July, 1986

I’m resting on a low rooftop during morning patrol when I hear a loud bang from above, followed by a rumble. The good people of St. Mignola look high above them, fearing the worst. Among the tops of skyscrapers, a billow of smoke and debris gushes from a wound in a tall building. The people scream, fearing a terrorist attack from the Russians. People fear the Communist Party more than anything else.

Then, a blur of motion zooms out of the building. It launches high into the sky and disappears into the clouds. Another rumble is heard past the puffy white. A pair of shadows, one engulfed in pure black smoke, another in billowing pink smoke, fight as the people of St. Mignola looks on in disbelief. I watch as dozens of people in the street are already scrambling for safety. It’s a SPEC battle.

“SPEC” is an acronym that stands for Specially Powered and Extraordinary Character. Many people just call them superheroes and super villains. SPEC is a government-given term used that easily classifies people who can throw buses, melt steel with their eyes and fly unaided. There’s no grey area with the government. Whether you’re an alien whose powers come natural to you or a high school kid just trying to fend off bullies with super strength, you’re a SPEC. The government legally can’t touch you or your secret identity. A lot of people see SPECs as Greek Gods who go about doing their own thing and interfere with the lives or mortals.

Me? I’m the guy that looks out for the “mere” mortals.

Another loud explosion is heard above the clouds. A streak of inky black smoke fires through the clouds and crashes into the same skyscraper again. There’s another loud rumble, but this time, the rumble is followed by the high-pitched screeching of metal grinding.

The top part of the skyscraper, about five or six floors worth, begins to fall towards the streets.

Whomever the SPEC crashed into the building suddenly flies out of the wreckage. With amazing speed, the smoke-enshrouded figure is holding tight to the edge of the rooftop. It continues to teeter despite the SPEC’s best efforts. The top of the skyscraper is beginning to lean on its side. From far below on the street, a loud crashing noise is heard. The people jerk to see that an office chair, or what was left of it, had crashed onto the pavement. They look high above again and see an innocent bystander begin to plummet towards the pavement.

It’s then that I make my move. With a burst of speed, I fly into the air towards the man falling to his doom. As I reach closer to him, I slow my ascent to be sure I don’t catch him while going at full speed. He was giving me some rousing encouragement.

“Catch me, you idiot!” the guy in the business suit yells.

“Just wait, man! I don’t want to break your neck or something!” I holler back, feeling the wind dig under my mask.

I cradle him in my arms and hover in the air.

“Well, fly back to the ground, will you!” he barks at me, crossing his arms, impatiently. I’m too busy looking back up to see how the SPEC above is doing, holding up about a tenth of a skyscraper.

“Why didn’t you evacuate the top twenty floors, like everyone else?” I ask him, starting to fly back down towards Morrison Avenue with him.

“Well, the alert didn’t say anything about Dark Steel and the Man in Pink! Besides, I was in the middle of an important conference call.”

Figures, I think to myself. People are so used to SPEC battles that not even a level six alert for a sky battle will pry them away from their important jobs. Level six is a specific level (on a scale of one to ten) for magic-based heroes and villains. If it’s a sky battle like this one, the advisory is to evacuate the top twenty floors. That is, unless you enjoy being turned into a newt or something.

“Is there anyone else left in the building, sir?” I ask as my feet touch the pavement.

“Um. No, no. I don’t think so,” he brushes himself off of any debris and dust on his fancy suit. Then he cups a hand over his brow and looks high in the air. He frowns, “Dark Steel is going to be hearing from my lawyer, I tell you. He cost me a lot, losing me that conference call.”

“Well, good to see you have your priorities straight,” I mutter under my breath and look back up at the building again.

I tell my powers and myself that there could be other people in the building that Mr. Conference Call didn’t know about. My powers understand that I’m trying to help other people and my super-vision kicks in. Like a car suddenly accelerating a hundred miles an hour, my telescopic vision zooms up to the teetering top of the skyscraper.

Around the roof area, I can see Dark Steel flexing his level six muscles, using all of his strength to hold up the building. Even without a shirt, the cold from so high up doesn’t even bother him. It must be the big, ink-black veins. Or maybe the magic dagger, I wonder to myself. Sure enough, black smoke billows from the dagger’s hilt, which is clamped between Dark Steel’s teeth.

I’m about to do a quick scan of the building when—

“Oh, God. Lois!” The business man behind me tugs on my red cape.

“Who’s Lois?” I ask, looking over my shoulder. I forget to turn off my super vision, so I can suddenly have a very detailed view of the dust on a mannequin in a store window. I blink, shake my head and ask again, “Who is Lois?!”

“My secretary, you stupid kid! If I was staying in that office, damnit, so was she!” He points back up at what’s left of the high rise.

“Hope you’re giving her hazard pay!” I shout at him, shake him off my cape and take back off into the sky. I do a quick scan of the area but it doesn’t look like the Man in Pink is anywhere in sight. He must’ve taken off when he saw the going was good.

“Lois” could be hanging on for dear life from whatever is nailed down. I have to find her fast. I tell my powers that she could die if I don’t find her and they decide to give me super hearing this time. Great, the one time I could use maybe x-ray vision and I don’t get it. I never get x-ray vision! I tell my powers that I’m not being selfish, that it’s just a thought. Just one slip-up like that and my powers are temporarily kaput.

My mind goes back to “Lois” as my super-hearing kicks in to above me as I quickly fly up to meet what’s left of the high rise.

“I’m going to kill him. I swear, I’m going to give my two weeks notice, and then I’m going to kill him,” I hear Lois whispering to herself. But she’s grunting and out of breath, probably holding on for dear life and just about to fall. I tell my powers that I need to get there fast and the high rise looms faster towards me.

