by Sevan Paris
“—this is different.” She definitely steps closer. “This doesn’t involve hurting you or some … innocent civilian. The best thing you can do is just step away. Let me and him finish this.”
He steps closer.
“Well, guess what, guys: It’s not up to you who gets saved … it’s up to me.” I quickly look back and forth between them as a thought occurs to me. “So … who needs to be saved?”
Tommy yells something in that weird language, and a yellow ball of energy lances from the opening of the black staff.
Ember—somehow realizing Tommy was going to shoot that thing before he actually did it—tackles me to the ground. The F150 parked behind us—scratch that … reality around the F150 parked behind us churns. The truck’s tires claw the gravel as it shrinks, distorts and then swirls into the stick with a yellow flash. Yellow sparkly-looking things feather to the impressions in the snow where the truck once sat.
Apparently, we’re the ones that need to be saved.
I pull my face out of the snow. Ember rolls off me right before Tommy fires another shot. The yellow beam goes high and hits a black Escalade, sending it churning into the stick. Another sword hums to life in Ember’s hands. She screams and runs at Tommy, sword held high.
A Grav Blast from my right hand beats her to him.
The blue blast smacks Tommy into the driver’s side door of a Corolla, shattering the window. Ember stops her charge as he tumbles to the ground, unconscious.
She faces me and and tosses the sword behind her. It shimmers out of existence before hitting the ground. Her eyes return to a normal shade of blue. “Who needs saved again?”
“Apparently him, if you were about to kill him.”
She walks to the stick and pulls it out of the snow. “Would you rather it be you?”
“There is a different way to do things. As in the one were people don’t get killed. It’s what separates us from the—”
“Please don’t cliché me.”
I’m starting to like this female.
Sirens wail in the distance. “Look, what you did with Liberty—what you’ve done to help other people, I can get behind that. But this isn’t cape stuff. This is Magick stuff.”
Or, at least, I was starting to like her.
“Which is something you’re not equipped to deal with,” she says.
“I’m cool with Magick. Way cool even.”
Don’t encourage the continued ignorance of your species, Gabe.
“And my Grav Blast seemed to have taken him down pretty quickly, so …”
“And what were you going to do before that? Just take the blast from Tommy’s capture stick?”
“My force field would have handled it.”
“No, it wouldn’t have.” She tucks the stick under her arm. “Superpowers don’t mean jack against Magick.”
Perhaps because it’s make believe?
She glances at the crowd leaving the diner—as in the one that will have a couple of people with missing vehicles—and walks toward an alley between two rows of houses. “The best thing you can do for yourself is to stay as far away from all things Magickal as you possibly can. Especially me. I don’t need to be rescued. Ever. And I don’t have the time to keep rescuing you.”
I fly up and land in the alley, in front of her. “Well, don’t think of it that way. You’re obviously in some sort of trouble. Let me help.”
Gabe, helping humans is one thing. But helping someone who adamantly refuses our assistance is preposterous. Just leave her be.
“Don’t need your help either,” she says.
Something booms above us, loud as a gunshot. I look up. “What in …”
It’s that Ms. Mystick person. She just stepped through some sort of portal on the roof of that building on the right.
“Crap—I need your help,” Ember says.
“Didn’t you JUST say—”
She lightly presses my chest with an open palm. An invisible force slams me into a row of garbage cans and everything goes black.
***
GABE!
I jump up and immediately splash into garbage cans and snow. A plastic lid tumbles open, spilling cat litter across the back of my bare neck.
Wait—bare neck?
I look at my hands: The silhouette and stars are gone. I’m just regular Gabe Garrison: complete with blue jeans, blue long sleeve crew neck, and a grey hoodie way too thin for Hoth-like weather.
“M, what—”
Get down, Gabe!
Before even looking to see what’s what, I bury myself in a mound of freezing trash. Between the garbage cans and white heaps, I see a purple plume going back and forth at the mouth of the alley.
Silver Sentinel.
