Super Hero Rhapsody: 1975

Los Angeles rises ahead in heat shimmer and billboard glare, the freeway thick with late afternoon traffic. Devlan eases the car into the city’s roar, and Sally sees palm trees, chrome, and smog-soft sunlight all at once.

Devlan glances over once, then back to the road. The mission folder sits between the seats, edges curled from too many hands and too many miles.

They roll beneath a freeway overpass and the city noise swallows the engine hum. Ahead, a narrow service entrance waits beside a faded office block, its neon sign half-dead and buzzing.

Devlan parks at the curb, fingers drumming once on the wheel. The mission folder slides a little, revealing a fresh typed note clipped inside, marked only with a downtown street and a time.

Sally snatches the mission folder from the console and slips out into the hot sidewalk glare. Devlan stays by the wheel, watching the street as the car idles at the curb.

The faded office block looms across the narrow lane, its half-dead sign buzzing above a service entrance. Through the glass, the lobby sits dim and empty, but a fresh courier shell signature is stamped on the top page in the folder.

Sally steps to the service entrance and checks the frame, the lock, and the strip of scuffed concrete below it. The door is shut, but the downtown note matches the street outside, and the lead is here.

A black sedan eases into view behind them at the curb, too clean for the block, its driver not getting out.

The sedan's window rolls down just a fraction, revealing the glint of a high-end camera lens pointed directly at the office block entrance. A gloved hand rests on the steering wheel, steady and waiting.

Sally leaves the car and crosses the hot Los Angeles pavement toward the sedan, mission folder tucked tight at her side. The camera keeps on her slow, deliberate approach, while the office block and street blur into the glare.

She stops beside the driver’s door, squarely in the open now, and angles her body toward the lowered window. The lens keeps its aim on her, but the hand on the wheel shifts, no longer perfectly still.

The driver exhales once, then tips the camera a few degrees lower, as if deciding what kind of conversation this is going to be. Devlan watches from the car, ready but not moving.

Sally holds her ground. Across the windshield, the office block entrance reflects in the glass behind the driver, and the photographer’s attention stays locked on her face instead of the building.

The driver obeys a beat later, the glass sinking farther into the door with a soft mechanical whirr. Heat rolls in from the street, and the camera lens is now fully exposed between Sally and the shadowed interior.

Devlan stays in the car, watching the exchange like he expects a trick, while Sally has the driver pinned in the open. The office block looms in the background, its dead windows reflecting the afternoon glare.

The lowered window leaves Sally face to face with the watchful stranger, the mission folder still tight at her side. The street hums around them, waiting for the next name to land.

The driver eases back and lets the window rise partway again, the camera dipping out of direct sight. The black sedan stays parked behind them, but the pressure of that stare loosens a notch.

Sally turns away from the sedan and heads back to Devlan, the mission folder tucked tight against her side. Her side wound twinges when she moves, a sharp reminder under the calm of the street.

He shifts over to make room, still watching the sedan through the windshield. The faded office block sits ahead, its lobby glass reflecting both cars like a warning sign they have already passed.

Sally spreads the briefing across Devlan’s lap, flattening the pages with two fingers while the car idles at the curb. The downtown address is circled in pen, and the route notes line up cleanly with the office block ahead.

Devlan leans in, reading fast. His eyes catch on a courier shell stamp buried in the margins, then on a second mark that matches the file trail they saw before.

He flips one page over and taps a hand-drawn access sketch near the rear entrance. The office block is not just an address, it is a mapped entry point.

Outside, the black sedan’s window lowers another inch, and the lens inside swings toward them again. In the same motion, a man in a pale shirt steps out of the office block lobby and stops under the awning, watching the curb.