The River King 7

The River King 7

Taylor Hebert

February turned into March. As the old adage went, it came roaring in like a lion, with heavy storms of sleet and hail that marked the last gasp of winter. Patrols were absolutely miserable, and also quite uneventful. Not even the gangbangers wanted to be out if they could help it.

Partly because of this shitty weather, I had my own territory now. The buffer zone between the Empire-controlled downtown area and the PRT-patrolled Boardwalk was mine. Even the diehard keyboard warriors on PHO recognized it as “Monarch’s turf.” Slowly but steadily, I was eating away deeper into Empire territory.

My methods hadn’t changed much: Scout with my bugs. Pick off isolated groups. Drive them into a panic. Wait for them to make a mistake. Then, hit a weapons cache, drug den, or some other Empire infrastructure before floating away with the current.

Shadow Stalker aside, I hadn’t met any of the other heroes. I didn’t have to; I could guess what they’d tell me. The PRT’s official statement about me was that I was a “violent vigilante whose methods were little better than gang violence.” So I avoided them like the plague. The last thing I needed was a lecture, especially from the same people who’d been letting the gangs fester for decades.

Besides, my methods worked. These days, skinheads wore hats in my territory. If a person happened to be white, odds were they stopped wearing black and red. They covered up their vile tattoos and Nazi graffiti was all but gone because none of those assholes dared tag the walls again after I washed them with my hydrokinesis. 

I stepped into the River. Its cool waters carried me downstream. I’d found the feeling a little disconcerting at first, I never liked sticking my head underwater, but it now felt cool and refreshing. My only gripe was that, for the few seconds I spent underwater, I couldn’t feel my bugs. The connection had to be reestablished when I surfaced.

I exited the River at a powerwalk. For once, I wasn’t here to club anyone silly, a rarity in Brockton Bay. This time, I was responding to a car crash. A drunkard in a lifted pickup truck had run a red light, slamming into a small sedan at forty miles an hour. Given my teleportation, I was the first on the scene.

“Quit recording and call an ambulance,” I snapped at a nearby gawker. Typical bystander. Don’t help, just film.

The accident was bad.

I didn’t need to be a paramedic to know the drunk was long dead. He crashed his truck into the driver side of the sedan and launched himself out of his front window, over the sedan’s hood, and onto the ground. There was a long streak of brownish red where his skull had met pavement because of course he didn’t bother with a seatbelt.

I clenched my fists. Now wasn’t the time to freeze up. There was a family in that sedan. A father, mother, and a little girl of seven or eight. I was much more concerned with them than I was with the drunk fool.

The father had been driving, and so had taken the most impact. He was slumped over the deployed airbag, blood trickling down his head. The car door had been crumpled like a soda can, directly into his shoulder. I didn’t know if he was alive, but if he was, I doubted he’d be keeping that arm, not without Panacea, anyway.

The mother was doing much better. The passenger side airbag had gone off as well, but much of the force of the crash had been blunted on her end. She wasn’t exactly conscious, but she at least had enough awareness to moan in pain.

The child was… I took a quick look in the backseat and breathed a sigh of relief. She was fine, belted to her mother’s side of the car. She had that wide-eyed look of shock and had yet to process what had happened. Her eyes were haunting, reminding me far too much of things I’d rather forget. That was better than the alternative so I put her out of mind for now.

First aid. The couple needed first aid.

That brought me up short. I realized then that I had zero fucking clue how to do that. Winslow’s education was hot garbage at the best of times. Anyone who knew first aid in my school was far more likely to have learned through hands-on experience than a class.

I swore under my breath. I fucking hated myself right now. Of course I’d never bothered to learn. Online courses. Community college. Hell, even the local YMCA probably had a basic course for free.

But no, it’d never even entered my mind. And why would it? I was a brute! I had a regen package!

All I knew was that those two were probably concussed. And… And I wasn’t supposed to move people with concussions. I was sure there was a way to do it, but I didn’t know how, so moving them might only make their condition worse.

That ruled out yanking them through the shattered windows via water tentacles. Being a hero was suddenly looking a lot harder than advertised.

“Is anyone a nurse! Paramedic! First aid!” I shouted. That got people moving, but mostly shuffling in place.

The ambulances were a little better about response times than cops in this city, but I didn’t exactly have high hopes for them. Panic mounting, I did the only thing I could. I began untangling the wreckage. If I couldn’t treat the injured, the least I could do was to make them accessible.

A pair of water tentacles rose out from my shadow, the same place the River was, and I latched on to the truck fender. I yanked with all my might. The truck didn’t move, but the fender came away with the sound of tortured metal.

