New Markets - 02 (70 page)

The woman asked, "What happened to him?"

"I think I crushed him.  I hugged him when he got home and heard cracking.  Then he started coughing up blood."

She nodded, handed me a clipboard with paperwork attached to it and asked that I fill it out, and then she ran off with the other nurse or doctor.

I looked at the seats for a moment, but then moved off to the side and filled it out while standing.  A lot of people gave me strange looks as they sat in the waiting area.

After hours of waiting a doctor came out and found me.  He told me that a rib had punctured my husband's lung and that they had to perform surgery.

He told me that Sam was stable and resting at the moment, although they needed to keep him at the hospital until they were certain he would remain stable and that no other organs were damaged.

He gave me the room number my husband would soon be in and left.  It was clear that I couldn't do anything for Sam right now, and I doubted that I could even sit in the plastic chairs at the hospital.  I left the building and began walking in a fugue.

After an hour of walking the streets it was clear that people didn't like the look of me.  Some outright walked over to the other side of the street, while others just gave me strange, distrusting looks and moved around me in a wide berth.

I ended up by the river, and sat on the concrete at the edge of the railing.  I watched the boats out on the water for a while.  People laughed and played at a park area just to the south of me.  Some couples had children with them - a reminder of one more thing I would now never have.

A man reflexively handed me a piece of paper as he walked past.  It was a flyer for the Witches Cauldron, some kind of night club not far from here.  If anyone might be able to remove this curse, it would be a witch.

I looked at the address and began searching for the club.  It wasn't easy without a map or cell phone, and in a seedier part of town than I was used to being in.

I wandered in when I found it.  The large room was dark, and appeared to have relatively few clientele at this early time of the evening.  I moved to a side table and looked at the chair.  It was a metal frame with the seat on top.  It creaked when I sat, but stayed together – I pulled over a second chair and sat with a butt cheek on each.

A waitress in a revealing witch type outfit stopped over and asked what I would like.  I ordered a beer and a fish basket.

My eyes had adjusted to the dark by then, and I noticed that an area for a band was elevated on the far side of the room.  Then I realized that the patrons that were there tended to have colorful hair and were either dressed in leathers, or in a few cases black outfits much like the outfit of the waitress.

A woman with short, spikey purple hair sauntered over to me.  She held two bottles of beer in one hand.  Each finger on her hands was a long black claw.  Her eyes were slit like a cat's, and when she smiled at me I saw her fangs.  She wore tight black leather pants, boots, a black tank top split down the center, and a black leather jacket.

She asked, "Do you mind if I join you?  At least we'd have something in common."

I shrugged.  I couldn't help staring at her - she was so different than anything I'd seen in my life.  It was like some kind of strange demon lady from a painting had crawled out and now sat down next to me.

She had black tattoos or eyeliner drawn heavy under each eye, along with a nose piercing on her face.  Her left forearm had a tattoo, along with another clearly visible above her tank top, and two others peeked out from under the tank top - she had to have a spider web or something on each breast. 
Well, we have tattoos in common, I guess.
  My tattoos were large designs down each side of my abdomen, as well as one going around my left upper arm and a small flower on my right ankle.

I said, "I ... I'm not sure how much we have in common...."

"We're both supers.  I'm a mutant - my name is Sandra.  Oh, and sorry if my smile is a bit scary.  I got these fangs, claws and wicked eyes when I changed.  They scare a lot of people."

"Wha ... no, not at all.  They are unusual - but at least I can see your expression.  I think people are having problems with my face because they can't see my expression any more.  And I'm Selina."

"Hmm, they have bad eyesight then; I can see your muscle framework just fine."

"Can you see in the dark with those?"

"Yeah I can.  I take it you're a brick, or are you a mutant too?"

"They called me a brick.  I've never met a mutant before."

"We stay away from the public for the most part.  Get stared at enough and you decide you don't want to hang around normal people."

"Yeah ... yeah!  I'm having the same problem!"

"I'm sorry to hear that.  You're welcome to hang out with me if you'd like.  Not that I hang out here often, but whenever.  I could use some more friends - some of mine recently got into a scrape with the law and were taken in for no good reason."

"They kept me in the hospital for days after I changed too."

"Oh, no - I'm talking about the Metrocity Jail.  See, they think mutants are too dangerous because of our claws and looks.  Can't have the public thinking there might be monsters that look so different running around, can they?"

"They were locked up because they were different?"

"Oh, of course not - not according to
them
.  But that is the truth."

