Dinah stuck her tongue out at her again.
“I’m keeping this on for as long as I can…” Zoe ignored Dinah and looked to the parallel bars, deciding to give her agility a try.
She ran toward them, and jumped, throwing her arms out, making an ass out of herself as she missed her landing and fell onto the bar in a way that knocked the air out of her. She hit the ground, her black hair in her face.
“I guess your agility doesn’t come with you,” Ozella said matter-of-factly, no hint of snark in her voice.
“Doesn’t matter…” Zoe said as she got back to her feet. “I’m keeping this form anyway. One hour. I’m going out. Fuck. That hurt.”
“Last time you went out, you ended up betraying us all,” Ozella said, a little less matter-of-factly this time. “Maybe you should stay in for the night.”
“You sure are getting mouthy,” Zoe said.
“She isn’t wrong.” Helena stepped forward. “You did sort of do that last time you went out. Also, isn’t anyone tired? We seriously just had our biggest battle yet, like less than an hour ago. Someone must be tired. I can’t be the only one.”
“I guess I’m tired,” Ozella said.
“I’m tired too, but I don’t want to waste the hour I have…”
“Zoe, it’s already late, let’s just stay in for the night,” said Sam.
“Or we could go to the sauna,” said Helena, her eyes lighting up. “A wonderful idea, really. I know a great place, and we can stay overnight there in some of the mineral rooms. All of us together. It’s quite comfy. If you guys give me just a few minutes, I can have Bryan make reservations. Actually, it might be best for us just to have the floor to ourselves, so we can sample whatever room we would like.”
“You’re going to book an entire floor at a sauna?” Zoe asked, her voice a mixture of jealousy and excitement.
“My assistant will, but I’ll be sponsoring it, of course. In the meantime, everyone should get ready.”
“Don’t you want to know what your power-up is?” Ozella asked. “Because I sort of do.”
“Yes, sorry, I suppose that should come first.”
“You aren’t at all excited about a new power?” Zoe asked, now posing in the mirror.
“I am, but I’m also content with the power I had before.”
Dinah moved over to Sam and placed an arm around his shoulders, kissing him on the cheek, giving him a thumbs up.
“Yeah, nice to see you too,” Sam told her, thinking about giving her a sniff, but then wondering if this wouldn’t look a little strange. He decided he could sniff her out later, and then realized that there was no better time than now.
Sure enough, Dinah had no scent; it was entirely bizarre, not even a faint smell about her.
“Power-up, off,” Ozella said. Dinah disappeared, and then reformed into a blue ghost, her arm now partially submerged in Sam’s body.
“Thanks,” Sam told her.
“Okay, let’s see what Helena can do,” Ozella said as she wrote some details in her book of known variables. “Ooo…”
“What is it?” Zoe asked.
“I think she’s going to like this. According to what I have here, Helena will be able to create hallucinations. I am assuming that this targets multiple enemies, not just for some person. But that’s an assumption. We’ll have to try it out. Helena?”
“Okay, power-up, on,” Helena said, both of her pupils spiraling until they were two red bullseyes.
“Creepy,” Zoe said.
“What should I say?” red-eyed Helena asked Ozella.
“I don’t know; make us hallucinate something…”
“Um, how about this? Fire.”
Zoe was the first to react, jumping as she looked down at her arm. Sam now saw flames everywhere, the ceiling caving in, Ozella in danger. He dove for Ozella, who had dropped her book, trying to protect her.
“Sam!” Ozella cried out, her arm around his neck as he lifted her, as he looked for an opening, plumes rising into the air, a giant one, a wicked black smoke clouding his vision, the heat, the destruction, the feeling of hopelessness…
“Power-up, off!” Helena said.
Zoe had gone for the stop, drop, and roll, and was still rolling when she realized that the flames weren’t real, that her body wasn’t actually on fire. Interestingly enough, she had also turned her power-up off, and was now in her half-woman, half-tiger form.
