Who is Killing the Great Capes of Heropa?

  “—A real kick-starter, y’know? Heavy, heavy, heavy, heavy stuff,” she raved on.

  While this girl puttered stop-start fashion through a wayward sales pitch, Jacob asked, in one of their ears, “How’s Johnnie?”

  “All right,” Sal said “Ain’t seen you in a bit.”

  “Been busy treading water.”

  “Reckon he’s pissed off with you, J. Says you become a hermit-freak.”

  “I’m out of my box now.”

  “Still.”

  “Sure I’ll live to tell the tale.”

  “D’you eat?

  Jacob smiled at that. “Better than ever.”

  “You look like a scarecrow.”

  “Blame the metabolism.”

  Some guy walked right up close behind the blue-haired hawker, wearing a frayed-looking Stetson and coat that made Jacob enact a double-take. He couldn’t see the face properly since it was hidden in a dark shadow produced by glaring overhead spotlights.

  “What d’you want, Georgie, huh?” the girl asked when she finally noticed him.

  “Let’s talk, sweetheart. Scatter boys.” The man grabbed her arm and tugged her away into the rain.

  A few seconds’ startled quietude was subsequently broken.

  “Girl was some serious spaz,” Roy shouted above the deafening din of an Angus Young guitar solo, coming out of one of those all-powerful speakers above them. This particular box was wrapped in plastic to shield it from the rain, and the material rattled. “Brain-fry stuff. You see her eyes? Glazed as.”

  Barry: “What’cha reckon? IdIot, plain and simple.”

  Sal: “Who was the old fogie in the hat?”

  Roy: “Dunno. Her dad? Wasn’t that old—”

  Barry: “Bollocks! More like her idI-pimp.”

  Sal: “They have them?”

  Roy: “You’re kidding, Sal — what the hell does Baz know?”

  Barry: “Well, now, that’s just cracking foxy, innit?”

  Roy: “Cracking peanuts, more like it.”

  Barry: “Oh, ha-de-hah. IdI-gimp.”

  Roy: “IdI-tosser.”

  Barry: “I’ll toss you in a minute.”

  Roy: “You, and what slackarse army?”

  Jacob waited with patience for this pointless stream-of-consciousness to blow over, and then blundered back into the fray.

  “Sal, I need to see Johnnie.”

  “So, see him.”

  “Is he home?”

  “Dunno.”

  “Yes, or no?”

  “Guess he might be. Maybe,” the boy murmured, his attention distracted and held by a nearby screen displaying some kind of idI extreme sport snowboarding romp. “I hate waiting. Boring!”

  Jacob left the trio to their suffering and headed for John and Sal’s place two streets away, in another Housing Commission complex. When he arrived, his friend wasn’t home but the mother was. She opened the door, looked a picture of washed-out concern as she invited him in. Their flat was more bare-bones than Jacob remembered. Without saying much beyond a hello, the boy asked if they still had a computer and if he could use it — needed to do a spot of research, he told her.

  This mum asked high-pitched, stressed-out questions while he worked online. ‘When’re you returning to school? Who’s looking after you? Are you eating enough? Do the authorities know you live by yourself?’ …That kind of barrage.

  Jacob fielded the flak, gave vague answers he hoped would make the busybody happy, and after a couple of hours and a quick bite to eat of bland, thrice-heated leftovers, he set back out into the elements for home.

  The water had stopped itching and begun to sting by the time he reached the building, took several flights of stairs past dozing denizens in rags, and trudged along the corridor to his flat.

  Two men lingered there right beside the door. They looked out of place on the litter-covered cement with their neat raincoats and hats, one plump and the other skinny.

  “Jacob Curtiss?” the fat man asked.

  “That’s me.”

  “Swell to hear,” piped up his partner, the wiry one. “We’re not bothering you, are we? Tell us we aren’t.”

  “No.”

  “No, we aren’t bothering you, or no — we are?”

  Jacob shivered. What would the Brick say in a situation like this? “Whichever you prefer, twinkles.”

  “Hey, a tough guy.”

  “Not at all.”

