Gridwork

Part One: Bungee

He steps up to the edge, legs shaking, places his feet on the �x� he�d scrawled earlier and carefully shuffles them together; the drop forces him to question his balance. He tries not to look down, but the temptation is too strong; oblivion is beckoning on the periphery of his vision and he looks. The thrill tickles at his bowels falsifying the need to defecate.

The ground, three thousand feet below, is obscured by a blanket of smog hanging so thick that the cord seems cut in two; the arc hidden in it�s depths.

He swallows hard, closes his eyes and then, with arms oustretched, he allows himself to topple forward�

She can�t see him through the mist, but he is there. She hears him breathe; can sense the subtle shift in air current as he moves. He is very near. Carefully she pulls the blanket tighter around herself and her sleeping child. There was no way to tell if he was hostile - just as he was hidden in the haze so were his intentions. But it was rare to be followed by an unannounced stranger who had nothing other than malice in mind. But for the baby to wake up now and cry could be the end of them both. Certain or not, the stalker brought trouble.

The baby was warm, it�s lips still red and moist unlike her own which had long since turned blue and were quivering from the cold. She hugged him closer to her breast squeezing him; selfishly trying to steal his heat.

She wondered if this meant the onset of hypothermia, or pneumonia and was only imagining the breathing; that she is being stalked; that the sounds were the fragile bones in her ears shivering; that the air shift was just her body attempting to warm itself by standing her hairs on end.

A sound like rippling water escaped the fog. And less than a second later another, louder than the first.

She halted her breathing, and tightened her grip on the infant�

He�d passed the first three walkways on his descent feeling like a drifting leaf; not yet having reached his full acceleration he�d glided past and nothing more. Now was different. Four seconds in and they flashed like strobes against his eyelids. The wind was white noise rumbling through his ears, allowing through only minimal background noise. At one point a siren filters through, then fades as quickly as it had come; at another, a pneumatic drill; yet another � a scream. The sounds of the city.

He continues to fall�

No sound now for five minutes. Her heart pounds as she contemplates her next move. The baby yawns and stretches in her arms, soon he would wake up. She had to move.

Remaining careful and keeping one eye on the swirling mist ahead she unwraps the blanket and folds it gingerly back into her rucksack. Her son gurgles slightly as she lifts him and she freezes, drawing a sharp breath.

No sound but the beating of her heart but she waits another minute. He is either gone or he is sly. She takes a chance on neither, but necessity pulls her into the fog.

The search for food continues�

As his speed evens time begins to slow down; the walkways no longer strobe; the wind no longer roars. Once again he is drifting silently, the three mile high �spacescrapers� floating past him as if it was he who was standing still. The scenery had changed from once of affluence to one of poverty; no pressurized walkways this far down and those that were enclosed had more boards than windows; graffiti so big he could read and make sense of it as he dropped.

At just over halfway, he hits the mist. The temperature drops sharply and despite the adrenaline running through his veins the chill takes a sudden and shocking grip of his system, instantly drenched, as he was, by the vapours. From here on in he�d be as blind as he was wet.

He prays to whoever is listening, that it isn�t hiding anything big�

She�d ran for fifty yards, somehow managing to remain quiet despite stumbling over every piece of rubble and waste in her path, when the child awoke. It stretched, yawned, opened it�s eyes, and for reasons she would never understand, began to scream louder than it had ever done. Suddenly panicked she tries to calm it down � rocking it from side to side making strangled cooing noises - all the while casting furtives glances around her. But the screaming could only mean one thing, and there was only one solution.

She had produced no milk for weeks � a symptom of her malnutrition � but the child sucks at her nipple eagerly; even viciously, to the point that it feels as though it could draw blood. It hurts, but she shuts her mind to the pain and listens again.

She hears breathing and knows it isn�t hers.

He knows he has taken the slack when he feels himself begin to decelerate. He had done a good job with the line; no sudden jerk, just a gentle change in pressures. His weight began to return, cradled by the double harness round his waist and chest, as he sailed downwards through the fog. He reaches for the harpoon gun at his belt; a crude but necessary addition to his accessories. Going down was predictable, allowing the cord to retract above him was not. When he reached ground zero, roughly one hundred feet from the surface he would fire the harpoon to anchor him to the ground and release the harness. It had never been the plan to go back up � at least not via the cord.

