Hero Blues

by Michelle L. Levigne

  "As long as you didn't burn yourself out," Jane said.

  They ended up at Lanie's house. Her brothers were both busy elsewhere, so they had the house to themselves. Along with the biggest junk food feast Jane could have wished for, Lanie had a stash of dark chocolate to re-energize them. Dark chocolate-dipped cookies and triple chocolate hot cocoa mix. Jane, Lanie and Felicity laughed almost in unity when Kurt grumbled about just not understanding what it was with girls and chocolate.

  "It's just another proof that men are a completely different species, that's all," Jane said, slouching a little in her chair at the table and cradling the big, clunky, cobalt blue mug filled with hot chocolate and whipped cream.

  "An inferior species. Yeah, yeah, I've heard all that before," Kurt grumbled. He winked at her.

  She couldn't control herself. Her face burned and she knew she was red enough she couldn't cool it down right away. Especially when she saw the grins and raised eyebrows Lanie and Felicity exchanged.

  Well, it was nice to know she had their approval.

  Once they had all regained their equilibrium, Felicity ran next door to the garage that had been turned into a cottage for her, and brought out a photo album. Jane was stunned to see photos of children from Neighborlee Children's Home. Lanie admitted they had filled the photo album from NCH records, provided by the former orphanage director, Mrs. Silvestri, who was just as interested as they were in finding out what happened to the children who had been spirited away. It took a few moments to get to the page Felicity wanted, but the photos were arranged in order of dates when the children arrived at NCH.

  Jane shivered a little when she saw the candid photos someone had taken of her, on the playground and in the study room and laughing with some of her cottage-mates. Her throat closed, and for a few seconds she couldn't even speak to admit that yes, that was her. She was almost overwhelmed by the flood of good memories of her few years at the orphanage, before going to the Sanctum. The four of them could have grown up together and been good friends, if Demetrius and Reginald hadn't interfered and snatched her away.

  "You were nice to me when I was feeling like such a freak, like I was the only one going through what I was going through," Jane said, tracing a fingertip over the picture of herself at age eleven.

  "What? Puberty?" Felicity nodded. "I bet you were knocked off your feet by a lot of things, and then they came and grabbed you and threw you down among all those others who were like you, but not like you. I'm kind of jealous, but I'm glad we got left behind, y'know?"

  "Neighborlee is our home." Lanie shrugged. "It's your home now, too." They exchanged smiles.

  They broke up some time after Lanie's younger brother, Pete, got home from some activities at church. By then, they had come to several agreements. First, Jane would give only an abbreviated report of what happened that night to Demetrius and Reginald. They weren't going to ask anyone's advice or share information with outsiders until they got a better handle on what they were facing. Felicity had given the phenomenon a good set-back, a much stronger jolt than she had given it at New Year's, and if it wasn't permanently disabled, it would stay shut down longer. If the Voice didn't make contact again with Jane, that would be confirmation that it was indeed the oil slick monster.

  The team's patrols of Neighborlee would expand to include regular testing of the energies surrounding the town, to watch for weak spots and any other places where the phenomenon might be trying to open up doorways again. Jane wanted a chance to study the maps they had made, and especially interested in how the swirling patterns of events in Eden matched the patterns scattered through the rest of the world. She had a number of contacts, other Gifted who could give her information on what they had observed throughout the world. Eventually, when they had figured out some more patterns and got more answers—and analyzed the information Lanie's parents had sent before they vanished—Jane would contact her friends whose talents could help in the search. Slowly. The answers to why all the abandoned children had appeared where they did would be theirs someday, including the answer to why four times as many children appeared around Neighborlee than anywhere else at the other hot spots.

  * * * *

  Despite what she had agreed to, Jane told Katie what had happened. After all, her friend knew some of what was going on in Neighborlee, had met Angela and gotten her approval, and knew about Kurt and his Gifted friends. Shutting down on the information flow would only make Katie more curious, and she was conscientious and responsible enough that she would be alarmed if Jane suddenly stopped reporting on her progress in unearthing Neighborlee's secrets. Being alarmed would lead to reporting to Demetrius and Reginald and possibly bringing in other Gifted, to intervene and rescue Jane.