“Sorry,” Sam told Ozella as he helped her to her feet.
“Same,” Ozella said, not able to make eye contact with Sam.
“That’s a hell of a power,” Zoe admitted, her chest still heaving up and down as she caught her breath.
“Do you have to be looking at people for that to happen?” Sam asked.
“I don’t know,” Helena said. “You know just as much about the power as I do.”
“Okay, I get it, I get it,” Ozella said. “First, we need to test and see if you can do it with your eyes closed, and test range. Maybe the people that you use your power on have to be within range of you. Yes, that makes sense. I don’t think we were all making eye contact with you at the same time.”
“I wasn’t,” said Sam.
“I was looking at her feet,” Zoe admitted.
“My feet?” Helena asked.
“Yes, your slippers. They’re a different pair than you were wearing earlier.”
“I have a lot of ballerina slippers,” Helena said. “Let’s just consider it an obsession of mine.”
“We can talk about this later, let’s test these things,” said Ozella. “Eyes closed, please.”
Helena closed her eyes and said “fire,” then realized that she also had to turn the power-up on before it would actually work. She turned it on verbally, and then said the word “fire” again, her three teammates reacting to the flames, even though they knew it was fake.
Next, Ozella instructed her to go to the other side of the gym and whisper the word. Sure enough, it worked. Eyes open, shut, the others looking at her or looking away, with the power-up activated, she could do whatever she wanted.
“Now we need to see if you can hypnotize someone with your eyes closed but your power-up on,” Ozella said.
Sam recalled that normally, Helena needed to have her eyes open, and the person needed to be looking at them for her power to work. But as they soon learned, using Sam as their test dummy, Helena was also able to use her power-up with her eyes closed.
Which was how Sam found himself squawking like a chicken, walking around the room and pretending to peck at the floor as Ozella and Zoe laughed.
“I kind of like him as a chicken,” Zoe said once Helena gave Sam his mind back.
“You turned me into a chicken?” Sam asked.
“For research purposes, yes,” said Ozella. “Okay, this is just too fascinating. We still have Sam’s powers to test. I would love to do this all night…”
“But we have a reservation to get to. Don’t worry about clothing or anything; robes will be provided. Just meet me in the living room in five minutes. Does that give everyone enough time?” Helena asked. “Oh, and power-up, off.”
Chapter Two: Night Sauna
(The only thing missing from this chapter is an intense mani-pedi.)
The lights from the city were everything Sam Meeko expected them to be. The sauna rooms, which were on the 40th floor of one of Centralia’s older buildings, had windows galore, coffered ceilings, elegant lighting, and was stylized like a palace, carved marble wherever there wasn’t glass. The sauna itself took up three floors, the entrance and separate male and female changing rooms on the entry level.
Before Sam could join the ladies, he had to follow protocol, which was clearly listed in bulleted points on the wall of the men’s changing room. He slipped into a pair of shorts that they provided along with a robe, and made his way into a sauna full of a bunch of naked-ass dudes.
Even though he was only in the sauna for a few minutes, just enough time to undress and give hi
s taint a fair scrub down, Sam saw a lot of cocks, enough to fill whatever quota he had for the year, if such a thing existed.
As he toweled off, his mind drifted to the team he’d helped form, Vigilante Justice.
Sam thought about Ozella, how cute she was with all her stats and the details that she kept. How she had figured out the power-up thing was beyond him, but he was glad to be able to utilize it once per day, even if it only gave him rest from his enhanced olfactory epithelium for an hour.
He was also happy to see Zoe back in her non-exemplar form, not that Sam didn’t think she was hot in the half-tiger look, she just seemed happier when she was herself. Of all of them, the one-hour limitation would be the hardest for her to get used to.
Then there was Helena’s power, which seriously scared the shit out of him. Seeing one’s own flesh burn was incredibly uncomfortable, and there was no telling what she’d be able to do once Ozella ran her power through more tests.
