“Any new developments while I was away?” I asked as I plunked myself down on my chair, reaching out for a bagel—hopefully one that wasn’t expired.
“You missed something really freaky last night,” Liz said between sips of orange juice. “Looks like we’ve got ourselves a new bad guy.”
“Huh?”
“Show him, Dad.”
Dad looked up at the mention of his name, momentarily puzzled. “What? Oh—oh, yeah.” He lowered the paper and laid it out on the table, spreading the pages and covering his plate. “Here. Come over here, Eric.”
I stood up and hurried to his side and read the page he pointed to.
There was a sighting the previous night, while I was having a posh, private dinner at the Barlows’. It was another man—a young one—stalking the rooftops and watching Magnifiman and the Trill’s henchmen battle it out in the streets of Vintage City. Witnesses couldn’t say for sure what the guy looked like—only that he was in a bodysuit like Magnifiman, Peter, and the Trill, but no cape. He was also seen to have a couple of small—very small—creepy-ass assistants. Tiny figures that were shorter than dwarves were said to be spotted beside him, at times flanking him like miniature guards. Witnesses couldn’t tell if they were children, but whatever they were, they moved on their own.
“A couple of shrunken assistants from hell?” I asked, my brows knitting. “Is that what they’re saying?”
“Sort of,” Liz replied and moved one of her arms to demonstrate. “Everyone’s guessing that they’re about two feet tall—like dolls, but alive. Anyway, it’s really freaky. Very Twilight Zone.”
“Does anyone know who this guy is?”
“Nope. He disappeared before anything could be done.”
“Then how can we be so sure that he’s one of the bad guys?”
“Because his tiny dolls from hell sawed the head off the founder’s statue. Someone saw them just as they were finishing it off. It’s only logical that they did it under his orders.”
I blinked. “That stupid statue’s an eyesore, anyway. Now we can finally get rid of it. If anything, he’s a hero.”
“Eric, don’t be silly,” Mom said as she walked to the table with a platter of eggs. “It was done as a warning, obviously.”
“Did the guy himself say for sure?” I prodded, still skeptical.
“No, but he left marks all over the place.”
“Like what? Tiny footprints or handprints in the cement? Was there a dead princess in a glass coffin somewhere in the vicinity?”
“Don’t laugh, Eric,” Dad said.
“Okay, what were they, then?”
Dad narrowed his eyes at me. Then he coughed. “Okay, they left tiny prints on shop windows and marks like fingernails being dragged across wood or cement or what—you know, five lines that were scratches. A few people argued that some of the marks left on windows were tiny nose prints, not fingerprints. Who could say for sure?”
I scratched my head. “Well, I’ll be damned. I guess even villains have to start somewhere.”
“He’s sort of like Zorro, it looks like,” Liz cut in with a firm nod. “Only he wears spandex. And he makes tiny people do the dirty work for him and leave signs of their presence—at least handprints, anyway. And he’s a bad guy.”
“Well…” I let my words fade and left the conversation hanging. Not that everyone noticed, anyway. They continued to talk about the news, shifting the conversation to other things within seconds. I simply took to my seat again, lost in thought. A new villain? Someone who was just coming into his powers? That certainly made sense.
Given how the Eugenics labs had been active for a five-year span, I imagined heroes and villains would be around our ages as well as Trent’s.
I chewed my bagel as I pondered. How long would it take for Vintage City to turn into a full-blown battleground between the forces of good and evil? I could barely guess as to how many more heroes and villains were out there, their DNA waiting for the right moment to bloom, bear fruit, and raise some ass-kicking hell.
* * * *
In school, everyone was buzzing about the “new arrival,” while I huddled in a corner with Althea and Peter, sharing a bag of gummy worms that was on sale at the supermarket. Three bags for a buck? I was sold. Who cared if they were so cheap, they were dripping with lead?
“What do you guys think?” I asked, my voice hushed.
