The Xtra- Volume One

by Oliver Willis

  Grab. Grab. Grab. I pick up people and reach the surface again. Drop them in the boats. Then down again. I have to check on them, but I have to get them all out of the water. Now. All of them.

  I keep doing this while out of the corner of my eye I see the ship finally, completely slip under to its final resting place.

  Looking left and right underwater I need to make sure there isn't anybody else left. I have to get all of them. All of them.

  There.

  A little body. Little girl.

  No.

  I power through the water, creating a bubble around me because I'm moving so fast. She's in my arms in seconds and in the blink of an eye I break through the surface. I'm back in the air, hovering above the scene when a group of survivors calls to me.

  "Over here, we have a doctor over here."

  I drop down on the boat and softly put the girl down. She's small, maybe six or seven, and is still holding dripping wet remnants of cotton candy in her pudgy little fingers. I can see wisps of red and green strands of the confection still strung between her fingers.

  The doctor immediately rushes to her and I watch him check her air passage. She isn't moving.

  No. No.

  I get a sinking sensation and I feel like I'm about to vomit. Other than the soft gurgling of what remains of the ship sinking underwater, there's hardly any more sounds. It's too quiet.

  The doctor starts chest compressions, then blows into the girl's mouth. He repeats the maneuver, constantly checking to see if she has begun breathing again. He does this a few times.

  No. Not another one. No.

  One more time.

  Then a cough.

  It's raspy and weak. But it's a cough. The girl turns her head to the side and vomits up water and whatever she had for lunch.

  The doctor looks up at me.

  "Alive, you got her."

  I float away.

  She's alive in spite of me. Not because of me. I got cocky. Arrogant. Thought I had this all handled. Like before, in the school. It was the same thing all over again and lives were on the line.

  I could have killed them. Again.

  Chapter 79

  The radio host speaks with his mouth too close to the microphone. That's the style he has always used. He is so up close and personal with the device that it always smells of what he ate for lunch that day. Nobody else at the station bothers to use the microphone because of this.

  "Carla Logan's had a weird few weeks," he says. "I won't call her 'The Xtra,' that's some nonsense the mainstream media came up with. Part of the whole fake thing where they try to sell her to us. So politically correct! Because she's black, sorry I mean, 'African-American,' they give her a neat code name. Probably focus grouped it with your tax dollars."

  He pauses to admire his own theory.

  "Weird few weeks. She helps rescue people at the Maiden of the Ocean sinking, though I heard through the grapevine that she almost got people killed, and that they had it handled fine before she showed up – but she helps them out. Then, she disappears for days on end. There's one or two sightings, I guess to feed the mainstream press – they love her – but nothing like before."

  "I think she's doing us a favor. We don't need big government or a big super hero. We can do it on our own."

  He opens up the lines for calls and they come pouring in as always. He has a skill for riling up the audience and getting them to jam the station's phones. Years on air have perfected his patter and cadence.

  "She's stuck up," says one caller. Another insists she's an "ice princess" while another proclaims that she's "acting uppity."

  "Well," the host responds, mindful of the trouble he ran into earlier in his career for a little too much racism, "Let's say 'haughty,' okay? She's acted 'haughty.' Putting on airs."

  The caller doesn't agree. He wants to say "uppity" and he's upset at the host for not letting him use the term. "I can't believe 'they' got to you too," the caller says as the host hangs up on him.

  ###

  On the business network, a pundit with too much product in his hair (it shines under the studio lighting) explains to the host and audience that The Xtra is merely involved in a "branding shakeup."

  "Getting that little boy killed tainted her brand," he calmly says, fiddling with his black horn-rimmed glasses. "She needs to reintroduce herself. Quieter. Sleeker. Power, without all the hype."

  The host nods along, happy to have the blather fill minutes of airtime between commercials.

  ###

  "The Hero Hour" online radio show has staked out a niche for itself. The two black women who host it have racked up thousands of regular listeners by obsessing over everything Carla Logan. They spend hours dissecting her every move, reactions to her actions, and anything tangentially connected to it all.

  Right now, however, there is a cloud of disappointment hanging over the show.

  "I just don't feel good about it," says Octavia, the older of the two hosts.

  "You're overreacting," replies Gloria.

  "Look at all the videos, the clips of her, the pictures from the last couple weeks. I'm not seeing it. Carla's out there, but she's just – 'eh.' Going through the motions."

  "Are you her boss? Is this a performance review?"

  Both women bust out laughing. The idea is comical, especially since the show exists on a shoestring budget, buoyed only by generous donations from their biggest fans.

  "Touché," Gloria finally replies. "Still, it's like she's sleepwalking. What's the point of those powers if that's how you’re going to go through life?"

  "Amen. Carla, Miss Xtra, if you happen to be listening—"

  "And we know you are, girl."

  "Keep your chin up. Keep doing what you're doing. You're too important. For everyone. But especially us. The community. We need you."

  "Sure do."

