I stumbled inside. Literally. My foot got caught on the rug, which I didn’t see, of course, and I nearly fell on my face.
“Eric? Is that you?” Mom called from the living room.
Oh, boy.
“Here we go,” I muttered, straightening out my clothes and squinting against my glasses. “God, this is so screwed up.” I threw a hand out and felt my way to the living room door, where I expected my parents to be, watching late afternoon TV. Liz was likely out with friends or upstairs in her room, yakking on her phone.
“Eric? Where’ve you been?”
I eventually reached the living room and looked inside. Everything was a mess of blurry shapes and melting colors. This was going to be harder than I thought, but I forced a smile.
“Hey. Good to see you guys. You two look great! Just fantastic!” I hoped I wasn’t overplaying my hand.
“Why are you squinting?” Dad piped up from somewhere. He must be the dark blob at three o’clock. “Is there something wrong with your glasses again?”
“No,” I said, laughing. “It’s a little dusty out there, and something got in my eyes. I need to get to the bathroom to wash it off.”
“You’re a mess! What happened? Did you and Althea go downtown?” Mom demanded. “Eric, you two could’ve been badly hurt! What happened there is on the news right now!”
I raised my hands in a gesture of peace. I wasn’t sure, but Mom was very likely the dark blob that squirmed a lot at four o’clock. “Mom, chill! I’m okay! We’re both okay. Althea and I got separated when the attacks began—”
“What? You what? Got separated? How?”
Oh, my God, the blob grew. She was coming for me. I held my position, though. Superhumans never gave others an inch, and I was sure of that—note to self: ask the Trill about the Supervillain Handbook for good pointers and then sneak a peek into what I could do to turn the tables on him, the manipulating asswipe.
“Mom, come on! It got really crazy fast, so we followed the crowds and then got separated. I’m okay, see?” I made a show of looking down at my clothes, which were nothing more than this bizarre blur of denim, orange, and white—I’d worn my favorite rugby shirt, and it was now ruined. “A little dirty, but I’m in one piece. I don’t even have a bruise.”
I doffed my old jacket, pushed up my sleeves, and stuck out both arms, turning them left and right to prove my point.
“You’re still squinting.”
“Debris! And it hurts! I need to get it all washed off.”
I tried to widen my eyes to look normal despite the awfulness of peering through my glasses. Oh, God, that hurt. I clenched my teeth.
“Okay, go ahead and get yourself cleaned up and ready for dinner,” Mom replied, but something in her voice left me unsettled.
“Thanks, Mom. How’s the garbage situation?”
“What about the garbage? Is there another strike? I didn’t hear a word about that!” Mom blob directed her attention to Dad blob. “Honey, did you see something in today’s paper about a strike?”
“No, no!” I cried. “I meant our garbage.”
I thought I heard someone scratch his or her head. “You’re asking about our garbage situation?” Mom echoed, sounding baffled. “You’re actually interested in it?” All right, I must’ve overplayed my hand at that moment—note to self: work on finesse and remind Mom to cut back on her coffee intake.
“Uh, our garbage looks nice and healthy, Eric,” Dad said. “Thanks for asking, though.”
I nodded and grinned—it was actually more of a grimace, considering the agony I was going through, but I had to play my role to perfection—waving a hand at the two dark blobs in the living room. “Cool. Later.”
With that, I felt my way toward the stairs and gingerly put one foot in front of the other as I ascended. I could’ve taken off my glasses then and simply trotted off to my room, but I figured my mom would likely have tiptoed out to the hallway to watch me. She was suspicious, for sure. The tone of her voice stayed with me, placing me on full alert.
Even with my left hand feeling the wall to guide me, I still managed to stumble a few times, nearly smashing my knee or shin against the steps once. Chrissakes, this sucked. It must’ve been two decades later when I finally reached my bedroom door. I suppose this would be one good reason against taking over the attic for my private sanctuary.
I crossed the threshold without trouble and immediately pulled my glasses off the moment I closed the door behind me. I sagged against it and pinched my eyes shut, allowing the dull pain to go away.
