True Heroes (41 page)

              “I burned some steak in the bottom of the oven and fell asleep. Sorry, I know it’s bad.”

              “Just get that smell out of my building before I get any more complaints or you’ll be the shortest tenant I’ve ever had!”

              Caleb’s power was next to his ear. ‘Wouldn’t it be so much easier if we just killed him and turned this place into a crematorium? Think about it…no evidence can withstand the climbing flames.’ The man turned and jangled away. ‘These brick walls would burst to powder, the metal steps would melt and slop together with fused marrow, nobody would know it was us. Just some accident.’

              ‘A terrible accident. That sounds more like us.’

              ‘That kind of accident would be glorious. They’d just never admit it.’

              “I don’t give a crap about the consequences they’d impose,” Caleb snapped. “I care because it’s wrong to kill people based on your whim.”

              His power appeared again, sitting on the counter. “She was a hooker. She was all out of humanity.”

              Caleb lunged forward with his fist cocked back, feeling the hot barrier as he permeated swiftly, and squarely knocked his power in the face, sending its faked body to the floor. Power was up as soon as it hit, its eyes ablaze. “You want to do this again, here? If we do I swear the brick and metal will be just the beginning.”

              “There won’t be a fight. I’m in control of you as long as I’m awake.”

              “Control? You can’t even control yourself. You think you should win a prize for controlling yourself every time I anger you, but it’s useless. Our minds both go to violence as a solvent first and alternatives second. As long as you’re hardwired for that, you’re nearly an ion less pathetic than everyone else on this planet.” It smiled. “I suppose I can wait another twelve hours until I’m free again.”

              Caleb stood relaxed. “I’m not sleeping again.”

              His power smiled wider. “How childish. You can’t expect me to take this seriously.”

              “Think what you want. I’ll stay up as long as I possibly can.”

              “I give it two days.”

              “You can’t give me anything.” Caleb fell into the corner, feeling the dusty rays warm his clammy skin, and finally felt his power recede. He let his power fall from his mind completely as his eyes traveled to the corner opposite him. The nearly destroyed pillow case sat next to several plastic bags full of clothes and scavenged foods, and his mind wondered. ‘I—’ He stopped, and began again aloud. “Don’t want your input. Second place I’ve ever lived on my own…the co-op coop barely even counts. How long would I be okay staying here? My legs could use the rest for a few months, or a lifetime. Just until people got suspicious, then I could move on. Just a peaceful blip on the radar. What would be wrong with that? I wouldn’t stay here for that and I know it. I wouldn’t mind a peaceful life, but right now I’m just afraid. Of what? To make new memories?”

              The brown book popped into his head and a small backpack was dragged over the short carpet to Caleb’s feet. “Doctor Fink’s journal. I never even knew you existed, little fella. Why did he want me to have it? He’s not sentimental….”

              He flipped open the cover and read aloud to keep the words private. “September fifteenth. School’s unbearable. So many classes and clubs, and not a single one of them interest me for more than a few seconds at a time. I’ve been looking everywhere for something, anything, that gets my neurons racing. What does a guy have to do to feed his mind?

              “October fourteenth. Chess is the most complicated game I can find on campus. I went to a party last night, and I met a girl named Audrey. She…,” Caleb paused, “She saw me from across a room and we talked. She witted and pontificated so graciously. Looking at myself in the mirror the next day was a shock, because I suddenly realized how lowly I really was. How much I didn’t deserve her kindness or her passion. I can’t help but be awed when I see her picture now and drop the phone when she calls. What is she doing to me?”

              Caleb closed the book quickly. “Gotta get away from this smell.” He walked towards the open window. “Might as well look at our escape passages.” He leaned his head out the open pane. ‘Two story drop would be easy. The open field would be a problem. They’d come through the door but would have the place surrounded, snipers in that construction site. That mound of dirt gives way to a fenced yard. Making it there would be freedom for sure. We’d weave a maze they’d never solve. Still, that’s a lot of gunfire for fifty yards.’ His head rotated up. ‘Roof’s within reach, assuming you’re in my corner.’

