by Paul Tobin
1: Be with Adele again.
2: Take Adele on a date. (pay)
3: Talk to Greg’s parents.
4: See my house. (steal something?)
5: Talk with Judy.
6: Prepare will (Adele, Greg’s parents, Judy?, monument to Dad & Mom, Kid Crater Scholarship)
7: Visit SRD (shut them down?)
8: Fight.
I wasn’t sure what the final line item meant. Fight. What was that doing there? Why had I put it there? I wasn’t sure of the answer. It just seemed like it needed to be down on the paper. It hadn’t been listed on the first draft, but had appeared on the second, and had then lived through all the subsequent incarnations, most of which were scribbled onto napkins (at two different strip clubs) or advertising flyers (Colonel Dan’s Bulk Grocery Outlet) or menus from City Diner, Hash Brown’s, and Vege Tables & Chairs. Several of the earlier drafts had a question mark next to the word, so that it read as... fight? I hadn’t put that question mark in the final draft, but it was only because I’d grown accustomed to the word. If something is around long enough, a person tends to forget all about it, and just accept it into their lives.
I’d looked at the list about a million times. Driving home, to Greenway, it had sometimes been on my dash, stuck there with a piece of tape, and it had sometimes been in my wallet, and it had sometimes been in my pocket. It had often been in my hands. It was making me wonder about a lot of things. I wondered how small I would feel when knocking on certain doors. I wondered if my key would still fit in the door to my house. I wondered how SRD would react to my visit, and how I’d react to that reaction. I played out scenarios in my head. I wondered what to call the Kid Crater scholarship. I wondered if it should be for… sports? Arts? Bravery? How does one go about measuring bravery in the average college freshman?
I wondered about all those things.
But mostly I wondered where I would take Adele on a date.
***
My second date with Adele was a double date with Tom and Judy. We drove to Bolton to watch a romantic comedy at the Worthington Theater. I can’t remember what movie we saw. I’m pretty sure I didn’t pay any attention to it. My thoughts were consumed by making sure, during the movie, that Adele didn’t notice Judy was giving Tom a handjob. I wasn’t sure if she’d feel embarrassed, or pressured to do the same, or disgusted, or what might happen. I didn’t want to know. It was tension, but it was a pleasant version of such. I felt alive.
“Enjoying the movie?” Adele asked me. Tom and I were sitting next to each other, with the girls to either side. I was holding Adele’s hand. I couldn’t have told you if the movie was even running.
“It’s good,” I said. I was leaned forward, trying to block her view of Tom and Judy, and I was staring her in the eyes because that way I would know where she was looking.
“You’re not even watching,” she said. “You always just watch me.” Someone from behind us kicked at the back of my seat and told us to shut up.
I turned around and glared. I’ve always been good at glaring. Having an older brother develops that talent. The object of my objection was Travis Gerber, a man who was then in his fifties, a man who lived two blocks from me in Greenway, and whose wife had left him for some Bolton man, a lawyer, I think. If I was him I would have never come to Bolton. I would have blamed the town.
Travis backed away from my glare, a beaten man again. I stared at him for a couple extra seconds, making sure. He had a chocolate ball in his fingers, halfway to his mouth, frozen in time. For some reason, it made me feel a little sorry for him.
“What’s changed?” Adele told me when I turned back. I made sure to not wipe the glare right off my face, not right away. I wanted her to see that I was tough. A man.
“Huh?” I asked. Her question didn’t make any sense. The question threw me off balance and I immediately wanted popcorn. If we had popcorn, I’d have something to do with my hands. But if I had popcorn then I’d get oil and butter and salt on my fingers and I couldn’t touch her as much. I’d be afraid to touch her dress (it was red, this time) for fear of staining it, despite how Tom said there’s nothing better than staining a girl’s dress. And if I had popcorn, I’d need to get some soda, or a water, or something to douse the thirst that popcorn always gives me, and if I drank too much, or anything at all, then I’d for sure have to go to the bathroom before the movie was over, quickly becoming some huge bloated piss machine, running to the toilet and looking like a fool, and just having Adele so close to me was giving me shivers, and by that I somewhat mean that she was giving me a boner, and if I went to the bathroom I’d end up at a urinal with (this would be for sure) guys to either side of me, asking why I had a boner, demanding to know what was making me hard, and they’d probably be friends of Adele, and they would definitely tell her how I’d been in the bathroom with my buttery/salty fingers holding my at-least-somewhat-erect penis, and then…
“What’s changed?” Adele asked again, bringing me back to reality.
“I’m still not sure what you’re talking about,” I admitted. Tom had given me mixed signals on how to deal with girls. He’d said that honesty was always the best policy, and that the paramount thing was to never show any weakness. I was stuck between one or the other. Confusion divides the line.
Adele said, “Steve… we’ve lived together in Greenway since we were kids. You never cared much about me. Whenever you went bike riding in the quarry, or searching for fossils, or playing tennis in the park, you never wanted me along. I was always around, but you never asked if I wanted to go. You never even really looked at me. Now, lately, these past few weeks, a couple months, you’re always looking at me. So… what’s changed?”
