by Vance, Ramy
Harold stormed off in a huff. Given the crowd’s reaction to my words, I was going to beat him and he knew it. Score one for the good guys. Now I just had to figure out what the president’s responsibilities were.
I’d do that later. Now, I needed to get down to the library and research. Andrew walked over to me and handed me a copy of the application. “Here,” he said, “you should probably have this.”
“Ahh, thanks,” I said. “That was quick thinking on your part.”
“Yeah well, I had no idea you were going to get into it with him when I put in your application. I went over to admin and submitted it after I saw you ripping down the posters. Figured if you’re that pissed, I could convince you to run for sure.”
“How so?”
“No one gets angry like you did and doesn’t want to put people in their place. I’m the same way. I see a smug look on someone’s face and all I want to do is take ’em down, if you know what I mean.”
I did, not that I said anything. I just nodded.
“So us being kindred spirits and all, I thought I’d put your name in.”
“Good foresight.”
“Hmph. It’s what I do,” he said while flicking back his blond hair. He was all right; I had no idea why Cassy would give him such a cold shoulder. “So,” he said after a long pause, “you’ll need a campaign manager.”
“And let me guess … you know just the right long-haired, black-nail-polish-wearing guy for the job.”
“At your service,” he said with a surprisingly crisp and proper salute.
↔
Faster than you could say “Underdawg” three times, the crowd dispersed with a few students giving me a thumbs-up and a couple even going so far as to shake my hand.
If I were a normal human girl, determined to make the grade and get that fantastic job after graduation, I’d consider this move a check in the plus column. But the truth was, I had plenty of money, a castle just outside Inverness, Scotland, and enough antiques I could sell off in a pinch to any museum in the world.
In other words, I had every reason to coast, and being hall president during the day and vigilante by night was just the kind of overachieving people like me avoided.
Still, someone needed to put Cheer in his place. And given the platform he planned to run on, I wanted to be the person to do it. I guess my desire not to overachieve was being overrun by my need to do what I believed to be right.
Yay me. It was going to be an exhausting year—a fact I lamented as I made my way down the hill. I had wanted to think things through, figure out what my ever-growing list of priorities was, but Andrew insisted on walking to campus with me.
In his words, we needed to hash out the campaign strategy.
“I think the strategy is to simply crush our opponents beneath our ever-righteous boot,” I said.
Either Andrew didn’t get my joke or wasn’t in the mood, because he just shook his head. “Righteousness doesn’t poll well. We need a more tactful strategy. What are our assets?” He leered at me, examining me from ankle to forehead. I’d think he was perving on me, except I was wearing waterproof clothing. You can’t be sexy in waterproof clothing—that has been scientifically proven.
“OK,” he finally settled, “you are cooler, better looking and more charismatic than he is …”
“A jaundiced mule is cooler, better looking and more charismatic than Cheer. Your point?”
“My point is that—”
“Look Andrew, I’m sure I’ll just get up in front of the crowd, yell some sensible stuff that isn’t filled with Other-hating rhetoric and win the day.” My mind went back to the crowd and how supportive they’d been of everything I’d said. If that crowd was any indication of the electoral process, I would be a shoo-in.
Andrew stopped walking, and I had taken about three steps before I realized he was no longer in stride with me. I turned to see the blond, six-foot-three boy looking down at me with utter confusion painted across his face. “You don’t get it,” he finally said, not so much as a judgement, but as if stating a fact.
“Get what?”
“You think the handful of students cheering you on represents everyone on campus, don’t you?”
“Well?”
“Gardner Hall is an anomaly. The other halls—Molson, McConnell, Douglas, Solin, RVC—they’re not Gardner.”
“And what makes Gardner so special?”
“First of all, it’s the only hall with a 30% ratio of Others in residence. The other halls have 10% at best.”
“Which means …”
“Which means Gardner is more used to Others than the rest of the halls. Which means that just because Gardner will vote for Other rights, doesn’t mean the other halls will. I mean, it was only a few months ago that Dr. Dewey was killed—”
“By a human.”
He lifted a curious eyebrow. “We don’t know who killed Dr. Dewey. The killer was never caught. And let’s not forget what happened just two days after he died—the flying jinn and that crazy woman who tried to sacrifice McGill’s student body to the gods.”
I was being so stupid I could have punched myself in the nose. Dr. Dewey was an old librarian (and the first friend I made on campus) who had been ritually murdered by a human who thought the gods left because humans had abandoned their old, bloody, human-sacrificing ways.
And, as if murdering Dr. Dewey wasn’t enough, she had planned to sacrifice dozens (if not hundreds) of students at the beginning-of-the-year party because she thought she could call the gods back.
With a lot of help, I had managed to stop her before she could hurt anyone else … but only a handful of us knew who she was and what she’d been up to. The majority of students knew nothing about what had really happened.
I had stopped her while wearing my father’s cherub mask. Outside of my friends, no one knew I had a hand in the whole thing. And here I was spouting off that a “human” had killed the librarian, like I knew something he didn’t.
For someone who wants to live an anonymous life, I shouldn’t like the attention.
