Just Cause: Revised & Expanded Edition
Read Just Cause: Revised & Expanded Edition Online
Authors: Ian Thomas Healy
Just Cause
Revised and Expanded Edition
A
Just Cause Universe
Novel by
Ian Thomas Healy
Copyright 2012 Ian Thomas Healy
Local Hero Press Edition
Local Hero Press Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to
Local Hero Press
and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Cover illustration by Jeff Hebert.
Books by Ian Thomas Healy
The
Just Cause Universe
Novels
Just Cause – Revised & Expanded Edition
The Archmage
Day of the Destroyer (Spring 2013)
Other Novels
Blood on the Ice
Hope and Undead Elvis
Pariah's Moon
Rooftops
Starf*cker (Winter 2013)
The Milkman: SuperSekrit Extra Cheesy Edition
Troubleshooters: The Longest Joke Ever told
Collections
Tales of the Weird Wild West, Vol. 1
The Bulletproof Badge
Short Stories
Just Cause series
Graceful Blur
The Scent of Rose Petals
The Steel Soldier's Gambit
Weird Wild West series
The Mighty Peculiar Incident at Muddy Creek
Posse
Professional MotorCombat series
Last Year's Hero
Rookie Sensation
Harry Blaine series
Bulletproof
Young Guns
Tuesday Night at Powerman's
Standalone titles
In His Majesty's Postal Service
Bread and Circuses
Footprints in the Butter
Upon A Midnight Clear
Dental Plan
Nonfiction
Action! Writing Better Action Using Cinematic Techniques
All titles and more available wherever books and ebooks are sold.
Foreword
They’re all a little messed up, aren’t they? Superheroes, I mean. One of the truest lines from the Christopher Nolan
Batman
trilogy, and in this particular case
Batman Begins
, is when Bruce Wayne says to a table of dinner guests, “A guy who dresses like a bat clearly has issues.” And of course, anyone who is familiar with Batman’s origin story (orphan of murdered parents turned lonely billionaire seeks closure and justice from beneath a cowl and cape) knows that Mr. Wayne, well, he does have issues, and he’d be the first to admit it. Alan Moore seemed to delve deepest into this particular topic with his iconic graphic novel,
Watchmen
. Many of those so-called superheroes weren’t particularly heroic. Their deeds seemed to come off more as compulsions to act out in a world that was well beyond saving itself. Look at the canon of Marvel and DC and everything in between, and you will see similar tropes played out time and again. Only the costumes and the names have changed.
I’m not an expert on comic books or super heroes. I leave that stuff up to the experts, like Mr. Healy here. But I can say that his
Just Cause Universe
stories seem, well, different somehow. Maybe it’s because the heroes don’t have “secret identities.” Granted, he’s not the first person to do this. Iron Man is the first character to come to mind, and I guess the rest of the Avengers, but doesn’t that still seem refreshing in a way? A hero who is completely “out of the closet,” as it were. A hero who can live out in the open world without all the loneliness and deception that comes from leading a double life is, well, invigorating. They are who they are, and everyone knows it. The heroes in Just Cause are, like The Avengers, an elite special force, but they’re more regulated and organized. People love them. They’re like celebrities or Olympic athletes. Of course, this doesn’t mean our heroes don’t struggle. A story isn’t a story without conflict, both internal and external, and just because you can wear your costume and use your real name in public doesn’t mean you don’t have problems finding a place in the world, as we see Mustang Sally face in this first tale in the
Just Cause Universe
.
No, I think
Just Cause
is different because in an era that struggles to justify even a modicum of money on investments that could move humanity forward or could perhaps save us from the increasingly oppressive climate of our own hubris, these stories portray a society that embraces justice and progress and understands that it’s worth the cost. It doesn’t force its would-be heroes to live in secrecy and become vigilantes because our government, our law enforcement, our society as a whole either can’t or is just too corrupt to care. The cynicism that underlies other comic book stories greatly reduced here, leaving in its place a sense of optimism about people and our potential to still do good things.
Just Cause
believes in a world that, while imperfect and filled with danger, still gives a damn about saving itself. I think our world needs that more than ever.
Allison M. Dickson
Introduction to the Revised and Expanded Edition
“HEY DAWG, I HEARD YOU LIKE SUPERHEROES…”
I do like superheroes. Reading about them, writing about them, and even at one time drawing them—that is, before I learned that I have no facility with a pencil, unless it’s to put words down on the page. This book represents close to a decade of my writing life, and I’m very proud of this final version. I promise not to re-revise it in a few years, like certain directors have done with their movies set in a galaxy far, far away. What you are reading is the definitive
Just Cause
. It has gone through several iterations over the years, from a bloated 106,000-word opus to a post-liposuction 60,000 word novella to the tome you hold today. It’s gone through name changes, three agents, two publishers, and several burro-loads of Colombian coffee.
