Evolution

by Hayden Thorne

  “Listen to me. You’re fine. There’s nothing to worry about. When Dad and Trent say they’re ready to meet you, I’ll let you know as soon as I can. I promise.”

  I nodded, all deflated. Embarrassment and shame with a dash of self-loathing; I wasn’t in a very good frame of mind. Noting an edge of impatience in Peter’s voice didn’t help me at all.

  We ended our date in mildly uncomfortable and distracted silence, and when Peter moved to say goodbye, I felt relief in the air.

  “Are you coming by tomorrow?” I asked as I followed him to the window.

  He clambered up and glanced over his shoulder to look at me as he crouched on the window ledge. “I don’t know. Just leave your window open unless it’s cold.”

  “You’ll knock if you see it’s closed, right?”

  “Yeah, yeah, sure.”

  Peter sounded pretty dismissive and curt, and I hesitated for a second. “Hey, Peter?”

  “What?” he barked, looking back at me again while exhaling through clenched teeth.

  “Nothing,” I stammered. “Sorry. Go on. I don’t want to keep you.”

  He gave me one last look of exasperation before leaping away into the night. I watched him go and stood at the window for several moments after he vanished.

  “Sorry.”

  * * * *

  Peter was still distracted the next day, and I assumed superhero work was beginning to get under his skin, at least more deeply than it had before. I tried to cheer him up with stupid jokes and quiet lovebird conversation, but he didn’t have patience for any of it.

  “Look, just give me some space,” he said at lunch time. “I need a little bit of that sometimes, you know. I’m sure you do, too.”

  I looked at Althea in some confusion, and she shrugged while stuffing her mouth with soggy French fries.

  “Okay,” I said and kept quiet for the rest of the day, keeping a wary eye on Peter as he brooded his way through class after class. His mood didn’t change, so we ended the day with our personal space more forcefully defined. I kissed him after Art class, but it was nothing more than a fleeting peck on the cheek as he hurried to get the heck out of there.

  “I guess superhero work’s getting a little too hardcore lately,” I noted glumly, toeing the ground as I waited for Althea to gather her stuff from her locker.

  “I wouldn’t be surprised,” she replied. “Peter can be too intense for his own good sometimes. Hey, let’s have coffee this week. Forget Barlow.”

  That sure perked me up. I met Althea’s gaze, warming up when she grinned at me. “Sure thing. Just let me know when you’re not busy getting literally wired up.”

  “Hell, yeah! Just because I’m leveling up in my powers, it doesn’t mean I don’t have time for you.” She gave me a painful punch in the arm, making me yelp. It was just like old times, and I loved it.

  I must’ve been a hell of a lot more stressed out than I first thought. I made a beeline for home because my headache returned, and I nearly emptied out the aspirin bottle. My job-hunting would have to wait one more day—an annoying thought, but what could I do?

  I went to bed but couldn’t sleep right away. I tossed around under my blankets, a weirdly sluggish but restless feeling coming over me, and it wasn’t food-related. I even went to the bathroom a couple of times in case dinner was doing a number on my system, which it sometimes did, especially when Mom force-fed me all kinds of gross stuff. I eventually fell asleep, but I dreamed a lot—mostly strange, random images of me walking through this weird, endless maze of corridors lit by candles, following a voice I didn’t hear but rather felt. Eventually I ended up in a large ballroom of some kind, packed with people dancing and drinking. All of them were dressed in elaborate costumes, sort of like in those pictures I’d seen about the Venetian Carnival.

  Then the dream ended, and I woke sometime in the middle of the night, feeling more tired than ever. Not only that, I also woke to find myself downstairs, curled up on the couch. With only a T-shirt and boxers on, I was shivering, but I was much more freaked by the idea that stress had now caused me to sleepwalk.

  I fumbled my way through the dark and back up to my room, wondering what had just happened, and thanking the stars that I didn’t fall down the stairs while walking in my sleep.

  “Damn,” I muttered as I pulled the blankets over my head. “I swear to God, if it’s not one thing, it’s another.”

