Heroine Addiction

by Matarese, Jennifer

  Inside, the Fairness Brigade sits around a long meeting table, their collective gazes focused on the round serious face of the woman talking to them over an enormous flatscreen. Dolores Downes runs the Superhero Licensing Bureau, every invasive arm of the damn thing, from the original organization which licenses and insures superheroes against lawsuits and medical bills to the registered seamstresses who make our costumes. She's also my godmother. She's not reliable when it comes to birthday cards or Christmas presents, but if I ever want to have tea with the President in the Oval Office, she's an even better access point than either one of my parents.

  I recognize all of my former teammates around the table, the past five years apparently thin on the ground when it comes to new recruits, presumably due to the Brigade's remarkably stringent standards. If you can't plug a supervolcano, organize a rioting crowd, and perform intergalactic glad-handing with the three-headed ambassador from New Atlantica, possibly all at the same time, the Brigade doesn't have much use for you.

  Most of the members appear to be paying rapt attention, including my parents. Everett Noble sits near the front, Mom in the chair next to him holding his hand, her fingers threaded through his. His uneven smile rings a little too smug, even for Dad. My mom's mouth is set in a tight frown, and if I had to place bets I'd wager she's pulling away from the man wearing my father, shooting him the occasional veiled heat that no one else in the room appears to recognize for what it is.

  The rest don't notice me, too busy with the web meeting in progress. Loose Screw staves off boredom wiggling his fingers at his cellphone, disassembling the pieces and weaving them back together again with a thought. The Muse absently sketches another superhero into existence in yet another of the hardcover unlined journals she fills and hoards in her office for future use, the pictures ready to be coerced from the paper and hauled into the real world for one brief display of power. On the opposite side of the table from my parents, Shadow speaks to Dolores in her low lyrical voice, giving her account of the robot invasion, her enveloping cowl pulled away and replaced by the hijab she wears during her off hours.

  Graham sits at the end of the table, presumably called in for overtime, his boots propped up on the corner of the table as he nurses a large glass of Mountain Dew.

  I wonder briefly if John's been slipping Graham baconyl as well, but figure it would be a futile effort to even bother asking.

  With a quick scan to ensure that either no one's noticed me or cares to acknowledge me, I close my eyes and aim for my father's office.

  Where I land, however, is in the lightly decorated common area outside the ten offices for the current team members of the Brigade. Or, I should say, on the carpeted floor of the common area, tumbling onto my rear end as though I've run directly into a brick wall and recoiled backwards in a clumsy pinwheel before landing on the floor. I haven't, of course, but it feels like I have, every muscle in my body wracked with a sudden and inexplicable soreness.

  I glare at the door to my father's office, and the WAVELENGTH (Everett Noble) inscribed there in particular.

  Hell's bells. The bastard installed a blocking device.

  Blocking devices are expensive, durable, and potentially deadly to even the strongest teleporter. Only a rare few even bother installing the complex set-ups in whatever secret compartment or hidden lair they want to remain safe. Even most supervillains don't stoop that low. Of course, most of them think their precious lairs will never be found, mostly because they disguise them as – oh, say, pathetic rundown trailer homes with uncut lawns in the middle of the boondocks.

  Whoever is in my father, he suspected I'd be coming.

  “I suppose I can't blame him for that one,” I say to myself, wincing as I get to my feet and set myself to rights.

  Frustrated, I teleport to the lab at the rear of the third floor. Any identifiable bits and bobs from the invading robots would be there, already in the process of being dismantled by Loose Screw or waiting to be examined by Dad for psychic residue.

  Assuming whoever's in my father has grasped enough of a handle over his abilities to pull off that particular move, that is.

  The lab is in the permanent state of organized chaos I remember fondly. Walking into the brightly-lit and well-stocked laboratory here is an assault on the senses, a definite lack of storage leading to evidence clogging the backlog like a broken toilet. Everything in the room from the bent leg struts propped up against the far wall to the small mound of screws and bolts on the exam table in the center of the room is labeled and isolated. But that doesn't keep the crowded space from feeling a bit claustrophobic.

