"What's going on?" they demanded.
"Please." Cal raised his hands. "One at a time."
"But, I –"
"Let me decide who talks first." The two Murrays clamped their mouths shut in thin-lipped scowls. "The other of you, please wait your turn. Let's see if we can get this sorted out. All right." Cal waited a few beats, and pointed to the Murray on his left. He was no longer quite sure who was the original one, if that even applied. "Let's start with you. What were you doing a few minutes ago?"
"I was talking to you about lures. The Strike Pro."
"Right. Now you."
The Murray on right shrugged. "I was talking to you about the Strike Pro lures."
"Before you came to the store, what were you doing?"
"I was talking to my wife –"
They both canceled themselves out.
"Remember the rule. Only the man I point out gets to talk, okay?" He pointed to the right Murray, wondering if he was being discriminatory favoring his right, since he was right-handed. "I'm going to call you Right Murray. Not to say you're more right than this Murray –"
"You're damn right he's not more right than me!"
"Sorry. Murray on my right. What were you doing before you talked to your wife about the election?"
"I was fishing at Landon Lake, starting at around 6 A.M. Came home for lunch."
Cal looked to the other Murray. "You? Left Murray?"
"Same thing."
"You remember back to your childhood? You were born in Lakeview, Minnesota?"
"Yup."
Right Murray nodded.
Cal slumped into his office chair. He remembered suddenly, in bold relief, his wish for more customers like Murray. Man...talk about being careful what you wish for. So this was his superpower – creating duplicate people? Why couldn't he have been granted X-ray vision or unaided flight?
"What the hell is going on here, Calvin?" asked the Murray on his right.
"I'm...not, uh, exactly sure."
Cal got up and opened the display case doors that house the lures he was going to show Murray. He was down to three. He'd intended to order more if demand had been better, but these three had been sitting in the case for nearly a year.
He focused on them. How about ten? The question produced nothing. He touched one of the lures and imagined seven extra lying in on the shelf beside the three.
The seven additional lures appeared. He didn’t actually see them appear – they were just there. It was more like he'd just noticed them. The lucrative potential was obvious, but he wasn't able to focus on that at the moment.
He turned back to the Murrays, who were regarding him with predictably identical crossed arms and accusing scowls. He had the disturbing sense that he was way the hell in over his head. He'd just created an identical person with an identical life history. How was that supposed to work? They'd both go home to his/their wife? Who'd collect Murray's pension? Myrtle, his wife, already complained enough about one Murray. But then maybe he could create two wives?
What minuscule shred of humor Cal could locate fled as he faced the two grim-eyed men. This wasn't funny. This was like the time the local barfly, Maggie Mentzer, told him she was pregnant with his child after a drunken one-night stand that he could barely remember. That had been a false alarm, but he could still feel the icy chills when he contemplated being a father at forty-eight with a twenty-seven year old woman best known for her tattoos and love of cheap beer and casual sex.
In a way, this was worse. A baby would grow into life, adapting and finding its way as it went. Murray at seventy-one already had a life – a life as straight and narrow and well-worn as the ball return track in a bowling lane. How could two Murrays fit into that narrow groove?
Maybe it was just temporary? Maybe the new Murray would just fade away after a while? Cal picked up one of the new Strike Pro lures. It felt solid and permanent. No sense of it having a tendency to fade away.
What have I done?
SUPER POWERS should come with a training manual, Tildie thought grumpily after crash-diving into some trees at the side of Highway 84 near Carson, Washington. It was her seventh or eighth crash landing, and she'd learned that falling from the sky, even if in a semi-controlled descent, hurt. A lot. Her expectation of cruising like a Cessna Citation had been dashed by a wobbly flight that was more like flying a crop duster with a misfiring engine in strong crosswinds while drunk. Her dreams of being invulnerable had washed away on a raging river of bruises, contusions, and blood. At one point she thought she'd suffered a concussion from smacking her head into a rock, but her vision had cleared after a minute or two. No broken bones or lasting sprains, and the injuries faded as fast as advertised, which was cool, but that didn't stop the constant convoy of pain caused by her lack of control.