“You gotta grab the axle, kid,” a gruff voice said. I looked at the newcomer. He was a squat, fat man with more wrinkles than a pug. “Grab the axle, the bar that’s connecting the wheels. Then use that to roll the car along.”

“Thank you,” I whispered, voice almost cracking. The relief at someone finally getting off his ass to contribute something useful felt like a waterfall crashing overhead.

It was hard. I wasn’t the Glory Girl kind of brute. Even after all those contracts, all those dead raccoons and squirrels and pigeons, I was only barely strong enough to tug the truck away from the sedan.

I moved to pull open the car door, but the squat man stopped me. “See his shoulder? I see blood welling. Keep the wound pressed or he might bleed out.”

“I… Okay. Are… Are you a doctor?”

“Was an army nurse in the seventies, way before the golden man came around.”

I looked around for something more I could do. I didn’t want to leave. This wasn’t like when I beat up a few goons; this was a matter of life and death, innocent life and death. I just… I felt like I had to see this through.

“Mnn… M-Mom…?” I heard. I turned to find the daughter had woken up. “Mom, what’s wrong?”

I reached over the shattered glass to unlock the door. Taking her hand, I tugged her towards me. “Shh, it’s okay. Mommy is sleeping.”

“Aaahhhh!” she shrieked, her wail stabbing like daggers into my ears.

“No! I’m trying to help you!”

“Waaahhhh! Mom! Dad!”

“I’m a hero! I promise! Paramedics will be here in a few minutes. Just… Just look at me,” I said frantically. I was horrible at this. For fuck’s sake, I barely kept myself calm most days, never mind a traumatized girl. “I’m a hero. I’m not going to hurt you.”

“Y-You are?”

“I am. I’m going to take you to the hospital, okay?”

“W-What about mom and dad?” she sobbed uncontrollably. Snot ran down her face in thick rivers.

“You were in an accident. They’re… The paramedics will be here soon,” I whispered. She probably didn’t even know what a paramedic was, but I couldn’t bring myself to lie to her. Because if I did, I’d have to come up with some pretty words to tell her and I doubted I could. “They’ll check on your parents.”

“They’re not waking up…”

“They… What’s your name? My name is Monarch.”

“L-Liz. They’re not waking up…”

“No, don’t look at them,” I begged. I called the River to me. A bit of the water rose from my shadow, forming a lumpy crab. I made it do a little jig on the ground. “See? Look at the dancing crab.”

I didn’t know what else to do. For that matter, I had no idea why it was a crab. Other than the basic tentacles, I found the water easier to control if it was shaped like a crab, or some other bug-like thing. I chalked it up to some weird, thematic quirk of my power, but I was glad for it now.

More and more crabs rose up from my shadow. Their watery shells, more brackish green than a pristine blue, reflected the light of the street lamps above. Seeing this, I made the claws grow and had them shake the claws like big glowsticks. They lined up in neat rows and columns before marching around like a color guard.

“Look at the crabs, Liz,” I implored her, like a fucking idiot.

“I don’t want to watch the crabs!” she cried. “Why aren’t they waking up?”

What could I tell her? What could I possibly say to make this better? What had I wanted to hear so many years ago?

I needed her out. She needed a doctor. There was a possibility that she’d sustained injuries I couldn’t see at first glance. And… And she needed to be kept away, somewhere where her parents’ condition wasn’t staring her in the face.

“I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry,” I whispered. “I’m going to take you to the hospital. And then, I’m going to get a doctor and bring them here.”

“No! No! I don’t want to go!” she shrieked. She tried to tear her hands from mine, but it was like a rabbit wrestling an alligator. “Mom! No! I don’t want to go!”

The River came. It swallowed me up as I pulled the little girl into a tight hug. And if I allowed the water to remain, then maybe I wouldn’t notice my own tears.

X

My arrival caused absolute bedlam. The hospital ER wasn’t a quiet place at the best of times, but a yawning portal made of water opening in the middle of the lobby made everything worse. I’d been so focused on getting Liz to the doctors that I hadn’t thought to surface elsewhere.

It was chaos. Someone in the lobby screamed. Then Liz screamed. The nurses stormed in to see what was wrong. The receptionist probably pressed a panic button. Then the security came but was hesitant to approach the obvious cape. There was altogether way too much screaming for a place that should have been a temple to organized chaos.

I stomped the ground, calling the water back and leaving the floor mostly dry. I then reached out a water whip and whirled it above my head. Short, thick, and flexible, it made a nice, satisfying crack that could be heard above the noise.

