by Mark Gardner
“I discovered you second to Kristof,” Andy said, disregarding Massey's incessant grumbling over his smartphone, and attempts to steer the conversation away from difficult topics. “You were harder to trace than he was—at first, that is. I had you pinned down as a villain. Still do.” Andy’s eyes glimmered.
“What the fuck man, Kristof was the whack job, not me!”
“You did murder some people while you were,” Andy raised his fingers into air quotes, “exploring your power.”
Joaquin frowned and leaned toward Andy.
“Hey, I’m not judging. ‘Lest not ye be judged’ and all that. By the way, it was fascinating to learn about how you operate.”
“That’s enough of that, both of you,” Massey warned again putting his smartphone aside with a sigh.
Andy leaned closer to Joaquin. “That’s the thing Joaquin, you really shouldn’t be offended. Villains, heroes, vigilantes, they’re all just labels people put on someone to give other people justification or punishment for their acts. It’s never only crime, nor ever only justice. They're just lies we tell each other to make us feel better instead of the ugly truth.”
Joaquin raised his hands in surrender. “You’re fucking weird, homeboy. You know that?”
Andy pulled back his quivering upper lip. “I’m perfectly fine.”
The frustration in Massey's voice was evident when he yelled, “I said, 'that's enough,' you two.”
Both Andy and Joaquin stared at Massey.
“Is everything alright, Detective?” Andy inquired, a smirk forming at the corners of his lips.
Massey straightened his tie and gestured to Joaquin to follow him. He didn’t have time now for Andy Kitz. Whoever he was and whatever he wanted could wait for discovery.
“Come on Joaquin, we’re leaving.”
Joaquin raised himself from the chair, shaking his head. At the door, Massey turned to Andy. “I hope you realize, Mister Kitz, that what you’ve set up here is illegal, and I can have it taken apart in no time at all. You could end up having to whistle code into a telephone, if you get my drift. I'm letting you off with just a friendly warning. We’ll be in touch soon.”
Andy put on his best smile. “Thank you, Detective.” To Massey, it looked more like a grimace, so he decided that his message had been received loud and clear.
Massey let loose one more of his interrogation glares in Andy's direction and started to leave. His hand rested on the doorknob for only a moment when the live news feed started again.
“We have just received news that there has been an apparent ‘super’ attack near Madison Park. Our correspondent, Nick Hunt, is currently traveling to the location, and we’ll check with him as soon as he arrives.”
Massey faced the illuminated screen. He felt lightheaded, and a slowly increasing throbbing sensation settled itself at his temples. He was afraid that if he kept rubbing them, they’d bruise. He focused on the news anchors, their voices building tension in his chest.
“Some of our viewers out there have been tweeting us photos and videos from Madison Park, but we can’t currently confirm anything, so stay tuned and follow us on Facebook and Twitter at Q-13Network and @ChannelQ13. We’re awaiting commentary from the Seattle Police Department. At this point, the authorities have only advised us that people shouldn’t approach Madison Park and to stay at safe distance from it. Authorities are asking that any witnesses with photographic or video evidence to contact the Seattle Police Department right away. The contact information for the Seattle Police Department is available on our website at Q-13Network.com.”
Andy opened another screen running parallel to the newsfeed. It was a vertical video shot by someone with shaky hands. The quality was crap, but Massey could see something blue evaporate from the ground in the distance and heard the person filming it mutter, “shit, shit, shit.” Someone next to him was yelling incoherently, obviously terrified. Massey was also aware of another noise, this one persistent and loud. His hand numbly reached for his phone, and he put it to his ear, meeting the breaking wail of ambulances and police sirens.
“Yes. Yes, I’m aware, I see it. A few minutes. I’m on my way.”
