Superheroes In Denim

by Lee French

  Tears sliding down his cheeks, he brushed his fingertips across her pale face. For some reason, he thought of the camera in his pocket and pulled it out. No one would believe a picture like this on the internet or news, not these days. He’d do it for Liam and Paul and Alice and Hannah and the rest, so they could see her face and know where they came from. Not only that, they’d help him keep his promise. Head Cowboy needed help. He took a few pictures, feeling ghoulish for doing so.

  He heard sirens coming and thought about leaving a dragon behind to make sure she didn’t get swept under a rug. Would that actually accomplish anything? He could burn the house down instead. No, the folks who owned the house didn’t deserve that. His eyes strayed to a patch of sunshine on the carpet, and he picked her up, knowing what to do. If any press folks showed up, they might be able to get a picture.

  As he laid her out on the driveway, a small white flower caught his eye and he picked it. “I done barely knew you, Asyllis. That ain’t fair. S’all I got to say about it.” He curled her fingers around the flower and sniffled. At the sound of screeching tires, he burst out into the swarm and flew up, unwilling to be further involved in this. Not now.

  Since he had nowhere else in particular to go, he broke into a room at the Monte Carlo and used the phone. Liam told him they’d gone to the farm and let him hang up without talking much. Bobby stared at the phone for several minutes, still dazed by the roller coaster he’d ridden out here. He thought about taking a nap on the bed in the room with him. If he went to the farm, though, he’d be able to sleep in his own bed.

  Seven or so hours later, the farm looked a tiny bit better than it had the last time Bobby saw it. None of the cars had been towed away, which surprised him. He recognized the spots where Jayce had been put down, where Stephen got shot, where Sebastian had been carried through and where his own dragon had been smashed. Since the lost dragon remained lost, he wondered if they’d taken it someplace.

  Glinting metal caught his eye, surprising him again. The swarm set down there and devoured his missing dragon while he re-formed. For once, his belly didn’t rumble, having been filled an hour ago in Denver. He drooped, though, weary from going so long without sleep and from everything he’d done and seen in the past day.

  Scuffing the dirt with a shoe, he thought about lying down right here and taking a nap in the mid- afternoon sunshine. Inside would be more comfortable. Comfortable felt wrong, like a betrayal of Asyllis. The familiar squeak of the front door opening interrupted his brooding.

  “Hi, Bobby.” Kaitlin gave him a sympathetic smile from the front stoop.

  “Hey.” It came out as more of a grunt than an actual word.

  “Don’t worry, we’re safe here. For at least another twenty-four hours.”

  He grunted again, noting that, if he wanted to avoid talking about it, he could fly away and do something stupid or stand here like a dumbass. He had a peculiar talent for both. His feet moved. So did his hand. As he passed Kaitlin, he slapped the camera into her unexpectedly waiting palm. With that gesture, he’d passed on the responsibility. She would make sure it got taken care of somehow without him screwing it up.

  Riker and Hegi worked in the common room, picking up debris and dumping it into a wheelbarrow. He grunted in greeting and kept going until he found some strange guy lying in his bed. Frowning, he stepped into the tiny space and looked the guy over.

  “He was in the same place as Elena.” Until she spoke, he hadn’t noticed Kaitlin following him. “Adelphi.”

  So, they found Elena. He listened while she rattled the gist of what had happened there, staring at this new victim of Privek’s plans. Or Kanik’s. Maybe both. Another place to hit after they freed the others. “We gotta stop them.”

  “Who’s this woman, Bobby?” She held up the camera, he turned to look.

  “Our real momma.” He found himself unwilling to wait for the others before telling the tale of what happened at Groom Lake. Words poured from him, like they could draw out the impossible ache inside. “They’ll know it was me,” he ended with. “Ain’t no way they won’t.”

  “I’ll pass all that along for you, so you don’t have to explain it again.”

  “Thanks. You know this is my room?”

  Kaitlin made a face. “No, I didn’t realize that. Sorry. I would’ve made them pick another one.”

