Super: Part Ten

Synopsis: It’s all come down to this.

Full Circle

I fell.

Into my bed, I landed. A month had passed since that afternoon at the club, that night in the park. I’d thanked the tech kids at school for their help, and when they bugged me about it, I told them it wasn’t important anymore. Justin asked to keep the glove, so I let him; Beaver told me I still owed them. I don’t think they’ve got the guts to take me up on that debt.

Pace and I see each other every day now. We talk. Little things, mostly, till Pace gets all Yoda on me and I can’t think of anything to say. He keeps asking if I want to meet the others in the Underground, but after my last meeting with all of them, I’m not so keen on reintroductions.

I’ve spent the month training. I’ve learned to bypass the physical stress and induct it mentally; inverted meditation, in a way, self-arousal of the adrenal kind. My focus is stronger now, reaching that point of orange ambience, but once I’m there, it’s all anger and energy inside me. Part of me wants to get past that; part of me knows it’s my only fuel for the brightest fire.

We’re in the park again, Pace and me. On the bench as before, my arms to my chest, his chest open, arms spread-eagle, one draped behind my back. The leaves are turning now. The wind blows. I shiver a little; Pace just laughs. He hasn’t said anything yet. Neither have I.

“Listen”—we speak at the same time and stop just as fast.

“What?” I ask.

“Just listen,” he says. “Don’t try to think. Don’t try to speak. Just…listen.” He smiles. His smiles have gotten warmer since then, or maybe I’ve just warmed up to them.

I try it his way. I look at the grass, the streetlamps as they stand sleeping in the sunlight. The leaves. I take a deep breath, try to count the colors to keep myself from thinking; then I realize that as I try to stop thinking, I’m just thinking even more. It’s dizzying.

Pace notices this and laughs at me, pushing me in the arm. I look at him, give him a half-skewed smile, and then look back at where the moon was that night a month ago.

“Listen,” I say again, reciting the words almost from memory, “Pace, there’s something missing.” It’s harder than I’d thought it’d be. I’ve gone over the words a hundred times, but now they’re all gone. Just disappeared. Thoughtless. “I want to go back,” I said.

I feel the muscles in his arm tense up before he realizes how much he’s touching me and instantly pulls away. “Go back where?” he says, then with more excitement, “The Underground?”

I lean forward, sighing, and put my head in my hands. I’d rehearsed this. I was ready to win an Emmy. Now it’s all gone and I’m left on my own to explain something I barely get myself.

“I want to go back,” I say again, staring at a broken brown leaf on the sidewalk. “I don’t want to be super anymore. It was fun at first, I guess, but now it’s just one more thing to deal with. I can’t…I can’t get close to people anymore. I never know when I might explode—literally.”

Silence. Now it’s easy to listen—waiting for him to speak, waiting for his rebuttals and rebukes, his fruitless fight to keep me with him, to join them, the Underground. Instead he put his hand on my back, all the tenseness gone, his fingers as light as the sunlight on my skin.

Still he says nothing. He’s knows what I know, what I already knew, what I needed to hear from him. I can’t go back. Once awake, you’re not asleep; where a tree falls, there it is. And in a way, I’d fallen: I’d learned I was super, and there I hit the ground.

“You’ve landed, eh?” he says. I can sense his smiling; grin-like, but friendly.

I nod solemnly, still staring at the leaf. I sort of feel like it, just lying there, dried out. I move my foot over it and grind it into dust. The wind blows, and some of the leaf flies away with it.

“I landed, too,” Pace says; “once.”

“Once?” I look up at him, questioning. “I thought you were falling.”

“I am,” he says, and this time it’s a full-blown grin. “But I learned then, that the best way to get up again isn’t to try standing; it’s to roll over till you fall out of bed.” He extends a hand to the ground, and his face goes a way I hadn’t seen it go before, caught between contemplation and concentration. I follow his gaze, his fingers, to the crumbled leaf: It swirls upwards just a bit, then the wind carries all of it away and Pace relaxes, leaning back on the bench.

“I noticed,” he says, a glint in his eyes. “I’ve been there, done that. Didn’t need the t-shirt.” He smiles again, replacing his arm around my shoulders. “It’s just a part of who we are, being super. It doesn’t go away, but it doesn’t have to be a bad thing, either. When I first made that top spin, I tried so hard to do it better I gave myself migraines for months. Then it got better and I was so dizzy all the time my mother thought I needed glasses when I had 20/20 eyes.”

Pace shrugs and I lean back a bit, more into him maybe, to keep listening. “I didn’t want to be super anymore. When I told the other kids, they mocked me. When I told adults, they belittled me, told my parents, such an imaginative little boy you have. I felt I’d landed, so I stopped spinning. But I never could stop it all the way, and when I started high school, I started to realize it let me do other things than just spin tops. I found it in the way I think, the way I move, the way I live. It’s a part of me. It’s no less a part of me than any other part of me. And when I realized that, I realized being super isn’t super at all. It’s just being me, as normal as anyone else.”

“How’d you get there?”

He shrugs. “I’ve always loved learning. When I taught myself to use my gifts to help me do that, I found it’d already been what I’d always been doing. It wasn’t discovering being super that made the difference; it was discovering that I’d always been super that let me rediscover myself. And once that was done, the rest came together.”

They called me a bully, those tech guys at school. They’d shied away and shivered as I’d stared at them, afraid what I’d do if they got on me the wrong way, but they didn’t know what had really happened. The guy I’d beaten up junior year wasn’t just some guy who’d ticked me off; he was a jerk who got on my friends and when he wouldn’t get off, I got him off myself. I vehemently denied the claims of heroism—the swooning girls were alright for a bit, but the guys calling me softy in the locker room made me change my mind about things—so I ended up with a reputation that preceded my intentions. No one likes a jock who’s valiant.

When I went after Fondlebrain, sure, I was after the thrill. But there was something deeper there, that wasn’t just in it for the kill, but for the crime: I wanted to stop him, I wanted to save people.

Pace had told me it was all about finding who you are, realizing you’ve always been super; it’s not the beginning of the end, said Enigma, it’s a return to innocence.

I grin, looking a bit like Pace as I see myself in the mirror to my side. I feel my heart beating, my blood rushing, as I see the orange glow around me. Then as it draws into my skin, as I look past myself into the mirror’s reflection, I realize it’s all inside me: the light I see inside me is only bare skin in my reflection. All this energy’s an illusion in my mind—no one else can see it.

