Maybe it was just paranoia that got me kicked out of the lair. Made me just another kid storming out of the house.
One run-in with a superhero, and all of sudden you are a bystander.
For six blocks, my thoughts tumble over each other till I find myself standing in front of Gulliver’s Games and Grub, a dirty gray-stone building with a flashing neon sign half burned out and flyers for garage bands pasted to the windows. It’s Chuck E. Cheese for teenagers, a greasy pizza parlor with a big room full of overpriced video games and booths upholstered in torn foam padding. It’s one of the only places young people can go to hang out on this side of town, and that’s only because Tony looks after it. Zach and I have spent hundreds of afternoons blowing coin at this place. It’s loud and chaotic and perfect for not sticking out. Dad wanted me to be normal. In New Liberty, at least on my side of town, this is as normal as it gets.
I open the door, feeling flush with the two Benjamins in my back pocket. Two hundred dollars buys a lot of Skee-Ball. There are televisions scattered throughout, showing music videos with the volume turned up loud enough to mix in with the shouting of teenagers reveling in summer break and the electronic cacophony of the arcade. Everywhere you look, there are old record-album covers plastered to the wall, artists I’ve seldom listened to because they aren’t named Wolfgang or Ludwig.
I walk in and order a soda to wash down my doughnut, thinking that if cops or the Feds or the gangsters or the tights-wearing, sky-streaking, anvil-fisted demigods and their mysterious black-suited, red-goggled sidekicks don’t kill me one day, my diet will. Then I cash in fifty bucks’ worth of tokens and try to lose myself in one screen after another. Forget about my father and being locked out of the lair. Forget about Rudy’s bouncing bloody tooth. Forget about the Comet growling at me, about almost being beaten to a pulp. Just zone out and mash buttons. Like any other kid.
It works, for a little while, but after tearing the heads off some ninjas, winning Daytona twice over, and fending off seven alien invasions, I’m bored. Being normal sucks. I would rather be at home helping my father defy the laws of physics. It’s funny. There were days I’d be stuck down there, screwing around with a computer chip or splicing wires, listening to my father discuss the intricacies of nanotechnology or the chemical properties of Jell-O, all the while wishing I was out here, with people, other people, doing whatever.
Now I wish I was down there with him.
After an hour, I figure I’ll head to the counter to order a jumbo slice for the road. I’ll take it over to the park and feed the crust to the squirrels, and we can all have a heart attack together. Right after I finish this game. I lean sideways, dodging a pair of incoming missiles, and accidentally bump into someone, a girl, standing much too close to me.
“You’re going to lose,” she says.
She looks at me with those golden eyes, luminous and large, and then points to the screen just as my ship explodes.
Game over.
I stare in disbelief. It’s definitely her. Improbably, incontrovertibly her. She is wearing one of those summery sleeveless tops, daffodil yellow, and jean shorts that I’m thinking she cut herself, by the mismatched fringe. Her sandals betray two rows of pale-pink painted nails.
“Told you,” she says.
I watch what’s left of my digital self scatter to the void.
“I hope that wasn’t your last token.”
I’m grinning like the village idiot, I know, but I can’t help myself. As impossible as it is, here she is again. Standing right next to me, defying everything my father has taught me about probability during our fun afternoons full of finite mathematics. I realize I should probably say something out loud.
“You,” I say. Eloquence in brevity.
“Me,” Viola says, waiting for the followup.
“I didn’t know you hung out here.” It comes out a little accusatory, though I don’t mean it to. I’m just surprised, is all.
“Why? Because I climbed over the picket fence? Is there some rule against north siders here?”
Not a rule, exactly. “No,” I say. “Nothing like that. Just, you know, it’s a bit of a hike.”
“My dad dropped me off,” she says. “I’m supposed to meet a friend later, but I got the times mixed up, so I’m way early. Hang on, you’ve got a little something . . .” She licks her thumb and reaches over and wipes a smidge of Bavarian cream off my cheek. My skin heats up where she touches it. “You got any tokens left?” she asks.
