Evolution

by Hayden Thorne

“They finally hooked up with her!” I cried, thrilled.

  “Uh, I don’t think so,” Althea said. “Looks like she’s trying to run—or fly—after them.”

  “Oh. Well, I guess it’s good that she finally mastered flight.”

  The girl flew in a confident line across our line of vision, adjusting her course slightly when she neared the old clocktower—one of the few authentically dated buildings in the city. She swerved up and above it, clearing it just nicely. It wasn’t till a moment or so after she’d disappeared from view I realized I’d been holding my breath the whole time, waiting for a disaster to happen in her wake.

  “Yeah, looks like she did,” Althea said. “Good for her.”

  Sure enough, from somewhere in the rooftops, a distant, high-pitched yelp broke through the air, followed by the sound of something metallic and old getting knocked over. It was like a pile of old tin platters getting dropped on the floor.

  Althea grimaced when sounds of the mishap gradually faded. “Okay, then. I guess not.”

  “I wonder how it’d look once all the superheroes come into their powers. When they all fly or leap like that as a unit. I think they’ll look amazing, just awesome.” My chest tightened at the thought. I fought off the jealous pang and tried to focus more on Peter and how lucky I was to be with someone as fantastic as him.

  Several moments after the trio had vanished past the rooftops, excited shoppers chattered while going back to what they were doing. Althea turned her attention to her cell phone and frowned. Then she shook her head as she snapped it close and buried it back inside her bag.

  “Nope, nothing,” she said. “Whatever’s up, it happened only now. My communicator’s on standby just in case.”

  “Maybe—”

  Althea let out a little screech of delight when her bag suddenly gave off a muffled buzz.

  “Action! Yes!” She dug her hand back inside and pulled out her communicator, flipping it open and staring, wide-eyed and practically salivating, at the tiny screen. “Gotcha. Hey, listen, Eric, I gotta go. The Puppet’s on the loose, in broad daylight this time, and—”

  A low boom cut through the downtown area, bringing conversation and movement to an immediate stop. People looked around and even above them, baffled.

  “Damn it,” Althea breathed, then pushed her way through the crowd, craning her neck as she scanned the area for only God knew what. I followed her before she vanished from sight.

  “Wait!” I called out, but she didn’t seem to hear me.

  We wove our way through the busy sidewalk, ignoring another low boom that broke through the growing confusion. That time, I felt the ground shake. So did everyone else, for that matter, and people cried out in alarm. Some froze where they stood, and others scattered, searching for cover. All around, people ran inside shops for safety. Traffic slowed, with some cars and cabs coming to a standstill. Within seconds frantic shouts mingled with car horns.

  “Althea, where are you going?” I called out.

  “Leave me alone!” she retorted as she expertly dodged frantic shoppers. “Get out of the way, Eric! I’ve got something to do!”

  She pushed her way to an ATM and immediately “accessed” it by pressing her hand on the keypad, her fingers splayed, her face hardening as she connected, or her mind connected, with the system. Behind her people continued to hurry in their panic, while another low boom rent the air.

  This time it was louder, and the ground moved under my feet. I staggered back a couple of steps with a gasp of surprise. I saw a few people—mostly seniors—lose their balance from the tremor and topple over, nearly getting stepped on by frightened passersby. Thankfully there were some people who jumped in to help them.

  I glanced back at Althea. The keyboard under her hand glowed faintly, a far cry from the first time I saw her access an ATM. Maybe this was a sign she had much better control of her powers now. She looked no more like a statue to me, standing before the machine that way, completely oblivious to what was happening around us.

  “Girl, what’re you doing?” I hissed. “You’re blowing your cover! Get yourself to a private computer or something!”

  When she didn’t respond, I took on the role of her sidekick, standing close and keeping an eye on people. Pretty much making sure no one saw her doing what she should be doing behind closed doors. To my relief, the entire downtown area was too busy being in a state of panic that everyone ignored two pizza-filled kids standing still and off to the side as people stampeded around them. I balled my hands into fists just in case, ready to jump anyone who’d try to get at Althea.

