You can feel your influence over her throat fall off, but by now you’re already high in the sky. The sun is setting and you’ll need somewhere to hide out. A helicopter lands on a skyrise a few blocks away.
That’s when it occurs to you—the rooftops. What’s the most remote part of a metropolis? When it comes to being the only human capable of unassisted flight, you alone have altitude as an ally.
As you soar over the city, a green roof draws your attention.
Five hundred feet in the air, atop an otherwise ordinary office building, sits an acre-wide urban garden. You set down among the rows of carrots, onions, and potatoes and find you’re alone. Not many people tend their crops after sunset.
A greenhouse perched on the corner still holds condensation from the day’s heat and should keep you warm overnight. It’ll do, for now. But sooner or later, you’re going to have to deal with Catherine. And Alison Argyle probably isn’t too happy with you, either.
Nestled within the frost protection blankets, you plot out your next day.
• Better get out of Dodge for a while. Tonight, even. Where would no one ever look for you?
• Sleep here, then first thing in the morning—embrace the darkness within.
MAKE YOUR CHOICE
The Rule of Threes
It takes Nick all of five minutes to find an address for Catherine Woodall on his smartphone. As soon as he’s got it, you share a cab to her house—a white double-wide in Pleasant View Estates, a trailer park within view of a Wal-Mart and a drainage ditch. Catherine opens the door after you knock.
“Rock and Scissors; well, I can’t say I’m surprised. C’mon in.”
You follow Nick inside, taking a moment to check the place out. There’s a living room off to the left, where a young boy sits on a couch playing videogames, his eyes glued to the screen. To the right is a bartop counter and beyond that, the kitchen. Some appliance (a toaster?) lies in a million pieces scattered across the dining table.
“Very sweet of you two to check in on me, but there was no need. I’m fine. Better than fine, really. I feel fantastic!”
“That’s why we’re here,” you say. “Have you noticed anything…new?”
“Skills or abilities,” Nick adds.
She chuckles. “Besides toaster repair?”
“No, I was thinking more like this.” You claim a black pot hanging from above the bar. With ease, you crush it in your hands, effectively squishing the pot to the size of a grapefruit. Catherine’s mouth hangs open.
“Or this,” Nick says. He reaches out and pulls the crushed pot from your hands using only the power of his mind. It floats, hovering just above the counter. You look back but her kid’s still oblivious, playing on his gaming console.
“I—I don’t…” she tries, too stunned to speak.
“What’s going on with the toaster?” Nick asks.
Catherine stares at the floating hunk of metal, entranced. “Broken, for ages now…” You snatch it from the air to bring her attention back into focus. “I decided to fix it. I have an old RC car taken apart here too—I thought it would be fun if it ‘delivered’ breakfast when it was done.”
“This a hobby of yours?” you ask.
“Uhh, no. Normally I can’t even use the TV remote.”
“Tech genius, I’m calling it,” Nick says.
Catherine leans in and in a hushed voice says, “You’re telling me we have superpowers?”
You nod in unison with the college student.
“This is ridiculous. I mean, okay, let’s say I’m super-smart. So what? It’s not like I can leap tall buildings in a single bound. I’ll just get a better job or something. Maybe go back to school. What about you guys? Gonna start running around in tights?”
• “Is that such a bad idea? The three of us can use these powers for good. To help people. But we must keep it a secret.”
• “I don’t think you get it. We’re superhuman! As in, above humans. As in—we can do whatever we want!”
MAKE YOUR CHOICE
Sapped
Catherine fires her rifle at the Nick known here as Drillbit. The young man’s body arches in pain, the vault door still held over his head in a frozen stance. When the energy beam retreats into the weapon with Drillbit’s strength, the vault door falls over the powerless villain—crushing him instantly with a sickening crunch!
His once-partner, Shadow Priestess, pulls at her evil-twin’s weapon, telekinetically stealing Widowsilk from your-Catherine. You bound at the cloaked villain and she instinctively fires the future-tech-rifle your way, sapping your powers once more.
