by Paris, Sevan
This time, the grin touches his eyes.
***
Why did that Pink person help us?
I land about three blocks away from the house. I have enough power to fly the rest of the way, but in our neighborhood, it’s best not to take any chances. Everybody knows everybody.
“I don’t know. She felt sorry for us?”
Oh please. That woman feels sorry for no one.
I stick my hands in my pockets. “You don’t know that.”
I know she reminds me of me.
I don’t know what to say to that. M’s right. Pink does act like M, a less intelligent and valley girlish kind of M, but an M just the same. It wouldn’t make sense for her to help me unless ...
She wants something in return.
I stop walking. Pink does want something from me, I would just have to wait to find out what it was ... and wait to see if it was something I could turn to my advantage. Maybe there was a way out of this whole registering thing.
Of course, as long as I can fly away in time, M can apparently heal just about anything HEROES can dish out. I rotate my right arm. It and the rest of my side still feels tingly, but M managed to heal it the rest of the way. He tried to explain how he did it—with great pride in fact—but I was just too damn tired to listen.
I round the last block and am surprised to see Mom left the porch light on. It’s almost 1:00. She’s usually in bed by now.
When I place one foot on the first step, I hear the porch swing squeak. I turn and see someone sitting in it.
“Reagan?”
She smiles and stands.
I whisper a curse. I still haven’t told M anything about her seeing us change. I hurry to the door. There’s no time to ask her how she found out where I live, or what she thinks about my being a hero, or if she even thinks it’s a little sexy (admittedly, it’s the last one I’m most curious about). I have to distance myself from her before she says something, anything to indicate she knows I’m Galaxy.
I try to put my house key in the lock with all the excitement of a blond being chased by an ax murderer. “Hi, uhm ... I can’t—I can’t talk right now. I’ve, uh got, work in the morning at it’s late. I’ve got to—a”
She grabs my arm and spins me around.
I drop my keys.
Instead of Reagan standing there, I see a person-shaped star field with glowing blue eyes. She’s powered up, just like me when I’m Galaxy.
Great googley moogley.
“Gabe, we need to talk.”
PART TWO
THE BALLAD OF M
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I want to thank the following people for making this book possible: Michael Booth for telling me what sucked and what didn’t, Caroline Smith for helping me figure out what makes Reagan tick, and last—but certainly not least—my wife Cindy for providing Super level support.
Prologue
For the second time tonight, Gabe Garrison surprises the crap out of me.
The first time was in the library at UTP. I had walked away from our study session, trying to recover from the Brittany Spears style breakdown over Astronomy (of all things). I returned to see Amy Lansbury’s head explode into a flaming green skull and Gabe Garrison transform into a Superhero.
That’s right—a Superhero.
He called himself Galaxy and—more importantly—looked like me when I do this weird starry thing that I do—that I’ve been doing for the past two months. Sometimes on purpose, sometimes not.
Superheroes in the city of Prose is nothing unusual. Neither are the fights that they get into with Supervillains on a daily basis. The average person in this city has just learned to deal with it or learned to leave. I learned to deal … at least until I finish college.
But I never thought I have to deal with being one.
Gabe flew away to fight that Deathbot thing. After asking some friends, I found out where Gabe lived and made it to his house by 11:00 pm. His mother opened the door before I even had a chance to knock.
“Yes?”
“Uh, hi, Mrs. Garrison?”
“Ms.”
“Oh, sorry.”
“No problem.” She stepped outside wearing jeans and comfy looking fuzzy blue turtleneck. She sent her grayish blond bangs out of her eyes with a flick of her head.
“What can I do for you?”
“I was, uh wondering if Gabe was home?”
“No, not yet. He had a late night study session with a friend I think. You might be able to catch him at the library still.”
Totally doubted that. “Would you mind if I wait here?”
“Normally, no. But I have an early shift at the hospital tomorrow, so ...” A dachshund pokes its long snout out from around Ms. Garrison’s ankle and growls.
I look back at her. “Oh, Gabe never told me you were a nurse.”
She laughed and picked up the growling dog. “I should hope he wouldn’t.” Its growl segued into a series of gruffs directed at me. “That would make him a liar. I’m an MD.”
“Oh, well, that explains the nice house.” But not the overgrown lawn.
“Thanks … can I leave him a message?”
“Yeah, can you tell him Reagan stopped by? It’s really important. Super even.”
The dachshund whined and fidgeted until she put him back in the house. “I’ll tell him. Does he have your phone number?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay.” She started to shut the door, but stopped. “Are you—is everything okay?”
“Yeah, I just—I need to ask him some things.”
She looked in my eyes—like, uncomfortably. “He has an eight o’clock shift at the bookstore tomorrow night, so I’m sure you’ll hear from him before then.”
“Okay. Thanks Mrs.—Ms. Garrison. Goodnight.” I wave awkwardly.
She grins. “Goodnight, Reagan.”
I turned to walk away but stopped on the first step leading off the front porch. Did Gabe’s mother know about this stuff? I faced the house. Could she answer my questions? What if she doesn’t know? How was I supposed to start that conversation?
