“Your presence on the team would elevate its stature and help me rehabilitate my tarnished public image. I’m not going to lie and say that isn’t a consideration. But you need me as much as I need you.”
“And how do you figure that?”
“You’ve been a licensed Hero for what, around three years now? Even though you’re one of the most powerful Metas I’ve ever seen and you seem to be a good man, you’re still relatively green.”
Ninja slid even closer to me. She was now close enough to touch. I couldn’t help but be suddenly hyperaware of the curves of her athletic body despite the looseness of her black costume. I had not been with anyone romantically since Neha, and that seemed like forever ago. There was a slightly seductive sashay in Ninja’s walk as she approached that I suspected was no accident. But if Ninja thought she could use her femininity to bend me to her will, she had another thing coming. My genitals were not the boss of me. Maybe they would be if they were the size of that Omega brand dildo, but they weren’t.
Ninja said, “You’ve got a lot to learn still. I can help you with that. It’s the least I can do to make up for what the Sentinels did to your father and Smoke. Plus, even the most powerful Heroes need help from time to time. A team can provide that. Though your powers are godlike, you’re not a god. You’re just a man. And no man is an island.”
“Wrong. I am,” I said firmly, studiously ignoring how close Ninja’s body was to mine. She was just a hair shorter than I. If she wore the towering heels so many other female Rogues and Heroes inexplicably seemed to favor, I would have to look up to meet her eyes. “I don’t need you. Or anybody else. Anything that happens, I can handle it by myself.”
Ninja’s right leg shot out without warning. She swept my legs out from under me. I fell backward. I barely caught myself with my powers before the back of my head smacked against the roof.
Ninja’s katana was out. Its tip almost kissed my Adam’s apple. I hadn’t even see her draw the damned thing. The razor-sharp blade glowed faintly pink with Ninja’s powers. When lit up like this, it could cut through anything. Including my force fields and the Omega suit.
Barely breathing, I followed the path of the curved blade up to Ninja’s eyes. They looked amused.
“If you can handle everything by yourself, Island Man,” she said, “how come you’re flat on your back right now?”
Before I could respond, she laughed out loud. It sounded more good-natured than mocking. She sheathed her sword with a practiced motion. She held her hand out to help me up. I waved her away and stood up on my own. I didn’t want to touch her. Maybe she’d try to throw me off the roof to further emphasize her point. I wouldn’t put it past her. I in turn considered using my powers to throw her into outer space. She could keep Mechano and the atoms of Amok’s detonated bomb company.
Ninja laughed again at the look on my face. She stepped to the side, toward the edge of the building.
“Think about what I said, Omega. Even the best of us get knocked down and need help back up.”
Embarrassed by having been so easily caught off guard, I didn’t want her to have the last word. “No man is an island,” I said, repeating her words. “Not only are you a sneak attacker and a stalker, but you’re a plagiarist, too. You stole that phrase from the poet John Donne.”
“Wrong again. Donne used it after hearing me say it.”
“No, he didn’t,” I scoffed. “He died in the seventeenth century.”
The fabric around Ninja’s mouth twitched again. “Time travel,” she said. “I get around.”
She stepped off the edge of the roof. She plunged from view.
Alarmed, I hastened to the spot where Ninja had fallen. I peered over the roof’s edge. The city’s lights reflected off the mirror-like facade of the UWant Building, making me squint. Ninja was nowhere to be seen. I couldn’t find her with my telekinetic touch, either.
I knew she could not fly or teleport. I wondered how she had disappeared.
Huh.
Maybe she was Batman.
CHAPTER 4
Isaac pointed an accusing finger at me.
“You got knocked on your ass by a girl,” he exclaimed. His brown eyes danced with delight.
