David points at a teenage boy on the edge of the crime scene. “He’s Enhanced®.”
“What? Did he have something to do with the shooting?”
“He’s connected to Annie Null and all the victims. He stopped her today.”
“By killing her. And six others.”
“I haven’t been doing nothing these days, Linda. I’ve been chatting online a bit with Nan about you, and about what happened today. A lot of other people would have died today if Annie Null hadn’t been stopped.”
“What if you’d been here?”
“It would have been worse. That boy would have been one of them, and he’d never discover his powers in time. His name is Gabriel Silva.”
You don’t ask the next question, too afraid to hear the answer. What if I had been here today?
The two of you walk closer to Gabriel. “Maybe that would have been for the best,” you say. “A hero whose power is to kill others—that’s not going to score real high in polls of public opinion. He sounds more like a supervillain in the making.”
David gives you that look, like he knows you don’t believe what you’ve just said. “That’s a line we all walk. In time, he can control his powers. Knock his enemies unconscious instead of killing them.”
“Why are you—” You pause. “You want him to be your sidekick?”
“Wipeout has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?” David says.
“How about Shutdown?”
“Even better. See, you’re good at this. Gabriel’s going to need a lot of help before he’s ready though. Someone he can look up to.” David lifts his hand and you float above his head.
You frown. “I don’t get it.”
David hesitates. Closes his eyes. “We have to get back.”
The lights are strobing more quickly now. Red, blue. Red, blue.
David starts running. You realize that you’ve rarely seen him fight anyone in hand-to-hand combat. He has an incredible superpower, but he doesn’t have superspeed or flight or laser eyes or anything like that. He has the ability to look at a situation, break it down into cause and effect, and then he talks to people. He acknowledges their existence. He solves their problems. He inspires people. He sees them for who they are.
You can do that.
You can also kick people’s asses if you have to.
When you get back to the mugger, the bullet is only two feet from David’s chest and moving an inch per second. David and you snap back into your bodies.
You act quickly.
You plant one crutch firmly and use the other to push you off the ground toward Breakpoint, shoving him aside with one sweep of a superstrong arm. Just in time, you make yourself weightless. You don’t even feel the bullet hit you and ricochet off.
You’re tumbling head over heel toward the ceiling now. You can make yourself heavier, but if your timing is off, you’ll crash to the ground and risk breaking something. Then a hand grabs onto yours.
Breakpoint has you. He pulls you in and you return to your normal weight, falling into his arms. He sucks in a sharp breath and grimaces. “You’re full of surprises,” he says.
“That’s the last one, I promise,” you say. “You’re hurt? I hurt you?”
“A broken rib. Not my first, and it’ll heal better than a gunshot wound. But you! You’re invulnerable?”
“Only when I’m floating. Did you plan this? To get me to use my powers in front of you?”
“No, but I saw how jumbled up our connections were. I knew we were important to each other in this moment, but I didn’t know how. It could have gone either way.”
“What about the mugger?” You look at him. He’s frozen still, a comical look of shock on his face. “You can hold him like that?”
“For a little while,” Breakpoint says. “Adrenaline helps.”
“Then why didn’t you do that in the first place?”
“That’s a good question. I have a better one. What are you going to call yourself?”
Of course you’ve given this some thought over the years, but you never thought you’d actually use your powers to save someone—let alone a HeroSM. You still aren’t sure if you can do this again, but you’re caught up in the moment too, and the possibilities.
“The Lead Balloon,” you say.
Breakpoint smiles. “Thank you, LB. You saved me.” He retrieves your crutches and hands them to you. “Even before taking that bullet for me, though I sure am grateful for that too.”
You take the crutches and look down at your feet. “So what now? Can I be your new sidekick?”
“No.”
You look up. “Don’t you see? You’re upset that no one sees you, David, but if you disappear, you make that a certainty. Instead, you should put yourself out there, so everyone knows who you are. Who Breakpoint is.”
