Crawling From the Wreckage

by Michael C Bailey

  I eat a lame breakfast of bland coffee and flavor-impaired strawberry Pop-Tarts in front of the TV, stare at said TV for a while without ever really paying attention to what’s on, and then head upstairs for a quick shower. After that, I suit up, throw on my headset, and blast off from the backyard.

  I was five the first time I ever went to New Hampshire. Mom and Dad took me to some amusement park, but I barely remember it. I didn’t step foot in the state again for ten years, and that second visit was purely accidental. I’d engaged Manticore in a dogfight, and, after realizing how badly outmatched I was, I tried to outrun him. When that failed, I played off a near miss as a direct hit and went into freefall, hoping against hope Manticore would think he’d killed me. It worked, but by the time I shook him off, we’d passed into New Hampshire airspace. That was almost two years ago.

  (Two years? Is that all? Jeez, it feels like that happened a whole lifetime ago.)

  My GPS guides me into the heart of Manchester, a city brimming with New Englandy charm. From the sky, I can make out several old mill-style brick buildings situated along the edge of the Merrimack River, which runs through the west side of the city. My destination is a mill near the Notre Dame Bridge. As I come in for a landing, I make out not one but four figures waiting for me on the roof.

  “Skyblazer, good morning,” I say as I touch down, and I put on my most professional smile. “These are your teammates, I assume?”

  “Yeah, I told them we were going to do some training and they wanted to meet you,” Skyblazer says.

  First, he introduces a twig of a girl dressed in a bright green leotard and a pair of pilot’s goggles — their speedster, Zip. She nods at me and mumbles a hello through a mouthful of doughnut. She polishes that one off, digs another out of a Dunkin’ Donuts bag, and devours that one before Skyblazer finishes introducing me to Magnum Hand, a teenage boy with lean, tight muscles — a martial artist’s body. Lurking at the rear of the group, hiding in a light hoodie and behind a pair of pitch-black sunglasses, is an African-American girl who, judging by her tight, pained expression, would rather be anywhere but here.

  “Rando, I presume? Hi. Nice to meet you,” I say, extending a hand.

  “Uh-huh,” she says. Her hands remain stuffed in her pockets. Oooookay...

  “You’ll have to excuse her,” Skyblazer says. “Her hyper-senses are on today. It takes her a few hours to acclimate.”

  “Right, you wake up every morning with a different power set,” I say.

  “Done your homework,” Rando says. She gives me a once-over. “So you’re the big deal space girl.”

  “Um, yes?”

  Rando looks me over again. “I don’t see it.”

  “Rando,” Skyblazer says, using the exact same tone Sara and I use whenever Matt is being rude.

  “It’s okay,” I say. “So, Skyblazer, I thought we’d start out with a basic assessment — run you through your paces, see what you can do, so on — and from there I can work up a training regimen to help you bolster your strengths, shore up your weaknesses, and —”

  “Waste of time,” Rando mutters.

  “Excuse me?” I say. Rando starts. “That’s right, I heard you. You have something you want to say to me? Do me the courtesy of saying it to my face instead of mumbling under your breath.”

  She doesn’t back down. “I said, this is a waste of time. Skyblazer doesn’t need training. None of us do. We’re doing fine on our own.”

  “I see. Tell me, how long have you been doing this?”

  “Almost a year.”

  “Uh-huh. And how many bad guys have you taken down?”

  “Lost count.”

  “Let me rephrase the question, then: how many super-villains have you taken down? A ballpark number will be fine.”

  “We captured a whole gang of them two months ago,” Rando boasts. “A bunch of Byrne escapees.”

  “Oh, you did? I see. The four of you caught them all by yourselves, did you?” Rando’s smug expression melts. “I was briefed on that mission. I know you worked with the Squad. And I know that you made a mess of things.”

  “We did not —”

  “I don’t want to hear it.”

  I get right in her face. My inner Commander Dorr is primed and ready, but Rando’s made it clear that she’s the type of person who responds to aggression with more aggression. Playing tough girl will get me nowhere, so let’s try a softer touch and appeal to her better nature. I mean, there’s a reasonable person in there somewhere, right?