              ‘If they come, you can use me fully.’ Caleb nodded and carefully fit his body into the thin frame. He stood the best he could—one hand dropping the brown book while the other held tightly to the upper part of the metalwork. One leg felt blue power coursing enough to bend and launch himself to the flimsy gutter, that same power transferring to the right hand that grasped, easily throwing his body to the roof, ripping the gutter section off. The small piece of metal crumpled in his hand, making Power smile. Caleb threw it aside and took a better vantage point while the spring rays came off the white rocks in waves visible to his natural eye. ‘Satellite dishes taller than me, good for a split second of cover I suppose. Those vents and air conditioners will be better. Jump up here, weave through as a helicopter tries to keep up, and then….’ He lightly jogged to the other side of the short roof. ‘Another building zoned close enough for us to jump down. Fire escapes will have bodies all over them. We can jump between buildings all the way. Misdirect their fire, deflect the few lucky bullets, and we’re gone.’

              ‘Our escape prospects are plentiful.’

              Caleb nodded, jumping down the fire escape until his knees held firm against the ground. He blended himself into the walking few within moments. ‘Amazing what a shower and a change of clothes can do.’

              ‘Your new hair looks less institutional as well. They still glance and stare.’

              A tiny baby in a stroller and its mother stared for a reason they couldn’t see, and smiled. ‘That’ll never change.’

              He rounded the block before his head was filled with a cool voice again, ‘It is an anomaly that the government has yet to attempt a dragnet with the locals.’

              ‘I’m sure they’re saving that wildcard for when they’re back to operating status.’ Caleb smiled at the passing older woman. ‘Maybe they won’t at all. Use the card I mean. They’ll be back; I just think their pride makes them do it alone.’

              Power flexed, remaining within Caleb’s flesh. ‘Only if that moronic General is in charge. Someone above him would have the competency to remain emotionally detached, which is where our status as a prisoner may change.’

              He stopped at a crosswalk near the business district of the outlying town. ‘How long do you plan on running?’

              It nestled back into his mind. ‘Until you tire out in a few short months.’

              He skipped up to the opposite curb. ‘You’re consistently cheery at least.’

              It smiled. ‘Consistency proves truth.’

              ‘Your truth, not mine or anyone else’s.’

              Caleb hopped up two steps of his newly-found coffee shop. The loud bell rang as he gently opened the door, first noticing one of the two owners behind the counter. ‘Your first experience in this house of liquid diuretic was to get cussed out by that little charmer, and yet you come back?’

              ‘I admire his spunk.’

              ‘You’ve admired it for three days in a row. I believe they have a legal term for that.’

              ‘Good thing I have you then.’ He began to casually walk forward with a half-raised grin. The interior was left to the all natural brick and wood; browned and chewed chairs surrounded finely crafted tables from years past, all of which was encased unwillingly in holey bricks that nearly revealed the outside world in some choice spots. His cheer continued to the faded blue counter—the tread of trafficked years creating a puffed cloud in the middle of the sky blue paint—as the old man looked up finally. From behind a door at the back of the old man, celebratory shouting and laughing rang out.

              ‘Small world.’

              Caleb adjusted his eyes to the small man. ‘What do you mean?’ “Morning, Abe.”

              “My name is Carl, you little asshole.”

              ‘Do you not notice anything without a map?’

              ‘What am I supposed to notice?’ “I thought that was your middle name, Abe?”

              “I like Carl better. Do I look like a dead president?”

              ‘You didn’t see her?’

              ‘See who damn it?’ “Not dead, no. Maybe a little of George W. in that face though.”

              “May! Serve this prick for me.” ‘Well, she noticed you now, eyes on the door.’

              The white door swung open, the other owner walking through with her hands full of plates and cake fragments. She shot a quick smile to him and said, “I’ll be right with him, you grumpy old fart.”

              Behind her, a green T-shirt and neon green socks emerged. “Hey there,” the familiar voice sounded. Her look resonated; her meshed shirt revealed her black undershirt ad infinitum, mixing with bunched hazel ends of hair that lain on either shoulder. ‘The orange make-up does not become her.’ Her eyes were still averted, although her face was turned up, revealing her pale skin and fixed features to Caleb’s own surprised eye. “You ran off, and here you are.”

              The older woman re-emerged from another room and began talking and working. “Hello, Caleb, the usual?”

              He found himself staring at the odd, neon-colored girl’s hands, the right clenched beneath the register while the other lain flat, completely relaxed. “Yeah, please, without the snarky old man.”

              “I won’t stick around for your sass either.”

              “Oh hush, Abe, and go get the cinnamon out of the back.”

              Caleb snickered at his obstinance. ‘She’s noticing your hands too.’ He glanced up to her downward stare. ‘Look at her line of sight: fingernails. She’s probably disgusted with your dirty nails. Now the back of your hand. Thanks to me, she’s probably wondering how you keep your skin so healthy with such atrocious fingernails.’

