by Nick Place
I finally got to bed at about two o’clock in the morning, and I was up again at seven, staggering around, looking for my school socks and a clean shirt. I was unfocused in every sense; not just physically. School was a blur – pun intended – and I almost got a detention for nodding off at my desk during English.
So tonight I stay in and email the Team via Hero Hints to say I can’t face another night of prowling the Melbourne streets on the lookout for S.T.O.M.P.-fuelled bad guys. Given the Super speed of their replies hitting my inbox, I think they are all as happy as I am to put their feet up for an evening. Except The Gamer who says he has some business to take care of at the shadow metal-world on Level 43, whatever that means.
I have a quiet dinner in front of the TV. Mum and Dad don’t say much to me, or to each other. Dad asks me politely how school was today and Mum hands me my dinner and says I can watch anything I like on TV.
Dad and I munch our tacos. Mum goes back into the kitchen to eat her dinner and watch re-runs of that celebrity chef who swears a lot on the little TV. I’m too tired to even attempt asking why we’re not all eating together and Dad’s face looks as drawn and strained as I feel.
We watch the Tour de France. It’s the world’s greatest bike race and the cyclists ride all over France. Dad says he used to compete in bike races when he was younger. I think he must have been pretty good. He was on the Australian semi-professional circuit. He still rides his bike most Sunday mornings with a bunch of his friends. They all wear colourful, skin-tight lycra that is so ridiculous it makes most Superheroes look dull. Sometimes they ride all the way to a local café about two kilometres away. Then he eats a huge breakfast and rides back and lectures me on the importance of exercise. I usually try and fade into the background when he gets out his heart rate monitor to prove how fit he is. I think that his low heart rate just proves how slow he rides – but I don’t tell him that.
Dad loves ‘the Tour’.
‘How far do these guys ride?’ I ask, nodding at the TV as I bite into my carrot taco. Despite my ‘condition’ (as my parents still call my power) being well advanced, they continue to hope enough carrot tacos will improve my visibility.
‘Some days they ride more than 150 kilometres,’ Dad says. ‘Each stage is different – depending on how hilly it is.’
‘They have to ride 150 kilometres uphill?’
‘Not just uphill. Over the Alps and the Pyrenees mountain ranges – they ride up and down some of the steepest mountains in the world.’
‘Then they have a week off ?’
Dad barks out a short laugh. ‘No. Then they do it again, or worse, the next day.’
The riders bunch up into a big pack. I’m surprised they can all ride that close to each other without crashing.
‘For how many days?’
‘Three weeks,’ says Dad. ‘With a couple of rest days here and there.’
‘Wow,’ I say. ‘Three weeks. How can they possibly do that? Are they Superpowered?’ I ask. I sneak a glance at Dad as I say it. He’s always refused to believe in Superheroes and I’ve given up on the fantasy of telling him about my secret life. He still thinks I’m just a freak – the third in our family’s history – with my bizarre physical ‘condition’. And he chooses not to talk about it, apart from occasionally pointing out people he believes are even greater freaks, to make me feel better about myself. This used to drive me crazy, but since I discovered my physical state was technically a recognised Superpower, I’m a lot less hung up on my freak factor.
‘Superpowered,’ Dad snorts. ‘Well, I guess that’s close.’
‘What do you mean?’ I ask, hopefully. Is Dad finally coming around?
‘“Superpowered” or “artificially enhanced”.’ He watches the lycra-clad cyclists toiling up an endless slope. ‘Same thing really.’
‘These guys are artificially enhanced?’
‘There are all kinds of performance-enhancing drugs for sports people. And a heap of riders have been thrown off the Tour for positive drug tests over the last few years. It’s hard to believe any of them are clean. It makes it easy to be suspicious of their amazing feats of endurance.’
‘Were there performance-enhancing drugs back when you used to ride? Competitively, I mean.’
He shrugs. ‘We’d hear rumours, but the drugs today are a lot more sophisticated. They’re almost undetectable and they can make a dramatic difference. Riding was a lot less scientific when I raced. We spent our time hoping not to get a flat tyre, not wondering when we should inject the next chemical booster into our body. Some of these drug cheats have blood transfusions mid-race.’