  “S’alright.” He bent to scoop the guy off the bed, and froze when he groaned. Part of him wanted to turn around and walk away, to flop down on Lily’s bed and sleep and not worry about anything until tomorrow. The rest of him pointed out that he’d made promises, and ignoring them would be cowardly and rude.

  Time to get a grip and deal. “Hey there.” Setting the guy back down, he leaned in and kept his voice down in case the guy had a headache. “You’re safe and all.”

  “What happened?” His voice started weak and slurred. He gained strength with each second that passed. “One minute I’m…” He blinked several times and reached up to rub his face. “Where am I?”

  “Colorado.” Kaitlin moved in closer and peered over Bobby’s shoulder. “We found you tied up and knocked out.”

  “Huh?”

  Bobby held up a hand to stop Kaitlin from saying anything else. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

  “I thought I was taking a job, sort of. I guess not.”

  “Right. Okay, I’m Bobby, this is Kaitlin. We’re looking to know details and stuff.”

  “Um, Shane.” He took a deep breath and looked away. “I, uh…was a little… It wasn’t like I wanted to be, you know, it just happened.”

  Bobby had enough shame of his own to recognize it in someone else. From the roughness of Shane’s hands, to how skinny he was, to the look in his eyes, the source seemed obvious. “Living on the street?” He waved off Shane’s meek little nod. “I eat outta dumpsters on a regular basis. Ain’t nothing to be worked up over with me. What kinda job was it supposed to be? Where’d you meet whoever done hired you? ”

  As he suspected, Shane raised his chin again. “I was in a shelter. It was morning, over breakfast. A guy in a suit with sunglasses came in and told everybody he was looking for volunteers for a sleep experiment. Anyone who went with him would have a safe place to sleep for a week, plus food and some cash at the end. Guy got more volunteers than he wanted. He picked out all of us that were kinda in the same age group. Got ten from there, I think. We all piled into a van. They drove us around some, but after that, it’s all blank. I don’t remember why I blacked out.”

  “It’s ‘cause they drugged you up,” Bobby nodded. Bobby nodded. Grabbing homeless people meant no families or paper trails to worry about. What for, though? Looking for ways to replicate their abilities with adults, maybe? That was a creepy idea, one that made too much sense. “Okay, you feeling weird or anything? Got any funny itches or urges or anything?”

  “Funny…how?” Shane’s eyes went wide as Bobby popped a dragon off his thumb and let him get a good look at it. “No, nothing like that.” Halfway through the gesture, he stopped and frowned. “Well, actually, there is one thing that’s kind of weird. Not like that kind of weird but, well, um, I think I can see an extra color. I don’t know what color it is, but I’ve never seen it before. It’s like black, but not. Really hard to explain.”

  “Yeah, that’s kinda weird.” But, like he said, that came nowhere near to the level of what Bobby and the rest of them could do. Seeing an extra color sounded downright tame. It did probably match up with something regular people couldn’t see. Unlike being a swarm of dragons, though, the power to see black- plus gave him no special defensive benefit. “Welcome to the club.”

  Shame gave him a small smile. “Thanks. I don’t know what to do now, but thanks.”

  “We’ll figure something out soon as we can. There’s a bunch of us with crazy stuff we can do, and we aim to stick together and help each other out. Even if all you got’s a new color, you’re one of us. Somebody’ll bring something and help you eat, ye
ah? Rest until then, we’ll get you up and about soon.” He patted Shane on the arm as he stood up.

  “Okay.” He looked up at the ceiling. “Were other people there, where you found me?? ”

  “Yeah,” Kaitlin said from the doorway, “and we’re going back for them as soon as we can.”

  Bobby rummaged through his closet, pulling out clean clothes. “That’s a fact. You don’t gotta do nothing ‘bout that, though. Just get back on your feet and relax for now.”

  “Thanks.”

