Issue 19:

Unsung Villains

Standing at attention like indistinguishable soldiers fifteen Molotov cocktails lined his cracking countertop. His bag sat on the table open and hungry with its toothless flaps wide. On the news some villain named Brown Eye read a prerecorded manifesto detailing why he took the bus of quadriplegic orphans hostage. Sanjeet finished his tea examining a map of the city and his targets. Patsy Cline warbled over the elevated train rattling by his tiny house.

"I'm tired of fighting the pharmacists once a month just to get my ma pills, so she won't die. I got three kids I can't feed or keep shoes on their feet," Brown Eye ranted. "All I want is to work an honest job and pay my bills but Kenny Rodger's Roasters cut my hours. My till wasn't forty short, Brenda! I know you're skimming it. These deaths are on your hands, Kenny!"

The reporter cut in to announce SECURE had put a bullet through Brown Eye's head. Five hostages were dead, so Sanjeet clicked off the old tube TV. Hurting innocents did nothing for a cause, and who was really hurt? Not Kenny Rodgers, he thought. His employers and people like them understood one thing, the bottom line. Money couldn't talk only the people who had it could. They could also laugh and cry and fear and regret. Sanjeet finished packing his soldiers and gave the house a last sweep. His plan was flawless, no deaths and massive destruction. Surely I'll get someone's attention, he thought booting up the Apokolips program on his formidable rig. The computer setup was the only thing he spent money on, but it never made him happy. Nothing did.

Outside under a pile of cardboard and tarp he retrieved his dirt bike. Each weekend he roamed outside Gotham covering the roughest terrain he could find. The dislocated wrist from jumping an overpass almost a year ago still hadn't healed completely right, but he could confidently say he knew how to ride. Not that he needed to because tonight he would be riding down the well paved cul-de-sacs of Gotham's well to do suburbs. Tonight he would finally tear down that machine of prosperity that leeched the color out of his world.

Forty five minutes later he pulled up in front of the first mansion on his list. Scanning the documents proved a waste. He'd memorized everything weeks ago, but there was a stark difference between preparation and action. The mask seemed to scream when he pulled it from the pack. When he slipped it over his face it seemed to spark something inside. He felt lit. Lastly he called the fire department in the surrounding area. His computer had been autodialing and reporting false fire calls with prerecorded messages for the past ten minutes. He expected an angry operator to answer. Instead an automated message stated due to a high volume the fire department couldn't take calls at the moment. That served even better considering his computer would continue overloading their systems for another hour.

The Apokolips program also pinged false readings of fires across the city to every alarm company Sanjeet could name. Friends in IT, he thought and drew a fire bomb from his pack. His organization consisted of three close friends who would remain nameless in the attack. He could have had a hundred, a thousand even, but it was better to start off small.

The spark hit the rag and sprouted a bright orange flame creeping up the cloth. No longer Sanjeet now the Wrench, he paused watching the fire rise toward its end. He saw the men and women packing their desks: anger, tears, worthless hopes, broken homes, hungry children, lost innocence. And the bottle flew guided by the long gaunt arm of the wronged through the spotless living room window spilling reckoning and purification throughout their misappropriated pride and joy. In the seven seconds it took Sanjeet to sprint back and start his bike the inferno claimed its expensive victim. Off he sped bearing only the symbol on top of his plain black mask, the wrench.

If it was only for a brief amount of time he felt the machine cry out and grind to a halt. Despite the roaring of the bike he heard the silence in his own head, and it was glorious. It was everything he thought it could be. One day they might get a replacement but tomorrow each manager would learn someone called their respective insurance agents earlier in the week with all their personal information cancelling their home owners' policies. If the Wrench knew anything about insurance he knew the companies would fight tooth and nail to avoid paying with a legion of lawyers behind them. The gift that keeps on giving, he thought.

At the fourth McMansion he imagined them at their corporate party. Thousand dollar dresses and tailored suits rubbing elbows and desperately trying to make an impression. The beautifully tapered hall surrounded and sheltered them thankfully devoid of windows forcing them to look out on the world they helped make. What would they see he wondered as the bottle met the house's bones. The way it had to be? A justified reward for their hard works no doubt. Women and men with that kind of power tended to only look in front of them or down.

Six managers or various cushy titles and a VP made up his targets. He knew each and every one from the point they came up in the company. It took some digging into the past but even the nicest, most genuine proved they kept dark secrets. So far no one at any nearby houses had come out or seen him. When he reached the seventh home the senior VP's his gloved hands shook with excitement. This was his finale, a grand finish before he swept off into the night never to be seen again. He took the gas can bomb off the back of his bike and walked up to the overlook upon which the man's estate sat. Across the distant valley he could see six bright dots lighting up the night and he remembered his final interview so many years ago.