“Silence!” I shouted. “My name is Monarch. There was a car accident on Twenty-First and Orion. I need someone to check out this little girl and another to go with me to provide first aid.”

“Sharon! Come take the girl!” A nurse barked. Her weathered eyes gave me a once-over, full of experience that made her look older than she was. “The EMTs should be on their way already.”

“I think her parents are concussed. The husband isn’t conscious. The driver side door got crumpled inward and crushed his arm. There was bleeding. The wife was moaning. I didn’t want to move them.”

“Fine. I’ll go with you. Panacea isn’t in tonight, but she doesn’t do brains anyway. Can you keep people in the same position when you move them?”

“No, it’s… It’s like being underwater.”

“Then we’re just going to make sure they’re fine. We’ll just have to wait for the EMTs anyway.” She grabbed a few things from a nearby closet before returning to take my hand. “Come on, let’s get going.”

Things moved at once quickly and at a snail’s pace after that. I took the nurse, Miranda, to the accident site. Nothing had changed in the minute that I’d been gone. I cleared the area and got the hell out of the way so she could get to work.

Miranda had thought to bring a tourniquet so had me open the driver side door and apply it over the father’s shoulder. She then had me stabilize their heads in line with their spines before moving them into a more comfortable position.

All the while, she lectured me on the appropriate way to provide first aid. Deciding not to move them carelessly was just about the only thing I’d done right so I listened and absorbed as much as I could.

Eventually, two ambulances arrived. The EMTs replaced my water neckbraces with theirs and loaded them onto the backs. Miranda was able to provide a much better summary of the couple’s condition than I could.

After that, I didn’t stick around long enough to give a statement. There was no point; enough people had been filming, anyway.

I came to a few realizations today.

First, I was much better at beating people up than I was at saving lives. I lacked first aid training. I couldn’t calm down a crying girl. I almost caused a small riot at the hospital, potentially making everything worse.

Second, I scared people. I didn’t make people feel better like a hero should. When there was noise, my first instinct wasn’t to reassure, but to impose order by becoming the loudest voice in the room. It was… Mom used to say that the loudest voice wasn’t usually the right one.

I could see it. Maybe the PRT did have a point about capes and PR patrols. Tonight, it hadn’t mattered that I was a hero, only that Liz was scared. For a moment, I considered reaching out to the Protectorate, maybe learning how to be friendlier or whatever. They probably had seminars for that kind of thing.

I snorted.

No way in hell.

Not every hero could do it all. Hell, Armsmaster was infamous for being stilted. It wasn’t just his armor that got him the Robocop jokes. If I wasn’t good at public relations, that just meant I should stick to what I was good at.

Most of all, I learned today that I should stick to breaking Nazi legs and blowing up their gun stashes. No other hero in the city was willing to pressure the Nazis like I was, anyway. For that matter, without my bug powers, no one else could.

If there was a quiet voice in the back of my mind that said I was avoiding the problem, I ignored it. Rather than try to do it all, this was the best way for me to help the city. Besides, punching gangbangers was less complicated.

X

Another week passed. I began to carve out time to practice my hydrokinesis. It didn’t get any stronger. The only way to increase the amount of water I could control, or the force I could exert, seemed to be by continuing to keep the contract with Tahm Kench. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t get creative.

My original bug control power extended to crustaceans as well and it did funny things where my hydrokinesis was concerned. At first, I was a little peeved that my water constructs all wanted to be crabs and lobsters and whatnot, but I quickly learned something new: If I stuck an actual crab or lobster inside, I could use it as a relay for my power, sending my constructs further afield than the range of my water whips.

And, by merging my two powers, the central crab essentially translated its actions to the construct. Functionally, it was a little like creating a watery powersuit… for crabs…

I wanted to be mad. The part of me that still liked my Armsmaster underwear and wished I could still fit into my Alexandria onesie really didn’t like this development. Who ever heard of a hero whose power was crabs?

Still, I wasn’t that girl anymore. Pragmatism won out in the end. Crab pincers were highly dextrous, especially when piloted by a human mind. They were also quite strong relative to their size, and that seemed to carry over to my constructs. A crab as big as me could flip a car with ease.

No, it wasn’t cute. With the brackish water and big, serrated claws, my constructs could look pretty intimidating. But in the end, I decided that I didn’t mind so much. Function over form, especially if said function was the additional oomph I needed to take the fight to the Empire.

I hadn’t seen Tahm much. Every week, he’d show up to renew our contract. He usually had a few stories to share about where he’d been. He liked to travel around the country, floating along on his River to see the sights.

