by R. J. Ross
"I--I appreciate that, but your safety is more important--"
"Not to me, it's not," I say bluntly. I look around, then head for a sewer lid, standing on top of it. For a moment it rattles as I try to control it, almost throwing me off before it takes to the air. "I'll find her," I say to Summer, working on keeping my balance. It's not as easy as it looks on cartoons, okay? But I can do it, and that's the important part. I take off, heading upwards before she can think of a reply.
Looks like I can fly, after all. Er, sort of--if I can dodge that building in front of me...
***
Aubrey jerks away from the woman as soon as she can, but it's too late. They're in a room that she doesn't recognize. It's damp and cold here, with the sound of water dripping coming from somewhere in the distance. A beeping sound attracts her attention, but she ignores it, staring at the woman who had just kidnapped her.
"What do you want from me?" Aubrey demands, her hands in fists at her sides.
"Please, little girl, relax," the woman says. "My name is Star, I'm just another super, like yourself. In fact I think we might have a lot more in common than you think." She takes a step forward and Aubrey automatically takes a step back, bumping into something. She glances back as the cold metal hits the small of her back, then finds herself staring at the man on the the hospital bed. He looks exactly like Nico.
"He's dying," Star says, jerking her back to the fact that the woman is still there. "He needs your help, Aubrey. No one else can do it. I've done as much as I possibly can, but I'm not a healer. At least, not like you are."
"Who is he?" Aubrey asks. No, she thinks sharply, she's getting dragged into something dangerous. She's been kidnapped, again. The last time she was kidnapped she wound up in the zoo. She looks around as casually as she can, seeing a flight of stairs to the right. That looks to be the only exit, and she's not sure she can outrun a woman that can teleport.
"His name is Distort," Star says, moving to the side. She's now standing between Aubrey and the stairs. "He's my partner. He's a very, very important super, Aubrey. If you were to save his life, you would be saving the lives of millions of others."
It sounds like a lie, but with Star blocking her from the only exit, she's got little choice. If she goes along with this Star might lower her guard. Plus, she thinks as she steps closer to the man, his face is so much like Nico's that it's almost personal. She's spent so many evenings next to Nico, talking with him, even joking with him as they worked to heal others. Her hand unconsciously reaches out, touching Distort's hand.
The world seems to drop out from under her, leaving her floating in an empty, strangely colored room. Star is no longer anywhere to be seen, only a silver fog that wraps around her body, then slides away. "Hello?" Aubrey ventures out. This has never happened to her before. It's terrifying.
"You shouldn't be here," a voice says from the fog.
"I'm here to help... I think," Aubrey says. It's cold here. Far colder than the room she had just been standing in. "I have to help. I've been kidnapped for it. Maybe--maybe if I help I can leave."
The fog is twisting, solidifying in front of her, and she stares in shock as it forms into a man. She knows who this is, she thinks. Everybody knows who this is.
"You shouldn't be here, little girl," Superior says.
CHAPTER EIGHT
*Twenty Years Ago*
For a long moment Sarah just stares at the screen of her computer, trying to register the type on the screen. "It's not possible," Sarah Born says after a long moment, shoving her rickety computer chair away from the desk and turning to stare at the scientific tools that spread out on tables behind her. "I can't believe--"
She stops as she hears the door open, looking over with a feeling of dread building in her stomach. "Mister Kunnins," she says, getting to her feet. "I'm still in the initial phases of the experiment--"
"It's been two years, Ms. Born," Kunnins says, walking through her workspace with a look of irritation. "You've spent thousands on this secret project of yours and you have failed to fix the common cold, much less improve the genetics of our troops."
"Science this complex takes time, sir," she says, feeling her hands grow clammy. At first she had thought he was the government, thought that she was helping the country, but by the second month she had learned better. This has nothing to do with America, and everything to do with a secret underground group, a very paranoid secret underground group.
"We don't have time," Kunnins says bluntly. "Every day you waste is another day that we might be found out. Do you understand why that's such a bad thing, Ms. Born?" he demands.
"Found out by who?" she asks. "Who are you so intent on fighting, Mr. Kunnins? To the point where you're willing to use experimental, untested drugs on your own people?"
He seems taken aback at that question. "I have no idea what you're talking about."
"My experiment," she says. "I was going to test it on the rats, only to find THIS on the internet this morning," she snaps, pointing at the picture on her computer screen. A man in the picture is going berserk in the image, with a car held over his head and several citizens trying to run away from him. "I saw this and realized that two of my tubes are missing, Mr. Kunnins, and regardless of how many there are, I still know exactly which ones are which. You, or one of your friends, stole one of them and experimented on that poor man! And probably someone else!"
"We pay you to do science, not act as our conscience," he snaps. Just as she's about to yell back at him the lab goes dark, her computer shutting off instantly, before a flashing red light fills the room. A high pitched, ear straining alarm starts to sound.
"We will continue this discussion later!" he bellows before rushing out of the room. She races to the door after him, grabbing the handle only to find it locked.
"LET ME OUT!" she bellows, yanking as hard as she can on the handle. She knows they can hear her, she can hear them racing down the hall in heavy boots, shouting that it's an attack--they've been found--they're going to die.
