Sensation: A Superhero Novel (16 page)

“It’s not really a transport problem,” he said.  “It’s a space-available problem.  See, we have special prisons built to hold super criminals, but we can’t send them to prison without a trial.  It’s still a free country, after all.  However, we can hold them until they’re actually tried - assuming they don’t make bail.  Right now, all the jail cells are at their legal limit, so we’ll keep some of them here until a slot opens up, bail is set, or what have you.”

That seemed reasonable, and I probably wouldn’t have given the situation much more thought under other circumstances.  However, he ran through a list of names of those who had been captured, one of which made my ears perk up: Incendia.

I immediately teleported to the room with the nullifier cells.  The room already had a good number of occupants, both teen supers and League members.  My appearance startled a couple of kids, but they recovered quickly enough to answer my questions. Apparently Incendia was being held in the third cell.  I walked down, eager to get a closer look at the person who had burned my house to the ground.

I was a little shocked when I finally saw her.  She was just a teenager, probably the same age as me.  And, when not encased in living flame, it seemed that she had pale skin, cold blue eyes, and curly blond hair.  She gave me an icy glare that would have frozen an ocean.  It was as if she knew me, and to be frank, there was something about her that was oddly familiar.  Yet, I had never seen her before earlier that day, when she had treated my home like a place to make s’mores.  (Had it only been that morning?  It seemed like a lot longer – weeks at least.)

My reverie was interrupted by a flash going off next to me.  It was Smokescreen, taking pictures as usual. 

“Is that allowed down here?” I asked, nodding towards his camera.

“Oh, sure,” he replied.  “The League likes to have all this stuff documented.  There are actually hidden video cameras in the room, but I talked them into letting me take some still shots.  Officially, all the pictures I develop belong to the League, but it’s just a hobby for me – no commercial gain involved – so I don’t care.”

“You said ‘develop’?” I noted curiously.

“Yeah, I’m old school,” he said with a grin.  “My dad was a photographer and he taught me.”

“Tainted you is more like it,” said a new voice, Aqua, who I hadn’t noticed.  “You really should try digital.”

“Nah,” Smokescreen said. “I like getting my hands dirty – I’ve got a darkroom and everything in my quarters.  It makes me feel like I’m close to my old man.”

I gave him a pat on the shoulder in understanding fashion.  I gave a fleeting thought as to whether I’d ever be close to my own father, then dismissed the notion.  When I was a kid, I used to dream about my father showing up one day and proclaiming me as his own to the world, like the Wizard of Oz stepping out from behind the curtain.  I had put that dream far out of my mind years ago, and it was best to keep it that way.

I watched as Smokescreen snapped a picture of Aqua in front of Incendia’s cell, then began to make my way out.

Chapter 16

Following my departure from the nullifier cells, I teleported to the safe house where Braintrust was keeping my family.  I was pleased to see that Mom and Gramps were fine, and well-protected by a large number of BT clones.  (After learning about Mouse’s suspicions of a mole, I passed on his offer of League security.)

I brought them up to speed on what had happened.  There was relief that Incendia had been captured, but it was decided that they should continue to lie low for a couple of days.  After spending a few hours with them – including having dinner – I said my goodbyes and popped back to the League.

In an ideal world, had my original Teen Super Trial not become a PR disaster, I would have been given living quarters at Alpha League HQ like the other super teens being sponsored.  Of course, teen quarters generally saw limited use.  During the school year, teen supers were in residence at the Academy;  during the summer, most spent some time at home with family. 

There were, however, a few times during the summer when it was mandatory that super teens stay at their team HQ.  This was one of those times.  (The general understanding was that staying with a superhero team the last few weeks of the summer got a super teen back into the right frame of mind – as well as physical shape – before heading back to the Academy.) Thus, the League’s teen population was impressive in size at present. 

That being the case, I was pleasantly surprised that they were still able to provide me with a room.  It turns out, though, that I needn’t have worried.  There were far more rooms than the League would probably ever utilize.  I was placed on one of the floors for males, next door to Smokescreen – presumably a friendly face in case I had any questions.