"San-jit, nice to meet you son. I'm Dan Lowery the senior vice president. So this final stage of the interview process is just a formality. I like to meet all my new employees face to face before we send them to training. I have only one question for you. Are you hungry, boy?" Dan asked after they shook hands.

"I'm both literally and figuratively hungry, sir," Sanjeet insisted and the well-tanned man laughed.

"Good, good. We come to this place every day to make our living, San-jit. You'll spend more time here than you will at home. This company becomes like family."

The Wrench remembered his words while he bricked a window on the south side of the house and tossed his gas bomb into the first floor dining room. It would take less than three minutes to blow. He ran around to the other side and began hitting every window he could with the remaining cocktails in his pack. On the second to last bottle house raging with fire the Wrench heard a scream. The final window at the corner of the house stood open and a teenage girl hung halfway out wiggling and wailing to no one. Who was she? He rushed toward her and grasped her arms attempting to dislodge her. When their eyes met the sickening enormity of the situation crashed through his mind.

"When I'm not here, this is my family," Dan stated holding out a framed picture that Sanjeet accepted. Lowery, his ten year younger trophy wife, and two young girls smiled back at the desperate Indian man from a beach in front of crystalline waters. It looked like a stock photo for a cruise line advertisement.

"That's us a few months ago in the Bahamas. My wife and I started a little late, and I'm something of a diving fanatic. Try to make it out three times a year." The babysitter, Sanjeet realized in horror. The girl in the window was the babysitter come to watch his girls during the party. All the planning, all the minutia accounted for and here it was the most important thing of all forgotten. The bomb exploded.

Sometime later Sanjeet woke up in a plain white hospital room writhing in pain. His left arm felt broken. A man of average build and average height stood next to his bed. He wore normal clothes and a normal look. His face showed neither positively or negatively instead completely neutral.

"I'm here from an organization called SECURE. I can't comment on what you did or my opinion on what happened, but may I read you a passage of something we found in your home?" the nondescript man asked. Sanjeet grunted painfully in approval to the man who sat on the only chair in the barren room. He read.

"Sometimes I'm not sure if what I'm doing is right. I don't know what justice is, but I know I feel pushed to do this. Like some choices aren't choices at all or we just fool ourselves into believing an alternative exists. We are compelled by something that will forever be beyond our knowledge. Maybe that's what separates us from the animals. Some unconscious instinct to…advance isn't the right word but it's close. Change is a scary thing." The man finished the excerpt and looked up. Sanjeet looked down at his right arm and saw the handcuff chaining him to the bed rail.

"Are they ok?" he asked.

With a face full of glass Sanjeet awoke sometime after the blast in the soft thick grass of Dan Lowery's vast yard. The bomb blew himself, the babysitter, and window a good ten feet from the house. Rolling over the girl coughed and groaned. From inside Sanjeet heard faint screaming from somewhere upstairs. Lights were already coming on around the neighborhood. He was halfway to the front door before he realized what he was doing.

"Diver, diver," Sanjeet mumbled to himself and turned back to the shed at the side of the house. He slammed into the padlocked doors again and again until his shoulder went numb, and he heard it splintering at the hinges. Two more lunges and one door cracked falling inward spilling him on the floor. It took him roughly twenty seconds to identify what he was looking for and return to the crackling mansion. Stopping on the front porch Sanjeet listened to the house scream like a teapot. When he threw the patio chair through the bay window the home gulped a desperate breath. It's a drowning man, he thought, ready to take me with it. Regardless he couldn't live with those girls' ashes on his hands. Inside the house was another story. The walls shimmered as the flames rushed up like surf on the sand. In its own way the inferno was beautiful, hypnotizing.

This is my home, my prison, and solitary cell, he thought. When Sanjeet noticed the two handheld scuba breathers in his hands he sprinted towards the grand staircase with flames hot on his heels. Even the polished oak bannister radiated heat. Unlike some previous homes Sanjeet knew this place was well built. The flames only now began to extend to the second floor but the thick poison smoke poured in and up from everywhere. His visibility plummeted and fear gripped the back of his neck when he heard a faint cry down the second floor hallway on his left. The first door he tried revealed a nearly pure white, empty bathroom. The second a pink bedroom contained two small girls curled up together on a twin bed. He saw the same fear he felt plastered on their angelic faces.