We were in the library as usual. Not at a computer like before since Althea seemed to have progressed nicely and quickly with her powers. She’d yet to tell us about her conversation with Mrs. Horace about her abilities, but we gave her as much space as we could and kept the pressure off.
“I tried to surf the wires,” Althea whispered back. Surf the wires was a reference to her computer-possessing abilities. “But I couldn’t find anything. Whoever he is, he’s really new.”
“God knows how long he’s been coming into his own, though,” Peter said as he thoughtfully gnawed on a worm. “He might be visible now, but it takes a little while for someone like me—or Althea—to get to that stage of his development. I’ll bet you he’s been practicing or whatever at home or somewhere else that’s private.”
“A headquarters, you mean,” I said, grinning. Peter caught it and merely rolled his eyes at me.
“He’s got an obvious weapon—a couple of them, actually—and he’s starting to use them to deface property,” Althea said.
“How dangerous is that? Do you think they’re out to kill?”
Peter shook his head. “I don’t know. Something tells me that they aren’t—like the Trill. The new guy’s here to cause all kinds of problems, but somehow I’m convinced that he isn’t going to be a maniacal butcher.”
“Defacing property’s his medusa operandi?” I asked and then paused. “Was that right? That didn’t sound right.”
How strange. Any gang member could’ve done the job without a couple of über-dolls. Why would a Eugenics Baby bother doing something as common as defacing property? I stuck a worm in my mouth and let half of it dangle to my chin, quivering.
“I’m sure he’s building up to something more serious. At the moment he’ll be pulling off all kinds of petty stuff here and there, but his methods will evolve the stronger he gets,” Peter replied.
“Well—whatever his purpose, you’d better be careful when you’re out there,” I said, and he chuckled quietly.
“If you want me to…”
“Peter…”
He continued to chuckle, but I felt his hand cover mine and give it a reassuring squeeze under the table.
“I wonder what the Trill thinks about him,” Althea piped up, her words partly muffled by three worms she’d crammed into her mouth. “He’s probably pissed as hell that someone’s out there to one-up him.”
“If the two of them would go after each other, that’d be a relief. That’s less work for me and Trent.”
“There’s also a chance that they’ll be joining forces,” I warned.
“Oh, God. What I’d give to be a fly on the wall if that happened. It’s just like thugs to bicker and outdo each other even when working as a team.”
Althea cocked a brow at Peter. “Oh yeah? What makes you so sure?”
“Haven’t you learned anything from Batman?” He sighed. “Jeez, people.”
Chapter 25
With Vintage City’s streets suffering construction blockage here and there, thanks to Magnifiman and the Trill, there was at least one consolation that could be had from the wild ride we were all putting up with.
Sgt. Vitus Bone and the rest of the police department had gotten their act together, and the Trill’s goons now filled up about half of the available jail cells. Not a single thug managed to escape. It was a miracle.
“It appears as though The Devil’s Trill’s operation is grinding to a halt,” Bambi Bailey announced one evening. She was all smug confidence, her beauty mark apparently taking up permanent residence above her upper lip, just right of center. It was
with heavy hearts that Liz and I gave up our guessing game. “With the exceptional efforts made by Vintage City’s police department and the phenomenal abilities of our own Paragon of Virtue, Magnifiman, the streets are one hundred and ten percent safer than they were last year.”
“Don’t forget Peter,” I muttered, pressing my face against an old throw pillow to muffle my words as I lay on my stomach before the TV. “Trent isn’t the only one working his butt off, lady.”
The Trill had attempted his hundredth career heist that day, and half of his goons were picked up pretty easily. The rest managed to disappear despite the police’s best efforts, but it was still argued that no embarrassing jailbreak had taken place for—well—a couple of weeks. I suppose that would be a record for Vintage City’s police department.
“Now as for Magnifiman’s mystery companion—”
My eyes widened. “Oh no, you don’t.”
“—the young man deserves as much credit as his older, stronger partner—”
“Yeah, talk about biased. Peter might not be as strong, but he’s a thousand times better at hustling himself from point A to point B. Can you do that? No? Then shut up.”
