by Pab Sungenis
I warmed up, did a series of calisthenics, and then climbed onto an elliptical trainer for some cardio. I’d been at it for about fifteen minutes when the gym doors slid open. I glanced up in the mirrors along the far wall and saw a familiar face join me.
“Hey! Good morning, Sarah.”
“Hey, yourself, Bobby,” she greeted me as she dropped her duffel bag in the corner. “How was monitor duty?”
“Boring. So, who’s here with you?”
“What are you talking about?” Sarah asked.
“We’re not supposed to use the gym unless supervised by a hero. Who’s supervising you?”
“Well, duh,” she snarked as she reached up to smack the back of my head. “You are.”
“Me?” For a brief moment, I’d forgotten about my promotion. That didn’t bother me. What bothered me was that she apparently hadn’t.
“Yep. The status display said the Scarlet Knight was on premises, so I thought I’d join in the workout. Unless you mind?”
“Mind? No, not at all. Help yourself, you know the place.”
Over the next forty-five minutes, we went through our normal workouts. Sarah was a joy to watch in action. She was so graceful and quick. She practiced some gymnastic moves I’d never seen her use in the field, and I tried to figure out if there was a way I could adapt any of them to my size and body type. She wasn’t what you’d call tall or bulky, just about your average height and build, but that worked to her advantage. You’d never know her sheer strength just by looking at her. Many surprised villains had fallen by her hand.
Next, she moved on to a treadmill, and I got to watch a whole new work of art. You’ve heard of poetry in motion? As far as I was concerned, she was poetry and music and probably a couple forms of impressionist art in motion. Fluid, smooth movements, which …
Uh-oh.
Concentrate on the workout. Lift the weights, feel the burn. Don’t think about …
Crap.
Think of baseball. Think of Algebra. Lie back and think of England.
Dammit. Well, at least I could take some solace in the fact that I decided to wear a jockstrap and cup to work out. Maybe she wouldn’t notice.
Was I so blind that I’d never noticed little Pandora, standing aside the feminine colossus that was Clytemnestra, wasn’t quite so little anymore? When did that happen? I’d always harbored feelings for her. Hell, it was hard not to go into battle alongside someone and not develop some kind of feelings. We’d shared experiences in our teenage years that usually someone had to grow up and go to war to get.
But when did I start to think of her … well … that way?
“Wow,” she breathed as she came over, causing me to almost drop the barbell on my chest. What was so “wow”? Did she see something she shouldn’t have? I pushed the weights up with more exertion than necessary, hoping she’d think the rush of blood to my face was from exertion. “That was a great workout. We need to do this more often.” Sure we did, just as soon as I learned to turn off certain thoughts. She knelt next to my head, which did not help matters. “I’m going to hit the steam room. Do you want to join me?”
YES!
“No, I’m going to do a few more sets, and then I need to get back to homework. You go ahead.”
“Okay, I’ll see you later then.” I heard her stroll out as I got up to put another set of weights on the barbell.
I wondered if the showers in HQ could get cold enough for what I needed.
Retrenchment
Sometimes it’s so satisfying to pull back and slug a bad guy in the face, particularly when you have issues to work through. That’s why I felt so good hauling back and punching the Harvard admissions board.
Okay, it wasn’t really the Harvard admissions board, it was just Painmonger. Every six months or so he likes to blow through Harbor City and tear shit up. He could do a good deal of damage in battle and take a hell of a lot of whatever we threw at him, but he always wound up on the losing end. That’s why I found it so easy to take my frustrations out on him. I’ve never believed in the policy of “killing the messenger,” but someone had to pay for all the bad news I’d gotten in the afternoon mail.
January had rolled into February. I was adapting to my new role as the second Scarlet Knight, and the world didn’t have a clue that there was a different face under the helmet. All of my old training had been coming back as if I hadn’t spent four months on the sidelines. I’d needed it, too. In the four weeks since I’d first put on the costume I’d taken on Madame Madness, Doctor Destructor (PhD), and some new weirdo who liked to rob banks wearing a pink bunny costume. Not to mention I carried a pregnant woman out of a burning house, rescued some yahoos who’d taken a sailboat out on the ocean at the height of a storm, and stopped too many burglaries, muggings, and other little disasters to count. Overall, a productive month.
