Dead Peers

“Are you really sure about this?”

“It's a bit late to get cold feet now, Bobby. We're two blocks away from the bank.”

“Yeah… but what if she is still around? What if you're wrong?”

“Look… we been over this a million times. Nobody has seen her for seventy years. Sure she was a big deal back then… I don't blame hard working criminals for giving it away. She did so good that the greedy bastards are still cashing in on her name! Remember the security briefing we did?”

“No… we never discussed security.”

“Because their ain't any. Just cameras to keep an eye on staff and customers, and not even a guard or a time lock. No bulletproof barriers to drop down, and nothing between us and all that cash but good manners and fear of some long-gone super-dame.”

Bobby nodded, now seeing the bank up ahead and pulling on his balaclava in unison with the two men seated either side of him. He didn't mind the work, and was one of the most reliable guys in the crew… otherwise everyone would be giving him a hard time right now and yelling him to shut the fuck up. But they were all feeling the same fear. They were about to be the first people to commit a serious crime in this city for almost a century. But his boss on this caper was the smartest man he knew, and Bobby had trusted Ed with his life many times. And so he would follow him one more time, swallowing his doubts and convincing himself that superpowered redheads were a thing of the past.

Their black SUV, it's worked engine idling with a certain note that hinted at the extra power, pulled up to curb in front of the old bank building and the three men in the back got out, including Bobby, joined by Ed who walked quickly into the bank leaving the front passenger door open behind him. The driver eyed the mid-afternoon crowd, confident nobody was paying any attention to them at all.

Inside the bank nobody reacted at first, but then the four masked men went to work waving their shotguns around and demanding people hit the floor. Nobody did, seeming to be unsure of the reality of situation. Bobby was slow to convince them, but his companions moved faster. Seeing the suddenly very real criminals smashing a middle aged woman down with the butts of shotguns got everyone moving to the floor as instructed.

Ed already had the manager out of his office and was forcing him to march to the vault out back, and Bobby darted along behind as was planned with a bag full of bags.

“Are you guys crazy?” The manager asked, fumbling his keys. “She is going to…”

“Yeah, yeah…” Ed cut him off. “The superstrong invincible superbitch is gonna show up and kill us all. I only need your key, dickhead. Don't push your fucking luck with me.”

Bobby emphasised his boss's threat by moving in and shoving the manager toward the locked gate barring the hallway leading to the vault. The manager shot him a nervous glance, then opened the gate. When he turned back, he nodded to one of the accounts managers, and Bobby saw the blond swallow her fear, and push a button beneath her desk.

One of Bobby's more violent partners swung his gun around, having seen the move from a different angle. He snarled and fired his shotgun… but the woman he aimed at was suddenly shielded by the most beautiful and easily most terrifying thing anyone in the crew had ever seen. Even without the hot shotgun pellets splashing off her shiny immaculate perfection, there was no mistaking the woman now posed suggestively on the accounts desk for anyone else.

“Hi there. You must be the dumbest bank robbers in fucking world.”

Before he could fire a second shot, the beautiful young woman in the retro halter top and miniskirt appeared right in front of him and snatched his weapon away with her left hand before her cape had stopped swishing. She smirked at him, squashing the shotgun barrel and crushing into two shortened halves that clattered on the stone floor. The unarmed man turned to flee, but with a happy little laugh his superpowered assailant caught hold of his arm and with awe inspiring force sent him hurtling the other way so fast and hard he stayed stuck to the wall a moment before gravity pulled him to the floor.

Ed was wild eyed, grabbing Bobby and dragging him toward the vault while the last of their crew in the room with her blasted away at the happy heroine with his shotgun.

“I know you idiots saw the ads. All over the city? On the TV? The ones I pay for making sure everybody knows the rules.” She spoke scornfully as the shotgun barked it's last round, unphazed by the ineffectually well aimed blasts. “Did you think I was fucking around? Have you forgotten what happened to all those nasty gangs?!”

The only answer she got was a loud shotgun blast, the deadly lead peppering her to be scattered by her blatant invulnerability. She smirked with unsettling amusement, her smile becoming a pout as she stood brushed off her clean unblemished chest. The short burst of air she blew at the confused gunman sounded something like the main gun of a tank if it had a silencer attached, but there was nothing muffled about the impact. Her deadly ball of breath slammed into her target and carried him through the air, its hard impact shattering many bones long before he smashed into an oversized pot plant.

