Rise of the Heroes

by Andy Briggs

  She backed away, shivering slightly as an agreeable tingle shot down her spine. Other than that, she seemed fine.

  “Do you think it worked?” Emily asked the group.

  “We’ll find out soon enough,” said Lorna. “Somebody better watch the time. We only have an hour, remember.”

  Pete tapped his watch. “I got it.”

  Toby was still feeling wary. He gestured to Pete. “You’re up.”

  Pete eagerly grabbed the mouse. He hungrily studied the icons and chose one that depicted a figure with circles coming from its hands.

  “Let’s see what this is.” Intrigued, Pete clicked and shut his eyes—the moving screen unnerved him. A second later a prickling feeling rushed through him from his head to his feet, followed by a warmth, similar to a hot bath.

  Lorna looked impatiently out of the window, all too eager to step outside. “Hurry, Tobe.”

  Toby had had a little longer to take in the pictograms than the others. He slid the pointer across the screen and clicked quickly before anybody could see what he’d chosen.

  Click. Tingle. The gift was transferred.

  Toby rose from the chair a little unsteadily, and moved toward the door. “Okay, let’s try them out!”

  “Wait,” said Lorna as she returned to the computer.

  “Remember the instruction mentioned a job board?”

  She scrutinized the screen and immediately identified an icon at the top: a rectangular frame with lots of small squares dotted around inside. Since she knew what she was looking for, the icon seemed obvious: it was supposed to represent a notice board found in schools and offices everywhere. She clicked.

  The screen went blank, and was then replaced by two buttons. One labeled: “SEARCH BY DISTANCE”; the other: “SEARCH BY RISK.”

  The second option alarmed her, and Pete must have thought the same. “Click on the distance one,” he said. “We don’t want to have to go very far.”

  Lorna complied. A list appeared on-screen, and a heading read:

  “NEAREST TO FARTHEST—10/134.”

  There was a list of ten jobs, all in a single column. Underneath was another button displaying the next ten, and so on.

  “That’s a lot of crime,” said Pete.

  The first one grabbed their attention:

  “CITY CENTER BANK ROBBERY.”

  “What do you think?” Lorna asked.

  Emily shrugged. “Click it. Must be some kind of game, otherwise we would have heard about it on the news.”

  Lorna clicked before she remembered that none of them had watched TV that day, and so had no idea what was happening beyond the backyard. A single word flickered up:

  “ACCEPTED!”

  Then, quite suddenly, they knew the location of the bank heist. Pete spoke up first. “The National Bank on Main Street. I have a savings account there!”

  Emily was surprised. “How can we possibly know that?”

  “Telepathy?” grinned Pete. “This is getting cooler by the second.”

  Lorna stood up, not thinking about the mission, but burning with curiosity about what power she had downloaded. “Let’s try them out. Come on!”

  * * *

  Outside they stood in a line, all facing the giant oak at the bottom of the backyard that had been struck by lightning. The ground was still soggy underfoot, but at least it was warmer out that day. Toby glanced around to make sure there were no curious neighbors watching.

  “Coast’s clear.”

  “I’ll go first,” said Lorna. She looked at the tree and squinted, concentrating on making something transpire. “Nothing’s happening.”

  “Give it a min—” But Toby was cut off as a brilliant flash of light burst like a firework from Lorna’s eyes—followed by an energy blast that struck the side of the tree. It tore a four-inch hole through the solid trunk and sent a shock through the boughs, shaking some of the tree’s remaining brown leaves to the ground. Lorna was rocked backward on her heels, and she fell hard on her butt. Emily and Toby, the two people closest to Lorna, rushed to help her stand.

  “Lorn, you okay?” asked Toby.

  Lorna rubbed her eyes. She nodded, blinking rapidly. “I’m fine … fine.”

  “You hurt your eyes?” asked Emily.

  “Don’t think so. Do they look okay?”

  Emily examined them. “A little bloodshot, but nothing bad.”