“Why couldn’t I just have plain 20-20 vision?” I muttered. “This super-acute eyesight’s going to be a pain in the ass if I have to pretend to be normal around my family.”
It came with the package, unfortunately.
I shook my head and walked over to my closet, flinging my glasses onto my bed. “Now I have to figure out how to disguise that. This really blows, you know.”
Everything was still in red and yellow, which meant I was in full tweaked mode now. Half of me withered at the thought that there was definitely no going back. The other half shrugged it off and instantly fell into a comfortable, relaxed state as I fished around for clean clothes. I really needed to get used to this. Actually, I really needed to take control of both halves and make them work together because that was the only way for me to see my plans through. When I stepped inside the shower stall for my second all-body cleaning, I was humming.
The way I easily adjusted to things, especially those involving danger, at least, continued to surprise me. Maybe that was one of the positives of being a supervillain protégé. Was that a show of total epic confidence? That would be cool. It meant I was stronger than before.
The old Eric Plath was definitely gone. Oh, and look—I could even sing an aria in the shower even though I never studied Italian. I never listened to opera, but I knew I was singing something from Rigoletto. Whatever the hell that meant. I dug around some more, pulling stuff out from some uncharted corner in my mind.
La Donna é mobile. Whatever the hell that meant.
I repeated the piece, my voice growing louder, sounding more and more different, and I knew it had nothing to do with the steam and the water. It was a man’s voice, almost. All right, so it was nowhere near a tenor’s range—Pavarotti? How’d I know that? I’d heard the name before but knew nothing about him. Still, things, strange and foreign, kept pouring out of me. God, this was weird.
Was there a significance in the song? Why did I sing it all of a sudden, given all the familiar rock songs I knew? Maybe it was worth the time and energy looking it up online. When I got out and dried up, wiping the mirror with my towel, I stared at myself—again in surprise.
Yep, I definitely looked different without my glasses, and it wasn’t the absence of my glasses that affected my appearance. I’d seen myself countless times before sans plastic frames, and I never looked like this.
I really seemed to have aged somehow, and it was nuts. More muscle, more definition, a certain light in my eyes that made me think, “This dude knows a lot more than I do.” I didn’t know if I could get used to this. I was sixteen, not eighteen. I wasn’t ready for this kind of change.
Take it easy. You’re coming into your power, and it’s showing physically. Just let it go, the same way you let go of everything else. It’ll all work out in the end, all to your benefit.
I swallowed. “I guess.” I must admit that I sort of felt like a stud. A pretty upset stud, but a stud all the same.
My eye color had changed back to its normal green, but there was still a distinct edge of red around my irises. I figured the change in color from green to hazel was affected by my being actively in “power mode.” I was at rest now, so the transformation was gone. Yeah, I guess that made sense.
“Okay. Okay. Calm down, Plath,” I whispered, closing my eyes and willing myself to relax. I reminded myself what I’d planned to do with all this. I hoped I knew what the hell I was doing, considering I
was still kind of vulnerable to being led around by my other half. This was like being worse than wishy-washy. It was more like wishy-wishy-wash-wish-washy. Jesus.
I dressed up and rested, turning my attention to my window every once in a while. Peter was likely still busy out there. Althea wasn’t in my computer. I wouldn’t be surprised if she were still working with Peter and Trent. As for the fire girl, I now wondered what godawful name she’d be baptized with when the news came on later that evening.
I yawned and stretched, feeling so, so relaxed and satisfied. The issue concerning my glasses stayed unresolved, though. I pretty much spent the rest of my time working around that. I tried to neutralize the lens with my powers, but it did nothing.
“Oh, man,” I sighed, staring at the damn things for the longest time. “I guess that means my powers can’t alter things on a molecular level or something like that.”
Correct. It can damage inanimate objects but not destroy them completely. You’ve seen how it works. It’s something like a cloaking mass of warm energy. It won’t harm people or animals, but it can sweep them off like a wave or encase them in a bubble. You’ve used that, remember, when you cloaked the door to keep it from making a sound.