I wonder briefly if it’s the same for others, if Pace sees orange, too.

Then I lift my hand, holding in the power, and try to move with it. Reaching this point is easy now, but controlling it is still a challenge: I stop myself, just in case I break the bathroom wall down or something, and decide for a safer test. I move my hand inward, using every fiber of my brain to not unleash the energy inside me, and then rest my hand against my chest. There’s static there, as the power arcs between my touching flesh, and I try to get a feel for that as I start to slide my hand down my skin, not knowing how I’ll unleash the energy this time; there’s nothing I can safely break here, in the middle of the house as I am. I try to move my foot forward, and when I’m able to slide it just a bit, I feel a flicker of hope for escape.

It feels like an hour, as I slowly open the bathroom door, thankful I’d already pulled on my pants, and begin into the hall. I find my way outside, three more hours, and then let it go, straight into the ground beneath me: A single downward thrust, leaving a three-inch deep crater in the dirt, but I’ve been holding on so long, the orange light is still inside me. In a second’s moment I lose my focus, and then it’s all gone. Just disappeared. Dissipated.

Suddenly I see: The sky. The sun. The city as I move toward Fondlebrain’s ruthless meltdown. I pause behind him and summon my rage, then I knock him on his back and hold him down till he submits. Then I walk away, leave him for the cops to come. But at least he’s living this time.

I look skyward, feel the sunlight on my skin. I’ve found my calling. I’ve found my full. It’s all inside me. It always has been. I didn’t wake up super; I’ve been super all along.

The End

Super: Part Nine

Synopsis: I never thought I was super. When I followed Pace to the Underground, I never knew it would end with me throwing him across the room with superhuman strength. I ran away to the park, didn’t know what else to do, and tried to see if I could do it again. I could.

Another Confrontation

My watch read midnight when I made it back to the Underground. The club was open with Friday night specials flashing on the signs out front, but I wouldn’t be let in, I already knew that. So instead I turned down the side alley, hoping against hope, and finding it granted:

Pace looked up at me and grinned, but didn’t move from where he leaned against the side of the brick building. Except for the darkness around us, he looked little different than he had at the club earlier.

“Thought you’d come back,” he said. “At least, I’d hoped you would.”

“Yeah?” I said. “Why’s that?”

He shrugged. His nonchalance made me angry again like it had that day when he’d saved me from that stupid super, but this time, knowing what my anger could do, I shoved it aside as best as I could, crossed my arms and just waited for his answer.

“It’s loud here,” he said, jerking his head toward the club behind us; “let’s go somewhere softer.” I raised my eyebrows, signaling him to lead the way, and he took me further into the maze of downtown alleyways before we came back to the city park I’d been at before. But it was different now: A breeze, the streetlamps. Company. He sat on a bench. I followed. He spread his arms out, his left behind my back, and stared skywards. I stayed still, my arms to my chest.

Moonlight sifted through the passing clouds. I ignored the green glow of the display on my watch. And I watched him, studying his calmness, his sanctuary. He was right, when he’d said this was someplace softer; he looked cloudlike almost, as if the moonlight merely accentuated his perfection, not made it visible in the first place.

“So you’re super,” he said, not looking at me, eyes still to the sky.

I swallowed. “Did you know it then, when you saved me?”

“I’d had a hunch.” He shrugged, all things an odd gesture with his arms back, but here, with just us, it seemed as natural as the heavens above. “But I figured you hadn’t come to your full yet.”

I looked over the park again, the silver-hued trees, the sparkling grass in the streetlamps’ glow.

“My full?”

“Your full realization. We all have to get there to get anywhere. Most of us don’t. We go insane first. Like that Dr. Fondlebrain.” He chuckled at the name, or maybe he chuckled to keep an air of lightness, to calm the sudden rush I felt at the memory. “Turned out his neural connections were more electrically charged than most, but by the time he came to his full, he’d fried his circuits too far to recover from. He removed his own skull and replaced it with a fishbowl.” He shook his head. “Then he augmented his body with guns to harness the electricity inside him and used it as a weapon. He could’ve done some great things, Keith, but it got the best of him. He wasn’t the first one to meet that fate, certainly won’t be the last, either.”

I reimagined the man I’d battled with unsuccessfully, saw him less with anger now and more with pity. I looked at Pace, stunned in his silence, his unchanging demeanor, his untouched attitude. “You’re a senior,” I said. It came out like a question.

“So are you.”

“Then why do you sound so much wiser than I am?”

“‘Cause I am.” He looked at me and grinned. “It’s not ‘cause I’m super, I’m sure, but I’ve a touch higher IQ than most do. Then again, when you spin everything around inside your head till you’re dizzy of it, you learn to gain perspective on some things.” He smiled again, this time a genuine smile, friendly and warm, then looked back at the moon.

I let my eyes wander with his, saw the silver halo, the all-seeing night eye.

“It’s slowing, you know,” he said. “The moon, I mean. It’s spin with the earth pulls on the earth, and the earth on it. So the moon speeds away and the earth slows. Fifteen microseconds a year. It’s not a lot, I know, but when I concentrate, I can feel the energy fleeting from inside the earth. It’s humbling, feeling so small in such a massive system as this. It makes a guy think about things.”

“Yeah?” I said. “What kinda things?”

“The end. It might take another billion years, or longer probably, but the moon will drift so far away, and the earth will slow so much, that life won’t exist as it does now. Long before that, they say, the sun’ll explode and engulf us anyway. We all die in the end. Makes me question sometimes why we’re so intent to make life worth anything in the meantime.”

Pace looked at me then, solemn and serene. “What do you do, Keith?”

I thought of what had happened across the park, back at the Underground, in my room that first time when I’d changed the channel on the TV just by thinking about it. Then I thought a little deeper, tried to translate the sensations into thoughts, into words. “I… I don’t know. I burst.”

Pace laughed. “No, I mean, what do you when it’s all gonna end eventually?”

I shrugged, but I didn’t have an answer. Something about something had my attention, though; that first time—no orange light, no discharge. “Why didn’t I burst the first time?” I asked and explained what had happened each time.

