by P. S. Power
Penny chuckled. The more he heard the girl, the more normal she sounded to him. Her voice almost seemed conversationally loud now.
“Yeah, you do suck a bit if walking is too much for you. Come on, don't give up! Only... four and a half hours to go!”
Brian nodded. He could do it, and if he couldn't, there was always crawling. That had been an option too.
They chatted as they walked, Penny telling him about how she'd gotten there in the first place, a helicopter landing and bullhorns blasting, calling her by name, asking her to get on board. That had been two years before.
“I don't really know how they found me, even now. It was really hard here at first, because my power makes everyone forget I'm around. So I had to leave notes and then get away from them so that people could read them. Christian can read my mind too, like everyone else's, but she won't do it unless she has too, so it's almost the same as if she can't communicate with me at all. I get it... I mean everyone's thoughts hitting her all at once is a lot, so she has to try and block it all out. That means I get blocked too though.”
Then she told him about the teams, Team One, mainly the show piece that everyone sees. Prime, Lady Glory, Shiva, Argos, Pixie, and Torque. They also had a half dozen less popular members. Team Two had most of the real work horses and actually did most of the things that Team One got credit for in the press.
“Most of them have something wrong with them though, well, we all do, but Team One has pretty people, ones that play nice and at worst are stuck on themselves. Lady Glory's even cool. I can't talk to her or anything, but she's willing to hang out with everyone and doesn't act like being on Team One means anything in particular. Team Two... they tend to be rougher, not as good looking, like Lauren there. Incredibly strong and even pretty quick, like run-down-your-car fast, but not pretty enough for the public, even though she's saved more of them by herself than the whole of Team One has. They're the largest team, two. I think they have forty-odd people. I don't hang around their floor much.”
When she got to Team Three, she faltered for a bit, and walked quietly. After a while she spoke, making Brian start, having almost forgotten her. He'd been trying to make himself keep walking, his sore feet beginning to cry out for relief.
“Team three... We're kind of misfits even here. Like me. I'm here, I even have a power that sounds pretty useful, but how can it be deployed? They've tried to put me on spy missions and stuff, but they kept missing me on pick up. Kind of scary really. Twice I had to hop on planes and fly home on my own from other countries. I mean, I couldn't buy a ticket or anything, so I just had to go on board and try to get an empty seat. After the second time I told them that I didn't want to do it anymore. No one's said much about it, but then, really, they can't.” She gave a light chuckle.
“Mark, he's really nice. Very calm. His power is probably one of the most powerful of anyone in the world. He can stop time – move things around and basically do almost anything in that state that we can, but no one else can do anything about it. He'd be on Team One, except that he's not flashy enough. He just gets things done, no super speed or flying or glowy lights. Also, he kind of works alone. If he ever figures out how to take another person with him when he does his thing... Could you imagine Lauren just popping out in front of you if you were trying to kill a bunch of people? Massive.”
She hit the others in turn.
“Christian, she's powerful too. Telepath like I said earlier. But too powerful, she hears everything all the time. I think that's why she likes Mark so much. He's so quiet and calm. He has to be. Any stress or anxiety and his power triggers. It's a defense mechanism I guess. Kind of like mine is.
“Itch is... a bit of a problem really. He makes people feel things, like itching or tickling, but the tickler didn't fly as a name for him with the higher ups. They said it sounded too gay. His power's useful, he can work crowd control like no one else, even Lady Glory with her ability to spread love and compassion doesn't hold a candle to him. He can do emotions too. All of them. The thing is, no one else wants to work with him. By all rights he should have been dumped on Team One and trotted out for the press, which would make him happy, but he's so unlikable that their whole team voted him off after about two weeks, even Lady Glory I heard, and that's saying something. We could do that too, vote him off, but then were would he go? Team Two would murder him inside a week. Probably for real.
