Dreadnought

by April Daniels

  A confused flight attendant with a seriously impressive black eye turns to look at me as I enter.

  “Get them out!” I say, and push past her toward the cockpit. When I yank the door open, one of the pilots looks up from examining a wound on the other’s head.

  “Is there any chance of fire?” I ask.

  “I don’t know, it depends on—Christ, you’re just a kid!”

  “What does it depend on?” I snap.

  “On fuel leaks and ignition sources. We think the starboard tanks should be empty, but who knows?”

  “Is he okay?”

  “No.”

  I nod and step in. He moves back to make room, and I undo his copilot’s seatbelt. An adult isn’t a real heavy lift for me anymore, but there’s nothing as floppy and awkward as an unconscious human body, so I have a little more trouble than I expected getting him out. Instead of taking up a spot in the line forming to jump down the yellow slide, I hop out the left side, slip back up and over the plane, and set him down on ground near where the first evacuated passengers are starting to mill around.

  “If anyone has medical training, please help the pilot here!” I shout.

  Then I dart back over to the ruined wing stub, searching the concrete around it for any signs of a leak. I don’t see any, and it doesn’t seem like anything here is sparking or glowing, either.

  With a sigh of relief that comes all the way up from the root of my spine, I step away from the plane. It’s over. Around me, passengers and flight attendants are catching people as they make the short hop out of the plane. Sirens wail as the airport’s fire company pounds down the runway toward us. I am just so freaking tired. I stick around, more out of a dazed sense that I need to be on hand if somehow something else goes wrong than any particular reason.

  Someone tugs at my cape. I turn around. It’s a kid, maybe just three or four years younger than me. “Thanks,” he says. “No prob—”

  He grabs me around the middle and hugs like he’s scared he’ll fall off. “I thought I was going to die!” he cries into my chest. Something in my side sends a spike of pain through me, but I force it down. After a moment, I hug him back, and he begins sobbing.

  I look up, and people are starting to gather around. Dozens of them. Bruised, some bleeding, a few clutching arms or limping. But alive. I saved them. I saved them all.

  Someone starts clapping and in the next instant everyone is. Some whistles and cheers and then I’m getting pounded on the back, my hair is getting rubbed.

  And crap, I start crying, too. Just little clenched lip sobs, but they’re there.

  “What’s your name?” someone shouts.

  “D—I don’t have one, yet.”

  People start shouting suggestions, and mostly they’re really stupid, but I laugh. It’s okay. Everything is okay.

  I gently peel the kid off of me and smile at him. He’s got a grin as wide as the world on his face, looks almost as happy as I feel. Everything is wonderful, and for once I am happy to be me.

  “Uh, gimme some room, I gotta take off.”

  “Don’t go!” someone shouts.

  “I have homework,” I say, and it shouldn’t be funny, but people laugh. Gently, slowly, I push myself into the air. There’s another burst of applause, and I turn and wave to them as I gain altitude, then pivot away and head for the night. I don’t feel so tired anymore. Everything is loose and airy. Bizarrely, I think about how maybe this was a little too close to caping for me to do in throwaway colors, and I consider putting some serious sonic boom distance between me and the scene. But…

  Oh, what the hell.

  I turn back, do a slow orbit of the crash scene, and when enough people are pointing up at me, I give them a fast flyby and a barrel roll. They whoop and cheer and I take off into the black.

  Chapter Twelve

  The first thing I notice when I wake up is pain, but I feel good. My side is complaining loudly, and when I feel around, I notice that my whole flank is a little swollen and there’s a spot near the bottom of my ribs that really does not like being pushed on. Purple bruises mottle the skin all up and down my side. I don’t really understand how I did what I did last night. I wish the other Dreadnoughts were here. There’s so much I need to ask them. That thing with the lattice worked, but I hurt myself. Last night made it obvious I don’t understand my limits at all, or how I can get around them. Once I’m healed up, I’m going to need to do a lot of experimenting.