Bionic girl
There were more people like her. Sure, some of the videos uploaded on social media were fake and you could clearly see the noob computer generated graphics and green screen they used, or how they glued frame by frame the footage to make it look like they were going through walls and shit. But there were more people like her. There had to be. Sam had never met them, only talked to them on Discord. From her point of view, people with abnormal abilities were barely a subculture, one of hiding and pretending nothing was happening while everything was happening. The whole world was going bottoms up and no one spoke about it. No one thought they could or should speak about it. Except for her online group. They were a bit of a doomsday-themed bunch of weirdos, but they had the grip of things—their own abilities and what those could mean for the world, for the people. Sam didn’t care much for politics in general. Her social media feed was and endless dumpster fire. All of it politics. It was as if people could only identify with each other if they hated the other side. Her friend, Cassandra, called it tribalism, and tried many times to explain how it harkened back to caveman times or something. So, politics was a big ol’ wall of nope. It wasn’t just who was running for what office either. She certainly didn’t care for the politics behind her ability. She just wanted to share her homemade videos like the rest did, get that mental check she wasn’t a freak or the last of her kind. That was her current drama.
Sam stuck her tongue out to the young black dude sitting in the front passenger seat in the police cruiser, staring at her with his mouth agape. She twirled the cigarette in light suspension in the air behind her back and thought about showing it to him, but the car drove away. Sam blinked away the thought and wondered whether the younger one had seen something after all. Humans weren’t exactly known for being observant.
Or maybe he was like her too. His eyes lingered on mine too long, she thought, the same way my mother’s did when she found out about me. That showed that he understood, right? It was like he knew that a person could feel hella lonely with an ability…
Sam’s phone buzzed in her back pocket. It startled her and her bionic digits expanded the space in which the cigarette was out of gravity but the pull was too unpracticed so the cigarette tore, tiny tobacco pieces floating. Sam let it drop to the ground. A double groan came from her high school friends, Cassandra and Lucas.
“Aw, man why’d you do that?” Lucas smashed the remains of the cigarette beneath his boot.
Sam calibrated her wrist, fixing it in the socket to a more comfortable position. The wear and tear from everyday use was starting to show; Sam knew it would be re-paint time soon enough. She moved her fingers in slow progression from thumb to pinkie, checking for flexibility before fishing the phone from her pocket. Her parents would be upset if she broke the screen of another phone. She could only blame her artificial hand so many times before she just admitted to herself that she was a klutz.
She regarded Lucas. “Dude, chill. Someone would have probably walked up on us anyway.”
There was a message on her screen. She turned her back to her friends, reading her message, the phone close to her body.
“Is that from your super-secret, nonexistent boyfriend, Sam?” Cassandra snickered behind her back.
Sam hissed back at Cassandra. “No, it’s from your dad.”
“Oooh, Sam’s gonna be your stepmom, dude!” Lucas quipped.
There was a howling laughter and the sound of a sucker punch into Lucas’s shoulder. Sam ignored them. The message was important.
“Sam, let’s meet today around five. I want to show you something. Message me when you’re online. –A.R.”
Sam couldn’t help but blush a shade or two; she kicked a rock, her chin down, hiding the rising crimson. Djin was the first person with abilities she had met in the Discord group. She knew
his real name because they’d started chatting often and in a private channel. Even though she’d never met Alex in person, he seemed pretty chill. His ability was close to what she could currently do—he had the power to levitate objects, much larger than Sam could. But Djin thought Sam’s ability would grow. He was fascinated by the similarity. Sam was excited by the thought of finally meeting him. She cleared her throat and slipped the phone back into her pocket, shaking her head as if it would guarantee the blush would fade from her cheeks.
Being a teenager with superpowers was equal parts awkward and awesome. In the private of her own room, Sam would sit for hours moving small objects such as pens and papers, Alex cheering her on when she told him about her progress, telling her she was getting more practiced with each day. Even if her bionic arm wasn’t attached to her right elbow, the idea of having no fingers but still being able to mimic their movement in her mind’s eye put a constant flutter in Sam’s stomach that she couldn’t shake. It had her biting her lip to hide smiles over seemingly nothing; it made her laugh out loud for no reason. It made her feel out of control, but in a good way.
