World Wonders

by James Perrone

  No sarcasm, I could tell this relationship was off to an excellent start.

  Bonus Chapter

  Many Years Later

  It started with a telltale crash in the other room. Between my children, nieces and nephews, and now grandchildren, I knew what that meant. Nora, my daughter, hung her head in frustration. “Sorry dad. That sounded expensive. I thought leaving Cara in charge would prevent that.”

  I laughed despite myself, talking as I stood up. “They’re kids. They break things. I remember when you were a kid and you and your brother just had to get the boardgames down yourself. Never mind the fact that it was atop the bookshelf with all…”

  “DAD!” she yelled at me, blushing slightly.

  Marcus, her husband, reached over and put a hand on her arm, “Now, I could stand to hear a bit more. Put us on even footing for all the embarrassing stories my folks have told you.”

  I chuckled again, making my way towards the den where the noise had come from, “Let’s deal with the young’uns first. And then I’ll see if I can’t find the old photo albums. I think we took pictures of the entire mess.”

  Behind me Nora groaned, and Marcus laughed, but they stood up to follow me.

  The den, as expected was a slight mess. Three guilty grandchildren stood around a broken curio case. Before I could even ask the question, the blame game started.

  “...Cara wasn’t in the room, she was busy texting with….”

  “...And then Timmy shoved me….”

  “... Well you hit me!”

  “Did not!”

  I put a hand up and they all quickly fell silent. In my best grandfatherly tone, I asked, “Anyone hurt?”

  “No.”

  “No.”

  “Just my ego.”

  I did my best not to glare at Sam for being a smart ass, and instead smiled as warmly as I could. “Well, then we’ll just have to clean it up. Timmy, go grab a garbage bag. Sam, get the broom and dustpan. Cara,” I paused fumbling for something for her to do, “Let your grandmother know that there’s nothing to worry about. You probably woke her from your nap with your shenanigans.”

  There was a small chorus of “Yes Sir,” as they went off to complete the tasks. Nora and Marcus looked in behind me. “Do you want us to help pay for the damages?” Marcus asked.

  I chuckled, “No, no. There’s no need for that. I’ve got money to spare at this point and you’ve got two leaving for college in the next three years. It’s just wood and glass.” Casually, I reached out with my mind and righted the cabinet, sliding it back into the corner. I glanced over my shoulder at the two of them, “Although, I wouldn’t say no to having Sam and Cara help with setting the glass panels and fixing the damages they made once the replacements come in. Probably be in a week or two.”

  Nora smiled and nodded, “And I’d imagine you’ll want them for the entire weekend too. Take Timmy just because.”

  I smiled back at her, “You know me so well. It’s almost like you’re related to me.”

  We laughed for a bit. Timmy made it back with the garbage bag first. He was the youngest and thus the most inclined to try his hardest to make up for his mistakes. No room for half measures in his five-year-old mind. “Thanks kiddo, good job. Now, can you very carefully pick up the big pieces and put them in there.” He nodded rapidly and went to work.

  Cara came back next and stood quietly in the corner. She was the oldest at 18 and thus the one who understood things the most. I was ninety percent certain she had pieced together what my metahuman abilities were but was respectful enough about my privacy not to bring it up. Probably why she had left the room on such a blatant distraction without question. I cast her a considerate eye.

  “Grandma’s awake and, once she checked after us, mildly annoyed.” She confessed with a sigh, “She’ll probably be down soon.”

  I nodded and went back to supervising Timmy. Nora and Marcus caught my eye and then stepped out, presumably to talk about the logistics of their child free weekend coming up. Good, they could do with the break.

  Sam slid in behind them. Sam had taken to dressing in baggy black clothing and using they pronouns recently as puberty sunk its hormonal claws in deeper. They were fifteen and frustrated at everything, which included their uncertainty about what gender they were and how accepting their family was about the questioning process. Sullenly, they went to hand me the broom. I cocked an eyebrow at them, “You’ve got arms, don’t you?”

  “Cara didn’t have to clean,” they complained.

  “Cara also wasn’t in the room when the curio cabinet broke,” I cut off the incredulous stares with a simple question, “Did you forget I did this for a living?”

  Humbled, Sam went to work sweeping up the bits of glass too small for Timmy pick up safely. I leaned against the wall next to Cara supervising. After a few moments she spoke up, “Hey Grandpa?”

  I recognized that tone. It was the same tone her mother had when she was going to ask a really uncomfortable question. Bracing myself, I spoke to her without turning my head, “What’s up kiddo?”

  “How come you never talk about your time with the Marshals?”

  Timmy and Sam both stopped to look at me, curious. It wasn’t an unfair question, especially since I was entirely willing to talk about my time in the military. I shrugged slightly, “Because your parents asked me not to.”

  “That’s bullshit,” Sam declared angrily. Timmy gasped and I gave Sam my best reproachful look.

  “Rephrase please.”

  They grimaced slightly, but responded, “We’re practically adults. I mean, aren’t you the one who said once you can drive, you’re all but an adult? Why can’t we know?”

  As much as I hated to concede the point, he wasn’t wrong. “That’s a fair point. Are you sure you want to know?”

