“I kind of agree with Rod,” Don admitted. He had walked back into the frame to look around at the group. “We all could use some time off, I think.”
Kiara was next. Her answer was simple. “De and Mo are right. It’s the 5th Command. We have to do what we can to help. Technically the 4th one too, ‘Value others’ well-being’.”
Jas looked from Rod to Kiara and back. “Well, I joined you guys to help people. We find the Prudence Kids and take them back to jail we’re helping a lot of people. We should do it.” Rod looked a little surprised that his sister would go against him, but when he saw the look in her eyes he knew there was no changing her mind. Instead, he and the others all looked at M.
“Oh so now my opinion matters?” he snarled.
“Just say what you gotta say, Sparky.” Rod shot back.
“Well…” M held out the word for dramatic (and annoying) effect. “I think we need to call the President.”
“I don’t need him telling me a decision to make!” De argued.
“I’m with him on that,” Rod agreed.
“Not for that dummy. Think about it, if the Prudence Kids really are behind the androids still wrecking stuff, this is the government’s fault. They let them escape prison and stopped trying to find them. It’s their fault that people are being hurt, so unless they want the rest of the world to find out, they would have to help us find them. We get the government on our side, it will be nothing to find the Prudence Kids. It probably won’t be a long journey again with them backing us.”
“Okay, I actually love that idea,” Rod admitted.
“And it works another way too. I mean it was another government official who ordered A.G. be created in the first place. This is just as much their fault as anybody else’s,” Don pointed out.
“So, does this mean we’re going with it? Finding the Prudence Kids?” De asked hopefully.
M sighed. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but…I agree with De. Let’s do it.”
Kiara grinned. “Guess I should get ready to do another special piece on this. I wonder…could I interview myself?”
The others laughed, but in all of their minds, they came to the realization that they had just signed themselves up for another mission, another journey to continue their duty as Elementals.
REAL MONSTERS
Nora Anthony
Smokey eye shadow, check.
Konda flipped the black shiny hair that cascaded down the middle of her back.
New weave, check.
She puckered her thick lips, applied the wine red lipstick. Eye shadow, mascara, and foundation, all from the Walgreens on Main Street, were scattered on the bathroom sink.
Tonight was the night. She was gonna get Freddy.
“Shut up!”
She heard the voice echo from under the bathroom floor.
A young man. She sniffed the air. A few young men. Teenagers. In the apartment right under her.
Who lived down there?
Then she remembered; Ms. Jean, the old Haitian woman that would leave leftover bread hanging on Konda’s door. She was sweet.
In a few breaths, Konda was downstairs, bursting down the door.
She stared into the shocked eyes of three boys, tall and skinny. One of them with tattoos on his eyelids licked his lips.
“Ya’ll better get out of here now. You hear me?”
“Who says?’ One of them pulled out a gun, and cocked it.
Crap. Where’s Ms. Jean?
She heard her whimpering in the kitchen.
Good. She’s out the way. And I don’t smell any blood.
Before the bullet left the gun, Konda had disarmed him, kicked him on the floor and cracked his spine.
She couldn’t prevent the next gun from firing off, but she grabbed his arm and jammed her elbow up his nose. More cracks and screams before he fainted.
The other two ran out the door, but they were too slow. Konda knocked both of them out in the hallway, a little gentler this time. She didn’t want any dead bodies around. That wouldn’t be good for her.
She stood up, felt her lipstick, her make up. No sweat, as usual. She didn’t think anything could make her sweat anymore.
She stomped back into the small apartment, carrying out the remaining young men and tossing them out in the hallway. “Ms. Jean? Did you call the police?”
“Yes!” Ms. Jean hobbled out of the kitchen unharmed. She looked at Konda wide eyed. “You beat them up? You skinny thing, that never eats?”
Konda laughed, hesitantly. “I eat.” Just not in the past few days. “I do karate. Keep the men away, you know.” Konda frowned. “Are you really okay?”
Ms. Jean sighed sitting down on her couch. “My son was right. I need to move back in with him in Westchester. Spring Valley isn’t safe anymore.” She rubbed her arms.
“Make sure he comes and gets you tonight, after the police report.”
“I will.” Ms. Jean frowned. “And where are you going, with that hoochie dress?”
“Hoochie? It’s not hoochie, it’s nice. I’m trying to catch a man tonight, I need something black and tight, right?”
“Not if you want a good man!”
Konda grinned. I’m not looking for a good man. “I’ll keep that in mind. Take care! The police should be coming soon.” She could hear them running up the creaky stairs to the third floor of the apartment complex.
Konda sauntered back up to her apartment.
She froze.
There, standing in her empty living room, was Rachel. Her pierced lip lifted up in a smile. “ Where you going?”
Konda pressed her lips firmly together. “None of your business.” She went into the bathroom and continued to get ready.
“I’m not coming,” Konda said in her bedroom, as she rubbed lotion down her legs. Her skin was dry and getting a little pale. It would return to its flawless state after she ate something.
“You need to. “ Rachel was still standing in the living room. “You can’t keep doing this.”
“I have to.” I can’t not do anything with my powers.