It was also the month word came back from Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Cornell, Georgetown, and Saint Bonaventure—all of them rejections. I had briefly been accepted to at least one school but had to break it to Wellesley that some ass had submitted an application under my name as a joke. When I’d found myself opening the thin envelope from Harvard that Saturday morning, it had been a relief to hear the explosions and screams announcing Painmonger’s return. I finally had someone to lay into and get some anger out of my system. Semi-invulnerable villains are good for that sort of thing.
By the time Painmonger started getting wobbly and my knuckles had been rubbed raw by connecting with his stubble, I’d finally had enough. I scooped him up, kicked the anti-grav boots into high gear, and zipped straight up a few thousand feet before dropping him onto the beach. That slowed him enough for me to subdue him properly and zip him back out to the high-tech, super-secure, island lockup where the courts had stuck him after his fifth prison break. By the time I got home, I was tired, but it was a good tired. As I lowered myself into the tub filled with hot water and Epsom salts, I wondered for the first time since I’d taken the job, if it ever got any easier.
I was so exhausted by the battle with Painmonger, and frustrated by the letter from Harvard, that I vegged the rest of the weekend. Depression sunk in, and I needed some “me” time. I called Rick, Tommy, and Sarah, and the four of us hung out watching TV together, something we hadn’t really done since I’d graduated from the sidekick business. I’d missed it more than I realized.
***
Monday morning homeroom saw me sitting at my desk, desperately trying to finish my Spanish homework, which had something to do with explaining to some idiot, over and over, that all the boys in that particular town in Spain did on Sunday was go watch soccer.
“¿Que hizo Félix hasta el Domingo?” Félix fue al juego de fútbol.
THOOM. Okay, that sound couldn’t be good.
“¿Que hizo Enrique hasta el Domingo?” Enrique fue al juego de fútbol.
THOOM. I ignored the scrape of chairs as my classmates headed to the windows. I would finish this before second period.
“¿Que hizo Hector hasta el Domingo?” Hector no fue al juego de fútbol. Hector sedució las novias de Félix y Enrique. Que estupidos son Félix y Enrique.
THOOM!
The gasps and screams of the other students told me that maybe I’d better leave the soccer-obsessed Spanish kids alone for a while and see what was going on. With a sigh, I shut my Spanish book and joined the crowd at the windows.
THOOM!
Monster. Big monster. With tentacles. Coming out of the ocean and heading directly for the school.
Great.
“Excuse me, Miss, I need to use the bathroom.”
***
I’d prepared for this moment. I’d known that sooner or later my job would require me to leap into action during the school day, so I’d planned out my actions step-by-step. Retrieve gym bag from locker. Pop into bathroom. Change into costume. Slip out of the building unseen (easy to do when people are distracted by, say, some Lovecraft-reject readying itself to smash your school into
bits) and deal with the problem. Before heading to the beach, I flew a wide circle away from the building to make sure no one would be able to figure out I was coming from the school and then hovered in front of, but a safe distance away from, the newcomer.
GREETINGS, MORTAL. The creature didn’t actually make any sound, which meant telepathy. I hate telepathy. It always gives me migraines.
“I am the Scarlet Knight, defender of this city. Identify yourself and your intentions.”
MY NAME IS UNPRONOUNCEABLE BY YOUR TONGUES. YOU MAY REFER TO ME BY THE CLOSEST WORD IN YOUR LANGUAGE.
“And what is that?”
FLUFFY.
Bile rose into my throat. I really did not need this on a day when I had a homework backlog that could choke a humpback whale. Hm. It could choke a humpback whale, but could it choke an overgrown squid? Maybe I should have brought my Spanish book with … no, focus on the job at hand.