  “Shit!” she cried all of a sudden. “Damn it!” She pulled her hand away from the keypad as though she’d just been burned. She staggered back a step or two, eyes wide and blank.

  Althea blinked rapidly several times, and the look of shock on her face gave way to anger. She cussed up a storm again, and without another word, pushed me aside and ran back through the crowd.

  I could only guess she was hurrying to get back home, where she could safely access her computer and be better connected to whatever it was she was trying to link herself to.

  Like what she should’ve done in the first place. Sheesh.

  Police sirens broke through the noise, the shrill wailing growing ever stronger…

  * * * *

  …but the calm proved to be far more intense. I felt protected, enveloped in peace and contentment, despite the escalating excitement around me. I turned to watch three squad cars force their way through traffic, which was now nearly at a complete stop.

  I snickered. “How pathetic.”

  The world had turned red and yellow.

  I looked back at the squad cars, which now had traffic in a hopeless jam. Cars inched this way and that, moving in odd diagonals just to get out of the police’s way, only to stop dead when they hit the curb. Some of them narrowly missed running over pedestrians.

  The noise, the confusion, the panic—I took a deep breath and absorbed everything. I felt my chest expand and my spirits become energized. I looked at the sun and smiled at the vast red and yellow sky, pulling my glasses off because they were blurring my vision, not helping it.

  Symphonic. Perfect discordance.

  Someone screamed all of a sudden. Then a few more voices joined the chorus. I turned to find several people running out of a side street crammed with small boutiques, some of them looking back over their shoulders to what was chasing them.

  “They’re coming! They’re coming!”

  Traffic died. A couple of people scrambled out of their cars and took off running. Others seemed frozen in terror at the wheel. Police officers, blocked from their purpose, jumped out of their cars with their weapons drawn and ran in the direction of the rapidly emptying side street.

  Do it!

  I hurried away, still lost in that strange calm despite the confusion around me. I ran around cars, pushed my way past frightened people, and hurried to the founder’s statue, climbing up and taking my position next to the vandalized figure. Below me, the streets swarmed with frantic activity. If anyone noticed me up there, surveying everything, no one yelled at me to come back down and find shelter.

  Shelter? What a stupid idea.

  Do it!

  From somewhere inside me, somewhere deep in my mind, a small, light voice called out. It sounded like me, but younger. Much, much younger and so far away. Pleading, frightened, and fading quickly. I could actually hear it as it fought for attention in my head.

  No, don’t! Eric, wake up! Don’t listen to him! He’s screwing with your head again! Please listen to me! Don’t shut me out!

  Heat throbbed in my head, a familiar warmth that bordered on uncomfortable and amazing.

  Eric, no! Listen to me…

  “Listen to whom? Why should I?” I breathed, smiling at the scene.

  It’s me! Wait!

  “Go to sleep.”

  Wait…

  From the side street, a number of strange-looking men tottere
d out. There were about a dozen of them, all dressed in Zoot suits, all wood grain-faced with no features, all moving in spasms and jerks as though an invisible puppeteer were tugging at their strings. I narrowed my eyes and took a better look. My vision had improved, gone beyond normal. The faceless, tottering men were armed with guns, the old kind, like the ones I’d seen in those black-and-white vintage gangster films. What were they called? Tommy guns or something?

  They didn’t aim. They just held those guns at waist-height and began shooting, spraying the area with bullets, while people screamed and ran for cover. Here and there, car windows shattered from the assault. Passengers and drivers who hadn’t abandon their vehicles vanished from view. Whether or not they were struck by bullets, I couldn’t tell. I saw no blood anywhere, though, which made me wonder what was in those guns to begin with.

  The police began to fire back, using cars for their shields. A few man-sized dolls staggered, clothes tearing under bullets, but they held up and continued to move jerkily forward, still firing their guns.

  Do it!

