Crawling From the Wreckage

by Michael C Bailey

  Of all the things that could have changed in my absence, why did Edison’s infuriating habit of covering up the truth have to remain a constant? And it’s bad enough he’s doctoring the facts, but to do it at Matt’s expense? I have half a mind to march back up to Edison’s office and tear him a new one.

  “So it’s okay to let people think you killed four men but not to let anyone know our assistant principal was really a criminal mastermind?” I fume.

  “It’s not like anyone had any better ideas. And it wasn’t like my parents’ opinion of my life choices could have gotten any worse. Anyway, speaking of Dad —”

  “Yes, sorry, you were saying?”

  “I was going to say, Dad was never happy about my super-hero side-gig to begin with and nothing’s made things any better. We still fight about it. I can’t even say they’ve gotten used to it, much less accepted it. Stuart’s parents have at least moved into a nice home in the state of denial. Obviously, Dr. Hamill is cool but we don’t know if Mrs. Hamill will ever come back.”

  “What happened with Mrs. Hamill?”

  “Oh,” Matt says with a pained grimace. “Sara didn’t tell you that part?”

  “Obviously not.”

  The story’s short, but it packs in a whole lot of misery. When the Squad finally decided to come clean with their respective families, Dr. Hamill had to confess to his wife he not only knew about Missy’s secret life as Kunoichi, he was the reason why she had superhuman abilities. The revelation that Missy was a government-funded science experiment and Dr. Hamill was the head Frankenstein proved too much of a shock. Mrs. Hamill ran out on her family, stayed with her mother on Long Island for a while, and returned after the holidays to pack up all her belongings. She’s currently living nearby in Quincy, but she’s shut Dr. Hamill and Missy out of her life. She refuses to talk to either of them.

  “Oh, God, poor Missy,” I say.

  “Yeah, but the girl’s hanging tough. Between her dad, Stuart, her uncle Seiji, us, Astrid, and Bo and Ty, she has a solid support system. Hell, even the Entity’s like a bizarre father figure to her.”

  “I’m not about to even try wrapping my head around that.”

  “It’s better that way. Anyhoo, back to Skyblazer.”

  “Yes, Skyblazer. What’s he like? If I’m going to be putting him through his paces, I’d like to know something about the guy.”

  “He’s good people,” Matt says, and I consider that a glowing endorsement; Matt does not praise people freely. “He’s got some competence issues but that’s his inexperience talking. He tries hard and he wants to learn — which is more than I can say for his teammates. They’re arrogant, they’re stubborn, they don’t want to listen to anyone who tries to share their experiences...”

  “I don’t know anyone like that.”

  “Yeah, yeah, pot, kettle, black, et cetera.” Matt checks his phone. “All right, back to the grind for me.”

  “Okay. Group dinner soon?”

  “Group dinner tonight,” Matt declares. “You, me, Sara, Stuart, Missy — the classic lineup. No bagging out.”

  “Yes sir, sir,” I say, throwing Matt a salute.

  “Better get used to that. I am team leader now, after all.”

  “And I thank you for keeping my seat warm in my absence.”

  My friendship with Matt has always been a touch on the contentious side. We tend to butt heads regularly, neither of us are shy about calling each other out if we feel it’s warranted, and we’re not above taking an occasional cheap shot at one another. That’s our relationship. It can get testy at times, but at the end of the day, I love him, and I know he loves me.

  I also know Matt does not hold his emotions back. If he likes you, you know it. If he doesn’t, you know it. And if he’s mad at you, you damn sure know it. Maturity has mellowed him out somewhat, taught him to temper his feelings with tact, but people always know exactly where they stand with Matt Steiger.

  “It’s not your seat anymore,” he says with the straightest face I have ever seen on the boy. “You gave it up when you abandoned us.”

  To his credit, he doesn’t walk off without giving me a fair chance to respond. He stands there for a couple of minutes, waiting for me to offer up a defense, but all I can do is stare at him like an idiot.

  “Matt,” I say, my voice cracking as I cue up that number one hit on the Carrie Hauser playlist, “I’m sorry.”

