Published at 12th of August 2022 9:16 pm

Book 2: Chapter 116: Like, Comment, Subscribe

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Reconstruction efforts had begun almost before the storm had ended. Now, they were in full bloom. Dan expected they’d work throughout the night, civil servants and volunteers all with specific tasks. Sanitation workers, all equipped with various forms of hydrokinesis, worked in tandem to reduce the water level. Construction workers cleared the streets with equipment or their bare hands. Others searched flooded houses for anyone who might be trapped within.

It was into this focused, coordinated, almost clockwork mechanism that Dan watched the vigilante drop, chased by the blare of a villain siren. Dan followed on a nearby roof, unable to leave it alone. He watched the spandex-clad man drop beside a crowd of wary construction workers, but none ran. Nobody dropped their loads or abandoned their posts. They had jobs to do, and they seemed determine to do it. Moments passed, and when it became obvious the idiot in a costume wasn’t about to attack anybody, work resumed.

Then said idiot gestured, and one of the flooded cars lurched into the air, carried upwards by a burst of wind. Dan tensed, ripping out a nearby chunk of concrete and accelerating it through t-space. He kept himself low, on the edge of the roof, as he watched events play out. The vigilante stood like Gregoir, hands fisted at his hips and chest jutting out. His costume sparkled in pristine white and his teeth glinted as he said something to the nearest construction worker. The worker seemed uneasy as he replied, shaking his head. The vigilante shrugged, gestured again, and the car crashed back to the ground, breaking into pieces at it landed.

The vigilante moved his hand towards his thigh and— his suit actually had pockets! Narrow, nearly flush with the skin, but the man pulled out something small and unthreatening. He passed it to the construction worker, who now looked more bemused than afraid, then wandered off towards another cluster of people.

The siren continued to ring. Nobody seemed to notice. They were too busy staring as the vigilante handed out what Dan was quickly suspecting to be business cards to everyone in the area. It only took a few minutes, and it brought all work to a grinding halt as people stood around staring at the little pieces of cardstock. The vigilante seemed satisfied after essentially papering the area, and he blasted into the air with another gust of wind. He glanced around, found another cluster of workers, and rocketed in their direction.

Dan followed. How could he not? The sirens were still ringing, but if a SPEAR Team hadn’t dropped out of the sky by now, Dan was pretty sure that they weren’t able to. In fact, he was pretty sure that Galveston PD was reeling from the storm, lacking both elites, and transportation.

Standard SPEAR Teams consisted of four to six officers and a captain. The Beta squad that Dan had rescued had only three members, and they were acting as backup. Galveston wasn’t the biggest of cities, and SPEAR upgrades were highly restricted things. Dan had a strong suspicion that the city had run completely dry of their special forces. More than that, the Peregrine that had crashed was not a cheap vehicle, and Alpha team had presumably used something similar in their initial attack. Dan was pretty sure that the city police’s air transportation was now a thing of the past.

The streets were in terrible shape. They were either flooded, filled with debris, or some combination of both. It would be some time before the police could find a safe route to the vigilante, and that was if the man deigned to stand still. By the looks of things, that wasn’t about to happen. So, Dan figured it would be safe enough to trail the flying vigilante from a distance.

The man landed near an affluent neighborhood that was more underwater than not. Boats trawled through the streets, stopping beside second and third story windows to knock. Sometimes a survivor would come crawling out, sometimes the boat would move on. The vigilante landed at a launch site, where boats were being lowered into the water. Dan watched as he, once again, seemed to make some kind of offer of help. Wind swirled in the distance, drawing the water into a whirlpool.

That drew a lot of angry shouting before the man finally stopped. The crowd rippled like a living thing, and Dan saw them sitting on the edge of violence. Whatever the man was saying, he was doing a terrible job of convincing people. The vigilante finally retreated, but not before handing out business cards once again. He launched skyward, chased away by derisive jeering and a few balls of crumpled cardstock.

Dan had to give it to the man, he was very determined to do… whatever it was he was doing. Curiosity overcame Dan by the third stop—this time it was a group of orange-vested volunteers clearing debris from a gas station—and he willed himself to ground level. Dan carefully picked his way across the street, eyeing the vigilante from a much closer distance as he made his approach.

