Super Nobody (Alphas and Omegas Book 1)

by Brent Meske

Michael's father was a wonderful guy, but wasn't around much. When he did come home, it was always a bit awkward. He just wanted to sit around and drink a couple of beers, then complain at his wife. Michael didn't play baseball because he wasn't at all coordinated, but there were times he would put up with the odd fishing trip. The fact was that Michael didn't know anything about his dad, and it had never bothered him until he was in the hospital.

  One of the jokes Michael knew about his dad was that people said he was like an avalanche. He was slow to move, near impossible to get upset, but if he started moving, you best just get out of his way.

  They thought he was sleeping. They also didn't seem to understand that sound carried.

  “...don't care what the regents are saying!” his father bellowed. “My son isn't safe. I'm not going to leave him in a situation where his life is going to be in danger every other week.”

  His mother muttered something.

  “Don't give me that. They're supposed to have a handle on this. There's a whole...a system in place for this. And no, I'm not going to keep my voice down.” He swore in another language, a vile, gutteral sound. Susanna Washington did not approve of curse words in her house, and wasn't above threatening her husband with a soapy mouth.

  His mother said something else.

  “Well the system is not working. How can I go off around the world and figure out how to solve every single problem on the planet when I don't know if my own son is going to have his brain hammered to mush by some immature...little...floozy!”

  Clearly he wasn't too good at the insult thing.

  Davey Rightman was alive. The girl, her name was Sylvia Packard, she was alive too. The damage to Michael was three cracked ribs, a broken tibia, and hairline fractures in seven other bones he didn't even know the names of. Plus pain, there was plenty of that too.

  “You're going to be fine,” Mr. Springfield had said. “We've got our best people working on this.”

  “I want Montgomery in to look at him!” his father shouted. “She's the best. Why can't they even spare him a single look? He's my son!”

  “Get a hold of yourself Michael,” Susanna said, loudly. “You're going to wake him up.”

  “Yeah, that's another thing. Isn't it about time we told him the truth? I mean, my God Susanna, considering who I am, and his grandfather...he has the right to know.”

  “You agreed not to tell him. For his protection!”

  “That was before all this!”

  What did he have a right to know, exactly, except that several of the teenagers over at Marcus Patterson were going Active even though the mathematical chances of that happening were astronomically low? That the teachers at LADCEMS and Marcus Patterson and the High School were Actives themselves? That he basically lived in Superville?

  “Go home right this minute,” Susanna said. “You're not thinking clearly.”

  “Oh yeah, and maybe you can sort me out,” his father hissed. “That's your job, isn't it?”

  “Maybe you should spare a few seconds and think about your son,” she said. “He's lying in there, hurt, confused, probably scared. You want to dump a nuclear bomb right in the middle of that? Personally I think he's taking this better than you. He's the one who has to cope with this situation, not you. Now, put some faith in the administration and the school system. They're in place to handle these types of things. You're not.”

  “I—”

  She steamrolled him. “Michael, I understand. You're confused, you're upset. We all are. But you're not the best qualified person to deal with this. The superintendent and the regents know what they're doing. Trust them.”

  Michael could just about hear the sigh of defeat.

  She said something else, but Michael couldn't make it out.

  “You mean it?” Michael's father asked, a hopeful note obliterating all the anger from earlier.

  “It's been a while, hasn't it? Too long, I think. Go home, get ready.” Suddenly his mother had gone from stern to playful in an instant. What was that about?

  Michael's father came in and stood over him for a few minutes. Michael wanted to open his eyes and tell his father everything was fine. More importantly, he wanted to start asking questions, mostly about their discussion outside. But then he would know that his son had been spying on them, and Michael couldn't have that.

  He felt a bit guilty, but mostly he burned with loneliness and a little shame when his dad put a hand on his forehead, and left.

  A specialist came to see him over the next few days, a woman named Mrs. Montgomery. She was big and round, with permanent smile lines deep in her bright red cheeks. She didn't carry a clipboard like the other doctors, but she did have a soft blue shirt and matching pants. Whatever she was doing when she gave him a back massage or had him exercise, it was working. The agony had faded on the first night, and his arms and legs were itching to move.

  “Hi there Michael,” she said, after the third day. She always gave him the same bright smile that wouldn't go away, no matter what.

  “You're Active aren't you?”