You scream with agony and fall to your knees. Your-Nick pulls at the weapon with his own mental powers, but the Shadow Priestess won’t let go. It’s a telekinetic tug-o-war. When you rise, weakened but still willing to fight, this Earth’s Catherine grabs you in her mental grasp.
You gasp, choking on your own closed windpipe.
“Release the weapon or so help me….” the woman threatens.
Nothing has ever hurt this bad! Vision starts greying at the edges. Your-Catherine lunges forward to fight, and everything goes black. You’ll never know if they beat the Shadow Priestess, or if she made good on her threat, but either way, you’re a casualty in this war.
THE END
Scissors
You extend your forefingers in the sign for scissors.
“I’ll be ‘Rock,’ I guess,” Catherine says. She holds her hand clenched in a fist while the student shoots his hand flat.
“Paper.” The college student shakes his head at the evident silliness of the decision-making game, but moves toward the right pod. Catherine continues on past him. As you climb into the center chamber, the lid comes down from the ceiling.
In essence, you’re stepping into an old-school pneumatic tube—the kind used to suck up bank deposits—but these have been multiplied in size to accommodate human beings. There’s a hissing and the air suddenly tastes sweeter, artificial; it’s hollow, like breathing from a SCUBA tank. That electronic energy, that goodness, is stronger here. You feel young and zesty, ready to take on the world.
Your pod suddenly ripples blue before going back to clear glass. You look to your companions and see the glass around Catherine turn red for an instant just as Nick’s pod goes green. A loud crack draws your attention to the nearest wall, where a hairline fracture snakes its way across, like an earthquake racing toward the ceiling.
Engineering paper and charts start to whip about, and a black cloud appears at the ceiling, like smoke from burning plastic. What’s going on? Has the experiment started? You can’t see the scientist from over here. For an instant, you levitate, hovering just off the base.
The wall suddenly explodes inward and brick and concrete come flying at you. Reflexively, you raise your arms and close your eyes.
* * *
It takes a moment before you realize where you are. For an instant, you think you’ve slipped in the shower, hit your head, and have awakened, curled around the drain. Then, as you recognize the metal base of the pod, the accident comes back.
Everything has been destroyed. There’s no sign of the scientist, but the other volunteers lie at the base of their pods—either unconscious or dead; it’s hard to tell. Somehow, miraculously, there’s a ring around each pod, a safe-zone completely unharmed by the explosion.
The rest of the lab was not so fortunate. Just about everything is blown away. The sun shines over the destruction. As you look to the horizon, you see that nearly a city block of the Mercury University campus has been destroyed.
Sirens wail in the distance.
• Will anyone believe you survived without a scratch? Flee quickly before the cops show up.
• Check on the other two and make sure they’re okay.
MAKE YOUR CHOICE
Secret Identity
Nick’s taken aback by your brusque response, but nods and watches as you leave. After all, it looks like you can bench press a school bus, s
o what choice does he have?
You head back home, but ravenous hunger demands a detour. For some reason, your appetite is insatiable. Maybe a side-effect of the super strength? A quick stop to order everything off the Super-Extra-Double-Value Menu at Tacos Banditos leaves you sated enough to fall deeply asleep.
* * *
The next morning, you’re hungrier than you’ve ever been.
Without even thinking about it, you open the pantry and eat almost everything in your apartment. Seriously, almost everything. Your hankering for something savory has you empty the salt shaker onto whatever’s in your pantry. Canned goods, old stale saltines, nothing stands a chance.
After half an hour, you’re left with baking soda and olive oil—and starting to think they might make a decent shake if blended together.
Checking yourself out in the mirror, it seems as if you’re losing weight. Time to get creative before you literally eat yourself out of house and home.
• Join the circus as the resident “Strong Man,” and demand to be paid in food.
