Superpowers 1: Superguy

by T. Jackson King

  No!

  She grabbed her purse, then turned.

  Jeffrey Webster stepped in, looked up at the lights, then his face went grim.

  “Why the hell are you here?”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  I sensed a woman’s presence in my apartment as soon as I got within twenty feet of my door. Automatically my awareness reached out, feeling the Top level mind contours of the person inside.

  It was Janet Van Groot the FBI agent.

  And she was here because she suspected I was Green Mask.

  Briefly I considered turning around, heading to the bank, drawing out most of my money and then disappearing from Santa Fe, never to be seen again. Then I recalled the art work on the walls, the special books on Buddhism in my bookshelves, my Dad’s firearms there were in the bedroom closet, and the family picture of Mom and Dad that sat on top of the dresser in my bedroom. While I could port to my bedroom, grab the picture and be gone before Van Groot even knew I’d been there, my stubborn streak told me it was wrong for her to have broken into my place, my home, my refuge. It was one of the few places where I’d felt half safe. Living at the Jemez Falls campsite or the cave nearby was safer than living in Santa Fe, but I liked the comfort of a kitchen with a gas stove, a fridge, internet wifi, TV and easy bicycle access to my job. Which now was endangered by my Saturday rescue. Enough!

  I unlocked the door and stepped inside.

  She was standing just outside the bathroom, wearing a gray jacket and pantsuit, holding her black purse. Which, her Top level told me, contained the toothbrush I’d used that morning, hairs from my hairbrush and my camping mirror. My personal property. This was wrong.

  “Why the hell are you here?”

  She looked guilty. As she should. Tossing back her blond hair, she chose to attack.

  “Why are you here now! You don’t get off until six!”

  I walked down the entry hall, stopping in the middle of the living room. “I’ve been cut back to half-time. Which clearly big bad special agent Van Groot did not know. Do you have a warrant? If you don’t, then you’ve broken the law. This is my private space. And I did not invite you in.”

  She licked her lips, then took a deep breath. “Are you Green Mask?”

  So it had come to this. “There are thousands of guys with blue eyes who are my height and have black hair. Any of them could be Green Mask. And earlier you said you came to see me because of the work my parents did at the lab. Why the change to this Green Mask fixation?”

  I knew the answer to my question. But she needed to be taught a lesson on politeness and courtesy. Which, her Deep level revealed, she did understand. Just as she understood how wrong it had been to break into my place. But her determination to advance her career had overwhelmed her training and her judgment.

  She pointed at my left arm. “Your left hand has two rings on it. They are big turquoise stones. This morning during the BBC interview, Green Mask raised his hands twice. Even though they were covered by surgical gloves, it was clear to me that there were two rings under the gloves on his left hand.” Her oval face grew intent. “Plus, you dye your red hair black. That matches the hairs we recovered from the coat of Lois Fitzgerald, from St. Louis. She was one of the women you rescued during the Empire State Building appearance of Green Mask.”

  I looked down at those rings. Damn. I should not have put them back on this morning. “So what? Lots of guys wear rings. And some guys with red hair dye their hair black. And some women dye their hair green or purple. What the hell does any of this prove!”

  She stepped back, looking startled by my yell. And the anger I know was clear on my face. But her hands curled into fists.

  “Mr. Webster, you work for REI, which company owned the paraglider that was used in the New York rescue. You wear a hoodie and tennis shoes that are brands sold by REI. That clothing matches the clothing worn in the New York rescue. Also, you showed up on a retail video from Men’s Wearhouse in Albuquerque. It showed you buying a blue dress suit and paying for it with a Wells Fargo bank debit card. And your co-workers could not explain your sudden disappearance from work on Saturday, other than your claim you were sick. Moments later Green Mask showed up in Paris.” Her eyes fixed on me. “I suspect the hairs from your hairbrush will yield a DNA profile that matches the DNA profile from the New York hairs.”

