In the days of yore, when we used to hang people from a gallows for wrongdoing, the first type would see that criminal swinging, tongue sticking out, face turning blue, and say, “Gosh, I don’t ever want that to happen to me.” Then they’d go live their life, taking particular care to avoid thieving, murdering, or generally causing harm.
The second type would take in that same scene, with that same dead body, face distorted in fear and agony, and think, “That’ll never happen to me.” And then they’d go on about their life, thieving, murdering, and harming anyone who got in their way.
I hate that second type.
But then again, that second type was how I had made my livelihood since the day I’d left my house for the first time. Beating the ass of metahumans who got out of line and tossing them in the stir was my bread and butter—or at least how I paid for my bread and butter. And honey, because bread and butter on its own just isn’t my jam.
Oh, and it’s how I pay for my jam. Because you can’t eat bread and butter and honey all the time.
My bread and butter and honey and jam and money were the reason I found myself hanging out the door of a helicopter over Portland, Oregon, at three o’clock in the morning when I damned well ought to have been back in my own bed. Instead, I was staring down at a four-story office building that was slightly pyramidal, as though the architect had decided upright walls were just a little too passé for his hipster soul.