“First of all, lower your voice,” I wheezed. I was breathing hard. I had just finished my final set of bent over barbell rows. This was back and chest day. Isaac and I were working out at Apex Fitness, our gym in downtown Astor City. There were plenty of people around. I did not care if they overheard that I had been knocked down by a woman; I did care if they overheard I was Omega. “Second of all, Ninja’s not a girl. She’s a woman. And that woman is one of the best martial artists in the world, if not the best.” I was both embarrassed and defensive about getting knocked down. What a rookie thing to let happen. What if Ninja had not been friendly?
“That’ll be how you tell the story. When I tell the story, she’ll be an itty-bitty girl in pigtails.” Isaac turned to look at a small group clustered around one of the nearby squat racks. He raised his voice, saying “Hey, did you hear about how my friend here got knocked on his ass by a girl?”
They all looked at us.
“It’s not appropriate to refer to females that way,” one of them said huffily. She was a short blonde in sweatpants and a sports bra.
Isaac raised his hands placatingly. “Sorry, you’re quite right. My bad. What I meant to say was that my friend got knocked on his ass by a Vaginal American. Better?”
The blonde sniffed. She pointedly turned her back on us. She whispered in an outraged tone to one of her friends. Isaac shrugged and turned back to me.
“You try to be politically correct,” he said, “and that’s the thanks you get. There really is no pleasing some people.”
“It’s tough being you. Nobody knows the trouble you’ve seen. Nobody knows your sorrow.”
Isaac pointed at me accusingly again.
“That’s from a Negro spiritual. You’re appropriating my people’s culture again. And before you jump on me for saying Negro like you did when I said girl, that’s what those types of songs are formally called, so stay in your lane Captain Caucasian.” Isaac shook his head in mock disgust. “Now I’m even more glad you got knocked on your ass.”
As Isaac was fond of reminding me, he was a black man. His skin was the color of pale leather. He was both a couple of years older and a couple of inches taller than I. His freshly shaved bald head shone dully under the gym’s bright lights, making the lightning-shaped scar on his temple from our fight with Iceburn years ago stand out more than usual. I was so used to him being bald that if he grew his hair out, it would probably look like he was wearing a disguise. Glossy straight black hair covered his legs and arms. He wore white athletic shorts, white sneakers, and a black wife-beater sporting white letters that read I flexed and the sleeves ripped off. As for me, I wore what appeared to be a plain tee shirt, shorts, and tennis shoes, but they all were really manifestations of the Omega suit. I never took it off. I made it withdraw into my body when I showered and slept, and had it assume the form of whatever clothes I needed when I walked around as a civilian. Laundry was a thing of the distant past. Dry cleaners would hate me if they knew.
Though he had been relatively slender when I had first met him at the Academy, Isaac was jacked now, with the lanky yet muscular build of a competitive sprinter. The men in the group with the blonde had avoided making direct eye contact with Isaac when he had spoken to her. Though a couple of them were huge meatheads and much bigger than Isaac, I had noticed more and more over the years that something about the way he carried himself made other men tread carefully around him. He was developing the same faint air of menace that people like Truman and Athena wore like a second skin. An occupational hazard of being a Hero, maybe. I supposed I had it too, but it was hard to accurately assess how intimidating others might find you when you were the one wiping the morning sleep out of your eyes and pulling your underwear out of your butt crack.
Isaac and I
moved to a different part of the gym floor. Music thumped from overhead speakers, weights clanked, and people grunted with exertion. We had a standing workout date three times a week. It had been pounded into our heads during the Academy and later as Amazing Man’s Apprentices that physical fitness was as important to an effective Hero as being adept in the use of his superpowers was. I enjoyed working out, something I would have never thought possible when I was a scrawny kid who grunted when I picked up a thick dictionary or when I had puked my guts out during the Academy’s intense training sessions.
I especially looked forward to these workouts because they gave me a reason to hang out with Isaac. He was one of my few friends, and the only close one. Ever since I had decided to fight crime by myself in the interest of not getting someone else I cared about injured or killed, I did not see Isaac nearly as often as I liked. We didn’t even live together anymore as I had moved out right around the time we stopped fighting crime together.
