Wearing the Cape 4: Small Town Heroes by Marion G. Harmon Page A

Shell…” I swallowed the thickening lump in my throat. Sunday was two days away, but… “I need you to tell Mom and Dad I probably won’t be to Mass and dinner Sunday, that I’m away for a while and they won’t be hearing from me. Tell them everything’s okay.”
    “No worries, I’ll cancel for us.”
    “No! You should go. And—” I’d forgotten about Julie. The lump got worse. “I need you to keep my promise with Julie tonight. Please.”
    “Huh? What would I say ?”
    “Tell her everything’s alright with us. Tell her I’ll be back and we’ll talk for just hours. Tell her I love her?”
    “Okay…” Nobody could sound more dubious, and I had to laugh despite my twisting gut.
    “Love you too, Shell. Point me?”
    She nodded and faded out. A virtual targeting icon appeared in my sight, red glow laying out my course. I turned and poured on the speed, trying to shut out the useless questions filling my head. It was barely lunchtime, hours till sunset, but I couldn’t keep one thought away.
    Jacky is so going to kill me.



Chapter Eight
“As a cape, probably the hardest things for me to get used to were the concepts of authority and legaljurisdiction . In the comic books and movies, superheroes see a problem and they help because they can, any way they can. But national, state, and city governments are authorized and empowered to keep their citizens safe and do justice, and capes work with the system and the laws or they’re outlaws by definition. Vigilantes. And Vigilantes are public challengers of the rule of law; they undermine what we try and accomplish and get a lot more attention than simple lawbreakers from every government agency. As a cape, if you want to do any good and have it last, you’ve got to have the backing of those empowered to let you do it.”
    Astra, from her speech at the 20th Midwestern Crisis Intervention and Aid Conference.
    ----
    I love flying, and even with everything happening Ohio was beautiful from three thousand feet.
    I could have spent the time making personal calls, but I’d learned from experience that doing that at the beginning of a mission didn’t help anybody . While they sound great in dramas “I might not make it so I just wanted to tell you…” conversations are never good. I could have asked Shell to try and find out what was happening, but Blackstone had told me everything he could without violating security; encouraging her to hack her way into government files to see what wasn’t supposed to be seen qualified as a Bad Idea. So since I hadn’t had time to stop in the chapel and light a few candles, I directed a few prayers to Mary of the Pagans and enjoyed my high-speed flyover while I could.
    All too soon I saw my ride. A business jet, I’d have blown right past it with a wave except that Shell’s targeting icon settled right on it.
    “Shell?”
    “ That’s it. And your costume sensors say they just lit you up with military lidar. Smile, I’m talking to them .”
    I tried to look unthreatening—not that hard for me—while wondering where the plane’s hidden metal-storm gun might pop out from if they didn’t like what they heard; laser targeted metal-storm machine guns that could empty their hundred-thousand round barrel magazines in seconds were the military’s preferred defense against ground-to-air missiles and hostile fliers these days.
    “ You’re cleared, and Dispatch is handing you off. See you! ” Coming from her, the cheerful handoff was a coded promise; she’d still be with me through our neural link, a silent ghost.
    Closing with the unmarked plane, I spotted its non-standard hatch—a sliding hatch instead of hinged. Etiquette dictated I match course and drift forward to where the pilot could see me, but the hatch opened first in obvious invitation. I accepted.
    Pulling myself into the snug “airlock”, a tight fit for me and my bag, I closed and dogged the outer hatch. The inner hatch, this one hinged, opened before I