Mise En Place

A Story by grimcognito

Sometimes, a hero must rise. This story was written with the goal of feeling like a classic hero back-story, cheesy one-liners and all.

Rodney was tired, exhausted, beyond that which words could describe. Her body was one giant bone deep ache. She had never been happier in her life.

It was tough, being owner and head chef of a restaurant and fighting crime as a masked crusader were not careers given to things like sleep and long term living, but she wouldn’t trade it for anything. When times got hard and she started to doubt herself, she would simply look up at the small, innocent looking paring knife mounted above her cooking station. She would trace the shape with her eyes and remember.

The country had never fully recovered from its long recession after the turn of the century and in efforts to save money, the cities had drastically cut back on much needed services, including police and fire departments. With almost half of the population considered low-income or below the line of poverty, most of the younger generation took to get-rich-quick schemes. Many dropped out of school and joined or formed gangs, dealing drugs and flourishing in the rise of desperate addicts. As the gangs grew, so did the wars between them. What started as dozens of small gangs became four or five major forces, conquering turf until they practically owned half the city. Rodney had seen how her old neighborhood was taken over and how corrupt city officials did next to nothing to help the people trapped in those neighborhoods. They chose instead to conserve their too small police force for protecting those who could afford to live in the nicer parts of the city. She hated their indifference to the people’s suffering, the death count rising every year. Some of the names she recognized as old school mates, too many live lost in the crossfire of another pointless gang war. Young men and women trapped in lives they didn’t want because of unwise decisions. She wanted the urban warfare to stop, but no one was willing to stand against them, the gangs knew it and did whatever they wanted, confident that nothing could stand in their way.

Rodney no longer lived in the old hood she grew up in, her successful restaurant allowing her to live comfortably, but most of her family still called it home. A small three or four block area next to the Mission district where most of the Indian community grew up together. It was while she grew up on these streets that she learned how to fight; now she took martial arts classes to keep fit just in case she had a run in with some of the local trouble.

She often visited, keeping up with everything that the news didn’t tell. On one such trip she ended up heading home much later than usual, her knife kit slung over her shoulder. She’d been helping her aunt prepare food for the week, relishing the way the scents of traditional Indian food enveloped the entire apartment. She was walking through the parking garage where she left her car when she heard it, the murmur of voices from around the corner. She slowed down, careful to keep as quiet as possible as she peeked between pillars of concrete. She saw flashes of red as a group of boys moved about and cursed her luck.

Of the gangs running rampant, two stood out as the biggest and baddest, the Vipers and the Red Caps. The Vipers wore green bandanas somewhere on their person at all times, and the Red Caps were pretty self explanatory. It wasn’t surprising in the least that there would be some kind of drug deal going down in the mostly silent structure, but did it really have to happen right next to her car?

She was about to sneak away until they left when she heard one voice rise above the rest, pleading and terrified, “-don’t have anything! I swear!”

She didn’t realize that she had moved closer until she found herself peering carefully around the corner. She tensed as she saw exactly what was going on. One of the teens was pinning a man to the wall with a tight grip on his shirt as the other four fanned out in a semicircle around them. The man was older but smaller than the males surrounding him, arms held up in an attempt to ward them off.

One of the gangsters�"Rodney took him to be the ring leader�"took a threatening step forward and growled something too low for her to hear. Rodney bit her lip, realizing she was about to do something extremely stupid even as she began creeping along the line of cars to get closer, using the vehicles to hide her from sight. The group all had their backs to her and she hoped none of them had extra sensitive hearing as she carefully unlatched her knife kit and rummaged around blindly until she found what she was searching for. She slowly withdrew the small paring knife, curling her fingers around the handle as she crept even closer. Stopping a few feet away, she hoped no one turned around at the wrong moment and raised the knife just as the ring leader raised his fist to strike.

Swinging with all the force she could muster, Rodney flung the knife, the metal blade flashing as it spun through the air before lodging deeply into the bicep of the man’s upraised arm. It seemed to take him a moment to register what had just happened, during which Rodney thought it was a pretty lucky hit, considering she had been aiming for his opposite shoulder.

The man bellowed in pain, clutching the now bleeding arm just below the protruding knife and everyone else snapped their attention to Rodney, hunched next to a nearby truck. She didn’t hesitate, and taking advantage of their shock, she caught the closest one with a powerful roundhouse to the ribs before grabbing his dreadlocked hair and smashing his face into her knee. He dropped to the ground like a stone and Rodney snapped her attention to the fist flying toward her head.