Pace shrugged again. “Sometimes we manifest differently early on before we reach our full. The first thing I did was keep a top spinning just by rolling my eyes at it. Can barely do that now.” He hummed for a moment. “I mean, in some ways we never lose what we can do, we just do them differently. I don’t roll my eyes to move things anymore, because I’ve learned more effective ways to do it. Easier, more comfortable ways. What else is there to do?”

Again, I didn’t have an answer.

“Where a tree falls, there it is,” he said.

I looked up. “Huh?”

“Ecclesiastes 11:3.” Another pause; the wind blew, the moon skirted behind a cloud; Pace looked at me, and not just in my direction, but truly at me, into my eyes. I got goosebumps. “Listen, Keith, we’re super, but that doesn’t hold us to any higher standard than anyone else. Don’t let the media get your head, ‘k? We are who we are, no more, no less. Just try to be that. And whatever comes of it, you are where you are.” The moon came back, shining off Pace’s face like the light of a god made of diamonds. “There’s two kinds of people, Keith; those who choose where to land, and those who stay where they’ve already fallen.”

With that he gripped my shoulder a minute, a fleeting moment when his eyes struck mine and the moonlight in his irises was like fire in a man’s heart, and then he stood up, gave me another of his signature smiles, then turned from me and went on his way.

I rushed up after him. “Wait,” I said and stopped walking, confused, irritated. “Which are you?”

He paused for a moment, and although he kept looking away, I could see the grin on his face even from here. “I’m still falling,” he said, “but the question is, Keith, which are you?”

To Be Continued…

Super: Part Eight

Synopsis: I thought I could take on a supervillain, but I failed and got saved by Pace, a super who’s pretty cool and down to earth like me. I was angry at first, but then intrigued to see what he was all about, so I followed him to the Underground–a gathering of other supers like him–and like me, he said, but I didn’t think I could do anything, until I threw him across the room without even realising what I was doing.

Power and Peril

I was in the park. I could see the buildings rising behind the trees, flanked by clear skies and the afternoon sun, but the quiet grass and pockets of shade helped me forget the city all around me, helped me forget—just a little bit—what I had done.

My fist felt fine. The muscles in my arm were a bit sore, and I kept running my fingers over my hand and looking at my knuckles up close, but I couldn’t see anything noticeable on the surface. Whatever I had done, whatever had happened to me at the Underground, it certainly was not human.

I clenched my fist again, and kept clenching, trying to get back to that moment before, but nothing I could try could get me any closer to reenactment than a toy can move to play with itself. And there wasn’t even a glove this time—whatever had happened, I had done it myself.

Unless one of the other supers had used their powers on me. I mean, there was that orange light right before it happened. But if I could believe that, was it a really so far leap to believe I had done it myself?

I was glad today was a Thursday. Nobody comes to the city park on a Thursday, so I had the entire place all to myself. The wannabe pond just west of the center. The benches all in a row along the eastern sidewalk. The cement block at the end of the path where charity bands played and dances were held. So much space. All for the taking.

So I tried something new. If I couldn’t recreate the moment on my own, by clenching my fist until I turned orange, I’d just have to recreate the moment as I had felt inside—bombarded and ambushed, furious, adrenaline pumping through my veins. I started running.

I lapped the park three times, but still felt nothing. My legs were starting to feel sore and I was beginning to be out of breath, but I kept going. I had to know, finally now, if I had done something or if I’d been tricked—if I was super, or just someone like anyone else.

I saw the benches and jumped onto the first one, and when I reached the end of it, I jumped onto the next. The brief moment I was in the air brought me closer, set my insides aflight as a spark of fear burst inside me before I landed. I kept going, faster and faster.

The benches ended. The cement path opened into the courtyard, sunlight heavier upon me as the trees’ shade disappeared. I felt a bead of sweat splash down my forehead and land on the back of my hand. I kept going. I felt hot inside, furious, enraged—something had to happen already!

I leapt clear over the stairs onto the platform, clenched my fists as I ran for the other end, tightened my entire body and yelled as I jumped off the higher end, then started to fall. My anger flared and instead of flailing, I pulled myself in tighter.

I struck the ground and stuck my landing. Something inside me had clicked right before impact, filling my sight with a burst of orange light, like I was looking through colored glass, and I didn’t feel a thing when I hit the ground, no pain, no jolt, no distortion like they show on TV in slow motion. And as I held myself there, as I just took in the moment, the energy drew itself in and intensified. The orange haze turned into an orange glow beneath my skin, so vivid I was certain if anyone had seen me, they would’ve thought I was burning from the inside out.

Then I tried to move.

All the energy rushed out of me, propelling me forward out of control. I hit something—hard—and was out before I knew what had happened.

Night had fallen by the time I woke up. My body ached all over, like after waking up from a really deep sleep, and it took me a few moments to remember what had happened to me. I recalled the orange light, then trying to move, then hitting something. Hard.

I looked around and realized I was under a tree, and that in addition to a bunch of scratches and bits of bark strung through my shirt down my side and back, there was a large break in the tree where it was missing its bark entirely. That held my attention, but what held my thoughts the longest was that I had done that, and that aside from the tears in my clothing, I was untouched.

But everything that I’d done to get there cast a shadow over my sudden excitement. Had I not caught myself, had something not happened, I’d have broken a leg, or both, or more than that after jumping off the block. And if I had to do that every time, just to do anything, maybe it’d be better to do nothing—to go back to being normal—than to try to be super at all.

To Be Continued…

Super: Part Seven

Synopsis: At school yesterday I ran into the guy who’d saved me a while back from being crushed by a supervillain when I thought I’d be able to take him on, but was wrong. I was angry at him, but he was lax about it and invited me to find out what was really up with him, so I couldn’t help but being curious instead.

The Underground

The Underground was a nightclub downtown with a dilapidated sign and ladies’ night every Thursday. They weren’t on top of the scene anymore, but they still got regular radio adds and made a killer on the weekends. Didn’t think they were open during the day, but I made my way to their doorstep after school the next day like Pace Vaughn had told me to.

As expected: The doors were locked.

I caught movement to my left and turned to see someone in black slipping into the alley nearby. I glanced around, saw no one out of the ordinary afternoon traffic, and decided it wouldn’t hurt (or at least not hurt too much) to follow him. But when I turned down the alley, it was already empty.