  “Rando, a lot of people have died doing this job, people who had a lot more training and experience than you have,” I say. “You want to be a super-hero? Then do it right, for your sake and the sake of your team. The Hero Squad made a lot of mistakes early on —”

  “And everything worked out fine for you guys.”

  “Because we didn’t do it alone. We barely did anything on our own at first. We had the Protectorate helping us every step of the way.”

  “Just because you needed someone to hold your hand doesn’t mean we need it.”

  “They didn’t hold our hands,” I say, my temper simmering. Inner Commander Dorr is coming out to play. “They shared their experiences with us. They taught us how to do things better, how to do them right. That’s what I’m here to do — not to make friends, certainly not to indulge your ego. I’m here to keep you and your team from getting killed.”

  Rando snorts. “Yeah? And how many others have you helped to not get killed? Huh? Come on, Lightstorm, tell me how many people are still alive because of you. I bet it’s a whole lot.”

  Her words land hard, but it’s her tone and her arrogant smirk that push me over the edge. I jab a finger up under her chin. She tries to pull way. I grab a handful of her hood and press my fingertip into the soft underside of her jaw.

  “Feel that? You feel that?” I bark. “Now imagine my finger’s a steel blade. Manticore had me like this once, back during my first mission, and he was ready to push that blade straight up into my brain. You know what saved me?” Rando gives a tiny shake of her head. “Luck. Not my powers, not my skill as a fighter, not instinct — dumb luck. And you know what? Dumb luck doesn’t last forever. You only get to screw up so many times before it comes back to bite you in the ass.”

  I let her go. She gives me a military-grade death glare.

  Okay, I deserve that. I went too far. That was more old-school Concorde than Commander Dorr. Dorr was blunt, but he was never cruel. Walk it back, Carrie. You can salvage this.

  “When someone offers a helping hand, you don’t slap it away; you accept it. Now can the attitude, get your priorities straight, and grow up.”

  And that, ladies and gentlemen, concludes my lame non-apology. Good job, Carrie. Way to win her over.

  “Bitch,” Rando snarls, “you ever touch me again, I swear —”

  Well, that makes it easier. “You know what? I’m done talking to you.” I turn to Skyblazer. “What’s it going to be? Do you want my help or not?”

  He looks to Rando, as if seeking her permission.

  “Uh-uh. This is your decision, not hers,” I say.

  “Rando,” Skyblazer says.

  “Whatever. I don’t care,” Rando grumbles.

  “Okay. Uh, yeah, sure, let’s do this,” Skyblazer says to me, although any enthusiasm he might have had is long gone.

  This is not how I wanted this to go. For a moment, I seriously consider saying screw it, I’m going home, but all that’s waiting for me there is an empty house, a lot of terrible daytime TV, a cat who looks at me like I’m the one who doesn’t belong there, and more boredom than I can handle. Giving up isn’t going to do me any good — me, or Skyblazer.

  “All right,” I say. “First order of business is to assess your capabilities.”

  “Um, well, I can fly, obviously, and I can hit —”

  “Uh-uh. Show, don’t tell.” I nail Skyblazer with a concussion blast no harder than a friendly punch to the shoulder. “Tag. You�
��re it.”

  I blast off. Skyblazer follows a few seconds later and hits Mach one almost immediately. I fire up my communications system and patch him in.

  “If you were trying to impress me with that, you only half succeeded. You broke the sound barrier too close to the ground. You no doubt scared the bejesus out of the entire city and maybe shattered some windows.”

  And probably gave Rando a killer migraine, but I don’t feel bad about that.

  “Oh. Oh, jeez, I’m sorry,” he says.

  “Don’t apologize to me. Apologize to the people whose property you damaged for the sake of showing off and pray they won’t sue you for showering them in glass. You want to impress me? Prove to me you can handle that suit responsibly.”

  We reach cruising altitude for commercial airplanes in a few minutes. Skyblazer is still with me, but he’s holding back now; my HUD shows the gap between me and the little dot labeled SKYBLAZER growing. I level out and settle into a steady Mach one-point-two.