‘A blood-transfusion. Mid-race! Extreme! How do they get away with it?’ I say.
‘Well, some do get caught. Whole teams sometimes,’ says Dad. ‘And it’s always a scandal and they get disqualified and sent home in disgrace, but the Tour is such a big deal – and there’s a lot of money in it, so it doesn’t stop the next fella from trying to take a short cut to the winners podium.’
‘Dad?’ I ask quietly. ‘When you were younger, would you have taken something, if you could win the Tour de France?’
Dad gives me a look that is harsh and shows that his competitive instincts are still strong.
‘No way, Hazy. No way.’ He waves half a carrot taco at me. ‘Let me tell you this – if I finished fiftieth in the Tour de France, but knew that I was the first “clean” cyclist home; the first without performance-enhancing whatever in my body, I would consider that I had won the race, regardless of who stands on the podium wearing that yellow jersey.’
‘But why? Is it so wrong?’
‘Yes, it is.’ Dad has steel in his voice now. ‘Because a bloke who wins the Tour with all this stuff pumping through his veins loses in the whole scheme of things. And do you know why? Because he has no idea how good he really is. He doesn’t know his own potential. What if he could have won the race without artificial help? He’ll never know. He’s just cheating himself.’
We munch in silence.
‘I wonder how much those drugs cost?’ I ask.
‘It’s impossible to count the cost,’ he says softly. ‘The whole sport’s credibility, for starters.’
‘I was talking about money,’ I say.
‘Yeah, I know.’
From the Melbourne Super Times:
OK TEAMER CLEARED
ON STRIKING CHARGE
OK Team member Cannonball was cleared, with a reprimand, last night on a charge of too-powerfully striking a low-category Villain in the recent battle against the Hardware Gang.
A spokeshero for the AFHT said, ‘At the time of the strike Cannonball was acting in the mistaken belief that his opponent was on S.T.O.M.P., and the evidence suggests the offence, while clearly illegal, was unintended.’
Cannonball was given a Hero-warning and will be monitored for any further breaches.
Cannonball released a statement saying he was withdrawing from Hero Ball for the foreseeable future, as well as taking a break from all Hero action.
CHAPTER 15
IN THE WAKE OF
S.T.O.M.P.
Simon and I are hanging out in the library. Frederick is looking for his sister, Alexandra. She didn’t get up in time to catch the usual bus to school with him today. His theory is that she probably slept in because of a late night in her guise as Tomorrow Girl, either fighting crime or – more likely – working on synchronised moves with the G rl-Stars.
So it’s just Simon and I, in a lonely back corner of the library. We deliberately sit near the non-fiction political biography racks, so we can be sure that nobody is likely to come near us, even if we sat here for years.
‘At least we know for sure that they were on S.T.O.M.P. so it’s not like the Bushranger and his gang are too good for us. They’re just cheating,’ Simon says.
‘Yeah, and we got their monkey,’ I say, thinking it’s not often in life you can use a sentence like that. ‘I’m still not happy about this Blink guy.’
I glare at him. ‘You didn’t look so thrilled when Morphul turned into Papa Torch and out-flamed you, smart guy.’
We both look around to make sure none of the normal kids have overheard a Super Argument.
‘Yeah, well, that was different,’ Simon says, looking uncomfortable. ‘Anyway, more to the point, I’ve been thinking about Switchy.’
‘He was good,’ I nod.
He points a non-flaming finger at my chest. ‘He was too good.’
‘What does that mean?’ Under the library table, I’ve been mindlessly turning my left hand invisible, then visible, then invisible. My old practice routine, as devised by Mr Fabulous all that time ago. I still do it just to remind myself that I need to keep improving, to keep working on developing my powers. Level C won’t just happen. I have to make it happen.
