Superheroes In Denim

by Lee French

  “This is Jasmine,” Ai explained. “Jayce, Bobby, and Alice.”

  “Hi.” Jasmine gave them all a really cheerful wave instead of shaking hands with any of them. “What she said sounds pretty serious.” She bobbed her head and seemed disturbed by the idea anything could actually be serious.

  “Have you had an episode recently where you woke up cold but sweating all over, without remembering having had a nightmare?” Jayce spoke up first, a fact Bobby appreciated. They needed to discuss how to have this conversation.

  “Oh!” Jasmine rubbed her cheek on the squirrel still in her hands. It seemed content there, not struggling or squirming. “Yes! About a week ago, I scared Will half to death, he said I passed out and he thought I was dead for a minute.”

  “Who’s Will?”

  “My boyfriend. We live together. He’s a veterinarian.” Jasmine pronounced the last word very carefully, like she’d had to practice saying it a lot, or had to say it that way to get it right.

  Bobby scratched his forehead. “That kinda complicates things.”

  Jayce waved Bobby off. “And has something unusual happened to you since then? Like, I can do this.” He touched a finger to a button of his trenchcoat and the pattern flowed up his hand. After a short delay, during which it must have spread to the rest of him, it covered his face. Then it dropped away and he looked normal again.

  Jasmine nodded earnestly and set the squirrel on the counter, where it sat gazing up at her. She scrunched her eyes shut and made fists. In the space of about two seconds, her body shrank in on itself until a normal squirrel stood there instead of Jasmine. All four of them blinked down at her, then she sprang back up into herself. “Will says I’m a very healthy squirrel.” She leaned in and used a loud whisper to say, “He said I shouldn’t tell anyone, but if you all have superpowers, too, it’s probably okay.”

  Bobby recovered first, downright jealous—she got to keep her clothes when she did that. “Dang, that’s pretty cool. I don’t suppose we could meet Will?”

  She picked her squirrel up again and cheerfully rubbed noses with it. “He’s at work, but he’ll be home for dinner.”

  Out of thirty-one names, the first one they picked happened to be a really sweet, trusting girl who already knew she was special and could do something so unbelievable and obviously real, she didn’t reject any of it. Not to mention the understanding boyfriend in a medical field. Bobby had to stop himself from staring in awe of this happy accident. It took no effort to smile, though. “That sounds great. I’d really like to meet him. Maybe he can have a look at my dragons and help me out.”

  “I love having guests for dinner!” Jasmine clapped around her squirrel and danced into the postage stamp kitchen. “Will is very smart. If anybody can help with dragons, it’s my Will.” She gently hugged the squirrel in her hands, then rushed over again to show it to Bobby. “This is Walnut. I rescued him when he was just a baby.” Fortunately, she set him on the floor, and he scampered over to a cardboard box full of shredded paper, jumped in, and scratched around. If he’d been expected to touch it or something, Bobby wasn’t sure what he would’ve done. Where he came from, squirrels were for shooting.

  “He’s cute,” Bobby said, trying to be nice. “So, I guess Ai said we’re kinda all in danger from the government?”

  Jasmine nodded earnestly. “She said the government is going around arresting people for having eyes like us.”

  Ai ducked her head. “I didn’t really know what to say.”

  “Uh-huh.” Bobby smirked. “It seems all of us are on a list.” Pulling his copy out of his pocket, he laid it out on the counter for Jasmine to see. “That there’s me, that’s Alice, Jayce, and Ai.”

  “Oh, and there’s me!”

  This news, in Bobby’s mind, didn’t seem right for excitement. He plodded on, hoping he could make her understand the gravity of the situation. “The government is using laws meant to deal with terrorists to pick us all up offa this list. We four got arrested like that a few days back. They took us to some kind of creepy horror movie lab and stuck us with needles and stuff. It was really bad. We escaped in the middle of the night, found this list on the way out, and figured the best thing to do was see about not letting those guys get their hands on anybody else, especially not anybody as nice are you.”