“OK,” I finally said, “but that’s my point: no one knows who killed the librarian. But the crazy woman at the party—she was human. I just figured that she was also the one who killed the librarian.”
“Most of us would agree, but that’s all speculation. You can’t win a presidency based off speculation.”
Now it was my turn to lift a confused eyebrow. “I don’t know about that—have you been following the U.S. elections?”
He lifted up defensive palms. “OK, you’re right. But let me put it this way: you shouldn’t win an election using speculation. That’s not how the world should work.” He slammed an angry fist into his left palm.
“Whoa, easy there boy,” I said.
“Sorry, I just get so angry.” He shuddered like he was trying to shake off the anger. “I’m better now, but my point still stands. Harold—”
“Cheer-less.”
“Sure, fair enough. Harold Cheer-less has supporters. Lots of them. They might not be that vocal—after all, you’re kind of an asshole if you say Other-hating stuff out loud—but that doesn’t change the fact that most people are assholes and when it comes to a secret ballot, they’ll vote along their asshole lines.”
He was right: anonymity is the coward’s shield. People say and do what they want when they know they won’t have to face consequences. Just think mob mentality, closeted racists and internet trolls.
Others had only come onto the scene during the last four years, and humans were still getting used to the idea that their neighbors were a dust of pixies or an angry of dwarves, with all their strange ways. (If you don’t believe me, just try negotiating with a dwarf—it is literally a staring contest.)
But the asshole pendulum swung both ways, and some people—pressured by friends or family to be wary of Others—might say one thing but vote another.
That, too, happens.
As it stood, I wasn’t completely convinced that
Andrew was right. Yes, many were scared, but McGill was the first—and still one of the only—places that accepted Other students. And according to university stats, human enrollment had never been higher.
Still, Andrew has a point. This election should not be won by assuming the best in the people. We should be more purposeful, clear in our messaging and uncompromising in our ideals, I thought.
From the “Yes!” that Andrew gave me, I guessed I thought that out loud. “A bit weird being referred to in the third person when I’m standing right here, but I totally agree.”
“Fine,” I said, resuming my trek down the hill and toward campus, “what are the next steps?”
“We settle on our platform.”
“Isn’t that obvious?” I said. “Other rights—as in equal rights.”
“Fair enough. I’ll work on the phrasing. How about, ‘Others shouldn’t have other rights’? Or, ‘Other but equal’?” Andrew churned through a dozen or so slogans as we turned down University Street and passed through the main gate onto campus. We had just gotten to the outskirts of the quad, an open-air area of the lower campus surrounded by two libraries, the Arts building and the Faculty of Engineering.
It was also the place most students gathered to hang out between classes.
“OK,” I said, seeing the Other Studies Library across the quad. I wanted to end this conversation so I could work on my other extracurricular activities. “We’ll figure out the slogan later. Once that’s done, we’ll—”
“Print posters, canvas and give speeches. Lots of handshaking and baby kiss—”
“Be wary,” a voice said from behind us.
I turned to see Cassy walking up to us. She was walking right toward me. “Be wary,” she repeated. “He will—”
But before she could finish, something exploded right in the center of the quad.
Justice League vs. The League of Doom vs. One Girl in Snow Pants
We all want to be superheroes. We might not admit it to anyone, but when we’re alone, we all dream of having superpowers and fighting the good fight. Maybe we wouldn’t have the grand adventures of Spiderman or make the noir sacrifices of Batman, but super strength, flying, invisibility, the Force … they’re all powers most of us would never turn down.
Until you see them in full effect.
And that’s something I have personal experience with: super strength, speed, healing … all part of the gift basket called vampirehood. You very quickly (as in almost instantly) stop worrying about the consequences of your actions because, well, there aren’t many. After all, who’s going to pick a fight with a vamp?
Superpowers also mean you have the souped-up ability to do harm without many of the consequences that go along with having so much power. After all, if you could lift a truck and throw it at someone without fear of being hurt or any reprisal, why not?
Two words: collateral damage.
A girl dressed up like Jessica Jones was standing next to The Three Bares statue, screaming at some kid in an orange jumpsuit. He glowed gold as he hovered in the air, and he wore a black belt, a monkey’s tail and the Daoist symbol for “turtle” on his left breast.
“Goku?” Andrew said with absent-minded awe.
“Of course,” I said, slapping my forehead. “From Dragon Ball Z.”
That was all I managed to get out before Jessica Jones picked up some poor workman’s maintenance truck—the man paused in his lawn mowing to watch—and threw it at Goku.
Comet Boy slapped the flying truck with the back of his hand and sent it hurtling right at us.
I tackled Cassy and Andrew, narrowly pushing them out of the way. The three of us tumbled into the snowbank, the truck only just missing us as it crashed on the ground and skidded by.
“Phew,” I said.
“Oh. My. God,” Andrew huffed out, then looked at me. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”
Cassy, on the other hand, was less than grateful. “You shouldn’t have,” she muttered, and looking into her ocean blue and gray eyes, I saw she meant it.
