Supervillain High

by Gerhard Gehrke

  The announcers provided the blow-by-blow and color commentary. The screen expanded to show Wind Woman clobber one of the gang members with a vicious uppercut with the pommel of a sai. He went down in a spray of blood and teeth. The second man swung and missed, and she closed in on him, driving a knee into his belly. Two smacks with the flats of her sais, and he collapsed.

  “This will up her stats with the fans,” Vlad said. “A couple of concussions, no doubt. The gang will probably sue her for damages.”

  The footage cut to a new angle as Wind Woman ran outside. Silver Eagle was there now, having dropped in from above behind the armed gang members, his glider crashing to the street. Green Shrike dove and rolled forward, finding cover on the opposite side of a large sedan occupied by one of the gang. He popped up and shot the man with a blast of electric current from his weapon. The gang member fell to the street, twitching.

  “Eh, they got this wrapped up,” Poser said.

  Just then, a large red machine, something that looked like a cross between a crab and an antique Jeep, moved towards Silver Eagle, knocking aside a van to get to him. The hero ducked as the metal monstrosity’s claw swung in a wide arc, slicing at the sides of the other abandoned vehicles.

  “That’s Zeph Swift!” Vlad said. “And he has a new robot!”

  “Exoskeleton,” Tina corrected.

  The lounge erupted in cheers. Brendan had never seen this level of excitement on any televised sports event. The anchors were exhausting their vocabularies, searching for other words that meant “unbelievable.”

  From either side of the street and from within the other two banks, the rest of the Mannequin Gang appeared. A few held shotguns, but more carried bats, hockey sticks, and nunchakus. The gang whupped and howled. The three supers stood shoulder to shoulder behind the row of cars and gave each other hand signals.

  The screen went dark.

  A furor arose, with students shouting “Hey” and “Turn it back on!”

  “It is on,” Vlad shouted back as he inspected the television. Brendan heard other raised voices from down the hall.

  “Change the channel,” Tina said. “Check the other stations.”

  Vlad worked the remote control. A blue rectangle appeared center screen: No Signal.

  “What does that mean?” someone asked.

  “Satellite is out,” Vlad said. “Or our dish broke.”

  Twenty students all checked their phones. Some pushed their way out of the lounge and held their phones up.

  “This is ridiculous,” Poser said, his own face lit blue by his phone screen.

  Brendan leaned over to the A.V. Club. “Let’s go to the Bean,” he whispered. He didn’t want to start a stampede.

  ***

  The little coffee shop was packed with students. Brendan and Tina managed to squeeze in through the door. It was unclear whether the others already inside were in line for coffee or were just standing and watching the television. All eyes were on the small mounted screen tucked high in one corner.

  “I guess Champ sprung for cable,” Tina said and was immediately shushed.

  Champ had the television’s closed captions on. The white letters obscured the bottom of the screen, there was a long delay, and every fourth or fifth word had an extra “%%%%%” added to it, but following them was easier than hearing the news anchor over the small TV speaker. The screen showed New York City from a rooftop in Brooklyn. A large cloud was rising just beyond the tallest buildings on the East River.

  “We’ve lost contact with our traffic helicopter%%%,” an off-camera reporter was saying. “As of right now, this is the closest live shot we have. The source%%% of the explosion was centered%% on the financial district, where a lar%%%ge number of costumed individuals were engaged in a street fight in the midst of a bank%%%% robbery.”

  The screen cut to the footage of the robbery taken from on high, a steady zoom on the action just outside the first bank as Wind Woman joined Green Shrike and Silver Eagle behind the row of cars. Frame-by-frame action followed once the Mannequin Gang emerged. Green Shrike had been sliding something under a vehicle towards the gang members in front when the footage went dark.

  “That’s where our shot%%% is interrupted. We’re waiting on hold with the commanding officer of the Critical%%%%% Response Command, Deputy Chief Warren Rogers.”

