Heroine Addiction

by Matarese, Jennifer

  Mom barks out a derisive, “Ha!”, but thankfully restrains herself from starting in on yet another insult to what I might have been up to the past five years when I could have been calling home.

  Looking for a distraction, I glance over at Morris, my grin mischievous and tempting.

  “Say, Morris, what can you build with what's available in this room?”

  Morris smiles wide as his gaze sweeps over the room. We can almost hear him plotting, categorizing the contents of the room in his mind and assembling them into whichever toy he plans on making. His powers to manipulate matter on the molecular level may not be working, but his mind is still sharpened to a fine point.

  He heads straight for the coolant system against the far wall and bangs against the edges with his fist until the metal grate covering it pops out. “Don't worry, my dear,” he says when Dr. Hale lets out an affronted gasp. “I'm sure a notorious supervillain easily disassembling your internal atmosphere stabilizers is more than enough leverage for you to requisition the SLB for something a bit sturdier. And perhaps a raise or two, all kidnappings considered.”

  The murderous look she shoots him as he tears into the contents of the coolant system's hardware could melt the yellow lines off a highway.

  I'm used to being useless. It's never been unusual for me to be the one just standing around twiddling my thumbs while someone with more power or more experience fights the giant lizard or smothers the threatening volcano. But aside from Dr. Hale, I'm the only one in the room with vast experience in the area of defeating boredom, and it shows.

  Morris is busy, of course, elbow-deep in the innards of the crypt's computer systems and pasting together something undeniably brilliant with whatever he can scrounge together. Dad hovers at his side with concern and fascination and glee bubbling under the surface, but he still shifts his weight anxiously from one foot to the other, wanting to do something, anything, everything. Mom paces behind me like a caged jungle cat, flexing fists that now carry no more strength behind them than mine do and hating every minute of it. Graham glares out through the glass as though shooting John's minions dirty looks will cause them to jolt out of John's mental control in self-defense.

  Dr. Hale curls up in the corner of the room with Sierra in her lap. She snuggles the little girl close and takes in the coiled-tight energy in my unsettled family before tossing a quizzical look in my direction.

  I wish I could claim to be able to tame any of them, I think with a frown.

  A few short minutes later, as Morris screws together the last of whatever contraption he's assembling with the edge of a dime he rummaged out of Dad's utility belt, John shouts something neither I nor Graham can understand and waves one of his human puppets towards the crypt.

  “Morris,” I warn as a business man with empty eyes and a gruesome lump in his arms approaches.

  “I'm almost finished.”

  He secures the elaborate rat's nest of braided wires and misplaced screws around his wrist just as the minion dumps the body in his arms out onto the pale green linoleum. It rolls in a limp thump-thump-thump all the way to the front of the crypt door.

  For a long strained moment, those of us crowded into the crypt stare at the window in the door. I wonder if everyone else is thinking the same thing as I am, expecting a massive explosion or a flaming whirlwind to rise up and suck us from the relative safety of the crypt.

  Instead, it's an almost surreal level of silence when the first tentacle slithers a slimy trail across the glass.

  Tentacles could mean any number of things. Some tentacle monsters are harmless and almost cuddly. Then again, if you were hooked on “Captain Manny's Hero Quest” like the rest of us were as a kid and demanded a real copy of his pet bio-engineered octopus puppy, you know that. Mom never was all that keen on any pet that could reasonably be named Cthulhu, but it didn't stop her from accepting one when it was freely given to us by a major network for my eighth birthday. I loved that weird little dog.

  Most tentacle monsters, though, are monsters, any way you look at it. The majority of tentacle-wielding creatures may start out all sugar and spice. But a lifetime of people cringing away from you or making hentai jokes behind your back is bound to turn out someone who's just not quite right.

  Outside the door, the tentacle slathers a thin layer of goo across the glass, tiny arcs of lightning sparking in its wake.

  The electrical traces skimming over the surface of the door bounce and sing before we hear the unmistakable sound of the lock unclicking.

