Trainee Superhero (Book Three)

By C.H. Aalberry

Copyright 2015 C.H. Aalberry

Distributed by Smashwords.

Edited by Eve (
www.eveproofreads.com
)

Cover Art by Malice Bathory (
www.maliceartwork.blogspot.com.au
)

“Preparation is survival. Once you are in the
fight there is little you can do except keep calm and remember your
training.”

-The Superhero Trainee Guide (Third edition),
Chapter Two.

“Death is just one mistake away. I’ve been to
a lot of funerals for people who forgot that.”

-
Dark Fire
, email to an unidentified
friend.

I wake up in the hospital with no idea of how
I got there.

My body is covered in bandages and casts, and
I have a killer headache. A nurse sitting by my bed looks up when I
try to move.

“Can you hear me,
Red Five
?” he
asks.

I try to nod but can’t, so I settle for a
groan. He injects me with something and my arm start burning.

“I can hear you,” I say.

He gets up, leaves the room and comes back
with a second nurse. She’s much older than he is, and seems
surprised to see me.

“He’s awake,” says the younger nurse, “you
owe me ten dollars.”

“Do you know why you are here?” the older
nurse asks me, handing the other nurse a ten dollar bill.

“I… don’t. What happened? And can I have
something for my headache?”

The nurse shrugs.

“Sorry kid, you’re already on a lot of pain
meds. What’s the last thing you can remember?”

“I was out with
Never Lies
and her
team in the storm… and then we were on a saucer, right? Everything
is a bit hazy.”

It was a lot more than hazy; I could only
remember snatches of disparate memories that seemed to slip over
each other. Was I in Korea? Did I see Tenchi?

The senior nurse makes a worried humming
noise and takes a few notes on her tablet.

“Okay then. I’ve called the doctor. Stay
where you are.”

Both my legs are in casts, so I’m not going
anywhere,

I lie back and close my eyes. What happened
to me? I remember fire, and pain.

The door opens and a middle aged man with the
name
Got Greedy
written on his blue shirt walks in. He looks
sad, and says nothing as he checks me over. He must be the doctor,
because the older nurse walks in and starts assisting him as he
scans me with strange machines set next to my bed.

Got Greedy
mutters something under his
breath, and the nurse wheels me out of the room and into a full
body MRI.

“This might hurt,” the nurse says.

It doesn’t, although my arm feels oddly warm.
They wheel me back into my room and start cutting the bandages off
my arm. The skin looks red. The doctor pokes it with a metal stick
and a long line opens up in my skin to show the muscle underneath.
He slides a metal probe right into the muscle.

“Hey! What the heck?” I shout.

The doctor ignores me and continues working,
but the nurse looks surprised.

“What? Oh right, you’ve never been conscious
when we’ve done that before. We did a lot of pre-emptive surgery
when you first arrived. Just the normal stuff, like the internal
tourniquets and extra spleen. And a pacemaker, too, and a valve in
your skull to limit swelling…”

I look away as the doctor pulls the probe out
of my arm. My skin closes up as good as new, but the whole
experience is pretty disturbing.

“…we also tightened some muscles while we
were in there, just tuning you up,” continues the nurse, “and added
sensors and access points, of course. We knew you’d be coming back
to us.”

“What the hell?” I demanded, “What gives you
the right?”

The doctor prods my neck and sighs
unhappily.

“You did,” the nurse says, “when you
volunteered.”

They keep me in bed for another whole day.
It’s boring, and my memories are still fragmented. My tat-a-gotchi
is sulking on my arm and refuses to even look at me; perhaps it
doesn’t like the MRI.

“Visitor,” says the nurse.

It’s
Bad Day
. He sits down, props his
feet on my bed and smiles at me.

“What happened?” I ask.

I expected him to still be in a wheelchair,
but he’s not even limping. I wonder how much times has passed since
our mission in the ice.

“You really don’t remember?”

“Nup.”

“Pity. We were part of a team investigating a
small saucer downed in the middle of nowhere, Russia. Should have
been a piece of cake.
Big Teeth
saw something on the ground
and went down to have a look. You joined him, then everything went
white and we hit the ground. The explosion was so large that they
saw it from space.
Big Teeth
didn’t survive, and you barely
did. Is any of this ringing any bells?”

It wasn’t.

“
Never Lies
was furious with herself.
She kept saying that she should have seen it coming, but I don’t
know how she could have. Things got pretty hairy after that when a
pair of jellybergs flanked us, and by the time we got to you there
was no sign of any saucer.”

I don’t remember any of that.
Bad Day
hands me a tablet loaded with games and then leaves. I play the
games for a few minutes, but I’m finding it hard to
concentrate.

My next visitor is
Small Talk
. He sits
by my bed for an hour without saying anything, then pats me on the
shoulder as he leaves. Were we in his hometown, at some point? Does
he have kids?

Three days pass; I heal quickly, so whatever
drugs they keep injecting into me must be working. One of my legs
is still in a cast, but otherwise I’m fine. Everyone seems
surprised that I’m still alive, yet I’m feeling pretty good.

“How is this possible?” I ask the nurse.

“We were prepared, and we have a lot of
experience when it comes to this stuff. And you’ve been in here a
lot, so we had a home team advantage of sorts. Besides,
Got
Greedy
is incredible at using the alien tech for healing. He’s
always pushing the limit of what’s possible.”

“I don’t know how I feel about being a lab
rat,” I admit.

“You’d be dead otherwise. We had to use every
trick in the book to keep you alive last time. You have a couple
metal bones now, by the way.”

