Open Your Eyes (4 page)

The
drive back to Port City was uneventful, even the traffic wasn’t too much of a
bother. Still, the break gave Seth time to think, about what he could finally do
with his life now.

He
was still reluctant. With great power comes great responsibility, said the
famous line. Seth didn’t want any responsibility, he was fine with his job, his
routine, his quiet life. It was stable. But he thought about all the chances he
had in life that he missed, he wasted, the ones where he self-sabotaged himself
to get out of them. He had a chance now not to only to make up for that, but to
help others, make this city, his home a better, safer place, where no-one
needed to fear being mugged in the street, or robbed in their own homes.

Where
friends don’t get assaulted by crazy people.

It
was a big ask, to go out there alone and actually be Batman, or Spider-man or
one of the many comic book heroes he knew. But as he thought about it, he grew
more confident.

This
thing, this gift, this power. It can’t go to waste.

Not
this time.

Seth
dug deep into his desk drawer, pulling out an unused mobile phone. A Nokia, old
but indestructible. Luckily the propriety charger was right there next to it;
he was sure the thing still worked, but there was no chance in hell it still
held that last charge.

He
registered the pre-paid SIM card, used a fake name. Seth was planning to use
the old Nokia as a burner phone; if he had to use it he didn’t want it to be
traced back to him.

Seth
had decided that privacy and discreetness was going to be important for what he
was going to do. He didn’t want to have a name, or a profile, let alone the
police on his back looking for a masked vigilante. With his powers he could be
a ghost, a spirit, a shadow...

“
Ghostman
?”
he mutters to himself. No, that’s just stupid.

With
the Nokia charging, Seth rummaged through his wardrobe, looking for appropriate
attire. No distinct costume, just something that would let him blend in and
stay hidden. Something that could hide his face, but not obviously so.

A
dark grey hoodie he pulls out. This would be perfect.

He
had work tonight, not enough time to prepare himself. But he knew the streets
would be busy after that. It was the weekend after all.

“Tomorrow
night.” Seth said to himself.

Tomorrow.

Seth
took the train in to the city. He gave Emma an excuse that he was meeting an
old university friend for a few beers. She brought it.

Once
night falls he takes a perch on a rooftop overlooking the vast nightclub
district, a maze of pubs, clubs and neon signs. Seth watches the throngs of
people below him, being social, having fun. A lifestyle not for him.

He
hops from rooftop to rooftop, keeping watch, looking out for trouble. He pulls
out his smartphone once in a while, keeping tabs on social media. There’s a few
drunks being dicks, a few women getting catcalls. Nothing major, everything
mundane.

No-one
told him that the life of a hero would be this boring.

Seth
urinates in the corner of another rooftop. Unwilling to leave his watch, this
was the only opportunity he had to relieve himself. Hope no-one’s watching
him...

He
immediately hears commotion, the sound of garbage cans being kicked over, of
men running, shouting. Pleas for mercy...

Seth
dashes to the edge of the building. He spies them in the alley directly below.
Four thugs, harassing an older homeless man.

They
surrounded him as he pleaded to be left alone. They mocked his raggedy clothes,
derided his smell, and teased the way he spoke. He appeared to have some sort
of mental issue, like so many others on the street. He was shaking, frightened,
on the verge of tears as he asked desperately to be left alone by them.

No.
They were enjoying this. To them, it was fun. It was sport.

At
the lip of the building, Seth prepared to leap into the fray. He was going to
save the old man from these thugs, and perform his first heroic act...

He
hesitates. Something holds him back from intervening. Indecision. Reluctance.
Fear.

All
of the above.

They
order the man to hand over his wallet, a final indignity to his situation. He
refuses, it has nothing of value he tries to tell them. They still want it.

The
man tries to make a break for it, only to run into the waiting arms of one of
the thugs. He punches and kicks the homeless man, bringing him down to the ground.
The others join in. They take his wallet, take his cards, take what little
money he has inside. Rip up the only photograph that is in there.

They
leave him, whimpering and alone in that alley. Seth remains on the roof, a
coward.

He
dials his Nokia burner phone. Gets an operator.

“There’s
a guy bleeding in an alleyway.” he says to the operator, his voice straining. “I
think he’s just been beaten up.”

He
gives his location, but not his name. Nor does he stay on the line.

He
hangs up. He destroys the phone.

Once
he sees the paramedics arrive he gets the hell out of there.

Although
the crowds have thinned in the streets above, the subway station heaves with
people, all wanting to get home.

Seth
hides in a corner of the platform, behind the crowd. His inaction tonight still
weighs heavily on him. He screams inside, to himself. About how he is a coward,
a fuck up, a piece of shit human being too scared to do anything. About how he
is such a terrible person.

He
is close to tears. He pulls the hood over his head, to hide his shame. He
cries.

The
sea of people shifts. The next train is coming. The crowd starts to slowly move
towards the front of the platform, ready to fight for a seat, a place onboard.
They can hear the train close in to the station, the lights of the lead car
illuminating the walls of the tunnel.