“Marcia, they call her Beatdown now. She used to be on Team One and had a different code name, but she got pissed off at Prime one day and kicked his ass. Like into the hospital. She's not in his power class really, but she cheats. I think they stuck her with us because they're hoping to get Prime to calm down about it and let her back on Team One. He rules them. Narcissism as first mode. So he has to be in charge and in front of the cameras and is cool enough that everyone kind of expects him to be there. Not a good situation really...”
They walked quietly for a while, until about seven when Bridget ran up and tackled him, nearly taking him to the ground on his unsteady legs. He felt Penny make the catch and push him upright when he got nearly halfway to the ground.
Bridget noticed it and snorted.
“And they said you don't have any powers. Defying gravity or whatever should count.” He laughed and explained. The small girl looked around, sniffing the air openly.
“That... is so cool! I mean I knew Team Three had an invisible, but I never met her myself.” Putting out a hand she waited and after a second shook. “Neat! You should come hang out with me! Just, you know, come grab me or something and shake until I get it.”
They had to keep walking, or at least he did, he told them, and began to trudge along again. Slowly. At nearly eight, Jason – the trainer – came. Making Bridget scamper off as if she'd been doing something wrong. He didn't say anything bad about it to Brian though.
“Brian!”
His gaze followed Bridget as she scurried over to Lauren. “Making friends? Good to see you still at it, I... wasn't sure you could after I heard the extent of the damage from things. Normally we'd ease into this kind of thing over the course of a few months, not throw you in the day you got out of the hospital. I've been planning your work out and training schedule, it's pretty basic, but grueling to start with, then it moves into being more demanding... Tonight we'll drug the hell out of you at nine, so you can sleep, then in the morning, as soon as you get up, you need to start working out. Karen will be working with you on that, until noon. Ex-Olympian, gymnastics, so get ready for a work out and don't expect her to coddle you. Then you get a break for a whole hour to eat lunch. After that you have martial arts training, weapons, and later – as you heal up a little – we'll add in speed work for running, obstacles, and that kind of thing. For the first few weeks I don't think you're going to be able to do all this, maybe not even after a few months, that's fine. As long as the level of discomfort stays high enough it should be OK. I'm not bothering with a diet plan on this, eat healthy and have some veggies, but don't worry about calories. You'll drop weight doing this.”
The pad Jason carried disappeared. After a few seconds Brian understood that Penny had taken it. There was an outraged grunt from the girl, followed by a gasp.
Then Jason fell down.
The fit looking man didn't seem to understand what had happened, that Penny had tripped him or pushed him, but then Jason didn't hear the girl calling him a mother fucker either. When he tried to get up again he couldn't, falling over again.
“Penny! Stop it. Please?” Brian spoke softly. The violence made him uneasy. Like he should stop her or something. Not that he really could.
“Brian, this schedule is insane, no diet plan? He doesn't even have breakfast on this! You get like, two hours un-drugged time to yourself each night, not that you'll be able to do anything, because I doubt you'll be able to move...” She sounded worried about him.
Asking gently, he got her to stop attacking at least, so that the whole thing could be explained. Brian had a
feeling that she followed the other man, ready to do it again if she didn't like the answers. Brian fought a smile.
At least someone here was going to stand up for him if he needed it. That was a good sign he guessed.
Every second they walked got harder for him, each ache hurt more and he really wanted to stop, to just sit down and rest. He mentioned this to Jason, expecting the man to berate him for being lazy or a wimp. Call him names or even remind him about Barbara Dorn, but instead he just nodded. No smile on his face, just a serious look.
“Given everything, this must be a bit like trying to run a marathon without training. Actually it's almost literally like that, you haven't gone that far yet today, but darn close... And after what you've been through... Yeah, tough. I don't mean the work either, I mean you. This time right now though, when you want to quit, when everything in your body begs you too, when it doesn't matter if you do really, and no one in the world would blame you for slacking off a little... Right now is when your mental endurance and toughness grows. Every step you take when things get this hard makes you stronger. It's not a big comfort now, but it's true.”
