The Xtra- Volume One

by Oliver Willis

  He's staring at me in shock.

  I won't ever get used to that look. When confronted by this strangeness, people don't know how to react, and there's no real "right" way. Every situation just has to play itself out.

  I have to help this one along, from the looks of it.

  I reach out to him and yank at his bomb vest. I have no idea how it works or how to defuse it but I'm working off adrenaline here, creating the next moment based on a hunch.

  The device slips off and I prepare to fly away, hoping I'm far enough from people that I can safely detonate it.

  But it's too light. Even with my enhanced strength I can tell.

  He's still looking at me while I shift the device in my hand.

  Disappointment takes over from his shock.

  "You idiot," I say.

  Fake bomb. I want to think its smart, genius even, to hold up a bank and threaten the clerk with a completely fake weapon. But it just angers me. Because the clerk thought it was real. She believed her life and others were in danger, and she acted accordingly.

  Because of this moron.

  I flick my middle finger at his forehead.

  Upon contact he goes flying, across the room and into a wall. He slumps down.

  "Please, help," says the cop behind me. I turn to give him my attention.

  I see him and his partner lying on the ground. The cop points to his wounded partner and I hustle over to his motionless body. I see his chest rising and falling, but barely.

  "Help," the uninjured cop says.

  I turn to him.

  "I'll do whatever I can."

  I turn back to the injured cop and slip my arms under his legs and back.

  When I pick him up, he feels lighter than a small baby. I can't get used to that. I have so much strength now I have yet to feel a weight that gave more than a twinge to my muscles. None of the time working out in all my prior years comes close to how I feel now.

  This is as if I had the greatest gym workout ever, without breaking a sweat.

  I walk out the front door with the cop in my arms. I look up at the sky and I take off into the blue.

  Chapter 56

  I can feel the officer in my arms, breathing in and out. His breaths are too shallow and I know I've got to move it. It's a weird feeling, gliding through the air with someone's life literally in your hands.

  The weird part is while there is some panic and concern – I'm a worrier by nature – I also feel like I'm doing something. I'm not sitting and watching from the sidelines. I'm not just contributing to a story long after everything has happened. I'm right in the middle of it.

  The hospital isn't far away, and everything is easier to get to when you don't have to navigate streets or roads.

  I land in the driveway and I just keep on walking in one single move. It took a little while to figure that out but it's second nature to me now.

  There are immediately people around me. It happens everywhere I go. Usually I try to acknowledge them but they aren't the priority.

  "This man needs help," I say, walking toward the receptionist on duty. Up until now she's been sitting in her chair, clearly tired and exhausted from a long shift. She didn't see the commotion when I landed and the expression on her face is clearly startled.

  "What—"

  "Gunshot wound to the chest. It's serious."

  She leaps into action. She makes a phone call and in seconds there are nurses in the lobby toting a gurney. I put the cop down on it and the minute I let go they're off, racing through the doors.

  I find myself unclenching my shoulders, which I didn't even realize were tight until now. I was in the moment and was acting instead of reacting.

  This is all new to me.

  ###

  An hour later I'm sitting in the waiting room, holding a soda that's three-quarters full. I've been sipping it for a while, but I just wasn't thirsty. I've found, since this whole thing started, that I don't need to eat nearly as much to generate energy.

  It's like my body found a way to be more efficient, on top of everything else. Thanks for the genes, Mom and Dad, I guess. Mostly Mom.

  After some mindless chat and selfies with the others in the lobby, they've more or less left me alone. I still catch them glancing my way, but they're not annoying about it.

  Despite my earlier hopes, the media interest has not dissipated.

  On the television hanging from the ceiling I'm watching myself. Another bit of cell phone footage. Must have been from one of the bank customers.

  It's weird watching myself fly around. It is strange experiencing it first-hand, but even odder looking from the outside. This is how everyone else sees me and I can understand their astonishment. If I feel this way and it's me, who knows what's going through their minds?

  The door swings open with a creak and a slow whine as it swings on its hinges back into place. As they've done every other time, everyone in the waiting room turns their heads. This is a tense place, with people waiting to find out how their family members and friends are doing, for better or worse.

  A doctor walks through. He's tall, Latino, with a thick black beard. I see him scanning for the room and then he stops when he sees me. He steps in my direction.

  "Miss Logan. You brought in Officer DeLacroix?"

  My heart sinks. I have a bad feeling.

  What could I have done to get to the bank faster? Or when I flew him to the hospital? What can I change in how I operate and execute?

  The thoughts quickly race through my mind as I begin to let my analysis of the situation overtake the emotions.

  "Wait, wait," the doctor interjects, interrupting my spiral. "It's not that. He's okay. He's going to be okay. It's not going to be a quick recovery, it won't happen overnight, but he pulled through."

  I look up, studying the doctor's face. What he's saying seems so incongruous with what I was ramping up to believe.

  "What?"

