Secret Origins

by James Riley

  Finally, the poor man sank into despair, resorting to writing and drawing his own story in a notebook while hiding behind a Dumpster in an alley. He sketched a few panels in the notebook, just like a comic book, showing himself as he was. But then the version of him in his drawings gave himself powers by rewriting himself, and he became strong enough to save Doc Twilight from Dr. Apathy.

  At least, that’s what it looked like. The man wasn’t the best artist. And drawing himself as a superhero didn’t make it so. He finally threw his notebook away in frustration, dropping his head into his hands and weeping.

  Owen felt horrible even watching this. Where was Doc Twilight, who knew the truth? Even Bethany’s mom could have done something, maybe helped the guy, since she at least knew he wasn’t crazy. As it was, though, this was just awful! Was the poor guy still around somewhere, no one believing him?

  “There must be a way,” the crook whispered to himself, staring at his hands. “If we are stories, then we can change them. I know we can!”

  He concentrated on his hand with all of his might, in panel after panel. And nothing happened, not for pages.

  Finally, just as Owen was about to give up and move back to the present, something happened. Something was different.

  It was such a small thing, Owen had to look closely just to be sure. But where once the crook’s hand had been weathered and callused, now it was unlined, as if the man had never worked a day in his life.

  The crook stared at his hand in surprise, then leaped to his feet, shouting and jumping for joy. Soon he stopped and stared in a reflective puddle on the street at his face, concentrating as hard as he could. The panel zoomed in on his eyes, then out to reveal the face of Doc Twilight.

  What? What was happening? Was this guy actually rewriting himself? Had he just turned into Bethany’s father?

  But no, just as quickly, the face changed, and now the crook looked like Mason Black, then Dr. Apathy, then his original face again. The man laughed with pure delight, his clothes changing to Doc Twilight’s costume, then to a tuxedo, followed by a spacesuit and a few other things before falling back into his original outfit.

  “I can do it,” he whispered to himself, staring at his hands. “I can rewrite my own story.”

  Owen took a step away from the panels as the page turned. This seemed like good news, after the terrible story the man had been stuck in before. But being able to change yourself into anything was a lot of power for someone who’d started as a criminal. But wasn’t that the point the man was making? He was changing his story so that he wasn’t that criminal. He could rewrite himself, so couldn’t he also rewrite his own past?

  Owen shook his head. If he could rewrite his story, what couldn’t he do?

  “I can be anyone,” the man said, and quickly shifted faces and clothes faster than Owen could even see . . . well, faster than the panel could show. Owen had almost forgotten he was reading this in comic book form.

  “I can have any power I want!” the man said, and began to float into the air before lifting the Dumpster next to him with one finger, then throwing it straight up, presumably into outer space.

  “I’m not just some nobody anymore!” the man said, and this time, all of his features slowly dissolved off of his face, leaving behind what looked almost like a mannequin without any clothes on.

  And that’s when Owen realized exactly who this man was, and all he could do was say, “Oh no,” very, very quietly.

  CHAPTER 34

  The teenage boy wearing the Doc Twilight costume tossed his tranquilizer gun back down the hole in the floor that Captain Sunshine’s entrance had made. “Hopefully that’ll throw the shadows off of our scent,” he said. “Otherwise, it’s going to be an interesting trip to safety.” He gave the rest of them a dark look, then pulled his purple cape around him like a cloak. “Let’s go.”

  For a moment the cape reminded Bethany of Kiel, but this jerk was nothing like the boy magician.

  “What about the Rotten Banana?” she asked, trying to wrap her arms around the unconscious banana to pick him up, but slipping off of his suit every time.

  Charm sighed. “I’ll get him,” she said, and picked up the rope still attached to his hands, then started dragging him smoothly over the ground.

  “Just . . . try not to bump him,” Bethany said, now feeling protective of him. Why had he saved her, anyway? Not that she wasn’t thankful, but it was just such an odd thing for him to do. He was a supervillain, wasn’t he?