Shouldn’t have what? Risked my life to save them? Or saved them at all? I wasn’t sure what she meant, but I didn’t have time to think about that now.
“The engineering building. You guys run in there—now!”
“What about you?” Andrew asked.
Looking at the Jessica Jones look-alike across the field, I shrugged and said, “I gotta go see about a girl.”
↔
I waited to make sure that Cassy and Andrew were safely inside before standing up, dusting off the snow on my oh-so-well-fitted outfit and casually making my way toward the quad and the two battling superheroes.
They were staring at each other, Comet Boy hovering like a golden ornament on a Christmas tree. Up close, I saw the girl was wearing black jeans, a black scarf and a black jacket. At this distance, she was less Jessica Jones and more super-strong goth girl (not that there was much of a distinction).
She pointed at the hovering kid. “I’m sick of you following me.”
“And I’m sick of you walking away every time we have a fight.”
Seriously, I thought, a lovers’ quarrel?
“Excuse me,” she said, “but this is none of your business.”
Thinking out loud—again!
“Look,” I said, my hands out in a I mean you no harm kind of way. I looked around and saw that most people had ducked for cover. A lot of faces were looking at us from windows or behind trees, but there was no one out in the open. As for the groundskeeper, he had run away the second his truck went flying. “Your fight is none of my business, but the truck you tossed up in the air nearly splattered me and two of my friends across the pavement. That kind of is my business.”
“She’s always throwing shit when she’s angry,” Comet Boy said.
“Then don’t make her angry,” I said, looking up at him.
“Thank you!” she cried out.
“And you—don’t throw trucks. And what’s more—” I started, but a guy wearing what looked like a rhino costume bulldozed over the girl.
“Never fear,” Rhino Boy said, “I will take down this campus terror!”
“Hey, that’s my girlfriend!” Comet Boy said, immediately diving into Rhino Boy, hitting him so hard that a boy-sized crater was all that remained.
Comet Boy was worse for wear. Apparently, glowing or not, diving into asphalt hurt.
And just when I thought the worst was over, Comet Boy got to his feet, staggering in disorientation, and all kinds of hell erupted.
Well, not hell exactly … more like all kinds of superpowers collided.
Superheroes Never Think About Repair Costs
Sometimes I wish I had a propensity for exaggeration. Hyperbole, tall tales, a based-on-a-true-story way about me. But I don’t, and I guess that’s what makes my stories so unbelievable. I tell them as I see them.
And what I saw was at least twenty-one kids with superpowers duking it out.
There was a wide range of superpowers, most inspired by the mad rush of superhero movies we’ve had over the last few years. Guys with hammers, girls with swords. They were mostly fighting as individuals, but a few of them had teamed up like some sort of weird Justice (or anti-justice) League.
Three girls with impossibly huge eyes flew around in unison (I’m guessing Powerpuff Girls fans) as they attacked a kid with blond bangs riding a green and orange tiger.
There was even a scrawny kid with no clothes on except tight purple, ripped jeans. He was green and screaming, “Chad smash!” It was almost comical to see him prancing around—until, that was, he grabbed a lamp post, ripped it out of the ground and used it as a fly swatter to take down the three Powerpuff-esque girls.
It was chaos. They were fighting each other like creatures possessed. Frequently one of them would say something like, “Don’t hurt my school!” while throwing a piece of said school at another super-powered student.
And what became quickly apparent was that they were de
fending McGill’s campus with McGill’s campus, and none of them seemed to understand that all the damage would cease as soon as they did.
And the worst part: if they didn’t stop soon, there wouldn’t be any campus left to defend.
So how do you stop a league of superheroes hell-bent on fighting each other to defend their school?
Give them a common enemy.
↔
I ducked into the arts building and found the closest bathroom to change in (I would’ve looked for a phone booth, but in this day and age, those weren’t really available).
Before going in, I made sure no one saw me. That was an easy feat, given what was going on outside. A part of me wanted to thank them for the distraction, but the more sensible part of me chimed in that I wouldn’t need a distraction in the first place if it wasn’t for them.
Pulling out my cherub’s mask from my bag, I put it on as I took off my winter coat and snow pants. It was going to be cold, but given how much running I was planning on doing, I suspected I’d be glad for the lack of clothing.
Once that was done, I hid my stuff as best as I could. The bathroom was an old building, so there weren’t many options besides an old cubby-hole designed to hide pipes and whatnot, which was where I put my stuff. I’d have to get back to it before any maintenance staff needed to get in, but at least it was out of sight for regular peeps who needed the loo.
Once that was done, it was time to do a little bit of destruction myself.
↔
Leaving from a side entrance, I made my way over to the groundskeeper’s truck and found exactly what I was looking for: a tile spade. With that in hand, I went to locate a crater with just the right kind of piping for a delicate operation like this one.
Montreal gets as much snow as Siberia, and because the city is guaranteed to get freezing weather conditions, all the piping is beneath the frost line—about six feet under. So to get to any of it, I’d need a hole roughly that deep. Luckily for me, the fight had provided me with plenty of holes to choose from.