“You don’t sound like much of a hero.”
“I’m not. I’m not a hero, Sam, and I’m not a god. I’m a man who protects people from aliens, not from each other. I’m trying to protect our loved ones from danger; I need you to do the same.”
Sam grimaced, and let out a heavy sigh. He seemed… not thrilled, to say the least, but I think I made a point. He got up, and made his way to the door.
“Fine,” he said. “I’m going to go to bed, I’m still tired from… dying and stuff.”
I just made a light, forced smile, and watched him walk out the door. As he did, I made my way out into the living room, where I saw Alannah, now sitting upright on the couch, looking at me over her shoulder.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hey,” I replied exhaustedly, making my way over to the couch as well. I laid down on it, placing my head in her lap, and I looked up at her as she played with my hair. We’re adorable, I know.
“So, Sam’s awake?” she asked. I nodded gently. “I thought I heard his voice, but I figured it was probably a bad time to come in.”
“I felt his hand, Ana; looked into his subconscious. He has immensely strong powers, more so than me.”
“Did you tell him?” she asked, somewhat worriedly, but mostly just curiously.
“Not about all of them; not the worst of them,” I replied. “Bell thinks he could be dangerous. That if he ever turned to the dark side, he could wipe out the whole world, and nobody, not even me, could stop him.”
“Is he right?” she asked. I paused, looking out the window directly in front of my eyes, towards my feet.
“Yeah,” I gasped out painfully. “He can…” I lowered my voice a bit, in case he was snooping on us. I’m sure he wasn’t, but just in case. “I think he can manipulate matter.”
“Matter?” Alannah asked in shock. “Like, the fabric of life, matter?”
“Yeah, I’m not totally sure how, but still, even a slight manipulation of something like that could have extremely negative effects on the world, and he could end up doing a lot more harm than good, even if he didn’t try to do harm in the first place.”
“So… what do you have to do?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I might have to…to stop him, if things look like they’re headed south, but I don’t think I can, Ana; I can’t bring myself to.” I paused for a minute, the very idea now running circles in my head. “So, instead, I just have to try and teach him how to use his powers, and hopefully sidestep the entire matter piece of it, while simultaneously keeping the fact that he’s alive a secret so nobody finds out that the Wanderer revived him, and then trace it back to me, and put you and our other loved ones at risk.”
“So… tough day, huh?” she offered. It was nice, her sense of humor. Even though I was horrified at the moment, she could still manage to make me smile. Thought that quickly faded, and I frowned again.
“I’m scared, Alannah,” I confessed. “I don’t know what to do.”
She just cradled my head in her lap, and put her free hand in one of mine, looking down at me softly and giving me a little smile. Damn, there it was again…
“It’ll be okay,” she insisted. “I know you don’t like to hear it, but as much as you may not want to be, you are a hero– at least to all of us. You always find a way to keep us happy and healthy. I have faith in you.” I closed my eyes, and smiled a little, trying to let all my stress wash away, and allow myself to finally rest after a tiring day.
“I love you,” I said.
“I love you too,” she replied.
And then I fell asleep, and for the first time in several hours, I did so in peace.
4
A Day In The Life
I realized something I hadn’t considered before. If Sam was going to go out with me, then he’d need something to hide himself. A suit. But there was only one chestplate, so where the hell were we going to get another one? My suit could do a lot of strange things, but I don’t think self-duplication was one of them.
Then again, maybe it was? After all, it could make a hell of a lot of things, so maybe it would just like, take time and whatnot. Either way, I didn’t want to get Sam’s hopes up, so I went to the moon, where at least for now he couldn’t reach me, and I tried to figure it out.
I had made a bit of a mini-home for myself on the moon the past couple years, with the help of Bell and his team, of course. I actually even had a little tent/hut setup going, like my own little cabin. If the cabin was a tent. And on the moon.
Anyway, I spent most of my time thinking hard things over up there, or working on little improvements and knicks and knacks with my suit; I couldn’t do a ton to it, but it was good to more pop out and inspect all the pieces to it, of which I was still figuring out.
So, there I was standing outside my tent so the suit could have space if it needed it.
“Alright suit, big task here,” I said aloud. “I mean, I know you already kinda know, since we’re connected and all, but I’ll ask anyways. Can you make a copy of yourself for my friend, Sam?”
I got no response. Well, that was no surprise, it was a suit for Christ’s sake, not a living being (technically). Still though, nothing happened.
“Uh… so is that a no, or…?” I asked expectantly, looking all around myself, trying to see if something was happening. Then something did happen. Ox came out.
“Jason, what are you doing right now?” he asked. Straight to the point, this one was.
“Ox! We haven’t talked in… a while,” I replied, somewhat embarrassed. What the hell was I embarrassed for though? This guy wasn’t even really here! Still, I did feel kind of guilty for not staying in touch.
“No, but we are one with the suit, so we have been here,” Ox said. “Again, what are you doing?”
“Right!” I said, getting back on task. “So, I gave powers to my friend Sam, as I guess you know.”
“Yes, a questionable decision, we all find,” Ox replied.
