The Ables

by Jeremy Scott

  He said it casually but confidently. He wasn’t asking; he was telling. But he was wrong. I cleared my throat a bit. “Um. Yes, he does.”

  Bentley couldn’t believe it. “He does?”

  “Yup,” I confirmed. “Every day I see him, he gives me one. He’s quite the little self-promoter.”

  James just smiled ear to ear and said, “It’s called marketing.”

  “I also get his …” I cleared my throat, mostly by coincidence, “email newsletter.”

  “Jeez, Louise, dude,” Henry said, my vision shaking side to side along with his disbelieving head.

  Bentley and I just chuckled in amusement.

  “Showmanship,” James explained further. “Like Finch,” he added, stopping everyone in their tracks for just a beat before we all continued. “That guy has some showmanship, is all I’m saying. Very dramatic. He’d be excellent in marketing.”

  Now that we were a superhero unit again, albeit an unofficial one, and the dust had settled a bit since Mom’s death, the topic had begun to turn toward Finch more and more. Almost any conversation we had would eventually make its way back to him as we tried to get to the bottom of the mystery.

  Bentley had been breaking out the books again and studying all the angles of what he found as we collectively tried to piece together the mysteries surrounding this man. In between the nights we’d sneak away to fight real crime, we’d meet or sleep over at someone’s house and do research and planning.

  “Are we sure it’s only showmanship?”

  “What do you mean, Phillip?” Bentley asked.

  “I mean … what if he really is planning to usher in the new Elben and unleash hell on Freepoint? What if all the nonsense he spouts … he really believes?”

  “Even easier for us, then, I’d say,” came Henry’s reply. “Crazy people are easier to defeat than logical people.”

  “Fair enough,” I allowed. I hadn’t even told the rest of the gang about Finch’s belief that I was actually the one he was seeking. In addition to seeming terribly unlikely, it was also the kind of thing I thought might cause some of my friends some concern. “But, just for the sake of argument … what do we do if it’s all true?”

  No one had an immediate answer, but it didn’t take Henry long to find one. “We’re screwed.”

  Freddie agreed, saying, “Yeah, screwed.” He sucked on his inhaler nervously.

  “If it’s all true, Phillip,” Bentley said, “then Finch is the least of the real worries.”

  “Well … if it isn’t Captain One Arm and his band of screw-up friends.” The voice belonged to Steve Travers and had come from our left. There was an alley running down the middle of this block, and he’d called out to taunt his former friend as we passed. We took the bait, as we all stopped and turned down the alley.

  “Oh, hey, Steve.” Chad tried going with friendliness to start.

  “Oh, hey, Steve,” Steve said in a mocking tone. “What, are we buddies again now? Are we friends?”

  “Look, dude, let it go, okay? I wish you knew how stupid you sound when you talk like that.” Chad was standing in the middle of our little group, with Bentley and me sort of out in front. Steve had two friends with him—members of his SuperSim team. I briefly wondered why so many hooligans hang out in alleys.

  “I see, I see. Now that you’re part of the special crowd, you’re above all that bullying nonsense, right?” Steve took a few steps forward, stopping just a couple feet from where we stood.

  “Yeah, I guess so, yeah,” Chad agreed.

  “So I suppose if I was going to mess with your little friends here … you’d try and stop me, then?” Steve reached out and poked Henry in the chest.

  Henry didn’t have the patience to be treated that way and do nothing. “Man,” he started to warn Steve. But before he could finish, Chad darted between his old friend and his new one.

  “Mess with them and you mess with me,” he said.

  Steve wasn’t the least bit scared. It was strange seeing how much the relationship between them had changed in just a few months. He fired right back in Chad’s face. “What makes you think I’m scared of you?” Steve’s eyes began to glow, signifying he was gearing up to use his eye-beam powers. At the same time, his right arm went back in preparation for a punch.

  But before he could make another move, Chad disappeared.

