SUPERPOWERED: Are YOU a Superhero or Supervillain? (Click Your Poison Book 3)

by James Schannep

  Nick gives you an appraising glance. At length, he says, “Same. Lucky too, I guess.”

  You nod to Nick, then make your way to the roulette area. There are several empty tables to choose from—it’s the middle of the day, after all—and you take a seat at one, empty your wallet, and bet $35 on black.

  Feeling lucky, indeed.

  The croupier sets down another $35 next to the first; using your telekinesis, you’ve just doubled your money. With a wave of your hand, you command him to continue. And just like the first go-round, you force the ball into a favorable position without waiting to see where it might end up naturally. No point in taking chances.

  “Too bad you didn’t bet more,” Nick says. You didn’t even notice him sidle up beside you.

  “D’ya mind?” you say. “No offense, but I don’t want to attract any attention to my little hot streak here.”

  Nick shrugs and walks away.

  “Not much chance of that,” the croupier says, his eyes quickly darting to a security camera.

  “Then why don’t we hurry it along? Put it all on number 35.”

  He shakes his head. “I don’t know your trick, but if I cash you out now, you might be able to skip town before….”

  “Skip town?” you laugh. “This is my town. Spin the goddamned wheel.”

  The croupier sighs and spins the wheel. Feeling cocky, you wait to see where the ball will naturally hit this time around. It bounces and bounces and finally comes to land…lucky number 7. Oh, well—you flick the ball and it hops twice over to the slot for number 35.

  The croupier’s jaw drops. You grin, but that grin quickly disappears when a strong hand grips your shoulder. When you turn around, a pair of towering security escorts greet you.

  “Come with us, please,” a gargoyle of a man says.

  “No thanks.”

  The second man steps forward and says, “We can do this the easy way or—”

  “Ooh, can we do it the hard way?” you interrupt. “Pretty please?”

  Their jaws are set in one uniform motion, as the closer man reaches out to grab you. At the same moment, you freeze his hands in the air, instantly stopping his progress. He looks at his hands, his expression that of a mime who realizes he’s trapped in a box.

  Not waiting for an explanation, the other security guard makes a mighty fist and swings that knuckled boulder at your head. With your telekinesis, you easily turn the trajectory of the punch, and the guard knocks his partner out cold. His eyes bulge and he looks from the unconscious man to his fist, to you.

  You grab the guard by his throat with your mind, and bring him to his knees. You extend your arm to pantomime the choke and illustrate that you’re the source of his pain.

  “I don’t want to kill you; you were just doing your job. So if you fuck off right now, I won’t.”

  He sputters out a coughing thank you, finds his feet, and runs away, his expensive shoes slipping on the carpeted floor.

  You turn back to the table. The croupier pushes all the chips toward you, then raises his hands like he’s being robbed.

  “Listen,” Nick says, approaching you, his hands held out in supplication.

  “For chrissake,” you growl.

  “Just listen. There’s not much time. I saw what you did there, and I’m impressed. I find myself with new abilities as well. I’m suddenly smarter than any man on the planet. I could see how this was going to turn out when you won your first bet, and I can help you. This won’t end well for you, not if you don’t let me help you.”

  “Yeah? Why would you do that?”

  “I get it, you want to be Darth Vader, but here’s the thing—I want to be the Emperor. Kneel before me, and together we’ll rule the Galaxy.”

  You laugh.

  “Remember, a rising tide raises all ships. I’ll be the mastermind, but so what? Together we’ll reign above the whole city, the nation, the world!”

  • Nick has wasted enough of your time, and apparently, might be your biggest threat. Kill the twerp, then finish up at the cashier’s cage.

  • Accept his offer. Maybe he can help you get to the top. Let him be Emperor…for a while, at least. You can always throw him into a shaft when the time is right.

  MAKE YOUR CHOICE

  Fight Drillbit and You Get Screwed!

  “That’s not really your battle-cry, is it?” you say, backpedaling as the college-student-turned-supervillain charges forward.