  “Oh my gosh, that’s terrible.” She covered her mouth. “You think they’ll want to do that to me?” Bobby wanted to pat her on the head and hug her and tell her everything would turn out alright. Whoever this Will guy was, if he turned out to be a jerk, Bobby would deck him, hard and repeatedly.

  “Pretty sure, yeah.”

  Jasmine sucked in a breath and her eyes popped wide. “What do I do?”

  “We aren’t rightly sure what you should do, Jasmine. So far, we’re kinda on the run. Our faces got put up on the TV. They’re out there, looking for us. You, though, we don’t know when they’ll come for you. We’re just sure they’re gonna.”

  Her eyes bounced from one somber face to another, and she gulped. A moment later, she smacked the counter and nodded with firm determination. “Will will know what to do.” With that, she turned to the kitchen, the matter apparently settled and out of her mind already. Bobby watched her open the fridge, worries and cares slipping off her shoulders like rain off an umbrella. Inside the fridge, he saw pink and yellow post-it notes on several things, including the door itself. “Do any of you eat tofu, or should I make it just vegetables?”

  She moved on to other things, so Bobby got out of her way. “Whatever’s fine.” He could follow simple directions, and knew nothing else about cooking. Scanning the room, he decided somebody needed to do something about Alice, and since Ai bustled into the kitchen to help Jasmine and Jayce seemed to be meditating or otherwise ignoring the problem, that left him.

  He sat down next to Alice and rested his forearms on his knees. Momma called it his ‘thoughtful pose’, since he always sank into it when he had to think a lot. “You wanna talk about it? ”

  Alice shook her head, but otherwise stayed curled up in a little ball.

  “It looked kinda intense,” he offered. “All of ‘em pushing and stuff. Jayce tried to wade in, but they were kinda being difficult about it.” He paused and rubbed his chin, the stubble there feeling strange even though he noticed it hours ago. They saw a newspaper, so they knew they’d missed five days. Wrapping his head around that took some effort. “I imagine it’s hard to control something like what you got under a circumstance like that.”

  “Cut it out,” Alice snapped. “I said I don’t want to talk about it.”

  For a few seconds, only the sounds of Jasmine and Ai banging around in the kitchen filled the air. Jayce sighed and raked a hand through his dark hair. “They know we’re here now, or will shortly. How long before they figure out why?”

  “Hopefully, a while. They don’t know we got that list. Even if they do, they probably don’t expect us to start using it right away. Not while we’re still trying to get basic things. ‘Sides, that spot is pretty far from here. They’ll find the car soon enough and know we’re on foot again.”

  “If they do know we have that list, they might come here to look for us, just on the off chance.”

  Bobby looked over at Jasmine, happily cutting up some kind of vegetable. “They’ll swipe her if they come here.”

  “We won’t let them,” Alice growled. Her jaw set with determination and she glowered and the floor.

  A beat passed while both men stared at her in surprise. Bobby lifted his hand to reach out and pat her on the shoulder or knee. Before it got there, he thought better of it and settled for thumping his own knee. “No, we sure won’t. A fight here would be a bit less than ideal, though.”

  “They might leave her alone with Will here,” Jayce said. “Dealing with him when she clearly hasn’t done anything wrong could be more trouble than they want to get into.”

  “You think we ought to hide if’n they show up.”

  Jayce no
dded. “In such a way that if they decide to grab her, we can resist on her behalf.”

  “Sounds like a plan. Means we need to decide where to hide out now, instead of later.” What they really needed right now, Bobby thought, were scouts. But if he was dragons, he couldn’t actually be here or relay a warning. Before, he managed to re-form with four missing. Could he just send a few off without having to blow up into a whole swarm? That would certainly be handy. It would mean that even if he got caught, he could have a dragon on the outside. It would mean he could get into all kinds of things without having to be a swarm.

  “Easy enough for you,” Jayce snorted. “You just explode into dragons and fly out the window. I can probably do low level camouflage, the kind that wouldn’t stand up to close scrutiny, but will do fine with just a glance. Ai can run out when they open the door. That just leaves Alice.” Again, the two men looked at her.

  “I can hide in the bathroom,” she grumped.

