Cherry Blossom Girls International

by Harmon Cooper

  Me: Dude.

  Luke: I saw that you attacked the Capitol.

  Me: Lol?

  Luke: Lol!

  Me: Of course I didn’t. It was a set up, and I’m not just saying that to blow smoke up your Canadian ass, which I heard is one thing that Canadians like.

  Luke: Can confirm.

  Me: I don’t know how I should take that.

  Luke: Well, you’re the one that said it.

  Me: Anyway, it’s a long story, but to keep it short AF, I was supposed to meet with this one Senator who has been giving me hell. Instead, I was attacked by an albino woman shapeshifter who had some sort of cosmic energy that she was using.

  Luke: So in other words, a normal Monday for Gideon Caldwell?

  Me: More like a normal Tuesday. I have been trying to avoid the news about it. I know that they’re going to blame me, and I know that this is only going to spark the debate even more about people with superpowers.

  Luke: I’m guessing it doesn’t mean much, but I’ve definitely got your back.

  Me: Thanks man. What’s the update on your end?

  Luke: Just finishing up my notes on the next Star Destroyer. I ended up rewriting my outline. The entire thing. I usually do that, I’m just glad that I did it before I actually started writing the book. If I do the outline when I have already started writing the book, it only makes it messier for the edit. I hate editing.

  Me: I still await the day that they invent some software that will edit completely for us, letting us know all the changes in voice, any grammar errors, tone errors, and of course, the dreaded homophone.

  Luke: Go to hell, homophones! Booooo.

  Me: I couldn’t have said it better myself. Look, I may be out of touch for a bit as I get to the bottom of what’s going on here.

  Luke: Go on…

  Me: It’s time for the CBGs to go international. We still have enemies here, but I think for the sake of humanity, as stupid as it sounds, it will be best for us to address what is happening abroad.

  Luke: Damn.

  Me: Exactly. I’ll tell you more about it later. What’s up with you?

  Luke: Working on a cover. Want to see it?

  Me: Does Patrick Rothfuss still owe us another Kingkiller Chronicle?

  Luke: Lol.

  Me: I miss making covers. I never have time now. Maybe I will make some covers just for fun. I still need something for How Heavy This Axe Book Two. Anyway, please show me!

  Luke: Ah jesss….

  Me: Whoa. Okay, I’m inspired and impressed, seriously. Spaceship? Check. Fucking thrusters in your face? Yep. Milky Way? Oh, so milky. Sick-ass font? You bet. I really need to get back in the game. Shit. Maybe I’ll be able to whip up some cover-goodness soon.

  Luke: I’m waiting…

  “Luke is a damn good dude,” I said after I finally put my phone away.

  “We should go to Canada and meet him then,” said Grace, who was looking at me now, resting with one hand under her arm, her elbow on her pillow.

  “That would be sweet, and maybe it will happen one day. Who knows? But for now, we’ve got other places to go. Are you hungry? We can hit up the hotel breakfast buffet before we leave.”

  “Sure,” Grace said as she pressed out of bed, morphing into one of the forms she had been taking since I first met her. It was based on a picture of a geisha that had been on my wall in my apartment in Wooster Square. Adding a twist to it, there was a blonde highlight in her hair. To offset it all, she wore a velour outfit with the word JUICY across her buttocks.

  “Is it juicy enough?” she asked, showing her ass to me.

  “You are ridiculous sometimes,” I told her.

  “So I’ll take that as a yes.” Grace went to the other room and woke the others, while I got into my clothes and bolo tie.

  I was still dressed as a cowboy, but it was better than going downstairs wearing my superhero outfit. Speaking of which, all of our outfits were now in a bag in the other room, and I made a mental reminder to myself to not forget them.

  Vince would be pissed if he had to design another set.

  After stretching my arms over my head and yawning, I entered the other room, feeling surprisingly well considering the amount of champagne I’d had last night. A bit groggy, but not as bad as Veronique, whose hair was in her eyes, a deadly look on her face.