“I’m here! Where are you?!” I shout to the creaking building. Shards of glass and office supplies tumble at both sides of me as I hover in place, hoping to hear the right clue.

“Twenty fifth floor, kid!” Dark Steel grunts loudly to me from the roof area.

“Um,” I pause for a second, trying to remember how many floors this high rise, owned by MongoCorp, had. I start doing some quick counting, starting at the bottom floors far below.

My super-hearing picks up the sound of rolling eyes, “Fifth floor on my left!” Dark Steel grunts through his dagger, nodding with his head.

“Ah! Right.” I zip over to the floor and fly into a window of the office floor turned sideways.

Wow, nice carpeting, I can’t help but notice.

I look down one of the aisles and the next thing I notice is a rather large woman lying on the now turned sideways cubicle. What the hell kind of nails are holding that? I quickly put that thought out of my mind as I float in the air with my arms crossed, trying to look heroic or cool.

“Good evening, Miss Lane,” I say with a fake deep voice.

“What?” She looks at me as if I have two heads.

I revert back in my regular voice. “Sorry. I’ve just always wanted to say that. Um, never mind.”

“Oh, well, thank goodness you’re here! I was just walking by here when the building turned on its side! I thought for sure I was going to die! Can you, um, can you get me out of here?”

“Uh, sure. One second.”

Lois scrambles on her hands and knees over to me and I try my best to wrap my arms around her. I’m really, really, hoping I have enough super-strength to pick her up. I’m only a level three SPEC, after all. Lois wraps one of her beefy arms around my neck and I find my hover dips a little as I take her completely into my arms.

This is my damsel in distress? A forty-something who looks like she’ll bleed gravy!? Well, so much for getting a phone number.

Aw crap, I shouldn’t have thought that.

All of my powers completely cut out on me right there and then. Lois and I begin to plummet completely out of the MongoCorp building, zooming towards the pavement.

Lois screams into my ear, “What the hell are you doing?! You’re flying too fast!” She wraps her arms around me, tightening up to the point that I feel her arms completely covering my neck.

Yeah, well, if you would…

No, no more insults to the poor woman! She was going to die if I didn’t tell my powers that I was not trying to be selfish! Superheroing is an altruistic business! Helping people, saving lives, fighting the good fight and—

I jerk in the middle of the air as my powers finally kick back in. I look down, which isn’t so scary if you can fly. We only dropped about thirty feet. The building was closer than the street.

Nice, Zach. Real nice. Kick yourself in the ass later. Let’s bring Lois back down on the ground, okay? I order myself and rub Lois’s back to try to calm her down a little so she’s not half-choking me.

She tightens back up again as there’s a blaster of pink light shining above.

I look up and see that Dark Steel has been blasted off into the distance, the Man in Pink, with glowing energy, flying quickly towards him. They’re heading towards the harbour; away from the center of St. Mignola and a lot of innocent people.

Unfortunately, that means the top of the building is falling again.

“Lois,” I say as soothing as I can, given the circumstances, “I’m going to ask you to remain calm, okay? I’m going to do something a little crazy, but it’s going to save your life.”

“Wh-What?” she mutters.

I begin flying zooming back towards the building.

“What are you doing?! You’re crazy! Just fly me back to the street around the corner!”

“No time. I wouldn’t make it. I’m not that fast.” Considering the extra cargo, but I don’t say that out loud.

Lois squints as hard as her eyelids will allow and holds onto me tight, screaming the entire way up. From all of the impacts and fighting, nearly all of the glass had been shattered out of the windows. I fly back through the twenty fifth (or fifth floor on the left), zipping straight through the hallways. I can see the window on the other end of the building—

—uh, window? As in, still intact window? Double crap.

I struggle to free one of my hands without giving away my grip of Lois. Fortunately, she’s holding on for dear life (and who can blame her?). I grab my leather cape and do my best to cover as much of her body as I can. I spin around in the air to have my back facing the window as I fly up even faster.

With a shattering crash, I spit out of the other end of the building like a watermelon seed.

“It’s okay, Lois, open your eyes. Look at me.”

She does and looks me in the eyes.

“Your mask? It’s so odd looking. Why are there so many points sticking out of it?”

“It’s a Mexican Luchador mask. They all look weird.” I tell her and look around at the area. I glance below to see the building piece still plummeting. I have maybe thirty seconds before it hits the ground. I look back at what’s left of the MongoCorp building. There are some staff workers at the top of it, looking up at us.

I zip over to the office workers and leave Lois in their care. I hear her shout a thank you as I fly towards the streets as fast I can. I can’t catch the building but maybe I can get some people out of the way. My flight becomes quicker as I zoom closer and closer to the street.

And then there’s a rush of wind as I brown and purple blur zips by me.

I barely hear a voice say something to me as the blur zips past me, blowing my cape over my head. “Nice work, kid, I’ll take it from here.”

I hear a loud boom but can’t get my cape untangled through the spines in my wrestling mask.

And then, there is another boom. It’s a rushing boom that seems to pour from all over the streets. But this is the kind of boom that every hero, from St. Mignola to Integrity City, loves to hear.

It’s a rousing ovation. Hey, I guess that was pretty slick work for me to zip through the office building like that.

I finally untangle my cape and flip it back behind me, looking far below.

And there he is: the god among mortals. He hovers high above them, covered in a cloud of dust and debris: the leftovers of the first five floors of the MongoCorp building. Not even a crumb of it touches his golden blonde hair. Yep, like I ever had a chance of getting a rousing ovation like that. Why would I, when there was him?

Humanity Man, in all his Level Seven glory, waves to the crowd and flies away.

Some hero I am. The Altruist, the guy that can only get his powers to work when he’s helping others. Yeah, real swell.

I better fly across the river or I’m going to be late for work.

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