by Drew Hayes
Mary raised an eyebrow. "You want to go costume shopping?"
"Why not? I said we would go shopping anyway, and besides, it’s early October so the stores should be open. We'll have fun." Alice gave Mary a sincere smile, and with a crash Mary realized she had just maneuvered herself into spending a Saturday being dressed up like Alice's personal doll.
Mary was a firm believer that necessity and duty should trump one's own desires. That said, she still found herself thankful that Alice didn't have telepathy as well, otherwise all the cursing going on in Mary's head might have been a tad difficult to explain.
39.
"Well, gory as that was, I think this is where I bail out for the day," Vince said, rising from his chair and stretching deeply while the ending credits for the previous movie rolled across the screen.
"Ah, come on, we've still got like two more!" Nick protested.
"Yeah," Hershel agreed. Hershel and Alex had joined up with them halfway through the first movie, finding the siren song of slacking while watching slasher cinema too alluring to resist in favor of homework.
"And I'm certain they'll be wonderful movies," Vince placated. "I've got to get heading over to Sasha's, though, remember? We're celebrating her rise in rank."
"So bring her back," Nick countered. "What better way to celebrate life than to observe those who are lacking in it?"
"You want me to congratulate the girl I'm dating on a serious accomplishment by making her watch bad zombie movies?"
"Vince," Nick began in an offputtingly serious tone, "a woman who won't celebrate with zombie movies isn't a woman you want to keep around. Trust me, that's gospel truth right there."
"Amen," Alex chimed in.
Vince stared into the sleek lenses of his friend's glasses for a moment, then shook his head and barked out a laugh. "Okay, okay. You guys win; I'll bring it up to her as an option. But if she says no then consider me gone for the night."
"That seems fair," Hershel said.
"Yeah, yeah, fair schmare," Nick said with a wave as he dragged himself out of his own chair. "We may as well get some dinner ourselves while Vince is applying the zombie barometer to his relationship."
"Zombie barometer? Really?" Vince asked as the other two stood from their reclined positions to join them.
Nick simply gave a small nod and replied with two words. "Gospel. Truth."
The four hungry young Supers headed out of the boys’ lounge and made a path for the entrance hall, nearly plowing right into Mary and Alice as the two girls entered the common room.
"Oh good," Alice said briskly. "I'm glad you're all here. I have something we need to talk about. Just let me go put away our packages." With that, Alice scooped up Mary's bags along with her own and moved with surprising swiftness into the girls’ lounge.
"Actually, we were sort of heading out," Vince began calling after her.
"You're staying," said Mary with a thou-shalt-not-question-me-for-I've-been-stuck-trying-on-clothes-all-day-and-I-am-desperate-to-share-the-pain tone. Okay, Vince may not have picked up on all of the subtlety contained in her words, but the gist of it came through.
"I guess we have a few minutes to spare," Vince acquiesced. Hershel and Nick might have had fleeting thoughts of protesting on their own, but one look from Mary's weary yet scorching eyes told them quite clearly that they'd be better off minding their own business.
"Um, well, I guess I’ll go head over to the dining hall and grab us a table," Alex offered.
"I'm sure you're welcome to stay," Nick assured him. "I'm equally sure that being able to leave is the privilege in this case, though, so do what you want."
"Yeah, I'll just meet up with you guys after," Alex said, taking in a long stare at Mary's haggard stance and making a (wise) snap decision. "Give me a call."
"Will do," Hershel assured him, although he wondered how much longer he would be able to stay out. Weekends were historically Roy's turf, but he hadn't been lobbying for them nearly as hard since his bout with Chad. In fact, Roy hadn't been doing much of anything besides working on the training Mary had given him. It was beginning to concern Hershel a bit, but for the moment he was grateful to have been handed the chance for a sense of normalcy, regardless of how fleeting it might turn out to be.