‘Think about it, Hazy. He left our team – what? – three weeks ago? And he turns up last night, able to do what he did? Super strong. Super fast – able to flick from a truck to a whipper-snipper to solid steel, without raising a sweat. It’s completely unnatural. If he hadn’t been mentally freaked out, he would have swept the whole lot of them, S.T.O.M.P. or not.’
I stare at him. ‘Simon, are you saying what I think you’re saying?’
‘All I’m saying is that I don’t see how any Hero could go from the Switchy we knew – impressive, creative and lots of room for improvement, sure, but also known to switch into the wrong form more than once or twice – to basically a Level B or maybe even Level A performance. In three weeks.’
‘You think he might be on . . .?’
‘Plus, what about the dog thing? What was that about? The Switchy we knew used to still be Switchy, no matter what physical form he happened to be in. Last night, he actually became a dog. It was as though he didn’t recognise us.’
I don’t say anything.
Simon leans forward. ‘All I’m saying is that Leon mentioned that nobody knows what the side effects of S.T.O.M.P. are. Over-committing to a shape-shift? Not being able to completely transform back . . .’
‘Wow,’ I say. ‘I hadn’t thought about it like that. I can’t believe he’d do it, but maybe.’
Simon is looking at his hands now, rubbing his index finger. ‘Well, then again, why not?’
‘Huh?’ I look at him sharply. ‘What does that mean?’
He shrugs self-consciously. ‘I’ve been thinking about it, that’s all.’
‘Thinking about what? S.T.O.M.P.?’
He nods, not looking me in the eye.
‘Geez, Tor – I mean Simon. Where do I start? You can’t!’
Now he looks at me and his eyes are flashing. ‘Why can’t I? Honestly? Why not? I haven’t been developing the way I need to, Hazy. I’m still a long, long way short of my granddad’s torching ability. Frederick’s right. I am still the Human Candle. Seeing Morphul as Papa Torch did freak me out. He was beyond better than me, he was in a completely different league, and I hate it.’
‘You’re improving. You’ve come a long way in a year.’
‘I want to be a great Hero. And not in a decade. I want to be a great Hero now.’
‘What about when your head caught fire the other night at training? That was new. You’re still developing.’
‘A burning head! What use is a burning head? Hazy, I HAVE to get to Level A, at least . . . maybe Double A. I don’t want to be the first full-time Torch in family history not to make that level.’
For the first time, I realise the pressure Simon’s under. And I can see that his whole new cocky routine, the swaggering, over-confident Torch, is a big act, to disguise his insecurity and lack of real progress.
‘Mate,’ I say, ‘this S.T.O.M.P. stuff could be really bad for you. If you’re right about Switchy, he can’t even control it and is in danger of ending up as a slobbering dog for life.’
‘Yeah, but he was powerful, Hazy! He was the goods when it mattered.’
‘If he is on S.T.O.M.P., he’s cheating, Simon. Remember what Golden Boy said? About being a Hero with style, about fighting fair?’
‘Golden Boy!’ he hisses. ‘You and your precious Golden Boy. What does Goldilocks know about not being able to trust your power? Or not knowing if you’re even capable of greatness. This is not Heroic.’ He flicks his fingers and the steady flame appears off his right index finger.
He snuffs it before a librarian comes searching for the smokers at the back of the library, and checks to see we’re still alone.
‘Golden Boy was born with more power in his nostril than you or I can ever hope to muster so it’s easy for him to flick off S.T.O.M.P. as some kind of distasteful cheat’s poison. He should walk in my shoes sometime.’
And with that, he lurches to his feet and storms out of the library, blinking back tears as he goes.
I sit for a while until I realise there are only minutes before the end of lunch bell. I quickly log on to one of the library’s communal PCs. After the usual furtive glances to confirm I’m not being watched, I check my Hero mail. There are three. One’s a spam, offering cheap capes, one reminds me that Heroes Anonymous is now meeting on Thursdays in a giant natural cavern, deep under the Como Building in South Yarra, and the third is from Logi-Gal. She says we need to talk, urgently.
There’s something in her tone, even in those few written words, that makes my stomach flip-flop, and I feel my visibility waver.
Just what I need.
