by Dave Nesbit
“Not to worry, I'm really good at hiding things. You'll never find it.” Shawn replied with a grin.
Lynn gave him a withering look. Shawn responded with a wink.
The rest of the evening passed easily. We all had dinner and got caught up on what our respective days of training had been like. I looked over at another table and saw Jimmy with his new house-mates. Periodically they would look over at us and I'd hear a laugh.
We all wrapped it up for the day, and crashed out.
The next day was epic.
Chapter 12
For us the school day was broken in half. The first part of the day was spent doing normal school classes; English, math, etc. Of course as that part of the day wore on you could feel every student looking at the clock to get to the day’s second part.
This was when we would all train using the new abilities we possessed. I had just finished trig for the day and was looking forward to seeing what else Dr. Ng had planned for me that afternoon when Hamilton caught me in the hallway.
“Hello Ryan, got a minute?”
“Sure.” I said, and we walked over to an empty classroom. I was a little nervous, wondering what he might want with me.
“Have you seen Jimmy today?” He said in a stage whisper, trying not to make an issue of it for the school to hear.
That surprised me. “No I haven't, but frankly I wasn't looking for him either.”
“You wouldn't happen to have any idea of where he might be would you?”
A slow grin hit my face. “Well if he's been a bad boy I know exactly where he might be.”
Hamilton's face hardened. “What did you do?”
“Installed a new security system on my home.” I replied, and walked past him out of the building and toward the house; eagerly looking forward to what I might see. I’m not one to enjoy the suffering of others, unless that other person is a first class jerk. Then I’ll love every second of it.
I opened the door to a sight that was wonderfully gratifying. In this case it was Jimmy sprawled out on the floor unconscious.
Hamilton ran his hand over his face as he noticed a huge welt on Jimmy's forehead. “Before I decide to press charges, what did you do?” He looked mad, and underneath that he looked like he might break out laughing at any second.
“Well someone snuck in here yesterday and pissed all over Lynn's pillow.”
“And.” Hamilton responded. I could sense him losing patience with me.
“Well we set up a security system to handle the most likely intruder who would do something like that.”
Hamilton was grabbing his phone. He paused me long enough to call the campus EMTs. “Okay what is it?”
I walked to a point just behind where Jimmy's unconscious body was. I put my hand at about his head height. “What's his current known top speed?”
“We clocked him doing just shy of 500 miles an hour yesterday.”
I ran my hand through the air and found the spot. “Put your hand here.” I said.
Hamilton did, and at first he didn't get it; then he felt again. “Ohh, that’s tricky.”
When we left in the morning Rachel had created sections of air that were much denser than the air surrounding them. If you walked through them your ears would pop. And if you should hit one at say 400 plus miles an hour. Well let’s just say it would be like getting whacked in the head with a baseball bat.
I looked at Hamilton. “I know you're going to give us a hard time about this, but before you do that, why don't you ask captain ass-hat here what he’s doing passed out on the floor in our house?”
“Ohh I will.” He shook his head. “I knew this was going to be an interesting job.”
Just then the EMTs pulled up in front of the house, and I walked out of their way. They came in looking a bit puzzled, scoped out the scene, then waved smelling salts under his nose. As he awoke violently, they helped him to get to his feet and walked him out.
“Well, I'll have a word with Mr Watson about security; and disciplinary issues.” Hamilton said as he looked at me. “Make my life easier. Next time there's an issue with this kind of thing let me know. If he'd ran into that throat first we'd have to explain a dead teenager and I'm really hoping to not have to do that for a while.”
Truth be told, he had a valid point. I nodded. “Now get back to work I'm sure Doctor Ng has plans for you today.”
I walked off with a grin on my face, taking a moment to text our little triumph to everyone in the house.
Chapter 13
People tend to develop issues with things they don't understand. They get afraid, and then that fear turns into hate.
As you could guess, when groups of people started showing off genuinely superhuman powers not everyone was pleased with that development. Of course, not all of that could be chalked up to simple prejudice.
Let's be honest, if you were to discover that you had super strength, or could alter the flow of electricity, or any one of thousands of permutations of powers that were popping up in the wake of the meteorite strikes. You, like me, would likely experiment with what you could do. Despite me making Hamilton and Ng nuts with my attempt at flying, it had never occurred to me to try and do anything illegal with what I had been given.
Not everyone though is an honest or decent person. It took about two days before a super strong guy started pulling ATM machines out of buildings, or another who decided to use his mind control powers to knock over banks and create a new form of rape.
Long story short; we were being groomed as the people who would protect all the normal folks out there from our fellow super powered brethren.
Of course that didn't keep a lot of the world's wing nuts from seeing the school as a kind of government super soldier/concentration camp/ medical testing facility/mind control beacon/chemtrail generating/ Illuminati recruitment office.
They made it a point to hang out at the gates with signs that protested everything from our existence to gay marriage and all points in between. It was like we had become a magnet for people who had a gripe to share, no matter how crazy it might be.