Ducking, she heard the crunch and muffled shriek from the teen as her attacker’s fist left a dent in the truck behind her. She kicked his legs from under him and drove an elbow straight down onto the back of his skull, not waiting for him to hit the ground before she was dodging another strike. This time a switchblade nicked her cheek as she barely turned in time, snatching the assailant’s wrist and using the boy’s own substantial weight, slammed him face first into the ground before snapping his elbow with a neatly placed strike.

She didn’t see the next blow coming until it caught her in the kidney from behind, almost dropping her to her knees. Curling into herself slightly, she struck out blindly with a rear kick and connected with something solid, feeling bone give way as his knee snapped out of place. Her victory was short lived however, as a booted foot slammed into her chin, snapping her head back. She stumbled back a step, tasted blood and just regained her balance when a hand gripped her thigh. She took a moment to kick the one with the broken leg as he tried to claw his way up her body, the temple shot knocking him out.

The only ones left were her and pincushion arm, who was looking rather murderous, unhappy that his kick hadn’t done more damage. The man she rescued was nowhere to be seen. Pincushion swung at her with his uninjured arm and she blocked, almost getting knocked over as the force of it numbed her arm. She reached up with her other hand and yanked out the knife, stabbing him in the uninjured shoulder. He screamed at the pain, stepping back just enough to give her the room for a final kick, driving the heel of her foot into his solar plexus, much like the kick police officers use to open doors in movies. His screaming halted as the air whooshed out of his lungs and he landed sprawled on his back then laid still.

Breathing hard, she stayed tense and alert until she was sure there were no more attacks coming her way, then she stood straight and looked around. It hit her then, standing amongst the unconscious bodies, that someone could make a difference even if it was done in very small steps. She saved a stranger from being hurt and possibly killed and it was an amazing feeling.

She snapped out of her reverie as one of the fallen gangsters let out a low groan. She quickly pulled out her keys and stepped around another body to open the door of her car. Carefully maneuvering out of the parking space as to avoid running anyone over, she drove home, evaluating the pros and cons of what she was planning to do.

One month later, she had a custom ordered mask, several generic chef coats, another several generic ten inch chef knives, two thigh holsters with custom sheaths for the knives, a pair of sturdy boots and a bullet-proof vest. Half of her items were easily and subtly obtained through her restaurant which had been getting more and more customers, but the thigh sheathes had to be tailor made and mail ordered, which Rodney did through an impersonal P.O. box. The vest was bought from a rather shady character recommended by crazy old Jenkins.

Jenkins was an old man that lived in Rodney’s former apartment complex and one of the few white residents. She remembered him as always muttering to himself, paranoia from past wars a constant grip on his mind. She’d been in his apartment only once, needing to call the landlord after locking herself out, and never forgot the sight of his wall lined with guns of all kinds looking polished and ready for use. He’d been somewhat fond of her- as fond as the crazy old man could be- and always gave her the same advice, “You can hope for the best all ya want, but ya better damn well prepare for the worst.”

Rodney knew he would be the best person to ask about suiting herself up, as she was sure not all of those guns on the wall had a license to go with them. After carefully explaining what she needed without telling him what she was going to do with it, Jenkins gave her a long, hard look before seeming to come to a conclusion and scribbled down an address. “Ask for the Supplier, and tell ‘im Jenkins sent ya.”

Then he promptly kicked her out with the parting words, “Don’t die doing whatever moronic plan you’re up to.”

After a thoroughly unsettling visit with the Supplier and his surplus of weaponry, Rodney tucked away the probably very illegally procured piece of body armor, her costume was complete. Now all she had to do was stop some crime, avoid being caught and try very hard not to die in the process.

The first was fairly easy to come across, crime running rampant in the city and all, but she realized avoiding detection would be troublesome. She couldn’t exactly walk down the street in her costume until she came across some trouble, but it would also be next to impossible to change into her gear only when she needed it. For answers, Rodney turned to the comic books from her childhood, and after cutting out flying, teleporting and secret jets she was left with two options; swooping down from tall buildings or running across rooftops. Not feeling completely suicidal, she went for the rooftops.

Her first night- very early morning after an intense dinner shift, technically- trying out her new route was a series of embarrassments. She had to avoid the gang groups walking around as she darted from alley to alley trying to find a fire escape that she could not only reach, but didn’t sound like a dying banshee as soon as she touched it. Finally, she found one with hinges that made minimal noise and after two attempts (the first was spent realizing that jumping onto a dumpster for extra height works much better when said dumpster has a lid on it) she managed to make it to the roof. Once there she came across her second major problem as she stared at the expanse of open air between the ledge she was standing on and the next building.