AND MY INTENTIONS ARE CONQUEST. I SHALL LAY WASTE TO YOUR PUNY CITY AND USE ANY SURVIVING HUMANS AS TOOTHPICKS WHILE I FEED ON …
I stopped listening. I grabbed the staff off my belt, extended it, and quickly yanked some wires out and twisted them together while the big lump of calamari went on about the horrors it was planning.
DO YOU HAVE A FINAL STATEMENT, MORTAL? A PLEA, PERHAPS? The voice in my head sounded hopeful.
“Yes.” I pushed a button and felt the heat as the stun gun feature started to overload. “My final statement is, ‘I don’t have time for this shit today!’”
I flung the now-spitting staff at Fluffy. It landed in the water directly in front of him, and electricity arced into the beast. I watched the guts of the staff burn themselves out, sending even more bolts of electricity all over the surface of the beast. Pain seared in the side of my head as he screamed telepathically, and then, as the staff gave up its last, he turned tail and fled back out into the ocean.
It annoyed me to lose that staff, but I wasn’t going to argue with the results.
Satisfied that Fluffy now knew better than to mess with a high school kid on a deadline, I flew back to school and managed to get out of costume and back to homeroom just in time to pick up my stuff as the bell rang. Fluffy may have failed to destroy the city, but he had managed to ensure that the world would never know exactly what happened with Felix, Enrique, and Hector.
***
“Bobby, what the hell has happened to you?”
Mrs. Carr was mad. She was always so careful to watch her language around us kids, and her use the H-word was about as shocking as hearing a normal person use the F-word, the C-word, and a couple of dozen other letter words, one after the other. I wanted to tell her that what happened to me was a giant hell-beast came out of the ocean during homeroom, but I couldn’t get a word in through all my flabbergastation at her choice of language.
“You’re a bright kid,” she continued when it became obvious I wasn’t going to answer her apparently rhetorical question. “You always have been. I know. I’ve read your entire transcript. You skipped third grade and almost past fourth. You were on the honor roll so many times in grade school that your parents couldn’t have had room on their car for all the bumper stickers. Your standardized test results are off the chart.” She stood, started to pace around her office but only got two steps before what I can only imagine to be her complete and utter frustration made her stop and sit back down. Boy was she on a roll. “You were the last kid I would have expected to develop a case of Senioritis. You’ve always been such a hard worker, even more so this year, but the last couple of weeks … ”
“I’ve been busy, that’s all.”
“You haven’t been busy with homework, apparently. Mr. Franks told me you blew off another Spanish assignment, and all your other teachers have confirmed you’ve been slacking off. You’re slipping from an ‘A’ student to a ‘B’ student, and you’re in danger of sliding even further. You’re not going to get into Harvard with—”
“I’m not getting into Harvard, period. I got my rejection letter over the weekend.” I didn’t bother telling her how I worked through the anger issues it brought out. She groaned and gave me that I’d-like-to-sympathize-with-you look.
“Sorry to hear it, but it’s still not a reason to give up. You can—”
“I am not giving up!” Shocked by the vehemence of my denial, I took a couple seconds to regain my composure, and then continued at a more reasonable volume. “I’ve just been … very busy, that’s all. I haven’t been able to devote as much time to studying as I used to, and as for homework … ”
I couldn’t tell her that I considered it more important to save her and everyone else in this city from Sigmund the Sea Monster’s evil brother than to recount the weekend activities of a bunch of Madrilleno slackers, could I? “Let’s just say I’ve had my hands full on the home front.”
“Maybe if we worked on better time management … ”
“I’m sorry. My main time management problem is simply that I don’t have enough hours in the day anymore. And don’t accuse me of partying too much or anything like that; those were the first things to disappear from my schedule. Heck, they were barely there to begin with.”
“Okay, no need to get so defensive, Bobby. I’m not accusing you of anything. I’m just trying to help.”
“I know.” I leaned back and tried to regain my equilibrium. “I didn’t mean to snap at you. Like I said, I’m just overwhelmed right now. You know what it’s like. I promise I will do everything possible to stop this ‘slide’ you’re so worried about. Will that reassure you?”
It was her turn to lean back. “If you can do that, yes. You’ve come so far, I just don’t want to see you blow it.”