"Are you Batman?" The younger blond one asked.

"Yeah, let's go," he responded handing each a canister, "Do you know how to use these?"

"Yes, Daddy taught us," the older one explained. Good, he thought turning each on for them.

"Breath through these not the smoke and keep hold of my hand!" Sanjeet flung the door open, and the hot smoke hit them in the face like a physical slap across the face. Trying to stay low he led them back to the staircase and almost dropped their hands when he saw the first floor. It shone like a sun while the heat contracted his chest until his lungs felt the size of golf balls. With no other options he led them up to the third floor. Sanjeet screamed at the girl to be heard over the blaze asking if there was a balcony on this floor. He could barely see her pointing down the hall through the smoke.

By touch alone they moved across the house. Sanjeet coughed futilely while the girls wisely held the breathers over their mouths padding along next to him in their pajamas. Each step grew harder and his eyes ran with warm tears. Ropes of spittle dripped from his lips as he coughed relentlessly for oxygen that wasn't there. The older girl held her breath and extended the canister to him but he pushed her hand away forcing the mouth piece back over her face. Stumbling through the cloud of smoke he picked up the pace recognizing he couldn't last much longer.

At the end of the hall by chance he ran a hip into a door handle and slammed it open. Smoke raced out from behind them, but Sanjeet saw patches of dark sky above and felt a cool breeze on his cheeks. The balcony let out right over the driveway three stories up with no way to climb down it. And no fire trucks on the way, he thought. If he hadn't been gulping down oxygen he might have laughed at the absurdity of it all. To his shock he saw a gathering of people below, neighbors from nearly every house on the street. A group of them ran up the driveway when they saw Sanjeet and the girls emerge from the third floor.

"Help us!" the older one screamed abandoning her breather. In response he saw a large white sheet being stretched out below and inwardly cheered their ingenuity.

"We have to jump, okay?" They'll catch you in the sheet," he told the eldest who bit her lip and nodded with determination. He helped her climb over the railing.

"Jump out as far as you can," he coached and without hesitation she did just that. She hit the thick sheet that immediately pulled taut, and she slid gently towards the middle.

"Okay, it's your turn now," he said crouching down towards the little one.

"I can't, Batman! I'm too scared!" she protested tears streaming down her round face. He knew he was losing her and then an idea struck.

"I'll have to fly you out of here then. Will you fly with me?" he gambled.

"Really? We can fly?" her face lit up.

"Yeah but you have to hold on tight," he said picking her up. They climbed over the barrier, her holding on to him and him holding onto the railing. Facing the open doors he could see the fire rushing up the hallway finally enveloping that monstrosity of wood. Cracking and groaning sounded out over the balcony. He looked down at her one last time and she locked eyes with him, her fear now washed away so simply.

"We never get to stay up this late," she giggled and laid her head on his chest. Sanjeet pushed off and the balcony contracted as the sky grew endlessly until everything was dark and starless.

He remembered it all in the blink of an eye staring at the SECURE detective but somehow none of it seemed real. It felt like waking up from delusions of a fever dream. The detective assured him the girls were safe aside from some scraps and minor smoke inhalation.

"They'll send you to Arkham," the man began, "It's one of the few facilities SECURE left open. You made sure of that the second you put on the mask. Before your transfer there's someone here to see you." He stood up and left. A younger woman entered in a light orange sundress. Immediately Sanjeet recognized Dan Lowery's beautiful wife her face red and puffy from crying. He said nothing.

"Do you know who I am?" she asked and he nodded, "I don't know why I came or even how I really feel. My girls claim you're their hero and they won't hear otherwise. Part of me wants to scream at you but the other part…" The tears fell silently like distant lightening too far away to hear its accompanying thunder.

"Thank you for not leaving them. The new reports all say different things about you but many agree you're a man who made a mistake and more than made up for it. A judge may grant you some leniency but you'll end up in Arkham either way. I know this doesn't make sense but when I think about you it makes me think about myself. Like the choices I've made, the things I've done to get where I am, I- I do know one thing for sure. When they put you away and those monsters in there hear the word 'hero', they'll kill you. There's nothing they hate more than someone who tries to help others." She stood now seemingly undisturbed by the fact he never said a word.

"My girls will live their lives uninjured and safe. Maybe that will help you through what's ahead. Anyway…good luck, Sanjeet." She exited and left him with the silence. For the first but not nearly the last time Sanjeet wondered if the fire hadn't been the easier option.