We Could Be Heroes

by Harmon Cooper

  (Sam really should have saved the redhead.)

  Nothing like moving out of your parents’ house at the ripe young age of twenty-four, but Sam Meeko wasn’t that much of a loser, and most people in Centralia lived with their parents unless they were married, or they couldn’t afford rent in a city so large that it doubled as a country.

  So Sam wasn’t feeling too insecure about moving in with Helena, and besides, his focus was on something else at the moment: now that he was an exemplar, he wanted to do something about the people around him who also wanted to be exemplars, like Zoe, and Helena.

  He wasn’t quite sure if Ozella wanted to be an exemplar or not, but he could figure that out later.

  It was sad in a way, Sam really didn’t have anything in his bedroom at his parents’ home, and it wasn’t that he was a minimalist or anything, he just didn’t really collect stuff, that wasn’t really his style.

  It definitely made moving easier, and even as he arranged teleportation of his items to Helena’s place, Sam conferred with her via mental message once again to make sure she was sure he could move in.

  I wouldn’t have invited you if I wasn’t sure, Helena thought back to him. Besides, I think it’s okay for fiancés to live together.

  So Sam was going to go for it, to dive in head first, and he figured he could put some of his newfound power to good use on the trolley ride over to his new digs.

  Ozella’s weird stat assessment of Sam had been right: he really was a good guy, a bit nerdy, and borderline loser at some points in his life, but who hasn’t been there before? With his dark hair, his hazel eyes, and his generally calm demeanor, he made a pretty good impression on people.

  But he also could be a bit manic, and he really hadn’t accomplished much with his life, which was something he hoped to address on the trolley ride over, to see if there was anyone who might be in need of assistance.

  The first breath in through his nostrils came as both a relief and a shock, as Sam had purposefully tried not to breathe in through his sniffer on his quick trip home. He knew his mom would be sad that he was leaving, that his dad was happy to see him go, and that there were a whole slew of emotions running rampant in the place, emotions that he didn’t want to sense.

  He still hadn’t quite figured out how he was sensing people’s emotions or their futures using just his nose, but it seemed to be the case, and there really wasn’t much he could do about it aside from continuing to benefit from his newfound ability, and trying to breathe through his mouth when it became too much.

  Oh, and helping others, Sam wanted to do a little bit of that as well, to get his feet wet.

  So as oxygen came into his nose, tickling his nose hairs as it moved through his nasal cavity, he started looking around the trolley, hoping to discover something about one of the six people seated around him that he would be able to help them with.

  The first person Sam’s sniffer met, a man of average height with mutton chops, didn’t really seem to have anything going on in his life. He was a non-exemplar and coincidently, he worked at a factory that produced showroom furniture for a subsidiary of the Knight Corporation.

  With nothing really going on there, Sam turned his attention to the teenage girl sitting next to the man, a cute girl with braided red hair. The young redhead had soft features, blue eyes too, and from what Sam’s nose could pick up, she not only smelled wonderful, she’d led a pretty good life. She volunteered in her community, was kind to people she met, and she…

  Sam’s eyes twitched.

  He couldn’t be sure of what he was sensing, that something terrible was going to happen to the woman tonight, but he knew that he should warn her somehow. The only thing was, how would he go about doing this without sounding like a psycho?

  Sam knew that if he just told her that something bad was gonna happen to her, the teenager would probably ignore him. She might even call a police officer, who would see that Sam already had two marks on his record for impersonating an exemplar, and would probably take him in and give him the third one, which would lead to jail time.

  So Sam didn’t want to do that, fuck no, but he also didn’t want the redheaded teen to die.

  He thought about it for moment as the trolley passed a working-class neighborhood: how could he pull this off? And just as importantly, could he really trust his senses here?

  “Excuse me,” a woman sitting next to Sam said, eyeing him curiously.

  The woman had purple eyes and hair that reminded him of the way Helena’s hair was colored, gray at some angles, a silvery blond at others. “Don’t do it,” the woman told him, reaching forward and pinching his nose.

  “How did you know?” Sam asked, his nose pinched shut. If any of the other passengers had an opinion on what these two were doing, no one said anything.

  “It’s an interesting power you have,” the woman told him.

  “I’m sorry, I just…” Sam knew in that instant she was some type of telepath, and he was just about to promise not to use his nose again when she dropped her hand.

  “I suppose there’s no harm in it,” the purple-eyed woman said, offering him her hand. “My name’s Emelia. Feel free to sniff away.”

  “That is quite the job you have,” Sam said, his nostrils flaring wide.

  From what his nose was telling him, Emelia worked as the lead coordinator at a sex doll shop, and it wasn’t the same shop where Sam had bought Dolly (who was now in police custody), but it was in the same district.

  “You’re right, it is quite the job,” the woman named Emelia told him. “And you should be careful with your powers—three strikes and you’re out…”

  “I’m aware.”

  There was something mysterious about the smile that the telepath offered him, an expression that was encouraging as much as it was weary. “You know, getting involved in other people’s affairs always leads to turmoil…”

  “Yeah, I get that, but I’m trying…”

  He saw the young lady with the red hair stand, her stop coming up.

