Super Powereds: Year 3

by Drew Hayes

  “What I alluded to was only the impetus of his grudge against me,” Nick said. “It has been exacerbated by years of failing to prove his perceived superiority, as well as a bit of instigation on my part. I’ve never been particularly fond of him either, to say the least. None of that is really relevant, though. What matters is that I believe he’s trying to take our dispute out on all of you, by trying to either harm you, or force you to publicly reveal your powers.”

  “If he wanted to do that, he should have detonated his bomb before the club was vacated,” Chad pointed out. He was taking the news with his usual resolve, which the others had finally learned said nothing of the true emotional storm brewing inside his head.

  “That’s because it wasn’t a real attempt,” Nick replied. “He’s trying to rattle me; to split my focus. The whole point of tonight was showing me what he could do. If he’d had more people setting fires, or detonated the bomb a little earlier, or bothered to bar the exits, or a million other things along that avenue, one of you might have had to use your abilities.”

  “He blew up a fucking building, which, right now, the cops are sure as shit investigating. Maybe he won’t get it traced back to him, but that seems like a hell of a risk,” Roy said.

  “For reasons I’d prefer not to get into, let’s just say that I’m certain Nathaniel knows how to make a relatively untraceable bomb. The risk of getting caught was relatively low, while there were many ways for things to go his way even without making a true effort. That said, he must have been confident we’d all make it out. Nathaniel is like me, in that he loathes taking unnecessary gambles. However, instead of trying to come up with a plan for any potential outcome, he prefers to try and steer a situation to the ending he wants it to arrive at. That makes him less flexible, but more cautious. Nathaniel won’t make his big move until he’s sure he can win, and he’s been doing this long enough to have a good estimate of how likely a victory is.”

  “It really bothers me that blowing up a club on its biggest night of the year is not his ‘big move,’” Alice said.

  “So, this guy might try and attack us, or use other people to attack us, at any time or place, and the only thing we can do is not use our abilities?” Vince asked.

  “More or less, which is why I’ve tried to keep you in the dark until now,” Nick said. “Since you have no recourse, I thought it was best you not lose yourself to worrying about it. Unfortunately, Nathaniel’s resources somehow seem to be increasing, and that means I can’t protect you all from the background anymore. You need to know what’s coming at you, so you have at least a chance of reacting appropriately.”

  “Why not just kill him?” Every eye in the room turned to Chad, who seemed to realize his words hadn’t quite made sense to the people listening. “Forgive my phrasing; I’m not saying he should die, or that we should kill him. It is merely that you’ve dropped multiple context clues hinting at the fact that both of you are connected to at least semi-illegal enterprises. I’m wondering why he hasn’t been killed for such endeavors before, since this seems to be a running feud.”

  “The short answer is politics,” Nick replied. “Nathaniel may not be well liked in his Family, but he is useful. Add in that he’s the son of a few of the more well-connected higher ups, and just bumping him off would have been a serious act of aggression. These things do happen, but only if the person in question is a major pain for the Family as a whole, not one member of it. Nathaniel has never been a big enough nuisance for my Family to be willing to deal with. Plus, Ms. Pips thinks it’s good to have someone always trying to kill me. Says it builds caution and forethought.”

  “Holy shit,” Alice muttered. Now wasn’t the time to discuss Nick’s home life, but in one sentence, she felt like she’d just gotten more insight into his world than she had in the last two years of knowing him.

  “Anyway, what I can do is cut his legs out from under him,” Nick continued. “He lost Vegas’s support on this vendetta mission months ago. He’s being too costly and overt for them to justify backing him. What I don’t yet know is who he got to pick up the tab. It’s got to be somebody well-connected; he’s throwing around manpower like it’s nothing. Sooner or later, I’ll get the right person to crack, and then, it’s just a matter of making sure the people involved realize that Nathaniel is more trouble to have as a friend than he’s worth—especially when I can make a lovely amigo myself.”