Breakpoint nods. “I will. I meant I’m not looking for a sidekick, but I can always use a good partner. If you help me reach out to Gabriel, we can get him the support he needs and make sure he doesn’t become Oceanside’s next supervillain.”
“Depends,” you say.
“On?”
“Are you going to keep wearing that stupid visor? I’ll be a HeroSM; I’ll wear some ridiculous costume, but I’m going to make sure everyone out there knows my name. People are going to see these.” You hold up a crutch. “And these.” You point to your eyes, never prouder of who you are and what you can do.
“Do you even get the point of a secret identity?” Breakpoint takes out his visor and throws it away. “No more hiding.”
You grin. Maybe the two of you can inspire those other seven Asian heroes to speak out too—and the others who may be waiting. It’s important to all aspiring heroes like you and people everywhere who are held back from reaching their full potential.
“Hindsight,” you say.
“Pardon?” Breakpoint says.
“That’s what you should call your power.”
He smiles. “Of course. Now it seems obvious.”
“Exactly.”
Decision
Joyce Chng
The maglev train pulls away from the station with a sharp hiss and a metallic sigh. She exhales and leans back against the hard seat. Finally. I am leaving. She hasn’t brought a lot of clothing, only a small bag with the essentials: amber prayer beads, her ID card, and clothes.
It isn’t easy to leave the family household. Sure, there was a lot of verbal fireworks, coming from Lao Lao, her grandmother and family matriarch, and from her older sister. But she is a young woman, a young spider-jinn, and she has to leave the family nest eventually.
Just that her decision is too sudden, shocking everyone in the family. The thought of their reactions makes her chuckle ruefully to herself.
She stares at her ID card, freshly laminated, her black-and-white face staring back. Her default face: always not-smiling. And what a severe face, double eye lids, phoenix eyes, full lips. But unsmiling.
The spider-jinn have been granted legal status as all mythic races are, after the Awakening. Suddenly the dreams and nightmares of humankind are walking on the streets and beyond: Earth is part of an Inter-Galactic Alliance, isn’t she? What is alien isn’t anymore.
The government has been generous. One person per month, for spider-jinn clans. And only from unclaimed bodies in the government hospital morgue. Spider-jinn only feed on human flesh. The other legal alternative is pork, which the traditionalists disdain and reject immediately as a poor substitute.
Of course, Lao Lao has to complain. In my time, she declares in her reedy voice, waving her human-bone cane-stick, we fed on more human flesh. Ren rou, she says, is delicious, healthy. Your modern food is disgusting. Too many chemicals. Too many preservatives! This, of course, was directed at her and her older sister. Lao Lao never got over their mother’s abrupt departure when she was only five. She and her sister represent what Lao Lao has lost.
Mother had apparently argued a lot with Lao Lao. She remembers the nights where the wom
en shouted at each other, the voices reverberating and shaking the wooden rafters, much like the yellow-clad monks chanting sutras and offering puja at the nearby temple. Only these words didn’t build merit. They were hurtful and meant to wound and cut deep. Older sister would hold her while the verbal storm raged above them. They would cry themselves to sleep.
It was never easy living under the same roof with a two-thousand year old spider-jinn matriarch whose beliefs and traditions are exacting and demanding. Girls clean. Girls cook. Girls sew. Girls run the shop. Beyond that, girls compete with the other clans for ren rou from the government. They bargain for the best, the newly dead from the morgue. For the girls in her household, they operate a prosperous and popular restaurant, catering to non-jinn human people who like Chinese food, the taste of “home”. The restaurant keeps the clan busy and wealthy. She had her fair share of cuts, burns, and scalds. Her life had always centred on competition for ren rou and the restaurant. Day in and day out.
Yet, she knew why Lao Lao acts like she acts every day. Girls leave the nest at a certain age: sixteen. She had gone past that, already eighteen. She had to leave. She had to leave. Yet, Lao Lao didn’t want to let her go.
