Sliced Bread 2: The Greatest Thing Since Sliced Bread

Recently I haven't been having the mustard nightmare as much. I've been having one where I've still got my powers and am fighting Icecap again, only this time I kill him and keep beating up his corpse. Not pleasant, especially since I feel guilty about that fight in the first place. Sure, he was being a tool, but nobody deserves what he got. I must have been out of my mind; I actually enjoyed hitting him. And normally I hate hitting people.

So I called up Icecap on his penphone.

"Hey," he said, answering it.

"Dennis," I said. "I want to talk to you about a couple things. Can you meet me someplace for a few minutes?"

"Sure," he said. "How about that warehouse from before, at four?"

That was cool, and, come four o'clock, there we were, out in front of the warehouse where we had the superhero summit in which Greyghost and I gave out the penphones in the first place..

"What's the problem?" he said.

He seemed friendly. That was weird.

"Two things, really. The first thing is, I want to apologize for back when I had super-powers. I'm really sorry about that."

Icecap laughed. "Don't apologize, for shit's sake, Dennis! It was a great fight. I didn't think you could do it. But you really showed me something that day. I was impressed."

Didn't expect that.

"I used to think you were all mouth," he continued. "But you can back it up. That's good. So what's the other thing?"

I don't understand this guy at all. Oh well; I said what I had to say. "Um. The other thing, I was wondering, who organized the Defense Posse?"

He was on his guard immediately. "Why?"

Here's where I knew I had to give him some of the old razzle dazzle. "Why do you think?"

"Because Greyghost is an asshole who has to know everything about everybody."

He had a bit of a point. "Well, yeah. But that's not why. Look, in twenty years, superheroes haven't been real good about teaming up. SPIA is really the only long-term example, and there isn't a lot of teamwork involved there. Now all of a sudden you guys show up. It's not weird to wonder what's behind it."

He shrugged. Time to roll the dice.

"So, with you guys here, and the Righteous in L.A., and that bunch in Chicago, all showing up at the same time... Who's paying for all this? And what does he think he's getting for his money?"

Icecap grinned. "Let's just say it's an anonymous philanthropist," he said. "And what he's getting is three safer cities."

So I didn't get a name. At least I confirmed that all three of these groups were set up by the same person. The old razzle dazzle... works every time.