  I stare at the table of disassembled parts removed from the impenetrable guts of the robots, my gaze catching on an eerily familiar piece of technology. Taking a quick look around to make sure there's not some curious intern sporting a white lab coat hovering nearby, I bite my bottom lip and pick up the small rack of cracked syringes, bound together in an even row by a metal casing twisted during the battle. I'm not sure what it's for, my grasp on the internal mechanics of these things woefully out of date and sparse even when it wasn't.

  But a little more shredded metal and broken plastic and glass …

  Well, it looks almost exactly like the damaged contraption I saw in Morris's lair.

  “Popping up all over the place these days, ain't ya?”

  I hastily put the gadget aside and turn to face Nate as he ambles into the room. Nate's not one for spandex and leather. A repetitive cycle of worn jeans and faded T-shirts is as far as he's willing to move towards an actual uniform. His cowboy hat must have been abandoned in the cluttered depths of his office, his shaven head starting to shadow with a hint of uneven patchy stubble. Somebody needs a visit with a razor.

  Nate lets loose a low whistle as his impressed gaze takes in the determined set of my mouth. “Itchin' for an ass-kickin', are we?”

  That's one way of putting it, I suppose.

  “I think my dad's been bodyswapped with someone else,” I state. No time for anything other than the blunt nasty truth.

  He stills, and I know I'm not going to enjoy what he's about to say when he gives the area a furtive once-over before leading me into a dark area I can only presume is out of range of security cameras, listening devices, and certain hijab-sporting teammates who travel through shadows. “You know what's the funniest thing about that statement?” he drawls, lowering his voice. “Ain't the first time in my life someone's said that to me and meant it. I'm thinking I may been needing a less paranoid circle of friends.”

  “You don't think he's behaving the least bit strangely lately?”

  “You mean aside from being all over your mama like a wet T-shirt?”

  I grimace at that. I know it's common not to like to think that on occasion your parents have something that is in uncertain terms a sex life, but there hasn't been any such occasion in the past five years for my mom and dad, and somehow that just makes the thought of it even more off-putting. “That is a more revolting mental image than I care to contemplate, but thanks.”

  “Vera, you've been out in the weeds for five years,” he says, tilting his head to look me in the eyes, the gesture so condescending my hackles rise in self-defense. “There ain't no shame in it.”

  My lips draw into a thin stiff line. It's not as though Everett Noble is just some neighbor I passed in my apartment building on occasion or one of those notorious attention-seeking professional victims every superhero team in the city has been pressed into rescuing on more than one occasion. He's my father, for heaven's sake. “You don't seriously believe I'm just imagining things because I haven't spoken to Dad in years.”

  Nate's smile is heartbreaking, soft around the edges. “People do change, peaches.”

  “Dad never changes.”

  “I know,” he says, his words a bit more pointed than I expect.

  I gape as I restrain myself from starting an argument by asking what that's supposed to mean, but an odd tug in my stomach distracts me. It
's disorienting enough for me to pause, like the bob and pull of a loaded fishing line but with the end of the taut line secured to a spot just under my ribs.

  “You feel that?” I blurt out, pressing a hand to my belly.

  I don't know why I ask, but even as Nate asks, “Feel what?”, his eyes cloud in confusion, and his lips twist in discomfort as he lift a hand to hold against his abs.

  He's holding himself in, I think, the thought popping into my head out of nowhere.

  And that's precisely when the invisible line pulling at both of us snaps.

  It starts as an icy-hot pinprick in my stomach, a miniature spot of pure sensation that crackles and writhes deep within me. I only barely register its existence before it explodes outward, shuddering through me like a thundering elephant released from unwanted bonds. I fall to my knees at the same time that my eyes slam shut, and in that instant the heat swallows me, engulfs my body and sweeps my consciousness away in a cleansing painless flush.

  17.

  When I wake up to a sliver of morning sunshine warming my face, I'm not where I was when I passed out.

