H.E.R.O. - Rise and Fall (25 page)

That thought reminded me of Megan's comment last week that I ought to go be a test subject in a class of massage therapist trainees.  It sent a shiver down my spine imagining what dozens of hands all over me at one time would feel like.

Saturday morning we somehow woke up early; I’d escaped a hangover from all the drinking on Friday night.  Not long after we woke an alert had come through about a robbery of an armored truck.  Diva worked on that one with us as well.  Not exactly together, I suppose – but she got there just ahead of Spartan, Black Tiger and me.  It was interesting chatting afterward about how each of us stopped our respective escape car.

Spartan had asked to be dropped off ahead of the car he was after.  He got in the way of it and made them ram him.  I’d heard the car hit him as I flew away, it hadn’t sounded pretty ... for the car.  He had an easy time gathering up the villains in the car after smashing against his armored body.  I couldn’t recall if he said they even shot him, but it wouldn’t have scratched his skin anyway.

Black Tiger had dropped away from me and ran after his own car.  It took him a little longer due to the distance, but he’d ripped off the roof, dropped in with his villains and went into melee with them.  Then he was mean to them and dragged them back to the armored car.  Those poor guys, that had to hurt.

I’d used my telepathy to force a guy to look at me in his mind’s eye – and he crashed the car.  Then I’d used my pheromones to force them all to submit to me.

Diva apparently had a big shootout with her criminals.  Or rather, they had a big shootout at her.  As with Spartan, her car ended up being trashed by her strength – but she’d used her flight rather than stand and take a hit.  It was a little worrisome that a machine gun bullet hitting her in the mouth actually hurt her though.

I giggled as I thought about her comment about being shot in the rear end.  I wouldn't be surprised if she'd actually wiggled her backside in front of them to taunt them.

She appeared again on Saturday with Rael.  They apparently were doing some kind of photo shoot. 
Hmm, I need to find out what the heck they were doing out there.
  After listening to her thoughts for even one day it makes me wonder just what kind of shoot they were doing....

Supposedly, she'd seen Shrinker - this insane mutant who wanted to collect an army of mutants.  The crazed woman hoped to build some kind of city state. 
Shrinker.  Yuck, she's a person I'd like to never be in range of her mindview again.  She's just evil.

Thoughts of Shrinker brought me to the attack on the Metrocity Jail.  Shrinker had conned Gravitix and Chrome into attacking it with her.  They almost succeeded, too - a bunch of mutants were out of their cells when we showed up.  Another new hero - Razorwing - had been fending off a bunch of the mutants from a prison guard when we arrived.

Diva beat us there; poor girl was being used as a punching/stabbing post by the monster, Kralgon.  It reminded me that I should check in with her today.  It took Spartan quite a while to heal the same sort of stab wounds; it probably would take that long for her as well.  Fortunately, we succeeded in capturing all the escapees again.

Razorwing had disappeared before a H.E.R.O. agent had arrived - for that matter he'd left before jail officials came into the area.  I'd been surprised that Agent Carson hadn't heard of him, and that Razorwing wasn't a H.E.R.O. agent.  Why someone would fight crime without wanting to join it was beyond me.

Yesterday was quiet.  I used the time to study and do homework.  All the superhero activity had put me behind on the homework part.  Studying I wasn't so far behind on, but Professor Stonewall had announced an exam to take place today, and I wanted to make sure I was well prepared.  I did take time out to call Firebane and chat for a while in the afternoon.  I brought up how useful Diva would be to get to a scene quickly if she ever had the need while I were in class during a weekday.

I wondered how he was going to have me take the exam.  If I were within thirty feet of other students, I'd hear them thinking about the questions and the answers they would be putting down.

I finally climbed out of the shower, dried and styled my hair and dressed for school.  Considering the new situation with mutants going after some research facility I made sure to wear my costume underneath a pair of black jeans and a gold crossover top.

I double-checked my books again, stuffed my gloves and belt for the costume into the backpack and threw it over my shoulder.  I grinned as I felt how light it was.  A few weeks ago I was grumbling about the number and weight of textbooks I had to carry around for school.  Now it felt light.

