Published at 20th of August 2022 6:42 am

Book 2: Chapter 137: The Next Step

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There were a dozen expectant faces staring at Dan. He forced down a sigh as he ran over talking points in his mind. Gregoir wanted to show these over-eager kids a better path forward before they got themselves killed. Dan could do that, but he wouldn’t send them in blind. He’d been older than all of them when he’d first decided to walk this road, and even then he’d ignored Marcus Mercury’s warnings of difficulty and danger. Dan doubted the New Heroes would be any more receptive to his own warnings.

It was a conundrum that had been grating on his conscience for a while now. Dan couldn’t decide if he should really be recruiting or not. He suspected his own experiences as a crisis volunteer were highly out of the ordinary, given his fickle luck and penchant for getting involved where he shouldn’t. Thinking back, the only time Dan had been in danger, as a direct result of his volunteer work, was the Crew’s assault on the FBI field office. Every other time he’d been shot at or threatened had been a result of his own investigations, or his personal relationships.

Dan did the math. One serious threat to his life after about a year and a half of volunteering? That wasn’t… too terrible. Certainly, it was nothing a resident of Dimension A would even blink at. Hurricane Victor had been pretty awful as well, but Dan didn’t think it should count. Man-made or not, the hurricane hadn’t actually been trying to murder him. Not actively at least.

So, the truth. No rosy-tint, no elaboration. Let his listeners make their own choice. They were probably more prepared than Dan had ever been, by simple dint of being natives. Violence was a fact of every day life, though these teenagers might not yet be able to fully appreciate it. He wondered how many had lost loved ones in the past year, and how many were like Dan. It was as good a place as any to start.

“How of many of you lost people in the past year?” he asked without preamble. “Put your hands up. You’re already vigilantes in a room filled with cops; the time for shyness has long passed.”

There was much awkward shuffling and grumbling, before three hands went up. One of the women, two of the older men. Adrian was one of them. He crossed his arms, huffing with undisguised irritation. The leather buckles holding together his outfit jangled as they bounced against each other.

“Why does it matter?” the young man demanded.

“Motives always matter,” Dan replied mildly. “Especially when that motive is revenge. Gregoir has asked me to give you other options, but that won’t work if you’re just looking to hurt people and feel righteous about it.”

Adrian flinched, flushed, then rallied, all in the same movement. “It’s not like that!”

“I hope not. I hope your motives are a little more noble than that.” Dan paused, then switched tracks. “When I was a kid, I wanted nothing more than to be a superhero.”

That earned a wide array of startled looks from just about everyone in the room. Not just a hero, but a ‘super’ hero. It wasn’t the sort of thing people admitted in polite company. The words bore some unpleasant cultural implications.

Dan laughed.

“I was a weird kid,” he admitted, which had the virtue of being both misleading and true. “Anyway, it was for all the wrong reasons. Really, I just wanted to be special. I wanted to help people, sure, but more than that I wanted to know that I was capable of helping people. It was a deeply selfish thing, you understand?”

A few of the teenagers were shifting self-consciously. That was good. It meant they were self-aware enough to know their own motivations. Whatever the dimension, young men sought glory. He didn’t blame them, either. He’d been much the same.

“I started training to be a crisis volunteer almost two years ago,” Dan continued. “I wasn’t in the best of shape, so for me, it was three months of physical training and another three months of academic studies. I’m one of a small number of people who are able to respond to major disasters country-wide, so I took both the state and federal exams. I’d say most of you could qualify for the city exam with only a basic six-week course that the Academy offers. There are also electives you can take, to expand your skillset and, subsequently, the frequency in which you are called.”

Dan eyed the young vigilantes, and judged that they were still listening. He clapped his hands together. “So! How many of you actually know what it is a crisis volunteer does?”

“You clean up after villain attacks,” someone piped up.

Dan’s eyes found the speaker, a young man in blue spandex. The vigilante held up admirably under the attention. He lifted his chin challengingly, and said, “You guys are called in to find survivors after the big-bads are dead and gone.”

