Last edited 02 Dec 2001 02:45 PM

*     *     *

The warehouse was only five minutes from the house, which explained a lot of things.  Like why we're still living in that rattletrap.  It was a 45 minute drive into the station right now, worse during rush hour.  That wasn't usually a problem.  Just a couple of days a week, make sure nobody decided to take his desk, or wonder whatever happened to him.  The Lieutenant could cover up that much.

Some day (When Jasmine wins the lottery!) he'd get the warehouse relocated someplace nicer.  But that would take real money.  He also didn't know how Bowie would feel about it, since Bowie had come with the warehouse

*     *     *

The flames were hot, hot all around him.  Acrid smoke made it difficult to breathe.  More people in fires die from smoke inhalation than from the flames, did you know that, Adrian?  You always had to be the one to test these sorts of things, didn't you?  Mr. Clifton's phantasm vanished from his eyes, on that ominous, past-tense note.  He tried to stand, but it felt like they'd broken every bone in his body.  Or enough to make it impossible to stand.  He'd done his part, but there had been too many of them.  His greatest regret was that Pop would be so disappointed with him.  Choose the place and time.  Sometime you can't, boy, but most of the time you can.  Well he couldn't even claim he'd been forced by circumstance.  Just too impatient, too sure of himself, too certain he could take them.  Well, he could have, but there had been others there, and the one bullet that had hit him still burned in his leg, and that had been enough to slow even him down, and then they'd been all over him, with fists and boots and saps and gun butts, and --

The flames were closer.  No time to woolgather, Adrian.  Get moving.  Can't breathe, though -- hood is permeable, lets the air in, lets the smoke in, damned if you do, damned if you don't, gloves will hold up against the flames for a while, but not long enough, and the rest of the uniform's only treated, had to be standard issue, that was always Pop's rule.

Ribs grating together, eyes burning, lungs burning, rest will be burning soon, leg just won't move, dammit, should have waited, Pop would have waited, how the hell was he going to face him, it was going to be --

Arms, under his, strong, pulling him out, ouch, ouch, ouch, better to hurt than burn, but damn, watch the ribs.  Sorry, comes the voice, woman, nobody he knows, nobody from the force, good ear for that sort of thing, Jasmine was always ragging on him, he could always recognize voice artists in cartoons and commercials, like the gal who voiced Judy Jetson appearing on that I Love Lucy and --

-- Oh, no.  Not the stairs ....

He must have blacked out.  He was down, outside the building, in the alley.  There was still smoke, but the air was cool, and he was leaning as comfortably as several broken ribs would allow against the alleyway wall.  And she was standing there.

The cop in him took in the vitals.  White, female, maybe 18, 20, blonde, blue-eyes, grease-stained jeans, unlined denim jacket, also grease-stained, or maybe singed, white t-shirt underneath with something -- looked like a London Underground logo -- red cap with a spark plug manufacturer name on it, neckerchief around her mouth, pulling it down, of course, the smoke, she'd need to.

"I've called your pals.  Malone will be here in minutes."  He could hear the sirens, fire and police both.  Hope there were some EMTs -- or maybe not.  Malone could get him to a hospital, cleaned up, cover story, damn, have to figure out how to report the bullet, hospitals have to report shootings, maybe he could get the paperwork lost --

"Hey.  Up here.  Listen up."  The girl was waving her hands in his face.  Girl.  Not that much younger than he was.  "I only have a second -- gotta run.  You're Copper, I know that much.  But you're not the first one."

Pop.  Gramps, barely remembered.  And one before that, in the 30s.  "What makes you --"  He was cut off by a fit of coughing.  

She made a gesture toward his face, as if to remove the hood, then shrugged.  "Whatever.  Listen.  I can keep something like this from happening again.  Do you understand?"  She paused.  "Shake your head or something."

He shook his head.  He had no idea what she was talking about.  His leg was hurting like hell, but -- hey, somebody had tied some cloth around it, wonder who --?

"Hell.  Listen.  Take this.  Keep it.  Get back in touch when you're on your feet."  She pressed something in his hand.  She glanced up.  The sirens -- a patrol care was pulling to a stop in front of the building.  "Gotta run, babies in the oven, keep 'em flyin', ace."  

And then she was gone, and then Malone was there, cussing a blue streak, getting him up and into the car, and --

-- and when he woke up in the hospital, he still had the business card pressed into his hand.