  “What are we supposed to do until then?” Vince asked. “Shouldn’t we call the cops or something?”

  “Not enough evidence,” Chad said. “Aside from their fight several months back, which, from Alice’s telling, would compromise her secret identity to report, it sounds like Nathaniel has done nothing that can be tied directly to him.”

  “Look who watches enough crime shows to keep up.” Nick’s heart wasn’t really in the snark, but he tried to make it out of obligation, if nothing else. “Chad’s spot on, though. For now, all we can do is go about our lives as we normally would. If we hole up, Nathaniel will try and draw us out, and trust me when I say, that situation will be a far more dangerous one.”

  “Life as normal,” Mary echoed. “Just going about our business, only with the knowledge that a deranged Super with a grudge could try and come after us at any time.”

  “Oh great, it’s my freshman year all over again.” Vince didn’t mean it as a joke, but as Nick began to snicker, then Alice, and finally Mary and Roy, he realized he’d inadvertently hit right on the spot of dark humor that eased their tension, so he began to chuckle as well. Only Chad didn’t get the joke, and by the time they explained to him about Michael’s antics, it had ceased to be particularly funny, though some amount of levity remained in the air.

  Serious as their situation was, they’d faced dangerous things before, and all of them were still standing. Nathaniel might be set on taking them down, but they would make damn sure he had to earn it.

  202.

  Despite the surge of action on Friday, the rest of the weekend passed relatively without incident. Most of the students headed off on Saturday morning, bound for houses that no longer quite felt like homes, or exotic destinations that would leave them with foggy memories, a few bruises, and massive hangovers. For the Melbrook dorm, little changed from a regular weekend, save for the fact that most of their non-resident friends were gone. Even Alex’s constant presence was interrupted as he decided to take a week at home with his folks. Only Nick, Camille, Shane, and Angela were still at Lander, though the pair of siblings planned to head home to see their family Wednesday night.

  By the time Tuesday rolled around, the threat of Nathaniel’s attack had lost its sense of imminence and was relegated to a small worry that tickled the back of the students’ minds as they filed into the Melbrook kitchen to find Chad already at the stove, preparing an almost cartoonishly sized stack of pancakes.

  “Morning,” Chad said, greeting his sleepy-eyed fellow students as they wandered in. Life at Lander had gotten everyone used to waking up a certain hour, and it would take more than just a lack of classes to break that habit.

  “Mrrfrpuhph,” Alice mumbled, shambling over to the coffee maker only to find a fresh pot already brewed. She poured herself a generous mug, eschewing things like cream or sugar, and then passed the pot to Hershel, who was not so stingy with the sweeteners.

  “Good morning,” Mary said. Unlike most of the others, she was capable of putting on a more affable appearance in the light of morning. Part of it was from her inclination to rise with the sun anyway—years in the woods will cultivate such habits—and the rest she credited to her preference of tea over things like coffee.

  “Wow, something smells great,” Vince said. Despite over three years of steady meals, a part of him always reacted to food instinctually, as though he never quite believed the seemingly endless supply would still be around the next day. His eyes seemed to widen at the sight of so many flapjacks, and that was before the scent of cooking bacon hit him.

  “I
wanted to start my day off with what is generally considered to be an average, wholesome breakfast,” Chad explained. “Generally, it is my understanding that this is what many people eat before large, group-outing days. Also, my mom was willing to give me her recipe.” As he spoke, Chad flipped another pancake from the skillet and onto the ever-growing stack, then paused to check a large pan of eggs.

  “That was a very sweet gesture,” Mary said. “Though you didn’t need to get up so early and cook for us.”

  “I’m always awake at this hour. Usually, I spend the morning running across campus, however, for today, I decided this would be a better use of my time.”

  “There are probably a lot of confused groundskeepers wondering where the speedy blond guy is,” Hershel remarked, his mind beginning to function as he took hot sips of his highly caffeinated beverage.