              ‘The dirt’s yours, not mine.’

              His power smirked again. “Here,” the old man said as he woefully slid the hot chocolate across the counter. The liquid quickly began to splash over, but Caleb kept the wave in the container with the point of his index finger. Keeping his eyes up, he felt the scalding water sizzle against the tiny field of power he created before falling back into the cup, his upward eyes scanning the older couple to make sure the transgression went unnoticed.

              “Did you just point at me?”

              ‘Smooth.’

              He looked at the young woman. “No, sorry, my finger was stiff.” He slid his dollar to the estranged couple and carefully lifted the large cup, taking a sip while noticing the girl’s quick move to the edge of the counter. He lowered the cup. “You’re welcome to sit with me, if you’d like.” As if assuming his invitation before he finished, she quickly slid to a table, tiny mumbles again audible as he approached the chair opposite of her. He fell into the chair’s bare catch and kept his back against the tough netting. He took another sip of his frothy chocolate drink before setting it to rest. “I’m sorry I ran away the other night.”

              “You’re alone and new to this town, why? Must be lonely. Can’t say I blame you for being scared.”

              “You’re the queen of presumption. What makes you think I’m scared and alone?”

              “You’ve been in here four days straight, alone, according to May and you always zone out like you’re trying to avoid looking at the here and now.”

              Caleb smiled. “Aha so you are curious enough to look into my eyes when I’m not paying attention. Well, I’m not exactly here alone.”

              “Who are you here with?”

              “My…roommate.”

              “Why are you annoyed at them?”

              “They have a way of getting into my head. Really nosey that one….” Caleb felt nervous as she continued to mumble under her breath as he spoke. “I really am sorry about last time we met.”

              She shook her head and grunted.

              Caleb pushed at his cup, feeling nervously in the darkening conscious rapture for a conversation. “Who are you here with?”

              “My softball team. We won today.”

              “Congrats.”

              “You never answered the rest of my question.”

              Caleb rewound and answered. “I had a life that was becoming more and more complicated. I guess I’m looking for something simple here.”

              “Life’s not simple anywhere.”

              Caleb felt nearly offended by that statement. “Won’t your friends be missing you?”

              “Probably,” she mumbled. One of her hands ran her pigtails behind her ears. “I’m…gonna try to look up now. It’s kind of hard for me to do, but I need to try.”

              “I have the same disease. I know how hard it is to look into someone’s eyes.”

              Her shoulders rose and fell suddenly before her neck straightened her face into a pink ray coming through the curtained window. Her right side bathed in the rosy illumination while her dainty nose cast a dark shadow over her closed eye and rounded cheek. They opened then; Caleb met her eyes without a threat, while hers offered nothing but granted respect. Her doughy opals were glorious; all of the richest of tilled earth lain into specific cylindrical entrapments within the skull of this pale woman nearly blended with her searching pupils. He noticed the few strands of darkened hair stuck to her white forehead, his imagined eye suddenly seeing the perfect balance of her brows with the small vacant zone between.

              She gasped as the second passed. “Oh wow.” She lifted from her seat and nearly jumped to the closer one. Caleb recoiled, only to have her lean forward in response. “Hold still. Your face….” Her microscopic lenses were hovering inches from his face, his nose suddenly picking up the faint chocolate from his own cup mixed with some sort of icing and a sweet perfume, which was the most pleasant. Her head moved to the side as she studied every angle, revealing to him the nave of the neck and shoulder; his head leaning forward very slightly to smell again. Her search went undisturbed.

              “I’ve smelled that before. Love spell?”

              She stopped momentarily and stared him in the eye again. “Respond, don’t stare,” he heard in a breathed statement. “Yeah, you knew someone that wore it?”

              “A few girls, yeah. They read too much into the title.” She smiled shortly before returning to her study. “You went from shy to crazy in no time flat.”

              She laughed softly near his ear. “Hey that was one of your options the other day.”

              “Thanks for the big clue, then.”

              She let a half-smile show brilliantly as she leaned back in her chair again. “I’m not crazy…I just like faces. And yours is—”

              “Alice, stop that.” A man walked from the swinging back door and gently placed hands on Alice’s shoulders. “I’m so sorry she’s got a rare complication.”

              “I know, we’ve met before and exchanged that information.” His blood felt a bit hotter abruptly. The man kept his arms wrapped around her pouting silhouette as his narrow shoulders nearly matched hers. “I’m Caleb, and you are?”