Needless to say all of this was going to make getting out into the city to enjoy a weekend off kind of difficult.
Each of the houses got their own van and, as we got into them, we could see some of the protesters getting into vehicles to follow us. Apparently they had a really strong desire to see us go shopping.
They were quickly followed by the press who had spent the whole week using telephoto lenses to get video and pictures of us wandering around the school. When we left to test my flying speed, shaking the tail of journalists had wasted about fifteen minutes of crucial flying time.
I volunteered to fly out and distract them. Because first, I figured seeing their faces as I flew over them would be pretty awesome; and second, because I would take any excuse to fly I could get.
That’s when Hamilton reminded me we were under the most travelled skies in the world and that just flying willy nilly could result in me having a head on collision with a 747 if I didn't go out of my way to be careful. When I pointed out that I could fly low to avoid the issue his response was that I would be a bit of a distraction for drivers, especially if I went to max speed and created a sonic boom.
I was going to summon up a counter argument when I got a look from Shawn that told me he didn’t want any delays getting off the property. Rolling my eyes, I shut up.
With a groan, into the government blue panel van I went. Ramon sat next to me. “Man it’s gonna be nice to get out.” He said.
“Tell me about it. I was getting a little stir crazy.” Rachel responded as she pushed me into the middle of our bench. Not that I was going to complain, her breast was pressing into my arm, and I was doing my best not to draw attention to that. To date it had been the closest I had gotten to feeling a breast and I had to admit that it made me want to feel a lot more.
I let my head fall back a bit. “Just getting out will be fun.” It was nice to have some pocket m
oney. Truth be told I had no idea what I'd do with it, but just knowing I could do anything I wanted with it made me feel better. I grew up in an isolated space and I never really needed it per se. But I always noticed that everyone else had goodies and I didn't.
Hamilton climbed into the front seat as Lynn and Shawn took the back bench. “Everyone ready?”
“Yeah!” We all chorused.
He smacked the driver on the shoulder. “Okay let’s go.”
The driver drove us out of the front gate and to the shock of absolutely no one, a few vehicles tried to follow us. Two got stopped by cop cars that pulled out in front of them but a third managed to bob and weave out of the way and continued the pursuit.
Rather than risk our safety by having the driver dodge the tail, I turned my head, looked at the blue four door Ford POS behind us then reached my senses out to it. I could feel the engine like a pulsing living thing. The pistons pushing hard as it sped up.
I could also feel the flow of electricity through the vehicle. Magnetism and electricity are closely related, I felt the flow of power until it became a palpable thing. Then I simply stopped it with a long protracted magnetic burst into the car's electrical system.
The car came to a slow rolling halt in the street, and we were now free to enjoy the day.
“I'd ask you if you did that, but making you lie seems to be counterproductive.” Hamilton said with a grin.
“I'd try to look innocent,” I countered, “but the best I could pull off would likely be not guilty.”
I got a high five from Ramon, and another from Rachel as we took the exit to downtown Chicago. The trip through the city’s main highway was electrifying. Well, for me it always was. Years of living in the middle of nowhere had given me a perverse love for the energy of cities. Which meant driving into the skyline was a great experience for me.
We pulled off the highway and, with a few deft turns, we found ourselves on the main drag headed into downtown. The driver pulled over and we all stepped out.
“Okay I'd appreciate it if we all stayed together.” Hamilton said as he put on a pair of sunglasses. “Of course if you see somewhere you want to stop say so.”
It seemed only natural that in this situation, being guys, we allowed ourselves to be led around by the ladies. Not that I had a problem with that, seeing the girls changing into one outfit after another was kind of fun.
That and finally seeing Lynn smile. Just being out and about had helped her to lessen the weight on her shoulders and her face curled up into a pretty smile as Rachel had her try on outfit after outfit. I had a feeling that she had never really had anyone give her this sort of positive attention before.
We tried to talk them into trying on swimsuits, but by then we were all getting hungry. Rachel decided to use that as an excuse to get us away from the swim wear aisle and over to a Mongolian grill joint a couple of doors down.
Hamilton seemed relieved; we were a little early in the term to have a sexual harassment claim at school. It was clear to me he was trying to remember how to deal with teenagers, and our serious lack of things like “tact” and “discretion”
The walk to lunch was mellow as the girls discussed their purchases. I was wondering if there was a place nearby where I could increase my collection of band shirts; or add to my slowly growing collection of vinyl records.
As we made our way down the street, I felt a sensation I had missed. A lessening of pressure. The sense of decompression. Even if I was still on a guided tour outside of the school, I was away from it.
It's the odd things you never notice. The day to day stress and feeling of having to be at the same place. No real regard to your wishes as to where you'd like to be. You are obligated to be at a place so you show up.
In the case of the school, I knew we were being taught to harness our powers to some unknown end. But our mere possession of those powers meant we all lived under a microscope.
Tests are rarely just physical and I got the feeling that your motives and emotional state were also being observed. I really didn't have a clear view of what end it might be for; and that made the whole process really annoying.