  Correction. That makes it sound like my usual parlor tricks at work, like I teleported of my own volition and reappeared somewhere else just as easily as I do all the time, save the last five years of my life.

  No, for me to have teleported, I would have to be in the same body.

  I know as soon as I wake that I'm not the same person I was before, at least not physically. Hard not to, when I immediately recognize that the contents of my jeans are not quite the same equipment that I'm used to. Also, there's the fact that I'm wearing jeans in the first place.

  It's not the only change. I realize as I sit up that I'm not in the laboratory of the Rafters anymore, or even in the building itself. I'm in a dimly lit bedroom I don't initially recognize, the long curtains drawn mostly shut, the maroon bedding rumpled underneath my denim-clad legs. Someone dumped me on top of them, not even bothering to tuck me in or even toss a loose throw blanket over my legs. I've been abandoned asleep in someone else's bed.

  More specifically, in Nate's bed, if the well-settled scent of his cologne mingling in the bedding was any indication. I wouldn't know. I love Nate, but not in the sort of way that's ever made me want to venture anywhere near his bedroom.

  Pushing myself up into a sitting position, I hold up my hands, my jaw dropping at the butter-soft surfaces of my larger palms and the pale unblemished skin.

  Oh, no. No, no, no.

  I'm in Nate's body.

  I allow myself a moment to silently panic, my gaze darting in frantic skips and hops over every visible surface in the room. We didn't touch anything. We didn't even touch each other, for heaven's sake. We'd just been standing there, minding our own business, when we were suddenly jostled around like the bent cards in a game of three-card monty.

  It suddenly strikes me that I'm alone in the room, and a bone-deep chill settles in my chest.

  So if I'm in Nate's body –

  “Then where the hell is mine?” I say.

  The vibrating call which shakes the cell phone lying on the nightstand an instant later startles the life out of me.

  My heartbeat doesn't even flutter a bit.

  I press my palm against my hard chest, more than a little disconcerted not to be resting my hand over a not insignificant pair of breasts. It's so odd to recognize the difference that for a brief moment I put the cell phone out of my mind, somehow managing to ignore the demanding whirr of the vibrations that skitter it across the surface of the nightstand like a dancing cockroach.

  My forced ignorance doesn't last long.

  “Nate?”

  I jerk my head up as Shadow's voice carries through the room. It takes a moment for me to realize it's coming from the phone, now sitting still on the nightstand. Brigade-issued phones answer whether you pick them up or not. I mentally debate abandoning it and allowing her to simply think I'm ignoring her or fast asleep or whatever it is Nate does these days to avoid responsibility. But it dawns on me that regardless of the unsettling situation I'm currently wading through, walking around with Nate's handsome face allows me a tempting advantage.

  Being Nate is one hell of a cover.

  “Nate,” Shadow says once again, low but demanding.

  I snatch up the phone and hear myself bark, “Yeah, don't get your panties in a wad, Noor. I'm comin'. Can't you give a guy a chance to wake his sorry ass up?”

  I bite back the urge to smile as Shadow makes faint irritated grumbles on the other end of the line. Nate's the sort to wear a bit thin on anyone remotely serious. While Noor al Salimah isn't exactly a mind-numbing drone, she's no sly joker, either. Work is work, and Shadow is no-nonsense about what she does for a living.

  “Get down to the Rafters as soon as possible,” she orders, then hangs up on me.

  I don't have the time for investigative reports on the rest of Nate's down-home bachelor pad or a quick shower or even a bite to eat. As soon as I rustle up a pair of his boots from the mangled chaos of his floor, I tug them on, snatch up his keys, wallet and phone, and snag a cowboy hat from the coat rack in the living room before darting out the front door.

  The city swells with life when I exit Nate's apartment building from the rear entrance. The architectural damage from the robot attacks still scars a number of buildings nearby, and elaborate scaffolding already spiderwebs its way around at least three complexes I can see on my walk over to the Rafters. The Rafters employs the SLB's exhaustive reconstruction crew to fix any destruction from alien attacks or mislaid bombs. The rest of the city just has to fend for themselves on that count.

