Emergence (13 page)

“Whoa, kid. Calm down. I didn’t say I was. What kind of powers you have?” The man tapped ash off his cigarette and took another deep inhale.

Vlad glanced at Lucy who still sat on the shipping container floor squinting in the sunlight. She said nothing and Vlad didn’t either.

“Listen, I’m trying to help you here. The TCA is fine and all, but there’s a fuck long waiting list to get in. My boss is a nice guy who’ll get you into his own private place depending on what your skills are, so what you got? Superhuman strength? Flying? Laser beams out your asshole?”

“Nothing like that,” Vlad answered. His heart sank.

“Good. He don’t care about them so much anyway.”

“W-what?” Lucy finally stood, too. “Really?”

“Shit, no. Let me guess, you guys have some kind of mental powers, right?”

Vlad and Lucy exchanged skeptical glances. She nodded.

“That’s what he likes.” The man took another drag off his cigarette. “Just tell me what you can do.”

“I can put people to sleep when I touch them,” Lucy said. Vlad grabbed her shoulder and shook his head, silently begging her not to continue. She didn’t care. ““He can read memories and remove them if he wants.”

This wasn’t what Vlad wanted. He anticipated arriving to America, finding the TCA, and going from there. He knew underhanded dealings when he saw them. This man, his boss, none of it was right. A world he knew, that he wanted no part of, was already trying to ease its way into his life and he’d been in America less than an hour.

“Not the best thing I’ve seen, but I bet you with some magic from the Amp you both could be useful.”

“The Amp?” Lucy asked, eager.

“Let’s just say, whatever your…” The man struggled to find a word. “Whatever your strongest is, he will make it happen. Whatever makes you chimeric, he makes stronger.”

When Lucy took a step forward, Vlad didn’t try to stop her. But he stayed his ground.

“Love, what are you doing? This man is offering us a new life!”

“I’m not going. You can.”

Lucy clenched her jaw. “I’ve tried so many times to save you, Vlad. You make it very difficult.”

A gust of salty wind rushed into the container. Vlad felt it lift his matted hair, pelt his face. He gestured to the man who now stood beside Lucy. “Try one last time. This time, it will work.”

She glanced at the man, first cursory, then again as she understood what Vlad wanted. Her right hand whipped out and she turned, slapping it against his exposed neck. He crumpled to the ground, fast asleep.

Vlad knelt down next to him and slipped into his mind, removing every image of himself and Lucy. As far as the man was concerned, his last memory was opening the shipping container.

“Tell him he slipped and hit his head after he opened the container. He’ll believe whatever you tell him,” Vlad said. ““He’ll want to fill in the blanks.”

“Then what?”

“Then do whatever you want to do.”

“What will
you
do?”

“I’ll do what I always wanted to. Become a superhero.” Vlad grinned.

“One last promise, Vlad.” Lucy’s face brightened. “Leech sounds like a villain’s name. Change it.”

“If you have a better idea, let me know. Goodbye,
Lady Luna
.”

Vlad stepped out of the shipping container and let the sun soak into his bones. Seagulls cried overhead. The sounds of the city in the distance added to the cacophony.

He was free. He was finally free.

Epilogue

“I know her.”

“What?” Sinclair hit pause on the video footage and rubbed his scraggly beard. “How do you know her? This is the first account we have of her.””

Lady Luna stood in the middle of the bank, her arms outstretched. A glossy white cape hung behind her, a Venetian style mask obscuring the top half of her face. Every customer, teller, and banker was slumped over or on the ground sleeping. Two masked men were mid-jump over the teller counter. Empty duffle bags, soon to be filled with money, over their shoulders.

Sinclair had just been briefing Vlad on new gang affiliated or corrupt chimerics in town when he showed him one of Lucy.

Vlad was known by the Department of Chimeric Defense as The Leech. When he first started working with their Intelligence division, he mentioned it as a joke to someone in the break room. It stuck. They liked it because it was what Vlad did; he sucked vital information out of people just like a leech.

After a year of training at the TCA, he was able to expand his powers. He didn’t have to maintain physical contact with someone to read their memories. Now he only had to be within a few feet of them. He was the perfect undercover man for intelligence gathering. Once a month, they reviewed potential threats for him to gather Intel on.