  “Oh, yeah? And what’s yours? ‘Hey guys, not sure if you’ve heard, but I cured cancer. I’m kind of a big deal.’ Such a pretentious douche!”

  You throw a glance over at Baxter and Catherine. The so-called Shadow Priestess floats toward your robot companion, and the newly installed sound-wave amplifier embedded in Baxter’s left forearm hums to life. The robot blasts concentrated sounds at Catherine, who shrieks in agony. Can’t use telekinesis against a waveform, booyah!

  “Robbing banks; isn’t that a little beneath a superhuman?” you say, your attention back on Nick.

  “You’re about to be beneath me when I crush you!”

  You stop running. “No, no, no. That’s all wrong. Damn, I thought you’d be heavier.”

  Nick stops too. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “The ‘beneath’ line was supposed to be a pun. How do you not weigh more? You must be, what, a thousand times as dense as a normal person?”

  “Who’re you calling dense?” Nick says, cracking his knuckles.

  You sigh. “Guess I have to do it manually.”

  With a quick lunge, you slap an open palm against the plunger switch on the wall and the ground collapses under Nick’s feet. He falls a hundred feet into the open cavern below. That really would’ve been cooler if he just fell through after you delivered your “beneath” line. Oh, well.

  You turn to Catherine and Baxter. She keeps her distance from your robot, diluting the potency of the soundwaves, and flings bits of rubble and equipment. Baxter’s chassis holds several dents and scratches, but is relatively unharmed.

  Time for phase two. You step around the corner into the Projection Booth and a hologram version of yourself steps out on the other side, armed with a machine gun. Running on the booth’s omni-directional treadmill, your hologram runs toward the fight.

  “Say your prayers, Priestess!” you cry, your voice relayed through a PA system.

  Catherine turns back, but rather than being frightened, she looks excited to fight a traditional foe.

  “Give me that!” she shouts, and pulls at the weapon. “Choke!”

  Her expression drops when her telekinetic powers do nothing. She’s fighting a holographic projection, after all. From behind her, Baxter lifts one leg in a goose-step and fires a net from the outstretched heel. It wraps and fells Catherine.

  Baxter then moves over to her, crouches, and releases a potent knock-out gas through his outstretched right hand.

  “Well done, Baxter!” you cry, stepping out of the Projection Booth. The hologram disappears and you run over to your robot. “Now we just need to get her to the immobility chamber.”

  A violent earthquake shakes your fortress-laboratory as Nick explodes through the floor. Baxter shields you as rocky debris rains down from his dramatic entry.

  “You underestimate me for the last time!” he cries.

  You smirk. “Well, you got that right. Go-go-gadget Taser!”

  In response, Baxter’s other leg snakes out and wraps around Nick. A terrible electric current arcs through the metal leg with enough shock to put down a charging bull-elephant. Nick’s body seizes; he falls to the floor in a heap. Then Baxter stumbles; performing the shock took full energy reserves.

  “Power loss critical,” Baxter says in a baritone. “Shutting dowwwwwnnnnnn….”

  The robot goes limp. Better plug in right away; you’re going to need some help getting these two into their super-supermax detention facilities.

  “Well done, Baxter. Well fought, my friend. Sleep now—you earned
it.”

  Then someone says, “A touching moment, but I’m afraid I must interrupt.”

  Your mind scrambles. You know that voice.

  • Turn to face the new threat!

  MAKE YOUR CHOICE

  First Day of the Rest of Your Life

  Groggy from the late night, you feel like it’s all been a dream. But no, here you are, in a secret government lab, somewhat grungy in yesterday’s clothes, but more excited to start the day than you’ve been in a long time.

  With a yawn and a stretch, you rise to seek out your comrades. As you move through the warehouse, you hear something that sounds like an RC car cruising around the crates. When you peer around the edge of a box, you see a waist-high robot on tank-tread wheels, like one of those bomb-squad bots that aids in defusing or detonating possible threats. This one has an arm that spray-paints a label onto a nearby crate. So far, it’s got PLASTIC EXPL stenciled in above a barcode.

  Past the labeler-bot, you find Nick and Agent Droakam at the massive computer terminal. They turn when you approach.