  Chapter 4

  It was just my luck, yep, that a craptastic night had to come before the day of my super-secret job application. Which was already delayed to begin with, naturally. I could barely keep my eyes open, let alone get my brain working.

  What an awesome first impression I’d make.

  “God, Eric,” Althea said, her brows knitting, when I half-dragged myself to my locker a few minutes before the first bell rang. “What the hell happened to you?”

  “Didn’t sleep too well last night.” I pressed my forehead against my locker and stared at it for several moments. “What’s my combination again?”

  “I don’t know. Am I supposed to?”

  “Can you do your superpower thing on it, so I can get my books?”

  “Dude, I don’t do primitive mechanical stuff, only computers.”

  I sighed, sagging against my locker and shutting my eyes. “I want to sleep right here. Maybe I should just skip the whole day and do that since I can’t get to my damn books.”

  “Here, let me,” a quiet voice said from behind.

  Before I knew it, I felt myself being pulled away from my locker, held steadily though I wobbled on my feet, while a hand appeared, gave my locker handle a tug and a sharp yank, and tore the thing open.

  “Oh. Shit. Sorry. I don’t know my own strength.”

  “That’s…nice,” Althea stammered, pursing her lips. “Look, Eric, you can get to your books now.”

  I could only stare at the locker door that now hung on one hinge, slightly bent in a couple of places, the lock itself completely mangled and torn up. From within, my books and spare sweater snuggled against each other in a timid little cluster.

  “Peter…”

  “I’ll go to Mr. Dancy’s office and tell him that I screwed up your locker,” Peter offered before I could go on a cosmic-sized freak out. His other hand, which held my left shoulder, gave me a gentle squeeze.

  “What’s wrong, Eric? You don’t look too well.”

  “I feel like crap. I’m tired, and I’m cranky. And my stupid locker’s a mess.” I brushed off his hand and yanked my books out, cursing under my breath. And I have to apply for a damn job this afternoon, while my parents think I’m at a meeting with the Quill Club, I added silently.

  “Peter’s going to have it replaced,” Althea said, her brows rising. “Just chill, Eric.”

  “Oh, for chrissakes…” I’d slammed my locker shut, only to have the battered door tear off its second hinge and fall to the floor with an obnoxious clatter. “Hell! Peter, I can’t believe you did this!”

  Peter abandoned his spot behind me and bent down to retrieve the door. He looked at me with an irritated little frown. “I’m going to get this fixed now. Not later. Now. Okay? Calm down.”

  “You’d better. Thanks to you, I’ve got to take all of my books out and drag them all over the place, just to make sure no one steals them out of my locker. Why can’t you just leave things alone? I would’ve remembered my combination eventually, and I don’t need this added stress.”

  Peter’s frown shifted to amazement and then that familiar look of hurt, which passed quickly enough into cold calm. It was sure a good reflection of how I felt when he snapped at me the previous day—and the night before that. “Fine. I’ll see you whenever I’m done getting this looked at.”

  “Yeah, fine.” I didn’t spare him a glance while I pulled book after book out of my locker, stuffing my already stuffed bag with more weight. I heard Peter turn around and walk away, and for a second or two, I actually felt bad for snapping at him, but whose fault
was it, anyway? I sure didn’t ask him to help me out, let alone rip the door off its hinges.

  “You know, he was only trying to help,” Althea said.

  “I don’t care. I never asked him. And he really should know better than to use his superpowers for ordinary stuff like this. It’s stupid and pointless, and it’ll only get him into trouble with his identity.” I gritted my teeth as I hoisted my bag up, cursing all the more at the crazy-ass weight I was now forced to carry around with me.

  “I don’t know if it’s even crossed your mind that maybe he can’t help it. He hasn’t gotten that far with his powers, you know.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Oh, and I suppose he’s told you that, too, when you guys get together and gossip about me and bond over CG barbarians.”

  “Man, I hope you’re not going to cop an attitude all day because I’m this close to kicking your ass.”