My room was fairly spacious, about the equivalent of a one-bedroom apartment.  There was a quaint living area, a kitchenette, and a nice-sized bedroom with an ample closet.  Someone had even gone to the trouble of placing clothes in the closet that were my size.

It was dark when I got back, though not necessarily late.  Still, it had been a long day, so I took a leisurely shower, thinking about everything that had happened.  The shower was an edgeless, clear-glass model with a handle that doubled as a towel rack on the outside.  The hot water felt good against my skin, almost like a soothing massage, kneading out tension that I didn’t know I had.

When I was finished, I turned off the shower and then phased, becoming insubstantial.  Water that had clung snugly to my body a second before cascaded down to the floor of the shower.  Having dispensed with the need for a towel, I pulled on a pair of boxers and a t-shirt. 

The bathroom sink was a single vanity set in the center of a countertop about five feet long, with a mirror of equal length set in the wall.  The mirror was fogged from my use of the shower, so apparently I would need the towel after all.  I turned and pulled it from the handle of the shower door, and when I looked back to the mirror I almost jumped out of my skin.

Aqua was sitting over the sink, feet dangling off the edge of the counter.  She was wearing a robe that had hung on the back of the bathroom door a second ago.  She laughed at the look of surprise on my face.

“Serves you right,” she said between giggles.  “Now you know what it feels like when you pop up on people out of nowhere.”

“How…how’d you get in here?” I asked, trying to recover.

She tapped the sink.  “Any place that water can go is accessible to me.”  Then she turned to water – clear, animated liquid in brash female form – then she reverted back.

“How long have you been in here?”  I asked.

She smiled, putting her arms around my neck and leaning in close.  “Let’s just say that I’m a little harder to shake off than that water in the shower.”

Blushing, I leaned away from her, pulling her hands from around my neck at the same time. 

“Not to be rude,” I said, “but what are you doing here?”

“Just checking to see how you’re settling in,” she said, pouting a little.  “So, how’s everything so far?”

“Fine.  I’ve got no complaints.  The room’s comfortable, and almost everybody’s been pretty nice.”

“So, what’s it like having all that power?” she asked, abruptly changing the subject.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, you’re probably one of the most powerful supers on the planet.  You took down the whole Alpha League by yourself a few years ago.”

I shook my head.  “I didn’t really take anyone down.  We just kind of butted heads, and everybody went away licking their wounds.  The problem was that it was all caught on film and ended up being an embarrassment for everyone – me included.”

“What did you have to be embarrassed about?  With power like yours, you could make almost any super on the planet bow down to you – and make normal people worship you like a god.”

I frowned.  “That wouldn’t be right.”

“Sometimes might makes right,” she said, smiling. 

I was so focused on what she was saying that I didn’t realize that she was leaning towards me again until her lips brushed mine.  There was a jolt, an emotional charge that shot through me, along with a thousand conflicting emotions.  On some level, I knew instinctively that Aqua was leading me down a dark path, that she was manipulating me.  I should have drawn away, but instead, when she pressed for a deeper kiss, I kissed her back.

Her arms were around my neck and I pulled her close.  In my brain, I felt a small spark igniting, a tiny plume of flame quickly fanning into a wildfire crackling across my mind.

This is wrong!  Wrong! WRONG!

Finally, I pulled back, held her at arm’s length.

“Don’t you have a boyfriend?” I asked.  “Herc?”

“Please,” she said dismissively.  “He’s a mobile slab of rock.  I’ve known amoebas with more brain cells.  Getting him to have an original thought is like trying to nail Jell-o to a tree. 

“Besides,” she continued, trying to close the distance between us, “you didn’t seem to have a problem with it a minute ago.” 

I took a step back. “Well, I came to my senses.”

Her eyes suddenly narrowed.  “This isn’t about Herc.  It’s about Little Miss Live Wire.  Electra.  You really like her.” 

I didn’t say anything.

“Interesting,” she said, staring at me as if some new thought had struck her out of the blue.  “Anyway, just think about what I said.”

“What part?”