  “Nothing but open sky all around us,” I say. “Come and get me.”

  The gap shrinks, albeit slowly, which stands to reason if he’s wearing a suit that’s basically the Concorde armor two generations ago. His acceleration, top speed, and maneuverability won’t be as good, and I assume the same could be said for his weapons systems. Let’s test that.

  “Hey, Skyblazer! Are you going to try to tag me or what?”

  He fires. With a quarter-mile between us, his concussion blast fully dissipates before reaching me. He creeps up to Mach one-point-five, bringing me within an eighth of a mile, and fires again. The blast makes contact, but it’s more of a firm pressure against my feet than a solid hit. Still, he did get me, so now I’m it.

  That doesn’t last. I pull a hard right, arc around behind him, nail him with a concussion blast of my own as I fly past, and then resume my previous position. The entire maneuver took me one whole second.

  “You’re it,” I say.

  “What was that?” Skyblazer says, his voice jumping an octave.

  “I tagged you. Now you’re it and you have to tag me. That’s how the game works.”

  “But you’re faster than I am. Like, a lot faster.”

  “That is correct. What are you going to do about it?”

  We reach the edge of the Atlantic. Skyblazer flirts with Mach one-point-six but can’t sustain it. He peels off a series of concussion blasts, but this time I don’t hold still for him. I don’t put too much effort into my evasive maneuvers, but I don’t have to; my sparring partner’s aim is about where mine was when I started out.

  And then Skyblazer does something interesting. He climbs at a forty-five-degree angle to get above me, a move that increases the distance between us. It seems counterproductive, but he’s going somewhere with this, and I’m curious enough to let him see it through.

  After gaining several thousand feet in altitude, Skyblazer power-dives on an intercept course. Nice trick; he’s using gravity to goose his acceleration. His speed eases past the Mach one-point-five threshold but doesn’t quite reach Mach two. The gap closes until I’m within range and then he cuts loose with another concussion blast. It’s not an incapacitating hit, certainly, but this one has a little pepper on it. He rockets by and throws another blast. It’s a near miss, so points for effort.

  Time to change things up. I drop in right behind Skyblazer, tailing him in his blind spot, and toss a few zaps his way. He bobs and weaves around my attacks. Low right, low left, high right, middle left, center off, reverse the pattern, repeat. I accelerate toward him. He rolls onto his back to let loose a defensive volley. I drop down beneath it. He rolls around to keep me in his sights. I climb; he rolls. No matter where I am in the sky, he adjusts so there’s always line-of-sight contact — not that it helps. Not one shot comes close to landing.

  “Time out,” I say, coming to a stop. Skyblazer swings around to join me in a steady hover miles above the ocean.

  “How’d I do?” he asks, hope tempered with acceptance. He’s every student asking his teacher how he did on a big test he studied for so hard but knows in his heart he failed anyway.

  “Honestly?”

  “...Yes. Honestly.”

  “You have a lot of work to do. Your speed is limited, your range is limited, your —”

  “I know. I know, and I’ve been trying to figure out ways to upgrade the suit, but —”

  “The suit is only part of the problem. You could upgrade it until it’s as good as Concorde’s but that won’t fix your terrible aim. You don’t know how to compensate for the fact both you and I are constantly in motion. You always fired at where I was, not where I was going to be — which leads into another issue. You have three dimensions to work with and you barely used them.”

  “I got you good once,” Skyblazer says half-heartedly.

  “Because I let you. I mean, I saw you coming from a mile away, almost literally.”

  “Oh.”

  “I will say that was some decent creative thinking on your part,” I say, but as easily as the Carrie doth throweth a bone, the Carrie doth taketh the bone awayeth. “It was creative, but it wouldn’t have worked on me in a real fight.”

  “What would have worked? Anything?”

  “Running away.”

  “Really? That’s my winning strategy?”