  “I know you are,” he says, “and I will forgive you. It just won’t be today.”

  And that, ladies and gentlemen, is where I stand with Matt Steiger.

  ***

  I fly home, turn on the TV, brew up some coffee, and take out my phone. I scroll down my directory, pausing on MATT STEIGER for a moment while I debate whether to call him and try to patch things up. I already have one man I care about angry with me. I can’t handle two.

  No. This needs to be settled face-to-face, not over the phone.

  I continue on to the entry simply titled “SB” and press the call button. It rings a few times before Dennis picks up. “Hello?”

  “Hi, Dennis?”

  “...Yes?” he says with curiosity and caution.

  “This is Carrie Hauser. We met the other day.”

  “Oh. Oh! Um, yeah, right. Could you hold on a minute?” The line goes quiet for a bit. “Hey. Sorry. I needed to find someplace private. Hi. What’s up?”

  “Well, I had a meeting earlier today with Edison. He said you’d expressed an interest in doing some training and he asked if I could take care of it.”

  “Oh,” he says, his disappointment obvious.

  “Problem?”

  “No. No...”

  “Dennis, we have a rule in the Squad: no secrets, no lies. You have something to say to me, say it.”

  “No, it’s not — it’s just that —” He sighs. “I was hoping Edison would train me.”

  “Edison is busy. I’m not. And, frankly, I could blow him out of the air without breaking a sweat,” I say, trying on my new drill sergeant persona for size. “I’m here, I’m available, and I’m offering. Take it or leave it.”

  I swear I can literally hear him gawping at his phone.

  “Um,” he says.

  “Is that a yes?”

  “Yes?”

  “You don’t sound too sure.”

  “Yes. Okay. Yeah, I’d like to train with you.”

  “All right. You free tomorrow?”

  “Uh, yeah. Sure.”

  “Name a meeting place and I’ll see you there at nine hours round.”

  “You’ll see me when?”

  I realize upon repeating myself I gave him the time in Kyros Alliance format. After I correct myself, Dennis gives me the address of an abandoned mill in Manchester and says to meet him on the roof.

  “I’ll be there,” I say.

  “All right. See you,” he says.

  I look down. Wednesday is sitting at my feet, staring at me.

  “Well, that ate up five whole minutes of my afternoon,” I say to her.

  Wednesday makes a low noise, like an apathetic grunt, and stalks away, tail high.

  ***

  While a nap is sorely tempting, it wouldn’t help me reset my body clock. A pot of coffee, the TV, and nonstop pacing around the living room keep sleep at bay until dinnertime, when I fly into town to meet Sara at work. She’s on the phone when I arrive. She waves at me, points at the phone, and rolls her eyes.

  “Yes, sir, I remember the landing very well. I was there,” Sara says with strained patience, “but I assure you, there have been no new landings since then and there are certainly no alien shapeshifters living among us.”

  “There are no alien shapeshifters, period,” I say.

  “Mr. Reese? Did you hear that? My friend Lightstorm, who recently returned from an eight-month mission with the Vanguard, an extraterrestrial peacekeeping force, has informed me that there are no shapeshifting alien races at all.” She listens for a moment and sighs. “I know she isn’t a sh
apeshifter because I’m a telepath and I’ve been inside her mind. She is one hundred percent human.” Another pause, another sigh. “I am not a — you know what? I’m going to give you the name of a psychologist in town. I strongly recommend you give him a call.”

  Sara gives the caller a name and a number and a perfunctory goodbye, hangs up, removes her glasses, and executes a flawless headdesk. This judge scores it a ten.

  “That sounded like an interesting discussion,” I say.

  Sara sits up. “The guy’s convinced his wife has been replaced by an alien shapeshifter. I think he might have a legit case of Capgras syndrome.”

  “Sounds plausible.” For the record? I have no idea what Capgras syndrome is. “Ready to go?”

  “As soon as I close up shop. Give me a minute,” she says, and she makes her final checks of the Protectorate’s e-mail and social media accounts.

  “Matt’s pissed at me,” I say.

