Hero (17 page)

Suddenly I didn't like the thought of him and my father being in the same room. Especially with me in it.

I took more pans and added them to the pile, which was growing too big for me to carry. I hoped that if the stack grew above my head, no one would be able to see me.

"I was thinking about taking a night off to come see one of your games," Dad said with a fixed stare.

"No, that's okay." I almost dropped the pans. "It's just summer league." I felt my ring catch in the handle of the Salisbury steak pan, and it almost yanked my finger out of joint.

Dad looked at the floor. Irma offered him his change, and the line behind him waited impatiently for him to take it. His mind was on something else, because he reached out for the change with his bad hand.

From behind the stack of trays I saw the shocked faces in line when they spotted the melted clump of flesh that used to be Dad's hand. I saw Goran pretend not to notice. His little brother's jaw was open. Goran quickly grabbed the kid's hand and pulled him in for a private conference. He wouldn't make eye contact with me.

All of a sudden a charge took hold of my body. A shock that only I could feel. It took me by surprise, and I almost dropped every tray in my arms.

It was the alarm on my League probationary ring vibrating. The emergency signal. My heart sank. I had to answer it, but I couldn't let my dad catch on.

"Dad, I've really got to go." I hoped he wouldn't notice the strain on my face, the vibrations emanating from my ring.

Dad studied me for a second, saw the dishes teetering in my arms. He gave me the once-over, and I did my best to slip my hands underneath the stack so he wouldn't notice the ring.

Then he steeled himself against the usual reactions—whispers, harsh looks—from the people behind him, set his lunch down, and took the change from Irma with his good hand. He leaned over the counter and shoved a ten dollar bill in my shirt pocket.

"See you at home."

As he walked out, Dad passed by Goran, who had finished talking with his little brother. Both of them were trying their best not to look at him as he passed. Dad noticed Goran, stopped for a second, and then suddenly whipped his head around to look back at me.

I looked down, hoping he hadn't caught me watching; hoping he didn't realize that I couldn't bear the thought of Goran and my father sharing the same space, breathing the same air, existing that close to one another. Dad turned and left, and I struggled to keep the stack of trays from falling as I carried them back into the kitchen.

I dropped the trays into the sudsy water and leaned against the sink for just a second to catch my breath, utterly spent, exhausted. Then I ran out of there as fast as I could to answer the alarm.

The crisis turned out to be a big disaster.

I met up with Ruth at the docks, where Golden Boy and Typhoid Larry had already confined the situation to a manage¬able space.

"You're late," Golden Boy chastised me.

"I'm sorry, I—"

"You'll have to do better than that next time. If you get a next time."

"Isn't that—?" I thought I recognized the men on the docks.

"The Wrecking Balls." Ruth finished my sentence and studied them with concern. She stamped out her cigarette with extra oomph.

I'd seen them in the news before, local, not prime time. They were really nothing more than retired professional wrestlers who couldn't come up with a reasonable occupation that paid as well. Their biggest problem seemed to be their lack of finesse. They'd hold up a bank or a drugstore by bulldozing their way through. If they'd used their noggins even just a lit¬tle, they could have been untouchable: a few of them actually did have superstrength and limited invincibility. But it was almost as if they'd rather get caught than execute a clean getaway, if it meant they got back on camera. The problem was they had a tendency to cause a lot of damage in their wake, and bystanders had a way of getting caught in the crossfire. In this case, the Wrecking Balls had decided to hold up a bank where Typhoid Larry happened to be cashing his paycheck.

Larry raced over, breathless, and told us what had happened. He'd had the good sense to give the Balls a wicked dose of hives in the lobby of the bank, and this had stopped the robbery in midprogress, but he'd left all his cash back at the counter.

"Don't worry," Ruth said, touching her fingers to her tem¬ples to make it seem more dramatic. "The money's still there. How many of these guys do we have to worry about?"

"I—I don't know, six, maybe seven. I took one out over there by the crane, gave him acute emphysema." Larry put his hands on his knees to catch his breath. "I think I went a little overboard. Can I borrow your inhaler? I don't want him to die or anything."

Ruth fished around in her pocketbook and forked over her asthma inhaler. "Don't use it all up; Medicaid only gives me one a month." She snapped her purse shut.