Isaac loaded a bar with plates at one of the incline bench press stations. He plopped down heavily on the bench. He stretched and yawned. He looked tired. One of his roommates had just moved out, and I knew he was having trouble making ends meet, even with working a bunch of overtime at his job. Astor City was an expensive place to live.
“Between holding down a full-time job and your,” I glanced around to see if anybody was nearby, “um, nocturnal activities, you’re pulled in way too many directions. You look like you haven’t slept in a week. I wish you’d take me up on my offer to give you enough money so you can quit working, or at least cut back on your hours some.” Isaac had worked as an illustrator at Pixelate, the movie animation company, ever since we moved to Astor City after the Trials. He was a very talented artist. “You wouldn’t even have to pay me back. I won’t miss it. I’m printing money these days.”
“Rub it in, why don’t you?”
“You know that’s not what I’m doing. I’m just trying to help. Think of it as me repaying a debt. You’ve help me more times than I can count.”
“I appreciate the offer, but no. I’m not taking a handout. From you or anybody else. The fact we’re even talking about it has my father rolling over in his grave. In addition to self-reliance and standing on your own two feet, he taught me to never trust a white man who wants to give a black man something for free. Y’all showed up in Africa centuries ago giving away free cruises to America. Problem was, it was a one-way trip.” Isaac smothered another yawn. “Once I land a berth at one of the major Hero teams, I’ll be all set.” That was Isaac’s dream. Most such teams required a minimum of three years of Heroic experience. Isaac had just submitted applications to several of them. I had no doubt some team would snatch him up—as someone who could turn into a wide variety of mythological creatures, Isaac was a powerful Hero. The problem was that Isaac being accepted by a Hero team meant he would have to move away from Astor City; there were no such teams in the area now that the Sentinels had disbanded. The thought of Isaac leaving made my stomach hurt. Though we weren’t biologically related, Isaac was my brother in all the ways that mattered.
Isaac grinned. “Besides, I’m not going to let you be my sugar daddy. Whenever someone offers someone else money with no strings attached, the offerer secretly has an exchange of bodily fluids in mind. I see the way you look at me.”
“With disdain, dismay, and disgust?”
A pretty Latina in pink yoga pants who looked like she did a lot of squats walked by. Isaac’s eyes lingered on her as she climbed the stairs to the aerobics area on the second floor. With his eyes still on her, Isaac said, “No. Sometimes I swear you look at me the way I’m looking at that cutie with a booty over there.” Isaac cocked his head slightly to the side as he stared at the woman. He whistled softly. “Whoever invented yoga pants deserves a Nobel Prize.”
I waved a hand in front of Isaac’s staring eyes. “Hello! Don’t you already have a girlfriend?”
“I have a girlfriend, not a blindfold. My eyes still work.”
“They won’t work for long if Sylvia catches you looking at another woman like that.”
Isaac blinked, tearing his eyes away from the Latina. He shuddered. “Oh God, please don’t tell her.” Sylvia didn’t put up with any nonsense. She was just the kind of person Isaac needed. I liked her.
I grinned. “I can make no promises.”
“Oh,” Isaac started casually, “speaking of girlfriends—”
“No,” I interjected firmly.
“You don’t even know what I was going to say.”
“You were going to say that Sylvia has a friend who is just dying to meet me and that you think I should go out with her, fall in love, get engaged, make you my best man at the wedding, and name you godfather to all our vanilla babies. The answer is no.” Under the theory that the best way to get over someone was to get under someone, Isaac had pushed various women on me since shortly after Neha died. His matchmaking efforts had gotten worse after he met Sylvia—the two of them had started double-teaming me. Single women outnumbered single men in Astor City by almost two to one. As a professional party planner, Sylvia got around a lot, seemed to know every man-hungry woman in the city, and was all too eager to sic them on me. I often wondered if her girlfriends paid her a bounty each time she hooked one of them up with a man.