Jason left at eight forty-five and came back ten minutes later with a woman that carried a silver tray with several things on it. Needles and syringes. They stayed by the elevators on the far side of the track and watched him hobble over slowly. When he got there the woman, a cute, slightly plump doctor named Sara, gave him a shot in the arm and told him that he'd start getting loopy after a few seconds and be ready for bed inside fifteen minutes.
Brian went with Jason, feeling Penny's hand on his arm steadying him as the drugs kicked in. He would have been a lot more amazed by their effects if he hadn't spent most of the last ten days in a similar state. Jason took him to floor nine and showed him to his room, number four, right on the main hall. Convenient.
Penny told him it was one of the good rooms, but didn't explain what that meant, not that he'd have understood. The more drugged he was, the better he could hear her it seemed, until, finally, after Jason left them at the door, Brian could see her.
She looked see-through, but he could see her face, heart shaped, thin, but not skinny, just like she took care of herself. Her clothes were just the same sweats he and Jason wore, but filled out a lot more nicely in the chest. He reached out and touched her there, his hands too clumsy to do anything specific, it probably seemed to her that he'd done it on accident.
“I can see you.” He said so sleepily he doubted she'd understand him. Brian fell asleep hard then, hitting the pillow, not even getting under the white and green bed spread.
He woke up hours later, nearly ten hours later he saw when he looked at the green numbers on the clock sitting on the table next to his bed. It was about fifteen minutes until he had to start working out. He got up, stiff and sore, but no worse than he'd felt in the cell.
Better, because he could breath. Amazing how much a little thing like air could change a person's outlook, wasn't it? That, and all the water he could drink. It was incredible. The sad part was that he really meant it, which made him sigh a little.
He got up and realized he wasn't wearing any clothes. He must have taken them off during the night. It was the only explanation after all. Well, he had been kind of out of it, hadn't he? Drugs would do that to a body.
In the bathroom he found a wonderful shower that surrounded him with sprays of water from all sides in a space nearly as big as the entire bathroom he and Doug had shared for years. The little tile squares were pink, not his favorite color, but the water didn't need to heat up, coming out warm to start with. He washed quickly and shaved with the electric razor sitting on the counter, hoping it being there meant it was for him to use. Brian dried with the big fluffy towel that felt so soft he wanted to linger, but made himself brush his teeth and go find clothes. In the closet there was an array of things, no underwear, but everything else he needed for working out, including some black trunks that were the stretchy kind people wore to ride bikes in.
He put them on, not seeing anything else, wearing them under some sweatpants. They worked pretty well for it. It felt a little funny, but maybe it was what they were for?
Brian got down to fourteen to find it empty at seven, so he just started running on his own. A slow jog that made his groin hurt a little. Not a sharp pain, just a light, dull one, so probably just muscle soreness. Kind of the point of all the walking the day before after all. He ran for most of an hour before someone else came in. A red-haired woman that looked to be in about her mid-twenties and like she should have green eyes, whether she did or not. There were freckles lightly visible as he passed. The woman sat and stretched, bending easily. She folded in half, twisted further than Brian had thought possible and then did a few odd-looking sit-ups, with her legs lifting off the ground, bouncing in place for a few minutes.
He tried to keep running as long as he could, stopping only for water. At about eight-thirty his legs just wouldn't work anymore, not for running, so he tried to walk instead. When he passed the woman, she called him over.
“Brian? I'm Karen Young... Jason Montrose asked me to help with your training and explained everything to me? Pretty good run so far, so let's move to something else for a while?”
She didn't chat a lot, just starting him on sit-ups – crunches first – doing a lot more of them than Brian thought would be possible, five minutes worth. Then knee lifts, lying flat on his back into a half dozen other exercises, which repeated. Then they moved to weights.
She didn't make him lift anything too heavy, because of his recent injuries. Karen made up for it by having him work each muscle group to exhaustion, until he couldn't lift the weights even once more in some cases. It hurt, but, Brian knew, that was kind of the point.