Larry took off back to the fight, and I watched Golden Boy-weave in and out of the melee. He'd been smart to move the fight over to the docks, where the chances of hurting anyone were kept to a minimum. There seemed to be seven of the Balls, but it was hard to tell since they all looked similar. Long shaggy hair, big steroidy bodies, and skintight, spangled wrestling skivvies. I didn't know how they managed to walk out in public in those outfits, much less try to rob a bank.

Golden Boy held up his hand like a point guard calling a play and flashed the signal for the Fastball Special. We'd practiced it over and over in the League's S.T.A., but it was the first time we'd tried it in the field. The idea was that while Miss Scarlett distracted our enemies with a blinding flash of light, Larry would work up a really good illness, whereupon Golden Boy would pick him up and carry him with superspeed to infect each of our dazed enemies. Ruth would be on hand to predict which ones to infect first, and that would offer our best chance of success before Scarlett's dazzling effects wore off. According to the rest of the plan, Ruth would then predict where Golden Boy would end up, and tell me where to stand to grab hold of him immediately to heal away the sickly side effects of carrying Typhoid Larry at his most infectious.

I'd never liked this plan.

Primarily because there wasn't much for me to do. My power wasn't really an offensive weapon, so I understood my part, but I wanted a taste of the action, and I resented Golden Boy for not dialing me in. How was I supposed to prove myself if I didn't get to do anything? Still, if nothing else I was a team player, so when Ruth directed me to post up on the other end of the dock, near the back entrance of the local hospital, I obeyed.

I sighed and waited for Miss Scarlett to kick it into high gear. She loved giving a good show, and this was no exception. On Golden Boy's countdown, she took off into the air like a rocket and exploded into a one-woman Fourth of July fireworks display. Then she whizzed through the air past each of the Wrecking Balls, cutting it awfully close to their faces. If they hadn't been so tough-skinned, I'm sure she would have burned their noses to a crisp.

"Suckers," she shouted as she flew past them, setting off potent bursts of light.

At the end of the line, she pulled up into the air and stung the last and fattest one in the ass with a tiny radiation blast for good measure. I saw her lips mouth two words as she did it. "Lard ass."

Ruth conferred with Golden Boy, and then she pointed out the best path for him to run, starting with the fattest guy and ending with the hulking, ripped, blond guy who was rubbing his eyes not so far away from me. Larry cleared his throat vigorously, working up an especially viscous phlegm globber. Before he could cough anything up, Golden Boy grabbed him in his arms and they were off. I was restless to get in on the action, but I understood my job was to wait, so that's what I did.

Soon the first three Wrecking Balls were on their knees, doubled over in pain, gripping their stomachs from Larry's power. The youngest one was actually kinda cute. Kinda like a beefier, tackier version of Uberman. How'd he end up with these losers? What in his life made him take this turn to wear gaudy tights, take steroids, and rob banks? Maybe he just needed

better opportunities, maybe he just needed someone who believed in him—

Suddenly I spotted Ruth hurrying toward me, waving her hands frantically. She stopped short.

"Uh-oh," she said.

"Uh-oh what?" I asked.

WHUMP! The seventh wrestler, the blond one, knocked me over on my back. The next thing I knew he had me pinned to the pavement. His ham-hock knees pressed painfully into my arms as he sat with his full weight on my chest. I struggled to catch my breath, and I could see out of the corner of my eye that Golden Boy and Larry had finished their run. Larry collapsed, drained from exerting so much energy.

Golden Boy looked around anxiously for me, his neck cran¬ing in all directions at superspeed. His face started to twitch, and panic was setting in. I was nowhere to be found. He dropped to the ground on all fours like a dog, grabbed his stom¬ach, and began heaving out his guts.

This wasn't good. I'd failed to do my part, and now there were three of us down. That left only Ruth and Scarlett to take on the rest of the Wrecking Balls, and it was basically all my fault.

"Get up! Get up! Golden Boy's down!" I heard Miss Scarlett screaming at me. I looked up, searching for something to grab hold of, but all I could see was the big blond wrestler's crotch bearing down on me in a sweaty, spangled jockstrap. The meathead's hands wrapped around my neck, and he began to choke me. I kicked my feet and tried to call out for help, but I couldn't even catch my breath.

