by Paul Tobin
Stellar slammed into him from above, taking the three of us down into the soil of the Idaho forest, a soil that I immediately stained green with the glow coming from my head and shoulders as they clicked into overdrive trying to heal the damage that had been done to me. Just the physical damage, of course. The other damage would never heal.
I was the last to recover from the collision.
When I crawled up and out of the small pit, Stellar and Kid Crater were wrestling on the ground. A still photo of the moment would have seemed erotic. She was naked, and smiling in triumph, and atop him, straddling his writhing form. He was trying to take to the air, arcing upward, attempting to buck her free so that he could soar again, could transition into flight, where his invulnerability was at its strongest. He was looking to me for help, because his rage had stepped aside, just for a moment, to realize that being in the right doesn’t always mean you win the fight.
I would’ve had to move five times faster than a common man to reach them before Stellar’s fist came down.
That’s beyond me.
I can’t do that.
Kid Crater died in Idaho. In the Panhandle National Forest.
In her defense, Stellar hadn’t started the fight, and was just protecting herself.
In my defense, I have nothing.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I was wearing sunglasses so that nobody could recognize me. I was with Adele. We were occasionally touching hands, but not quite holding them. She was pointing out a house to me. There were children in the yard. Two of them. A boy and a girl. About six years old, each. I was stuck between going into the house, simply walking by, or continuing to stand on the sidewalk and staring at the house and the children for so long that it was beginning to look suspicious.
The boy had a small stack of paper and was making paper airplanes, one after the other, and flying them at the girl. Occasionally one of these constructs would actually make the small flight and bounce off the girl’s arm or head, but most of the airplanes would simply curl away from her, or crash straight into the ground. The boy was not a master of aerodynamics. I didn’t hold that against him. I can’t make a decent paper airplane, either.
The girl was idly digging in the ground with a small spade, and whenever a paper airplane would hit her she would, while barely paying attention otherwise, drive her spade down through the paper airplane, slicing it in half. I thought of something to say to Adele, something in regards to those paper airplanes and how it was only the successful ones that were being punished, how the failures were allowed to go on with their lives, but when I was trying out the conversation in my head I found (mentally, in my scenario) that Adele would eventually (rather quickly, in my scenario) tell me that I was being too god-damned maudlin, and she would be right. So I just kept quiet.
“Those her kids?” I asked Adele, instead.
“The girl is Judy’s from her first marriage. The boy is her husband’s from his first marriage. I can’t remember their names.”
“How long after Tom… how long after the accident did Judy wait before she got married?”
“That’s unfair. Judy was sixteen years old when you and Tom had the accident. She was sixteen years old. She had to go on with her life.”
“True,” I said, leaving it at that, at least out loud. In my head, though, I was feeling that Judy should have gone into eternal mourning, like Taffy had with Paladin. Judy shouldn’t have moved on. Tom and Judy should have been together forever. She was the last love of his life. He should have been the last love of hers. It was unfair, and I knew it didn’t make any sense, but Tom was my brother and that’s how I felt.
Also, in my mind, I was avoiding any mention of how I’d been in that accident, too, and if Judy had possessed all the right in the world to go on with her life afterwards, then why hadn’t Adele? Why had she written books about me, studied me, from afar, with me not dead, but never calling, and why had she opened her door the very moment I came back? I began to realize that the tanker truck accident had killed a bit of her life, too. Had stolen away her years, not even giving her any superpowers in exchange.
And here I was… stepping back into her life for one more week before my promised meeting with Octagon and his laser pistol. What was I stealing from Adele this time?
“What do you need to talk to Judy about?” Adele asked. She was wearing a dark green skirt with a single embroidered bird. It shifted with her every move and her sandals made pleasant scuffs on the sidewalk. Across the street were five young teenagers who had been following Adele and me on their bikes. They were having a big day. They were watching Reaver. I didn’t mind that. It was something I’ve grown to accept as normal. But two of the boys had (my hearing is very good) made comments about Adele. About her tits. About what was under her green skirt. I hadn’t liked that. I realized I was feeling proprietary. I wasn’t liking that, either. It was dumb.
I said, “I wanted to talk to her about Tom. About the accident. About the days when she and Tom were together.”
Adele started to say something, but I raised up a hand, stopped her.
I said, “I wanted to talk to her about that, but now that I’m here… that’s not fair, is it?”
“That’s not fair.”
“I still want to see her again. And I have something for her.”
“Something of Tom’s?” Adele’s eyes had narrowed into a “that’s not fair” face.
“No.” Adele’s eyes calmed down.
“Then what?” she asked.
I said, “You have to understand. Doing what I do, the money builds up. There are donations from people I’ve helped. From cities I’ve saved. From countries, even. It’s kind of sad, but nobody knows how to say thanks except with fat wads of cash.”
“And… you’re going to give some money to Judy?” Adele was already making the connection. Reading, like always, like from the start, my intentions.
“That’s what I’m going to do.”
“How much?”
