SHERMAN SENDS ME a link the next day. Through DM, not the Hench crew group chat the Captain set up. No small talk, just the long blue line of a URL.
That link opens a new Twitter hashtag: #HenchMarch2K23. Enough random people like the tweets that I won’t look suspicious doing the same. I’m a concerned, curious citizen, if anyone asks. Still, the multi-K heart tallies make me wonder how long this pressure has been building beneath my city’s concrete skin. Beneath the rules I’ve taken as gospel my whole life.
Since Mayor Darcy first licensed the Sunnylake branch of the Super Squad? Since the Super gene first mutated? Or longer: Ever since we shaped our world so the people who work hardest get the least?
They’re big questions. Definitely too big for 9 a.m. on a Tuesday, on only five hours’ sleep.
Sunlight stabs through the chink in my curtains, bright enough to make me squint. I can’t stay in bed. I slither from the sheets, leaving a damp slug track. Ew. I need five showers, stat. I’m sure I brushed my teeth at some point after waving bye to Sherman and crawling up the stairs, but my mouth still tastes like I took a bite of a urinal cake.
I find Lyssa upside down on the sectional, head dangling, legs hooked over the back of the seat as she watches cartoons, flesh and metal side by side. “You missed Dad,” she tells me, without looking up.
Right. Hernando has headed out to Job Number One (which may not involve villains, but at this point, who knows?). The only indication of his presence is last night’s sudsy plate.
I pick it up. After a brief hesitation, I subject it to the usual rinsing and prop it on the rack to dry.
I wanna talk to him. I do. But how do I tell him I know he works for Hench without confessing I do, too? If he gets mad, if he says I’m turning out like Mom … I won’t just sit back and take it. Then what? I’m a freeloader in Hernando’s house. He’s not my real dad, after all.
I don’t wanna think about that scenario, much less live through it. I’ll worry about it when I have to and not a moment before.
I decide to worry about Amelia Lopez instead. That’s still raw, not gonna lie. I mean, I watched this woman die in graphic fashion. We’re talking R-rated levels of violence.
Is it grief I feel? Can you grieve a woman you knew for a little over a minute, before she hit you with her briefcase and burst into flames?
I don’t know, but Amelia chose me to be her hero. Me. There was no one else around, but still. This woman, this entire, complex person of wants and needs and fears and loves, is dead. And I, the last person to see her breathing, know nothing more about her than her name.
I can’t bear it, all of a sudden. Thankfully, there’s something I can do. Because I’m an awful slug of a human, and I haven’t yet changed our trash bag.
After fondling way too much mushy cereal, I find what I’m looking for. Three crumpled sheets. All stained, all soggy, but still just about legible. I spread them on the table while Lyssa takes her shower. The prosthetic’s not waterproof—she has to take it off, which means a lot of careful balancing on slippery tiles. Plus, she’s made it her life goal to burn through the entire building’s hot water supply every morning, so I won’t be disturbed for an hour at least.
It won’t be long enough. I groan, digging the heels of my hands into my eye sockets. Of course it’d be way too easy for Amelia to hand me a neatly typed up point-by-point report of what this “Project Zero” thing is. The tables of percentages are no more forthcoming than the last time I glanced at them. All I gather is that nitrates, phosphates, mercury, arsenic, and lead are on the rise in the local river.
That’s bad, right? Arsenic, bad?
Google says yes. But I don’t see why the Flamer full-on murdered Amelia for pointing it out. Clearwater might be the name of our river, but it’s misleading. Clear isn’t the word I’d use to describe it. Honestly, even water is on thin ice. Everyone knows we’re destroying the environment. It’s not exactly breaking news.
Searching Project Zero (on incognito, just in case) brings up a bunch of security analysts and a Greenpeace-y charity campaign. Neither seem likely to want Amelia dead. Searching her name is more forthcoming. Takes me a hot minute to locate her obituary. It’s buried deep—we’re talking third page of the search results. But it’s there: a small entry in the Sunnylake Times.
The article claims she was a limnologist (“freshwater biologist,” to us mere mortals). It doesn’t mention family. I’m not sure if it’s better to imagine there’s no one who’ll miss her, or worse.
I scroll through those ten lines of text again and again, thumb tapping the case of my crummy old laptop where it’s held together with tape. It feels impossible that this is all Amelia has been rendered down to. There’s more to Project Zero, I know it. But how did Amelia expect me to figure it out? The surname’s Jones, not Holmes.
I close the laptop, folding the papers in half, then in half again. There. I tried. Didn’t get anywhere, but at least I gave it a shot, so my conscience can rest. What else can I do? Post these pages to city hall? Leave flowers on her grave? I’m about to see if I can find out where Amelia will be buried (or if her ashes were decanted straight into an urn) when a notification pops up.
Jav: We still on for coffee & library?
If Jav has to ask, my whole secret-job sitch must’ve rattled our friendship more than she let on. Amelia can wait. I have to settle things with the living people in my life before I can worry about the dead ones.
Riley: does the Earth still spin? do the Dodgers still beat the Angels? is c. hanson still a wad of gooey gray dickcheese
I could’ve continued in this vein for some time, but Jav cuts me off with a graveyard’s worth of skull emojis.
Jav: See you there.