Aberrant: 2011 - The Ballad of Mokey Peele

[Hero]

(The story thus far)

It all started when one drug dealer, Raphael Guillermo, was gunned down in front of the cardboard shack of ‘Drywall’ Borne. Raphael was carrying a large supply of drugs for one of the larger gangs in the area. Somewhere between his bloody body hitting the sidewalk and the dirty cop informing the gang that no drugs were found, the drugs went missing. Suspicion fell quickly on Drywall … and his sometimes girlfriend, Mokey Peele. The gang caught up with Drywall trying to get an uptown gang interested, but killed him before getting their hands on the missing drugs.

The cops were following the trail of dead bodies, the gang was hunting down Mokey, and the street people were abuzz with the word of what was going on. When word reached Hero that there was a girl in distress, he knew he had to do something. All he needed to do was beat the cops and the gang to Mokey and get her out of town. How hard could that be … his first time out?

Hero was ‘in disguise’ as a street person with his contact, Terry, when they found Mokey.

Bullets hurt. Bullets hurt a lot. That much I’ve learned being a superhero in the past thirty second. That and I dive behind a dumpster like nobody’s business.

Let me rewind a little bit here. There is this girl in trouble. Her boyfriend did something stupid to a gang … one of the more rabid gangs, they’ve killed him and now they are gunning for her because they think she has something they want.

Hehe … I said gunning. Oh, never mind.

Anyway, I decided this was something a hero ought to be involved with so I went after her in order to protect her until she got out of town, or decided to go to the police. The girl, Mokey is her name, was running back to one of the storm drains she was known to frequent when we, me and my buddy Terry, found her. She was giving us a hard time when suddenly a carload of gang-bangers showed up ready to put holes in us and grab her. Mokey and Terry ran and I went hero. My plan was to hold them all off while those two got away.

Okay. The plan needed some work.

When I go hero, my clothes transform into my super-suit. Thinking I might need some extra protection, I conjured up an extra layer of protection. The wind wiped around me, various garbage and such from the surrounding area transformed itself into a second skin around me … and let me tell you the effect and the final product look neat.

The gangers gawked at me for a second and then I lowered the boom on them.

“I’m Hero,” I said. “This is your only warning. Leave now and no one will get harmed.”

Maybe I need speech lessons, because they started smirking and laughing at me. The leader lowered his shotgun at me and was about to shoot so I shot him first. The effect rippled out of my extended fist and slammed the goon right in the chest. He went flying ten feet (easy) and bounced off a chain linked fence. The guy fell to the ground unconscious. I was elated. The other four gangers were less so. In fact, I discovered they were down right pissed as shit at me as they all opened fire on me. That’s how we got to the ‘bullets hurt’ part.

[Hero]

They’ve got me beaten back into a corner and they’re coming for me. I can here them talking as they are swinging wide around the dumpster that’s my only real protection. Like a lightning bolt out of the blue it occurs to me that I shouldn’t be cowering here and I decide to do something about it. I grab the bottom of the dumpster and I feel a little more of the juice flow out of down my arms. I heft it up in on swift moment … and you should see the look of surprise on their eyes! It’s priceless! This is some real superhero shit.

Anyway, I hurl the dumpster to the side, pinning two of the bad guys up against the fence. Man, that’s gotta hurt. One gangster runs while the remaining one shoots. He misses and I hear someone scream behind me. It sounds like Terry. I’m angry at the ganger as well as myself. I lash out with the power and the fence next to the ganger wraps him up.

I’m about to either do something to this bastard, or run back to Terry when my mind is made up for me. A cop turns into the entrance of the storm drain and his lights come on; time for me to vamoose. I run back to Terry and help him to his feet. The bet the idiot came back to watch the fight even though I told him to stay with the girl. I console myself with the fact that Mokey is still alive and out there, though I’ve still got to find her … after I drop Terry at a free clinic five blocks from here.

