Super Powereds: Year 3 (25 page)

“I had no idea Chad was working on such a technique,” Shane said, a small trace of sadness in his tone. “And with it goes the only advantage I ever had over him—a greater reach.”

“Don’t look so glum, chum. You’ve got almost two years of growing up left to do. Hell, you think I could have pulled off all that shit a year ago?”

“The flaw in your logic is that, while I’ll be getting stronger, Chad will undoubtedly be doing the same,” Shane pointed out.

“You’re right,” Angela agreed. “You’re trying to catch an opponent who advances faster than you and already has a head start. It’s pretty much an impossible task.” She paused to walk over and lean on the wall next to him. “But you’ve already been trying to do that since you were five.”

“That’s different,” Shane said. “We weren’t that far apart at times.”

“No, we weren’t. Closer than you think, to be truthful. Still, you’ve never quite made it. You never manage to catch up to my skill, let alone surpass it. But you keep trying. Since we were old enough to start, you’ve always been trying. I sort of admire that about you. If the roles were reversed, I don’t know that I’d have had your determination not to give up.”

“Your admiration means the world to me,” Shane said, his tone flat and even.

“Play sarcastic all you want, I know deep down you look up to me,” she shot back. Angela lifted herself off the wall and began heading down the hallway. “Love to chat more, but I’ve got a date to get ready for.”

“So it seems,” Shane said. “Just be careful. Please.”

“Why Shane, I’m surprised at you. When am I ever anything but fore-thinking and methodical?” Even though he couldn’t see the grin on her face, Shane could picture it perfectly, and somehow, that just annoyed him all the more.

43.

Though there were many similarities between Chad and Vince, their social obliviousness was slightly different. Vince understood that things like dressing up and fashion existed, but he was never too certain on what the rules were, or how to do it appropriately. Chad, on the other hand, was able to catalogue the data he observed on how people dressed themselves for various occasions and construct a rudimentary understanding of what was appropriate to wear for different social situations. The reason he rarely used this knowledge was that he usually didn’t care enough to bother. The night of his first date with Angela was a notable exception.

Reconstructing his body back to its usual appearance had been a relatively easy task. Rather than dissolve the bone armor back into various minerals and merge them with his body, Chad had found it more efficient to simply molt off the excess growths. He could always ingest more minerals and supplements, but molting had been a five minute process, compared to around a five hour one for reintegration. Generally, the time wouldn’t have mattered. But this night was, once again, an exception.

Chad stood in his dorm room, looking into the mirror he rarely used for more than a few minutes at a time. Most mornings, he merely glanced in it, willed his hair into the same arrangement and style he had it in every day, and then proceeded to brush his teeth. Currently, he was wondering if he should change something. Was it appropriate to go into a situation like this with normal hair? He knew changing clothes was expected, and he’d heard people often got haircuts before large events, but he wasn’t certain if such large-scale alterations were expected of him.

It was uncertainty that plagued him, a feeling he was unaccustomed to and very uncomfortable with. Perhaps he should have paid more attention to dating and acclimating to the normal world back in high school, when ignorance was the expectation of all involved. He wished he had someone to guide him on this issue. There might be time to call Shane; however, Chad suspected that his friend would not have much more experience with this than him. That was, after all, part of why they were friends in the first place. Chad wondered if Roy was still the dominant personality in his body; the fellow bartender was undeniably an expert on social expectations.

Before Chad could reach for his cell phone, it began to chirp a ringtone. He picked up the diminutive device and accepted the call.

“Hey, hot stuff,” came Angela’s voice. “I’m in the parking lot; come on down. And don’t keep a lady waiting.”

“I’ll be right there.”

Chad cast one last glance in the mirror and willed a few stray hairs to change position. He didn’t know if it was good enough, but it seemed this would have to do.

*              *              *

“What?” Violet yelled, the fierce whir of the blender choking out nearly every other sound that tried to break into her area.

“I asked where we should put the sleeping bags!” Alice hollered, repeating herself for the third time. She and Mary had just arrived at the house, finding Jill and Camille on the couch, while Violet focused on getting some lime green concoction in the blender to the exact perfect degree of icy consistency. The sound from the struggling motor echoed off the tiled kitchen walls and bounded into the living room, making any conversation at all nearly impossible.

Finally, the furious blending came to a stop as Violet pulled off the lid and stuck in a straw to test consistency as well as flavor.

“We put ours on the floor,” Camille said, once the sound ceased. She’d been able to make out the question; however, she hadn’t been willing to produce the level of noise it would take to be heard over such a racket. Alice glanced over and realized there were already three sleeping bags laid out in the area between the couch and the television.

“Why are there three? Violet and Jill have beds,” Alice pointed out.

“We do, but it sort of takes all the fun out of it if you go up to sleep alone,” Jill pointed out. “Besides, we figured the more of us that are here, the better a chance that Mary will slip into someone’s dream.”

“I appreciate the gesture,” Mary said, walking over to the living room area and setting down her own sleeping bag. “But I need to be touching someone to walk into their dreams. That’s why Alice and I are going to tie our hands together before we go to bed.”

“You’ve only dream-walked into people you’re touching
so far
,” Jill said. “No sense in not seeing what happens.”

“I suppose it couldn’t hurt,” Mary acquiesced. She laid her bag down next to a gray one with green stripes.

Alice promptly came over and set hers down next to Mary, also setting out the long piece of cloth they’d procured to bind their hands together with later on. On top of that, she set down a case of soda and a bag of chips. Despite the fact that they’d more or less been told they were coming here, Alice couldn’t allow herself to attend a social gathering without bringing something along. Etiquette drilled deeply into her body simply would not permit such slights.

“Hey, Jill, you live here now, is there a place I should stick the drinks?” Alice asked.