Interesting, I thought, even as my better judgment told me it’d probably be safer, or at least smarter, to turn back and go somewhere else, but Pace had explicitly said come to by in the afternoon, so perhaps I was onto something. A side entrance, maybe, or just walking into a trap. Pace didn’t seem like the kind of guy who’d introduce himself and then ambush you in an alley, and my curiosity got the best of me.

The walk down to the side entrance of the Underground was boring and uneventful. I was almost angry that nothing had happened, no ninjas, no bullies, no excitement at all. I grabbed the door and pulled it open; I stumbled back a bit when it gave way more easily than I’d expected.

The inside was dark. I looked around quickly before the door latched and the only light left was the red glow of the exit sign over the door. I walked forward a bit, decided I was in some unused side room, and opened the first door I came across…right into the men’s bathroom.

A guy was at the urinal and looked over his shoulder at me as I stepped inside. He sneered or something as he looked me up and down, then went back to his business unamused.

I tried to ignore him and just walked past him to the second door. The wall-length mirror over the sink was covered in lipstick writing full of numbers and mathematical figures. It made me dizzy and I pushed through the door as soon as I could.

The brightness was blinding at first and I shaded my eyes to stop the pain. When my vision finally adjusted, I noticed the entire club was lit up from end to end. There were about six or seven people at the bar, though no one behind it, and a small crowd of ten or fifteen around the dancefloor. I scanned the club for Pace, but didn’t see him.

I jumped when a hand hit my shoulder, but relaxed when I realized Pace had just found me instead.

“Glad you could make it,” he said with a grin, a darker grin than before. He was wearing red today, with a pair of black shorts. He looked nearly demonic with all the bright lights on him.

I looked back at the crowd around the dancefloor. “What is this place?”

“A gathering,” he said. Calm, cool, casual. Pretty much clichéd, really.

“Of what?” I asked.

“Of who,” he correctly me, resting his hand on my shoulder again. I actually welcomed it this time. At least for the moment, it was something familiar amidst all this oddness. “Of people like me,” he said, practically whispering into my ear, “of people like you.”

I pulled away and looked at him. “What?”

He grinned, and suddenly he wasn’t in front of me anywhere. “You were right,” he said behind me, but by the time I had turned he was already back where he’d been a moment before. “I’m not like everyone else. You already know this, though, don’t you?” He paused long enough to look into my eyes for a second. “I bet you even know what I can do.”

I swallowed and felt my skin growing tighter as I tensed up. “You move in circles.”

His grin grew wider and he shrugged. “Angular momentum. Circles are easiest, though.”

I looked back at everyone else in the club, none of them caring to take much notice of me now that I was inside. I glanced back at Pace. “All of you can do this?”

He shrugged again. “All of us can do something. Not all of can do this.” He was gone in a second, and I didn’t jump when he touched me from behind this time. I just turned to him and rolled my eyes.

“I’m really getting tired of that,” I said, trying to sound polite.

He smiled and pushed me on my arm, but I backed away instead.

“So what are all of you? X-Men? The Incredibles?”

He laughed. “The X-Men are a joke. And the Incredibles?” He coughed he laughed so hard. “You’re comparing me to Disney? Honestly?” He just shook his head. “Let me teach you a lesson, Keith.” Here he stepped up to me and wrapped his arm around my shoulders; I figured I could move away, but he’d spin around me faster than I could if I tried. “We’re real. We’re not mutants. We’re not superheroes. Hell, most of us don’t even know what we are past straight or gay. So we just get together sometimes, have a little fun, meet people who know what it’s like to be like us.”

He stepped away and turned back to me, arms spread, motioning to everyone there. “We’re the Underground, Keith.” Then his grin returned and he crossed his arms. “What can you do?”

I laughed. “I can’t do anything.”

“Sure you can,” Pace said. “Why else would you try taking on a super?” He rolled his eyes. “A lame-ass super, but whatever. You still tried.”

I glanced away, feeling really awkward all of a sudden. I couldn’t do anything. That’s why he had to rescue me in the first place. Didn’t he realize this?

“So?” he said, and when I looked back I saw a couple new faces coming over to join us. They were slowly circling around, more coming over as they caught site of the growing crowd. “Well,” Pace said, “what can you do?”

I swallowed and stood up straighter, but with everyone crowding around me I felt like all I was doing was turning red in front of them. I shook my head and tried to back away, but the guy I bumped into just shoved me back into the circle. I stumbled forward, then spun around as everyone became a laughing blur all around me. Jeering, pointing, sharing jokes beneath their breath as I watched on. I caught sight of Pace at the forefront, stopped spinning and looked straight at him even as my mind kept tumbling through me, blurred at the edges, still spiraling.

I saw him raise his eyebrows, grin. I saw his grin grow into a sneer as all my old anger swelled up within me. First he’d made me feel like a fool by saving me. Now he subjected me to this? My fingers clenched into a fist, but my fist kept getting tighter even past what I thought was possible. An orange light flushed the scene as I pulled my arm back and punched—

Pace flew across the room. He hadn’t had the time to dodge me this time.

The crowd broke at once and rushed toward him, but I didn’t take care to stick around. I just turned around, glanced back to see everyone around Pace and only a few people looking at me, and then I made my way back into the alley and even further away.

To Be Continued…

Super: Part Six

Synopsis: I found a glove that let me turn on my TV, so I tried to fight a supervillain for the fun of it. Epic fail. I got saved by this guy who spun circles around the villain, but he made me look like a fool. I tried to get the tech guys at my school to figure it out, but they couldn’t do it. And then I ran into him. The guy who’d rescued me.

Confrontation

I felt my heart race as I stared at him: Teal eyes the same color as the shirt he wore that day; black hair, long but not yet down to his shoulders; a strong build, could probably pummel me in a second if I gave him the chance. I moved in front of him, forced him to stop.

He stopped. Our eyes met. The corner of his mouth curled upward, just a touch.

Then his half-smile turned into a full-blown grin. “Glad to see you’re doing better,” he said.

I clenched my fist and punched him without thinking–but my hand fell through the air and he tapped my shoulder instead of falling to the floor.

I whirled around and stumbled backward. How’d the hell he do that?

“I’m fast,” he said, with a curt nod. “It’s why I got you out of trouble the last time, and how I’ve kept you out of trouble this time. Think a bit before attacking your next target, okay?” He laughed. “You don’t seem to have much success when you do that, do you?”

He didn’t wait for my reply and kept on going down the hall anyways. I must’ve blinked or something, though, because I never saw him turn around to start walking away from me.

