An Honest Living

by Ben Mariner

  “Y...you want me to be a ‘Fig?”

  “We call ourselves Benevolents, or Bennies for short,” His ears pricked up in a smile. “And is that so unbelievable?”

  I shrugged. “I guess not.”

  “So, what do you say? Are you ready to fight on the side of Liberty and Justice for all of Maxima City?”

  “Yeah,” I said, unable to keep the goofy grin from my face. “I think I am.”

  “Excellent. I have some things to see to, but Grace will help you out from here. Enjoy, Mr. Raskin.”

  He put a hand on my shoulder before running full speed toward the window. At the last second, the glass opened up and Grey...sorry, Nocturno leapt out the window. Arms thrown out wide, his cape went rigid and he glided off out of sight.

  “Cool exit, huh?” Grace asked, still watching where her dad left the building.

  “Yours is better,” I replied, turning toward her.

  I was walking on air. Sure, it wasn’t exactly the path I had set for for myself all those years ago. Oh who am I kidding? Lisa was the one who set us on that path and I went along with it because it was easier than thinking too hard on it. But this, this just felt right. Way better than before, like this was my true calling. And it was all thanks to Grace. “So what’s next?”

  She checked her watch. “You’ll find out any second now.”

  As if he was waiting for his cue, a short, chubby man came striding through the door with a stack of papers tucked hastily under his arm. He was wearing a button up with only one side successfully tucked under a green sweater with a coffee stain on the front. His brown corduroys were so worn they were almost regular pants. His feet were stuffed inside a pair of yellowing gym socks which were in turn stuffed inside a pair of athletic sandals. He was a mess.

  “Good afternoon, Ms. Grey,” he said, pushing his wire framed glasses back up his nose. There was a rather large whitehead on the side of his nose.

  “How many times have I told you to call me Grace, Raulo?” she said with a polite smile.

  Raulo bowed but didn’t reply. “Is this him?”

  “It is,” she said, but Raulo was already studying me intently from head to toe.

  “A bit larger than I anticipated,” he mumbled to himself. Roulo took a tape measure out and started measuring various parts of my body.

  “Um…” I said as he ran the tape down my outer leg. “What’s going on?”

  Grace snickered. “Raulo is the leading costume designer in the world.”

  “Far better than that lousy Klaus,” Raulo interjected, venom dripping from his words.

  “Obviously, Raulo,” Grace replied bemusedly. “No one mentioned Klaus. Anyway, Raulo helped design my father’s suit as well as a few other members of the Liberty Gang. And that’s not even the half of it.”

  “I definitely can’t afford a new costume,” I said nervously, suddenly very aware at the difference in Grace and I’s net worth. “I have one already anyway.”

  She gave me a teasing look. “I’ve seen that outfit you call a costume. Fine if you’re a dock worker, Lane, but it’s not good enough for the newest member in the Liberty Gang’s ranks. Raulo here will set you up with something much better. And don’t worry about price. My father is doing this as a favor to me.”

  “Alrig-” I started, but Raulo cut in.

  “Powers?” he asked curtly.

  “Huh?”

  “Obviously not eloquence or elocution,” he said, narrowing his eyes at me. “What are your powers?”

  “Oh, um, I’m indestructible, I guess.”

  “You guess or you know?”

  “Know,” I answered. “I guess.”

  He gave me another unamused look and flopped the papers under his arm onto Grey’s desk. As he rifled through them, I could see several different costume idea sketches. I can’t tell you how happy I was when he passed over the one that appeared to just be me in a ballerina costume with a duck under one arm.

  “No,” he said, tossing another sketch aside. “No. No. No. No!”

  With each word he tossed a new sketch aside until he was all the way to the bottom of the pile.

  “All trash,” he declared, sitting back on the edge of the desk and rubbing his temples.

  I sent Grace an is-this-guy-serious look and she sent back a he’s-a-little-eccentric-but-aren’t-all-geniuses? glance. And yes, all of that can be portrayed in a look.