I locked the door as I left the house, stepped off my mental 'air step' to begin floating up, and then jabbed my knee up to shoot into the air.  I had the University in sight before I remembered I couldn't go into the cafeteria.  At least this time I remembered before I was standing right in front of it.

I pulled out my phone and used an app to find nearby deli locations.  I flew past the first two - both had quite a few people - before I found one that had almost no one there.  I hoped that didn't mean they had bad food....

I landed and walked in while calling Megan.

She answered, "Morning Steph - you stuck at the cafeteria again?"

I smiled.  "Nah, today I remembered.  I'm by the Green Street Cafe.  Want me to pick you up some fruit, a bagel, or something?"

"Oh, I'll pass.  I need to watch how much I spend."

"No, I've got it."

"Yeah, but I don't want to be that mooch type friend...."

"If you don't tell me what you want I'm going to pick you up a bagel and a yogurt with fruit.  Then you'll have to eat it or let it go to waste."

"Okay, fine.  That sounds pretty good.  You want to meet in an alcove in the east corridor outside Professor Pomplun's class?"

"Sure.  See you soon, I'm at the deli now, I'll be at the University in a few minutes.  Oh, I'll nab you a juice too."

"You have to fly me around too.  I imagine that's why you are getting around so fast?"

"Well, shyeaahh.  See you in a few."

Handling the mindviews of the woman behind the counter and the two occupants was far easier than trying to deal with the nightmare of a cafeteria at school.  So many people in a packed area made so much mental noise for me.  Even worse were having a dozen or more mindviews in my vision so I couldn't even see.  I’d like to ask whoever hands out super powers why they thought it would be a good idea to let someone see a floating TV in their vision for every damn person within fifteen feet and not allow some to be hidden or something.

In moments, I had the food and carefully packed it into my backpack so it wouldn't make a mess and flew to school.  I didn't fly in like a maniac today.  It seemed like everyone in the genetics undergrad degree already knew that Psystar was a student here, plus the basketball team, and I'm sure they'd spread it around to others.

A group of guys walking toward the door spotted me flying down.  They stopped and stared at me as I stepped down a few times and finally came to a smooth landing.  When I wanted to it was hard to tell I’d shifted from flight to walking.

I smiled at them, "Morning guys.  You boys look like you haven't seen a super land near you this week."

One said, "Or ever."  He made a point of opening the door and holding it open for me.

I grinned and thanked him as I walked in.  I headed down the right hand corridor toward the stairs, sighing as I went.  Mindviews already began assaulting me from people in the hallway and room.  I hoped that someday I'd be able to turn them off at will or do something to make them not fill all my visual space.

I said "Hi" to a few people I recognized as I walked.  Megan ran up just before I reached the stairwell.

Her first thoughts that hit me were of how beautiful she thought I was. 
Interesting, she thinks
I
look like a supermodel, yet I think
Diva
looks like one.  Perspective is an interesting animal.

"Morning Megan.  Glad you didn't eat in today."

"Morning.  I love hanging with you, Steph.  I just can't afford to hit the cafeteria often."

I hugged her tightly, gave her a few seconds to see if she'd be able to stop digging her nose into my neck - she didn't - and pulled her along into the stairwell.  The nearest couple of guys thought she was necking with me.  I smiled and shook my head at their thoughts.

Once in the stairwell, I wrapped my arm around her waist, looked up and pushed off so we floated up to the second floor.  Once I'd maneuvered us onto the floor I gently separated Megan from me and snapped my fingers a few times.  She blinked and came out of her fugue.

"You know, you react more to that than most others I know."

"I love that smell, I just want it."

I raised my eyebrow.

She continued, "I mean, well, not you, but the smell.  I don't know, it's not normal, but it's so dreamy."

"I believe you.  It's just funny watching people's reactions to you doing that to me."

"Oh my god, what do they think I'm doing?"