I haven’t seen him since we fought months ago. He’s probably upgraded his Andrium armor several times since then. But it’s still the same take on the same ridiculous theme: A medieval looking getup with laser cannons, boot jets, and a random series of blinking lights that do God knows what. And then there is the plume. That ridiculous, two foot tall purple plume on top of his helmet that he insists on having in every model of armor.
He and Ms. Mystick are two of HEROES’ A-listers. If they’re both here, whatever Ember was up to is pretty freaking serious.
The top part of the plume bobs away from the mouth of the alley, back towards the murmuring crowd in the diner’s parking lot. It sounds like everybody that was in the diner is there, plus another thirty or so people, along with police. “M, what happened?” I whisper.
After providing assistance which neither she nor I wanted you to give, the Ember female forced a ridiculously high dose of that mysterious energy into us. The procedure, and my attempted resistance to it, rendered you unconscious.
I wipe the litter slushy combo off the back of my neck. Not really having anywhere to dispose of the gray fluff, I settle for wiping it on more snow. “Transferred—is it keeping us from powering up?”
Figure all that out by yourself? It’s dampening my senses as well. I can tell even less about the energy now than I could before she shoehorned it into us.
“Is there any way to get rid of it?”
Perhaps if I knew what it was. But without further analysis, I’m unsure.
“Uns—what do you mean you’re unsure?!” I say, far more loudly than I meant.
The plume reappears.
Oh well done, Gabriel. Why don’t you throw in an obscene gesture while you’re at it?
The plume bobs this way. “You might as well come out,” Sentinel says through the speakers of his Silver armor. “I can see your heat signature plain as day.”
Crap. Crap—crap—crap. Things are strained between me and HEROES to say the least. I don’t know if Sentinel will recognize me. I don’t know if he’ll … hell, I don’t know what he’ll do. What I do know is that Silver Sentinel versus a powerless Galaxy equals a dead Gabe Garrison.
“Come out,” he says, voice echoing off the brick walls of the alley. “I’m not going to tell you again.”
I raise my hands and slowly, soul crushingly, stand.
Oh, this is absolutely wonderful. I wonder if they have a special cell put aside for us since they’ve revamped The Bend?
The T-shaped visor on Silver Sentinel’s helmet changes from blue to red. “You …” A barrel telescopes out of a forearm compartment, and he points it at me. “What are you—”
I go for broke: “Shut up.”
He tilts his head back slightly—the weapon still on me.
Maybe they’ll allow conjugal visits from that Scarlet Johansen poster in your room.
“Listen,” I point at my reflection in his visor. “You know who I am. You know what I can do. So do yourself a favor: Walk away, forget you saw me. There is no other scenario that ends well for you or what’s left of HEROES.”
After a moment’s hesitation, Silver Sentinel lowers his arm and—keeping his visor on me—slowly turns back to the mouth of the alley. The gun retracts into his forearm
compartment and, after giving me one last look over his shoulder, Silver Sentinel walks back into the crowd.
What … just happened?
“What do you mean?” I brush the rest of the snow off my jeans. “Home-Slice knows who he be dealing with.”
Who?
“Home Slice; it’s a metaphor.”
…. I seriously doubt that.
“It is, I—just forget it. You were saying?”
At the very least, ‘Home-Slice’ should have called for assistance. Instead, he just shrank into the crowd. As if he were actually afraid of you.
I back further into the alley and give my shirt tail a yank. Another patch of snow falls out. “I was clear in the video I sent them: They come after me and Liberty’s conversation with Deathbot goes viral.” I check the time on my phone: 11:45. “Crap on a stick: I have to be at work in fifteen. We’re going to have to figure out this stuff later.”
These energy signatures may be approaching a cosmic level. The person responsible, for all we know, may very well be on her way out of the country at this very moment. A government funded Superhero group that has every reason to want us dead is cowering in our presence like a Tingian canine—and you’re worried about that pathetic excuse for a job?
“Relax, M. I have an epic plan …”
***
Gabe, you are aware of the meaning of ‘epic,’ correct?
