An old-fashioned shoot out.
A kidnapping attempt.
Maybe narcotics trafficking?
Ooh, a car chase!
I was not willing to take bets on which of the classic heroic scenarios would make the perfect debut to the world of Earth. Any one of them, among others, would suit what I wanted to do, and I needn't be too picky. Supervillain or no, I had the means to help people anywhere across the globe, and I wouldn't turn my nose up to make a difference.
Unlike Superman who could merely hear trouble from miles and miles away, I relied on my jail-broken Plumber's Badge. Gabriel had set the thing up to tune into local frequencies, including radio, so I could connect to police communications and potentially get updates on where to go. Where I might be needed.
Frustratingly, it was so sophisticated a device, even with many of its larger Plumber organization functions disabled, it had difficulty doing much of anything else with Earth technology, like connecting to the Internet. A smart phone would fix that issue, but it would take time before I managed to earn some meaningful cash. I had ideas on that front though – it wouldn't do to live in squalor while on Earth. I could be here for months, if not longer.
The next biggest question would be deciding where to begin building a reputation. Any country on Earth was within a few minutes of flight, and I didn't want to limit myself to necessarily one city as so many capes tend to do. I'd have to mostly stick to places that spoke English though, because I didn't have Gabriel's fancy implant to translate whatever I heard. Europe, Australia, North America – most of the Western countries were easiest in that vein, but I wouldn't limit myself arbitrarily. I'd have to cross the language barrier sometimes to do the most amount of good.
In light of all that, I settled for New York City as a primary stomping ground, at least for now. For one thing, it was physically mostly the same as back in my first life. Five boroughs, Ellis Island, Times Square, the Statue of Liberty, Ground Zero – I knew a bit about what to expect before I even arrived. Culturally, it appeared to be as much of a cosmopolitan melting pot as I remembered, with people of all backgrounds and connections walking its streets and running its businesses.
Unlike unique cities like Metropolis or Gotham, the Big Apple would have less alterations - and hopefully less supervillains. I had nowhere close to the kind of strength or durability as someone like Superman, so tangling with his foes in Metropolis did not sound like a good time. And no sane person would choose to live in Gotham, if they had the entire world as their playground. I could do some good in either place, so I wouldn't arbitrarily stay out if I was needed, but I wanted to build a reputation first.
New York had little cape presence, from what I had gathered. Even from the comics, I couldn't think of any major heroes with a presence there. I hadn't read every comic that has ever been published, but if I recalled correctly, Nightwing was stationed here for a while. Compared to Marvel, where you couldn't walk two feet without getting obliterated by Sentinels, clobbered by the Thing, or webbed by the Wall-Crawler, it was almost surreal to see such an important place narratively untouched. I had no doubt all sorts of things were hidden within, crimes and gangs waiting to be thwarted. Heroes and villains waiting to become known.
That decision was how I ended up sitting atop the famous copper torch, admiring the beautiful scene of the city from the perch above its nasty harbor. I could breathe down there now, but I had no desire to drink that garbage. The way the lights of the city reflected on the surface of the harbor almost masked how disgusting the water below must be.
The sounds of the city were muted from this distance, a dull roar of shrill horns beneath the cool wind billowing my blonde hair. The breeze smelled faintly of rubber even from this high, and I wondered idly if the streets would stink of pee in the DC Universe too. It had to be better than Gotham, a place that famously contained a mutated crocodile man in its sewers and a, well, sludge monster.
"Absence of evidence does not mean evidence of absence," I reminded myself. For all I knew, I'd tangle with a whole family of Clay-codiles by the end of the week.
Fiddling with the dial on the badge, a faint green light flickered to life. With each twist and prod, new voices emerged into the night air, from ads about dentures to the classic oldies tunes I hadn't heard in too long.
The words to Journey's "Faithfully" pounded in my ear, a snapshot into the past that reminded me that things were much the same here as they were back home. The song had become one of my favorites after, regrettably, Glee released their cover of it. I loved that show growing up, and if it still existed in this universe, then its first season would wrap up soon. It had its moments, and the nostalgia of the whole idea and the song playing brought me joy to be here.
