Guardian's Rise

by Matthew Renard

  ‘I dunno.’ I put down my spoon. ‘To be the single richest man alive? I’d hate that sort of responsibility.’

  ‘I know what I’d do with it.’ He continued, ignoring me. ‘I’d put in for voluntary augmentation.’

  ‘To augment what? Your ego?’

  ‘Funny man.’ Sammy took a bite of his cereal and pointed to the box with his spoon. ‘Aleph would be disappointed in you.’

  ‘Aleph will never know I exist.’ I snorted. ‘I really don’t get your fascination with PIs.’

  ‘Yeah, you do. Remember all those times we queued up to watch Superhero movies at the cinema?’ I nodded, and he continued. ‘Now they’re real! Powered Individuals! They can fly, they can read our minds, they can do anything!’

  ‘They survived a biological attack by aliens, and it made them stronger. You want to be impressed, applaud them for not turning into Gnarlers.’

  ‘Zombies.’

  ‘Gnarlers aren’t…’ I shook my head – he had managed to side-track me. ‘Don’t start this again, okay?’

  Gnarlers (which are not zombies!) were a big thing with Sammy, but not as much as PIs and Auggies. Since the first day we’d heard about the Powered Individuals – those people who had received powers from the Danti poisoning, and people who had Augmented their bodies with technology to keep up, he’d wanted to become one. He worshipped PIs - witness his eating a children’s cereal just because a PI had endorsed it with his name – but as he’d not been subjected to the poison that made them, the best he could hope for was being Augmented – Auggies were, after all, nearly as powerful as PIs, and they could actually choose how their powers could work.

  We had both grown up in the Superhero culture of the comics, TV shows and movies depicting extraordinary people doing extraordinary things, but to see it actually happen was something else entirely. Nearly every police force in every major country had at least one PI or Augmented Human working on it, and some cities around the world most devastated by the attacks had been almost completely revitalised and turned into a haven for PIs and Auggies. Some detractors said these PI Cities were almost as bad as the quarantined zones the Gnarlers lived in; those twisted, grey husks that had once been human - but the people who hated PI Cities were in the minority. In actuality, these had become huge tourist attractions, and incentives for PIs and Auggies to move to one of these PI Cities were supposedly massive. Regular people went to these cities for vacations, and some moved there for work. Granted, a lot of these jobs were menial or service jobs, but rubbing shoulders with a man who could fly, or a woman who could read your mind was worth it to a lot of people. PIs and Auggies were the new rock stars, our celebrities, the people we put posters up of. Who wanted to see a movie where a muscle-bound man could shoot lasers out of his eyes, when you could go to a real place and see it actually happen?

  For the most part, I agreed with Sammy; I was still a little more sceptical. After the war, some PIs decided to strike out on their own, because they believed themselves superior to us normal people. They took over one of the Cook Islands and declared it their home and a sovereign nation unto itself - Paradise Cove. Some of us “lowers” (their word) took a boat and tried to open trade negotiations. The boat was returned one night, with no bodies aboard. Nobody without powers ever went back.

  ‘Anyway. First thing I’d do as an Auggie,’ Sammy continued, shaking me out of my thoughts, ‘would be to get one of those flying units, and take you up with me on my first flight.’ His eyes, focused on me, began to look through me as if I wasn’t even there. ‘Yeah, man. We’d go up as high as the oxygen would last, and -’

  ‘And we’d freeze?’

  ‘And then I’d let you drop.’

  ‘Why?’

  Sammy shrugged. ‘It’d be funny? I’d catch you before you hit the ground, obviously...’ he added hastily - the look on my face must have been impressive, ‘but Jay? You need to live a little. Feel alive!’

  ‘I feel more than alive enough, thanks.’ I shook my head, resting my coffee mug on the cool countertop. ‘You’re going to be late.’

  Sammy glanced at the wall-clock. ‘We’ll talk more about this later, yeah? We’ll get a few drinks in and watch the lottery draw.’ He dropped his cereal bowl into the sink and headed to the back door. ‘Do you mind cleaning up, though? I know it’s not really your mess, and all, but-’

  ‘Sure, yeah.’