  “I’ll have to go back to my lab and make adjustments,” Raulo said, his eyes drilling into the floor. “Good day.”

  And with that he stormed out of the room as if we had both been viciously insulting his mother and then spat in his face.

  “Was it something I said?” I asked Grace jokingly once we were alone again.

  “He can be a little…” she began, screwing up her face in concentration.

  “Bonkers?” I suggested.

  “I was going to say an acquired taste,” she nodded, “But, sure, bonkers works.”

  We both laughed.

  “Well, I was hoping to get this worked out today,” Grace said, rolling closer to me. “But I guess we can pay a little extra for a rush job. I wanted it to be ready by this weekend.”

  I looked at her in curiously. “What’s this weekend?”

  She smiled deviously. “Our next date.”

  FIFTEEN

  “When you said date, I assumed you meant dinner or a movie,” I said, standing on a windy rooftop on the north end of the city. “Something a little more...romantic.”

  Maxima City’s North Side was part industrial district, part ghost town. There were a lot of factories in this part of town and a lot of lifeless shells of factories that had been abandoned when whatever said factory produced suddenly became obsolete. A perfect example was the old slap bracelet factory we were standing on top of. If memory served, before that it was used for making those goofy moon shoes.

  “Well, date may have been a bit misleading,” Grace said with a shrug. She held out a small package tied with a gunmetal grey satin bow.

  “What’s this?” I asked, taking it. “I didn’t get you anything.”

  “It’s not technically from me,” she explained. “It’s from Raulo.”

  “I must have made an impression on him,” I laughed, pulling at the bow. With the ribbon off, I popped the top of the box off. Inside, tucked gently into a foam pad, was a bracelet made of several grey stone beads and a single white one. I pulled it free of the packaging and looked at it with an underwhelmed confusion.

  “I’m not a big jewelry guy,” I commented, trying not to sound completely ungrateful.

  “Put it on,” Grace urged. It slid easily over my massive hand, and was surprisingly comfortable. Almost felt like there was nothing there. “The band is made of a flexible polymer and can stretch to fit around almost anything. Essentially, it’s unbreakable.”

  “That’s pretty cool,” I admitted, testing the tensile strength. It got wide enough to where I could have wrapped it around my shoulders before I lef it snap back into place. To my surprise, that didn’t even hurt. “What about the stones?”

  “The grey ones are just there for appearance,” Grace told me, adding, “The white one is special though. Squeeze it.”

  I gave the white bead a curious look and squeezed it between my thumb and forefinger. Nothing happened at first and I thought maybe I hadn’t done something right, but I didn’t have to wonder long. Something was spreading out from the bead, running over my hand and up my arm. I felt panicked for the briefest second, but then I realized it felt like I wasn’t doing anything more than sliding on a pair of gloves. In fact, that was basically exactly what was happening. It wasn’t just some substance that was coming out of the bead. It was a fabric.

  In a few seconds my whole body was covered. You couldn’t even tell my normal clothes were on underneath. I looked down at my chest to see an emblem of a swinging ball on a chain.

  “It’s a wrecking ball,” Grace said as I traced my fingers over it. �
�Correction. You are Wrecking Ball.”

  A new name. I like it.

  “It’s super dope,” I said, still marveling at the new costume. It was dark grey with lighter grey stripes running up the legs and over my chest. I felt like proper Talent now. Even my sister had her own costume. “I’m a little confused on the name though. I’m not sure I’d ever refer to myself as a wrecking ball. More of a smooshy punching bag. I suppose that’s a lot less intimidating though.”

  Grace laughed. “That’s where the fun part comes in. My dad had Raulo include some modifications he’s been working on to the suit. See those dials on your wrists?” I turned both hands over to look at my wrists. There were two dials that kind of looked like modern versions of those old television dials. Both went up to eleven. Nice. I reached up to turn one but Grace stopped me hastily. “Not yet. Those control the gravitational pull of your suit.”

  “Oh…” I said as if that made perfect sense. “Wait...they do what now?”

  She gave me an amused look. “The one on the right increases your gravitational pull. The one on the left lessens it.”