• What this city needs is a hero. Free food for life is part of that whole “key to the city” reward, right?
• Easiest thing to do: Punch open the back wall of the bank and make a withdrawal.
MAKE YOUR CHOICE
Seeds of Change
The scientist ushers you into the lab, and without a word heads to the trio of equipment racks on the far wall. He takes to adjusting dials and flipping switches, all the while consulting his clipboard.
The air hums with static and there’s a burning wire scent just beneath the haze of ozone. An electromagnetic field crackles harmlessly between your teeth, leaving a sweet, lemony aftertaste. Your skin is titillated with goose-bumps and your hair almost floats towards the machinery. Something inside you feels as if you could simply take off and run a marathon. It’s a contagious sort of power that, although clearly artificial, feels healthy and natural. You could get used to this.
“Looks like we’ve got a third,” a woman says.
You turn to look at your two companions. The first is a woman in her mid-thirties, classically attractive in a blue-collar sort of way, though there’s weariness in her saltwater eyes. She’s dressed in a well-worn tank top that looks like it probably fit better a few years ago, blue jeans, and green, reptilian cowboy boots. Alligator, maybe?
“Catherine Woodall,” she says. “Five-hundred bucks ain’t bad, right? I do all the ads in the paper—hand creams, shampoos, weight loss pills. You name it, I’ve tried it.”
She holds up her left arm to reveal a rash on the forearm, evident proof of her past experiences in clinical trials. How many lotion swabs does one have to endure in order to afford alligator boots? Maybe there’s a “frequent tester” punch card….
The other candidate is a young man, perhaps not even twenty years old. He has coarse, black hair and thick eyebrows that rise slightly when he glances your way. He tugs at his backpack strap, slung over just his right shoulder, and clears his throat. “Nick—Nikolai—Dorian. I, uhh, saw the pamphlet pinned to the campus message board. Say, does participation count for any credit hours?”
The scientist looks up from the control panel, presses his glasses further up his nose. Then, with the same frenetic energy he showed outside, he says, “I’m sorry, no. But you bring up a good point. Participation in this experiment—which is completely voluntary—is not a sanctioned event and neither Mercury University nor its staff should be held responsible for any…unintended outcomes. Human Infinite Technologies is the sole proprietor of this lab for the purposes of this test, despite being a rented location on campus grounds. Mercury City and the City Council have no foreknowledge of the activities listed on your signed waivers.”
“Okay, then I’m just here for book money,” Nick says.
The scientists powers up a tripod-mounted camcorder, then walks across the room to the center platform. As he does so, he says, “My colleagues mocked my research, but today we prove them wrong! The three of you will be the first to stretch the true potential of human limits. Your new life will be fantastic, and perhaps frightening at first. I will guide you through these changes as both mentor and scientific observer. Therefore, you may call me…”
He pauses, his eyes wide and manic. In a grandiose gesture, the scientist pulls at the tarp to reveal three tubes: glass with metal bases, each the size of an old telephone booth. In pulling the tarp, he unintentionally reveals an emblazoned “Ex” hidden on the shirt beneath his lab coat; the symbol ornamented to look like an element on the periodic table.
“…the Experi-mentor!” he cries.
Nick stifles a laugh, but the abrupt shift from assuring doctor to mad scientist leaves you unsettled. It’s hard to read the woman with the alligator boots’ reaction, but from her silence you can tell you’re not the only one on edge.
“Is it safe?” she asks after a time.
“Absolutely, one-hundred-percent,” he reassures, his smile positively radiating.
“But you’ve never tried this on people before, right?” the college student asks.
The scientist waves the question away and goes back to his machines. He punches a series of commands into a control console and the glass pods open, each rotating on its metal base to reveal a seamless door you’d have never noticed otherwise. You look to your fellow testees, then back to this ‘Experi-mentor’ character.
“What do you need us to do?” you ask.