Tildie pushed creakily to her feet and dusted herself off. To add insult to injury, her nifty superhero suit was torn in a half-dozen places and spattered with dirt and pine needles. One hole in the center of the lightning bolt on her chest was particularly galling. Her costume had cost her a small fortune! At least her backpack containing her clothes and various items, including a turkey sandwich, was still intact.
Yet it was all good. Or mostly good. Other than the aliens and the possible end of the world. At least now she'd go out as a superheroine, assuming she could find something to be heroic about.
The snapping of twigs jerked her around. A woman holding a young boy's hand stood twenty feet away, staring at her. The boy was pointing.
"Mommy, is she a superhero?"
"Honey, no," said the mother. "Superheroes are just on television. She's just a..." She frowned, as though the right description wasn't coming.
"She kinda looks like a skinny Wonder Woman."
It was then that Tildie noticed she'd landed near the edge of a rest area. A few other people had paused in eating or approaching the restrooms or perusing the posted maps to stare with puzzled faces at her as well. Probably judging her as being too skinny to be a superhero, too.
"No, Bobby. Probably just going to a costume show or something."
"But I saw her fall out of the sky."
"No, dear, you just imagined that."
"No he didn't," said Tildie. "And you don't have to talk about me in third person. I'm standing right here and more than capable of English discourse. And by the way, I'm slim, not skinny."
"Er, um, okay..." The mother had begun backing away. "Sorry to disturb you, Miss. Please just go on doing whatever it was you were doing."
"What I was doing was recovering from falling a few hundred meters."
"Are you a superhero?" the boy asked.
"Yes. Well, in training. I haven't actually done anything heroic yet."
"What's your name?"
Tildie opened her mouth. Now this was embarrassing. She hadn't really settled on a name.
"I don't know," she said. "Electrogirl? Electric something or other?"
"What are your superpowers?" The boy resisted his mom's urgent tugging.
"Well...I can discharge electricity – you know, lightning bolts. And fly. Sort of."
"Honey, we need to let this person be –"
The boy ignored her, holding his ground. "Electrogirl is kinda lame. Hmm." He fingered his lip. "How about Lightning Girl? No...wait. Thunderbolt!"
Tildie grinned through her mask. "Hey, I like that! Thanks, dude!"
"No problem." The boy blushed.
"Okay, nice talking to you," said the woman, leaning hard to drag her son away.
When they'd gone a few yards, the mother scolded the boy for "making fun of the mentally ill" while tugging out her cell. Before Tildie realized what was happening she'd launched into the air and landed awkwardly in front of them.
"Whoa!" the boy cried. His mother gasped.
"For your information, I am not mentally ill," Tildie growled. "And as you can see, your boy wasn't imagining anything. You should be more open-minded."
The mom's mouth flapp
ed open and shut, making sounds that weren't quite words. The boy jerked out his own cell and started snapping photos of her. Many of the people in the background stopped staring at her in stunned disbelief and brought their own cells and cameras to bear.
"Can I have your autograph?" the boy asked.
"Uh...sure." Tildie was starting to question the advisability of what she was doing, but what could an autograph hurt? "Do you have some paper and a pen?"
"I'll get one from the car!"
"No, Bobby – "
The woman hurried after him. The boy raced around their minivan and threw open a door, rummaging around in the front seat, emerging with a pen and a notebook. He dodged around his mom, but she was gaining on him fast. Why couldn't she just back off and mellow out a little? Tildie imagined her slowing down – and strange enough, she did. Though she was pumping her arms and legs furiously, it was as if she was on a treadmill, going nowhere. Tildie imagined her moving sideways, and she started to drift away from her son, blood vessels pulsing in her forehead.