  That was the last thing they needed.

  "So..." Katie said, three days later, after sitting still for two hours straight while Jane filled her in on what had been happening, the team's theories and their experience with the oil slick monster/interdimensional invader. Her somber mask of concentration cracked into a curiously sheepish grin and she flopped back in Jane's couch.

  "So what?" Jane finally asked, knowing she was being set up.

  Chapter Sixteen

  "So do you think, if the Voice guy is not the enemy, if he's for real, and if he knows where we come from and we can go home..."Katie took a deep breath and her grin went even more crooked. Of course, part of that could have just been perception, because she seemed to be sliding sideways. "If we do go home, do we hold onto our superhero powers?

  "What if," she hurried on, when Jane hesitated, trying to find an answer, "it's like when Superman returns to Krypton? What if our world makes us ordinary people? No more Ghost field for you, no more supersonic speeds for me. No more fire-touch for Laurie-Ann. And on and on."

  "Ever consider that the old joke is true, and we're the rejects? Maybe we aren't strong enough to survive back where home is. Think of all those arguments the guys used to have, talking about shows like Star Trek and Stargate, where they went from one alien world to another and nobody ever brought home some alien virus that wiped out the ship in two seconds. It doesn't make sense that nobody gets sick, especially if it's an alien world, because they don't have the immunities and they sure don't have the ability to identify an alien virus or bacteria that's going to devour their brains in five seconds, so how can they create the medicine to save their own lives? We won't have any immunity that the natives have."

  "Wrong." Katie sat up.

  "Wrong how? How can we make ourselves immune? I'm not that up on the science or biology or whatever you want to call it, but living our whole lives on Earth, logic tells me we would have lost whatever immunity we might have had. And anyway, if we brought any alien organisms with us, how could they survive on Earth, where everything is different, the chemistry and the light spectrum and the radiation and whatever else?"

  "Not that." She grinned. "I'm talking about them not getting sick from alien viruses. There was that episode of first season of Stargate—I think it was first season—where everybody was turning into cave men, and it turned out they needed Daniel's allergy medicine to stop whatever it was. And the episode on Classic Trek where everybody was turning old."

  Jane let out a shriek that was half laughter and launched herself at Katie. Her friend yelped and slid sideways at supersonic speed, bouncing off the wall before she got her feet under herself. Jane wasn't really trying to catch her. She gasped laughter, landing face-first on the futon, while Katie settled down in a different chair.

  "You know what the Old Poops say. Don't borrow trouble. We'll deal with those complications when we run into them. Who says we'll ever get home? For all we know, the doorway from whatever world we came from is one-way. Maybe that's why the Voice seems stuck. He's trying to go in through the out doorway."

  "And maybe he's a liar and the enemy, or a worse enemy than the oil slick monster." Jane shivered a little, remembering that momentary encounter at Eden II.

  Felicity had z
apped it back into quiescence, but did that really guarantee the nasty thing would sleep for a while again? She thought back over the other encounters with the interdimensional invader that Angela and the team had told her about. Each time the invader attacked, the defenders learned something about it, and the enemy went back into hibernation. Just because every failed attempt seemed to end with another few years of retreat, what did that really mean? The invader—whether it was the oil slick or the Voice or both or neither—was never defeated. It just retreated to rest, rebuild its strength, and change its tactics.

  "What if it is?" Katie said. "What are you going to do about it?"

  "I don't know."

  "Then concentrate on something you can do something about."

  "Such as?" Jane wavered between amusement at the smug little smirk Katie didn't make any effort to hide, and irritation.

  "The kid. Whoever swiped at the spoiled rich snot to rescue Penny. Someone at the orphanage is a developing Gifted, just learning his or her powers. Someone who is pretty protective. Concentrate on finding that kid instead of worrying about the oil slick."

