To The Editor, Paragon Times.
From, A Concerned Citizen
A Brighter Today
I remember the billboards, the ones you see in New York, Los Angeles, Washington DC, the TV, internet and radio advertisments... "Why look forward to a brighter tomorrow? In Paragon City, you can have a brighter today!"
There was a picture of a wooded park, a gleaming silvery-blue lake, and that unmistakable skyline in the background. Leaping over the lake, of course, was a costumed hero - just in case you had somehow been unaware of
Paragon City's claim to fame as the hero capital of America.
We moved here three years ago, from Ohio, and to be honest have regretted it nearly every day. One day at a time, that's what my wife keeps telling me. It's what my therapist tells me too. Well, told me. I haven't been
able to find a new therapist yet, after what happened to the building where my old therapist worked. Poor guy - one minute he's sitting stroking his beard while listening to some tired mother-of-two talking about how her husband never helps, then the next minute his antique standard lamp falls,
hits him on the head and he's in a coma - no sign of waking up any time soon. He was lucky that he had the sole ground floor office. Upstairs, things were much worse. Some of those robot-things.... Clockworks, I've heard them called - they were on the roof. Now, I've heard a lot about them on the news... robot menace taking over the city, whole industrial areas unsafe... but they've never bothered -me-. Do they abduct people? Do they want to tear out your organs, or mutate your DNA, or sell drugs to your children? No, they just build those curious statues of theirs. Of course, the heroes see it differently. So the three clockwork creatures on our roof were minding their own business when the Alpha Justice League of Paragon City (or whatever those red and yellow idiots call themselves) crash onto the roof. Now, if it had been one of the heroes.. fine! But five "heroes", two of them in armour, one of them about
eight foot tall and nearly as wide, come landing on our roof and most of the ceiling comes down in the second storey!
And whose insurance premiums go up? Not the heroes, that's for sure! Who gets the blame? The "sinister" clockwork menace, you can bet on that.
A week after we moved in, we took little Sammy down to the river in Galaxy City.. the Gemini Park picnic area - he has these little model boats, cutest things, that float, so he likes to watch them on the water. Never mind the crazies you get in the park - I thought a Sunday afternoon, nice
day - what could go wrong? Well, there we are, all by the river, picnic all laid out, and some girl, hardly dressed, but cape flapping in the breeze, comes sprinting by -across- the surface of the river, a wave going out either side of her and SOAKS our picnic, my son's boats nowhere to be
seen. At least no one was hurt though.
It's getting so bad here, I don't know what the police even do. You see them with their fortified checkpoints, and occasionally out on patrol... but the only people who stop regular crimes are the heroes now... and some of them... well, let's just say that I wonder who the real criminals are...
Just the other day, my wife was stopped, right outside the door of her offices. In a nice neighbourhood too - an upmarket address in the nice part of Steel Canyon... These two young ...things... were trying to take her purse... Of course, she's not the sort to let kids push her around, so
she wouldn't give it to them. Three police officers went by - none of them spared her a glance, and she said that two heroes went by as well without even stopping... Eventually someone about the age of our oldest came careering up the street, and shot the criminals in the back... Now, we all
hear about this "teleporting to the jail".. but who believes that story?
This hero shot both the bag-snatchers at point blank range, then just took off up the street, leaping up to the power lines, if you believe that (and does anyone in the city council care that we get power brown-outs every few
hours from this sort of thing?) without even asking if my wife was alright...
Okay, now, there are some things the city police and the heroes do well. I had friends in Baumtown ("Boomtown" now they call it), and out in "The Hollows"... and if the police and heroes keep the gangs there from getting into the rest of the city.. that's something, I think. What happened out
there is terrible.. and we're all thankful the heroes were on hand to get as many people out as they did. At night, sometimes, if the wind is right, you can hear the gunfire from the edge of "The Hollows", where the police are
holding the line. And being as near to Atlas Plaza as it is.... that means there's an anarchic warzone a short walk from City Hall! Boomtown is quiet though. Scarily quiet. I've been up to the Wall, and the gate in, but have never been through. I've seen heroes go in, and they came out
white as a sheet, most of them. I don't like to think about what might be in there - I'm just glad it stays on the other side of the force field.
That police officer there, the one always stationed at the entrance, I asked him what it was like, and he wouldn't tell me. Said I'd be happier not knowing what was in there - he said the heroes knew, and that was why some of them lived like they did. I'm not sure if that was meant to comfort me, but it didn't.