Her face turns white as she hears a loud explosion outside. She can only assume that it's the sound of another building being attacked. Kunnins has just left her to die, she realizes as she rushes to the window. She grabs the window lock, trying to budge it. She can't. She's trying with all of her might but it won't move--if anything, she realizes, looking at it more closely, it's not even a real lock. The window was built never to open. She looks at the heavy metal bars crossing vertically over the glass and realizes just how caged she really is. Even if she breaks the glass, there's no way she can slide through the narrow gaps between the metal. Not as she is.
Desperation kicks in. For two years she's been used by these people, never learning why they wanted her to do what she was doing, keeping her on their base, never letting her leave. Now she's just expected to sit here and die for them? No way. She runs to the huge rack of test tubes, sorting through them with shaking hands.
If she's going to die, she thinks, she wants to die knowing that she tried. Her hand stops over a particular tube, her eyes widening for a moment as she hesitates, then she grabs it, uncapping it with an almost savage motion and setting up the syringe. She slips the needle in and closes her eyes.
She's going to die, she thinks as she pushes the last of the liquid into her vein. And it'll be her own doing--
The window shatters, making her look up as a large man slams into the metal bars, bending them with the force of his hit. His hand grabs one of the bent bars and pulls, tearing it apart like it's aluminum foil. Soon the window is open and a very familiar cape flutters in the wind behind the man floating outside her window.
"Sup--" Sarah starts out, her heart trying to bound in her chest. She's saved--
But it's too late. Her body starts to get hotter and hotter.
Then she explodes.
***
Drifting. It's an eerie feeling. For a moment she swears she's dead, and that this is some sort of limbo where she's waiting for her fi
nal destination to be determined. But she doesn't believe in life after death, so who's going to decide for her, if there's no one here? What if the preachers on the TV weren't lying? Is she going to--
Something bumps into her arm and she jerks, looking over. For a moment she doesn't know what she's looking at. It looks sort of like a... boot. She stares at it, then when nothing happens, reaches up and pokes it. The foot moves away with that tiny touch, the body it's connected to turning slowly in the air.
"Superior?" she says as his head comes into view. She grabs onto his arm, tugging him closer. His eyes are closed, he's barely breathing, and something looks different. His hair, she thinks as she reaches up, touching it. It's white, now. It was pitch black before. Her hand trembles as it comes down, touching his neck and searching for a pulse. It's hard to find, his neck is so thick with muscle, but she manages to, finally.
Lub...
She counts, one Mississippi, two Mississippi, three--
Dub.
How did this happen? She looks around, taking in what else is in this vast space of nothing. Test tubes, pieces of glass that glint with light as her eyes fall on them, drops of liquid floating in small balls all around them. The remains of her experiments. So she exploded, she thinks, and now she, Superior, and what's left of her lab are floating in a small bubble somewhere in what looks like space. So not only had she exploded, she had somehow sent them both off of the planet. Right?
She looks closely at the wall of the bubble, trying to see through it. Yeah, this is space. Her explosion had sent them into space. She tightens her hold on the large man that's barely alive, and wonders just how long the oxygen in this bubble will last.
Will she die here, with an almost dead superhero as her only companion? The very thought makes her want to cry. "Superior," she says, shaking him, "Superior, you need to wake up."
Lub...
Maybe if she can finish him off, she thinks in an almost hysterical manner, she'll have more oxygen. With more oxygen she'll have longer, with more time she'll be able to come up with a way out--
He's warm, she thinks, moving closer. The bubble seems to grow colder by the second. If she kills him, not only will she be all alone, she'll be all alone with a corpse. The very thought makes her feel sick to her stomach. "Don't die," she says through tears. "I'll fix you." She feels her heart pound as she sees a scalpel float past. "I'll fix you," she repeats, intently. She reaches out, grabbing it before wiping away her tears.
Then she goes to work finding out what damage her explosion had done to the greatest hero in the world.
***
*Present Day*
If it were for any other reason I would be really stoked right now, I think as I let the sewer lid hit the concrete and step off. Every single person on the street turns to stare at me. That's pretty awesome, right? Not to mention, air boarding? My new favorite pastime. But this isn't the time to be excited, not when my girlfriend is missing.
I should have changed, I think belatedly. My clothing is torn up thanks to the dogs and the fight with Trent, and my metal skin is showing through. Problem is there's just no time for that, so I've got to ignore it. I head for one of the bums standing on the corner with a piece of cardboard in his hands.
"Hey," I say.
"What you want?" he asks. There's not much fear in his eyes, more like a dull expression of apathy.
"I'm looking for a woman with glowing eyes. She's tall, skinny, has seriously tall high heels," I say.
"Never seen her," he says, turning away.
I look at the rest of the people, the ones that are trying to find a way out of my vision without catching my attention. It's not the best street, but it's not the true slums, either. I ignore the ones that look like they're just passing through and head for a small group of teenagers sitting on the steps of an old building.
"What are you, some sort of super?" one of the guys asks.
"Yeah," I say.
"We don't need you," another says.