Remembering this he pats his shoulder strap, taking comfort from knowing the other gun he�d brought was still attached.

The ground levels of the Grid were not renowned for safety, especially not for the higher-ups.

It had never been away. When she made her run, it had followed. And now that she could see it, she knew it was no man.

It�d stepped out of the fog the second she had turned to look in it�s direction. It stood over six feet tall and had claws like razors extending from four hands, two of which seemed to dance in the air above it�s head as though writhing on stalks. And it growled with a low, almost melancholy rumble she could feel in the bottom of her stomach. She countered with a moan of her own, not as well controlled, and vacated her bowels and bladder.

The creature gnashed it�s teeth and approached.

All she could do was stare.

When he was sure he�d past the one hundred foot mark he aimed the harpoon straight down along his line of descent and fired. There was a few seconds of uncertainty when he heard no sound of impact, but this cleared when he reeled it in and the slack was taken up. His weight was still taken by the cord and his descent, although slowed to a virtual crawl continued. When he slowed further he�d begin to reel himself in; the closer he was to ground the less it would hurt when he released his harness and fell. He checked his watch. The fall had taken just two minutes.

The climb back up was going to take six hours. He allows himself a smile and flips the retractor switch on the harpoon gun.

She�d done her best to protect the child, but after the first tear she�d begun to lose blood and had weakened. The baby�s face is in front of hers. The creature is on her back it�s teeth sunk into her neck and she can feel it ripping. She feels calm; the fear evaporating along with her vision and thoughts. Not long now; not for her nor her child. It would be the next victim once she had been used and discarded.

Another blow. This time on her leg. She feels it as though from a distance, as if experiencing the pain of another, and does not cry out. The strength has gone out of her completely. The creature throws her onto her back and digs it�s claws into her gut. She reaches dreamily for the child, now at her side, and with the last of her strength clutches it hand tightly.

There is another lurch, this time it�s not the creature. Something pulls sharply on her leg and raises it, throwing her assailant off of her. That�s when she sees the wound in her leg; the barbed hook embedded there and the length of steel line attached�

He just passed the point of equilibrium - when the drop line took over his weight and the cord reached it's maximum stress point - when the line slackens suddenly and without warning, nearly wrenching the gun from his grip. The harpoon had found a target alright but not as solid a target as he'd hoped.

A chill passes over and through him; if the hook failed, with the cord stretched as it was, he would be pulled back up over half a mile at the same speed as he'd fell. The way the walkways were spread it was odds on he'd collide with one of them, if not two.

He looks at his harness and contemplates releasing it. But there is no way of knowing how much further he has to fall.

His only option is to continue and hope for the best.

With her last breath upon her she looks to the sky, still clutching the tiny hand of her child. Her insides are no longer her insides and the creature is pounding on her exposed ribs. The cable moves, but this no longer matters to her. Everywhere she looks is white and the sound has gone from the world. She is no longer breathing, but her heart still beats; there are sparks across her vision and she feels them crackling through her brain.

Something about the cable...a shadow growing on the white background like a stain...

He can make out a commotion beneath him as he nears the ground, like a dog fight; sounds of growling permeate the haze. He reaches for the gun on his shoulder with his free hand and pulls it loose, aims it into the murk ahead.

There are two people. No three. Two on the ground and one standing or crouching. As he nears he realises the horror of what he is witnessing. He shouts at the assailant, still unable to make out his features, but the shape continues to rip and tear at the figure beneath - a woman. She is not moving, but the child beside her is.

He shouts again, this time gaining a reaction. When the attacker turns all he sees are teeth. He points the gun and fires.

She is still alive, but not for long. The stain has grown into a man. There is a flash and the rocking of her body ceases. The man is saying something but she can't hear what. She mouths a word to him and he understands, following her arm, unclasping her hand from the child at her side.

