Super Powereds: Year 4

by Hayes, Drew

  Nick drummed his fingers once on the table, and then gave a wide grin that would have sent shivers down the other men’s spines had they not already seen far worse.

  “It’s about time we flushed that mole out. Looks like I’ve got more research to do.”

  97.

  “Keep it steady, Chuck,” Phil shouted as his little brother wobbled down the pavement atop the secondhand tricycle. At four years old, the smaller boy still lacked the necessary balance to handle a two-wheeled ride, but he was adapting well to the more stable method of transport. This likely came less from any inborn natural skill and more from the unwavering encouragement of his big brother. The duo were lean, both tall for their age and sharing a hair color that resembled slightly burnt chocolate.

  “You’re doing great.” Phil was right there, jogging to keep alongside. “How do you feel?”

  “Scared.” Chuck kept his eyes trained on the road, like he expected it to begin melting at any time.

  “That’s okay. It’s a little scary at first. Once you get used to it, it’ll be fun.”

  “If you say so,” Chuck called back, tempting fate slightly with the manifestation of a grin. He kept riding and Phil kept running for several hours more, late into the afternoon. Their mother was at work, and they found it best to stay out from underfoot when their father was around. When the sun began to dip toward the horizon, they finally returned to their small home down the street, brows coated with sweat and muscles aching in a curiously enjoyable way.

  Phil opened the front door, and his entire body tensed. The lights were too low, the television too loud, and that godawful bitter, yeasty scent hung in the air. Chuck wasn’t yet old enough to understand these signs like Phil could, but he could read his brother. Chuck felt the body in front of him stiffen, and he cringed involuntarily. His body shifted until he was directly behind Phil, trying to hide from whatever was incoming.

  Phil didn’t blame his brother, but hiding wasn’t an option now.

  “Boy,” came the voice from the living room. The words were slurred ever so slightly, polished with the practice that only came from extensive time spent in an altered state of mind. “Come in here a minute.”

  Phil swallowed hard. It was one of the bad days. He reached behind him and took hold of Chuck.

  “Yes, sir,” Phil replied loudly, making sure to be heard. He immediately dropped his tone, hoping to hide his words in the amped up volume of the blaring television. “When I go, walk as fast and as quietly as you can to our room. Don’t make any noise, or come out for any reason until I come get you. Understand?”

  Chuck nodded, visibly fighting off a small shiver that tried to race down his spine.

  “Good man.” Phil gave him a quick hug, packed with all the reassurance he could muster in the brief moment.

  “Boy, I told you to get in here,” came the voice again.

  “Right away, sir.” Phil didn’t dare dawdle any longer. He headed toward the living room, and Chuck scampered away across the carpet, moving on his tiptoes, barely daring to step on any part of the floor that wasn’t well padded. Phil watched as Chuck reached the room they shared. He eased the door open carefully and slid it closed behind him. Just before it shut all the way, Chuck turned the knob, releasing it slowly so it wouldn’t make a loud clicking sound.

  With his brother safely out of sight, Phil resumed the long journey toward the living room. He didn’t know what the cause for being called in was this time, what kindling had lit the fire of his father’s whiskey-soaked rage. It really didn’t matter what the subject was anyway; the results would be the same.

  The results were always the same.

  * * *

  The sheets were damp with sweat as Globe’s eyes flashed open, his right hand—his only remaining real hand—grabbed frantically around the bed. Honestly, even he wasn’t sure what he was searching for. It had been a very long time since anyone shared a bed with the world-famous criminal—not since before the incident with Intra—which made it all the stranger that he was fumbling about in his half-conscious state, hand closing around nothing as he struggled to pull himself out of the nightmare.

  Finally, he came fully to his senses. Sitting in the dark, he had to resist the urge to snicker at himself. All these years, so many nightmares, and he was still so awful at dealing with them. Then again, maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad if he hadn’t kept getting new ones. The day he’d killed Intra was a frequent player in his carousel of nightmares, beaten only by the time four Supers had managed to ambush him and Vince outside Kansas City. Vince had come so close to dying that day, even if he never knew it. Sometimes, Globe had nightmares about what had followed, when he’d faked his own death to put distance between himself and his adopted son. He’d been standing nearby, watching as Vince believed he was witnessing his father’s death, ready to step in if the boy did anything stupid. The horror on Vince’s face would never stop haunting him, not that he’d have allowed it to if given the choice. Globe had been trained as a Hero; he knew that life came with hard choices, and it was on those who made them to carry the burden.

  Tonight hadn’t been any of the usual players, though. No, this was among his oldest nightmares: memories of the time before, when he’d been powerless. Helpless. Globe detested those memories. He sat upright, waiting for his pulse to slow. What he wouldn’t have given for Intra’s power, to change things about himself rather than the world around him. Instead, he had to calm down the old-fashioned way, with patience and steady breathing.

  When he finally felt somewhat more composed, Globe laid his head back down on the damp pillow. As he closed his eyes, he hoped to dream of something better. Pleasant, if not beautiful.

  Like most of his life’s hopes, this one didn’t come true.