My fury quickly turned to curiosity, as much as I wished it didn’t. Something that the geeks had said about people with real powers stuck with me and I wondered if maybe they were right–not about me, anyways, but about this guy. How could I be angry with someone superhuman? It’d be a daft comparison, like trying to say a feather’s as heavy as a brick.

I ran after him and hoped he didn’t go super-speed on me again (though I wasn’t really sure it was super-speed after all: whenever I’d seen him, or in his case, not seen him move, he’d gone in a circle, not in a straight line). I grabbed his shoulder like he’d grabbed mine and he spun around and pushed me back before I could blink.

He grinned again, his black hair moving slightly from the leftover inertia of his twirl. “Trying again, I see?”

I suppressed my anger for half a second, long enough to spit out an apology. He raised his eyebrows, giving me enough intrigue to keep talking safely. Luckily, even with his apparent disapproval, my anger had sufficiently subsided to let me think clearly again.

“What are you?”

His face stayed stoic but his eyes betrayed amusement. “Human, male, a future physicist perhaps?” He shook his head. “I don’t think I get your question.”

I puffed out a lungful of air halfway between a sardonic snort and a last laugh. “Really?” I said. “You moved circles around Fondlebrain and you can’t seem to stand still now, and you’re telling me you’re, what, no different than I am?”

He shrugged, “Pretty much,” and extended a hand. “Pace Vaughn. Friends call me Pacey.”

I shook his hand tentatively. “Keith,” I said, but didn’t afford him any further honor. “Nice to meet you.”

“Likewise,” he said and took his hand back. It’d been warm, perhaps unusually so, and his grip was deadly strong. I suddenly felt weak standing next to him.

Pace glanced at his watch and then back at me. “I’ve got to work, so I can’t stay and chat today. That alright?” His question sounded more like a statement and I kept silent. “In any case, it was nice to finally meet you, Keith.” He started moving, but this time he began walking backwards instead of super-speeding away. “If you really want to get an idea of what I’m about, why don’t you stop by the Underground tomorrow afternoon?”

With another step, he circled around the corner and was gone. I felt the sudden urge to dash after him, ask him more, but I knew even if I did, he wouldn’t be there anyways. Instead I just stood there dumbfounded for a few minutes, wishing I was still angry, not confused. Wishing I was furious, not fascinated. Wishing I could just punch him and not feel anything afterward.

To Be Continued…

Super: Part Five

Synopsis: I got a glove for free that could turn on my TV, so I thought I’d try fighting a supervillain, but I failed and had to get saved by this guy who moved in circles around him before vanishing. I was furious and took the glove to the tech club at my school, forcing them to tell me how to get it working again.

Time’s Up

I stepped back into the geek room with my arms crossed. Justin and Beaver were huddled over one of the desks farther away than usual, fiddling with something in front of a large black computer monitor. Obviously they didn’t hear me enter, so I cleared my throat to make it clear.

They both looked up and I’d never seen two whiter faces in this place than on Halloween when dressing as ghosts was all the rage for costume parties.

Neither said anything, so I took it upon myself to break the silence. “It’s been more than a week, guys. You asked for an extension, told me you might be onto something, but I’m finished waiting. Time’s up.”

Justin swallowed and set down his tools. He took a deep breath–I could see his chest shudder on the exhale–and straightened himself to the point he surprised me: I didn’t know nerds who hunched over all day could ever truly stand fully upright.

“It’s impossible, Keith.” He said my name with such certainly and conviction, I almost forgot who I was talking to. “We’ve looked at the glove finger to finger, took it apart and reassembled it countless times. Even unraveled a bit of wire to see what was inside, but that’s the thing, Keith, it was just wire. All this thing is”– he gestured wildly at the lump on the desk –”is a bunch of plastic and wires.

“There’s no power source. There’s no mechanics. There’s no way it did anything.”

I tried to keep my face calm, but my eyebrow managed to twitch anyways. I was determined not to let these two kids get the better of me, though, and tried not to show any weakness. First I had to be saved by some maniac blur, only to succumb to this? It wasn’t happening.

I crossed my arms tighter and clenched my teeth. “I swear it did something. I waved my hand, the TV came on. Simple as that. If it wasn’t the glove, what was it?”

Justin grinned. “See, Beaver and I, we thought about that, too.” He glanced over his shoulder and raised his eyebrows. It seemed like a cue, because at that moment Beaver got up, walked around me, and pushed the door shut. I heard a faint click when he twisted the lock.

“Come over here,” Justin said and flagged me toward the black monitor. As I approached, he turned it toward me, but I was still too far away to read the fine text. “There’s accounts of people being able to do strange things all over the world, and it’s been going on for centuries. Where do you think the notion of superheroes began in the first place?”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Comic books?”

“Wrong.” Justin ran a hand through his flat blond hair and straightened his black glasses. “When it was noticed that some people were born, well, super, people wanted to exploit that. Comic book writers were a step ahead of technology, but once it caught up, people could buy a few machines and make themselves super, too. But”– here he grinned and I took a step back when I saw the glimmer in his eyes –”that doesn’t really make them super at all. Super is something you’re born with, not bought with.”

He met my eyes and sent a chill down my spine, like he wanted to jump me or do something worse. I looked away, back at the door, and noticed Beaver was now standing guard. A skinny kid like him made a pitiful guard and it was a funny sight. I laughed.

“You don’t believe me, do you?”

I looked back at Justin and laughed again. “You honestly expect me to think I’m some sort of superhero just because this stupid glove turned a TV?” I shook my head.

“Alright then. Let’s make a new deal.” He crossed his arms, had me cornered.

“Fine,” I said. “I’m listening.”

“Try to do it again. We’ll recreate the moment, just like it was when it happened the first time, and see exactly what the glove does. If it does anything, you’re right, we’re wrong, but if you do something–”

“Shut it, alright?” I said. “I’m not trying some sort of experiment. I know what the glove did, whether you believe me or not.” I grabbed it off the desk and crossed the room, stuffing it into my pocket as I went. I faced Beaver and with a single glare he pulled the door open and backed away. I stormed into the hall not thinking, but stopped just as soon.

There he was, walking right toward me.

The maniac blur.