He has a grip on it's hand when the creature returns. Once more a distant tug on her leg and the man is gone with her baby, back up into the clouds. She tries to smile but her strength deserts her...and the world fades away...

With the child giving him extra weight, the cord had not retracted far enough to endanger him. His only problem had been keeping a hold of his tiny hand. The thing that had killed it's mother had returned and snapped the drop-cable before he'd had time to get a better grip. They'd bounced maybe four or five times then wobbled for twenty minutes as the cord reached proper equilibrium, then he'd strapped the kid to his harness and begun to climb, swinging across onto a walkway on level five an exhausting hour later.

Now he has his breath back he looks at the child in his arms. It is sleeping soundly, sucking at the inside of it's bottom lip for comfort. A low-level child. Probably a result of rape. With no papers, no certificates, probably no living (or caring) relatives, definitely no mother...

He smiles down at the infant and strokes it cheek with his thumb.

It was going to be a long climb home.

There is pain. On the top of it's arm - blood. But not bad. It would heal soon enough.

...and begins to climb...

Part Two: Up, up and away...

At the end of the speech there was the obligatory explosion of flashbulbs and cheering which, predictably got louder as he performed his party-piece and flew away from the podium over the crowd. All the usual crap offended his senses as he left; the screaming women and children; the placards with all the usual "I love yous" and "bear my children" remarks; the friggin paparrazi chasing him around like flies after shit...

Twenty years of all this horse shit and he was starting to get sick of the whole thing. What would all the fans think if they knew he had to wear a girdle, dentures and a wig to keep his image up? That he went home every night to a fat lazy bitch of a wife and three screaming kids, to eat meals of takeaway pizzas washed down with a six pack?

Probably not a lot.

He'd miss the flight belt, though, when the contract ended and they wheeled some other poor bastard out into the public eye. He might even ask to keep it. There was nothing like soaring over the city at night, weaving in and out between the spacescrapers, swooping down over and under walkways. Even the saving people part - the genuine times that is; when he got to be a real superhero. The rest of the time it just sickened him to the stomach; the battles with "supervillains"; rescuing kittens from trees; wrestling mutants from the lower-levels. All televised "live" - all shot in a movie studio in the Powercorp building with a script cobbled together by a team of fifty writers.

What would the public say if they knew that? That their hero wasn't a real hero at all, but a sham invented by an advertising agency to promote a power company? That there were no supervillains, nor mutants in the lower levels? And that kittens don't climb trees?

His flightpath took him in an arc around the main Powercorp complex, putting it between himself and the plaza where the conference had taken place. When he was sure it was safe, he changed his course and headed down. It wouldn't do for the paparazzi to photograph Powerman going home to a mid - level apartment. Bad enough he lived in an apartment at all; his many blurbs and comics books insisting he never slept at all but lived "a solitary life among the clouds ever watchful for evil lurking in the shadows of his beloved city".

He'd chuckled when he'd read that. It had really creased him up. Now though, it only made him wish he could walk away and be plain old Joe again.

His wife gave him the obligatory kiss when he entered the apartment through the window, a habit rather than a genuine sign of affection. The kids with their usual chorus. �Kelly did this�, �Little Joey did that�, �Mom won�t let me watch cartoons�. He took off the mask, undid his cape and flopped down in his chair in front of the television. Next she would bring him a beer and sit down to complain about another bill or talk about something someone did at work or tell him about the dress she saw in the window at J-mart.

The beer she brought, the next part was unexpected.

�I want a divorce�

He muted the TV and turned to look at her. His ears surely deceived him for he asked her to repeat it.

�You heard me, I want a divorce and I want it now.�

This time he allowed himself a moment to let it sink in. She was serious; didn�t take her eyes off him once. And they didn�t flicker.

�I�ll be moving in with my mother tomorrow and I�m taking the kids with me.�

The whole situation seemed unreal. Two minutes before he was married, however unhappily and now here he was a divorcee-in-waiting. What had happened in between? Was there someone else?

�No.�

Had he done something wrong? Offended her in some way?