Knock on the door again, wait until she answers and then, “Hello, me again Mrs. (dammit—Ms. Garrison) did you know your son is Prose City’s latest new Superhero ‘cause I really have a lot of questions about this weird turning into stars thing my body seems to be doing lately and I think either him or you would be the best person to ask about it because he does the same thing, and it’s all I can do to keep it together right now, and did I mention how nice your house looks?”
Yeah, that’d go real swell, Reagan. If she did know about Gabe’s situation, the first thing out of her mouth might be …
“Sure, I’m sorry, I didn’t know, come right on in. I’ll fix some Earl Grey. We’ll wait until Gabe gets home and then answer everything we have an answer for.”
But if she didn’t know, it could be something like, “WHAT, MY SON IS A SUPER AND HE DIDN’T TELL ME?” or “Young lady, do I need to call the police to get you AWAY from my nice house?”
Her silhouette passed the front window, so I pretended to look at my phone while walking down the rest of the steps. Guess I’d made up my mind.
And then, without even really thinking about it, I had made a lap around Gabe’s block and returned to the front of his house. The lights were off, which hopefully meant Ms. G was counting sheep.
I couldn’t wait until tomorrow. I just couldn’t do it. I wanted answers—needed answers tonight.
I walked up the three porch steps as lightly as I could and managed to ease into the porch swing without so much as a creak. I checked my phone, for real this time. It was 11:30 pm.
At 2:32 am, Gabe Garrision finally showed.
He walked up his porch, I said something, he tried to evade me for whatever reason, and then I showed him my freaky star … power thing.
I showed him that my newfound power (whatever it was) was exactly like his (whatever it is).
I expected some sort of
questions barrage. I expected for us to have a lengthy conversation over our situation. I expected him to at least ask if we could talk about this later. I did not expect him to do the one thing that he did.
Which was slam the door in my face.
Ergo my second surprise of the night.
I stand in front of his door for a full two minutes in complete shock. Finally … finally I had someone that I can talk to about the bizarreness that has been me for the past two months. Finally, I had someone that may’ve had answers to my crap ton of questions. Finally, I had someone that maybe had a sense of understanding … and what does he do?
He slams the door in my face.
I raise my hand to knock and then stop. My hand, body—clothes and everything—has returned to regular Reagan MacPherson—the stars are gone. My stomach tingles with maximum freakage. The stars and glowy eyes had gone away without my wanting it, without my even realizing it. Does that mean I’m losing control? But how can I even have control over something I don’t know about—over something I don’t understand?
Goddamn it, Gabe.
My fist trembles. I want to beat the door in. I want to take all of the pissy anger I’ve experienced over the past two months—from this fear, this ignorance, this … loneliness—and take it out on the Garrison’s front door. But it doesn’t deserve it.
Gabe’s face deserves it.
And that’s exactly where my fist is going to go if he doesn’t give me some answers. But not here. Not with Ms. G around. Like my parents, she may not know her kid is a Super, which means Gabe may have to tell her something he never wanted to tell her. I may want to hurt Gabe—slowly and with power tools even—but I don’t want to mess up his family. Just like I wouldn’t want somebody to mess up mine. I don’t want to register for certain reasons. Gabe may not want to either, and his mom may not give him a choice. No, I’ll give him until tomorrow night.
And if I don’t hear from him by 8:00, he’s definitely going to hear from me. I stomp down the porch steps and shake my head.
I just can’t believe Gabe Garrison slammed the door in my face tonight.
Chapter One
I just can’t believe I slammed the door in Reagan MacPherson’s face last night.
Is her situation just like mine? Does she have some sort of smart ass alien entity inside her brain? Is she registered? Do her friends know? Is she stronger than me? Does this somehow make me look hot to her? Is Liberty—the World’s Greatest Hero—going to come after her like the way he’s going to come after me?
I so can’t be thinking about this right now …
I need to be thinking about the bad guy I’m chasing up the North Shore sidewalk. His real name is Marcus Falcone, but he calls himself The Glop. He stands about eight feet tall and his transparent, mucus like body absorbs anything it touches, sometimes at will, sometimes not.
According to villainwiki, Glop is a Natural, which means he wasn’t transformed into this human-shaped green snot looking thing as the result of some sort of lab accident or experiment. To be a Natural, your powers have to manifest without any sort of outside influence, usually around the age of puberty. His parents—I have no idea what their names were—dropped him off at an orphanage in Atlanta at age thirteen, when he started leaving slime tracks on everything he touched.
Glop currently has a large chunk of an ATM trapped in his body (y’know, the small ones that you see at gas stations). From where I’m flying, about twenty feet above, I can make out a Coke bottle in his right arm, a skateboard hanging out of his back, and something that kind of looks like dog poo bouncing around his left leg.
Dollar bills and other random objects escape his bouncing body through the slits that he has for a mouth and eyes. People rush out of his way, only to fall back in line shortly after he passes to pick up the loose bills feathering through the night.