To Be Continued…

Super: Part Four

Synopsis: The glove was free at a superhero discount store, and after I tinkered with it at home, I learned it could turn my TV on and off just by waving my hand. I saw on the news a supervillain attacking the city, so I decided to go after him–but he totally tackled me and I had to get rescued by some guy who spun circles around him–literally. I went home red-eyed and ready for revenge.

Negotiations

I tapped my feet all morning till the end of classes. I knew from my junior year that the computer tech club met Mondays after school and I was determined to have them look at the glove and tell me how to fix it. I didn’t know why it mattered so much to me to finally get it working again, but I was determined to show that blur, whoever he was, that I didn’t need saving from anyone. Especially not him.

I rushed through the halls after lunch with more determination than likely legal in high school. I found the classroom where the tech club had met last year and sighed when I saw the door was open. As I strode inside, I whipped out the flimsy wired glove from my side pocket.

Only two guys were in the room–both lanky and in glasses with scruffy hair–and they looked up at me with an odd mixture of surprise and terror.

I slapped the glove on the desk in front of them and crossed my arms. “I want you to fix this.”

The one on the right readjusted his glasses and put down the action figure he was holding to pick up the glove. He held it with his thumb and forefinger and it hung there like a used condom; the disdain on his face gave the same impression. He dropped it at once.

“What is it?” he asked, looking at me.

“A glove. Just, look at it, will you?”

He shrugged, his flat blond hair bobbing along with him, and looked at his buddy. “What do you think, Beaver?” he asked in a whisper.

Beaver shrugged, a slight shoulder raise that was almost unnoticeable. “He’s the guy who got kicked off the football team last year, right?” The blond one nodded and Beaver glanced at me and quickly looked away. “Can we, uh, can we really trust him then?”

“Guys,” I said, my tone as hard as stone, “I’m right here. I can hear you.”

They both gulped.

“Look,” I said, desperate, parting my arms in frustration, “help me out, and I promise I won’t hurt either of you, no matter how annoying you might be.”

They looked at each other again and then the blond looked back at me. “Fine. We’ll help, but you’ll owe us, okay?”

I weighed the options. Get the glove fixed, or be thwarted by a couple of geeks. “Fine. Just do it, will ya?”

The two of them picked up the glove again, but the first one grabbed it and brought it back to another desk that had a bunch of tools spread out over it. He kneeled over it for a moment, then stood up, played with his glasses, and came back.

“It’s just a bunch of plastic with wires in it. What’s to fix?”

“I–” I had nothing to say that wouldn’t sound stupid or crazy.

“Where’d you even get it?” he asked.

I clenched my teeth, but conceded. “S&H Supplies.”

“That superhero store?” Beaver asked.

I felt my ears turning red. I knew I should’ve said nothing. “Yeah. I was bored, it was free. Okay?”

“Yeah, no problem,” the blond said, but both of them chuckled nonetheless.

“Hey, Justin,” Beaver said, “let’s all play superheroes!”

“Yeah!” Justin said, hopping back in his seat. “I’ll be Bookman. I’ll read by day and fight the likes of Paper Cut, Blank Page, and Rip/Torn by night.”

“And I’ll be the Mathemagician–”

“Isn’t that already taken?”

“Well, I was going to be the Mathter, but then it just sounds like master with a lisp–”

“Stop it!” I shouted, and the two dolts turned to me with widened eyes. “I’m not a superhero, and I don’t want to be. I just–I just to get this thing to work again!”

They both looked at the glove. Justin said, “It did something?”

“I put it on and waved my hand, and the TV came on,” I said nonchalantly, as if every glove elicited the same reaction.

“But it has no power source,” Justin said. “That’s impossible.”

“I know,” I said, teeth gritted, “but it happened, I swear.”

Justin and Beaver glanced at each other again and then looked back at me.

“What’d you say your name was?” Justin asked.

“Keith,” I said, and Justin smiled.

“Well, Keith, let’s make a deal. Beaver and I’ll get your glove to do magic again, but you’ve got to tell all your bully friends that we’re off limits, got it? Or,” he hummed a moment, “or we’ll tell everyone how badly you want to be super.”

“I’m not a bully,” I said, “and I don’t want to be super.” Their faces were hard–they were pretty firm for a bunch of nerds–and I guessed they were serious, Justin at least anyways. “Fine,” I said. “Fix the glove and we’ve got a deal.” Justin started grinning, but I quickly went on: “But,” I said, and they stopped smiling, “there’s no deal until you fix the glove, and if you don’t, it’s all off.”

The two looked at each other and then back at me. “It’s a deal,” Justin said. “We’ll hold onto this a couple days and see what we can do. Come back Friday and we’ll have it working.”

I raised my eyebrows, but the two seemed certain of it, so I just shrugged and shook my head. “For your own good,” I said, “it better be working on Friday.”

To Be Continued…

Super: Part Three

Synopsis: I got the glove in the discount section of S&H Supplies for free. It was a dingy thing, but when I played around with at home, it could turn on my TV and stereo. The news said a robot scientist was attacking the city, so I decided it was a good time to try out my glove to see what it could really do.

The Battle

So there I was in my shorts and a t-shirt. A horrible representation of a superhero, I thought; good thing I had no intention of being a hero, just having a little fun.

Downtown was pretty much evacuated by now, the grey roads silent except for the occasional whir and the sound of crashing glass. I followed the din until I came around a corner and saw the mad doctor waving his mechanical arms at the far end of the street. A trail of debris led from me to him, burnt scars on the asphalt and shattered glass and stone chips by the buildings. One car was melted clear in half and I shuddered at the thought of the energy it’d take to do that.

I puffed out my chest and took a step forward, waving my hand as forcefully as I could.

It did nothing.

I kept going closer, constantly aware of the noise of every step I made, all the while waving frantically at the villain before me. I emulated every movement I’d used to change the channel and turn off the stereo, but nothing affected him. Too far away, I figured, and kept going closer.

I could practically smell the mechanics in his suit by the time I was certain my glove would pay off. I was less careful, close as I was, to be soundless, as now every little noise was drowned out by the spinning drone of the fan in the back of suit (an exhaust fan like on any computer, I figured) and the whistling noise his arms made as they charged and fired their lightning rays.

I was maybe a foot behind him when I clenched my fist and howled as I slashed through the air, determined to take him out in a single blow.

I failed. Miserably.