They
wait for the train to stop. It doesn’t.

At
an alarmingly quick rate, the train races past the platform, blowing back men
and women at the front with a burst of wind. Onboard, heard only just above the
engines, the voices of passengers screaming...

Seth
pushes through the crowd, reaching the edge of the platform as the train
rockets away into the darkness. Something is terribly wrong, and he knows it.

He
runs down the platform, after the train as it continues deeper into the tunnel,
its lights fading into the distance. Focused on the rear carriage, Seth reaches
the end of the platform and leaps.

Blink.

Seth
crashes to the floor in the middle of the carriage. Surrounded by a crush of
passengers close to panic, no one notices his sudden appearance as he picks
himself off the floor and pushes his way towards the front of the train as
quickly as he can.

Packed
in like a sardine, it takes too much time for him to reach the other end of the
carriage. Around him, the passengers are getting more nervous, alarmed by the
missed stops and ever increasing speed of the train. One even whispers about
the existence of another train only minutes in front of them, one they will surely
catch up to with disastrous consequences. With time an unknown factor, Seth
knows what he has to do.

He
closes his eyes... and finds himself on the tracks, watching the runaway train
speed away.

“Fuck!”
he shouts, as he again blinks and gets back on the train.

He
shoves the frightened passengers aside as he races forward, enough to get a
peek into the next carriage as he teleports again and again, jumping forward
and forward again as the train speeds on faster and faster. Disorientated by
his effort, Seth grits his teeth as he concentrates harder on getting to the
front, the first carriage.

He
blinks one more time.  

Seth
stares out the front windows of the train, its headlights illuminating the
darkness as it continues to speed down the tunnel at a frighting rate. He
turns, finding the driver unresponsive, slumped in his seat. He checks the
man’s pulse.

Too
late.

Seth
pulls him off the control panel. With no time to waste and relying on his very
limited knowledge of driving trains, he considers hitting the emergency brake
before stopping himself. Too many potential injuries he realises, knowing what
he’s seen in the carriages behind him. Instead, he pulls what he thinks to be
the throttle down, and takes hold of what he thinks must be the brake lever...

“Hope
this works.” he mutters to himself as he turns the lever and the sweet screeching
sounds of the brakes activating begin to erupt from below the floor.

Hand
hovering above the emergency, Seth watches the speedometer closely, seeing it
count down as the train slows and finally comes to a stop not too far from the
lights of the next station. Letting go of the controls, Seth takes a step back.
He breathes a sigh of relief.

“Holy
fucking shit.”

Banging
on the door behind him immediately snaps Seth out of his moment of calm. As
they finally break in, Seth closes his eyes and once again disappears in a
flash of light.

Blink.

Home.
Seth again finds Emma burning the midnight oil in front of her twin monitor
setup. She looks to her brother, his hoodie still drawn over his head.

“Hey,
what’s with the outfit?” she asks him. “How’d your meeting go?”

“Open
up a news site.” Seth tells her, almost frantic.

“Why?”

“Just
do it.” he says, somewhat anxiously.

“Okay,
okay. Let me save first.” Emma begins the laborious process of saving a huge
Adobe file, first to disk, and then to several cloud services.

“Aw
come on!” moans Seth.

“Fine.”
Emma opens up the web browser and starts typing into the search bar. “Which
site?”

“Any.”

She
opens up The Universe’s web page. The site loads quickly. Seth leans in,
rapidly scanning the page. Nothing yet.

“Try
Twitter.” he tells his sister.

“Why
can’t you check it on your phone?”

“I
didn’t bring my phone.” he tells her. Lie.

“That’s
a first.” Emma says under her breath as she opens up Twitter. It’s right there,
trending. #runawaytrain.

“That’s
me.” Seth tells her.

“What
do you mean that’s you?”

“Read
it.” he tells her as Emma scrolls through the tweets, the retweets. Eyewitness
accounts of what happened tonight.

“I
was saved by a hooded man.” she reads. “He stopped the train. I don’t know how
but he did.” Another tweet. “He just appeared. Like in a blink in an eye.” said
another. One more.

“An
angel saved us all.”

Emma
looks to Seth, her mouth agape in awe.

“You
saved all those people Seth.”

“I
couldn’t just let them die.” he tells her. “I had already let one person down
tonight. It was already one too many.”

“How
do you feel Seth?” she asks him.

“What
do you mean?”

“How
do you feel about what you did?”

“I...
I feel good. I feel good that I could do it. I feel proud that I could do it. This
is going to sound weird, but I... I feel at ease.”

“With
what?”

“With
my existence.” he says.

“This
is what you’re meant to do Seth.” Emma says to him, a conviction in her voice. “It
may have taken all this time for you to get here, but this is what you’re meant
to do. Be a hero.”

Seth
looks to her. He nods.

“I
think you’re right...”