  “I’ll say. Looks like you’d blow away in a stiff breeze. Well, now. Juvie Services sent us along. Not our usual jaunt — we have way bigger fish to fry — but what the heck, job’s a job, right?”

  It looked like the skinny fellow was reaching for something beneath his coat, making Jacob renounce the shiver and tense up instead.

  The fat man chose then to intervene, placing his considerable bulk between the boy and the thin man.

  “Crosley, shut the fuck up and relax. There’s a good laddie.” He swivelled attention back to Jacob. “Listen, son, word’s got out you quit school and’re destitute. These are not good times for either road. I know what happened to your parents, so let’s avoid it happening to you. Re-enrol. Go to Juvenile Services and plead the case — you’re entitled to benefits, food-stamps, that kind’a thing.”

  “Fuck that!” declared the other fellow. “Why give any thought? Let’s cut the crap and take featherweight in.”

  “I have seniority here, mate.” The fat man glared at his partner. “Chill.”

  “All right, all right. Whatever. Grumpy-bum.”

  The fat man rolled aggravated eyes, and then returned to the boy. “Anyhow, I know the system sucks and they’ll give you shit-all help. But do what I say, make them happy. If ever you need advice, call me.” He shoved a card into Jacob’s hand. “For fuck’s sake, stay out of trouble. C’mon, Crosley. I have to go buy some kitty litter.”

  “Didn’t know you had a cat.”

  “Do now.”

  “Guess so.” The rakish man took one last glance at Jacob. “Grab something to eat, kid — you look like a goddamned skeleton.”

  That said, the two walked away towards the elevator without a backward glance.

  Jacob examined the satin-finish plasticard: ‘Harry Jones’ it read, ‘Seeker Branch’, followed by a telephone number.

  Jacob pushed this card into the Rat’s pocket, removed a key from under the doormat, and unlocked the door.

  #175

  The next two days took an eternity to pass.

  During those forty hours it never once stopped raining outside. Initially, Jacob squandered time doing exercises to get his new, frail body functioning properly — but then got tired of doing that and went through old comicbooks, scoured The History of Art — anything to keep the defective grey matter occupied.

  He also spent an hour at the window, watching the rain pelt down across a grey, hazy metropolis floodlit in places by gussied-up neon marquee sign advertising. Traced his finger along the greasy glass, following each fresh rivulet of dirty water on the other side.

  His stomach’s rumbling reminded Jacob there was nothing here to eat and the out-of-action fridge housed paperbacks, but he ignored the hunger. Eventually the other thing, the thing he’d been ignoring all along, came home to roost and he couldn’t brush up anymore. The textbook read stuffy, the comics lame, the view depressing.

  So Jacob eventually fled his flat, spent a few hours at the old, abandoned railway siding near Batman Station — a name that now struck him as funny, if he were in the mood to laugh, given recent experiences in Heropa — off Renown Street, close to Sydney Road in North Coburg.

  There was a Southern Cross Station in Melbourne too, inside the Dome, but he’d never seen it and never would. Jacob could just make out the Dome in the distance, through a pall of rain, lit up like an enormous, grubby snowglobe.

  Mostly, he thought about Louise.

  About her face, so clear still when he allowed himself to remember. Her casually husky laugh and the way in which
she toyed with her glasses as she thought something through. Lighting up, cigarette held between straight white teeth, while she poured another glass of champagne. The queen of caffeine. A bouquet of peppermint and citrus.

  He kept at bay the still-life images — Louise in the hospital bed, these mannerisms and eccentricities diminished to nothing.

  Finally, Jacob looked around.

  In Melbourne, midnight and noon were little different. It rained through the day and pissed down all night. The illumination at three a.m. was pretty much the same as three o’clock in the afternoon, there were no seasons aside from this single, humid one, and there would never again be any cicadas. This was the sum total Jacob had known since his earliest rememoration.

  The rain wore down buildings as much as it did the people. Gutters overflowed; there were sometimes corpses in stagnant ponds. Children starving to death after their parents were rounded up and disappeared.