  The heat pulsed, my head completely enveloped now. With a low cry, I let loose a wave of warm energy, watching it sweep across the street in a flood that distorted images. It knocked people down, dented car roofs, and eventually swept around police officers, picking them up and carrying them off, shouting and dropping their weapons. They were transported far, far down the street, to wherever the energy wave died, I suppose. That panicked, fading voice—my conscience?—was now quiet. I liked to think it was gone for good. Or at the very least forced into sleep. I sure didn’t need to be slowed down by stupid, whiny protests.

  The doll-men were now free. I’d just given them a hand.

  Chapter 11

  Everything happened so quickly in a blur of color, light, sound, and mayhem. It was simply beautiful. I kept my place on the founder’s statue, holding back and observing. I’d much to learn, maestro told me from somewhere in the murky past—or maybe my dreams? Watch and wait.

  Watch and wait.

  The doll-men inched forward. They were running out of ammunition now, but they continued to hold their guns, moving them side to side as though still shooting an endless rain at the crowd. Instead, I only heard an erratic Pop! Pop! Pop! as their weapons emptied themselves.

  Some people trapped in their cars screamed as the dolls neared; others managed to stumble out and crawl between cars in hopes of dodging bullets, or whatever those mannequins used against them.

  From somewhere to my left—the rooftops, to be precise—a dark blur tore through the air, leaped down onto the mess of cars, and landed right in front of the advancing group. He stood up quickly, his red-brown and gold costume distinctive even in the confusion.

  I watched Calais fight, wonder and something much deeper stirring in my belly at the sight of this young, agile hero throwing himself without a moment’s hesitation into an old-fashioned fistfight with one mannequin after another. At times, he became no more than a blob of color—no doubt because he moved at super speed to dodge blows—and sometimes he appeared somewhere above or behind an enemy, swinging an arm to deal a massive blow against the back of a wooden neck or the side of a wooden head. He’d use his legs and booted feet to fell a mannequin-doll or two. His moves were very eastern, I thought. Martial arts, that is, and coupled with his incredible speed, he appeared to be a beautiful work of destructive art.

  The dolls proved to be much more difficult to bring down, though. Calais would knock them off their feet, but they’d struggle back up, lunging at him with renewed energy despite their increasingly erratic movements. Their guns were useless at this point. They’d run out of ammunition, and Calais had managed to disarm half of them.

  Calais was alone at first, moving back and forth, taking on however many enemies would jump on him. From a good enough distance, I could see exhaustion setting in. He gritted his teeth, his breathing growing more pronounced till he was visibly panting from his efforts. Not once did he give up, though, and when caught off-guard and thrown off his feet, he bounced back.

  “Hold on!” someone cried.

  My breath caught. I heard the voice, and it came from a pretty good distance. First, my eyesight, now my hearing. A thrill swept through me at the possibility of other enhanced senses.

  The fire girl now came swooping down from somewhere. She landed, miraculously unharmed and on concrete, not on a car, several feet behind Calais.

  “Quick! Take them down!” Calais huffed as he kicked one doll’s back, sending it sprawling on the ground. He dove and grabbed hold of its head, yanking it off its joint. The sound of splintering wood reached my ears. The mannequin-doll-thing collapsed in a broken heap under his weight.

  “Got it!”

  Fire Girl stretched an arm out to her side, and from her gloved hand—the palm, as a matter of fact—something long, slender, and edged with flames emerged. Like a fiery tentacle, it sprouted from her hand and pushed outward, growing till she stopped it by wrapping her fingers around what could be its handle. She stood with a long whip in her hand, which she immediately snapped back as she flew up and above the group of half-broken mannequins.

  “Watch it, Calais!” she called out. Calais understood. Wrenching one more wooden head off its battered shoulders, he leaped out of the girl’s way just as she cracked her flame-edged whip.

  With deadly accuracy, the whip sliced across the group of wooden dolls, decapitating those it managed to reach, sending their headless bodies crumpling to the ground in a heap of burning wood and cloth.

  “Excellent!” Calais whooped. He immediately threw himself against a couple of dolls that had managed to escape the fire whip. All three went down in a tangle of bizarre, costumed limbs.

