Super Powereds: Year 3

by Drew Hayes

  “I used to have to sneak out to do this kind of stuff,” Angela said. She put her roll down, and cast her eyes around the table. Most of the others were absorbed in their small discussions; Shane and Hershel were debating between two action stars from the eighties, trying to decide which would win in a real fight. It was nice to see her little brother pissing his time away for once.

  “Shane did mention that you both had a rather strict upbringing,” Chad said, shaking Angela from her thoughts.

  “Oh, that’s putting it mildly. Training, drills, tests, conditioning, and sweet Jesus only knows how many rounds of sparring. As a kid, it was sort of fun, like this long game we were playing with our grandfather. Then I got old enough to realize how screwed up it all was, and I resented him for stealing my time. Of course, I then got even older and realized what he was actually trying to do, and I loved the old bastard for it. Still played hooky on occasion, mind you, but I respected him while I did it.”

  Chad nodded his head somberly. “He wanted to help you both excel.”

  “No, Chad, he wanted to help us not die. Graham DeSoto has lived a very long life, and in his career, that makes him quite the rarity. He’s buried too many people not to let it drive him a little insane, and that crazy manifested in trying to make sure that at least his grandchildren would see him in the ground, rather than vice versa. We didn’t get much of a childhood, but that’s because he wanted us to have more time as adults.”

  “Shane seems to feel that the effort your grandfather demanded from you had more to do with the family legacy than with concerns for your safety,” Chad replied. He was unfazed by her declaration, and she hadn’t expected anything different. That was one of the things she liked most about Chad: he was going into this with his eyes open. So many of the HCP students she’d known had aggrandized ideals of what lay ahead of them. Chad had a grave instead of a father; he understood the danger standing in the path to their future.

  “There’s no denying that the legacy is a big factor too. Ultimately, we both took what we took from the training. Skill, techniques, and impressions of our grandfather; it’s all set in there now, and there’s no changing it. Sometimes, I wish that stubborn kid would have come with me to do things like this when we were kids, though. He might not be quite so tightly wound if he’d let himself cut loose on occasion.”

  “For what it’s worth, I think Shane turned out perfectly fine. He’s the first person I ever managed to become friends with, and I suspect that speaks deeply to his patience and understanding, rather than to any budding social acumen on my part.”

  “Maybe you’re right,” Angela said. She turned to her menu and began perusing the options, purposely avoiding a continuance of this line of discussion. It was a nice day, and she didn’t have the heart to tell Chad that the reason he and Shane had become friends was simply because they were both similar shades of fucked up. That was inevitable in the HCP. Normal, emotionally healthy people didn’t go in for this sort of work. The Heroes of the world were a rainbow of dysfunction, and the closest relationships were formed from those of a similar hue.

  All of that was much too depressing to bring up, though, so Angela didn’t. She didn’t have many days left at Lander, and certainly not many carefree ones like this. She saw no reason to spoil one of them with something as pointless as the truth.

  207.

  The bang of the door echoed through the warehouse, causing several of its inhabitants to jump in surprise and one to quietly ready himself for bloodshed. In the end, all of it was unnecessary, as the cause for the slammed door quickly made herself known.

  “Sorry!” Joan yelled, her words following after the bang of the door. “I keep forgetting that thing is so touchy.”

  “Please watch it,” Persephone said, stepping out of the makeshift gym to greet her fellow fugitive. “If I know George, he’s probably got a laser canon fully extended and is just waiting for an excuse to use it.”

  “It was a thermal blaster.” George stepped out of the small room where he spent most of his waking, and sleeping, moments. For once, he was in his human form, no doubt taking a break from the computer work to deal with his biological necessities.

  “I said I was sorry,” Joan repeated. She hefted up her arms, which were laden with at least a dozen sacks that were near to bursting. “You try easing the thing open when you’re weighed down by this many groceries.”

  “It’s my fault; I’ve been meaning to fix it for days.” Phil stepped out of his room and walked over to Joan, who immediately felt the bags lift off her arms. He paused in front of the door and stared at it for several seconds, then turned and began heading toward the area set up as a kitchen, a parade of bags floating behind him. “Shouldn’t be an issue anymore.”

  “Thanks,” Joan said, rubbing her sore arms. “Gerard and Quentin still out?”

  “They should be back by dinner,” Phil informed her. “Though, at the speed Quentin keeps growing, I’m sure they’ll have to do another clothing run in a few months. I’d forgotten how fast they shoot up at that age.”

  “Careful, if you ask him any clarifying questions, he’ll start talking about his days on the road, and we won’t be able to shut him up,” Persephone warned. In truth, she enjoyed when Phil went on his rambles about the years raising Vince. Bleak though they could seem, there was also a wholesome warmth to those stories. Things might not have been easy, but they were simple and honest in a way their lives could no longer be.

  “Well then, I suppose I should know my place and start cooking supper,” Phil replied, flashing Persephone the sort of smile she didn’t understand how he was able to still conjure.

