Marrow

by Preston Norton

  “He’s getting away!” I screamed at no one in particular.

  Flex shuffled beside me, eyes fixed skyward. His face seemed way calmer than I’m sure mine was at the moment.

  “Says who?” asked Flex.

  “Says who?” I repeated hysterically. I pointed at the sky as if there was a giant sign hanging there that said, ‘DUH!’

  Flex’s gaze was still fixed up, too preoccupied with who-knew-what to notice my panic.

  “Uh . . . you don’t have a concussion, do you?” I asked.

  Stupid question to ask someone with a concussion.

  Flex finally met my gaze with the hint of a grin. “How do you feel about slingshots?”

  “Huh?”

  Flex whipped his right hand out like he was chucking a football—except his hand was the ball. His arm shot out, stretching thin like a rubber band before latching onto a nearby streetlamp. He repeated the movement with his left arm, grabbing the pole of a hanging traffic light. Gritting his teeth, he dug his heels into the ground to keep from sliding.

  “How do you feel about flying?” he asked, grinning wider.

  I decided to take back every mean thing I had ever said about Flex. The guy was a genius. An infuriating, psychotic genius, but a genius nonetheless.

  I rushed to Flex, pumping density into my bones as I pressed my back against his chest. I took a heavy step back, stretching Flex’s arms more. And another step. And another. I was starting to feel more and more resistance.

  “How far can you stretch?” I asked.

  “As far . . . as you think . . . you need,” said Flex through his teeth. His voice didn’t sound too convincing.

  I increased my lead-footed pace, pulling back five yards. Ten yards. At twenty yards, Flex’s arms looked like thin bungee cords ready to burst. At this point, Nero was barely a red speck in the sky.

  Flex’s face was much redder.

  “Please . . . take your time . . .” said Flex. Beads of sweat trickled down his forehead.

  I tapped into my skeletal structure and zeroed out my bone density.

  My feet were ripped off the ground. My insides flattened against the back of my rib cage as I blasted skyward. The wind shrieked in my ears and whipped my skin and clothes. My lips flared out as I whizzed face-first. I couldn’t breathe. My surroundings were a disorienting blur.

  And then I saw it—a flare of red growing larger and more defined.

  I was hurtling right on target.

  “NEEEEERRRRROOOOO!!!!!” I shouted into the wind.

  Nero glanced back just in time for my density-packed fist to nail him in the face. The sickening smack of knuckles against flesh resonated through the atmosphere.

  My momentum ceased. Nero and I plunged downward, side-by-side. Flailing my hand out, I grabbed his limp arm. He was out cold. I pulled him close, back against my chest. Sliding my arms under his armpits, I interlocked my hands around his chest. We were tumbling down to the grassy field of a park. Swinging my body in the air, we plummeted with my back to the ground.

  Grass or no grass . . . this was going to hurt.

  I waited until the last moment to increase my bone density. I hit the grassy surface like a meteor. Dirt exploded around me. The ground might as well have been made of Jell-O. By the time our bodies finally stopped, we were wedged several feet deep in earth. Chunks of soil rained down on us. I had Nero as a human umbrella, but I would have rather taken my chances with the falling debris. Bits of grass were the last to fall, fluttering like confetti. As the dust cleared, I could see Flex just barely past Nero’s fat head.

  “Comfy down there?” Flex asked.

  “Please get me out of here,” I said. My voice was muffled with Nero’s hair in my mouth. “I can’t wait to turn this jerk in to the police.”

  “Police?” said Flex. “This is bigger than the police. We need to call the Guild.”

  CHAPTER 18

  Flex and I made headline news.

  TV, newspapers, radio . . . You name it, they were buzzing about it. Some no name Superhero and his sidekick intern had defeated some other rampaging telekinetic sidekick intern, sending him to the hospital comatose and in handcuffs. I’m sure it helped that the culprit was the sidekick of none other than Fantom, himself. I’m sure it helped even more that the no name Superhero and his sidekick also happened to be the former sidekick and son of the infamous Supervillain, Spine. The next morning, Flex’s apartment complex was bombarded by news reporters. A barrage of microphones was shoved in our faces as we attempted to leave.

