The police sirens blared below me in steady rhythm with the pulsing red and blue. That was as good as a cue as any that there was trouble afoot. Maybe even my kind of trouble. I leapt from my rooftop perch towards the nearest telephone line. I managed to snag onto it, and I pulsed a gentle current of electricity into it.

Oh right, I may have neglected to mention a minor detail. I’m a Super Hero. I have a costume and everything. Of course, it isn’t so much a traditional super hero suit as it was a cobbled together get-up consisting of a bright orange sweater, a pair of royal blue denim jeans. My mask was a cut up black panty hose that covered my mouth and nose. The hood of my sweater was on to conceal my shocking blonde hair. With my white leather gloves on the only part of me visible were my eyes, a deep shade of green.

I also had a significant amount of control over electricity. I can generate it and do a few assorted tasks with it. Nothing too special really. I’ve had this ability for a while now, starting with the day after my 15th birthday. I’m 17 now. A lot of things led up to me taking up the Super shtick. Altogether this gave birth to The Electrifying Anode.

I zipped along the telephone line at an impressive speed. I wasn’t breaking any land speed records, but it beat the 5 o’clock rush. I gently rocked side to side in a small arc as I picked up speed, following the wails of the sirens below me. Buildings rushed by as momentum built up from my swinging. The police turned onto a small one-way street, and immediately came to a screeching halt.

Of course downtown at this time of day was one long traffic jam. There was little space to make room for police as it was, but this one-way had none. The five-oh was stuck, and without them I had no way to find this crime in progress. Mister Criminal was going to get away.

Yeah, that wasn’t going to happen. I released my grip on the telephone wire at the apex of my arc soared towards the leading squad car, carefully planning to land on it’s hood. I had evidently been building up quite a bit of momentum, because my careful landing had turned into me becoming a human cannon ball and diving into the driver’s side door.

I hit the door with such force that the steel crumpled as my shoulder met it. The cold floor slammed against my face as I bounced from the door. I did a small roll to get to a stance where I could find balance again. That stance was me on all fours. Ever the dignified hero, that was me.

“Anode,” came a gruff voice. That voice belong the driver of the car I just tackled. That voice belonged to…

“Sergeant Torres! Of all the squad cars I could BASE jump into it had to be yours. Small world isn’t it?” I flashed him a grin.

He glared at me. If he were one of the powered folk I believe he would be able to kill with that look. Hell, I know I wanted to die right then and there. But there was the small matter of a crime going on that I felt took priority at the moment. See? I’m a professional.

“Look, I know you don’t like me, but you and your men are sort of stuck right now,” he continued to glare at me as I spoke, “um, and I think I can help with whatever is going on. You have several cars with you, something big must have happened.”

He sneered at me. And then grinned. “Sorry vigilante, you aren’t going anywhere on my watch.” He stepped out of his patrol car and reached for a pair of cuffs. He was a large man, in terms of both length and width. I was of average height at 5’9’’ and he was a head or two taller than me, topping off at around 6’5’’. He had also put on a considerable amount weight in the past year. Once having a thick muscular build, he now had the flabby body of a man past his prime. He had a thick brown coat covering his massive frame, buttoned up to shield from the November cold, but did nothing to hide his bulge of a stomach. His small, beady eyes studied me, his large nose wrinkled in concentration.

I was already about to make my leap away from this bear of a man when a calm voice rang out over the dispatch system. “John, give him the address.”

Torres stopped in his tracks and a vague look of both confusion and anger flashed over his face. He reached into the car and brought out the small speaker.

“Lieutenant. What are you suggesting?”

“Our little friend has a point. We have no way of responding to the incident in time. Perhaps he can take care of things while we round up our officers and find another route to the location.”

“With all due respect, this man is a criminal. We can’t let him walk free, let alone ask him for his assistance!”

There was a small chuckle on the other side of the broadcast. “Vigilantism is hardly comparable to a murderous rampage,” my stomach dropped at that line. A murderous rampage? Just what the hell was going on? “Not to mention that Mr. Anode has a bit of history with this offender. But I do suppose you are right. It wouldn’t be wise to inform him that at 4:56 this evening we received a call about a single man fighting a group of teenagers in a knife fight in the alleyway on 4th, just past Druid Avenue. That could cause problems, telling him such a thing that is.”

The Sergeant narrowed his eyes and frowned, his jowls folding over into themselves. “Lieutenant…”

“Oh me oh my, did I say that last part too loudly? I must watch this tongue of mine.”

I smiled. I didn’t know much about this Lieutenant guy, but I liked him a hell of a lot better than I did Torres. “Well, I’d love to stay and talk”, I called to Torres as I flipped onto the nearest lamppost, “but it seems like I have to go do your job for you.”

Continue To Chapter Two