Turning full circle to take in the rooftops around her, she realized that while many of the buildings connected wall to wall, it would still only get her about a half block of so before she ran into another alley. Scanning the area again to be sure there were no other options, Rodney tried to mentally measure the distance between the two ledges. She was standing five stories in the air while the ledge she was eyeing stopped at four, with another six feet of alley separating them. She scrubbed her face with her hands, overwhelmed by the absurdity of what she was thinking of trying to do. Then she snorted at her own thoughts, thinking out loud in an attempt to calm her nerves. “I’m standing on a roof in the worst part of town dressed like a comic book reject and planning how to fight crime. This is way beyond the point of absurd.”

Walking to the center of the open concrete space, Rodney crouched down like a track runner at the starting line. She figure she had a fifty-fifty chance of either landing successfully or watching from the pearly gates as police collected her broken body from the alley below. Steeling her resolve, she shot forward, running full tilt before skidding to a stop just at the edge, arms pinwheeling until she managed not to fall off. Three tries later and she still couldn’t quite take that last leap.

Just then, a metal door on the roof connected to hers slammed open and a man walked out, his back to Rodney as he stared out at the hint of color peeking over the horizon. Rodney looked around wildly as a litany of curses streamed through her mind; her roof was completely bare with nowhere to hide and she couldn’t allow herself to be caught. Seeing the man begin to turn, all of her earlier reservation- and survival instincts- fled as she raced to the ledge faster than ever and leapt off without hesitation. She barely had time to call herself a complete moron before the sensation of falling drove her stomach into her throat.

Then she hit the ledge stomach first before her face acquainted itself with the concrete as her body folded to match the angle of the building. Breath gone, she scrambled for a grip, but with most of her weight hanging over the edge and the force of the impact causing her to bounce slightly, she lost her hold and slipped off. Any air she managed to gather for screaming was slammed out of her lungs as she landed on the fire escape railing, her spine exploding in pain at the contact and her vision going black for a moment as it collided with the rest of her maybe-possibly broken body. Crumpling gracelessly onto the platform, she lay completely still for a long moment before sucking in a huge, shocked breath and releasing it as a pained gasp.

Deciding it would be most wise to simply lay there and hope no one would open the window next to her, she tried to assess any injuries she had. Her ribs hurt and she hoped none of them were broken and she could still wiggle her toes so she was pretty sure her spine was relatively okay. Luckily the vest had taken most of the impact on her torso; unfortunately, she couldn’t say the same for her face as she registered the warm wetness of blood trailing from her nose.

She wanted to simply lay there, but the sky was slowly getting lighter and she couldn’t risk getting caught, so she hauled her aching body to her feet and slowly climbed down from the fire escape. She managed to make it to her car unseen in the neutral time between the night owls and the morning crowd. She pulled off her mask and rested her forehead on the steering wheel as she pressed a spare shirt to her nose. At least it wasn’t broken. That went well.

Five years later, a figure leapt easily from rooftop to rooftop, sliding between shadows with practiced ease. Every few buildings she would stop, back straight and head held high, dark eyes scanning the area for trouble. Finding none she smiled to herself. The gangs were far from gone but they had come to fear the night time crusader and were forced to do their shady deals in secret, far more reluctant to cause trouble for the innocent people living here.

It wasn’t easy getting this far, not all of the fights were easily won and time was stretched thin between keeping the streets safe and keeping her now very popular restaurant, Jolokia, running smoothly. Her body constantly ached, but not the unbearable burn from her early months and it had been years since her last fall from a rooftop. Sleep was elusive as ever, but at least the dark circles under her eyes were hard to see under the deep brown of her skin.

To some it might not seem like much reward for all of her sacrifice, but when Rodney went to visit her relatives and saw the relieved happiness in their faces. Saw that they could walk outside with a little less fear, it made it all worthwhile.

The police and media had not taken too long to catch on, there were only so many times a gang member could be wheeled into a hospital with a giant chef’s knife lodged into some various body part before someone began to connect the dots. Rodney wasn’t too worried, the police tended to, if not look away per say, only put minimal effort into catching her.

She tilted her head at the sound of laughter, watching as a group of happy looking teens passed by on the street below. That was what she fought for, the chance for a good life, no matter where you lived.

And if anyone tries to destroy those dreams, she thought, absently tightening the mask’s knot behind her head, they’ll have to answer to Mise En Place.