Superheroes Suck

by Jamie Zakian

  “The word is subjective.” Shay went back to work. The faster she could prove a soul’s existence, the quicker she can get back to solving the actual problem of having two. “The biblical concept might not be real, but there is an energy source that drives all living things.”

  “So what are you doing?” Evie picked up a solid gold conductor and dropped it back onto the metal table. “With all this.”

  “I’m making an electro-pulse X-ray machine, to take a snapshot of my energy signature. See if anything is different.”

  “How does this help stop who attacked us?”

  “Oh no, it doesn’t. It was Dr. Mayhem. Antiserum is his brother, so he busted him out of the secret basement’s highly inefficient prison.”

  “I don’t believe in this soul business, and there’s absolutely no reason you’d have two. You just want to hang out in here and play with all this equipment instead of work.”

  Shay wasn’t surprised Evie didn’t believe her. Evie didn’t know what Antiserum’s real power was, or what he’d done to Jenna. She’d been fed the media’s lies, like everybody else.

  “You don’t understand—”

  “We’ll talk more about this later. I need to find Simon.” Evie headed toward the hall. She stopped in the lab’s wide doorway and glanced at Shay.

  “This isn’t why you were brought on. You’re supposed to find ways to stop destruction, not add more.”

  “I know. Hetal’s working on a—”

  An explosion vibrated the floor, rattling all the glass beakers. The silence that followed seemed extra quiet until two more blasts rumbled the air and toppled a rack of test tubes.

  Evie took off down the hallway in a sprint and Shay grabbed her redesigned, slimmer sonic gun. The device on Hetal’s table looked close enough to the schematic so she grabbed that as well, then ran after Evie.

  “Wait,” Hetal yelled. “It hasn’t been field tested.”

  “What do you think I’m doing?” Shay’s words might’ve been lost under the shuffle of her feet but it didn’t matter. The city was being wrecked, again, and it was her job to stop it.

  Shay ran onto the elevator just as its door closed her and Evie inside. “I have weapons.”

  A ping rang out when Shay flipped a switch at the bottom of her sonic gun. She held it up, having a very proud-mama moment. The LED lights she’d infused within the new glass barrel gave it a real classy touch.

  “This works like a real gun, but with a wider range, so don’t pull the trigger unless you have a clear shot.”

  “It looks like something out of a comic book.” Evie took the gun and pointed it at the wall, trying her hardest to look hardcore.

  “It’s cool, right? And it’s structure-safe, but it messes people up. Be careful.”

  Shay powered on the device in her hand, hoping it would work as theorized. Muffled bursts of explosions rocked the elevator, the lights flickering. She held her breath as the panel on the wall lit up with a red L.

  The elevator door opened and the tall windows in the lobby of Ling Enterprises exploded inward. Alexie sailed backward through the air, right in front of Shay, then crashed against a large statue. Broken stone scattered across the floor as Alexie’s body landed on it with a thud.

  An icy chill crept into the warm air and Shay stood up straight. A sinister laugh drew her gaze from the motionless superhero on the floor to the hollowed-out window frames in the lobby.

  Glass crunched as a tall figure moved through wisps of smoke. She could feel Antiserum, see his smirk clearly in her mind even though a steel mask covered his face. Fallen wires sparked. Their frayed ends flashed when they bounced off Antiserum’s thick plastic suit, but he kept walking toward Shay.

  “Now, Evie,” she yelled, pointing at Antiserum.

  Evie raised the sonic gun. She closed her eyes, squealed, and pulled the trigger.

  A clear orb shot from the barrel, expanding as it zoomed toward Antiserum. He lifted his hand. A whirlwind of sparkling blue energy swirled in his palm, but before he could twitch a finger, the sonic wave blasted his boots off the marble floor.

  Antiserum collided with the crumpled front door of the lobby, yet his body didn’t stop propelling through the air. The doorway’s bent metal frame broke off when he flew into it and went with him on his way back to the street.

  Shay ran to Alexie’s side and dropped to her knees beside the fallen superhero. “Wake up, Electric-Luxie. Get up.” She latched onto Alexie’s ripped suit, shaking. “Evie, do something.”