  Leaving him behind, Bobby pushed past Kaitlin to head for the bathroom. Under the hot water of a shower, he tried not to think about Asyllis, how she died. It was his fault. The guys in the helicopter probably only knew that someone stole the Humvee and had maybe been told the thief might be nuts. Shooting at the vehicle probably seemed to be the best option they had to stop him, especially when it had to look like he meant to ram the helicopter with it.

  Why exactly her death hit him so hard, he had no idea. He remembered when they came to say his Daddy was dead. The man had been part of his life for as long as he could remember, and when he was gone, Bobby mostly felt relief. They didn’t have to worry about him anymore. Momma didn’t have to answer the door with dread anymore. Their lives could go on without wondering if they should make plans with him for his next trip home or not. No more writing letters they didn’t know if he’d ever get.

  Asyllis, though, was just some woman he shared blood with. The dragons liked her immediately, and she affected him so deeply. He’d caused her death, he had to shoulder the blame for it. If he hadn’t broken her out, she’d still be alive. In a box. Underground.

  At least he gave her the sun.

  A knock on the door startled him out of his thoughts. “Bobby, are you okay in there?” Liam’s muffled voice actually sounded concerned.

  How long had he been in here? He knew as well as anyone else that no amount of water could wash away his sins or make him stop seeing anything. Shutting off the shower, he grunted. “Yeah, I’ll be out in a minute.”

  “We’ll be in the kitchen. Things to discuss.”

  “Alright.” His stomach rumbled at the mention of something related to food, and he scowled at the fogged up mirror. It never let the stain of death get in the way of hunger. Maybe Privek was actually right about him being a dangerous monster. He’d still do everything he could to get the others free.

  He shrugged into a fresh pair of jeans and t-shirt and went barefoot to the kitchen. Riker and his men sat around the picnic tables with Kaitlin, Liam, and Paul, and Elena. Liam’s girlfriend looked the same as he remembered her, aside from not wearing a suit. She hung on Liam’s arm the way he wished Lily would do to him. All of them had bowls of thick soup and biscuits. Without tasting it, he knew none of it measure up to what Momma made. The thought made him frown.

  Kaitlin patted the empty space beside her on the bench and waved him over. “C’mon, Bobby. Stuff some food in there before your blood sugar drops so low you fall asleep standing up.”

  “It’s okay,” Platt said with a cheery grin. “We can carry him.”

  One side of Bobby’s mouth tugged up into an answering grin. “I don’t need nobody to carry me.” Taking the seat, he looked from one person to the next, ending with Kaitlin. “Y’all got a plan already, or am I supposed to come up with it?”

  “We’re still on the objectives part.” Riker set his spoon down and fiddled with a biscuit. “We talked it over, and we’re in this thing, Bobby. What we saw, that’s not the kind of thing you can unsee, and it’s not what we pledged ourselves to defend. There’s no doubt we’re already on a list of enemies of the state, but sometimes you have to be the bad guys to be the good guys. Besides, you saved our bacon, and there’s nothing we like better than bacon.”

  “Here, here.” Hegi raised his glass of water in a toast. “Well said, Sarge.”

  Bobby managed a single little huff of amusement. “Objectives, then. One, we gotta get the others loose. Two, we gotta free everyone we can of Kanik’s influence. Them pictures make it pretty clear he can do whatever he wants to.”

  “If you ask me,” Riker said, “that Kanik guy should be a target. There’s a saying about power and responsibility, and he’s got one without taking the other.”

  Paul gulped. “We should at least try talking to him. He’s one of us.”

  “Yeah, we’ll try.” Bobby dipped his biscuit into his soup and swished it around. “Look, there’s something I need to say. We gotta go public. Ain’t nothing else gonna work. So long as we stay quiet, they’re gonna be able to keep doing this. It’s gotta look to folks like we ain’t a threat and can police ourselves, and what we want is to be citizens of our country and have all the same rights as everyone else. Now we know for sure we’re products of military experimentation. We gotta focus on that angle, I think, on how this happened because there’s folks running amok, doing without thinking and that sort of thing. Also, we been hounded and treated like animals, and that ain’t okay.”