Isaac looked abashed. “Okay, maybe you did know what I was going to say. At least let me tell you about Viola before you reject her.”
I made a face. “Viola? Who’s named Viola these days? Is she ninety-years-old? Should I pick her up in a horse and buggy for our first date?” I waved my hand dismissively. “No, never mind, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know because there won’t be a first date.”
“Well, first of all, you’re saying her name wrong. It’s Viola, like the flower. Not the instrument viola.” With the former, he said her name with a long i; with the latter, he said it with a long e.
“A viola is a flower?”
“Yeah. They’re in the violet family. You were raised on a farm. How do you not know that?”
“We grew fruits and vegetables, not flowers.”
“Well I’m fresh out of girls named Rutabaga and Cantaloupe.”
“And you’re fresh out of luck if you think I’m going to go out with Viola, or Pansy, or Chrysanthemum, or whatever other flower child you come up with.”
“C’mon man, when have I ever steered you wrong?”
“Two words: Candace Helwig.”
Isaac looked embarrassed. “I’d almost blotted her out of my mind.”
To get Isaac and Sylvia off my back, I had reluctantly agreed to go out on a blind date with Candace five months ago. “I haven’t. How could I forget about someone who asked to drink my blood on the first date? Not that asking on the thousandth date would be any less creepy.”
“Maybe she was thirsty.”
“Or maybe she was crazy. To be honest, I only have myself to blame. When I walked into the restaurant to see her green and orange hair, septum piercing, cat eye contacts, and a tattoo of a vampire on her neck, I should have turned around and walked out.”
“Your parents raised you with too many Southern manners to do that.”
“Unfortunately.” I shook my head at myself and the memory of Candace. “Never ignore aposematism.”
“Why you gotta drag the Jews into this? First cultural appropriation, now you’re bad-mouthing Jewish people. Apparently you brought racism up North along with your Southern hospitality.”
“Not anti-Semitism. Aposematism. It’s the term describing how animals often warn you they are poisonous or otherwise dangerous by their coloration. How someone as well-read as you doesn’t know that is beyond . . .” I trailed off, seeing the amused twinkle in Isaac’s eye. “Oh. You did know. You were pulling my leg.”
“Yep. Remember, I’m an Academy graduate. Second in my class, as I recall. I know lots of words. Like viola. And duped, and gullible, and simpleton.”
“Why do I always fall for your
foolishness?”
“Because I’m convincing. Just like I’m going to convince you to go out with Viola. Look, I know how you felt about Neha. She was my friend too. I hate that she’s gone. Not a day goes by that I don’t think about her. But life goes on. She wouldn’t want you to waste your life away, mired in guilt and self-pity.”
“I’m not wasting my life away,” I protested.
“Don’t interrupt when I’m in the middle of straightening your life out. All you do is train, fight crime, and then sleep for a few hours, rinse and repeat. You live the life of a warrior monk. I know you want to make sure you’re ready for the looming crisis the Sentinels warned about, but the way you’re going about it, you’re on the express train to Burnout City. Like you said, I’m pulled in too many directions myself. I know a little something about burnout. You’re taking it to the next level. You might be the poster child for it. For depression too, come to think of it. I’m worried about you. You need some fun and frivolity. You need a life that has nothing to do with masks and capes.” Isaac took a swig from his water bottle. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Ranting is thirsty work. Look, I’m not saying you have to marry Viola and have a bunch of babies and name them all after me. Though that last part’s not a bad idea. All I’m saying is that you need to stop moping about the past, freaking out about the future, and start living in the present. Going out with Viola can be the start of that. Candace was a mistake. That’s on me. If I had met her before letting Sylvia pawn her off on you, I would’ve known it was a bad fit. But in Sylvia’s defense, you’re so straitlaced she thought someone as out-there as Candace might balance you out. You know, be the yin to your yang.”
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