Crawling From the Wreckage

by Michael C Bailey

  “No, not until next week. Tonight I’m going to see this awesome show featuring a hot young actress who is electrifying the Kingsport community theater world, but first I have a meeting with Principal McGann.”

  “You do?”

  “Apparently. Mom called Mrs. McGann a couple days ago to let her know I’d be coming back to school, and she said she wanted to meet with me and Mom in person first.”

  “To welcome you back with a big smile?”

  “Probably not.”

  “Yeah, no, probably not. Once you’re done there, why don’t you meet me at the office for lunch and let me know how things went?”

  “Sure, cool.”

  “Good. I don’t like the thought of you sitting in the house all alone all day.” She hesitates. “Since you’re checking things off your to-do list, maybe you could see if Bart has a free slot this afternoon?”

  Real subtle, Sara. “I will take care of it.”

  “When?”

  “I will take care of it,” I repeat, my temper spiking.

  “Carrie —”

  “I know, Sara. I know I have to talk to Bart and I will take care of it, so stop pushing.”

  “...Okay.”

  I refrain from commenting on the flash of skeptical side-eye she gives me.

  Barely.

  ***

  “You know,” Mom says, looking around, “I think this office had this exact same ugly paint job when I was here.”

  “Toothpaste green is a timeless color,” I say.

  “Do the bathroom stalls have doors? Halfway through my freshman year they removed all the doors so kids couldn’t hide in the stalls and smoke.”

  “Seriously?” Mom nods. “No, we have doors.”

  “You kids nowadays are so spoiled, getting to pee in private.”

  The receptionist peeks up over the tall counter separating the waiting area from the office proper. “Ms. Briggs? Carrie? Mrs. McGann will see you now.”

  We pass through a miniature cubicle farm where during the school year various administrative assistants sit typing and filing and e-mailing and photocopying. Only the receptionist is on duty today, and judging by the sour face she gave us upon arrival, she’s less than thrilled about that. At least you have a job, lady. More than some of us can say.

  Principal McGann’s office door is closed for some reason. Mom knocks and waits for Mrs. McGann to call us in.

  “One moment,” Mrs. McGann says.

  “Someone likes her little power plays,” Mom remarks.

  “What?” I say.

  “The closed door when there’s almost no one else in the entire building? Making us wait for her summons? She’s trying to show us she’s in charge. Watch, she’ll be sitting down when we go in. She’ll stand, make us go to her to shake her hand, ask us to sit, and then she’ll wait for us to sit before she does. It’s all about displaying her power over us.”

  “Man, you’ve got this corporate shark lifestyle thing down, don’t you?”

  “It’s been educational.”

  And Mom proves herself a good student because Mrs. McGann acts exactly as she predicted.

  “While I don’t want to rush things, Mrs. McGann, I would like to make this quick,” Mom says. “I do have a job to get to.”

  “Of course, Ms. Briggs, and I think we can accommodate you,” says Mrs. McGann, who then takes her sweet time looking through the contents of a file folder — presumably my student records. Mom slips me a knowing look. “As you may be aware, Carrie, a lot has happened while you were, um...”

  “In outer space,” I say.

  “Away. Your friends in the, ah, Hero Squad? We’ve had to make some changes to our school policies to reflect the presence of superhuman individuals such as yourself. You can download a PDF of the current student handbook from the school website and read it on your own time, but the long and short of it is, if you derive your, ah, abilities from any weapon or device, you are not permitted to bring it on school grounds.” She looks at me over her glasses. “Is that how you derive your powers?”

  “Technically, yes, but they’re implants in my hands. I can’t take them out.”

  “Then we would have to consider your abilities innate. That means they —”

  “I know what innate means.”

  Mrs. McGann smiles a thin, bloodless smile. “What I was going to say was, if your powers are innate, there are no explicit restrictions on their use, but if you use them in a manner that violates any existing school policy, you would be subject to disciplinary action. Do you understand?”