  “Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed…” I started to joke, and with that I fell to my knees, my energy suddenly being drained from me.

  “Just a little,” Grace told her.

  “So hungry…” Veronique said as the light started to dim.

  “More… Like… Hangry… ” I whimpered as she continued to feed.

  Veronique had been using me as food long enough for her to know the signs of when to stop, and I was thankful when she let up.

  “We will… feed you later,” I told her as I got to my feet again, healing myself. Actually, it was sort of a shit heal-job, mostly because of the fact I was low-energy.

  But that was nothing a solid breakfast wouldn’t cure.

  Breakfast in our bellies, the gals and I began the teleportation process back to Colorado. Dorian and I had already mapped out a good middle point, choosing St. Louis, Missouri, as a spot for her to recharge.

  We selected a field several miles outside of the city, somewhere where people wouldn’t see us, and after we had made sure we had everything that we needed, which mostly consisted of our uniforms, Dorian placed her hand on all of us and we ported away.

  Long-distance teleportation was as fascinating and exhilarating as it was utterly frightening.

  One purple flash later and we were jogging down a long tunnel, a whirling vortex of purple and white energy all around us, Dorian at the front, a smile on her face as she ran.

  By the time we arrived, the four of us deposited in a nature reserve of some sorts, I had my hands on my knees, trying not to throw it all up.

  “Just give me a minute…” I told them. Grace started to laugh.

  How she remained so chipper after the amount of champagne we’d drunk led me to believe that she had been pouring her glasses out beneath the table…

  Of course, looking at her only inspired Grace to read my mind, and shake her head at me playfully.

  “You wish,” she said. “I guess it could be my third superpower, the ability to fight off a hangover.”

  “The coffee helped,” Veronique said as she took a look around at the forested area.

  There were trees in the distance, but the spot we had chosen was pretty much barren aside from some patches of green grass and wildflowers. Dorian was getting better and better at pinpointing locations just using the picture on my phone.

  It was miraculous, impressive as hell.

  “It was your idea to stay in the hotel,” Dorian reminded me.

  “I needed a distraction.”

  “And it is a distraction you got,” said Veronique, the only mention thus far about the debauchery which had gone down last night. The metal vampire looked better than before, but her hair was still a bit ruffled and she definitely had some sleep in her eyes.

  “I can’t argue there…”

  I wished we had had more time to stick around and explore the wooded area, but we had our own nature to get back to in the hills of Colorado, so no complaints there. Eventually, once Dorian had recharged a little, and I was done feeling queasy, Dorian touched our hands and we started the teleportation process again.

  Back to the tunnel of blistering light, the world spinning all around us, Dorian charging ahead with that same beautiful smile on her face.

  It was amazing to see someone in their element, no matter what that element was. So rather than focus on the nausea I was feeling, I simply tried to keep up with her.

  I was able to finally do it, Dorian throwing her hand out and grabbing my wrist, going even faster now, everything coming at me as if I were skydiving directly into a supernova.

  Whoosh!

  We appeared in the
backyard of our base in Colorado.

  I was instantly hit by the cool mountain air, the views, the smell of nature, the way that the oxygen felt just a little different. I hadn’t even had a chance to take a step forward when I was nearly tackled by Michelle, the young speedster slamming into me with a big hug.

  “Michelle!” I said, my breakfast about to come up.

  “Gideon! I thought you would never come back! I was going to run to Washington, D.C., to find you guys, but then I saw what was on the news, and…”

  “Relax, Michelle,” I told her, pushing her away. “I just ate, and you know how I am with…” I swallowed hard, putting my hands over my mouth.

  “Happy, so happy you made it back!”

  I saw Father peek out of the door of his guesthouse, wave, then close the door again.

  Coming from the main home was Stella, her hair braided as usual, a curious look on her face; Chloe, who used her sound manipulation power to lift off the deck and float down toward us; Ingrid, who offered us a tight smile; and Clarence, who wore an apron with flour all over the front.

