Gone Rogue

Wayne Helge

 

The first time it happened, we were on our way to knock the stink off of The Midshipman. Lame name, I know. He was a lame villain, the kind nobody cared to read about. He surrounded himself with a team of henchmen, the Able-bodied Seamen, Oddjob-types with bow ties that shot at you like spinning ship propellers. Once you were past them, The Midshipman was a pushover with an armored face mask, extendible limbs, and a riding tractor.

Zooster and I blasted our way down Clark Street in our Zoo-cycle, him in the driver’s seat, me in the side-car like an old lady or runaway junior high-school girl. We passed the Midshipman off Ohio Street. He sat in the tractor, excavating the sinkhole leading down to the “top secret” terrorist holding cell beneath the old Water Tower, where Cabin Girl was rumored to be held. His henchmen were nowhere to be seen.

“Could be a trap,” I said.

“How many fallen cops did you see?” Zooster said.

I gave him a look, and he thumped me upside the cowl.

“We’ve been topside since Randolph. This stretch is cop central. How many have you seen?”

Embarrassed, I said nothing. I hadn’t noticed.

“None. No cops. That’s the point. Dammit, Z-pack. Pay as much attention to the missing details,” he said. “Those are clues too.”

“What do you mean?” I said, still running the calculus in my head.

“The cops are somewhere else,” he said. “Which means the Able-bodied Seamen are creating a diversion.”

“So The Midshipman is all alone.”

“He may have one or two Able-bodied Seamen on standby. Keep your eyes open. We go now,” Zooster said, crossing over to Superior Street to swing around for the attack.

As we moved eastward, Zooster got a call on his helmet cell. I tapped in to the RF waves to listen in.

“Zoo, we’ve got new problems. Admiral Soju is at the surface and sending an assault team down to the Tub. He’s got something big with him.” It was Guppy, calling from the command station inside our submerged hideout about a quarter mile off Navy Pier. The Tub had enough armor to withstand depth charges and torpedoes, but knowing Soju, he had something else in mind. Something that would get him inside. An airlock and diamond auger bit, for example. He wanted to occupy, not destroy.

“Got it,” Zooster said, also clearly concerned about Soju. “I’ll be right there. Don’t answer the door.”

As he hung up mid-chuckle, he switched back to our cowl-to-cowl comms, not knowing I’d already been listening in. I expected him to abort The Midshipman job and divert us to Soju.

Instead, he said, “Can you handle this one alone?”

I fingered the concussion tubes hooked to my belt, counting them as I went. “Sure, I got it,” I said, trying to sound more confident than I felt. Then I extended and retracted the wrist-mounted Taser. The Midshipman was one of his weakest rogues, but I had never gone in on my own before. Jesus, I was just a kid, a high school student. I could barely pass physics. Who would send me to fight a grown man with a riding tractor?

“First time for everything,” Zooster said, leaning into the turn.

“Piece of cake,” I said.

“Hit fast, hit hard. If he gains an edge, however small, disengage and wait for me,” he said. I think he was truly concerned. I wanted to give him a hug.

“I will,” I said. Seconds later, half a block from Ohio, Zooster jammed on the brakes and hopped off. I took the driver’s seat and watched as he yanked a manhole cover up, revealing a Zooster personal missile silo for his return flight to the Tub. He saluted and closed the hatch. I heard it lock, and then everything was burnt fuel and fire as he launched into the Chicago sky, leaving me alone.

#

Word got around the hero community quickly and around the sidekick community even faster. I was on the couch, watching a movie with Morning Myst in the Tub’s break room the following morning. Her hand played with my utility belt, and she occasionally dug her elbow into my bruised thigh. I reached down to unbuckle the belt for her when she said, out of nowhere, “Do you think he’ll be the one?”

“Who?” I said, sitting up.

She wouldn’t meet my eyes, and I thought she meant Zooster.

“No, he’s not the one,” I said. “I like girls. Girls my age. You, for…”

“I mean Midshipman,” she said, now looking at me squarely. “Is he yours?”

“My what?” I said.

“Your arch-nemesis.”