“You look ridiculous, Tahm,” I told him with a lighthearted giggle. My best friend had a way of pulling me from my deepest moods.

“Do I, now,” Tahm said. He’d found himself a thick, Cuban cigar from somewhere and rolled it around his lips dextrously. On his head was a too-small tophat that managed to stay up. “Why, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You’re wearing a tophat.”

“It is a rather nice hat.”

“It’s sized for children. It wouldn’t fit me, never mind you.”

“Ah, but what is a gentleman but one who can appreciate a little childlike wonder, hmm?”

“You’re wearing a Hawaiian shirt. It’s got a toucan on it. It clashes terribly with the hat. And rubber boots. Were you in a swamp?”

“I was,” he said with a happy pat of his tummy. “I visited Hawaii to see what all the fuss was about but didn’t like it much. Louisiana though, now they’ve got some good eats.”

“Huh…” I put it out of mind. He probably went fishing for catfish or crawdads or something. “Well, I hope you’re still hungry.”

“Taylor, darling, I’m always hungry.”

“Great, I’ll… I’ll gather your dinner…” I trailed off awkwardly.

He must have sensed my discomfort, because he said, “Now, how about you tell me how your week has gone, my friend? What sorts of heroics have you gotten up to?”

“Well, I learned from some people in my territory that dogs have started to go missing.”

“I can assure you that I’m not responsible. Man’s best friend, we’ve got that in common.”

“No, I know you aren’t. I think it’s Hookwolf. I heard some of the Empire goons talking about how he was looking for new dogs for his dogfighting ring.”

‘Why, that sounds like just the kind of thing a hero should stop,” he rumbled in his old-timey drawl. “Have you had any luck finding them?”

“No, I haven’t,” I replied, frustrated. Then, more hesitantly, “I’m… I’m not sure I should.”

“What do you mean?”

“Hookwolf. He’s… He’s not like Alabaster and Cricket. He’s the real deal. Over a dozen murders. Birdcage-bound, but escaped,  twice.”

“Are you afraid?”

“I’m afraid that I won’t be strong enough to beat him,” I said the quiet part out loud, the part I didn’t even dare to tell myself. Tahm would listen though, as he always did.

“A hero is never sure of the outcome. That willingness to brave uncertainty is what makes a hero, or so I’m told anyway. Ol’ Tahm doesn’t know much about that sort of thing, I’m afraid.”

“Yeah… Maybe I can find the location and tell the PRT. Maybe then, we can cooperate to take down Hookwolf together.”

“They may ignore you.”

“Maybe… Probably… They’d probably just say I’m rocking the boat too hard. So… So I should try to sneak the dogs out. Hookwolf can’t be watching all the time and I’ve been doing hit and runs so I’m used to that sort of thing…”

“Good, good. You’ve got the beginning of a plan. It’s important that you don’t lose your nerve. You won’t improve the city if you just do the easy thing.”

“Yeah, you’re right, Tahm. Being a hero is about making hard choices. I just have to find his base though. He doesn’t run the dogfighting ring near my territory or I would have found him by now.”

“Well, my friend, if the fish aren’t biting, you should move to a different part of the river.”

“True. I doubt he’s downtown, that’s the business district and Hookwolf’s too barbaric to keep quiet. The Boardwalk is too heavily patrolled. Discounting the heart of ABB territory…”

“You look like you’ve got ideas,” he said, smiling that toothy grin. I used to think it looked fierce and predatory, but it’d grown on me.

“I do,” I replied. My own mouth spread wide as I did my level best to match his eager smile.

Author’s Note

The first scene hit Taylor hard because her mother died in a car crash. Annette was irresponsible and liked to talk on the phone while driving. Taylor was on the other line. It’s why you sometimes read about Emma calling Taylor a murderer.

And, of course, Taylor learns the exact opposite lesson. Responding to a car crash makes her self-reflect, but rather than moderate her behavior, she decides that she should stick to brutalizing gangsters. 

Animal Fact: Horses cannot vomit. Because of the angle at which their esophagus connects with their stomach, and their strong esophageal sphincter, it is impossible for food to move up the pipes, as it were.

This is potentially very dangerous for horses. Vomiting is often a reflexive response to poisons or spoiled foods. Not being able to vomit means the horse has no way of getting rid of toxins on its own.

Generally, horses are very good at discerning good and bad food, but they do manage to poison themselves rarely. In such an event, the vet must flush out the stomach via a stomach tube. This must be done within an hour because horses empty their stomachs very quickly.