"I don't care," I say bluntly. "Have any of you seen a tall, skinny woman with brown hair, glowing eyes and really high heels? She might have given you a card--"
One of the rougher looking guys in the group looks at me, hesitating. He looks like the type I would have gotten into a fight with back in the day. "What do you want with her?" he asks.
"She's got my friend," I say.
He moves, digging a hand into his pocket. For a moment I move to the defense, expecting him to come out with a blade, but when he pulls out his wallet I relax. He flips through it, stopping on one, then pulls out a card. "This?" he says, holding it out to me.
"Yeah," I say, taking it. I turn it so the writing shows. "When did you get this?" I ask.
"About a week ago," he says. "Did she make you like that?"
"She almost killed me, trying to make me like this," I say. "It's the capes that made it so I didn't die. You don't want this back, trust me," I add, pocketing the card.
"Yeah, but you're a super, now, right?" the first kid says. "It'd be awesome--"
I look at him, just staring him straight in the eye. When he can't meet my eyes I walk away, stepping onto my sewer lid and taking to the air again, still a bit shakily. I pull out my cell phone, bringing up Nico's number and calling him. "I got an idea where they are," I say.
"Jack--"
"I know, okay? Star Born's got Aubrey. So I'm going to get her back."
"Fine. This isn't the time to argue. What's the address?"
***
"So--so you're Superior?" Aubrey asks. "How? He's dead!"
"I should be," Superior says. "My soul is stuck here, the rest of me is running on fumes, or something. I'm not even sure, myself," he admits. "And I'm not sure how you got pulled in. Who are you, girl?"
"My name is Aubrey Shetler," she says. "I'm a healer. But I don't know how I got dragged into here, either," she admits as she looks around. "Maybe... maybe I can get you out."
He hesitates. "I should be dead, you said it, yourself--"
"I'm supposed to keep it a secret in school, but I know your son," she says, making him stop. "In fact, I'm staying with your daughter. They're very nice people. And I'm going to school with your grandkids. Zoe and Sunny. Zoe's like her dad, she can control machines."
He's silent, so she looks back at him. "Don't you want to meet your family?" she asks, her hand still held out to the fog.
"I see," he says, more to himself than to her. "Nico... how do you know him?"
"He's the school principal," she says, grinning. "He's a genius. They say he was a super villain for a long time before he was thrown into the cape cells. I'm not sure I believe it, though," she admits. "We've spent a lot of time together, he takes me to the Hall to help heal people."
"So he's no longer a super villain?"
"Of course he's not!" she says.
"That's good to hear. I was worried I would have to take him out. It might have been a problem."
The sentence is so emotionless that Aubrey stares at him, her heart seeming to jerk in response to it. This man...
Is he really the same Superior that so many movies have been made about? He seems so... cold. Like the idea of having to fight his own son is more of an inconvenience than a prospective tragedy. But Superior--Superior was the perfect hero! The good guy that always saved the weak and helpless, that went above and beyond to do what was right--
And his son had been a super villain, a little voice whispered in her mind. How could he not be devastated by that fact? It was confusing to her, so confusing that it takes a moment for her to realize what's happening at her fingertips. A crack of light has appeared while she was thinking, and is now growing wider by the second. "It's an exit!" she says, turning to look at Superior--
Except there's two of them now. She stares in horror as Superior holds a second version of himself up by the throat. "I see now. But you are no longer needed," he says to the second one--
"NO!" Aubrey shouts, reaching forward as he kills
his other self with his bare hands, tears starting to fall at the cold-blooded murder. The world seems to distort all around her, and she finds herself back in her body, trembling with shock as she jerks her hand away from the man still lying on the hospital bed.
"What happened? Is he healed?" Star demands as she sees Aubrey's eyes open.
"He--" Aubrey whispers, staring blindly at the still unconscious man. "He killed him."
"Killed who? What happened? Where were you?" Star demands, shaking her. "Is Distort healed?"
"He killed him," Aubrey repeats, jerking free of the hold she's got. "He KILLED HIM!" she bellows, stepping back once, twice. "You never said that there were two of them! YOU HAD ME HELP KILL SOMEONE!" She's panicking and raging all at the same time. Her hair starts to float and she can feel her abilities start to overwhelm her. Her body is trembling, and her feet move slightly as she realizes that she's no longer touching the floor.
Star is just staring at her, a look of confusion on her face. "He's not dead--" she starts out.
The room is starting to shake. It's like a dam has broken, and something is pouring out of her, something she can't control, Aubrey realizes--
Glass shatters and all the metal around her starts shaking before the metal door tears away from the hinges. "GIVE ME BACK MY GIRLFRIEND!" the bellow makes Aubrey's powers hesitate, but it's not enough to make them stop. All she can do is feel helpless as her powers threaten to overtake her, filling the room with an eerie white glow. She feels her hand come up, pointing at Star Born.
"You--" Star says, completely oblivious to what Aubrey is doing. "You survived?" she asks Jack. Before he can reply, though, Star jerks and looks behind him before stepping back and touching Superior's body.
The room grows burning hot and a portal opens behind her, then closes around her and the unconscious man, leaving Jack racing to Aubrey. "Aubrey! Aubrey, what in the heck are you doing?"