I adjusted my codpiece to buy more room and stood up. “He’s a fifty-year-old man in a pair of topsiders.”

Myst grabbed my hand and pulled me back to the couch. “I’m just jealous; you know that. We’re all wondering.”

She popped open my belt and pulled it out from behind my back. As she worked, I said, “Zooster always tells me that a hero is only as good as his rogues’ gallery. And the rogues’ gallery is only as good as the arch-nemesis—the one who never dies even after falling into the vat of acid or the fresh concrete for the bridge abutment. When that happens, that’s when you know you’ve found the one.”

Myst leaned forward to kiss me and said, “You’re going to have an awesome arch-nemesis. I just know it.”

#

Before I met Zooster, I was a tough bruiser of a kid with decent grades and an unmistakable ability to hack cell phones. Zooster was a hero who posted his email address on his homepage for a couple hours. And the fact that he didn’t want the pics of his hairy ass abutting five members of the Sterling, Virginia high school cheerleading squad made public didn’t hurt my campaign to work for him.

Truth be told, he needed the help. There were conventions nearly every weekend somewhere in the country, bi-weekly Association of Super Soldiers meetings, and new products to test and review for his tech blog. Zooster’s ability to run his hero-dom as a one-man show had been surpassed long before I stumbled along.

It sounds like I blackmailed him, but he was happy to put me on the payroll. Zooster and I started out with the typical hero-sidekick relationship. He taught me to fight, and I covered his back when we went up against the big boys.

Admiral Soju and the Bulgogis.

Hemingway’s Ghost.

Kitty Twister.

Churro.

And against the smaller fries, I still offered some assistance, particularly with RF comms disruption. But I never had to take the lead. At least not until that day with The Midshipman. Somehow, it became habit after that. So long as the call was to stop one of the minor characters, Zooster always had something else he’d rather be doing.

#

The second time it happened, it wasn’t nearly as dramatic as the first time. Zooster had something else on his calendar. A cosplay convention or a bi-weekly Association of Super Soldiers meeting. He was in the Tub, getting ready. He had his dress cowl and chest armor on, which worked together to pull his skin tight against his jawline. It give him the chiseled movie star look he was known for. This told me he would be spending time with Mama Athena at some point before dawn. Guppy and I sat at the stainless steel dining table, working a crappy hand of Gin.

Zooster got the call from Captain O’Malley. This time, I didn’t need to tap into the waves. I just listened to Zooster’s side of the conversation. It was The Arborist and his army of Saplings down at the State of Illinois Building.

Zooster’s face looked like a man not believing what he was saying. “I’m tracking Soju as we speak. He’s on the move, buying up antique furniture. I don’t know exactly. Something about the finish lacquer. No, I’m pretty tied up with this. No time. But you know… Z-pack is available. I can send him.”

Guppy folded her hand and opened the cabinet to our selection of flame throwers, “Better get ready.”

When Zooster ended his call, I said, “Tracking Soju?”

“It’s just The Arborist,” he said, shrugging. “Guy’s got a glass jaw and a wooden leg. Call if you have trouble.”

“If I can’t get through to you?”

“Leave a message.” He smacked his cheeks with aftershave and flicked his fingers at me as he headed out.

#

The third time was because Zooster had a date with Mama Athena again. A new guy was climbing the Sears Tower with suction cups on his hands, threatening to rain down bags of pennies from the fiftieth floor. Zooster showed up late and brought coffee to the cops down on the street. They sipped and slurped while waiting for me to deliver the Arid Arachnid with grappling hooks and steel cable. Afterwards, you could see Zooster’s hickey sprouting on his neck in the Daily News’ cover shot. I didn’t make the paper.

The fourth time was because Zooster had another date with Mama Athena—a double date along with the Cardboard Cowboy and Dame Mayday—but the fifth time, he was out with both Mama and Auntie Athena, dealing justice two sisters at a time. I was left dealing with prison breaks in Joliet both times and both within a week of each other. I put Frisco Filly down on my own, once in Manteno and once in Orland Park outside the Home Depot. Zooster gave the victory interview from outside The Pump Room in Chicago even though Frisco came nowhere near the city limits. Nobody asked about me, and once again, Zooster didn’t offer.