“… SO I PUT MORE SUPERHEROES IN YOUR SUPERHEROES…”
The original draft of
Just Cause
was very different, with chapters alternating between Mustang Sally’s story and the backstory of some sixty years of history, spread across her parents’ and grandparents’ generations. All that backstory was part of the forty-thousand words I cut out in one glorious orgy of excision. I saved it, of course, because one should never waste the words one writes. Some of those stories have since transformed themselves into novels in their own right, and you’ll be able to read them someday soon. Others simply languished unattended until this edition, where I have included three of those stories at the end of the book. I call them, collectively,
Those Who Came Before
, and they, like the short stories available all over the internet, add more depth to the illustrious history of Just Cause.
“… SO YOU CAN HAVE SUPERHEROES WHILE YOU HAVE SUPERHEROES.”
I had great fun putting all this together for you, and I hope you enjoy the heck out of it.
Ian Thomas Healy
August, 2012
- Copyright
- Foreword
- Introduction to the Revised and Expanded Edition
- Chapter One
- Chapter Two
- Chapter Three
- Chapter Four
- Chapter Five
- Chapter Six
- Chapter Seven
- Chapter Eight
- Chapter Nine
- Chapter Ten
- Chapter Eleven
- Chapter Twelve
- Chapter Thirteen
- Chapter Fourteen
- Chapter Fifteen
- Chapter Sixteen
- Chapter Seventeen
- Chapter Eighteen
- Chapter Nineteen
- Chapter Twenty
- Chapter Twenty-One
- Chapter Twenty-Two
- Epilogue
- Those Who Came Before: Stories From the History of Just Cause
- Roll Call: the Teams of the Just Cause Universe
- About the Author
- About the Cover Illustrator
Chapter One
“We have not passed that subtle line between childhood and adulthood until…we have stopped saying ‘It got lost,’ and say ‘I lost it.’”
-Sydney J. Harris
December, 2003
Chicago, Illinois
“Happy birthday, dear Sally, happy birthday to you!” sang the group assembled in the Lucky Seven’s conference room. Salena Thompson hunched her shoulders at the cacophony and squirmed in her seat. She wished something—anything—would happen to cut short the embarrassing spectacle of seven adults fawning over her. Maybe aliens could decide today was the day to invade Chicago, or the Moon could slip out of its orbit, or zombies would choose today to begin crawling from the frozen ground in search of brains. Any opportunity for her to bolt from the room and do what she’d been trained to do instead of suffering the attention and adulation of the others.
“Go on, dear, blow out the candles and make a wish.” Tremor’s fashion-model looks and height made Sally feel like a clumsy adolescent next to her. Only a shade over five feet tall, Sally had developed a perpetual kink in her neck from always having to look up at the statuesque men and women who populated the parahuman community.
Sally leaned forward and held her long blonde braids back from the eighteen yellow candles on the cake. The frosting was the same scarlet as her superhero costume. It would probably turn her tongue the same color, what with all the food coloring. She knew Bullet had slaved away in the kitchen for hours, wrestling with recipes and mixing ingredients in his giant, ungainly hands. More than once, the entire Lucky Seven headquarters had rung when he punched a counter top in frustration. Juliet had taken Sally aside before the party and made her promise to love the cake no matter what. And to Bullet’s credit, it was a very pretty cake, with yellow swirls decorating the frosting that reminded Sally of her braids or the golden trim of her costume.
All things considered, she’d much rather have been on duty in costume, helping to patrol the city or telling school kids not to use drugs or even filling out paperwork. Instead, she took a deep breath and tried not to grimace as Juliet snapped a picture from across the table. A moment later, she extinguished the candles to thunderous applause. She looked around the room at her friends, the privately-funded team of superheroes which had adopted her for the past six months.
“Hey, get the gift.” Stratocaster snapped his fingers as if he’d just remembered. His vibrant purple mohawk stood proud and spiked. His guitar, the conduit for his magical power, hung at his back. He’d dressed in his nicest t-shirt for the occasion, one printed with a tuxedo shirt and bow tie, and his Doc Martens had been polished.
“Oh, yeah… we almost forgot!” Spark made a show of searching his pockets and rubbing his beard thoughtfully. “Who has it? I don’t.” Unlike the others on the team, Spark had no innate parahuman abilities of his own. Instead he used his acrobatic skills and electrical gadgetry to hold his own. And it didn’t hurt that he ranked pretty high on Forbes 400 list either, thanks to his electrical engineering and business acumen.