  “So do the shadows hunt by smell?” Gwen asked as they followed the boy out of the Lawful Legion’s hall. “Is that why you left your weapon?”

  “Mostly they hunt by overwhelming numbers, coming at you from all sides until you can’t escape, can’t breathe, can’t even think,” he said, not turning around. “If that happens, run. I’ll hold them off as long as I can.”

  “Who are you?” Bethany asked him. “The Banana said the Dark took out everyone who had powers.”

  “Exactly,” the boy said. “Now, no more questions. The shadows can pick up sound vibrations, so try to stay silent.”

  They walked in silence for the next ten minutes or so as the evening advanced, avoiding dark alleys and shadowed streets as much as possible. The sun was down, but the sky still had a bit of light, at least for the next few minutes. They seemed to be heading back into the rougher area where the Dark had first caught Bethany and Owen. At least, she thought they were. It wasn’t easy to tell exactly where they were now that she didn’t have a helicopter’s view.

  Not once did they see anyone out on the roads, though Bethany did catch a few people staring down at them from windows above. Were they infested by shadows? Or were there a few normal people left, just hoping that someone would come along and help?

  If they were hoping to be saved, a small group of kids towing a banana probably wasn’t what they were hoping for.

  “I don’t know about you, but I love this place,” Gwen whispered to Bethany. “I never imagined I’d get to actually walk around an Earth city. This is so great!”

  “They’re not all like this,” Bethany told her quietly. “Most are a bit less . . . hopeless.”

  “Hopeless?” Gwen said, looking around. “I don’t get that sense. If it was really hopeless, then people would have given up by now. But our new friend hasn’t left, and neither has the banana. They’re scared, sure, but they’re still here, trying to make things better.” She patted Bethany’s shoulder. “Maybe we can help!”

  “Sometimes it feels like your superpower is being optimistic,” Bethany said with a smile. “If it is, use it on me. I could use the boost.”

  Gwen laughed, and Bethany joined in almost before she knew she was doing it. “See?” Gwen said. “No superpower necessary.”

  “Or you don’t even know you’re using it,” Bethany told her, stepping over a broken lamppost. “Hey, where are we going, anyway?” she called to the boy at the front.

  “I said no talking,” he said, not turning around.

  Charm looked back at Gwen and Bethany, then nodded down at her ray gun. Bethany shook her head, and Charm sighed, which made Gwen and Bethany laugh again.

  “You’re going to bring the shadows down on us,” the boy said, and that was enough to kill Bethany’s joy.

  A few blocks later the boy abruptly turned and led them behind a boarded-up convenience store, then stopped at what looked like a solid wall. He pushed on several different bricks, waited for a moment, then repeated the pattern backward. Something began to grind, and the wall opened up to reveal a brightly lit staircase leading down.

  “He’s going to murder us,” Charm whispered to Bethany as the banana slid down the stairs ahead of her, bumping up against the boy’s legs, which earned them both a nasty look. “And when he does, I’m blaming you.”

  “I’ll blame me too, probably,” Bethany told her, then followed the boy and the banana down. They descended for what felt like a hundred feet before they came to a large metal door
, an electronic keypad on the side. The boy put his eye up to a lens above the keypad, and a red light beamed out to scan it. Something beeped, and immediately the entire hallway lit up with lights as bright as the sun, leaving nowhere for shadows to hide.

  “Don’t you think this is a bit much?” Charm asked him, squinting against the light.

  He flashed her an annoyed look. “The shadows can report back whatever they see to the Dark. So pardon me if I take security seriously. These lights can only cover so much, especially if we brought a shadow down inside with us. The least we can do is keep the entry passcodes on a need-to-know basis.” He gave them all a long look, and first Gwen, then Bethany, and finally Charm all turned around, Charm with a loud sigh.

  Behind them they could hear the boy entering some numbers on the keypad, and then the sound of the door opening. Bethany now could clearly hear a large number of people talking from inside—the door must have completely blocked it out.