*     *     *

Adrian pulled in behind the warehouse.  It was a pretty bad area.  Some of the buildings were still occupied by businesses.  Some were even legal.  Most of the structures were deserted, or occupied only by rats and transients.  Just as well nobody's think to steal this car.  

He looked up, saw the faded "PY Enterprises" sign on the top of the warehouse.  He had no idea whether that company still existed, whether it still owned this place, or even what the hell it had done here.  He'd started to ask Bowie once, and she'd put a finger to her lips.  "Remember," she'd said, "when you wake up, the dream is over.  Don't pinch yourself unless you want to take up."

He'd dropped the subject.  He was a cop, but he also knew the value of pragmatism.  He kept his radar running, and if he detected something, he'd act.  Until then ...

There was a doorbell, but he took the cardkey out of his wallet and swiped it down what looked like a crack in the doorframe.  The door popped open with a slight poof of overpressure.  He stepped in and looked around, like he had that first day, newly discharged from the hospital and with a permanent limp from where the bullet had shattered his femur.  Career -- in both senses of the word -- over.  Those were bad days, in Pee-Tee.  Everyone from the station -- well, everyone who would -- came by, plenty of enthusiasm and camaraderie, but everyone knew his days on the street were over.  Malone, especially, had been down at the mouth, no matter how many jokes he cracked or how much he talked about Adrian's pop.  Maybe especially because of that.

He walked across the near-vacant expanse of the warehouse interior.  A few blocks and chains dangled here and there.  A couple of pieces of some sort of equipment, rust-streaked, bolted to the floor and locked there for eternity.  Plenty of dead pigeons and the waste they'd left while alive.

Unlike then, he didn't now stand there and, feeling like an idiot, call out, "Hello?"  Instead he made his way over to the office, picked across the broken glass on the ground, and stepped through the door behind the desk.  He knew, from personal experience, that he was on camera.  He also knew what sort of defenses could be thrown at him if whoever was monitoring stuff below deemed him a threat.

Down into darkness on stairs which, mid-way along, stopped being creaky and treacherous-feeling, and became solid.  

At the bottom, he pulled on a chain he knew was hanging there, lighting a single bulb dangling from the ceiling.  He was facing one last door.  He casually took hold of a metal rail there, knowing it was scanning his thumb, reading his galvanic response, and probably a bunch of other things.  Evidently it was satisfied, because the door popped open again with a slight whoosh of air.  And he was in.

The space here was at least as spacious as the area above, lacking only natural daylight and pigeon droppings.  It was also alive with machines of various sorts -- mostly for metalworking, but various fabrication facilities, too.  At one end was a small clean room where Bowie could even fab her own chips.  

It was the center of the room that drew his attention -- appropriately, since that's where the downlights were all focused.  Bowie was there, welding gear on, working on the suit.

"Hey, Bowie," he said, moving quickly in that direction.  "What's the word?"

The welding torch winked out, and she stood, flipping up the welding mask.  "The word is," she told him, her clothing as grease-smudged as it had been that night, five years ago, "don't go toe to toe with hyper-intelligent apes with experimental laser packs and time on their hands to further modify them."

"Words to live by," he told her.  "I sure hope it's ready to go out.  I've got that damned press hoohah with the mayor this morning."

She sighed, pulling off the mask.  Her long, blond hair was tied up securely behind.  "I know.  You told me last night.  All systems are back up and running.  Rear targeting is still a little wonky, but it should be close enough.  You'll only be in trouble when the mayor tries to stab you in the back."

"Har.  The mayor loves me, and the rest of the Mag Six.  That's why he keeps pulling us up on stage with him."

She snorted, even as she helped him climb up into place.  It was easier than usual.  He knew she'd made some minor mods over the years to make up for the stiff pain in his leg, but she'd never mentioned it -- and, of course, neither would he.  "He's a politician.  The minute you cost him votes, you're out on your ass.  I know the type, believe me."

His arms slid in, and he could feel the feedback pads moving into place.  "I do."

"Hold on."  She left him there, while she went around behind the suit.  She fiddled with something.  "From there, you head straight on to New York?"

"Sheila and I are taking the shuttle.  Hey, I'm not going to be back here for a week.  Why don't you get out for a few days, enjoy the time off."

She made a noise.  Simultaneously, something began to hum along his spine.  She returned to the front, continued with the suit-up.  He could get in and get things running on his own, but it was definitely easier with two.

"Don't you ever get out of here?" he asked her, wishing he knew the answer.  "Didn't see a car up there."  Or a truck for replacement parts, or anything.  He knew she didn't like prying, but it was a bit of a game for them.  At least, he treated it as a game.

