What I found when I got home was a long streak of blood running up my leg and the side of my shirt. As I looked closer in the full-length closet mirror, I could even find a few speckles on my cheek, hiding out among my freckles.
I glared at Chet and then returned to examining my stained clothing.
I mean, he could have said something sensible before we left the store. Something like “Oh my God! Terry, you’re covered in blood!”
At the very least, “so is that your new costume?” Which would have let me know that I needed to clean up or cover myself.
Instead he waited until we got my apartment. I’d been staring at this red line for nearly two minutes before he chuckled. “I thought it matched your hair perfectly.”
“You did that on purpose,” I said.
“Now we’re even for you slamming me into a building,” Chet said. “I was actually coming to your apartment to let you know that you weren’t responsible for collapsing the building. I panicked when you sealed me inside that ice pocket, so instead of waiting until some of the ice melted, I started pounding the ice with my fists. The force transferred to the foundation, and the building fell as soon as the ice shifted. It wouldn’t have if I hadn’t lost my head.”
“Chet, how is that supposed to make me feel better? I still killed everybody on the first two floors. How many was that?”
Smirking, Chet asked, “Not including pets?”
“What? Yes, include the damn pets.”
“Well if you factor them in, the numbers are tragic. See, there was a pet store on the first floor of that building,” Chet said. I groaned, and he chuckled again. “I can’t give a complete body count because of that, but as a conservative guess, I’d say your karma is hosed.”
“Why do I have the sudden urge to hurt you?”
“Terry, I can help you with your problems if you’d give me a chance,” Chet said. “You lost your temper because you were talking to someone that you shouldn’t have.”
“Okay, first of all, I didn’t talk to those guys yesterday. One of them took out a knife and told me to move or get stabbed. Second of all, Dale isn’t a danger to me. The robber shot him, and Dale defended himself with extreme prejudice. Maybe you’ve missed the point, but I would love to hide here in my apartment. My mom and dad told me not to, and I’m trying to do what they asked.”
“You could still end up killing a lot of people.”
“You mean like those drunk guys? So what?” I asked. “The world won’t miss those losers.”
“You sound like a vigilante when you say things like that.”
“Oh, don’t hand me that. You’re a vigilante too,” I reminded him. “You may be a more socially acceptable variety, but the last time I checked, you weren’t being paid by the city for services rendered.”
Chet nodded. “Still, what happened at the store—”
“Was not my fault,” I insisted, cutting him off. “Dale and I were just going to the store for snacks.”
“He’s Truant Man?” Chet said, tactfully redirecting the conversation.
“Yeah,” I replied. My shoulders slouched in a dejected manner. “He followed me home.”
“So now you’re keeping him?” Chet asked.
“Oh, you’re good,” I said in a droll tone of voice. “In fact, you almost sound like Dad.”
“Nope.” Chet laughed. “That’s still too hard to picture. I am getting off the subject, though. I was under the impression that you weren’t going to be a hero.”
“I’m not. The robber shot Dale, and I was just keeping the clerk and myself from getting a similar body modification.”
“But you can’t die.”
“That’s all well and good, but getting shot still hurts like hell.”
“I wouldn’t know,” Chet remarked. “I’m invulnerable.”
“I’m not,” I snapped. “My hand still itches from my ‘shot’ from earlier this week. But getting back to your concern, no, I am not planning on being a hero. I went to the store with Dale to grab some snacks, play a video game—”
Interrupting me, Chet said, “And watch your ‘friend’ roast the still beating heart of a footless man while humming the Ride of the Valkyries?”
My stomach gurgled as my memory helpfully pulled up the scene he was referring to. “Yeah, that…that was pretty sick, wasn’t it?”
“Dale is dangerous, Terry.”
“No Chet, don’t you dare tell me who I can and can’t see. Dale may be in need of counseling, but he also needs a friend. I suppose next you’ll tell me I can’t see Lil’ Joe either.”
Chet folded his arms, and his knotting brow reminded me a lot of Dad in lecture mode. “When did you go to see him?”