Girl got telekinetics! Tildie smiled, unable to resist thrusting a fist into the air. Even if she had now joined the woman in talking about herself in the third person. Tildie released the mom as the boy rushed up pen and paper in hand.
"Whom should I make this out to?" she asked.
"Bobby. And, uh..." He blushed a little. "Could you write: The dude who gave me my name."
"You got it. Only fair."
Tildie made an effort to steady her hand and write out Thunderbolt with some measure of flair. She made a mental note to create a more vivid and artistic signature.
"Thanks...Thunderbolt!"
"You're welcome."
"Would you mind maybe, you know, just flying off the ground a little?" He tapped his cell. "You know, for a picture."
"I'll give it a shot. I'm not too great with this flying thing yet."
She concentrated on an image of being weightless, and it worked as she drifted upward a few yards off the ground – to a chorus of ooos and aaaahhs from the growing rest area crowd. Bobby took it in stride, holding his cell camera up in steady hands. His mom moved to his side with clear caution, her frightened eyes locked on Tildie. She made no motion to interfere.
"Could you, you know, shoot some lightning or something?" Bobby asked.
The advisability question returned, with a light seasoning of dread. Was she getting out of hand? Her usual good sense did seem compromised. Yet for whatever reason she felt strangely compelled to give him that demonstration. Otherwise, everyone would go home and write it off as a magic trick or something. But more important, the world needed to know that things weren't how the government was portraying them. They were all at terrible risk and there were some new sheriffs in town who wanted to do something about that.
"All right. Move away from me." Bobby retreated with his mom to the first rings of the crowd. Tildie motioned them back further. "Keep going. To the restrooms."
When they'd gathered in front of the restroom building, Tildie gazed upward. Except for a few thin clouds, the sky was clear. She raised her fist. Here goes nothing.
This time she felt the charge build. An instant of crackling power coursing through her arm – and Boom! Her fist lit up and she glimpsed a flash of light spear a wispy cloud high above, which glowed an incandescent orange-red. An electrical hissing sound carried down to her. Across the parking lot, the people huddled under the edge of the restroom roof. Bobby clapped and called out: "Thunderbolt!" One teenaged girl applauded uncertainly until a stern glare from her parents shut her down.
Tildie waved once and willed herself into the air, praying she wouldn't spiral out of control and look like a total tool. But she rose in a steady arc for once, and was soon moving east beyond the rest area's view. So far so good. Had she finally got this flying thing nailed?
Predictably, as she pushed her speed, her flight got wonky. When she started to panic, she started to fall – just as she did in her flying dreams. So the obvious solution was not to panic. Easier said than done.
Tildie tried something different: she closed her eyes and imagined she was floating on a lake. Despite her lack of curves and body fat, she was pretty good in the water. The air blasting over her was just a nice summer wind. The wind grew stronger and colder.
Tildie opened her eyes. She was higher than she'd ever been – patches of ground visible through the clouds far below. The clouds are far below. Tildie gulped. She could be looking out the window of a cruising commercial jet. Maybe higher. Oh, God...
It was as if she was in a commercial jet experiencing severe turbulence, bouncing on gusts of wind or maybe just the disturbances in her own mind. She dropped several meters, butterflies bursting in her belly. Hold on. Try to relax – you won't die even if you lose it. This is supposed to be fun, damn you!
She dipped through the thin clouds into open air, and – thank the gods! – leveled out. For some reason, she felt a sudden, subtle sense of certainty, that the worst was behind her. This was her maiden flight, after all. You had to expect a few bumps.
Tildie pointed her slim body northeast and gradually added speed. She preferred to arrive in Grand Forks, North Dakota sometime in this century.