              “He be David, my boyfriend.” Her hand affectionately ran across his bleached wrist. His other hand pushed his glasses closer to his face with an extended pinkie. “He just doesn’t get my quirky ways.”

              ‘Your jealousy is clouding my domain. Why are you jealous? She just tried to dissect your face.’

              ‘I’m looking for a friend, not a jealous boyfriend.’

              ‘Ah. I see us both hating him before long.’

              The hand that was nearly groping her suddenly shot up in a friendly manner. ‘He’s the captain of the team.’

              ‘I noticed that too.’

              He reached out and gently shook the man’s hand. “Charmed,” the smiling man said. David’s voice was soft in tone, but every word seemed sharp from his mouth. ‘A velvet assassin, Caleb.’ “I didn’t think you talked to anyone outside the circle, Alice.”

              “I didn’t until now. We met last week.”

              David’s dull, opal eyes and puppy-esque head cock didn’t inspire much positive reinforcement. “Really?”

              “I did, and he saved me.”

              “I’m sure you could’ve handled it on your own.” His eyes seemed focused on some feature on Caleb’s face, but not his eyes.

              ‘Cocky little twig isn’t he?’

              ‘He’s cocky for her. It’s him folding into her humility. They seem good together. Stop trying to make me hate him.’ “She handled it pretty well after the knife was out of play.”

              Alice smiled a bit and kept her eyes fixed on Caleb’s while David’s moved towards the front of the door. “Well, we should be getting back to the group….”

              She leaned out of David’s embrace. “You really have Asperger’s?”

              Caleb smiled despite the air still ill at ease. “What makes you so skeptical of me?”

              “I can see your face now.”

              “My face makes you trust me less?”

              “Half of it. Your left eye is emoting with every word you say, and you look sincere, but your right has been looking heavily at me and him like a security camera.”

              ‘Which eye are you looking through?’

              Caleb’s power completely retracted. ‘The right….’

              “Now they’re both emoting the same. That’s so cool you can do that!”

              ‘That is amazing.’ “Yes, I have Asperger’s.”

              David seemed interested again. “Is he telling the truth, Alice?”

              “Yep, from both sides now. You should stop by our own little gym a few blocks away for a meeting of all kinds of people like us. David helps us cope with the outside world and we just kinda sit around, share, and have fun.”

              ‘Marion paraphrased the same thing, remember.’

              ‘So what?’ “Give me a time and I might swing by.”

              “Six or so. See you there.”

              Her enthusiasm clashed with David’s animosity, and her haunting eyes seemed stuck in Caleb’s even as they finally broke contact. His lined lips curled upwards. ‘We’re going to spite him, aren’t we? I’m on board.’

              ‘Couldn’t be happier to have your agreement.’

              Caleb nodded at her the few times she looked back to him before she was dragged behind the swinging door. The ruckus revived as Caleb picked up his luke-warm chocolate and took a much larger drink than before. May walked up slowly as the last of the mixture dripped down his throat. “Now, Caleb, are you going to be around them much?”

              “It looks like I’ll at least see them tonight. Why is it you’re curious?”

              She wrung her hands against her apron before sitting down across from him. “Mine and Abe’s daughter is in that group, and she’s terrified of new people. I’m not telling you not to go, well, I suppose I’m just making sure she’s not in any danger around you. You don’t seem like a dangerous fella, but I guess a mother will be a mother.”

              Caleb leaned forward. “Well, ma’am, I can promise you your daughter is in no more danger with me around than she is without me around. So this is an actual group?”

              “Oh yes they’re all good friends. The two that were out here have known each other for…oh, going on their whole lives I think. Everyone else came in as they did. David’s some type of doctor, I forget of what. He doesn’t have the sickness but he’s so helpful for her—for all of them. For you too, I imagine.”

              “Heh, well if I do end up going, it won’t be for help.”

              “Aw, you’re not looking for help?”

              “Nothing they can help with.”

              “That’s a shame.”

              “I’ll see you around, May.” He stood and smiled before turning and striding out the front door. The late afternoon streets were a little busier than the last hour, sparsely littered with retreating business woman from a nearby firm specializing in sexual harassment suits. ‘And I’m sure they enjoy the cat-calling tumescence of the construction workers across the street. I wonder how many paid and purchased mansions have come from that construction sight of idiocy since it started two years ago. Aren’t you glad I had this area scouted?’