  “Morning, guys. What’s with the robot?”

  “What?” Nick asks, a kind of manic weariness in his features.

  “The robot,” you repeat, turning to point.

  “Oh, that. It’s cataloging the contents of the crates. Should speed things up.”

  “Dorian here’s been up all night,” Droakam informs, his voice thick with awe. “The robot is his design—threw it together using extra lab components. After he set up the computer system on his own, of course.”

  “It should help us analyze our DNA, but I’ve got some bad news,” Nick says. “I’m not going to be able to successfully recreate the experiment. Not unless I can find the professor’s notes and see how he had the machines calibrated. Otherwise it’s just guesswork. You can know exactly how a bicycle lock works, but unless you have the combination….”

  Droakam’s jaw tightens. “I’ll have the guys check the rubble again, but keep at it.”

  Nick nods, suppressing a yawn. “Apparently I don’t have superhuman energy. I know you had a big day planned or whatever, but I need some sleep.”

  Droakam nods. “That’s okay, get some rest. I’ll work with our resident telekinetic instead. There should be some earplugs you can use near the beds.”

  Nick bids you best of luck, then makes his way toward the cots and sleeping bags.

  “Pick up that crate,” Droakam says. “We’ll start small, but it’s time to tap into your powers and find your limits, assuming you have any. Go with what your body’s feeling but don’t—you know—light the building on fire or anything like that. We don’t know if you’re simply telekinetic, pyrokinetic, or what. So…start small. Pick up the crate.”

  You do so with ease, lifting the box with your mind. “I’ve been practicing.”

  “Good. Keep that one steady and bring up another.”

  “Should I stand on my head too?”

  Agent Droakam ignores the joke, waiting for you to proceed. You lift the second crate, and in a display of skill, stack it atop the other in midair.

  “Now a third.”

  You nod and put out a hand to grab a third crate, but nothing happens. You settle in and squat down as if you were physically lifting the weight and pull with full effort. The crate shudders on its base, vibrating against the floor. You try harder until—in one movement—the double-stack falls to the ground and the single crate flies into the air and smashes against the roof.

  “Concentrate, catch the debris!” Agent Droakam shouts.

  Feeling like a circus juggler, you reach out for each piece as it rains down from above, catching the largest ones and a few of the smaller ones, but letting the splinters fall to the warehouse floor. In frustration, you blast everything away in a massive shockwave.

  “I’m…sorry,” you say, straining. Sweating now.

  “Don’t be. Go ahead and set all that down. We’ve just learned a few things. Your abilities work more like ‘arms’ than a net, to a point. That’s why you weren’t able to catch all the pieces. Perhaps you can improve upon this in the future, but it’s good to know your limitations. Each of these crates is probably a hundred pounds, so it looks like you’ve got a weight limit too.”

  “I’ve been thinking—what if my abilities go beyond telekinesis, like you said? What if I’m telepathic too? Here, I’ll try to read your—”

  “No, don’t!” he shouts, ducking away.

  “What’s wrong? What is it?”

  He composes himself, then says, “Try this first.”

  Agent Droakam takes you to the periphery of the room, to a series of roll-up doors, like the type you’d see at a storage facility. What’s behind door #1? There to greet you stands a goat, silent at the center of the unit atop a matted layer of hay and excrement.

  “I had it sent over by the boys at goat lab,” Droakam explains. “It’s been de-bleated.”

  You stare at the goat. The goat blinks several times. “What do you want me to do?” you ask.

  “I want you to try and read the goat’s thoughts. Just like you wanted to do with me.”

  You laugh. “How am I supposed to read a goat’s thoughts?”

  “How are you supposed to read a person’s thoughts? Just try.”

  It’s hard to concentrate, but Droakam is dead-serious and willing to wait patiently for as long as it takes. For you to read a goat’s thoughts. Half-expecting to hear BAAAAAA inside your head, you reach out and touch the goat’s mind with the power of your own.