This was Earth. I was home-adjacent. I was in America, and I could speak my native tongue. Foods, drinks, books, television, the Internet - I would enjoy everything about Earth for as long as I could.
I didn't plan to abandon Osmos V, but I didn't plan to rush back without accomplishing a plan. I liked Kilowog, but I didn't trust his prediction that the Reach would stay away from the planet forever, now that their efforts had been exposed to the intergalactic scene. Still, while I worked on pieces that could help, I planned to embrace the comforts of a place that felt more like home.
I scribed a message to Father and sent it to his makeshift badge. It would take several days to reach him – space was simply that large, without specialized tech to boost a signal farther than even the Plumber Badges or Power Rings could – but I wanted to keep in touch. An open line of communication would let me know of an emergency or other notable developments, and I wanted to know of any sign at all that the Reach were planning to finish what they started. Gabriel had a similar line of communication open, to monitor, but he had his own duties to attend to.
And, well – I missed them. Jula and Father. Maximus. Marcilia. Even Aggregor, now Imperastos Rox. A title for the new government that came from Osmos V's ancient roots, long before the Triarchy. The title sounded badass, but it only puzzled me again why the language of Osmotin was so similar to Latin. Convergent development, maybe? A coincidence, more likely.
Interrupting my thoughts, a police frequency finally sounded within the calm night, and within minutes, there was an APB out for an attempted helicopter high-jacking.
…
Superhero universe criminals were strange. I hoped this was a mere gang of thugs and not the actions of the horrible Helicopter Harlot.
I donned no mask as I rose into the air and raced through the sky, weaving in and out of spaces between high-rises and business complexes. I stopped long enough to admire my reflection in the glass panes of an office building, a thick brown jacket and jeans my current get-up until something better could be fabricated. I stopped too long, apparently, because a group of tourists atop the Empire State Building nearby began snapping pictures and video, some frightened but far too many were unphased and excited. I waved slightly without slowing down.
The scene below was chaos. Police gave chase to the helicopter, which barely flew above the streetlights. Even still, their squad cars were limited in their ability to follow due to thick traffic. The stolen police helicopter ignored all warnings. Megaphone and loudspeakers shouted for them stop, to land immediately, to return the property.
From the angle of my flight, I could see more cruisers, armored vans, and other police vehicles attempting to join the scene, many still blocks away. The distant sight of more helicopters lifting off to give chase accelerated how much of a clusterfuck this whole thing would be in minutes.
Then it got worse: gunfire started on either side.
Men armed with rifles kneeled in the open door of the copter, firing into the streets behind them. Civilians raced away in terror, screams becoming a cacophony of noise alongside the popping of gunfire. A lucky shot on a cop car's tire caused it to spin, end over end, and crash through a shop front.
When one of the men pulled a rocket launcher into view, I poured on the speed to intervene, reaching a speed just below the sound barrier. When my fist smashed into a rifle's barrel, the whole thing shattered to pieces. The man holding its splintered remains cursed in confusion, hand bleeding, and his brain seemed to catch up to his senses as he scrambled away from me.
"What the fuck?"
The pilot sensed the panic, and the copter started to ascend, even as the rest of the riflemen wheeled themselves onto me. The rocket launcher barrel reached for me, and I grimaced.
"You hit me with that from here, you bring down this rig. If any of you or your friends survive, they'll be pulling shrapnel from your lungs until you're ninety. You don't wanna-"
The man with the heavy weapon, face obscured with a ski mask, hesitated long enough that I could see a tattoo of a snake peeking from beneath the collar of his neck.
The others did not face the same difficulties with firing their weapons. As rifles settled on me, I tapped the side of the helicopter and held the connection. The armored plating of the copter became mine a moment later, bullets smashing small dents into my otherwise covered flesh. It was a muted, dull pain, but they had no armor-piercing rounds or other heavier ammo.