The man was young. Very young. Granted, Dan wasn’t exactly old, but the the vigilante seemed fresh out of high school. Maybe eighteen or nineteen, with all the brash, stupid confidence of the young and powerful. He wore a simple domino mask, dark in color. His hair was bleached blond and gelled into spikes. It looked incredibly unruffled despite the storm the young man had apparently flown through. His suit appeared to be a single piece of spandex, from ankles to neck. He wore red gloves in the same dark shade as his cape, and some kind of stylish shoe that Dan couldn’t possibly name. His cape attached at each shoulder via some small, round bauble. He wore a white belt with gold buckles.

The symbol of the People was pasted on the front of his costume.

Dan tried not to judge him from that. He imagined that only the most fanatical really understood the hidden reference within the picture. The general public knew only that it gained prominence in the aftermath of Champion’s death, after the People splintered into dozens of disconnected organizations. If Dan recalled correctly, the original logo was just a circle, probably meant as some sort of King Arthur homage. Discussion of what the added tines were supposed to mean occupied many a message board over the years.

Regardless, this man seemed more or less harmless.

The vigilante gestured and the gas station creaked as debris began to shift. The volunteers shouted orders, and the man directed a piece of scrap metal the size of a small car onto the back of a nearby flatbed. He did this twice more by the time Dan finished wading across the flooded street, and the gas station was cleared of large debris. The supervisor thanked the man, then accepted a business card with a look of polite incredulity.

Dan’s feet found the sidewalk as the vigilante darted from volunteer to volunteer, passing along a card and some apparently confusing words. He noticed Dan approaching, and did the exact same thing. The little piece of cardstock was dropped into Dan’s hands without any real prompting, and Dan stared down at it, wondering if he’d slipped and fell into yet another parallel universe.

It was such a small thing, to have so much insanity packed into it.

Galeforce

Hero Extraordinaire

Email: [email protected]

Socials: mtube.com/galeforce

mbook.com/galeforce

ustream.com/galeforce

twitter.com/galeforce

telecam.com/galeforce

foodchat.com/galeforce

youfundme.com/galeforce

substation.com/galeforce

patronshare.com/galeforce

“What.”

“Hey there pal, I’m Galeforce!” the young man greeted with far too much enthusiasm. “If you liked my work here today, make sure you check out my livestream! I’m on both ‘mtube’ and ‘ustream’ and my vods are always available to watch for my followers! Well, when I have vods. This was my first outing, but I think it was a good one! Had to wait for maximum content, y’know? Oh, and if you wanna see my battle with Hurricane Victor, my editor should have it up within the hour!”

Dan just stared at the man. This did not seem to phase him.

“Make sure to like, comment, and subscribe! You’ll need an account, but I hardly think that’s a big ask. I did save the city after all!” Galeforce beamed at Dan, then added, “If you want to donate to the cause, you can check any of those last three links.”

He tapped at the business card, but Dan was too busy staring at the man’s shoulders. The cape was attached to a pair of round, shiny objects that Dan was now realizing were cameras.

“Holy shit,” Dan muttered. “You are so very fucked.”

“Whaddya mean?” the so-very-fucked vigilante asked. He pulled his phone out from one of his tiny pockets and held it up like it was a prize. The screen showed a string of comments, and he proudly proclaimed, “I’m already trending on Twitter! I’m a trend!”

Dan was at a loss for words.

“Anyways, make sure you check out my socials!” Galeforce said, shooting finger guns in Dan’s direction. He saluted Dan, then the other volunteers, and said, “Thanks for your service! Galeforce out!”

The vigilante rocketed into the sky, buffeting everyone present with the winds of his namesake. The young man must have decided he’d pushed his luck long enough, because he turned away from the city, and vanished into a distant cloud.

Dan watched him go, his hand still loosely clutching the business card. He glanced back down at it, rereading the ludicrous thing. He turned to the nearest volunteer, who looked every bit as lost as Dan.

“What just happened?” Dan asked aloud.

Nobody had an answer.

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