Wonder Guy (3 page)

“Well you don’t care for them either, do you? Who needs them?” she whispered.

“Donny!” A child’s voice called out across the lawns. “Get over here!” A bare-kneed, bare-footed, tow-headed girl of perhaps ten years ran toward them across the emerald velvet of the grass. The teen looked up, his sour expression shifting to something softer, if non-committal.

“You said you’d push me on the swings. C’mon.” The waif shied at the shadows where Elysha drew back. Donny rose.

“Oh all right.” His tone complained, but without conviction. “Got nothing better to do.”

“What are you talking about? Didn’t you get some barbeque chicken? There’s ice cream sandwiches in the cooler.” Their voices faded as the young man trailed away in the wake of the voluble girl.

Oh well. Something interesting might yet come of this one. Elysha’s whispers had a way of sticking in a person’s mind.

Hmm. She caught the sweet perfume of self-righteousness wafting from a knot of women who stood around a grill where a large man in t-shirt and
Kiss the Chef
apron flipped burgers.

The women looked of an age to be the parents of some of the children racing around. She drew close enough to hear their conversation. Mmm, yes. Bolstering their imagined superiority by clucking over the misfortunes of a neighbor. Tasty.

* * * *

“You’re familiar with moving pictures?” Serafina asked, tilting slightly toward where Greg sat across the coffee table. “Marvelous what they can do with them these days.”

“Um, yes?” Not just out of left field, this change of subject must have crossed county lines. Well, he could still show her the door, in a minute or two.

“Did you see the one where the ordinary young man suddenly acquired superpowers, and the young lady he always secretly loved noticed him when he appeared as a mysterious masked hero?”

“Yeah.” The one? A whole list came to mind. “You’re not thinking I–?”

“Yes.” She spread her lace-gloved hands wide in her enthusiasm. “That’s just what we’ll do. A dashing costume, a few crimes stopped, and Gloria can’t help but be intrigued, and when she learns it’s you–”

“It all falls flat.” Greg rose to his feet and paced the small area between their seats and the kitchenette. “I can’t tell you in how many ways that’s a bad idea. Wait. Let me try. One, I’m not a superhero! I’m not cut out to be a crime-buster. Two, I’d look like a fool in a costume. Three, Gloria is too sensible to go for some stranger because he’s dressed up like a superhero. Four, This is Minneapolis. I’ve lived here my whole life and never even witnessed a crime in progress, let alone been in a position to stop one.”

“Stop, stop.” The tiny woman fluttered a hand at him. “You’re going too fast. The first thing is, you will be a superhero. I’ll give you a superpower and a costume.”

“What? Lady, you seem very nice.” The fight whooshed out of him with an exhaled breath. He dropped into his chair and leaned toward her across the table. “It’s nice of you to want to help save my love life, and all, but you’re confusing fact and fiction. Just because they do it in the movies doesn’t mean...”

The words faded in his throat as she rose from the sofa–and not in the ordinary way. She remained seated, legs crossed demurely at the ankles, but floated a good three feet above the cushions.

He set his soda can carefully on a coaster on the coffee table. He blinked a few times, goggling at the unbelievable, but each time his eyes showed him the same sight. A falling sensation swept through him. His legs might have gone out from under him if he hadn’t already been seated.

“Uh.” He cleared his throat at the squeakiness of his voice, and continued at a more normal pitch. “Okay. You’ll give me a superpower.” Either she was crazy or he was. Better play along. “What did you have in mind?”

“I thought you might like to pick something for yourself.” Wrinkles, like an excess of dimples, framed her smile. She floated back to a normal altitude relative to the chair and picked up her soda. Nodding to his bookcases, she said, “I noticed you have a large collection of those picture adventures.”

“Comix? Graphic novels?”

“Precisely, the comical books. I thought you would have a lot of ideas for a nice, impressive superpower.”

“Let me think.” How surreal. Should he take this seriously for one minute? Or make an appointment at Mental Health Services?

But he did have a lot of ideas. Super strength? X-ray vision? Super speed like the Flash? Spider powers? Should he suggest one of the X-Men’s powers? The Fantastic Four’s? The Incredibles? Both Elasta-Girl and Reed Richards did pretty well with that stretchy thing, but they worked with teams. He should pick something to work as a stand-alone power. He should have his head examined.

“I don’t know,” he said finally. “There are a lot to choose from, and, like I said before, what good would a superpower do anyone when I’ve never encountered any crime around here?”

“There’s crime here.” Her wrinkles lost their resemblance to dimples as her mouth tightened. “It’s a matter of being in the right place at the right time. With my help, you will be.”

His mental review of comic book history slowed. So many superheroes’ girlfriends seemed to live on the brink of death. The nasty thought kicked his growing interest to a dead halt. “I won’t have you putting Gloria in danger.”

“Now, now. Your Gloria is in danger every day, walking down streets where big metal cars hurtle past, living in a world with more diseases and toxins than you’d have the patience to listen to me name, where the weather can turn deadly and a certain percentage of the surrounding population are predators.” She must have seen his face going pale as his heart tightened in his chest. “I promise I won’t make things any worse.”

“Even if this is for real, I can’t use superpowers just to impress a girl. With great power comes great responsibility. I’d be morally obligated to use it for the common good if I had that kind of power.”

“Pish and tosh, young man.” She sniffed. “You’ve been watching too many of those silly movies. True love is the
source
of these powers. You can use them to impress the girl
and
for the common good. Benefiting the common good is a bonus. There wouldn’t be any such powers without the magic true love generates in the world.” She leaned across the coffee table and patted the back of his hand. “Since there are so many powers to choose from, why don’t we try a few out and see which one you like best? No need to be hasty.”