  "Yeah, it was touch and go for a little bit there, I won't lie. But thanks to you getting him here so quickly, we had a shot."

  "Wow."

  "If we had to wait on ambulance, navigating surface roads and even under the best traffic conditions, I don't know that he would have made it."

  Now I feel like I can finally exhale and breathe, as if I had been holding my breath all that time.

  "You've been waiting here all this time?" He's incredulous.

  "Yes. I had to make sure."

  "Wow. You're a godsend, Miss Logan. He – we – are really lucky to have you. A godsend."

  Chapter 57

  Three Days Later

  Amy is standing at the window of her apartment building and thinking about everything in her life and how low she feels. She cannot escape. Every moment she tries to step out of it, there's something pulling at her, dragging her down into the emotional darkness.

  She hadn't been handling it well to begin with, and then Ted left. He had been threatening to go for a long time, but now he had really done it. He said she was "too much" for him and that her emotional problems were "not what I signed up for."

  When they said their wedding vows, hadn't he promised "in sickness and in health"? Now their eternal promises to one another were in the past, discarded with everything else they had built together.

  She had been there for him. The surgeries, the healing, the relapse, and his recovery. She had sat by his side, holding his hand, talking to him, doing everything for him. And this is how he paid it forward. Abandonment.

  Amy lifts a leg up, putting her foot on the ledge. There's almost no wind blowing and its quiet outside. Off in the distance she can hear a couple of car horns, but not much else. A weeknight in D.C.

  It's too much, she thinks.

  This feels like the best path, as horrible as it may be.

  Elizabeth is gone.

  Her only child. Her baby. Her little girl, just on the verge of going from teenager to woman. She had so much ahead of her and so much to see.

  But it wa
s a "stray bullet," the police said. Elizabeth had been walking home from school, minding her own business, not even considering that this projectile would have anything to do with her life.

  Did she feel pain? Was it quick? How could I have stopped it?

  She thinks about all of these things over and over and over.

  It just kept dragging her into the darkness. It pulled at her, filled her ears and nose and mouth to point where she felt she couldn't breathe.

  Ted shut down. When they needed each other he had just shut down. Then he was gone.

  She was on her own. Nothing to grab on to.

  This is the only way.

  She pulls herself up onto the sill. It is quiet. She lifts a leg up to step out into the dark abyss.

  Chapter 58

  I am just floating up above the city. It clears my head unlike anything I've ever done before. It's like the best, strongest aspirin you've ever thought of but without the side effect of a prescription drug.

  I need it. Everything has been happening so fast I just haven't had time to process it all. My powers. The truth about Mom. The fact that there's not just extraterrestrial life but that I'm related to them.

  That's not even taking into account my Earth-bound concerns. The press.

  They're everywhere. When they figured out that I've been living over at Taylor's place they started camping out there. We actually had to call in lawyers to drop a few letters making it clear just where they were allowed to be and when. Otherwise they would have put a battering ram to Taylor's front door and given me the third degree while I sat on the toilet.

  It feels like they all want a piece of me, to take a knife and cut a chunk of my flesh off, or locks of my hair. They think of me as an object, a curiosity. Like something up on a block they're auctioning off to a higher bidder.

  Some old habits die hard for America.

  Taylor keeps suggesting a "media strategy" and insists she just "needs a green light" from me to make it happen.

  I keep shutting her down. She's giving me a little space, but I know her. She's going to bust sooner rather than later.

  I'll delay her as long as I can.

  I look down at the city. It's a series of lights now. Apartments, houses, traffic lights, cars. It's quiet up here. There's a little breeze, but not much.

  What's…

  I just happen to see the woman out of the corner of my eye. If I had looked a minute sooner or later, I would have missed her. But she stands out, or rather, the window stands out.

  All of the other ones have a slight yellow-orange tint, light bulbs distorted by drapery.

  But hers are bright, because the curtains pulled back.

  And there's the unmistakable silhouette of a woman standing there, where nobody is supposed to be.

  I start floating in her direction. Just to get a closer look.

  Then she jumps.

  Chapter 59

  My motions when I'm flying are controlled by my thoughts. I don't really understand the physics of it, if there are any, but that's how it works.

  I've learned that by, for lack of a better term, thinking hard, I can control my speed. The more intensely I concentrate, the faster I go.

  Go, I think as I race toward the window.

  I rocket off but I'm already thinking about failure. I'm not an optimist.

  I think of a dead and mangled broken body on the pavement below. The bloody remains of somebody who relied on me that I've once again disappointed.

  This is what is going to happen.

  I think of increasing my speed and it happens. I feel the wind rush against my face.

  I have to get there. She can't die because I failed.

  What's the point if she does?

  I'm moving so quickly now that everything is in slow motion. I've noticed this weird phenomenon when I speed up like this. You would think the world would move faster, but the reality is the faster I move, the slower things appear. It's like I'm somewhere else, and time slows to a crawl.

  It gives me a moment to assess what's happening, while from the outside things are moving at normal speed. I see the body falling from the window. I'm almost at the building.

