Super

by Jones, Princess

  I opened the door as quietly as possible and closed it behind me. I’d only been to the factory one time and that was during a safety seminar and I hadn’t really been paying attention. I knew that the factory was mostly automated with huge machines that made and packaged the paper. The warehouse was separate and it was where most of the employees actually worked during the day.

  Now that I was inside, I had to figure out where to go. The control room popped into my head. It was this big room where the factory foreman used computer systems tell the machines what size and weight to make the paper. I remembered thinking it was an easy job because you just plug some numbers into the computers and then wait for most of the day. But how would I get there from here?

  I looked around for any obvious signs and my eyes eventually landed on the fire safety map on the wall. In red it showed the nearest exit. But it also showed a simple map of the building with one area labeled “Control Room.” I tried to commit it to memory and took off down a hallway. In the end, I stumbled on it almost by accident. I was headed the wrong way for the second time when I noticed a sliver of blue light under a door. The sign on the door said “Control Room.”

  I turned the knob slowly. It wasn’t locked. I carefully pushed the door open and entered. The door opened to a small room with a row of computers along one wall and few chairs. One overhead light was on and a variety of lights came from the computer screens. Along the walls were schedules, checklists, and one inspiration poster of a kitten hanging on a branch with the words “Hang in There Baby.”

  Behind me I heard “And what are you doing here?” I turned and there was Cammie standing in the doorway in one of her prissy outfits with a Starbucks cup in her hand.

  That was just too much for me. I forgot that I’d come here to get to the bottom of all of this. Instead, I said the first thing that came to my mind. “Did you seriously just go out for coffee in the middle of the night?”

  “There’s a 24-hour location up the street,” she said offhandedly. “What are you doing here?”

  “What are you doing here?” I threw back at her.

  “What am I doing here?” she smirked. “It’s called work, Audrey. You should try it. You might even like it.”

  “Work?”

  “Yes. Production for the Green Bank order has to start tomorrow so I came by to make sure the programming was correct. If there are any mistakes, we might lose the account.”

  “Larry’s email said production would happen tonight. It also didn’t mention you would be here doing anything.”

  She smirked again. “What Larry and I talk about isn’t always something we discuss with lower level employees.”

  I turned my head and resisted the urge to gag. That’s when I saw the legs sticking out from behind the door. Motionless legs wearing work boots and jeans. Cammie saw where my eyes were pointed but didn’t say anything. She stared at me without emotion. “Is that the foreman?” I asked. “Is he okay?”

  She closed the door to the Control Room, giving me a full view of the man’s body lying in a heap on the floor. “Yes. Drunk on the job I’m afraid. Passed right out. It’s so hard to find people who really want to work these days.” She cocked her head and turned back to me. “Good thing I’m prepared and I can run the production myself.”

  This was getting too freaky. And I was tired of playing this game with her. “Oh just drop it. I know.”

  “Know what?” she asked with that innocent lilt in her voice.

  “Everything. I know everything.” Of course I was bluffing but I was pretty sure she didn’t know that. I started naming things I’d seen on the list in her office. “I know about Green Bank. I know about Empire Paper. I know about The Paper Chase. And I know about your friend with the anchor tattoo. So why don’t we just talk to each other like two adults?”

  “I knew you were going to be in the way from the minute I laid eyes on you. With your wrinkled clothes and lack of organization and shitty work ethic. And here you are. In. The. Way.” She punctuated each word with a step toward me, closing the gap between the two of us. She put the coffee down on a nearby desk and moved a chair to block the door closed. “But you’re too late.”

  I had no idea what she was talking about but I wanted to keep her talking. “I don’t know about that. My mom says it’s never too late to make things right.”

  Cammie pointed to the computers and spit out, “I’ve already programmed it in. The paper is already being made with my hypnosis pattern embedded in the fibers. No one will know the difference until it’s too late because it all looks the same until you stare it for more than a minute straight. No one looks at blank paper. By this time tomorrow, Green Bank will be printing all of their statements, fliers, and reports on it—all things that their customers will need to look at. And within a week there will be at least a million people in this city programmed to follow my instructions.”

  “So that was the whole point? What do you get from that?”

  Cammie’s face unfolded in huge, evil grin. “Everything,” she said in a stage whisper.

  “All you had to do was eliminate any of the paper sources they’d use because they only use local vendors and supplies.” I tried to sound nonchalant, even though I was just putting it all together at that moment. “By the way, I found your little list.”

  She scowled at me. “You really think you’re so smart, don’t you? But I have news for you. You’re not smart.”

  “Well, I’m smart enough not to make a list for a crime I’m going to commit. What was that about?”

  “YOU ALWAYS NEED A LIST! ORGANIZATION IS EVERYTHING!” She yelled. Her face was red. So were her hands. And then I realized that it wasn’t her being mad that made her hands red but the fact that they were on fire.

  Cammie lifted her arms above her head. Before she could do anything else, I grabbed her coffee, ripped the top off, and threw it at her, burning her with overpriced coffee. I don’t know if she screamed because of the hot coffee on her face or because she couldn’t drink it now. I didn’t ask. Instead, I ran for the door, yanked it open, and sprinted down the hallway.