Sam remembered the day she decided to let her friends in on her secret.
“Bullshit. C’mon, Sam. No one has actual superpowers.”
“Yeah, and what makes you so sure, Lucas?”
“‘Cause it’s just impossible. I’m all about the science, dude!”
“And what if I have powers?”
“You don’t—you’re lame. We’re all lame. Why would any of us get powers?”
“You’ve seen the videos.”
“Faaaake, they’re all fake and you know it.”
“No, they aren’t. I can prove it.”
“Sam, just because you have a cool bionic arm doesn’t mean you can laser blast with it.”
“Not lasers again, you idiot. I really mean I can do things. Just shut up and watch. But promise not to tell anyone, okay?”
She jumped the fence, sneaking back into the open gym of their school. She’d made a run through it looking for something to use—something to wow them. A forgotten basketball near the court caught her eye; it was the perfect demonstration object. She picked it up off the ground without using her hands and launched it back to them with enough velocity to make Lucas grunt when it hit his chest. Though it had completely drained her, the look on her friends’ faces had been fucking priceless.
Cassandra interrupted her reverie. “Man, let’s bounce. I’ve got a lil’ somethin’ somethin’ in my pocket that would very much give us all superpowers…”
Sam grinned at Cassandra. “Like for an hour or two.”
Sam wasn’t big on smoking weed but in truth it kind of eased the itch she sometimes got from her misshapen elbow. Although in the few months while she was toying with her newly discovered power, Sam had less and less trouble with her ghost limb causing her discomfort.
“I vote somewhere off grid. The Whole Hole!” Lucas pointed onward giggling at the name as he always did.
Sam thought about inviting Alex to their sacred ground someday. “The Whole Hole” was a hole-in-the-wall bar. They were all under the legal drinking age at sixteen and seventeen, but the bartender, Randy, was Sam’s neighbor and he let them crash from time to time during the day when there were no patrons around. In a small form of payment, Cassandra always dropped a free kush for Randy.
En route to the train, Sam levitated the trash from one of the sidewalk bins to the amused barks of a stray dog. She made a small tornado of ice-cream wrappers, newspapers, burger wrappers, banana peels and a half-eaten chicken sandwich. It danced on the sidewalk toward the madly barking mutt until a man in an oversized jacket yelled at them, dumbfounded by the self-swirling trashnado. Sam dumped it at his feet and Lucas exploded into choking laughter. He ground the heels of his hands into his eyes to wipe away tears of mirth.
It was all a big joke, but Sam was testing how long and how often she could use her ability. At home she had the most concentration and she could easily float a paper airplane in the air for hours, but outside where the environment was full of distractions and the potential danger of someone seeing or worse—recording her, Sam’s ability lasted only seconds. Her biggest achievement was creating an animated “man” out of posters and flyers. She made him do “The Robot” before he fell apart into floating colorful pamphlets.
On the train, Sam zoned out of the conversation Lucas had started about leveling up his Runescape character Gonzo style—without armor and only basic weapons. He kept babbling on about iron man mode, and how he couldn’t accept support from his clan mates. She was having fun just being herself but always wondered whether there were other people with abilities around her. Some people might have thought it creepy, but the idea of discovering others like her was thrilling. She scanned people’s faces and watched their posture, trying to find some trait or commonality that gave their powers away.
They all looked like ordinary, everyday men and women. Even the ones wearing quirky clothes and sporting rainbow haircuts weren’t standing out. Come to think of it, Sam wasn’t looking overtly guilty and obvious that she had an ability, either. The only thing that made her stick out was her artificial hand, and even that wasn’t making much of an impression anymore.