"I'm afraid that won't work on me!" I challenged, bullets from the criminals and, frustratingly, from the cops pinging nearly uselessly off of me.
The nearest criminal tried to smack me with the butt of his pistol, but all he accomplished was pinching his own hand and destabilizing his footing.
He tumbled out of the fast moving helicopter, and I inwardly cursed as my foot stretched and caught the hood of this jacket. Even as it snapped taut, it slowed the fall just enough that he tumbled into the helicopter's landing skids instead of falling several yards and impacting against pavement below. I moved to grab for the next man's gun, muzzle flashes stinging my eyes, and twisted it into a pretzel. One trigger pull later, and the barrel itself exploded and stung my fingers. With a careful pull, my foot came free of the jacket below. A quick glance down, and the man who had nearly fallen was completely shell-shocked.
The pilot shouted. "Shoot this damn asshole!"
"We're trying, here, ese!"
Gunfire pegged me from the third and fourth assailant in the back of the vehicle, but I barely felt anything when they hit directly. The eyes of the man with the rocket launcher were still hesitant to engage, and he had yet to drop the heavy weapon to grab for the pistol at his side. I was glad I had stymied him there, but he also had not yet turned to try to hit anything below with an explosive round.
The attention should be on me, yes.
Two men shoved forward, trying to tackle me. The move did not surprise me, but what threw me off had been the copter's change of angle, sharp enough I lost my footing. I hit the back of the pilot's chair with such ferocity that I hear bone snap.
Blood splattered the windshield.
The copter began to fall.
I cursed and grabbed for the controls, but merely broke the handle in my haste. Bullets pinged against the armor on my back, and I heard scrambled orders below in Spanish. The copter tipped forward, a nosedive that would surely cause it to lose lift any second…
I pushed past the assailants, leaped to the side, and flew to the nose of the copter. With heaving might, I poured speed into my flight and strength into my reinforced arms.
The remaining, conscious hijackers jumped from the side and fell into traffic, more than twenty yards down. A rocket launcher tipped out, hit a manhole cover below, and exploded in the midst of the street from a misfire. I lost track of the rest as I focused on how much strength to use, because I had no special ability to carry something this heavy in flight without potentially breaking physics in half.
I would just as quickly crumple the metal frame of the helicopter around me as I might actually control its flight, and if I were Superman-level strength, could likely pierce its entire structure just by flying through it.
There was no easy science behind this. And yet, inch by inch, the helicopter tilted back to a neutral position until it finally began to level out. This helicopter would need a facelift at the end of this, because I had thoroughly dented its surface structure. Below me, squad cars caught up, voices shouting warnings for me to "stand down."
I dropped the helicopter onto the ground and released a green neural shock from my eyes, the energy powerful enough to partially melt through the still rotating motor controlling the top blades. It was enough to slow it down, and when I caught one of the blades and snapped it in half, the cops and civilians were flabbergasted.
I checked the interior of the now stationary helicopter for any thugs who remained, tossing unconscious criminals into the street at the feet of very confused NYPD officers. Several more arrived by squad car to witness the end of the confrontation.
"Sorry I had to bust it up," I offered with a thumb toward the helicopter, as I touched down in front of them. "The controls were broken. I, uh, wish I could move it out of the street for you."
A growing crowd of civilians worked themselves into a fervor as soon as they realized that the chaos had ended.
"New cape!"
"New York has a hero!"
"He's like a metal man!"
I sheepishly pointed to the scene of carnage, maintaining the silvery-sheen of metal covering my skin. "Did you get the ones who fled?"
One of the officers finally got up the courage, a heavyset man with salt and pepper hair beneath his cap. "W-we did. You – I can't say I expected anything you just did."
Another officer – a woman with a harsh nose – cut in. "Are you connected to Captain Atom?"
Confusion set in for a long moment before I realized what I must look like.