  “I have to do something, now,” Sam told Emelia the telepath. “All of us that have a power, including you, could do so much more if we just…”

  “That’s not our role,” she reminded him.

  “I know, but what if it was our role? Why don’t we use our powers to help others?”

  “That’s what exemplar teams are for,” she reminded him, her eyes jumping from Sam to the redheaded girl. “And unless you plan to start one, which would be illegal anyway considering your classification, you should leave hero work up to the experts. It’s no laughing matter, and it’s not something that someone can just jump into. Many of them started training at the age of ten. And some of them go crazy. It’s a lot of pressure, both from the public and from their own community.”

  “But that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t do something about what I sense… ”

  “Up to you.”

  “What kind of telepath are you anyway, couldn’t you help me?” Sam asked the woman as the trolley slowed to a stop.

  “I’m more of an empath, but I do have some telepathic abilities, nothing that would classify me as a Type II or anything dangerous.”

  “Then tell her not to get off the trolley,” Sam whispered, the look in his hazel eyes intensifying. “You must be able to do something. What if she misses her stop? What if she got off at the next stop? Would that not change the course of her future?”

  Emelia hesitated. “I really try not to get involved with these things…”

  “But it could make a difference, she’s a good person, I’m sensing it,” Sam said, glad that the trolley was loud enough to cover his whispers. “We have to do something.”

  “What if the thing that’s going to kill her isn’t something that we can stop?” Emelia asked, raising an eyebrow at him.

  “What do you mean we can’t stop it?” Sam shook his head, refusing to take this for an answer. “What if we followed her? What if we intervened? All I’m sensing is that it is so
mething, a person, who is going to do it. A person can be stopped.”

  “I’m visiting a client, and I have to get back to work,” Emelia told him. “I don’t really have time to follow someone…”

  “Then I should take her with me,” Sam said.

  “You are suggesting kidnapping her?”

  “No, I mean, I have…”

  Emelia placed her hand on Sam’s shoulder. “You can’t take her with you, and you aren’t supposed to be using your powers,” she told him, something off about the look on her face.

  It was like everything around them was now a blur, and it was just the two of them, the strange woman staring deeply into Sam’s soul, producing thoughts at the back of his head.

  “Maybe you’re right…” Sam finally said.

  “You have to be careful with the power that you’ve been given, even if it has been rather sudden,” she whispered.

  The trolley door opened, and the redheaded girl stepped off, looking back at Sam once as the door closed.

  It was a moment Sam would relive again and again over the following day, especially after what would happen that very night.

  “There, see? It’s not that hard,” Emelia said. “There are people living all around us, all of whom will die at some point, and we can’t stop them. All we can do is let nature take its course. Don’t you agree, Sam? Is my message reaching you?”

  “It is,” Sam finally told her, not able to look away from the telepath’s powerful gaze. “Thank you.”

  ***

  The gates of Helena’s mansion opened once Sam keyed in the code she’d given him.

  He hadn’t seen this type of technology before, but assumed it was from the Eastern Province, where all the good tech came from.

  Sam made his way through an entryway garden, coming to a large wooden door with colorful stained glass in the transom.

  He still felt a little uneasy about what had happened on the trolley with the telepath. It felt like his thoughts had been scrubbed over somehow, altered in some way. He remembered the girl with the red hair, and for that matter, the telepath with the gray hair, Emelia, and what she had told him: know your role.

  And Sam wasn’t cool with this; he was the type of person that couldn’t deny a gut feeling, but even now, as he entered Helena’s mansion, the details of what he had sensed had already started to disappear.

  Sam, like most Centralians, had encountered a telepath before, the powerful exemplars simply being a way of life in the world he inhabited, but unlike some non-exemplars, he hadn’t been trained on how to deal with telepaths, how to clear his thoughts, focus only on surface thoughts, and not let a telepath dig too deep.

  And based on the information that the woman named Emelia had uncovered, she really had dug deep.

  Maybe it was good that they wouldn’t see each other again, that she’d got off at a stop before his stop, that they didn’t exchange information. Oddly enough, he also knew where to find her, that thought implanted somewhere in the back of his mind.

  “Helena,” he called out, not quite ready to explore the entire mansion.

  It was a big space, and he was wary of what he was smelling, the memories that would come to him if he entered certain rooms.

  So he tried to keep to the same path he’d taken in the morning: straight, to the left, into a large living space, and to the bedrooms from there. And that was exactly what he did, checking the bedroom that Ozella had slept in last night, finding that it was empty, as were the bedrooms near it.

  Figuring it couldn’t hurt, he continued down the hallway past a large guest restroom, where he came to a single door at the end of the hallway.

  Sam pressed his ear to the door and heard soft grunts on the other side. He stood like that for a moment, a curious look on his face as he tried to interpret what he’d just heard.

  Does she have a lover over? he thought, instantly abandoning this line of thinking.

  He still didn’t know much about Helena Knight, but he did sense that she was single, and after all, they were fake engaged. So rather than make any more assumptions, he simply raised his fist to the door and knocked.

  “Come in,” he heard her shout from the other side.