This took them to nearly eleven. She had him run again, asking him to try and run till noon. The cute and sporty woman seemed happy enough with the slow jog he'd used before at least. Before she let him go to lunch she asked to see his feet, wincing when she saw the blisters that had formed. She didn't do anything about them, just made a note on her iPad or whatever it was. One of those things Brian hadn't bothered learning about, because he couldn't justify the expense on his factory job wages.
“Great job, Brian!” The woman told him, patting him gently on the back. “That's a monster work out. We'll be doing something similar each day from now into the foreseeable future. Jason wants to see you back here in an hour... He'll get you where you need to go.” The woman walked away, smiling at first, her face changing expression as she turned, looking like she wanted to cry instead. Brian could get that. She'd probably volunteered for this job with the idea that he wasn't some lame cream puff that could barely keep up with a remedial schedule. She'd been in the Olympics, Montrose had said, so this must have seemed pitiful to her and like a giant waste of time. That he was doing so awful that it made her cry made him feel bad, but what could he do other than try harder? He'd just have to do better in the future. That was all.
Brian stood, not knowing where to go at all. He needed to eat, he hadn't in over a day now and felt so hungry he wanted to throw up. Something touched his arm and a soft voice came out of the air next to his ear.
“Brian? Time for lunch. This way.” She took him by the hand and led him to the elevator. Brian knew he should probably have taken the stairs for the exercise, but right now he could barely get his body to move.
“I need to shower before I eat. I'm soaked. Can we stop by my room? Is that all right?” He didn't want to push the girl's hospitality, she'd been really nice to him so far, but if he went to a meal like this they'd probably ask him to leave and who could blame them? Getting a rep as the fat guy would be bad enough. Being the gross fat guy...
“Yeah, no problem,” she replied.
Cleaned and dressed in another pair of sweats, the sodden ones put in a hamper that would be emptied by housekeeping each day and the clothes returned cleaned after that, Penny led him into the dining room.
He'd
expected a cafeteria or a few tables and chairs like the break room at work, the old job at the factory, he mentally corrected, but it was a real dining room, like the one in his parents' home. Except that it was bigger – and a little nicer. At the large oblong table two people sat already eating. Along the back wall a silver window counter, about four foot high, opened directly into the kitchen. The kind of set up you'd expect in a dinner or maybe a greasy spoon. Penny pulled him over, still holding his hand. A man in the kitchen walked over, a smile on his face.
Penny tugged Brian's arm to make sure he paid attention, “That's Mark, the time guy? He always makes lunch for us. Could you ask him if he has any tuna today for me? He does a great job with tuna.”
The smiling man, who had a large nose and hair nearly as black as Brian's, gave him a slightly questioning look.
“Are you the new guy? Brian?” He asked, his voice having an almost dreamy quality to it. Kind of like what you'd expect from a burnt out hippie, except he looked pretty sharp. White, trim and with a slightly big nose, managing somehow to beat average looking by a good bit.
“Yes. You're Mark? Penny asked me to ask you if there was any tuna today? She said you do a really good job with it. I have to say that does sound pretty good if there is any...”
Mark nodded and handed them two fully prepared tuna sandwiches on whole wheat, with pickle spears on the side and then handed Brian an apple too. He didn't turn around to get them, they were just in the man's hands holding them out already. Brian blinked and then smiled. Time guy. Right.
“Jason said you should get what you want, but to make sure you eat fruits and veggies too. From now on I'll have salads ready for you, but the lettuce today wasn't too good. Sorry, but I refuse to feed people substandard food.” He raised his hands as if to say, what can I do?
Brian thanked him and moved slowly to the table, feeling old from the stiffness and pain, taking a seat a few people away from the woman that sat eating her own sandwich slowly. Picking at it, but making an effort to eat. She looked up at him and grinned, waving the white bread in her hand a little.