  He must have heard it in my tone of voice. That “I won’t be here when you get back” I’d been trying to keep out of my uninterested responses to his attempts to cheer me up. He turned and looked at me speculatively.

  ‘I may call in sick today.’

  ‘Nah, don’t.’ I shook my head again. ‘I’ll see you later.’

  ‘Jay...I know!’ He gave me that confident grin I’d seen dozens of times over the years. ‘We’ll have a Jamie and The Chop marathon! Just like old times. I’ll order in some pizza and beers, and we-‘

  ‘Sammy. Go. You’ll be late, and at least one of us needs a job right now, right?’

  He hesitated.

  ‘I’ll be fine.’ I lied. ‘Really.’ I tried to smile, thought about the razor blades upstairs, and found the smile coming naturally. ‘I’ve never felt better.’

  He gave me an “I don’t believe you” look, but paused, probably thinking over whether he should call me out on it. I was mentally willing him towards the door.

  ‘If you’re certain...’

  Just... go! ‘Of course! I’ll be fine. Another day to get through, that’s all.’ I forced myself to stop gritting my teeth and gave a watery smile. He gave me another of those looks and left.

  I let out a breath I hadn’t realised I had been holding in, and my eyes looked at the ceiling. I thought about what lay above my head... that bathtub. The razor blades. Peace and release. That was why I hadn’t bought a lottery ticket. That was why I didn’t care. That was why I didn’t see the point in caring, even a little, in who would get the OWDs - and not just because One World Dollar was a stupid name for a currency.

  Soon, I would lay in the tub, drifting off, and although Sammy would be sad for a while, he’d be the only one; he’d get past it soon enough anyway, and finally live the life he’d been wanting. The one he’d wished for.

  Starlight, star bright. The first star I see tonight.

  Like I was in a haze, I felt my legs move, driving me slowly through the corridor, and I put my hand on the bottom of the bannister, on the lowermost point, which I had always thought looked like an upside-down acorn. I felt the cool, hard wood beneath my hand, and I gave it a reassuring squeeze, as if the house knew what I was about to do...

  I wish I may, I wish I might...

  The letterbox opened, and I heard something hit the ground. Part of me wanted to carry on upstairs, but another part felt... I don’t know. A draw. Some irresistible... thing making me turn to look.

  It was a little yellow envelope - the sort which is padded on the inside to protect a valuable item. I took a few steps away from my final destination and picked it up. There were a few scuffs on the back, and a weird brownish tinge, as if it had been near a flame. Weird. I turned it over and looked at the name which had been written neatly on the front.

  Have the wish I wish tonight.

  ‘Oh.’

  Chapter Two

  The Best Laid Plans...

  ‘I can’t believe it!’

  I ignored him. Sammy hadn’t been able to believe it for the better part of a week and was showing no signs of being able to believe it any time soon.

  ‘I cannot... absolutely... believe it!’

  ‘You said.’ Was all I offered to him.

  ‘You bastard! You said you weren’t going to play.’

  ‘I didn’t.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah. Funny man.’ Sammy glared at me. ‘We could have gone halves. I’d be the second richest man alive.’

  ‘Joint first.’

  ‘What?’

  I leaned against the door frame. ‘We would
be sharing the largest fortune. We’d be the joint richest men alive. Instead, I am, and you’re poor.’

  Sammy smiled easily. ‘It’s good to see you like this.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like... you know.’ He looked at me knowingly. ‘Like you’re not planning on killing yourself.’

  I felt my face fall as I continued to look at my best friend. His face gave nothing away. ‘I mean,’ he continued. ‘I was honestly worried for a while, but now you’ve just... I dunno. Had a “new lease on life”; isn’t that what you said to that journalist?’

  I nodded. ‘Well. Yeah.’

  ‘And what I want to know is...’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘You were broke last week. Like, properly had no money. I had to pay your rent.’

  I sighed. ‘Look, mate, I’ll obviously pay you back. It’s not like I’m broke anymore.’ I saw the look on his face. ‘What? You want me to buy you a house as a thank you? A mansion?’ I fought to keep the increasingly manic sound from my voice. ‘A mansion and a fleet of sports cars to keep there?’