  The image cut again to more rooftops and other shots from the waterfront clearly taken from phone cameras. Soon enough, the images were looping as the station ran out of fresh footage. The students began talking and Champ started making coffees and hot cocoas. Brendan pushed forward for a better view of the television, ignoring the scowls of the other students. He crouched down at the front table behind a trio of seated sophomores who didn’t pay him any mind.

  “…police ordering all air%%%% traffic away from Manhattan. This comes following a large%% explosion in the center of—”

  The whole screen went dark.

  “Oh, come on!” Brendan shouted.

  The scene from the lounge replayed itself. Champ stood high on the counter’s bottom shelf and tried the remote.

  “Cable’s out,” Champ kept repeating as students shouted for him to check another station. Finally, he shut the television off and shoved the remote into a cubby by the register. “Now whose Americano is this?”

  Brendan stared at the dark screen, not making sense of what had happened. His mind raced. Was this another super using a big bomb to make some point? A law enforcement response strike completely out of proportion to the crime being committed—a literal bomb to diffuse a street brawl? Or could it be revenge from one of hundreds of families affected by the supers fad, someone who lost a loved one and now, in an act of colossal irony, had committed a monstrous crime that may have murdered hundreds of innocents, just to receive some satisfaction?

  He wasn’t the only one puzzling over the explosion. The students were all debating with each other. What was the size of the bomb? Was it the only one? Were the supers the actual targets? Of course, no one had any facts. Brendan worried about his parents. His mother would be safe if the explosion was a single event in the financial district, and his father’s hospital was far enough away, but what if this was the beginning of some homicidal vigilante backlash against supers?

  Champ finished making a latte and then announced, “Everyone stay cool. I’ve got a radio I’ll bring out front.”

  Only Poser applauded. The rest of the shop went back to their group chatter. Some of the students headed out. As more and more left, Brendan saw campus security at the entrance, pointing them back to school grounds.

  Brendan hoped Champ would return with his radio, but the owner didn’t reappear before a security guard stepped in and pointed at Brendan.

  “We’re having everyone return to campus immediately,” he said, jerking a thumb behind him. Brendan went, falling in with the rest of the A.V. Club.

  “For how long?” Brendan asked.

  “Just a temporary lockdown,” the guard said, but he wouldn’t answer any more questions.

  10. The Nurse’s Office

  “Sit him here,” Nurse Dreyfus said.

  Tina and Poser helped Brendan into the exam room and placed him on a stool in front of an examination table. They each kept a hand on his shoulder to steady him. Tina was applying pressure to his nose with a blood-soaked napkin. The nurse placed one of Brendan’s hands on the napkin and nodded at Tina. Tina didn’t move. Neither did Poser.

  “I’ll need you both to wait outside in the hallway,” Nurse Dreyfus said.

  “We’d like to stay,” Tina said.

  “That’s so sweet of you. He has good friends. I’ll take care of him now.” Something about the nurse and the gentle way she spoke persuaded Poser and Tina to leave, but not before Tina gave Brendan a look in the eye that wasn’t swollen.

  “You’ll be okay,” she said, and she patted him on the shoulder.

  Brendan just nodded. His jaw hurt and he didn’t want to speak.

 
; Nurse Dreyfus closed the door behind them. She took an ice pack from a small refrigerator and put it on Brendan’s neck. She had him hold it in place and lean back slightly. She then took the napkin and had him pinch his nose.

  “Breathe through your mouth.”

  Something about her reminded him of his mother: warmth, an instant feeling that she was on his side, and her words reassuring him that everything was going to be all right and that the hurt would pass. After his earliest fights, he would burst into tears when his mother administered to his physical hurts. But Brendan had run out of tears early in life. Now he felt only anger, and he wanted to be done with the nurse’s visit so he could go back to the student restaurant and find Lucille’s boy Paul and break his face in.

  The nurse brought a second ice pack and pressed it against his right eye. It hurt at first, but soon enough a tingling numbness set in.