So it was the cutting of vegetables, cleaning the house, and sewing the uniforms of the serving maids in the restaurant for years. She often messed up her stitches because she was bored and resentful of the stifling chamber she was stuck in. Messing up perfect stitches was her form of rebellion. Sometimes, the vegetables were cut in large chunks, not bite-size portions. Sometimes, she omitted cleaning parts of the large family compound. Day in and day out.
Life had a certain way of telling Lao Lao that her youngest granddaughter has grown up.
There was a boy who lingered beside the kitchen while she cooked. Shy, slight, handsome, and well-made, he made eyes at her. What a sweet smile too. A week ago, he brought her a beautifully-wrapped gift: a giant water beetle wrapped in spider-silk and glossy banana leaf. She accepted it graciously and gracefully. Oh, the boy was one who chose to be male. All spider-jinn are born female. Girls become boys voluntarily, another time-honoured path taken when they want to leave the clan.
This boy was very tender. They coupled behind the kitchen. It was quickly over and she never saw the boy again. His husk was probably found somewhere else.
Her older sister flew into a rage when she found out the short affair. Ni mei you kan guo nan re shi ma? You haven’t seen a man before, haven’t you? Full of angry spite. Are you that desperate? That lustful? Groomed to be Lao Lao’s successor, the stresses and unhappiness are getting to her. Jie looks haggard, her hair often untied and loosened, especially when the restaurant is extremely busy. Even the route of turning male has been blocked. Easy for you, older sister’s eyes blame her for her freedom, easy for you to bat your eyelids and pout at people, at men.
Then nature kicked in. Oh vicious, unpredictable, beautiful nature.
She didn’t notice the signs at first, thinking it was just hunger due to the long hours cutting jie lan hua and Chinese cabbages in the kitchen. Not just plain hunger. Starving. Voracious. A hollow screaming in her stomach. She found herself gorging on leftovers one night and knew something was terribly wrong. Running straight to the ablutions room later to regurgitate everything she had eaten confirmed her fears and her hopes. Her heart sank too, even though it soared at the first tantalizing glimmer of hope. Freedom!
Oh, how Lao Lao shouted and shouted when she was told the news. So much so that her true form emerged from human skin and bone, a huge giant tarantula with brown and gold fur moving her hairy black front legs agitatedly. She hadn’t witnessed that much grief from her grandmother since—since mother left for New Earth. She just got up and left us! Now you are doing the same! The same! Like mother, like daughter! I am cursed with ungrateful daughters and granddaughters! She almost felt sorry for Lao Lao. Grandmother eventually fainted from her wailing. Just collapsed into a heap. Her older sister glared at her balefully when she tried to revive the old woman.
Help me carry her, you stupid fool, older sister snapped. She snaps most of the time now, spiteful and bitter. Always bitter. They did, lifting their grandmother up the stairs and then carefully tucking her in. Lao Lao slept like a water-soaked log, spent and exhausted. Shape-shifting sapped too much energy from her.
In the silence of the musty bed chamber, her older sister wept.
“Jie,” she could only whisper, shocked by the show of honest emotion, and deeply touched by it.
“Go,” her older sister’s face softened. “Go. But remember me, remember us. Wait, just remember me. When you visit the temple, remember me.”
She went up to her room and packed.
Now she is leaving her home for the first time. The maglev train hisses past blurred houses and green, so much green. Temple, stupas, houses, houses, houses, then green, green, green.
Freedom.
She would start from the bottom and work her way to the top. Probably as a serving maid. No more second-in-line in the clan. No more suppressed desires and expectations. She has a future! Oh yes, the hope and dream of starting her own spider-jinn clan sends a shiver down her spine. She places her hand on her tummy where her babies push and slosh inside, knowing that they will have better lives ahead. With a luxurious sigh, she stares out again, dreaming of spider silk and tiny furry feet.
Moon Halves
Anne Carly Abad
Darkness surrounded him like a thick, oily substance. He forced himself to breathe, but the sound of every intake was a storm in his ears. His heart pounded against his chest, threatening to burst out and run away.
“Please let me go. Let me go.” His plea hovered in the blackness all about, becoming a part of it as well.