It appeared Lucy had grown her powers since they last saw each other, too.

“Tell me what happened,” Vlad said.

Sinclair rubbed his beard again and took a swig of coffee. “Twenty-two people have identical reports of going unconscious when the woman walked in. Two were revived to open the vault. It seemed like a chimeric robbery, but then we saw this.”

He dragged his cursor over the timeline on the video a few minutes in. There was a perfect shot of the back of Lucy’s flowing cape as she exited the bank. Vlad recognized the symbol instantly. An intricate series of circles with a lightning bolt through the middle.

“The Amp’s work.”

“Yep,” Sinclair agreed, grimly. “The Don gets more powerful every day. The head of DCD is making it top priority to take him down a notch.””

So she’d gotten the cape after all. She looked exactly how Vlad pictured her. Lady Luna never sounded like a super villain name to him, but what did he know? He wore a suit and tie every day and everyone called him Leech when he walked down the hallway. He wasn’t the superhero he imagined himself being, but…

“Then let’s get to work,” Vlad said. “This city isn’t going to save itself.”

Whiplash

Tim Marquitz

ONE

I never planned on being a superhero.

Of course I also never planned on being thrown through the wall of my favorite record shop either.

So much for expectations, huh?

My heart broke at seeing all the old vinyl crushed when the wall came down. Shards of black and shredded record sleeves littered the floor amidst the dust and broken bricks. While I clambered to my feet, I caught sight of a foursome of smiling Swedes on one of the covers. They stared at me with unnerving cheer. Doused in glitter and wearing mini-skirts with sparkly rainbow designs stitched overtop, their ensemble was capped off with knee-high boots with what must have been six inch heels. A giggle slipped out, and I tried to rein it in. I’d landed in the disco section.

If that wasn’t justice, I didn’t know what was.

“You all right?” a quavering voice asked, and I spun about to see Stan, the owner of the Headstand, staring at me with eyes as wide as iPads. My gaze darted to the clock above the door, the early hour sinking in before I scanned the room for customers. I sighed at realizing he was alone, and glanced back at the old guy. His hands trembled and his cheeks were flush. I’d scared the shit out him but that was the least of his worries right then.

“You need to get out of here before—”

“Before what, bitch?” The question came from behind me, the sound rough and raw like two cinderblocks screwing. The horrid stench of rancid breath set my teeth on edge.

Before
that
showed up is what I’d started to say. “Run,” I growled at Stan, hoping he listened, but there wasn’t time to make sure.

The chimeric who’d tossed me so casually through the wall grinned, tearing the hole wider to get at me. Great slabs of fingers reached for my face, but what I lacked in brute strength I made up for in speed—and then some. My power buzzed through my arm with the sear of pure adrenaline, and I slapped his mountainous hand aside, my palm slamming into it with the force of a car crash. The impact reverberated like thunder. His hand collided with his other one, throwing him off balance as they clapped together, making him look like a dancing monkey. He stumbled into the nearby bins and took out another section of vinyl before he righted himself. My eyes unconsciously peeked at the sign before the bin went down under the chimeric’s weight. Country this time.

Whew.

I was two for two so far, but my luck would run out if I stuck around in the tight confines of the shop. Stan was a borderline hoarder hiding behind the façade of a business owner. The place was crowded to the rafters with every manner of memorabilia and knickknack ever devised to part stoned college students from their monthly Twinkie allotments. All of it easily breakable, and I didn’t figure Stan could afford the outrageous rates for Chimeric insurance coverage. Not many people could.

“Sit still, little bug,” the chimeric told me, “so I can squash you.”

“Yeah, like that’s going to happen.” I hit the gas and hurtled through the opening and back out to the street, going fast enough to avoid being hit yet slow enough that the big guy could track me. Didn’t want to lose the
pendejo
inside where he could do real damage. I still didn’t know if Stan had made it out. “Come outside and play, Stone,” I shouted, praying his ego would get the best of him and he wouldn’t let a little girl like me make a fool of him.

And yes, the mountain of a guy made of a malleable, rock-like substance chose to call himself Stone. He must have stayed up all night thinking up that one. At least my name had some class to it. Whiplash; as much a definition of my powers as it was a tribute to the Metallica song. When I let loose, necks were snapping.

