hissed a nearby individual in a red hat. This man also jumped onto the podium to shove at the Cape.
“Stand down,” warned Psyborg-9.
“Make me.”
The man unexpectedly tossed into the Cape’s face the contents of a paper cup of coffee, short-circuiting his electronic vision. Straight after, the coffee-thrower turned back to the mob.
“Oi! Everyone! — I know this guy! This is the Bop that massacred all those innocent people the other day, the ones near Harvey’s Gems!”
The throng hushed while Psyborg-9 struggled to clear his eyes — and then they surged forward, all hell breaking loose and spinning asunder.
#151
The Brick glared at the images spilling across his portable Meteor black-and-white television, over on its tripod stand; listened to the commentary with repressed anger.
“…Scenes of bedlam at the Simonson Centre today [cue: hand-held, panning visual of abandoned placards in an empty public space], where a freelance Cape was attacked by a wild mob of civilians, over one hundred in number. By the time the police intervened to break up the crowd [this time stable footage of uniformed cops picking about], the part-android Psyborg-9 had been irreparably damaged and passed away shortly before ambulances arrived [a long-shot of blood-drenched pavement and an ambulance]. Mayor William Brown [Big Bill, looking flustered and irritated] made this brief statement: ‘Citizens, remain calm. That’s all I have to say at this juncture — get that camera out of my face!’ [And a dissolve to the male announcer in the studio, simple cardboard cut-out backdrop behind him] There were no arrests made by police, and we’ll have further updates for you as they come to hand.”
The Equalizer reached over to pull the button on the telly, watching the image shrink to a white dot in the middle of the screen. He sighed, long and loud. Then he walked out of the room, the weight of the known world on his shoulders.
If only she were here.
Prima Ballerina had disappeared, not so much as a farewell my lovely. His reaction slayed the Brick more than her absence — made him feel like his heart was in his mouth, that he could spit the thing out in the sink. He could taste the loss, and infused that with the brewing rage inside.
Meanwhile, the kid’d suffered, and good people like Psyborg and Kindle were being slain out there on the streets.
Disgusted with himself, the Brick kicked a hole in a wall and went back to his room.
#152
The Professor?
He sat in his armchair, the warm gun on his lap, while he studied the body decorating the floor on the other side of the small, cluttered office.
He wasn’t certain, but it looked like she was still breathing. One foot shifted. It would be courteous to put the poor woman out of her misery, but he found he could not move.
He’d broken his trust, done something very foolish. The sound of the shot was bound to attract attention this time of day, and in fact he could hear the whine of approaching sirens.
Still, there was one thing to draw out of all the brouhaha — he’d been reacquainted with his first name.
GUN HAPPY
#153
The colours lined up in polite order for presentation first: vague washes of purple, orange and yellow that blurred into one another, with shadows diplomatically hanging back, moving somewhere behind. A stronger, more shocking smell came next, the unmistakable scent of ammonia and a second fragrance, pleasantly floral in nature.
The first kosher thing he saw was fuzz, insubstantial and wandering.
Light drifting above, glare from some window to his right. He could hear blipping nearby, and the distant sound of strange traffic.
Once his vision cleared, he understood he was lying on a bed in a hospital room. The walls and the ceiling were white, as were the curtains.
When Jack fully awoke and managed to turn his head, he found Gypsie-Ann Stellar sitting in the next bed, also all in white, less makeup than usual, and she was peering back.