Karma Girl

by Jennifer Estep

  Only Henry would stop in the middle of a battle to take a scientific sample of the enemies’ weapon of choice. I rolled my eyes. I loved him like a brother, but he was such a complete geek.

  “Judging from the effect the gas had on Fiona, I’d say it contained some sort of superpotent muscle relaxer,” Chief Newman said, lacing his long fingers together. “Perhaps even a power inhibitor.”

  “Smelled like cheap perfume to me,” I said. “As befits Siren.”

  My nose twitched. I’d taken a steamy shower and washed my hair twice, but I could still smell the gas. It clung to my body like Joanne James on a widowed billionaire’s arm. Even the extra onions and hot sauce on my burritos couldn’t quite overpower the sweet, jaw-locking taste in my mouth.

  “Whatever it is, I need to make some sort of antidote for it,” the chief continued. “Especially since it didn’t seem to affect Siren and Intelligal in the slightest.”

  I looked at my father. “Whatever you do, just make sure it doesn’t taste like toothpaste.”

  *

  I spent the next few days working. During regular business hours, I finished up the businesswear line for fall and took care of a thousand other fashion-related details. Then, at night, it was time to suit up as Fiera, answer my fan mail, and squash the evildoers who crossed my path.

  The rest of the Fearless Five worked just as hard as I did at their day jobs, and at night, we all focused on Siren and Intelligal. The chief started cooking up some antidote to neutralize the stuff they’d gassed us with, as well as putting the final touches on some earplugs to block Siren’s hypnotic voice. But Henry couldn’t figure out what their radio-like device did, and Lulu couldn’t find whatever abandoned building they were holed up in.

  Still, we searched, prowling the streets in the F5 van. A few times, Johnny Angel zoomed by on a new, shiny, silver bike. We tried to flag him down, but he always ignored us, the hardheaded, egotistical snot. We even gave chase in the van a couple of times, but he was always too quick for us to catch or darted into some narrow space where we couldn’t follow. Show-off.

  As for the other Johnny, Johnny Bulluci, I didn’t see him, since we were both so busy with work. That didn’t stop me from thinking about him, though. I replayed our date over and over again in my head. He was a rich, spoiled playboy. Smooth, suave, used to getting his own way. But he’d also been kind, considerate, and caring. How many guys would have sat there listening to a woman gush about her dead fiancé? Not many. We’d clicked, connected that night in the park. I was beginning to think maybe Johnny Bulluci had potential beyond being Rebound Guy.

  Johnny hadn’t forgotten about me, either. The day after our date, he had a black-pepper-seasoned steak from Quicke’s delivered to my office. I’d squealed so loudly when I opened the package that Piper thought I’d gotten a box full of diamonds or something equally expensive. I’d returned the favor by sending two tickets to the Ferris wheel and a funnel cake to Bulluci Enterprises. Two hours later, I’d received a stick of cotton candy and a stuffed purple rabbit. We exchanged gag gifts the rest of the day. A sense of humor was another thing I liked in a man. Life was too short to be taken seriously. Especially when you went around town wearing body-hugging, orange-red spandex and shooting fire out of your fingertips.

  Monday rolled around. I left the final details of the fall collection in Piper’s capable, anal-retentive, obsessive-compulsive hands and went home early to get ready for my latest public appearance as Fiera.

  Every couple of months, SNN, The Exposé, The Chronicle, and the other media outlets in the city sponsored Meet Bigtime’s Superheroes in Paradise Park. The events were a chance for regular folks to mix and mingle with their favorite superheroes and learn about our powers, as well as raise money for some worthy causes. The members of the Fearless Five took turns attending the functions, and I was the lucky superhero today. I didn’t mind too much, though. It was fun to show off in front of people. Kids, in particular, always got a kick out of my fireball-juggling skills.

  Once I was suited up, I flipped a switch just inside the door. It looked like any other light switch, but it was a special feature Henry had installed for me when I’d moved into the apartment. The switch sent out a signal that scrambled the building’s security cameras and locked down all the elevators except for the one I used for five minutes. Since I had the whole floor to myself, I didn’t have to worry about nosy neighbors—just about getting out of the building without being seen.