  I understand she’s speaking to me like I’m ten years old and that I’d really like her to knock it off, but in the interest of diplomacy, I smile and nod agreeably.

  “Excellent.” Mrs. McGann wastes another minute examining my file. “Now, onto the matter of your academic standing,” she says, her fake plastic smile disappearing. “Reinstating you as a student isn’t a problem, we can do that easily, but due to the fact you missed more than half of your junior year, I’m afraid you will have to start the coming school year where you left off.”

  “...What?”

  “She has to repeat her junior year?” Mom says.

  “Well, whether she repeats the whole year is up to her. She’s received partial credit for the quarter she completed — with excellent grades, I might add,” Mrs. McGann says, like that’s some great consolation prize that’ll make me feel so much better about getting held back a whole friggin’ grade!

  “I see,” Mom says with a sigh. “All right.”

  “All right? That’s it?” I say. “I’m not going to be a senior with my friends and all you can say is all right?”

  “Carrie —”

  “If you buckle down, take some extra classes, you should be able to accrue enough credits to be eligible for graduation by holiday break next year,” Mrs. McGann says.

  Mrs. McGann recoils as I jump to my feet. “Next year?!”

  “Carrie!” Mom cows me with a look. I sink back into my seat. “I’m sorry about that, Mrs. McGann.”

  Mrs. McGann nods. She doesn’t take her eyes off me.

  “Obviously, my daughter and I have a few things to discuss. Thank you for your time. I’ll be in touch.”

  I keep it together until we’re outside. “What is there to discuss, Mom? I can’t go back to school as a junior.”

  “Why? Because your friends are going to be seniors?” Mom says.

  “Yes! And I should be a senior too!”

  “Carrie, you missed six months of school.”

  “So now I have to do it all over again?”

  Mom stops and faces me — by which I mean she stares me down, hardcore. Talk about power plays.

  “I’m sorry, Carrie, but I will not let you take a shortcut on your education. You have a future outside of the Squad and the Vanguard, and you need to dedicate yourself to that as much as you do to being a super-hero or a space cadet. Space ranger. Whatever the appropriate term is.”

  “Mom,” I whine, a feeble final protest — feeble because I know in my heart she’s right.

  “The answer is no, Carrie, I will not skip you ahead.” She sighs, and in very Mom-like fashion, brushes a stray strand of hair out of my face, tucking it behind my ear. “If you’re willing to do the work, we can look into getting you some after-school tutoring or something, see if we can get you up to speed so you can at least graduate with your friends. Okay?”

  It’s the best offer I’m going to get. “Okay.”

  “I have to get going,” she says apologetically.

  “I know.”

  “Have fun at the play tonight. Tell Sara I said break a leg. Don’t wait up for me.”

  “All right.”

  Mom gets in her car and drives away, leaving me standing there in the middle of an empty school parking lot.

  ***

  Lunch in the form of takeout from Carnivore’s Cave is waiting for me when I meet up with Sara a little before noon.

  “Y
ou complained about the crappy barbecue Dennis made you eat,” she says. “I thought a little of the good stuff might cheer you up.”

  “Good call,” I say, opening my Styrofoam container. My mouth gushes as the delicious aroma of smoked beef brisket hits my nose. “Did you get the insanely buttery mashed potatoes and gravy too?”

  “Duh.”

  “Fantastic.”

  And it is fantastic. I scoop a big spoonful of mashed potatoes into my mouth, and for once, my food tastes like something. Half the container is gone before I even touch my brisket.

  “What’s the good news from the school front?” Sara asks.

  And there goes my appetite.

  “It’s not good news,” I say, stabbing my plastic fork into my brisket. “I basically have to do my junior year all over.”

  “What? Oh, Carrie, I’m sorry.”

  “I asked Mom to skip me ahead anyway but she’s not having it. I have to dedicate myself to my future outside of the Squad and the Vanguard, she said.”

  “I guess I can understand where she’s coming from, but still.”

