by Lucas Flint
Ashley turned and stomped up the stairs, grumbling under her breath the entire time some very not nice things about me. Hey, I would have returned the favor if she didn’t just leave like that.
“I think she likes you,” said TW.
I shot TW an irritated glare. “Don’t.”
TW shrugged. “I’m just an innocent AI program designed to aid its user in perilous situations. Ashley seems quite perilous to me.”
“Only because you don’t know how to take care of girls,” I said as I made my way to the stairs.
“And you do?” said TW.
I didn’t answer that question, because I didn’t need to. TW was just trying to pull my leg. I mean, Ashley was kind of pretty, I guess, but I already had eyes for Debra Ackerman back at school and I wasn’t interested in picking up some chick who clearly hated my guts anyway. Especially one who had just threatened to shoot me with a gun.
When I got to the hallway, I found Ashley standing about halfway down the hall in front of a door with the words ‘MARGE’S ROOM’ emblazoned on its wooden surface in gold lettering.
“Here it is,” said Ashley, gesturing at the door. “Grandma’s room.”
She opened the door just wide enough for me to enter, but before I could go inside, she said, “Wait a minute. I need to let Grandma know you’re coming in. She doesn’t like it when strangers just enter her room by themselves.”
Ashley stuck her head inside the room and said, in a softer, sweeter voice than she ever used when talking to me, “Grandma, the guy who trespassed on our property in the middle of the night and abused our dog is here! Would you like me to let him in now?”
I rolled my eyes at her sarcasm, but I said nothing, because I was more interested in meeting Marge than in arguing with Ashley about her interpretation of my actions tonight.
I heard a weak, feminine voice on the other side of the door say something, but it wasn’t very loud. But Ashley nodded once and pulled her head out of the room and looked at me. “All right. You may enter, but please show her some respect. She’s quite older than you.”
I rolled my eyes, but said nothing. I just walked past Ashley through the door, which I closed behind me on my way in. TW floated through the door and stood beside me, a slightly worried expression on his face, though I didn’t pay much attention to him. Instead, I focused on Marge’s room.
It was a nice, homey room. The wallpaper had beautiful floral designs on it, while the floorboards were solid wood that felt like they would last centuries. A small chandelier hung from the ceiling, though the only source of light came from a small lamp on the desk next to the bed. Even the lamp looked beautiful, with an intricate string pattern that reminded me of the quilts that belonged to my own grandmother before she passed away five years ago. The whole room smelled vaguely of roses, which I figured was probably due to some kind of air spray or something.
And lying on the bed next to the lamp was an extremely old-looking woman. She had pale, crinkly skin that was pulled tightly over her skin, making it almost look like she was wearing a flesh mask over her face. Her white hair was wispy and thin, so wispy and thin that she nearly looked bald. She was lying underneath a thick-looking floral-patterned blanket, so I didn’t know what she was wearing. But I could tell that she was as thin as a rail, to the point where I wondered if she was dying of hunger. She also had a very stale smell about her, like she hadn’t taken a bath in ages.
Her frail body was what made her eyes stand out. Although they weren’t quite as young as Ashley’s eyes, they nonetheless showed a lot more vigor and alertness than you would have expected to see in the eyes of such an old woman, especially in the middle of the night. She looked at me with a mixture of surprise and suspicion, as if she didn’t know if she could trust me or not. I wasn’t sure why she let me into her room if she thought that, but perhaps she was more curious than suspicious.
“Marge Rumsfeld?” I said. I put a hand on my chest. “I’m—”
“Trickshot,” Marge interrupted. Though her voice was as frail as her body, it was also crisp and clear. “But you’re not Greg.”
I was taken aback by how quickly Marge spoke. Clearly, her eyes weren’t the only part of her body that worked better than the rest. “Yeah, I’m not, but don’t worry, you can trust me. Gran—Greg sent me the Trickshot Watch himself.”
“I know,” said Marge. “Greg would never give the Trickshot Watch to anyone without good reason. Is TW with you?”
