Santo grunted and turned sideways – it was the only means for him to fit through the door without scraping it. Vic checked the outside to make sure the knocks hadn’t left a dent, then closed it behind him.
“Welcome home,” he said as he turned to face Santo again. The mutant seemed to fill the cramped room as he looked around, neck joints grinding slightly.
“Like what you’ve done with the place,” he said in his grumbling, monotone voice. “Feels smaller though.”
“I’ve spread out since you left,” Vic joked, planting a foot on the end of the concrete slab that had once constituted Santo’s bed. After he’d moved out Vic had started using the block as an extra book stand, the once-orderly stacks having long since degenerated to a jumbled mound. He shoved some aside so Santo could sit on the edge.
“Total Combat?” Rockslide wondered as he lowered himself down with a scrape. Vic hopped back onto his beanbag, legs crossed, and tossed him the secondary controller.
“You still remember how to play?” he asked with the slightest hint of a smirk.
“I still remember how to beat Boss Red,” Santo replied. “Which looks to be more than you can claim.”
“We’ll see,” Vic shot back and un-paused the game.
No further greeting was necessary. This was how the two of them had always been, after a little over two years sharing a dorm at the Institute. Vic would be angry after a botched stage rehearsal, or pining over a boy, or stressed from exams, or just missing home. Santo would always be there, watching TV for hours on end, acting as disinterested as an enduring mountaintop. They’d play Xbox in silence, and eventually Vic would open up, often all in a rush. Santo would let him vent, saying little, absorbing the heat of Vic’s emotions.
Today it took a little longer than usual.
“I didn’t know you were still around,” Vic said as Boss Red hit the deck and blinked off the screen. “Thought maybe you’d already been assigned to one of the teams.”
“You think I would leave without visiting?” Santo replied.
“Is that what this is?”
“No. I’m still waiting on my placement.”
Vic lapsed back into silence as he skipped through the intro to level eight. Santo had graduated out of the Institute last semester. He’d been away on a couple of missions, he’d even been given staff accommodation while he was staying at the school, but he hadn’t yet received a solo assignment. In all honesty, no matter how happy he was for him, Vic didn’t look forward to the day Rockslide was gone for good. He’d hoped to get out in the field not long after him, but after bombing his test all his plans were up in the air.
“What was it like working with Ms Frost and the others out there?” he asked as a swarm of street goons assailed their characters on screen. He’d already heard all the stories – he’d been the first to ask about them – but he wanted a diversion. Level eight was too easy anyway.
Santo repeated the encounters of the last few months. The Hellions, most of them recent graduates, had been tracking down a global arms-smuggling ring that appeared to be in the thrall of an as-yet-unidentified mutant. No leads yet, but a lot of scrapes and close calls. Santo’s geokinetic powers had already saved lives. Vic pretended not to be a bit jealous.
Level nine in no time at all. He was in the process of resurrecting Santo’s avatar when he said it.
“I left the exam early today.”
He hadn’t really meant to speak, but it was out now. Already, it felt a bit better.
“I heard,” was all Santo said, immediately attacking the cyber-hounds closing in on screen. Even after all this time, seeing him working the controller in his huge, gritty paws was faintly amusing.
“Did Ci and Gray tell you?” Vic asked.
“One of them,” Santo responded, not taking his eyes off the display.
“They were planning a trip this summer,” Vic admitted. “The three of us. I think I might have ruined it for them.”
“You always do better than you think you will,” Santo said without emotion. “It’s annoying.”
“Well, no one likes a bragger,” Vic said with a small smile, his avatar dashing in to save Santo from the pixelated mechanical dogs.
“Why’d you leave?” Santo asked. Vic didn’t reply immediately, grimacing as he battled through the right button combo to deactivate the hounds. He thought about lying, about saying it was just that the exam had been too difficult, but he knew Santo wouldn’t buy it. Besides, his roommate hadn’t come back to judge. That was why Vic felt comfortable telling him.