  ###

  The young man standing in line at the drug store is fiddling with his phone just so he can pass time. He would rather be almost anywhere else, but his dad was at home in bed, moaning in pain, and this prescription was sure to help. So he stands here, rolling his eyes at the glacial pace of the line. Nothing he can do to make it speed up.

  He scans the stories in the timeline of the app on his phone. Photos, videos, random stuff posted by friends and family.

  This one catches his eye.

  "Xtra Xtingushed?" reads the headline. He can't tell if the picture accompanying the story is real or a photo illustration. He doesn't particularly care, to be honest. It shows Xtra throwing her signature military jacket in the trash.

  Intriguing.

  He clicks through to read it. The story, citing "anonymous sources" claims that "Xtra, aka Carla Logan, is within days" of "hanging it up for good." It recounts the details of the attack on the elementary school in Washington, making great pains to emphasize the most lurid and gory bits of information.

  "She may have been doing more harm than good," the story notes, in a bit of editorializing that has the young man nodding in agreement. He hadn't thought of it before, but the article and its selective version of events have pushed him in a certain direction.

  He likes to think of himself as independent, able to come to his own conclusions, but for stories like this, beyond his immediate world, it was easier sometimes to let other people do the thinking for him.

  Maybe she is a waste of time, he thinks.

  He clicks the "like" button on the bottom of the story, then hits another button to share it on his own feed to his friends and family.

  The entire time he has no idea that he has been subjected to propaganda from a subsidiary of Madden Blanc's vast empire, fed misinformation custom tailored to Blanc's interests, and then, at the end of it all, has spread that propaganda to even more people. For free.

  Blanc sees the world turning against Carla Logan. He's doing his part to give her a shove over the edge.

  Chapter 80

  "Mr. Logan" is how Taylor begins her phone call as so
on as he picks up, not giving him even a second to say "hello."

  "Mr. Logan is my dad," Wallace responds with a rueful chuckle. "Call me Wallace."

  "Are you crazy? I mean, sorry sir, but that's just not how Vietnamese do it. My dad would have my head on a silver platter for calling an adult, especially you, by their first name."

  "You're a grown-up too, you know?"

  They share a laugh over the absurdity, but then it peters out. They both know why this call is being made and they are both torn up about it.

  "It's Carla, isn't it?" Wallace asks.

  "Yes. Yes it is sir." He ignores the honorific to allow the young woman to speak. "She's – I don't know how to explain it. She's never been a big talker, not like me, but ever since… the playground… she's gone… dark."

  "I know," he replies, exhaling loudly. "I've spoken to her a few times and she's polite, calm, the usual. But that's all I get. Like she's sleepwalking, going through the motions. I told her I was coming up—"

  "But she said no. I know. I told her I thought it would do her good to see you. But she said she was fine."

  "She's not."

  "No, she isn't. I almost wish she were just angry at me. I'd prefer that. At least we'd get something out of her if that was the case."

  "Yeah. The last time I saw her like this was when her mother—"

  "But at least then, as sad as she was, she didn't blame herself. She understood that was something she had no control over."

  "But now she thinks she has control."

  "She won't listen when I tell her that isn't true, sir. I feel responsible."

  "Taylor, you can't—"

  "I went on and on about how she was a superhero. How she just had to help people. I pushed her out there."

  "Taylor. Stop. You've known Carla a long time, not as long as me, but a long time."

  "Sure."

  "Have you ever gotten her to do something she didn't want to?"

  "No, sir."

  "That's right. When she went out there, did these things, sure, you gave her a little shove – you're her best friend and she values your opinion no matter how much you fuss—"

  Taylor smiles thinking about how squarely Wallace has hit the nail on the head. A hundred percent true.

  "But she's her own person," he continues. "Nobody could get her to do something she doesn't want to. When she goes out there, that's because she wants to, and she knows she can do it."

  "I suppose you're right."

  "But now, with that poor little boy, she's in a bad place."

  "How do we get her out? It's like something broke inside her, sir."

  They are both silent for a long moment. The realization that they came to independently is now even heavier because they have shared their concerns with each other.

  If they can't pull her up, they both think, who can?

  Chapter 81

  Madden Blanc admires his own handiwork.

  It had begun as a sketch he drew in the middle of the night, a spark of inspiration that jumped out at him from seemingly nowhere. In truth, he had been working on the problem from the first moment he saw the grainy video footage of Carla Logan. He had the raw materials in various stages across his empire, but it was the image of her and her magnificent, natural gifts that had started the neurons firing in his brain.

  The sketch was refined over the next few days, even as he activated Danmoc and implemented The Overseers' plan. There were strands of their technology interwoven in the device's technical DNA, but that was an unavoidable occurrence. They infect everything he does.

  But the end product that sits in front of him now, this was his creation. Generated far away from their prying eyes, constructed in utmost secrecy by the elite members of his team.

  After a successful test they would be killed, the secret of the device's boundary-breaking advances trapped in his brain alone for all eternity.

  The device looks much like a suit of armor, constructed of a shiny, grey-green polymer that is as light as plastic. But as dense and strong as any metal in the world.