Alice emerged a few moments after Alex departed, taking a position at the front of the room and gesturing for the others to sit down around her. She made no comment on Alex leaving, taking it on faith that they had ushered him out the door in a properly diplomatic fashion. Interestingly enough, it never occurred to her that their method had been forewarning him so he could escape to freedom.
"Now then, I want to talk to you all about Halloween," Alice began once everyone had awkwardly settled in. "Mary and I were looking at some costume options today, and it occurred to me that there aren't many celebration options for people in our position."
"Wait, the two of you went shopping? When did I miss that turn in the road?" Nick interrupted.
"Annnnnyway," Alice continued. "My point is that we aren't old enough to drink at the bars, and it's not like the school has many fun activities. I thought we should talk about some possible options."
"Um, well, I hate to say it, but I think my plans for Halloween are already set," Hershel said. "Roy has been looking forward to that for months, and it's really always been his favorite holiday."
"That seems like something of an odd choice," Vince commented.
"He gets to walk around in a costume lacking a shirt and hit on women dressed in far more appealing clothing than they would normally wear, all while hopping from bar to bar finding an endless supply of co-eds," Hershel explained.
"That does make a lot more sense," Nick agreed.
"Yeah," Vince said, distracted. The mention of Roy in a bar had reminded him of something he'd been curious about the night they had gone to Whiskey Shallows. "Hey Hershel, how come Roy can drink out in public like that? He's the same age as you, so shouldn't that be illegal?"
"Oh, Roy has a fake ID. Given how mature he looks, no one ever really questions it when he goes out," Hershel explained.
"Ahem," Alice said, clearing her throat purposefully. "If we're quite done discussing yet another way that Roy is violating rules, perhaps we can move back to my original point and discuss what we might want to do for Halloween?"
"I've got a better question," Nick said. "Why are you assuming we'll all want to do something together? I mean, we've all done our own thing for the past few weeks and that's been working out pretty well. How about we all just do whatever we want for Halloween?"
There was a beat of silence as Alice used every drop of self-control she had to keep from blushing. She'd gotten so wrapped up in shopping with Mary today, Alice had managed to forget that the rest of her dorm mates were her cohabitants, not really her friends. With a swift and disproportionate sense of embarrassment, she imagined how silly she must seem, suddenly trying to rally everyone together out of the blue. Urgently she grasped for anything she could say to gracefully exit the conversation and retreat to her room where she could forget all about this little foray in social expansion.
"We've all been 'doing our own thing' because we were getting acclimated to campus and the program. That doesn't mean we shouldn't consider each other friends and ignore our sense of unity. We're the only people on this entire campus that know what kind of horror it is to have powers and not be able to control them. We all lived through that, we all dealt with that, and right now we're all doing our best to make sure no one else ever knows about that part of our past. If that doesn't make us at least connected enough to consult together on holiday plans, then I don't think we'll be bonded to anyone. Ever," Mary said sternly.
Nick stared across at her and Mary matched his gaze. Many people would have been subtly intimidated by not being able to see Nick's eyes, but for Mary it was no concern at all. She didn't need to look into his eyes to see into his head. And Nick knew it.
"Okay, okay," Nick said with a
shrug. "It was just a question. So Alice, I assume you had some ideas for what we could do?"
"Oh, um, yes," Alice said, recovering quickly. Outwardly she went through the few options she’d compiled thus far, gauging everyone's reactions to the possible celebrations. Inwardly, though, she was dealing with the sense of shock and overwhelming gratitude she felt for Mary. In all of her life, Alice couldn't think of one time anyone else had stood up for her like that. It was a very novel, very nice sensation. And somewhere, in the deepest parts of her mind, the mask of friendship she had worn toward the tiny telepath became just a few degrees closer to reality.
40.
"You have got to be kidding me! More books? Where are you even finding these things?" Nick wailed as Alice walked into the common room with a pile of books bundled in her arms.