  “Bad news,” she said, still smiling broadly. “Your parents sent me over with the homework you're going to have to do while the school jumps back on its feet. And I think today we can get you out of this bed and get you home.”

  He wasn't a doctor or a mathematician, but he could put two and two together. This was the same woman his mom and dad had fought about. When Mr. Springfield said he was getting the best treatment, he really meant it. This woman was putting his bones back together just by looking at him. Or maybe when she did the back massages. He'd never heard of someone with broken ribs getting a back massage. Then again, he admitted to himself, still not a doctor.

  He groaned, looking at his backpack stuffed full of books. But, seeing as how he had a table on his bed, he figured he had to do it sooner or later, and he could do it standing up. When he pulled open his backpack to start his homework, he remembered the letter from Charlotte. Something still got to him about it, and he opened it.

  Hi Michael,

  I'm really sorry I couldn't come 2 school the last 3 days. Actually I can't come anymore. Anyway don't worry about me. Just spin one of the old CDs I was telling you about. You should play track 6 on the Janis Joplin album. Or if you want, song #2...

  He hadn't seen it before, but there it was! All the others were numbers.

  He couldn't wait. He changed in the bathroom, telling himself that his parents were keeping secrets from him, this Montgomery woman was keeping secrets from him, and maybe even Grandpa too. At least Mr. Springfield had told him he couldn't tell Michael everything. This city was one big secret factory, and they were all working hard at keeping Michael (and everybody else) from knowing the truth. He resented being left in the dark, just because he was a kid. If they were worried about something, he felt he should know what it was, at least.

  Sneaking out of the hospital wasn’t as hard as he thought it might be. There were stairways at the end of the hall where the nurses didn’t often go. Once, when he overheard two of them talking, he ducked into the floor above them and walked through as if he owned the place. At the other end of the hall was another stairway. He avoided the middle of the floor, where the elevators were. There he would be trapped with whoever decided to ask him questions.

  He walked home from the hospital, keeping to the windswept side roads. He couldn't stay on the main roads, where people would stop and ask if he wanted a ride. On the other hand, his backpack weighed half a ton, and he couldn't be as sneaky as he wanted without risking a broken back.

  It was weird, breaking into his own house, but it had to be done. His father was home, and his mother too, and they wouldn't understand if they saw him tromp through the front door, go out the back, go into the garage, and leave for school.

  The garage had a motion light, and so did the back door of his house. Instead of cutting across the driveway, he stowed his ridiculously heavy backpack next to the garbage cans and went around bac
k.

  The back of the garage was a sort of micro-no-man's land of thorny bushes and broken equipment, like the shovel head from two summers ago when his dad had been working on the sump pump (a gross, horrible smelling thing that was buried in your yard for some reason), or Michael's first bike, which was now rust all over. The back of the garage was even worse. Sawhorses were piled with warped, gray old lumber, a canoe, and several unrecognizable shards of metal. Not to mention more tangles of thorny bushes. It was slow going, but at last he managed to duck under the canoe and pick his way carefully across the back.

  Now for the hard part. Out in the open, there were windows to his parents' room, and the motion sensor could flash on at any time. He got his garage key ready and started inching his way down the side of the garage.

  Time slowed down. His breath came super fast, but he was moving super slowly. He expected his parents to look out the window at any second. He expected the light to flash on, and his dad to come out with a baseball bat, shouting to get off his property. Plus, it was getting pretty cold, now that he wasn't moving around.

  He was just within reach of the doorknob when the bedroom lights turned on. He froze, even though he realized he was out in the open. His heart was hammering in his chest, ready to burst out as soon as he heard the first shout.

  But it didn't happen. He could barely make out the forms of his mom and dad moving around the bedroom, but he didn't feel like they were moving in any strange way. Well, it was now, or just give up.

  He inched his way down the side of the garage, moving as slowly as he could bear. After a few centuries the door came up ahead, and he slipped his key inside. Instead of the normal metallic rattle, it sounded like a machine gun going off. And the squeak of the garage door was like that fifth grade girl from the day before, screaming in protest.

  He pushed the door open and eased himself inside. His bike was next to the unused but nicely built tool rack, and the other woodworking tools his father was never home to use. Then, with all the speed of a half-sleeping snail, he inched his way out the door and around the garage again, this time with his bike.