  Evie knelt beside Shay. She touched Alexie’s neck to feel for a pulse. “She’s alive.”

  That was all Shay needed to hear. Her legs kicked into high gear and she dashed toward the sound of panicked screams, which erupted over the rumbling explosions just outside Ling Enterprises.

  Shay jumped through the mangled metal that was once the front entrance of a building and landed on the sidewalk. Her sneakers slid on the glass strewn along the concrete, and hunks of Ling Enterprises crashed down beside her. She looked up, at a bus lodged into the third floor.

  “There’s my jar.”

  Antiserum’s harsh voice echoed off every building, somehow flowing louder than the terror-filled screams circling around Shay. The streetlights gleamed off Antiserum’s shiny red suit as he stomped toward her, with Dr. Mayhem close behind. This was her shot. She could trap them both and end the plague on this city once and for all.

  Shay lifted the weapon in her hand. Simon ran in from the side, landing a punch on Dr. Mayhem’s masked face, but Antiserum didn’t stop his steady march toward her. She had no choice. If she didn’t use her weapon now, she’d be a crazed villain’s broken jar.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Amazing,” she whispered, pressing the weapon’s button.

  A giant translucent sphere covered the center of Liberty Street. It crackled and rippled in a blue haze as it surrounded Simon and the two villains, locking them inside a solid dome of magnetic field.

  Shay stood tall before the forcefield, face-to-face with Antiserum. He punched the smoky barrier and she staggered back a step. Blue flashes spread throughout the curved surface. A low sizzle grew, building into a loud staticy sound of earsplitting proportions. Dr. Mayhem threw Simon against the forcefield and it blinked out, leaving a hollow stillness.

  Shay hurried backward, away from the uncontained supervillain. She tripped over a bent streetlamp, and down she went.

  Her side hit the ground, hard, and chunks of rock dug into her hip. A shadow fell over Shay and she covered her face.

  The whirl of a sonic gun came too late, hitting Shay’s ears after an intense force struck her chest and tossed her across the pavement. Her body flailed, helplessly, as she soared through the air alongside Antiserum. She slammed against a building and the flaming cars, screaming people, and piles of rubble faded to black.

  Shay floated on the cusp of an endless gray abyss. She couldn’t feel her body, but she could smell her mother’s perfume. The sweet scent filled her lungs, overpowering the faint stench of burnt rubber. For a second, she was in her old kitchen, baking cookies with her parents. Then, she was pinned beneath a subway car in her living room, crying as a masked man stared down at her. Fingers tore into her flesh, tugging at her insides.

  Her own scream pulled her from a haze of nightmares. She sat up straight, despite the throb in her brain, and Evie hugged her so tight she fell back to the ground. Her fuzzy eyes cleared on Evie’s tearstained cheeks.

  “You’re okay,” Evie said, assaulting Shay’s face with kisses. “Just breathe.”

  “You shot me,” Shay said, her words coming out in a croak.

  “I’m so sorry. I didn’t think it would kill you.”

  “Kill me!” Shay tried to climb off the ground, but only got to a sitting position. The world spun around her, and an ache pulsed throughout her chest. She couldn’t get up yet. She could barely feel her tingly legs.

  “Relax, kiddo.” Alexie
held up her hand, lightning crackling between her fingers. “You’re lucky I’m a defibrillator.”

  “Simon, Max?” Shay muttered, rolling to her knees.

  The sound of cries filtered in over the thump in her temples. She looked up from the cracked pavement below her.

  Charred pieces of Ling Enterprises littered the street. Taxi cabs had been overturned, and broken power lines arced as they dangled against buildings.

  A rush of frightened cries drew Shay’s gaze higher. Men and women were trapped in the bus speared into the front of Ling Enterprises, and they banged on the windows and screamed for help.

  “There’s people up there.” Shay pointed at the bus and Alexie rolled her eyes.

  “I’m not really the saving type of superhero. I’m the fighting one.”

  The media sure did lie about Alexie’s wholesome image. Shay didn’t know what to say. She just gawked at Alexie.