By the time I trounced Whoopie Pete, Zooster had stopped sparring with me. He also stopped answering O’Malley’s calls all together. I’d get a call forwarded to my cell during dinner at Gino’s East or while at Comisky Park, and it would be O’Malley himself. “Where’s Zooster?” he’d say, and I wouldn’t know how to answer. When you’re the side-kick, your job is to know, to hand the phone over to the hero. But Zooster was out there, somewhere, probably savoring his time away with another lady friend or giving an interview, leaving me to hold the keys to the family station wagon.

So I got accustomed to covering. I’d say, “I’m ready, Captain. Where do you need me?”

Twenty-four hours later, it was always Zooster in the papers, Zooster in the news, Zooster invited to New York for the early morning interview shows.

That was the worst, when Zooster was out of town. The idiots came out of the woodwork. New guys or guys who had been bounced from smaller cities and wanted to make names for themselves in Chicago. But Zooster never bothered to ask Sergeant Squid to slide over from Green Bay to cover the city while Zooster traveled. He expected me to cover, and it came with a cost. That’s how I failed trig.

#

That July, the astronaut wing of the Museum of Science and Industry announced a temporary exhibit starring an actual Apollo space capsule. Earlier in the year, a New York villain known as Swinging Richard had tried to swipe the same capsule from the Bronx Academy of Science, and Star-blazer had stained the mortar on the Brooklyn Bridge red with Dick’s guts. Rumor had it that cosmic residue on the capsule could be used to manufacture a low-grade dirty bomb, and it was arriving in Chicago for a short stay. But Zooster had a costume-design conference in Minneapolis and left the city to me as the exhibit opened.

When O’Malley called in the robbery attempt, by Kitty Twister and Hemingway’s Ghost this time, I swore I’d get Zooster’s help.

“Kitty and the Ghost,” I said to the conference vid-screen.

Zooster’s nostrils flared widely. He had his back to the table in Frostline’s conference room up in St. Paul. His wrist-camera picked up the Athena sisters in their bras and panties behind him, cycling through wardrobe racks, hunting for outfits.

“You can handle this one, Z. I’m confident.”

“What if I can’t? It’s two of them this time. Biggies.”

One of the Athena sisters giggled. Zooster checked behind his back then brought the camera in closer to his face.

“You don’t have to beat them. You just have to stop them. Look for the missing details. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

#

Outside the museum, I hid behind the U-505 sub’s command tower. Ghost and Kitty had a big flatbed parked on the lawn, ready to drive the capsule out of town. Kitty’s helicopter hovered above, waiting to lift the capsule out through the museum roof. The Ghost’s henchmen, the well-armed Ex-pats, circled the flatbed and museum entrance. I had no prayer of taking them head-on or even sneaking past, so instead, I mucked with the comms between the Ghost and Kitty’s helicopter pilot. When Ghost ordered it left, I sent the helo right. When he called for the helo to climb, I had it descend. Finally, when he shouted for it to “hold still, don’t move, we’re getting hung up on the building framework,” I gave the helo pilot a clear order.

“Full power, now. Climb, climb, climb!”

Something broke loose inside the museum, sending century-old stonework downward in a great plume of dust and debris. The capsule suddenly popped free, and I saw a bend in the steel cables like slack in a fly fisherman’s line for just an instant. Then it fell, and the cables snapped, sending the capsule flying toward the flatbed and the Ex-pats. It struck at least two, pounding them into the grass like nails in soft pine, and then it smacked the flatbed’s cab sideways. Free now, the chopper pulled away. I ordered it back to land and come help out those inside, but the pilot either didn’t hear me or didn’t obey.

The body count was steep. Two Ex-pats dead outside, seven more inside the museum when a 1970s retrofit steel beam buckled sideways then collapsed. Ghost and Kitty were also presumed dead, but in typical arch-nemesis fashion, no bodies were recovered.