  After several minutes she took the ice pack away. Apparently satisfied with what she saw, she went to a counter and began writing in an open folder. Brendan could see his name on the folder’s tab. She began to hum as she wrote, a tuneless melody that would normally have irritated him, but for some reason he liked it. He took a moment trying to place the woman’s heritage, guessing she was at least part Latina with maybe some Native American. He thought he saw the corner of a tattoo just below her uniform collar. She pulled the collar closed as if self-conscious.

  He wanted to let go of his nose. It itched now more than it hurt. “Can I?” he asked.

  “Of course. Let’s see how we’re doing.” She let him bring his hand away from his nose and took the other ice pack from his neck. The bleeding had stopped. She wiped his face down with a damp paper towel. Tenderly, she touched his nose and applied a little pressure on alternating sides.

  “It’s not broken,” she said. “The skin around your eyes has some burst blood vessels. We’ll keep putting ice on to keep the swelling down.”

  Brendan tried to rise from the stool, but his head spun. The nurse steadied him back to his seat and the room calmed down.

  “Are you dizzy?” She checked both eyes.

  “No. I’d really just like to go back to my room.”

  “You’ll be staying here for a while. I doubt there’s any concussion. You weren’t struck that hard. You might feel a little dizziness after all the excitement. You’re a coffee drinker?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Maybe you’re dehydrated.”

  She got a paper cup of water from the front office and brought it to him. He drank it, washing some of the metallic flavor from his mouth. He heard Tina call, “Can we see him?” The nurse closed the door and faced Brendan.

  “Tell me what happened.”

  “I fell in the student restaurant.”

  “Quite the fall.”

  “I’m clumsy sometimes.”

  She gave him back the ice pack. “Hold it to the eye for a few more minutes.” Again with her humming. It reminded him of his grandmother, who called him “Mico” just like his mother did. She would hum and sing while cooking all day long in the kitchen, putting him to work washing produce and cleaning dishes but never letting him meddle with the meal. The last time she had cooked for him, she had made pozole, pavo en mole, beans, and as always, fresh bread, never tortillas.

  “Your face hit a few things on the way to the floor.”

  He kept the ice against the eye. The throbbing was back in full force, but he didn’t want to ask for anything for the pain, as it would only keep him there longer. The nurse went back to her notes. He heard her scratch away as the ice provided him a measure of relief. Then a fuzzy warmth began to spread over him, cloying, comforting, as if he had just stolen a swallow of his mother’s wine. At first he thought he was dizzy again, but the sensation originated in his gut and spread down his limbs and up into his head.

  He lowered the ice pack. The nurse had finished writing, and now there was a look of concern on her face. He flinched when she put her hand to his eye, but was instantly calmed by her touch.

  “It’s been hard for you,” she said.

  “What has?”

  “I see it in your file. Your father hasn’t been part of your life. Some trouble back home. But you have your mother. And this is your first time on your own, yes? Away from family?”

  He nodded.

  “And now with whatever troubles are going on, you can’t contact her easily.”

  “I’m pretty sure everyone here is in the same boat.”

  “Of course. But many here don’t have the same feelings towards their family as you do. Besides homesickness you have a sense of responsibility. Not just for her but for him.”

  “Are you some kind of therapist? Are you talking about my dad?”

  Again, the tuneless hum from her, just a few bars at the volume of a sigh. Hearing the odd tune made him wonder if she was a little bit different, like a few kids he’d known who had tics and verbal outbursts. What was she even doing just standing next to him humming? But the sense of comfort only intensified, relieving not only the hurt in his eye and face but even the knot in his gut he’d carried the past week.

  “I don’t pretend to understand you or your situation,” she said. “I’m not your counselor. But I do understand families and being away from them. Will you tell me what happened?”