  I rode the elevator down to the fifth subbasement, the very bottom of Tip-Top Tower. The doors pinged open, revealing a dark space filled with metal trash chutes and overflowing dumpsters. Black mold covered the damp walls, and the air smelled of rotten pizza, greasy French fries, and overripe fruit. Tip-Top Tower might be one of the most exclusive buildings in Bigtime, but it still had to have a place to collect tenants’ trash, just like every other apartment complex. Nobody, not even the maintenance men, came down here unless they absolutely had to. Lucky for me.

  I walked to the very back corner of the subbasement, where a metal door stood. The lock and knob were long gone, and the door had a smushed look to it, like a bag of chocolate that had been out in the sun too long. I pointed my finger at the door, letting out a steady stream of concentrated flame, and traced along its borders. The metal heated up in seconds, casting a red-hot glow onto the rotting trash. I pulled the door open, stepped through, and repeated my welding process, sealing it behind me. The building managers thought the door had been melted shut by a long-ago gas explosion. They didn’t know it was my secret way out of the building. Slipping out of my apartment in my costume unseen by the other tenants was a necessary skill that I’d perfected over the years, especially since I couldn’t just go up to the roof and fly away like Hangman and Rocket Ron and the other winged types.

  I strolled through the dark passageway, using my flaming hand as a torch. The passageway twisted and turned underneath a couple of city blocks. It was part of a network of old tunnels that ran under most of the downtown area and was one of the main reasons I’d chosen to live in Tip-Top Tower.

  A pinprick of light flashed up ahead, and I dimmed my hand. The tunnel opened up into an alley close to the Bigtime Public Library. A few weeds and some loose bricks cluttered the entrance, along with the backside of a metal Dumpster. I shimmied through the space between the Dumpster and the alley wall. I peeked around the corner of the metal container, but I was the only person in the alley. With its Dumpsters, bits of smelly garbage, and cracked pavement, the alley wasn’t the sort of place most people would willingly walk into, even during the middle of the afternoon.

  There were other ways out of my apartment building, but I’d found this to be the quickest and safest. Even if someone moved the Dumpster and stumbled into the passageway, they’d never get through the door at the far end without some sort of superpower. Even then, there was nothing in the tunnel that could be traced back to me. I wasn’t dumb enough to leave costumes lying around or stupid enough to write FIERA WAS HERE on the walls.

  Once I was satisfied that no one was watching, I slipped out into the main street with the city’s other citizens. Most folks didn’t give me a second look. There were so many superheroes in Bigtime these days that people didn’t get too excited unless we were going fist-to-fist with ubervillains on top of a skyscraper somewhere. Still, a few people stopped and asked me for autographs, which I graciously signed.

  I made my way to Paradise Park. An enormous banner across the front entrance proclaimed that it was A Super Day for Superheroes! Thousands of people, parents with kids mostly, along with the requisite fanboys, crowded into the park anxious to see their heroes in the flesh and fur. And of course, some folks from Slaves for Superhero Sex had shown up. SSS was a cult group whose members put themselves in danger in order to get close to heroes and villains. You could spot them a mile away. They always thought they had to dress up in cheerleading, French maid, and other costumes to attract the attention of their favori
te hero. I thought they were all fruitcakes.

  I headed for the checkin station, where a twentysomething woman carrying an enormous clipboard barked orders at her teenage underlings. A headset clung to the side of her square sunglasses, while pens, paperclips, a stun gun, and more hung in the mesh khaki vest that covered her chest. Abby Appleby. She stabbed a pen at a boy who didn’t look old enough to shave yet.

  “You! Go take the Caffeinator a fresh supply of chocolate bars and coffee. Now!”

  The poor kid grabbed a box of candy and a bag of beans and scurried off to do her bidding like he had jets attached to his sneakers.

  Abby zeroed in on me and plastered a smile on her face. “Fiera. Glad you could make it. If you’ll follow me, I’ll show you to your booth. Everybody else is here already.”

