Excerpt from Jane’s Secret Radio Broadcast 1/21/0089:

  Translated from Japanese.

  “So, you dated Gem Girl?”

  “I did.”

  “Pardon me asking, but why? For all intents and purposes, you just seem like a regular guy.”

  “Come on? Isn’t it obvious?”

  “You’re gesturing to your face.”

  “Yes. I’m good looking. I’m tall — for a Japanese guy — 181 centimeters. And I make good money working at my father’s company. Up for a VP position soon.”

  “So, you’re not a Superhero?”

  “Of course not. And for the most part neither was she. She was just the cool and attractive American girl behind the bar.”

  “Certainly. How did you learn that she was Gem Girl?”

  “Well, I don’t know if you heard, she’s Gem Blade now. Got a new, edgier code name. My influence by the way.”

  “How so?”

  “Well. This part may seem pretty embarrassing, but at the time I was engaged, and I did not tell her this.”

  “Oh. How far along was it?”

  “Pretty far. Our families had finished negotiations with the intermediary, and I was in the middle of writing the traditional love letter.”

  “Did she find this letter?”

  “She did. You are very good at this, by the way.”

  “Thank you.”

  “She found the letter, brought it to me, and we had a very heated argument. I do believe that I said something like ‘this thing we are doing is just what people do before marriage.’”

  “Ouch.”

  “In hindsight, I regret my words. She pulled a gleaming blue sword from the gem in her chest, and cut my furniture in half.”

  “What furniture?”

  “Most of them.”

  “Yikes.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Oh, it’s English for ‘you really messed up.’”

  “Ah. Yes, I did.”

  “Wait, back up. Did you not notice the gem in her chest?”

  “I did, but she just said it was a ‘body modification, like a nipple piercing.’”

  “That’s some nipple piercing.”

  “Indeed.”

  “When is your marriage?”

  “Oh, when the other family found out, they called it off. Probably for the best. I will have increased responsibilities when I make VP.”

  Red Fox Action Log 43 cont:

  Rhys drove, Barry rode shotgun, Levitron and Sleuth sat behind them, and I climbed into the back. Bunny climbed into the back with me.

  “You don’t have to sit next to me,” I said.

  “Sure. But somebunny needs to make sure you make it out of this alive.”

  “Did you just say ‘somebunny?’”

  “Yep,” she said, belting herself in next to me. Her bare thigh touched my leg. “I’m trying out different catchphrases.”

  “Somebunny?”

  “It’s cute when I say it,” she argued, smiling wide and twisting her index finger into her dimple.

  I laughed. Yeah, I wouldn’t be able to pull off something like that.

  I put on my cowl and mask. The material around the face and skull were two interlocking pieces of duratanium covered with kevlar, that flared a little on top of the head like fox ears. The neck was comfortable fitting superdex. When I wore it, I felt every bit of the hero I looked.

  “If you have to fart,” Sleuth said, “please make sure to roll down the window.”

  Half of the team laughed.

  “I’m serious,” he reiterated.

  Rhys pulled out into traffic, and we were on the road by 10:20.

  White Rabbit lay her head on my shoulder, and hugged my arm. It was nice and friendly, but I was also keenly aware of how her body felt as it pressed up against me. I glanced at her outfit once, decided it was nice, but that more than a glance was staring. It was essentially workout clothes, pink, form fitting, with a bared midriff. Quite a bit different than mine, which was all armor.

  But I guess leveraging her sex appeal was important to her brand, so I thought nothing of it.

  Fox and Bunny. Maybe we’d make a nice team. Maybe if this Kit City Care Team thing didn’t work out, I could convince her to go duo with me.

  Traffic cluttered the highway, but didn’t choke it. Barry found a radio station that played classic rock.

  My phone buzzed with a message. I disentangled myself from Bunny, who looked at me with concern. I just smiled politely.

  I cursed, and slid my phone back into my belt.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “We should have a Quick Response Unit meeting us at the warehouse.”

  “That’s good, right?”

  “I think it’s just one guy. And they called me ‘sweetheart.’ Maybe it's someone I know?”

  My Fox Instinct screamed. What about this person was the problem?