  “Why did Nero want to kill you, Marrow?”

  “What have you been doing all these years, Flex?”

  “Do you two feel connected by your relationship to Spine?”

  Flex groaned, shaking his head. “Come back when I’m drunk,” he said. “I’ll tell you all about it.”

  “Nero cheated on the FIST Final Challenge,” I added into the dozen microphones as an afterthought. “FYI.”

  We walked to the nearest convenience store and Flex bought a six pack of energy drinks.

  “Aneuryzm Energy,” said Flex, holding up the six-pack proudly. “Nectar of the gods. This stuff is magic.”

  The letter “z” on the misspelled label was designed as a lightning bolt. It was electrifying a cartoon man’s head, causing his brain to explode.

  “Aneurysm?” I said. “Uh . . . is this stuff safe?”

  “Safe?” said Flex. “You’re a Superhero. Don’t ever ask me if something is safe again.”

  A thousand milligrams of caffeine later . . .

  “Gaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!” I screamed, eyes bulging. I mashed the buttons on the controller without really knowing what I was doing. That seemed to be my best strategy so far.

  “Die, infernal insect!” Flex howled, raising his controller while still pushing buttons at an impractical angle.

  The bright, flashing colors of Marvel vs. Capcom 4 were almost too much for me to handle. Wolverine was moving in for the kill, steel claws extended, while Spider-Man looked like he was doing the hokey-pokey. I grabbed the controller with one hand and proceeded to slap all of the buttons with the palm of my hand.

  “My . . . Spidey . . . senses . . . are . . . tingling!” I said, shouting each word as I smashed the controller.

  “My Wolvey senses are going nuts!” said Flex.

  Spider-Man sprayed a glob of web in Wolverine’s face and then roundhouse kicked him over the ledge of a building.

  “K.O.” said the voice in the television. “Spider-Man wins.”

  “Did I just do that?” I asked. I dropped the controller on the floor, as if holding it might reverse my K.O.

  “No!” Flex shouted at his controller. “That’s the fifth time in a row you’ve beaten me!”

  “Sixth,” I said. “If you include the time you sneezed and accidently walked off the ledge yourself.”

  “I’m not counting that,” said Flex.

  “Okay. Five.”

  Flex fell back on the floor, arms outstretched and dreadlocks fanned out. “I want to go run a marathon,” he said.

  “I want to run two marathons,” I said. “But I want to run the second marathon backwards.”

  “I want to run a marathon on my hands,” said Flex. “You know . . . like a walking handstand marathon. Except running.”

  “That would be cool.”

  “I know. Like . . . why hasn’t anyone done that before?”

  “They’d have to invent running shoes for your hands,” I pointed out.

  “Yeah,” said Flex. “That’d be weird. How would you even tie shoes on your hands?”

  “Velcro?” I suggested. “You could use your teeth.”

  Flex shrugged. “That could work.”

  He began waving his hand in front of his face for no discernible reason. Then he began lifting it up and down, touching his nose as if testing his depth perception. After practicing this exercise for fifteen whole seconds, he rolled his head to face me.

  “Nero rea
lly said he thought Spine and I could have been the greatest Superhero team of all time?” he asked.

  “Uh . . . yeah, I guess,” I said.

  “And that’s why he was worried about you and me?”

  “I s’pose.”

  Flex rolled his head back to where he could stare at the ceiling. “Huh.”

  “Huh” was right. It was mind-boggling to think that Nero could get so worked up over something that seemed so unspectacular.

  But could he be right?

  “You were there though,” I said.

  Flex rotated his head back to me and raised an inquisitive eyebrow. “Huh?”

  “I mean . . . you were there fighting side-by-side with Spine,” I said. “You should know. Were you two really that good?”

  Flex’s eyes drifted as he thought. He was silent for a long moment. It was weird that he had to think about it so long.

  “We were good,” he finally said. “Really good. It’s just . . . I dunno. It was such a long time ago. It doesn’t feel real anymore.”

  “Was that slingshot move something you used to do with him?” I asked.