  The boy wandered back streets on the way home, through the downpour and bumper-to-bumper traffic, and people with umbrellas — suicidal, as they flew past on bicycles. Some shops shuttered, others bearing smashed windows and vandalized signage. Deals and beatings and sex going down in laneways, police glaring at everyone but ignoring everything.

  When, finally, the next afternoon the two-day deadline neared, Jacob set off at a run.

  Frequently checking over his shoulder, doubling back and crossing busy streets to ensure he wasn’t followed, Jacob wound up on the verandah of the Victorian terrace house and rapped at the door with the lightning bolt knocker.

  He was dripping wet (again) but that didn’t matter. The short, queasy silence was followed by a furtive voice coming through damp wood. Not the Rat’s, of course — this was female.

  “Hello?”

  “Comicbooks.”

  Someone coughed. “Who killed Professor Abraham Erskine?”

  This question took Jacob by surprise. He stared at the door, at the peeling pain and specks of mould, thinking about the Prof and his shock of white hair. He’d promised to look out for the old man — had he failed that too?

  “Well?” the voice asked, on edge. “Don’t you know your Captain America lore?”

  “You’re talking up in the comic?”

  “What else would I be talking about?”

  “Thank crap.” The boy leaned against the doorframe, pulling himself back together. “Okay, I know this — a Nazi spy, Heinz Kruger.”

  The door was unbolted and a pale girl’s face peered out, hard to see in the shadows. “What d’you want?”

  “Heropa.”

  “Heropa’s finished.”

  “Not so far as I’m concerned. Let me in.”

  “Why’re you here?”

  “I told you.”

  The door swung open and Jacob marched through. There was a gangly, teenage Asian girl standing sentry, pretty enough from what he could see under a mop-top fringe that covered most of her face, but the most striking aspect was that she looked bent in the middle, like someone had folded her waist sideways and forgotten to straighten it out. This girl refused to engage in eye contact and had an anorexic edge — then again, he was equally malnourished, so nothing new there.

  As Jacob entered, the girl slipped awkwardly to one side. “Haven’t you heard?” she said, in a flat voice that pushed inaudible. “The system’s down.”

  “I heard. What’s your problem?”

  “Huh?”

  “Your posture looks off.”

  “Gee — subtle. Thanks.” The girl momentarily looked up and her bangs parted. Jacob saw one iris grey, one brown. “Didn’t your folks ever teach you discretion?”

  “I don’t see the point anymore.”

  “No beating round the bush for you, then?”

  “The last time I did so, it caused a lot of pain to someone I care about.”

  “Oh.”

  Jacob sighed. “Do you have a towel? I’m leaking on your floor.”

  “Sure. Come with me.”

  While he followed the limping caretaker, it dawned on him that this was the person the Rat had truly been mimicking the first time Jacob came to the house. Meanwhile, the girl was humming something Jacob recognized. He’d heard it that night he spied on the Brick and his paramour in the dance studio.

  “What’s the tune?”

  She stopped briefly to glance back. “Johann Strauss II — the pas de deux shared between Bella and Johann after he’s freed from prison in Act 2 of Die Fledermaus, ‘The Bat’. You wouldn’t know the ballet. Why?”

  “It’s beautiful.” And so it was.

  The girl detoured into a grungy bathroom and pulled down a towel that she tossed to her guest. It was threadbare and stank to high heaven, but did the job.

  “Anyway. Heropa,” he reminded her.

  “Thought you said you knew the problems? Safeties offline, passwords dysfunctional. Even though they’re patchy, expletives appear to be the only escape route — that’s the way I got out.”

  “Me too.”

  “Birds of a feather. So, what are you really doing here?” he heard her quiz, still monotone, but louder-voiced while he dried his hair.

  “I’ve got unfinished business.” Jacob threw back the towel. “Where’s Gonzo?”

  “Who?”

  “Guy with the green mane.”

  The girl sniggered, at the same time covering her mouth with a hand. “Oh, you mean Brion.”

  “That’s his real name? Huh. Can I see him?”

  “Not here. Probably, he’s passed out somewhere.”

  “Who’re you?”

  “Midori.”