  Gingerly, I get dressed—socks are fun, what with the bending over and all—but eventually I get presentable while I wait for my ancient laptop to boot up. It was a gift from Grandpa just before he died, and it will be with me as long is it functions because we’re not the kind of people who buy new computers anymore.

  Three geological eons later, I’m checking the local news. The lead story is: UNKNOWN SUPERHERO SAVES PASSENGER JET.

  Oh, so very much yes.

  There’s a photo of me hugging that kid, kinda blurry and dark with someone’s shoulder in frame, but there we are. There I am. As much as I hate that stupid cowl, I’m really glad I wore it last night. I read the story to see what they figured out after I left. Early signs are that the engine sucked in a goose, and there was some problem with it that meant it didn’t handle that kind of a situation like it was supposed to, but blew up instead. Three hundred and eleven people. That’s how many I saved. Holy crap. A few are in the hospital, but it seems like everyone is going to be okay. The wing hit a warehouse, but there wasn’t anybody working in it at the time. Damage to the runway will take time to repair. Okay, so not a ten out of ten, but holy crap, three hundred and eleven people! I’m so proud, I don’t know what to do with myself. I want to cheer, but I can’t let anyone hear me. There’s really nobody I can talk to about this, and suddenly that is the most frustrating thing in the world.

  I guess I could go talk to the Legion, but—but hey, screw the Legion! I’m still pissed off at them for what happened last time I showed up there. No, this one was mine, and even if I can’t tell anyone about it, everyone will hear about it. Then, when I’m ready, and I make my official debut as Dreadnought—

  But when did if become a when?

  Maybe I should slow down.

  No. No, today is a day for feeling amazing. I won’t do anything I can’t take back, but right now, I’m done policing my thoughts and managing my expectations. I’m freaking fantastic, and I’m going to enjoy that as long as I can. This is the best feeling ever. I want more. I never want it to stop. Someday, I’m going to save the world.

  My mood is so good, even Dad sneering at me on the way out the door when he sees me with my backpack at the breakfast table doesn’t bring me down. Mentally, I kick myself for forgetting to leave the bag upstairs until I’m ready to go.

  But all he says is, “You don’t have the sense God gave a tapeworm, letting people see you this way. It’s disgusting, parading around like that when they all know you’re really a boy.” I play it smart, though, and just stare into my cereal. “I tried to protect you,” says Dad. “Tried to keep them from knowing. Of course, you’ve always been too stupid to help.” Slow breaths. Don’t let him in. “How’d I get stuck with a retard son, anyhow?”

  Somehow I manage to get through breakfast without letting him bait me into saying something that will give him an excuse to blow up again. After I drop my bowl in the dishwasher I scoop up my bag and am out the door as quick as I can go.

  This time, I catch my bus from my regular bus stop, and a few of the other kids even say hi. More, in fact, than would say hi before I changed. Quiet joy suffuses me. Things are getting better all the time.

  • • •

  David isn’t at our normal meetup spot at the beginning of school, but that’s not unheard of. He’s not around at break either, and I get a little nervous. I hope he’s not avoiding me. Maybe he’s just absent. We don’t see each other until lunch. It’s gray and drizzling out today, and the draft near our back corner table is particularl
y strong. David’s still looking sullen when he sets his tray down, and I smother a little flare of exasperation. I’m not going to let him ruin my day, so even though I totally didn’t do anything wrong, I smile and say, “Sorry I snapped at you yesterday.”

  That brightens him a bit. “Thanks.”

  “Did you hear about that plane last night?” Lunch today is a chicken salad with shredded cheese on top. Let’s see if this leaves me hungry all day like my last school lunch did.

  “The one that crashed?”

  “The one that almost crashed,” I say, a little too quickly.

  “No, I saw the pictures, that was pretty crashed. Cool how nobody died, though.”

  “Yeah,” I say, and I can’t stop smiling. It is cool. David has been my friend since we were little kids. Maybe…maybe I can trust him. God, now that I’m having a conversation about it, it’s all I can do not to scream out loud about how I’m the one who saved them. Not yet, though. I’ve got to pick my moment. “Did you hear about the cape that caught them?”