I smiled, "The worst, of course.  You've got Brad, though, so it's not like you have to worry about finding a boyfriend.  On the other hand, he might hear through the grapevine how you are getting it on with some other woman…."

She said, “You better not spread that!”

I laughed, “I wasn’t talking about me, I was referring to the guys that see us.”

We found an alcove and sat down.  I took out the food and set it down before us.  Then I pulled out my phone and texted Jim - my computer hacker friend - to see if he and Mike had discovered anything last night.

I'd received a strange text out of the blue last night around 11 p.m. from a hero named Rayna.  I'd never met her, but she'd asked if I knew of any research companies that might be doing something to tick off a mutant group.  They apparently were planning a hit a place, and we needed to find out which.

While I knew some of the major genetics research companies in the region, I didn't know any well enough to know what they were into.  Especially not something detailed enough to anger the mutant community.  Hell, I didn't even know there was much of a mutant community remaining - it seemed like most of them were in Metrocity Jail along with Shrinker. 
Ugh, I really need to get over there and see poor Chrome today too.

So my fallback was to text Jim last night to see if he could work some of his internet magic.  He seemed to have a community of people into that sort of thing that knew just how to find things on the web.  He'd replied quickly last night - somehow I doubted that he was cramming for an exam at 11 p.m., however.

He didn't reply quickly this time, so I set my phone down in front of us and hoped he'd reply before we left for class.  Megan looked up, and her mindview showed Kell, Odes and Trevin walking down the corridor toward us.

I turned and waved at them.  They came up to us, so I stood and gave each of them a tight hug.  I loved getting hugged.  The fact that the others wondered at my more intimate hugs made me wonder if Trevin or one of the others made me do it.  He smiled at me, but his mind was blank, other than enjoying the time looking into my eyes.  Damn him, he was too good at this game.

Kell said, "So, did you do anything interesting this weekend other than our party on Friday night?"

I recanted the events of the weekend, skipping the time at Score! and with Rael afterward.

Kell said, "Oh, man, poor Diva - getting stabbed like that.  I hope she's okay."

I replied, "Me too.  Spartan is used to it - he strained muscles or pushed himself beyond his limits quite often, so he's commented about being fairly used to being in pain.  Diva didn't seem to be like that, she's, well, she's not a girly girl.  She's...."

Kell said, "She's a diva.  She picked her super name right.  She likes attention.  She didn't say anything at our party about enjoying pain though.  I can't imagine it fits into her psych profile.  Is she in the hospital?"

I said, "The hospitals don't do much for most supers.  I mean, sure, they'll give painkillers, bandage us up and remove stuff in us if needed, plus give a room to rest in if needed.  But really, our bodies push out everything bad that I've seen.  For example, all those bullets I got shot with last week in that first kidnapping case - they all worked their way out of my body within twenty or thirty minutes."

Trevin asked, "Do you plan to test that in the supers study class?"

"How do you mean?"

"Tests can be done to inject you with a variety of liquids and solids to determine how long - and how - they are ejected from your body.  For example, take the contrast commonly used during a CAT scan to see how quickly it leaves the body.  Alcohol would be another good test - oh, don't give me that look, a measured test this time.  You drink a set amount and take progressive blood tests to determine blood alcohol levels to compare against normal levels.  There are other materials that could be used.  Mildly radioactive liquids, even poisons could work since your body would be more apt to want to expel them."

I stared at him, "Oh, that sounds like a ball."

"You wanted to do tests.  What, you just want to do a simple red or white blood cell count or something?  Serious tests may need to be invasive.  You said it yourself, you heal just about everything.  You want to really learn something about supers?  Push your limits.  You commented you don't go to the bathroom any more - so what does your body do with a poison?  Or for that matter anything else.  We might need to jack a tube down to your stomach to see if you have normal stomach acids now."

I gave him a mild look of fear - that type of test didn't sound enjoyable in the least. 
Wait a second, he said we.

I asked, "We?  Did you get into one of the groups?"

"Yeah.  I went to the Dean, showed him my grades, and presented him some papers I've written on my own time already.  I have to take the classes we're in, but they're way below my level at this point."