But enough reminiscing and self-congratulating.
Once Sam was in the blue shirt and shorts provided by the sauna, he took an elevator to the 43rd floor, using a special key to open the door.
“Hey,” he said, noticing Ozella standing there, her robe open slightly in the front.
Sam was pretty sure she was supposed to be wearing a shirt underneath a robe, but then again, it was Ozella, and she didn’t seem too concerned about it, nor did she really have a sense of what her body did to people.
Or at least lesser men.
Dinah floated up from the ground, a sad look on her face.
“What’s wrong with her?” Sam asked.
“She doesn’t want to be invisible right now,” said Ozella.
“You can tell?”
“I can sense it,” she said. “But I promised her I would allow her to be tangible once Zoe and Helena arrive.”
“What’s taking them so long anyway?” Sam asked as he made his way over to the window, looking out at the sparkling city. Ozella joined him; he could see her reflection in the window, a smile on her face.
“They started debating something, and then they decided to get massages, not long ones, just neck and shoulders.”
“And I’m guessing Zoe is still using her power-up.”
“She’s wearing a watch right now to time it,” Ozella said. “I’m glad she likes the power-up; maybe it’ll help her not join with our enemies to betray us.”
Ozella didn’t say this in a way that was as biting as it could have been, more of a matter-of-fact statement.
“Yeah, that would be a good thing,” Sam told her, not really knowing a good response to what Ozella had just said. “Hopefully, we won’t have to deal with Dr. Hamza again, but if we do…”
“If we do, we let Dinah finish him. Then the blood isn’t on our hands.”
Sam looked at Ozella in the window’s reflection, slightly creeped out that she still had the same smile on her face.
“You think we should let Dinah kill him?”
“He’s not going to stop until he gets what he wants. I think what he wants is revenge now, especially now that he’s been healed.”
“I don’t know why we can’t just go our separate ways,” Sam started to say.
“Even I’m not naïve enough to think that will be the case,” said Ozella.
“You know, sometimes it’s nice to be naïve. At least on the surface.”
“Dr. Hamza won’t give up.”
“Sadly, no,” Sam said as he turned away from the window, taking a closer look at the floor they were on.
He had been so busy talking with Ozella and looking out the window that he hadn’t actually paid much attention to his surroundings. It was an expansive space, a wooden floor that made a Y-shape as it moved to the end of the hallway.
Upon closer examination, Sam saw that the rooms were individually labeled, that there were pamphlets on the table before each room. The first room was set to a pretty warm temperature, and opening it, he found the walls to be covered in purple crystals, the crystal designed in various patterns on the far wall, mixing in other colors as well, blue, white, green, red.
“It’s a mineral room,” Ozella explained. “People believe that warming up minerals releases positive ions into the air, which will make you feel better.”
“Is it true?” Sam asked her.
“No idea,” she said as they moved to the next room, the door of which was rimmed with frost.
It took a little effort, but Sam eventually opened the door to find a room completely covered in ice, the only part of the room not frozen being a pathway to its center, where there were lush fur rugs. He didn’t know what the animals were, but he assumed the fur had come from the South, the coldest country, where some of the grisly frost beasts were the size of Centralian horses.
“Damn,” he said, seeing his breath as he stepped into the room. “Why would anyone want to sleep in a room this cold?”
“Because some people think that cold temperatures help with blood pressure.”
“Even I know that isn’t true,” he said, accidentally taking a sniff through his nostrils and getting a ton of information about the people who had been in the room before, as well as the exemplars who had designed it.
It was too much information, and too many people had been in the tiny enclosed space; Sam quickly switched back to mouth breathing, glad to be out of the room seconds later.
“I’m definitely not sleeping in there. And what’s with the sleeping, actually?” he asked. “That’s what we’re supposed to do, right? Pick a sauna room to sleep in?”