  “Oh, that was a mistake,” Morris says almost joyfully, and throws open the door to the crypt before any of us can stop him.

  The hideous creature emerging from the formerly bloated corpse of some elderly woman I thankfully don't recognize as either a hero or a villain rears back as soon as Morris peers down at it. Its tentacles flail madly through the air for a moment, flinging sparking globs of slime all over. Morris is the only one of us who doesn't dodge the disgusting drizzle, which hits the floor in a blinding array of sparks as it splashes down and melts the linoleum underneath our feet.

  “Hello, Edgar,” Morris says, his voice droll.

  The tentacles slither in a trembling mockery of a bow before sucking back into the corpse and pushing it away from us in a deferential crawl.

  It takes a moment for one of us – namely, me – to blurt out, “Edgar?”

  Morris shoots a wry smile over his shoulder at me. “My dear, I might not still rule over Ferlo, but I do still have a bit of pull with its citizens. They did so appreciate my saving them from their self-destructing planet.”

  Ah. I suppose that would explain it. It's not as though any of us would be able to recognize a Ferlian, after all. Oddly enough, Ferlians don't enjoy taking long vacations on the planet of their short-lived and supposedly terrifying dictator.

  Then again, if Morris's last comment is correct, perhaps they're less terrified of Morris and more terrified of the millions who think Morris is some sort of diabolical madman. I'm not sure I want to know the difference.

  Still, I can't help but repeat myself. “But … Edgar?”

  Morris shrugs. “It was on his nametag,” he says, before peering out into the hall once again.

  I think I'd prefer not to know where a Ferlian parasite is hiding a nametag.

  Mom makes a mad dash for the door while Morris still has it pried open, but he slams it shut once again before she can get out.

  “Wait!” Morris says, latching onto my mother's arm, his grip intentionally loose.

  Mom jerks to a stop. She turns to face him in an eerie slow maneuver and her smile grows, sweet and deadly. “I'll tear your arms off,” she swears, positively gleeful about the prospect.

  “Of course you may,” he allows, playing the gentleman just to get a rise out of her. “But perhaps you'd like to save your dismembering for after your powers return.”

  She tenses at that but backs down immediately. She doesn't curl in on herself like a terrified animal, doesn't hide in the corner like a shaky punished dog avoiding the next kick from its abusive master, but the blow is low and inside. I've only rarely seen my mother attempt to get by without her abilities, and it's never pretty.

  I sidle up beside him and peer out the door. “Can we still get out?”

  “The door won't lock again anytime soon. Ferlian slime packs quite a wallop.”

  That's good to know. So now that we have an avenue of escape, I shoot his bracelet of wires a deliberate look. “So, what's your shiny new toy for?”

  “Oh, this? Why, I'm delighted you asked,” he declares in a voice far too cheery for our current circumstances. He lifts his wrist to eye level and, with a wink in my direction, flips the sole metal toggle sticking up from the device.

  A burst of warm static energy explodes out from the makeshift machinery, harmless to the rest of us but a shock to every computerized system it comes in contact with. The already disabled lock whirrs and sputters, while outside the crypt the touchscreen on the
wall dies a quick death.

  “It is,” Morris says, “a very small, painfully cheap, garage-level EMP.”

  As if on cue, John screams in frustration.

  My smile grows five miles wide.

  Morris takes a quick look out at the hallway. “Be a dear and clean up some of that mess, would you?”

  It's only then that I can feel the lock on my powers crumble apart, falling to pieces in an instant. The others aren't so lucky, it seems, not quite as used to dealing with dampening fields as I am lately. Their abilities crawl from an unwanted slumber while mine burst forth in an instant, and I grin before popping out of the room.