Konda walked out of the room in her heels, her black purse hung on her shoulder. She turned to the black woman with short curly hair and bright teeth. “Get out of my house.”
Rachel sighed. “I’ll be around, if you need me.”
“I won’t.”
“When was the last time you ate? You’re gonna need us, Konda. After tonight, you’ll be coming back with us.”
With that, Konda walked out the door and slammed it behind her.
Who she think she is? I’m not joining their colony. I’m not living with other people like me.
She was going to keep moving from town to town in New York, saving people and disappearing, putting in a new weave or wearing her normal hair out, changing her wardrobe, where she hung out and who she spoke to.
She was looking for monsters. Before she found her apartment, she lived on the streets, the cold nights not bothering her skin, shooting, smoking and snorting the dope that would never alter her brain just so she could find the pushers, the suppliers, the traffickers.
Freddy was a bonus. He pushed drugs and got runaway girls into his sex trafficking ring.
A real monster, Konda repeated to herself, as she walked into Fire and Ice.
Fetty Wap was blaring on the speakers in the club. Konda let her hips sway back and forth, slowly as she walked to the bar, an advanced replicate of the many women in skin tight dresses and heels. She ignored the eyes of the men who watched her walk by the edge of the dance floor, ignored the whistles and murmurs of desire.
Konda was used to the compliments by now. Before she changed, she wasn’t ugly; just normal. Her skin was sepia brown; she had a thin frame with wide hips and small breasts; she thought her eyes were too small for her face and her hair was always in need of a touch up. But after, her skin glowed. Men couldn’t help but look at her. It didn’t truly matter if she couldn’t get the right rhythm to sway her hips or if
she wore makeup. Something in her made her irresistible.
The hard part was the people. She connected with people too easily, even if she only needed information from them. The red eyed women hooked on crack and the rot-mouthed men were mothers, sisters, brothers. They looked like monsters, but they were only broken creatures.
Like me, she thought, but she silenced herself and ordered a Moscato. It used to be her favorite drink, but after the change, she couldn’t taste the sweet drink or feel the buzz.
She drank it anyway.
She saw Freddy further down the bar, talking to a few of his men. She could see the grills on his bottom teeth.
She began her walk by them, but kept her eyes on him only. Made him believe she wanted him.
He smiled at her. “Aye; come here.”
Konda obeyed. She walked over to the overweight black man, let him pull her onto his lap. “You new? I never seen you before.”
“Yeah. I come from here, there.” Konda smiled her bright large teeth at him.
She spent the most of the night on Freddy’s lap, kissing his small ears, whispering into them.
She smelled meat; hamburgers. Konda bit her lip.
“What, you hungry girl? Freddy can feed you.”
Konda giggled. “I bet you can.” She nibbled on his ear, careful not to bite too hard.
Freddy ran his thick fingers through her hair, and kissed her.
It wasn’t as disgusting as Konda thought it would be. It was enjoyable…tasty.
“I want you,” Konda whined. “Now.”
With a quickness, Freddy and his men left the club. Konda and Freddy fooled around in the back of his truck. She was careful not to be too hard, too rough with him. He was large, but she could easily break him.
She had no doubt that he was enjoying the feel of her skin, the way her lips tasted. She was irresistible; so much so that he told his men to go back to the club at her request, that they’d need complete privacy for what he was about to do to her.
They made it into his large colonial house, and into the bedroom.
She pushed Freddy onto his bed, stood over him, began to strip him as he grinned almost comically at her.
She drank in that look in his eyes, that powerlessness he had slumped into.
She could smell him. Soft; salty; delicious.
Konda let herself black out.
He truly was delicious. She swallowed his torn ears and lips easily. She chomped on his brain to stop his screaming and let herself indulge in his face and neck. The microscopic canines on her bright white teeth allowed her to chomp through his chest, stomach, torso, then finally his legs and feet.
The warm rush was running through her blood, her heart pounding, her muscles flexing and rejoicing at the new energy. Finally, after days of starvation, she was fed!
With bright eyes and glowing skin, she walked into the bathroom to wash all of the blood off.
She had a few hours before someone knew something was up. She kicked off her heels and ran out the house, all the way home.
She wasn’t winded at all when she made it back to the old apartment complex. She was walking into the hallway when she smelt someone delicious.
She was still hungry? No way.
She walked into her apartment, to see Ms. Jean, cooking on her stove.
“You left your door unlocked. You can’t tell me I’m not being safe.”
“Ms. Jean,” Konda grimaced. She was losing her vision. Why wasn’t Freddy enough? She swore she locked the door.
“Get out, get out before…”
Konda blacked out.
When she awoke, she saw Rachel looking down on her.
“Ms. Jean!” Konda scurried around her.
Torn pieces of Mrs. Jean’s lime Mumu were scattered across the bare floor. The beef she cooked was still simmering in the pot.
“No. No, I didn’t…”
“You did. What did I tell you about starving yourself?”
“No…not again.” Konda rocked back and forth on her knees, revisiting the memories of when she first changed, became infected…evolved, as Rachel would say. Her dad, he was just there and was worried because she wasn’t eating and she blacked out and he was…
“Konda,” Rachel grabbed her shoulders. “You need to move. Now. Come with me. We can take care of you! You’ll be properly fed…”
“No! I’m not just eating humans. I can’t do that.”