“—but how can we properly thank him when he’s camera shy?”
“You don’t thank him, Miss Bailey. Now move along. There’s nothing more for you to see or talk about.”
She grinned, tossing her hair. I winced. “No one knows his name—”
“And it’s damned better to keep things that way!”
I felt a slight nudge against my foot. “Eric, why are you screaming into the pillow?” Mom asked from the couch behind me. I could only shake my head, pressing the throw pillow—now damp with my spit—more tightly against my face.
“—even Magnifiman says that he prefers not to be named. And as the boy flies like the wind—”
Too late! Too late! Peter!
“—my news colleagues—the young interns, anyway, who adore him—decided to call him something proper because—well—they said my naming ability downright stinks—”
I closed my eyes. My body felt so tense and tightly wound I was in danger of spontaneously combusting right then and there.
“—something, shall we say, with a heroic, romantic bent to it. And since we can’t go on calling him ‘Magnifiman’s partner’ forever, we’ll have to address him as—”
I fucking hate the world.
“—Calais. Those interns are so romantic.”
My eyes flew open, and I stared in shock at the floor. Calais? Where had I heard that name before?
Bambi Bailey smiled. She looked positively beatific. “Because we want to give credit where credit’s due, we’d like to say thanks publicly to the unsung hero, the quiet, hard-working partner in the shadows. Calais, if you’re watching, Vintage City’s honored to have you as one of theirs.” She paused then added, “The young ladies, especially, are now betting money on whether or not you’re single.”
“Oh, that’s a lovely name,” Liz cooed from the couch, where she sat crammed with Mom, sharing a gigantic bowl of popcorn. Dad had been forced to go to a bingo social that his boss had put together. “It has a nice, elegant ring to it. Calais. Hmm—now I want to see him. I’ll bet he looks appropriate for his name, too, the way Magnifiman does his name justice, physically.” She gave a little girlish sigh.
I threw the damp pillow to one corner of the living room and scrambled to my feet. Ignoring my family’s complaints of blocking their view, I scurried out of the room and ran up the stairs, taking two steps at a time. I barricaded myself in my room and immediately went online, doing a search on Calais.
There it was—Calais, a winged hero, the son of the North Wind. Those girls had done their homework.
I sat back in my chair and stared at my monitor. Little by little, a smile broke out, and I whispered Peter’s superhero alias again and again, feeling the word gently roll over my tongue. Calais. Yeah, I could live with that.
* * * *
“It’s disgustingly sappy,” Peter groused the next day. “I could’ve lived with Shadow Boy.”
“The RPG geeks aren’t happy with your new name.”
“I feel their pain, believe me.” If looks could kill, Peter’s coffee would’ve churned, boiled, evaporated in three seconds, and left nothing but thick, black sludge clinging to his cup’s insides. The smoke from incinerated coffee would’ve left soot lining our nostrils.
“I think it works for you.”
“So I’m a Greek Myth now?”
“Hey, listen,” I said, meeting his gaze above my favorite iced mocha drink, “if you’d come up with your own name and given it to them, you wouldn’t have to put up with their choice.”
Around us, the Jumping Bean swarmed with cynical, intellectual life. Edith Piaf’s voice trembled in the background. An occasional grinder or blender drowned her out. The atmosphere hung thick with the smell of roasted coffee. The computers were being used, but it didn’t matter. We simply needed some time to ourselves for a couple of hours just bumming around. Peter and I had just come from Olivier’s, one used book richer each, with me salivating over a yellowed copy of H.P. Lovecraft’s selected short stories.
“As for me,” I continued with a playful shrug, “I kind of like it.”
“Great. Now I’m pigeonholed.” Peter sipped his drink, drumming his fingers against the table. “That’s one reason why I didn’t want to have a name.”