[Hero]

Mokey’s life had gone from dangerous to insanely dangerous. It was bad enough that Drywall had gotten himself killed, but now two homeless guys had come tracking her down … wanting her stuff, no doubt. She had evaded them when the gang-bangers and that costumed freak had shown up and begun going at it. Mokey had run as fast as she could away from the gunfire and never looked back. Now all she wanted to do was get her stash and get out of Long Beach. She figured if she could just get out of the gang’s territory she could find someone else to sell the drugs to. She wasn’t quite sure what came after that, but right now anything beat staying here and dying.

For the narcotics cops of the precinct, the loss of this drug shipment was a major opportunity … as well as a hazard. The problem was the cocaine being transported was rumored to be relatively pure and uncut, making it very dangerous to anyone trying to use it, as well as very valuable on the street. Just as important was the fact that drugs of that quality never came down to the street level unless someone’s drug pipeline had messed up. If the cops could find drugs they might be able to test and find out whose shipment this was … or so they hoped.

I’m sitting on top of this roof and people are shooting at me again. On the plus side, I’ve got the girl and she’s not screaming at me to let her go.

Were was I?

Oh yeah, how did I get the girl? It wasn’t easy. I had to drop Terry off and then do a lot more leg work solo. It was more luck than anything else that helped me find her, I admit. I was walking down one side of the street and I saw her coming out of Laundromat with a full rucksack. Before I could make my move … across four lanes of traffic, a car pulled up beside her and Mokey started running. The car gave chase and I took off after the car.

I finally decided to risk the traffic when I say Mokey then the car head down an alleyway. I survived just barely … okay, traffic wasn’t that bad … and once I got into the alley I went Hero. This time, I could feel the fatigue coming over me. I had spent a lot of juice fighting the gangers in the previous installment of this tale and I wasn’t up for another prolonged fight.

Anyway, I round the corner and there’s the car. Two guys have gotten out. One is pointing his pistol at Mokey while the other one is trying to smooth talk her into giving up the rucksack. Mokey looks terrified and I decide to act. The pistol guy’s door wraps up around him and pins him to his car as I run past. I reach Mokey and turn to face the second man. At the same time Mokey starts screaming,

“Don’t kill me! Don’t kill me!”

It takes me a few seconds to realize that she’s yelling this at me.

To make matters worse, the second guy pulls out his gun … and his badge and I realize I’m in deep shit. I look over my shoulder to Mokey and tell her,

“I’m here to save you. Do you want to go with the cops?”

She stops screaming and blinks at me for three or four seconds. She follows that up with a shake of the head and a,

“No, please don’t let them take me.”

“No problem, miss,” I reply in my best heroic tone.

I face the cops and tell them,

“Not this time.”

While I’m saying that, I put one arm firmly around Mokey (who needs a bath) and together we glide up the side of the wall and onto the roof. That’s when the cop fires on me. I’m sick of being shot at.

Well, back on the roof, I help Mokey to stand and we start sprinting across the hot tar surface toward the other side of the building. When we get to the end, I concentrate and a magnetic force propels us across the alleyway to another building. From there, we get back down to the street and freedom.

“What now?” she asks me.

“We get you out of town, Mokey. It’s not safe for you here. Any place you want to go?”

“Malibu,” Mokey says without hesitation.

I smile behind my mask and think up the proper number of buses and routes to get Mokey to safety. The numbers are a bit much to remember, but Mokey takes out a Sharpie and writes them down on her hand. Afterwards, she looks at me funny then says,

“Thanks. Who are you?”

“I’m Hero,” I reply somewhat shyly.

She reaches up and kisses me on the cheek before making a bee-line for the closest bus and freedom. Behind us I here sirens. I step back into the alley and become plain old me once more. Still, I did it. I saved the girl, fought the bad guys (and some not so bad guys), and brought her to a place of safety … sort of. I am really beginning to think I can do this.