  * * *

  Phil tried not to limp as he walked into the room. The buckle from the belt had taken him squarely on the shin at one point, and had he known more about anatomy he might have suspected the bone to be fractured. All he knew was that it hurt, and he was set on downplaying that fact in front of Chuck. He couldn’t hide the bruises and the gashes, but he could hide the pain. That much he could protect his little brother from.

  Phil opened the closet door and found Chuck curled up in the usual spot, eyes bloodshot and watery.

  “It’s okay now.” Phil forced himself to smile, even if they both knew Chuck could see through it. “You can come out.”

  He emerged slowly, like a baby deer tempted with a carrot. Phil sat down and leaned his back against the bed, striking a sore spot and readjusting, trying to keep the wince of pain off his face the whole while. Chuck stayed low and curled up against his brother’s chest, choosing his spot carefully in hopes of not hitting any of Phil’s injuries.

  “Tomorrow, let’s go to the canyon,” Phil said. “We’ll bring our backpacks and sleeping bags, and we can stay out under the stars.”

  Chuck nodded his agreement. He was still too scared to use his voice for fear of calling down another torrent of wrath.

  “You can say something. It’s fine now.”

  “What if we didn’t come back? What if we went to the canyon and stayed gone?”

  “We can’t do that. Mom would worry too much.” Phil didn’t say the real reason he couldn’t leave. Chuck wouldn’t understand how much worse for her it would be without someone else to draw his ire. “You don’t want Mom to be sad, do you?”

  “She could come, too.”

  He was too young to remember the time when she and the boys had tried just that. He had been too little: too little to even defend himself; too small to know how close he came to dying that night in the poorly lit highway motel.

  Phil needed to change the subject, and he had just the card to play.

  “Can you keep a secret, Chuck?”

  “Yes.”

  “You have to really mean it; this is a big one. If I tell you, then you have to promise not to tell anyone until I say it’s okay,” Phil said.

  “
I won’t. I promise.”

  Phil pulled a quarter out of his pocket. He held it in the palm of his hand for a moment, furrowing his brow in concentration. After a couple of seconds, the quarter began to rise into the air, only an inch high, but hovering free of physical support.

  Chuck barely kept his gasp quiet. “How are you doing that?”

  “I think… I think I’m a Super, like we see on TV. I noticed it earlier this month. I can move things that are close to me. They have to be really close, though.” To illustrate the point, Phil raised the coin a little bit higher, at which point it instantly ceased its floatation and came crashing back to his palm. “But the area is getting bigger; I can go further than last week. Plus, I can do more than lift.” The coin began to ripple, melting into a solid ball right before their eyes.

  “What does it mean?” Chuck asked, all thoughts of running taken away by the magic set before him.

  Phil wrapped his other arm around his brother and hugged him tightly.

  “It means we’re going to be okay,” Phil told him. “It means everything will be okay.”

  98.

  “You’re sure this is okay? As I recall, we didn’t even start really sparring with our powers until halfway through the year. You don’t mind a freshman getting ahead of the curve?” Roy asked.

  “That rule was only for gym classes,” Professor Fletcher said. “In between, they’re having all sorts of power-based fights to move their rankings, fights where Ashley hasn’t been doing too well. So if she wants to train with a safe partner, and you’re willing to take the time to help, then it’s fine by me. Just make sure you have a healer on hand the first time you two go at it, in case she dishes more than you can take.”

  Some small piece of Roy wanted to protest the idea that he could be injured by a freshman, but wisdom won out over pride. Any Super could be a threat; assuming they weren’t because of a gap in age or training was an excellent way to get the shit kicked out of him. Roy Daniels might not be the fastest learner out there, but even he caught on eventually.

  “I’m surprised you’re willing to entertain the notion,” Professor Fletcher continued. “Thought you’d have your hands full trying to figure out your own stuff.”

  “If dwelling on it helped, I’d have had a dozen breakthroughs by now.” Roy and Hershel had both been thinking nonstop about the curious weakening of the barrier between their minds. Yet, for all their nervous fear, nothing seemed to be happening. There were still occasional twinges of the other leaking through, but neither experienced anything as severe as what had happened during October’s trial. Perhaps it responded to stress, or need, or some other variable they’d yet to account for. Regardless, doing nothing wasn’t helping, which meant it was time to try doing something.

  “You never know, maybe sparring with her will knock a few screws loose up here,” Roy said, tapping gently on his head just below the brim of his hat. “And how many chances am I going to get to fight someone who uses punching explosions? That’s the sort of thing you can’t pass up.”

  “Just make sure you’re careful,” Professor Fletcher cautioned. “She’s not only a freshman; she’s had almost no experience fighting other Supers before this. Came from a town without competition, and since she’s not a sociopath, she didn’t use her abilities on normal people. A Super that raw needs to be handled just right until they learn control, otherwise they’re as likely to get themselves hurt as their opponent.”

  “Little odd, isn’t it?” Roy asked. “Most Supers who know they want to go the HCP route seek out preemptive training, trying to get some kind of head start.”

  “Her journey is her own, just as yours belonged to you,” Professor Fletcher replied. “If you want to know why she’s so inexperienced, I suggest you talk to her.”

