by Various
No matter what Lucy thought, his reason not to kill Cheslav was because he believed it was wrong. He couldn’t let her carry through with this. Not if he could help it. Was it possible to delete days of memories?
He scanned through her thoughts for where she kept the knife. Obviously it was just a start, removing that memory, but if he kept a close eye on her he wouldn’t let her steal one again.
Lucy stored it inside a bag of dried beans in the pantry, reasoning neither Cheslav nor Vlad would ever stumble upon it.
As Vlad began to concentrate hard on the memory, he felt it begin to tear. He tugged at it, willing it away.
Then the world came rushing back to him, a cold smack in the face. Lucy sat upright in her bed, an accusatory look plastered across her face.
“How could you?”
Vlad frowned. “I saw it. The knife.”
“I can’t live this life,” she whispered. “I don’t understand how you do, but I can’t. You’re stopping me from being free just as much as he is. You were just using your power on me like you would a mark! As far as I’m concerned, I’m alone here.”
“No. Please.” Vlad dropped to his knees and looked up at her. “Killing is not the answer.”
“How many years have you been here, Vlad?”
“Nine,” he answered.
“And during all of those years, how many times have you tried to escape? Or find someone to help you?”
“Once,” he admitted. “But the world is changing. Every day chimerics are becoming more accepted. Eventually it will be the case here, and when it does I will report Cheslav and the police will help us instead of lock us up.”
“You’re mad,” she spat. “That day is far away, if ever. The only way out of this is to finish him once and for all. Why can’t you see that?”
Vlad rubbed his temples and sighed. “Where I grew up, children were murdered for being born chimeric. If a child manifested powers when they got older, they were killed or exiled with their whole family. I was born into a world where life was meaningless. I will never be a part of that. Never.”
They were silent for a minute before Lucy spoke. “The sister you told me about, the one who died. Was she murdered?”
“Yes.” Vlad swallowed a hard lump in his throat. “She was one of many babies.”
Vlad tilted his head up and watched her. Her face pointed away from the window and was shrouded in darkness. When she turned to look at him, half of it lit up in the moonlight.
“I’ll put my plan on hold. I don’t think I can do it with that stupid knife anyway,” she said. “But you have to promise me, Vlad. Promise me you will never look at my memories again. Ever.”
“I promise.”
She laid down and faced the wall, the covers pulled up to her ears. “It will be hell to pay if Cheslav finds out we were talking about this. That’s why I didn’t tell you.””
Vlad wandered back to his bed and sat down. “That isn’t the only reason why.”
“Maybe.”
His bed had grown cold. Vlad laid on his back and pulled his blanket up to his chin. He replayed their conversation over and over. What if he was ‘mad’ like Lucy said? What if he was captive to Cheslav in a way he wasn’t aware of?
Then he felt the tear, like when he pulled other people’s memories. Like the first time with Oleg. His own memory was cloudy, distant in the fog of his mind. He concentrated on it, on increasing the haze.
Pain. Sharp, stabbing pain everywhere. It was hard to focus on what he was erasing. He gave in to the feeling, letting it do what it wanted. The inhuman voice from the first time his powers manifested spoke to him. Guided him.
Vlad’s eyes flashed open. He sucked down gulps of air. He’d been cold before; now his body was on fire.
“What’s wrong?”
Lucy hovered over his bed. Her blonde hair tickled his face. Vlad swiped it away. He felt odd. Hadn’t he just been walking over to Lucy to read her memories?
“I did something,” Vlad said.
“What, love?”
“I do not know. I think…”
The voice. Inhuman, understood only by him in a way he couldn’t understand. Vlad’s eyes rolled into the back of his head as he listened to it.
“My own memories,” Vlad breathed. “I can erase them.”
Lucy smiled. Behind it Vlad saw something he didn’t like. “That’s brilliant, Vlad. Brilliant.”
Now…
Weeks in the darkness of the freighter left their eyes sensitive to light. When the doors opened and the sun poured in, Vlad screwed his eyes shut and bit his tongue to stop from crying out. The fresh smell of saltwater swept away the stench in the shipping container.
After a moment of letting the brightness adjust first through his eyelids, Vlad opened his eyes and observed the scene.
A man walked into the container. He wore an oversized jacket and had a cigarette hanging limply from his mouth. His American accent when he spoke Russian was difficult for Vlad to understand. “Time to get out.”
“I speak English,” Lucy said.
“And him?”
“Some.”
The man shrugged. “You have your fare?”
“Fare?” Lucy croaked. “We already paid when we boarded.”
“You pay twice. Once to get here, once to get out. Same price.”
Vlad looked at Lucy who was as confused as he was.
“We don’t have any money,” Vlad said. “No one told us we needed more.””
“Fuck me, not this shit. Who sent you? I gotta know so I can collect.”
Lucy said, “We came on our own.”
“No family here?”
“No.”
“What the hell were you gonna do, then? Start a farm on the fucking prairie?”
“We’re chimeric,” she said proudly. “We came to America to become superheroes. To go to the TCA and be trained.”