  Only once he was down the driveway did he consider that it might have been faster just to walk to the school and walk home. His bike was better than running, that was for sure. He knew by his entire fifth grade year that with the right running start to hop on the bike, nobody could catch you.

  The blocks flew past, and he crossed at the light that usually brought him over to the library on his paper route. He'd have to ask his mom who they found to sub for him while he was in the hospital. Last time they'd asked the neighbor girl, a fifth grader named Rachel Pescatello, and he had to pay her and everything.

  But he couldn't think about that now. As the school came into view, he couldn't think about anything but being a stealth ninja. Because there were people crawling all over the place.

  The school looked like a construction zone crossed with a police investigation. There were guys with hard hats and big steel-toed boots looking over the damage from hydraulic platforms. Several spotlights were pointed at different parts of the building, washing it in blinding white. A couple of fire trucks sat on the large lawn on either side of the school, with firefighters standing by. Police cars and officers stood nearby, drinking coffee and eating donuts. The firefighters weren't in full gear, just heavy pants with suspenders. Michael guessed they were waiting for the school to blow up, or at least catch on fire.

  And someone was floating in the air, just next to the construction guys.

  He didn't have time to stand around gawking, as his mother put it, so he pedaled on and circled around the school. He went the long way, all the way around the hulking Marcus Patterson building and the sports fields near them. He went in at a good clip, and pulled up behind a lonely van standing sentry in the school's parking lot.

  Another police car sat near the rear entrance to the school, but the only officer was inside and reading something on his tablet. Crouching low, it was easy to get right behind the car and get a look at the rear section of the school.

  The back door was locked. He knew that, after school, you had to be buzzed in, and if there wasn't anybody in the office, it was tough luck, said the duck. He didn't need the door though. There were several enormous cracks in the school, big enough to get through easy. Big enough to get through without being noticed, that was a different story.

  There was also a problem of motion detectors, but from the absolutely black look of the inside, Michael figured they had probably cut the power to the entire building. Who would be stupid enough to sneak into an unstable school, surrounded by police and firefighters, at night?

  Michael smiled to himself.

  It was a matter of a quick dart, though Michael thought he saw the policeman look up as he disappeared into the school. He wormed his way into the band room, headed out into the hall, and made his way to the stairs over near the office. Thank goodness for the carpeted hallway floors. He could hear voices, but in this spooky gloom it seemed like the wind was bringing strange sounds to him. There was no way to tell where they were.

  Somewhere nearby, the structure groaned in protest, like a dinosaur with a stomachache. A bit of moonlight filtered in through some of the school's cracks, but other than that everything was black.

  He'd never trembled with fear and excitement at the same time, except maybe when he made his first money delivery to Trent. It was a long time ago, but the memory came back fresh. He remember thinking that everybody in the dodge ball area was his enemy, any of them might just punch him for no good reason. Here and now, it was the same feeling, that there were threats everywhere, just around this corner...no. Good.

  He took out the note. “Twenty-three, sixteen, twenty-four,” he muttered.

  He had to jump over an enormous crack in the school up here, but made the stupid decision to see what was down there first. As soon as he looked down, he regretted it. The moonlight clearly showed him a tangle of sharp edges, from the concrete and snapped off pieces of rebar poking up like frozen snakes. Below...yikes, he hadn't realized it was so far down.

  No problem. Just don't trip, he told himself, you can jump three feet. Three feet is nothing, you do it in gym class all the time. Yeah, another part of him said, but in gym class the floor is there. It's not ready to eat me.

  He backed up to get a running start. When he took off, he heard a noise, and nearly missed his footing. The gap seemed to stretch out as he ran up, but he launched himself across, and only tripped as he landed. He landed a little off, skinning his knees and his palm.

  “Rug burn,” he muttered. “Ugh.”

  There, her locker was there, bathed in the soft moonlight not far from the crack.

  He ran up to it and began spinning the lock.

  “Twenty-three,” he said. “Sixteen...Twenty-four.”

  He took a deep breath. If this didn't work, he could be in trouble with the police for absolutely nothing. He could be in trouble with his parents, with the school. This note, and these three numbers could be the end of him. He pulled. The lock came open.

  He was about to let himself breathe again when he heard a voice.

  “I'm telling you I thought I heard something.”

  A radio hissed, and a far away voice said, “All right. Check it out.”

