H.E.R.O. - Rise and Fall (16 page)

I stepped back in shock.  "What?  But ... I didn't choose this."

"I don't care.  I didn't marry this thing in front of me.  Leave me be, I don't want to see you again."

"I ... what do you mean?"

"I'm getting a divorce.  I'm not going to live with a metal monster.  They didn’t tell me earlier in the week that you’d become … this.  Whatever this thing is before me."

I felt my world falling apart.  Breathing was hard. 
He didn't mean that.  He can't mean it.  He's on drugs.

I said, "You're on painkillers right now.  You'll see, once you're better we'll be together again.  I'll do everything around the house until you're healed."

"No.  If you stay there I won't go back to living in that house."

"But why?  I'm still me!"

"No, you aren't.  You're a thing now.  A monster.  Just look at you ... that's not what I married.  Just go away, don't come back."

The door opened behind me and I glanced back.  I recognized Psycom both from yesterday and as a H.E.R.O. from news broadcasts over the years.  He wore his white and blue costume with the pattern of a brainwave on the chest.  His reflective blue visor blocked his eyes.

About the last thing I remember him saying from yesterday morning was that I was an idiot, along with that dingbat, Diva.

He stood in the doorway and said, "Oh, you again, Chrome.  Such a pleasure to meet a troublemaker again.  You willing to give up again?"

I didn't give up last time, you ass.  I had Diva at my mercy, had I wanted to do something to her.

I said, "I'm leaving, don't try to stop me."

"Oh, I won't ... so long as you are leaving with me, in custody.  You're under arrest."

Sandra's right, they don't care.

I walked toward him.  "Just move aside and leave me be, blondie."

"Aw, you had to go there."

I bumped into some kind of invisible wall before I reached him or the door.  I put my hand out and touched it - it felt solid.

He smiled.

Then I drew back my arm and slammed my fist into the wall.  He slid back into the corridor, even though I’d only hit the field.  I noticed some red under his nose.  My hitting his wall made him bleed.  I smiled.

He stopped smiling.

I marched through the doorway toward him again, and then floated up into the air a foot.  I wiggled my feet, but couldn’t get down.

"You can't punch what you can't reach, stupid brick.  Put your hands behind your back before I do something fun like cut the blood flow to your brain."

I flailed about, but he kept me centered in the air where I couldn't touch any walls or the ceiling.  Then my vision went black.

"Aww, having problems seeing?  See, that's controlled by your brain too."

I heard a great thud, he made an 'ugh' sound, I fell to the floor with my vision restored in time to see a wrecking ball crash against the floor and roll to a stop. 

The hero rolled to his feet and I slugged him.  He flew back, crashed through the nurse's station centered in the critical care area and came to a stop inside the far wall.  I ran over to him as he crawled out and kicked him hard.  He flew through that wall and blew out through the outer concrete wall of the hospital with a resounding crash.

Sandra shrunk her wrecking ball and quickly pocketed it.  "Nice kick, girlfriend.  You done here?"

I nodded.

Zach - or Gravitix as he seemed to like being called now - told us that he had an escape plan.  We followed him to the hole in the outer wall.  His eyes glowed for a moment and he told me to pick them both up and jump as far out as I could.

I hooked them each in an arm, but avoided squeezing them.  My leap took us in a straight path at an upward angle away from the hospital.  He made us weightless, and with my strength we flew at great speed.

After a while we began floating downward - he mentioned that he was slowly increasing the effects of gravity on us.  It was a totally different type of flying than Psystar had done when she brought me home from the hospital.

We bumped down somewhat hard miles away from the building.  We’d been quiet during our flight simply because of the unique nature and distance of it.

Sandra grinned.  "I like you guys.  So, Selina – are you all right?”

“Don’t call me that.  My life is trashed.  Sam doesn’t want to see me anymore.  My name is Chrome.”

The mutant nodded.

I looked at them.  “So what’s the plan now?”

Gravitix replied, “I need to pick up some altimeters from a hobby shop – one that sells model rockets.  Then we get food and drinks and head out of town to test.

Sandra said, “While the huge jump was cool, I think we’d be less obvious if we travel as we have been….”