�No.�

Then what? He made plenty of money. Since he became Powerman full time his salary from Powercorp was up and it wouldn�t be long before they retired him on full pay. Not to mention the payout he�d receive to keep his mouth shut. They could both retire. Move out of the city. Apply for a land license and build a new home. Why now after 25 years?

�I�ve never lived, Joe. Ever day is the same and it doesn�t matter how much money we�ll have or where we�ll live. It won�t change anything.�

Why not just tell him what�s wrong? Take some time apart to figure things out and then talk things through. What about the kids? Had she told them? What did they have to say? What are they going to think when they don�t get to see their daddy every day?

�I�m sorry, Joe�

That was it. Next day she packed and left. All that was left of her when he returned from his patrol was a note.

�I�ll always love you�

He crumpled it up and threw it out the still open window.

There had been a rumour circulating for months that Contraco, Powercorp�s major competitor, was training up a superhero of their own. This rumour was confirmed when the CEO in charge of all things Powerman, Nathan Dyke called him to his office.

�And please,� he�d requested as a last word, �use the door.�

He had pictures of the new hero and even knew the name of the poor sap they were going to stick in the costume � Stanley Marshall. What kind of name was that for a superhero?

�We are going to have to make some changes to stay ahead of the game. They�ve taken our suit design and added some new stuff that I think may give them the edge.�

What edge? Do they have new special effects? Improved CGI?

�The helmet has a built in link to local official radio channels. You know what that means?�

Of course he knew what it meant. They were planning the real deal. They were going to have this guy listening on the police band and trying to steal their thunder. Real crime. What the fuck were they thinking? Did they know what real crime was?

Wait a minute. Was this prick thinking what he thought he was thinking?

�In light of this we are going to make an addition to your costume��

Oh fuck�

The first night of the patrol the radio did nothing but fizz in his ear all night leaving him with a headache. He sat in front of the TV for the rest of the evening when his shift was finished, watching the news, most of which was about Contraman � the Grid�s new hero � and it seemed very much like he�d been kept busy. He�d put out a fire on mid-level five, someone had left their chip pan on the heat and fell asleep; retrieved a woman�s purse from a would-be thief in, of all places, the Powercorp plaza; and, most surprisingly, showed up on low-level one-twenty-three at the scene of a murder. No doubt the latter had been a publicity stunt. He�d done the press-thing on the scene, pledging to solve the crime and �leave no stone unturned to bring the perpetrator to justice.� God he was good.

But what would he be like up against a gun?

He was no fool. If the police mentioned any kind of firearm code it was ignored. He concentrated on the suicides and the bungee jumpers and did the occasional school visit to talk about the evil of drugs and littering. His ratings were dropping fast though. He could see it in the faces of the kids while he spoke. They weren�t interested in him anymore, they wanted Contraman. The sad thing was ten years before he would�ve cared. As things were he couldn�t be bothered.

Every night now was the same. Contraman this, Contraman that�oh and Powerman� He was being pushed into everything; everytime a law was contravened he was there or had an opinion to offer. It was fucking disgusting.

It was the second bulletin of the night before he realized something was wrong. Either his eyes were deceiving him or �the Grid�s newest hero� was getting shorter � not only that but his voice had changed as well. Suddenly his interest in Contraman was piqued. Someone somewhere wasn�t playing the game the way it should be played.

Just to be sure he hunted through the cache on his TV hoping it still contained the footage from the fire the evening before. It did and he�d been correct: the Grid, unbeknownst to it�s citizens had indeed got itself a new hero�

For the next three nights he continued to keep up with the exploits of his rival. There was no further change, but the question remained. Where was Stanley Marshall? As a matter of curiosity he looked up the man�s address in the city records, but, like his own, there was none listed. He would have to find another way to track him down.

On the fourth night he requested all of the TV footage from the monitoring department at Powercorp and spent the night going through them, taking notes; trying to piece together the movements of Marshall up until he�d vanished and been replaced by the mystery man. There were blanks of course but he managed after a time to pin down the final appearance of the original. It was part of an independent news report; a brief interview in the aftermath of a pickpocket apprehension. Marshall had seemed distant in the way that someone can be when talking and being spoken to simultaneously. The interview had been cut short and he�d flown off, obviously in a hurry.

