Dial H for Heroics

Josie followed Jack across the city. She dismissed Northwind on the roof beside where he let Makkari go. She checked her watch as he looked around.

“What now, Sherlock?,” she asked. She looked across the roofs. The white stone of the bank stood out from the gray of the normal buildings.

“One of these buildings holds a young woman,” said Jack. “So the easiest thing is to switch to Vision and looked around.”

“It might hold more than one the way these people work,” said Josie.

“That’s where you come in,” said Jack. “We might need to bust open some heads.”

“I’m ready,” said Josie. “What do you think would be the best thing I can use? I think Zatanna would be the best at moving things.”

“I’m going to go with Makkari,” said Jack. “I’m not sure. I might have to go to

Captain America, or Blade.”

“All right,” said Josie. “Go ahead.”

“All right,” said Jack. “Vision is up.”

She waited as the black eyes moved around. Then a hand came up and pointed at a block house across from the Bank. He reverted to normal, still pointing at the building.

“I counted six guys on the bottom floor,” said Jack. “There are four on the upper levels. All of them seem to be patrolling. Women are in cages on the bottom floor.”

“How do you want to do this?,” asked Josie. “I think we can just bust in the front door and overwhelm them.”

“Really?,” said Jack. “I can take the bottom floor with Makkari.”

“I think I can handle the other four from here,” said Josie. “I just need a spotter to make sure I hit the right target.”

“You can hit four guys through a brick wall from here?,” said Jack. “I would love to see that.”

“You know I have Green Arrow, right?,” said Josie. “I took a bunch of contracts today and finished them. He was one of the heroes I had to use.”

“Why not Zatanna?,” asked Jack.

“She basically can only do one thing at a time,” said Josie. “Multiple targets is hit or miss unless I use something with an area effect. The Green Arrow seems to work like Yondu.”

“Give me a couple of seconds to recharge,” said Jack. “I’ll put the Vision on and we’ll see what you can do.”

“Don’t you have Hawkeye?,” asked Josie.

“He’s not an archer,” said Jack. “He has some kind of vision power similar to Vision, but it’s weird. I can’t think of a use for it right now.”

“Let me know when you’re ready,” said Josie. “I might need to move to make sure I can shoot through the wall. We might have to get closer, or find a window to shoot through.”

“All right,” said Jack. “We can move over to that building next to it.”

“Sounds good,” said Josie. “I think there might be windows there, but we might need to shoot from the bank.”

“Let’s go over to the closer one,” said Jack. “That might give you a better chance if you do have to shoot through the wall.”

“All right,” said Josie. She thought that she could blow through the wall. She wasn’t sure.

“I can get us there,” said Jack. “That would be just a click for Makkari. Then I can watch for you as the Vision.”

“I’m ready,” said Josie.

Jack checked his timer and nodded. He called on Makkari. He carried them to the other roof. Then he switched to the yellow and green Vision.

Josie called on Green Arrow, wrapping up in leafed tunic and pants. A hood obscured her face. She raised her arms, mimicking pulling back an arrow. A line of light appeared along her forearm.

“First target is in the corner,” said Jack. “He’s sitting down at a desk.”

Josie shifted her aim, following Jack’s pointing finger. She loosed the arrow. It

punched through the wall. She drew and fired again, aiming for the same spot.

“He’s down,” said Jack. “It looks like a wound to the chest. The other three are coming down to our end of the building. They are in the middle of the space.”

Josie unleashed a fusillade of light arrows at the wall. She waited for confirmation of hits before she stopped firing. The quest counter went down as Jack held up his hand.

“All right,” said Jack. “All four down, one still alive. The guys on the bottom are

rushing a staircase on the other side of the building. It looks like they heard the others going down and are trying to stop anyone coming down from the second floor.”

“No clue where we are?,” asked Josie. She had a view of the floor through holes she had punched through the wall. She drew back the invisible bowstring.

“It doesn’t look like it,” said Jack. “I might have to learn to read lips if I keep spying on people.”

“Get ready to go,” said Josie. “I’m going to put down some cover fire first to make them back up. Just punch through the wall, or try the door while they’re distracted.”

“Go,” said Jack. He switched to his green derelict and walked to the edge of their building.

She loosed another volley of arrows into the upper area, aiming for the other side of the building. Some of the bolts bounced down into the stairwell and made contact. Her quest counter went down.

Jack jumped across the gap and crashed through the wall. He lumbered toward the stairwell.

Josie doubted Jack needed her help with any survivors. She decided that she should try the ground floor and either come up from behind the targets, or at least see if she could start moving the women and girls out of the building.

Either way, survivors had to be dealt with, Jack’s target had to be found so he could fulfil his quest, and the victims needed to be helped back to a normal life.