  “You’re back,” he said as he gave me a big bear hug. “Just in time for breakfast.”

  I pushed him away a bit, still feeling fuzzy in the tummy region. “I don’t know if I can eat anything.”

  We met up with the others, Chloe instantly moving over to me and placing her hand on my head.

  “Relax,” she said, her voice now ricocheting inside my skull, soothing me.

  The sound manipulator could do some pretty amazing things, and one of them was using her vibrations ability to cure things like headaches, or other small illnesses. She couldn’t full-on heal someone, but she could damn sure make someone feel better.

  So she chilled me out, and I felt a hundred times better by the time we entered the mansion. The air smelled of baked goods, rising flour, and even though I was full, I could definitely see myself getting hungry later.

  I heard sound coming from the TV, the ladies having been watching a show about coffee shop renovations called Caffeinated Rehab, which was a bad title. The host was a plaid-shirt-wearing Portland guy with body modifications, and inspirational words tatted across his cheeks à la a SoundCloud rapper from the late 2010s.

  Damn those tattoos didn’t age well.

  “I’m going to change,” I told the group, who had sort of followed me in. I didn’t know if they were actively following me, but everyone seemed like they were suddenly behind me. “And once I’m done, we’ll get our asses, butts,” I said, smiling at Michelle, “down to the situation room and figure out how we’re going to pull this off tomorrow. Then we’ll check your abilities, hit up some training, and have a well-balanced dinner.”

  “Pizza?”

  “We had that last night,” Chloe told Michelle.

  “And?”

  “Not pizza,” I told her. “Grace, please brief them on what really happened in D.C.”

  “Done,” she said, her eyes flashing white.

  “Damn, it’s cool when you do that,” I said, smirking at her.

  “I’ll finish baking,” said Clarence. “And coffee? Who wants coffee?”

  “I’ll help make the coffees!” Michelle disappeared in a flash, the young speedster already in the kitchen getting the cups out.

  A proper plan to make a plan in place—ha, that’s one way to put it!—I headed upstairs to my room, where I quickly got out of my cowboy clothes and hopped into the shower.

  Finally, a moment to myself.

  As the water pinkened my skin, I finally started to wrap my head around what had happened in Washington, and what this possibly meant for us.

  Whereas before, all superpowereds were to be hunted, now the FCG had a real target, a poster child for what could go wrong if the American people let those with powers go unchecked.

  And if I wasn’t mistaken, this had been Damon Lord’s plan the entire time. Why else would he send someone to shift into the Senator?

  This got me thinking another thing—how did they know I was coming?

  Did they catch my email, kidnap the Senator and then slip in the replacement? Or had Senator Ellicott been fake all along? Or maybe not all along, but before or immediately after what went down at my book release party...

  The release party had been televised, and millions of Americans had seen what people with superpowers could do. And sure enough, Senator Ellicott had been on TV the next morning telling the public the government would go after us.

  Something was fishy, and I didn’t like being targeted, the fucking tropes of the situation also pissed me off. Somehow, we had shifted into some sort of X-Men-like metaphor for treatment of those deemed ‘other.’

  Not thinly veiled either, I thought as more water hit my face.

  But what other path was there for a mutant or a superpowered individual, in the real world or in literature? The general public was stupid and fearful; anytime anything came in that could threaten them in any way, they acted brashly.

  That was human nature, so I knew better than to think that they would welcome us with open arms, but I also didn’t like being blamed for an attack we would have never planned.

  Maybe getting the hell out of the States for a spell would help.

  Maybe it would give us a chance to refresh, for the American public to get angry and fed up about whatever crisis was coming next.

  The student loan bubble was looking to burst any day now, and the opioid epidemic had been raging for more than half of my life. Social Security was screwed, Medicaid and Medicare always seemed to be a single vote away from being stripped or privatized. The Middle East was still a great place to fight a proxy war. Gun violence had waxed and waned over the 2020s but was back in full swing.

  So maybe one of those things would distract the public away from us.