Now, as I dug into a plate of hot steaming noodles, shrimp, pineapple and glorious sweet teriyaki sauce, I took a second to just enjoy the moment of freedom. Rachel was next to me on one side and Ramon on the other. We all babbled about school and TV and a thousand other things that didn't matter in the long run.
And it was glorious. For five people crammed together in a lottery of personalities we seemed to be doing okay. Shawn was across the table next to Lynn trying very hard not to strangle on what he was eating when Ramon said something funny.
It gave me pause to think that this could actually work out and be okay.
We paid our bill and gathered our belongings. Then walked out into the street. “Okay, everyone meet here in three hours.” Hamilton said. “Try not to do anything I need to sort out in the interim.”
We all agreed and made our separate ways. Lynn and Rachel walked off together and I wandered off with Shawn in tow. “Whatcha looking for?” He inquired as we looked down the street for a moment.
“Record store, music shop, anyplace interesting.”
“Sweet! Mind if I tag along?”
“Feel free.”
It took us all of about a block to find a place called Atomic Records; and I walked in, perusing the racks. I had found my dad’s old turntable in the attic and integrated it into my stereo system. Since then, I had nearly fetishized vinyl albums as a format.
I was up to 20 to date, but I had only really just started collecting. When I started, I made a few promises to myself. No albums for albums sake. I would only buy music that interested me and not buy records to be “hip” or “ironic”. It was a process that made it so any purchase I made was going to be something that rewarded the search.
Most of my searching had been done in second hand shops. So that made this place, which seemed to be packed to the gills with records of various types, kind of a gold mine for me. There were sections for DVDs and CDs but it was pretty clear that old school albums were their stock and trade.
“Easy big fella.” Shawn said from next to me.
“That obvious?”
“The drool was kind of a tip off.” He answered with a grin. “I feel ya though. I love going to old electronics shops. I lose my mind there.”
“Cool, let’s find one of those next.” I said, looking forward to seeing Shawn in his element.
We walked into the store proper. Where I proceeded to surf for music.
‘Is there such a thing as too much of a good thing?’ A mental question, answered by the view before me. Walking through the store I noticed whoever had put this place together was clearly organized and had their act together. I had been to a few shops before that sold second hand vinyl and the stuff was laid out haphazardly, and most of the stuff was in crap shape.
This on the other hand was clean, organized by category and artist and everything appeared to be in good shape. I could almost see my stipend disappear before my eyes as I looked the stacks over.
‘I will only buy five.’ I said mentally. Desiring everything was one matter, but I wanted to enjoy the stuff I would get and not just have a pile of things I would forget to listen to later.
Thankfully my folks, especially my dad, had pretty broad taste in music. Which meant I had a wide choice of records in mind, and thought of the first five on my must have list.
With that in mind, I added records by the Dave Brubeck Quartet, The Who, Parliament Funkadelic, Miles Davis and The Beastie Boys to my collection. After checking to make sure each one was in playable condition. Thankfully they all looked mint or near mint.
I was doing my best to avoid any more when I when bumped into a girl. Well more like woman, or in some space between. She was a little shorter than me, with a build somewhere between thin and athletic. She had brown shoulder length hair that framed delicate features that you'd expect to see o
n the currency of a country that had a royal family.
I had been looking at the back of the Dave Brubeck record and bumped into her, knocking a book she was holding to the ground. I apologized quickly and bent down to retrieve her book.
Did I mention she was wearing a skirt? Nice legs, I enjoyed them for just a moment then reminded myself to not stare. I looked at the book as I was handing it over. England’s Dreaming by Jon Savage. The legs had got my attention, but I had a copy of this book and it told me volumes about who I was handing it to. Suddenly I was very excited.
“Sorry about that.” I said as she took it. “I kind of lost of track of things.”
“That's all right.” she said looking over the items I had in my arms. “It seems like you had a bit to get lost in.” She looked over the collection some more. “I think you should win a prize for most eclectic purchase of the day.”
“Well the day’s young.” I responded “I just try to keep the collection interesting and diverse, it keeps me from getting bored.”
“I take it you're not just a one genre guy?” She said with a raised eyebrow.
“No, I like to keep my mind open.”
“Oh good. People like you are getting rarer every day. I'm Cathy by the way.”
“I'm Ryan. It's nice to meet you.”
And we just talked for a while about music and such. Maybe it was that I was, for once, in my element when it came to subjects of discussion, but, for what felt like the first time in my life, I didn't stammer or stutter or turn words into cartoon sound effects. For me, it was cool to meet a girl close to my age who had the same strange passion for music that I did. Eventually I even got her phone number, with a promise to meet for coffee next weekend.
I made my purchases as Shawn walked up to me. “Not bad.” He said.
“What?”
“You, the girl, the number. You're getting all smooth.” He said giving me a nudge.
“Very funny, we were just talking.” I replied as the clerk bagged up my goodies.