  John's still fiddling with the cybernetics in his arm as I dart around the room, latching onto every poor minion I can spot and dumping them into any far-off place that comes to mind – Siberia, the Andes, the Sahara and a dozen other locations they won't be leaving without post-battle retrieval from the SLB. John's mind-controlled army hasn't removed all of the bodies from their rooms yet, even given the span of a few precious minutes. When you splurge on the latest in cyberorganic implants, there's not a lot left over to spend on a loyal fleet of personal assistants, as opposed to a small troop of forced innocents struggling against your still-barely-controllable abilities. Minions working of their own free will would have removed all of the bodies by now in a smooth and orderly fashion.

  I reappear from dropping the last of the minions into the Parisian catacombs just in time for John to restart his dampeners. The resulting jolt to my mind as I land just outside the now open door of the crypt leaves me dizzy enough for him to advance on Morris, Graham and me – the first three out of the room – with his other arm pointed towards us.

  I'm not sure what firepower he's hiding in there. Considering what's in his right arm, I'm not all that keen to find out what's in his left one.

  Morris darts between John and the two of us, bleary-eyed but thrumming with anger.

  “I hate to be the cliché,” he says, cold and matter-of-fact, “but if you want to get to the kids, I'm afraid you'll have to go through me.”

  Graham flinches at that, grumbling something about not being a kid in an indignant sulky voice that certainly doesn't lend the statement much credence.

  Dad and Mom hover behind us, still nauseated and lightheaded from the abrupt back and forth of the dampeners being turned on and off. There's something about seeing my parents weak and helpless – the great Paladin and the mighty Wavelength felled by a crazed butler, of all things – that forces my anger to rise.

  John doesn't expect anyone to stalk towards him with fire in their eyes, least of all little old me.

  “Surrendering?” he says.

  My fist snaps out like it's been held back by rubber bands, reined in and storing energy forever, connecting with his chin harder than I would have thought I could still pull off after years out of the field.

  I forgot how much it hurt to do that.

  “Not so much,” I say as his head snaps back.

  I cradle my sore fist as he regains his bearings, stinging pain shooting through at least one of my knuckles, but the moment he comes back to himself, that's when he backhands me.

  Hard.

  I wouldn't expect it out of someone with arms like pipe cleaners with the brushing scored off them, but John throws a solid smack when he needs to.

  The others roar and stomp behind me like angry stallions, clearly intending to come to my rescue.

  I wave them off with a simple curt gesture.

  John's smile pulls upward at the corners, bent and crooked and crazed, amused that I should be the one to stand up to him.

  “I can do it again,” he warns, his hand raised.

  My sole answer is to cock an eyebrow in a silent dare.

  One of my college professors once said that you should never poke a tiger with a sharp stick. He was being literal at the time – Dakota North just needed to have her arm reattached after rescuing the vice president from China Doll for the fourth time – but as a metaphor it works quite well. However, John Camden is not now nor will he ever be a tiger. When his paw swipes the air, his claws aren't nearly as dangerous as he thinks they are. I dodge his hand this time, which he expects, but grab onto his wrist with one hand and flip open the latch on his arm to reveal the controls to the dampener I proceed to switch off, which he didn't see coming at all, if the disfiguring rage on his face is any indication.

  Morris hauls me out of the way before John can try anything again, and underneath John's mutterings as he fumbles to restart the dampener is the tough encouraging voice of Dr. Hale.

  I glance her way to see her whisper something to Sierra, stroke a calming hand over the little girl's cheek and allow her gaze to drift to my brother's encouraging face as he says something that looks vaguely like, “Go ahead, kiddo.”

  I see it coming in my mind only a split second before Sierra closes her eyes and makes a wish.

  Both John and Graham sink to the floor at the same time, crumpling to the linoleum like statues made of cheap tin foil under the weight of a healthy downpour. Their mutual collapse is so sudden none of us have the time to react, to scramble for John and secure him in time.

  All we can do is watch as they fall, and stand out of their way when their discomfort starts to fade.

  Graham tenses as soon as his eyes reopen, rage simmering to the surface that's intense even by his vaulted standards. As soon as he looks my way, I back away from him out of reflex. I know my brother, whether he wants me to or not, and for all of his venom you develop a resistance to the bite after twenty years of tasting it on a daily basis. This is something different, a potent psychopathic strain of poison even he would never throw my way, and when it flashes in my direction I know enough to run.