  ‘What I want to know,’ Sammy ignored me, keeping his voice cool and calm, ‘is where you got the money to buy that lottery ticket.’

  I could have told him. Right then and right there. I could have told him the truth. I could have looked him dead in the eye, and explained what had happened; the state I was in, what I was going to do, what stopped me, and what I had found in that envelope. He would never have believed me… but I could have told him. I could have tried. Who knows, maybe he would have surprised me and at the very least, gone along with my near-insane ramblings.

  But I didn’t tell him. Since my parents died, Sammy’s been the closest thing I have to family, and I didn’t want to lose that. I didn’t want to drive away the one person who was still on my side. I didn’t want to risk him thinking less of me, or losing what little respect he still had for me, or...

  You know what? I can’t justify it. Not even to myself. I didn’t tell him because it was my secret. Mine. Not his to tell or believe me or not. It was mine, and one of the few things I had left to myself in this world.

  Also, I was still angry at him for telling the national press who I was. A journalist had come to the house – she’d been very nice, very polite, and they’d printed a story that made me look like a weirdo who could barely string two sentences together.

  I mean, look at me. I can easily string together at least four.

  ‘I went out for a walk,’ I told him, ‘and saw some money lying on the ground. I bought the ticket with that.’

  ‘Okay, Charlie Bucket.’ Sammy frowned. ‘If you don’t want to tell me, don’t tell me. You will one day.’ He reached into his rucksack and pulled out a large plastic bag. ‘Next question, and potentially even more important an answer is this.’ He upended the bag, and travel magazines, guidebooks, maps, and just about any other travel related media he could.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  He grinned.

  ‘Not Capehill.’

  ‘Fine!’ Sammy frowned, exasperated. ‘Not Capehill. What about Tarkenden Forest?’

  ‘... Sammy, do you think I’m dumb?’ I stretched out on the beaten-up sofa, the travel guides between us. We had been discussing it for the last several hours, with Sammy always bringing the conversation back to Capehill. ‘Tarkenden is on the outskirts of Capehill! They border each other!’

  ‘Do they?’ His face was the picture of innocence. I frowned and pretended to go back to studying the travel brochures.

  I should explain.

  Remember how earlier, I had said there were towns and cities inhabited by PIs and Auggies? Capehill was the largest, most advanced PI City on the planet. On the coastline of Florida, where Sarasota and Whitfield used to sit, Capehill had the slogan “The Shining City”, and for good reason. All the advanced tech worldwide came from Capehill - the large conglomerates and corporations had set up their headquarters in the same place around the middle of the war, in order to better share information and security, once they figured out how repel the Danti. That meant homes had to be constructed, and with the added security of the big companies like SabrexTech, Lemniscate International, Borleath, and even AwaTen (yeah, that AwaTen. The step-count fitness tracker company - “AwaTen the Potential!”), the rich and powerful flocked to the place some were beginning to call Silicon Valley II. When a group of Powered Individuals moved into an abandoned and near-ruined Fort on top of a hill overlooking the growing community to have a base of operations during the war, as well as to protect the corporations producing the weapons and tech helping the war effort, the area was called Cape Hill. These days, post-war, Capehill is where the celebrities live, where the most powerful PIs and Auggies go (“they have their own Hero Training Centres!” my PI mad friend informed me reliably, every few minutes,) and where Sammy has had his heart set on for a holiday since he first heard of it. It’s his perfect place, although he’s never been.

  To be fair to him, photos of The Shining City have always shown it to be a beautiful place. Behemothic skyscrapers reflected the perfect blue skies and white puffs of clouds from street level and picked out the occasional flying Hero as they flew by. Rumour was that the corporations had to develop a new glass resistant to sonic booms, because some PIs would occasionally race through the cityscape, out onto the Sarasota Bay, and more than once an over-enthusiastic Hero had broken the sound barrier and caused hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of damage to the buildings and surrounding area below. Luckily, nobody had died, although more than a few shop awnings and soft-top cars were shredded by debris. These days, that wouldn’t happen, and it had been the Augmentation and hardware developer, Borleath, who developed an ultra-tough replacement for windows. Naturally, these days every pane of glass in Capehill was made of that material, and Borleath profits had risen drastically. Some people say Borleath was the second richest corporation in the world strictly because of the new glass thing.

