Traitor

[WP] "The League of Super Heroes can't help but notice," said their representative, "that certain corporations have a say in which supers the government determines are heroes and which are villains. A large say. The League has determined this is not an acceptable arrangement any longer."

*****

“Well?” she said, leaning back on the slatted bench. “Will you help find them?

”You don’t think they’re dead?” I asked.

For a woman who didn’t age she suddenly looked all of her years, and then some. ”Even if they are dead, I’d want them found.” She took out a cigarette and sparked up a whirl of smoke.

Larissa was the last remaining Head of League. Over the months since the League had dissociated themselves from anything corporate — from donations, from sponsorships, from working connections — the other three leaders had gone AWOL. Larissa didn’t age but she could turn invisible, a gift that had kept her safe, unlike the other leaders.

She breathed out a smart ring of smoke. “I can pay well. If there’s one thing I can do it’s that. We made a lot of money before we broke away.”

Only a few leaves still hung to the branches above us. Summer, like an ageing movie star, held stubbornly to its better days, but its skin was paleing, hair thinning. The sun skimmed orange stones over the lake in front as it slipped between the night’s bosom.

“You think the corporations are behind it?” I asked.

”Who else? The four of us decide we have to cut them off, and then the four of us start going missing. That doesn’t take a detective. And I’ll be next, unless you stop it. That’s why I need you — there are are so few supers who didn’t become a hero or villain. And only one who has an excellent track record of solving disappearances.”

”It helps when you can see echoes,” I said. “I’m not much use in a fight but I can hold my own at a crime scene.“ I paused to add some dramatic tension. “I’ll take the case.”

Her soft hand found mine, squeezed. Felt like someone had wrapped silk over sandpaper.

“Thank you.”

”How old are you?” I asked.

She frowned. ”Isn’t it still considered rude to ask?”

”You look thirty but you could be three thousand. I look three thousand but I’m barely thirty.”

She took another drag and considered. “I’m not that old, I don’t think. Anyway, what does it matter?”

”It doesn’t,” I said. “Corporations, then. One of them didn’t like losing control over you. Over the League. You four cut off their influence so they cut off your necks, so to speak.”

“That’s what I suspect.”

”Why did you cut them off? Why now?”

She stared into the fading horizon. “We got fed up. Finally. We got fed up of watching good people die. People who should have been heroes, who wanted to help shape the world into something better, were getting told they were villains and felt they had no choice — that a villain is what they were. And at the same time, we were protecting evil people. Villains dressed as heroes, who killed collaterally for fun, that we took as our own.”

”Yeah, but why now? Why not get fed up of it all fifty years ago?”

She breathed a shakey breath. “Alex — Ram — joined us as the fourth Head last year. A replacement for our dear deceased Kate. Ram wanted us to review our sponsorship processes and we all agreed. We voted unanimously on reform. To break away from the corporations and reclaim control of who became a hero, who became a villain.”

”Must have lost a lot of money.”

”What’s money worth compared to lives?”

We let silence drift over us like a cold wave. Watched leaves brush by.

”Mind if I have a cigarette?” I asked.

She shrugged, offered me the pack. I took one and she lit it. I leaned back and drew a long breath.

“There’s going to be a lot of heartbroken people,” I said.

”What do you mean?”

”A lot of people look up to you, is what I mean.”

”I”m sorry?”

”You didn’t vote unanimously. You shouldn’t have touched my hand when telling me that little lie. I could see the scene. Could see your vote.“ I placed my hand on hers now. Held it. ”You were the only dissenting voice.”

Her eyes widened for just a second, then she regained control.

”You’re good,” she said. “You’re just what we need to solve this. Yes, I voted against it. I knew something like this would happen and I would have rather it hadn’t. I knew there would be death.”

She was telling the truth. Clever.

“You knew because you were planning to kill them.” I held her hand firmer. “Or I’m wrong. Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me that you didn’t kill them.”

She flickered, trying to turn invisible. But my grip was iron and it didn’t matter if I could see her or not. She gave up and whisped back to my side.

”Tell me I’m wrong,” I said, my voice spilling out of my own heartbreak. A woman I’d looked up to, along with millions of others. ”Please, tell me.”

She looked down at the leaves on the path. At summer’s remains, at autumns gains.

“Fine, I’ll take a stab in the dark,” I said. “You were used to living like a queen. To having money. To being in charge. Then it was all gone just like that.” I clicked my fingers. “You couldn’t accept it and you thought of a way to fix things. If you replaced the three who voted against you with three new leaders, vetted by you of course, well those three might have thoughts more in line with your own. They might vote to restore connections with the corporations. So you start killing. What did you do, creep in when they slept, making sure even if they woke they wouldn’t see you?“ I paused. “Then you hired me to make it look like you‘re trying to find them and that you feel in danger.”

Another smokey breath. ”They won’t lock me up for ever,” she said. “I’ll be out in the blink of an eternal eye.”

She was right, too. What was forty years behind bars to her? What was four hundred? When she got out I’d be dead but her life would continue. I’d be only a blemish soon to be forgotten. A smudge in time.

I imagined chaining her up and dropping her, weighted of course, in the center of the lake. It wouldn’t kill her but she’d be trapped there for many years longer than the courts would give her. And who would know if I did it? Someone had killed the other three — now they’d got to Larissa. They’d never think it was me.

I got out a pair of cuffs and slapped them around our wrists. “Come on. Cops time.”

”It’ll be nothing to me,” she said. “Blink of an eye.”

”Maybe. Or maybe the humilation of being locked up will make up for the lack of time.”

We walked through the park, silent but for the rustling of leaves, as the sun dipped into the night and the sky turned black. Summer had gotten old and tired.

*****

THE END