  “Your winning strategy? No, but it’s the strategy that might save your life. There’s always going to be someone out there stronger, faster, smarter, and more powerful than you. You have to come to terms with that now, so when the day comes you find yourself outmatched — and trust me, that day will come — you’ll make the choice that keeps you alive to fight another day.”

  “Uh-huh,” Skyblazer says, folding his arms. “I bet you’ve never made that choice.”

  “I have, as a matter of fact: the very first time I fought Manticore. The guy kicked my ass all over the sky. There was no way I was going to beat him, so I played dead and prayed he’d go away.”

  That confession takes the wind out of his sails. “Oh. Was that the time he, um...”

  “Threatened to shish kebab my head? No, that happened the second time we fought. My record with Manticore currently stands at five-and-oh, and I’m alive to tell you that because I was smart enough to know when to back down.”

  “I’m sorry. That sucks.”

  “Yeah, it does. So does dying.”

  He lets out a long sigh. “Yeah, it does.”

  Something tells me there’s a story here, perhaps the one Edison alluded to, but I haven’t earned the right to hear it yet. The guy doesn’t know me, doesn’t trust me, and nothing I’ve said or done this morning has given him a reason to like me. It’s on me to change that.

  “You know, it’s funny. When we first met Concorde, he was such a jerk toward us. He was constantly dumping on us, and for the longest time we didn’t know why,” I say. “It was because he was scared.”

  “Scared?”

  “That we were going to get ourselves killed. In hindsight, it was totally justified. We were in way over our heads. Concorde didn’t help the situation by copping an attitude, but I understand now why he behaved that way.”

  “Are you saying you’re worried about my team?”

  Wasn’t where I was going with that, but now that he mentions it? Yeah, I’m worried. The Wardens are the Squad two years ago, arrogance and all, and Rando reminds me so much of Matt back in the day it’s scary.

  “I’m saying I’m sorry I was so harsh toward you and your friends. I’ve been through a lot lately. My head isn’t in a good place and —” I stop myself. That isn’t an apology, Carrie, that’s making excuses for acting like a bitch. Try it again. “I’ve been where you are and I should have known better than to behave the way I did, and I’m sorry.”

  “Thank you,” Skyblazer says. “And I’m sorry I didn’t back you up with Rando. You’re doing me a favor and I should have told her to lay off.”

  I smile. “Does that mean you still want to
train with me?”

  “Yes. Absolutely.”

  “Fair warning, I’m not going to pull any punches with you.”

  “I’m okay with that.”

  “You might hate me sometimes.”

  “I’ll get over it.”

  “All right. When do you want to start?”

  “Right now.”

  He catches me in the gut with a point-blank concussion blast and flies off. In my energy form, his cheap shot causes more surprise than damage, but it takes me out of the game long enough for Skyblazer to put a couple of miles between us.

  “Tag,” he says. “You’re it.”

  I think I like him.

  NINE

  “Are you sure this is the place?” Candace asks.

  “This is the address he gave me,” Drake says, checking his hand-written note one more time, just in case he missed something in his first six readings. He’d expected an abandoned warehouse or a seedy motel, not an old mill that had been rehabilitated into upscale condominiums.

  “Might as well go in.”

  “Yeah.” Drake says.

  They sit in their SUV for a few more minutes.

  “Okay. For real. Not doing any good sitting here like dummies.”

  They cross the parking lot, scanning the area for any signs of a set-up — a van parked along the side of the road for no reason, someone trying too hard to be inconspicuous as he walks his nondescript dog...

  The main entrance leads into a small foyer sealed by a glass-panel door. The foyer is well lit, clean, and as far as Drake can tell, free of security cameras. Curious, he peeks inside a wooden cabinet mounted on the wall and finds an assortment of lockboxes, the kind real estate agents use to store keys for properties they’re showing.

  “What number was it?” Candace asks, eyeing a wall panel listing the residents. Half the nameplates are blank.

  “Four-oh-four.”

  Candace locates unit four-oh-four and presses the silvery call button. The nameplate is among the blanks, yet someone is there to buzz them in. They enter, passing through a spacious lobby, and take an elevator to the fourth floor. Their destination is a unit tucked in a far corner of the mill.