“There was a news report during the break. They were at one of the Purifier rallies. Prophet Xodus and his lunatics.”
“They’ve been on the news a lot,” Santo said levelly.
“Why does nobody stop them? The police, the authorities? They’re totally out of control!”
“There’s work being done. Part of the reason the Hellions have been struggling to trace this arms dealer is because everyone’s focused on containing the Purifiers. Mutants are being attacked everywhere. It’s like a sport to them.”
“Someone needs to strike back.”
For the first time since entering the dorm, Santo glanced at Vic.
“Someone will, when the time is right,” he said.
“And when is that going to be? When they’re burning mutants at the stake?”
Santo looked back at the screen, saying nothing. Level nine completed. One more to go.
“It reminded me of home,” Vic went on as he skipped through the intro. “Growing up, there was only really one guy I knew who openly talked about not wanting me in Fairbury. He tried to get others to back him up, but he couldn’t. And now that I look back, I see how rare that was. How eager people usually are to fall into line against anything they think is out of the ordinary.”
“People are easily led,” Santo said. Vic shook his head. The final level. The infamous Mechanoidian big boss rose from its scrap pit, its combat klaxon blaring over the speakers.
“I don’t believe most people are like that,” he said. “Maybe a lot find it easier to go whichever way the wind blows. But there are good people too. Plenty of them.”
“And good things happen to good people,” Santo said as he charged right into the Mechanoidian, raining blows on its rusty shell.
Vic wondered about that. It was true that he’d always believed goodness won out. Where it was contested, where it was challenged, it would endure and shine through. Wasn’t that the whole point of him being here? The purpose behind the New Charles Xavier School, the “Institute,” the reason he was striving to become an X-Man? The belief that good was a tangible force on the world, and that it needed to be championed and elevated? That was what his parents had always taught him.
Good certainly wasn’t winning in Total Combat though. Santo’s avatar was down, pulverized by a sweep of the Mechanoidian’s annihilation drill. Vic rushed to resurrect him while trying to fight off a respawned wave of the Demented, the Mechanoidian’s cyber-implanted mind-slaves. He wrestled with the controller, his jaw clenched. Use the immobilize ability on the horde, cycle up the resurrection orb, dodge the annihilation drill and–
Too late. Crunch! The Mechanoidian struck home with a nasty burst of SFX. His avatar was flattened, and the screen turned a gory red.
GAME OVER.
Vic dropped the controller onto his beanbag and leant back against the edge of his bed with an exasperated hiss. Thirteen year-old him would have been less than impressed, not managing to dodge the drill like that. He was getting slow.
“You finishing this?” Santo asked.
Vic looked over and saw him holding up the half-eaten bowl of pasta he’d made earlier. He shook his head.
Santo began to dig in, fork held daintily between forefinger and thumb as Vic got up and switched off the Xbox. The screen switched to the re
gular TV setting, and Santo began cycling through the channels until he alighted on reruns of The Million Dollar Question. That would be him now, Vic knew, set in place for much of the rest of the night. Snacks and TV, the big guy’s two favorite pastimes.
“I’m going to visit home,” Vic said, sitting on the edge of his bed and looking at Rockslide.
“When?” the stony giant asked between mouthfuls, eyes still fixed on the gameshow.
“Like, tomorrow.”
“Isn’t it still the middle of exams?”
“Yeah. I don’t care. This place isn’t a prison, even if sometimes it feels like one and it always really, really looks like one.”
Santo just grunted.
“I miss my family,” Vic admitted. “And I can’t stand staying buried here while everything seems to be going to hell in the real world. I haven’t visited home since I moved out. I don’t speak to my mom and dad as much as I should. I’ve started to realize recently what they went through when I was a kid. What they protected me from. Abandoning them to play super hero isn’t right.”
“You just want to go to that café you always talk about,” Santo said.
Vic blinked. “Do I really talk about Roundaway’s that much?” he asked, genuinely surprised.