  He opened the door to find a large dance studio of sorts, easily the size of his gymnasium back in primary school. The room had mirrors on the walls, all sorts of tumbling mats, a mixed martial arts area with dozens of punching bags hanging from the ceiling, stationary mannequins in aggressive poses, as well as an assortment of weights and other types of workout equipment.

  Helena Knight stood near the punching bags, wearing a tight one-piece athletic outfit, a V-neck opening over her chest, and a sweatband keeping back her gray hair.

  “Practicing?” Sam asked.

  “You know it. Want to watch?” Helena asked, slightly out of breath. She paused for a minute, firing off a few mental messages. “Sorry, my assistant, Bryan, is running into a lot of issues today.”

  “Do you need to go to your office?” he asked.

  “Nah. I’m training right now.”

  Sam nodded, stoked to see the lean combat dancer in action.

  He had seen Helena’s skills back at the warehouse, but this area was better lit, and she was in her element, which meant she would probably do some pretty cool shit.

  The sexy tomboy grabbed the towel that hung on a hook near the punching bags.

  She wiped herself off, and then pulled down on a crank, which allowed the punching bags to separate out even further, mimicking a group of assailants surrounding someone in the middle.

  Helena slipped past one of the punching bags and stepped into the center. Helena brought her hands together into a prayer position and slowly lifted onto the balls of her feet.

  She was all action in a matter of moments, flipping backward and kicking both feet into the punching bag behind her, which she then used as a springboard to torpedo to the front, spinning, her legs coming in front of her and releasing a hailstorm of kicks on the first two punching bags.

  From there, Helena went into a handstand and then a headstand split that would have kicked two punching bags had they been running at her from opposite directions.

  She righted herself, twisting as she threw a couple of fists into a punching bag on the left. She kicked backward and did a back roll into another double kick to one of the punching bags behind her, landing with one knee on the ground, her fists at the ready.

  Sam couldn’t help but clap his hands.

  “You are seriously badass,” he told her as she approached, using her hip to move the final punching bag out of the way.

  Covering Helena’s knuckles were small cushions, not a full boxing glove but something to protect her bones. She grabbed the back of Sam’s head and brought him in, giving him a long, hard kiss.

  “I’m glad you could make it,” she said as she playfully pushed him away.

  Sam actually stumbled back a bit, surprised at her aggression.

  “Hold the punching bag,” she told him, jerking her head to where she wanted him to stand. Sam took a place behind the punching bag and Helena unleashed a series of swift punches, kicks too, some of which came way too close to his face for comfort.

  “You work out this hard every day?” he asked between punches.

  “Every day, every single day,” she said.

  This got Sam wondering about her dormant power.

  At first glance he’d assumed it was agility. And part of him still felt that way. But he’d never actually confirmed it, so he figured now was as good a time as any.

  “Did you ever get your dormant power diagnosed?” he asked between punches, recalling that many wealthy non-exemplars went this route for bragging rights alone. “I mean, do you know what type of exemplar you would be if you weren’t half-powered?”

  Helena stopped punching the bag and brought both hands behind her back, stretching, Sam watching as her breasts were slightly compressed by her leotard.

  “Nope, never did that,�
� she finally told him. “Maybe it has something to do with agility, or maybe it’s something else. Not everyone has something unique about them.”

  “I’m aware.”

  “So I really don’t know the answer to your question. Let’s just assume it’s agility; it’s not like I’ll ever be able to actually find it out.”

  “I did,” Sam said, pointing to his nose.

  Speaking of which, one whiff of the gym and Helena standing before him and Sam truly understood how hard she’d trained. In the short span of his inhalation he saw everything, the hours upon hours, the sweat, blood, tears, the various people she had trained under.

  It was impressive as hell.

  “Yeah, but you just happened to have a deviated septum or something,” she reminded him. “A lucky break, if you ask me, and I mean that in the most literal sense,” she said, a smile returning to her face.

  “Definitely a lucky break.”

  Helena relaxed a little bit, still maintaining her dancer gait. “Did you find your room?”

  “I didn’t look for it; I figured you would be the one to show it to me, and I didn’t want to go prowling around and get lost somehow.”

  “I’m sure you would find your way back to me at some point,” she told him, draping her towel over her shoulder. “Come. I’ll show you to your room and you can have your teleporter deliver your items there.”

  “Nothing to deliver aside from clothing.”

  “Good, minimal.”

  “Something like that.”

  “Oooh, I could use some tea.” Helena yawned. “Anyway, I need to get ready for tonight, which means I’ll need to take a shower. Are you clean?”

  “Yes?”

  “Too bad. I was going to invite you to take a shower with me. Next time, I guess,” she said with a flirty shrug. “Follow me.”

  Chapter Sixteen: Community Service

  (Dr. Hamza Grumio shouldn’t have been so sloppy.)

  “I am not a super powered individual. I am not an exemplar. I have never had a superpower. I am not a hero, nor will I ever be a hero. I am not a superhero, I am half-powered. I will always be half-powered, I am a non-exemplar. There is nothing about me that is extraordinary. I am not a hero, I am not a superhero. I am half-powered. I will always be half-powered. I am a non-exemplar.”