"Aim for his nads!" Ruth screamed. Aim for his nads with what? My strong sense of integrity?

Then suddenly we were airborne. Scarlett hit us full speed and lifted us off the ground.

"Drop him," she screamed at the meathead, "or I'll fry your balls off!" She shot a flame to underscore her point.

So he dropped me.

It was a long way down. I crashed through the sunroof of the children's burn unit in the hospital. Fortune smiled upon me: a giant Pink Panther stuffed animal broke my fall when I landed on it. A little girl with half her face melted off looked up from her coloring book and yelped.

"Who are you?"

I could see excitement in the expressive half of her face.

"I'm Thom," I said. "Sorry to make such a mess. Watch out for the broken glass."

"Are you a hero?" she asked.

I looked around at the roomful of children, most of them covered head to toe in scars, melted kids in shorty pajamas play¬ing with building blocks and crayons and construction paper. They stared at me with awe, like I'd dropped in on their rehab unit from a cloud.

"I hope so."

I rushed over to the window to look at the fight on the docks below. The orderlies and nurses had rushed in by now, and they were gathered with all the patients, watching the battle. Golden Boy and Larry, still helpless because I hadn't been there to heal them, were getting pummeled by four of the chunky dudes in tights. Scarlett held a couple of them off with her heat rays, but she couldn't take on the whole group by herself. Even from far away, you could hear her mouthing off.

One of the kids asked a nurse what Scarlett was saying, and I saw the nurse blush.

Ruth, strangely, was pointing her finger at the oldest, fattest Wrecking Ball. It looked like the two of them were engaged in a heated debate. She poked her finger into the two mounds of his chest, and they screamed in each other's faces.

I looked down at my boots and studied my shoelaces. Man, I'd really screwed up this time. The damage alone was going to cost more money than I could imagine, and here we were getting our asses kicked by a bunch of middle-aged guys in body Lycra. I wanted the soft, red carpet of the playroom to swallow me alive so I wouldn't have to look anyone in the eye ever again.

Two of the Wrecking Balls hoisted a crane into the air and aimed for Golden Boy and Larry. From the hospital we all watched helplessly at what was coming. Neither of the heroes would be able to dodge it even if they saw it. I wanted to yell out a warning, but I couldn't breathe.

One of the nurses screamed as the Wrecking Balls let the crane fly.

In a flash of fire and brimstone, Miss Scarlett yanked Golden Boy and Larry away in the nick of time. The last-minute save threw her off balance, and she tumbled with them into the river. The water instantly extinguished her flame.

Now the immediate threat was the two-ton crane hurtling through the air directly at the hospital. The floor shook, and we heard a great kaboom outside as the crane crushed the emergency room entrance, leaving nothing but a crater in the parking lot.

It was a miracle that no one had been standing there. The fear in the rehab room was palpable. The people by the window began to cry, some frozen, some screaming.

The Wrecking Balls saw that their opportunity to create mayhem had worked, and they weren't about to let up. The old¬est Ball pushed Ruth to the ground and motioned for his cronies to leap over the fence and join him at the adjoining construction site. They followed him, and each one picked up a piece of heavy machinery: a forklift here, a bulldozer there. They aimed in our direction, straight at the hospital, ready to launch. Emergency sirens shrieked from all directions. Ambulances and police cars approached in the distance, but we all knew they'd be too late.

A skinny nurse with a terrified face tapped me on the shoulder.

"Excuse me," she pleaded. "Can't you help us?"

In theory I was supposed to help my team. But I was much safer in there with all the burned children and soft toys. Then I felt something softer than any of the stuffed animals touch my hand. I looked down and saw the little girl with half a good face. Her big brown eyes were filled with hope. My hands began to grow warm, and I could feel heat from the entire room swirling around my body. She smiled.

"Your hand feels good," she said.

Then a little boy limped over and grabbed her hand, and I felt a charge of fire course through my body. He reached over and held out his hand for another little girl in a wheelchair. Her bright green eyes peered through the thick bandages wrapped around her head, and she found his hand with the withered