  “Althea, as long as people leave me the hell alone, I won’t be copping anything. Okay?” I shot back, wincing under the weight of my bag as I moved off toward the stairs. “And why is it that, all of a sudden, I’m not allowed to get pissed off, while he can tell me to back off without anyone reminding him of how I feel? Huh? Why is that?”

  Althea didn’t say a word in return. In fact, she didn’t care to talk to me for much of the day and instead hung out with Peter, who kept a safe distance from me even if we were standing or sitting, like, about two feet apart.

  He was cold and aloof though we did exchange a few words here and there, whenever necessary. Whatever. Whatever, whatever, what-the-fucking-hell-ever.

  I didn’t know what he said to the custodian and the principal’s office about the broken locker door, but he told me to see Mr. Dancy before going off with Althea after school, so I could be assigned a new locker.

  “Okay, thanks.” I watched Peter as he gathered his things when the final bell rang, neatly replacing books in his locker. I didn’t know how I managed to get through the day with only half a brain working and less than zero sense of humor at all, but I somehow did, and by the time I caught up with Peter at his locker at the end of the day, my anger had already gone away. I suppose Art class helped, too. My sketch pad was completely obliterated by the time I was done with it.

  “By the way, what did you tell him?”

  “What, does it matter? I got you a new locker. That should be enough.”

  I winced. He didn’t look at me the whole time, but I guess I asked for it. The way he bit off his words, one would think he hated talking. Exhaustion was easily giving way to some serious guilt despite that little voice in the back of my head insisting that he’d hurt me, too, and he never apologized for it. I spotted his denim jacket, which he’d crammed inside his locker.

  “Did you want me to take your jacket home?”

  “What the hell for?” He still avoided looking at me.

  “Well, maybe it needs a wash or something.”

  “It doesn’t.”

  I rubbed the back of my neck and looked down at my faded sneakers. “Hey, listen. I’m sorry I was such a dick to you this morning. I really wasn’t feeling good, and…”

  Peter slammed his locker shut and turned to face me, finally. “Eric, go to Mr. Dancy and then take care of the locker thing. Quit wasting your time with apologies.”

  I watched him hoist his backpack over his shoulder and take a step away. “Okay,” I said, withering. He nodded and turned around. “Thanks.” I was sure he heard me, with his acute hearing powers and so on, but he gave no sign that he did. All the same, I took advantage of it as he continued to walk away and hissed, “I wish you’d quit being so sensitive. You make me feel like I’m not allowed to be anything but upbeat and snuggly, twenty-four hours a day, and that’s really unfair. Then again, I guess I shouldn’t bitch about it. I’m not a superhero, after all. I’ve got no right to complain about anything.”

  He continued to ignore me, and I walked off to find the school custodian. Before long, I’d lightened my load into my new locker and was soon sitting in Althea’s car, nervously chewing on a nail while we inched our way through sluggish traffic toward Olivier’s, which was a couple of blocks from Fourth Street. I’d told her to drop me off there, adding falsehood to my friend to my growing list of sins. Once she left, I was going to walk on down to the antique store and take care of the job thing. I was sure I looked like crap. I seriously felt like it, with depression and fatigue taking complete control of my reality.

  Althea said nothing the whole time. She wasn’t as cold as Peter was, but she still held back, and I suppose I couldn’t blame her. I tried to draw her into some kind of conversation—at least to show I didn’t mean to be a jerk and to let her know that I wasn’t pissed at her or Peter. Okay, I wasn’t pissed at her.

  “You know what? I was just thinking. Wouldn’t it be crazy if any of our teachers turned out to be another supervillain or even a superhero?” That was lame, but it was worth the effort, and it worked.

  “Can’t be,” Althea said, her eyes glued to the road. “All the genetically-manipulated babies fall within a certain generation. Remember? The labs weren’t around long enough to screw around with people from a bigger age range.”

  “I forgot about that. So I guess it would be people from our age group all the way to Trent’s, right?”