CHAPTER 16
A LOGI-GAL
CONCLUSION?
We meet at the chocolate shop at the Queen Victoria Market. They serve the best hot chocolates in Melbourne and we order two huge cups of foaming milk chocolate.
I haven’t often seen Logi-Gal out of costume. In a strange twist on most Heroes, she doesn’t wear glasses in everyday life and wears a long blonde wig as a disguise. Throw in jeans and a T-shirt, plus no cape, and I have trouble recognising her. Until she speaks, of course.
‘My input was negligible and I believe I understand the symptoms that underlie my inability to contribute in a meaningful way when it mattered,’ she says.
‘And now again, in English . . .’ I sigh.
‘That was correct English, Focus. It’s just that your vocabulary is not yet adequate for such complexity of language.’
‘Point well made and taken,’ I say, sipping my chocolate. ‘So what are you actually saying?’
She looks small, her shoulders hunched. ‘I was crap the other night. I was hopeless. The Gamer had to rescue me, for Pete’s sake. It was pathetic.’
‘You were the one who attacked after we thought The Gamer was dead and anyway, it was pretty scary out there. Those guys are far stronger than they should be.’
‘And that’s the problem,’ she says. ‘I know that and logically that means we can’t win. It means somebody could get seriously hurt. Logically, Focus, we shouldn’t be out there against these guys.’
I feel my visibility wavering. ‘What do you want us to do? Quit?’
‘Not us. Just me.’
She looks at me for a long moment. She’s serious.
‘Logi-Gal! You can’t.’
‘Focus, I’m not useful in battles like the other night. What can I do? You’re all in there, being boys, and throwing punches at each other.’
‘That’s what Superheroes do. And not just guys. Women Heroes too. They all clout bad guys!’
‘I know, but it’s not logical. It’s dumb. A bunch of costumed freaks beating each other up. And all I can do is stand on the sideline and try to make sense of it.’
‘We’re not freaks,’ I say firmly. ‘And your punching has been improving.’
‘In the gym, at practice. When nobody is punching back. Yeah. But, Focus, the point is I don’t want to punch anyone, or put myself in places I might get punched.’
‘I reckon you should think about this.�
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‘Focus,’ she says, ‘S.T.O.M.P. has changed everything. Unlike the rest of the team, I’d be happy to be a Level D Hero for the rest of my career. But I can’t go up against Villains, not knowing if it’s a fair fight. That wouldn’t be a logical fight to get into.’
We sit in silence for a while, sipping hot chocolate.
‘Logi-Gal, you can’t quit,’ I say. ‘I agree that S.T.O.M.P. is dangerous, and frightening. Plus it’s cheating and upsets the balance between Heroes and Villains. But there’s one thing that the bad guys can’t S.T.O.M.P. their way to a quick fix, for a short cut. Do you know what that is?’
She shakes her head, looking puzzled.
I point a non-blurry finger between her eyes.
‘Your power, Logi-Gal. Brains. Your intelligence, your brilliant strategy and your logic in the face of some very strange people and situations. No amount of S.T.O.M.P. can give the bad guys what you’ve got – and that’s smarts.’
‘It still wasn’t much good when that stupid gorilla just scooped me up. I was frozen with fear.’
‘But that’s because your power isn’t a physical one. We’ve been coming at this all wrong. You shouldn’t be trying to slug it out with S.T.O.M.P-ed up clowns like those idiots.’
Now she’s frowning. ‘So what? I stay at home, and mind the headquarters while all the boys go out and fight?’
‘No. Your job is clear. Because of this stupid Pact I made with the Bushranger, it’s up to us to take these guys out, S.T.O.M.P. or not. The Gamer has already captured Monkey 2.0. Beating Swoop Swoop is Cannonball’s job. Torch and The Gamer can focus on Directo and Blink. I will more than have my hands full with the Bushranger. You have to work out how to beat Morphul.’
‘Morphul?’ She looks genuinely shocked. ‘But he’s a shape-shifter. He beat Switchy and Switchy was awesome! How can I possibly beat him?’