  I thought their necks would break given how hard they were nodding. “Well, I’ll talk to you parents and we’ll see what we can do about that.”

  ✽✽✽

  Two weeks had flown by before I knew it. Nora made a point of walking the kids up to the door personally and ushering them into the house so she could have a private word with me. All it took was a word about Grandma having made fresh muffins and there was a series of quick goodbyes and a stampede away from the door.

  Nora a fixed me with a firm stare that she clearly got from her mother, “Marcus and I discussed it and….” she pursed her lips, struggling to admit it, “You’re right. They deserve to know. Can’t keep treating them like kids.”

  I smiled monogamously, “They were going to figure it out anyways. Hell, I bet Cara already has. Not exactly like it’s not hard to find.”

  Nora shrugged noncommittally before responding, “Harder than most people know how to search these days.”

  I laughed a little but conceded the point. She continued, “But not Timmy. He’s a bit young for how graphic those stories get.”

  I nodded, having already come to that conclusion myself. “So, after we tuck him in.”

  She nodded, “You don’t have to do this you know. I know how hard it was for you to write it down in the first place as part of therapy.”

  I pursed my lips and nodded but didn’t say anything. I didn’t have to. She knew me well enough to know that I wasn’t going to back down from my trauma. We Tennants liked to face it head on. It’s how my father did it. It’s how I did it. And, despite her reservations, it’s how Nora did it too.

  She pulled me in for a hug, “Don’t let them keep you up too late.”

  I hugged her back and laughed, “That’s never exactly been the issue with me.”

  She laughed into my chest, “Fair enough dad. Don’t let them stay up too late. Love you, I’ll see you Monday.”

  ✽✽✽

  Timmy responded to being left out of story time as well as you’d expect a five-year-old to.

  “But it’s not fair!” he whined.

  I smiled, “No, but neither is life. Your mother and I have agreed you can find o
ut when you’re older.”

  He pouted, but I was prepared. “Grandma made hot chocolate for you and gave you extra marshmallows as an apology.”

  He sniffled but moved out of the den and towards the kitchen. Cara and Sam looked after him and then looked to me.

  “Well, then. Let’s get started.” I said, patting my leg and standing up. I made my way over to a covered shelf, unlocked the cabinet that had no key with a telekinetic lockpick, and pulled out an old and battered book.

  I turned back to a smiling Cara and a confused Sam. “I knew it,” Cara proclaimed.

  Sam looked confused, “How did you do that?”

  I smiled and waited for the comprehension to set in. “Oh,” Sam managed very quietly.

  I patted the book, “Back when I was still a Marshal, I saw some things and was recommended to therapy. As part of that process, my therapist recommended that I write down my stories to process through them. This is the first truly serious case I went through. Lots of explanations in it. I figure,” I said, hefting the book, “We can take turns reading it aloud, so you all get the full picture. I’ll fill in any bits and add color commentary as we go. Sound acceptable?”

  There were some murmurs of discontent that I silenced with a meaningful look.

  “Yes sir.”

  “Yes sir.”

  I sat back and smiled, “Well then, I guess I’ll go first.”

  * * *

  [1] Officially: Metahuman Control Division. Unofficially, Mayan Calendar Dipshits. We’re a colorful bunch.

  [2] Officially: Empowered and Employed Persons. Unofficially, the things that makes Homeland security go “EEP!”

  [3] The cots were one of the most prominent reasons I actually studied for the ASVAB when I got into the military. A lifetime of camping and living on military bases had already turned me off the idea. Doing well on the ASVAB was what allowed me to be in the military without needing to sleep on a cot. Perks of speaking other languages.

  [4] What he really meant was, “You’re the only one of the three people who went to Keane County who’d actually take the phone call and who I can leverage into coming in on your day off.” McCoy was probably at the bottom of a very large bottle and no one knew what Carlson did on his days off. Probably something I didn’t want to know about.

  [5] I decided that holding my hand up and going “KA-LI-MA!, while good for my mental state, would not only be in bad taste, but possibly be something that Slate would deem worthy of discussing at a disciplinary hearing. And people said I would never grow up.

  [6] Lindsey Niccols, one of the local medical examiners, was particularly frustrated by the unfairness of the situation and had the mistake of complaining about it in front of Quinn. Quinn, like the very best friends, had responded by ordering an extra large order of loaded nachos. For herself. There were days where I wondered if they were friends only the sheer virtue they hadn’t managed to kill each other yet. Still, they both regularly showed up to conferences where we all hung out together.

  [7] The most gifts granted to a single person anyone had heard about was a man by the name of Jacob Devalic who had publicly demonstrated five unique gifts in a bid to make metahumans more accepted. He’s currently so far off the grid that some people aren’t even sure he’s alive or on the planet anymore. My money was some secret government lab.

  [8] Outside of the Walkers. But they tended to keep to the Southside and as far as anyone I knew could prove, had never actually eaten anyone, tending to get their protein requirements from large amounts of steak. One of the perks of having second-gens instead of firsts in the city.

