My name’s Alex Black, amateur mage, wannabe vigilante, and soon to be corpse.

  The rain was hammering down now, as it did most of the time in New London. I was crouched on top of one of the hundreds of 7 storey, yellow brick tenements that had sprung up in the late 2030’s to solve the ever present housing crisis. They were shit places to live, but great for skulking on top of as they all had flat roofs with New York style fire escapes.

  I hunched over my little journal, scribbling down notes as I watched the four thugs that I’d been following for three nights now. They had been terrorising the Mulberry Estate, my estate, for almost a month and three nights ago they robbed a woman and slapped her around. That had drawn my attention. Since then I’d been stalking them from the rooftops and alleys. What I planned to do about it, I wasn’t sure. I had learned the hard way that calling the police was pointless. If they did ever respond, it was 4 hours late. The police didn’t care about the Mulberry Estate, and that had made it a haven for thugs like these.

  I had all my attack plans, all my stratagems, my gear, my charms, and my armour ready. But fantasy and reality were two very different things. This would be attempt number 14 at being a vigilante. Attempt 13 had ended with me almost being run over. Attempt 7 had ended in a fire. And attempt 11… well that one failed before it had even got started. So far I’d done less avenging in the night and a lot more running for my life. New London’s gangs were vicious, armed, and ready to commit serious violence with little provocation.

  I ducked down as a drone buzzed high overhead. It was a security drone but I wasn’t concerned about being spotted. I knew it wouldn’t come any lower, not this deep in the Boroughs, it would be bricked and snatched away before it even had a chance to focus the lens on its cyclops camera.

  Looking back down at the alley, I refocused on my quarry. They were quite a quartet of ugly, thick foreheaded bruisers. Rumour was that they worked for local criminal kingpin Brick, but if they did, they were pretty low down on the ladder. They hadn’t done much more than petty street crimes since I’d started watching them. The usual knuckle dragging shit: burglary, muggings, loitering, vandalism, and drug dealing.

  I had watched them for so long I had given them all nicknames to pass the time. There was Pumpkin, the short round headed one who wore garish bucket hats of varying colours. There was the Urinator, who I swear had pissed on more walls in the Mulberry than all the feral dogs combined. To be fair, he looked pretty feral himself. He was as skinny as a limp branch on a dead tree and had teeth so yellow they practically glowed in the dark. Next to him was Zombie, who looked so stoned out of his mind that he was barely alive. Finally, there was Goldilocks. He seemed to be the leader and the nastiest of the bunch. He was tall with long, greasy blonde hair. He would order the others around like they were his servants and he was the one who instigated the beating of that poor woman a few nights ago. The other three were just your normal feckless thugs, but Goldilocks was a real nasty piece of work.

  I took a deep breath, feeling fear eating away my resolve. My hands tingled and my legs felt like they were made of rubber. I wasn’t a big guy, although I wasn’t small either, maybe just a shade under 6 foot… okay I was 5’10 on a warm day, and maybe a buck 40 after a good meal. Just like everything else about me, my height and weight were unremarkable. I had light brown hair and barely a patch of stubble on my cheeks. I had turned 18 three weeks ago, and at this rate I wouldn’t make it to 19. There was no way a little twerp like me could take all four of these thugs on.

  I learned very quickly that fighting one man is difficult, two is hard, three or more is impossible. It wasn’t like the kung fu films Grandad used to watch. The other guys didn’t go flying when you hit them, and they didn’t roll around on the floor, or circle while you fought their mates, and they definitely didn’t attack you face on. Instead, it was a chaotic whirl of fists and feet with people hitting you from every angle and it was usually over in a few seconds. If it wasn’t for my enchanted gear I would have been dead half a dozen times already.

  My mouth had gone dry. I blinked rain out of my eyes and watched the four men lurking around the mouth of a tunnel footpath that led between two buildings. Like most places in the forgotten Boroughs of New London, the street lights had been smashed out so the only light came from the iridescent glow of a billboard selling robotic augmentations for the stay at home husband. It was the perfect spot to mug an unsuspecting person. If they did that, I would have to intervene.

  “You have to!” I muttered to myself through clenched teeth.