  I stretch both of my arms out in front of me.

  Forward, I think, and I get one last burst of energy.

  She drops into my arms.

  Stop.

  On a dime, my acceleration cuts out and everything is back to real time, I'm floating with this woman in my arms, and I thank God she isn't splattered on the ground.

  She looks up at me and I can see the shock on her face. She was not expecting this. I levitate up a little bit and look in her window. There's no one else there. Nobody pushed her or threw her out. I assumed this before from the look on her face but now I have proof.

  She jumped.

  "It's okay," I say.

  Her eyes close and she sighs. I feel her begin to shake and she's crying. I pull her in and tilt my head so that its resting on top of hers.

  "It's okay."

  Chapter 60

  We're back on solid ground now. The woman is standing where I put her down and she isn't moving. There are obviously a million things bouncing around her head right now.

  To make the decision she made, I know this is someone at the end of their rope. I've never quite been there, but I've been down this road. Despair. It can consume you and wrap you up so tight that it feels inescapable.

  It's even worse because you can be drowning in it and the rest of the world seems happy and content and is moving on with their lives, completely unaware of your trials and tribulations.

  "Thanks," she quietly says. "I'm sorry. I—well, I was—and then…"

  "Stop."

  "It's just—"

  "Stop. It's okay."

  And it is. I don't need or want an apology from her. Who the hell am I to stand in judgement of her? I'm nobody. I was just in the neighborhood. Luckily.

  "You're hurting," I say. "That's a perfectly valid emotion to have, girl. We all have feelings. All of us."

  She finally stops looking down at the ground and looks up at me. I can see the hurt in her eyes. They are puffy and red but that's just the temporary stuff. There's deep hurt there and its right on the surface.

  "I get it. I really do."

  She nods in agreement. She exhales.

  Hours pass. She tells me about everything. The husband's illness, her daughter's death, her husband abandoning her, all the blackness and darkness she has been feeling and why she just wanted to make it all go away.

  I don't have to say much. She just needs someone there to drop this on, to listen.

  I'm a complete stranger but it's like that doesn't even matter. When I plucked her out of the sky with this weird new thing that I can do, it's like there was an instant bond created between us.

  Like the guy at the electronics store. Or the cop. And the others. Every time I do what I can do now, I seem to make a connection with the person I helped.

  Damn it, Taylor was right again. People need this and the things I can do.

  The woman – her name is Amy – still looks like she's hurting. You can't heal that kind of thing overnight. It's unrealistic. She was wounds much deeper and ultimately more life-threatening than the police officer had.

  But there is also some kind of relief.

  "I'm just going to ask this," she says.

  "Say it. Whatever you want."

  "Are you an angel?"

  I try not to, but then I laugh. She cracks a smile too and it feels good to see her like that after what she's just been through.

  "An angel?"

  "Seriously. Did you get sent here by God to help?"

  "Definitely not."

  "But there's the flying and the saving lives—"

  "It's just a thing I do, I guess. Some people have needlepoint, others build Legos, and mine is this flying and helping people thing."

  "It's definitely a thing."

  "I try."

  "You're not jus
t trying. You're good at it."

  "Well I'm the only one who can do it so we have no idea how good I am, do we?"

  "Trust me. I'm standing here right now. I could be – somewhere else. But I'm not. Because of you."

  I smile at her because I have no idea what to say. This woman has filled my heart up with her words. The confusion I had before, needing my head to be clear and wanting the world to just pause for a second, that feeling is gone.

  She leans in to hug me and I hug back. I feel her grip tight like we're old friends and it feels good. I don't know where her darkness will go, what will happen when it comes after her again, but for this moment we pushed it back a little bit.

  The darkness lost a little ground. And I helped.

  A few minutes later I'm floating away. I gave her my number, told her to call, just if she needs someone to listen.

  I wave as I float up, taking my time. I don't need to move quickly now.

  Soon I'm back up in the clouds.

  I really hate that Taylor is right.

  Superhero.

  Chapter 61

  "Hey Dad," I answer the phone.

  I'm back in Taylor's apartment and she's busy in the kitchen making dinner. She's a really good cook and the food smells delicious. I offered to help her but she shooed me off.

  "How's my super star?"

  "Dad. Serious."

  "I am serious. Every minute I turn on the TV I see my girl flying around. Flying! Here, there, everywhere. Busting crooks, saving lives, you even picked up a bus."

  It was a school bus. Blown tire, sent them to the edge of a bridge. I ended up picking up the bus and getting them back on the road. The kids were loud and grateful, and it was definitely cool. Picking up a bus wasn't something I thought I could do until I did it, and I'm still a little weirded out that I did.

  "Wow you sound like you're stalking me," I kid him. He laughs.

  "I'm just saying, I tell people I knew you before you were this big deal. I knew you when you were still pooping in diapers and you could barely lift up a rattle let alone a bus."

  "Old man, you are not right."