“I’m going to need super speed to get these papers graded tonight after I go biking.” he spoke half to himself, trying the thought on for size.

“Very well.” Serafina drank her soda, swirled the last few drops in the can and set it on the coffee table. “Just say ‘Speedo’ to call on your power and ‘Whoa Now’ when you’re ready to go back to your secret identity.”

“Secret identity?”

“You’ll wear a costume. For the element of mystery.” She winked. “Let me know what you think.” Her words echoed through the small apartment. She’d vanished.

If it weren’t for the dent in the cushions of the sofa and her empty soda can on the table before him, she might never have been there.

He considered the definite possibility he’d suffered a psychotic break. Maybe he’d sat on the sofa himself, drunk a can of Code Red, and moved to a new seat here while hallucinating this whole bizarre conversation.

“Speedo?”

Peculiar sensations, like a hive of bees bodysurfing his system, swept through him. He glanced down, jerked back. Bright red leotards garbed his legs. He jumped to his feet and his chair flew backward to land with a crash. “What the...” He rushed to the mirror in the bathroom and the wind of his passing set the curtains fluttering in the windows. The neat stack of the Introductory Computing class’s final papers at one end of the coffee table went flying around the room like as many huge ghostly leaves.

But his image in the mirror drove everything else to the background. Red leotards were only the beginning. The form-fitting costume showed off the muscular benefits of his daily biking. He wore bright scarlet, from the masked hood to his gloved hands, arms, and torso where a swath of yellow flared from his belly out to his shoulders in a red lightning-bolt sigil blazoned across his chest. Derivative, but not bad.

“Holy cow.” He wanted to laugh out loud at the sheer corniness of it. He looked like a refugee from a comic book convention. At least he didn’t have a cape. “This is ridiculous.”

If Gloria saw him dressed like this, she’d laugh herself silly. Except, with the mask, he might be anybody. Anybody with sculpted marble calves and six-pack abs, chiseled jaw and impressively wide shoulders. Maybe she wouldn’t laugh.

He’d never looked at himself as if at a stranger. Biking was a healthy hobby, but he did it because he liked to move–it helped him think–not because he wanted to look good in tights.

He was a man of science. His world had been turned upside down, tossed in the air and given a good shake. The universe was supposed to behave in logical, predictable ways. Now it seemed like quicksand might lurk at any step. This was all impossible, from the first appearance of the little old lady who claimed to be a fairy godmother to this. This figment of an over-active imagination staring at him from the mirror.

Or his existing models of reality were inadequate. Examine the facts. If something happens, it’s not impossible, it’s new data, calling for new theories and new models to better understand how it’s possible.

Before he formed any new theories, he needed to make a few tests, figure out whatever new rules might be at work. First, check out this speed thing. See how fast he could go. How far. How long he’d be able to keep it up. Since he didn’t want to risk his expensive Trek bike, he’d better conduct his experiment on foot.

Greg moved with exaggerated caution, wary of slamming headfirst into the apartment door or tumbling down the stairs in a headlong rush. Clutching the banister all the way, he made it safely downstairs and peered around the corner of the door out to the yard. What would people think if they saw the red-costumed “hero” exit his mother’s garage? He’d never hear the end of it, let alone losing the advantage of a secret identity.

Finding the coast clear, he took off in such a burst of speed no one would have seen him if they’d been there. A wake of flying dust and debris swirled along his path. As it was, he made it down the alley before taking a single breath. He grinned. He hadn’t felt so foolishly proud of himself since he caught the dodge ball at a crucial moment in a middle school game, winning for his side.

No time to savor the feeling. He put on his brakes, but stopping proved trickier than anticipated.

Oh crap!
His momentum carried Greg past his feet and sent him tumbling into a somersault. Asphalt, garages, dumpsters and fenced yards seemed to whirl around him until he slid to rest, breathless and flat on his back, where the alley joined the cross street. He’d have skinned himself to the bone on the gravel and crumbling asphalt if his costume and gloves hadn’t proved so resistant to damage. The Hanson’s ginger cat, Max, looked down at him from between the slats of their fenced yard, clearly not impressed with Greg’s athletic prowess.

“Like you’d do better your first time out,” he told the sole witness to his fall, as embarrassed as if Max might spread the story. For a moment he lay still and gathered his rattled bones and rattled thoughts.

Brushing himself off, he rose to his feet by careful stages. He looked around to check out the cross street before going further. Not much traffic. Good. The fewer witnesses or obstacles, the better.

Greg darted down the road. Kind of fun, the wind in his face, the world spinning by so fast he might achieve escape velocity, outrun the wind or chase down his dreams. Pounding rock ‘n roll played on his mental radio. Exhilarated, he ran circles around a squirrel daring to cross the street. He’d probably busted all the land speed records for a man on foot, without even pushing himself. He’d come a mile in no more than a few seconds. Maybe that really would impress Gloria.

He stopped again, taking care to decelerate gradually as he reached Lyndale Avenue, where he stood for a moment and looked up and down the street. Long past rush hour, the few cars on the road moved at a steady clip. A young woman walked her standard poodle around a corner, leaving no pedestrians in sight. He may as well go all out, see what was capable of at full throttle.

Greg ran down the deserted bike lane at first, but, as he pressed for his top speed, it seemed as if everything moving around him stood still. He ran rings around a cyclist and must have been only a blur to the helmeted rider, like being invisible, like the world belonged to him to do with as he wished–a heady rush of power.

A child dropped a fast food wrapper out the rear window of a family sedan. Littering constituted criminal activity, all right. A chance to apply his superpowers for the greater good. Greg snatched up the crumpled scrap and popped it back in through the passenger window onto the lap of the man seated there and made it halfway down the next block before anyone would have had time to notice his passing.