"Nope."  That was all she would say.  He shook his head, even as she lowered the helm down onto it.

Another minute, and he could feel the suit coming fully to life around him.  There was a large mirror there -- he'd insisted on it, over her derisive objections.  He always got a kick out of seeing himself -- and he thought it was helpful to remember how folks now saw him.

Nestled in the suit, he stood a bit over seven feet tall.  Bulky in appearance, though the elaborate logarithmic feedback system let him move with grace.  (Well, he could move with grace now.  It had taken almost a month of training as painful as PT to get the hang of it.).  In some ways, he looked like the Tin Woodsman crossed with a Bears linebacker.  His head, like the rest of him was completely enclosed in the ruddy metal shell, but the helm had an impassive face upon it, more a suggestion of a face, really.  That had been her suggestion.  "Makes you more human, which makes you more of a threat," she said.  Bowie did not have a particularly pleasant view of human nature.

But she was the designer, he knew that much.  This battlesuit -- internally powered, laden with weapons and sensors, making him, the wearer, one of the more powerful creatures on Earth -- was her creation.  It had been there, or an earlier version of it, waiting, brightly burnished in its copper metallic tones, gleaming in the lights, when she'd escorted him down to this basement.  Waiting ... for him.

*     *     *

"You're fast," she'd said.  "Your reflexes are above norm, and you've learned some good fighting techniques, and you're smart and brave and all that crap."  He'd objected to her use of "crap" to describe his abilities, but he let her continue.  "But that's not enough, not any more.  They're getting stronger out there.  Stuff that worked for your dad, for his dad, it's just enough to win out over the average thug.  Against the things that are coming ..."  She'd let that trail off, and he'd understood.  There were metahumans out there now.  Powerful.  Evil, some of them.  He was fast on his feet, strong, tough -- but they were out of his league.

"This is your equalizer," she'd told him.  "This is how you catch up, and do even better.  It's all yours.  It's the new Copper."

It had taken getting used to.  Copper had been an institution of sorts in Chicago for generations, literally.  Wearing a uniform modeled after the force's own, long gloves and boots, hood and uniform cap.  Always a real cop under that hood.  

But she had been right.  It was a new time.  And if Copper was going to survive, if he was going to be Copper, this would have to be his future.

He looked at her, took a breath, then let it out, slowly.  "Show me how it works."

*     *     *

There was only one element missing on what Bowie had put together.  She'd been reluctant, but he'd insisted.  On the left breast there was now a representation of the badge of the Chicago Police Department.  He was a cop -- he wouldn't let anyone forget it.

Now, suited up, the copper-colored battle armor was his to command once more.  He was comfortable enough in it that it was like driving a car -- he didn't really think of how he did things with it any more, he just did them.

He raised his arms, struck a body-builder pose.

Bowie made a rude noise.  "You'll be late for your publicity shots," she said, sourly.

"I've got a couple of minutes."

"Then listen up.  You're going to be off in New York for a week.  Unless you plan on hopping back here for maintenance, you'll have to take care of some basics yourself.  You've done it before.  Do you remember how?"

"Your faith is touching," he told her.  "I just hope I don't squirt oil into the air intakes."

She made another rude noise.  "If you need me, call.  I can get to you if you can't get back here to me."

He raised his eyebrows, though she couldn't see him.  "What?  Send Rapunzel out of her tower?"

"I am not kidding, Adrian.  If you need me, call.  I don't want to lose this suit."

He chuckled.  "Thank goodness.  I was beginning to worry you were concerned about me."

"You've got a wife and child to do that for you."  The subtle reminder that their relationship was very different, just in case he was ever tempted.  He smiled, though, again, she couldn't see it.  "Now get out of here," she said, even as she gave the gleaming exterior of the armor a wipe with a cloth.

He struck another pose, clicking Size 20 boots together at the heels.  He had that slight sense of giddiness he always did while armored up, a feeling of strength and power that was tough to give up.  Even his limp was gone, compensated for in a dozen different ways.  "As my commander wishes.  Up and away!"  He kicked in the anti-gravs, and floated upwards toward the ceiling, slowly but picking up speed.  "Catch you in a week," he added, waving as he entered the tunnel to the outside world.

Bowie watched the tunnel entrance for several long moments before she sighed.  "I sure hope so, kid.  Bad times are a-coming.  And you're going to be right in the middle of them."

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Copyright © 2001 David C. Hill