  “We can’t just step up to a microphone and say ‘I’m a superhero!’,” Liam said with a frown. “I know you think this is the right way to go, but what about those of us who don’t want to be public? I don’t want to be mobbed by people, which I will be. Seriously, they could decide I’m some kind of second coming of Christ, it would be horrible. I just want to have a life, not kill myself healing the world.”

  Bobby nodded. “That’s fair, and I understand. Kaitlin’s gonna be in the same boat, and I’m pretty sure there’ll be lots of folks who ain’t so keen to know there’s folks what can mess with their heads. That’s why I ain’t gonna ask anybody to come forward aside from myself. What I can do, it’s good for people to not know about it, but somebody’s gotta break the silence, and I’m okay with being that somebody. Nobody gets outed without their consent. I’m pretty sure that list of names’ll get out at some point, one way or another, so my second plan is we set up the farmhouse here again, as a secure commune for all of us. Anybody what wants to live away from all that, come here and be safe.”

  At the surprised looks all around him, Bobby snorted. “I had some time to think about all this stuff here and there. Y’all don’t think I just sit there brain-dead when I’m not talking, do ya?”

  Liam cleared his throat delicately after a few awkward moments of silence. “We were kind of led to believe you aren’t the brightest bulb in the box. But no matter. I see your point, and agree. All the money in the world won’t stop someone from targeting us one way or another so long as we all stay hidden and secret. Silence is helping them more than us.”

  “Then there’s the wormhole thing,” Kaitlin said. “Maybe we should go after that first, shut down that research.”

  Bobby took a bite of soup-drenched biscuit and chewed while he happily considered something besides his own failings. “I don’t think we can stop it. We can slow it all down, we can make it public so folks know what’s going on, but once science figures something out, it’s figured out. Attacking there would just be to stop whatever they done got cooked up right now. I expect they won’t have no serious problem building another one.”

  Liam nodded and frowned. “Publicity is the most likely foil for that. Carefully crafted publicity.”

  “Maybe we could film all of it,” Platt suggested. “The breakout, I mean. Post it on the internet.”

  “People will think it’s a joke,” Liam said with a roll of his shoulders, “that it has special effects.”

  “That’s fine.” Riker looked off at the wall. “It doesn’t matter if they believe it or not right away. What matters is we start showing it to the world. Platt, Carter, your jobs are to film the breakout. We need gear and supplies and a little more of a plan. You guys know the layout of the place with the freezer drawers full of people?”

  Bobby stared at Liam without really seeing the healer. “I know it well enough. Actually, I can wake them all up myself. Where I’m gonna need help is the getting them out part. Everybody
’s gonna be groggy at the least, maybe not be able to do their thing. In some cases, that’s maybe for the best. I’m sure Lizzie’d blow up the whole building if’n she could. It’s worth saying here that we ain’t harmless, we ain’t all puppies and kittens, and everyone’s gonna be pissed about the whole being taken prisoner thing.”

  “In which case, you setting them free is for the best,” Riker agreed. “We’ll still need a layout for an exit plan.”

  “Do we?” Kaitlin asked. “Don’t we really just need to know who’s going with who and has what job and where to meet up?”

  “Aw, you can’t make the Sarge go without a plan,” Hegi grinned, “that’s just mean.”

  “Paul?” A girl, maybe sixteen, stood in the doorway. She had pale skin and more piercings than Bobby considered attractive. Panting, she leaned against the door frame and clutched a sheet to her chest. “What’s going on?”

  Paul jumped up. “Sherrie, you’re awake. Are you alright?” He rushed over and wrapped his arms around the girl.

  “Where are we? Why are you here? What’s going on?” She let him help her to the table to sit and leaned against him.

  Paul pointed to everyone, offering their names for her. “You’re safe here. I just need you to tell us what happened to you. Please. It’s important.”

  Everyone stared at her. She looked down at the table. One hand snaked out and snatched two biscuits in a way that made Bobby take notice. Kaitlin said earlier that they had Paul’s sister, and this must be her. He paid attention to the way she shifted her eyes around and wouldn’t look at anybody.