“You said you miss it the way most students miss their dog while they’re at college.”
“That does sound like something I’d say,” Vic shrugged. “Yes, Rocky, you’ve unmasked my entire scheme. I’m going to swap exam success and friend satisfaction for Miss Trimble’s affogato with extra ice cream. You should tell the Hellions. They can come visit too.”
Santo made a deep, rumbling sound that Vic recognized as laughter. He couldn’t help but smile back. He hadn’t heard that for a little while.
“Not going to try anything stupid, are you?” Santo asked, glancing over and catching his eye. “Like going after the Purifiers? Because that would be seriously stupid.”
“I won’t,” Vic said earnestly. “The last thing I want is to bring trouble to Fairbury. Just a quiet week at home, catching up, chilling. I need it. I need some sun too. I’m a damn lizard!”
He flicked his tongue out for effect, dredging another sonorous chuckle from Santo.
“I’ll tell Cyclops tomorrow morning,” he went on. “Maybe he’ll grant me an exam extension. Special circumstances.”
“I’ll be your reference if you need one,” Santo said. “I’ll make sure they know all the gory details about your Roundaway’s coffee withdrawals. How you’ve started eating coffee beans raw and how you can’t sleep at night without your fix.”
“I’d expect nothing else from the best roommate in the Institute,” Vic grinned. “Thanks, Santo.”
Chapter Four
There was a hand on his shoulder, gripping him roughly.
Vic started awake. He twisted in his seat and found himself face-to-face with a stubbly, pox-scarred visage surmounted by a white-and-blue cap.
“You going to Fairbury, kid?” the man asked. His breath stank of tobacco and his uniform of axle grease.
“Yeah,” Vic responded, trying not to act flustered as he realized the bus had come to a stop. The engine was grumbling, and people were shuffling past him with cases and backpacks. His hood had fallen down while he’d been asleep. He tugged it up reflexively.
“Well this is it,” the driver said, turning back to his seat. Vic stood up and snatched his bag. He didn’t remember nodding off. At the start of the two-day journey from southern Alberta to Illinois he’d been on edge, constantly alert for trouble. He’d seen the dirty looks some people had given him. Worse were the worried ones – he hated the idea that someone might be afraid of him without even knowing him, that they might expect trouble just from the fact that they were sharing a bus with him. No one had sat next to him in the twenty-three hours he’d been travelling, whether on the big cross-border transports or on the local commuter one he’d caught out from St Louis. He was surprised the driver had even woken him up.
He thanked the man as he passed him and stepped down into the sunlight. The familiar sight of West Street awaited him, rows of squat, red-brick buildings cooking off in the July sun. An optician’s, a sweet shop, a Mexican restaurant, the Wayne County Press office, rows of small businesses that looked completely unchanged since Vic had last seen them. Across from the bus stop, dusty vehicles idled in rows at a gas station, while just past the next junction a truck driver was helping to unload apple crates into the back of Hassler’s grocery store. A dog barked excitedly at him from outside a nearby dry cleaners, quickly shushed by its owner. Small-town Illinois, apparently just as he’d left it.
He slung his backpack over his shoulders and turned right. He could feel the stares of a few of the people waiting in line at the bus stop as he passed them. He ignored them, and others nearby, right up until a woman climbing into a car parked by the road called out to him.
“Hello, Victor! Good to have you back!”
He glanced back and was surprised to spot his former high school geography teacher smiling at him. She was carrying a laundry bag in both hands, still dressed as prim and proper as she had been when she’d been educating him about glacial erosion and the National Parks or welcoming his mother and father over for Sunday lunch.
“Hello, Mrs Templeton,” he managed to call back to her just before she boarded the bus.
The encounter, however brief, left him smiling as he walked along East Locust Street. The sun was beating down, and the town was as busy as Vic had remembered it ever being on a Saturday afternoon. Familiar faces were everywhere. Most smiled and nodded, and he quickly grew accustomed to looks of surprise and recognition, repeated a dozen times.
