Deplorability 2.6

"Think of it as a game," Frank said, "An elaborate game of cop and robbers."

A steady downpour of rain thrummed against the outside of the van Frank was driving. The rain drowned out all other noise of the traffic around us and muted our view of the surroundings, making the interior of the car an island amid downtown. Traffic was at a deadlock, so bad that Frank had put the van into park and turned off the engine. To break the silence, I had asked Frank why some villains didn't get their secret identities revealed when they got caught, and I'd apparently stumbled into one of his favorite topics. I supposed it was good that he was in a mood to talk because I wasn't.

"I think," I ventured, "That it's a little closer to real cops and robbers than a schoolyard game."

"No, no. Listen to me. Grown-ups running around in colorful ass costumes Like a bunch of fags in a gay parade? Making up code-"

"Woah, Woah," I said. "Frank…no."

"What? Something I said?"

I nodded.

"Ok, I'll try to be more politically correct."

"Thank you."

"Grown-ups running around in colorful ass costumes like a bunch of fags in a gay vehicular event?

"Frank!"

"What? I made it better."

You know you didn't."

"Just move past it."

"I don't think I can."

"Fine, like a bunch of extraverted homosexuals. Happy?"

I nodded and gestured for him to continue.

"Making code names for themselves? It's retarded."

I slapped my knee in exasperation.

Frank rolled his eyes and ignored me.

"We know it's retarded, so there are capes like you and me, where we go out in spandex and armor and it's fun. Maybe we have some goals, but at the end of the day, we're getting our thrills, hitting our stride, and living a second life. Of course, there are the crazies. The people who are screwed up in the head, the people who take it all too seriously, or those guys you wouldn't want to get on the wrong side of, even if they didn't have powers. Lung, Oni Lee, Heartbreaker," she paused. "Charlie."

"I'm right here," Charlie growled from the back of the seat.

"Can it Charlie, this isn't about you."

"Then don't talk about me behind my back!"

"It wasn't to your back, it was to your front!"

"Frank…"

"Anyway…after the crazies, you have the monsters. The REALLY dangerous ones, the ones we team up with, the heroes to fight, they're so bad. The Slaughterhouse Nine, Nilbog-"

"The Endbringers," I interjected.

"Right. But guess what? Ninety percent of what goes on when you're in costume? It's the first group. Adults in costumes playing full contact cops and robbers with fun-as-shit superpowers and toys. It applies to the people without powers too. That way, having a local team of superheroes is like having a sports team. Like the Indians with basketball, and the negroes with football."

I turned. "Something tells me you don't watch a lot of sports."

"Do you?"

"No."

"Then shut up."

I folded my arms.

"Everyone's rooting for them. They make for great media that isn't about wars with sand ni-Islamics."

I whipped my head around. "What were you going to"

"or the water crisis or whatever, there's merchandising and tourists… all good shit that the local government loves. But what good is having a team if there's no competition?"

"Which is where we come in." I figured out where he was going.

"Exactly. At the end of the day? We're not doing much harm. Some property damage, some theft. A few civilians can get hurt if they don't move out of the way fast enough. But insurance payouts cover that stuff, and people aren't that much worse off. The property damage is covered and the injured bystander has a great story to tell at the water cooler. The city gets revenue indirectly, from merchandise, tourism and the rising property that comes with being an exciting city."

"Compared to the psychos and the monsters out there, that we help them with. it's almost in the city's interests to keep us in circulation. Far as I see it, we're not that much better or worse than the pussy-footed, clay-footed, good guys. We face more risk at the end of the day, with the possibility of jail time and physical danger, but we get a better payoff. We just took the path that was a higher risk, higher reward."

"I'm not sure," I said, carefully, "That I buy all that."

"No? Then why don't they send people like Über straight to the Birdcage after his trial, like they are with Lung? The amusing but relatively harmless villains get a regular jail cell, they inevitably break out before the trial concludes, and the cat-and-mouse game starts again. Sure, you could say there's the three strike rule, and he'll get sent to the Birdcage eventually, but the people in charge have to maintain some plausible deniability."

I didn't think there was a way I could argue against Frank's theory without giving too much of my own perspective away. I just kept my mouth shut and turned my new knife over in my hands.

My extendable combat baton was tucked away in the panel of my armor where I kept my pepper spray.

"You don't seem convinced," Frank said.

Shit.

"Come on, you don't have to hide. I know you don't consider yourself a villain. And are just doing this for fun and thrills. You can tell me how I'm wrong."

What? That wasn't…how did he…

Whatever. As long as he's unaware…

"I just think…Heroes see us as people who need to be stopped, not as people who they just compete with."

"How would you know? Hey, it's not like you're an official hero."