“Couple million. Do you think she’ll mind?”
“People don’t mind when you give them two million dollars. But… aren’t you now doing what you just said was sad? I’m guessing… I’m guessing you want to tell Judy thanks for making your brother happy, back then, but… like you say… nobody knows how to say thanks except for those fat wads of cash.”
“Just because I can bend steel doesn’t make me any smarter than anyone else. Besides, I’m going to tell her thanks, too. She really did make my brother happy.”
“All those handjobs,” Adele said. She made a smile. She made a handjob gesture, then even a blowjob gesture. There were hoots and whistles from across the street, from all five of the teenagers. This time, for some reason, it didn’t irritate me.
Adele and I walked up to the house, and I knocked on the door.
***
Mistress Mary had been seen in Argentina, in Bahia Blanca. Shortly after this, she was spotted in Fortaleza, Brazil. Then in Medellin, Colombia. Then in Campeche, in the Yucatan. Then in Cabo san Lucas, Mexico. Then in Oakland, California. Then, finally, in my hometown of Greenway, Oregon. I followed each of these reports, fed to me by SRD surveillance teams, and I tracked her progress on a map up until she walked down the middle of Greenway’s old main street (the tiny, original one, from before all the expansions) and she was facing me as I stood in front of the Ferkins Antique store. By then, of course, I didn’t need the updates.
In Bahia Blanca she had stopped two murders. In the old days, before her recent surprise induction as a member of Eleventh Hour, being brought in as a unexpected replacement for Macabre, Mistress Mary had stopped such crimes by the simple expedient of ordering the prospective murderers not to do it. To instead get honest jobs and lead honest lives. Coming from Mary, that was enough. Her voice had something to it… some quality… some superhuman factor, that made people give in to her every demand. This time, in Bahia Blanca, she told the would-be murderers to kill themselves. They did.
In Greenway, in Oregon, Mistress Mary was carrying a gun.
She had been travelling for three days.
In those three days I’d managed to grow more comfortable on Adele’s couch, and she hadn’t invited me upstairs again, not since that first night. I was more comfortable that way, because I already felt that I was setting her up for a fall, and sleeping in her bed would have done nothing more than increasing the height of the plummet.
In those three days I’d been flown (on a Checkmate-designed helicopter that I admit my inner twelve-year-old would not stop raving about) to the Athens Penitentiary to quell problems stemming from the recent escape and riot. There was some media talk that I, me, just myself, constituted cruel and unusual punishment. It’s wonderful to be loved.
In those three days I began the process of the legal papers for the scholarship program in Kid Crater’s honor. I went with excellence in academia as the criteria, and had christened it the “Impact” scholarship. Each year, four students (one nationwide, and one from Minnesota, where Kid Crater and I had met, and one from Nevada, where he was from, and one from Idaho, where he had died) would receive a twenty-five-thousand-dollar scholarship. There was an addendum to the award… one that required recipients to drink a glass of whiskey in Kid Crater’s honor… and to at least try to get out and meet people and have a life. It didn’t seem like either of my demands would be too onerous on any college student.
In those three days I had been summoned four times to SRD. Adele had come along with me twice. The first time they turned her away at the gate, considering her as a security risk, owing to her books (and the secrets they had spilled) on the topics of the superhumans. The second time, I had insisted that she was allowed to come inside, mentioning that if she needed any superhuman secrets she could certainly get them from me, and also mentioning that I didn’t think Checkmate’s forcefields (such as the ones on the guards’ uniforms) were powerful enough to stop me if I decided to peel someone out of their armor and dunk them in the nearby Willamette River if they continued to be such assholes. The four meetings (all with the head of SRD, meaning Commander Bryant) had concerned Mistress Mary (twice) and then a report that a recent earthquake (near Thailand) might not have been normal seismic activity, and then I was also asked to give advice on how to deal with Mindworm and Warp, because a jury of their peers was decidedly hard to come by.
In those three days Adele and I had, like when we were first dating, repeated our purchase of several boxes of dog biscuits (buying them from a young woman at the Mighty Convenient convenience store, one who had gleefully watched as I, at her request, squeezed a handful of quarters into a solid metal chunk, an act which was a felony-level destruction of U.S. currency) and had gone around the streets of Greenway (mostly the old streets, not within the mushroom-like eruption of the new city) and had further gone into an assortment of yards, giving biscuits to all the dogs, either reinforcing the old friendships (rarely) or making new ones, depending on the ages of the dogs. It was much easier for me, this time, as I didn’t have to worry about any of the dogs biting me, excepting for how they might chip their teeth.
In those three days I had masturbated once, in Adele’s shower, when I realized that I was holding a bar of soap that she had rubbed all over her body. I felt very guilty about this… excepting during the actual orgasm part.
In those three days I had done very little to prepare me for the sight of Mistress Mary holding a gun, even though ongoing surveillance (which she did not seem to mind) had placed her as on the way to Greenway. What did Mary need with a gun? Her mouth was her weapon. We’d played on the same side of the law, together, for several years, and she’d never carried a gun. We’d played on the same side of the bedsheets, together, for several weeks, and she’d never carried a gun. She’d had some other objects, but never a gun.
