Super Born: Seduction of Being (22 page)

“
Amen to that. That’s why it’s great
that we have each other, our own little support group.”

“
I’m glad we found each other
too.”

“
Well, it was you who found me,
actually.”

“
Long story short, I was up one
weekend at Anna’s family farm. Her dad’s pretty old, can’t work
much. Even though he can’t work he dresses everyday like a farmer
in overalls; carries a cane to help him with his limp. He’s worn
out by the years, but he’s good at storytelling and
complaining.”

“
Know the type. My grandpa’s just
like that.”

“
One weekend, he drove Anna and me
around the farm, telling us about the good old days when all the
oil and gas wells on the farm made him big money, but now they just
sat rusting in the fields. He stopped at one of the well heads, got
us out of the truck, and started telling us his story.

“‘
See, Jenny’—he always called me
Jenny—‘this well’s like me. Plenty of life inside, down deep, but
can’t get it out. See,’—he tapped a gauge that read near zero with
his cane—‘No pressure. Plenty of oil down there, but there’s no
pressure to bring it up. I’ll bet we only got out a tenth of what’s
down there. It’s all trapped in the rock and such. These wells used
to be productive, just like the old fart who owns ’em. Now they’re
just sitting here doing nothing’, rusting away, just like
me.

“
The story made me feel bad for him,
but it also made me think. If it was true and there was all this
oil just sitting there, it seemed like a waste of a lot of money. I
said to him, ‘You mean, all you need to do is force the gas out of
the rock and these wells would flow again?’

“‘
Flow like a goddamn river!’ he
told me. ‘Some guys up in Tunkhannock are workin’ with something
they call ‘fracking’ that’s supposed to work. They force
high-pressure water into the well to free the gas from the rocks.
Supposed to be like Viagra for your well, I hear.

“

But late that night I returned alone to the
field and walked around the rusting green metal of the wellhead we
had visited. I began walking in a big circle around it with my arms
out. I thought about the old man feeling full of life, but trapped
in an aging body, just like the oil trapped in the rock below.
Finally, red energy began to spark between my hands and then grow
into a red and orange ball that hummed and flashed between my arms.
Then I threw the energy ball at the well and it crashed, shaking
the ground beneath me, as it spread out and was absorbed by the
land. I repeated this over and over, each time lighting up the
night sky with red flashes and feeling the earth quake beneath my
feet.

“
The next morning I returned to the
well before breakfast. The pressure gauge was pegged at the highest
reading on its scale. That’s how I knew I had found a way to make
money with my power.”

“
You got his wells going again?
That’s amazing.” Rebecca had gone to the fridge for another quart
of ice cream.

“
No, bring the chocolate in the
half-gallon,” I suggested as she dug in the freezer. “As far as his
wells go—

sort of.”

“
Sort of?”

“
I offered to buy Anna’s dad’s
mineral rights and distribution contract, and he was glad to sell.
So were his neighbors and their neighbors. When we ran out of
existing wells, we began drilling new ones.”

“
So you became an oil baroness?”
said Rebecca, bringing back the ice cream.

“
One problem. I didn’t have any
money to buy the first leases with. Later on, the money from the
producing wells paid to buy more leases, but I had nothing for the
first few, nada.”

“
So how’d you do it?”

I grabbed the half-gallon and took a few bites,
debating whether I should confess to Rebecca. “I stole
it.”

“
Stole it! Oh my god.”

“
When you have powers like this, you
have to wonder if the laws set up for the average person apply to
you. I don’t know how you feel about that, but I think I have these
powers for a reason. Anyhow, there was a bank next to the floral
shop. Every Friday, like clockwork, they had money picked up by an
armored car. I knew the drivers. They’ d come into the shop for
birthdays and anniversaries. In fact, Anna would remind them when
their anniversary was. Saved their marriages.” I laughed, as did
Rebecca. “They’d park in an alley next to my shop when they did the
bank pickup. I checked it out, no security cameras.”

