The Prospects

by Daniel Halayko

  “Hey, screw you, man.”

  “You’re also disrespectful. Insulting me is one thing, but if you call Trista a bitch or a villainess again you will pay for it.”

  Goldstreak jumped off the treadmill. “I ain’t taking this.”

  “And the only direction you run is away.”

  Goldstreak used his speed to get to the door in an instant. Alex flipped through the tablet.

  “Aren’t you going to stop me?” asked Goldstreak.

  “You’re not worth it. I don’t know what Sarge saw in you, but I don’t see it. Lady Amazing said you used to care. Come back when you do again.”

  “What the hell kind of trainer are you?”

  “I never trained you.”

  Goldstreak sighed. “Sarge and I had an understanding. If I did everything he said, he’d send me to LA.”

  “Why do you want to leave New York?”

  “Because New York is full of idiots in costumes beating each other up. I grew up with that, but I’m not growing old with it.”

  “Yeah, it kind of is. Too many independent heroes.”

  “And I’ll never stand out among them. I’ll never be anything but another kid from the ghetto in this town.”

  “Right. But why LA?”

  “I dunno. I guess I could run out of New York at any time, but I don’t know where to go. I heard LA is cool.”

  “The traffic’s horrible and there’s too much smog. And it has more showboat wannabe-heroes than New York.”

  “But it’s not here. It’s somewhere new, and that’s the only way I’m going to see it.”

  “So you don’t really want to help people. You only care about what you want.”

  “No, it’s … whatever, man. What do I have to do to get your approval?”

  “Become something that will be an asset to the LA Champions. Speedster isn’t it, and fighter is out too. Why did you run away during the attack?”

  “I was the youngest kid on my block. I can’t fight, so I learned to run. I did so well in track no one was surprised when the test showed I had metahuman genes. Then I met the real speedsters and found out those don’t amount to much.”

  “What else are you good at?”

  “If I knew, you wouldn’t have to ask.”

  Alex flicked through the tablet’s screens. “Here’s something. Sarge said you aced first aid training.”

  “Yeah, I can put on a band-aid.”

  “There has to be more to it.”

  “My mom is a nurse in the metahuman injury ward, the place where innocent bystanders from superhero battles end up. I volunteered there during summers.”

  “Did you learn anything?”

  “Some things. Thought about becoming a doctor for a while. Even read some books on it.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “Do you have any idea how much med school costs? And since I’m technically a metahuman, I can’t get athletic scholarships.”

  “Then why not nursing?”

  “Because I saw how hard my mom had it as a nurse. She liked helping people, but that was it. I saw how tired she was after a double-shift and heard her crying after doctors chewed her out for their mistakes. I don’t want that.”

  “You got dressed real fast that night the Iron Pirates attacked. Not many speedsters can move precisely at their top speeds. Can you dress a wound real fast too?”

  “I guess. I never tried.”

  Alex took the first aid kit from the gym’s wall. He unrolled the gauze pad. “Pretend I have a head wound.”

  Goldstreak took the gauze. Less than a second later, Alex’s looked like a mummy from the neck up.

  Alex ripped off the gauze. “Very funny. How about a sling?”

  In a flash Alex’s arm was in a tight sling.

  “Want me to do CPR?” said Goldstreak with a grin.

  “Not this time. A speedster medic might be useful.”

  “Woah, never thought about that. I mean, don’t wounds take time to heal?”

  “Yeah, but if you move fast and with finesse you can prevent a lot of blood loss. Can you treat bullet wounds?”

  “I saw people get shot on the streets of Hunts Point.”

  “But have you actually touched a bullet wound?”

  “Nah, never got that close.”

  “We’ll start there. I trained as a medic through an Army program, so I can teach you some things.”

  “Like what?”

  “Let’s go over the ABCs. It’s a way to remember how to treat someone who got shot.”

  For the rest of the hour Alex went over the basics of emergency first aid. He explained every step to treating a bullet wound and acted out the procedures. Goldstreak was so attentive he didn’t notice when his time was up. He left at a normal speed.

  Alex checked his tablet. Vijay’s schedule read nothing but “INDEPENDINT STUDY.”

  Alex found Vijay in the recreation room playing the X-Box.

  “Vijay, what’s independent study?”

  “Sarge didn’t know anything about technology, so he let me do what I want.”

  Alex flipped back through the week. “This is weird. The other day, when you were yelling at Sarge, you showed off a big bruise and said you got it in unarmed combat training. But according to this, independent study is all you’ve ever had.”

  Vijay paused the game. “Uh …. he must have taken bad notes.”

  “Well, there are lots of notes about how great you are, but they’re full of misspellings. I once saw Sarge lecture a cop for misspelling a word in an arrest report. The part about how proper spelling is a cornerstone of citizenship really stuck with me.”

  Vijay put the controller down. “In my defense, that tablet was easy to hack. It’s connected to the wifi, so I only had to …”

  “No technobabble. In the gym, now.”

  “I’m not wearing my Asura costume.”

  “Now.”

  Defeated, Vijay followed Alex to the gym.

  “First thing you’re going to do is drop and give me twenty.”