"Oh, no – he's a good hero, but we're not connected." I cleared my throat. "Just in the right place, right time," I argued, having to raise my voice over the din of other police arriving by helicopter, hovering in place above the scene and shining spotlights below. "You got any idea what they were doing stealing that?"
A few broke the silence to comment a negative. Another of the police broke the mold and said, "We suspect it's an inside job. It would almost have to be for them to have access."
"Why though? A helicopter theft in the middle of the city is so high-profile," I countered. "There's a story there."
The officer didn't look too certain, but he gestured towards those headed to lock up. "There's always rot in places you least expect it. Bet it won't be too hard to look into these fine wastes of space and figure out what makes 'em tick."
I nodded. "I wish you luck, officers. Love to stay and chat, but the city needs me!"
With that, I flew off into the sky and readied the badge for my next mark. A news helicopter was likely only minutes away, and I'd hold off on a news interview. Let the story spread. The night was young, yet. I didn't want to waste the rest of the evening waiting to interrogate the perps for the first crime I stopped, or become the center of a journalist's exposé.
Not when I could continue to work through the night to look for more trouble.
NEW YORK CITY
April 15, 01:47 UTC-5
TEAM YEAR ZERO
Robberies, human trafficking, muggings.
I'd settled into a routine rather quickly. Patrols in New York, more often than not, had lent themselves well for what I needed, though none were quite as high-profile as the first. I wasn't an investigator like Batman or a reporter like Superman, so many of my activities had involved stopping active crimes, not investigating ongoing ones. I trusted the police would handle the details of those I rounded up for them, to keep assholes off the streets.
By the end of the first week, I'd stopped a dozen and a half crimes of various shapes or sizes, and intervened in a few situations that could have developed into major crimes if left unchecked. I considered these to be major successes for a first batch.
It was not glorious work, but I didn't need it to be. Would stopping a huge crime lord or a supervillain get the attention of someone faster? Certainly, but I would settle for now, carving a dent into New York City's criminal underworld. Word of mouth, grainy cell phone camera footage, bad CCTV videos – these had become the closest thing to viral as something could be in 2010, before the true explosion of social media.
"Living the life?" Gabriel directed through the badge.
I leaned into the makeshift hammock, wiping away sweat from the summer sun. In a few minutes, shade would return to this rooftop, and I'd avoid such a direct tanning. Two high-rises towered on either side of me, and this was as good a place as any to take a rest and recuperate. Rooftops were often ignored, and they became my go-to for quick and easy lodging, as long as the weather permitted.
"You could say that," I answered. "I'm thinking of dipping into pocket money to rent a motel, get some more comforts. You know any that would lend a room to an illegal alien?"
I was not broke, but Gabriel was not a rich man. Plumbers were not paid especially well for their services, but I had a few hundred from him to get by. Add in the complicated layer of no legal identity, and things became hairier.
"'Fraid not. Could do some digging."
"I'd appreciate it," I answered. "Did you manage to find anything else with your digging?"
Gabriel hesitated for a long moment. "I have an address." Hope sparked in my heart. "Cassian, if you approach them, you should be prepared for anything."
"I'm ready," I announced, more to myself than to him. "I am surprised that they exist, Gabriel. It's hard to believe. The odds alone are…"
The man said nothing for a moment. "I haven't dealt with a situation like your own before, but don't start shooting fireworks in celebration yet."
That was admittedly good advice.
"I know, I know. Things are never as good as they seem."
Gabriel displayed the address on the badge's map. I could be there in minutes, and all I could think to do was shower beforehand.
I finagled a public shower in an open gym then hurried as quickly as I could, crossing state lines in a matter of moments. To remain clean of any bug residue from a flight in-atmosphere, I became like concrete before starting the flight, planning to shed the layer once I landed. The flight became slower as I approached the destination, until I came to a stop hundreds of feet high.
A quaint townhouse on the edge of a suburb. A local high school only a couple miles away, in walking distance. A grocery store across the street. A small pool with all the fixings for something fun for the kids, though the color of algae tainted the water.