TW suddenly flashed into existence next to me and said, “Here I am, Marge. Long time, no see.”
Marge cracked a slight smile, revealing her crooked teeth. “TW. You don’t seem to have aged a day.”
“Oh, I’m getting old, too, Marge,” said TW. He gestured at the fuzziness on the edges of his holographic body. “I may be a computer program, but I’m just as susceptible to aging as anyone else.”
“You still look much better than me,” said Marge with a chuckle. “By the way, how is Greg? Is he still alive?”
“He is,” said TW, nodding, “but he’s been captured by an organization known as Icon and we have no idea where he is.”
Oddly, Marge did not look very surprised by that. “I see. I thought something like that must have happened to him, because Greg was not the kind of man to just up and disappear like that.”
“This is nice and all, but can you two catch up later?” I said. I held up my arm, which still hurt from where Bug Bite had stabbed me. “I need this healed. That’s why I came here in the first place.”
“You’re a bit ruder than Greg,” Marge said, “but very well. I figured you would want your arm healed as quickly as possible.”
“Great,” I said. I held out my arm toward her and the portion of my costume which covered my arm went away, revealing my wound. “Here’s my arm. Please heal it.”
Marge pulled her thin, spindly arms out from under her blanket and touched my arm. Her fingers were so thin that her touch felt more like a light breeze brushing against my skin. Nonetheless, when her fingers touched my wound, I felt some kind of energy transfer from her fingertips to my arm and, before my startled eyes, my wound quickly closed up and the pain went away.
“Wow,” I said, pulling my arm back and looking it over curiously. “You healed it fast, much faster than my suit could have. You’re really something.”
“It is no problem, young … young man,” said Marge, who sounded very tired all of a sudden. Her arms rested on her stomach. “There’s a reason Greg came to me for healing all the time and it isn’t … isn’t because he thought I was good-looking.”
I frowned as I lowered my arm. “You look awfully tired. Do you need to go back to sleep?”
“It’s just my powers,” said Marge in a casual voice. “In my old age, they take more energy out of me than they used to. Back when I was a pretty young thing, I could spend all day healing the most severe injuries, but nowadays, even healing a wound as simple as that takes more effort than it used to.”
“Sorry for coming here,” I said. “I didn’t mean to make you overexert yourself.”
“Don’t apologize, boy,” said Marge, waving off my apology. “Truthfully, I like using my powers. It reminds me of my old days as a superheroine, when I used to help people. Besides, I was expecting you.”
“You were expecting me?” I said. I snapped my fingers. “Oh, yeah. I remember Ashley said you had been expecting a visitor tonight, but why would you expect me in particular?”
Marge smiled slightly. “Because I saw you in a dream about a week ago.”
I blinked. “You saw me … in a dream?”
Marge nodded. “Yes. In the dream, I saw you come to my house out here in the country, seeking help. I thought I was just dreaming of Greg, even though you looked far too young to be him in that dream, but then a voice in my dream told me that you were going to come to me and I would need to help you in your time of need.”
I tilted my head to the side. “So you also have the ability to see visions of the future
now or something?”
“I don’t know,” said Marge with a shrug. “It is not an inherent power of mine, I think. I believe that God himself gave me that vision to prepare me for your arrival. Do you believe in God, young man?”
I bit my lip. “I’m agnostic, to be honest. My parents took me to Sunday school when I was a kid, but we stopped going to church when I turned like six or seven.”
“Ah,” said Marge. “Well, it doesn’t really matter whether you believe in God or not. What matters is that I received that vision of you coming for help. If you don’t believe me, then ask Ashley. She can confirm it. She was there when I first received it.”
“Uh, sure,” I said. I was starting to think that Marge must be losing it in her old age, but I was too polite to say that aloud. Besides, she healed my forearm perfectly. It seemed like poor manners to call the woman who healed me crazy just because I didn’t believe everything she said.
