Free In Hero Years... I'm Dead Delux Edition by Michael Stackpole Page B

safe. They go out, they work, they come home and cheer for their Superfriends. A little extra shows up in their accounts, or they get their faces plastered over the Murdoch like your friend at the bank. It makes them happy.”
    “Quite a little system you have going here.”
    She nodded. “Self-replenishing, self-policing; it keeps things going. It’s stable. People like it that way.”
    “I saw.” I half closed my eyes. “I saw something else, too.”
    “What’s that?”
    “I saw how to break it.”

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter Nine
     
     
     
    “No! No, you cannot... I have not…” She stood quickly, her hands balling. Her face, half in shadow, reflected her struggle.
    She forced her hands open. “No, okay, I’m not going there. Not right now.”
    “Go where?”
    “You don’t want to know.”
    “Yes, I do.”
    “You’re two for two for stupid remarks right now. This is not a trend you want to continue. Back to the point.” She snatched the sheets away. “You can ‘break it?’ Look at yourself.”
    She was right. Breaking wind would probably kill me. I had more bruises than a leopard has spots, and big ones, too. The light patches weren’t flesh colored, just that jaundice yellow. And for every mark on my skin there was a deeper, throbbing ache.
    “Do you know why you’re not dead?”
    I looked up despite the fury in her eyes. “They were pulling their punches. They use tasers and air-guns and mercy bullets and sonic disruptors. They don’t know how to kill.”
    “You know better.” She shook her head slowly. “That was a mob. Mobs don’t think. They don’t pull punches. The frenzy builds until someone gets broken. You were.”
    “But I didn’t die.”
    “You are very tough.” She stared down at me for a moment, then turned her face away. “Grant said…”
    “Grant said too much.”
    “Nice deflection.” Her ice blue eyes narrowed. “Luck. Pure luck kept you alive. You didn’t die because that storekeeper summoned Kid Coyote. You didn’t die because Grant had his son keep an eye on you. You were always lucky.”
    “Haven’t been for a long time.”
    “Twenty years?”
    “Yeah.”
    “But you did live, didn’t you? Tell me that wasn’t luck.”
    I shivered and closed my eyes. “I can’t.”
    Selene pulled the sheet up over me. I wondered if she’d cover me completely. Like a stiff in the morgue.
    Her voice became small, gentle. “Where did you go?”
    “Doesn’t matter.”
    “Why won’t you tell me?”
    “I can’t.”
    “Even after this, you don’t trust me?”
    I looked at her standing there. “I trust you.”
    “Only because you’ve got no alternative.”
    “Not ‘only’.” I hauled myself up against the head of the bed. “I never needed anybody. I always operated on my own. If I was hurt I’d just crawl into a hole and heal. Slower now, I guess.”
    She smiled a little, for a heartbeat, but her arms remained folded tight over her chest. “Sucks getting old.”
    And then she waited for me to tell the truth.
    I wanted to, but I couldn’t. Not all of it. Not yet.
    “I trust you because I do. It’s because you trust me, or trusted me.” I shrugged weakly. “The last two decades taught me that to trust is to hurt or be hurt. There’s people out there who could hurt you because you’re associated with me.”
    Selene sat again on the edge of the bed. “Why would they do that?”
    “Because they can.”
    “You need a better answer.” She took my left hand in hers. “Let me tell you something about trust. I did trust you. And then you disappeared. I tried to keep trusting you, so I waited. I tried not to worry. Then I did worry. I started looking. Not only had you vanished, but all traces had vanished.
    “Six months after you disappeared, L’Angyle came to me. She told me about Tim Robinson. I checked. Nothing. There were hints of maybe a couple other identities, but just hints. You simply didn’t exist.”
    “And you weren’t