I sighed.  “Fine.”

Gravitix said, “Bring us to the Witches Cauldron.  My car is there.  We can pick it up and use it.”

Sandra said, “Good, that’ll be unobtrusive.”  She shrunk us, put us in her inside jacket pockets again and buttoned up the front.  It took a while to get to the bar.  When she unbuttoned the jacket again I held it back so I could watch Zach grow.  She quickly took off the disguise.

She looked so comfortable using her shrinking and her claws too.  Also, she didn’t seem to hate what she looked like as I did.  If anything I noticed that any time a person stared at her, she simply glared back at them until they looked away.  Rather than hide from her odd looks she embraced them.

Once we got in Zach’s car Sandra took me out and set me in the back seat, and then let me grow to half my normal height.  The seat didn’t creak or appear to have any issues with that.

She said, “Half size in all dimensions, you’re one eighth the weight, so you should be fine.”

I couldn’t see outside (apart from up at buildings), but it was far better than being pressed against her chest.

Zach called his friend Nick and told him to meet at some hobby shop.  I watched the two of them in the front seat.  What a different pair of people.  Zach looked like a normal guy, dressed in normal, casual clothes.  His face was pleasant.

Sandra had an overall harsh demeanor about her.  The tight black leathers, spikey purple hair and tattoos really made her stand out.  The catlike eyes, fangs and black finger claws put her over the edge. 
Maybe instead of thinking that’s she’s comfortable, she looks more like she decided that she can’t fit in any more so now she makes sure she won’t.

I’d caught her looking at my hand and forearm numerous times, and she had run her upper finger across the top of my hand a few times when I was looking away. 
She obviously doesn’t realize that I can still feel things touch my skin, although perhaps not as well as before.
  She also never looked at me with the angry looks she sometimes gave non-supers. 
Pretty sure she actually does like me.

They went into the store, leaving me in the car to sit and think.  I bounced a little on the seat.  It was the first chair I’d been in that I wasn’t afraid of breaking.  I felt like a kid between being small and in the back seat.

They came back to the car, loaded up the trunk with stuff, and this time a guy I didn’t know got in next to me in the back seat.  I slid over and waved at him.  He stared at me for a moment.

He said, “Are you…?”

I said, “I’m a real person.  Call me Chrome.”  My voice sounded odd.

“Err, wow.  I’m Nick.”  He held his hand out to me.

I took hold of two of his fingers and shook his hand.  I squeezed enough to feel the skin squish in somewhat, but not enough to touch the bone.

He said, “You’re exceptionally strong.  So are you all supers?”

I nodded.

“That’s awesome.  Thanks for letting me come with.”

Zach held his fist back and Nick bumped it with his own.

We stopped one more time for them to go into a grocery store on the western edge of Metrocity and pick up food and drinks.  I waited in the back of the car again while they went in.

A commotion at the vehicle next to me made me glance to the right.  A family was loading their groceries into the car.  A child’s face plastered itself against the back window of Zach’s car and looked at me.  I stared forward, trying not to move my eyes or breathe – which turned out to be very easy to do.

The boy exclaimed, “Whoa!  Check out the toy they’ve got!”

Another child’s face appeared and also looked in.  “I want one!”

The mother looked in for a moment and commented, “It’s amazing what they do with doll clothing these days.  Come on kids, into the van.”

It took her a bit of ushering to get the children away from the window, but finally they entered their own vehicle and drove away.  I breathed a sigh of relief.

The others arrived shortly, loaded our own vehicle and we continued on the way out of town, in search of an open area to test in.

Nick said, “Guys, let’s just go to Jaranni’s Park.  It’s big, not unusual for people to do this type of stuff in a park, and do you honestly think anyone will be looking for
four
of us just hanging out and acting like we are playing with model rockets?”

I said, “My skin would give us away.”

“You’re almost fully clothed.  If you generally face away from everyone your hair will conceal your neck and face.  Your hands are the only other thing, and that’s pretty minor.”

Zach said, “I’ve got to agree.  If we act fairly normal, and stay at a distance to others we should be fine.  Plus, the place has some really cool garden and pond areas if I recall.”