  “I can pull stuff into orbit around me?” I asked with awe.

  Grace shook her head. “No, sorry. That was misleading. Maybe it’s more appropriate to say that these dials control the Earth’s gravitational pull over you. To put it simply, one makes you heavier and one makes you lighter. Maybe a demonstration would be easier to understand.”

  She reached over to my right wrist and turned the dial two notches. I didn’t feel a thing, but the roof was not so lucky. A dent was forming under me and getting deeper by the second. Before it caved in, Grace turned the dial back down. The roof held, but I stepped out of the crater just to be safe.

  “Okay, that’s awesome,” I marveled. “I didn’t even feel it. Shouldn’t something like that crush me?”

  “Well that’s where your Talent comes into play,” she replied. “The suit distributes the g-force to a degree, but your invulnerability is what truly prevents gravity from turning you into a puddle of goo. Honestly, even I don’t get the science behind all of it, but let’s just say that you’ll be fine.”

  “I don’t want to sound like an idiot or anything,” I said hesitantly, “but I’m still not getting the wrecking ball thing.”

  “Jump off the roof,” said Grace patiently.

  “Okay, wow. That was kind of mean.”

  She laughed. “No, no. I want to show you how this can work. Set your left dial to one and jump off the roof. When you’re at the top of your jump, turn your right dial to two. You always have to remember that left takes away from right. If they’re both set to one, nothing will happen. Got it?”

  I nodded. “I think so. Let’s see what this baby can do.”

  I turned the left dial to one. This time I felt something. It was kind of like floating in a pool. I went to take a step and almost kneed myself in the face.

  “Careful,” Grace warned me. “Moving on lower gravity will take some getting used to. Just try not to overthink it.”

  That was saying something. Should I take smaller steps? Or maybe wider strides? What if I go too fast? Or too slow? Am I doing the one thing she told me not to do? Is this the definition of overthinking?

  Before I could even really figure out what was going on, I was sailing through the air in a high, lazy arc. It was almost like flying, but not quite. I kind of felt like a balloon slowly floating away from a careless child. I looked back over my shoulder and the factory roof was getting further and further away. Just when I felt my trajectory start to change I reached down and turned the right dial to two. Things changed quickly. I was still going forward but the ground was rapidly coming up to greet me. I was on a collision course with the side of another abandoned factory. On the upside, I had no control.

  Or maybe that was a downside.

  I crashed into the side of the factory and tore a hole right through like it was a sheet of paper. I was kind of hoping the hole was Lane shaped, but I knew life didn’t work like a Looney Tunes cartoon. The impact didn’t hurt, but the dust was hell on my sinuses. Once I pulled myself free of the rubble and just about hacked up a lung from coughing, I set both dials back down to zero.

  “I’d say it worked,” Grace said in her robot voice. I looked up and she was in full armor floating in the hole I left in the wall. It was much larger than I expected it to be, but still not Lane shaped which was a disappointment. “We should practice a bit to get the hang of the physics though. What do you think?”

  “What do I think?” I answered, grinning like a madman. “I think...I am Wrecking Ball!”

  SIXTEEN

  “Wrecking Ball, are you in position?”

  “Obviously,” I replied, trying not to sound like a confused dimwit. “You know I am. You literally just dropped me off.”

  “I’m just being thorough,” Grace replied through the built in headset in my suit.

  “Can you two love birds keep it down,” a third voice cut in.

  That one belonged to The Blur. The Liberty Gang’s official speed talent, but he was still kind of a dick.

  “Cram it, Derek,” Grace shot back, and I had to smile. Derek Lafferty was a mild mannered accountant before an incredibly fortuitous series of events found him next to a chemical factory during a thunderstorm. A bolt tore through the building and hit him, imbuing him with superhuman speed. He was also the resident tax preparer for the Gang because he could complete and file everyone’s returns in less than three minutes.

  “Hey,” he said, halfway offended, “Code names only, Female.”