  Without looking up, Sara says, “Well, yeah. He has been for a while. You dumped all your responsibility as team leader in his lap and he wasn’t ready for it. He’ll get over it.”

  “Will he? Matt’s a professional grudge-holder.”

  “Not like he used to be. He’s mellowed out a lot. He’s forgiven Zina for dumping him and they’re on good terms. He’s patched things up with Gerry Yannick. He even tried to make peace with his cousin Terry — not that Terry Jr. wanted anything to do with him, but Matt made the effort. The boy’s grown up on us. Yes, he is dealing with some lingering resentment toward you, but he will deal with it.”

  That makes me feel a little better — and yet, I wouldn’t blame Matt if he never forgave me.

  Some small part of me doesn’t want him to.

  ***

  Sara and I drive over to our go-to Chinese restaurant Silk Sails, a.k.a. Junk Food. Riding in Granddad’s car feels right and wrong at the same time. Sara sitting behind the wheel is the wrong part.

  We’re the first to arrive. The woman working the hostess’s station greets Sara by name and asks if she’d like the team’s regular table — and that’s how she puts it: the team’s regular table. The hostess leads us to a corner booth that can easily accommodate the Squad plus three to five guests, depending on how much we squish. Our waiter also calls Sara by name, asks her how she’s doing, asks about Meg...

  “Hey, I know you,” he says, finally acknowledging my presence. “You used to hang out with these guys, didn’t you?”

  “Uh, yeah. I’ve been away for a while.”

  He snaps his fingers. “You’re Lightstorm!”

  “Yeah...”

  “Cool! Well, it’s nice to see you again,” he says before dashing off to grab our drink orders.

  “I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to that,” I say.

  “I know I haven’t,” Sara says.

  “Haven’t what?” Matt says, sliding in next to Sara. Stuart and Missy scootch in on my side. Missy immediately throws her arms around my shoulders and makes a contented noise. Yeah, that’s the good stuff.

  “Gotten used to people recognizing us as the Hero Squad.”

  “Oh, that. Yeah, no, it’s still weird.”

  “I hear that. Half the kids at camp call me Mr. Superbeast,” Stuart says.

  “Camp?” I say.

  “The youth club’s summer camp. I’m a counselor. Like, a head counselor. I’m all important and stuff.”

  “You can tell he’s important because he has a whistle,” Missy says. “Summer camps don’t give out whistles to just anyone.”

  “No they do not,” Stuart says, and he spreads his arms in a gesture of presentation. “Check it out, people. The band is back together!”

  “Yay!” Missy cheers. “I like bands. I like being part of bands. Bands are good. You’re good. I missed you.”

  “Missed you too, Muppet,” I say. She squeezes me and makes another happy noise — a totally unexpected kind of happy noise. “Missy? Are you purring?”

  “Oh, yeah, I do that now,” she says like it’s no big whoop. “Ooh, and check out my eyes!”

  She opens her Muppety eyes wide. Her pupils are no longer perfectly round like normal human pupils; they’ve contracted into slits, like a cat’s eyes.

  “Get. Out,” I say, marveling.

  “I know! Cool, right? I purr and I have cat eyes and my canine teeth got a little longer, which I’m okay with but Dad had to find a new dentist for me because my old one got wicked freaked out, and I have to shave my legs and my pits like every other day or else they get stupid fuzzy and itch like crazy.” Missy does a small double take. “Ha! Haven’t done that in a while.”

  “Huh. So, do I have to worry about you turning into a were-cat, or...?”

  Matt answers for her. “I asked Dr. Hamill about it and he thinks the development of pronounced feline characteristics, as he called them, is going to plateau as soon as she reaches full maturity — so no, Missy will not go all Nastassja Kinski on us.”

  Whatever that means.

  When the food comes, the party kicks into high gear. We eat. We talk. We goof around. On so many levels, it’s business as usual, yet I can’t help feeling like I’m the odd girl out. A lot of the conversation goes past me rather than through me; the others talk about work, their side-projects, their relationships, crack in-jokes I’m not in on, refer to missions I wasn’t part of. It’s like they lived entire lives while I was gone.