  The beam of a flashlight jiggled down the hallway, around the corner that led to the shop and band/orchestra wing. Michael threw himself into the next classroom door space. It was a recessed space of about two feet, enough to hide him completely. After that though, there was nothing else. If the policeman came all the way down here, that was it. He would be done.

  The flashlight beam danced around a little bit, before the policeman swore. Then he whistled.

  “Dispatch, you seen the state of this place? That kid tore a three foot gap in the hall here, over.”

  The radio crackled again. “Erikson, get your kiester outside right now. No more inventing burglars just so you can take the nic
kel tour, over.”

  “I'm not through with my sweep, over,” Erikson said.

  “That's an order. Get outside before I report you, over.”

  Erikson grumbled, but copied that, and followed with an over-and-out. The flashlight swung away and disappeared.

  Michael waited five minutes before he slid down the wall and exhaled loudly. He was shaking so badly he could barely get to his feet, and even though he knew Erikson was gone, he was still as quiet as he could be with the latch, and the door.

  Charlotte's locker smelled like her. He hadn't realized how badly he missed that smell until now. It wasn't anything he could identify, but he liked it. It felt cozy, friendly, and really nice. There were bad things in the world, but with this smell, you could make believe there weren't any. The rest of the locker was kept neatly, not like his own paper-filled trash heap, where his books were difficult to spot on the best of days.

  The note was right there, on the bottom. Yes!

  He picked it up and made his way back down to the crack where he'd gone in. He paused there, in the band room, and tried to peek out. Unfortunately, Erikson must have moved his car, because the headlights were shining right at the crack he was hiding in.

  “Crud,” he whispered.

  His other option was the door, but he felt like there would be some sort of alarm going off. Then he remembered that the power was turned off. Still, if Erikson was paying attention, and he probably was, he would spot Michael the moment the door moved.

  There was only one option: he had to wait. He sat down in a patch of moonlight and started reading.

  It was wrong. He knew it from the word 'hello'. The words, though he could barely make them out in the weak light, weren't from Charlotte. They just said the same things: music, twins weren't doing anything exciting, mom said yo and she was being home-schooled. Her mom was afraid of the Actives popping up around LADCEMS, and didn't want any of her children near that place.

  First of all, Michael thought he understood Mrs. Sulzsko pretty well, and she wasn't the type of woman to shy away from anything. In fact, she probably would have been excited to get Trent to pose, flicking electricity all over the place, in order to paint him. And the twins were nothing but a handful. One was always crawling down the stairs into the basement, somehow getting past the safety fence while the other was trying to give the cat a bath. The last line of this letter from Charlotte went take care of yourself, Mikey, and be careful. It's getting dangerous at school these days.

  Charlotte would never, ever in her life write or say anything of the sort.

  And the strangest thing was that a phantom image of someone came immediately to mind, sitting at the antique writing desk in his study, the roll top kind you could pulled the cover down. He was looking over the letter Charlotte had put in Michael's bag with his tongue sticking out of his mouth, glancing back and forth. The man was his grandfather.

  Michael wasn't old enough to think he knew everything. That would probably happen in eighth grade. His mother was always warning him about thinking he knew everything. But he did know some things. He knew what chicken tasted like, what his fingers felt like when he rubbed them together. He knew that by closing his eyes and pressing on his eyelids he could make himself see stars and weird checkerboard patterns. He knew the smell of apple pie in the oven, after school.

  And somehow he knew, without knowing how, he just knew that Grandpa had written the letter and copied Charlotte's signature there. It wasn't like watching a movie, where you know what you're seeing isn't true. And it wasn't like looking in a photograph, which can be doctored up and enhanced. It was true.

  And more than that, there had been another letter from Charlotte, maybe the real one, on the desk. He hadn't had the time to read it, but it was there. That meant Grandpa found the note in Michael's bag somehow, understood what it meant, and opened Charlotte's locker. Then he went through the trouble of reading Charlotte's real letter, and forging another one. He was just lucky that Michael hadn't gotten to the real letter, because he was more determined than ever to see Charlotte. The thought of his grandfather keeping things from him gave him a nasty headache.

  Michael looked up as soon as he noticed the headlights dim and the car head out of the parking lot.

  “Yes!” he said, and hopped to his feet. A few minutes later he was on his bike and pedaling toward home, where his parents were ready to kill him.

  Chapter 8 - The Truth About Santa