by Chara, Mina
Together we were ushered onto set, and placed behind the blue desk. Our names sat on plaques in front of us and beside us were Aya and her mentor, Black Magic. Aya waved, I waved back and she tried to hold back her squeal of delight. The players rotated week to week, and finally it was my turn. On the other side was the boy I’d met on the first day who’d brought far too many clothes, and his mentor, Disco. Despite being someone’s mentor, Disco still insisted on wearing a helmet wherever he went. I wondered if even his mentee knew what he looked like.
“Disco’s a weird one, but he’s a nice guy.” Lisa told me.
“Huh?”
She leaned over and started whispering. “They say what power you get depends on what you’re thinking when you have your near death experience.”
“And what, he was thinking about Disco?” I asked.
“Apparently. I’ve only seen his power in action once or twice. His skin glows, and every hole he has pumps out disco music, it’s great for stunning an enemy, and good fun at a party.”
Carey stepped on set, still scanning his cards, and took his place behind the orange podium. The heavy, wheeled cameras started to move and my mind kicked into action. This was really happening. My hands clenched the fabric of my jacket under the table, and my teeth ground into each other. I wasn’t ready for this! There would be millions behind that camera! Possibly billions! Sure I’d been on TV before, but that was while doing a job, while I was learning. This time I had to be entertaining! I couldn’t just try to be a superhero, I had to be a celebrity! Could I leave, could I try to be ignored? I placed my hand over my heart, and took a deep breath. It would be fine, there wasn’t even an audience, it’d just be like Carey and me playing a board game, right? Wrong. There wasn’t an audience, but there was still a crowd, and the crowd was waiting to see which one of us would fall flat on our faces so they could decide who would make a good superhero.
“Kid, relax,” said Lisa and her smile calmed me down. There was no getting out of this. A man with a headset walked up and stood next to the cameras, Carey had to finally put down his cards, the man held up his hand and counted down from five. The red light on the cameras went on and Carey burst into life.
“Welcome, welcome, welcome! It’s seven o’clock on Saturday morning, which means you’re at home ready to start the day, and it’s time for another episode of Super Variety Hour!”
A small jingle played through the set, and the crowd of assistants, technicians, and producers whooped and hollered. I wasn’t sure if it was for show, or if they were genuinely happy until I noticed several had pulled up seats and handed out snacks to the others. Super Variety Hour was an hour and a half show. This wasn’t a reality show, so the producers didn’t have to step in every five seconds to well, produce. So maybe this was like a vacation for them?
“This week we finally get to meet the last of our new class! So let’s meet the teams!” The secondary camera’s light turned red, and focused on the boy from my first day. A technician held up a card with the word, ‘wave’ on it. “Our first team is Peter from Ohio, he likes Fashion, music, and his power is called Fungal Reproduction. His mentor is Disco, the faceless, nameless, hero of style! Remember folks, Disco never dies.”
Peter winked at the camera, and Disco did nothing, Disco never did. He just stood there, like a terminator. The crowd of technicians clapped. The next camera lit up, and cut to Aya.
“Our second, and returning team is Aya Asimov, she likes her fans, cartoons, and cute things, her power is called Temporary Object Transportation and with her is her mentor, Black Magic.”
Aya blew a kiss to the camera, and Black Magic nodded in a military fashion. The crowd clapped again. My stomach flipped as the light on the camera facing me went on.
“And last but not least, Friday Fitzsimmons, also known as Fitz. Her power’s called, Hyper Synaptic Activity. And with her, the Legacy Hero, Sense!” Lisa smiled, but didn’t wave, and I did nothing, still frozen in place. The crowd of technicians clapped once more as the roll call finished.
“And I’m Carey Fry, let’s have some fun!” Carey pointed to the screen that sat between us, and it sparked into life. “Now, you all know how this game works. I ask a few questions, whoever gets the most right gets a head start on the other teams in our main event, the scavenger hunt.” Super Variety Hour always went the same way, the teams answered a few questions and then sent half the teams out into the city to run a scavenger hunt.