  I looked left at my recliner, at the fireplace, at the artwork on the wall, at the bookcases, then back to tall Janet Van Groot. “You have no proof of anything. My high school science classes made clear that coincidence is not causality.” I gestured to her. “Leave my apartment. But before you do, put back my toothbrush. And my mirror.”

  Surprise showed in her young face. “How did you know I had your toothbrush with me?”

  I gestured at the bathroom. “My eyesight has always been good. Only one toothbrush is in my mug. This morning there were two. Put it back.”

  Briefly she looked disappointed. Then she turned intense. “How did you know I also have your hand mirror? It was not in sight. It came from your lower sink drawer.”

  I realized I’d made a mistake as soon as she spoke. Clearly she was a trained interrogator. I should not have said more than the obvious. “You just came out of my bathroom. It was clear you had taken one of my two toothbrushes. It seemed likely you took other things of mine. Return the mirror and the toothbrush.”

  She reached into her purse, pulled out a clear bag with the mirror, then the toothbrush bag. She put both on the sink counter. Van Groot turned back and walked slowly toward me, a half smile on her face. “Mr. Webster, you could only have known about the mirror by reading my mind. Which is impolite without my permission. Didn’t you say this morning on BBC that you did not read minds without an invitation?”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Janet felt triumphant. She had him. “You haven’t answered my question. Are you Green Mask?”

  “Leave my apartment,” he said, stepping over to his recliner.

  Too bad. She would have liked to hear him talk about his Mom and his early life. What she had heard him say in the BBC interview had shown Green Mask to be a normal young man, a guy who was trying hard to live up to the memory of his Mom. Who was now dead, along with his father. Just like Janet’s parents were dead. The sharing done this morning and his willingness to put himself into harm’s way in order to save innocent people had touched her. Like it had probably touched millions of other people. The man’s later vanishing from the BBC stage had been just the right ending to a fantastic tale of yearning, hope and wishing. And Webster was a handsome guy, if a bit distant in how he related to women. Too bad. Despite his angry tone at finding her inside his place, she would still have gone out with him for a beer and a chat, maybe at a nearby café like the ones that were close to where he worked.

  “I’m leaving, Mr. Webster. You’ll be hearing from me and from other agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the near future.” She stopped and looked through the kitchen alcove to where he stood. “And if you disappear from here, well, we have your college graduation photo. And recent images from REI. I’m sure if we put them up on YouTube and Snapchat, someone will see you, wherever you fly off to.”

  “Does it ever occur to you people to thank someone who volunteers their help in an emergency?” he said, his tone biting.

  Ahhh. “So you are Green Mask?”

  “Leave.”

  “I’m going.” She grabbed the door knob and opened his door. “As to your question, it is a fair one. Yes, I and other agents do say Thank You to citizens who provide information, give us warnings or share vital news about crimes they’ve seen. Good day.”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  I stood and watched her leave.

  Her Top level thoughts about my interview this morning, the things I’d said then about my Mom, they touched me. As did the fact she thought I was handsome and worth spending time with. But for some reason this tough, determined woman could not let go of her fixation on learning ‘what I might be h
iding’. Her determination was similar to my own persistence at helping people in danger from whackos. And, I’d noticed the memory in her Middle level where she had promised her Dad that she would be like him, a cop who saved people from bad folks. Her Dad had died before she’d graduated from Quantico. As had her mother. She only had their memories pushing her on to be the best she could be at doing her job. That was an obsession that was familiar to me. It made her matter to me.

  I walked over to the green drapes, mind-moved them aside, then mentally unlocked the sliding glass door. I stepped out onto the wooden porch that looked out on the parking lot below and busy St. Michael’s Drive beyond the lot. There she was.

  Van Groot was walking across the lot, aiming for the sidewalk that ran along the road. Why?

  I reached out and touched her Top level.

