Time is supposed to slow down in situations like this as your processing power increases, but it obstinately refuses to do so for me. I suppose mine is already as high as it’s going to go. So I’m stuck moving at normal speed, scrabbling for purchase on the broken glove compartment, and just as the guy’s entering the car, I find my grip and slide my body out the far side.
Put like that, it sounds pretty graceful. Lemme tell you, it’s anything but. As my feet kick free of the door, the door starts to swing shut, and it whacks me in the left knee, then again in the hip, the ribs, the chin and finally the elbow before I make it out to the parking lot. The asphalt, meanwhile, isn’t exactly receiving me with a tender hug. As soon as my feet touch the ground, it’s dragging me out of the car, and I hit the ground hard enough to see stars. I’ve been expecting this, so I still manage to roll with it, but even so the back wheel comes perilously close to my head.
Even before I stop rolling, I hear an enormous bang, which I'd expected. It's immediately followed by a noise that sounds like Godzilla attacking Tokyo, which I had not expected at all. I slide to a stop just as there's a second bang, and I figure I'd better look up to see where I miscalculated. If I'm extremely unlucky, that was the noise of my attacker tearing the roof off of my car, and if so, I'm going to want to know about it sooner rather than later.
I take a quick inventory. I've got an all-over ache, which I figure is a thousand different tiny cuts and bruises all clamoring for attention at once. My whole left side is banged up from that stupid door, but nothing feels broken, so I sit up to assess the situation.
The first bang I heard was my car hitting the cement base of a light pole. I'd timed that part perfectly. As soon as I let go of the steering wheel, the seatbelt I'd wrapped around it had started pulling the car to the left. When my assailant jumped in and grabbed for me, he'd gotten himself tangled up in the belt and finished the turn, just as I'd been counting on. What I hadn't counted on, and what explained the metallic screech and second bang, was the light pole shearing off at the base and coming down on the roof of the car like Paul Bunyan’s axe.
Even from where I am, I can see that the car's totaled, and the chances of anyone having survived in it are nil. Still, I limp over to make sure anyway. The same rank stench of blood that I'd smelled yesterday rises up to meet me again, and I take a deep breath before I continue my approach.
The man's feet are hanging limply out of the driver's side of the car. Both arms are tangled in the seatbelt, the airbag's laying over him like a shroud, and the pole's driven the roof in far enough to have pinned him in place. I walk around to the passenger's side, planning to check his pulse, but the amount of gore I can see showered across the floorboards tells me that it'll be a wasted gesture. Like last night, it appears that most of it was due to internal damage, not external. The light pole might have dealt the blow that caused him to cough up ragged chunks of his stomach, but the damage had been done to his system well before.
I circle the car, take another quick breath, and slide my arm under the steering wheel, past the body, so I can snag my keys from the ignition. His leg is still warm to the touch, and I have a hideous feeling that he's going to reach out and grab my hand at any minute.
I free the keys and start to pull my arm back, telling myself that this is ridiculous and he’s clearly dead, when suddenly something catches my wrist. I let out a strangled grunt of fear before I realize I've only caught my hand in the seatbelt.
With keys retrieved, I then reach in through the shattered back window and fish out my crutches, so I can begin the walk back to the museum. Despite my earlier analysis, it takes me longer than five minutes to get there.
- Chapter Five -
Here's what I tell the police: I was sitting at my desk when I heard a ruckus in the parking lot. I got my crutches and limped out there to find someone violently breaking into my car. I yelled at him, and he must have panicked and floored it directly into the parking lot light, which crumpled onto the car. I rushed down there as quickly as I could on crutches, but the man was unresponsive. I then crutched my way back to the museum and called the police.
It's a simple story, and fits the picture well enough that they don't question it much. Besides which, they're much more interested in why I've had two hairy super-steroid visitors in two nights than in why one of them was stealing my car, or why he would have torn off the bumper to do it. I get a lot of pointed questions about where I know these guys from, what I did to annoy them, what it is they're looking for from me, and things like that.
I mainly respond with baffled shrugs and professions of total cluelessness, which are more or less true. However, I've been asking myself these same questions, and I'm starting to put together a picture. It's total speculation, true, but it hangs together well.
Item one: last night, I get attacked by a guy with super-strength, only to find that I have super-strength, too, and limited invulnerability. We have a brute force contest, and I come out on top – but when he goes, so do my newfound powers.
Item two: tonight, another guy with super-strength, looking like he's from the same species as the first one. This time, I'm Joe Average for strength, but I can out-think Einstein. So I set the rules of the contest this time, and I come out on top again.
Now, though, I'm still thinking at doubletime, which maybe means this contest isn't over. So what else do I have to finish? Could be I'm supposed to figure out what's going on. It's a bit of a weak hypothesis, but it's easy to test: sort out what's going on and see if the powers fade away like before.
So that's the picture I get: I'm under attack, only I'm being given the tools to repel the attack each time. Not attack, then. I'm under a test.