  Out of habit, I began checking my gear. First, I felt around my wrist for the heavy Grapple Cord. It was a rough enchantment, but I had finally got it to work, most of the time, and it would snap out at a thought and wrap itself around whatever I was aiming at. I still hadn’t quite figured out how to swing around like Tarzan, but I could snake a tin can up from 5 feet away. Next, I felt around in my pocket for the smooth pebbles, or as I liked to call them, Bang Rocks. When thrown with sufficient force, the Rune carved into their surface would let off a small, but powerful, explosion. They were roughly the same size and weight and that was important. The first time I’d tried these I had used any size of pebble. The bigger ones simply fizzed limply and the small ones shattered upon impact. A really small one went off in my pocket and almost blew a hole in my thigh. Magic is really temperamental. Size, weight, distance, temperature, concentration, Runes, carvings, materials, targets, all of these factors made a big difference in the outcome.

  I adjusted my enchanted jacket, pulled my hood lower, tightened the scarf wrapped around my mouth and nose, and touched the see-in-the-dark enchanted goggles on my forehead. The jacket had a rudimentary rune pattern stitched into it that gave me some protection akin to wearing a couple heavy jackets at the same time. I adjusted the sleeves and tightened the metal brace I wore on my forearm. I then pulled at my gloves, they had a similar matrix of runes as the jacket and this was primarily to protect my fists and hands. Once I had had the bright idea to stitch in the same enchantment as the Bang Rocks and nearly blew my hand off. That had taken me weeks to heal from and set me back months in my study of the Craft.

  Finally, I felt in my opposite pocket the three bags of enchanted chalk powder. These were my most valuable magical gadgets. Throw them on the ground and a thick puff of white dust envelopes the space. I mainly used these for running away from danger. Just as I finished my checks, I saw the four goons start shifting excitedly. Goldilocks said something to them and pointed down the tunnel. They all looked and then melted into the shadows. I looked up. From where I was sitting I could see the other end of the tunnel. Oh no. A woman was walking into the tunnel by herself!

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  “Shit! Shit! Shit!” I hissed into the darkness.

  It wasn’t a long tunnel, she would be at the other end in seconds.

  “Oh man. Oh man. Oh man!”

  My rubbery legs lurched my body forward as I made for the fire escape down the side of the building. What was I doing? I couldn’t stop them. I would just be another victim alongside the poor woman. I climbed down the ladder as I held an internal debate with myself on the efficacies of getting involved. What if my intervention turned what might be just a simple mugging into something more? What if I pissed them off and they hurt the woman… or me?

  Then I heard her scream.

  Instinct took over. I jumped down the final few rungs and ran for the tunnel. I knew what to do. I had a strategy. I’d planned for this. I’d practiced.

  “Let go!” the woman’s frightened voice screamed out.

  “Give us the bag and you won’t get cut!” Goldilocks’ rough voice barked back at her.

  “Get her WristPod as well!” Pumpkin yelled.

  “Stop struggling!”

  “Grab her!”

  “Stop!” I yelled as I got to the mouth of the tunnel.

  The four thugs, with the young woman held roughly between them, looked up at me with curiosity.

  “Who the fuck are you?” Goldilocks said, his golden eyebrow arching in confusion.

  “I’m… I’m…” I stammered.

  “Piss off kid!” The Urinator grunted, snatching for the woman’s bag. “Before you get hurt.”

  “But… I can’t…” I began.

  “Didn’t you hear him? Fuck off!” Goldilocks spun on me, a cruel looking knife in his hand.

  I saw the blade and reacted. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a Chalk Bomb and threw it at his feet while yanking down my goggles at the same time.

  Nothing happened.

  “What the fuck was that?” Goldilocks asked, nonplussed.

  I looked down. I’d thrown the bag straight into a puddle.

  “Oh… shit.” I said.

  Pumpkin threw the woman to one side and picked up a length of wood he had left leaning against the side of the tunnel. The other two goons rounded on me.

  “That was the wrong pocket,” I said with a nervous laugh.