  Steve punched anyway, aiming for the spot where Chad was standing, but as his fist came forward, his arm suddenly stopped in its tracks. Chad reappeared, standing one step to the side of his former position, his one good arm holding Steve’s in place. “Not quite fast enough, Steve,” Chad said, disappearing again immediately as Steve and his buddies darted their eyes around frantically. We heard the scattering of Chad’s footsteps as he took off running away down the alley.

  “Screw this,” Steve spat, placing his fingertips along the edge of his temple. His eyes began to glow again. He quickly spun away from us and fired off a stun-beam blast down the heart of the alley. As Steve’s laser reached the middle point of the alley behind him, we saw it smack into the back of a retreating Chad, negating his invisibility and sending him sprawling forward onto the blacktop with a grunt.

  Steve merely laughed and began walking toward the spot where Chad had fallen. “My powers have always been superior to yours, Chad. You know, honestly, I’m not sure why I ever allowed you to be in charge of me, like I was just your little lackey. I’ve always been stronger than you.” He reached the spot and stopped, looking down with his hands resting on his hips. “And now I’m going to show you.” He reached up his right hand to his temple, but just as his laser was about to discharge, his body flew up violently into the air, and he dangled for a second like a limp puppet. Suddenly, his body careened to the left, smacking into the alley wall with a dull thud. He slipped down the side of the wall and collapsed with a wheeze.

  It wasn’t a surprise to see it. At least, it wasn’t a surprise to me. I made it happen. With nothing more than a flick of my wrist, I’d lifted the bully off the ground and tossed him into the wall like a rag doll.

  I stood there, breathing a little heavy, my arm still outstretched. Chad looked up from the ground at me, his face suggesting shock or surprise. I glanced around me at the rest of the guys, who were all just standing there in nervous silence, looking at me like they’d seen a ghost.

  “Damn, Phillip,” Henry finally said. “That was … intense. I didn’t even know you could do that.”

  “I didn’t either,” I said, a little surprised at my own strength.

  Chad rose to his feet, went over to Steve, and leaned down to inspect him. Then he started walking back toward the group.

  “Is he … okay?” I asked.

  “He’s fine. Just got the wind knocked out of him, from the looks of it.” He looked around, wondering if anyone had noticed our little scuffle. “We’d better get out of here, though. He’s going to be out for blood when he comes to.”

  On the walk back to my house, I lagged a bit behind while the others led the way, mulling over what had just occurred. I was mildly impressed with myself for having shown such a leap in the use of my powers. But I was also a little freaked out by it. Because I didn’t know I could do that, or at least I hadn’t ever done it before, it ended up feeling a little out of my control.

  Immediately in front of me were Bentley and Henry, and their silence spoke volumes.

  “I hate it when you do that,” I said quietly.

  “What?” Bentley asked innocently.

  “When you think about me without including me.”

  There was an awkward pause and at least one stammer.

  Henry took a shot at responding. “We’re just a tiny bit worried about you, is all.”

  “Worried about me?”

  “It’s nothing,” Bentley said, trying to dismiss the issue. “We just didn’t know you could do that, and that … was maybe a little more violent than we expected. That’s all.”

  “Yeah,” I admitted.
“I’m in the same boat.”

  “Well, just …” Henry said, pausing to word things correctly before just giving up, “just don’t kill anyone on accident and stuff, okay?”

  ***

  I got to see Donnie again, finally. After weeks of his parents being understandably overprotective, they finally agreed to let me stop by for a visit. He was still bedridden, but he seemed happy to see me.

  Or maybe he was just happy to see the breadsticks he adored, which I’d brought along to share with him. While he ate, I told him about some of the latest news. I filled him in on how we’d learned that Finch had been a founding member of the Believers. And when I told him about the run-in with Steve Travers, he made a few happy-sounding noises when that story was over.

  It was hard to visit him in that state. Donnie was effectively a prisoner in his own home—unable to go to school with us, play after school with us, or even head to Jack’s Pizza for a slice and some conversation.

