“When I come out I’m not going to announce it to anyone. And I’ll have a plan. But, right now I’m going to do what I want and see where it leads me.” I might be the one getting testy.
"Okaaay," She says in a drawn out statement that translates to, "What the hell are you talking about?”
I'm not doing a good job of communication here, but it's not the first time we've had trouble communicating. Carly is used to grabbing whatever she needs to understand what someone is saying to her right from their mind. One of the perks of being a telepath is you always understand what someone is trying to tell you. No matter how poorly they're saying it. Because a telepath can pull it directly out of their minds exactly the way they're thinking it, while the person trying to explain their thoughts struggles to translate those thoughts into words. But, Carly can't do that with me due to my mental defenses.
“I’m a long way from going pro. And, I’m a long way from being a goody, goody, superhero,” I tell her.
“Well, you’re no villain, either,” Carly retorts. She’s not saying it like she’s trying to convince me. She’s just stating the facts.
I don’t like that she says it like it’s some kind of obvious conclusion, “You sure about that? Being a super villain doesn’t mean you have to take over the world, or blow up the moon.”
“You like people. You care about the little people. What are you going to do that will make you a super villain?”
“Fine. I won’t argue that. But, I don’t plan on spending much time with the little people. And if I decide to do something heroic, it will be because I want to and not because everyone expects me to do it.”
“From the start? You’re going to play in the big leagues day one? Are you kidding?”
I smile at her in my way that tells people they just don’t understand the things I understand. Some see it as condescending, but Carly just crosses her arms and throws it back at me with an arms crossed, “You’re full of it,” look.
She keeps going, "Have you looked at the statistics for hero and villain deaths? Most who die do it in their first year. And very few of them start out playing in the big leagues. You think you’re that good?”
I’m honest, “Not yet. But, I will be.” No one. Not Carly, not my parents, not Ernie, knows what I plan, or what I can be. And, I can’t explain it to them. "All right. I get it what you're saying. I've seen the same numbers, too, and I get it. But, I’m a little further out than two standard deviations in brainpower.”
“All right, fine.” Carly concedes, so she can move the conversation back to us teaming up, “We would both have to go in with a significant amount of our abilities. And, a significant amount of trust, to make this work. So, I would need a real commitment. You have to bring a significant part of what you can do to the table, but I can handle you keeping a few tricks up your sleeve. Are you in?"
It takes me a minute to respond. The whole time I’m staring at Carly, but not seeing her as I mull the whole idea over in my head, “Yeah, I'm in,” I finally say, without actually coming to a conscious decision, “I was planning on doing some low-key solo work anyway so I can assess myself. With you I can do real patrols and it'll be a thousand times better. But, honestly, I may not always want to be on the ‘hero’ side of things."
"Yay!" Carly claps and throws her arms around my neck and squealing in my ear, "We are going to kick some ass!" She doesn’t acknowledge that I just told her there may be times I’m the villain. I take that as a good sign. After all, villains never talk about being villains. And since she’s not talking about it, it can only mean she’s okay with it.
Chapter 19
It's Saturday by the time Carly and I get an opportunity to go someplace private to do a "show and tell" of our powers to each other. We head over to a local rancher who will let you rent his horses for the day to get off campus to someplace secluded. I show them I know how to ride my horse, Ranger, while Carly just gets on her horse, Frida, and challenges anyone to be able to spook the horse while she's on it. I swear you could fire a gun next to Frida's ear and it wouldn't twitch. I didn't have a gun, but I did clap really loud.
"How did you do that to keep the horse from spooking?” I ask, “I didn't think telepathy extended to animals.”
"For some people it does, but most telepaths can't control animals. I have a more limited ability in that I can keep domestic animals calm, but that's all I can do." Carly starts laughing, "I used to practice on my mom's Chihuahua. That little rat dog was so high strung it was perfect to practice on. I’m pretty good at it now. I could walk in the room with it yapping its little fiend head off and it'd just stop yapping and sit down. I could even clap hands in front of its face and it'd just look at me. It takes a lot more concentration than it does with humans."
I didn’t even want to think about her keeping humans “calm.” So I asked, “Does it hurt it? To be controlled like that?"
Carly was horrified by the idea, “No! I wouldn't hurt an animal. As soon as I left the room it would go back to being a little fiend for whoever was left in the room."
"Okay, good. I love dogs. Not so much little rat dogs, but still, I don't like to see them hurt."
"Me too! I have a Basenji back home. She's the best, but she won't mind anyone but me, and I think even when I'm using my powers on her, she’s only calm because I bribe her with treats.”
We walk the horses for a while and head out to some trails that go into a wooded area and on to a lake a couple miles from the ranch. I'm hoping we can find a secluded spot by the lake to stop and do our show and tell.
"Have you thought about how much of your powers you're going to share?" Carly asks.
"Yes, I have, and I think most of what I hold back will be related to technology and not so much my actual powers. I also have something for you that I think you will like."
"Really? You mean like something I can use when we're patrolling?"
"More like something I hope you never have to use while patrolling."