  No one asks me about my time in space. It’s stupid to be upset about that because I don’t want to talk about it anyway, but there it is.

  Sara clinks her squat little ceramic teacup with her spoon to get everyone’s attention. “Ladies and gentlemen,” she says, raising her cup.

  “You’re going to embarrass me, aren’t you?” I say.

  “Oh, yeah. Ladies and gentlemen, here is to the triumphant return of Lieutenant Caroline Dakota ‘Fargirl’ Hauser — super-hero, Vanguardian, sister, and friend.”

  “To Carrie,” my friends say in unison. That’s when the waterworks kick in.

  “Speech!” Stuart says.

  “Speech!” Missy seconds.

  I wipe my face on my napkin. I clear my throat several times, but I still can’t speak. I can’t look any of them in the eye. I don’t deserve these people.

  “Okay, no speech then,” Sara says, taking my hand. “Maybe we should call it a night.”

  And we do. We file out, the hostess wishing everyone goodnight by name — everyone but me, that is — and head to our cars in the rear lot.

  “You going to Sara’s show before it closes?” Matt asks.

  “She has my comp set aside for me,” I say. “You?”

  “No, I have a science nerd night with Edison and Gwendolyn and Tisha, but we all saw it already. I think Stuart’s going again, though. Peggy couldn’t make it for opening night.”

  “Ah. Cool.” I hesitate a moment. This doesn’t feel like quite the right time or place for this, but if life has taught me anything, it’s that right times and places don’t come around often and don’t last long. “Matt?”

  “Yo.”

  I glance at Sara. She nods and gets in her car, granting Matt and I as much privacy as we’re going to get in a public parking lot.

  “What you said to me at lunch? You were right; I did abandon you. I never stopped to consider how my decision would hurt all the people I love. What I did was stupid and selfish. I dumped a ton of misery on everyone, you and Sara especially, and you didn’t deserve that. I was a crap friend and I am so sorry.”

  He lets out a long sigh. “You are such a pain in the ass.”

  “I know.”

  “Here I was, ready to be mad at you for — I don’t know. A couple of weeks, at least? Now what am I supposed to do?”

  I risk a smile. “Stay angry anyway? I mean, you had it all planned out.”

  “Ehn,” he grunts. “Too much effort.”

  He opens his arms and gestures for me to bring it in. I bring it in, gladly and gratefully.


  And that is where I stand with Matt Steiger.

  EIGHT

  I sleep like garbage.

  Not because I’m not tired — that isn’t the problem. The problem is that my bed is the most uncomfortable thing I’ve ever laid on. The mattress is a stone slab, the pillow is a sack full of gravel, the sheets are steel wool. The only reason I fall asleep at all is because I’ve been awake for thirty-something straight hours, but that isn’t enough to keep me out all night. I wake up a lot, always sitting up with a start, a panicked cry catching in my throat. I look around, wonder where the hell I am, remember that I’m in my own room in my own house on my own planet, and lay back down to let the radio lull me back to sleep so I can do it all over again a half-hour later — and always after experiencing something that falls just short of a full-fledged nightmare. It’s the same dream, over and over, a dream of fireworks going off against the backdrop of a stark black sky. They explode in an array of colors, but they don’t go off with the usual pops and booms and crackles. Each firework detonates with a scream.

  By the time I give up and drag my sorry self out of bed, Mom and Sara have been up for a while and are getting ready to leave for work. Mom asks me what I’m up to today, I tell her everything, and she’s totally cool with it.

  Let me unpack this slowly. My mother asks me what I have planned for the day — not to be nosy, not because she wants to keep tabs on my whereabouts and activities, but because she is genuinely interested. I answer her honestly and thoroughly, without a shred of hesitation, resistance, or resentment. She doesn’t question or criticize my response, and she seems sincerely happy that I am getting back into the super-hero game.

  There’s no denying it: I officially have a better relationship with my mother than with my father. I have never before been able to say that.

  That motivates me to call Dad to see if we can try to iron things out between us, but that motivation peters out as soon as I pull up the directory. My thumb hovers over Dad’s name for a minute or two before I shove my phone in my pocket without placing the call.