Don't Be a Hero: A Superhero Novel

10: What She Doesn't Know

Signed and ratified by 87 member countries in 1960, the Seoul Accord granted governments strict controls over metahuman rights in the interests of public safety and economic stability. Use of superpowers became heavily restricted, and many member countries also prohibited the employment of metahumans to protect the jobs of non-metahumans. The most controversial component of the Seoul Accord was the granting of governments the right to fit metahumans with so-called “kill-switches”. These could be activated by authorities to terminate the metahuman in case of violent criminal activity that could not be contained by conventional means.

—A Concise History of Metahumans, George Walters, PhD

***

Niobe greeted the dawn by pulling the curtains of her apartment’s kitchen shut and sitting in darkness. She couldn’t think clearly with sunlight streaming down on her. Everything became clearer in the shade.

She wore an old blank T-shirt and the same panties she’d slept in. A mug of instant coffee sat in front of her alongside a newspaper, but she made no move to drink it. The bitter aroma was all she wanted, really. Gabby had built a machine like the ones in new Neo-Auckland cafés, one that brewed fresh coffee directly from beans, but Niobe never used it. The smooth liquid it produced didn’t taste like coffee should.

She’d woken half an hour before dawn and slipped out of bed without waking Gabby. Her sleep—or what passed for it—had done nothing to leave her refreshed. All night she was tormented by images of uniformed figures striking at her throat and shoving bags over her head. Other shapeless creatures crept through her mind, stealing away with her memories. Again and again she woke drenched in sweat, until she finally gave up. She was probably just overtired. That was all it was.

She sighed and inhaled the scent of the coffee on the table. What she really wanted was a photo album. That was what other people had, right? Photos of their families and themselves growing up. Maybe if she had something like that she could patch over the hole left in her memories. The memories the Blind Man took had been the clearest ones she had of her parents. Now she could barely remember their faces. All she had was the smell of the coffee her mum used to make for her dad before he went to see his patients.

Bugger it. She pushed the coffee away from her and folded her arms. She’d made the trade willingly. She had a lead on the kid, no matter how small. If she could get him back, maybe it’d be worth it. Maybe.

Solomon had made a call to the bloke he knew at the cape coppers’ headquarters. The guy wasn’t a meta; all he did was mop the floors. But the coppers had a habit of flapping their jaws when he was around. A cleaning guy was invisible to them, she guessed. Piss-poor security. That sort of thing wouldn’t have been tolerated in the Wardens. But those days were different. You could never be sure someone wasn’t a doppelgänger or the mind-controlled slave of some psychic supercriminal. It was a matter of survival to make sure no one was eavesdropping on a sensitive conversation.

Solomon’s man hadn’t heard any goings on about a kid being subdued on a boat in the harbour. No prisoners that matched Sam’s description were being held there either, as far as he knew. It was what she expected. The man she saw in the vision was acting outside normal protocols. Either he really was a copper, and he’d been wearing the uniform to get close enough to the Juliuses without attracting attention, or he was an impostor, and the uniform was designed to throw her off the trail.

She’d put out her own feelers, but nothing had come back yet. There weren’t many people willing to work with her and Solomon, but if metas were being snatched, maybe there were rumours her informants could trace. The information would cost. But not as much as the Blind Man, she thought. She scowled into the darkness and wiped her resentment away.