“In your belly!” Violet announced, walking into the room clutching an assortment of glasses, all filled with the icy lime-green concoction from the blender. “Oh, you meant the soda. That can go by the fridge, we’ll make room in a minute. First, margaritas!”

Alice had drunk margaritas before—expertly crafted cocktails meant to tickle the taste buds while not overpowering one’s palette. None of them had been this shade of almost fluorescent green. Still, she accepted the glass without any objections. She’d learned during the beach week that when Violet was set on having fun, fun would be had whether anyone else liked it or not.

The others took theirs too, though Alice suspected Mary and Camille’s glasses would be covertly emptied when no one was looking. Then again, Camille had put away an impressive few shots at Six-Shooter, so who was to say.

“A toast,” Violet said, raising her own glass high into the air. “To training, to friends, and to those of us who are still here. May we be able to toast together again in a year’s time.”

All four women clinked their glasses, took tentative sips, and tried very hard not to cough and choke at the overpowering taste of tequila.

“Perfect,” Violet managed to stammer out between barely suppressed gags.

44.

So far, Chad was feeling relatively confident that things were going well. He based this on the fact that the night was, for the most part, largely the same as how things usually went with Angela. They talked, she made crude comments, and he interjected actual logic here and there. It was their standard dynamic, the one he’d been enjoying for years without even realizing. The only genuine alteration he documented was his own attempt to allow his emotions slightly more free rein. That was why, upon completion of ordering their dishes as they sat in the well-lit seafood restaurant, Chad felt a stab of nervousness when Angela’s face grew a bit serious and she asked him a question.

“Not that I’m complaining, but I’ve been dying to ask, what made you decide to ask me out all of a sudden? Kind of came out of nowhere.”

“I suppose it did,” Chad agreed. He wondered how much he should tell her, then immediately dismissed all attempts at obfuscation as idiotic. Part of why he liked Angela was that she understood his strange way of thinking; what point would there be in hiding a story that centered on that very idiosyncrasy?

He told her everything that had occurred on their first night working together. How his stomach had hurt, Roy’s advice, his realization of how he felt, and his own uncertainty of what to do next. By the time he concluded the thorough report, the salads had arrived and been consumed. Angela was an attentive listener, never interrupting, always paying attention. It was only when Chad finished that she spoke up.

“So, I actually won you over a long time ago, and you just didn’t realize it?”

“That would be a fair assessment,” Chad agreed. He allowed himself a small smile, hoping it came off as playful.

“Son of a bitch, I’m even better than I thought I was,” Angela said, her own expression a far less innocent type of playful than Chad’s. “And to think I owe a meathead like Roy for finally bringing you around. Ain’t that a kick in the teeth.”

“Roy is surprisingly adept at helping me equalize my emotions,” Chad replied. “After the birthday party incident last year, he provided alcohol and commiseration.”

“Ah yes, your little snafu with Vince,” Angela recalled. She paused to take a sip of her wine. Chad, not surprisingly, was drinking water. “It seems like those guys cause you more trouble than anyone else in your class.”

“They aren’t bad people,” Chad defended.

“I didn’t mean it in a bad way,” Angela explained. “Trouble can be a good thing. Trouble is messy, conflicted, unexpected, and chaotic. Let’s be honest here: I’m trouble. You’re the opposite. Ordered, organized, and thoroughly predictable. I’m glad they cause you some trouble from time to time. It’s good for you. And if Roy hadn’t, then you wouldn’t be sitting across from me tonight, now would you?”

“I suppose there is a certain amount of truth to that theory,” Chad admitted.

“I’m like a two-glass savant—after a pair of wine glasses, I can wax eloquent all night. I kind of lose the mojo after the third though; that’s when I start thinking dirty jokes are hilarious.”

“You already love telling dirty jokes,” Chad reminded her.

“Yeah, but I mean three-glasses-in Angela loves the absolute shit out of them.”

“Any other transformations I should be aware of?”

“Not too many,” Angela said, pausing to polish off her second glass. “After I hit the fourth glass, they all pretty much have the same effect.”

“Which is?” Chad reached over and took a sip from his own glass.

“I get really horny.”

Chad choked on his water, flinging a hand to his mouth in an unexpected reaction to try and stop the clear liquid from exiting through his nose. Angela laughed so uproariously that no less than three other tables made a point of glaring at her.

*              *              *

The actual party portion of the group sleepover was rather subdued. Margaritas were downed, a movie or two enjoyed, and a single board game attempted. Most college students would have deemed it a waste of a perfectly good Friday night, but most students were not in a program with constant stress and regular physical battles, with the possible exception of architecture majors. While bars and outings were enjoyable, on occasion, a simple night of friends and conversation was good for recharging everyone’s batteries. No wild revelations, no crazy surprises, merely a night of regularity. For a few hours, the young women were able to make believe that this was their life, not a world of Supers and Powereds and Heroes and battle.

Of course, that delusion was somewhat shredded when the time to sleep came and Mary tied her hand against Alice’s. It reminded them all of what they were really doing there, and that, even on the most normal of nights, none of them were like the rest of the world. None of them said this as they lay down, though, Mary and Alice carefully arranged, the rest merely crawling into their sleeping bags and lying however felt most comfortable.

Sleepiness and Violet’s margaritas soon won the day, and each person began drifting off to sleep. Mary was the last to go; something she knew by the fact that everyone’s thoughts ceased being coherent and became the muddled mumblings she had long ago learned was the sign of a slumbering mind. She lay awake for some time, staring at the ceiling, a knot of fear in her stomach refusing to let her leave consciousness. What if this didn’t work? What if she never learned to control this aspect of her power? Mary liked to present a strong, put-together image around the others, because she knew they needed that, but in her heart, she still had the same worries as the others. She wondered if she would ever get to sleep.