Something shifted. Darkness churned and eddied to the left and the right, accreting into shapeless objects. When the shadows gathered into orbs that absorbed the sparse light, he caught glimpses of the forest, where he had been playing before the feral spirits, the Talunanon, abducted and trapped him behind this black miasma.
“Trespasser . . .” The tree phantom’s harsh voice grated against his ears.
He retched at its fetid breath.
“Who are you?” the phantom asked.
Its face materialized in one of the black orbs. First, the glassy eyes, large and bird-like. Then, two ears sprouted, thin patches of veined skin reminiscent of bats’ wings. The being had a pointed nose and a grinning mouth that revealed stalactite-sharp teeth.
“S-Soliran,” he replied. “That is what I am called. Please let me go. I didn’t mean to wander.”
Another face materialized in the left-hand orb, no different from the first. “There is no forgiveness.” When it spoke, its foul odour intensified. Soliran held his breath.
A third face appeared. “Only blood can appease us, your blood spilt! Vengeance for our brothers whom your father has killed!”
A host of phantom faces crowded around him. “Blood! Blood! Blood!” They screamed in soul-rending fury. What had he done to anger them like this?
One of the tree phantoms opened its fanged mouth. Soliran closed his eyes and threw forward his hands to drive it away. But then moments passed. Nothing happened.
He blinked. The gleaming tip of a karis was sticking out of the Talunanon’s gaping mouth. The darkness that surrounded him began to lift. Two strong hands broke through the black miasma and fastened on Soliran’s shoulders. As the stench of the Talunanon dissipated, the hands pulled him out and wrapped him in a warm embrace.
“I thank Bathala!” The sonorous voice of his father, Datu Samakwel, echoed in the forest.
Still dazed, Soliran caught Samakwel’s familiar balmy scent, the scent of summertime rains cooling parched earth. His heart was still pounding hard despite his father’s hold. His feet dangled above the muddy ground since his father was taller. Samakwel put him down. Soliran’s legs were still trembling.
Soliran spotted the padi, the high priest of their barangay, who was a middl
e-aged woman named Owada. Her coiled hair was oiled and fastened with an ivory comb. Her gaze had that trance-like vacancy that always left him uneasy.
Soliran turned to face an ancient bubug tree. Its bloated trunk resembled a cluster of human bodies. Within a shadowed hollow, a karis was planted deep into the wood. It must have been the same tree he had intruded while he and his friends were playing hide-and-seek.
“Padi Owada led me to you,” said Samakwel, smiling. “I was so afraid. I thought we were too late and the Talunanon had taken you away. See, the sun is almost at its resting place.”
His father’s long, black hair was tangled up like a poorly-woven basket. Though he was all smiles, Soliran knew he had caused his father much worry. The datu plucked his blade from the bubug tree. “Do not do this ever again, my son. Heed the elders’ words, for your carelessness has nearly cost you your life. Never forget what happened this day.”
Soliran nodded, knowing fully well he would never forget, not even when the time came to inherit the datu’s burden.
The little ones of Barangay Mangangasu raced to see what their hero had brought back from the hunt. They called him by the many names they had given him over the years.
Soliran the Great Hunter.
Soliran the Brave Warrior.
Soliran the Demon’s Bane.
The last stuck the most, a magical brand on Soliran’s soul. Even before he was old enough to whittle bamboo tubes into a blowgun, there were enough legends about him to last an entire night of storytelling. He was the man who could fearlessly roam the jungles and send the feral spirits away with a single glance. They all believed he had taken after his father. Though he had two older brothers, the villagers talked as if the matter of succession was already written in the stars.
Sighing, Soliran heaved the deer’s still-warm carcass off his back and dropped it on the ground with a thud. Your reputation precedes you. Rumours had a way of building or destroying one’s character like that. He was a young man now, his muscles strong and hard from hunting and raiding, his hair grown long like all the highland warriors. He oiled and combed it to look neat under his red putong, which was now drenched with sweat.
Where The Stars Rise: Asian Science Fiction and Fantasy Page 27