  Abby Appleby was one of the premiere event planners in Bigtime. She did everything from weddings to birthday parties to funerals. Abby had a reputation for throwing fantastic events, as well as bringing everything in on time and under budget—no matter how many toes and legs and other things she had to break to get it done. She was also one of Piper’s best friends. It was no wonder, given how tightly the two of them were wound.

  “Here we are,” Abby said, stopping in front of a wooden booth decorated with orange-and-red cardboard flames and the F5 insignia.

  Next door, a tall, Nordic-looking woman created snow cones with her bare hands, covered them with sugary, blue goo, and dished them out to a line of anxious kids. A giant snowflake flashed like a strobe light on her ice-blue costume.

  “You’re putting me next to Wynter again?”

  Wynter looked up from her snow cone making. Her blue eyes frosted over at the sight of me. Fire and ice never mixed, and Wynter and I had never gotten along. She was a bit cold and distant for my liking. I’d never once seen her smile or laugh, not even when she was taking out Hot Stuff, her archenemy.

  “Sorry,” Abby apologized, pointing to another booth. “The only other spot I have is down at the end with Halitosis Hal, and you know I can’t put the two of you together.”

  I followed her finger and spotted the other superhero. Halitosis Hal was a short guy with a wide but solid frame. His costume was a putrid green color, but it worked with his dark skin and hair. He was busy handing out gas masks to the folks lined up in front of his booth, which was decorated with cardboard cutouts of garlic, anchovies, and other smelly things.

  No, Abby couldn’t put me down there. As his name suggested, Halitosis Hal’s superpower was his superbad breath. One whiff of it could stop the strongest ubervillain in his tracks. In addition to smelling like something that died two months ago, Hal’s breath also contained a mixture of nitrous and other flammable gases. Whenever we got too close to each other, things blew up. And not in a good way.

  “I understand,” I said, slipping into the booth.

  For the next three hours, I juggled fireballs, made my fingers flash like sparklers, bench-pressed parents, and scampered around in my skintight spandex costume, much to the delight of shrieking kids and fawning fanboys. I, of course, was among the more popular superheroes in attendance. Folks lined up three-deep around my booth to see me light myself on fire, get autographs, and snap up official Fiera merchandise.

  Everything was going fine until Kelly Caleb arrived. She had her game face on today—a smart red suit, perfect makeup, flawless hair. She was like a blond version of Erica Songe, except her suit wasn’t slit down to her bellybutton and up to her hips. Kelly wandered through the rows of booths with her SNN cameraman, chatting and shaking hands with the superheroes like they were her close, personal friends. She even hugged Halitosis Hal and Pistol Pete. Hugging. Please. Superheroes did not hug people. At least, not this superhero.

  The news reporter stopped in front of my booth and gestured for her cameraman to shoot some video of me juggling fireballs. I thought about using one of them to melt the television camera but decided against it. I’d promised my father that I wouldn’t set anything on fire at the park today. I supposed that included nosy news reporters.

  “Fiera.”

  “Kelly.”

  “I was wondering if I could have a moment of your time.” The news reporter gave me her trademark toothy grin.

  “I’m sort of busy right now.”

  My pointed tone didn’t faze her. “It will only take a few minutes. You and the other members of the Fearless Five haven’t given me an interview in months, ever since you introduced Karma Girl as your new member. I’m beginning to think you’re ignoring me on purpose. And I’d hate for that to be the case. Heroes like Swifte give me all the interviews I want. Since you’re so busy, maybe I should go see if he’s here. I’m sure he’d love to be the featured lead on the evening news, especially since he’s got that new video game to promote. From what I hear, it’s selling extremely well. Even better than your action figures.”

  Kelly’s voice was mild, but her tone was just as sharp as mine had been. The message was clear—play nice or else. If it had just been me, I would have ignored her. But I had a duty to the rest of the F5 team to make us look good—whether I wanted to or not. Unfortunately, duty was about doing a lot of things you didn’t want to.

  So, I snuffed out the fireballs and plastered something that resembled a smile on my face. “Well, I suppose I can give you a few minutes.”