Dan raised an eyebrow at the incredibly uncharitable interpretation of his job. “You’ve been watching too much television.”

While the media was, generally speaking, favorably inclined towards public service, there were a wide variety of television crime dramas that grossly misrepresented reality. It was much the same in Dan’s home dimension, just with different subjects. Instead of things like hacking and forensics being comically exaggerated, most of the time it was the role of the police, their powers, responsibilities, and apparent lack of support staff.

“First of all,” Dan held up a finger, “people like me are called in while disasters are in progress, natural or otherwise. Coming in after the fact rather defeats the point. My entire job is to lessen the burden on the more specialized first responders; medical staff, firefighters, and police. In my case, that usually means transporting emergency supplies, finding survivors, and clearing debris. Sometimes, in active combat zones or during other dangerous situations. Just last month I was in Galveston, digging a SPEAR Team out of the wreckage of an aircraft in the middle of a hurricane, because Victor swatted them out of the sky.”

That took the wind out of the kid’s sails. Red-faced, he fumbled for words. Finally, he settled upon, “That’s very admirable.”

“It’s shit,” Dan declared without emotion, and half the room flinched. “it’s a horrific job. By its very nature, you’re always seeing the very worst that humanity has to offer. It wears on you. The average crisis volunteer lasts five years before retiring.”

“I thought you were supposed to be recruiting us,” Adrian pointed out, leather creaking as he shifted from one side to the next, obviously uncomfortable.

Dan shrugged. “You need to have your eyes opened. You have to understand, this thing you’re doing? Patrolling public parks and helping cats out of trees? It’s great; somebody should do it, and I’m glad y’all are stepping up. The problem is: you want more, right? It nags at you, that little voice in your ear saying you can do better than this?”

“We just want to take the next step,” Adrian replied defensively.

“Sure,” Dan agreed, “but watch that step, ‘cuz it’s a doozy. That’s what I’m telling you. I was warned going into this what I’d be facing, but I’m a stubborn bastard so I kept going forward. Now, I’ve seen more corpses than a funeral home and I’ve been shot almost as much as Gregoir.” Gregoir gave off a considering hum and waggled his hand in a ‘so-so’ motion.

“What is this?” Adrian asked. “Scared straight? We know it’s bad out there. We’re not blind.”

“No. Just a disclaimer,” Dan replied agreeably. “Bad as it is, I still go to sleep every night knowing I’ve made a tangible difference in the world. I know I’m helping people in ways that only I can, and that’s a very good feeling. But more than that, I still have a life outside public service. If things ever get too overwhelming, if I ever become disillusioned with my own impact, I have the choice to walk away. Police don’t get that choice. It’s a lifestyle, and once you’re on that path, you never really leave it.”

Not strictly-speaking true, but close enough. Higher order upgrades were restricted for good reason. Someone like Freya or Cornelius would find their career choices strictly curtailed if they were to ever leave government service.

“Vigilantes have it much worse,” Dan continued. “Galeforce, for example, is fucked. His entire life is over. Everything he ever was or will be has been sacrificed over a single afternoon of stupidity. You think a mask will save you in this day and age? No. Someone, somewhere, knows who he is. He’ll be hunted forever, and there is nothing that he can ever do to change that. It’s no way to live.”

Once again, not true, but close enough. Facial recognition worked wonders in Dimension A, so Galeforce’s identity was undoubtedly compromised. That said, the internet was still lawless, and Galeforce had managed his online presence well. The vigilante would likely keep whatever money he’d made off his brief stint as a celebrity, and could probably live a reasonably wealthy life in some non-extradition country far away. If he stuck around, though, he would be screwed beyond words.

“It really comes down to what you’re looking for,” Dan told his audience. “Right now, y’all have time and options. Do something dumb, and you might not have either. That’s all we’re saying. That’s all we want. Because you kids are right. The APD is undermanned, and the city is a mess. So, it would be a damn shame if the next generation of heroes got themselves locked up before they could help.”

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