by Paris, Sevan
I pass row after row of books, to a center table, and there she is: Reagan.
God, she’s even more beautiful than this morning. How is that even possible?
Tell me again why we are wearing this ridiculous outfit?
The “ridiculous outfit” M refers to is the dress slacks and polo shirt I put on after work. After bonding with me, M became accustomed to our wearing jeans and t-shirts. Anytime we deviate from that norm, he refers to the deviation as a “ridiculous outfit.”
“Impressed?” I say to Reagan.
She jerks a little and looks at me. She’s wearing cat-eye glasses and has the same clothing from this morning.
“By what?”
“I’m on time.”
“And you’re dressed up.”
“Oh this? It’s nothing. I’ve got nothing else clean.”
Liar.
“Oh, okay.” Reagan’s shoulders relax. I didn’t even realize they were tense. What did that mean?
“Can we start with this one? I think I almost have it, but I’m not sure.”
I sit next to her. I can barely smell her shampoo, but it’s still there.
I pull the book to me. “Well, let’s see ... Newton’s law of gravity. What’s the problem?”
“What’s the problem?” Reagan slams her pencil down. “What’s the problem? I’ll tell you what the problem is. I’m a science major that knows jack about science.”
Yep.
“I don’t understand the equations, my lab data is always inconsistent, and I never understand what the hell I’m trying to read.” She shoves the astronomy book and her notes away from us.
Completely agree.
Her eyes fill with tears and she folds her arms. She stares at her notes on the other side of the table and curls her lip a little.
I pick her notes up and look through them. “You forgot to square the distance.”
“What?”
I slide the book back. “Look, Newton’s law says that gravitational force between two objects equals Object One times Object Two divided by the distance squared. You almost had the right answer, you just forgot to square the distance.”
... how did you know that?
“But why did I forget? I’ve been looking at this stuff for an hour and I just ... “
“You’re trying to memorize it. Try to understand it instead.” I scoot my chair around to face her. “How far are we apart? About nine feet?”
She grins and sniffs. “Don’t you mean like three feet?”
“But not as far as gravity’s concerned. And why’s that?”
She keeps grinning. Her tears are almost gone. “Because you square the distance.”
“See? You already understand it. Now you don’t have to memorize it.”
“I’m sorry about ... this. It’s just—I’ve just been having a really rough week.” She straightens and the sniffling stops too. “But you don’t want to hear that.”
Oh, but I’m sure he does.
“Well, listen if you need someone to talk to—“
“No, I don’t want to bother you. Not anymore than I have anyway.” She laughs. “I’m gonna go to the bathroom real quick. I’ll be right back. Sorry again. I usually don’t get all weird over Astronomy.”
Neither does Gabe.
“It’s okay, really, I don’t mind.”
She grins and walks away.
Congratulations, Gabe. That was actually very Don Juan. Do you mind explaining to me just how you knew to fix that problem?
I don’t realize I’m smiling until I stop. How did I know the answer? I probably knew less about this stuff than Reagan. And not only that—but M was right. I was Don Juan just then. I wasn’t the slightest bit nervous or anything.
“I don’t know.”
Interesting. Well, do you know what you’ll do about this?
“About what?”
“Gabe?”
I turn and see, “Amy, hi! What are, uh, what are you doing here?”
“Do I need a reason to be in the library?”
I don’t know Amy that well. But I do know her well enough to know the woman has probably never studied a day in her entire life. She most definitely needs a reason to be in the library.
“Are you,” she looks around, “doing anything right now?”
“Uh, yeah actually.” I vaguely point in the direction Reagan went.
She puts her foot on Reagan’s empty chair and I can plainly see Amy isn’t wearing underwear.
Great googley moogley.
I jump out of my chair. “Whoa, uh, okay.”
She smiles. “Well, I didn’t see that coming.”
“Neither did I. I mean, I didn’t see anything. I mean, I didn’t mean to see anything.”
Oh please, it was so close it practically blinked at you.
“Oh, I wanted you to look.” She places her hands on my lapel. Her breath smells like some rotten spinach I had in the fridge one time. “And I want you to look some more.”
I step back, nearly tripping over my chair. “I ... I can’t do this, Amy.”
And there’s the erection.
Amy’s shoulders slump. For a split second, I want to apologize.
Then her head bursts into flames.
The heat hits my face. The flames start yellow, then turn blue and finally settle on green. Her eyeballs make popping sounds and fall to the floor. Pieces of flesh slide away from her skull and flitter away like ash. Her bottom jaw falls, and I recognize the digitized voice that comes from somewhere deep inside her. “Too bad, Galaxy. I had hoped to make sport of you after this morning.”
There’s no time to ask how this is happening. There’s no time to question why this is happening. That’s the life of a Superhero. You just do what needs to be done and then sort it out later. I figured this out early. So did M. He already has us powered up.
I motion Deathbot forward: “Bring it.”
Chapter Three
The flaming skull that used to belong to Amy Lansbury looks at me.
At least, I assume it’s looking at me. The squishy things that used to be her eyeballs are on the floor.