  “That was so cool!” screamed Pete, who had been rooted to the spot the whole time. “You got laser vision! That’s unbelievably awesome!”

  Lorna composed herself, although her thoughts were a combination of terror and exhilaration. She looked at her handiwork. The hole was perfect, with the edges fused. “This is bizarre,” she whispered under her breath.

  Pete was almost bouncing on the spot. “I’ve got to try next!” And without waiting for an answer he spun toward the tree and extended his hands in the best comic-book action stance he could muster.

  A stream of white liquid shot from the pores on his palms and whatever it struck suddenly had a coating of thick ice. Already he had sprayed enough to cover a sixfoot section of the tree trunk before he managed to stop the ice blast by shaking his hands as though they were wet.

  Pete whooped with delight. The layer of ice creaked ominously, but it had already started to melt.

  Lorna was caught in the extraordinary moment; the logical part of her brain was gagged into silence. “Ice. Neat. That literally is cool. Em?”

  Everybody turned to Emily, who seemed to shrink back from the sudden peer pressure. “I’m not sure I want to …”

  “You’ll be fine,” Lorna said soothingly. She put a reassuring hand on Emily’s shoulder. “Don’t worry about it, you’ll be fine. I am, and Pete is, and he’s tried this thing out twice. Just point, and … think. It feels almost natural when it happens.”

  “I don’t know what I chose,” she protested.

  “Neither did we,” said Pete. “Just calm down and you’ll feel it tingling in your body.”

  And she did. It started in her solar plexus, a pleasant tingling that spread outward across the length of her body until it reached the tips of her toes, the ends of each finger and the top of her head. She had the impression that the tingling was continuing to build into a pulse as though her body could not contain it and should let it burst out, like a dam breaking under the surge of a flood.

  BAM! It sounded like a miniature thunderclap from where Emily was standing. Was. Everybody blinked, but it was clear she had vanished.

  “Emily?” For a brief second Toby thought she had exploded, but something on his peripheral vision caught his eye—Emily.

  She glanced around in surprise. One moment she had been looking toward the tree, and now she was standing underneath the towering branches. Her hand reached out for the trunk to steady herself, her fingers touching the ice Pete had slung. “What happened?”

  Pete was first to deduce her power. “You teleported!”

  “What?”

  “You’ve got the ability to move through space. From one location to another! Over great distances, or through walls! Well, probably through walls. That’s what they can do in comic books.”

  Lorna whooped with delight. “Incredible! Try it again!”

  Emily shook her head and walked toward them on her trusty legs. “I’d rather not, yet. That’s something I’ll have to get used to.”

  Toby flexed his fingers as the others turned to him.

  “I can shoot lasers from my eyes, Emily can teleport, and Pete can shoot ice from his fingers. What can you offer to our little superteam?” said Lorna with a wry smile.

  Toby licked his lips and remembered how he felt yesterday. “I already know mine. I picked the same as yesterday.”

  Pete made a face. “Why?”

  “Well, I”

  Lorna jabbed an accusing finger. “You knew it was safe, didn’t you?”

  Toby stiffened defensively. “I liked it. Didn’t have time to explore what else I could d
o.”

  “No! You used us as guinea pigs just in case anything went wrong!”

  “That’s not true! I was just … I got scared!”

  Emily tilted her head in agreement. “Come on, Lorna. I don’t blame him for that. I was scared too.”

  Lorna shot him a look that seemed to say “traitor.”

  Pete stepped between them. “This isn’t the time to fight. We’ve only got these powers for an hour.” He glanced at his watch, relieved to see that it hadn’t iced over. “And we’ve been out here about twelve minutes. We’ve got a job to do, remember?”

  Toby blinked. “The bank! In all the excitement I forgot about that.”

  Pete pulled his cell phone from his jeans’ pocket. His fingers danced over the buttons.

  “What’re you doing?” Emily asked.

  “Setting the phone’s alarm, so when it sounds we know our powers are just about to run out.”

