But, he wasn’t a normal person. Not by far.
He stepped into super speed and everything around him slowed to a snail’s pace. Everything except him. To the naked eye it would appear that he had just teleported away to safety, but in reality he was still very present within the office. It was just that Fallout was moving so fast that time appeared to slow down for him to a near dead stop, and like the bullets, he too was now moving too fast for the naked eye to register.
The bullets floated through the air at him, crawling their way along as if they were moving through a pool of gelatin.
He glanced over his shoulder to make sure that there was no one behind him, and once he was positive that the coast was clear, he side-stepped the bullets. Coming out of super speed he listened as the bullets screamed past him and embedded themselves in the wall.
That was round one.
Riley was still screaming, this time becoming hysterical at the way that Shaun appeared to teleport out of the path of danger, but those screams were short lived.
Before any other havoc could be wreaked, Fallout stepped back into super speed and sprinted at Riley. One of his hands knocked away the man’s gun, sending it spinning like a helicopter towards the floor, while his other hand grabbed Riley by the throat and clenched around the chords of his neck.
It was like a dance. Swiftly and elegantly Fallout lifted the man into the air and levitated the two of them about a foot from the ground. Riley was completely dismantled, but Fallout didn’t stop at just disarming the man. He needed to be stunned and turned over to the police.
Fallout’s fingers on his free hand were still pulsing slightly with energy. He didn’t want any of that energy to go to waste, so with a flex of his fingers, as if he was holding a football, he grew the energy into a sphere. That sphere began to spin like a pool ball until it looked big enough to do some damage.
Then, with a thrust that was undetectable to the naked eye, he pressed this ball of energy into Riley’s gut and released it.
The effect was like being stunned by a football player slamming into your chest.
Riley’s eyes widened to the size of silver dollars and his mouth hung open. Both of his arms quivered at his sides before dropping limply, and his scream was cut short. The gun clattered to the floor. His eyes slid shut and as his head lolled back onto his shoulders.
Shaun knew that his job was done.
Now back in real-time, he lowered Riley’s body down to the floor and stepped away. The man wasn’t dead, but he was incapacitated now so that no further harm would come from him.
Cheers erupted from the hostages as they stood up for the first time in hours. Their legs must have been killing them. Many had tear-stained faces and makeup smeared on their cheeks.
The hostage situation had been a long ordeal, and Shaun was glad it was over.
“Well done!” said Officer Murphy as he came up behind Shaun to clap a hand on his back. “Another day is saved thanks to Fallout!”
“You’re just lucky I was in the area,” Shaun muttered, keeping his voice low enough so that the rest of the room couldn’t hear him. He was scanning the cubicle farm with his visor, checking for any other dangers, whether they be home-made bombs, other explosive devices, or projectiles. Thankfully there was nothing else detected and his sensors all came up green. He returned his attention to Officer Murphy. “There are no other hostages hiding anywhere?”
“No,” Murphy replied. “The whole building has been evacuated except for this floor. But, come on — you make it sound like you couldn’t just speed over here if you weren’t nearby. You practically teleport.”
“I appreciate your enthusiasm, but this city seems to forget that I have a life outside of this costume,” Shaun answered. “It’s impossible to be everywhere at once, though I try…”
He glanced at the time in the corner of his vision and grimaced. Twenty minutes late now. He was killing it as Fallout, yet blowing it as Shaun Boding. What else was new?
Officer Murphy tried to be sympathetic. “I know that, and we try to keep the public informed as well. When we’re not fielding calls and emails asking about you and Mecha, we’re answering why you can’t just show up and solve everyone’s problems. With the number of people in this city, well, I’m sorry if crime doesn’t take vacations.”
Officer Murphy watched him, studying Fallout to try and figure out what he was doing behind his visor.
Shaun hated to tell him that there was nothing particularly special going on behind his visor. All he was doing at the moment was searching for directions to a very specific restaurant that he was supposed to be at. It didn’t really matter how fast he could run if he had absolutely no idea where he was going. He didn’t know how anyone found their way around this city without the internet.
“I trust you’re all good here?” Shaun asked by way of finishing his obligations.
Officer Murphy, who nodded. “We’ll take it from here. This guy is going to be locked up for a while, I think, and that’s all thanks to you.”
“Good. One more crazed person off the streets,” Shaun said, adding, “Or…in a nondescript office building.” Then, with a nod, he said, “Officer. Until next time.”
Officer Murphy gave him a salute with a slight smile, no doubt trying to make it less obvious that he knew who Fallout was behind the costume.
“Thanks for the assistance, Fallout.”
Shaun set off using his super-speed down to the first floor of the building and out the exit doors. He was stopped in his tracks by a wall of people.
This was not unexpected. A crowd always gathered whenever horrible events took place. Fires, car accidents, and even hostage situations always drew thrill seekers or those who enjoyed watching things go up in smoke.
As expected, there was a small group of emergency personnel mixed in with the civilians — but, to Shaun’s surprise, there was quite a large number of people milling about in front of the office building holding up large painted signs with slogans on them.