“Oh I will most certainly ‘bring it’, Galaxy!” Deathbot’s body convulses like he’s having a seizure. Its arms bend back at an impossible angle and splits at the elbow with wet snaps and pops. Two six-inch barrels extend from where the forearms used to be and I hear a high-pitched whine, telling me they’re about to fire.
I don’t give him the chance.
I fly into him, sending both of us into a bookcase. Books and particleboard explode around us. I feel some kind of metal crisscross where ribs should be. I grab a hold of them and M almost has enough time to light Deathbot up with a Grav Blast, point blank style.
But she ... he ... it shoves me away so hard I hit the ceiling. My blasts go wild, shredding carpet and tearing up chunks of concrete floor underneath. I fall to the floor with pieces of powdery ceiling tile and itchy insulation clinging to me. I stand and shove a table out of my way. It screeches across the floor and M readies a Grav Blast in my right hand. My fist glows blue, I raise it—
And Deathbot fires.
The cheesy Star Trek style beam hits my face and I cartwheel sideways across the floor. I take out three chairs on my thirty-foot slide across the library. Two students—I think their names are Kait and Jack—barely have enough time to jump out of the way before I smash into a five-foot ficus tree.
Again ... I jump to my feet. Deathbot picks up a table and throws it at me with a digitized scream. Right before it hits me, I split the table in two with another Grav Blast. The two halves tumble across the floor ten feet behind me.
“Any idea what the hell’s going on?”
“Your death is what transpires this night, human!”
None. Although if you remain within close proximity to him, I can better analyze both him and the situation.
“Are you kidding?”
“YOU DARE SUGGEST DEATHBOT JESTS?”
What
do you suggest, Gabe? That we let him continue to demolish this building book by primitive book? That we ignore the danger his continued existence represents to the squishy pink life forms contained therein?
Deathbot gets his gun ready for another blast (and it’s really odd referring to it as a him, since he now has breasts). “I SHALL FLAY THE FLESH FROM YOUR BONES, HUMAN!”
Deathbot raises his arm to fire at Kait and Jack. I don’t know why. Maybe he thinks they’re in his way. Maybe he thinks it will distract me, causing me to make a mistake. Maybe he just feels the immediate need to kill something. Doesn’t matter.
Kait tries to run for the emergency exit, but the damn ficus tree gets in her way. She tumbles over it and Jack tumbles over her. They’re even easier targets now than they were a moment ago.
“All right, M. You wanted a closer look, you got it.” Deathbot has already killed at least one person today. He won’t kill another. This fight has to be taken outside.
So that’s where I take it.
I slam into him and we go through a window. Then, I do what comes natural, all Occam’s Razory.
I drop him.
Deathbot grins. The idiot grins when I drop him. He’s not worried in the slightest about the fall, which means it wont hurt him. Which means I have to take up a notch or twelve.
I slam into him right before he hits the sidewalk. The impact carries both of us straight through the concrete and into the parking garage located below the library.
And onto a Prius ... I’ve always wanted one of those.
I roll off the Prius, surprised. “What gives?” I cough. “Why am I feeling pain?”
I didn’t anticipate your doing something so infinitesimally stupid as tackling him through twenty-four inches of earth and concrete. Our force field was at insufficient strength.
Didn’t anticipate ... bull crap. If M didn’t anticipate the move, I’d be dead. He’s still pissed at me for running our powers dry this morning. He wants me to feel pain, so he’s keeping our force field as low as he possibly can.
“Stop holding out, M. We’re finishing this guy off here and now. I need full strength.”
Unnecessary.
I almost lose it right then. Wanting me to feel pain is one thing, but refusing to help me get rid of Deathbot means bad business for Prose. It makes my job harder if not impossible. Plus, what kind of Superhero doesn’t act Superhero-y?
I circle the Prius—or what’s left of it—and see Amy—or rather what’s left of her in two halves, one on each side of the Prius. The gruesome scene is only partially lit by the yellow of the streetlights poking through the hole I made. It forms a spotlight around her freaky body.
“Do a full scan.” I hold out my hand as if I’m about to high five somebody.
A moment passes.
As I suspected. Flip her over.
“Gross. I’m not touching it.”
I hear M sigh in my head. A blue Grav Beam streaks from my hand and flips the upper half of Amy’s body over. Blood squirts out both ends as it lands with a sickening flop.
Several shiny pieces of metal extend from her body in multiple locations. One in her upper chest, two in her stomach, and then one on the shoulder. They all have blinking green lights similar to the ones on Deathbot’s hand this morning. Another one poke through flesh on her leg. It makes a crinkling aluminum foil sound as it unfolds and spreads, like a flower.
“What is as you suspected?”
Nanites. Somehow, this female became infected with a nanite virus.
Nanites ... you mean like on Star Trek?
No, I mean like in real life.
“No, I mean—wait this guy is like the Borg isn’t he?”
What is that? Something Swedish?
“It means he spreads these nanite things to infect people. After that, they spread through and quickly rewrite DNA, turning them into this ... thing.”
Into another Deathbot. Complete with memories and a varying degree of power.
“But how did the nanites get here?”