I nodded. “Yeah, I remember. That’s pretty cool. I like my powers.” I absently fingered my glasses. “But that doesn’t help me at all in pretending that my eyesight hasn’t improved.”
Well, you’re as blind as a bat.
“I know, I know. Shut up. That still doesn’t change the fact I’ve gone from being virtually blind to having way better than normal vision. Seriously, why do things have to go from one extreme to another? I could’ve worked pretty well with a pair of glasses on my face.”
Not really, no. Super-acute eyesight is a requirement in the superhuman makeup. Some people’s vision will be much sharper than others, but compared to average folks out there, yours are abnormally keen. You can’t do anything required by your powers with poor eyesight. It’s too incongruent.
“Well, I’m going online,” I huffed, throwing my glasses aside again. I was dying to find out what the media, local media, that is, was saying about that afternoon’s adventures. Hell, I wanted to know what they were saying about me.
Computer turned on, twenty different windows opened simultaneously, and I was soon basking in newfound glory even though I kind of hated myself for it. I know, right? Like I said, wishy-wishy-wash-wish-washy. So fucking hopeless.
“New menace interrupts battle in downtown Vintage!” seemed to be the consensus.
I sat back and began to kick my brain into coming up with a proper name for myself. Bambi Bailey was notorious for baptizing the good guys, which meant I was free to design my own identity. At the moment, I was sure she was hard at work trying to figure out what to call Fire Girl.
After several minutes of nothing, I decided to distract myself temporarily by checking out the RPG community to see how far my alter ego had gone.
Sure enough, Energy Boy was straight, and he was also a bit of a pervert. He’d hooked up with three supervillain girls on the sly, all of whom looked like a gaggle of totally gothed-out Jane Austens in skimpy leather dresses. Apparently, Energy Boy also harbored an unrequited passion for Fire Girl, whom no one could touch because she was seriously too perfect for anybody.
Chapter 13
Lesson Number 4,596 in Superhuman-ness: never say never. It took me some doing and a really shitty headache, but I managed to alter my glasses to nothing more than a neutral pair of faux eye gear. In other words, I ended up melting my glasses into a shapeless thing of plastic after I blasted it over and over again with little energy bursts.
In addition to being a crappy failure, the process was horrible. I couldn’t say for sure how long it took me to mess things up, but it sure felt like a damn eternity—twice over, at that. I just concentrated while adjusting the energy waves that came out of my head as needed, despite earlier warnings there was nothing I could do with prescription plastic lenses.
Touch and go. Trial and error. For who the hell knew how long. By the time I was done with it, I nearly fainted from the strain and the pain it caused in my head. And my glasses were completely destroyed. Go me.
Don’t say you weren’t warned, you brat.
“Look, at least I tried, didn’t I? That accounts for something,” I shot back, my voice muffled against my pillow as I lay face down on my bed. Close to death, I’d like to add.
You forced your powers into a function they weren’t meant to have. You could’ve done yourself worse damage. Something akin to a really bad hangover is the best you can expect from a stunt like this. Permanent brain damage isn’t an exaggeration.
“But I didn’t go that far. Now, shut up so I can rest.”
Your powers reset themselves after a forced alteration like that. You won’t be able to remember how to manipulate it to your preference next time. Considering how annoyingly stubborn you are, that’s a blessing from this end.
“I don’t care. I’ve got dummy glasses in my dresser somewhere, and I’ll use them. That’s all that matters now. Yay, me. Now shut the hell up, will you? Superhumans need some rest, too, after doing something like this.”
If you’re not careful…
“Yeah, yeah, I know. Nag, nag, nag. Now go. Shoo. You’re bothering me.”