  Toby nodded. “Good idea, but how are we going to make it into the city in time?”

  Lorna held her arms out wide. “Boy, you really did forget. We’ll fly!”

  Flying wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. Pete, his head charged with the knowledge of a thousand comic books, had boldly strode forward and thrown himself in the air, arms outstretched—only to land face-first in the mud, his glasses tumbling away, the frames twisted but luckily not broken.

  After that everybody had been cautious, although fully aware of the minutes passing by. Lorna had criticized the lack of instructions that came with the powers and wanted to complain, but to whom, they had no idea.

  Emily and Toby took a few turns, leaping from the wall that divided the patio from the shaggy grass lawn. Neither had succeeded, although when Pete suggested they “feel the tingle” as he now called it, Emily had dematerialized in a loud clap, only to reappear at the bottom of the driveway, a feat that once more unnerved her.

  Lorna was the one to crack the secret on her first try, to Toby’s annoyance. She threw herself forward as though she was a goalkeeper diving to save the crucial World Cup penalty. As she arced inches from the ground her whole body slid forward on an unseen cushion of air, and she gracefully pirouetted upright. She accelerated to the height of the house, before slowly lowering herself back to the ground, whooping and giggling all the way.

  “How …?” Pete began, still rubbing his grazed arm.

  “It’s so easy!” Lorna declared. “All you have to do is fall up!”

  Stony silence greeted this comment. Lorna’s expression dropped as she saw the uncomprehending faces.

  “You’re a genius,” said Pete sarcastically.

  “I know, it sounds stupid. But it’s not. You know how when you fall, you get that feeling of being out of control, like the ground has just slipped out from under your feet and you reach out for anything to support you? When you get that feeling of being totally out of control, all you have to do is try and push upward. Normally impossible. But in this case …”

  She demonstrated again. The second time she displayed more grace in the launch and even managed to hover so she could watch the others.

  “It feels like the most natural thing in the world, just like walking!”

  Toby tried and failed, but at least he managed to land on his side to cushion the blow. Lorna chided him, saying he wasn’t trying hard enough.

  Pete, glasses twisted back on his nose, threw himself with wild abandon—and swooped high in the air, much farther than Lorna had dared. He even performed a backward loop before rushing headfirst back to earth, only spinning his feet the right way around at the very last moment, before slowing to a perfect hovering stop next to Lorna.

  “Awesome!” he whooped.

  Gritting his teeth and determined not to be outdone, Toby launched forward and lifted from the ground. His delight was suddenly tempered by the fact he was gaining no height and rushing straight for the tree. He heard everybody yell advice, but the words were gibberish to him. By sheer willpower, he managed to turn his body skyward—but not before skimming through the edge of the tree’s branches, which whipped hard against his face. Once airborne though, he quickly worked things out and hovering soon became second nature.

  Emily succeeded with her next attempt, although she zoomed around the backyard like a rapidly deflating balloon before she managed to stop.

  Once they were all airborne it was Pete’s idea to head for the clouds and use them as cover. Everybody followed, since they couldn’t think of an excuse to use if the neighbors saw them performing the impossible.

  Pete spotted the subway line below and followed it toward the town center. He had always loved making maps, and a couple of years studying satellite images on the Web meant that he was accustomed to navigation.

  Next to him, Toby spotted the town hall and pointed it out. He opened his mouth to speak, but a rush of air swept the sentence away. He barely heard Pete’s excited screams, as he wildly pointed toward the ground. But their meaning was clear enough. The bank was below them.

  As they slowed to descend Toby managed, at last, to speak. “We can’t just land in the middle of the street!”

  “Why not?” asked Pete.

  “Don’t you think that’d be a little odd? There are people everywhere!”

  Lorna nodded. “Very good point. Over there, there’s an alley. We can land there.”

  “Same problem! Anybody in the street could look up and see us, even if we land somewhere out of the way.”

  “Then we better do it quickly.”