Frida stops and Carly looks at me. "What does that mean?" Then she looks at her horse like she doesn't know why it stopped, "Frida, keep going," and Frida starts plodding along again.
"You'll see," I say smiling at the way she is communicating with the horse like she’s talking to a person.
Fall in the Illinois countryside is as beautiful as any place you'll find, once you get away from the blight of urban Chicago. There is a chill in the air, just enough we can see our breath. The fall colors of the trees, the brilliant scarlets of the red maple and dogwood trees and the bronzes, oranges and yellows of beech, oak, and poplar trees, are glorious and stunning to behold. It takes us a couple hours to get out to the lake and scout a grassy clearing that is secluded enough we can show off our powers a little without being seen or accidentally hurting someone.
We dismount and tie our horses off on a sapling that has already lost all its leaves.
"It's beautiful. Everything is beautiful out here." Carly grabs me into a hug, "This is amazing," and she pulls me down and gives me a slow and wet kiss that is its own kind of wonderful.
I come up for air, "This is pretty cool, isn't it. I really didn't know it would be like this."
Grabbing the blankets, water, and lunches-in-a-box we brought that you can get in the Commons food courts, I lay things out in a nice spot under a huge oak tree. "I think you get credit for being the last to disclose a power with your horse-on-valium mind trick, which is pretty cool by the way. There have been a few times I could have used that trick on my neighbor's Great Danes."
"You were attacked by a Great Dane?"
"No! They're the friendliest dogs you'll ever know. But, they're a year old and think they're lap dogs and have the same energy as your mom’s Chihuahua." I walk out into the open grass and turn around, "Okay, you showed me yours, my turn to show you mine," and I jump forty feet straight up. When I come down I try to do the superhero kneel down landing you see in the movies, and mostly pull it off.
"Oh,
wow! No crap, you can jump over buildings?"
"Little buildings. Mostly I land on top of them."
"Okay, my turn." Carly grabs a big black backpack she brought along and pulls out a handful of what look like little balls. Tossing them up in the air, they all freeze in place and then move into a four-by-four pattern.
"Are those steel ball bearings?"
"Yeah," she replies, concentration on her face, "I have these and I have ones made out of dense rubber that are a little bigger." The bearings start moving around in synchronous patterns until Carly has them space themselves out about three feet from her body in a dome shape. "I can do twice this many in a combat situation, but I wouldn't be able to talk - it takes too much concentration."
It dawns on me, "You're telekinetic!"
Carly gets a big smile, “Ya think?”
"No way! I had no idea." Accusingly, "I'm not the only one keeping secrets, now am I? Ha! I love it!"
She's a little smug this time, "No. No, you're not."
"All right, fine." I take off at a full sprint for a giant spruce tree near the lake shore. The tree must be a couple hundred years old as the trunk is huge. The tree is about forty yards from me when I start for it and I'm full speed well before I get there, and run straight up the side of the tree until I'm half way up the two-hundred foot tall tree before I have to grab a branch to keep from pushing away from the trunk. Standing on a big branch, I look down at Carly.
"You told me you were Class 3 speed! That was way faster than Class 3!"
I drop off the branch and grab branches to swing from to slow my descent, and walk back over to Carly. "I am Class 3 for my top speed. But, I'm closer to Class 4 in acceleration and quickness.”
"I thought Class 4s had trouble with traction? They always slip when they take off because they can't get traction. I've seen it! They look like they're in a cartoon!"
"They only have trouble if they are unprepared for the surface they're running on. They get into trouble when they get on variable surfaces or something they're not prepared for. Even for baselines, if you wear shoes good for paved surfaces, you'll slip if you go on grass or dirt."
"I don't have that problem, because I designed my own combat boots." I pull up the leg of my pants to show Carly a dull black, form fitting, low boot, with a wide, thick sole. "My boots are variable surface. When I press down to run they feel the resistance and slip and adjust to the surface. If I'm on grass and dirt like we are here, they feel the earth give and any slip and react. The harder I press or more I slip, the more the shoes will extend cleat spikes that dig into the surface and give more traction. If they're feeling a hard surface, like asphalt, they keep more of a surface like a jogging shoe, but better. It all happens on the fly and the pressure I'm putting on my feet provides the power for extending the cleat spikes."
Carly grabs my foot and twists it upside down so she can see the bottom of the sole. "Spikes come out of the bottom? Oh! I see them!" Dropping my foot, "And that lets you run all out without slipping? Because, I've seen so many supers on Super Bloopers slip slide into walls and people and – I saw one guy slide off a cliff that was hilarious."
"I saw that one! In fact, that's the show that made me realize I needed better traction if I wanted to use my speed."
"That's funny. So, you just see a problem and you can just go create something to fix it? That's mad scientist territory."
“You know, there are a lot of up and coming mad scientists at Nova Academy," I say, without acknowledging I am one of them.
"So, you just invent something on a whim? Whatever you want?" She’s impressed, and my chest may be starting to puff out. My head definitely is feeling a little larger.
"Actually, almost every one of the science students has invented at least one thing. Submitting your inventions is one of the things you have to do to when you apply for admission and want to take any science courses."