“That’s exactly what we’re supposed to do,” Ozella said as they came to the next room, a glass pane on the door, the other side filled with droplets of water. Sam opened the door to find himself in a subtropical climate, potted palms lining the walls.
“Nope,” Sam said as he stepped back out. They moved to the next room, which opened onto a completely black space, the darkest black Sam had ever seen.
“People use this room for deep sleep and meditation, that sort of thing,” Ozella explained. “I’m sure the room has some added technology, otherwise people could get lost.”
“Could get lost?” Sam asked, the light from outside cutting a swath into the darkened space.
“Close the door and you’ll see what I mean,” Ozella said.
Sam did as he was instructed, both of them completely in the dark once he shut the door. It was pitch black now, Sam not able to see an inch in front of his eyes.
“We’ve got to get out of here.” Sam reached his hand forward, assuming he was reaching toward the door but accidentally grabbing Ozella’s breast instead. “Sorry!”
“It’s okay,” Ozella said. “I thought you knew I moved around you.”
“No, how could I tell? It’s pitch black in here.”
“Lights on,” Ozella said, and as the words left her lips, small lights lining the doorframe started to glow.
“Eastern tech, huh?” Sam asked as they left the room, still feeling a bit embarrassed for grabbing one of Ozella’s funbags.
“Likely.”
“Sorry, again.”
“No worries.”
They started to move to the next room, nearing the end of the hallway. And they would have gone into this room too, a room meant to replicate what it would be like to be underwater, fish tanks lining the walls and soothing lights, had Dinah not risen up from the floor.
The blue ghost woman had a panicked look on her face. She was pointing downward, frantically trying to tell them something.
“What should we do?” he asked as he fired off a mental message to Zoe that Dinah was telling them something.
What is she telling you? Zoe mentally thought back. Of course, by this point Sam and Ozella were already turning to the elevator, Dinah leading the way.
I don’t know yet; we’re going to investigate. Where are you?
Just finishing up a massage, she thought back to Sam.
“Which floor, Dinah?”
Ozella asked, pointing at the numbers on the elevator. Dinah looked at the numbers for a moment, clearly doing the math in her head. Finally, she chose the twentieth floor.
“What were you doing down there?” Sam asked her.
Dinah shrugged in a way that indicated she’d been bored.
“I thought she just disappears when you haven’t called her.”
“I guess not.” Ozella selected the twentieth floor, while Sam sent a message to Helena, catching her up on what was happening.
Zoe already let me know, Helena thought back to him. We will meet you on the twentieth floor. Heading there now. Have to get dressed first.
The elevator was fast, and once it reached the twentieth floor, Sam steeled himself for whatever he might find on the other side.
“Just get ready,” he whispered to Ozella as the doors started to open. A few of the lights were out, signs of struggle everywhere, from the toppled plant to some office furniture that had been knocked over.
Ozella pointed to the body of a security guard, Sam’s nod indicating that shit was about to get real.
“What is this place, anyway?” he asked Ozella.
“Let’s see,” Ozella said, looking to the wall for a placard. She didn’t find one, but she did see a brochure on a side table detailing some business investment opportunities.
“So it’s probably about money,” Sam said as she handed him the brochure. “Yeah,” he said, remembering to take a sniff and getting a sense of the greed that had passed through the elevator door. “Definitely about money.”
They heard a large crash somewhere on the floor.
“Power-up, hearing,” he whispered. His sense of hearing immediately shifted forward, Sam feeling something different in his head.
There were too many sounds around, from the elevator behind them, to the other floors, so Sam pressed his finger into one of his ears, moving toward one of the hallways on the left, one ear open to any sound he might pick up.
It came to him a few seconds later, two men talking, a woman as well, the sound of muffled voices…
“It’s some kind of heist,” Sam whispered to Ozella, his voice like a scream into a megaphone in his own skull. “Confirmed.”
We Could Be Heroes 2 Page 2