Zooster arrived in time to talk to the press. Cameras focused upward, on his face. I stood behind him and to the left, off-camera. If anyone else noticed that his codpiece was on backwards, they didn’t mention it.

“When did you lose control of the situation?” asked one reporter.

The question caught Zooster off-guard. “Nobody lost control of anything. I stopped two extremely dangerous criminals from taking possession of the Apollo capsule.”

A tough reporter from the evening news leaned in. She said, “Captain O’Malley is investigating whether criminal charges should be brought against you. How do you respond to that?”

Zooster swallowed hard then looked my way. Before I knew it, he had me by the shoulder and was dragging me into the shot. I scratched at a pimple on my lip, trying to hide it. At least my codpiece was on straight.

“Some of you may recognize my side-kick, Z-pack. Truth be told, Z handled this operation himself tonight. And he handled it admirably. Not many kids could step up and protect the city like…”

The woman from the evening news interrupted. “And where were you, Zooster, while Z-pack was out committing these murderous acts?”

Zooster looked down for just an instant, like he was trying to get his story straight. “I was traveling back from a secret assignment when Captain O’Malley’s report came through. My instructions to Z-pack were to survey the scene, monitor the culprits, and stand by until I arrived. If he did more, it was against my orders.”

I turned to him and started to speak, but Zooster pushed me out of the shot. The woman was already asking the next question. I caught something about “negligence” mentioned between them. By then, a cluster of reporters had broken off and encircled me. Above the din of their clattering, I thought I heard Zooster describe my actions as “rogue activity.”

#

“I want to change my name,” I said. We were back in the Tub.

“Leave it. It’s a good name,” Zooster said. He sat shirtless at his computer station, receiving a back massage from the allegedly reformed Cabin Girl. One monitor’s tuner scanned constantly through static for network videos about him. When it found a station, the static faded only to be replaced by newscaster reports of Zooster sightings, Zooster’s love life rumors, Zooster’s Holiday Must-Have Gift List of 2003. Zooster refused to mute it, so I did for him.

“It was always your name for me,” I said. “I don’t like it. Z-pack makes me sound like antibiotics.”

“So you have the power to heal,” Zooster said. He paced his words slowly, fitting them in between Girl’s massage kneading action. “That’s good.”

“It’s not good,” I said. I laid out cards to play solitaire on the steel table, trying to fill a few minutes before the next call. “Nothing’s good anymore. I’m doing all the work. You just sit here, or hang out with the Athena sisters, or give interviews. You aren’t a hero. You’re a public relations man, and that’s it. No substance.”

At that statement, Zooster was out of his chair. As he walked toward me, he flexed his pectoral muscles one at a time. They flip-flopped like a juggled pair of tennis balls. “This is Zooster’s city, not Z-pack’s. You might remember that.”

Zooster stepped right up to me and thumped his fingers into my chest. He was still strong from weights, but weights weren’t everything. On the second thump, I smacked his arm away with one hand while my other hand shot up toward that chiseled jawline of his. He tried to stop me, but his reactions were so slow, I could have hit him twice.

He went down flat on his back, and I didn’t give him time to breathe. I pressed my boot into his neck and leaned. He tried to throw me off, but I wrapped up his hands until he started turning blue. “I always look for the missing details,” I said. “Lately, the only missing detail is you.”

At that, I lifted my boot. He sat up, hacking and coughing and holding his throat. The pinch of my boot treads on his loose neck skin reminded me nicely of the hickey he’d gotten from Mama Athena those weeks ago.

“Get out of here, murderer,” he said with a voice that sounded like it came from a broom’s splayed bristles. “Get out before I remember that I don’t kill.”

So I went. But Cabin Girl went with me.

#

Anybody who wants to be anybody always asks me how to find an arch-nemesis. I used to smile and shrug at that question. Now, I rinse the fresh concrete from my hair or neutralize the acid with a strong base compound stolen from the chemical supply company warehouse that sits above my underground lair and say, “It all depends on the company you keep.”

I should know. My name is Rogue Agent. My arch-nemesis is Zooster. He’s a real dick.