  There’s a flutter behind the goat’s eyes—have you done it? Have you accessed another creature’s consciousness? Then the goat’s legs stiffen and it falls to the ground. Agent Droakam rushes over.

  “It’s dead!” he says, a grin plastered across his face like a kid in a candy store.

  A shock of panic shoots through you. With only the slightest bit of effort, you really did just stare that goat to death. How little it would take to do the same to a person, to Agent Droakam, to Nick, to yourself, even! No, I can control this, you tell yourself. I have to choose to kill.

  “I guess I can’t read minds.”

  Droakam rises from the goat and nods. He closes the door to the dead animal’s enclosure and steps back toward the crates.

  “Hence the reason I didn’t want you to try it on me. For now, I think we should focus on other aspects of your powers more closely related to telekinesis.”

  With sweaty palms, you swallow a lump in your throat. “Like?” you ask.

  “I’d like you to…lift yourself.”

  “Just like the crates?” you ask, looking at the broken pieces on the ground.

  “Just like the crates.”

  With a deep breath, you start to reach out—but instead reach in. It starts slowly, as a hover, but you rise from the ground. You’re able to telekinese yourself, as it were. But it doesn’t feel as if someone’s lifting you, rather, you float with true weightlessness.

  You’re flying!

  Laughing with pure joy, you float up to the ceiling and fly around the warehouse, soaring faster than you could ever hope to sprint. Arms widespread like Peter Pan, you float and flit throughout the enormous building, circling above the crates. You lap around the main room several times, darting back and forth and performing acrobatic barrel rolls.

  “I’m flying!” you shout with glee.

  * * *

  That night, Agent Droakam gathers both of you. “I think it’s time for a field test. We’ve got one of the FBI’s Top Ten Most Wanted here in Mercury City, a man who’s notorious for ducking law enforcement. But since you’re not technically law enforcement, you have carte blanche authority to bring him in. If we start down the list, the Supersoldier Program will be reinstated and funding will skyrocket, I can guarantee that.”

  “You may want to look at something first,” Nick says.

  You follow him over to the computer terminal, where he spent most of his day. The screen shows:

  unr
eal dis lady save my life! thank god thank jesus #SupaGurl #blessed #unreal

  @ccboyes @d_flyer Saw some chick bend a street sign in half today. Crosssfit? Roids? #SupaGurl

  LOL somebody f%*^’d up!!!!! #SupaGurl =1 #PurseSnatcher =0

  @akross This soccermom just walked passed me with an ATM over her shoulder… #SupaGurl sighting or am I #Switching2Decaf ?

  #notfake #real #nophotoshop #hero #SupaGurl pic.twitter.com/ugwnbxvWGn

  “Is that some kind of code? Have you broken it yet?” Droakam asks.

  “No, that’s just Twitter,” Nick laughs. “The hashtag ‘SupaGurl’ has been trending. I isolated a few choice tweets, excluding the rampant speculation and the alternating declarations of hate and adoration. Take a look at this:”

  He expands the final tweet to show the photo—a freeze-frame of a woman caught mid-action as she rips a flaming car in two. The metal bends beneath her grip as she tries to rescue the child strapped to a car-seat inside.

  “Looks like our friend Catherine Woodall has been busy since the experiment. Might be a good idea to bring her in before she does something…ill-fated.”

  Droakam shakes his head. “She can wait. Getting funding back is our number one priority.”

  A flash on the mega-console catches your eye. “What’s that?” you ask.

  Nick punches some keys and the screen changes to the local news. The text footer says, “BREAKING” and reporter Alison Argyle appears onscreen in a sharp grey suit, platinum blonde hair down over her shoulders in the latest fashion, but her signature smile nowhere to be found.

  Her concerned voice comes in over the computer’s speakers: “We’ve just received word of an explosion in the warehouse district. No remarks from Mercury PD detailing if this is some kind of attack, but it does appear to be part of a break-in that sources say is currently in-progress. Again, we’re being told this is not the result of an industrial accident, but instead some kind of criminal activity. There is no reason yet to suspect terrorist involvement, but workers in the district are being evacuated as we speak. We go now to live footage via helicopter.”