I told her, “You have a gun.” I pointed to it, just in case she wasn’t smart enough to know that she was carrying a gun, like she would glance down to it with a look of disgust and surprise in the ways that people do with bugs, when a friend points out that they have an insect crawling on them.
“I’m part of Eleventh Hour, now,” she said. “I have a criminal reputation to uphold.”
“Why did you…?”
“Join them? Because I couldn’t talk Octagon out of it. He wanted to recruit me. He gave me reasons. They seemed reasonable.”
“Money? Power?” These weren’t things that had ever attracted Mistress Mary in the past. She had always been comfortable (though often somewhat cold, or slightly bitter) with thoughts of saving the world. Never… ruling it.
“I’m not here to fight you,” Mary said, going past my words. Then she raised the gun and shot me. The gun was a .50 Desert Eagle, which is the gun of people who want to look like they’re holding an imposing weapon, as opposed to someone actually holding an imposing weapon. I suppose I should point out that the weapon is still very effective. If I’d been a normal person, it would have punched a hole through my chest with ease. As it was, the bullet smashed into my chest and then rebounded off down the sidewalk, impacting a mailbox with a sharp echoing twang. The sidewalks and the surrounding street were entirely empty. I’d yelled out warnings when I saw Mistress Mary approaching, and, for once, people had actually moved away from the impending danger. I wasn’t sure if it had anything to do with these people living so close to SRD, living day to day with the knowledge of superhumans, or else maybe it was just that small town people are, in some ways, smarter about keeping themselves alive.
I said, “You didn’t come to fight me? So, why did you come here? Just to shoot holes in one of my good shirts?” It was a brand new button-down shirt. A blue one. Adele and I had gone shopping for clothes. She’d bought a new dress. Some new shoes. Some underwear she mentioned felt good against her skin. The underwear had been more to the level of lingerie. I’m not sure where the dividing line between female underwear and lingerie stands, but her purchases were certainly closer to the latter. Myself, I’d bought two dress shirts. It seemed like that would be enough to get me through the rest of my life.
“I’m just a calendar,” Mistress Mary said. “Or, rather, I’m here to enforce the calendar. I’m going to be in town in case other members of Eleventh Hour come here, wanting to kill you. Kill you before it’s time, I mean.”
“Octagon sent you? He’s concerned about other members of Eleventh Hour going against his promise? Is there some sort of schism in your team?”
“There’s some sort of schism.”
She began walking away, yelling loudly, loud enough to be heard for blocks, that there was no reason to be nervous about Mistress Mary being in town. People began appearing from houses. Coming out from locked doors. From closed storefronts. After all, there wasn’t any reason to be nervous anymore.
“Why did you bring the gun?” I asked Mary.
She said, “I like them, now.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Apple was a competent and confident driver. Laura was a pestilent passenger. The two of them were taking me (according to their claim) to the best coffee shop in town. I was, against all my better instincts, about to do
an interview. I hate interviews.
“Why isn’t Adele here?” I asked Laura. Adele had said she was coming along. Laura smiled at my question, narrowed her eyes, then decided I might not be getting the full effect of her narrowed eyes with her glasses in the way, and so she moved her glasses down a bit on her nose so that I could bask in the questionable glory of her amusement.
“Suddenly can’t live without her?”
“Suddenly wondering why I’m stuck in the middle of the jungle, with all the wild beasts, and my safari guide has vanished.”
“He’s calling us wild beasts, I think,” Apple said, sliding into a turning lane, avoiding a bicyclist who was weaving through traffic in seemingly unpredictable patterns, but she had guessed his intentions perfectly. She was way ahead of him.
“We’re all wild beasts at heart,” Laura said. “The interesting ones, anyway. Now, Steve, look at this. I send these videos to Adele all the time, but she never looks at them. Or, I mean, at least she never talks about looking at them. She blushes when I talk to her about them. Sometimes I wonder if…”
“Show him the videos,” Apple said. “You’re being a tease.”
“That’s the first time anybody’s ever called me that.”
“That’s the first time a girl has ever called you that,” I said. There was a moment of silence in the car, then both of them burst out laughing.
“Suuuh… lammmed,” Laura said. “Slammed!” She high-fived me in shared amusement, then handed me her laptop computer. It was decorated with stickers from an SRD-themed gift store (unauthorized, but allowed) that was in the new town square. There were photo-stickers of Paladin, and Mistress Mary, and a couple of me, and one of my, “Take some time off!” slogan, but mostly there were stickers of Siren, and Siren, and Siren, and Siren.
“Don’t you dare tell me about sleeping with her,” Laura said, tapping on one of the Siren stickers. “I mean, I know you did, but don’t soil her with any of your penis-oriented stories.” I couldn’t tell if she was serious, and, anyway, she was hitting “play” on a video.
