2: Alley
Welcome to the world of Edison City, where the never-ending battle against the forces of evil includes everything from the Owl Bandit taking over the subway line downtown to the Antichrist trying to rewrite history aboard the HMS Titanic. Anything and everything is a possibility here, including flying sharks. Especially the sharks.
If you’re new here, catch up with the Edison City Index.
If you’d like to read the episode immediately preceding this one, start here:
And now, the adventure continues!
Previously on Meg, Mauve, and Malevolence, as the mysterious mauve wall continues to seal off the tiny city-state of Muldavna from the rest of the world, with Mr. Superlative trapped inside, back in Edison City Meg Atomic has invited Samuel Superlative the Third to join her on her usual nightly patrol…
Being on patrol in Edison City will invariably result in four possible scenarios, the first of which is the Alleyway Ambush. This usually involves a civilian, maybe two civilians, being cornered by a standard Bad Guy with a Gun, who wants to take their money and go. At least that’s how it starts; the Bad Guy having a Gun introduces a dangerous element of lethality into the situation, which, without help, might very easily end up with the civilians lying dead and the Bad Guy fleeing into the night with the foul stain of murder on his soul. Fortunately, help is exactly what the heroes of Edison City do.
Not half an hour into her usual patrol route, Meg Atomic saw a perfect setup for an Alleyway Ambush developing right in front of her eyes. She paused on the rooftop, waving Samuel Superlative the Third over for a better look. “Right,” she said, “You see the girl over there, dark coat, eyes on her phone?”
“I do,” Samuel said. “She appears to be communicating with someone, possibly a family member or acquaintance. My xenocon translator may be malfunctioning; I’m seeing word strings I don’t recognize.”
“Oh?”
“Whoever she’s communicating with asked her for “the tea” on why someone named Noah has “ghosted” her despite this Noah having the “rizz”. She appears to have replied with three letters: IDK?”
“I don’t know,” Meg said.
Before Samuel could explain that he didn’t either and therefore either his xenocon filter really was malfunctioning or he had a lot to learn about human speech patterns on this planet, Meg raised her hand. “More importantly, do you see the guy in the shadows half a block behind her?”
“Yes,” Samuel said, and now his voice was more serious as well. “He’s armed. Projectile weapon. I’ve seen a few of those on my home planet.” Something flickered in his eyes. “They’ve never struck me as pleasant devices.”
“They aren’t,” Meg said shortly. “Okay, so here’s what we-”
But Samuel had already leapt away from the rooftop. Meg sighed. “Or we can just Leroy Jenkins right on into this, shall we? Fine. Let’s do that then.”
She took a second to do the math on the precise bursts of graviton power she would need and at which angles to land her safely on the sidewalk with minimal damage to the rooftop and the sidewalk, plus some additional kinetic power in reserve should she need to lay the smack down on the mugger, Samuel, or both. That done, Meg clenched up and blasted away.
From the mugger’s point of view, things were, almost alarmingly, basic. First he’d seen his victim. He was about to go in for the kill when suddenly he caught a blur coming at him from the sky. In Edison City that meant capes, and capes meant you were screwed. Unless, that is, you had powers yourself; he didn’t. If you had a gun you were screwed anyway, unless you happened to be up against one of the non-bulletproof capes. Then, if you could get off a shot you might get lucky and hit the cape, and then maybe you might get even luckier and get into hiding fast enough so the other capes wouldn’t come after you. Most didn’t bother to try anymore, which was why Edison City’s criminal populations was mostly supervillains in it for the joy, and new guys in town who didn’t know the rules.
This guy was new, and about to be unlucky on several counts. The bullet he fired went right through Samuel’s uniform and smacked against his shoulder, whereupon it crumpled up like an old paper straw and fell harmlessly away. Samuel didn’t even notice. In a few blinding-fast moves he’d torn the gun away from the man’s hand, reduced it to scrap in a single blow, and had the man up against the wall. “Back home,” he said, “We knew how to deal with bandits.” His voice dropped an octave into a resonant bass growl. “Trarforei.”