  There came a loud knock at the door. Why was Tina being so aggressive? It was flattering having friends looking out for him, but this was ridiculous. He needed Tina and Poser gone. They would try to stop him from finding Paul once he managed to get out of the nurse’s station.

  Nurse Dreyfus opened the door. One of the security officers stood there.

  “I’ll need to speak with Brendan now,” the guard said.

  “I’m not finished treating him.”

  “He’s been in there long enough. If he needs to stay seated, let me take his statement in your office.”

  “I’m sorry, no.” She put a hand to the large man’s chest. He had edged himself forward but now this modestly built woman moved him back to the outer office. “You can wait out there.”

  She closed the door and returned to Brendan. She took a pen light and shined it in each eye, being careful with the swollen side of his face. He flinched. “Hold still.” She checked again. “Looks good. Any nausea?”

  “No. Look, if I need to talk to him, I don’t want to get you in any trouble.”

  “No trouble at all. I wasn’t finished, and I’m still not. Your well-being is my primary concern, not his security work. Now let me see the hand you’ve been trying to hide.”

  He showed her his right hand. She took it and gently turned it over. The knuckles were covered in dried blood, which had come from his nose. “This will sting.” The nurse rinsed the back of the hand with alcohol and cleaned it with some gauze. Two of the knuckles were split.

  She gave him a matter-of-fact look. “This wasn’t from falling. Will you tell me what happened? Or would you rather tell Officer Foster?”

  “Will it make a difference? This is instant grounds for expulsion. I’ll have to talk to him eventually.” The knot in his stomach began to tighten again.

  “Possibly. Is anyone dead?”

  “No.”

  “Then bones will heal and skin will mend. And if there were any broken bones, I would be seeing the other boy, wouldn’t I?”

  “I guess.”

  “So what happened? Maybe we can find some resolution right here and keep it contained within my office.”

  He took a breath. When the nurse put a hand on his arm, it all came pouring out.

  “Everyone was in the student restaurant after the lockdown. Phones weren’t working as usual, but now the TVs were out, satellite and cable both, and even the landlines stopped working. A handful of students tried to leave campus so they could go to the hyperloop station and head home, but they were stopped. As you can imagine, everyone was freaking out. I was too.

  “There’s this girl in one of my classes, Lucille. We don’t get
along—I’m not sure why. She’s been going out of her way to provoke me. She has two friends, big guys, who don’t mind doing pretty much whatever she tells them. Paul and Henry.”

  “The other two involved in the fight,” Nurse Dreyfus said.

  Brendan nodded. “I got in line for lunch. It was the longest I had ever seen it, and it was early. I think the kitchen wasn’t prepared for that kind of rush because it’s Saturday. I was going to grab something, anything, and then get out of there, but it was so crowded. Well, it was either bad luck or they followed me, but they were behind me. Paul thought he could get under my skin by calling me ‘Cesar.’ When I just ignored him, he got angry. Lucille never said a word, but she didn’t have to. It’s like they’re under her control. More taunts followed about my hair, my clothes, petty stuff. Like I care that everyone else has nicer things than me? I’m immune to that now.”

  “But something caused the fight,” Nurse Dreyfus said. “Maybe you’re not as immune as you think.”

  “Well, he mentioned my mother by name. I had never told him. Lucille must have looked it up, same as how she found my real first name. Paul started making fun of what my mom does for work and he suggested that she did things to get me my admission here. Then he had his phone out, had a picture of her. It wasn’t anything bad, just a photo from the hospital website. But they had taken the time to look all that up. He wouldn’t leave it alone, even when the line split. He got louder, got too close, wouldn’t back off.

  “So I hit him.”

  “That was Paul?” she asked.

  “Yeah. When he went down, I wasn’t even sure what had happened. I guess I just stood there, almost like I was watching it from a distance. That’s when Henry clobbered me. I got up a few times, and he kept knocking me down. Then some upperclassmen got him and me apart. I never got a shot in on him, just Paul. But I struck first.”

  “You were provoked.”