  Flex chuckled. “We learned that move on the fly. We were fighting this Super named Vulture-Tron. Shot him clean out of the air.”

  “Did you two have any other special moves?”

  “Psh! Heck yeah we did. The whip . . . the ball and chain . . . We had loads of moves.”

  “What was the whip?” I asked.

  “Well . . . basically your dad would grab me and swing me around like a whip. Real classy stuff.”

  “What was the ball and chain?”

  “I would swing your dad around like a ball and chain,” he said. “Even classier.”

  “Sounds like it.”

  “The man was crazy,” said Flex. “Every time we were on the job, he would do the most insane things to save someone’s life. Nearly got himself killed in the process almost every single time. And then, after I’d tell him how stupid he was, he’d get this cocky look in his eyes, and he’d say, ‘Hey, if you aren’t willing to lose your life, how can you save anyone?’ Every single time, he’d say that. He said it so much that . . . I dunno. I started believing it. That was the sort of Superhero I wanted to become. Until . . . well . . . you know.”

  “Yeah . . .” I said. My voice faded to silence. What was I doing? Asking questions about my dad? The same dad that abandoned me? That had a reputation as the most infamous Supervillain of all time? He had killed people. Lots of people. And then there was the whole ordeal with Nightmare . . .

  So why did Flex have to make him sound so cool?

  “Do you miss him?” I asked.

  Flex hesitated. Then he nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “More than I care to admit.”

  I bit my lip. I hated this emotional hole I was digging myself in. I couldn’t help it because I felt empty . . . but it only left me feeling emptier.

  “I’m tired,” I said. “I need another brain aneurysm.”

  “It’s just Aneuryzm,” said Flex. “And I drank the last one.”

  I grumbled, rolling onto my stomach and planting my face in the floor.

  “I agree,” he said.

  There was a sudden pounding that seemed to shake the very fabric of space and time. I thought my brain was going to explode like the cartoon guy on the Aneuryzm can. The pounding started again—only this time I realized it was just someone knocking at the door.

  Only one person in the universe knocked like that.

  Flex staggered to his feet, tripping over his own lanky legs before shuffling to the door. He didn’t get there in time. Instead, the air seemed to ripple, and suddenly Havoc was standing in front of the doorway. He looked as big and bad as ever with shirt sleeves that might as well have been painted onto his massive arms.

  Havoc’s gaze shifted from Flex to where I laid on the floor. I forced a weak smile.

  “Hey, you,” I said.

  “What’s the matter with him?” Havoc asked, turning to Flex. “You didn’t give him alcohol, did you?”

  “Whoa, relax,” said Flex. “He just had an Aneuryzm.”

  “WHAT?”

  “No,” said Flex, squeezing his eyes shut and rubbing his temples. “Not like that. It’s . . . ah, never mind. What do you want anyway, 50 Cent?”

  “What’d you call me?” said Havoc, raising a threatening eyebrow.

  Flex blinked several times. “Did I say that out loud? Wow. Awkward. I really need to go to bed.”

  Havoc rolled his eyes and dug his beefy hand into his pocket. When he removed it, he was holding an envelope.

  “This is an invitation to the Tartarus,” he said. “Fantom is living in the research facility for the time being. He wants to personally speak to you two. He wants to . . . thank you . . . for your service.”

  Havoc had to force out these last words, like a dog barfing up grass.

  “Are you going to apologize to me?” I asked.

  “Apologize?” said Havoc. “For what?”

  “For Nero cheating on the Final Challenge and me getting in trouble for it,” I said. “Duh.”

  Havoc snorted. “Nero is in handcuffs because he made an attempt on both of your lives. Not because of the Final Challenge. We still don’t have any conclusive evidence on that. And since he’s in a coma in the hospital, we can’t exactly interrogate him.”

  “Conclusive evidence my big fat hairy left toe,” I said. “Why else would he try to kill me? ‘Cause I’m good looking?”

  “Maybe I’ll think about apologizing if you can pick your raggedy white butt off the floor,” said Havoc.

  Standing up sounded exhausting. “Humph,” I said as I rolled back onto my face.