  Bobby nodded his satisfaction and held up his finger and stared at it. He thought about getting just one dragon to separate. For a good five minutes, he concentrated on the idea of one of them going off on its own. Nothing changed, and he couldn’t feel their little minds or bodies at all.

  He needed a different approach. If he wanted to use a fork or a pencil, he also needed a different hand. Switching to his left hand, he held up a finger and thought about what would entice him to come out and play. As soon as he considered it that way in his head, he watched in horrified amazement as the tip of his thumb turned into a tiny silver dragon and climbed onto his index finger. Its tiny claws tickled.

  “That…it’s…I mean—” Alice stared with a grimace, shying away from him.

  “Yeah, I know. And it’s me doing it.”

  Jayce blinked once, then shrugged, sighed, and returned to meditation.

  “They are cute little guys, thought, ain’t they?” It trilled at him, a tiny little noise to say ‘hi’ to its master.

  “You do know that ‘ain’t’ isn’t actually a word, right?”

  Bobby rolled his eyes and ignored her. He took a deep breath and got four more to separate, each taking its own fingertip with it. “Okay, little guys, I need y’all to watch for cops and stuff. You think you can do that for us? It’s really important.” With the words, he thought about what he wanted them to be alert for. The tiny dragons all trilled their acceptance of the mission and flew out the open window.

  Jayce raised an eyebrow. “You gave them more instructions than just that, right?”

  “Ayup.” Bobby reached up to tap his forehead. With his finger missing the part past the last knuckle, the gesture felt awkward. “I think at ‘em,” he added.

  “Good to know.”

  Alice took his hand and examined the smooth nubs on the ends of his fingers. “Where does your brain go?”

  “Heck if I know. It’s like a hive mind thing going on, but I’m still aware and in control. Mostly. They got little minds of their own.”

  “I didn’t mean to kill those people.”

  “‘Course not.”

  “They wouldn’t leave me alone.”

  “I saw.”

  “I was outnumbered.”

  “Ayup.”

  Alice went quiet for a beat, then threw his hand back at him and snarled. “Why aren’t you outraged?” Her shouting made Ai and Jasmine turned to look. “I just killed four people, and you’re acting like it’s nothing worse than running a stop sign, for fuck’s sake! They’re dead because I’m a twink-eyed freak!”

  She took a breath to rant more. Bobby started talking in the hopes she’d stop and think instead. “They’re dead because they were poking a tiger with a stick and didn’t know it. And I don’t mind you calling me a ‘twink-eyed freak’, but you should make sure everybody in the room don’t mind before you start tossing that around. Jasmine is a real nice person, and I ain’t gonna sit here silent-like while you say something like that about her. Also, I don’t think you ought to be cussing like that in her house. My Momma says you don’t do that when you’re a guest in somebody’s house, less you know it’s okay already. It’s rude.”

  Alice goggled at him for a second, then she got up and went to use the bathroom. Ai whispered to Jasmine and they turned back to their cooking.

  Jayce chuckled. “I don’t think she was expecting calm.”

  Bobby shrugged. “I got a lot to say about Alice, but not much of it is nice, and Momma was pretty clear on that sorta thing, too.”

  “Mmhmm. My mom said things like that, too, but I didn’t always listen.”

  “I got a selective memory, just like anybody else.” Bobby smirked. “We gotta learn to deal with each other, though, ‘cause we’re stuck together, like it or not. Can’t see how letting her get all riled up is helping that. ‘Course, it’s a thing, killing somebody. I never done it, got no idea what it does to ya. She’s gotta figure that out for herself. Preferably without yelling at any of us.”

  “No argument here.” Jayce moved to the couch. “You know, now that we’re superheroes, maybe we should have superhero names.”

  “What, you mean like Batman and Superman?”

  Jayce snorted. “Yeah, only original.”

  “I s’pose.” Bobby shrugged. “ZippityGirl, Dragon, MetalMan, and Frosty The Snowgirl. And Squirrel.”

  Jayce grinned. “Frosty the Snowgirl, I like that one. I’ll come up with my own, though, thanks.”

  “Don’t rightly matter much, since they already know who we are.”