“
You didn’t!”

I nodded. “What can I say? I tried doing it the
right way, with a bank loan, and got laughed at. I almost melted
that guy’s face off…literally. I really had to control my emotions
when that little prick laughed at me. My flower shop wasn’t worth
anywhere near enough for collateral. What choice did I
have?

“
A few days before the lease
payments were due, I watched the two guys from the back of the
truck enter the bank, leaving the driver alone. I stepped around to
the back of the truck and stayed out of the driver’s mirrors. I put
my hands against the wall of the truck and thought about the money
inside that I needed. The metal wall just melted and flowed to the
ground like spilled water, steaming and hissing as it hit the
pavement. It was great. I reached inside and grabbed some bags. I
knew they had to be valuable, right? Or why else would they be in
the truck? It happened so fast the driver never knew what happened.
In a few seconds, I was back in the shop and the money was under
the floorboards.”

Rebecca’s mouth hung open with her ice cream
spoon turned over against her tongue. Had I made a mistake in
confiding in her? “Are you kidding me? I never would have guessed
that you were a gangsta’. All this,” she said, gesturing to the
apartment, “came from that money?”

“
No, but it was enough to to get
started. After that, my wells began to pay for more wells and more
wells. The ‘fracking’ Anna’s dad talked about worked too, but my
wells are twice as productive as theirs, so it’s easy for me to
compete.”

“
It must be worth
millions!”

“
Billions is the new
millions.”

“
Holy crap!”

“
I have real estate all over the
world. With the prices down from the recession, there are bargains
everywhere. But I like living here in Scranton. I don’t know, it
seems like my powers came from here. Who knows what would happen if
I left?”

“
I never thought of that. It might
be true…you know, maybe I should figure out a way to make some
money from what I can do.”

I smiled, already knowing I had led her to the
right question. “Once we find the B.I.B., you won’t have to worry
about money or anything else. She’s the key. Once we connect my
finances and your technical knowhow to her pure little image, there
will be no stopping us.”

Rebecca remained thoughtful for minute and I
studied her face.

Finally, she smiled, seeming totally content to
continue trusting my vision of the big picture, unwavered by the
story I had told. “Are you gonna hog all the ice cream or can I
have some?”

“
Did you see the butter pecan?” I
ran to the freezer, glad that our jacked-up metabolisms required a
lot of calories to satisfy—a lot of delicious calories.

“
Do you have any
waffles?”

“
Always!”

When the freezer was empty of ice cream and
Rebecca had squeezed out the last drop of maple syrup onto her last
bite of waffle, we began to discuss the reason of our
meeting.

“
What about Victoria?” I
asked.

“
I think she’s scared,” answered
Rebecca. “But I think she’ll meet with you. I forwarded you her
phone number in an email. She wants to meet somewhere safe, in
public, Tuesday afternoon. She’s having a tough time. Her husband
can’t take it anymore and left. She’s sick and alone. So I think we
can get her.”

“
And did you ever hear back from
Suzen?”

“
Not, a thing. It’s like she dropped
off the earth. Last I heard she was off in Oregon somewhere trying
to deny her powers and hide them from the world, teaching at some
little college.”

“
God, we needed her!” I said
pounding my fist on the counter with frustration. “She was the next
closest born… I think she still might answer you. Do you think they
found her too, or is she just afraid to join us?”

Rebecca shook her head. “You know as well as I
do, they’re easy to find, but it’s hard to convince them of the
danger they’re in.”

“
Easy to find? What about the
B.I.B.? She’s easy to find?”

Rebecca hung her head. “Okay, okay, I will keep
working on finding her. But she’s like…invisible.”

“
When’s the last time you heard from
Suzen?”

“
When I call I just get that weird
voice mail with the poetry on it. She ignores my emails. It’s been
over a week now.”

“
Damn, just like Jessica!” I stared
at the ground and wiped my palm over my face. “Text me the address
of that college in Oregon. I think Suzen needs a visit and a
talking to…maybe a little push.”