“Yeah… you and everyone else. Anyway, I did it, and I realized he’s gonna need a suit, like me. But uh… I don’t know how to make one.”
“That’s because it’s not something the Wanderer made,” Ox responded. “Or rather, it was not brought with the Wanderer originally. Our people made it– Ox specifically making the very first model– and crafted it to be an ideal assistant to the Wanderer themself.”
“Oh, okay,” I said. “So uh… can you do it again?” I asked.
“What?” Ox clarified.
“Can you, you know, make it again?” I repeated. “Because I need another one.”
“Jason, we’re not actually here. We cannot physically craft anything,” Ox said.
“Okay, true, but you are part of the suit, and if all your memories are in there, then the suit could make something, right?”
“Perhaps, but there’s nothing to make it out of.”
“Okay, well what if it uses part of the suit?” I questioned. “Like what if it takes like a chunk of mine, regenerates it back for me, and makes a suit out of that piece?”
Ox seemed to be contemplating that idea, and didn’t respond to me for a while. Then, my entire headpiece started to shake loose, and it came off, rattling onto the ground. Moon-ground? I’m sure I’ve gone through this before.
I gripped at my throat, and covered my mouth. Ox just looked at me oddly, and slowly I uncovered my mouth. All that time I’d spent on the moon, and I never really checked if I could actually breathe in space. Turns out, yeah, I could.
Well, sort of. I could feel a bit more strain on my lungs, sort of like when you climb a mountain and the air becomes a lot thinner. I think my lungs– really my whole respiratory system– were working to keep my lungs from deflating and skin from freezing to ice, but even still, it could only work for so long, I imagined.
“Ox, what the hell!?” I asked incredulously. “I thought I was gonna die! I still might!”
“You will be fine; the suit keeps an oxygen and carbon-d
ioxide flow from escaping your mouth, and instead circulates through your body,” Ox clarified. “We simply took a part of the suit. Is this not what you wanted?”
“Not the part that masks my face!” I argued. I know no matter what part he took it would have let “space” slip in, but now I couldn’t hide my face from people back on earth. “How long until it comes back?”
“Hopefully not long, a full earth-day at most,” Ox explained.
“Well, that’s good,” I said, settling down. “That’s not long at all.”
“And then either an earth-week or perhaps month until all the adjustments and calibrations can be made to the new suit.”
“What!?” I asked, shocked at this secondary– yet arguably more important– piece of information. “What do you mean!?”
“It takes time for things like this to be created, Jason. Even your suit took time to make, believe it or not; you have yet to even use all of your suit’s capabilities.”
“And you’re gonna be making it? So does that mean I won’t be talking to you much until then?”
“Unless you come to visit this spot, no. The memories of Wanderers ranging from Ox, all the way down to Haltz, will be located in this helmet, working on forming a new suit for your friend Sam until it is finished.”
“And then you’ll come back to me, right? Or can you be in both?”
“We are not certain; until now there has only been one suit at a time in which we all reside in, one after another. Would you prefer we stay with you or with your friend?”
I thought about it for a second. Technically, it would be better for them to be with Sam– he’d need the guidance if he was really going to be a new Wanderer. Then again though, I kind of needed these guys– or I guess really just Ox– too. He had a lot of wisdom, and as cold as he could sometimes be, he made me feel like I always had someone that really got it.
“What if I took some of you, but left some with him?” I asked. “Like, I take you and your memories, maybe Haltz and a couple others, and Sam gets the rest? Would that work?”
“Perhaps, we are not sure,” Ox replied. “We will see what can be done. In the meantime however, we must all focus on creating this suit for the new Wanderer.”
“Alright, fair deal. Maybe don’t call him the new Wanderer though, I’m still the Wanderer,” I requested. “Maybe some other name. Something cool, but not too cool.”
“Very well, if you are really that sensitive about a name,” Ox quipped. Was that a joke? A jab? At me? I was hurt, and admittedly, a little impressed.
I just glared at him, and then floated away, making my quick descent back down to earth. It had been a few days since I fought with Bell and fell asleep in Alannah’s lap, and Sam was slowly but surely recovering. I, meanwhile, just busied myself in training and scouting around the planet, trying to make sure there wasn’t anything going on that Bell and his people may have missed. It’s only happened once or twice– generally the challengers come near where I am anyway– but it’s always good to check.
Whilst flying around, I’d liked to slow down a bit in more populated areas so people could see me; I guess you could call it my ego flaring out, but it was also so they’d know I was still around. Back in the day, they’d to marvel at the sight of me, almost look at me like I was some kind of art or something. Lately though, I’d been noticing something different.
They looked… apprehensive. Nervous, almost. Like they didn’t really even want me around. It wasn’t like there weren’t a fair share of people that had always rejected me as a hero: I admittedly had always been bound to cause a bit of destruction in my fights, and sometimes people would die before I got to the alien. Still though, that always seemed to be at least the vocal minority. Now though, more and more people seemed like they didn’t want me around. Like they looked at me like an alarm blaring; like they had to duck for cover.