“All of it,” she said with a wink.  Then her body became liquefied and arced towards the sink as if from a spout.  The robe dropped to the floor, empty.

Chapter 17

I lay in bed for a while after Aqua left, trying to go to sleep.  I was worn out, but sleep wouldn’t come.  Something about my conversation with her kept nagging at me.  After about an hour, I gave up on getting any sleep and tossed on a pair of cargo pants and a polo shirt.  I phased, then flew outside the window and up to the roof.

Sometimes, when I can’t sleep, I like to gaze up at the stars.  Maybe it’s the fact that part of my heritage is alien, or maybe it’s just knowing that I’ve got family out there, but being up in the air and looking at the nighttime sky just seems to put me at ease.  There’s something about the vastness of space, the immensity of it, that makes any problem you have pale in comparison.

The roof of Alpha League’s HQ was actually a multi-level affair that served a couple of purposes.  There was a recreational area that consisted of a pool and a couple of cabanas.  On the more functional side (which actually sat about two stories higher), there was a utility shed, a retractable dome that housed a helicopter landing pad, and a few more structures whose use I wasn’t sure of. 

I was so lost in my own thoughts that I didn’t see him at first.  I had actually thought I was alone.  The first inkling I had of anyone else being around was the slight ripple of his cape in the nighttime breeze.  I was floating on the recreational side of the building at the time, and the sound – coming from above me – made me look up to the helipad area.  I couldn’t actually see him at that point, just the end of his cape fluttering.

I flew up and peeked over the edge.  It was
him
.  He was just floating there, looking up at the sky as I had been a few moments ago.  His back was to me, but I’d known who it was before I looked:  Alpha Prime.

I turned away, ready to fly back down when I heard him call out.

“It’s okay,” he said, glancing back at me.  “You don’t have to leave.” 

I hadn’t even realized he knew I was there.  I seesawed back and forth in my mind for a second, then came to a decision.  I flew over next to him.

“Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t realize anyone else was up here.  I just…the stars just help me clear my head.”

He smiled and nodded.  “I know the feeling.”

We floated in silence for a few minutes, right next to each other but at the same time in our own separate worlds.  I was probably in one of the most enviable positions on the planet.  Most kids dream about getting to meet the world’s greatest superhero, and at one time I had been just like them - but I had grown up since then. Still, after a while, I couldn’t help but wonder what he was thinking and feeling.  Gently, I reached out empathically.

He was a swirl of emotions:  pride, satisfaction, contentment, and a sense of purpose.  However, there was only measured happiness and limited joy, and underpinning it all was a sadness and longing so deep and aching that it was tangible.

Maybe he felt my probe, because suddenly he spoke.

“I’m not from here, you know,” he said, as if revealing some great secret.  “This world.”

I nodded, saying nothing.  Everyone knew his story, but it seemed important to let him tell it.

“I certainly never should have ended up here, or ended up as what I am.  Back where I came from, I wasn’t anybody important.”  He laughed.  “I wasn’t even important enough to be a nobody.”

“My brother and I, we were janitors,” he went on.  “We were part of the nighttime cleaning crew at an advanced research lab.  One night, we’re cleaning up, and we notice that one of the doors that should have been locked - and off-limits - wasn’t.

“At the time, the rule was to clean any and every room that we had access to.  That being the case, we went in.  Long story short, they were experimenting with some kind of interdimensional device and my idiotic brother accidentally turned it on.  It landed us here.”

I ventured to ask a question.  “So, if you were a nobody on your own world, does that mean that most people there are more powerful than you?”

“They wish,” he said, laughing out loud.  “No, people on my world don’t have powers.  It’s a rather humdrum existence compared to what goes on in this place.”

“How did you get your powers then?” 

He shrugged.  “No one really seems to know, but the prevailing theory among most scientists is that it happened when we made the trip over.  It only seemed like a second to us, but it’s possible we were in some kind of interdimensional void for a lot longer.  Moreover, there are a lot of forces in those regions that nobody understands.  Long story short, I was probably exposed to something there which gave me my powers.