  “Okay, we’re in,” the boy said, and all three turned to find what looked like an enormous cavern that was easily seven or eight stories high. The ceiling might have been right below the street, even. The cavern was filled with computers, lab equipment, and two of the same glass cases that Bethany had seen in the house with the manhole: one labeled DOC TWILIGHT, the other, KID TWILIGHT. Both costumes were missing here, though.

  The rest of the cavern was filled with supervillains.

  Dozens, maybe even a hundred of them, all wearing costumes in various states of repair, some intimidating, others simply terrifying. And all of them had turned to see who’d just come in, going completely silent.

  “Villains!” Gwen said, pushing her way in front of Bethany.

  “There’s nothing to worry about,” the boy said, nodding at the assembled forces of evil, who seemed to recognize the boy and go back to their conversations. “If any of these has-beens were dangerous, they’d have been taken by the Dark already. I’m just doing charity work at this point, keeping them alive.” He shoved away a shambling man missing half a face, and the zombie moaned, reaching for his brain. “. . . Or undead. Whatever.”

  Charm, meanwhile, had both her ray guns out, moving them from villain to villain faster than Bethany could follow, but none seemed to care. “They’re not attacking,” the half-robotic girl said, sounding confused.

  “Did you not hear me?” the boy asked, shoving her guns away, which just made her turn them on him. “They know they’re beaten, and all they want to do now is hide until they can escape. I’ve been getting them out of the city through our tunnels, but—”

  “Our?” Bethany asked.

  The boy sighed. “I get it, you want to know where he is. So do I, but no one knows.” He pointed to a faded portrait above some of the computers. “I’ve tried to keep his work going, but I’m afraid the Dark has him, and it’s only a matter of time before he’s turned. If he gets infested by shadows and leads the Dark here, we’re done for.”

  Bethany slowly looked up at the portrait, and her heart jumped. There was her father with his mask on, standing next to the boy in front of her.

  And that’s when it hit her. Dressing up like Doc Twilight to fool the Lawful Legion. Having access to what was apparently one of her father’s secret hideouts. And that portrait . . .

  “Wait a second,” Bethany said, making a disgusted face. “You’re my father’s sidekick?”

  CHAPTER 35

  With Nobody’s secret origin laid bare on the pages in front of him, Owen felt the back of his neck begin to prickle, like someone was watching him. He spun around, bracing himself for anything, but nobody was there, in that no one was actually there.

  Nobody, though, could be anywhere. After all, he’d found Owen outside of the pages of a book before (and in Owen’s writing, as well as that one time in the nonfictional world, when Nobody appeared as their principal), so who knew if or when he’d show up now?

  And no matter who Nobody had become, Owen had a feeling he wasn’t supposed to see the man he’d started as.

  He had to stop reading these back issues right now. No one knew what he’d seen yet. If he went back to the newer comic pages, the ones with Bethany and Charm and Gwen, there’d be nothing to get him into trouble, even if Nobody did show up. All Owen had to do was jump forward in the pages, and he’d look totally innocent of learning anyone’s secret origin!

  Yup. That’s all . . . he had . . . to do.

  Instead, with one last look over his shoulder, Owen turned the page.

  After dissolving into a mannequin figure, the next page (and issue) had Nobody showing up on Mr. Black’s front stairs again, knocking on the door with his original face on.

  Mr. Black opened the door just a notch, then tried to slam it, but Nobody was too quick. He slid one hand into the tiny crevice, then hardened that hand into shining steel.

  Mr. Black’s eyes widened, and he stumbled back inside as Nobody entered the house, a polite smile on his face. “Please, hear me out,” he told the writer. “There’s something I need to show you.”

  Mr. Black shook his head, his eyes locked on Nobody’s hand of steel. “I . . . I told you, I won’t . . . I won’t rewrite you.”

  “There’s no need,” Nobody said, still smiling as his clothing, his face, and his hair all shifted into Doc Twilight in costume. “As you can see, I’ve learned how to do that myself.”