  She had parked on the other side of St. Michael’s because that was the location of a small family café. It was the place where she had some coffee and a donut before walking across the four lanes of St. Michaels to get to my apartment complex. Now, she had to cross it again to get to her rental car. She did not go up to the stop light and crossing lane that lay five hundred feet up from where she stood on the curb. Instead, she stepped off the curb as traffic lessened, clearly aiming to walk fast across the four lanes. So normal for her to ignore the rules about crossing ‘the right way’.

  Her mind felt busy. She was sorting through her thoughts about me, slotting them into analytical categories, and thinking about her girlfriend Beverly. Who, I saw, she had spoken with this morning. Janet had mentioned her suspicions about me to this Beverly, but had not given the woman my name. Well, that was going to change shortly. Once she got back to her motel room in Los Alamos—

  “Screech!”

  Vision carries more than words. Thoughts even more.

  A dented white pickup raced out of the café parking lot and turned up St. Michael’s, heading toward the light that was going yellow.

  The mind of the man behind the pickup’s wheel said he was determined to beat the light, no matter what.

  He was also deeply drunk from having finished off a bottle of Thunderbird in the parking lot.

  Between him and the light was a woman crossing his lane.

  Janet.

  Instinct saved me years ago when the drunk driver smashed head-on into my Dad’s car.

  Now it propelled me to her side.

  I grabbed her.

  The pickup pushed air before its rusty grill. Air that I felt, it was so close.

  “Roarrr!”

  My mind filled with the image of the meadow near Jemez Falls. I thought “I wish to be there.”

  And we were there.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Janet looked right at the sound of tires screeching. A white pickup was barreling straight at her. Some guy was leaning on his wheel, peering through a cracked windshield. But she saw his face was red and determined. He was looking beyond her at something further along the road. She leaned forward, hoping she could run to the curb before he ran her down.

  A whoosh of air sounded beside her.

  “Roarrr!”

  The white pickup sped to within feet of her.

  Arms wrapped around her waist.

  The pickup disappeared.

  Who had grabbed her? And where was this place?

  She looked around the green mountain meadow. Tall red barked ponderosa trees surrounded it. Mountains rose to the west. The sun was high above. But the air felt cold, despite her jacket.

  Arms let go of her waist. She turned and looked. It was Webster. Jeffrey . . . no, Jeff Webster. His lightly tanned face held a fascinating mix of relief, worry, frustration and general pissed-offness. Hopefully at the driver who had nearly run her down. Now she was here. Far from her car and the café and . . . then she understood.

  “You saved me. You teleported me out of the way of that crazy driver. Didn’t you?”

  He blinked. “Yeah. Had to. Or you woulda been killed by that drunk.”

  She took a deep breath, checked to confirm she still held her purse, then stepped back a few steps from Webster. Or Jeff. His warmth left her to cool off in the cold mountain air.

  “That was a drunk? I sure didn’t see him when I headed across. I was heading for my car and it looked—”

  “Clear to you. I know. I was watching you from my porch. Saw what was going to happen. Couldn’t let another person get killed by a drunk driver. Not when I could prevent it.”

  His words sounded so forlorn. Why? “Hey, thank you for saving my life! You saved me. And . . . and you saved hundreds in Houston. I’m sure your Mom would be proud of you.”

  “Would she?”

  Webster looked aside to a nearby firepit filled with gray ash. The meadow grass was shorter near the firepit. Which made sense. The bio history of Jeffrey that she had read now rushed back into her mind in all its depth and detail. “Did you go camping up here with your Dad?”

  “Yeah. It’s one of the few places where I can escape from other minds and feel safe.”

  Janet looked at young Jeffrey in profile. He stood there, dressed in his Barringer blue hoodie, wearing a Hawaiian shirt underneath, his bluejeans a bit worn on the knees, while his Salomon tennis shoes looked dirty brown. His black hair looked a bit tossed about, maybe from his bike ride from work. His nice muscular hands were pushed into the pockets of his bluejeans. He seemed to be staring into the future as he looked beyond the firepit at the trees and mountains.