“I didn’t. Joe ran into me downtown and took me out to dinner. I stayed at his place for the night.” Chet opened his mouth, and I added, “In a separate bed, okay?”
“Terry, he’s a—”
“He’s a pimp. I should know, too. I paid for his first stable.” The irritated look on Chet’s face was starting to remind me of Dad again.
I could tell how he was planning a lecture already.
“Joe wouldn’t touch me even now that I’m legal, and why should he?” I asked rhetorically. “The man is truly swimmin’ in women.”
“But Terry, Joe isn’t exactly a role model.”
“And you are?” I teased. “You’re a vigilante, so you’ve already got issues with the law before we even go into your, shall we say, fashion closet?”
“Touché,” Chet conceded, holding up his hands. “You’ve been lucky in running into me, but there are other heroes in this city. They may not approve of your attitude.”
“Then I’ll have to hurt their feelings.”
Rolling his eyes, Chet asked, “Would you listen to yourself?”
“I did. I listened to myself and begged Mom to let me go home right after I’d put one car and one cow on the list of things I’ve killed.”
Chet sighed, but his mouth drew into a smirk. “Yesterday, you added twelve lawyers meeting, eleven marketers marketing, ten baby boas, nine bunnies humping, eight lizards lounging, seven chicks a peeping, six wage slaves slaving…”
Chet paused, and then he sang in a perfect tenor, “Five golden girls.” He returned to a normal voice to add, “Four travel agents, three French teens, two necking lovers…”
“And a partridge in a pear tree?” I asked after an annoyingly long pause.
“Actually, it was a toucan in a gilded cage, but I doubt anyone will notice with the way debris scattered everything around.”
Clenching my jaw, I turned my head slowly to crack my neck. “Chet, go home before I hurt you.”
“But I’m invulnerable,” he said.
“I’ll try anyway,” I said through gritted teeth, and then pointed at the door. “Now get out of my apartment.”
“No kiss?” Chet muttered under his breath as he left my bedroom.
Following him into the living room, I said, “You’re lucky I don’t send you home with blue—”
“Oh, that’s so charming,” Chet cut me off as he opened the front door. He turned, sighing heavily at Dale, who had just walked up. “Can I help you?”
“Uh, yeah. Could you tell Terry that the cops called me a hero. I did just like Terry told me, and I nodded my head when the cops asked me if what the clerk said was true. The clerk was really lying, but now I’m a hero because he says I rescued him and some little girl from a robber.”
“You mean Terry?”
“Hmm? No, that’s where the clerk got confused. Terry didn’t need rescuing, and there was nobody else in the store, so the clerk was lying about the little girl.”
Chet rubbed the bridge of his nose. I could almost hear him counting to ten.
He raised his head to scowl at Dale. “Isn’t there a schoolyard you should be patrolling somewhere?”
“No, it’s after 3:30, so all the schools are out for the day,” Dale replied. He stared blankly at Chet, never once noticing me.
“I’ll give Terry the message,” Chet agreed, waiting while Dale stood with his hands in his pockets, a slightly embarrassed expression on his face. “Yes?”
“Nothing,” Dale said. He wandered slowly down the steps outside my apartment.
Chet shut the door, shaking his head at me. “I’d feel better knowing you weren’t hanging around him.”
“I don’t recall asking you to be concerned for me, Chet, but I do remember telling you to get out of my apartment.”
“But—”
“Chet, I look like a kid, but I’m eighteen years old. This is my life to screw up on my own, and I don’t appreciate you butting in when I’ve already told you to get out.”
“All right, I’m leaving,” Chet said and opened the door. “If you need anything—”
“I’ll call my dad, not you.”
Chet shut the door, and I sat down on my new white leather couch with a whimper.
It would still be two or three days until Morgan could look at my nanites, and I’d already picked up two stalkers. One was doing it out of a loopy paternal obligation, and the other had the reasoning capacity of a tree stump.
But which was which?
As angry as I was at Chet, he did have a point. I did need to lock myself away to keep everyone safe, and I did have a problem with talking to strangers.