  “From what I’ve heard,” Bunny said, “some of them are very competent. Maybe they’ll be all the difference?”

  “I hope.”

  It wasn’t that text. Something else was wrong. White Rabbit’s eyes widened.

  She grabbed the front of my suit, and pulled me down.

  Gunshots. Blood. The van accelerated.

  “Rhys!” Barry screamed.

  “I’m okay!”

  “You’ve been shot!”

  “No shit!”

  Blood covered the windshield. Glue Guy wiped it, spreading it into a red smear.

  More gunshots. The back windshield sprayed glass over my back.

  I pulled the grapple from my holster, frantically looking for the source. Three dirt bikes, each with a driver and a shooter, advanced from behind.

  “Give me that,” Bunny said.

  “What?”

  She put her hands on the grapple. I let her take it. She pointed it at the lead driver, and fired. The hook lodged into his chest. She squeezed the ascender, and yanked as hard as she could with her arms.

  The driver slammed into the asphalt in front of his bike. The bike followed, and the whole lot dashed across the road like dropped legos — but with more blood.

  “Hero rules, damnit!” yelled Sniffer Sleuth.

  “How the hell are we supposed to do that?” she yelled back, line retracting back into the grapple sans hook.

  I tossed a smoke canister out the shattered window. A screen billowed from it. More bullets. Only half of them hit the car this time. Bunny yanked me to the side again, to avoid another bullet.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “Got any other tricks?”

  A second bike advanced. I pulled a knife from my belt, and tossed it at the wheels. Too high. It spun end over end to lodge into the driver’s leg. The shooter reloaded.

  “Barry!” Bunny called back. “Do something!”

  “Okay!”

  Barry leaned out the window, pointed his index finger, and a foot-wide beam of heat struck the third bike, sending it smashing to the ground in a pile of flaming parts.

  “Holy hell!” Sleuth yelled. “Can’t you do something else?”

  “You know how to ‘gently’ explode a bike?” I asked.

  “Just do what you can!” he barked.

  I tossed another smoke bomb. More bullets.

  “I can’t get a bead on the other one,” Barry said.

  The last bike sped down the road on the other side of the van. He wouldn’t be able to get it without shooting through the interior.

  The bike exited the smoke screen. We needed to do something fast.

  “Levitron!” I yelled. “You got this! You know how they work!”

  Levitron cursed, sat up, and held his hand out at the last bike. Nothing happened for a moment. Then I saw it — the slight wobble.

  The back wheel shot off the bike, and the driver and shooter both rolled down the highway, presumably protected by their driving leathers.

  “See,” Sleuth said after a couple seconds of silence. “That’s how it’s done.”

  “Thanks, Rick!” Levitron said.

  Sleuth put his hand on Levitron’s shoulder. Levitron plugged his nose with his hand, and smiled through the blood.

  “I can’t do that too many times,” he said.

  We pulled off the highway. We’d already made it within a dozen blocks of the warehouse anyway. It was time.

  We parked one wheel on the curb in a ‘no parking’ zone.

  Rhys’s shoulder had a through-and-through gunshot wound. After packing it, it seemed like he could survive the next couple hours, but I wasn’t an expert on these things. He’d lost a lot of blood. Bunny bent over behind the wheel of the van, and retched.

  “Should we get him to a hospital?” I asked.

  “I’m fine,” Rhys said. “But I’m not sure how much help I’ll be on the mission.”

  Barry swore and paced down the sidewalk. Sleuth rubbed his chin. Half a dozen emergency services vehicles sped past, sirens blaring.

  “The longer we go without dealing with this villain, the greater chance she has of doing this again,” Sleuth said. “We need to stop her plan. If she’s spending time trying to undo our disruption, she’ll have less resources to spend on retaliation.”

  “And then we’ll have time to develop a countermeasure against her powers.”

  “Exactly,” Sleuth said.

  We both found ourselves lost in thought, as Glue Guy groaned. I grabbed an autoinjector of painkillers, and jabbed it into his thigh. He grunted in pain, but I could already see his eyes close in relief.

  “You get some sleep,” I said.

  White Rabbit returned, wiping her mouth. Before I could ask her if she was okay, she broke out into a peel of increasingly unhinged laughter.