Sam still found it to be invigorating to be hidden on the dull light rail ride. Maybe everyone tried their hardest to hide that they had powers. What if they were found out? What if someone saw them levitating objects or bending steel? Would people freak out? Would the police rush in and start shooting? Was the government experimenting on her a legit outcome? Sam wanted to believe they’d be hailed as superstars, going on all the talk shows, getting that Conan experience, hitting millions of Youtube views. The whole package. Alex said that in reality, it would be more severe. No glamour. No glitter. Only media pressure, government restrictions and political scandals. Sam couldn’t really understand why that would be the mass reaction, but Alex sounded serious. He said he was following things closely. He even sounded worried. His worry seeped into her being and she had to keep reminding herself that Alex was a bit of a pessimist. She’d work to maintain her sunny disposition as long as she could.
She, Lucas and Cassandra made their way through the crowd storming out of the train car and rode the escalator to the surface.
The Madison Park area was loud—louder than usual. Sam was used to the random busker or student practicing their violin, but the noise that poured into the narrow access point of the train station was piercing, unpleasant—and that meant danger. The park was alive with the shriek of sirens and screams going up and down in volume and intensity. At the top of the stairs a police officer tried to block their path. Simultaneously the people climbing the stairs and using the escalators flowed like a wave, pushing past the police officer in their struggle to escape the choking situation. He tried to raise his voice above the noise and confusion and managed to only single out a startled woman and her husband who spun and pushed back down the stairs knocking people aside. The domino effect nearly created a stampede as people held onto the jackets and arms and hands of their neighbors dragging them down the steep steps.
Sam grabbed Lucas and yanked his shorter stature along with her, pushing past the people with her bionic hand to squeeze through to daylight. Cassandra followed, grabbing the collar of Sam’s hoodie. The policeman was busy with the people on the stairs and their sustained minor injuries. Sam found her gap. She dashed past him, swerved to the right and nearly fell over along with Lucas and Cassandra. She found her balance, breathing heavily and took in her surroundings.
Her breath caught in her throat. Police vehicles were everywhere, throwing dust from their tires parked sideways on Thirty-ninth Avenue–the entrance to Madison Park. People were cordoned off to sidewalks and yellow police tape was strung as far as the eye could see.
“What the hell’s happening?” Lucas’s cheeks were red from the effort.
“Is this a terrorist attack?” Cassandra asked, her face pale, he
r knees wobbly. “There’s a helicopter flying over!” She pointed upward.
Sam’s attention was elsewhere. A pale blue light streamed up into the sky, it was a semi-transparent, unnatural shining. It reminded Sam of dissolving ice. Her eyes widened, her bionic fingers contracting. No one seemed to mind them; everyone busy with the freak light and the nonstop screaming coming from the heart of the park.
Sam waved her artificial hand. “Let’s go see.”
“Sam, are you crazy?!” Lucas hissed. “There could be people…dead there. Armed dudes and shit.”
Sam knew that—or maybe she didn’t. She wanted to see the light up close, because she knew it had to be connected to someone’s power. She took off running opposite the people scrambling for safety, and toward the panic, her heart thundering in her ears. Cassandra and Lucas, friends until the end, were quick to match her stride.
“What are we going to do, exactly? If you’re thinking of using your power, quit that shit right now,” Cassandra demanded.
Sam shook her head, looking for a way to avoid the cops.
“I’m not. But…I think this may have been a…superpowered attack.”
The way Lucas’s face contorted made Sam’s heart shrink. He looked scared. “Super powered terrorists?” he whispered. Abilities weren’t cool all of a sudden. They were dangerous.
Sam found a path through the neatly cut grass, ducking around shrubbery and behind swaying tree trunks. She knelt beside a trash bin, her friends snuggled close by, trying to keep their breathing in check. From their hidden viewpoint, Sam spotted a cluster of people marking a square area with more caution tape. The area was devoid of any other civilians and even the cops were staying far enough from the source of the light. She squinted; it seemed to have no source. It was like the air had been frozen and was now melting crystals formed in the air.