And then I see the reason M wanted me to flip her over. Deathbot’s other hand—not the one I destroyed this morning—is attached, or rather hooked into Amy’s back. Each finger is buried knuckle deep. The hand makes a pumping motion, sending little yellow specks of light into her blood stream via ooze filled tubes in each finger.
Not counting that vomit scene in The Exorcist, I think this is the sickest thing I’ve ever seen.
I raise an open palm and M grabs the hand in a Grav Beam. He pulls the thing to us. Chunks of flesh and other gross stuff fall from each finger and M crimps the ends before more of the yellow nanite clusters spill out. Some of them fall on my chest, but M crushes them instantly. They make little popping sounds before hitting the ground. “So, what are you looking for?”
I didn’t detect these nanites earlier.
“Well, nobody’s perfect.”
Don’t be foolish, Gabe. Of course I’m perfect. I didn’t detect the nanites because they simply weren’t there. Now, I have something to calibrate my scans by.
“Alright.” M drops the hand and I fly back to the third story window. Inside, a bunch of students pick their way through the rubble that used to be books, tables and shelves.
“M, is—”
Yes, yes, everyone is perfectly fine.
“What about—“
Including Reagan.
Reagan peaks from behind one of the bookshelves, looking through the crowd nervously. Probably for me. It makes me excited and sad. I wanna land, change, and tell her I’m okay.
Then Reagan makes eye contact with me. She looks right at me ...
And mouths my name.
I go numb.
Christ, she saw me change. Somehow, she was close enough during the craziness and saw me change. She knows my identity, and now M knows that she knows.
Gabe, I need you to fly up. I need a better reading.
Or maybe not ...
I don’t say anything. I do as he says. He was doing his scans and didn’t see Reagan. Thank God, he didn’t see her. But what do I do later? He’ll find out eventually, and when he does ... things could turn bad real fast for Reagan.
I’ll never be able to see her again. After this is over, I’ll have to leave.
I shake my head and fly up. I simply don’t have time to feel sorry for myself right now.
Within seconds, we’re hovering about a mile above Prose. The entire city sits in a valley and runs along the Tennessee River. From up here, the shape of the valley and the lights coming from the buildings and highways make the city look like some sort of giant train set.
Five minutes pass before I finally ask M, “What are you doing? This isn’t going to take another hour is it?”
And if it does?
“ ... go ahead and do it,” I say grudgingly. It’s not like it really matters. The only way to protect Reagan now is to leave town. Leave my mom, leave my family, leave my friends (or, friend actually), and move as far away as I—
It is of no consequence, Gabe. I’m finished.
He’s such a jerk.
I’ve been scanning the city, looking for energy signatures similar to those found in both the hand and the female. I’ll have to calibrate your eyes so you can see them.
“So calibrate me already.”
M’s “calibrations” always have freaked me out. He shows me stuff I can’t see with this blue energy field thing. One time, to get back at me for not washing my hands after using the bathroom, he showed me a fecal matter scan on every person I met for a week. Every trace of fecal matter on a person showed up as a blue dot. Just about every face I came across looked like a Smurf.
I still have nightmares.
Point is, I’ve always had a reason to be a little unsettled by M’s calibrations. He only does this when things are bad or when he wants to piss me off.
This time, things are bad.
The entire city looks like it’s washed in a sea of blue lights.
&nbs
p; I swallow hard. It’s suddenly difficult to find my voice. “How many?”
I count exactly three hundred million, three hundred and seventy thou—
“How many does it take to infect a person?”
Just one.
I throw up in my mouth a little.
“We’re gonna need a bigger boat.”
***
I can’t believe we’re actually here.
“That makes two of us.”
I look up at the ten story building located at 401 4th Street. The only thing I can’t believe even more is that I’m about to go inside it. HEROES Tower.
HEROES is an acronym for Humane Emergency Rescue Or Extrication Squad. They’re a government funded Superhero team that, when not fighting villains, they’re enforcing the Wertham act. If you’re a Super and you’re not registered, you’re illegal.
Like me.
I’ve had the roster of HEROES memorized since I was a kid. I always wanted to be a member, but events that happened shortly after getting my powers made me think it wasn’t such a hot idea. Plus, there’s that whole M might kill everybody around me thing.
The Prose division of HEROES is led by the greatest hero to ever put on a cape: Liberty. The guy’s been around since World War II. Last time anybody checked, he’s the strongest dude in the world.
Well, we’re here. So, now what?
The lights in the lobby are out. For some reason, I expected them to have a robot secretary or something.
I tap on the glass door several times. “Uh, excuse me?”
A janitor pokes his head out of an office. He leans a mop against the wall and puts his hands on his hips. A cord winds from his ear buds to his pocket.
I wave. “Hi. Can you come, like, open the door please? I need some help.”
He shakes his head and continues to mop.
Typical. I suppose he’s listening to that Ga Ga individual.
“Hey!” I pound on the glass. This is crazy. I need some serious Superhero help, and I can’t even get past this place’s freaking janitor? I back away and look up the building. It might be easier if I just fly to the top and break in.
Pink smoke swirls around me. I wave it off, but it just manages to get thicker.