  The front door opened, cutting Jayce off. Bobby recognized the man who walked in from pictures around the apartment. Everything about him, from his short, neat blond hair to his slacks and polo shirt screamed out ‘respectable professional’. His hazel eyes caught Ai in the kitchen, then swept into the living room to notice Bobby and Jayce, and Alice as she emerged from the bathroom.

  Jasmine squealed with delight and jumped on him. Apparently expecting this, he had an arm out and ready, and he caught and squeezed her close. “Hey sweetheart, are we having guests for dinner tonight?”

  “Yes!” She planted a kiss on his lips and introduced everyone. “This is Will,” she told the room with a delighted smile while bouncing from foot to foot.

  Bobby stood and shook his hand. “I’m sure this is a surprise, and we don’t meant to be an inconvenience. We’re here, though—”

  “Because of the eyes? Are you…?”

  “Heh, yeah, we are. Different, but yeah.” Bobby held up his hand with the missing fingertips and let another dragon pop out, taking another knuckle with it. “You wanna sit down with us, we can tell you what’s going on, as much as we know, while the girls finish up dinner.”

  Will stared at the dragon, watching it climb on Bobby’s hand, then re-form back onto his finger. “Yes, I believe I’d like to hear what you have to say.” He sat down with Bobby and Jayce, and he listened carefully while they told him everything that happened since they were arrested, the things they knew and the things they guessed. Bobby showed him the list they had, and Jayce shared their suspicions. When they finished, the girls stood in the kitchen with drinks, chatting while waiting for the food to be done.

  Sitting back in the chair, Will frowned. “You’re kind of asking me to leave my practice. I understand that’s not really what you’re saying, but I can’t send Jasmine off to who knows where and just go on with my life without her. If I knew it would only be a week or two, then sure, yeah, hide her away and bring her back. But indefinitely, no, I can’t do that.” Where Jasmine wouldn’t see it, he pulled out a little ring box and showed Bobby and Jayce, then tucked it back into his pocket. “I just haven’t found the right time yet,” he murmured.

  Part of our problem,” Jayce said, “is that we’re not sure what to do with ourselves. Constantly being on the run isn’t going to work, but if we stand still, they’ll find us, and we aren’t completely sure we can avoid capture, or escape again if necessary.”

  Will nodded. “If you’
re going to ask people who haven’t been through what you have to leave their lives for their own safety, you really need someplace for them to actually go. What about taking over an abandoned property somewhere, until you can figure out how to buy it without revealing yourselves?”

  Bobby scratched his cheek and considered the problems that immediately leaped to mind: water, electricity, food, defense. On the other hand, a solid destination would change the ball game. “It’s worth giving some thought.”

  “I agree,” Jayce nodded.

  “Were you going to ask any of us?” Ai reminded Bobby of Momma right then, when she found out he did something stupid.

  “Sure,” he said with an easy smile. “You want to think about it, too? Plenty of—” He blinked and had to focus on one of his dragons. What he saw through its eyes made him sit up straight. “They’re here, pretty sure. It’s two guys in suits and six more in tac gear. So much for hoping they wouldn’t bother.

  “Will, if they try to grab Jasmine, you gotta trust us to deal with them. We don’t want you getting hurt or took yourself.” With that, he poofed out into full dragon swarm, leaving his clothes behind. He heard Jayce ask Will to give him a hand collecting those up, then he dove out the window.

  From his new vantage point, saw eight men heading for the building and going inside. The two suits went in front. It occurred to him that if he wanted to help rescue Jasmine, he needed to know whether rescue became necessary. He sent one dragon back inside, and had another zoom off to follow the men in. That would give him two different angles to see and hear the episode. For the moment, he focused on the one following the men in. They all trooped into the elevator and one of the suits punched the button for Jasmine’s floor.

  “This is the signal to storm in,” Suit Number One said as he made a hand gesture of two fingers together, pointing forward. Not terribly subtle as signals went, but knowing it would give him an advantage. Somehow. If he could figure out how to use it. “Miss Milani is not a target at this time, so don’t treat her like a suspect without a reason to.”