And as if that thought is the key, I feel my brain dropping back down to regular speed, and I get hit with that momentary all-over ice cream headache again. My focus narrows to the policeman in front of me, and I feel a moment's regret for all of the things I never knew I was missing before, the subtle body language cues and the meaning in the background noise and the time to think about all of it. And then the policeman asks me again what I think those guys want from me, and I say honestly, "I wish I knew."
I really do. What's the point of the test? And how do I pass?
These are the wrong questions, of course; how's a bacterium supposed to understand polio, or why it's a bad thing? But I won't see that for a while yet.
Eventually, the policemen leave me alone, the body is taken away in another ambulance, and my car is towed away on a truck. They say the insurance adjuster will give me a dollar amount for the damage, but it's obvious that the car's absolutely totaled.
Time enough to shop for another car once my foot is healed. For now, I call a cab to take me home, and when I get there, I collapse onto the bed in total exhaustion again. This is a fairly ugly pattern, I think, and I make it almost all the way through saying that sentence in my head before I'm asleep.
- - -
Next time I open my eyes, it’s tomorrow afternoon, and my phone is blinking with another voicemail that I know is from Edgar again. I groan my way out of bed and stumble straight to the shower, stripping off my clothes as I go. The hot water stings as it hits the tiny abrasions all over my body, and I get a cramp in my leg halfway through from trying to keep my cast outside of the tub and elevated, but even with those problems the shower is still the best thing I’ve ever felt.
The water sluicing off of me runs grey for a while, which surprises me a bit. I mean, I know parking lots are dirty, but I was rolling in that one for like five seconds, tops. It takes easily a minute before the water starts looking clear again. I figure that probably means I’m clean, but I still stay in the shower until the temperature’s dropped far enough that the water isn’t steaming anymore. Long showers aren’t usually my thing, but it feels like a pretty good decision today.
While I’m rinsing away the physical and mental grime, I think a bit about the idea I had last night, of being used as an experiment. It
still makes more sense than anything else I can think of, so I decide to assume it’s true until I find something to disprove it. So, I’m a lab rat: check. Right now, I’m dancing to someone else’s tune, but I might be able to get out in front of this thing. What do I have going for me that a lab rat doesn’t?
Intelligence, first of all. I may not be overclocked like I was last night, but I’m still smarter than any rat in a maze. So far, I’ve been waiting for the problems to come to me. This isn’t exactly my fault, of course. I had no way of knowing that either attack was going to occur before they did. At this point, though, I’d be an idiot to assume that there wouldn’t be any more. All right; so how can I predict the next one?
Well, so far, there’s been one per night. If they continue at that pace, they’ll be pretty easy to predict, but two isn’t enough to constitute a pattern. Besides which, knowing that someone’s going to come try to kill me each night doesn’t help me handle the incipient attack, so even if this does continue, learning to expect it doesn’t count as taking control of the situation.
I’ve got some warning in the form of onset of superpowers. I laugh at that thought, but there’s nothing else to call them. The ability to easily lift a thousand pounds, to painlessly absorb a hit that cracked a rock wall, to think rings around rocket scientists – these things are definitely superpowers. And I’m evidently being given them in order to deal with super-strong grunts, so when the powers show, I know it’s time to start looking out.
That gives me a little warning, but not much. I had a few hours with the smarts, and no time at all with the strength. I might’ve been super-strong for a while, of course, but I didn’t feel any different, and so I never checked. I felt that stabbing pain right before I realized I was strong, too, and since that’s also accompanied the loss of my powers both times, it seems like a safe bet that it’s related. I can’t count on that, though, since I didn’t feel it before I started thinking faster. Maybe it hit while I was asleep?
Either way, the first order of business is to start testing for powers on a regular basis. What are the classic ones? Strength, brains, speed, invulnerability, flight, telekinesis; those are all easy to check for. I’ll look a bit weird suddenly dashing off to see how far I can get, but I work alone at night, and live alone during the day. I can look a bit weird if I want to.
What if I can turn invisible? Will I still be able to see myself? I can use my phone’s camera to check for that one, I think. What else. Animal control? There are always squirrels or birds around; I can try to call to one of them while I’m waiting for the bus. I start losing track of what I’ve already listed, and table this thought until I’m out of the shower and can write it all down.
Let’s see, other angles. These super-strong guys are coming from somewhere. They were both wearing normal clothes, so they’re not like some weird tribe of neanderthals that have made their way into the city. Maybe the police or the hospital know who they are. I should check it out, see what these guys did before they went feral and tried to kill me. If they’ve got something in common, if they worked together or were fishing buddies or something, maybe I can get a hint as to who’s doing this, or at least how.
This is a pretty slim hope, as I still don’t even have an idea how the powers are happening to me, and I’ve been with myself the entire time. It’s the best idea I’ve got right now, though, so I run with it. It can’t hurt anything, certainly, so it’s worth a shot.
The water’s starting to get cold, so I get out, towel off, and listen to my voicemail while I write down a list of all of the superpowers I can remember from comics and movies. Sure enough, the voicemail’s from Edgar, and he could be reading the exact same script as yesterday: we have some things to discuss, he needs to see me in his office, please be there an hour before my shift starts.
