It’s called “The Tour,” and only a handful know how grueling, how exhausting, and how heartbreaking it can be. The Tour is the two-year average of most heroes who hit the streets before injury or PTSD or burnout bring their careers to a sudden halt. The ones who get back on the horse are the tried and true superheroes who see such stumbles as part of the trade. This isn’t a shortcut to fame, for them, but a calling to help the world. Many more are looking for their 15 minutes of fame to launch endorsement and book deals or acting careers, and they’re usually the ones who retire within their first two years, if an injury or death doesn’t force them out of the game.
It’s Friday night and the tourist trade on Canal Street is brisk. It’s hard to see what’s happening along this section of Chinatown as the crowds ply the stalls and simple storefronts that sell a variety of knockoff merchandise, but D’Mystify has a sharp eye. She’s a Charlie-class hero with limited prescience. She can follow a person’s actions along a limited timeline.
D’MYSTIFY: I can’t see the future like some folks can, but I get flashes and images. Bitch of a thing, though, I’m my own worst enemy. I get involved, I change the outcome. I jump in too early, my visions aren’t admissible in court.
HERO BEAT: Right. The Stranger Witness Rule. A separate, state-sectioned body has to confirm your vision.
Tonight, however, D’Mystify’s watching people of interest, plotting their trajectory as they move through the crowd and trying to figure out where they’ll end up in the next hour.
D’MYSTIFY: Whatever you want—shoes, purses, jackets, lids, you name the brand… down there, they’ll misspell it and sell it.
HERO BEAT: You’re going after counterfeiters?
D’MYSTIFY: I’m going after the warehouses that supply the stores. They got them hidden all over the place here and they see the cops coming a mile away.
Two years ago, D’Mystify crawled into New York-Presbyterian, bleeding from several gunshot wounds that left her near death. It wasn’t the first time she’d been injured during the Tour either. She’d been stabbed, blasted, and beaten before, but this was the first time that she nearly died since her trigger event.
HERO BEAT: So you carry a gun now?
D’MYSTIFY: And body armor. Wouldn’t you? I used to worry about how the armor would look under my costume. I couldn’t afford that expensive carbon-nanotube shit. I thought looking bulky would spoil my chances for my “big break.” I was so damn naïve.
HERO BEAT: How did it change you?
D’MYSTIFY: [Laughs, but without humor] Getting shot? Almost dying? What do you think? I felt like an idiot. When I first got my powers, I thought I was made, I mean set up for the life. I was going to move to New York, Hero Central, I was going put in my two years on the street, and turn that into a book deal. Such nonsense.
HERO BEAT: It took you seven months to recover.
D’MYSTIFY: You know, that wasn’t even the worst part. No, the worse part was being treated like a joke. I made all the talk-shows that week. Nobody talked about the good I’d done for the community or the people I saved. No. They laughed at me because if I could see the future, how come I didn’t predict getting shot? That’s what made them laugh.
HERO BEAT: Then why still hit the streets?
D’MYSTIFY: Pride, I guess. No, you know, that’s not even true. I guess I felt ashamed. I get these amazing powers to help people and all I do is look for the payday. So, as soon as I could move on my own, I came right back out into the streets, trying to do right by other folks first.
HERO BEAT: You’re now in your second tour?
D’MYSTIFY: I am. I’m still working off what I owe the hospital, though some heroes stepped up and ran one of those Fund Me campaigns to help me with the day to day? God bless ‘em, I’ll tell you. My apartment is a gift from a patron who’ll remain anonymous, but she knows who she is, and I get the odd job now and then, but, forget insurance. No company wants to give me coverage. And a social life? You’re looking at my night out right here. But it feels good. It feels right, you know?
HERO BEAT: Do you ever see yourself getting shot? I mean, do your powers show you that?
D’MYSTIFY: I always see myself getting shot. It’s always a possible future on any given night, and some days it makes me want to stay in bed all day and eat ice cream. Pralines, if you’re wondering.
HERO BEAT: How do you do it, then? How do you swallow that fear and come out here night after night?
D’MYSTIFY: By taking it one night at a time. That’s all any of us can do.
Suddenly, D’Mystify spots something that piques her interest. She smiles at me and shrugs, as if to say “interview’s over.” She’s gone a moment later, shadowing her lead along the rooftops.