“Jesus,” I said. I felt a little trapped. I wondered how long the movie would still run, if I could stall until the end, or if I should fake having to go to the bathroom. I wondered if I’d have to fake. I truly felt like I needed to piss.
Tom leaned over to me and said, “Don’t be mad, but I’ve been listening in. Don’t tell her a damn thing.” He didn’t whisper. Didn’t try to make sure Adele couldn’t hear. She reached over and pushed him, slowly, away from me. I was glad that she was pushing him away, but not at all glad that Adele was touching a man who was getting a handjob.
“Don’t listen to your brother,” Adele told me. “Be the smart one. Tell me what’s changed.”
“You just look better in a dress,” I said. First thing that came to mind. Well, the first thing that had come to mind past my fears and my thoughts of flight.
“That’s all?”
“I guess you look better in everything.”
“That’s as much as you can tell me?” I had a feeling she was decades older than me, or more honestly, decades smarter. She put her hand on my lap, only on my leg, but she had to have known how it scalded. It’s amazing how many things a woman knows.
“You make the town seem bigger,” I said. “Or maybe smaller. It’s just… the whole town is you. I can’t… you move so… I think…”
“Just kiss her,” Tom said, leaning over again. Judy was smiling up at me from his lap. She’d pretended to drop something on the floor. The handjob had progressed. Most of her head was covered with Tom’s coat, shielding her from view, but I could see her eyes. Adele shifted the coat so that Judy was entirely covered, then she pushed Tom away again, this time telling him not to come back, that his brother could handle himself.
Then, to me, she said, “Is that, those things you were saying, is that some sort of poetry?”
“Guess so. Didn’t really mean it that way. I don’t like poetry. It’s just… you make me think of different things.”
She looked at me for a long time. I could hear the murmur of surrounding people. Tom saying Judy’s name, low. Her giving a soft answering grunt. I was vaguely aware of the actors on the screen (I really do not have any recollection of that movie) and the sound of the humming projector behind us. I was watching Adele move some of her brunette hair away f
rom her eyes. I was seeing how her skin looked in the movie theater, with the lights down so low. I was watching her eyes sparkle, reflecting light. I was watching how her lips were slightly curled up, how her nose turned up at the end, how her shoulders were rising as she wrestled with some decisions, how her breasts were pointed up, her nipples evident in the cool of the theater, how it seemed like every part of her was pushing up, and up.
“Tom was right,” she said after a bit. “Just… kiss her.”
CHAPTER FOUR
I rolled into Greenway at almost five in the afternoon. It was the first time I’d been home in nearly nine years. The town had undergone an enormous amount of changes. It didn’t look like a small town anymore; it looked like a small town with growth cancer. There were quite a few new buildings. Hundreds of them, in fact. Greenway had gone from a thousand residents to sixty thousand, and all in a decade. The main reason, of course, was the SRD base. As much as I wanted to see Adele right away, I knew that the base would have to be my first stop. And, honestly, I was fearing seeing Adele, so it was a convenient detour, one that was completely within reason, one that had nothing to do (I told myself) with being a man who was three times faster than normal, who was hundreds of times stronger, who could heal from almost any wound, who could steal men’s lives, a year at a time, with a punch, a man who had put on a costume and stood against the worst villains that the world had ever known, the only supervillains the world had ever known, the murderers of, in some cases, tens of thousands, creatures that could fly, bend steel, transmute their bodies, fire lasers, control the weather, cast magic spells and a hundred other bizarre talents, and I had stepped up to them, and I had stopped them, so it was ridiculous to think that I (Steve Clarke, the Reaver) could have the slightest trepidation of calling a woman on the phone, or knocking on her door, or walking along any street where she might, possibly, see me.
It wasn’t that at all.
It was just that SRD had undoubtedly been tracking my journey home… secretly following my progress along the drive. These people, they would get nervous if I didn’t check in.
The sign at the gate was obscured by a trio of armored, nearly identical, well-armed guards. Only when they were shifting around, preparing for my oncoming car, stepping out to block my progress, could I read the sign.
Superhuman Research & Development.
And then… in even bigger letters.
No trespassing.
No visitors.
The gate was made of a blend of blurred glass and metal. I’d seen the type. The metal gave it the strength. The glass (it was far past ordinary glass) was designed to crumple and shatter, diverting any impact. There were probably only four people in the world who could have punched through that gate. There are quite a few who could have flown over it. I could have jumped it easily enough.
I rolled down my window as one of the guards tapped on the glass with the business end of an M240 machine gun, a weapon powerful enough to shoot through the entirety of my car, with ease, though not powerful enough to do any more than dent my skin. It didn’t make me nervous. It just made me annoyed. This was all about a power play. I’d grown to hate playing.
“Take that weapon away from me,” I said. “I already know you’re in a position of authority.”
“You are attempting to drive an unauthorized vehicle onto restricted premises,” he said, using the type of voice normally used when addressing opposing politicians or child murderers. It’s a voice I’ve heard countless times. It’s a voice used by men of personal bravado, of intense ego, who have spent their lives training to become the best that they can be (from a standpoint of being turned into a killing machine) and were then issued a weapon that could mow down a house, and also a certificate that says it’s okay to pull the trigger. And then they meet me, or one of my type, and the weapon and the training doesn’t mean shit to us. These men become nothing but a vast herd of self-aware dominoes, desperate to avoid being the first one to topple.
