Paragon?

Paragon? is a short story that questions what a world with superheroes in it would actually be like. What would really happen if people with that kind of power took the law into their own hands? You can also listen to the audio version of this story and hear a follow-up discussion on Stories Across Borders or check it out over on YouTube.

It hadn’t even been hard to see the dealer. Ambush had seen him conducting his illicit business in the middle of the day. Not his preferred time to patrol, his particular set of powers worked much better at night when they couldn’t be broken by strong light. But he’d had a day off and not been able to sit still. How could he relax when there were criminals out there? Criminals like the dealer.

He had spotted the man in the corner of a parking complex. The dealer himself was in his thirties. His customers couldn’t have been more than twenty. Ambush wasn’t the sort of idealist who believed that the dealer was “corrupting the young.” The two youths had either sought his product out, or they’d been willing to try it when offered. But the dealer was definitely harming them by providing them with drugs. With mind-altering poison. The pair of younger men had committed the crime of being stupid. The dealer did something a lot more insidious. 

The anger Ambush felt was cold. Not mindless rage. It was the kind of feeling that came from needing to hurt someone. To make the evil they were committing stop. The warmth would come later, the afterglow of a good deed done well.

Ambush ditched his civilian clothes for his costume in his car, watching the transaction come to a close over the top of the groceries in the back of his station wagon. He’d have to be quick, he didn’t want anything getting too warm. But he didn’t expect that to be a problem.

He slipped quietly out of the back seat of his car like a spectre and, like such an entity might, sunk into the shadows on the ground. He rose up out of the ground behind the dealer a moment later. He needed an unbroken shadow to move through, but there was plenty of that on the bottom floor of the car park.

“Isn’t your location a little cliché?” 

The man half-jumped out of his skin as he wheeled around, only to find his legs getting swept out from under him and his backside hitting cement. 

Ambush wasn’t really the quippy sort. But the sudden voice from behind, the implication that the dealer had been caught - the shock and fear was the beginning of the repercussions for his target’s chosen trade.

The dealer tried to scramble away, but Ambush kicked him hard in the ribs before he got very far. The criminal shouted out in pain only to have the vocalisation catch in his throat when Ambush’s foot collided with his side again several more times, cracking bone.

“Too late for that,” Ambush growled. “If you didn’t want to get hurt, you shouldn’t have hurt the community.”

“The fuck are you on about?!” the injured dealer yelped.

In the way of an answer, Ambush knelt down and reached into his victim’s pockets. He felt the other man shaking for the brief moments he searched him. Good. The likes of him deserved it.

A moment later, Ambush was drawing himself back up to his full height and dropping a bag tightly packed with something green on top of his quivering quarry. 

“This is for fucking weed?” The dealer groaned.

“You’re a poison on the populace,” Ambush said, matter-of-factly.

“It’s just weed,” the dealer whimpered, as if that was going to change Ambush’s mind.

In response, Ambush stomped on the dealer’s knee eliciting an unpleasant crunching sound. That earned less of a shout and more of an ear-splitting scream. 

“It’s legal in a lot of places now! Fuck!”

“It’s not legal here,” Ambush said. “And hopefully those other places come back to their senses again soon too.”

“I’m just trying to feed and clothe my kids, man. What is wrong with you? You fuckers really think you’re heroes doing shit like this?!” The dealer shouted past grit teeth.

Ambush ignored the questions. He didn’t need to pay any mind to the criticisms of the filth of the Earth. Instead, he pulled out a set of handcuffs from a pouch and dragged the thrashing dealer into the nearby stairwell. He locked one cuff around the dealer’s arm and another around the railing on the rickety stairs.

“You can take your complaints up with the police when they arrive,” Ambush said. “I’m sure they’d love to hear them.”

Truth be told, Ambush couldn’t guarantee that the other man would actually be imprisoned for his crimes. Things always got tricky with the courts when it came to heroes that operated outside the reach of law enforcement agencies like himself. It didn’t matter. The dealer had been punished already and if he had any sense he wouldn’t risk incurring Ambush’s wrath a second time. The community would be doing better regardless.