Of course, I say that now with many years of hindsight. At the time, all I could think was how badly I wanted to knock back a few shots of scotch and drag David to bed instead of fuming over Chet lecturing me.
David was hundreds of miles away, and I wasn’t old enough to drink without a guardian to buy booze for me. My evening plans were a choice of sulking on my couch or going out and risking more trouble.
I chose sulking, and I was doing quite well at it when I felt someone tap my shoulder, sending me into a panic as I leapt off my couch and opened my eyes.
Wally grinned at my reaction until I punched his arm. “Hey!” he whined.
“Don’t even start with me. I’ve been through too much today for you to just sneak up on me like that.”
“I’m sorry,” Wally said, rubbing his arm. “I could buy you dinner if you’d like to rant at someone.”
So I did. Over a plate of chicken strips with fettuccine alfredo, I poured out the details of my day, ending my story with Chet’s decision to stay quiet on my new fashion statement.
“I don’t remember him being such a smart ass,” I fumed.
“You can blame Duggan for that,” Wally said. “Double M was a boy scout until Duggan got a hold of him.”
“That’s a load of crap,” I said and snorted. “Double M was a boy scout who like to dress like a girl scout when no one was looking, and that was way before my dad went to his apartment.”
“No Terry, I was referring to his disposition. Double M has grown a nasty sarcastic streak thanks to Duggan’s efforts to get him back into ‘the game.’ You have to admit, he’s more flippant than you remember him, and that is definitely Duggan’s fault.”
“Fine, so my dad corrupted him. That still doesn’t explain why he has to follow me around everywhere I go.”
“Terry, be honest. Your temper is a bomb that only needs a bad situation to go off. You also have a habit of walking into bad situations.” Laughing around a mouthful of spaghetti, Wally swallowed and said, “It’s a shame you won’t think of yourself as a hero, since you could claim this bad luck of yours was really patrolling. You could even chalk up some kills to friendly fire.”
“Chet doesn’t want me to be a hero.”
“Ah, screw Chet,” Wally said and chuckled. “You don’t really care what he thinks anyway.”
I nodded and leaned over to rest my cheek in my palm. “Tell me what you think of Dale.”
Wally cringed. “Dale is a sidekick looking for a hero. From what you’ve told me, he thinks you could be that hero.”
“But do you think he’s dangerous?”
“Not as dangerous as Chet is making him out to be, but he would definitely put some fear back into ‘the game.’”
“Dale will just have to find someone else to fixate on,” I said. “I don’t have any plans to be a hero. Even if I did, Dale isn’t smart enough for me.”
“He’s a sidekick, Terry, not a boyfriend,” Wally said.
“Dad married his sidekick, and he was gay.”
“Nah, he was bi all along. He just hadn’t met the right woman yet.”
“Good point,” I said, smiling at Wally.
“You know, not every hero-sidekick relationship ends up in a honeymoon suite.” Wally grinned lewdly. “Heck, Shadow Man would be arrested if he tried to do the nasty with either of the Shadow Twins. By all rights, he should be arrested for child endangerment anyway, but they are invulnerable.”
The word invulnerable set me off. I gasped and waved at Wally. “See, even you get that nifty trick with a collar, but I’m not so lucky. I have to heal back from whatever happens to me, no matter how dire. My favorite so far has been recovering from wrapping my spine backwards around a tree.”
“I’ve read your files,” Wally said, and then shuddered. “I’ve never had to test my healing factor like that. Once I take my collar off, Morgan can take normal blood samples from me.”
“I always did have thick skin anyway,” I conceded. “When I was five, the doctor had to use a hammer to tap a catheter in for my booster shots.”
“The nanites weren’t supposed to enhance that,” Wally said.
“They aren’t supposed to hold onto pieces of the body after they’ve left a host either, but I have to sit and wait for body parts to come back if I lose them. I tested that by pulling a Van Gogh. I chucked my ear off the side of a mountain. It took three hours for my ear to come back.”
“Yes, but what did it hear along the way?”