I jingle my pocket, still in disbelief.
“In that case, I challenge you to a duel. Good versus evil.”
“You’re on,” I say. “Which one am I?”
“You can be good,” she says. I don’t bother to argue.
We spend the next half hour in a pixelated blur, laughing and taunting, trying to one-up each other’s score. She creams me at Alien Invasion. I barely beat her at Ms. Pac-Man. I drop seven bucks into the claw game with the hopes of winning her a cute stuffed bear, but the best I manage is a fuzzy monstrosity that looks like a chicken mated with a hippo. She names it Mikey, which I try to take as a compliment.
We spend the last twenty tokens on this motion-controlled virtual fighting game, the kind where you stand side by side and actually have to kick and punch at the screen and it mimics your movements through motion-capture technology. Three lost games of air hockey have proven that she has better reflexes than I do, but I figure I’ve got her on this one. For starters, I’ve played this game for two years solid, ever since it came out. Plus I’ve seen every movie starring Bruce Lee.
We play five rounds, and she beats me in each and every one of them. Mops the floor with my face. I walk out of the booth, sweating from the effort. She walks out looking fresh as a picked plum, eyes downcast, a little embarrassed, it seems, by her overwhelming victory.
“I took karate for a few years,” Viola says, presumably to make me feel better.
“You might have mentioned that,” I tell her. The closest I ever got to taking karate was when I accidentally smashed the living-room lamp during a reenactment of Fists of Fury.
“I could buy you lunch,” she offers as a consolation prize, but I shake my head.
“I just got an advance on my allowance,” I tell her. “I’ll pay.”
We snag our slices, greasy cheese for me, mushroom and green pepper for her, and sit across from each other in a booth, as far away from other people as I can manage. She immediately sticks her straw between her teeth, tenderizing it a little before entry. I offer her one of my breadsticks—one of those goes around, comes around things—and she takes it with a raised eyebrow, then drowns it in garlic butter.
“You’re pretty good at video games . . . you know . . . for a girl,” I say.
“You kind of suck at them, actually,” she says. “You know. For a guy.” And then she laughs. And I get the same strange feeling that I got the last time we sat together. That feeling of rightness. Not rightness opposite of wrongness. Rightness like putting on a favorite pair of jeans. Maybe Dad’s right. Maybe normal’s not so bad.
“How’s your dad?” she asks as if reading my thoughts, pulling off mushrooms and eating them one by one, sucking the oil from the tips of her fingers. “Still as enthusiastic as ever?”
Probably more so, I think to myself. “He’s fine,” I say. “How about yours?”
“On his way to the office. Mother is rehearsing. She has a concert coming up next weekend. You should come. It’s at the arts museum.”
“And watch Viola’s mom play the viola.”
“It’s Tchaikovsky. One of her favorites. She has a solo.”
“Dad loves Tchaikovsky,” I say.
“Then he should come too,” she offers.
This makes me laugh. “Yeah . . . loves Tchaikovsky. Hates people.” I try to make it come off as a joke. It isn’t even true, really. Dad doesn’t hate people. He just has very little use for most of them. And he sometimes refers to them as mindless, uncultured, gape-m
outhed zombies. He would like Viola, though, I think. If I ever had the guts to tell him about her. She’s obviously smart. With Dad, that’s pretty much all that matters.
“Did you know,” she says, “that for the longest time, the viola played second fiddle to its more famous sister, the violin?”
“Wonder how that made the fiddle feel.”
“You know what I mean,” she chides. “Very few pieces were written for the viola, and it was mostly relegated to harmony in the background.”
“Like the violin’s sidekick,” I say.
“Something like that,” she says. Then she stuffs her face with pizza, crust first. She points to a spot on my head along the hairline: a scratch, barely noticeable beneath my bangs, probably from all the broken glass last night. “What happened there?”
“I fell down,” I say, nonchalant. Or maybe just a little chalant.
“Ouch,” she says, face scrunched.
“It’s no big deal.”
