Living in a city with a superhero might not be so great

Having a superhero turn up in your city may not be all that it's cracked up to be. In fact it might actually really blow.

--1--The Assault On The Necessary Institutions

Edward Mitch awoke with a start. It was his phone. His eye's slowly focused on his clock only to see that it was 2:27AM....though it felt more like 4:30AM. While reaching for the offending piece of buzzing technology he knew it was probably bad—a call this time of night to the District Attorney was rarely ever good news.

“Mitch here,” he spoke into the phone while trying to get a cramp out of his neck.

“Ed, it's Nick.” Nick Plasserter, the warden at Metro Prison a dank but necessary place. “We have a real problem here,” he continued, “Manny and Tim Kilner were just dropped off here tonight.”

The Kilners. They were the prime suspects in a counterfeit Viagra scheme. “I'll be right there.”

Down at the prison Ed met up with Todd Graft who was leading up the investigation for the city police.

“So what was the deal?” Todd asked as they trudged through the mud of the prison courtyard. Todd reflected that there seemed to be a conspiracy to make these prisons so damned depressing. How it was that they always seemed to have mud even in the middle of a drought was something that had always mystified him.

“Guards say that a man came in flying over the towers with the Kilners suspended beneath him on a rope. He dropped them off, told the guards on duty that the Vigara imitators are now theirs and flew off.” Ed couldn't believe how effortlessly he had just spoken that bit of incredible exposition.

“Dropped off by a flying guy?” Todd didn't seem as surprised as most might be. “Golden Shirt Boy I take it?”

“Yep.” Ed was still trying to figure out the full implications.

“Great, so now they untied them because they weren't actually arrested and they are probably now going to go back and destroy any incriminating evidence that may actually be in their factory.” Todd was sounding pretty angry.

“Probably,” Ed replied, “and we can't get a search warrant to stop it.”

“Why not at least try?”

“Based on what? We have no more evidence now than we did before and we couldn't even get authorization for a wire tap before.” Ed knew Judge Zander was just doing his job but he really wished they had gotten that wire tap.

“We could claim an anonymous tip?”

“What we have is the proclamation from a man who flies and wears a shiny golden shirt. That's even worse than an anonymous tip....that's like using Snooki as a life coach.” Ed made a mental note to make sure his order for a pin-up calendar of busty Chileans was still on track.



<>

The next day Ed was reviewing the case against a notorious contractor that used bribes to secure government contracts. “So we're sure about all these witnesses?” He quizzed his staff.

“All except this little matter of the one witness that has yet to be successfully served with a subpoena,” Lisa Noran spoke up without even taking her eyes and her box frame glasses up from her notes.

“Ah, yeah,” Ed knew what she was talking about, “unfortunately no one knows exactly where this Citadel of Preferred Seclusion Manor actually is....we tried the North Pole but it appears that was actually pretty retarded since it's just a huge ice covered ocean.”

“You know,” Todd butted in, “other cities have a guy who just kills the bad guys—supposed to have a bad ass skull on his chest too—that would probably be a lot easier that leaving us with cryptic, hyperbole laced testimonials before flying off.”

Ed couldn't actually condone such violent vigilantism but he knew it sure would be a lot less paperwork and blown cases for him.

“Do we know he is actually untraceable?“Lisa inquired. “I mean remember the other guy that thought he had everyone fooled just by wearing glasses?”

“We've had all suspiciously handsome but awkwardly aloof newspaper workers, teenage super scientists and womanizing young billionaires followed. So far...nothing. For all we know this guy works as a corn dog stand vendor or Kim Kardashian's anti-narcissism counselor.” Ed knew the last bit was a bit low....corn dogs actually rule.

<>

Ladder Company Number 3 pulled up to James Bridge just after sunset. As the crews disembarked they were greeted with a rather astonishing sight.

“Chief, I thought this was a jumper?” Matt, a rookie, was a bit baffled at what he saw: the entire bridge was now gone!

“I'll get to the bottom of this,” Chief Maddock said and began to make inquiries to dispatch. But, as he did, an astonished onlooker came up and relayed what had happened.

“It....it was incredible!” He was almost out of breath. “This teenager was out there threatening to jump...and then this guy in a golden shirt comes flying out of nowhere.”

“Golden Shirt Boy!?!” Matt couldn't believe it. “So he saved the boy?”

“Yeah,” the man continued, “by picking up the entire bridge, tearing it from it's foundations and setting it down in the high school football field over on Wilmer Street!”

“You've got to be kidding me?” Chief was not amused.

“Nope, the whole thing is on the field over there now.”

“He....he couldn't just grab the boy?”

“He said something about being afraid of tearing off his limbs with his powers.”