"Oh, well, that makes sense. I had to be tested for my telepathy and telekinetics. What'd you submit?"
"I submitted a process for bonding ceramics and metals in armor plating, then they asked for something else and I submitted a process for amplifying the power in chemical lasers."
"Have you made a chemical laser?"
"When I was a kid, but they can't be reduced in size enough for me for how I want to use them. I prefer electron beam or plasma for energy projection as I already have a power generator design more suited to them that will fit in a suit."
"You mean a combat suit? Like the one Kinetose uses?"
"Not like his, but yeah, a combat suit."
"You've got a combat suit?"
"Not yet, but I’m working on it.”
“My boyfriend is going to wear super armor,” Carly says, and I can tell she’s like most people and thinks super armor is for wannabes.
With my best, you-have-no-idea, voice I tell her, “You won’t be thinking that way when you see what it can do.”
Carly steps back, "Okay. Fine. You’re going to have to show me then.” Turning her shoulder to me she says, “Here, I have one more thing to show you. Punch me. As hard as you can, punch me."
I'm staring at her like I have no idea what she just said, except that she can tell I do know what she said by my mouth hanging open. "No way!"
Indignant, she shoves me, "Hey! I can take a punch!"
"I have no doubt. But, I'm not hitting you." My mom would kick my butt if I ever hit a girl.
"You guessed I'm a Class 2 body, but what you don't know is I can take a punch from a Class 3 like he was some wimp punk."
"Seriously?"
"Yeah, seriously. Just punch me in the arm if you're worried about it."
"Okey, here it comes." I step up and take a full swing, but I'm aiming to just graze her arm and not to hit her square, but instead of grazing her, I feel a force on my fist as I get close to hitting her and my punch is deflected.
“Is that your telekinetics?”
"Yeah, you felt it?"
"It's strong and I just grazed it. That’s awesome,” then, “Oh, that reminds me. I’ve got something for you. Although, now I'm not sure you need it." I get a field generator out that’s like the one I gave to Bubble-E, and hand it to Carly. "I want you to carry this; it hooks on your belt."
"What is it?"
"It's a repeller field generator. It will protect you from taking a hit and amplify your punches, but it doesn't look like you need it." I was a little disappointed, which is odd, because I was completely relieved to find Carly can take a major hit without being wiped out. I show how it works and clip it to her belt. "Go punch that oak."
Carly walks over to the tree and gives it a punch, doing about as much damage as you'd expect from a low Class 2 with the field generator on. The oak has a pretty good gash. Carly steps back from the tree, squares up, and punches the ground. I feel the punch in the soles of my feet moving through the earth, and look down at the foot deep hole Carly just put in the ground.
"What was that?" I ask.
"I didn't want to kill the tree," is all she says.
"No, what'd you do?"
"I added my telekinetic ability to the punch. It works great with the repeller field."
"That’s awesome. But, you can't use the field in combat. It only has a five minute charge. You're supposed to use it to help you escape if you get in over your head."
"Oh cool, but I might use it to finish the fight, instead." I've never heard Carly snort laugh before. It's hilarious, and a little gross, but I don't tell her she blew a booger on my shirt when she did it.
After we finish laughing, her at her joke, and me at her, I ask, "I'm hungry, you ready to eat something?"
"Yeah, I'm starving."
The lunches-in-a-box are nothing special, but they do the job. We're not noticing though, and spend the next hour talking about our powers and some of the fights we have had when we patrolled back home. Carly describes a fight she had with another telepath and, for a fight that neither person ever moved or
threw a punch, it was pretty brutal. Telepaths are vicious fighters when fighting each other. Carly says it's because both of you know if you lose, the other person can just climb right into your psyche and do whatever they want to your mind. If they get the upper hand and want to turn you into a quivering lump of neurological jello, they can.
We pack up and ride back to the ranch in the afternoon and both of us are looking forward to our first patrol together.
Chapter 20
We try patrolling the campus and actually catch someone breaking into one of the science buildings, but campus security gets pissed off at us and reports us to the Dean of Students, Mr. Raith. The next day we both receive a form letter telling us it is against campus rules to conduct superhero activities on campus. So, naturally, we move our operation to Marston, the little town next to campus, Population: 7,248. That lasts one patrol. We don't break up any crimes, this time and we see at least three other teams patrolling and two people soloing. But, we do find an industrial technology complex that is far too busy in the middle of the night to be doing anything legal. The next day we receive another form letter from Mr. Raith, titled "Second Notice.” Apparently, the town is off limits too. That puts us out of business. For the moment anyway.
I'm having dinner with Carly over at Oppenheimer Quad, it's our first time having dinner there as I've been making excuses not to have dinner there for the past couple weeks. The last thing I want to do is have dinner with a bunch of semi-hostile, mad scientists. Half of them are assholes and the other half are so socially inept as to believe being rude is actually just a polite way of getting to the point and not wasting other people's time.
Usually, I'm the one being stared at when I come over to Oppenheimer to use the science labs. Tonight, no one seems to even notice me. However, by the time we sit down with our food, several of them are staring at Carly and it's starting to make me nervous.
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