She shrugs an if-you-say-so shrug. “You should watch where you’re going.”
Too true.
On the televisions above us, they have switched to the news and are showing clips of the Comet’s battle with the men in silver masks—the one at the police station. It’s the fan favorite by far; I’ve seen it at least a dozen times already, though I have to admit it’s nothing compared to seeing the man in person. Here he comes. Swoosh. Lands. Smashes the truck. Cronk. Goes ballistic. Punch. Kick. Headbutt. A mighty blue whirlwind of justice. Or something. She follows my gaze, then shrugs and goes back to her pizza.
“Seems like that guy is everywhere,” I say.
“Yeah, seems that way,” she replies. For all I know, Viola is a closet Comet groupie. A fangirl who runs a Facebook page about him and inks drawings of him in her notebooks. Viola heart Comet. Or not. It suddenly strikes me how little I actually know about her. And how little she knows about me.
“He’s kinda cool, though,” I venture hesitantly.
She deftly snatches another mushroom from its quagmire of grease and cheese, dangling it over her mouth like a victim being fed to the sarlacc. “I guess. If you’re into that sort of thing.” She shrugs.
“What? You’re telling me that a guy who can fly and, like, punch through garbage trucks like they were made of Styrofoam—you’re saying that’s not awesome?” Even I have to admit it’s awesome. Soil-yourself scary. But still awesome. “I mean, come on, how is that not impressive?”
I stop talking. I realize I’m gushing about the Comet like he’s my girlfriend to the girl I kind of wish was my girlfriend. She sets her pizza back on her plate and takes her soda in both hands as if she’s suddenly afraid it might blast off.
“Yeah. Sure,” she says. “I mean, he’s obviously very powerful.”
“And the flying . . .”
“And the flying,” she admits. “The flying is cool. But . . . I don’t know, doesn’t he, you know, freak you out? Just a little bit?”
Yes. Constantly. Every time I look at him.
“Like what do you mean?” I ask, reaching over and dipping my breadstick nub into her garlic butter, soaking it clear through so that it’s dripping in iridescent yellow, looking almost toxic.
“I mean, don’t you ever wonder what he’s up to? Where he goes all the time?”
“Back to his lair, I suppose.” But then I realize superheroes don’t have lairs. They have hideouts. Or headquarters. Lairs are for villains. Or enthusiastic fathers.
“I guess,” she says, not bothering to correct me. “Still, it’s a little disconcerting, don’t you think? Wondering when or if he’s going to show up, who he’s going to try and save, what he’s going to do?”
“Dropping in from out of nowhere,” I say.
“And why he has to wear that stupid mask?” Viola continues. “I mean, like you said, he’s practically invulnerable. What does he have to be afraid of?”
I nod in agreement. “Exactly. Why the mask? Masks are for cowards. And the tights. I mean, really. What’s up with the tights?”
“Oh, well. The tights are easy,” she says confidently. “Reduces wind resistance.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“Totally serious,” she says. “I bet his legs are really hairy. Would slow him way down. It’s either that or shave.”
I suddenly get an image of the Comet in the bathtub, one leg propped on the side, running his Schick along his calf.
“Yeah, but they all wear them. Have you seen pictures of El Matador? Or who’s that one guy, shoots fire out of his hands?”
“Hotshot?”
“Yeah, him. I mean, you’d think he’d go with something a little more flame-retardant. Those tights look pretty combustible. Or that one who used to be here in town . . .” I snap my fingers repeatedly, trying to remember. There is even a statue of him near the county courthouse, though that’s one building Dad and I try to avoid. “You know. Long blond hair. Kind of prissy, carried that book around with him . . .”
“The Libertarian?” Viola ventures hesitantly.
“Right,” I say. “He wore tights and couldn’t fly.”
“I think for him it was probably just a fashion statement,” Viola whispers. She smiles, and I suddenly feel like there is almost nothing I can’t tell her, almost as if she knows what I’m going to say already.
“So weird,” I say.
“I know,” she says.