              ‘Yes, your paranoia in a pursuit to gather useless knowledge.’ Caleb took some spare change out for a soda machine. ‘What else did you find out when I was asleep, or did you go straight to rape and murder?’

              ‘Oh no, that didn’t happen until much later. Most of the night was scouting. The response time of a massive police force to our apartment from the closest station would be about eighteen minutes. The canyon in front of our complex is geometrically perfect for a total kill zone if the situation should arise.’

              He reached down and picked up his purchased water. ‘It won’t, ever.’

              Both personas became silent in their impasse. Caleb walked towards a slowly igniting group of lights near the river with the disappearing shine on his left. He let his hands fall into his pockets as he felt the blocks flowing by. He soon came to a busy pavilion and weaved through the crowd, not touching a single person while his body contorted and twisted to not interrupt their respective paths. He made it through the crowd and noticed the groups dim and dim until he reached the famous and mighty purple bridge. His bottle found its way to a close receptacle, and his feet flurried up the girder with nobody taking notice. Balancing wasn’t a problem for him for the first half of the climb, but his power automatically activated to maintain it for the latter half. The crest of the wave approached, and he stopped to look out unto an encroaching riverboat. A rushing wind tried to topple him but he simply plunked his bottom down and let one leg dangle carelessly from the edge, not allowing the wind to threaten even slightly. The sun scorned and scowled as the western compass tilted, taking the ball down the drain no matter how it clawed and longed to be as free as Caleb’s swinging leg. ‘Can’t help yourself can you?’

              He didn’t answer the ghost of his sub-conscious. His legs stood straight again while his wrist watch gently clicked onto and through six-o-clock. A crowd gathering near the bottom of the bridge dissuaded a return route. ‘Let’s get creative.’ Caleb let his body soak in power for a few seconds before leaping to the large entertainment center close to the shoreline. Nobody seemed to notice the hundred-yard leap, but the crowded streets below were swelling in activity. The power kept coursing as his gentle leaps took him from rooftop to rooftop, closer to his neighborhood with record speed. His overhead view revealed his proximity to the goal, so his left foot pressed a little harder into the roof than his right, skewing his jump towards a very skinny alley, each arm catching a rung on either fire escape. A group of teenagers were walking by the opening, causing Caleb to simply hang as they passed. They strode by before he snapped the safety bars with his power, fitting one foot into each falling ladder until he could gently step to the ground.

              His hands felt the bottom of his pockets as he walked into the street and let his power dip into the background again. The paranoia of Power scouted the street ahead of Caleb’s feet. The subdued girl from earlier emerged from a doorway with the same outfit glowing in the light. ‘Alice.’

              Caleb raised an eyebrow at his internal demon. ‘You cared to remember her name?’

              ‘I remembered the arrogant boyfriend. Her face and name just came with it.’

              Her bright colors continued to sing in the waning light as he lightly jogged across the street. The twilit vanilla that bounced from her skin seemed an unworthy attempt to cover her natural aura, which still shined emerald green even against the mango sky. She turned away from the light, separating the sun’s attempt to glow from her source; her eyes luminescent still within the shadow of the mountain of her impassable ruddiness. She smiled quickly as he tripped up the curb, nearly blinding him with an innocent essence too young to know its own carelessness. “You made it! C’mon in.”

              ‘What exactly did we make it to, I wonder?’ “Where am I going?”

              She stood to the side and raised her arm to the door. “Staircase, four stairs up, three down, twelve up, twenty steps across the walkway, ten steps down to the gym floor, grab a seat. I’ll be right behind you.” Caleb looked back to her from the doorway, quickly realizing she’d moved much closer to him. ‘She never took her eyes off you. You’re being studied.’

              Her eyes and smile never wavered from his face as he walked by her, braving a sideways smile that seemed to make her even happier. He counted the steps in his head, soon finding himself at the walkway with every number square. Tiny voices echoed from across the open gymnasium as he walked through the doorway; the rickety path hung over a very old wooden floor with some planks removed and more rotting from water. His presence was immediately noticed by every member of a circle on the far end by a large, semi-circular window. One—‘David the Great,’—walked towards him as he slowly descended the stairs, noticing the remnants of championship past hung in tattered-banner form atop folded bleachers. ‘The dust from the rafters could choke a whale.’ Orange light splashed across the downed heads and folding chairs; the still-shined floor shown several blackened circles atop entwining boards—‘Barrel bottoms. This is a hobo squatting ground.’