“Great,” the Chief was now burying his head in his hands. “Now we got to block off the approaching streets before someone drives over it...and get a crew over to that field to make sure no kids climb on it and hurt themselves.”

“Hey, Chief!” It was Ronald from the tender truck. “We gotta another call, sir. Apparently some kitten got stuck inside a drain pipe in an apartment block.....and then it kinda exploded.”

“What? The kitten?” This was a new one for the Chief.

“Uh, no,” Ronald tried to find the right words, “some dude in gold showed up and rescued the kitten...by going through the building.”

The Chief buried his face in his hands again.

--2--Malice Takes Up Residence

The Castle Of Malevolent Camaraderie was more name than anything. It kind of had to be seeing as the place was actually designed by Frank Lloyd Wright as an example of the Prairie School Movement before he was accidentally teleported into another dimension by an alternate universe Tesla that had screwed up big time. His death had to be effectively faked after that.

But within the soft tones, horizontal banded windows and tempered rock work one place that was the scene of much horror was the Hall of Democratic Villainy. Inside it today the board leader, Veritable Vex, was speaking.

“So it would seem that Anywhere City that-nonetheless-exactly-resembles-New York City has a superhero named Golden Shirt Boy upholding goodness, truth, justice and the Guatemalan way.” Veritable Vex needed to make sure one of his interns double checked that last part. “So, needless to say, some villain will now have to make a base there and wreak unspeakable horrors upon the populace. No city with a superhero can go unmolested!”

“Maybe,” Miserly Mouse spoke up, “we ought to rethink this strategy and perhaps send a villain to a city that....I don't know....doesn't have a person with superpowers guarding it. What about Memphis? No one is guarding it.” A wall of icy stares greeted him. “Or...not.” He shrank back down lest someone hit the counterintuitively shaped pillow button that would have him crushed by a huge boulder.

“It's been long established that destroying Memphis would be an act of altruism...which we are against!” Vex slammed his skull gavel down to make his point. “Well then,” Vex decided to get things back on track, “does anyone have any suggestions?”

“You know,” Castrato Canto said in his usual soft toned voice, “if I'm reading this right he's nearly bankrupted the city with his 'destroy a building to save a kitten' antics and tendencies to just tie up bad guys and leave them for the police to have to go out of their way to save them. Perhaps....we could just do nothing and let the population eventually turn on him.”

Veritable Vex considered it for a moment before deciding, “no, not evil enough.”

“What about huge spiders!?”

“Quite Hollywood Producer Jon Peters or I'll hit the button that causes the poison capsule in Kevin Smith to activate!”

“No! He's the only reason anyone even knows who I am!?” He knew his place and shut up.

“Well, my Gay Gun is almost ready,” Fabulous Fenster boasted even miming a bow to a non-existent applause.

“Uh, aside from suddenly improving the fashion sense of the city, making the social conservatives even more hypocritical and causing the local production of 'Cabaret' to finally make a profit...how is that evil?”

“Well, in about sixteen years...BLAM total 'Children of Men' dystopia!” No one seemed too enthused. Fabulous Fenster tried to save it though, “but without the sullen handsomeness of Clive Owen?” Everyone seemed to still be unimpressed.

“There is always the ultimate destroyer and bringer of absolute misery that we've been working on.”

“A good suggestion Reanimated Corpse of Patrick Swayze, but it merely sounds very evil. Best we can tell all it really does is mess with some older microwave oven circuit boards, scrambles 8-tracks of Little River Band and induces sexual fantasies of Mila Kunis shaving a meerkat.”Vex ended that statement with a dismissive almost disappointed wave of his skull gavel.

“I'm not really understanding the problem.”

“Sit down Reanimated Corpse of Patrick Swayze!”

<>

Several hours later some headway had finally been made. “So we are in all in agreement that at this point in time we are favoring letting Nebulous Nymph take residence and employ his cerebral movie injector?” Near the back Nebulous Nymph was beaming with pride. She was also showing off her newest forest themed costume which confused everyone since they had always thought of her as a water nymph.

“There is just the matter then of what movie shall be mercilessly beamed directly into the brains of the unsuspecting populace.” Castrato Canto noted. “I still say we should go with 'North.' I mean have you seen it? It's ostensibly a comedy but I couldn't find a single funny moment in all 87 simperingly stupid vacant audience-insulting minutes of it.”

“That's not bad—and I love the Ebert reference—but  I still say 'Gigli' should be considered,” Veritable Vex placed his own input, “it's like one of those bad Matthew McConaughey romantic comedies only lacking any hint of charm or faith in the intelligence of humanity.”

Everyone gave a collective shudder at contemplating such a thing.

“No love for 'Bonfire of the Vanities?' I mean it was meandering and apathetic.”