  “Actually, before you go, there might be something you need to know,” Joan said. “I mean, it might be nothing, but I checked in with a few contacts while I was out, and someone is buying up a ton of muscle in California.”

  Phil’s steps halted, and he slowly turned around to face her. The smile was gone from his lips; in its place was a somber expression that the others had learned to interpret as him being serious. It was the face of their leader, their champion, the man they had all placed their hopes in. It also often meant that things were going to get dangerous.

  “Please, Joan, go on.”

  “I don’t know that I have a lot more to tell.” Joan fidgeted a bit, more from pent up energy than nerves. Staying confined was harder on her than any of the rest of them. “I just heard that anyone with decent power, especially good muscle, could find work out in California. Someone with deep pockets is bank-rolling something big. Could be just a coincidence, but with your kid out there and all . . . seemed like something you should know about.”

  Phil gave a short, somber nod. “Thank you, Joan. Would you do me the favor of seeing if you can find out anything else? You’re probably right about it being a coincidence—California is a big state after all—but I’d feel a lot better if I knew that for certain.”

  “No problem.” Joan had been half-hoping for this outcome when she brought up the issue in the first place. Doing digging meant leaving the warehouse, running around, and finally getting to stretch her legs.

  “I appreciate your help.” He turned back around and headed into the kitchen, floating grocery bags in tow. Despite his words, Phil didn’t quite believe it was as much of a coincidence as he’d like it to be. He’d spent too many years as a Hero not to know that when there were lots of things happening in the same area, more often than not, they were connected. Still, he could hope that this was one of the times where it was an exception.

  Hope, at least, was one of the things he had left.

  * * *

  The explosion was a small one, and the fire was put out before it could spread, thanks to Vince. The smoke, however, was more difficult to mitigate as the various students coughed, choked, and hacked their way through the house and out into the clean night air of the backyard. It took several minutes of clearing their lungs before one of them was finally able to speak, and it was Will�
��s voice that filled the yard.

  “I told you it wasn’t ready yet!”

  “Oh, don’t give me that! You always say your inventions aren’t ready, and then, when I make you use them, things work fine,” Jill said, barely getting her words out between coughing fits.

  “To be fair, his video immersion thingie fizzled out halfway through the movie freshman year,” Vince reminded her.

  “Exactly, and that was days ahead of this project, not to mention far less ambitious.” Will hacked out a few more wisps of smoke, and realized he could faintly hear sirens in the distance. He dearly hoped those weren’t coming to their house, but logic told him they likely were. “A fully immersive, digitally rendered environment in a contained space is something beyond even my capabilities to create in a week.”

  “I honestly still don’t know what he’s talking about,” Alice said.

  “Basically, Will was trying to make a prototype of a holodeck, but with very limited projection materials,” Hershel explained.

  “That in no way clarified things,” Alice said. “If anything, I understand what you’re talking about even less.”

  “It doesn’t matter, because as we can clearly see, the whole thing was an unmitigated failure,” Will snapped. “Now, if you all would be so kind, I’m going to need help tucking away as much of my tech as possible before the fire department gets here.”

  At that, the rest of the group finally noticed the impending sirens, and eyes went wide as realization set in.

  “I could have been waiting on tables that under-tip me tonight,” Mary grumbled. But despite her protests, she and the rest plunged back into the slowly-clearing house to help Will hide his pieces of potentially destructive brilliance.

  They would manage to get everything squirreled away before the fire department arrived, however, explaining how the fire had been put out would prove to be much more problematic.

  208.

  Alice felt her phone vibrate in her pocket and unabashedly flipped it out to see who was texting her. She didn’t have to listen that closely to the old man speaking down at the bottom of the lecture hall, anyway; he had pre-recorded his classes years before and hosted them online for students to listen to. It was why he got away with such massive class sizes, since being able to hear him in the first place scarcely mattered at all.

  To her surprise, it was Nick, checking to see if she was free on Saturday for a lunch. He’d been a bit aloof since their day out with the others, but it looked as though he were finally taking the bull by the horns. Tempted as Alice was to text back with immediate agreement, she forced herself to stop and check the calendar function on her phone. Their lives were a bit hectic, and after all their dancing about, the last thing she wanted was to have to reschedule with Nick.

  It turned out to be a good thing she had checked, because Alice was signed up for her mental training session that Saturday afternoon. Vince had already gone and found the whole thing to be uneventful, though he did say he felt a bit more relaxed after his session. That might be good; a mental massage before her big date.

  Alice’s well-manicured nails flew across the touchscreen as she texted Nick back, letting him know about the conflict. She also told him that she’d have declined a lunch date anyway, after this long, it was dinner or nothing. In truth, she probably would have accepted if not for the conflict, but it didn’t hurt to make sure Nick was aware that there were expectations to be met.

  She put her phone back in her pocket, then turned to face the teacher once more. This time, however, her thoughts weren’t even cursorily on the material. No doubt about it, she was going to have to re-listen to this entire lecture if she wanted to get anything from the day’s class.