I listen with half an ear while I contemplate exactly how many superpowers boil down to “really strong” or “great dexterity.” I’d never really noticed before; I suppose that’s a testament to the good writing in the scripts. Or to my willingness to ignore lazy character design in favor of seeing things get hit, I guess. That one’s probably more likely.
I waste the afternoon trying to move objects with my mind, walking around my house blindfolded, attempting to balance on the edges of chairs, and doing other similar activities. At first, it’s to see if I have any powers related to those, but pretty soon I realize that I haven’t played The Floor is Lava in a lot of years, and so I segue from “checking for powers” to “acting like a kid” pretty smoothly. The game’s a lot harder when you’ve got a cast on your foot, but having the extra reach to step easily between couch and coffee table just about compensates for it.
It’s a pretty great afternoon, actually, and when the time comes to catch the bus to get to work, I whistle as I swing myself along on the crutches to the bus stop.
- Chapter Six -
I show up to work with time to spare, about an hour and ten minutes before my shift. I consider killing the extra time by getting a hot dog from a street vendor outside, but eventually decide to just head in and get Edgar’s latest lecture over with. Besides, there’s no possible way he’s expecting me to be there early. Maybe it’ll put him off his game.
Sure enough, Edgar’s eyebrows rise when I knock on the open door to his office, but all he says is, “It’s nice to see you be punctual.” The “for once” hangs invisibly but unmistakably at the end of the sentence, but I refuse to rise to the bait. After a second, Edgar gestures to a chair, and I sit down.
Edgar steeples his hands, pinches his top lip between his index fingers, and regards me for a moment. I spend the time trying to decide if I’m about to be fired, and come to the conclusion that I probably am. It’s unfair, since all I did was get attacked. On the other hand, maybe getting kicked out of this job is what I need to move on and get my act together. It’s not going to look great on a resume, but I bet most people don’t call to check on references anyway.
“So, you were attacked again last night,” says Edgar, startling me out of my train of thought. “What are you mixed up in?”
His tone is hostile, but I decide to overlook that. “What do you mean, attacked? Someone just tried to steal my car this time. I didn’t get there until it was all over.”
Edgar looks unconvinced. “The police were here asking questions. They wanted to review the tapes, and you left your desk much earlier than you’d need to for your rounds. The cameras show you going out the front door almost twenty minutes before you called the police.”
I gesture to my crutches. “I’m not moving so fast these days, Edgar. It took me a while to get to the parking lot. Then, when I got there and saw the accident happen, I found out that I’d left my phone at the desk here, and had to make it all the way back. Buy me a Segway and I’ll be able to get places faster.”
Edgar smiles a humorless grin. “I can’t fire you on suspicion alone. But I can and will give you a written reprimand for failing to do your rounds on time last night. A second reprimand this quarter is cause for dismissal. And I can also tell you to take a drug test, which I’m doing right now. If it comes up positive for anything, I won’t even have to wait for the second reprimand to happen.”
I take the cup he’s produced from a desk drawer. “There won’t be anything in it that they didn’t give me at the hospital, Edgar,” I say. Of course, I don’t know exactly what they gave me at the hospital, and I think back to my theory about the secret cabal of doctors testing drugs on patients. If the test checks for superpowers, I’m in trouble. Can they fire me for having powers? You’d think that Edgar would like it if I were a super employee.
The thought makes me smile, which is not lost on Edgar. “Something funny about this, Dan?” he asks frostily.
“Just the situation,” I say. “I get my car stolen and crashed, and my job’s response is to claim that I caused it by being on drugs? What else am I supposed to do about that but laugh?”
Edgar clearly doesn’t see
the humor. Shows what he knows.
- - -
While I’m washing my hands in the bathroom, I take some water from the faucet and rub the outside of the cup with it. It’s childish humor and a bit petty, but I can’t be expected to change all at once. Anyway, just because I understand Edgar better now doesn’t mean that I have to like him, especially after he’s just accused me of being a drug addict, and possibly a dealer to boot.
I bring the cup back to his office and place it nonchalantly on some paperwork on his desk. “I’ll see you in an hour, Edgar,” I say. “If you find anything in the tests, please let me know before I come in for a shift. It’s a real pain catching the bus with crutches.”
I see Edgar noticing the damp ring that the cup is making on his papers, and trying to decide if he can pick it up without polluting his hands. I’m just about to turn and leave him to his dilemma when something on the paperwork catches my eye.
“Sorry, where do you want this?” I ask solicitously, gesturing to the cup. He motions with distaste to a corner of his bookshelf, and as I pick the cup back up to move it over there, I take the opportunity to confirm what I thought I’d seen. Attached to the paperwork is a business card from the police department bearing the name of Sam Peterson, the helpful fellow who gave me a ride home two nights ago.
It wasn’t just the police, third person impersonal, who were back here asking questions. It was the same cop. I have no idea what police shifts are like, so maybe it’s a coincidence. I have the feeling it isn’t, though.
So, the police are taking an interest in my affairs. I feel a mild paranoia about this, but as I think about why, I genuinely can’t find anything to be concerned about. I legitimately haven’t done anything wrong. In this specific case, anyway. Shoot, maybe they can even be helpful.
The Experiment (Book 1): The Reluctant Superhero Page 3