  Vijay got into a pushup position. “I don’t see what good this is going to do.”

  “It will do us all a lot of good.”

  After the pushups, Vijay said, “Lesson learned. I won’t hack your tablet again.”

  “No, that was for calling Jenny fat.” Alex grabbed the mop and bucket. “For lying to your trainer, you have to clean the whole gym floor. Do a good job or you’ll have to do it again.”

  “I’m a freakin’ genius, and you’re making me clean?”

  “A real genius would stay out of trouble.”

  “This is cruel.”

  “’Cruel’ is disrespecting your teammates and trainer. ‘Not cruel’ is making it up to them by making the gym nicer.”

  After most of an hour, the gym was considerably less dingy.

  “This is demeaning,” said Vijay as he wiped the mirror.

  “If you don’t like cleaning mirrors, don’t insult Trista. One last thing. Get some tools and fix the broken treadmill.”

  “But someone puked in it.”

  “That’s your punishment for hacking my tablet. The next time you mouth off to a teammate, you’re going to make the bathrooms sparkle. Mess with Trista, you clean every bathroom in the building. Hack without my permission, you’ll replace every light bulb in Griffin Tower.”

  Vijay muttered obscenities as he fixed the treadmills. He finished before Gale Force and Trista arrived.

  “Trista, why aren’t you wearing your costume?”

  Trista shifted in the same blue sweatshirt and scrub pants she wore the previous day. “Lady Amazing didn’t make me wear it.”

  “I’m not Lady Amazing,” said Alex. “Go sit against the wall. Jenny – excuse me, Gale Force – is scheduled for target training. That sounds boring.”

  “Sarge said all blasters like me are good for are shooting.” She punched air. The punching bag flew back. The light blue scarves and skirt over her sky-blue bodysuit moved w
ith the wind.

  “I’ve seen some blasters use their powers more creatively. According to Sarge’s notes, you’re from Harrison, New Jersey. Wasn’t there a school shooting there a couple of years ago?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you know the school where it happened?”

  “I went there.”

  “A previously unknown metahuman managed to stop the shooters without badly hurting them. I put your name into Google, and sure enough it was you.”

  “They shot two students and a teacher first. I couldn’t save them.”

  “Why not?”

  “I was in a different room when the shooting started.”

  “But you saved everyone else?”

  “I did what anyone with my powers would do.”

  “You’re way too modest. I’ve known people who got cats down from trees and talk about it like they deserve the Medal of Honor.”

  Gale Force shrugged.

  “But you put in a request to leave. Why?”

  “My goal is to be a superhero by the time I turn twenty-one.”

  “Sounds like you already are.”

  “I want to be on a team.”

  “Aren’t you?”

  “I don’t consider the Prospects a real team, but it’s the only one that accepted me.”

  “Why did everyone else reject you?”

  “A lot of reasons. The Young Sentinels outright said I was too fat.”

  “Forget those idiots. The Young Sentinels don’t even have legal recognition because they’re technically entertainers. They only see action from the sidelines when the real heroes want to beef up their numbers.”

  “All the same, I turn twenty-one in two weeks. I tried, I failed.”

  “You can be an independent superheroine. With some police training, you can get legal recognition.”

  “I’m going to get a real job. I’ve embarrassed myself enough.”

  “But you did great the other night.”

  “I got blinded.”

  “You held your position and you looked out for your teammate after the fighting stopped. We didn’t win, I mean, achieve the objective, but that wasn’t your fault. Heroes lose sometimes.”

  “I don’t want to lose again. I just want to go home.”

  “You can’t leave until after lockdown ends, and I can’t guarantee that will be before your birthday. I also don’t know how to help you with target shooting because my exoskeleton had automatic aiming.”

  “I can do it myself. I always did Sarge just yelled about how fat I am.”

  “Did he say something about how you learn better when you’re angry?”

  That took Gale Force aback. “How did you know?”

  “He trained me. I still remember the horrible things he said. But, instead of saying horrible things to you, I’ll work with Trista.”

  Jenny set up targets while Alex sat next to Trista. “I thought you hated that sweatshirt.”

  She tugged at its collar. “I don’t have many clothes.”

  “The tablet says you skipped a lot of sessions, but today should be physical conditioning.”

  Trista tensed.

  Alex closed the tablet. “We’re not doing that. Whatever Sarge did with you wasn’t working. What did you do with Lady Amazing?”

  “We talked.”

  “About what?”

  “She said I needed someone to talk to more than I needed exercise.”

  “I’ll put in a request for a therapist on Monday. It may take a while to do the background clearances.”

  “Can I talk to Lady Amazing?”

  “Mister Griffin said no phone for you.”

  “But she said I should ask you to call her.”

  “I covered up your escape and let you not wear your costume. That’s a lot of rule-breaking already.”

  Trista looked away. “You said I should talk to someone about what happened.”

  Alex got his smartphone out and pressed a button. “Charlene, it’s Alex. Trista wants to talk to you. Call back when you can.” He hung up. “I’ll let you know when she calls back.”

  Trista bit her lip.

  After an awkward silence Alex said, “I shouldn’t have threatened you the other day.”