  “May just do that.” Roy rose from the chair that seemed just a bit too small for his sizable frame and started toward the door of Professor Fletcher’s cramped office. “One question, though, before I head out. Ashley having the sense to approach a senior, someone who knew their way around a fight well enough to teach her without getting either of them injured, did she really come up with that by herself? Because, on her own, I think it’s more likely she’d have done what I did and kept trying to swing for the top of the class. This seems more like the sort of thing a wily professor might put in her head, assuming they were experienced enough at manipulating people.”

  Professor Fletcher’s face was stoic as always; the old man had racked up more years of practice hiding his feelings than Roy had spent on Earth. After a long moment, his head gave the slightest dip, so subtle one could have easily mistaken it for a twitch rather than the nod it was.

  “That’s not the sort of thing her coach really has the place to tell her to do. At the same time, I’d hate to see someone with such promise wash out of the program before really getting a shot to improve. So I might have planted a few ideas, made sure certain already existing rumors made their way to her. The better question here, however, has nothing to do with Ashley Beck. I’m much more curious about how you figured that out. Forgive me, Roy, you’re a fine Super with a good heart, but thinking things through like that has never been your strong point.”

  “Hershel figured it out, after we talked to Ashley at the party,” Roy admitted. “He thought it all came together a little too easily, and so he had a hunch that you might have been behind things, even if you didn’t want it to seem that way.”

  “Yet from just his hunch, you felt confident enough after our conversation to press me about it,” Professor Fletcher pointed out.

  Roy hadn’t considered that. The idea to ask had just appeared in his head, like all thoughts, seemingly out of nowhere. Only now, he found himself wondering, where had the urge come from? Where did any thought come from? He pushed the question away, more than aware that he was not built to grapple with such existential issues. Or was he? Roy wasn’t even sure about his own mind anymore, and that meant he could take nothing for granted.

  “Was there a point to that, other than tripping me out?” Roy asked.

  “Just making sure you’re taking careful note of everything,” Professor Fletcher replied. “This sort of exploration of an ability… oftentimes, it’s the smallest details that lead to a breakthrough. Something to keep in mind when you next meet with Professor Stone.”

  It was all Roy could do not to let out a heavy sigh. Hershel was making headway on the meditation practice, but Roy had so far only succeeded in learning to nap while sitting. Not an entirely useless skill, just not what he was supposed to be accomplishing.

  “At this point, I’ll take anything that helps,” Roy said. “Anything else I need to know? Any other weird worries you want to put in my head?”

  Professor Fletcher paused briefly, as though actually considering the question. “No, I think that meets the requirements for today’s meeting. Do let me know when you and Ashley have your first sparring session, though. I’d rather she not be aware, but I plan to watch over the fight. As her teacher, it’s important I know as much as I can about my students and their limits.”

  “And if I don’t push her to her limits?”

  This time, there was no pause at all before Professor Fletcher replied. “Then I’d be forced to see if a Super with mimic abilities had taken your place. The Roy Daniels I’ve helped train can’t help but bring his best to every battle. He doesn’t know any other way to fight. It’s one of the things I respect most about him, in fact.”

  Roy couldn’t think of anything to say to the professor in reply to such high praise, so instead, he simply gave a small nod and showed himself out of the room. If he hadn’t already planned on giving Ashley a good round of training, he was damn sure going to do it now.

  99.

  “Wow.” Vince sat in the black computer chair, eyes wide as he tried to come to terms with what Alice had just laid on him. “Are you sure about this?”

  “Sure as we can be, given the situation,” Alice replied. After
time to think it over, she’d decided that Professor Pendleton was right. There was never going to be a perfect moment, and the longer she delayed, the harder it would be. How would Vince feel if she waited years to drop this bomb on him instead of days? Curiously enough, the situation had given her a small appreciation for why her uncles might have kept their identities secret from her. The deeper buried a secret was, the harder it became to unearth. That was why she’d decided to call Vince into her room and bring him up to speed, while she still had the option. “But Professor Pendleton more or less confirmed what Abridail showed us, so I think it’s safe to say we’re pretty certain.”

  “Our fathers were—are—brothers.” Vince leaned his head back and rested it on the back of the chair. “You know, as much as I probably should say this is a real shock, it actually puts a whole lot more stuff in perspective. His name, for example. I didn’t know who Globe or Charles Adair were as a kid, and we certainly weren’t exposed to the names in our travels. There was no real reason for him to hide his name from me, or not make up a fake one. Now I think he was doing it because he wanted to separate himself from his brother, whatever the reason might be. Explains why he didn’t give me the Adair name, too. Any clue on where Reynolds comes from?”

  “Nothing from the dream-visions,” Alice replied. “Maybe he picked it because it’s a common one, something that would be harder to trace.”

  “Anything is possible, but I doubt it,” Vince told her. “I always got the feeling this name was something special to him.”

  Alice gave a small nod of understanding, but otherwise said nothing. Strange as all of this was for her, she had to imagine the weirdness was compounded for Vince. He’d gone his whole life not knowing where he really came from, and the only man he’d considered family as a child was just as big of a mystery today. Every piece he found that helped the puzzle take shape probably opened up more questions than it answered.