“But you are.”
“I’m not! People like Freddy…they deserve it. I’m doing the world some good. It’s the only thing I could do.”
“But you ate the old lady.”
Konda staggered up. Black eyeliner ran down her cheeks, her face a purple and black mess of cheap makeup. “You left my door open.” She grabbed Rachel by the neck. “You killed her.”
Rachel didn’t move. She only squeaked out, “You’re the one who ate her.”
Konda slammed her into the wall. It cracked.
Rachel coughed and picked herself up. “It will happen again. It always does.”
“Get out. Get out before I kill you, you stupid…”
“You know we can’t die.”
Konda crumbled to the floor. How she wished death was possible. She was beautiful, strong and immortal. But her beautiful immortal body craved flesh, and it would find it, whether she wanted to or not.
Konda dug around for her street clothes. “So I just hole up with you and the other sick. Prey on people.” Her eyes kept blurring from the tears. Poor Ms. Jean. What about her son?
“Better than torturing yourself like this.”
Konda was in faded jeans and an oversized hoodie in no time. She ripped her weave out, so her short, broken hair stuck out every which way. “I still can’t do that, Rachel. I’m still human, I can’t…I can’t think of myself as anything other.”
Rachel looked concerned. “You’ll only make yourself crazy thinking that way.”
Konda shrugged. “Fine with me.” She scanned the apartment, made sure it was barer than before.
She slipped out of the window and climbed down to the ground. She knew Rachel would follow her in a few minutes. The leader of the Evolved Colony told her to follow Konda as long as it takes, to do whatever it takes to bring her to the colony. To be united, Rachel had said. To be among our own.
They could take over the world, for all Konda cared. She knew she had to keep consuming the real monsters, eradicating their existence.
Even if she was a real monster herself.
GLASCOCK
Cynthia Ward
Under the curving glass sky, a young woman reclined on a hotel balcony. She was alone. She wore a white bikini which emphasized her dark, flawless skin, yet she was obscured from upturned gazes by an arabesque parapet. Save for the tiny crystal glittering just below her shapely lips, she wore no jewelry. However, diamonds adorned the cigarette holder angled in her left hand and the dataspex lorgnette upheld by her right.
Her balcony faced the main building of Bokassa’s Palace, a casino resort renowned throughout Human Space. In the distance, the subtly groomed grounds rose, lush in tropical colors. La Rivière Infinie Congo flowed upward, following the outer curve of the Stanford torus.
The young woman’s dataspex weren’t fixed on any of the space station’s storied sights. Instead, her lorgnette was turned toward a large swimming pool, which glittered between hotel and casino. More precisely, her app was focused tightly upon one of two men seated poolside. The men faced each other over round pasteboard playing cards, which had been fabbed by the table between them. Though alone on the balcony, the woman spoke quietly, now and again, in Galactic Standard KiSwahili.
She resumed murmuring. “He’s holding an ace, two threes—”
“Fascinating.” A man leaned close to the woman’s ear, whispering almost inaudibly as his thumb covered the tiny crystal just below her lower lip. “I understand now why Richard Glascock is playing Go Fish by the pool, instead of baccarat inside the casino.”
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The woman laid down the lorgnette and turned on her divan to face the man, fully revealing her classic Somalied ‘Usub features. She occupied the room alone. However, she didn’t appear disturbed to find a tall, dark man regarding her from a distance of mere inches, while covering her crystalline adornment with his thumb.
She swept her gaze over the man, taking in the dark, sharp eyes, the amused smile, the rugged face. His vest and swimming trunks bared a pleasing breadth of shoulder and symmetry of muscle. He seemed a few years older than the young woman.
Meeting his eyes again, she smiled, in a manner far from unfriendly. “Did you climb down the wall of my hotel, or merely break into my room?”
“That’s a professional secret.” The man glanced at the card players. “I’m devastated to learn the wealthiest diamond merchant in Human Space is dishonest. How much has Mr. Glascock won?”
The woman’s smile widened. “Two hundred twenty thousand AU since they began play.”
The man leaned closer, his thumb still covering the crystal below her lip as his own lips brushed her ear. “I would be even more devastated to learn you were involved with Mr. Glascock.”
“As a freelance employee only,” said the woman. “The owners of the space station demand strict adherence to Elemental Revivalist Christian morality. Therefore, I am paid to look beautiful on a man’s arm and, when Mr. Glascock visits, to peer on occasion through a binocular app.”
“I cannot express my relief,” the man murmured, gazing deeply into her dark, appraising eyes. “I should hate to think a gambling Mecca operated in the absence of morality.”
Keeping his thumb over the tiny crystal below her lips, he raised his head a little. She tilted her lorgnette so he might peer through. The app adjusted itself to his gaze, sharpening the image of the thin, pallid, light-haired card-player, who sat facing the balcony.
“I believe,” said the man on the balcony, “it’s time for Crystal Dick’s luck to turn.”
Black Power- The Superhero Anthology Page 17