  Leave the superpowered people alone…

  “That’s called wishful thinking,” I told myself aloud as I scrubbed my taint. Someone had to do the dirty work, whether that be grundel-cleaning, or going after madmen trying to create superpowered villains.

  The world would likely never know it needed us, but it did. And I didn’t mean that in some egotistical way.

  There were some bad people out there, and if Damon Lord really was expanding the experiments in Asia, which he clearly was based on the albino shifter who had attacked us, it was only a matter of time before they made a power play.

  And part of me wondered if…

  “Gideon, you are an idiot,” I told myself as I stopped the shower, the water disappearing into the drain. I hopped out and toweled off quickly.

  It was time to talk to Father.

  Chapter Seven: Father Pow Wow

  “Open up, open up,” I said as I lightly knocked on Father’s door.

  Is he taking a dump or something? I had been knocking for several minutes now, my body still fresh and pink from the shower, my hair a little wet.

  I kept meaning to get a haircut, to go back to the high and tight look I rocked after I broke bad (my fuck did that feel like years ago), but it kept slipping my mind. Maybe I would have Grace just shave my head, or maybe I’d get a haircut in Japan and go for the latest Asian fashion trend.

  Only time would tell.

  “Stop knocking,” I heard Father say from the other side of the door. I heard the lock click and as the door swung open, I saw that the man, the myth and the legend was also fresh out of the shower, his hair slicked back, and wearing a white t-shirt, a pair of pants and black socks. He smelled fresh, like a weird mixture of basil and mint.

  “They’re all related,” I said as I let myself in.

  “Come again?”

  “AEFL, Damon Lord and Natalie Johansson’s crew,” I said, instantly recalling the thugs the famous actress ran with: Smiley the strongman; the portal user named Bae; the Asian lady and power amplifier named Tokyo; their tech guy, who went by the name Hummingbird. “They have to be, and because they’re related, Mother is clearly part of their operation. Angel too!
”

  “Gideon, have you had any sleep?” Father motioned me toward a couch that sort of sat in front of a window, so he could look out and watch the CBGs train.

  “Not enough, but I’ll get some rest tonight. Look, I know I’m coming at this a little late, but I just have this hunch that all this is related. Sure, we baited AEFL and Natalie at my book release party, but Damon Lord showed up anyway. And fast-forward to now, the pundits are likely on TV calling for our heads.”

  “That they are,” Father said, nodding to his television. “I watched an interview with Senator Ellicott an hour ago.”

  “That’s not the real Senator.”

  “I’m aware. Grace’s info update went out to everyone in the household.”

  I shook my head. “What did she say?”

  “Mostly just reiterated how she was attacked, and how she’ll be doing everything she can to put a stop to the Cherry Blossom Girls.”

  “Shit…”

  “Yeah, not great. But you should have expected that by now. Anyway, I think it’d be best if you stopped trying to connect dots that don’t need connecting. This isn’t a sudden epiphany. You’ve been saying more or less the same thing over the last month, about them all working together and whatnot. That’s nothing new. And as I told you before, I don’t believe this is the case, at least for Ada and Angel, and all of AEFL for that matter. Damon Lord betrayed all of us when he stole our data. And regarding Natalie, I don’t know if she is working for him or not.”

  “But, it is just so clear to me now,” I told him. “Why else would they set us up in Washington?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The public was sort of coming to our side. I’ve been getting a lot less hate mail, if that’s any indication, but there have also been positive reports coming out on the news. I mean, what about that tornado in Alabama two weeks ago? We rescued several people. They’d be dead now if it wasn’t for us.”

  Father scratched the back of his head. “That was nice, and that kind of stuff is what a superhero team is supposed to do, but saving a few lives in Alabama doesn’t automatically make the public like you. And trust me, an attack in Washington is way more newsworthy than a tornado in Alabama. So get it out of your mind this was a coordinated plot to make you look bad. While it may be a plot to tarnish your already tarnished name, I would put good money on the fact that it wasn’t coordinated.”