It was kind of disheartening, honestly. I mean, I know I’m not a superhero, I don’t want to be, but still, it never feels good to have people dislike you, especially when you’re a world-known face. Mask? Whatever, the point was it kinda sucked.
Anyway, I made my way back to the apartment after flying back from the moon, and landed on the terrace. The door was open, and there was nobody inside from what I could see. It was also a fairly hot day, so the door shouldn’t have been open, the air conditioner should have been on.
I poked my head in and did a double-check to see if Sam was inside, but I couldn’t see him anywhere.
“Sam?” I asked loudly. “You in your room or something buddy?” I got no response.
I walked back out onto the terrace and looked around, trying to assess what was happening, or more accurately what may have happened. I noticed that there was a bit of an edge to the stone wall in front of the terrace missing; it was almost as though it was ripped off, or maybe hit by something heavy.
I walked over to it, and looked over the edge, and just as my mind began to race, it just as quickly stopped, seeing with my eyes what had happened.
Sam was on the ground, maybe seven stories down, in a dumpster.
Well, not really in a dumpster, per say. More so he had landed on a dumpster, and his force was such that it wrapped the thing around him on impact.
“Sam!” I shouted. I knew he should be fine from a fall like that– I’d fallen from much higher– but still, he at the very most may have been passed out. I saw him look up though, so he was fine.
“Yep, I’m down here!” he shouted back.
“You okay?” I asked back, still yelling.
“Uh… yeah, I think so!” he replied, also still shouting.
I looked around, making sure nobody was really looking– it was a weekday anyway, so most people were out working, like real adults– and when I was sure I was good, I leapt off the terrace, eventually catching my fall and floating myself to the ground next to him.
“What the hell were you doing, dude?” I asked, shocked at his irrational behavior. I looked down at him as he was getting up, and I noticed that his arm was fully healed. “Your arm!” I shouted.
“Yeah, I know right!” he said excitedly, waving it around in the air, and flexing his fingers. “It’s awesome!”
“Yeah, no kidding…” I gawked, touching it for myself with my hands. It felt… just like a real hand– like his real hand. It was amazing. Anyway, then I got back on task. “Anyways, what were you doing? Life too much for you? Because I’ve got to warn you pal, it’s going to be a lot harder to kill yourself now.”
“No, that’s not what I was doing, obviously!” Sam protested. “I was trying to fly, like you can; you said I’d be able to do that by default, right?”
“Well you have that power by default, that doesn’t mean you’ll know how to use it right off the bat,” I rephrased.
“Well how did you learn?” Sam asked. “What was your first experience with the powers?”
“My first experience was when I fought the Battle Ball–”
“Battle Ball?” Sam reiterated.
“Baflatar, but that’s basically the meaning,” I explained. “Anyway, that’s how I learned to fight, and what I could take for damage; initially anyways.”
“And flying? What about that?” Sam asked. I looked down, and raised my eyebrows, then looking up at him.
So there we were, at the top of the John Hancock tower– which, by the way, is seven-hundred ninety feet tall– and it was only then that I began to realize that for someone that had never flown on their own before, this may have been a bit much.
“And…And this is what you did, right?” Sam asked nervously; he was shaking he was so nervous. Then again, it was also kind of cold up there, maybe it was that…
“Yep. Exactly this.” Exactly not this. All I did was jump from the top of a hill in the woods behind my house, hit some trees– you know, baby steps.
Still, I felt that this might help to give him a better head start into controlling his powers on a more advanced level. Maybe he’d e
ven be able to be proficient without the use of a suit before he even got one; when I got mine, I remember I used it as quite the crutch, initially.
“Look, there are a ton of buildings below, so worst case, you just land on one of them if you can’t get yourself soaring,” I explained, trying to calm him.
“Won’t I just crash through the roof?” Sam questioned. Hmm… probably.
“No, probably not,” I assured him. Better he be confident than terrified, right?
“Alright… so, so what I just like… do I use it like a muscle?” Sam asked.
“Exactly like that. It’s all sort of mental, but you also just sort of need to push your body upward. It’s almost like you need to imagine you have wings, and you’re moving those to get yourself moving.”
“Okay…” Sam replied. Then he just sort of stood there, not saying or doing anything. I looked at him, and waved my hand in his face.
“Sam?” I asked. “You good?”
“Yeah…Yeah, I’m…I’m fine…” he muttered.
“Look, if you don’t want to do this, we don’t have to do this,” I said.
“No!” he shouted, looking me in the eyes. “No… I want to do this now.” I floated over in front of him so that I was now off the building and face-to-face with him.
“Alright, then come on over,” I said, gesturing my hands toward myself.
He closed his eyes, and took a deep breath inward. Then he rose his head, and looked me right in the eyes. I moved back a bit, and nodded at him encouragingly. He nodded back, and then gave himself a running start. Right as he got to the edge of the building, he leapt, and actually went right over my head.
Now, it might sound hard to believe, but we were facing southeast. That’ll make more sense in a second. You might need a map, just FYI.
The Wanderer (Book 2): Stranded Page 4