Super Hero Rhapsody: 1975

Sally stands in the dim basement apartment, the black-sealed note shaking in her hand. Outside, an engine idles with patient menace, as if someone is waiting for her answer.

She turns the note under the weak light. The encryption is federal, the kind built for records and coverups, not private mail.

The words crackle from the page, or from somewhere close by, and the apartment suddenly feels smaller. This is not a trap from the shadows, it is the Department stepping into the open.

A second sound joins the idle engine, footsteps on the alley stairs, slow and deliberate. Whatever is outside knows where she is, and it is giving her one chance to move first.

Sally snatches up her coat from the bed and shrugs into it in one smooth motion, the black-sealed note still trapped between her fingers. The apartment answers with a thin creak as the floorboards take her weight.

She crosses to the alley door with her shoulders tucked in, each step measured. The idle engine outside keeps humming, and the stairwell glow sharpens across the narrow glass.

Her hand finds the lock. It gives with a soft click, but the motion makes the stair rail rattle against the wall.

Cold alley air slips in as the door opens. A man in a dark federal raincoat stands halfway up the stairs, one hand visible, the other near a silver seal key clipped at his belt.

Sally reaches the threshold, coat on and guard up, but the edge of the door scrapes her knuckles on the frame. A faint line of blood spots the wood as the stranger waits for her answer.