  “All right. I’ll rescue the people.” Alexie looked up at Ling Enterprises. “At least our building took the hit this time, huh?” With one big leap, she was on the third floor prying open the bus’s back door.

  “Simon and Max took off, after Antiserum and his sidekick,” Evie said, buzzing over Shay like a gnat.

  “Help me up.”

  Once Shay got to her feet, cheers rang out. She flinched, looking over her shoulder. People huddled in a thick crowd at the fringe of the wreckage. They clapped, smiled, called out her name as reporters pushed to the front of the crowd.

  “Let’s get inside,” Evie said, taking Shay by the arm.

  “I’m good.” Shay pulled away from Evie, glancing at the cameras. “I can do it myself.”

  Her legs wobbled but kept her upright. Strength returned with each step she took, and the tingle in her toes faded. She bent to grab her forcefield generator and fell to one knee.

  “Come on, Jenna. Get up,” she mumbled, pushing herself off the ground.

  “What’d you just say?” Evie reached for Shay then drew back.

  “I didn’t say anything.” Shay limped into Ling Enterprises, hobbling over broken doorframes. Had she said something? She’d had a thought, which eluded her now, but didn’t voice it. At least, she didn’t mean to.

  “Dr. Sinclair!” Hetal ran out from behind a cracked marble pillar. Her hands were clasped together, so tightly her knuckles had become whiter than her lab coat. “I can’t believe the containment field malfunctioned. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault.” Shay thrust the device into Hetal’s hands and headed for the elevator. “It needs more juice.” She pressed the elevator’s down button, almost in sync with the pound of her brain.

  “The lift’s not working,” Hetal said. “We’re running on the emergency generators.”

  “Of course.” Shay limped back through the lobby, toward the stairwell.

  “Where are you going?” Evie asked, tugging on Shay’s ripped lab coat. “You need to sit down, rest.”

  “I need to get to my lab and finish my X-ray machine. And I don’t care if you believe in this soul business, just don’t tell anyone about it. I don’t want Max finding out until there’s proof.”

  Shay pushed open the heavy metal door to the stairwell. She didn’t dare look back, couldn’t see the hurt her words must have caused Evie. “Come on, Hetal.”

  Max landed on the roof of the Windsor Hotel. His flames faded to smoke as he stepped beside Simon. “Where’d they go? We were right on their tails.”

  “I don’t know.” Simon walked to the roof’s edge, looking at his dark building amid the bright skyline. “We should get back.”

  “I’m not going back. Not until I find Lucius.”

  “Max. They weren’t there for us. They were gunning for Shay.”

  “That’s ridiculous.” Max waved Simon off as he paced along the roof’s edge.

  “Lucius went right to her, called her his jar.”

  “His jar?” That struck a chord, which set off a domino effect that led to an all-out symphony. “Recycled. Don’t you see?”

  Before Max could stop himself, he gripped onto the front of Simon’s suit. “People are his jars. The city’s his vault. It isn’t impossible to get Jenna back, because Shay is Jenna.”

  Simon shoved Max’s hands away. “No. Shay is her own person. Whatever Lucius put inside her, it’s not Jenna.”

  “I can set Jenna free, let her be at peace.” Max took a firm hold on Simon’s cape straps, but the tight grip and the closeness to his dearest friend did nothing to quell the frenzy within his mind.

  “Jenna haunts my dreams, every night. I can’t close my eyes. Her face is always there, tortured, scared, looking at me for help.”

  “What are you going to do, carve Shay open to let Jenna’s soul free?”

  “No.” Max released Simon in a shove. The thought had crossed his mind, fleeing as quickly as it slithered in. Simon would see the guilt in his eyes if he didn’t hide them, so he lowered his gaze. “I would never.”

  “You want to get close to Shay? Touch her skin and hope you feel a trace of Jenna’s spirit?”

  “Stop it.” Max walked away, but Simon followed on his heels.

  “It’s not right, Max. To you or Shay.”

  Max spun to face Simon, who stumbled back a few paces.

  “You have no business judging other people’s relationships.” Max jabbed Simon on the chest with his finger. “Can you even see anything from inside your closet?”