The man chuckled. “You ain’t the first ones comin’ here with that dream. You know I can send you right back where you came from.””
Vlad stood on wobbling legs. He flexed his fingers and prepared for a fight. They’d come this far. They weren’t giving up.
“Whoa, kid. Calm down. I didn’t say I was. What kind of powers you have?” The man tapped ash off his cigarette and took another deep inhale.
Vlad glanced at Lucy who still sat on the shipping container floor squinting in the sunlight. She said nothing and Vlad didn’t either.
“Listen, I’m trying to help you here. The TCA is fine and all, but there’s a fuck long waiting list to get in. My boss is a nice guy who’ll get you into his own private place depending on what your skills are, so what you got? Superhuman strength? Flying? Laser beams out your asshole?”
“Nothing like that,” Vlad answered. His heart sank.
“Good. He don’t care about them so much anyway.”
“W-what?” Lucy finally stood, too. “Really?”
“Shit, no. Let me guess, you guys have some kind of mental powers, right?”
Vlad and Lucy exchanged skeptical glances. She nodded.
“That’s what he likes.” The man took another drag off his cigarette. “Just tell me what you can do.”
“I can put people to sleep when I touch them,” Lucy said. Vlad grabbed her shoulder and shook his head, silently begging her not to continue. She didn’t care. ““He can read memories and remove them if he wants.”
This wasn’t what Vlad wanted. He anticipated arriving to America, finding the TCA, and going from there. He knew underhanded dealings when he saw them. This man, his boss, none of it was right. A world he knew, that he wanted no part of, was already trying to ease its way into his life and he’d been in America less than an hour.
“Not the best thing I’ve seen, but I bet you with some magic from the Amp you both could be useful.”
“The Amp?” Lucy asked, eager.
“Let’s just say,
whatever your…” The man struggled to find a word. “Whatever your strongest is, he will make it happen. Whatever makes you chimeric, he makes stronger.”
When Lucy took a step forward, Vlad didn’t try to stop her. But he stayed his ground.
“Love, what are you doing? This man is offering us a new life!”
“I’m not going. You can.”
Lucy clenched her jaw. “I’ve tried so many times to save you, Vlad. You make it very difficult.”
A gust of salty wind rushed into the container. Vlad felt it lift his matted hair, pelt his face. He gestured to the man who now stood beside Lucy. “Try one last time. This time, it will work.”
She glanced at the man, first cursory, then again as she understood what Vlad wanted. Her right hand whipped out and she turned, slapping it against his exposed neck. He crumpled to the ground, fast asleep.
Vlad knelt down next to him and slipped into his mind, removing every image of himself and Lucy. As far as the man was concerned, his last memory was opening the shipping container.
“Tell him he slipped and hit his head after he opened the container. He’ll believe whatever you tell him,” Vlad said. ““He’ll want to fill in the blanks.”
“Then what?”
“Then do whatever you want to do.”
“What will you do?”
“I’ll do what I always wanted to. Become a superhero.” Vlad grinned.
“One last promise, Vlad.” Lucy’s face brightened. “Leech sounds like a villain’s name. Change it.”
“If you have a better idea, let me know. Goodbye, Lady Luna.”
Vlad stepped out of the shipping container and let the sun soak into his bones. Seagulls cried overhead. The sounds of the city in the distance added to the cacophony.
He was free. He was finally free.
Epilogue
“I know her.”
“What?” Sinclair hit pause on the video footage and rubbed his scraggly beard. “How do you know her? This is the first account we have of her.””
Lady Luna stood in the middle of the bank, her arms outstretched. A glossy white cape hung behind her, a Venetian style mask obscuring the top half of her face. Every customer, teller, and banker was slumped over or on the ground sleeping. Two masked men were mid-jump over the teller counter. Empty duffle bags, soon to be filled with money, over their shoulders.
Sinclair had just been briefing Vlad on new gang affiliated or corrupt chimerics in town when he showed him one of Lucy.
Vlad was known by the Department of Chimeric Defense as The Leech. When he first started working with their Intelligence division, he mentioned it as a joke to someone in the break room. It stuck. They liked it because it was what Vlad did; he sucked vital information out of people just like a leech.
After a year of training at the TCA, he was able to expand his powers. He didn’t have to maintain physical contact with someone to read their memories. Now he only had to be within a few feet of them. He was the perfect undercover man for intelligence gathering. Once a month, they reviewed potential threats for him to gather Intel on.
It appeared Lucy had grown her powers since they last saw each other, too.
“Tell me what happened,” Vlad said.
Sinclair rubbed his beard again and took a swig of coffee. “Twenty-two people have identical reports of going unconscious when the woman walked in. Two were revived to open the vault. It seemed like a chimeric robbery, but then we saw this.”
He dragged his cursor over the timeline on the video a few minutes in. There was a perfect shot of the back of Lucy’s flowing cape as she exited the bank. Vlad recognized the symbol instantly. An intricate series of circles with a lightning bolt through the middle.
“The Amp’s work.”
“Yep,” Sinclair agreed, grimly. “The Don gets more powerful every day. The head of DCD is making it top priority to take him down a notch.””