“
I doubt she’s still there. You know
how she is…You did your best to warn Jessica. Let’s hope Suzen
figures it out before she ends up the same way.”

I ran my hand through my hair as I paced.
“Let’s hope we don’t end up the same way ourselves… we have to make
sure we get Victoria. We can’t afford to lose all of
them.”

“
What if she just doesn’t want to
join us?”

I gave her a sober stare. “She’s joining us…
one way or another, she’s joining, even if I have to whack her over
the head…and find the fucking B.I.B. She’s the key…and her
journalist boyfriend. Without them…”

“
Now you’re scaring me.”

“
Just find them, all of them!…before
there’s no one left to find.”

“
All right. You’re the boss…But the
B.I.B. won’t be easy…And Logan, if he knows, he’s protecting her
like gold.”

***
)

Chapter 17

Proud to Be Appreciated, but Not to
Be Hunted

W
hen I got
home from work, I called for Paige, without results. She wasn’t at
the computer chatting with friends, so I went down the hall to her
bedroom, but she wasn’t there either. On the bed I noticed an
opened box and a large envelope. I found a poster in the box and
unrolled it.

To my amazement, it was a six-foot poster of
myself taken from the Skelly’s picture. I was on a poster and my
daughter had purchased one—it seemed bizarre. I went through the
other items and found various B.I.B. trinkets: a coffee cup, a beer
mug, and another T-shirt, all with some sort of B.I.B. picture or
silhouette on them. I looked around the room at Paige’s clothes on
the floor and saw three or four B.I.B. shirts next to black jeans—a
complete B.I.B. outfit. How had I missed my daughter becoming a
B.I.B. groupie? And how did I feel about it—proud or
concerned?

From behind me Paige appeared. “Mom!” she
yelled, as she grabbed the coffee mug out of my hand, “That was
supposed to be a surprise gift for you. Now you’ve ruined
it.”

“
What is all this stuff,
honey?”

“
Nothing, it’s just my stuff,” she
said, re-boxing the items I had disturbed. Then she came back to
her speechless mother by the bed. “And Mom, I thought we agreed
that’s you’d stay out of my room.”

“
Sorry, I just couldn’t find
you…When did you get into the whole B.I.B. thing?”

“
She’s not a ‘thing,’ Mom, she’s a
person. She’s a strong woman who does things that matter to the
world…something I doubt you would know anything about.”

“
Oh really!” I said both angered and
impressed that it was me she was talking about.

“
Yeah, really! When was the last
time you did anything that mattered to anybody…
All you do is work, and go out drinking with your friends
”

“
That’s just about enough of that!
I’m your mother! I keep a roof over our heads!”

‘
Big deal. The B.I.B. saves peoples’
lives. Do you even know the slightest thing about her?”

I wiped my face and looked down at my feet
debating how much I should tell her, then looked her in the eye, ”I
know more than you think.”

“
She’s only the most important thing
that’s ever happened in Scranton…maybe even the world.”

“
You believe that, huh?”

“
I know that. Did you hear about all
the things she did before they knew her by name? There were dozens
of articles on the Internet about a mysterious woman pulling all
these amazing life saving stunts before anyone tied it all
together.”

“
Oh, really?”

“
See? You don’t know the slightest
thing about her.”

“
And you know all this
because…”

“
I’m doing my English paper about
her. There is a website dedicated to her. It’s all about her
history and has a whole file of news links telling her story as it
happened.” As she spoke Paige began putting away the B.I.B. items,
occasionally hold a new tee shirt up to her chest and checking out
the look in the mirror of her dresser. “And they have the coolest
games ever. On one, the B.I.B. saves you and this other one is a
drinking game you’d probably like. Then there are people who report
sightings, all the latest news, and the webmaster writes a column
about how he interprets what’s happening. Like he says, the B.I.B.
is getting set up for dropping the beer trucks”