There were no further news reports for that evening which begged the question: what had been so important he�d needed to cut short an interview, yet seemed at the same time to be un-newsworthy? He checked the footage again. The interview had taken place just off Powercorp plaza; the marketplace. He saw him take off again but there was nothing to indicate in which direction.

He shut the digicorder down and sipped thoughtfully at a glass of whisky he�d been nursing since he�d returned from his nightly patrol. He stared at the blank screen for a while, almost allowing the the combination of fatigue and alcohol to send him into stupor. He sat up wih a start, spilling the remains of the whisky onto the rug. Fuck. Standing up to clear the mess he bumped the TV, knocking everything from the top. Double fuck.

The webcam had been his daughter�s. The fall had smashed it beyond repair. Cheap Taiwan-made crap. He�d known this at the time he�d bought it of course. They hadn�t been able to afford better in those days; cheap mid-level accommodation, cheap no-name brand food; more cheap than a deranged canary. He swept the remains of the digicam onto a dustpan and carried it through to the bin, the broken lens seeming to glare at him accusingly.

The lens�

Before he tipped it into the bucket something occurred to him. If he�d had any sense of irony he might have smiled, instead he reached for his cape and helmet then opened the window�

It was amazing he�d never thought of it before. A company the size of Powercorp didn�t get so big by being trusting. The plaza had digicams of it�s own; somewhere around a thousand of them. All ultra-high resolution, all mobile and most important of all at any one time they monitored a dome of space around the plaza one mile wide and half a mile high. In short: they didn�t miss a thing.

The film of the evening in question hadn�t been hard to get a hold of - the Powerman costume still possessed some authority, despite the dimming of his star � and the security team had been only too happy to help him find what he was looking for.

They must�ve thought it strange when he found what he was looking for. Powerman looking for footage of Contraman. But if they did think anything was amiss, they said nothing. There were one or two half-quizical glances thrown between the monitor and himself, but nothing more.

The cameras had lost sight of him on the east side of the plaza, heading downwards and accelerating. A quick check of the maps and he was on his way to check the next set of cameras. Below the plaza was mostly residential blocks; very little in the way of enterprise. For this reason he would have to rely on civic security cameras. The advantage here was that footage from these was public access; the disadvantage that they were regular targets for vandalism and rarely, if ever, replaced once damaged. He was lucky though � up to a point. With only one or two blank spots he followed the flight of Contraman down as far as mid-level 23, then no further. The cameras from that point on were dead.

A combination of frustration and fatique carried him home to his whisky and his comfy chair. He didn�t bother with the TV this time, just allowed himself to drift away in the chair. If he�d dreamt it was forgotten as soon as he�d awakened. He checked the time, it was three am. The phone was ringing. It was his wife.

�It�s me, Joe.�

Was something wrong?

�No.�

Then why was she phoning at 3am? Were the kids OK?

�The kids are fine. I�m just having a bit of trouble sleeping.�

She was having a bit of trouble sleeping? What for? She got what she wanted. What was she trying to do? Rub it in? Give him a call in the middle of the night to remind him what was missing?

�I�m sorry�this was a mistake. Goodnight. Take care.�

Then she was gone. Again.

He didn�t sleep again that night. Instead he�d shoved the suit back on and taken to the early morning skies, not looking for anything in particular. All he wanted to do was drift among the clouds for a while; look at the stars before the sunrise drowned their light for another day. While he floated there he wondered what it would be like to be like this all the time. To really live among the clouds as his blurbs suggested he should. No wife or kids, no bills, no house to clean, no-one to answer to except himself�maybe he �d been wrong about the whole thing. Maybe he was contemplating giving up the wrong part of his dual identity. At the end of the day what use was plain old Joe to anyone? Who would notice if the same thing happened to him as had happened to Stanley Marshall? Who would care?