  The mannequin it sits on is molded to precisely duplicate Blanc's physique. Every inch is a precise echo of his musculature and bone structure. The suit is designed for only one man.

  Only one man is strong enough, worthy of the wonders it can do.

  Blanc touches it. It is cool, unnaturally so.

  For someone who has spent so much of his life exercising restraint, reigning in emotions and keeping them in check so that he can maintain absolute and unquestioned control over his empire, he is surprised at the emotions he feels.

  Anger. Envy. Hate. They all boil to the surface and mix in a toxic brew. Carla Logan's existence is an affront to his superiority. An insult to his well-crafted and manicured ascendancy. Even worse, her existence brought to the fore The Overseers clear disdain for him and what he has done over the years.

  Everything came to a head, all at once. Embodied in her brown skin and the way she effortlessly flies above everyone. Especially Blanc. Even broken in her spirit, he still sees her taunting him and it nearly frightens him how angry he feels.

  For probably the first time in his life, something has made Madden Blanc get out of control.

  The only solution is to destroy her.

  He presses his fingers harder against the suit and the pressure activates the mechanics inside. In the blink of an eye it has read his fingerprints, checked a sample of his DNA through his skin, and verified the one and only possible operator.

  Suddenly the suit comes to life, lights across the surface flickering on and dancing left and right. It suddenly, of its own volition, peels itself off the mannequin. It slithers onto Blanc's fingers, and then slides across his arm.

  At this moment it looks even less like metal or plastic. It is as if it is nearly liquid. The suit slides across his body and latches on to his muscles, pouring into the same crevices, bumps, and beyond that it did on the mannequin. But now it is on top of Blanc's skin. It hardens again, back into its original form.

  This is his design, come to life.

  He reaches for the final piece, the helmet. It looks like a motorcycle helmet, but more angular, with a glass visor in front. It is the same grey-green as the rest of the suit.

  As he puts it on, the suit reacts to the helmet's proximity and panels grow between the helmet and the rest of the exoskeleton, covering his neck. He is now fully encased, from head to toe.

  A red light shines directly into his retina, recognizing who he is and verifying the only possible authorized operator in all of existence.

  This is Madden Blanc's, and Madden Blanc's alone.

  The entire suit comes to life and he can feel a slight electrical hum as the machine softly vibrates against his skin. He knows it is working and what he is now.

  Blanc looks at the mannequin and pulls his hand into a fist. He punches, barely exerting any energy.

  On the outside, this subtle maneuver is captured by the suit. In nanoseconds the energy he expends is magnified thousands of times over. By the time it reaches the surface of the suit it is so strong that there is a faint crackling noise.

  When he makes contact with the mannequin, the force is so strong that the expensive plastics shatter and the remnants of the dummy go flying for dozens of feet in every direction.

  Blanc smiles.

  He jumps up and the suit grabs ahold of his momentum, hurtling him higher in the air than any human being could possibly jump. He reaches the immense arched ceiling of his subterranean training ground in a flash.

  Pushing off the ceiling he rockets down to the ground at an even faster speed. He lands, crashing into the concrete floor with a gigantic crack. The ground splinters.

  From his perspective, the landing is as soft as an early morning step out of bed.

  Blanc feels the power surging through his body and in addition to the anger and resentment that has been boiling in him for so long, he feels more.

  Regret.

  He hates t
hat he waited so long to build this weapon, that he subjugated himself to The Overseers for so long.

  Inferiors, he thinks.

  Carla Logan. The Overseers. Everyone.

  Absolute inferiors.

  He will rip her limb from limb, breaking her body even worse than her mind already is. Then he will come for The Overseers.

  Nobody will ever put him under their thumb again. Nobody will question his power. Nobody.

  Chapter 82

  I know this isn't healthy. I just can't help myself.

  For the last few days it's like I've been walking around inside an automaton that looks like Carla Logan. It moves, it breathes, it talks. It flies, it punches, it sleeps, it eats. But it doesn't feel.

  I don't feel anything. And I know Taylor knows my state of mind and Dad knows too. How could they not know?

  But every time I think about reaching out for a second and asking them to help, I second guess myself. I always did that before, especially after Mom. But now, somehow with these powers, it's worse.

  It seems insane to me now that I ever thought I had it figured out. The powers seemed to be the solution to all my problems. I could fly around, save people, without even really trying, and I would be … Amazing. Spectacular. Astonishing.

  It was a quick fix. I'm supposed to be smarter than that. On paper, I am. But in the real world, it turned out to be a lot harder.

  I still see that little boy's face both in my nightmares and everywhere I go. I see the little girl, wet, barely clinging to life. Every time I go out there, I wonder if this will be the time I screw up. Will this be the one where I get even more people killed?

  So I retreat, from everything. If I bury it all inside, maybe that stops the bad stuff from happening. That's how I felt when Mom died, and the feeling is back.

  I land on Taylor's balcony, murmur a greeting and walk into my room. I pull off my clothes and wrap myself in my covers, barely eating the food she's made for me. I know it's delicious but I can't even really taste it. I'm numb.