Sandra shrugged, “I’ve never been to a park in the daytime.  Granted, everything appears pretty bright to me at night anyway, but it’s not like all the flowers are in bloom or the sun shining at night.”

Zach said, “It’s decided then. You could use some nice surroundings for once, and Chrome could do with something to cheer her up.  Plus it should be really cool to see the reflection of the foliage and flowers on Chrome’s skin.  You might have to strip again for us.”

I said, “Huh?”

“Oh, come on.  It’s not like anyone’s going to
do
anything to you if you are naked.  But it’d look really cool.”

“Yeah.  We’ll see about that.”

“Sandra could do it with you.  I bet her skin hasn’t seen the light of day in a long time.  Plus, you haven’t seen her tattoos, they are very cool.”

Sandra snorted, “My skin burns in the daylight, like a vampire’s.”

Nick said, “Wow, really?  How do you protect your face and hands?”

She sighed.  “I’m joking.  The thought’s crossed your mind, though – hasn’t it?  That I look like a vampire?”

“Err … a little.  It’s a cool look though.  Dark and seductive, yet dangerous, I really like it.  Rawr.”

She looked into the back seat and stared at him for a moment.  She smiled with the most genuine, pleased smile I’d seen on her face to this point.  Granted, it looked a little dangerous too, since it showed that every tooth was pointed.  But you could tell she was actually pleased at the comment.

She said, “Err, yeah.  Okay.”  She was clearly uncomfortable replying to a compliment.

Zach found the park and drove to one of the parking lots that were currently unused.  We got out and Sandra released her shrinking hold on me.

I asked, “Is that permanent?”

“No, it depends on how long I have to focus on something and how near it is to me.  Biological material stays shrunk a shorter time too.  You’d have gone back to normal size within an hour.”

The gardens and spring foliage were really coming into bloom quickly here.  The rain of the past few days gave the flowers a lot to work with, and the ponds and fountains were all full.  I hadn’t gone to a park in some time – Zach was right, it did lighten my heart somewhat.

The park was generally zoned into sections, split by ponds, shrub and flower gardens.  We chose a zone that was out of the way and set down the supplies they’d picked up.

I wondered how much money they spent, they had some small model rockets, a bunch of packages of altimeters to gauge how high objects go, and Nick had brought his laptop to connect to the altimeters to watch the statistics.

I sat down in the grass and ran my metal fingers through it.  I still felt the blades touch my fingers, but it was different now.  The metal dampened the nerves so I didn’t feel as much texture as before.  Just for the hell of it I took my torn shoes off and set them to the side.  I wished I had on shorts and a half top to sit and feel the sun.

I held out my arm and closed my eyes, listening to the men go on about how they would do this or that test.  Sandra came over and sat next to me.

Without opening my eyes I quietly said, “Can you feel the sun on your skin?”

She replied, “I don’t have much skin showing, but it’s warming my leathers.  Hold on.”  I heard a button pop and opened my eyes to look at her.  Sandra took off her leather jacket and sat down next to me in her tank-top like shirt.  Her skin was rather pale.  Looking at her made me think of a succubus – a demoness that seduced men in the night – she was just missing the wings.

She continued, “Interesting, I
can
feel it.  I’d don’t even know the last time I laid out in the sun.  There’s no one out here to look at me.  It’s … odd.”

I said, “Yeah.  I can’t feel the sun anymore.”

“You mean the warmth of it on your skin?”

“Correct.”

Sandra sighed.  “I’m sorry to hear that you’re having issues, Chrome.  You’ll get through it.  Stick with us and at least you’ll be with people who understand you, and who have similar issues.  People like you and I – we need to stick together.  We’re family.”

Nick stopped over and said, “Whoa!  You’ve got some killer tattoos!  Glad to see you aren’t burning up in the sun, too.”  He winked at her.

She watched him walk back over to Zach to continue their work on the equipment.  The guys whispered for a while, I couldn’t pick out what they were saying.

She quietly said, “It’s rare to have a human not be afraid of me.  I wonder why Nick isn’t.”

I replied, “His friend isn’t, and he probably trusts Zach, or Grav’s judgment, so he’s included you on his mental friends list.”