Saving the Day, One Day at a Time

Skyway City: Yesterday
Charlie stared at the fused pieces of the PsychoChronoMetron as it sat there on his desk, the morning edition of the Paragon Times folded open to page three, where the headline proclaimed SKYWAY CITY DETECTIVES REWRITE HISTORY. He scanned the article, another day, another pack of scumbags tossed in the clink. So what if those crazy spider robots and their flying cone headed buddies wanted that magic rubiks cube so they could turn Statesman into another Faultline. Charlie and his partner, Julie Black, put an end to that, under Overbrook dam of all places. He smiled a little as he imagined that Arbiter Sands in the same cell as Castillo and wondered who might walk away from that one, but then his face darkened as he thought of the third member of that murderous love triangle, his hand moving to his ribs where that one eyed blonde psycho had stabbed him.

Nocturne.

They’d put her in jail once, with a little help from Longbow, and somehow she still managed to make it out in time to party when the boys had kidnapped that Yin girl, Perilous Penelope, hell, for all he knew, she was out there already, probably looking for them.

“Great,” he said, “Barely enough legit work to cover the rent on this place, and somehow, I find myself out on cockamamie adventures, gettin’ crushed, stabbed, shot and killed by crazies in their Halloween best.” Charlie sighed and stretched his arms, his office chair groaning as the plastic wheels skidded across the concrete floor. “I shoulda been an accountant.”

Just then, the office door opened, his partner walked in, carrying containers of what smelled like Chinese take-out in a plastic bag bearing the logo of Yin’s Market.
“Honey, I’m Hooome!” Julie said in a singsong voice. She placed the bags on her desk, adjacent to his and tore into a bag, fishing out one of the Styrofoam containers and a pair of chopsticks. She glanced over at Charlie as he sat there, kneading the bridge of his nose. “Jesus Charles,” she moaned “You’re not doing the accountant thing again, are you?”
“Naw,” he said with a crooked smirk, “I’m celebrating, and we made page three this time.” He slapped the newspaper down on her side of the desk. “We’re halfway to bein’ bona-fide superheroes.”

Julie scanned the page as she popped open the greasy foam container. “Well, we’re rounding up a rogues’ gallery worthy of a cape. Maybe we should think about joining up with the Freedom Phalanx or something?”
“And do what?” Charlie snapped, “Like the city doesn’t have enough spandex clad nutjobs flying around town, and I don’t just mean the good guys.”
“But at least then, we would be recognized, and I hear they have a really nice benefits package.”
Charlie smirked at her as he sat up, reaching for a container from the bag. He broke apart a pair of chopsticks and opened one of the take-out boxes. He stabbed inside the box and grimaced.
“How do you eat this stuff and not die?”
“Super serum, remember?” she said in between bites “even with clean living and healthy eating habits, you don’t live to be over a hundred years old and still look this good.”
Charlie muttered something that sounded like: “Tastes like grease.” And Julie scanned the desolate interior of the Oracle Agency offices.
“Maybe we should get a sponsor, or apply for one of those reality shows, get ‘em to dress the place up a little.”
“No.” Charlie said flatly.
“But…” Julie began again only to have him cut her off.
“No.”
“But nobody really knows we’re here.”
“That’s fine.” He was quiet for a few moments while he ate. “We’re here to help the little guy, the folks that slip through the cracks. Besides, we’re private investigators, not superheroes.”
“We just end up fighting them, well, super villains at any rate.”
“Comes with the territory in this town, but what were we gonna do? I chased that crazy toyman all over Overbrook, and under it. A hidden grotto for Arachnos submarines, I mean come on…” Charlie was starting to raise his voice, angrily waving his chopsticks at her as he spoke. “…Right under their noses, the Vanguard has half the city nervously watching the skies, Freedom Corps has the other half drawing a line in the sand and aiming cans of RAID at the Rogue Isles.”
“Well, the Hero Corps…” Julie began, seeing a pause in her partner’s tirade.
“Hank Wong? Don’t even get me started on that mercenary. He’s almost as bad as those Sky Pirates.”
“Sky Raiders.” She corrected.
“Whatever, but even he can’t keep the streets under control. And the PPD, well, as much as I like those guys, if they could get it done, they wouldn’t need superheroes.”

“I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve said that.” Both detectives looked up, so lost in their own argument that they had failed to hear the door open. The man before them now wore blue jeans and a faded grey t-shirt under a jacket. His blond hair was thick, if not a little long, and he kept his beard well trimmed. Nothing about the man seemed out of the ordinary, until Charlie looked in his eyes, well, eye. For while the man only had one good eye, the other, probably a shriveled socket under the eye patch he wore, that single eye was fierce, and it felt as though the man wasn’t merely looking through him, but rather, burning a hole and shooting arrows through.
“Can we, uh…help you, Mister…”
“I certainly hope so, Mister Carter.” The man with the eye patch had traces of an East Coast accent, Massachusetts, probably. “My name is Ray Rodgers, and I have a proposition for you…”