  “Or they’ll just think he went home for spring break.” Alice’s words managed to come out this time, though her tone was still quite grumpy. The scent of impending food was beginning to perk her up, though. “Anyway, now that the big day is finally here, do we get to know what’s on the docket?”

  “The most usual, unexceptional youthful experiences I could find in my research.” The others very much wanted to ask Chad just how much research he’d had to do to come up with mundane experiences, but he kept on talking before anyone got the chance to find a non-offensive way to phrase that question. “We’ll begin the morning by going to an arcade, which, in high school, I was led to believe was filled with games that were entertaining. Afterwards, I was thinking we could hit a beach, since everyone seemed to enjoy themselves so much on the big trip last year. There is also a small boardwalk amusement park we could visit, as those are supposedly enjoyable as well. Come evening, we can find an unassuming restaurant at which to dine.”

  “Is that how normal people really spend their days off?” Vince asked.

  “He’s cramming a lot of stuff into one day, but overall, Chad actually hit the nail pretty well on the head,” Hershel told them. “It’s all stuff we’ve done and took for granted.”

  “Never been to an arcade,” Vince said. “Too much electricity, and too many delicate electronics, to say nothing of the fact that we didn’t have the time or money for it when I was growing up.”

  “I’ve actually had to avoid amusement parks,” Alice added. “If I got too excited at the top of a rollercoaster, I was likely to slip right out of my seat. My father once offered to rent one out and have someone accompany me with safety straps on each ride, but the idea just depressed me more than not going in the first place.”

  “To the shock of none of you, I’ve also steered clear of both those places, as well as many others, since the concentration of people made even functioning hellish, to say nothing of enjoying the experience.” Mary snagged a box of tea bags from an overhead cupboard, grabbing them telekinetically rather than trying to climb atop the counter and pull them down.

  “Wow.” Hershel took a long sip of still steaming coffee. “Sometimes I forget that I’m the only one among us with a semi-normal childhood.”

  “Mine wasn’t especially odd,” Chad said. “I was simply dedicated to training at the exclusion of activities I deemed to be frivolous. The only times I participated in normal childhood events were when my mom forced me to, but even then, I didn’t try much to enjoy them.”

  “Sounds like this day will be good for all of us then,” Vince said. “When are the others getting here?”

  “Angela said she and Shane would arrive by nine, and I believe Camille should come around the same time. As for Nick, I know he is hesitant to visit us here, so I gave him the arcade’s address and told him we would call when departing from the dorm.” Chad easily lifted the massive stack of pancakes from the counter and set them on the small table. “Bacon will be out of the oven in five minutes, and the eggs should be done in three. In the meantime, help yourselves. We have a long day ahead of us, and it would be a shame if anyone lacked the necessary nutrients to keep their energy levels up.”

  Chad had barely gotten the words out before the first of the pancakes began flying off the top of the stack.

  203.

  By the time breakfast was finished, Shane, Angela, and Camille had all arrived at Melbrook. After some quick mental math regarding how many cars were available, they all piled in to their various automobiles and headed off toward the coast.

  Despite their decline in the late eighties, arcades had seen a resurgence among adults in the last decade or so. These places were often bundled together with more acceptable social activities, such as bars and restaurants, but the draw of having old-school games and machines managed to draw in a wealth of adults with ample disposable income they were happy to spend on nostalgia.

  Pits & Pixels was one such establishment, specializing in succulent barbecue, a well-stocked bar, and more arcade games than any other restaurant in a fifty mile radius. Nick was already waiting in his car as the others pulled up, and once they disembarked from their own rides, it took a very short while for everyone to get inside and exchange their money for game tokens.

  Chad decided to try his hand in the midway section of the arcade first, dumping a single token into a Skee Ball machine. His first few throws went awry as he got the feel for the task, but by the end of his balls, he was dunking it in the fifty point hole with relative ease, and occasionally scoring a hundred as well. Collecting his tickets from the ground, Chad, Angela, and Shane went off to try more skill games, while the rest of the group scattered about, trying to find something that would amuse them.