The nostalgia was real. So, so real. I lived in a house like this once, as a small child.
I descended into the backyard and approached the windows to the kitchen, above the nearly empty back porch. The lights were on, and the sound of Dolly Parton lightly blasted from speakers somewhere within. A smell of chocolate pie, baked beans, and barbecue chicken wafted from a partially open window.
A kid rushed by the window. A ginger little girl with bright blue eyes giggled as she played with bubbles from the dish soap in the sink. A small black terrier pounced on her, the two playing for several seconds, while she cried out for her daddy to come help her.
When the man approached from around the corner, my heart skipped a beat.
That was my dad.
My real dad, from my first life.
Beer gut so stacked he could use it while standing as a shelf for the beer can typically in his hand. A thin mustache and goatee framed a smiling face as he rushed to play with his daughter, and it was incredibly hard not to notice that the laughs from the man were the same as I remembered.
He was tired – he was the type to carry unseen burdens, to hold those behind a mask that you never let someone know was there. I could see past it better than most, and all the same signs were present.
"John, what are you doing?"
My heart sang.
Mom.
A mousy-haired ginger woman entered the room, giggling as she readied to play along. She pulled the reading glasses from her face and prepared to play with her daughter and her husband, and I lost track of where she was or what she was doing as tears flooded my eyes.
My parents – or, people who looked like them – played with someone who could genetically be my little sister, though I never had one. A family portrait revealed that she was an only child, and they looked so happy together.
Neither I nor my brother existed here.
With a heavy breath, I backed away and nearly collapsed over a toy in the yard. When the puppy started to yip in response, I took off into the sky, disappearing into the clouds above before it could alert them.
"That was them," I sent Gabriel. "That was them!"
The man responded a few seconds later. "That's incredible. What are you going to do?"
I didn't know.
How could you possibly know what to do with an alternate version of your parents? A version that had not gotten a divorce, a version that had a young daughter.
"Truth be told," Gabriel said, "I wasn't sure what to make of your story when you finally told me. Reincarnation into another world? It's a bad science fiction plot at best, a Hinduism faux pas at worst. But to see your parents again? That is wild to me."
I tried and failed to wipe away the next tears, instead letting them fall. I did not cry often, but when I did, I wanted to let it all out.
"It's truly a strange one." It would be stranger, still, if I'd told Gabriel that it had been a world filled with comic books starring the Earth's greatest heroes. "I don't know what to do with any of this."
"If you're thinking of talking to them," Gabriel warned, "don't overwhelm them. They… won't know."
…
And they never would.
I turned in the skies northward and flew swiftly back to NYC.
"You sure?"
"No, I'm not sure of anything," I argued finally. "That was them, but they've had a life together. One without me, one without my brother. I don't know if they have the same careers, the same friends, the same siblings. It's all just a massive coincidence."
Gabriel did not say anything for a long moment, and when his voice finally responded, I almost did not hear the response over my flight near a storming cloud somewhere over Virginia.
"What if it isn't?"
I blinked and halted my return, hovering in the midst of the sky above an interstate. The Appalachian Mountains stretched into the horizon. "But that's-"
"Anything could be possible, Cassian. Those could be your actual parents, who reincarnated like you and found one another. Maybe they remember like you, maybe they don't."
Hope I could not dash.
The idea that I could reunite with them, that I could become connected to them again, that I could forge a new path through this new world with them?
This thought had to be better than heroin.
But I knew better. I'd read too many comics, too many stories. They were far more likely to be versions of the same people on a different Earth, in a different alternate universe. Even if I wanted to build a life with them, they didn't remember me. We had no shared history. Even if all things were the same except my presence, there were enough differences there that I wouldn't meaningfully connect. It would always be there, in the back of my mind, that that woman should be my mother, but she wasn't, really.
I couldn't decide if I preferred knowing or staying in the dark. The knowledge had... unsettled me, in ways that would take a long time to decipher.