“I have no intention of doing that. No matter what else has changed in my life since we talked back in September, I can tell you that my intentions regarding college haven’t. And I appreciate all the help you’ve given me.” I stood. A little presumptuous, perhaps, but the last month on the job had taught me it was usually safer to be the one who initiated the end of conversations; the best way to avoid answering questions was to avoid letting them be asked. “Can I go now?”
“Yes, you may.” She smiled a little, just enough to make me feel a tiny bit better about everything. I grabbed my stuff and walked to the door. Before I could turn the knob, however, my brain interrupted with a way that Mrs. Carr might be able to help, after all.
“Oh, one last question. Where do you folks at the Ren-faire get your swords?”
***
As soon as I stepped off the bus in the middle of downtown, I saw the place Mrs. Carr had told me about. You really couldn’t miss it. It was one of those hole-in-the-wall storefronts that tend to sit vacant now that all the old mom-and-pop stores have pretty much dried up and blown away, except it was entirely black: black door, black awning, even black windows. About the only thing that wasn’t black was the name in subtle white letters above the door: “Hephaestus’s Forge.”
I was going to have to mention the place to Auntie Clytemnestra, who had an appreciation for anyone who actually understood the Greek myths. So did I. I had acquired an interest in them from my insatiable reading habits as a kid, but Clytemnestra helped me hone my appreciation of them.
Entering the shop, it was obvious why the guy had picked the name. He looked like the old Greek god, himself—big, ugly, and lame, but with an unexpectedly cheery disposition—and dressed as a pirate. Of course, being a kid who dressed up in metallic long johns each night, I wasn’t about to pass judgment.
The shopkeeper made his way over to me. “Greetings, lad,” he said in classic Robin Hood English, his British accent fading in and out for no reason at all. “And what brings a young gentleman like ye to me humble shop?” A few other customers, apparently used to his shtick, rolled their eyes.
“God ye good e’en, my good man.” I put on my very best fake-medieval accent and vocal mannerisms. “I require a new blade. I take it you are the local smithy and sword-maker here?”
“Ay, that I may be.” He winked conspiratorially. “If ye be of sufficient age to be wielding the iron without me risking being clasped in it for selling it to ye.”
I chuckled and pulled my driver’s license out and tossed it to him. He looked at it before handing it back. “Seriously, what can I do you for, kid?” The fake-Brit was gone, thankfully, revealing an accent more New York than Old York.
“Just like I said, I need to replace a sword. Friend of mine from the Ren-faire sent me. What do you have?”
“Take a look up on the wall. Got a few for you to pick from.”
He waved at them like he was showing off all the prizes you could win if the Price was Right. A couple of rapiers, polished to a high gloss, that would never survive more than a couple of blows in actual combat. A few fencing epées that would snap in half if I used them the way I’d been trained. Some big, heavy-looking things encrusted with fake jewels and shit, purely for ceremony or for drawing out of a stone, not for real combat.
“Nice work. They look good, but I’m really looking for something a little more … practical.”
“Practical? There’s no practical way to use a sword nowadays. They’re all for show, which is exactly what you’ll need to work the Faire.” (Great, he pronounced the trailing “e” on the word, too.) He reached under the counter and pulled out a long linen bag, from which he pulled a beauty of a longsword. “This one’s the most practical sword I’ve ever made—lightweight but strong—enough give to work well in a fight without snapping.”
“Wow.” I’d seen some nice weapons over the years, but this one? This was a work of genius. And you could tell that it was crafted with such love that it wasn’t so much forged as born. “She really is a beauty.”
“She’s my baby.”
“Can I hold her?”
He hesitated. I knew then that I’d never be able to talk him into parting with the sword, but I still wanted to feel it in my hands. That’s the only way to truly appreciate a piece of art. I waited as his expressions cycled through the expected emotions: fear, reluctance, and finally, pride. Slowly, he extended his hands, presenting me with his masterpiece. With the lightest touch and the utmost reverence, I took hold of the hilt and lifted the sword.