  I fumble backwards, latched onto by Morris and Mom and hauled out of the way just in time.

  Almost as soon as Graham gets up, turning murderous rage on the man standing at the far end of the hallway, John rises to his feet as well, a wicked smile curling his lips.

  “You really don't give me enough credit,” he says, and launches himself at my brother.

  It takes a stark fleeting moment for it to sink in that it's actually the other way around, that it's Graham leaping at John.

  Another goddamn bodyswap, I think.

  John stands there too long in my brother's body, too disoriented by the sudden shock of changing bodies to move for just a handful of seconds. Going from a modified cybernetic body to a weakened one now powerless from the swap leaves John breathless and trembling. It's just long enough of a distraction for Graham to pounce on him, wearing his body and extending a hand slathered in a thick layer of tentacle slime.

  My breath hisses out of my lung as soon as I catch the glint of light off the slime.

  Morris commandeered the alien planet of Ferlo for a reason other than its questionable stability. As repugnant and foul as all the tentacles and slimy residue might be, the culture's vast store of technological advances far beyond anything humans could construct must have been more than enough to make Morris salivate with envy.

  The problem, of course, was adapting the technology to humans when their durable advanced touchscreens and genetically specific computer systems worked for one important reason – their electrically-charged slime. Even a tiny droplet of the stuff is powerful enough to stun an angry hippopotamus into submission.

  Pressed against the highly volatile makeshift dampener secured under John's skin is like sparking a powderkeg even my normally invulnerable brother won't survive.

  “Graham!”

  I latch onto Mom in a sorry attempt to stop her from throwing herself at the fiery column that used to be her son, sparked to life in a bright explosive moment. Somehow, digging in my heels is enough to hinder her progress. She rears back from the intense heat, throwing her hands over her face in a welcome moment of instinct.

  All I can focus on is the stifling heat, contained in size but apocalyptic in intensity, a catastrophe in a
n invisible tube. It blows itself out in one dizzying cascade of fire, burbling napalm that rains down on the floor and pockmarks the linoleum and then vanishes just as quickly as it appears.

  Everything goes deadly silent. Even though the scorched floor still steams ominously, we can all see John is gone.

  He's not the only one.

  Somebody whimpers. It might be me or Dad or Morris, but I suspect it's Mom and I just can't look. I may not get along with Mom, but something about the slim chance it might be my selfish unsentimental mother sobbing over anything cracks something inside me.

  Nothing exists in the cold empty space where my brother stood only a moment ago.

  Nothing at all.

  26.

  An entire week passes before I can drag myself out of the house again.

  The first night back home is a nauseating blur. I vaguely recall waking the following morning in the same dress I'd worn to the morgue, curled up on my bed in an uncomfortable ball on top of the comforter. I think I slept. I might have just passed out, wrung dry of emotion with makeup smeared across my face.

  I could swear I cried myself to sleep, but the memory feels like a hopeful lie.

  Waking up on that second day, I debate leaving the blissful silence of my apartment for only a few short minutes before unplugging the TV and shutting off my phone. Secreting myself away in the restful cocoon of my apartment sounds like far too appealing an option to give up, at least for the moment. It's either that, or I can get all gussied up and spit-shined, my hair glossy and perfectly coiffed, my favorite tattoo-print halter dress pressed and dry-cleaned and skimming over my hips. I can step out the front door and into the bustling encampment of anxious reporters huddling around my front door, and I can let them assault me with inquiries about Graham's death or, worse yet, appallingly detailed questions about my father's sex life so uncomfortably invasive I'll go hysterically deaf in self-defense.

  Since I'm fairly positive I can't handle dealing with a physical disability brought on by curious members of the media badgering me about when I'm going to start calling Morris Daddy, becoming a hermit presents itself as a much more appealing option.