  Chapter 24

  I ran the way I’d come but I wasn’t sure where I was going. I was acutely aware that coming here alone had been a bad idea. My mind was telling me to get away and yet it wasn’t like I could just leave now that I knew she was really doing something. But I still didn’t have a plan. All I could do is run.

  Cammie was right behind me. How she ran in those heels, I’ll never know. The only thing that kept me running was her screaming behind me. “Come back here!”

  Eventually, I broke away from her. I rounded a corner and suddenly I was back on the production floor. Huge machines were all around me. My heart was beating so loudly, I almost couldn’t hear Cammie cursing at me. Without her shrill voice in my ears, I finally came up with a tiny piece of a plan: Hide. I scrambled behind a machine and tried to calm my breathing. It was a huge space with large machinery all around me but if I was huffing like a hippo, Cammie might actually hear me.

  A few seconds later, I saw Cammie emerge from the hallway. She was walking calmly now, just like all the monsters in the movies do when they’re stalking some young, scared actress. I couldn’t exactly call myself young but I was definitely scared. Maybe the fact that her hands were still on fire was part of it. As she casually walked to the center of the room, Cammie tossed a ball of fire from one hand to the other, whistling. “Come out, come out, wherever you are,” she shouted over into the space.

  Fat chance, I thought.

  I must have been thinking really hard because it felt like she heard me. She cocked her head toward the machine I was hiding behind and started walking that way.

  Sometimes when you’re really scared or stressed, you don’t think in complete, rational thoughts. Just headlines and slivers of ideas. Hiding behind that paper machine with Cammie’s heels clicking towards me, I got a flash of a memory. During the safety seminar I wasn’t paying attention to beca
use I didn’t think I needed it, the foreman said that the factory was on a specialized fire protection system. If the fire alarm was pulled, the sprinklers automatically started because there was so much flammable material in the building. “It would ruin the paper,” I remembered him saying. “But that’s a small price to pay for not losing the entire building and the machines in it.”

  I looked around without drawing the fiery-handed psychopath’s attentions. The alarm was on the wall near the door. It seemed like it was miles away and I’d have to try to use the machines to shield me from Cammie, but it was the only plan I had.

  Cammie was still walking slowly through the plant. I waited until she was looking in another direction and scurried from one machine to another. I repeated the move a few seconds later. I was getting closer to the fire alarm box. I waited for her to look in another direction and did it again. At the point, I ran out of machines and I was still about eight feet from the alarm. I was gonna have to make a run for it.

  I took a deep breath and stood up. Cammie’s head immediately swiveled over to me as I started running toward the fire alarm. I had no time to pay attention to her, though. I ran as fast as my legs would take me. Once I got within reaching distance of the alarm, I dove and grabbed at the lever, pulled it down as I slid down the wall.

  And nothing happened.

  I’d closed my eyes in anticipation of the sprinkler system going off. It didn’t. The alarm didn’t even sound. I looked back over at Cammie, who was just standing there with her hands at her side and smirk on her face. “I disabled it. None of the fire alarms are working.” She lifted one hand ball of fire and waved it at me. “I’m a fire starter. Duh.”

  I instinctively put both hands up. I was caught. She walked closer and was just a few feet away. She had a clear shot of me. It was obvious what she was going to do. It would hurt like a motherfucker, if it didn’t kill me. “Wait. You might destroy the paper. Think of your plan. You can’t do anything if you don’t have the paper.”

  Cammie pointed behind herself at the various paper machines behind her. “The paper is over there.” Then she pointed back at me. “You’re going to burn up right here. Don’t worry. The fire hoses still work. I’ll put you out before you make any trouble.” She paused and studied my face for a moment. “You can turn around if you want. So you don’t see it coming.” I took her advice and turned around. If I was gonna get barbequed, I’d rather not give her the satisfaction of seeing my face.

  She didn’t say anything else and neither did I. The only evidence of her presence was the heat I felt at my back. The last thing I saw before the explosion were the words on a nondescript tank in front of me: Caution: Flammable Materials Inside

  ***

  I was on fire. I had been in some fire-related accidents in my life. I’d set my parents’ bathroom on fire one morning before high school. But I had never been this close to an actual flame.

  As I came to consciousness, I realized I was on lying on the ground. My nose was filled with the smell of burning flesh and paper. I saw the flames on my arms through the thick haze of smoke before I felt them but once I felt them, I let out a hysterical scream. It’s hard to describe what it feels like to be on fire. “Not good” isn’t descriptive enough.

  I tried to fight the panic and get control of myself. That’s when I realized that most of the flames were on the cardigan I’d thrown on to cover up the bullet holes in my clothes. I shrugged out of it, taken a layer of burnt skin off my forearms with it. I tried to pretend like I hadn’t just seen that. Then I rolled on the ground to put out any lingering flames on my shirt.

  I looked around the room. Flames were everywhere. Cammie lay next to me on the floor. We’d been thrown several feet during the explosion. She was unconscious.