"Well, I
have
damaged a lot of things and gotten into a fight with a hero just today.  I can't say they are wrong in thinking some of us are a danger."

"It's not our fault that we changed, is it?  Shouldn't they have given us better resources to cope with this stuff?"

"I ... I suppose.  But they didn't arrest me when the heroes arrived, at least those that had a clue."

"Yet - they didn't arrest you yet.  I wouldn't put it past them to bring in a hit team of supers to bring you down, just like they did to me and my friends.  I had to flee, but it pisses me off that my friends are having who knows what done to them by a telepath or otherwise in there."

"Wait, a telepath was there this morning when I woke up."

"Oh no, one already got to you?  And they released you?"

"Yeah.  She actually flew me home."

"She?  It wasn't Psycom?"

"No, it was a golden haired girl in a white costume.  Cute, but young."

"Wait a second - she was in the group that attacked my friends!"

"Seriously?"

"I'm not bullshitting you.  That's her.  I'll remember her face forever.  She tried some kind of mind trick on me."

"I wonder what she did to me."

"Don't trust them.  You're more like me than like her.  She's all pretty and popular.  People look at you and I, they feel afraid."

"Yeah they do.  It's nice to talk to someone who understands." 
This lady, strange as she looks - she understands what it's like.

"Me too.  I really miss my friends."

"I ... I'm not sure I have any friends any more.  I thought Sally was my friend, but she just wanted me gone this morning."

"My so-called 'friends' did the same thing when I first changed.  Guess what we look like is more important than most people will admit to, huh?  I mean, really, who wants me at a tupperware party?"

I stared at her eyes for a moment; they did give her an almost evil appearance.  That was strengthened every time she spoke.  Unlike movies of vampires and werewolves, all of her front teeth were sharp fangs.

I nodded, "Yeah.  I got called a robot this morning by this idiot, but at least she wasn't calling me a demon or some such."

Sandra snorted, "I've gotten called that more than a few times.  Mind if I touch your skin?  It's pretty cool looking."

"Sure, I guess."  I held out my left arm.

She ran her hand across my forearm slowly.  I noticed that she didn't use the long fingertip claws.  I realized then that she didn't even have fingernails - the entire fingertip was a huge claw.

I asked, "Are those sharp?"

She looked up from my arm, "Extremely.  I've destroyed more clothes, furniture and other items just by accidentally grabbing them - they never go away.  I always have to watch when I touch someone else or I stab right into them."

"Wow, me too!  Well, I seem to crush everything, not stab it."

Sandra nodded.  "You're skin is really interesting.  Metal that moves, I wonder how that works.  One of my friends is a mutant that had heavy chitin armor, but it doesn't move like your skin does."

"Like a bug?"

"Pretty much.  He even has four arms."

"Wow, that's got to scare a lot of people too."

"It does, they locked him up for it."

"Because he looks like a bug?"

"He scared a bunch of people, which is really easy to do - and a bunch of heroes attacked him with my other friends."  She sighed.

"So what are you going to do now?"

"Considering that I've found some other mutants and tried to approach them - but it seems all the new mutants are being watched by the police - I'm debating breaking my friends out."

"Oh my god!  You're going to break them out of jail?"

"Yeah.  What else do you do when the government starts putting people away in prison camps to keep them away from the 'general populace?'  I can't just leave them to rot in there."

"That's pretty bold.  You might hurt guards doing that."

"The way I look at it is that they chose to be there.  They are part of what is becoming so wrong with our society now.  Even if they didn't specifically choose to put them away, they are willing to keep them there."

"Aren't you afraid of getting hurt?"

"I'm not armored like you are, but I heal really fast.  My thought would be to charge in and get them out as quickly as possible.  I don't really want to hurt the guards unless they put up too much resistance."

"That sounds pretty scary."

"Do you realize how much damage you can probably take now?  Have you gotten shot yet?"

"No, why would I want to do that?"

"Every brick I've seen ignores most gunfire.  I've never seen one with metal skin, though."

"Well, that Diva woman did smash me through a few walls - and that barely hurt at all."

"I've never heard of her.  Holy crap - what are the odds?"

She was staring at a table near the wall somewhat closer to the stage.  A single man sat at the table; the salt shaker was floating in the air in front of him.

I said, "Wow, another super?"

"Yeah.  That's pretty rare to just happen to meet two of us in a day."

"Should we invite him over?"

"Sure, I'll buy him a drink and see if he'll bite.  If not maybe I'll bite him."  She winked and smiled at me.

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THE END

Of H.E.R.O. – Rise and Fall

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