I blinked. “Not having a name can just as easily pigeonhole you. You’ll always be this weird, mysterious boy lurking in the shadows. Invisible, mute, nothing more than Magnifiman’s sidekick. Heck, not having a name puts all the spotlight on Trent even if you do half the work, since it looks as if you don’t care about getting credit for anything.”
Peter hesitated. “Well, I kind of don’t…”
I waited for him to finish, but he let things hang. I sighed. “I care. I’d draw blood if I saw that you weren’t being given proper credit for all the hard work you do. I guess I was more afraid of Bambi Bailey giving you some crap name like the one she gave Trent—no offense to your brother. I was ready to give up the ghost last night when she started talking about you, but karma intervened.”
His gaze moved from his drink to me and back to his drink. God, the struggle. The pride. I could feel the war raging inside him from where I sat, across the table from Peter. I let a moment’s silence happen. I was about to speak more encouraging words when he finally grumbled, “I wonder how much research went into their choice.”
“It’s really appropriate. I stayed up late last night just digging around for more information. Oh, and guess what? I read somewhere that Calais and Orpheus were lovers. Go Greeks!”
Peter chuckled, shaking his head. He’d struggled against it, but the battle had been won, and it got me all warm and giddy, watching him surrender. “You really shouldn’t trust everything you read online, Eric.”
“I like that bit about Orpheus enough to trust it.”
“You’re hopeless.”
I asked not to be driven home since I had a couple of errands to run for Dad, and I needed the cheap ease of my bike for that purpose. On my way home after taking care of those errands, I once again rode my favorite industrial detour, weaving in and out of traffic and flying through dingy alleys toward the abandoned biotech section of Vintage City.
It was while we were at Olivier’s, digging around the second-hand treasure trove they maintained, I realized I hadn’t touched my journal in a dog’s age. No gloomy adolescent musings, no helpless, bitter cussing the cosmos, no haikus. The last item in particular shocked me. I lost touch with my private world and my artistry when Peter became my boyfriend. My world had shifted from myself to him, and while I regretted nothing, I still couldn’t help but feel some guilt for neglecting a pretty significant part of myself.
I needed to rouse the artist from his comatose-like state. I needed to be inspired again. Peter sure never forbade me from pursuing my hobby. I allowed myself to sl
ack off, and I was convinced taking the desolate path home that day would help spark something in me. It was once again time to be poetic, to be inspired by urban decay.
Familiar landmarks became my world as I rode my bike past the hollow, weathered buildings and the deteriorating lot where the carnival once stood. Snatches of conversation with Mrs. Barlow trickled through my brain—appropriate mind fillers, I guess, for the environment. The desolation bore down heavily on me, all warmth and cheer in Peter’s company getting stripped, layer by layer, until I was left with nothing more than a chill and the creepy feeling of being watched.
Maybe because I was all alone. I didn’t know. But I’d had this sensation before—at Renaissance High’s parking lot that one evening after taking Althea to the carnival; riding through the area in broad daylight; while mingling with people at the carnival…
I sucked in a breath and quickly braked, nearly sending myself tumbling over my front wheel. At this point I’d nearly passed the empty concrete lot. Straddling my bike, I looked back and surveyed the area, scenes and sensations from different points in the past coming back.
Masked carnival workers watched me that night. From the distance, the empty, blackened windows of dead genetic labs stared at me. They were watching me. Everyone. They made me feel watched, at least. I didn’t know if the rest of the city felt the same.
They took advantage of people’s hopes and toyed with them—altered them somehow—and threw them back into the gene pool. I can only imagine they hoped to step away and watch what would happen in ten, fifteen, twenty years’ time.
Mrs. Barlow’s words crept in, whispering, while around me a cold breeze stirred, tossing scraps of soiled paper around.
“This is crazy,” I breathed. Totally impossible. And yet, I couldn’t shake off the thought—the creeping sensation. The Solstice Masque had been a fixture at Vintage City for a number of years. I didn’t know exactly how long they’d been coming by, all decked out in grotesque costumes and masks, wandering through the giddy crowds like distorted phantoms on the prowl.
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