“You know,” Vex had to bury his head in his hands, “it's really kind of sad you are pimping your own box office bombs for this Hollywood Producer Jon Peters.”

--3--The Civilians Turn

Mike Knowles was having a pretty bad day. Wracked by a headache he was relieved to enter his home and be greeted by the scent of a tuna casserole. His favorite.

“Whatever is wrong dear?” Maya, his wife, could see the distress on his face.

“Oh, we've got all these problems at work because the power is intermittent since that unexplained electrical diversion into that old volcano was discovered, I keep having these strange headaches, traffic is a nightmare with all the military all over town hunting down something called “Nymph” and today I went to buy a corn dog at lunch and just as I gave over a whole twenty to the vendor he suddenly said something about an old lady being stuck in an open manhole and took off running....without giving me my change!”

“Oh, that is ever too bad.” She gave him a reassuring pat on the forehead and swept a dangling tendril of hair back into place.  Mike noted she must be distressed too since that was generally when she reverted to  her caring mother mode. “I'm afraid I may have some bad news.”

Mike looked up to meet her gaze wondering what it could be when his son Nathan walked in. “Mom, dad, I keep getting these strange headaches and these weird...lucid dream type things that have lots of Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez in them cutting off thumbs.”

“That would just be the 'Gigli' nightmares. I've been getting them too,” Maya tried to reassure her son. “For some reason they think it might stop if they blow up that old volcano.”

Nathan walked out of the room and Maya turned back to her disheveled husband. “Our home owners insurance was canceled.”

“What!?!” Mike couldn't believe this.

“It's all the strange stuff that's been happening. Remember how the Henson's had that fire on their roof and that above ground swimming pool was somehow hoisted in the air and dumped on it?”

“Oh...yeah. Flattened the whole house. Funny how the police are so reluctant to speak about what happened.”

“And when that twelve year old boy was stuck on that cliff and someone dug a tunnel through the mountain to save him but the destabilized cliff gave way and buried that children's hospital?”

“They're cutting off our insurance for those things?”

“Not just that...there's also been all those...weird goons in those uniform/costume things getting into those gun battles downtown constantly demanding some Golden dude turn himself over to them.”

“Oh yeah, they took that whole school hostage last week, some crazy cult I guess.” Mike was still a bit in denial over what was happening. “But..still they can't just cancel us. We have rights!”

“It appears we made a slight goof on the application.”

“Really, what?”

“Well they were apparently auditing everyone's policy from here in Anywhere City that-nonetheless-exactly-resembles-New York City and they found that apparently we stated the house is a single story.”

“But...it is a single story house.”

“They apparently count attics as a separate floor now if you store anything in it. It was in the fine print right next to the Amy Winehouse crack shack clause that is, tragically, no longer applicable.”

Just then Nathan came back in. “Uh, you guys might want to see the news.”

They filed into the living room where a helicopter shot of some huge hole in the ground could be seen. Over the air the chopper correspondent was narrating. “...not quite sure what caused the huge hole to appear though it would seem that earlier in the day an elderly woman was described as being trapped in an open manhole in the intersection...”

Mike suddenly realized the intersection was Maple and Vine. “Oh crap! Now I'm going to need a new way to work. Damnit!” He was about to curse up a storm when they all suddenly became aware of a rumble, distant at first, that built and built until they were all genuinely scared and caused them to huddle together in the middle of the room.

Then the wall exploded inwards and debris went flying in all directions. Mike was barely able to duck in time to avoid being decapitated by Nathan's framed First Aid training certificate. As the dust cleared they looked up to see a giant mechanized rollerball type of transportation device. In a carriage on top a woman looked down on them with a very strange costume.

“Do not try to understand me,” she bellowed, “I am neither definite or elusive. I am.......just Nebulous! Ha ha ha.”

Then another rumble and the laughing woman stopped and turned around. A shadow loomed over her and Mike suddenly realized that, impossibly, he was staring at his own car that was hovering in the air. Then he made out a man underneath it....holding it.

“Leave that family alone you mythological abomination!” The man holding the car demanded. “Perhaps a heavy dose of quality imported automotive craftsmanship will teach you a lesson!”

Mike let out a prolonged anguished yell as his Mercedes went sailing through the air. However Nebulous Nymph employed her emergency transdrive and deftly avoided the car while backing through another wall into the Knowles' house den. Then Nebulous Nymph watched, along with the Knowles family, as three tons of steel, cherry wood inlays and supple leather crashed clean through the house coming to rest in the swimming pool out back.

“You'll need to do better than that you golden sissy boy!” Nebulous Nymph yelled tauntingly then took off through the night with Golden Shirt Boy in pursuit.

“Uh, Mike,” Maya finally said after a moment, “this might be a bad time to find out but your car insurance was canceled too.”