  “Anyway,” said Pete, “who looks up in this city?”

  After landing they stepped out into the street and were pleased to find that nobody gave them a second glance. They headed toward the bank at the end of the road. The bank was old, with pillars holding up a porch on which was mounted an elegant clock.

  Pete eagerly led the way but Toby caught up with him and tugged on his arm.

  “We can’t just go in there and start leaping around.”

  “Why not?”

  “Two reasons. One, people might recognize us. We should have worn disguises. That’s why superheroes wear masks! And two, we downloaded the powers roughly half an hour ago.”

  “More like forty minutes,” said Pete, glancing at his watch.

  “So unless the Web site can predict the future, we’ve probably missed the robbery altogether!”

  “What do you suggest? We all just go home?” said Pete angrily.

  Before Toby could reply a mighty boom rattled the street, and he saw a black cloud billowing from the bank. They ran for cover as windows exploded in a shower of lethal shards, smoke rolling through. Pedestrians in the street screamed and fled for safety.

  The robbery was happening right now!

  Doc Tempest

  Four silhouettes walked through the smoke, leaving the bank with an air of confidence, despite the chaos around them. Toby risked a glance from behind the hood of a Ford minivan that now had a football-sized lump of masonry poking through the windshield. It had been the nearest place to hide. Everybody in the street had fled in panic, although the swirling smoke made it difficult to see very far.

  “Look!” Toby whispered in awe.

  The others peered cautiously from their refuge. As the smoke parted the figures formed into muscular men, all wearing the same gunmetal gray and black jumpsuits, with a tornado motif on their chests. They surveyed the street, eyes protected by deep-red-tinged shades. Sleek combat rifles swept around the deserted street.

  “They have guns,” observed Pete. “What do we do?” In the rush to exercise their powers, the thought hadn’t occurred to any of them that the bank thieves would be armed. Guns meant there was a very real danger of getting killed.

  “Stay here!” said Emily. “Let the police handle it.”

  As if on cue, the wailing sirens of a pair of police cars could be heard. The vehicles screeched around the corner, the drivers jamming on their brakes as they tried to avoid the lumps of concrete that now dotted the street
. The two cars slid sidelong, rubber from their tires leaving black tracks on the road before they came to a halt. The cops inside didn’t even have a chance to leave the vehicles before the four thugs turned their weapons on them.

  Toby blinked. Instead of the lethal hail of bullets he expected, the guns shot football-sized globs of black resin. The glue rapidly expanded as it came into contact with the police cars, swelling and effectively sealing the doors shut and blocking the windows. In seconds the two police cars were covered in masses of black glue. He felt Lorna grab his arm in a steel grip.

  “Someone else is coming out!” she said.

  Toby’s attention was forced back to the bank. The newcomer was slightly taller than the gun-toting men. His head was deformed, shaped like a large soda cup from any fast-food joint, exposing a tall, broad forehead on which blue veins visibly writhed like worms under the milky-white skin. His cranium was crowned in lank black hair, with streaks of white through it. He too wore the unusual red shades, and the same uniform as the others with the addition of a flowing cape that trailed on the floor behind him. Tight muscles flexed underneath the material, making him appear powerful and dangerous. In each black-gloved hand he clutched a metal impact-resistant case. They looked heavy and Toby doubted all four of them together could lift the cases. Bundles of banknotes were trapped in the case lids, obviously having been quickly pushed in. The man’s mouth was twisted into a playful grin.

  “Bet he’s the boss,” whispered Pete.

  “What’re we going to do?” asked Lorna, her voice tight with fear. “The police can’t even get near them.”

  “We’ve got to stop him. That’s why we’re here, right?”

  Emily shook her head. “Pete, this is dangerous. I thought it’d be some kind of game or something.”

  Pete seemed to be panicking, his voice only just a harsh whisper. “Game? Em, we just flew here. You’re teleporting through the air and Lorna’s firing laser beams from her eyes. How much more real do you think this is?”