Not Quite A Vigilante - Part 1

Pete's Journal - 10th April

When I finally opened my hand, my palm was red raw from holding so tight to the pendant hanging from my neck. Why’d he have to go out tonight? He was being reckless. You see, my relationship with Matt is at best, undefined. I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time helping him out with no thanks ever being uttered. The rest of the time I sit at this window just watching. Was this the night he wouldn’t return? I took one more deep breath of the cool, damp air and closed the balcony door. I let the pendant fall from the leather thong, slightly aggravating my neck as it’s rough texture dug into the soft flesh. I shut out the world, closing my eyes and muttering a silent prayer. Just keep him safe. Of course, when I welcomed back the world there was Matt. He always stood there, bold as brass with that silly smirk on his face. Why did patrol always do that to him? Smug was an emotion that never looked good on this man. Arrogance though? Well arrogance looked good on him. I never imagined that an arrogant superhero could look good. He did though.

                Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not a groupie, or fan, or an excitable kid. Maybe I once was, but not now. Right now I am tech support. At that moment, I was about to get the latest malfunctioning gadget thrown at me with a list of its problems. Malfunctions happened every time he took a long patrol. This patrol was no exceptions: eight hours out and two big break downs.

‘The cameras are all busted up’. Throwing me both his back up and his main pairs of shades I took a look. The casing of the mini-cam and the hinge of lenses attached to both pairs of shades looked as if they’d been struck with a hammer.

‘Let me guess, you ran into a wall again?’

‘No, some smart-arse hit me with a shovel.’

‘Well that’s one pair of shades, what about the second?’

‘Plain old fashioned knuckle duster.’ He was so blasé about it I could hit him, not that he’d feel it. Why was he always like that? Matt stepped off and led me to the kitchen, the brighter lights here always showed traces of his adventures each night. No normal person would notice of course, but somehow Matt didn’t bruise, and his skin rarely broke. I swear it would take a train hitting him to get him bleeding. Not that either of us have tried it out. Matt’s pale skin was slightly blotched just on the left temple. A tiny patch of red stood out under his flowing brown hair. If it hadn’t been for the glasses I’d never have believed that Matt’d been in so many brawls tonight.

                Matt crossed to the fridge, raiding for his usual post-patrol binge of beer, leftover pizza, chocolate and yoghurt. Tossing each item into one blow, Matt spun to the cupboard, grabbed some microwave popcorn and nuked the bag. Finishing the single movement he flowed into the lounge and flopped on the couch. When Matt first came to live here I kicked his arse for a week trying to get him to eat something decent. I've got used to him though. After all, you can’t be too hard on someone when they’ve lost their wife. Maybe that was my artful ability to avoid confrontation though. The poor guy lost his world though; I couldn’t dish out the tough love. So it just became a habit, Matt would go out on patrol, come home, binge and sleep. I just had to hope that sometime soon Matt's stone skin would crack and let him feel something again. Don’t get me wrong, superheroes should be stoic, but I’ve had this unshakeable feeling for too long. Matt doesn’t talk, because Matt doesn’t feel. I put the brakes on the psycho-babble rambling of my caffeine addicted brain and turned my attention to the problem at hand.

                The mini-cams were all but unsalvageable. Matt wouldn’t be able to go out with these, so it was time to rig the back-ups. After all: no cams, no evidence. No evidence, no justice. See, Matt manages to stay on the right side of the law. It was actually my idea. Yeah, technically, he may be a vigilante, but the cameras that I rig to his shades record everything. He never initiates the violence…well he did once, but that was understandable. No hero can be expected to keep his cool in the war against vacuum sealed plastic wrap. Technically, every time Matt uses violence it’s the text-book definition of self-defence. You see, when you can’t feel pain, and for all intents and purposes can’t be injured, well ‘reasonable force’ isn’t too difficult to keep to. The cameras just provide the evidence that the mark was actually criminal. I strolled to my work bench; passing the nearly comatose Matt sprawled over the edge of the couch. How did he fall asleep so fast? I tossed the mini-cams into the waste bin; I’d have to empty that later, and reached for my toolkit and two new cams. It didn’t look like the mounts were damaged too badly. Funny that, the cam lenses and housing were completely shattered, yet the mounts stayed pretty intact. That should have been my first clue.