But the city suffers so much from these heroes and their "villains". You look at New York, and they have a high crime rate, but not like ours! Walking around the edge of Atlas Plaza, criminals everywhere! Some of them don't even look human! If you ask me, the heroes attract criminals..... The more heroes we get, the more criminals we seem to have... Since the hero thing spiralled out of control, there's crime everywhere. A friend of mine, in the Port Authority - he said he'd seen figures that showed cargo
shipments into Independence Port was down something like 50% since the 60s.
And the city has grown a -lot- since then. But after all those stories about "monsters" in the harbour..... who'd want to come here with a ship of cargo? I mean, really - if you don't get attacked by monsters, then most likely the gangsters who infest the port will be after you...
Oh, but it's not -all- bad. In Skyway City, there's a pleasant little park, where you can usually find Synapse (and you've all heard of -him) and that young lady who goes by the name of Mynx. I've spent many a pleasant summer afternoon there, of a weekend. Of course, getting to the park is another matter. The gangs there don't usually bother us pedestrians, as long as you're careful - they're more concerned with fighting each other, but it's a little unnerving to walk through what amounts to open warfare.
I had to visit one our contractors, near the monorail station in that zone, and it was rather stressful on the 'rail line to say the least... Luckily there was some kind of superhero team on the train, otherwise the gangsters
might have caused trouble. I wanted to say something - the whole journey, these superheroes were talking about RATHER unsuitable violent subjects, considering there were several families with young children on the 'rail too.
My oldest daughter, Tammy, is 17, and was on her way to a fancy dress party last month. She was wearing just some cheap hired costume... I think she was going as a mediaevel lady... of course, some hopped-up delinquets thought she must be a hero and chased her all the way across Kings Row... Luckily for us, Tammy was on the school running team and even in a full gown and wimple, she managed to outpace the gang! Did anyone try to help her? Not a chance... From my office window, just near Prometheus Park,
I've seen maybe twenty normal people running down the street.... and about ten gangsters of one kind or another sprinting about the place. That's just in the time it's taken me to compose this letter. And as for the
heroes? All I can hear is pounding music, from over by the statue of Atlas. There's so many of them in the plaza, just dancing, chatting, posing.. everything but fighting crime. And when they do go after the criminals, it's ice and fire and worse all across the streets, leaping from cars without a care for us hard-workers. Too many tourists run up to those darn heroes, asking for autographs, or making out as if they're celebrities and worshipping them... Anyone who really lives here wouldn't do that, I'm sure.
Most people I know don't even go out after dark - certainly not if you live around Kings Row. Too many of us know someone who lost family there. I mean, where we live, just off Hyperion Way, it's quite nice.. not -too- much trouble apart from the muggers and the junkies. I feel sorry for
those people around the edge of Perez Park, around that area the papers call "Hell's Highway" or near "Boneyard". Our building janitor, he used to work there, just by that road around the park, a big old housing block. Here, you occasionally get Clockworks on the roof or in the back yard, but they don't even bother him, that's all. He has a snapshot of himself standing next to one - it's unconcerned, just building one of those weird sculptures... In his old job, he had to carry a weapon if he went outside the building on the ground or on the roof. At night, he said, you got -things- coming out of the park... and don't even ask about the noises. He has a brace on his left arm, and won't say why, but I heard from Mitch who lives on the top floor that our poor janitor had to keep some kind of
creature from Everett Lake out of his old building while waiting for the police or a hero to arrive. He only just managed to hold it off for long enough, nearly losing his arm in the process, or that's what Mitch said.
Poor guy - I hope he gets money from the city council for that kind of injury.
There are good things about the city. It is a beautiful city. On a nice day (if you don't look out towards the old Baumtown. The Hollows or what they call "Faultline"), the view is fabulous. and people keep investing in the city. And every company in the USA wants an office here - nothing as prestigious on the company stationery as an address in a good part of Paragon City, or that's what they say. I hear another ultra-high-tech firm moved in just this last week... a lot of that goes on here, employing so many people.
And we might want the heroes to leave, true. But if they left and the criminals didn't.... we'd all be lost in a day......
One day at a time, though. And one of these days, it -will- be brighter.
Yours etc,
A Concerned Citizen