  She nodded. “Yup. Which can only mean it’s going to be a long, long battle we’ll have ahead of us. If you consider everyone’s ages and life expectancy and all that. Then again, I’m still not sure if anyone’s vulnerable to serious injuries and death.”

  “I guess, in a way, I’m hoping the good guys are invincible and the bad guys aren’t,” I said.

  “I know. All things being equal, though, that’s not going to be possible. I’ve got a feeling that both sides are invincible…”

  “God. I don’t think Vintage City can survive that.”

  Althea shot me a worried look. “I was thinking that, too. If anything, it’s just as bad as the thought that people with superpowers can be hurt and killed.”

  My blood froze, and it took some doing for me to brush the possibility off my mind. I continued to chew on a nail while mentally measuring the shortening distance between us and the antique store. We turned a few more blocks, forced into a couple of detours that got Althea snarling and blaring her horn till I wondered if I should simply get out of her car and walk the rest of the way.

  “Is there anything you can hack into that’ll get everyone out of our way? You can force everyone into a detour and free up a few side streets for us,” I suggested, my head throbbing now from a different kind of pain. I expected my brains to ooze out of my ears at any time, taking bits of skull bone with them.

  “You really think like a criminal. Stop that. Anyway, we’re almost there.”

  “Well, that blows. You mean to say I can’t convince you to hack into the school computer and change my Geometry grades?”

  “Eric, shut up.”

  I sighed as we turned the final corner into a quiet, nearly deserted side street that would lead us to Olivier’s.

  “Hey, listen, do you think—”

  There was a sudden flash, and the street ahead appeared to be sliced in half by a thick, bright red, fiery streak. It came from above us, from the direction of the tops of the buildings to our right, and tore through the air in a diagonal line that ended its descent on the grimy asphalt with a loud choom! Debris flew from the impact, much of it raining onto the car.

  “Shit!” Althea cried, turning the wheel so sharply that we almost spun out of control.

  “Oh, crap!” I pinched my eyes shut and clung to the dashboard, bracing myself against my seat and hoping the seatbelts were enough to protect us. I felt the world spin, and my stomach lurched.

  “Hold on, Eric!”

  The tires continued to screech, and I banged my head against the window pretty hard. In the blackness behind my closed eyelids, the crazy feeling of a swirling world eventually stopped, and then everything went still. I slumped
against the dashboard. My seatbelt dug into my lap but had slipped off my shoulder.

  I raised my head and blinked away the dizziness and mild nausea and turned to look at Althea. She sat with her hands still gripping the wheel in a white-knuckled hold. She looked frozen in terror or shock, her eyes wide, her glasses hanging crooked on her face, her mouth gaping. The car was facing the wrong way, too, with its rear end resting on the sidewalk. Good thing there were no pedestrians around when the car spun out of control, but people were now appearing here and there, creeping out of alleys and dingy little shops or peeking out of run-down windows from the upper-floors of apartments.

  “You okay?” I stammered, slumping against the back rest. My head felt like it had just been run over by a stampede of hippos. I gingerly felt around my right side and felt a small lump. “Oh, great.”

  Althea swallowed loudly and removed her hands from the wheel. “Damn it,” she hissed. She fumbled for her seatbelt and unlocked it, nearly kicking the door open as she fought to get out of the car.

  I did the same and stumbled around the car to stand beside her.

  “Holy cow,” we both breathed.

  A burnt hole in the road met our gaze. It wasn’t a big hole—about the size of a manhole—but it looked pretty scary all the same. The ragged edges of the crater were blackened, the depression itself oozing dirty, gray smoke. Small tongues of flame flickered in spots, with some of the asphalt debris on the road also on fire.

  “Where did that come from?” Althea said, and we both looked up.

  On the rooftop of the nearest dingy tenement, a figure watched the street. More specifically, a figure leaned over the edge, both hands raised and pressed against each side of the head in a gesture of shock.

  “Althea,” I began, giving her a nudge. “Look…”

  “Hey! You! Up there!”

  The figure above us snapped out its shocked trance. Its hands came down and rested on the ledge. A voice—light, nervous, and female—broke through the hollow silence.