  “Nice to meet you. I’m Jacob. Otherwise known as Jack, a.k.a. Southern Cross.”

  The girl teetered back a few steps, gaze on the terrain at her feet. “Southern Cross? Oh. Southern Cross.”

  “Try not to wear it out.”

  Her eyes — admittedly attractive — swung up then. “And why would I do that?”

  “Well, correct me if I’m wrong, but you’re Prima Ballerina.”

  “Was.”

  “Running away from what’s going on down there?”

  She breathed out in loud fashion. “I have a condition known as adolescent idiopathic scoliosis — it’s not the easiest thing for me to do a spot of jogging anytime. Besides, I never thought Heropa would get so crazy.”

  “Midori…Prima…crazy is here. This place. You know that as much as me. At least, in Heropa, we make a smidgeon of difference.”

  “It’s scary. No.”

  “You can dance.”

  The girl closed her eyes. “True. That was something.”

  “And what about the Brick?”

  “What about him?”

  “He’s still there.”

  “So what?”

  Voice assuming a defiant tone, the girl had an expression steering in the direction of a sneer — the Prima Ballerina he remembered and precisely what Jacob, right now, held dear.

  “My point. So what?”

  She turned about, head suddenly held more erect even if her spine was not. “Are you implying something?”

  “You two are pretty much common knowledge — well, were, before Bulkhead died.”

  “Meaning?”

  “An item.”

  “What — me and that lump of rock?”

  “We knew.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  After returning the towel to the bathroom, Midori shuffled back into the dim passageway. “What’re you talking up? A silly rescue attempt?”

  “Not just that, but we sort out what the fuck is going on. Call it justice or revenge or whatever you bloody well like — we go back and kick some serious arse.”

  Midori laughed, her bi-coloured eyes dissecting Jack, taking out his innards and examining each individual organ. “I had no idea you’d look like this.”

  “Scrawny and inconsequential?”

  “No, right now you appear to me like you do in Heropa.”


  “Probably I sound tougher, because I get to swear more here.”

  “Likely, that helps.”

  The door at the other end of the hall suddenly burst open and Gonzo was trudging in their direction, a half-empty wine bottle in one hand.

  “It works!” he shouted to them, then at the walls and the high ceiling. “You buggers hear me? It works!”

  “What works?” Midori asked, startled.

  “What do you reckon? The Reset’s back online! I am, it goes without saying, a bloody miracle worker — can’t believe I fixed the thing. It’ll kick in at midnight, Heropa time. You bloody beauty!”

  #176

  Jacob squatted on the rancid, carpeted floor in front of a man in one corner in a ‘wheelchair’ — a yellow Series 7 number that’d seen far better days, castors gaffer-taped to the stainless-steel legs, and a belt encircling his waist to keep him seated.

  There were other people strapped into similar, improvised contraptions around this spacious room and the air was not only stale, but also damp, ill-lit. The place had a heady fragrance of human effluence.

  Jacob never once looked at the others. He felt that would be too much. The Rat was in here, Bulkhead, Sinistro, Iffy Bizness, Baron von Gatz and General Ching. Hell, even Marat/Rabble Rouser.

  The boy continued to squat and stare into the face of someone he knew well, without having ever met, that Gonzo had reluctantly fingered.

  While he needed a shave two weeks ago and his skin was too pale, this was a good-looking man, fortyish, thin face, strong chin. Light brown hair, with silver pushing through on the sides. There were wrinkles around the eyes, suggesting a sense of humour that’d scarpered.

  The Brick was wrong. This wasn’t the loser his partner had conjured up in their game in the park. Given an absence of expression in the sitter’s eyes, Jacob doubted the Great White Hope would now care if he were tucked into an undersize baby chair. This man’s observational powers were like the Rat’s — a fat zero. It was like peering into a pair of glass eyes.

  Jacob took the GWH’s warm left hand in his.

  “What did you know?” the boy asked. “Was it possible you found out the truth? Is that why they blinded you?” He flexed the other man’s limp fingers. “I just wanted to say something. I’m sorry for the way I treated you. I hope you one day understand that.”