  Trista didn’t say anything.

  “I mean, it was two years ago when you … when we ....”

  “I remember,” said Trista.”

  “I need to forget about it.”

  “We can’t forget being hurt. Damage changes us. It makes us a little different from before.”

  “Be that as it may, it’d be better for both of us if I leave that in the past.”

  “Does that mean you’ll try to forgive me?”

  “Woah, slow down. I said forget, I meant forget.”

  Trista raised her head and looked at Alex. “I meant what I said about being sorry.”

  “And I’m sorry I called you a liar when you said that. It didn’t make things better for anyone.”

  “You were scared of me.”

  “Which is no excuse for attacking you. Heroes shouldn’t be cruel. We shouldn’t hurt anyone any more than necessary to restore peace. That’s what separates us from villains.”

  “That’s what Sergeant Hammer said after he beat the Uber-Aryan in ‘Decision at Dachau.’”

  Alex’s eyebrows raised. “You read Sergeant Hammer comics?”

  “I read a few. My brother is a big fan.”

  “I was a big fan too. I mean, growing up, I set aside the first few dollars of my allowance to buy the latest issue. I read them until they fell apart.”

  “Sergeant Hammer is very different in the comics than he is in real life.”

  “Yeah, in the comics he’s all American spirit and apple pie. I was shocked when I met him in the Agent Exo candidate training program. The things he did would get a drill sergeant court-marshaled. His idea of training people how to fight is to attack them until they learn to fight back or run away. I remember when one guy died, all he said was, ‘a weakbody wiped out.’ He should not have been training you.”

  “You don’t like Sergeant Hammer?”

  “He’s a great warrior, not a great person. He saved my life dozens of times, and I don’t even know his real name. I’ve never seen him without his mask. It’s like he doesn’t have a secret or alternate identity.”

  “Can we not talk about him?”

  “One more thing we can’t talk about. So you want to be back with your family?”

  Trista nervously looked away.

  “That’s a good goal,” said Alex. “I want to get back with my family too.”

  After another period of awkward silence Trista asked, “What did Mister Griffin say about Marilyn Manson and Sleepy Foam?”

  “That was Charles Manson and Squeaky Frome.”

  “Who are they?”

  “Manson led a cult in the sixties. His followers murdered for him, which is impressive because he had no psychic powers. When he was imprisoned, Squeaky, one of his followers, tried to kill President Ford. It was like he was still controlling her even though she was away from him.”

  Trista looked down.

  Alex said, “Lady Amazing said you’re a different person than you were under the Idea Man’s control.”

  “I didn’t feel controlled, but it’s like all of my memories of him are … louder … than anything before or after. By his side I felt so free, so powerful, so beautiful. Now I feel like a weak, ugly prisoner.”

  “You’re not ugly.”

  “Being with him, I did anything I wanted. I didn’t care about right or wrong. I thought what I wanted had to be right. But when I was in jail, I realized how many people I hurt. I feel horrible about it.”

  “Well, those of us you hurt don’t feel good about it either.”

  “I don’t want to go back to him. But if he’s out there, he may come for me.”

  “You’re beyond his power. This skyscraper has lead and magnets in the walls. Mister Griffin offered a cash prize for any ps
ychic who could penetrate it. None could.”

  “What if finds a way inside?”

  “We’ll protect you. Me and the Prospects.”

  “They hate me.”

  “You stood up for me, I did the same for you. If anyone gives you crap, tell me and I’ll come down hard on them.”

  Trista hugged her knees. “I don’t want to cause any trouble for anyone.”

  “Hey, listen. We saw each other in our lowest moments. You promised not to hurt me. I won’t hurt you either, and I won’t let you be hurt. When Lady Amazing gets back we won’t see each other again until your probation hearing. Stay on your best behavior, I’ll say good things about you. It’ll improve your chances of not having to wear that nullifier anymore.”

  Trista relaxed a little.

  Alex added, “Anything I can do make things easier until then?”

  “Would it be okay if I don’t wear my costume? I really don’t like it. I made it when I was with the Idea Man. It brings back bad memories for me.”

  “You’re assertively expressing your feelings. Lady Amazing will be proud.”

  “So can I not wear it?”

  “I’d rather you didn’t. It brings back bad memories for me too.”

  Chapter Ten

  “So this is dinner?” asked Alex. “It doesn’t look so bad.”

  The Prospects, all in their costumes except for Vijay and Trista, did not look excited about what the tower staff delivered to the kitchen.

  Vijay turned his nose up at the plastic tray of steaming vegetables and tofu. “You haven’t had to eat it for two months straight.”

  “It’s not that it’s bad,” said Gale Force, “it’s boring. After a while you stop tasting it.”

  “I can’t even taste thanks to my broken nose,” said Zany, “and I still don’t want any.”

  “I’d kill for a pizza,” said Goldstreak.

  Alex’s smartphone beeped. He put the speaker on.

  Jim said, “Assemble the Prospects, pronto.”

  Alex tugged the bandage around his neck. “We’ve barely recovered from the last mission.”

  “A van at the south exit will take your team to Madison Square Garden.”