New Markets - 02 (30 page)

Now was as good a time as any to stop and buy new shoes, I figured.  I used my H.E.R.O. phone to look up Big & Strong, find its address, and then took to the rooftops again.

It took perhaps ten or fifteen minutes to hunt down the store.  It was the size of a department store, located near the river.  It blatantly advertised clothing, tools, household goods and even vehicles for large or strong supers – or everyone else who wanted something capable of taking a ton of punishment.

The lot only had a few cars in it.  The doors were metal, rather than glass, and slid open as I approached.  A man only a few inches shorter than me approached.  He wore business pants, a tie, and a dress shirt with the sleeves rolled back.  He stepped up and offered his hand to me.

I shook it.  He said, “Welcome, my name is Mark.  Can I help you find anything today?”

“Err, yeah.  I wish I had time to wander the store, but I’m hoping to find shoes that fit.”

“Newly changed with the recent meteor shower?”

“Yeah, how’d you know?”

“We’ve had a few others already in the last few days.  Shoes are this way.”  He began leading me through the store.  “I really do advise perusing the entire store.  We’ve got things that’ll save you a lot of annoyance if you replace your previous items.  Kitchenware is a good example, plates and silverware.  Clothes of course, since most of us beef up when we change.  Furniture is also a popular replacement item – at the very least replace your favorite recliner with one that won’t smash apart after you sit down a few times.”

“Yeah, that’s a good idea.  I’ve broken a few things already.”

“It’s a sad fact about how easy it is to break most everyday items.  Few people think about that when bricks change.  We’ve had some other types of supers come in as well to get items that are more durable.”

“Here’s clothing and shoes.  Have a seat and I’ll measure your feet and see if we have a match in stock.”

It took him a minute to pull out a foot measuring tool and quickly measure my feet.

He asked, “Any preference on color?  And are your feet armored?”

“Black, and yes – why would that matter?”

“Arch becomes irrelevant to those with armored feet.”

“Ah, cool.  I need dress shoes and tennis shoes.”

Mark said, “An uncommon size, but I’ll bring out the styles we have that would fit you.  Here’s a catalog to peruse if you would prefer to order something.”  He quickly paged to the footwear section and pointed out my size, then walked into the back area.

Once Mark returned it took a minute to try on a few pairs.  They all felt the same to me, there wasn’t a difference in comfort.  I picked out a few pair and said I’d buy those.

As we walked to the front of the store, Mark pointed out the different glue, cords, and more on the shoes versus a normal shoe.

They were expensive, at six hundred dollars – but I knew I wanted something strong enough to handle jumping around the city on if I needed to.  He gave me his card, and I left the store wearing the new dress shoes.

I arrived at work early – John was pleased to see me.  I reiterated to him that I didn’t want to let on that I was a super yet.  He nodded, still not pleased about the decision.

The bar was fairly occupied with patrons.  I went around and greeting my fellow co-workers as well as the patrons.  I received a few strange looks from those I shook hands with.  I barely closed my hand over theirs.  For one, my hand was far larger now, but with muscles as hard as metal even in my fingers most people tended to be surprised by the grip.

The only other bouncer on for the night, Torin, grabbed my hand in an overhand hand clasp, and I believe he meant to pull me toward him to shoulder bump.  Due to my weight and strength I ended up not moving and he pulled himself up against me awkwardly.  I laughed at the humorous sight.

He stepped back and said, “What the hell?”  He stared at my hand.  Then he reached out and rapped the back of my hand with a knuckle.  It sounded normal, but apart from the sense of being touched, I didn’t really feel his knuckles.

I grinned, glanced around suspiciously, leaned forward a bit and whispered, “I’m a cyborg.”

“Seriously?  Like a Terminator?”

I laughed again, “No, I’m joking.  But I’m not talking about it either, so it’ll have to be a mystery.”

He scrunched up his face while thinking, “Bah.  Fine, I’m on the front door, as usual.”

“Rock on.  I’ll be chatting it up with the ladies.”

“Yeah, yeah, Mr. Nice Guy.  Enjoy the fights.”  He meandered off toward the front of the club.

It was a surprisingly normal night for me.  I wandered the tables as usual, asking people how they were doing and offering my assistance to the ladies if they needed it.  (Men tended to be insulted when I did this for them, so I stopped offering some time ago.)  The dance club section picked up an hour or two later, with nothing out of the norm occurring.

The few potential fights were easily diffused before they became serious, and it was good to feel somewhat normal for a while.

Chapter 14 – Dangers of Studying

Stephanie’s Viewpoint

I flew off slowly, debating my options for the evening.  I hadn’t learned anything in Professor Pomplun’s class, nor had I read Professor Stonewall’s chapters for tomorrow yet.  I’d missed Lab this morning.