Shaun returned to normal speed and the group of onlookers locked onto him. If he expected cheers of praise like he got from the hostages, he was sadly mistaken. Instead, a cacophony of boos and jeers erupted from the crowd.
“What’s all this?” Shaun muttered to himself. “A protest?”
On closer inspection he got a better look at the slogans on the signs that were being waved around. One sign said “No more supers!” while another stated “No more Aberrants!”
As Shaun tried to figure out a way around these people so that he could at least see the streets and get his bearings on where he was in relation to his destination, a girl with a painted face and a hoodie stepped out of the crowd and approached him. Her glare was immediately apparent under the flashing lights of the emergency vehicles and she jabbed a finger at him.
“We don’t need you here!” she yelled. A few groups of people behind her cheered at these words. They only fed her determination even more as she continued to point and yell in Shaun’s direction. “You need to pack up your things and go back to wherever you came from! Leave all of us normal people alone!”
With that, the girl started back towards the crowd that had amassed.
Shaun blinked. Now he was the one who was stunned.
When did these people get here? And how did they even figure out that he was in the building? Shaun was under the impression that he was being covert during this mission. The news stations weren’t tipped off.
Shaun couldn’t help but scoff.
“Alright,” he muttered as he studied his GPS. “I just saved all those hostages, but whatever.”
The girl turned suddenly with a look of utter contempt in her eyes. “So, you vaporized the gunman? Are you going to vaporize me, too?”
Shaun was pulled away from the information flashing across his visor.
“Don’t be ridiculous. I haven’t vaporized anyone, and I’m certainly not going to vaporize you. But, let me understand something. You people,�
�� he waved his arm, signaling to the small horde of college-aged people waving bright purple and orange signs around, “are here to protest me?”
Instead of answering Shaun directly, the girl smirked and replied, “Oh good. So the superhero can read. Yes, we’re protesting you and anyone else like you.”
Shaun knew that she couldn’t see his eyes through his visor, but he locked onto her anyway.
“That doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. May I ask why you don’t like me? I haven’t done anything except help the city.”
He crossed his arms and waited for the girl’s answer.
“We are protesting you,” she began, “Fallout, because you don’t belong here. You don’t belong anywhere, least of all in Boston. You and Aberrants like you belong on the pages of a comic book — not flying around the city doing whatever you like. It’s not normal and it’s not natural. It’s like you’re not even from this planet.”
“Hey — I haven’t done whatever I like here, okay?” Shaun shot back. “I was acting under the supervision of the Boston P. D. and if you don’t believe it, then you’re just as crazy as the guy who was waving the gun up there.”
This got a rise out of the girl.
“What’s stopping you from just going rogue?” she asked.
Shaun couldn’t help but smirk at the question.
“Look,” he said. “You don’t even know me.”
The girl folded her arms.
“You’re right. We don’t know you. You wear a mask. Do you see any of us wearing masks? What’s your name?”
“You already know the answer to that,” Shaun replied. “It’s Fallout.”
The girl scoffed. “That’s a made-up name to hide your true identity. I’ll tell you something, Fallout. None of us are hiding our identities. Do you want to know my name? It’s Sheila Harding. In the real world, we call that an introduction. It keeps people accountable. But, you, with your mask and your powers? Who’s going to keep you accountable? You can just go around doing whatever you want with no consequences. Sure, you just stopped some poor down-on-his-luck guy from killing maybe a few people. He had a bad day. It happens. You know, most of us don’t go out and grab a gun when we have a bad day. But, this guy did. And he was totally normal up until today. Just like you.” She stepped forward, her eyes narrowing, pinpointed on Shaun’s visor.
She continued. “Who’s going to stop an average Aberrant like you when you have a bad day? The Boston P. D.?” Her laugh was swallowed up by the commotion in the crowd. “The police don’t stand a chance against someone who can move at the speed of light that can drop us all from the sky if he doesn’t like us.”
Shaun solidified his stance. He made sure that the girl, Sheila, was looking at him as he responded.
“When someone with morals has a bad day, they don’t go killing other people,” he said. “That goes for me, too.”
“Morals.” Sheila practically spat the word with sarcasm. “Such a flimsy idea. Morals can change on a dime. I put no stake in those.”
Shaun shrugged once. “It’s what separates us from the animals. Respect for your fellow humans.”
If Sheila was going to continue, the sound of chanting overpowered whatever she was going to say. The mantra caught on more and more until it became a deafening sound covering everything.
“NO MORE SUPERS! NO MORE ABERRANTS!”
“As you can see,” Sheila said, “the majority is not impressed. And we won’t be impressed until you and everyone like you are gone for good.”
She rejoined the crowd and disappeared into the mess of painted faces. Shaun didn’t know much about her besides her name, but he was sure that he would never forget her. How could he, when she had come so close to him? It was the feeling that Sheila had instilled in him that he would remember more than what she looked like. She had made him feel like a blemish, which couldn’t have been further from the truth.
He shook his head. He had no more time to waste on this circus.
Glancing at the time once more, he groaned.
6:35 p.m.