“Well, then,” I said. I raised my arm and turned it back and forth a couple of times to test for pain. “You did an amazing job, Marge, and I can’t thank you enough for helping me in my time of need. You saved me in a way you might not understand.”
Marge smiled. “Oh, I think I understand quite well, boy. You don’t want your parents to know about your superhero activities, do you?”
“How did you know—”
“I may be old, but I’m still observant,” said Marge. “You’re obviously not an officially licensed superhero, nor are you an adult. If it wasn’t summer vacation, you would have school tomorrow, I bet.”
“You figured out a lot just by looking.”
“Observation is one of the best ways of learning,” said Marge. “The original Trickshot before you understood that. It is a lesson, I think, that you should also learn.”
I nodded slowly. “All right. Well, I need to leave, because it’s very late and I don’t want my parents to worry about me.”
I turned to leave, but Marge suddenly wrapped an old hand around my forearm and said, “Wait. I didn’t tell you everything that happened in the vision yet.”
I looked at Marge reluctantly. I was getting tired now and worried that Mom or Dad might find my bed unoccupied before I could get back home. I would have just blown Marge off, but she did help me when she didn’t have to, so the least I could do was listen to her story.
“Okay, what else happened in your, uh, ‘vision’?” I said.
Marge looked me straight in the eyes with her own seemingly ageless eyes and said, “You died.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
I paused, staring at Marge with confusion. “Did you say … did you say I died?”
Marge nodded, her grip on my forearm as strong as ever. “Yes.”
“But I’m still alive,” I said, gesturing at myself. “Unless Ashley decides to shoot me with that shotgun of hers—”
“Ashley won’t kill you,” Marge interrupted. “Someone else will, though, and I am not sure you can avoid it.”
“What do you mean?” I said. “Who is going to kill me? And why?”
Marge let go of my forearm and rested her hands on her belly again. “A man I did not recognize. He will come to Rumsfeld, searching for you, and the two of you will fight. He’ll kill you in cold blood, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
An ominous chill ran down my spine. “Who is this man? Where is he from?”
“I don’t know,” said Marge in an apologetic voice. “He was tall and strapping, with a face like a demon. I don’t know where he came from. All I know is that he is after you.”
I didn’t like how Marge switched from past to present tense in her last sentence. It implied that the guy who was going to kill me was already here, already looking for me for reasons I did not know. “When will he get here? Do you know?”
“I don’t,” said Marge. “But I think … I think he’s the enemy Greg mentioned the last time I saw him.”
That caught my attention. I turned to face Marge, unable to hide my curiosity. “What enemy Greg mentioned? Can you elaborate?”
“It was ten years ago, the day before Greg disappeared,” said Marge. She pursed her lips. “He came to this house to have lunch with me and Ashley. He seemed unusually serious when I saw him, as if he knew something I didn’t. While Ashley played with TW, I asked Greg what was bothering him so much.”
“And what did he say?” I said.
Marge hesitated, like she was about to share a deep, dark secret with me that she wasn’t sure she had the right to share, before finally saying, “Greg told me that Rumsfeld was not safe. He said that there were people out there who sought to use Rumsfeld for their own purposes. He said that it was only a matter of time before they attacked, and the first sign that anyone knew that their assault began was if he disappeared abruptly.”
TW and I exchanged quick glances, but I could tell he was thinking the same thing I was: Grandfather had warned Marge about Icon. It fit with what Marge was saying, though of course neither of us said that aloud just yet.
Looking at Marge again, I said, “Did he tell you what this new enemy is trying to do?”
Marge shook her head. “No. I pressed him for details, but he told me that he had told me too much already and he was afraid for my safety. He said he hadn’t even told his family about the threat. He only told me because I kept pestering him about it. I think I pushed him too far, though, because he left earlier than usual, taking TW with him, and didn’t even say good bye.”
Marge sighed and looked at the ceiling. “And, of course, as you know, Greg disappeared the very next day. I remembered the warning he shared with me, that the assault would begin when he vanished, but Rumsfeld was never attacked by anyone, so I never gave his warning that much thought until recently.”