He stayed to watch the sunrise, the monstrosity that was the Grid spread out beneath him, it�s spacescraper structures sticking out from the layer of smog at their base like flakes in a bowl of chocolate ice cream. As he looked the question returned. Marshall was somewhere down there but without the mid-level footage he had reached a dead end. He comforted himself by thinking perhaps there had been no great mystery after all. Perhaps he�d simply refused to carry out the role, had been replaced and was now living it up on some paradise island in the archipelago. What a retirement package that would�ve been. A week wearing a silly costume, pretending to tackle crime as an excuse to get himself on the news followed by a lifetime on the beach at the company�s expense. Fucking hell, if only�

But if he�d had any such thing as �super-senses� he suspected they would be tingling by now. Whatever had happened, sinister or no, the former Contraman�s disappearance was crying out to be solved and he wasn�t about to give up yet. If he had to knock on ever door in the city, lift the lid on every bucket, he was going to find him.

He watched the civic security film again, pin-pointed the location of the final sighting and left. After reaching mid-level 23, he continued on along the same heading as the other had taken, until in range of the first of the vandalized cameras then stopped to take in his surroundings. It was mid-level 18, he noted; the camera jutted out from the underside of the level�s main walkway, panning from side-to-side � it�s scope taking in a one-hundred and eighty degree half-circle, beginning and ending with the opposing sides of the walkway between the spacescrapers. He looked down along the projected flight path he�d worked out from the tapes, half-hoping something, some clue would leap out at him from somewhere. But there was none. No burnt-out buildings, no blood splattered walls, no nuclear meltdown nor sign of any other kind of violence or tragedy.

He drifted closer to the walkway as he thought of his next step, the air currents sucking him lower as he neared. It was still early morning, so traffic was light. Only one car had passed him as he�d made his way downtown, the rest was deathly quiet save for the wind and the occasional seagull squawk. If it had been busier he would never have heard the whirring from the camera, the noise of the high speed shutters taking fifty pictures per second. And had he not heard it he would never have noticed the red LED above the lens that showed the camera was in perfect working order�

There was no point in returning to the civic center. The film had been deliberately removed from the archive and they hadn�t noticed. The camera had been marked as malfunctioning as had four others on the corresponding levels below; a quick check revealed all of them to be in working order also. Before he only had suspicions. Now he had something concrete � but he�d need more if he was going to find the missing man.

Four levels down he found it. A blood stain too large to have been caused by anything other than something fatal spread across the floor of an open walkway. It was scored through with scouring marks and faded pink as if someone had tried to clean it but had given up halfway through. He�d chanced upon it by accident when checking the camera beneath. Whoever�s blood it had been had run through the crack between wall and floor leaving dark brown streaks where it had flowed. He would never had noticed otherwise. Someone had died here. The question was � who? And why had someone went to so much trouble to cover it up?

The answer, he suspected, lay somewhere inside Contraco. And he knew just the person to talk to.

He went home to wait for nightfall.

There had been a message on his machine when he got home. She�d called again and left a number for him to call her back.

�Hello?�

He greeted her doing his utmost to keep his voice even and calm. He wasn�t going to lose his temper, nor break into tears � not today.

�I�ve been to see a lawyer.�

And?

�He�s going to be sending you the divorce papers.�

OK, so all he has to do is sign and that�ll be that? Twenty years gone in the time it takes to sign his name. What about the kids? Custody and access. Had she thought about that? Could they discuss it?

�Of course, but not yet. They need a stable home first.�

He laughed out loud, maybe a bit too cruelly at this. A stable home? They had a fucking stable home until she�d dragged them out kicking and screaming! Why couldn�t she just come back? He would forget all of this had ever happened and they could get on with raising the kids the way they should be raised.

�There�s someone else.�

What?

�There�s someone else. We�ve slept together. �

He was stunned, but he had to aske the question: Who? Anyone I know?

�Charlie.�

Charlie? He knew it. The little fucking creep coming round to visit; taking her out for lunch and coffee. And he�d been �just a friend� all the time. How could he have been so blind. It�d been going on under his nose the whole time and he hadn�t noticed. Where had they been doing it? In his bed? In his chair? On his carpet? Where?