So she’d gotten the cape after all. She looked exactly how Vlad pictured her. Lady Luna never sounded like a super villain name to him, but what did he know? He wore a suit and tie every day and everyone called him Leech when he walked down the hallway. He wasn’t the superhero he imagined himself being, but…
“Then let’s get to work,” Vlad said. “This city isn’t going to save itself.”
Whiplash
Tim Marquitz
ONE
I never planned on being a superhero.
Of course I also never planned on being thrown through the wall of my favorite record shop either.
So much for expectations, huh?
My heart broke at seeing all the old vinyl crushed when the wall came down. Shards of black and shredded record sleeves littered the floor amidst the dust and broken bricks. While I clambered to my feet, I caught sight of a foursome of smiling Swedes on one of the covers. They stared at me with unnerving cheer. Doused in glitter and wearing mini-skirts with sparkly rainbow designs stitched overtop, their ensemble was capped off with knee-high boots with what must have been six inch heels. A giggle slipped out, and I tried to rein it in. I’d landed in the disco section.
If that wasn’t justice, I didn’t know what was.
“You all right?” a quavering voice asked, and I spun about to see Stan, the owner of the Headstand, staring at me with eyes as wide as iPads. My gaze darted to the clock above the door, the early hour sinking in before I scanned the room for customers. I sighed at realizing he was alone, and glanced back at the old guy. His hands trembled and his cheeks were flush. I’d scared the shit out him but that was the least of his worries right then.
“You need to get out of here before—”
“Before what, bitch?” The question came from behind me, the sound rough and raw like two cinderblocks screwing. The horrid stench of rancid breath set my teeth on edge.
Before that showed up is what I’d started to say. “Run,” I growled at Stan, hoping he listened, but there wasn’t time to make sure.
The chimeric who’d tossed me so casually through the wall grinned, tearing the hole wider to get at me. Great slabs of fingers reached for my face, but what I lacked in brute strength I made up for in speed—and then some. My power buzzed through my arm with the sear of pure adrenaline, and I slapped his mountainous hand aside, my palm slamming into it with the force of a car crash. The impact reverberated like thunder. His hand collided with his other one, throwing him off balance as they clapped together, making him look like a dancing monkey. He stumbled into the nearby bins and took out another section of vinyl before he righted himself. My eyes unconsciously peeked at the sign before the bin went down under the chimeric’s weight. Country this time.
Whew.
I was two for two so far, but my luck would run out if I stuck around in the tight confines of the shop. Stan was a borderline hoarder hiding behind the façade of a business owner. The place was crowded to the rafters with every manner of memorabilia and knickknack ever devised to part stoned college students from their monthly Twinkie allotments. All of it easily breakable, and I didn’t figure Stan could afford the outrageous rates for Chimeric insurance coverage. Not many people could.
“Sit still, little bug,” the chimeric told me, “so I can squash you.”
“Yeah, like that’s going to happen.” I hit the gas and hurtled through the opening and back out to the street, going fast enough to avoid being hit yet slow enough that the big guy could track me. Didn’t want to lose the pendejo inside where he could do real damage. I still didn’t know if Stan had made it out. “Come outside and play, Stone,” I shouted, praying his ego would get the best of him and he wouldn’t let a little girl like me make a fool of him.
And yes, the mountain of a guy made of a malleable, rock-like substance chose to call himself Stone. He must have stayed up all night thinking up that one. At least my name had some class to it. Whiplash; as much a definition of my powers as it was a tribute to the Metallica song. When I let loose, necks
were snapping.
He trailed after me like I’d hoped, his every footstep rattling the ground. “Come back here!”
“Can’t make it that easy for you, can I?”
He smashed his way loose of the building, stomping toward me. I glanced about and groaned under my breath, my mask muffling the sound. While I had more room to maneuver, a necessity when it came to staying alive, a crowd was starting to gather. Cell phones and cameras were out by the dozens, flashes and muttered commentary growing around us. We were the spectacle of the day, and I could be sure our fight would end up on YouTube before I even made it home.
If I made it home. Stone had other ideas.
He came at me upright, arms raised, looking to squish me into the asphalt, but I didn’t feel much like obliging him. I waited until he got closer, his left foot lifting off the ground, then shifted my power into gear. A wave of air washed overhead as he tried to take my scalp off, but I was already gone. I slammed into his leg with everything I had, knocking it aside. Stone chips flew at the impact and, not for the first time, I was glad my power protected me from itself or I’d have been the bug Stone was yapping about, splattered across his kneecap. He had no such protection.
He toppled face first to the ground, but I wasn’t done yet. I surged upward ten feet, and then reversed my direction, driving my feet into his spine. All he did was grunt as he sunk into the soft pavement, fingers ripping grooves in the ground to hold him in place. That was when I realized just how far out of my league I was playing.
The backhand to the face didn’t help my defeatist mood any.
I saw it coming a split-second too late. Stone rolled like I hadn’t hurt him at all, and clocked me. My power kicked in on instinct, whipping me backwards away from the blow, but I’d felt it. Damn, did I ever feel it.