  I shrug. “Hope your day’s been better than mine.”

  “It hasn’t been worse. Phone’s been a little busy but that’s about it.”

  “Anything interesting?”

  “Nope. The usual assortment of crackpots and people who think we’re the police department.”

  “Fun.”

  “Ehn, no biggie. Gives me time to brush up on my lines and songs for the show tonight. I want to make sure you see a pitch-perfect performance. Oh, now what?” Sara grumps as the phone interrupts our peaceful lunch. “Wait, no, this is coming in through the Protectorate HQ line. This might actually be something,” she says hopefully. “Hello, Protectorate HQ, this is Psyche. Yes, hello! Yes, I remember you from the conference last month. What can I do for you?”

  For the next few minutes, Sara mm-hms and uh-huhs and I sees. At one point, she enters something into the computer, after which she spends the rest of the one-sided conversation staring intently at her screen.

  “Thanks very much for the info, Ranger,” she says. “I’ll pass it along to Concorde right away. If we dig up anything useful, we’ll be sure to let you know. Okay, thanks. Bye.”

  “That sounded serious,” I say.

  “It’s serious, all right. That was the Green Mountain Ranger, he works up in Vermont. He got called in this morning to consult on a homicide in Highgate, a town on the Canadian border. The victim was a superhuman named Jessica Lee.”

  “A super-hero?”

  “No, a super-villain. Sorry, I should say a reformed-slash-retired super-villain, although when she was active she was a C-list bad guy at best.” Sara pivots the monitor so I can see the file on Jessica Lee, who went by the unfortunate code name of Influenca. “She was a psionic who used her powers to compel people to send her money.”

  “She Nigerian Princed people?”

  “Uh-huh. It was pretty slick, in its way. She’d telepathically plant a suggestion in someone’s head to mail her, like, five or ten bucks in cash each month. She did this to something like three hundred people in the Chicago area, all chosen at random so there’d be no way police could connect the victims and establish a pattern.”

  “How did she get caught?”

  “She didn’t — not for that, anyway. Eight years ago, she hooked up with a bunch of other super-villains. They tried to set themselves up as the new crime bosses for all of Chicago, but the Second City Centurions took them down before their plan went anywhere. Jessica flipped on the rest of the gang to get the charges against her dropped. However, during the investigation, the police noticed her funky financials. She wound up confessing to her scam, did some time for that, got out of jail, quit the life, and moved to Vermont to start over.”

  “Or did she?” I wonder aloud.

  “According to the Ranger, she was legit. When she moved to the area she reached out to the Ranger, told him everything, and insisted she wanted to put the past behind her. For a couple of years, he checked in on her regularly but she never gave him any cause for suspicion, so he left her alone.”

  “If that’s the case, why would the police think to call the Ranger in for a consult? I hate to say it, but people are murdered all the time.”

  “True, but not like this. The woman’s home was trashed, by which I mean something huge dropped through the center of the house and plowed through a wall on its way out.”

  “Yeah, that is weird.”

  “And vaguely familiar. Not the hole in the house part, the dead super-villain part. Why does it sound familiar?” Sara says. I’m about to suggest calling Matt — if anyone would know off the top of his head it’d be him — but Sara beats me to it. “Matt would know,” she says, taking out her phone.

  So much for feeling useful.

  “Hey, Matt. Sorry to bother you, but I wanted to run something by you,” Sara says. “I got a call, like, two minutes ago from the Green Mountain Ranger. He was called in on a homicide and the victim’s a retired super-villain. The evidence suggests there was a big fight leading up to her murder. Have there been any other cases like this?”

  Mm-hms and uh-huhs and I sees.

  “Thanks.” Sara hangs up. “Apparently, there’s been a rash of similar murders over the past several months, all involving super-villains, but this is the first one in our area Matt’s aware of. He’s going to look into it after work.”

  “Sounds like the game’s afoot.”

  “Itching to get back in action, huh?”