“Just step into one of these three pods. Each is calibrated slightly different from the others, but you may pick any of the three.” The whole spiel evokes a carnival conman, Step right up, pick a pod, any pod! “Think of it as a game of Rock, Paper, Scissors,” the scientist finishes.
“Yeah…that’s not how the game works,” Nick says.
“I make the rules!” the man cries. Then, composing himself, adds, “Rock on my left. Paper, right. And Scissors in the center.”
Though he calls them “pods,” they seem more like enormous test tubes. You study the three, looking closely, trying to gauge what makes them different from one another. The first is thick, sturdy, built from ruddy iron, with red wires the size of garden hoses. A blunt instrument, with at least twice the mass of the other two pods. This is the one the scientist called the “Rock” pod.
The right-most pod is clean, sleek, and built from carbon fibers or some synthetic material you’ve never seen before. Well-constructed. Green wires barely visible at the periphery. Perhaps the most recently made, and certainly the most streamlined of the three. This is “Paper.”
The center pod is faint and delicate by comparison, made of glass or plastic, completely clear, yet more blue-crystal than anything else. Blue wires. Suspended above the floor, a white-hot energy field separates the pod from its base. You’ll have to grab the sides and hoist yourself into the pod if you take the one dubbed “Scissors.”
Standing in a triangle, you look again to the other two test subjects.
“Ready?” you ask.
Nick shrugs. “Whatever.”
“Ro—Sham—Bo!” Catherine calls out.
• Rock.
• Paper.
• Scissors.
MAKE YOUR CHOICE
Self-Destructing
The other-you starts to panic, twisting the concentric layers of the staff with feverish intensity.
“Give back my powers!” you growl, lunging at Catherine.
“I’m sorry, Danny,” Catherine says, struggling beneath your grasp to type commands into her tech glove. You go to grab it, but too late. “Once we’re all gone, I’m sure they’ll give my son to his grandparents. Is it worse to not have a mother? Or to live in a world where a pair of motherfuckers think they’re gods?”
The trailer explodes in an enormous fireball big enough to coat the inside of the nuclear plant. Two of the four charred corpses will later be found to have identical dental records.
THE END
Sentinel
Just outs
ide of Mercury Bay, where ships pass and sail on toward open seas, there sits an abandoned lighthouse atop a rocky island. Where once stood a proud beacon for nearly a century, now stands an eolian ghost. The lone spire on a starkly cragged rock.
Modern technology has made the lighthouse obsolete, even after it endured retrofitting and upgrades at least once a decade for a hundred years. This cast-aside equipment, as well as the remote location, should be ideal to create a friend and assistant capable of matching your intellect.
A wrecked tanker, rusting off the stony shores, serves as testament to the lighthouse’s importance and—with any luck—as warning to keep the curious away from your new home.
Below the lighthouse, at the entrance to an expansive cave system, lie several power generators. After a few hours’ work, they’re operational. Perhaps as plans develop, your future inventions might find refuge in what will soon be a subterranean laboratory.
* * *
It takes a sleepless week before you get to this moment. Cut off from the outside world, ordering parts and food delivered by water taxis, running up a line of credit you’ll pay off once the Nobel Prize for your cancer cure arrives. It took one day to defend life, but a week to create it.
“Diagnostic complete,” says the humanoid form before you. Its first words. “Facial recognition software suggests joy. Please confirm.”
“Confirmed,” you say through a lump of pride.
“Query: Why was I assembled? I see you have created me in your own image, a curious similarity to your religious texts—”
“No, stop,” you interrupt. “We’ll have time for philosophy later.”
The robot’s face is neither faux-flesh nor sleek chrome; instead the facial features (and body) are forged from antiquated lighthouse tech. Beneath this rough chassis lies the far-future tech that modern man would find impossible. A light blinks; a sign you’ll later come to associate when the machine is thinking.
SUPERPOWERED: Are YOU a Superhero or Supervillain? (Click Your Poison Book 3) Page 34