"Yeah, that's the appropriate reaction here, bitch about me finding more resources. Don't even pause for a minute to consider helping the lady in need," Alice snapped.
"I'm a proponent of gender equality," Nick shot back. The duo was meeting to work on their group project yet again, though in this case "work" might have been a somewhat loose definition. It more often consisted of Nick finding ways to occupy himself outside of the subject at hand and Alice berating him for it as her method of research avoidance. Neither appeared particularly adept at knuckling down for hard work, but as the due date drew closer, Alice found her stress level rising in proportion, so she was determined they make headway with what time they had left.
"Such a gentleman," Alice mumbled as she set the books down and took her seat. She'd tried to maintain her usual implacably polite demeanor for the first week or so, but something about Nick seemed to render her usual defense inaccessible.
"Hey, you’re the one that campaigned for it; I'm just respecting your wishes."
"If you're granting wishes I'd love for you to pick up a damn book and help me with this. Our presentation is in two more weeks!" Alice said through gritted teeth.
"Yeah, but Halloween is in a week and a half, so shouldn't we really be focusing more on what we're going to do costume-wise?" Nick replied.
Alice took a deep breath. "I've already gotten mine prepared, because unlike you, I plan ahead of time. By that same token, I'd also like to plan ahead for what we're going to say when standing in front of the entire freshman class, presenting the entire life of a superhero we know next to nothing about."
"What's to know? I mean, the guy is pretty infamous as is. He was part of the world's most respected team of Heroes, then one day out of the blue he goes rogue, kills his partner, and gets taken down by the rest of his team. It's one of the most famous stories of any Hero. Do you really think we're going to shed any new light or insight into one of the most speculated-on events of the past century?" Nick asked.
"I think we'd damn sure better try," Alice responded. "We picked this topic, we told Dean Blaine this was the guy we wanted. If we go in there with this report half-assed, it reflects horribly on us. Besides, he can’t be all that infamous. I’ve never heard of him.”
“Tell me you’re joking,” Nick said. “You’ve never heard of Globe the Traitor? He’s, like, the favorite cautionary tale of everyone in the Super community. ‘Don’t grow too full of yourself or you’ll end up like Globe.’ Your parents never told you about him?”
“I was raised with other educational goals. Besides, since until this year it was never even considered that I might one day gain control and become a Super, such cautionary tales would hardly have been necessary. So what happened with him, anyway?” Alice asked.
“I thought you’d been researching him.”
“I have,” she said defensively. “I simply started with his early life, which was oddly difficult to find information on. I haven’t gotten to him joining a team of Heroes yet, let alone betraying them.”
“I can try to fill you in,” Nick said. “You have to understand that not a whole lot is really known about the details, though. It was a pretty big PR mess for the Super community, and I think a lot of the records were sealed and information was hidden away.”
“That might explain why I’m having such trouble finding information about his early life.”
“True point,” Nick agreed. “Anyway, from what I know, Globe was part of a team of Heroes around fifteen years ago, give or take a few. They were really powerful - I mean, out of the five members, two were considered so strong that it was thought they might grow into Armageddon Class.”
“Those are the ones who could actually destroy the world if left unchecked, correct?”
“Bingo,” Nick confirmed. “So Globe was one of those two, and the story is that he got a little too full of himself. He felt like he was doing all of the work and carrying his team. Those feelings snowballed over time, and eventually he decided he didn’t need them anymore.”
“So he quit the team,” Alice surmised.
“That’s one way to put it. Another would be to say that he murdered Intra, one of his teammates, and tried to kill the other three as well before they were eventually able to kill him instead. It was one hell of a resignation letter.”
“That’s awful,” Alice gasped. “He turned on his own team?”
“Even worse, Intra was apparently his best friend. The two of them were partners before they joined up with the other three members,” Nick added.
“It seems odd, though,” Alice remarked. “I mean, I guess I can see growing unhappy with a team, but why not just leave? Why end your relationship in murder?”