“Oh shut up,” I said. But I still laughed. “You know what I’m talking about. If I lose an ear, I should grow one back.”
“Yes, and that’s a screwy way for your nanites to work, since you can’t regenerate lost parts.”
“No I can, but there’s only one way for me to lose parts. That wasn’t in the files because Dad felt it was dangerous information.” I lowered my voice. “My cells can be destroyed by an energy blast, and once they have been completely disintegrated, my body very slowly regenerates whatever is missing.”
“What did you lose for that test?” Wally asked.
“Dad shot off the top of my pinky.” I replied. “If even one cell of my body survives, then I will revive again… in about two years. It took a week to grow back my pinky.”
“That was without healing sprays, right?”
“Yeah.”
Wally smiled. “Okay, so the short story is that you can heal from anything that might make playing the game dangerous, right?”
I rolled my eyes. “Fine, Dale and I will begin patrolling with you.”
“Now listen—” Wally started to object
“No, you listen. I don’t want to be here at all. I want to be in my cabin with my big strong boyfriend and my favorite cat laying on either side of me. I want to be a short walk away from my mom and dad, but now I have to be here. Morgan has got my dad stuck on the idea that he can help me, so here I am. I’ve been in City for three days, and look what’s happened because of me?”
“Terry, you’re freezing your dinner,” Wally said, his tone casual. He waved to the waiter. “Could you warm that back up for her?” he asked, ignoring the waiter’s shocked gasp at the ice crystals still forming on my fettuccine.
Wally looked at me and smiled apologetically. “I’m sorry. I just misread you and thought you wanted to be a hero.”
“I don’t.”
“Then why have you let your training kick in so quickly?” Wally asked. “Look at what you did in the store, or what you did to those would be rapists. You could avoid situations like that by walking with Dale on patrol.”
“But he’s so stupid!” I groaned.
“Yes, but does he make you lose your temper?”
“No,” I said.
I wanted to come up with some other objection, but once Wally brought it up, I realized that I really couldn’t lose my temper around Dale.
I looked to Wally for an explanation.
“Dale is like a big brother to you, and he could be a decent sidekick once you get him under control.”
“Maybe, but you’re helping me with that,” I said and snorted at his dismayed scowl. “What? You can punish me with him, but you won’t join me in my misery?”
“You know, aside from the lawyers, everyone you killed in that building was innocent. Maybe your punishment should be patrolling with Dale.”
“I was cleared on those charges by Miracle Man anyway, so I really only added eight people and a pet store to my hit list,” I said weakly.
Shrugging, I looked at my plate as it was brought back. I glanced up at Wally’s expectant smile. “All right, I’ll become a superhero.”
“You won’t regret this.”
“Hmm, now why is this a bad idea?” I asked myself. “Oh yeah, because I watched my ‘sidekick’ roast the heart of a robber while I puked my guts up today.”
“Hey, first day jitters can be hell,” Wally observed. “The cops still called Dale a hero, and he got his picture in the newspaper. So that’s a ‘flawless victory.’”
___
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... I write dark fiction in a variety of genres. My blog contains my rants and rambles, and some short fiction that can only be found here.
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Oh my goodness, I was chuckling so much my cheeks hurt. Chet was such a stinker, he learned from the best though. The 12 victims song was just to funny.
Well being that close to someone as they have there legs torn apart and chest with a big hole in it would get blood on everything around. And this will only lead to more comedy, and Dale will be beside himself when he hears the news.
The “not including pets” line is a running gag carried over from the first book. Originally, I was going to write three books in the city, and all three would have the lines “Haw many people died?”…”Not including pets?” Here, it leads into a sadistic “Twelve victims of Terry.”
You gotta feel bad about criminal in the vicinity of this “team.” Their odds of survival plummet to drastic levels. O_0
No joke, they aren’t even a team yet and they have taken out quite a few people already. But after a bit a criminal sees them and will surender from fear of being very dead.
Fun fact: Both comedies that take place in City California have higher body counts than most of my horror stories.