“Tonight’s prize is a one on one dinner with a member of your choice from the recently crowned championship Power League team.” Tense and twinkling music sounded throughout the set as the lights were lowered. The number one, flashed up, and then flipped to a question. Carey smiled, and picked up a card, reading it out loud. There was a tablet in front of me along with a pen to write with, I took it quickly, and readied my hand.
“Who was immortalized in marble in the Rosemary City park?” I didn’t have to think about that. The answer was Captain Fantastic, I scribbled it down, and Lisa gave me a quick thumbs up. “Number two, what was the first Hero Channel toy to go on sale?” Lisa took the pen from me, and wrote something down quickly. “Number three, when was the Bo Bridge built?” The Bo Bridge had been built by Stronghold. He’d built it back when Icon city was still being constructed, and carved a hard edged woman into the side of it. The Bo bridge was the thing that connected the city to the main land, so I scribbled that down too. Lisa took the pen, and wrote beneath my answer, ‘and to honor a young girl called Bo.’
“Is that who’s in the carvings?” I asked her quietly, She nodded in response.
“Question four, and we’re getting near the end now folks. What does the gold statue on the banks of the river depict?” I knew this one well, the city had unveiled it all across the world. It was the second largest statue in the city, it stood as high as Cleopatra’s needle. It was a statue of Captain Fantastic and Dr. Dangerous. I remembered there’d been an outcry when the statue was erected, it didn’t show the Dr. being killed, beaten, or defeated in any way. The statue was an honest representation of the long struggle between the two. So that’s what I wrote, not that it depicted a fight, because it didn’t, it depicted a painfully long rivalry, and sat as a tribute to its end.
“Final question, solve this equation!” Everyone’s head shot up to the screen and on the inside, I fist pumped. Carey looked ready to laugh and so did the crew as they exchanged high fives. This happened on the show every now and again, they loved to throw out word puzzles or math to the contestants to throw them off. Frankly I’d been counting on it. I knew Super Variety Hour inside and out. Most of my superhero knowledge was thanks to that show, and frankly an equation was right up my alley. It was all a slam dunk for me. The only problem was, the equation didn’t make sense as I looked at it. It took me a moment to decide the equation was badly formatted rather than just hard. A bell rang, and Carey straightened his cards with a big grin.
“Let’s look at the teams answers.” Carey cycled through each question, and each screen in front of a desk lit up with a big red cross, or a big green tick. Lisa and I received green ticks for every one, the same as all the others, save for the very last. “Now, could everyone figure this one out?”
Aya and Peter looked shaky, but I was confident in my answer. Aya said the answer was 2, she received a red cross and loud buzz to reinforce the point that she was wrong. Peter said nine, and received the same. Carey turned to Lisa and I, and repeated the question. “Do you girls know the answer?”
I sucked in a breath to clear my nerves, and answered as confidently as I could. “Okay, first of all this is not a proper equation, once you’re out of middle school you don’t write multiplied like that because it makes the structure of the equation un-clear. Second of all, this was clearly written by someone who is not a mathematician, third of all, the answer is ten.” The crew cheered again, slapping each other on their back, happy I’d pulled their equation apart, as the screen on the front of my des
k pinged green.
“And there you have it. Let’s look at the scores. Aya and Black magic are tied with Peter and Disco for second place, with Sense and Friday in the lead!” I was one step closer to winning that dinner.
“You know what that means, they have the five minute head start in the scavenger hunt, so stay tuned, and we’ll be right back.”
The lights fell, and the light on the camera turned off. Another man stepped up to Lisa and I with a clip board in hand. “Ms. Fitzsimmons, are you ready for the scavenger hunt?”