“And what’s the deal with the voices? Why is it all superheroes speak in that kind of low, gruff snarl. Like . . .” I make my voice as husky as I can and point with my finger. “You will never get away with this, bad guy.”
Viola snorts and rolls her eyes, but she plays along, sitting up straight, getting a very serious, very stern look on her face, her voice suddenly gravelly and grim. “Your reign of terror ends here, vile fiend.” She sneers. Then she stops suddenly. Our eyes meet, and she clears her throat. “Or something like that,” she says in her normal voice.
“No. That was pretty good,” I say back.
We stare at each other. Me and this girl. This girl I met by chance at the mall. By chance at the baseball diamond. By chance here at Gulliver’s. Total fluke. Stroke of luck. Complete coincidence. I feel a shiver zigzag through my whole body. Viola looks back at me with those amber eyes, enveloping me in them like a bug in sap.
“Still. It must be hard,” I say, glancing back at the television as she takes to nibbling her pizza again. “Being a superhero. Having to take on those guys all by yourself.”
“I can’t imagine,” she says, chewing slowly.
“The cops can’t be much help.”
“No,” she says. “At least, I doubt it.”
“And people like us, we are basically powerless. Just innocent bystanders. What are we supposed to do?”
“Nothing,” she says. “Just stay out of the way.”
“Right. Exactly.”
“Exactly.”
“Better not to get involved.”
“Better. Safer,” she agrees.
“Except the city’s not safe.”
“No. I guess not,” she says. “Not yet, anyway.”
“All those guys in masks.”
“You can’t trust anyone these days.”
There is a smack of plastic as the air-hockey puck behind me clatters into the goal. I look at all the other people around me, completely oblivious. Better sometimes not to know, I think.
“Viola,” I start, but before I can say anything else, she puts up a finger, her eyes narrowing, looking over my shoulder. Gulliver’s televisions are no longer streaming a bunch of music videos and news updates. Instead, every monitor has gone black.
When they spark back on, they all show the same thing. A man sitting in a high-back chair in an otherwise empty room, surrounded by plain, gray, windowless walls. He is dressed in a black uniform, military style, with polished silver buttons. To match his mask. Just one look, and I know he’s trouble.
The music has stopped. Most of
the video games quiet their clanging. One last Skee-Ball spirals into its hole. The man on the screen just sits there, like a teacher waiting to get every student’s attention. Small crowds gather around each of the televisions hanging in the corners. I look over at Viola again, but her eyes are fixed on the screen like everyone else’s.
The man in the mask is tall and well built. A sword sits across his lap—no telling if it’s for decoration or if he actually knows how to use the thing. Both hands in black leather gloves. His eyes look black as well, behind the holes of the mask, and you can’t even see his lips move as he talks, as if the voice comes from somewhere else or is only in your own head. His voice is both strange and familiar.
“Greetings, fine citizens of New Liberty,” the masked man says. “Please excuse this interruption. Allow me to introduce myself. I am the Dictator.” The man folds his hands together and sits back in his chair. “I come before you all today to inform you that your lives are about to change. In fact, at precisely six o’clock tomorrow evening, I will make an important televised announcement, one that concerns us all.”
The man on the screen pauses, I’m not sure what for. For us to program our Tivos or set the alarms on our phones. Across from me, Viola is completely absorbed. Everyone in the joint is absorbed. There is something mesmerizing about this man, lounging casually in his chair with a sword in his lap, the suggestion of a threat, words pouring out from behind a frozen face as if they could come from anywhere. From anyone.
So this is the guy Tony and Mickey were talking about. I think about what Tony said. Guys like him, they’re not like us. And they always have a plan.
“I have chosen you, the excellent people of New Liberty, to help me lead a revolution,” the man calling himself the Dictator says. “A revolution that will soon spread from city to city, nation to nation. Together we will destroy the old world and build a new one, piece by piece, brick by brick. We will build it together. All of us, as one mind, body, and spirit, crushing all who stand in our way.”
Piece by piece. Brick by brick.
“This is not a choice. This is destiny.”
Build it together.
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