  “So wait,” said Flex. “You’re just going to teleport us over to the Tartarus right now?”

  Havoc eyed us both like something slightly less evolved than earthworms. “Not dressed like a couple of bums, I’m not. If I’m gonna take you two to see Fantom, you’re gonna suit up.”

  CHAPTER 19

  Flex and I stared at ourselves in tri-panel mirrors. His bodysuit was a vivid array of green, yellow, and red. He was pretty insistent on those colors, even when Havoc told him he looked like a puke stain. Flex said they were Bob Marley’s colors, and that was pretty much the end of the dispute. At least his mask was the conventional black design, wrapping narrowly around his eyes.

  My bodysuit was actually glaringly different—black with a white skeletal design. But not like the hokey skeleton Halloween costumes. This jumpsuit looked like a literal x-ray of my skeleton. The texture of the suit had a holographic effect that made the bones shift wherever you were looking at it from. My mask covered a slightly larger portion of my face and resembled a skull.

  In short, I looked kick-butt awesome.

  “Whoever decided that all Superheroes should wear spandex needs to die in a hole,” said Flex.

  “It’s not spandex,” said Havoc. “These suits are made from an unstable molecular fabric. They adapt to your body as you’re wearing them and acclimate to your respective powers.”

  “I’ve got a wedgie,” said Flex, picking the fabric from his butt.

  “Way more than I needed to know,” said Havoc.

  “Aren’t we supposed to have matching suits?” I asked.

  Havoc shook his head. “That’s a popular myth. Every sidekick thinks they’re supposed to look like their hero trainer. The public doesn’t want a Superhero Mini-Me. The best sidekicks are the ones that stand out.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  “You’re welcome.”

  “These seriously feel like Kim Kardashian’s pants,” said Flex.

  “You wear Kim Kardashian’s pants?” asked Havoc.

  “You know what I meant.”

  “Sure I do, Kim.”

  “Go die, 2Pac.”

  ***

  I wondered how an unstable molecular fabric would react if I peed my pants.

  The moment Havoc teleported Flex and me aboard the Tartarus res
earch facility, I felt like I was on a different planet. We stood inside a beehive-like glass-plated dome filled with more tubes, pumps, gears, and blinking computer lights than I could begin to define. Through the transparent walls, I could see that the Tartarus consisted of a series of similar glass domes. Together they formed a vast circle connected by narrow glass passageways, bathed in a rippling blue glow. Most of the domes had their own submarine boarding docks, including ours. These were no ordinary submarines though; these vessels were whale-shaped with a metal insect-like exoskeleton. Several yellow-tinted bubble windows bulged from the framework.

  In the center of the Tartarus was the true gem, however—a gargantuan rock formation, twisting and contorting into gnarled, jagged points. Its entire surface emitted a neon green misty aura. A scaffolding infrastructure was built around it.

  The Gaia Comet.

  The comet’s surrounding infrastructure had one particularly grabbing feature—a hulking metal machine built onto the side of it. It looked suspiciously like a gigantic gun, the barrel of which led directly into the largest of the interconnecting domes. One word was inscribed on its surface.

  Cronus

  Our sudden appearance in Tartarus did not go unnoticed. A man in a white lab coat with big glasses and an even bigger comb-over approached us. (I’m not kidding about this comb-over. His hair was parted practically at his ear, scraped thin like butter over his shiny head.)

  “Ah, Marrow and Flex,” he said, grinning. “What a pleasure. We’ve been expecting you. My name is Dr. Jarvis. I’m the lead researcher here at the Tartarus.”

  “Cool place you got here,” said Flex, his gaze still wandering “Does it have a pool?”

  “Fantom does in fact have a pool in his private living area,” said Dr. Jarvis.

  “What? Seriously? I was just being sarcastic.”

  “Fantom is funding the Tartarus,” said Dr. Jarvis, “so when he’s on site, which is quite often, we see to it that he’s comfortable.”

  “Man, what a rough life,” said Flex.

  Havoc rolled his eyes. “I’ll leave these two with you then, Dr. Jarvis.”