  Vince found himself staring at a pinball machine near the back of the arcade. It wasn’t hard to see why it had grabbed his attention—in a place so alien, he’d naturally gravitated toward the one thing that was quasi-familiar. Blazoned atop the front of the machine were the words “Hero Pinball Battle Quest,” which spoke more to the loquaciousness of titles in decades past than it did to the actual content of the game. Images of various Heroes were splattered across the machine; some Vince recognized from history books and lectures in the HCP, but far more were complete strangers to him. Vince found himself wondering if they were all real, or if some had just been dreamed up to fill out the needed artwork. He dearly hoped it was the latter; the idea of these men and women doing so much for the world, only to fade out of memory was more depressing than he wanted to dwell on.

  A token being slipped onto the glass in front of him broke Vince from his reverie. He glanced about and found Nick standing a few feet away.

  “I’ve got next game.” Nick nodded to the token, trying to clue Vince into its meaning. “Assuming you ever stop staring at the machine and actually play it, that is.”

  “I was . . . sorry, just got lost in thought for a minute there.” Vince slipped his own token into the machine, which let out a loud, electronic whistle and began flashing so many lights that Vince was briefly afraid he’d set off some kind of alarm.

  “Trust me, I know. I know waaaaaaay too much about getting lost in your own head,” Nick said. “Personally, I don’t recommend it. Nothing to be had up there. Just stick to doing what you do best: acting without bothering to think things through in the slightest.”

  “I think things through.” Vince pulled the plunger back and let the small metal marble fly up its predetermined course, bouncing off bumpers and careening through lights and switches as he desperately tried to track it.

  “Vince, I’ve put more thought into what to put on my sandwiches than you’ve put into jumping headfirst into deadly situations. I’m not trying to say you’re dumb, just . . . impetuous.”

  “Still sort of feels like you’re saying dumb in a clever way,” Vince pointed out, slapping the metal sphere away with his right bumper and sending it into the “Hero Base,” which gathered extra points.

  “I assure you, it’s not my intent. I’m merely saying that, for you, action precedes planning, and after three years as your friend, I’m starting to think that might
not be such a bad thing,” Nick said. “Look, I’m a thinker. I have to plan everything out and look at every angle before I know the best way to go forward. But you, you just barrel through goddamned everything, and yet somehow seem to come out the other side relatively unscathed. You’ve got good instincts; don’t weaken them by getting too much in your head about stuff.”

  “This seems like a pretty well-rehearsed speech for having just caught me staring at a pinball machine,” Vince said. He swept his bumper upward at the returning ball, but it slipped past and fell into the abyss. Moments later, a new ball appeared on top of the plunger, ready to resume its partner’s journey.

  “See, what did I say? Good instincts.” Nick leaned against a fighting game console whose art suggested that it seemed to pit werewolves against mecha-dolphins. “Maybe I’ve been a little worried about you since I got back. Between Eliza and your history, dealing with the fallout from last year’s exam, and the general shittery of Globe’s stuff, I get the feeling you’ve started carrying more mental weight than you should. Especially without me around to constantly remind you that the world does not rest on your damn shoulders.”

  “I seem to recall you going off on all of us about how we didn’t think or plan things out enough last year,” Vince said. His second ball was staying aloft so far, though he’d accidentally tripped some switch that created constant flashes, making the sphere harder to track.

  “That was about fighting,” Nick said. “And, to be fair, you’ve very rarely needed any help there either. I’m talking about life in general, though, and all I’m really saying is not to take it too seriously. Relax a little; let yourself be the Vince we all know and mock behind his back.”

  Vince snorted out a laugh, mistiming his bumper’s swing and losing his second ball. The third was ready to go in seconds, and Vince sent it shooting up into the game.