  "Easier said than done," she grumbled.

  "Since when do any of us choose the easy way?"

  "True." Jane decided to be amused by Katie's constantly up attitude and outlook.

  She related the conversation to Lanie the next day, when she stopped in on her lunch break, and her new friend was suitably chagrined.

  "We're so used to not having anybody like us around," she admitted. "We should have learned our lesson when the trouble triplets showed up." For a moment, she hesitated, eyes narrowing as she studied Jane.

  In that moment, Jane was sure Lanie was going to ask for more information on the three young men who had tormented her at Christmas. Perhaps ask how Demetrius or Reginald or someone else was doing on untangling the programming inflicted on them, or if they had discovered any clues to their mutual enemy.

  "We need to change our mindset. There is more weirdness in the rest of the world and like attracts like, so we should expect trouble in Neighborlee. We need to watch NCH more, for kids like us showing up." Lanie shrugged. "That's part of why the three of us go back and work with the kids, do the big brother and big sister thing. Obviously, we haven't been careful enough. Someone is developing powers. Now that we know somebody else out there besides your teachers knows about the Lost Boys, we have to be even more careful."

  "What do we do?"

  "You seem to be even more sensitive to powers at work than Kurt. Maybe the two of you together can kind of boost each other with the Geiger counter routine."

  "What exactly do you have in mind?" Jane fought down a little shiver when Lanie's eyes lit up and she grinned and sat back in her wheelchair, looking her over twice.

  "Well, we can get you into the cottages easily enough. Just introduce you as Kurt's new girlfriend. The kids will flip."

  "Is that a good thing, or bad?"

  "Oh, definitely good. The kids love Kurt. He's kind of like Santa Claus, always fixing things for them, helping them with their science projects. Every year he has a team that goes to the soapbox derby in Akron, and the kids just go crazy designing and decorating their racers."

  "What about any little girls who plan on marrying big brother Kurt when they grow up?"

  "Hmm, none that I know of." Lanie snorted. "Just our luck, the jealous one will be the one with the superpower and she'll try to zap her new rival."

  "Well, if it brings her out of hiding, that might be good."

  "How good will it be for you and Kurt?"

  "I don't—" Jane swallowed, stunned by the slightly dizzy, slightly fluttery feeling.

  "The guy is really interested. He's never been interested in us, but we know each other too well. No mystery. Kurt has been looking for someone like you for a long time. Of course, we always figured he wanted a top-heavy, single-digit IQ, skin-tight outfit type of girl. Not someone smart and streamlined and equal to kicking his butt when he needs it. If some jealous kid attacks, well, that'll wake him up, get him moving faster to strengthen whatever it is building between the two of you."

  "That's a little too fast. Considering I loathed him up until a few days ago. Considering he was trying to drive me out of town up until a few days ago."

  "Maybe the guy was scared."

  Jane decided to laugh. Better than admitting she felt a little scared, too.

  You wanted a normal, ordinary guy, remember?

  "Of course, if the new superhero is a boy, he could have a crush on Penny, which makes him protective of her, which explains him attacking that rich kid." Lanie shrugged. "All we can do is introduce you to the kids and see what happens."

  * * * *

  The night before Jane was to go to the orphanage and be introduced to the children as Kurt's new girlfriend, she dreamed she was walking through a dark, chill, damp place. The details were too hazy to give her a sense of location. Tunnels or vaulted ceilings? Underground, or a massive ruined building? Alone? Or surrounded by malevolent, quietly breathing, massive, cold-blooded entities that watched her and hated her? She walked, stretching out her senses, trying to find a way out, trying to discern if anyone was nearby. Trying not to bolt and run until she was exhausted. No matter how far she walked, she never reached a doorway or a turning place or a source of light. No matter how hard she shivered, she couldn't get warm.