I finish looking through the I’s in the computer’s order database and groan, low in my throat.
A quick phone call to Bo—our latest hire and my pseudo friend—had me to Rock Creek Bookstore in time for my shift … barely. Once we made it to work, he agreed to cover my turn in the coffee shop while I check the computer for anybody that had ordered a book on Indian Tattoos. Where I find … nothing.
Allow me to educate you. Epic: heroic or grand in scale. Your plan: anything but. In fact, I would go so far as to say, ‘exact opposite.’
I take a quick glance to make sure there aren’t any people nearby. Since we’re one of the few businesses open today, there are more customers than usual, all of which probably walked here from downtown condos. “Maybe she came back in later and ordered it. And it never made it to the computer.”
You do know there are other bookstores in this city, right?
“Do you have a better idea?”
If I did, it would certainly be ‘epic’ by comparison.
I head to the bookstore’s coffee shop, barely stopping myself from walking the wrong direction. After that night in the bookstore with Reagan and Dr. Villainous (the older version, not the Japanese robot looking one) Jessica Gem, the owner, used the insurance money to give the place a reboot. She moved the coffee shop to the left side of the store, closer to the door. A dark, hardwood floor now covers what was once bland, white tile. The pressed wood bookshelves are now solid oak and the dark green walls became a subtle yellow with a whitewash. M, not being a fan of change, thought the new look was ridiculous, but I like it. Seems more bookstore-y.
“So, what can I get for you, babe?” Bo says to the next person in line at the counter.
She’s taking off thick gloves and freezes, eyes wide. “…. Babe? Really? That’s how you greet customers?”
Bo shrugs. “Only the hot ones. Know what I’m saying?”
Her eyes roll and she seems to really think about how much she wants whatever it is she’s about to order. “I’ll have a dirty chai latte. Small.”
Bo wipes a mug with a towel and raises an eyebrow. “How dirty do you want it?”
She grunts, turns and walks out.
“What? That was an honest question!”
“Hey, Bo,” I say. “Do you remember somebody coming in to order a book on Indian Tattoos? Something that never made it into the computer?”
“Chick or dude?”
“Chick.”
He rubs the brown soul patch at his chin. “Ugly?”
“Nope—definitely a looker.”
“No.”
“That’s it? That’s all you needed to jog your memory?”
“Yep. I Never forget a chick with nice naughty curves. Why? You in love or something?”
I shrug. “Sure.”
“Right on. Hey, you wanna hear something cool? Last night I had a beer. Then another beer. Then three shots of José and one of Jack. Then this morning, I threw up tuna.”
“…. So, what’s—”
He slaps me on the back. Hard. “I never even ate tuna! It was like magic or something!”
Unable to avoid the chance of prodding M, I say, “Magick with a k or magic with a c?”
Here we go …
“What’s the diff?”
“Magic with a c is smoke and mirrors. David Copperfield type stuff.
Also real.
“Magick with a k is the real thing. Like with Ms. Mystick.”
Therefore unreal.
“You’re telling me Ms. Mystick is, like, really mystical?”
“With a k.”
Bo wipes his forehead with the same towel he’s been using on the mug. “That’s krazy with a k. Supers I can wrap my fine head around, but that Magick stuff is just for show. And Mystick does put on a fine show, especially in that outfit.” He makes cupping motions in front of his chest. “Have you ever seen anybody finer?”
See? Even the neanderthal agrees. Just because one doesn’t understand the way that something works doesn’t mean it involves bed knobs, broomsticks, or that Jessica Fletcher person.
“Angela Lansbury.”
“Okay,” Bo says. “Gross, but okay.”
“…. No, I—will you just tell me if you see a redhead come in? Punk red?”
“Deal. But you gotta let me know if lady love’s carpet matches the drapes. Punk red carpet has gotta be HOT!”
We turn and look at the next person in line: A woman in her mid-eighties with pursed lips.
Bo nods. “ ‘Sup?”