  Grace abandoned Metal Maiden and was going with Female now. I didn’t get it at first, but only because it was so nerdy. Fe is the atomic symbol for iron. Supposed to be a pun, but, as I pointed out it just made it seem like she was calling herself Iron Ma...well, you get it. She wouldn’t listen though.

  “Yeah, guys,” a fourth voice mockingly chastised us. “Listen to Derek. Code names only.”

  We all laughed.

  “Screw you guys,” The Blur grumbled.

  That fourth voice belonged to a guy who called himself Gayzer. He had some pretty cool optical blasts and he was gay so the name was a pretty decent pun and I respected the hell out of that.

  So that was the team. Me, Grace, Gayzer, and The Blur. Ragtag bunch and no mistake, but I was surprised at how welcoming they were. When you work with Mals, everyone is kind of skeptical of everyone else. Anyone could double cross you at any minute during a job, so it wasn’t a completely unfounded feeling. This was much more pleasant. They were the good guys so they treated you like one of their own.

  This was my first official mission with the Liberty Gang. Grace and I had spent some time just training with the suit so I could get a better feel for the physics of my new gravity altering powers. It was a little tricky because I’m not a physicist, but practice makes perfect. I was eager to put it to the test in a real world situation, and this was the perfect opportunity.

  I was perched on top of a building across the street from the Maxima City Museum of Scientific Advancements. It was home to working replicas of some of the most significant technological advancements in the city’s history, like the first fully functioning jetpack, a rehydrator that takes dehydrated food and turns it into something edible, a device that controls the weather, and the black hole generator. Not sure why anyone would want to create a machine that could generate something that would swallow the planet, but they did it and that’s pretty significant.

  We got word that Jet Set, The Blur’s Mal counterpart and full on douchebag, was planning on breaking into the museum to steal some new quantum friction gizmo dealy. Supposed to reduce friction to zero which would make a speedster like him even faster. I don’t get how it works, but I know that’s a bad thing so we have to stop him.

  “Here we go, folks,” The Blur said, effecting a serious tone.

  I looked up the street to the north and saw a telltale orange blur that was Jet Set tearing up the
pavement towards the museum. It was kind of exciting to be part of a mission for the Liberty Gang. I’d never been on that side of the dime. I was ready to bust some skulls, but, like, in a super good guy kind of way.

  As I watched, The Blur blue streaking ahead to head the Mal off. Seeing two speedsters fight was always fun to watch. You couldn’t even tell what was going on. Just a couple blurs flying all over the place. As much as I would have liked to just sit back and watch them have it out, I had to stay focused.

  Just as we anticipated, Jet Set was really more of a distraction. While he and The Blur were throwing fisticuffs and small contingent of henchmen were making their way across the roof of the museum led by a low level talent who goes by Twig. Kind of a lame name, but he had the power to control plants. And before you go thinking there aren’t any plants in Maxima City, you’re right. Luckily for Twig, his suit is made of organic plant matter that means he’s never without flora to control.

  “It’s Gayzer time,” Gayzer’s voice came through my headset.

  “Don’t do that,” Grace replied. “Don’t use catchphrases. We’re better than that.”

  Whether Gayzer heard her or not, I couldn’t say. He leapt onto the roof and sent some optic blasts in Twig’s direction. Plant boy was quick on his feet though. He rolled out of the way just in time for the blast to catch a henchman square in the chest and send him flying off the roof. Hopefully he had some kind of healing power. Or really good insurance.

  “Think you can handle the rest?” Grace asked me.

  I clicked the dial up to lower gravity a bit.

  “Watch me work,” I said. Pretty stupid, but I couldn’t take it back now.

  “Yell if you need me,” she replied happily.

  This was as much a test for me as it was a mission to stop the Coalition. I’d never had a starring role in anything. Even with the suit, no one was really sure how I’d stack up. Even me. Grace wasn’t technically supposed to be part of this, but she agreed to come along to help in case there was any trouble.

  I backed up a few steps and took a deep breath. This was my first big entrance as a member of the Liberty Gang. Couldn’t screw it up.