My gesture left him unfazed, but my battle cry had wholly alerted him to my presence, and he spun toward me at once. With his blasters blazing. I ducked just in time not to be fried, but even so, the scorching heat of the lightning penetrated through my shirt and left my back burning in pain.

I rolled to the side as he unleashed another bolt from his other arm and his suit went silent for a moment while both canons started to recharge.

“Imbecile,” he shouted at me, causing small flashes to erupt underneath the yellow casing around his skull and brain. “Who are you to challenge the might of Dr. Fondlebrain?”

His name wasn’t nearly as funny this time around, with his guns both aimed at me with no place to run.

Then I saw him, out of the corner of my right eye. I turned, but before I could fully grasp who it was, the blur had passed, arcing behind Dr. Fondlebrain in a circular path. He swept up underneath me from the left, tumbling both of us over one another as Fondlebrain fired his canons simultaneously. The putrid scent of melting asphalt was suffocating.

The blur rolled off me and cartwheeled in a circle till he landed on his feet, and a for a moment, completely still, I could see him for what he was: An average guy like me, black pants, teal shirt, wild hair and crazy eyes.

He grinned. “Not today, doc.” He pushed off his feet, dodging another blast, and spun around behind Dr. Fondlebrain. He thrust his arms forward, hands in fists, and twisted them through the air. He did so again in the opposite direction, then grunted as he pulled his hands back, as if wrenching something off Dr. Fondlebrain’s suit. His hands were empty, though, but just then, the mechanical drone of the fan on Fondlebrain’s back came to a halt amidst an earsplitting screech.

Dr. Fondlebrain whirled around, but the blur was faster, moving in a circle around the villain so swiftly it was almost as if his feet had never touched the ground.

I glanced back at the doctor, and already smoke was spewing out of his back panel. With no way to cool itself, the system was starting to burn out. I knew right away I didn’t want to be there when that happened and I took the chance to get to my feet and flee. I looked around for my savior, but he was already gone.

At home I locked myself in the bathroom and poured aloe down my back, cringing at the blistering cold liquid as it ran down my burned back. The harm was no worse than a bad case of sunburn, but it hurt like hell, and probably felt like it to. I clenched my fist and growled, suddenly angry at the blur: He’d interrupted me. Maybe I hadn’t done much to Fondlebrain yet, but I would have. I knew it.

Back in my room I waved my hand, glove on again, to turn the TV on, but it didn’t work. After half a dozen failed attempts, I settled for using the remote. The news was showing a picture of a fried mechanical suit and the dead body cased inside it as they went on about how Dr. Fondlebrain, an electrical physicist, had been a prominent professor until suffering a mental breakdown a few years back and falling off the radar. A pity, they called it.

An opportunity for vengeance, I thought.

To Be Continued…

So there I was in my shorts and a t-shirt. A horrible representation of a superhero, I thought; good thing I had no intention of being a hero, just having a little fun.

Downtown was pretty much evacuated by now, the grey roads silent except for the occasional whir and the sound of crashing glass. I followed the din until I came around a corner and saw the mad doctor waving his mechanical arms at the far end of the street. A trail of debris led from me to him, burnt scars on the asphalt and shattered glass and stone chips by the buildings. One car was melted clear in half and I shuddered at the thought of the energy it’d take to do that.

I puffed out my chest and took a step forward, waving my hand as forcefully as I could.

It did nothing.

I kept going closer, constantly aware of the noise of every step I made, all the while waving frantically at the villain before me. I emulated every movement I’d used to change the channel and turn off the stereo, but nothing affected him. Too far away, I figured, and kept going closer.

I could practically smell the mechanics in his suit by the time I was certain my glove would pay off. I was less careful, close as I was, to be soundless, as now every little noise was drowned out by the spinning drone of the fan in the back of suit (an exhaust fan like on any computer, I figured) and the whistling noise his arms made as they charged and fired their lightning rays.

I was maybe a foot behind him when I clenched my fist and howled as I slashed through the air, determined to take him out in a single blow.

I failed. Miserably.

My gesture left him unfazed, but my battle cry had wholly alerted him to my presence, and he spun toward me at once. With his blasters blazing. I ducked just in time not to be fried, but even so, the scorching heat of the lightning penetrated through my shirt and left my back burning in pain.

I rolled to the side as he unleashed another bolt from his other arm and his suit went silent for a moment while both canons started to recharge.

“Imbecile,” he shouted at me, causing small flashes to erupt underneath the yellow casing around his skull and brain. “Who are you to challenge the might of Dr. Fondlebrain?”

His name wasn’t nearly as funny this time around, with his guns both aimed at me with no place to run.

Then I saw him, out of the corner of my right eye. I turned, but before I could fully grasp who it was, the blur had passed, arcing behind Dr. Fondlebrain in a circular path. He swept up underneath me from the left, tumbling both of us over one another as Fondlebrain fired his canons simultaneously. The putrid scent of melting asphalt was suffocating.

The blur rolled off me and cartwheeled in a circle till he landed on his feet, and a for a moment, completely still, I could see him for what he was: An average guy like me, black pants, teal shirt, wild hair and crazy eyes.

He grinned. “Not today, doc.” He pushed off his feet, dodging another blast, and spun around behind Dr. Fondlebrain. He thrust his arms forward, hands in fists, and twisted them through the air. He did so again in the opposite direction, then grunted as he pulled his hands back, as if wrenching something off Dr. Fondlebrain’s suit. His hands were empty, though, but just then, the mechanical drone of the fan on Fondlebrain’s back came to a halt amidst an earsplitting screech.

Dr. Fondlebrain whirled around, but the blur was faster, moving in a circle around the villain so swiftly it was almost as if his feet had never touched the ground.

I glanced back at the doctor, and already smoke was spewing out of his back panel. With no way to cool itself, the system was starting to burn out. I knew right away I didn’t want to be there when that happened and I took the chance to get to my feet and flee. I looked around for my savior, but he was already gone.

At home I locked myself in the bathroom and poured aloe down my back, cringing at the blistering cold liquid as it ran down my burned back. The harm was no worse than a bad case of sunburn, but it hurt like hell, and probably felt like it to. I clenched my fist and growled, suddenly angry at the blur: He’d interrupted me. Maybe I hadn’t done much to Fondlebrain yet, but I would have. I knew it.