Department of Homeland Security
National Oversight Fusion Center
Special Assessment Intelligence Division, Data Integration and Analysis
Anomalous Activity Alert
Memo(s) Received: Grant County Sheriff's Office, Office of Infrastructure Protection, Aerial Surveillance Domain 3-A, 4-A
Threat Level: 8.5
Response Priority: 10
8/12/2019
2.21 P.M. PT
THIS WAS by far the most interesting report Agent Marilyn Masterson had ever seen in her two years as Lead Responder in the Special Assessment Intelligence Division. The high response priority code had routed the report to her desk. The situation was intriguing, to say the least. According to the Grant County Sheriff's Department, a young woman in a "strange costume" had shown up at a rest area off Highway 84 and begun "displaying bizarre behaviors and threats," according to one witness who'd called the police. But it got much more interesting: the woman apparently was wearing a jet pack which the Grant County Sheriff speculated powered not only a "flight capability," but also "some form of beam weapon."
That would've strained even the DHS' openness to horrific terrorist activity, but the memo included a number of videos and photos which appeared to show a female figure in a battered costume hovering in the air. One video also appeared to show a flash of light shooting upward from the woman's clenched fist that looked for all the world like a lightning bolt. One witness had even claimed that she'd said her name was "Thunderbolt."
And now she was being tracked – specifically by Osprey Drone 225 – over western Montana. Visually tracked. Agent Masterson expanded one of the screens – and there she was: a small, female form racing through the air 6245 feet up. Marilyn CCed everything to Director Malcolm Meriwether. A Priority 10 response required that.
Director Meriwether was suddenly standing at her side, staring with his usual grim face down at her screen.
"Let's have a closer look at Amelia Earhart," he said.
"Yes, sir."
Agent Masterson zoomed in on the flying figure, who showed no awareness of the drone. Director Meriwether battled a powerful sense of déjà vu. But this was not the original flying woman, the now-highly classified Jamie Shepherd. This person's body was too skinny, for one thing. And the Halloween outfit...
"How fast is she traveling?" he asked.
"Roughly 215 kilometers per hour."
"Where is she headed? Anything noteworthy in her path? A parade or costume party, perhaps?"
"Her current course will take her in the vicinity of two ICBM bases, Director Meriwether." Marilyn brought up a map with a line connecting Portland and passing through Grand Forks
The Director's thin smile narrowed out of existence. He gazed at the map and th
e image of the flyer for a few moments.
"Have you detected a PLED on her?"
"No, sir."
"Get me Malmstrom Air Force Base. Colonel Brock Madden."
"Yes, sir."
Several seconds passed before a gruff voice issued from a computer speaker on Agent Masterson's desk. "Colonel Madden."
"Hello, Colonel. Malcolm Meriwether here, DHS Director of the Special Assessment Intelligence Division, National Fusion Center." He paused. "I'm calling because we're tracking something – a someone, actually – who is headed in your direction."
"Someone? I was just informed of an incoming craft that's not showing a transponder and isn't responding to communication requests. The FAA and our people aren't sure what to make of it. You're saying it's a person?"
"A person wearing a jet propulsion unit, apparently. Or..." Director Meriwether frowned. Mrs. Shepherd was definitely a need to know only item.
"Or some other form of propulsion. All we know thus far is that she's wearing a backpack and a costume disguise."
"Well, she's seventy or so miles from base restricted airspace, where interception is mandatory. FAA is talking it over as we speak. No intercept orders yet."
"That's fine. We have an Osprey tracking her. We're going to try communicating with her directly and ask her to land. If she cooperates, we'll take it from there."
"If she doesn't cooperate?"
"We'll attempt to take her down." Meriwether massaged his throat. "If she's still in flight in your intercept zone, the ball will be in your court, pending counter directives from higher up. We'll keep you apprised, Colonel."
"Fair enough, Director Meriwether. We'll keep an eye on her."
FINALLY, TILDIE thought with the biggest smile she dared, I have my silver wings! Or whatever they called the award that said you could legally fly. She was no ace by any means, but she was finished falling out of control and planting her face in the ground. She'd nursed her speed up to a few hundred miles per hour, and was hopeful to make Jamie's by late-afternoon. She'd considered calling ahead, but dropping down in her friend's front yard unannounced would be so much more fun! Jamie would be so surprised!
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