  She woke three times from the dream, shivering and sweating and hovering at least two feet above her bed. She changed her pajamas twice, always drenched in sweat, and the third time took a long, hot shower before putting on her last pair of clean pajamas. It didn't help. No matter how she tried to focus on her upcoming trip to the orphanage and Penny's giddy delight at introducing her boss as Kurt's new girlfriend, she couldn't program herself to dream something different.

  The fourth time the dream caught her, Jane let herself run. The floor was uneven and she stepped into holes and tripped over obstructions constantly. Each time she stumbled and started to fall, she called up the Ghost field to protect her. It lasted long enough to get her steady on her feet again, but she couldn't maintain it. She thought about flying, trying to rise up and out of the darkness of her prison. But what if the Ghost field failed her when she was high enough in the air to hit hard and fast and break all her bones? What if the Ghost field failed her while she was in the middle of solid rock?

  Jane woke up to the cold silver light before dawn streaming through her skylight, shivering and drenched yet again, and sick to her stomach. She stumbled into the shower and stayed there until all the hot water was gone, her bathroom was filled with steam, and her fingers looked like prunes. She made breakfast only because she knew she needed to eat for energy. Nothing appealed to her, and she had to close her eyes and pinch her nose before she could bring the first spoonful of oatmeal to her mouth. Her throat closed and convulsed, like she would vomit.

  Once the taste of the oatmeal, heavy with butter and brown sugar and raisins, hit her tongue, her stomach turned into a raging fire-filled cavern. She had half the bowl of oatmeal down her throat before she took a breath. As she stumbled to the refrigerator, she shoveled the rest of the oatmeal into her mouth, then licked the bowl clean while she scanned the shelves for what to eat next. Leftover buttered noodles followed, with slightly questionable ham loaf after that. She caught herself grumbling about the stupidity of natural peanut butter that required mixing before it could be eaten, and stepped back from the ransacked refrigerator.

  What was happening here?

  She hadn't been talking with the Voice, so why was she drained and eating for three?

  The lights were on in Divine's Emporium and the front sidewalk was swept clean despite the three inches of snow that had fallen overnight, when Jane arrived less than ten minutes later. She swallowed down a sob of relief and flew through the front door.

  Rather, she tried to fly through the front door. She hit it, despite the Ghost field being at full strength. Instead of bouncing back hard, s
omething caught hold of the edges of the "bubble" surrounding her and set her down on the front porch. Sighing, the sound turning into a sob of frustration, Jane turned off the Ghost field and lifted her hand to bang on the door. It opened before her hand touched it and Angela reached out both hands to catch hold of her wrists and draw her inside.

  "Protective fields," Angela explained, slipping an arm around Jane's waist and leading her through the house, to the stairs up to her private quarters. "The house knows you're a friend, but the energy you generate to be the Ghost...well, it's tainted. That's the best explanation I can come up with. I had the oddest dream of you running down long, dark, wet tunnels and—excuse me, but they disgust me, so I imagine they do the same for you—there were all these leaches reaching down from the ceiling and taking little sips from you as you passed."

  "That about sums up how I feel," Jane admitted, as Angela ushered her through the door into her apartment. "You were there in my dream? How come I didn't see you or even sense you? I was completely alone."

  "You belong to Neighborlee," she said, her stern expression somehow warm and comforting. "You are never alone. Especially when you are involved in discerning yet another mystery and protecting our home. Sit." She pointed at one of the chairs pulled up to the table, set for three, and stepped through an open doorway. From glimpses of a white enameled old-fashioned stove and matching refrigerator, Jane guessed it was her kitchen.

  A shiver of something somehow familiar and warm passed over her as Angela came out with an enormous teapot covered in unicorns and maidens in Renaissance gowns in one hand, and a basket of steaming muffins in the other hand. Jane's stomach woke up, aching from emptiness again.

  "Drink first," Angela ordered, tipping the teapot to fill the dark green mug large enough to hold four cups, sitting in the middle of Jane's plate. She went back into the kitchen while Jane obeyed, and returned with butter and a tripod holding small bowls of jewel-toned jellies.

  "What happened?" Kurt demanded, barreling through the door.