I lower my head and weave through the coffee crowd, towards Jessica Gem. She sits at a table next to the window. “Hey, Jessica.”
She looks up from her newspaper: The Prosian. “Gabe. She leans over and nods her clipped features towards the direction of Bo. “How is your friend working out?”
“Honestly? Better than I thought.”
With a cluck of her tongue, her eyes return to the paper. “Alright. Not exactly what I wanted to hear, but alright.”
I ease into the bench across from her. “Do you remember anybody coming in recently to order a book on Indian Tattoos?”
“You mean before or after Galaxy wrecked my bookstore?”
I take a deep breath. “It wasn’t his fault.”
“So you told me. But you were here after hours. With a girl. Kind of discredits you.”
“I said I’m sorry.”
“And I told you I would keep bringing it up until I was over it. Guess what.”
“You’re not over it?”
She touches the tip of her nose with her index finger. “And you do realize you’re defending a known felon.”
“I don’t think—”
“And that was before the mess at The Bend. WTF to that, right?”
The best thing I can do—sometimes the only thing—is to just let an uncomfortable silence pass when faced with a secret identity moment. Just let the person’s assumptions fill the silence instead of whatever pitiful excuse for a lie that I can come up with.
“…. You do know about The Bend. It’s only been the biggest thing on the news in the past two months.”
I open my mouth and stutter out a sound. Again, another useful tool for getting around being a sucky liar.
She plops The Prosian on the table between us. “Gabriel Garrison, you don’t know about The Bend? UNACCEPTABLE! This is the biggest thing that’s happened in Prose since the last Zyborg invasion!” She tucks loose strands of brown hair behind her ear and points at The Prosian’s article: LIBERTY VIGIL TONIGHT AT CUTLEDGE PARK — WILL GALAXY ATTEND?
I can’t help but s
hake my head. The news has been taking pot shots at me since that night, probably due to whatever HEROES has been feeding them. Nothing has been expressly stated about me, but articles like BREAKOUT AT THE BEND—GALAXY INVOLVED? and GALAXY AND DEATHBOT—FRIENDS OR FOES? implied plenty. Plus, they gave way for more scandalous headlines, like the one about the vigil and my personal favorite: IS GALAXY NAKED UNDER THOSE STARS?
HEROES had to be testing me. Seeing how far they can push me before I reacted. They knew I had video of Liberty’s conversation with Deathbot. And they knew I would post it if they did anything to me. But if they’re doing some sort of passive aggressive approach, trying to get the people of Prose to come after me … I might have to rearrange the agreement.
A quick skim of the article tells me it gives a few details—along with healthy amount of speculation—about what happened at the Supervillain prison. “So what’s the big?” I say. “It’s just tabloid-y. Doesn’t even really discuss the vigil.”
“Oh, I don’t know. How about questioning the fact that Galaxy—the aforementioned ‘Superhero’ that single handily ruined my bookstore—”
“Don’t forget he had some help from Dr. Villainous. The guy whose last name is ‘Villainous.’ ”
“—and the same guy that just tore through The Bend, killing prisoners and breaking out Deathbot. The guy, alien—THING—that almost turned me, you, and everybody else into robot zombies months ago … how about questioning the fact that HEROES has let him get away with being unregistered … for how long?”
“Couldn’t tell you—”
“Eleven months!” She shakes the paper for emphasis. “You have to look at what’s not being said, Gabe, and think—why? What’s the conspiracy here? Should we hate him? Should we fear him? I’ll tell you what we shouldn’t do: We shouldn’t keep quiet! Do you know what the worst thing is you can do in a civilized society, Gabe?”
“I … uh …”
“NOTHING! Apathy is the worst enemy democracy has. And if you don’t know about this stuff, how can you have an informed opinion about it? How can you take action when you need to? You’re apathetic, Gabe Garrison, and you need to remedy that.”
Actually—if the headlines have proven anything—it’s a severe lack of apathy.
“So,” I say softly, “is that a no to the whole Indian Tattoo thing?”