  “You good?” I finally asked.

  “Well, that was freaking scary,” she said. “Lost my lunch like the other psychic bitch.”

  I guess she meant Nora. Meant she wasn’t winning any points for being a girl's girl, but we had more important stuff to worry about.

  “You need a moment?” I asked. “You could stay here with Glue Guy.”

  “Nah, you boys need me.”

  I walked to her.

  “Hey,” I said, putting my hands on her shoulder. “You did great. I would have died without you. And that stunt with the grapple was quick thinking.”

  “Thanks,” she said, staring at me with her big blue eyes.

  I pulled her into a hug. She hugged me back, hard. I heard her sniff once, and when she pulled away, I caught her dabbing at her mascara with the back of her finger.

  “Okay, let’s go do this thing.”

  “Wait,” Sleuth said.

  “Yeah?” I asked.

  “I think I should take Glue Guy to a vet I know. She can get him stable. Then I can either doubleback, or get a head start on countermeasures.”

  “But we need you,” Levitron said.

  “He’s injured,” Sleuth said. “And I promised his mother I’d keep him safe. We’re not expendable. None of us are. Not even you.”

  “Right,” he acknowledged, looking scolded.

  If you weren’t there to see it, all this may be hard to imagine. That Sleuth, a man whose only claim to fame was a good sense of smell, could command so much respect, but this entire team was started by him, and his example. His morals informed our behavior, and his conviction kept us together. Leadership is a real tangible thing for people like him. When he spoke, you listened.

  Levitron took a deep breath, and nodded. Bunny shrugged. I thought it over.

  “That leaves us with me, Bunny, Barry, Levitron, and maybe help from Quick Response,” I stated.

  “What do you think?” Sleuth asked.

  “I think it’s a good idea,” I said.

  A flurry of activity as we got Glue Guy moved to the passenger seat.

  “You need to check his pulse every 5-7 minutes,” said Levitron. “If it gets below 40 beats per minute, call an ambulance, even if it means he gets arrested.”

  “So it’s just the four of us,” Barry said, having just jogged back.

  “It’ll have to be,” I said.

  “You were always saying you’re a Superhero,” Sniffer Sleuth said, “now’s your chance to prove it.”

  He nodded. Bunny pulled a domino mask out of her jacket. Barry put on his aviator sunglasses. Levitron pulled his hood up.

  “Let’s go,” I said, adjusting my mask.

  We jogged at a leisurely pace for the next ten or so blocks, passing cars that slowed to rubberneck at us, and pedestrians that crossed the street away from us, recording with their camera phones the whole time. Those camera phones had only been out for a couple years, but it seemed like everyone had one now. A world where everyone and anyone could film you at a moment’s notice? Truly, we were living in the future.

  No matter. That’s what the masks and costumes were for — protect our identities, but also announce our presence. Heroes are meant to be seen. Otherwise, we’d just be vigilantes enacting our personal vengeance. We were sometimes that too, but the visible example was important.

  How else were you to believe that goodness existed in the hearts of man?

  We stopped while I threaded a new anchor hook for my grapple gun. After, Bunny and I leapt and climbed a fire escape, and Barry used the grapple. Levitron beat us to the top. From the roof, it was easy to see the warehouse. Three more alleys, and it was a straight shot.

  Problem was, the walk from the last building to the guard gate was completely open. We could climb the fence, but a sign marked it as electrified.

  We could have Barry blow a hole in the fence, but that wasn’t exactly stealthy.

  In the end, we leapt our way, climbed down in the alley, then walked in full view. Not much else to it.

  Nobody shot at us on the way. The guard tower seemed to be empty. And the gate had a person but he didn’t seem to be paying us much mind.

  “Something’s wrong,” Bunny said.

  My Fox Instinct twisted in my chest like a guitar string, giving me wariness, but not explicit danger. When I got to the guard station, I saw him sleeping.

  I motioned for them to stay, then hopped the gate to head around to the door inside.

  The door opened before I could reach the handle.

  It was Jill, my ex. And she wore a smart green and black uniform, little ‘Q’ on the left shoulder.

  “Hey, man,” she said, her eyes smiling.