  Simon frowned. The drop of Simon’s lips twisted Max’s gut.

  “I can see the law, and you’re breaking it.”

  “I never even kissed Shay. Not once.” Max turned his back on Simon. He had to get off this rooftop, soar away from Simon and his allegations, away from the fact that he did yearn to be near Shay.

  “Yet,” Simon said, and Max jumped off the building’s roof.

  Shay stared down at her workbench. One wire. All she had to do was connect one wire and her machine would be complete. The truth she already knew would be fact. Irrefutable fact, ready or not.

  “Dr. Sinclair?”

  Coils squeaked as Shay swiveled her stood to face Hetal. “Just Shay. As much as I love the title of Dr. Sinclair, I’m not a doctor. Dr. Bhatti.”

  Hetal grinned. “You’re the first person to call me that in a professional setting.”

  “It’s cool isn’t it?”

  “Totally.”

  The title meant much more to Hetal than Shay, because Hetal had earned it. Shay hoped to feel that pride, one day, without the involvement of a semi-fabricated dossier.

  “Whatcha need?”

  “What did you see?” Hetal asked, keeping her stare low. “When you died?”

  “What?”

  “You were gone for one minute forty-nine seconds. I was wondering if you saw anything, for scientific purposes.”

  “Right.” Shay walked to Hetal’s workbench and sat across from her. “I did see stuff.”

  It was stuff Shay had been trying to forget, stuff that gorged open sewn up holes and let the pain she’d buried seep out.

  “Flashes, playing board games with my parents, baking, watching movies with Evie. Mostly, it was just a sense of happiness.”

  “Your own personal Heaven.”

  “Heaven’s not real.” Shay couldn’t believe in such a place, the scientist in her wouldn’t allow it. “It was just neurons, firing off memories to distract the mind from its body dying.”

  A flustered look swept Hetal’s face, her beige cheeks growing hot pink. “Of course.”

  “My machine’s ready.” Shay reached over to her workbench and connected the last wire. A high-pitched whirl and three beeps later, a green light blinked on.

  Hetal walked beside the workbench Shay had converted into makeshift X-ray machine. She’d used the side of a shelf to suspend the magnetic plates that would snap a pic of her energy. This prototype would royally embarrass her if anybody within the sc
ientific community saw it, but she was proud.

  “All the inventions you’ve crafted are experimental, based in theory.” Hetal powered on the X-ray machine’s display screen, chuckling when it worked. “How do you know all this, and how do you turn a concept into workable tech so fast?”

  “I spent last summer at MIT. This professor with multiple degrees in physics, engineering, and theology personally mentored me. She opened my mind to so many possibilities, taught me to not let doubt or rules hold me back.”

  “Was that the advanced stem course?” Hetal asked softly.

  “Yeah. It was amazing.”

  “I applied for that.” Hetal slumped against the workbench. “Got rejected.”

  “Sorry.” Shay shouldn’t mention she’d been invited by the Dean, without actually applying.

  Hetal crept closer to Shay. “What’s your IQ?”

  If the rejection from MIT stung Hetal this badly, she wouldn’t like to hear Shay’s IQ score. “You probably don’t wanna know that.”

  “It’s not over 158, is it?”

  Hetal stared at Shay with hopeful eyes, and Shay cringed. Her score was well over 158.

  “You definitely don’t want to know the answer to that question.”

  “Oh.” Hetal looked at Shay with awe, as if she were a superhero. “Are you ready to try your invention, super genius?”

  A snicker flew from Shay’s mouth. “Ask me after.”

  “What should I do?”

  Shay climbed atop the table, lying under the X-ray machine’s long thin panel. “Get behind the lead wall, and cross your fingers.”

  The soles of Hetal’s sneakers squeaked as she hurried across the lab. “What am I crossing my fingers for?”

  “One color,” Shay said, mostly as a prayer.

  “Ready,” Hetal called out.

  Shay closed her eyes and pressed the button at her side.

  The overhead lights flickered as the machine whirred. After a few loud clicks, the machine fell silent. Shay stared at the display wired to the table beneath her, waiting as the image slowly transmitted.