  It was a trade she was happy to make.

  * * *

  “All in all, you put forth an exceptional effort.” Professor Cole stood in front of her students once more. The first day back from spring break had finally arrived, and with it, her evaluations of their exams. “Despite all my preparation to keep you in the dark as to who you would be working with, most of you came together with a fierce efficiency. Granted, this was not exactly what it will be like in the field, since you may have no idea what the other Heroes you work with will be capable of, but nonetheless, you all still did well.”

  The students could just barely make out her green eyes through those cloth bandages, but no longer was her strange style of dress a point of curiosity. Now, they understood it for what it was: her shield and sword. Professor Cole came to class every day with the tools she needed to kick ass. It might have been odd from some teachers, but for their Weapons instructor, it made perfect sense.

  “Those of who fared best of the lot were the ones who quickly determined what your role in the team would be, and then fulfilled it. We didn’t spend all of last year teaching you teamwork for nothing, and I was genuinely impressed at how many of you remembered your fundamentals. On top of that, the majority of you truly turned your weapons into tools, and obviously, that was a big part of the exam as well.”

  Roy involuntarily tightened the grip on his bat, which rested in his right hand. He’d had a sling for it that went over his back, but after five tries at drawing the weapon carefully, he’d gotten overexcited and ripped the thing apart. Now, he just carried it. The weight was good. It kept his muscles at least partially engaged all the time. He’d probably miss it when it was time to say goodbye to this class.

  “Now we, of course, still have final exams coming up, but it’s about time for you to all start thinking about what you want your HCP major to be,” Professor Cole told them. Around him, Roy could feel some of the others bristle. This was a thought that weighed heavy on all their minds as the deadline approached.

  “I took some of you aside this morning and spoke with you about how things went in the exam. For those students, the final will be a very crucial moment in whether or not they are allowed to continue on with Weapons. For the rest of you, so long as you don’t completely fail the thing, you have shown me enough skill and competence that I will sign off on training you for another year. You can still screw this up, but I want you aware that Weapons is a major you can seriously consider undertaking.”

  Roy resisted the urge to look around. He hadn’t been one of those told he needed to make the final exam count, and he didn’t really want to know who had been. For him, Weapons was always a second-place priority, but that didn’t mean there weren’t others in the class desperately hoping to make the cut. To have something you wanted so bad and find it out of reach . . . Roy didn’t need to see those people’s faces.

  He flexed his hand against the bat once more. There was no more getting around it: Professor Cole had made a lot of valid points throughout the year, and he might be better off doing Weapons over Close Combat. Roy was past the point of caring what most strongmen did, or how using a weapon was perceived. It was about power, at the end of the day. What made him the strongest Hero he could be. If it were the bat, then he would wield it. If it was his fists, then the bat would be cast aside. The one thing Roy couldn’t afford to do was guess. He needed a test. Not one delivered by the HCP, but one that gave him results he could believe in.

  Roy knew what he had to do; he just hoped he could manage to pull it off.

  209.

  Chad could hear Roy coming before the young man even entered the Melbrook lobby. Despite the fact that there was a television on, tuned to the news, Chad made it a point to always stay as aware of his surroundings as his abilities allowed. It was a trait that some would have called paranoid, while others—mostly, experienced Heroes—would have deemed it smart. Still, Chad thought nothing of Roy’s entrance (he did live there too, after all), until the tall Super’s shadow fell across the couch where Chad was sitting.

  “Do you have a minute?” Roy’s tone was subdued from what Chad was accustomed to. Bravado was Roy’s default, and deviations from it were quite rare. That probably meant this was something serious. Chad muted the news, then tu
rned to face his dormmate.

  “Is something wrong?” Chad asked. He’d worked hard on picking up social cues, and was hoping to confirm his hypothesis about Roy’s altered mood.

  “On the scale we generally use to measure crazy shit? Nah, this ain’t even a blip. But I do have a problem, and you might be the only one who can help me solve it.” Roy sat down in the chair that was catty-corner to the couch, his eyes never breaking contact with Chad’s. “I need to have a match with you.”

  Chad tilted his head slightly, trying to signal his confusion non-verbally. “We spar frequently in class, and occasionally at the gym. I have no issue accommodating more of that.”

  “No, not sparring. A match match. Like the ones we did freshman year, when there was shit on the line. I need you to fight me like it matters, and I’m going to come at you the same way.”

  “Roy . . .” Chad paused, wavering on how to phrase his next words. Ultimately, he realized that he had no gift for diplomacy, so the only option on the table was to come out and say the truth. “You’ve gotten much better over the last few years, you truly have; however, I’ve been improving as well. At this point, you are certainly much stronger than me, and would be superior against certain opponents. But, that said, I’m afraid I still don’t anticipate you being able to defeat me.”

  Roy blinked several times, then shook his head and let out a laugh. “Damn, guess I had that coming for how I acted freshman year. Sorry, I should have explained this better. I know I’m not going to beat you, but I need to fight you seriously, twice actually, so I can test something about myself."