  “Looking to take out some frustrations on the first available bad guy, more like, but it’s a moot point either way. I’m still technically red-listed. Edison won’t put me back on full active duty until I talk to Bart.”

  “Which you’ll do when?” Sara prods.

  “When I’m ready, dammit,” I snap. Sara recoils. “I’m sorry, but I don’t want to talk about it yet, to you or Bart or anyone.”

  “I think that means you need to talk about it.”

  I shrug.

  “Carrie, I don’t know what to tell you. If you don’t talk to Bart, Edison won’t reinstate you, and you know Edison as well as I do. He’s not going to compromise.”

  “I know.”

  Sara considers me for a moment and says, “Are you scared that Bart won’t clear you?”

  “No,” I say automatically. “Why wouldn’t he clear me?”

  “Because something is eating at you and you’re repressing like crazy. I know you’re having nightmares because I can feel them from across the hall, and I’ve noticed you really hate it when things are too quiet. You always have the TV or the radio on at home. Come on, Carrie, you can’t keep living in denial like this. Talk to me.”

  “Maybe I would if I thought you’d treat me like your friend instead of your patient. If I want someone telling me how I’m repressing and in denial, I’ll go talk to Bart.”

  “Great. Do it. I want you to talk to him.”

  “I will, but I have more important things to deal with right now, like having to take my junior year all over again! I’ll talk to Bart when I’m ready, okay? So back off!”

  “No. I am not going to back off,” Sara says, sounding so much like Mom when she digs her heels in it’s creepy. “You’re in pain, and as long as you’re hurting, I’m going to be right here pestering you until you get the help you need. You’re my best friend. You’re my sister. I love you.”

  That hits home, and not just because of the pure sincerity behind the sentiment. I said those exact same words to Sara when she was having her King of Pain-induced psychotic break. She was slipping away from me, and that was my desperate, last-ditch effort to save her from disappearing entirely. I failed.

  Sara doesn’t.

  “I love you, too,” I say. “And I promise, I swear I will talk to Bart.”

  “When?”

  “You tell me. Call him and make the appointment. I’ll be there.”

  Sara shoots off a text. She
gets a reply a couple minutes later. “Bart’s got a pretty full schedule but he says he’ll block off Wednesday afternoon for you.”

  “...Okay.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. I promised you I would.”

  She squeezes my hand. “Thank you.”

  I muster a weak smile. “You can thank me by giving me that pitch-perfect performance tonight.”

  “Done and done.”

  TWELVE

  After lunch, I go home and resume my couch sit-a-thon. I fire up my laptop, intending to nose around online for tutoring services, but my heart’s not in it. I haven’t always been an exemplary student, but even during my Dark Period, when I valued looking pretty and being popular over academics (and pretty much everything else of real importance), my grades were never so awful I faced the prospect of repeating a grade.

  The worst part? I brought this all on myself. I can’t blame Mrs. McGann or Mom or anyone. I’m the one who took off for eight months without sparing a single second to consider how it might impact my life.

  “Idiot,” I say out loud. “Big, stupid, impulsive idiot.”

  From the armrest, Wednesday meows in agreement. Thanks, cat.

  My laptop dings at me. I jump over to the Facebook tab on my browser and see a PM from Dennis waiting for me: You there?

  Hey. What’s up? I write back.

  Not much. Doing my homework like a good student :)

  Please don’t mention homework or students or anything school-related.

  Uh-oh. Something wrong?

  Long story.

  Okay. I’m sorry.

  You don’t even know what you’re sorry for.

  No, still sorry though.

  Thanks.

  Should I leave you alone?

  I almost say yes. No, it’s okay. I could use a distraction.

  I looked up those aerial combat maneuvers you told me about and tried them out this morning. Is there a trick to pulling them off without getting completely disoriented?

  Hm. Tough question. When I started combat training with Concorde, he had all kinds of tricks and tips for me, but a lot of them were of the show-don’t-tell variety. There were no lectures or explanations, just a lot of hands-on lessons.