That meant I needed Kell, Trevin, or Odes, as Megan didn’t have Lab with us, and wouldn’t be able to help me with it.  Odes was fairly good at class, but I knew that Kell or Trevin would be better.  The three also shared renting a house, so it was pretty much a no-brainer to contact them.

If I contact them, I’m sure they’d like to have me over, but Trevin’s a trickster.  He knows my … problem, and is likely to exploit it to make me do something embarrassing.

An alternative would be to study on my own, but I really don’t enjoy doing that.  Plus my mind reading thing might help.

I sighed.  Kell it was.  I’d rather have the boys be, well … boys, than to slog through the chapters on my own.

I took out my cell phone and dialed Kell on the flight home. 

He answered, “Kell here.”

I said, “Hiya Kell, this is Steph.  Any chance you are free tonight to help me catch up on what I’ve missed this week?”

“Sure, you want to swing over for a few hours?”

“I was hoping to, if it’s ok with you guys.”

The phone was muffled when he said, “Hey, you guys okay with Steph coming over to study?”

I heard, “What’s in it for us?” from the background.

Kell, still muffled, said, “What, you want me to make some demands?”

The voice – it had to be Trevin, said, “Tell her to wear her costume.”

Kell must have taken his hand off the microphone, for he clearly said, “Well, uhh, you have to wear your costume.”

I rolled my eyes.  “Fine, whatever.  I’m already in it anyway.  I’ll grab my books and fly over.”

“Dudes, she’s going to fly over in a few.”

I grinned, said, “Be there in perhaps three minutes.”  Then I hung up.

On the bright side, I don’t have to change.

Once home, I gathered up my notebooks and text books, and then flew over to their house.

I slowly flew down the last few hundred feet to the boys’ house.  They stood waiting outside the house.  I grinned when I saw them standing outside.

I stepped over and hugged each of them, saying, “Thanks for working with me tonight.  It’s driving me nuts that I missed those classes.”

Odes said, “It only exacerbated the condition.”

I looked at him, “Ha ha.”

“Well, you
are
blonde now….”

“Gold.”

“Close enough.”

Trevin said, “Actually, I’m mildly surprised that the change into a meta didn’t enhance your I.Q.”

I shrugged, “Who knows, that’s not easy to measure.”

“I.Q. tests do a fair enough job, though it would only work if you’d taken some prior to the change.”

“I can’t say as I obsessed over my I.Q. before this.”

“You do now?”

“What?  No.  I hadn’t even thought about it until you brought it up just now.”

“Ah.  I’m kind of disappointed that you didn’t wear your costume
under something
.  How am I supposed to make you take off an outer shirt now?”

“Be nice, Trevin.  I could throw you in your fear pool, you know.”

“My fear pool?”

“Well, I see it as a pool.  I can throw people into it when I enter their minds.”

“The fact that you say you
can
rather than
could
tells me that you’ve already done this to someone?”

“Yeah – bad memory though, let’s not go there.”

“Okay.  Shall we go inside?”

Kell walked into the house, grandly flourishing to me at the entrance to enter the home.  I snickered and walked past him.  A moment later I saw their mindviews and rolled my eyes.

“I see what you guys are looking at, you know.”

Kell and Trevin looked at each other, shrugged and turned back to look at me.

Trevin asked, “You want a beer, soda, long island iced tea?”

I replied, “You know I don’t drink.  I’d have a soda though if you don’t mind.  Can we start with Stonewall’s Biology class?”

While they brought out their notes, I looked up the nearest pizza place and ordered pizza with my card for the group.  When it arrived it brought them from a very good mood to even better mood.  That in turn flowed through their mindviews, making what could have been a very boring evening into something fun.

Trevin spent an inordinate amount of time debating making me do everything from pose for them to some very naughty thoughts, but fortunately he didn’t act on them.  Either that or he was sly enough about it for me to not catch anything other than his rather pleased feeling and expression at times.  I couldn’t differentiate between my normal flirting and his mental suggestions, so it was hard to tell who’s idea something was..

One thing worked extremely well, however.  I’d ask a question, and ask them to picture what they thought something was, or mentally walk through a problem.  It made extremely fast work of some problems.  The boys were fascinated with the backglow of my eyes when I focused on a mindview like this.

It turned out to be an exceptional study session, and I caught up on the classes I’d had problems in.  I could tell using mindviews up close so often was wearing me down, though.  I couldn’t be certain, but I had a feeling that my susceptibility to suggestive thoughts got even worse the more fatigued I became.

I called it quits at 9 p.m.  Trevin did an excellent job at concealing what he tried to make me do in general, but by this time he was gloating a little too much.  I packed up my backpack and gave each of them a great big hug.  I had to push each of them away from me as they got caught up in smelling my hair.