  “Are you reading my mind now?”

  His lips tightened. “Only your Top level. I sensed you when I walked down the hallway to my door. Been monitoring your Top level thoughts since then. They . . . they were why I went out onto my porch and watched you walk through the parking lot.”

  She shivered at the high altitude cold, then walked over to stand almost in front of him. “Jeffrey, why did you watch me after I left?”

  “I’m Jeff.” He looked down at her, his deep blue eyes bright. His face was troubled. “Your thoughts told me you cared about me. That you were still willing to . . . to go out and have a beer and a meal with me, if only things had been different. I’m not used to other people caring about me.”

  Damn. Here was another person like her self, someone with no family or parents or anyone to support him, to cheer him on or to care for him. And yet he had managed to make a life for himself, to hold down a job, to pay his bills and ride his bike through town, when some young folks would have gone whining to the cops, to a local church or into a bottle. He must be really tough.

  “What do you read now?”

  He looked surprised. “That you like me. Even though I’ve frustrated you in your work.” Jeff shrugged. “Sorry. But it’s how I kept my abilities from being discovered by other people. Being different brings out the worst in people. I learned that in first grade. So I pretended to be someone I was not.”

  She blinked, feeling deeply touched by this young man’s sharing of such deeply held inner feelings. There was nothing artificial or fake about Jeff Webster. She liked that.

  “So you wanna go get a beer? And maybe eat some blue corn enchiladas? Like you, I love ‘em too.”

  Jeff smiled slowly. “Are you asking me out on a date?”

  Janet shrugged. “Maybe. Or maybe I can put it down on my per diem log as the expense of a meeting with an informant.”

  Surprise filled his face. “So now I’m an informant? Earlier your mind said you were going to tell your Beverly friend that I was Green Mask. What are you going to do now? About me being Green Mask?”

  What should she do? Inside, she knew the answer as soon as she felt the feelings. “I’ll keep your identity secret. I can see why it helps you to move around unnoticed. And to hold down a job. Though it sounds like REI might not be the best place to be in the future.”

  He shrugged, then faced her, his tall frame just a few feet from her. “I was thinking of quitting. That’s why I talked about crowdfunding in the BBC interview. I re
ally do need money to pay for stuff if I lose my job.” He looked at her, vulnerability clear to see. “And I probably need to move to another place. Even if you keep my name secret, this Beverly and others at your Hoover building might look over your travel records and expenses and figure out you came to interview me.” He sounded puzzled. “After all, I was on your list of adult children of Los Alamos researchers. And you told Beverly I lived in Santa Fe and worked at REI. Why would you keep my identity secret?”

  His words gave her the answer she needed. “Jeff, your telepathy can help me in checking out suspected spies engaged in industrial espionage. I find the prime candidates, you read their minds to see if they are spies. I pay you some bucks as my confidential informant. What do you say?”

  He scowled. “Don’t like going into other minds. It hurts. But if I did this, could you really keep my name secret? Could you put me down as an informant? And could I continue with my rescues?”

  “Yes, I could, three times over,” she said, feeling of rush of caring for this young man who had spent most of his life feeling like the ultimate outsider, someone unable to connect with other people. Maybe she could help with that. At the least she could be an ally to him, someone who understood why he chose to rescue hostages. He could not save his Mom from cancer, or his Dad from the DWI. But he had saved her from a drunk driver. And in the future he could save more people held hostage by terrorists. Maybe he didn’t always have to be an outsider, a loner. Maybe there could be more. Was that possible?

  Jeff’s black eyebrows rose. “You just thought ‘maybe there could be more’. About us. You and me. Could there be?”

  Janet showed him her feelings and her thoughts and her worries. It felt right to share this way with him. “Yeah, I’m willing to give it a try. Jeff, we’ll see each other now and then. You do some assignments for me. I meet you to get your reports. We have some drinks. We dine out. All on the federal per diem tab. What say?”

  ♦ ♦ ♦