Good grief, was I the only superhuman who was stuck with an independently-thinking voice-person-thing in my head? I sure hoped not, or I’d sue for a badly-handled power evolution process. If this voice-person-thing was supposed to act as my sidekick or the evil twin of my conscience, I was going to have a few choice words with the Trill about that. Note to self: see if a real sidekick could be recruited for me, because that would rock, bad guy or no bad guy.
The voice fell silent—thank God!—and I sought the comfort and healing powers of sleep despite knowing dinner was going to be served soon so I only had half an hour, tops.
* * * *
I was brilliant. Have I mentioned how brilliant I was? I was brilliant with a capital B. Liz woke me with a sharp kick to my bed—typical. I washed my face, combed my hair, and trotted downstairs in my dummy glasses. No squinting, no feeling around like a blind person, no stumbling, no bruises. It was fantastic.
Those glasses were part of an old Halloween costume I’d worn, but I totally dug the way the frames looked and ended up keeping them. They were pretty close to the shape of my now-destroyed glasses, so I was sure no one would notice the difference once I wore them.
I also dressed the part—strategic camouflage, yep. I made sure to change my clothes to an old, oversized shirt and loose, scruffy jeans to hide my sudden muscle development. Under those horrible, faded balloons, I looked about ten pounds underweight. I could do nothing about the angular lines that added age to my face, but I gambled on how they were pretty subtle.
Besides, I was sixteen and in the middle of an awkward growth period. That was a good enough excuse. My eyes were green again—as I was sure they’d shifted to hazel during my eyeglass-altering moment—and the red edging wouldn’t pose a problem to anyone, what with the camouflage offered by my frames and all.
I loved myself. I’d never felt this pathologically narcissistic ever.
Even better was dinner itself, which wasn’t different from any other meal my family enjoyed.
The only thing that was changed a little was the topic of conversation, which was firmly fixed on the incident in downtown Vintage that afternoon, and which I was heavily grilled over.
I answered everyone’s questions with just the right amount of awe, horror, and shock that I could manage, and no one was the wiser.
“So, did you see the new villain?” Liz asked as she doused her salad with about a gallon of dressing. Ew.
“Kind of,” I replied, not batting an eye while poking my fork around my plate for some candied pecans hidden under all those salad greens. I should’ve been given an Academy Award for my performance. “People were running everywhere, and there was kin
d of a crush where I was headed.”
“What’d he look like?”
I shrugged. “Tall, I guess—I couldn’t say for sure how muscular because of the confusion, but he was floating by the founder’s statue, and he glowed. Oh, and his eyes were white. It was really creepy.” Peter’s descriptions of me when I attacked the Elms Theatre came in pretty handy.
Liz listened to me with a deep frown. “Damn. Now I wish I’d gone downtown today.”
“Then I’d have two of my children in danger, not just one,” Mom retorted as she leveled my sister with a look that would’ve withered a redwood on steroids.
“So, uh, what’re they saying about this new villain?” I asked, making sure to widen my eyes in a show of squeaky-clean innocence. Parents, especially mothers, loved that. My mom was especially vulnerable, and when she turned to me, she practically melted in her chair. I was still her baby, oh, yes, I was. I could milk this for all I was worth.
“Not much right now,” she replied after giving me that look that went Awwwww. “Just the same things you mentioned, Eric. Want some brussel sprouts? I know you can’t stand them, but they’re steamed, and they’re good for you.”
Yikes. Did superhumans talk about mealtime ordeals like this during club meetings or something? I kept my cool, though, seeing as how Mom’s earlier doubts when I’d first arrived home had vanished completely. If she noticed something totally bizarre before, she didn’t see it now. Go me. As long as I didn’t overdo it, I’d be able to keep my charm meter at full throttle, and no one in my family would know what hit them.
“Can I finish my meat and potatoes first, please? There’s no room on my plate, with my salad and all.” Eyes wide and sparkling, enhanced subtly with a long-lashed blink or two. I was five years old all over again, and if I kept that up one minute longer, I’d give myself diabetes.
Unfortunately, Mom looked to be on the verge of a massive cute attack, so I backed down a bit.
Evolution Page 12