I nodded and followed him off set. Lisa gave me a quick thumbs up as I was dragged out, and placed in an elevator with Peter and Aya. I slammed my back against the wall of the elevator as we sped down. The doors opened onto wet streets and rain, I’d been right about the storm. Veronica didn’t shove the usual colored armor into our arms, instead she handed us pins and checked our outfits up and down. She nodded to Aya, but criticized her shoes and advised her to wear more “womanly” clothing. She then straightened Peter’s tie and told him to wear a size down and avoid the color yellow. She then stopped in front of me, pulled at the jacket to make sure I hadn’t stained it. “I’d like to see some shorter skirts in the future, Fitz.” I was about to open my mouth and say something I’d regret when the camera blinked into life and I heard Lisa’s voice joined by Jake’s in my ear. Carey sat on a table as he read out instructions.
“You kids have got three check points, whoever gets all three first, wins.” The image of him cut out, and Veronica produced an umbrella for herself as we were forced out of cover and into the pounding rain. Lisa and Jake’s voice’s came in through my ear piece as they repeated what Carey told them. “Okay, everyone, here’s the first clue.”
“In a historic corner, people consume a heroic food.”
Both of them said. “What in the hell does that mean?”
Veronica held up a tiny flag, and yelled ready. I braced myself forwards. She brought down the flag and I ran forwards with my five minute head start. We had to find where the riddle was pointing us.
“Theories guys?” I asked Lisa and Jake. I ran down the streets, hoping something would spark my memory, but to be honest I was too distracted by the man carrying the camera following me. Glasses hung out of his front pocket, bobbing as he ran, he was the same cameraman I tried to speak to the day I’d ended up on that skyscraper. “You’re Kevin?” I asked, noting the name tag on his rain coat. He nodded and stepped backwards to get me from the right angle. I tried not to run in case he tripped or hurt himself, which probably made my head start pointless.
“Historic corner?” mused Lisa.
“Heroic Food?” chimed Jake.
I could hear Lisa snap her fingers over the coms. “Heroic food, I think it means food named after heroes, Barney recently had a sandwich named after him. Although I don’t have a sandwich named after me…” she grumbled.
I stopped on the sidewalk to catch my breath. “So you’re thinking the place that named a sandwich after Barney?”
In an instant I heard Jake’s nimble fingers working over the keyboard. “There’s a place downtown, a few blocks from here called Allie’s, apparently it’s been around since the city was first built, and it names its dishes after heroes and villains. According to this, it’s a big tourist attraction.” said Jake.
“That’s the name! Good work.” I started running again as Jake directed me down the right streets, I skidded to a halt as the small restaurant came into view. Just as I saw it, Aya came down the other side of the street, and we dashed inside. She pushed in first, and I was a close second. The man behind the deli counter handed both of us a card, and our respective cameramen zoomed in. It was another riddle.
“Where will he go, what will he be?”
Aya and I both stared at it blankly. I heard Lisa inhale across the ear piece. “I know those words, I’ve heard them before.” I ran out of the deli and down the street, leaving Aya behind. Kevin now seemed content to run behind me which seemed safer for him, and faster for me. I’d heard those words before as well, but I couldn’t think, not in this cold. The rain was starting to get to me, it nearly made my fingers numb. I looked up, my face was briefly on the jumbo screen that hung high on a department store skyscraper, and then Peter’s took its place as he arrived at the Deli. The whole city was watching us run around from place to place, live, as their morning entertainment. It was bizarre.
“Guys I can’t think in this cold.”
I heard Jake’s finger slide across the keys of his computer again, and firmly hit enter. “Where will he go, what will he be, is a quote from Dr. Dangerous.”
Dr. Dangerous? Was it the statue of him and the Captain, was that it? I heard Lisa’s hand slam down on the desk as she chimed in. “Those were his last words before he died, “where will he go, what will he be? It has to be the statue of him and the Captain, it was built after he died!” said Lisa.