I didn’t quite agree with that. After all, the Injectors started appearing in Rumsfeld not long after Grandfather disappeared, and given how the Injectors had been funded by Icon, it was possible that the ‘assault’ was not what Marge thought it was.
Again, however, I didn’t say that aloud, because I wasn’t sure Marge was actually interested in learning about Icon. She seemed more depressed about the fact that her last encounter with Grandfather had ended on a negative note. I felt bad for her, but there was nothing I could really do about it right now.
“Interesting information,” I said. “I’ll definitely think about it while I’m gone. If there is some kind of threat or enemy to Rumsfeld, it’s my job to stop it.”
“I suppose you’re right,” said Marge. “Just be careful, young man. I know what the Trickshot suit can do and I am always willing to heal you when the suit’s powers fail, but you are not invincible. No one is. Not even a superhero like yourself.”
“Thanks for the warning,” I said. I patted my chest. “I’ll be extra careful from now on. As a matter of fact, I’m pretty much always careful. Right, TW?”
“Depends on how you define ‘careful,’” said TW, “but sure, you can call yourself whatever you want.”
I rolled my eyes, but said to Marge, “Can I come back whenever I need quick healing? I know my costume can heal most minor injuries, but every now and then I might get a really serious injury like this one and need your help.”
“Sure,” said Marge. “Like I said, I’m always willing to heal you when you need it. You may not be Greg, but if Greg gave you the Trickshot costume, then it means he must trust you. And if Greg trusts you, then I can trust you, too.”
That statement took me by surprise. I hadn’t realized just how much Marge trusted Grandfather until she said that. It made me wonder if she had deeper feelings for him than she let on.
But it didn’t matter at the moment. I just nodded and said, “Great to hear. Now I have to leave. I hope you don’t have any trouble getting back to sleep.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t,” Marge said. “I’m a heavy sleeper, even in my old age. Besides, it isn’t like I have anything to do in the morning or anywhere to go. I retired years ago. It’s
all about living the high life now, or what I like to call the high life, anyway.”
I smiled at her remark, but said nothing else. TW flashed back into my watch and I walked over to the door, but just as I laid my hand on the doorknob, Marge said behind me, “Wait, Trickshot, I have one last thing to ask you.”
Pausing, I looked over my shoulder at Marge. She had not changed her position in her bed, but she was looking at me with earnest eyes, like she was trying to keep me in place through sheer looks alone. “What is it, Marge?”
“I don’t want to impose upon you, but I would like to make one request of you before you leave,” said Marge. “It’s not exactly tit for tat, but given how I healed you free of charge, this is one way you could pay me back.”
I tilted my head to the side. “Sure. What’s your request?”
Marge hesitated, like she was a little sheepish about her request, but then she gulped and said, “If you ever find any clues to Greg’s location—anything at all—could you show it to me? Please?”
I blinked, but said, “Uh, okay. I don’t really have any news for you right now, but—”
“But you will share anything you find with me, right?” said Marge, rubbing her hands together anxiously. “It’s just an old lady’s simple request, but I hope it isn’t too much of a burden for you to fulfill.”
“No, it isn’t too much at all,” I said, shaking my head. “It’s perfectly understandable, actually. I know you and Greg were good friends, so I understand why you want me to keep you up to date on our search for him.”
“Thank you, young man,” said Marge. She coughed. “Ever since Greg disappeared, I’ve wondered whether he is still alive or not. It is good to know that he’s still out there somewhere, even if he’s being held hostage by some criminals. I hope that someday soon you free him and bring him home where he belongs.”
I nodded in response. “I do, too, Marge. I do, too.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The next morning, I was awoken by my phone ringing loudly on my nightstand. Yawning, I groped in the darkness for a few seconds before I grabbed my phone and looked at the screen, wondering who could possibly be calling me so early in the morning. To my surprise, the phone showed Kyle’s phone number on the screen, along with his picture looking at me rather impatiently.