  “I guess. Hey, do you mind if we talk about something kinda serious?”

  “No, go ahead.” Actually I sorta do, but it might be suspicious if I never shut up about the plane crash. I mean, the not-crash.

  “You know, it really upsets me how girls are always so quick to jump up and down on me.” I stop chewing for a moment, and a little choir of dread starts singing in the back of my mind. “Like how so?” I hear myself ask.

  “Like, they’re always sneering at me. It’s not fair.”

  “Yeah, uh, that…that sucks, man.” David strikes out a lot, so this isn’t the first time he’s talked about this, but it seems like I’m hearing him more clearly than I used to. I take a long sip from my cup of diet soda to cover this new disquiet. My memories of him batting off the advances from a girl named Shelly last year are still pretty vivid. She’s about as chubby as he is, so he wasn’t interested. But I don’t want another fight, so I don’t mention it.

  “Oh good, I’m glad you still understand!” he says with visible relief. Still understand, he says. This conversation feels like I’m missing some really important context. “So, I was thinking. I’ve been your friend for, like, ever. You know I’m a nice guy, but I never get a fair chance. Well, this is my chance.”

  “Your chance?” Oh no.

  “I mean, uh, you and me.” Oh no no no. “We could, you know, date now.” Oh no. Oh no. Oh no.

  No.

  After an empty moment I say, “You know I’m gay, right?”

  “So that works then!”

  “Um, no?”

  But he doesn’t even hear me, just talks right through me. “I’ve been lonely a long time. I guess I’m ready to settle.” He says this like he’s making an intimate, painful, and somehow brave confession. There’s a seriousness in his face that is begging me to be impressed.

  “Ready to settle?” Oh, how big of him. He’s willing to settle. For the most beautiful girl in school who, OH YEAH, HAS FREAKING SUPERPOWERS.

  “Well, what I mean is it’s not ideal, I guess,” says David quickly, perhaps dimly sensing danger. Oh, this should be good. “Like, it might be awkward at first, but we could make this work. I mean, you look good enough that I don’t even really care that you’re kind of a dude inside.”

  For a long stretch, I don’t know what to say. It feels like my mind is struggling to make some adjustment that will bring this into focus and explain why my best friend is suddenly treating me like I’m his to take, treating me like his terms are the only ones that matter.

  I set down my fork. “I am not, and I never have been, a ‘dude inside.’ And just so you know, this”—and I flick my finger back and forth between us—“is never going to happen.”

  “Oh come on, gimme a chance!”

  “I don’t like boys, any boys. If I did like boys, I wouldn’t like boys who talk to me like you just did.”

  “This is unbelievable,” he mutters, and I don’t know why, but that sets me off more than anything else he’s said so far.

  “Get up and walk away right now,” I snarl. “Stay away, and maybe I won’t tell everybody about that birthmark you showed me when we were eight.”

  “Whoa!” His eyes are wide with shock. He leans in and whispers, his voice tight with fury, “That’s not cool!”

  “Try me. See what happens.”

  David gets up and leaves, but as he goes, he says things to me that make me understand we will never be friends again. Not because I wouldn’t forgive him; because he will always be too proud to let himself be forgiven.

  Chapter Thirteen

  My final period is study hall, but I sign out from the classroom to take it in the library instead and then leave school early. It will probably get caught and counted as an absence, and there’s a real chance I’ll catch Saturday school for this, but I don’t have much of a choice.

  My supersuit is banged up from last night, mostly in the boots, which were almost scraped apart against the airport tarmac, and I need to see about getting some repairs. The heels are barely hanging on, and the soles have been rubbed away so much they look like sediment layers in rock formations. New ones might be pretty expensive, so my first crack at replacing them is going to see if I can get more from the Legion.

  The problem is that I’m grounded more or less forever now, so if I’m going to be somewhere that’s not school or home I have to do it in a way that my parents won’t hear about it. Flying makes that easier, but I still want to finish this up before they expect me home.