“Which ones?” I ask, shocked.

“Um… your legs and arms, mostly. A few ribs,
that sort of thing. A piece of skull. Your fingers. Don’t worry
about it.”

I can’t help but worry about it.

“And there are no long-term effects?”

“No one has lived long enough to find out.
Except
Past Prime
, maybe.”

No one had lived long enough to find out?
That doesn’t exactly inspire confidence.

I’m out of bed the next day. A trio of
physios help get me walking again. I try to strike up a
conversation, but they answer in grunts. The nurses are far more
talkative, and I learn a lot about the ship from them.

“Visitor,” says the younger nurse.

It’s
Past Prime
.

“You remind me of myself at your age,” he
tells me.

“Ah… thanks?”

“It’s not a compliment. Have you thought
about my offer?”

“I have. I want to keep fighting.”

Past Prime
shakes his head and leaves
me to my fractured body and mind.

I only have one more visitor, a steward. He’s
a stern man with short white hair and a professional manner. I
wonder if he was a soldier in the past, and if he considers this a
step up or a step down.

“Follow me, please,” he asks.

I swing myself out of bed without any
difficulty. I was bored with all that inactivity, anyway. There are
only so many times I can read a tactics manual before I commit the
whole thing to memory.

“Yup… where are we going?”

“Follow.”

He leads me down a series of stairs, deep
into the belly of the
Cerberus
. We walk along corridors of
doors that might be crew rooms. The
Cerberus
only carries a
small navy crew and a smaller group of operators, so most of the
rooms aren’t being used. We walk down a final set of stairs and
turn to a double door. The large sign above it reads ‘Weapons
Research Laboratory.’ Underneath that, in smaller letters, is a
yellow sign: ‘No Smoking, Running or Electronic Equipment Allowed
Past This Point.’

“I’m not allowed any further than this. Good
luck,” the steward tells me.

I walk through the doors and find a second
pair, much heavier than the last. A handwritten message on a small
piece of paper is stuck to the door with tape.

“Come in, shut up, don't touch anything,
stand still, do as you are told and we will get on just fine,” I
read aloud.

Seems like a friendly place.

I step up to knock on the door and it swings
open at my first touch. It leads to a long corridor clad in rough
concrete and sheets of metal. I pass through half a dozen red fire
doors before arriving at the last, which is blue. A technician
steps out. His appearance surprises me for a moment: he looks about
forty, and he is the tallest and thinnest person I’ve met on the
ship. He has tool belts of odd tools strung around his body and a
pair of welding goggles on his head.

I offer my hand but he ignores it and ushers
me inside.

“So this is the gun labs,” I say.

“That's a misnomer. We also make swords and
maces and-”

He waves to an assortment of weapons laying
in dozens of neat racks. Some of the weapons I recognize, many I
don't. They all look extremely dangerous.

“-all kinds of things, really,” he continues,
“I'm
Talented Brat
, and this is my workshop.”

“Pleased to finally meet you, I'm-”

“-
Red Five
. I know. I was at your
assessment. Stand over there.”

The workshop is huge, with low ceilings that
run on forever. The room contains hundreds of boxes, shelves and
tables all overflowing with pieces of equipment. Half-finished
suits of armor hang from the ceiling and bits of saucers and alien
tech lie in piles. Some are still bright metal but a few have been
stripped down to their cores of pulsing wires. The one nearest me
is an unbalanced oblong that looks to me like it was an engine, but
it could be an alien pizza oven for all I know. A few distant
figures welding on a table pay us no attention. I walk over to
where
Brat
is pointing and find a suit of armor waiting for
me. It looks better than the ones I've been using, but it still
looks battered. There is no helmet. It is also unarmed, but my
multiblaster is sitting on a desk nearby.

“I heard you lost your last suit, trainee.
Not smart, not smart at all,”
Brat
grumbles.

“I don’t-” I start, but then I remember
bright, bright light.

Was my suit destroyed?

Talented Brat
fusses over a computer
display but I keep quiet and take a moment to look over the lab. I
don't know what any of this stuff is, but I have a sudden and
burning desire to find out.

“Step onto that plate,”
Brat
says.

I step onto the plate. I don’t feel anything,
but
Brat
is staring intently at a computer screen. Something
hums loudly, and lights flash.

“Okay. We have a temporary suit set up for
you that should fit. That one - put it on already,”
Brat
says.

It doesn't take long. The suit fits me well,
and
Brat
pulls straps and adjusts the fittings until it sits
comfortably over my shoulders. It feels tight, like a second skin,
and light. Nothing is loose.

“That feels so much better-”

“Quiet. Hold up your left arm.”

Brat
starts working on the power panel
on my arm. He locks the dials in place with a screwdriver.

“I’d actually prefer having the setting on
manual,” I say before he gets too far.

“What?”

Talented Brat
gives me a look that's
equal parts impressed and annoyed.

“I don't like people messing with my setups,
boy. Manual control is too dangerous for trainees.”

I shrug.

“Fine, I'll set all the controls to manual,
but it's your funeral. This new suit should have thirty-four
percent more juice than your last one, so we can mount some bigger
weapons. Follow me.”

I follow him in my unpowered suit. My steps
are heavy and clumsy, but I manage to keep up as we pass piles of
extremely cool stuff. We walk into an area surrounded by tables and
weapon racks. One table holds a dozen helmets, no two the same.
Brat
picks up a stepladder leaning against a table and
places it next to me. He measures my head with a tape and then
hands me a helmet.