  Fire Girl turned her attention to a couple of dolls that had turned tail and were beginning to totter off in a clumsy retreat. She snapped her whip back, the flames crackling up and down its slender, slithering length.

  Now. Now!

  I felt the energy stir and throb in a fraction of a second. Suddenly I was airborne—or at least I felt weightless—and I kept my mind on the scene before me. Clenching my fists at my sides, I hurled out another wave of energy, this time aiming for Fire Girl just as she was about to crack her whip against the two retreating dolls.

  The waves rippled across the air and caught her in mid-flight, cocooning her in suffocating warmth. She dropped her fire whip and flailed in the cloud of energy that engulfed her, her mouth wide open as she struggled for breath. She stayed suspended in the air for a second, struggling and gasping. Below her, the two battered dolls fell under Calais’s blows.

  He stopped to look up.

  Run!

  Our gazes met. I killed my energy surge, and Fire Girl tumbled down with a cry and landed on a car. She lay there, stunned and breathing heavily, but looking otherwise unharmed.

  I caught the split second when Calais prepared to launch himself after me. I immediately poured out another energy wave in his direction, catching him in mid-leap this time, knocking him off his center and sweeping him away. Like Fire Girl, he flailed against the warm energy that encased him. I turned and flew off, my breath catching in my throat as I sailed in a wide arc above rooftops toward a random spot in the projects.

  That was close.

  I chuckled just as I landed on a rusty, rickety old fire escape. It faced a grimy old alley, and I had to turn away in disgust at the stench—so common in these miserable places. Calais was going to come after me, I reminded myself. I turned to the filthy window that led to the fire escape. It was partially open, and I gingerly pushed it up, crawling inside with some effort when the damn thing got stuck midway. Once inside, I turned and pulled it back down before melting into the shadows of the room in case Calais or Magnifiman or Fire Girl came my way.

  I looked around and found myself in an empty room, neglected and well on its way to being condemned, I was sure. Paint peeled off walls and the ceiling in large patches, exposing plaster or rotting wood. There
were a couple of dilapidated chairs nearby, both of which were faded and torn. I was sure all kinds of bugs or rodents must have taken up residence among their rusty springs. The floor was littered with debris from heaven knew where. From somewhere a steady rhythm of dripping water could be heard.

  I took a calming breath as I leaned against a wall, enclosing myself in the darkness. I tried to wrap my mind around what had just happened, but I couldn’t. Everything had happened at such a rapid rate that even in the peace and quiet of a forgotten home, I still felt outside myself, floating in space, completely in the mercy of something far, far greater than I. I’d no control over anything. Not even myself.

  That’s where power comes from. Give up all control, and you’ll rise above the common and the dull. Do you realize you’re now one of THEM?

  “I am, aren’t I?” I breathed, wide-eyed and amazed.

  You are. Are you enjoying it?

  I mulled things over for a brief moment. “I am. It’s exciting. I can help or destroy at will.”

  At will? Are you sure about that?

  “Well, I’m still learning, aren’t I? I guess this is what they mean when they say ‘coming into his powers.’ I’ll have to depend on you for now till I’m able to stand on my own.”

  That’s a charming thought. Do you regret anything?

  “Should I?” I laughed quietly in the filthy gloom. “No, of course not. This is a great sandbox I’m in.”

  Then go explore. It’s your time now.

  A sudden noise outside silenced my mind. I held my breath as I pushed back against the wall. Voices, low and conversational, male and female. I was sure those were Calais and his new crime-fighting buddy. Could Calais hear me breathe, given his super hearing? My heart pounded; could he hear that as well? I dared not sneak a peek and simply waited. The voices grew a little louder, and before long, I could hear footsteps on rusty, decaying steel. They were moving up and down the fire escape, most likely looking through windows and investigating empty rooms. My hearing, just like my eyesight, had improved tremendously since my powers had taken over, but I knew my ability to hear beyond a certain distance was nowhere near Calais’s.