  [9] The highest number of werewolf attacks were a day or two before the formally recognized full moon, not on it. Each moon phase lasted for around three days, generally one before and one after the one that shows up on your desk calendar. Every werewolf without the experience-granted restraint to hold themselves back shifted, leading to high occurrence rates of werewolf attacks. The following two nights only featured those with barely enough control to make it through the first night and those with an appetite that was unsatiated by one night of hunting. Or those who we didn’t notice amongst the more impulsive attacks.

  [10] I spent a lot of time in the ARCHIVIST catalogues by the simple virtue of not wanting to get blindsided by something I could’ve been prepared for. As they say in the military, “Proper preparation prevents poor performance.”

  [11] Or, more specifically, in the Medical District. But no one really pays attention to that.

  [12] A newly made vampire was generally three times as strong as your average man and twice as fast, at least. Couple that with the ability to shrug off bullets like they were spit wads and the fact that they hunger for blood but don’t know how to get it without killing people, you could see how it was a bad day for anyone unprepared. Or, even the prepared.

  [13] Miles and I went way back. Our fathers had served on numerous army bases together, each looking to transfer with the other as a way of keeping their friendship alive, the new locations tolerable, and providing some sort of stability for their respective families. Our mothers were good friends, Miles and I were good friends and our sisters were good friends. The only odd ball was Miles’ brother, who didn’t have a corresponding pair in my family, but he had dated my sister at one point. It was one of those odd moments you wanted to cheer for and but also hated. Thankfully, it hadn’t lasted long.

  [14] The only reason I wore rings back then was because they could be used as an early detection system for some supernaturals. Shake hands with a werewolf regardless of form while wearing a silver ring and they’ll be marked with rashes. Cold Iron would do similar things for some faetouched. I tried to avoid relying on them since: One, you had to touch skin, putting you in arms reach of something that might be angry at being outed. Two, people with metal allergies would present a false positive. And three, more powerful supernaturals could either hide or suppress the responses. But sometimes that extra half second they provided was all the time you needed to keep you on this side of the grave.

  [15] The number of things that screw with cameras made them a wonderful spot check against some groups of metahumans. It wouldn’t catch anything serious like a doppelganger, but it would totally identify a young vampire or someone using fae illusions.

  [16] Any person who used what were traditionally called Necromantic powers in a manner similar to a terrorist. Mary Morbid had raised the entirety of Kentucky Veterans Central Cemetery and marched them into Fort Knox where she killed and then raised a good chunk of the soldiers there, broke into the vault, stole two tonnes of gold, and then disappeared while her now unled zombies ravaged the Louisville suburbs for days. Four years later and she’s still at the top of at least seven U.S. most wanted lists, 3 international lists, and others of lesser import as the second most deadly terrorist attack in world history, with a death toll of 1,252 people. Every agency in the US had shoot on sight orders. Officially for her and unofficially for anyone else who could raise the dead.

  [17] Bleeding eliminated about two-thirds of the abnormal types. Faeborn, for instance, tended to have translucent streaks in their blood while werewolves healed faster than they bled. All sorts of information could come out of a simple finger prick test.

  [18] This wasn’t necessary entirely conclusive. While there was no mandatory requirement for registration. Rather than trying to force a registration requiring people to register and living through Marvel’s Civil War, someone had a bright idea. Any metahuman, supernatural, or otherwise abnormal person could receive assistance from the government for dealing with their powers, provided they reached out and registered themselves for said assistance. People signed up hand over fist to join this system if it meant that they didn’t accidentally blow holes in walls or crush door knobs. Or to get those repaired with government money when they inevitably happened. These programs often served as doorways to becoming an EEP for the government for people with the right gifts, killing many birds with one st
one.

  [19] Plus, a number of people had taken to faking abilities to get them out of dangerous situations. ‘Playing wolf’ had become so prevalent that the standard response to claims of abilities was to shoot first lest they come true.

  Plus, the local gangbangers often respected force they could see, such as a gun, instead of the threat that may or may not come true.

  [20] Since Miles and I had been friends before going into the military, we decided to go into the military together, looking to use the buddy system. It had failed spectacularly, with him getting poached by the FBI really early and me getting picked up for linguistics work. Neither of our fathers were happy with where we ended up. Dad wanted me to be an engineer, not a linguist and complained, mostly jokingly, that I never actually ended up in the military. Just spent five years in the sand on government dime. My retort generally involved disparaging remarks comparing him to a hammer that hit things until they worked. At which point mom would quip about how they should’ve spanked me more as a kid, and we’d all laugh. Miles’s father Donovan, on the other hand, refused to talk about the service with Miles at all. Apparently, the idea of a son who worked with the spooks was too much of an insult to bear.

  [21] After the Detroit Zombie outbreak in 2014, this was a standard practice. Thick doors, air-tight seals in the vents to allow complete suction of all gases and prevents anything that goes misty from escaping that way. State of the art fire extinguishing systems to help deal with the odd infernal ticker. And state of the art incinerators that would pump the entire floor full of purified oxygen and incinerate everything for four minutes straight to help deal with any regenerator or undead issues that couldn’t be contained under conventional means. Great for dealing with problematic issues, but often at the cost of the lives of whoever was working there, which was why they had loosened up regulations on who could bring guns in.