  I get lucky with a city bus and manage to get home in just a few minutes. After taking a quick look around to make sure nobody is nearby, I risk a super-speed dash down the alley and fly up to my bedroom window. Just a minute or two later, I’ve got the suit on and am leaving, going straight up just under the speed of sound. Today’s drizzle, when encountered at such a speed, is like getting hit in the face with thousands of tiny grains of sand. Not painful, but annoying, so I get up over the cloud layer as quickly as possible. One nice thing I’m discovering about New Port is that it’s always a beautiful day if you go high enough, and the clouds are usually nice and low. I nose over and boost for Legion Tower at a shade under 750 miles an hour, making the five-mile trip in a bit under thirty seconds.

  Legion Tower has spotlights walking back and forth across the sky from its apex twenty-four hours a day, every day. From above, I realize that’s so flying heroes can find it even when the clouds are thick over the city. When I see the spotlights tracing figure eights through the gauzy mist, I slow down and drop back down below the clouds to make my final approach. The art deco arches and gleaming metal lines of Legion Tower seem somehow less stern and imposing during the drab wet twilight. When I bank around and come at the landing balcony at a slow and easy glide, I get one of those moments of surreality that keep popping up. I’m dropping in unannounced on the Legion Pacifica, and that doesn’t seem completely insane to me anymore.

  When I set down I try not to be too obvious that my side is still tender and painful. Even though most of the other pains vanished as little more than a bit of morning stiffness, I still don’t have full range of motion back. But, you know, I look real good for someone who had an airliner dropped on her.

  The thick glass doors open as I approach, and an elevator is waiting for me. As I step inside, an intercom clicks on. It’s Doc Impossible.

  “Hi, Danny. We’re on the common level—that’s 37. Come on down.”

  “Um, when you say ‘we,’ who are you referring to?” No freaking way I’m going to talk to Graywytch today. Or hopefully ever again. In fact, maybe I can get replacement boots somewhere else.

  “Me and Valkyrja,” she says.

  I hit the button for 37 so fast that if I were baseline I’d have broken my finger.

  The elevator opens on the same floor where the disastrous meeting happened, what, only three days ago? But instead of heading left to the main briefing room with its giant floating globe and walls
dominated by 3D projection screens, I head down the hall to the right, where I find an impressive kitchen, dining room, and a few different lounges. The countertops are thick slabs of polished granite, there’s soft track lighting everywhere, and those same floor-to-ceiling windows offer an amazing view of downtown.

  Doc Impossible and Valkyrja are seated on stools at a little island counter in the kitchen. Impossible has an ashtray she’s working on filling between drinks from a black ceramic mug. Valkyrja isn’t wearing her armor, which I guess makes sense around the house, but it still seems weird to see her in nothing more than a simple wool tunic and some leather breeches. The wings she keeps tightly folded against her back are a little trippy, too.

  “’Sup, Danny?” says Doc Impossible.

  “Well met, young champion,” says Valkyrja.

  “Uh, hi,” I say, and then pull my cowl back because it feels indescribably weird to be having a conversation with people who know my real name while I wear a mask.

  “You want some cocoa? Mugs are over there.” Doc Impossible gestures to some cabinets along the kitchen wall. I fill one from a hot chocolate and cappuccino dispenser, and then I’m sitting and having hot chocolate with a pair of friggin’ superheroes like it’s something I do all the time.

  “That was superb work with the jet, by the way,” says Doc Impossible.

  Valkyrja nods. “A mighty feat.”

  People don’t pop from pride, which is the only reason why I don’t. My cheeks are blushing so hard I imagine I can feel the blood in them, and I hide my enormous grin behind a sip of cocoa. The boots don’t matter. The boots aren’t why I’m here. Nobody else in the world can understand what I did last night, or how I feel about it, and I suddenly understand how desperately I need to talk about this. There’s just so much here, so many feelings to untangle that I can’t process it alone. “Thanks. You, uh, you’re not mad I did it in throwaway colors?”