  Moving away from the city, to the North and East, the countryside and nearby Tarkenden Forest on the outskirts were pristine farm and woodlands, looked after and maintained by the AwaTen Corporation. All the AwaTen employees lived on the ‘campus’, and the farmland fed them and provided their clothing - they were wholly self-sufficient. AwaTen maintained the forest as a nature reserve, and special permission had to be obtained to enter more than a quarter mile inside.

  To the Southeast and South were the three residential districts, which to my TV practiced eye were like something out of a 1950s US sitcom. Named Meadowbrook, Willowbrook and Maplebrook, the three residential areas boasted their own school systems, all which fed into Capehill University (home of the Assapan: Go Flying Rat Things!). The photos and videos from all the flyers, documentaries, and brochures gave off a whole Stepford Wives feeling; it seemed too artificial to be mistaken for real, a whole “too good to be true” deal. It all looked like an idyllic suburbia outside of the city centre, and with the metal and faux-glass Fritz Lang skyscrapers a few miles from the outskirts, the overall feeling for Capehill was one of a confused mixture. It seemed as if it wasn’t sure if it wanted to be an example of state of the art industrialism or suburban fantasy, and came across as an overly expensive experiment in neither. In other words, Capehill was wholeheartedly American.

  It certainly was no Utopian ideal, either. A futuristic, expensive city and tourist destination practically cried out for high tech villains. Whilst you still had your normal, run-of-the-mill criminals, a higher concentration of super powered citizens meant a higher concentration of super powered muggers, thugs, and other low lives. Some PIs went bad, some Auggies were bank robbers who used their stolen cash to augment themselves, as a way to rob and steal even better. Some disaffected soldiers became mercenaries for hire, and whilst a mugging in Capehill was just as likely as a mugging in somewhere like London, Tampa or Hamburg, it was also far more likely that no weapons could defend you. People tend to focus on crimes like that, which means that
crimes in Capehill were reported more frequently. The Freedom of Information laws in Florida carry over to The Shining City, and as such, just as the Internet used to see headlines like “Florida Man Marries Alligator”, you are nowadays just as likely to see “Capehill Man Throws House Party, Wife Throws House”.

  Despite this, or maybe because of it, Sammy loved Capehill. I will admit to having a certain fascination with the place myself, but Sammy lived, breathed, and dreamt Capehill. He had a Capehill University Pennant over his bed, after the party I was still finding Capehill shot glasses behind furniture, and his bedroom door had a Capehill licence plate screwed to it.

  Just to reiterate, Sammy had never been to Capehill.

  I looked over at Sammy, who was grinning maniacally at his wall-poster of Chayal Boded, and I swear I heard him whisper ‘Soon. Soon.’ at it. It was going to be his only response. Forget watching the Northern Lights. Forget touring the coast of Ireland and the Giant’s Causeway. Even forget about Disneyland... for Sammy Edwards, there was only one place to go.

  We were not going to go there.

  ‘St. Lucia?’

  ‘Capehill.’

  ‘Antarctica. We can feed the penguins!’

  ‘Capehill.’

  ‘America yes,’ I conceded, ‘but not Capehill, okay? Anywhere else, we’ll go.’

  Sammy made a show of thinking about it, and then a thought flickered in his eyes. ‘How about Massachusetts?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘There’s a town in Massachusetts I want to visit.’

  ‘Why would you wa-‘

  ‘It’s called Sandwich!’ He beamed at me. ‘Think about it, Jay. We could get a sandwich in Sandwich. A Sandwich sandwich, if you will. And,’ he said conspiratorially, ‘the best part is, guess what they call their police officers?’

  ‘I’m betting they call them “Sir” and “Madam”.’

  ‘The Sandwich Police! The actual, honest to God Sandwich Police could caution us on eating Sandwich sandwiches.’