  Mr. Black fell backward, crashing into a table and knocking over what looked like an expensive vase. “How . . . how did you do that?!” he shouted, his eyes wide.

  Nobody shifted to his mannequin look, then back to his original self. “I’ve learned many things since I last spoke to you,” he said quietly, offering Mr. Black his hand. “It all began with the presumption that if I can be written, then I can be rewritten. And if you could rewrite me, why couldn’t I? Why wouldn’t I have the power to change my own story?”

  Black just stared at Nobody’s offered hand without moving. “You rewrote yourself? But how?”

  “The same way you change the words on a page,” Nobody told him. “I just had to discover the language that I’m made of. Now please, I have more to show you. You need to see what you’ve done.”

  Black pushed himself to his feet, clenched his fists, and held them up like he was ready to box Nobody or something. “I’m not going anywhere with you. I want you to leave.”

  Nobody just stared at him. “You must see what you’ve created, Mason. Come.” His arms snaked out to three or four times their length and wrapped around Mr. Black. The writer began to scream, only to go quiet as Nobody’s arms rose up to cover his mouth. “It won’t take long, don’t worry.”

  Owen swallowed hard, then whirled around, certain he’d just heard a footstep. But no one was back there. Still, this was not good. Comic characters always got all crazy when you found out their secret identity. He really needed to stop reading this!

  Back on the page Nobody lowered Mr. Black through the blue-fire portal and into Dr. Apathy’s lab, then led him out into Jupiter City, drawing his arms back in to their normal length. “Come, Mason,” he said, offering his hand to Mr. Black again. “I need you to see.”

  This time the writer reluctantly took Nobody’s hand, and his creation led him out of Apathetic Industries.

  Outside, the streets were a lot more crowded than they’d been when Owen had seen them. Tough-looking criminals lurked around corners, watching Nobody and Mr. Black. They passed through streets where people walked with paranoid glances all around them, careful not to get too close to anyone else.

  Finally, Nobody led Mr. Black down a dark alley, stopping at the end of it to turn around. Mr. Black started to say something, but Nobody just held up a finger for him to wait. It didn’t take long, either, for a group of three dangerous-looking crooks to enter the alley, two of them pulling knives.

  “Quick, empty your pockets before Twilight gets here,” one said, his eyes on the rooftops.

  “Ah, perfect, thank you,” Nobody told the criminal, th
en turned to Mr. Black. “Do you see? This is what you’ve created. You’ve written a city that could have been a utopia, if only you’d made it so. But instead, crime is rampant, and the heroes can’t be everywhere.”

  “I don’t see your wallets,” the criminal said, advancing on them.

  Nobody turned back with a frown, then bashed the crook against the alley’s walls with a monstrously long arm.

  “Hey, he’s one of them!” one of the other two shouted, only to get thrown through the brick wall on the other side of the alley.

  The third robber just stared at them for a second, then ran off screaming.

  Nobody retracted his arms again and nodded at Mr. Black.

  “You could have made this a perfect city. Instead, people live in fear. My people.”

  Mr. Black just stared at him in horror. “You can’t . . . you can’t blame me for this. I gave them a hero!”

  “We shouldn’t have needed one.”

  “I didn’t know what I was doing!” Mr. Black said, backing up into the wall. “I was just trying to make your world look like mine. Stories need conflict! I didn’t realize that you were real somewhere. I never would have—”

  “Don’t worry, Mason,” Nobody said. “That mistake is in the past. Here, now, I offer you a chance at redemption.” He spread his arms benevolently. “Rewrite Jupiter City. Make it the heaven on Earth it always should have been. Give its residents everything, make them happy. This is all I ask.”

  Mr. Black’s eyes widened. “You’re serious? You want me to rewrite the entire city now?”

  Nobody nodded, waiting silently.

  Mr. Black held up his hands. “I don’t . . . I can’t do that. I wouldn’t even know where to begin!”

  “You must do this,” Nobody told him, frowning. “Surely you see that. You have the power. Why wouldn’t you help make my people’s lives better?”