“Tra-wha?” the man said. This was as far as he got before Samuel’s fist moved, which was as far as Samuel got before Meg interrupted him with a shocked “Wait!”
“What?” Samuel said, looking at her in genuine confusion. “We are on patrol. Your intent was to stop this man. I am doing that.”
“Yeah, but… you can’t just kill the guy,” Meg said. Just about every cape in Edison City abided by that particular understanding; there were a few antihero types who didn’t, but she didn’t run in those circles.
“He is Trarforei,” Samuel said. “Isn’t he?”
“Well, yes, if that’s your word for your standard street crime, but, look, we don’t do that to Traforey here,” Meg said, having not quite caught all the subtle pronunciation inflections in the word. “We disarm and secure until the local authorities can take them into custody.”
Samuel squinted. “Ah, so, you deliver them to the authorities, and then they-”
“No,” said Meg, deciding that for the moment they were keeping the discussion on the idealistic level. “We disarm and secure, the police take into custody, and then there’s the arraignment and trial, well, mostly they take a plea but sometimes their lawyer-”
“I do not understand,” Samuel said. “The legal officials back home, in town, are only used for formalities; I’m told my father arranged for one to sign the paper for his marriage. Why would they be required?”
“Well,” Meg said, feeling that she was losing ground, “See, the guy’s got rights, there’s the Fourth Amendment, and the Fifth, and so because of all that; actually, I should probably explain about the Constitution- hold on, one sec,” and she knocked the would-be mugger flat with a quick power burst as he tried to sneak off in the middle of their extended discussion. She pulled a cord from her utility belt and secured the man, now unconscious, to a nearby fire hydrant.
“See?” she said. “Disarm and secure. And look at that, here come the police. Time to go.”
Meg promptly blasted away into the sky; Samuel, still confused, followed after her. They spent the rest of the evening on a relatively non-eventful patrol, during which they prevented several more muggings and the like (all non-fatally, per Meg’s insistence), while she tried to explain the intricacies of the American legal system to Samuel Superlative the Third.
Several hours later, at the end of the patrol and her explanation, they found themselves on the roof of the highest skyscraper in the city: Linderman Tower. “You can see the whole city from up here,” Meg said, leaning on a railing. “The river, the ocean, the suburbs out west, the civilian hospital, the Coop…”
She laughed. “Sorry, that’s what we call the hospital that handles our people. Capes. You can see a lot of them too from up here: not your ground guys like the Wombat, but there, that lightning blast, that’s Lucy from the Phenomenal Four, I’d bet. And over there’s Titanium-Alloy Guy. He likes to put tracers in his rockets sometimes, give the kids a show.”
Samuel’s eyes were wide. “My planet has only a few towns, and the spaceport. There’s Verin Prime, of course, but… How do you… how can you protect all this?” His gesture encompassed the skyscrapers, the alleys, the sweep of lights and people below them.
Meg shrugged. “To be honest, we can’t. Not always. Not without crossing a lot of lines. The patrols are really more about showing the flag, you know, letting the bad guys know we’re around. If they’re thinking about trying something and they know there’s a better than even chance one of us is going to come down on them… well, maybe they’ll think twice. That’s the idea, anyway.”
“I see,” Samuel said slowly, “I have much to learn here. Would I … might I accompany you on one of your patrols again?”
The probabilities sorted themselves out before Meg. The resonant fury she’d heard in his voice before reminded her, a little too much, of the Malevolent Med-Student at his worst, ranting about the difference between beams and rays. On the other hand, the Malevolent Med-Student himself wasn’t ranting so much anymore; her own family didn’t think he was so bad, anyway.
She was about to give an answer when a sonorous boom resounded off to their right, near the harbor, immediately followed by the wail of innumerable car alarms set off by the noise.
“Oh, dear,” Meg said. “That’s Behemoth Bob off again. Break time’s over. We’ll need everyone available for this, you included.”
She blasted off into the sky. Samuel followed, wondering what she would’ve said and feeling more than a little irritated at this Behemoth Bob for the interruption. He didn’t know how this world’s Constitution addressed behemoths or even what a behemoth was, but all at once he found himself terribly eager to find out.