Back in my room I waved my hand, glove on again, to turn the TV on, but it didn’t work. After half a dozen failed attempts, I settled for using the remote. The news was showing a picture of a fried mechanical suit and the dead body cased inside it as they went on about how Dr. Fondlebrain, an electrical physicist, had been a prominent professor until suffering a mental breakdown a few years back and falling off the radar. A pity, they called it.

An opportunity for vengeance, I thought.

Super: Part Two

The Glove

I found the glove on the discount shelf of S&H Supplies. It was a rather plain thing, really, a clear glove with a small system of black wires running through the back that made it look rather Halloweenish in retrospect, but the stupid store clerk said I could have it for free–outdated, she’d told me through gritted teeth–so I took it anyways. I mean, free was good, right?

In today’s world, free always has a catch, but I was bored, and I was trying to ignore that fact for the time being when I took it. Comeuppance may come up yet, but I thought I’d do as I pleased till it did, or else somebody stopped me first. I needed a little spice in life, so why not?

Three days later, the glove had yet to do much more than weigh on my hand and give me a rash beneath my wrist. Nonetheless, with only a few days left of summer, I felt there was no harm in tinkering with it any further. The fun of it was amusing, at least, and I decided that if I could make it do anything, I’d get rid of the plastic casing so it’d be marginally more comfortable to wear.

Once more I set my screwdrivers aside and tried on the glove again. Luckily, even with all my fiddling, it still fit. I flexed my fingers, made a fist, watched the metallic black fibers of the wires twist and turn as my hand moved underneath them. Then my TV flicked on and I looked sideways, moving my hand as I turned: The channel changed.

I grinned and looked at the glove again. It had no power source. I knew this. So it couldn’t really be doing anything, could it? I waved my hand again, and once more, the channel changed. I tried to force the change by my mind alone, but nothing happened till I moved my hand again. And then again. I shook my head and pointed at my stereo.

The radio turned on. I turned my hand like I was turning the dial, and slowly the stations rolled to the side, first through the fading sounds of today’s fashionable music, then to static, then to country. I hated country. I snapped my fingers and the stereo turned off, right as the commercial on TV was interrupted by an urgent newscast: The anchorwoman was half-disheveled, her make-up flawless but her hairpiece a little lopsided as she straightened the prompts in front of her.

“This just in,” she said, “Dr. Fondlebrain is attacking downtown!” I half choked on my spit. Dr. Fondlebrain? Seriously? These supervillains were getting cheesier and cheesier. I figured any more cheese and we’d all be vegetarians. The newscast switched to the helicopter feed of the scene, where a man with a shiny yellow head was swinging around mechanical arms that spewed electrical bolts everywhere. Just as the camera zoomed in for a face shot, a blast hit it and the feed went dead.

I brushed off the picture with my hand, uninterested, and the TV turned off. I looked at my glove, back up at the TV, back at my glove. He was wearing a mechanical body suit. And I was bored. Seemed like a match made in heaven. Or something like that.

To Be Continued…

Super?

Date: April 2010

Prompt: “If I were a superhero, I would be…”

Source: http://jc-schools.net/write/create.htm

Super?

“Welcome to S&H Supplies,” she said as she stood in the center of the walkway like a manikin in a black dress and heels, her hands clasped above her crotch and her buoyant hair as still as a frozen pond around her smiling face. “How may I help you today?”

“Just browsing,” I said as I poked at a vinyl body suit hanging on a rack nearby. I tried to pass the woman with a meager amount of disinterest, but failed miserably: She turned and followed me like a possessed doll, only slightly more annoying.

“Can I interest you in a heat-resistant vest, available in twenty colors, with free emblazoning with all purchases?” Her hands flew this way and that, pointing to the designer displays and the lifeless models they glorified. “Or how about an invisibility suit? Our models are the most ergonomic and lightweight on the market.”

I sighed and rolled my eyes. “Spotless was hit by a truck using an invisibility suit.” She cringed at the mention of the superhero’s name, but I continued. “They’re still trying to find all his pieces.”

Her smile returned instantly. “How about a sonic laser? Or an ice beam? We now offer five unique designs in seven colors each.”

I ignored her and tried to browse the store in some semblance of peace. I wasn’t really looking to get into the business of heroing, but I figured, a little this or a little that might be a nice addition to my wardrobe. Freeze suit for the hot summer? Liquid air absorption to save on bottled water? Eye implants for super-enhanced sight capacity? Anything affordable I was up to looking at.

“Is there anything in particular you’re looking for?”

I faced her with the driest expression I could muster. “No, not really. Is there anything in particular you’re looking for?”

She flattened her smile just long enough to tell me I’d succeeded. “Well, if you change your mind, you’ll know where to find me.” She gave a slight bow, her hands once more clasped at her waist, and then scurried robotically back toward her place at the entrance.

I turned down the next aisle, musing at all the ridiculous colors everything came in. Were they trying to make the world look like a giant comic book? There were hundreds of superheroes these days, and all of the well-known ones had professional designers producing their outfits with a horde of technologists assembling their goods. Nonetheless, most of them had started with basic equipment from stores like these. I felt belittled, though, shopping here. Me, super? That’s a joke if I ever heard one.

I caught sight of a discount shelf and meandered toward it with dwindling interest. There were things for sale here for everyone. If you wanted to be a superhero of sex education, there were outfits for that. If you wanted to be a superhero for sex solicitation, there was stuff for that, too. Most of it was cheap–most of the world was cheap these days regardless–and most of it I ignored.

But one small item on the discount shelf seemed reasonably worthwhile, which is probably why it was reduced in the first place. A semi-clear glove with electrical fibers lining the back to the tips of the fingers. It didn’t have a label, so I just tried it on anyways. I flexed my fingers, twisted my wrist; it had a good enough fit, rather comfortable, all things considered, but I didn’t see any switches to turn it on, and it didn’t seem to do anything else, either.

I walked back to the freaky smiler with the glove still on. She didn’t seem at all pleased to see me, but retained her smile nonetheless.

“Do you know what this does?” I asked her.

Her nose twitched at the sight of the glove. “Oh, that? Isn’t it on the discount shelf?” I nodded. “Then it’s outdated. You can just take it if you want. We can’t sell it anymore anyways.”

I shrugged, saying, “Thanks,” and turned away. Why put it back if it was free? Might as well take it home and try to have some fun. Who knows, it might end up being something worthwhile. Or it might end up being nothing at all. Either way, free things are always super.

End?