�I�m going now. Sign the papers.�

He threw the phone against the wall, smashing it beyond repair and denting the plaster at the same time then sat for a while staring at the floor. He could almost see them doing it and it sickened him to the stomach. How could she? Hadn�t she loved him? Hadn�t she given a shit? His cheeks and ears burned. Suddenly the apartment itself was his enemy; the more he thought about it the more his need grew to get away.

This time when he left he didn�t bother with the helmet.

The nightly patrols for both heroes never changed and he�d been briefed quite thoroughly on both. There was an agreement between the powers that be, call it a truce arrangement, that although the city was not divided between them, the standard routes would never meet. He�d used the remaining time before nightfall to find the best position from which to make his move on Contraman, and had waited there.

The red-suited hero had arrived soon after sunset, yellow cape flapping in the wind as he flew. It hadn�t been hard to pull him down.

�What the f-!!!�

That was no way for a super hero to be talking. What kind of role model was a hero who used the f word? He punched him in the stomach � hard � and removed the helmet, which he then threw over the edge of the building. Now they could talk in private. But before that he hit him again, this time with his foot, knocking the man against the wall.

�What the fuck is going on?�

He told him to shut up. If he wanted him to speak he�d ask a question. He needed his questions answered, and he wanted the truth. Anything other than truth and he was going to take out all of his frustrations on him � and what a shitload of frustration that was. He wondered if he understood.

�I understand. But ��

He kicked him again. Not as hard, but hard enough to shut the other man up. He wanted to know what happened to Stanley Marshall.

�Who?�

Another kick. Harder.

�The other Contraman? I don�t know.�

What was his problem? Hadn�t he understood the question? He wanted the truth, not the company line. And he didn�t have time for games.

�There�s just rumours.�

What rumours?

�He saw something, I don�t know what. Something he shouldn�t have seen.�

What did he see? Where was he now?

�I don�t know but it freaked him out. They sent him away somewhere, I don�t know where. I swear to God.�

Who sent him away? He needed a name.

�I can�t��

Oh yes he could.

�It�s my job��

He raised his leg to kick him again, but stopped himself. It wasn�t this man�s fault. He was just a lackey to some dickwad in a suit; Contraco�s version of Nathan Dyke. He told him to get up.

�You think they�ve done something to him? To Marshall?�

He didn�t know. All he knew was that he was that the man had gone missing; that someone had expended a lot of energy to cover it up. For all he knew the man was dead.

�David Mackie.�

What?

�That�s the contact. He�s the guy who arranged for me to wear the suit, so I�d presume he�s the guy you want to talk to.�

Mackie. He kept the name on his lips as he headed uptown towards the plaza. He needed to talk with Dyke and this time he needed to use the window. He 'd known Nathan would've still been in his office - he was that kind of person, always scheming new schemes as a good PR man should - but he hadn't expected the other man.

"Speak of the devil."

It was Nathan who'd spoken, moving across the room to put his arm around him as he stepped down into the office. He brushed him off, asking what was going on. The man in the chair was staring at him with something like humour in his eyes.

"Sit down, Joe."

He wasn't going to sit down until he knew what was going on. Something wasn't right. Either that or he was about to be given some bad news.

"Joe...sit down."

He lowered himself into the proffered chair, keeping his eyes on the stranger, who'd lost none of the humour in his gaze. Nathan moved back behind his desk and sat down with an almost dramatic flourish, peaking his hands in front of him.

"The man sitting next to you is David Mackie. You know who he is, don't you?"

He stood up, suddenly angry, with such force that the chair toppled over behind him. What was going on? What the fuck was happening? This guy was the enemy. Not only to Powercorp but to his own men. All he had to do was ask what happened to Contraman - ask what had happened to Stanley Marshall.

"Stanley Marshall is alive and well and is getting the best possible care and attention. This is not about him. Joe, you are standing on the tip of a very big iceberg here. You think you are doing the right thing which is commendable but you have to stop now."