A few didn’t smile. They turned quickly away when they saw him. One, Tony the gym owner, offered him a tight smile then hurried across the street, his baseball cap pulled low. Vic tried to ignore that, tried not to let it sting.
He’d expected it. All the way down from the Institute he’d seen the influence of the Purifiers in more than just a few ugly looks. Their cross-and-circle symbol was everywhere. From the bus window he’d spotted it daubed in white paint at shelters, and sprayed onto the doors and the walls of derelict houses. He’d seen burnt-out vehicles marked with it, abandoned at the side of the road. Even out here in the country, passing through rolling fields of corn and hay, he’d spotted wooden crosses erected in pastures and at lonely road junctions. Every time he’d seen them, he’d felt a little angrier, and little more uncertain. He had started to wonder just what sort of home he was coming back to.
He turned off North 7th Street and took East Hickory Street to 10th Street, passing the small baseball park where he’d played as a kid. There was a class out, clustered around a coach he didn’t recognize. He wondered what had happened to Coach Martin. How long had it been since he’d played Little League? Five years? Six? He followed the road on round the Indian Creek pond, then took the track north. The stores and diners that constituted Fairbury’s center had rapidly given way to individual houses, small, white-painted timber structures with big yards in front and fields out back. The dwellings in turn became sparser, the fields larger, ripe with the oncoming harvest, spread out gold and green beneath a cloudless sky.
He followed the track as it meandered north-east, stepping onto the verge a couple of times to let several trucks clatter past. A forest stood off to his left, its dark, shaded boughs looking cool in the sun. The track split, one trunk turning off in amongst the trees. The last turn before home.
He’d phoned ahead the day he’d left the Institute to tell his parents he was coming. They’d been surprised. Wasn’t it the middle of exam season? Was everything all right? He’d assured them that he’d been given a week’s leave of absence by Mr Summers. He just needed a break. Cyclops had been understanding. He’d admitted to Vic that the Institute was considering curtailing the exams anyway. The growing
violence was unsettling everyone. He wasn’t the first to have been granted leave to be with friends and family. There were several crisis meetings with the Institute’s staff scheduled.
Vic was just glad to be away from it all. The place had gotten claustrophobic, even more so than its usual, literal sense. The longed-for summer was slipping away while he was buried underground, stressing out over textbooks and the news. He needed out.
•••
He’d had to work hard to convince his parents not to take time off from work to welcome him home. He wasn’t sure he was ready for that sort of fuss, and besides, it would have been short notice. Dad was at the store overseeing the launch of a new smart TV while Mom was doing a grocery run for Mrs Keller. They’d left the key in the usual spot.
He could see his house through the trees now, one of a short row of nine homes set back along the leafy lane. It stood two stories tall, heavy brown timber walls and ochre roof tiles, as stout and unchanged as the day he’d left. He stopped at the wrought iron gate leading into the front yard, taking it in. The sun gleamed back from the upper windows facing him, the air heavy with the scents of the hostas and lavender that lined the path to the front porch. The trees rustled softly, adding a gentle undercurrent to the distant chatter of a woodpecker at work somewhere in the forest behind the house. It was a world removed from the bleak concrete, chilly corridors and harsh lights of the Institute. Vic breathed in, slowly, savoring it, before opening the gate and walking up to the front porch.
He paused just in front of it. The key should be in a crack under one of the floorboards. As he hesitated over which one it was, a scent reached him.
Meat. Cooking meat. He inhaled again and decided it couldn’t be coming from the house. The windows were closed and shuttered from the inside, and his parents wouldn’t be home for hours.
He glanced left and right, seeing no sign of activity at either Mr and Mrs Wilson’s or Mr McTeal’s – the neighboring houses were as quiet and tranquil as the Borkowski residence. Mystified, he stepped past the porch and walked around the side of the house, his senses on edge.
First Team Page 3