“Move! Move!” Glop gurgles. He slops through an elderly couple on a bench, leaving them dripping with green snot. From the looks on their faces, I’m guessing they’ll have nightmares the rest of their lives.
“M, what do you think will happen if we fire a Grav Blast at this guy?”
Without warning, a blue Grav Blast shoots from my right hand and harmlessly passes right through Glop, tearing up a few chunks of North Shore sidewalk.
Nothing, apparently.
I control basic flight and movement, but M—the alien life form I’m bonded to—controls all of our gravity manipulation powers. So I have no way of stopping him when he does something sociopathic, which he’s prone to do.
“Don’t do that—you could have killed him!”
Oh, I’m sorry. Am I doing something which displeases you in some way, Gabriel?
I hate it when he uses my full name. It’s like he somehow manages to turn it into an insult. “Is this about Reagan last night?”
Glop turns off the sidewalk and heads towards the Cutledge Park carrousel. It spins multicolored lights, music, and the sounds of some laughing children into the night. It makes sense that Glop would want to head away from the river … there’s no telling what it would do to his body. Plus, people were starting to line up with their cell phone cameras on the decks of the Liberty Bell, one of Prose’s biggest touristy riverboats, passing by on its evening dinner cruise. If Glop’s about to lose a fight, he may figure he can at least avoid people posting video of it on youtube.
I reach out with a Grav Beam and jerk away a large chunk of the sidewalk from under him. Glop slurps into a rolling ball and, if anything, picks up speed.
Wonderful.
Well, what do you expect, Gabe? For the first time in months, I encounter a being in a similar situation to my own and you slam the door in her face.
“I didn’t slam the door in her face … exactly.”
Glop splashes into the carousel. People scream and scatter. The carousel keeps going, weirdly oblivious to the chaos surrounding it. At least the kids aren’t laughing anymore—I always found the laughter of children oddly creepy.
Perhaps not literally, but certainly figuratively. Reagan came to you for help and—instead of providing any sort of aid—you left her without a word on your doorstep. Given the state of mind she’s prone to, I’m surprised the occurrence didn’t instigate one of the Superhero fights you’re so fond of.
If I hadn’t been so exhausted last night, I would have handled it differently. I would have thought of something cool and supportive to say. I would have told the woman of my dreams that it’s okay, she can depend on me, and I know exactly what to do and how to handle all of this stuff.
I thought about telling M all of this earlier, but I wanted to wait until I believed it myself.
I land. Glop slurps into human form, or at least as close to human form as he can. He extends four newly formed appendages from his legs to absorb nearby bills on the sidewalk. “I thought you’s HEROES guys were out of town!”
HEROES stands 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. After the encounter with Deathbot, the leader of HEROES, Liberty, gave me until tomorrow at midnight to register. If I don’t, he threatened to bury my family on the moon. Considering Liberty partnered with Deathbot to find and kill me, I have little difficulty believing the threat was genuine.
I shrug. “Not all of us.”
“Too bad for you.” His right arm extends five times its normal length and punches me in the chest. The impact sends me through a stone fountain thirty feet away. More people scatter like characters in a game of Grand Theft Auto.
I use a fish statue that’s spitting water to pull myself up. It may not seem like it, but I’m really going out of my way to avoid property damage. City workers just finished fixing the Michael Booth Bridge this morning. It’s not because it’s too hard for them—they have reconstruction powers. I just don’t want the negative publicity or to give HEROES one more reason to come after me.
Glop pa
ncakes, leaving the ATM rocking back and forth. He crosses the thirty feet separating us in half a second. A large green fist materializes out of his gooey middle and lands a snotty uppercut to my chin.
After hitting the ground and sliding ten feet, I stand and wipe snot tracks from my chin.
Man, this guy is gross.
I hit him with another Grav Blast. The blue beam tears up artificial turf and only leaves a momentary hole in the puddle. Glob easily reforms around it; the Coke bottle and skateboard leave his body, rolling in opposite directions.
“How do I beat this guy, M? It’s like fighting water.”
I can think of several methods.
“Which are?”
When are you going to speak to Reagan?
My hands fall to my sides. “Seriously, you do this now?”
Glop uppercuts me again with another huge fist.
I shatter a duck statue with my ass and slide another ten feet, this time on my face. Glop slowly slithers to me.
Better keep your mind in the game, Gabe. He certainly is. M sighs. If only you knew how to defeat him before some innocent, smelly human gets hurt. Thank God most of them evacuated the horse simulator in time . . .
Being irreversibly bonded to a smart ass, sociopathic life form really sucks.
A blond chick with short hair runs from the direction of the dripping carousel. She stops a few feet from Glop’s back. It never ceases to amaze me what people will go through in this town for a few pics.
Glop throws another punch, but I block it with a force field. It makes the sound of a man-sized basketball hitting concrete. Glop shakes his hand and curses.
I hurt him. He didn’t do that liquid-y thing and reform around it.
Sweet.
He throws another punch, and I block it with another force field. He screams and flops back. He raises his height to ten feet. The chick gets close enough for me to see she’s curvy in a good way and minus a camera phone. What is she doing?