What did he mean - stop? And what does "the best possible care and attention" mean? What the fuck was going on here?

The other man stepped in at this point.

"If I may..."

Nathan nodded. He continued.

"We knew the camera trick wasn't going to hold up for too long, nor the new guy. Somebody was bound to notice eventually. We just didn't think it would be noticed so soon."

They'd needed time to come up with a cover story. Something convincing that would go down easily with the population. Had that been it?

"Yes and no. Actually we'd been hoping Stanley recovered before we needed to go so far. Unfortunately he is way too far gone. Moreso than you could imagine."

What did he mean "way too far gone"? What had happened to him? And at the risk of sounding like a tape recorder - what the fuck was going on?

"How much do you know about what happened at mid-level 1?"

Someone had died there, what more did he need to know? And Contraman had been there - had witnessed or been involved in some way.

"You are right, of course. A woman died. Her name was Clara. She was wearing a necklace with her christian name engraved on the pendant. Apart from that there was no other ID."

He sat for a second soaking up the other's steady gaze, trying to see signs of deception in his face. Something was being held back. What?

"She was DNA tested. Joe, Clara was Stanley's wife."

That had been Nathan. And before he could open his mouth he spoke again.

"She'd been pregnant. Had told him it was another man..."

Stop! He wanted them to stop. Suddenly he could see the whole picture. He'd killed her. He'd found out and he'd high-tailed it down to that walkway and killed her.

"No. The child was his."

Before hecould reply, Mackie continued.

"The other man...he - he cut the baby out of her. Stanley watched her die. He was catatonic when we found him, took an hour to seperate them. We were too late blocking the signal to his helmet."

Both men were quiet then. They looked at him, waiting for his reaction to what had just been said. They didn't need to spell it out to him. They'd been monitoring Stanley's wife. The implications of that sent tremors through him. Never mind that she'd been killed - they'd been watching her. They'd known she was being attacked but something had went wrong - a lapse in concentration had allowed the police band broadcast to reach Stanley's helmet. They had known about Charlie. They had film, sound, probably fucking pictures as well. They'd known. All along they had known. How many cameras did they have in the house? How many mikes? How much had they seen?

"There was nowhere you could've went where we couldn't have watched you."

Nathan.

"The same for your family. We'd created an illusion. We had to maintain it for better or for worse. It's the only way we could operate this."

It made perfect sense. All of it. The fuckers had twenty years of his life on tape and he couldn't argue with them.

"We understand that now your silence will probably come at a higher price. We can make Charlie disappear. We have the power to do this if that's what you want. We can move you an your family to the archipelago. You can live in luxury for the rest of your life. Anything you want."

He found himself thinking about the man he'd just kicked the shit out of - how young and naive he'd been. How little he knew. He was out there as they spoke, flying around thinking he was a hero when he didn't even have a life. He was signed away to Mackie - to Contraco. No longer a man but a product to be used, abused and manipulated at the whim of a bunch of middle-aged men in suits - themselves without a life.

His mind was made up. Anything he wanted they had said. Well she could keep Charlie. She could keep the kids. And they could take his job and the Archipelago and shove it up their asses. He told them what he wanted and they obliged.

He never returned to the apartment. And never collected his helmet. No doubt they would pass it on to the new Powerman, whoever the unlucky bastard might be. But they let him keep the flight belt as per his request.

So once more he floated above the clouds, this time to watch the moon rise, his new helmet broadcasting the police channel as clear as day, his new costume - armour plated and movement enhanced - keeping the chill of high altitude from his flesh. He'd chosen black as the colour, not for any specific reason other than it was nondescript and less photogenic. He was forty years old and his life really had just begun. He looked down at the lights of the Grid, which strangely looked beautiful in the moonlight - deceptively so. But it was his home, the city he was sworn to protect.

Somewhere down there was a piece of paper that had given him his life back; locked in a filing cabinet in civic hall - the second request he'd made. He couldn't keep the Powerman name, not that he wanted to, but had to choose another. And, even if he said so himself, he had chosen well...

Plain old Joe was dead...

Long live the Protector.

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