Tears
in her eyes, Emma hugs her brother tight.

“I’m
fucking proud of you Seth. So proud.”

It
took Seth just a few days to get his leave approved. Although he was certainly entitled
to it, his boss wasn’t too happy about the length of time he was taking off.
“Gotta find a new guy, more work I have to do...” he grumbles, but he’s always
been lazy with stuff like this.

Still,
he got it. He just had one final shift to do.

Again
Seth emptied out Hannah’s trash. By now she seemed to have recovered well from
what had happened to her, and appeared to have returned to her old self.

“See
you next week.” she says to Seth with a smile.

“Oh,
I won’t be here.” Seth tells her. “I’m taking a few months off. Going on
vacation.”

“Oh,
that sounds great!” she replies. “Where to?”

Seth
hesitates. He laughs nervously.

“Um,
actually nowhere. It’s more of a staycation. You know, stay, vacation,
staycation
.”

Not
expecting that answer, Hannah laughs.

“Well,
whatever you’re doing I hope you have fun. I think I’m actually going to miss
seeing your face around here.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.
Its kinda weird, but I think I will.”

Leaving
Hannah to return to her work, Seth walks away with a bag of garbage in his hand
and a huge smile on his face.

“I
want you to hit me as hard as you can.” Emma shouts at her brother.

She
had dragged him out to the backyard for this first session. Emma had offered to
train Seth before he went out officially for the first time. Despite her lack
of any suitable credentials for this except for maybe watching Batman Begins more
than ten times, Seth decided to humour her anyway.

What
harm could it do?

“Hit
me!” she screams.

“You
sure?” he asks her.

“Bring
it on bitch!”

He
nods. Seth winds up a punch, aiming it for her outstretched palms. He strikes.

It
is not impressive.

“Is
that it?” Emma asks him.

“I’ve
never really thrown a punch before.”

“Let’s
try this again.”

Emma
raises her hand up. He punches again.

Just
as bad.

“Okay,
maybe we should get you a weapon, like billy clubs, or a sword or something. A
taser!” she exclaims.

“A
sword? I don’t know Emma. I don’t really want to hurt people, just stop them.”

“How
you going to do that then?”

“I
dunno. Dance around, be agile.” Seth replies.

She
raises an eyebrow. “So you wanna dance huh?”

Emma
swipes her phone, letting the Beyoncé song play through the tiny portable
speaker. Placing the phone down, she starts bouncing along to the music.

“Come
on!” she yells.

“Do
I really have to do this?” Seth protests.

“Come
on Seth, give it a go.” she tells him. “Might come in useful!”

Seth
sighs. Reluctantly, he starts to tap his feet to the beat of the music. He
moves. He bounces on his feet. He dances. He runs.

He’s
out of shape. He takes on the jungle gym at the kids’ playground in the park.
Still out of shape. More serious training. Dad’s old weights, jump rope.
Punching bag. Watching UFC, The Raid, old Jackie Chan films. Studying them,
developing a way to move...

Not
quite there yet.

Still,
Emma’s there for him, encouraging him, cheering him on. “Go! Go! Go!” she
shouts. She wants to see Seth succeed as much as anyone as she continues to watch
over him over the next few days, preparing himself to take on the big bad
world.

Eventually
he does get a little fitter, a little faster, and just agile enough to take on
a children’s obstacle course. Watching him finish strong, Emma grins proudly.

“I
think you’re ready.” she tells him.

“Really?”
Seth asks her, catching his breath.

“No.
But I think you’re good enough. Anyway you got freaking superpowers dude!”

His
self-worth through the roof, Seth beams.

“Yeah.
I do Emma. Yeah, I do.”

Night.
Seth stares at the grey hoodie once more, hanging by a hook in his bedroom
closet. Taking it in his hands, he slips it on as Emma watches him.

“That’s
it? That’s your costume?” she asks him.

“Yeah,
what’s wrong with it?”

“Its,
kind of bland.”

“Well,
what do you want? Yellow spandex?” he retorts.

“You
need a mask, or at least something to hide your face more.”

Seth
thinks. He goes over to his desk, and pulls out a pair of orange tinted video
gaming glasses from the drawer. He puts them on, giving him the look of a
bug-eyed alien.

“How’s
this?”

“You
look like a douche. But it’ll work.”

Seth
laughs. “And I thought these were a waste of money...”

“You
said that you let one person down that night.” Emma asks her brother. “What did
you mean by that?”

“I
let a homeless man get beaten.” he tells her. “I should have stopped him, but I
was too scared to intervene.”

“And
yet you still stopped that train.”

“Like
I said, I couldn’t let any more people down, especially you.” He turns to her.
“You believed I could do this from the start Emma, so when I went out and did
nothing, it felt that I failed not only myself, but you as well.”

“You
will never fail me Seth.”

“I’m
ready to go Emma.” he tells her.

“Go
then. Go kick some ass!”

Drawing
his hood down over his face, he blinks.