I looked up to see my face on the jumbo screen again, either I was the first to figure it out, or my idea was hilariously wrong. I ran along the streets, and through a city park until I came across the statue of the captain and Dr. Dangerous that stood tall and in gold on the banks of the river. On one side was Dr. Dangerous standing tall, on the other side, with his back against his opponent, was a younger Captain Fantastic. The captain wasn’t posing, he just stood there in his double breasted uniform and knee high boots, strong and proud. It was a simple statue standing as tribute to those two men. It wasn’t crude in how it chose to remember a well known villain, and I think that had been how the captain wanted it.
A flash of something black flickered and blinked away in an instant under the statue, but I couldn’t be sure of what I’d seen for all the rain. My cameraman almost fell over in surprise, and then it happened again. The figure blinked back, and stopped; silhouetted against the bright lights and the storm. It was Dr. Dangerous again, or whoever was pretending to be him.
“Lisa! It’s Dr. Dangerous, It’s the man from the bombing!”
“What!? Where are you? Kid, get out of there!”
I hadn’t told anyone about my encounters with the Dr, so of course no one would know. Why was he here? Had he come to convince me again? Or was he trying to stop me from winning? I heard scrambling from the other side of the coms, and Jake readjusting his position. I grabbed Kevin by the shoulders and forced his eye away from the viewfinder. “Run!”
He took a few steps back, but hesitated. “Please! I’ll be fine!”
Conflict written all over his face, Kevin paused and then ran with everyone else, evacuating the park. In this city people know what to do when a figure clad all in back appears out of nowhere; run like hell. Super-villains were like the city’s own Godzilla, an everyday nuisance. I think I even saw one woman trying to finish her donut as she goosed it.
“‘Day don’t engage!”
“I have to!” I needed this, I could ask him questions, I could figure something out, he was coming to me.
The Dr. walked towards me, slowly but surely decreasing the distance between us. I clutched at my shirt as a hot searing pain stabbed me in the chest. A panic attack. Again. I clenched my jaw and rode it out.
“Friday, you’ve got to move!”
“Kid come on! Adam, please!”
I heard a door open on Lisa’s end, then a scuffle and a few hurried words. “He’s coming kid, hang in there.”
I nodded and released my shirt as the sharp pain subsided. He was after me, not the civilians, I was going to stay right here. I straightened my back, and looked him in the eye as best I could. The Bay Side Park was beautiful, even in pouring rain. The tulips swayed in a wind that pushed my hair across my face in thin strands, while icy raindrops shook my body bringing my skin out in goose bumps, or was that Dr. Dangerous himself?
“What are you doing here!? Is there another bomb?” I yelled, but received no reply. I stood there, watching the drops of rain follow the silhouette of his suit before they fell to the ground. Just like t
he first time, he didn’t seem to care. “What do you want?” I asked again.
Water streamed down his face as he took one last step towards me. “You.” He said as he wrapped an arm around me and pulled me as close as he could. There was a certain passion in the way he did it, as though he’d been waiting.
“‘Day what’s happening?” Jake demanded in my ear.
I forced my fist against him but he didn’t move. A loud clap echoed through the air, but it wasn’t thunder, it was the captain! Dr. Dangerous grunted. I hit him as hard as I could, but from so close it was pointless.
“Let me go!” I yelled. He yanked me even harder against him as he pulled out the same device he had the day of the bomb. I struggled in his grip, but my only power wasn’t going to help in a show of strength. He was too big, too strong, and I was far too small. I fell limp in his arms once again, as he pressed the same cold metal device to my neck. Just as I heard a crash on the ground, and the Captain’s voice, Dr. Dangerous hoisted me into his arms, carrying me like he had before. The rain was gone and so was the captain. All I heard was a low hum of power. All I saw was the blue glow of the Dr’s eyes, in almost utter darkness.
My eyes got no chance to acclimatize. A bright light winked on and made me wince as I looked around. Somehow I was somewhere else, in a greenhouse of sorts. He’d taken me away from the captain in the blink of an eye. I tried to move, but realized I didn’t know where to go.