  Kelly shoved a microphone at me and peppered me with questions. What I and the other team members had been up to. How Karma Girl was fitting in with the rest of the Fearless Five. If we’d heard anything from Malefica and the other members of the Terrible Triad. She skillfully moved from one topic to the next and crammed in more questions in five minutes than most reporters could get to in half an hour. Even I couldn’t deny that Kelly was good at her job. She was still a reporter, though. One that I didn’t like, no matter how fabulous she looked in the suit that I’d designed.

  After another round of nosy questions, Kelly wrapped up the interview and told her cameraman to stop shooting.

  “Now, that wasn’t so bad, was it?” Kelly asked.

  “No,” I muttered. “I suppose not. It could have been worse. Erica Songe could have been here.”

  I hadn’t meant for Kelly to hear me, but she did. The reporter’s face tightened at the mention of the other woman.

  “Not a fan either?” I asked.

  “You know we’re all just one big, happy family at SNN.” Kelly smiled, although it looked more like a grimace. “Erica has her uses.”

  I couldn’t resist twisting the knife a little. “Like covering Black Samba and Granny Cane rescuing those trapped firefighters a couple days ago? I saw the news and was surprised to see Erica on the scene. I thought superheroes and ubervillains were your exclusive beat at SNN. Or is that one of Erica’s uses?”

  Ice filled Kelly’s eyes, turning them the same cold blue color as Wynter’s snow cones. “I know what you’re implying, but nobody muscles in on my territory. I’m the number one superhero reporter in this city, and I plan on keeping it that way—whatever it takes. Now, if you’ll excuse me, Fiera, I need to get this on the air for the six o’clock news. Thanks for the interview.”

  Kelly jerked her head at the cameraman, and the two of them left the park. Sometimes, I thought corporate politics were just as dangerous as superhero-ubervillain battles, although without the building-leveling explosions. I shook my head and returned to my fans.

  After Kelly left, the event wound down, and the other superheroes started packing up, ready to go out and prowl the streets for the night. I gave my regards to Abby, who was now barking orders at the cleanup crew, and headed for home.

  I started to walk back to the alley next to the library. On an impulse, I cut through a row of pine trees that marked the park’s borders and headed for Bigtime Cemetery. A wrought-iron gate surrounded the sloping, green expanse, and marble tombstones, pinnacles, and angel statues dotted the manicured lawn. The wild carousel music and shrieks of glee from the park faded away to mere whispe
rs.

  My steps grew slower, heavier as I headed for my destination, but I pushed on until I reached a white marble tombstone. The words Travis Templeton Teague. Beloved by all flowed across the marker. A few wilted flowers and cracked, faded, weather-worn action figures surrounded the gravesite. People didn’t leave as many flowers and cards as they used to. Superheroes and ubervillains came and went in Bigtime, and most folks were slowly forgetting about Travis aka Tornado.

  Not me. I would never forget him. Never. I crouched down, straightening the action figures and arranging the flowers into a tidy pile. I did that for a long time, thinking about him and how much love there had been between us. My heart ached, and hot tears steamed off my flushed cheeks.

  Travis had been taken from me before his time. It was cruel, unfair, and there was nothing I could do about it. But he was in a better place now, watching over me. I knew he was. I twisted my engagement ring around my finger. I would give anything for Travis to be here with me now. But that would never happen.

  It was time to move on. To date again. To laugh again. To fall in love again. My father was right. I couldn’t live in the past forever, and Travis wouldn’t want me to. He would want me to be happy, to be with someone who made me happy, whether it was Johnny Bulluci or someone else further down the line. I quit twisting my ring and stood.

  “I love you, Travis. I always will.” I pressed a kiss to my hand and put it on top of the tombstone. The sun-warmed marble felt smooth as glass under my fingers.

  Then, I turned and walked away.

  Chapter Ten

  After leaving the cemetery, I slipped back into my apartment, stripped off my superhero suit, and got ready for the observatory benefit.

  I took extra care with my I-might-have-sex-tonight beauty rituals. Daydreaming about Johnny all weekend had fired up my hormones even more than usual. I liked him. He liked me. Why shouldn’t we have a little fun after the party tonight?