Josie checked her watch, noting she had enough for a few more uses of powers. She called on the Northwind and dropped down to the ground. She switched the watch off while she looked for a door. Then she used Zatanna to open the door.

She walked inside. The captives started clamoring for release. They didn’t know exactly what was going on, but they knew something was. She raised her hands for silence.

“We’re going to be getting all of you out of here,” said Josie. “I need to know what you guys want to do. So think about it.”

She threw out a bird of fire that went down to one cage in particular. She walked down and looked at the bedraggled girl with red hair. The girl looked back at her.

“Natalie?,” Josie asked.

“Who are you?,” asked the captive.

“My friend Jack said your father is looking for you,” said Josie. “He asked Jack to find you.”

“My father?,” said Natalie. “What about Evan?”

“Evan sold you to these people to clear his gambling debt,” said Josie. She didn’t mention that Jack had thought he was trying to win the rest of the money he owed instead of working to pay it off.

Jack appeared from the stairwell. He frowned at the cages. The pinched expression on his face meant murder.

“We can’t take all these girls back to the hole in the wall,” said Jack. “What do we do?”

“We need wagons and a place for them to stay for the night at least,” said Josie. “Then we need to get them sorted back to their lives.”

“I need to drop Natalie off with her father,” said Jack. “He’ll still be at the casino. Maybe I can get Guin to front us an inn or some kind of hotel. I doubt they will want to stay here.”

“You have to be wrong about Evan,” said Natalie. Tears streaked the dirt on her face.

“Evan?,” said Jack.

“The boyfriend,” said Josie.

“He’s done,” said Jack. He shook his head. “Guin is not going to let him walk after something like this. He’s got a short life ahead of him.”

“Can’t you do something?,” asked Natalie.

“I’m going back to kill him myself,” said Jack. “Look around you. He doesn’t get to ride off into the sunset unless he is on fire.”

“What about me?,” said the girl.

“You better think of getting a better boyfriend than the one that put you in this cage,” said Jack.

“I think we need to get things going,” said Josie. “Jack, go talk to Guin and see if you can get us help. These women are going to need nurses and more professional help than we can give them.”

“Maybe there is some kind of healing cleric around,” said Jack. “I don’t know. I got Makkari. I’ll go over and see what I can do. Good job with the Arrow. You sliced those guys up bad.”

“The counter went down,” said Josie. She checked the quest again. She frowned. More than ten had been hit. Where had the other three been?

Maybe Guin had decided keeping Evan around wasn’t that great after all.

“I’m going to look for keys,” said Josie. She frowned at the girl. “I think you should talk to your father and figure out what you want to do from here. Evan is gone. He’s never coming back, and he didn’t plan to come for you in any case.”

“You don’t know that,” Natalie said. It was words without conviction.

“He sold you,” said Josie. “If he loved you, he wouldn’t have done that.”

She decided to search the dead for the keys. If none of the guards had them, she would search the building. She headed to the stairs.

She frowned at the bodies on the stairs. Jack had not lied about the damage the arrows had done. She frowned at scratches on the walls and wooden stairwell railings. It looked like the bolts had bounced around like Hanzo’s in his video introduction.

Josie quickly went over the bodies. She found a ring of keys after a few minutes of searching. She went back to the cages. The captives yelled at her to be set free. She imagined some of them could make it home to their families without help.

“How many are good to go?,” she asked.

Some of the women shouted and waved their hands through the bars on their cages. Josie let them out one at a time. They rushed to the door and vanished into the night, going their separate ways.

Josie nodded. She still had a number of captives to work on. She would have to get the ones out that seemed mature enough to handle problems and ask them to help their still more hurt colleagues.

Jack appeared with a big man in tow. The man looked at all the cages. He looked aghast.

“Linus, this is my partner, Josie,” said Jack. “Josie, this is the number one minion in Guin’s organization. He has the authority to help us as long as we don’t try to abuse it.”

“I already let some of the women loose,” said Josie. “I was getting ready to let some of the rest who can move go.”

“All right, Linus,” said Jack. “You know anything about how to fix this?”

“I wish I had never seen you,” said Linus. He rubbed his square face with a hand as big as a gallon jug. “I know a couple of guys we can get to let us house these people at least for the night. I’ll have to use Master Guin’s name to force them to help us.”

“I’ll be glad to talk to them for you, Linus,” said Jack.

“I’ll handle it,” said Linus. “This is the girl?”

“She’s down the row,” said Josie. “I guess we should let her fight things out with her father now, instead of letting things stew.”

“I guess Master Guin will mediate things, even if he doesn’t want it,” said Linus.