Ed and Bobby saw her float across the room toward their fallen ally, but were unsure how she finished him off because they were busy slamming the vault door, but they felt the floor shake and heard the screams.

Bobby was only vaguely aware of Ed's fevered apology before both men had their attention locked on the shiny stainless steel door as the metal screamed and squealed, buckling in confusing ways that made sense only after the 5 inch vault door was peeled back and lifted free. Those strange deformed creases centred on the lone hand that scrunched into the door's surface and torn it free before she dropped it and walking forward into Ed's single shotgun blast. He lowered the gun and began pleading for his life. She got close, reached down and gently took the hot end of the barrel and raised it back up to aim it at her chest.

“Hey guy. Your dumbass driver is still waiting.”

Bobby gulped when he realised she was looking at and speaking to him. He froze even more.

“Go on… I'll give you a full ten count.”

Her free hand was on Ed's now, and she made him pull the trigger. It worked like a starter pistol on Bobby and he was gone, catching some of Ed's blood as he did so. He was happy not to see what happened to Ed next, but he he heard more blasts of the shotgun before he was outside bolting to the car.

“Bobby… what the fuck, man? Where's everyone?”

“Its her! She's here.”

His obvious fear and Ed's blood spots on his mask and shoulder made words hit home and the suddenly the engine was roaring and tyres were squealing. They got a block down the road and took a right, Bobby suggesting they slow down.

“She'll come after us. Let's ditch the car soon as we can.”

“Smart. And I thought you guys were stupid.”

Bobby shot her beautiful youthful face twice before he got control of his reaction. She was there so suddenly at the driver's open window he had drawn and fired without even thinking. Both bullets ended up lodged in the driver, and if Bobby had really been paying attention he might have noticed how she moved her face for each impact to guide the wasted bullets into his friend.

“Oh no! You shot your friend!”

And then she was gone, the driver bleeding out fast and cursing while Bobby instinctively tried to control the swerving car.

She came down and landed right in front of them. The car hit, buckling up on her knees and thighs and crumbling to halt with the engine giving on final death rattle.

Bobby had time in that moment to study her.

It was unmistakeably the superwoman of legend. Impossibly, she looked exactly the same as he had seen in all the old grainy footage and spectacular photographs of a long gone time. Time that gone without touching her remarkable beauty at all. The crash returned him to the reality that this immortal superwoman was actually trying to kill him.

Her hand reached down and invaded the metalwork with chilling ease, and the car tilted up and rose with smooth speed making her incredible strength all too apparent. Bobby felt the floor creak and shift, and the whole car was now rising, and rising, and rising some more. Rooftops passed by, and both occupants pressed hard into their seats for several moments. The pressure was terrifying, but it did ease and then finally pass.

Before he could recover from the g-forces, Bobby's seat shifted under him, and he heard something like metal tearing as he dropped down under the car with a scream of shameless fear. She held the underside of his seat, bearing his weight at an awkward angle, she held him there just as easily as she held the car atop her raised hand. But the most remarkable thing was how she did this while flying… Flying over Bobby’s home turf.

“Your driver friend… he looks shot up bad. I don't think he's gonna make it.”

She tilted the car, relinquishing her steel crushing grip and allowing it slide off and fall into the gritty cityscape below. Bobby watched it fall some of the vast distance, but was distracted when her now freed hand took hold of his throat and she let the seat fall away from under him.

“Don't worry. I dropped him off at home. He should be getting there right about… there he goes. Now then… want to tell me why you assholes tried robbing a bank in the ONLY fucking city I swore to protect? And how I swore to keep killing criminals even for, like, minor stuff?”

It wasn't easy… but Bobby did his best to talk.

“Ed said… just tradition! Super… stition. Thought you dead… retired… 70 years…”

“Are you fucking serious? Look at me! Do I look re-fucking-tired? Sure it's been a minute… I haven't been doing hero work for a long time, but that's why I went so hard with capital punishment… so I would not have to. I gotta be honest though. I did kinda enjoy that just now. Making your boss shoot me at such a dangerous close range was seriously hot for me. I enjoyed that a lot. But now you be honest. How did I do? Should I have toyed more with the car maybe? Or spent more time on those first two? It's been a long time and I just don't know if I… you know… ”

“Oh no… you were… you were great. You uh, you still got it.”

“You really think so? Cool. You know… I do have to kill you now. But you are kind of cute, and I don't have any plans for the next few hours. Do you know what snu-snu is?”