I said, “You had to have been expecting me. Open the gate.” Nobody moved.
“You know who I am,” I said. I didn’t try to make it threatening, but, then again, I’m the one who said it. That matters.
Another of the guards took position near the left front of my vehicle. His weapon was slightly lowered, ready to do a strafing run that would perforate my engine and my windshield and (normally) anyone behind the wheel. The third guard was talking on a headset, and a low siren was sounding in the distance. I couldn’t see anything of the buildings beyond. There were a series of fences and tree lines in place for security, and to block any sight lines. I could hear choppers warming up. By this time, Paladin would have charmed his way into the base and would have been eating croissants with the commander, discussing favorite brands of tea, talking about kids and school plays.
The guards were identical in lightweight armor that was probably designed by Checkmate, the mental wizard who had a short public career before he was carted away to monkey with technologies that most of us couldn’t conceive. He’d always worn full armor during his public appearances. Nobody had ever seen his face. It was rumored he was handsome. It was rumored he was hideous. It was rumored he was actually a woman. It was rumored that he had an IQ somewhere around five hundred. It was rumored that he was a virgin. It was rumored that he was provided with a harem. It was rumored he’d built a mechanical harem. It was rumored he did everything with science. It was rumored he did everything with magic. It was rumored that he was dead, too bored to live in a world of imbeciles. It was rumored that all of the rumors were true. Nobody could say. I’ve met him twice, at SRD. He’s still in the armor.
The guard’s armor had a shimmer to it. Probably a force field.
“You know who I am,” I repeated to the guard. His weapon twitched. He was caught between saluting and firing. The guard who was talking on his headset looked up sharply, listening to someone relaying orders, and he gave a whistle and the others stepped back and told me I could proceed. The gate was opening. The low-level alarm quit sounding. Security cameras were swiveling. By then, the choppers were in the air. Hovering above. Most choppers look like insects. These looked much the same, but more poisonous.
Instead of pulling ahead, instead of driving onto the base, I turned off the car and stepped out. This was met with confusion. I’d been told I could go ahead, but I wasn’t. I was screwing up their game plan.
Yes.
Yes I was.
I do not like it when people put guns in my face.
“Park that somewhere,” I told the man who had tapped on my window with his M240, and I tossed him my keys. “Don’t scratch it. It’s a rental.”
He held the keys in one hand, just held them out, unmoving, at the point where he’d caught them. He looked to the two others, but they looked away, making him bear the brunt of my asshole-ness all by his lonesome. I walked into the base with the choppers hovering above.
Along either side of the road, as I passed, a series of small gun emplacements perked up, tracking me, rising out of the lawn like yard-high toadstools. They smelled slightly of machine oil, but mostly I could smell nothing but grass. It had been recently mowed.
Occasionally, as I walked, a red dot would appear on my chest, my arms, my legs, and once or twice the light got in my eyes.
The trees were pretty. Well kept.
***
Commander Bryant said, “It’s changed since you were last here,” gesturing to the base, which looked like it had been recently buffed. Spotless. Everywhere. The silos. The holding buildings. The research labs. Everything had a gleam to it. It felt wrong to touch anything, like a single smear of human oil would scramble a hazmat team into action, or perhaps the entire base would simply be considered tarnished beyond all hope, and quickly abandoned.
“Yes,” I said. “It’s changed.” Commander Bryant had met me even before I reached the main compound, surprisingly coming down the road himself, alone, with no guards, not counting the choppers tha
t were hovering above. The choppers themselves were almost ten thousand feet in the air, but I had no doubts that they were well within range of whatever they felt that they needed to do.
Bryant was younger than I would have imagined. Maybe only forty years. He had the lean type of body most often seen in rock guitarists who indulge in cocaine and pussy with equal ferocity. He had a heavy brow and a light suit, business casual, though with the same nearly transparent glow I’d seen around the guards’ armor. There was a slight stiffening of his left leg, making it scuff, not all the time, on the pavement as he approached. I wondered what the story there was. Lots of good stories, on that base.
He’d taken my hand and clasped it in both of his, like a preacher.
We’d discussed who I was.
He’d said, “Sorry about this, but I need to prove it,” and then he’d reached into his jacket and pulled out a Browning P-35 with a draw so smooth and fast that it would have been too late to do anything, assuming you were a person who didn’t move three times faster than most anybody else. As it was, I could have taken it from him, or dodged the shots (three of them, to my chest) without much effort, but it was easier to stand there and take it, to give him a frown, to watch his reaction to me having no real reaction, to keep quiet as he reloaded his clip, stashed it away, and then turned and started back up the road, beckoning me to follow.
“Did it even hurt?” he finally asked.
“I feel the kick. Like being tapped.”
“How long before it didn’t freak you out?”
“Nine years. So far.”
“What would you like to see while you’re here?”
“Nothing much,” I said. “It’s just that… I wanted you people to know I’m in town for a visit. Only just for a visit. Not to mess with anything.”