He trailed after me like I’d hoped, his every footstep rattling the ground. “Come back here!”

“Can’t make it that easy for you, can I?”

He smashed his way loose of the building, stomping toward me. I glanced about and groaned under my breath, my mask muffling the sound. While I had more room to maneuver, a necessity when it came to staying alive, a crowd was starting to gather. Cell phones and cameras were out by the dozens, flashes and muttered commentary growing around us. We were the spectacle of the day, and I could be sure our fight would end up on YouTube before I even made it home.

If
I made it home. Stone had other ideas.

He came at me upright, arms raised, looking to squish me into the asphalt, but I didn’t feel much like obliging him. I waited until he got closer, his left foot lifting off the ground, then shifted my power into gear. A wave of air washed overhead as he tried to take my scalp off, but I was already gone. I slammed into his leg with everything I had, knocking it aside. Stone chips flew at the impact and, not for the first time, I was glad my power protected me from itself or I’d have been the bug Stone was yapping about, splattered across his kneecap. He had no such protection.

He toppled face first to the ground, but I wasn’t done yet. I surged upward ten feet, and then reversed my direction, driving my feet into his spine. All he did was grunt as he sunk into the soft pavement, fingers ripping grooves in the ground to hold him in place. That was when I realized just how far out of my league I was playing.

The backhand to the face didn’t help my defeatist mood any.

I saw it coming a split-second too late. Stone rolled like I hadn’t hurt him at all, and clocked me. My power kicked in on instinct, whipping me backwards away from the blow, but I’d felt it. Damn, did I ever feel it.

When I was just a kid, my parents took me to see the Petrified Forest in Arizona. I remember running my hands along the cold stone that used to be wood and wondering, morbidly I admit, what it would be like if one of them fell on me.

I suspected I had my answer.

Another shift of energy as I hit the ground jolted me upright, and I was grateful for the mask that hid my expression from the crowd of people watching. My maneuver might have looked graceful, but Stone had rung my bell, and rung it good. The ringing in my skull reminded me of the Motörhead concert I’d gone to a few years back. At least I’d earned that headache, getting drunk and headbanging the night away, but it paled in comparison to the roar of the ocean that sloshed about between my ears, crashing into the back of my eyes. The whole left side of my face felt raw.

Stone was up and coming my way again. His grin was a cavern of gnashing stalactites and stalagmites, all looking to tear me apart. I was beginning to think they just might. He was faster than I’d given him credit for, and way more durable than I could take out with my bare hands. If I was going to stop him before he did me, I was going to have to be smart.

I glanced about only to have my stomach tie itself in knots. As far as weapons went, there wasn’t much to be had. A bunch of cars lined the curb alongside a row of parking meters, but I didn’t figure the short steel poles of the meters would do me much good. Beyond that, there was a metal lamppost, though with the crowd clustered around it, I’d do more damage to them trying to knock it over than I would Stone.

I dodged around an idiot driver who didn’t have the sense to clear the way for a chimeric battle—come on, how stupid do you have to be?—and ran for the line of parked vehicles. I might have flipped the woman off, too, but Stone wasn’t giving me time to share my thoughts with her. He swung at me, and I kept going, jumping onto the roof of an old car.

“It’s not a fight if you keep running,” Stone groused and just kept coming.

“Didn’t your mother teach you not to hit girls?”

Apparently not. He balled his fist up and brought it down on the roof of the car, shattering the windows and crumpling the top. Of course I wasn’t there anymore, having dropped onto the sidewalk, but all I was doing was delaying Stone. I’d caught him trying to rob the jewelry shop a block down and distracted him from that, but if the police or the DCD—the Department of Chimeric Defense—didn’t get their asses there soon, I’d have to run or they’d need a power washer to scrape me off the street. Either was possible, but I wasn’t done yet, though.

I ducked low and hit the car parked in front of me, angling my momentum upward at the last second. The car jumped and toppled over. Right on top of Stone. He squawked and went down beneath the vehicle, though I knew it would only hold him a few seconds. Once he got over the shock of it, his chunky hands would rip the thing to shreds. On cue, he started doing exactly that.