  Most of the town either hated him or feared him, and some were actively trying to pass laws against future Down syndrome kids entering the school system. Stupid adults … as though Donnie’s Downs had caused the real damage at the last SuperSim, rather than my own foolish actions.

  I still felt completely responsible for Donnie’s situation; that feeling would never go away. Donnie, for his part, didn’t even seem to remember it.

  I felt around in the pizza box and realized he’d already eaten half of the breadsticks. “Man, Donnie, you must have been starving! You sure ate those breadsticks awfully fast.”

  “Yeah,” he murmured, “Donnie is fast.”

  How do you make things up to someone who doesn’t even know that you wronged them? It’s not easy, I can tell you that. All I knew to do was keep promising I’d try.

  “I know, buddy. I know. You’re very fast. Listen, I’m sorry I told you to run fast that one night and that people got hurt. I’m going to make it up to you, Donnie.”

  “Yeah,” he allowed, sounding like he was agreeing that it was a nice day outside.

  “I’m going to fix this whole mess somehow.”

  Chapter 26: The Final SuperSim

  Shut out of the final SuperSim, the team was gathered at my house for the evening. Since I had to watch Patrick, we didn’t have any extracurricular hero activities planned for the night. I was getting rebellious and reckless, sure, but not stupid. I wasn’t going to put Patrick in harm’s way.

  But we’d managed to avoid having to have an adult chaperone for the evening. Most every adult in town was involved in the SuperSim in one way or another, and I think most of our parents had begun to trust us. They wouldn’t have if they’d known what we’d been up to lately, of course. But we figured what they didn’t know couldn’t hurt them.

  We rented a few movies with the intent of keeping ourselves distracted so that we wouldn’t dwell on the SuperSim going on without us. The first movie had been going for about twenty minutes, and the popcorn was well-consumed, when we heard the initial air horn rip through the air outside. The Sim was beginning.

  Everyone looked around grimly at one another, all of us thinking the same thing: wish we could play, too.

  “Okay, guys, okay,” I said, trying to diffuse the tension a bit. “It’s happened now … the SuperSim has started. We knew it would. Now let’s just go back to our movie and rest easy in the thought that we’ve defeated more real criminals than any of those kids out there have.” I thought that was a pretty good pep talk, and the group seemed to agree, as they lightened up right away and went back to joking and commenting about the movie.

  A few minutes later, there was a loud boom outside, like the sound of nearby thunder, followed by a loud crash. We all tried to ignore it, but I saw Bentley’s eyes look up and widen in surprise.

  It sounded like the adults had saved the best for last with the final SuperSim and were pulling out the big guns—perhaps literally. It was excruciating to be shut out of the action.

  Another loud boom, like the sound of an explosion, the echo reverberating throughout town. “Whoa,” I said.

  “I know,” Bentley agreed.

  The explosions and other loud noises continued off and on, getting progressively louder. It sounded as though the SuperSim had turned into a real battle for the ages. And that’s exactly what it was, even though we’d yet to realize it.

  Finally, one of the crashes of thunder was so close that it shook the house on its foundation, rattling my rib cage. That sound was followed by several audible screams of panic in the distance. And it sounded like adults doing the screaming.

  Something wasn’t right. I wrinkled my brow to try and piece it all together. These people sound entirely too frightened for a simulation. And why are the adults …

  It was then that a very frightening thought hit me, one that I instantly hoped was wrong.

  “Bentley,” I said, “did you bring your computer?”

  “Yeah,” he replied, just as the character in the movie tripped over a stick and fell to the ground. The rest of the group roared in laughter, ignoring Bentley and me completely.

  I waved my hand, signaling Bentley to join me at the kitchen table. We left the rest of the group watching the movie, but Henry had seen us slink off and had gotten curious. It was just as well, as I wanted to be able to see things for myself anyway.

  Bentley sat next to me and opened up the computer.

  “You’ve still got your cameras set up, right?”