  Goldilocks took a step towards me and that was when I hurled a fistful of Bang Rocks at them. Half the rocks exploded, some bounced around the tunnel, and more just skittered away, but it was enough to create a distraction. I pulled another Chalk Bomb out as they jumped away from the stinging explosive pebbles, and this time I threw the Chalk Bomb against the wall. The bag exploded and wafted a cloud of gritty chalk dust into the air, filling the tunnel and blinding the goons.

  “What the hell is this?” The Urinator screeched.

  “Where’d he go?” Goldilocks shouted.

  “Ouch! You stepped on me foot!” Zombie cried out.

  “Oof!” Goldilocks grunted as my reinforced fist slammed into his gut.

  I ran through the cloud, my specially enchanted goggles allowing me to see through the smoke. I would only have a few seconds before it cleared, I needed to even the odds before that happened. I kicked Zombie in the knee with my steel toe capped boot. He shrieked and fell to the floor.

  “Where is he?” Pumpkin yelled.

  “My knee! My fucking knee!” Zombie wailed.

  “Kill him!” Goldilocks snarled.

  Pumpkin swung his length of wood blindly at me. The tunnel was too cramped for me to get away from it, so I accepted the blow on my steel braced forearm, grunting as pain rattled the whole limb, and closed in for another punch. I got him, but it wasn’t clean. That was the problem with practicing on a mannequin, they didn’t tend to move much. My fists grazed his cheek bone and made him stumble. He was big though, and clearly used to being punched in the face, because he retaliated immediately. He grabbed me by the jacket and spun me, slamming me into the wall face first. I gasped as the wind was driven out of me. Out of pure instinct, I turned just in time to see the plank flying towards my head. I ducked and it bounced off the wall. The smoke was clearing now and Goldilocks was back on his feet, his dagger in hand.

  “Kill the little rat!” he spat.

  Pumpkin swung the plank of wood, this time at my body. He hit me in the hip and pain exploded across my torso, as did the final Chalk Bomb in my pocket. An explosive puff of white chalk dust sprayed grit into both of our faces. We coughed and choked as another blinding pall filled the tunnel. Half of my goggles were caked in the dust so I was almost as blind as the thugs were. Pumpkin, retching and choking, still had enough wherewithal to spear me around the waist and hold me where I was. Goldilocks stumbled blindly towards me with his knife raised.

  I panicked. Pumpkin was too strong, I couldn’t get loose.

  “I’ve got him!” Pumpkin yelled. “Fucking do him! Do him!”

  Goldilocks made his way blindly towards the sound of Pumpkin’s voice, the knife poised to stab down at me. I snapped out my hand and my Grapple Cord whipped from my wrist. It zipped towards the knife and wrapped around it. That was only a momentary victory. The problem with the Grapple Cord was that I hadn’t figured out a retracting charm. I wrestled with Goldilocks, trying to yank the blade from his hand but I had no leverage nor the upper body strength to do it whilst pinned to a wall.

  Luckily, Goldilocks panicked and started yanking the blade, trying to get it free of the Cord. That moment of reprieve gave me a chance to look around the tunnel. The Urinator had legged it away. Zombie was still on the floor cradling his ruined knee. Most importantly, the woman was gone! She’d got away! I saved her!

  Now I just had to save myself. With the cloud of dust still obscuring everyone’s vision, all I had to do was extricate myself from Pumpkin and run like a scalded dog. I kept wrestling with Goldilocks while reaching into my other pocket. I still had some Bang Rocks there! I pulled the last few out, closed my eyes, and took a deep breath. This was gonna suck. I brought them down on the Pumpkin’s back, slapping them down with as much force as I could. If it wasn’t for my enchanted gloves, I would have lost a finger in the bang. Instead, I received a nasty burn and so much jarring force through my wrist I thought it might break. Pumpkin howled and let go immediately, arching up and writhing in pain. I lashed out and kicked him between the legs. He let out a whimper and fell to the floor.

  Now I was free, I wrapped my good hand around the Grapple Cord and it went slack, letting go of the knife. I turned and sprinted as fast as my legs would go. My arms pumped, the Cord trailed behind me, and I didn’t look back.

  “Who the fuck are you!” Goldilocks screamed after me.

  ‘I’m a Vigilante,’ I thought.

  And this time… I had actually saved someone!