  By the time I arrive at the front steps of the Rafters, Noor's simmered down from what I can only imagine was a barely restrained boil. She stands at the top of the front stoop with her arms crossed and her cowl already tightly in place, shielding her hair and most of her face from view. The rest of her muted black uniform fits in a loose style, boosted wholesale from a modest design for Muslim swimwear. Some things never change, it seems, even Noor's fashion sense. When Noor joined up, the two of us debated the style of her costume for hours one afternoon, arguing form and function and religious need, before settling on the flowing jumpsuit.

  I'd mention it, but my physiological digs aren't exactly what they normally are at the moment, and Nate wouldn't know that precise bit of Fairness Brigade trivia.

  Her frown matches just fine with the concern of her light brown eyes, offsetting the softness of her lightly accented voice with more gravity than I'm used to. “Anything you'd like to tell me, Nate? Or did your alarm simply give up the ghost for the forty-seventh time in a row?”

  I could tell her the truth easily enough. I could admit that there's been some horrible mistake, that Nate and I have switched up, that my body isn't here and I'm not sure where in heaven's name it's gone.

  I could … except.

  Except this is a chance to sneak a peek at my father without him knowing it's me.

  Whoever it is, I have a gnawing suspicion he doesn't have quite the deft grasp on Dad's abilities as he would like. He didn't clear the smoke from the penthouse during the party. He magically appeared at the top of a tumbled robot in a way that made it look as though he'd been the one to take it down, when there's no way he could have gotten out of the rubble of Swing in time to defeat it. I can only imagine that Mom beat him to the punch and let him soak in all the glory, although the why of it is still a mystery. In any case, he's pulling whatever strings he can to impress upon the fawning masses that he's still the mighty Wavelength, and it's working.

  Except for me, it seems.

  “No,” I blurt out. I lower my hands so I don't look quite so ridiculous and add in Nate's signature sweet-as-peaches drawl, “No, I'm just dandy all over.”

  Shadow's eyes narrow, but she doesn't question what I can only imagine is Nate's odd behavior. I'm not him, after all, and I'm a lousy actor, no matter how well I may have done in Subversion Techniques 201. “Then
you might want to get here at the start of your normal shift for a change,” she says. I can't see her mouth while she's in costume, but I can picture her lips pursed into a tight frown. “We can't very well make use of you in the field if you're still asleep on your couch.”

  “No, I can't imagine you would,” I murmur as I jog up the steps.

  Shadow pauses halfway through turning towards the open front door. For a moment she's so painfully still I wonder if she hasn't frozen in place. I plaster on what I'm hoping is Nate's most charming smile. The moment passes, and her gaze softens somewhat. “Come along,” she says, and heads off into the building.

  I breathe a quick sigh of relief.

  Well, that's one hurdle jumped.

  I shake out the last vestiges of Vera – my hesitance, my stubbornness, my desire to be anywhere but here at any given time – and try to relax and get comfortable in the Nate suit I'm wearing. Nate dares to be wild and unpredictable at all times, leaps from rooftops with abandon and lures in whichever shy awkward miss catches his eye from the sidelines. He's a whirlwind in a ten-gallon hat, a hundred pounds of charm in an indestructible five-pound bag. He's sly and playful, my best friend no matter how much time may go by between one conversation and the next.

  I can be Nate. I can do this.

  At least, I think I can.

  I readjust the ten-gallon hat on my hairless head, feeling absurdly like I can't abandon even that useless token of Nate's third-rate costume, then sprint to catch up to Shadow, who's already woven her way towards the secondary stairwell to the lower level garage. The throbbing call to arms still cries out for attention, the siren a low bleat waiting for the team to leave until it will shut down. I'm suddenly reminded just how very much I haven't missed that infernal noise in the last five years. “So, what's the problem?”

  “If you'd arrived when you were supposed to as I've ordered you to do on several occasions rather than oversleeping due to staying up late in order to catch football scores or sweet-talk girls over the internet, perhaps you wouldn't have to keep asking such silly questions.”