  I coughed in the blanket of smoke over everything. The fact that most people who died in fired did so from asphyxiation rather than burns floated through my mind. Thank you very much, CSI Miami. I had to get out of there before something unfixable happened. I looked back over at Cammie. I realized I had to take her with me. I went over to her and started to lift her in the air.

  Damn, this bitch is heavy.

  Chapter 25

  The initial satisfaction of Cammie weighing more than she looked turned to annoyance as I carried her out of the warehouse. I draped her over my shoulder with a grunt and made use of the emergency exit door. If this wasn’t the time to use it, there would never be one. Outside, I made it a few yards away from the building before I couldn’t take it any longer. I dumped her on the ground and collapsed right next to her.

  I needed to catch my breath. As I did, I eyed Cammie cautiously. She was still unconscious but I could see her shallow breathing. Her clothes had burn damage and her hair had seen better days. She would need some extensions to get that ringlet look again. Other than that, she seemed okay. I looked back at the building and saw the flames starting to lick at the outside of the structure. It was everywhere. Deep into the night, I could hear the wail of a fire engines getting louder. They’d be here soon.

  I stood up and took stock of my body. The crinkly burnt skin on my arms was slowly being replace with deep pink, newly-healed skin. I wasn’t completely good but now would be a great time to get lost. I took one last look at Cammie. She would live. All of her plans just went up in smoke when the last paper source in town caught fire. She’d already eliminated all the other ones on her own. I turned to go.

  “Police! Don’t move!”

  Shit! It’s the cops! I thought about just running but I also thought about getting a bullet in my back. I didn’t know if I could take being shot twice in one night. There had to be a better way.

  I turned around and faced the two cops in patrol uniforms. No guns were pointed at me but they each had their hands on their holsters. I put my hands out to show that I didn’t have any weapons. “Don’t move,” yelled one of the officers. “Stay where you are.”

  “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “What’s going on here?” one of asked.

  Sirens were getting closer now. I heard both fire engines and cop cars intertwined. Time to shake these guys. “I was just walking by and saw the fire. I heard her yelling for help and ran inside,” I lied, pointing to Cammie.

  For the first time, the cops noticed Cammie lying on the ground. One of them moved over to check her out and called in for an ambulance on his radio but neither took their eyes off of me. “A hero, huh? Then where were you going?”

  I cringed at the word ‘hero.’ “Um, no, I wouldn’t say that. She was almost all the way out and I just helped her down the steps. I was going for help but thank God you’re here.” I hoped like hell they were dumb and didn’t notice the huge holes in the story I was pushing.

  The sirens landed and a few minutes later another set of cops walked up on us. They all seemed to know each other. “What’s up here?” One of the new ones asked.

  “Ma’am, you need to sit down right here and don’t move until we tell you to,” one of the original cops instructed me while his partner explained my flimsy story to the new guys. As I sat, I could see the firemen working on the factory. There were cops and firemen crawling all over the scene and I could hear the wail of an ambulance coming closer. This was the opposite of what I was hoping for.

  Suddenly, Cammie sat up. All eyes swiveled to her. One of the cops started to tell her not to move until the EMTs got there but Cammie ignored him. She lifted one arm up and pointed at me. “She did it! She kidnapped me! She set the warehouse on fire! She was gonna kill me so she wouldn’t get fired for being incompetent!”

  Just like that, all eyes were on me again. “No, no, she’s delirious. She’s been through a traumatic experience,” I said, shaking my head. “I had nothing to do with this.”

  One of the original cops started walking to me. “Ma’am, please stand up and place your hands behind your back.”

  “Wait. She needs to be checked out by the hospital first. She’s probably suffering from
a head injury. I’m pretty sure she hit her head on the way out.”

  “Ma’am. Please don’t make this hard on yourself.” I sighed, stood up, and put my hands behind my back so he could put the cuffs on me.

  One cop patted another one on the back. “Man, Mendoza, you guys got here fast. If we’d gotten here a little faster, we’d be able to say we got an arsonist and kidnapper tonight.”

  I could see the cop shrug before he answered. “It was all luck. We wouldn’t even have been in the area at all if some cabbie hadn’t called in a fare jumper to this address.”

  Fuck.

  Chapter 26

  In the movies, there are super heroes and super villains. But in the real world, there are just two types of Supers: the ones that live inside the lines Council has drawn and the ones who don’t. It’s not about some inciting incident. It’s not about world perspective. It’s just a choice. Do you wanna be in or out? It’s that simple.

  I won’t say I haven’t thought about being on the other side. It wouldn’t mean I having to blow up buildings or hatch evil plots. I could just do my own thing and forget about duties, districts, and dues. I’d been close in the past. But something always keeps me on the straight and narrow. Maybe it’s the idea of finally doing the one thing that would make my parents give up on me. It could be the idea that if I just walk away from all of this, there wouldn’t be anything to make me special any more.

  And then what would I be?

  I tried to come up with the answer as I sat handcuffed to a bench in the intake area of the 51st Precinct. After arresting me, the cops took me back to be processed. Then they searched me, handcuffed me to the bench, and started on the paperwork. That was at least an hour and a half ago. This is why I couldn’t be a cop. Too much paperwork.