Great. Now he was twenty-five minutes late for dinner. Little did he know that pretty soon, crowds like this and being late for dinner would be the least of his problems.
6
A Change Of Pace
Cool wind rippled Shaun’s clothing as he zoomed towards the restaurant. Normally he would enjoy the scenery while he flew, but this time he couldn’t help but fixate on his encounter with the leader of the anti-supers protest group.
Did they really hate people like him and Mae so much that they wished them to just disappear? Why couldn’t they see that he was doing good for the city? From the words that were exchanged, it seemed like nothing he said would be good enough to make them see reason.
As he passed by one of the skyscrapers, the words that he had spoken to Mae many months earlier played in his mind like a recording.
The world knows that Aberrants exist now. We’ve got jobs now wether we like it or not.
He grimaced at the statement. If only he had stuck to his guns and just tried to live a normal life since his final confrontation with Will Flagrant. He could have disappeared and just been an average guy with average concerns. Laying low would have made for much less protesting by activist groups.
Yet, he just couldn’t turn a blind eye when he saw crime happening.
He groaned.
“Is this what it was like for you, Dad?” he muttered. “You just couldn’t say no to anyone, could you? Now it looks like neither can I…”
Within minutes, he had landed in the back parking lot of the restaurant. With no one around, he began pulling off his hood and straightening himself up for the dinner engagement.
Unannounced, a teasing voice spoke up behind him, causing him to jump.
“You just couldn’t keep your fingers out of a fight, could you?”
Mae stood at the end of the gap between two cars that Shaun was using as cover while he got out of his Fallout costume. Her eyes glinted in the street light and one side of her lips pulled into a wry smile. She was dressed in a beautiful royal blue dress that went perfectly with the colored streak in her hair, and strung delicately around her neck was a shimmering tiny glass vial containing the shards of The Vestige, both the one that belongs to Mae and gives her her own Aberrant abilities, and also the shard that used to be mine. That was before my powers were permanently attached to my being all those months ago.
“Mae — do you have to do that to me every time?” Shaun said as he exhaled, relief flooding his tingling limbs. “I thought you were a civilian sneaking up on me. You’re going to give me a heart attack!”
“And running at the speed of sound doesn’t do that to you already?” She folded her arms and observed him as he removed the hood from his neck. It was held together by a clasp, and was easily foldable so that he tucked it into the inner pocket of his dinner jacket. Mae continued to smile and folded her arms. “I’m glad to see that my ‘high-tech’ suit modification is working so well for you, as simple as it is. It’s no spandex, but it gets the job done.”
“Trust me,” Shaun muttered as he brushed himself off. “You don’t want to see me in spandex.”
“You don’t know that,” Mae teased.
Shaun didn’t see any dust or grime on his clothes, for which he was thankful. He straightened his shoulders and took a steadying breath. He wasn’t as comfortable as he should have been, considering what this occasion represented.
Mae frowned, noticing his unease at once.
“What’s the matter?” she asked.
“It’s nothing,” Shaun shook his head, trying to put the terrible feeling behind him, but no matter what he did, nothing seemed to work. Mae didn’t drop the issue so easily, either.
“You can tell me,” she said. “Did someone die this time?”
“No — nobody died. It’s nothing like that…” He swallowed the lump in his throat and turned to face her directly. “I just ran into a group of protestors.
”
“Protestors? You mean, like…?”
“Anti-Aberrants.” He pressed his lips together. “Basically they told me that people like us shouldn’t be interfering in the city’s daily routine.”
Mae looked like she wanted to strangle someone. “Even when there are people being held up at gunpoint?”
Shaun nodded.
“I know. It doesn’t make any sense. I’m not going to lie, it kind of rattled me. Makes me think twice about stepping in to help the police force.”
Mae came around to him and slid an arm around his waste.
“Aren’t you the one who said that we should lay low for a while?” she asked gently. “I thought we were going to stick to that?”
“Yeah,” Shaun replied. “But, I got bored.” He gave her a sheepish smile. Mae tightened her hold on him.
“You always do. Don’t worry. I’m not judging you…too much.”
She reached out and brushed some of his hair away from his forehead.
Shaun sighed. It was these moments that he needed the most. The sense of normalcy that only Mae could bring to his life. Of course, he couldn’t discount his mother. On the contrary — his mother worked hard to keep everything running smoothly at their home. When he was there in his neighborhood, tucked away in his bedroom, things felt normal. The only thing holding him back was being able to talk to his mother about his powers and the struggles that he faced with them.
There was an obvious answer to that dilemma. He could just tell his mother the truth. And yet, he didn’t want her world to implode. Not only would she look at him differently once he told her about his superhero exploits, but the news would also alter the way she viewed her entire marriage to Shaun’s father. As far as Shaun knew, his father never told his mother about his powers either. Presumably it was due to safety, which Shaun didn’t doubt. But, how interesting it was to think that the same pitfalls that his father encountered would be the very ones that Shaun struggled with even now.
“Hey,” said Mae gently, pulling him out of his own head. “What’s going on in there? Anything I can help with?”
The Aberrant Series (Book 4): Super Invasion Page 4