  “Yeah, of course.”

  “Let’s see what’s going on out there,” I said.

  “Sounds like the most serious SuperSim yet,” Henry said, rolling up to the table to join us.

  Chad looked over from the living room floor and saw the three of us at the table. He stood up, which got the attention of James as well. Soon enough, we were all crowded around the laptop, waiting for Bentley’s camera feeds to boot up.

  Once they did, we knew instantly that something was dreadfully wrong.

  The first camera angle we saw showed the Freepoint Circle … on fire and reduced to rubble. There were people on the ground here and there, and some of them looked to be badly hurt. Some weren’t moving.

  Bentley clicked a button and changed the view, and a picture of City Hall appeared on the monitor. “This camera’s on the flagpole,” he explained. Three of the giant stone columns were gone, scattered in pieces on the steps below. A section of the exterior wall looked black and charred. There were more bodies on the ground.

  Click.

  Another angle, this time of the Freepoint Bank. In the parking lot of the bank was a group of students—it was that team with the horrible all-green uniforms, the Vipers. They were under attack. One of them had a force field up in front of them, and it was currently protecting them from a barrage of fireballs.

  “I bet that’s the same fireballing bastard from the last SuperSim,” Henry said bitterly.

  The Vipers’ attacker was still off camera. I was going crazy with just one angle to view. “Don’t you have another angle?” I asked Bentley.

  “Why, yes,” he bragged a little, “I do.”

  Click.

  This angle was from twice as far away, but the image came from a camera mounted on the bank itself, giving us a wider view of the parking lot. The fireballer was not, in fact, the one who had attacked us in the last SuperSim.

  “Dang,” Henry said, disappointed. “Not him.”

  I looked at him a moment, then glanced back to the screen. The fireballer attacking the students was tall and skinny, with an entirely black outfit and long black cloak. One of Finch’s Believers, no doubt.

  More men in black outfits walked into the camera’s view. A lot more. There were at least thirty. One of them said something to the fireballer, and the man stopped firing at the Vipers.

  “Can these things zoom?” I said anxiously.

  “You bet,” Bentley said, punching another button on the controls.

  The camera angle lurched forward, quickly f
ocusing in on the villains in question. The fireballer was facing the camera, but the other man—the one who told him to stop—had his back to us.

  “Come on … come on …” I urged, willing the man to turn around and confirm what the pit in my stomach had already determined to be true.

  Finally, he did just that. He turned to look at the students he’d spared, giving us a great look at the right side of his face.

  It was Finch.

  Before we could say anything, Finch raised his hand, and a flash of brilliant green light came from his palm and quickly disappeared off camera.

  “Zoom out! Zoom out!” I commanded.

  Bentley did just that, just in time for us to see the last of the Vipers’ bodies hit the pavement. They looked dead, and I immediately knew that they were. Zapped with the same mind-controlling power Finch had used on my mother, only in this case … no coma. He’d removed their consciousness in a nanosecond. For all the scary moments I’d had involving Finch, this was by far the most horrific and brutal thing I’d seen him do. Here, he was finally the killer I’d always feared him to be.

  On screen, Finch was hovering above the ground by a good ten feet, gesturing and speaking to a large group of the black-outfitted villains as though giving marching orders. Flames came out from his fingertips as he talked, like he was moments away from turning back into the fire monster from the cornfield.

  “You know …” Bentley said in disgust, “you wouldn’t think an all-powerful bad guy would have much use for henchmen.”

  “He needs their powers,” I remarked, “or else he’s not all powerful.”

  “Well, for a while he is, though, right?” Henry said.

  “Whatever his goal is for all this … he’s going for it tonight.” I was talking to myself as much as the others. “This is it. He said he was going to take the city of Freepoint. This is it, Bentley.”

  Bentley turned to face me. “If you’re right, Phillip, that means we aren’t safe here, because he darn sure knows where you live.”

  “Why is that?” James asked.