Well, that did nothing to ease my anxiety. He had to be selling me something. There's no way that heroes were just ok with villains running around causing chaos. I mean, Mac and Dee used a baby for money! Fucking money! Imagine what they do as supervillains! There's no way heroes would be ok with whatever they do. Anything they do.

Frank continued. "But the real evidence of my 'cops and robbers' theory," Frank continued, "Is the reaction you see when someone crosses the line. You've heard about it happening. Someone finds out another cape's secret identity and goes after the cape's family. Or a cape wins a fight and decides to have some fun with his opponents and diddle him?"

"Diddle?" I pondered the word used in the sentences. "Oh...right"

Charlie scoffed. "You don't even know what diddle means?"

"A kid isn't going to know Charlie." Frank defended me. "Cut her some slack."

"Fine."

"Anyway, the word gets around, and the cape community goes after the motehrfucker. Protecting the status quo, keeping the game afloat. Bitter enemies like Kaiser and Coil call a truce. Everyone bands together, favors get called in and everyone does their damndest to put the guy down."

"As we do with the Endbringers," I said. I sheathed my knife.

Frank whipped his head around to look at me. "Taylor, that's twice you bring up the Endbringers in as many minutes. Why? What's going on?"

It was hard to talk to Frank. I felt like I might as well have been balancing on a tightrope while holding a bowling ball above my head. Would that give him the puzzle piece he needed to figure me out if I said something? I had been lucky so far, but relying on luck sucked. I was counting on this ruse continuing. All I wanted was for them to go away to prison for the rest of their terrible lives.

But right now, I felt painfully out of place in the group dynamic. We were robbing a bank, and I was the only one who was guilty about it, apparently the only one who was worried about the safety of the bystanders and hostages.

Then there was the fact that Armsmaster had said that two members of the Undersiders were murderers, and doubt was tainting every interaction I had with these guys. When I was smiling about a joke Dennis made, was I enjoying the joke of a killer? These guys weren't exactly model citizens it wouldn't be hard to believe.

Still, staying quiet now would only make him more suspicious, and if he turned the full extent of her power on me, I doubted my undercover ruse would withstand his attention. I confessed with a half-truth, "I got into an argument with someone last night. I think it was a mutual disappointment, got pretty heated, and hurtful. I guess I'm a bit angry, and my confidence is a little shaken."

"It shouldn't be. Fuck them," Frank stated. I raised an eyebrow in response.

He went on, "See, here's the thing Taylor, I know you. And believe it or not, I like you. Quite the accomplishment, considering, I don't like many people. All because you took on Lung. We fear the unknown. And I know stuff, that's my whole thing, but that Jap is one of the very few people who can spook me. You, Taylor, stood up to him."

In a manner of speaking, anyway. The way I remembered it, I'd been curled up in a fetal position when the Undersiders came to my rescue. I didn't correct him.

"What does Jap mean?"

Frank's eyes darted to the left. "So this guy or this girl that's got you down in the dumps? I say fuck them. They don't know you. They don't know what you're capable of."

I would have stopped myself if I could have, but the irony of his statement was too rich. I grinned, looking out the window to hide the expression from Frank.

"I saw that. Don't think I didn't. So I've shaken the doldrums from you. Good. Now look to our left."

"Who uses words like doldrums anymore?" I voiced my thoughts as I obeyed his instruction.

He only chuckled in response.

As I realized what I was looking at, through the rain and past the traffic, I swallowed hard. It was a stone fixture six stories tall, with crenelations on the roof and balconies, stone gargoyles at the corners, and iron grilles on the windows. The entryway had wide stone stairs like a courthouse, with statues of rearing horses with wild manes on either side. The name of the institution was etched into the stone above the doors. The Brockton Bay Central Bank. A virtual castle.

"In twenty minutes or so, we're going to be leaving there, tens of thousands of dollars richer, the adrenaline rush of victory pumping through our veins," Frank's voice was barely above a whisper, "Can you visualize that?"

Not really.

"Yes," I tried.

"Liar," he said. Then he winked at me, "It's okay. An hour from now, you'll be rolling in money and laughing about how pessimistic you were. Promise."

Frank pulled the van around to circle the block, then pulled into an employee parking lot behind a restaurant. As she pulled into the parking lot, bringing us right to the back corner of the bank, I pulled on my mask. Frank did the same, then took a few seconds to smear his eyelids with black face paint so they blended in with her mask. I wasn't so lucky as to have any final touches to apply, so I watched the rearview mirror nervously. It felt like an eternity but was probably closer to a minute before Mac pulled a second van into the alley that led into the lot. He parked his van halfway down the alley, blocking anyone else from coming through.

As I opened the car door and hopped out into the pouring rain, I managed to say the words without choking on them, "Let's go rob a bank."

Frank Grinned.