“Hence why I said this is one of the most speculated-on events in modern history. It doesn’t really make sense; there must have been some other motivations going on behind the scenes. We don’t know what they were, though, so the whole thing just ends up being one big head-scratching mystery,” Nick said.
“Hmm,” Alice said, the wheels turning in her head. “Maybe we can take an angle of looking at it from the point of view of the rest of the team. My father is well-connected, it’s possible he could pull some strings and line up a few interviews for it.”
“He’d have to be really well connected.”
“Just tell me the name of the other team members,” Alice said, just a twitch too quickly to pass over Nick’s comment nonchalantly.
“We only have their code names, of course,” Nick said. “Even in death the identity of a Hero is protected. If memory serves, though, the other team members were Intra, the one who was killed, as well was Black Hole and Shimmerpath. There was one more, too.”
“We know of two. Is the last one terribly important?” Alice asked.
“Couldn’t hurt,” Nick replied. “Let me think a second. He had something to do with changing the composition of things.”
Alice felt her stomach take a very abrupt and deliberate trip in the southern direction. “You know, Nick, I think we’re fine with just these two-”
“The Alchemist!” Nick declared triumphantly. “The fifth member was a man by the name of The Alchemist. Anyway, after Globe went nuts, the team was disbanded and everyone left alive disappeared from the world of Supers. Think your dad would be able to find them?”
“I’m unfortunately certain of it,” Alice said through gritted teeth. “My father is Charles Adair, but back in his Hero days, he went by the code name of The Alchemist.”
“Ohhh,” Nick said as understanding seemed to dawn on him. “Awkwaaaard.”
41.
"Still no answer," Alice all but swore as she paced the room, snapping her cell phone shut.
"Ain't that always the way? Parents are always calling when you're busy, but the minute you actually need to talk they're nowhere to be found," Nick commented from his sprawled out position on the couch.
"Oh this is just so... so him!" Alice spat out, dropping into a chair with a huff.
"In all fairness to your dad, it's not like he knows you're trying to reach him this hard," Nick said.
"Not that. I mean... well, yes, him being busy and unavailable is classic
, too, but I meant the thing with his old teammate. That is just so Daddy," Alice grumbled.
"He makes a habit of helping to kill murderous teammates, huh?"
"Don't be a jackass," Alice snapped. "It's so like him to have this huge part of his life and tell me nothing about it. I mean, I can sort of understand why he might not want to tell me about what happened with Globe: I'm sure that was really traumatic. But I never even knew he belonged to a team. I thought he just got his certification and did a little Hero work to help his career. Now it turns out there's yet another part of his life he didn't bother to share with me. The funniest part about this is that as much I want to feel mad, I can't. I can't because I don't even feel surprised by it anymore." Alice let out a long, slow breath, deflating as it exited her lungs.
"I, um, actually sort of know what you mean," Nick ventured cautiously. "Ms. Pips isn't really big on sharing either."
"I thought your last name was Campbell?" Alice asked.
"It is," Nick confirmed. "It was my parents’ last name. The woman who raised me is named Ms. Pips, though."
"Oh," Alice said simply, grabbing the implication immediately.
"Yeah," Nick said, glossing onward. "I mean, don't get me wrong, I love Ms. Pips and she loves me. A guy couldn't ask for a better godmother. She's just not the type that gushes anything. Feelings, personal history, dreams; really, any of that crap is kept close to the vest. You know, kind of like your dad, or that's how it seems at least."
"It seems right," Alice agreed. "He's a better dad when he's around, but you don't build a multi-billion dollar lifestyle by having lots of free time to hang out with your defective daughter."
"Defective?"
"Not anymore, I guess. Just still sort of think of myself that way. From ages three to eighteen I was damaged goods. That sort of mindset takes a little time to fade," Alice admitted.
"It really does," Nick concurred. "What about your mom? Is she around more?"