Super (Book 2): Super Duper (6 page)

Even though I was sore, I walked Ella home from
the gym. I don’t even know why I was sore. I hadn’t done
anything but run for three minutes and then fall on my face.
But the experience was enough for me to realize I didn’t
want anything else to do with the gym. I wasn’t cut out for
it. I’d have to take whatever Miss Fine had to dish out with
whatever I had on hand.

As I walked down the sidewalk to the train, I pulled
out my phone to check my messages. Scrolling past the three
texts from my mom about the family picture that I didn’t care
about, I saw a message from my friend Mellie asking me to
hang soon. We did get much time together and last time she
had to bail because her boyfriend had planned something. I
texted back “yes” in all caps.

I also had a voicemail. That was weird. My outgoing
voicemail specifically said for callers
not
to leave messages
because I’d never listen to them and deleting them was a pain.
I hit the voicemail speed dial and held the phone to my ear.
After the usual prerecorded stuff, I heard a voice that made
my heart trip on its own beat.

“Hello, Audrey. This is Miss Fine, your auditor. Meet
me at the Brooklyn Bridge Friday at midnight. We’ll test your
field skills then. By the way, you’re still past due on your
Council dues. I suggest you make this a priority.”

All Supers are not created equal. Those who do well
in school and on the tests get good assignments. If you’re
really good, your assignment coincides with your alter ego.
This means that the Council places you in a job or position
where you can do Super work as a part of your everyday life.
It makes balancing everything a lot easier. My sister and my
parents all had this type of assignment. None of them had to
do patrols or handle street crime.

But for us Supers who don’t do so well on those things,
we get simple district assignments. Brooklyn was my district.
Me and some other Supers were assigned to fight chaos and
promote order there. I didn’t know the exact number. It’s not
like we spent holidays together. My assignment was just to
spend as much time there, keeping order. Not preventing
assassinations, invasions, or the world blowing up. Think
more catching muggers, robbers, and street vandals. I had no
set schedule and I only got notices to go to certain locations
when the Council gave them. I was completely independent
as long as my district crime stats didn’t dip.

Unfortunately, I hadn’t been doing many Super patrols
lately. Between all of my personal drama earlier that year, I
just hadn’t had time to be that effective. And my numbers had
been getting progressively worse since spring, according to
the many Council notices I’d been ignoring before my audit.
Now I had to prove to Miss Fine that I could be effective on
the streets.

I spent Friday helping Mr. Kortis figure out which one
of his floorboards were squeaking and then trying eliminate
that squeaking. I also painted the hall on the stairway to the
basement because someone had drawn on it with crayon. I
suspected the Phams but I had no proof. I ate dinner early
and then took a nap to prepare for my appointment with
Miss Fine.

When I woke up, I quickly dressed in black jeans and
a black hoodie. I had a Super suit that my parents bought me
for graduation. But with its molded armor and cape, that was
for high concept stuff so I rarely wore it. I’d stick out like a
sore thumb if I wore it on the Brooklyn Bridge.

Walking up the stone stairs to the bridge, I imagined
all the Super shifts I’d done over the years. I’d gone to all sorts
of places that might need someone to keep back the chaos—
shopping centers, concerts, festivals, etc. I’d been to all of
those places but I hadn’t really experience them. I was always
on duty.

The Brooklyn Bridge was a huge tourist attraction. It
connected Manhattan to Brooklyn and offered beautiful land
and water views. It was generally packed during the days
on weekends and it saw its fair share of traffic at night. On
this Friday night, the paths in both directions had a steady
stream of people walking and people on bikes zoomed down
the center lanes. I walked for a bit and then sat down on a
bench. I didn’t know where to meet Miss Fine but I assumed
she would find me.

I’d gone on plenty of Super shifts where nothing
happened. I had walked around a neighborhood or outdoor
concert for hours waiting to come up on something—to get
that little niggling feeling in the bottom of my stomach that
something wasn’t right—only to come up with nothing. But
other times, I wouldn’t even be looking for trouble. It found
me.

About a half an hour into waiting for Miss Fine, a girl
walked past me and I immediately got that feeling in the
bottom of my stomach. She didn’t look like trouble but my
eyes involuntarily followed her as she walked by. She was
petite with long dark blond hair. Her size said that she could
have been either a small adult or a teenager. She was wearing
a pair of skinny jeans and a short sleeved shirt. The girl’s arms
were crossed, like she was trying to protected them from the
cool autumn night. I stood up and followed her along the
pathway.

She wasn’t paying attention to anyone. I didn’t notice
her make eye contact with any of the other people strolling
the bridge that night. She didn’t notice me following her.

The girl was walking quickly to the center the bridge.
When she reached the commemorative sign that marked
the halfway point between Manhattan and Brooklyn, she
stopped and kissed it. And then she climbed on the railing of
the Brooklyn Bridge and stepped over the edge.

“Stop!” The girl looked at me for the first time. Some
people that happened to be in hearing distance of us turned
to us, too. I heard a few people yell out, too, screaming that
there was a jumper and calling for someone to call 911.

But the girl kept her eyes on me. She didn’t say anything
until I rushed to the railing. “No.” It came out quietly and
defiantly. I might not have heard it if I hadn’t been so close to
her. But I ignored her and climbed over the railing to stand
beside. Only then did I realize how thin the edge was.

When I heard my voice, I was worried by the shakiness
in it. “Please. Don’t jump.”
She shook her head. “Leave me alone.” Her voice was
so calm in comparison to mine.
“No! Get back on the bridge.” I started scooting closer
to her.
She swatted at me. “Go away! Let me be!”
But I kept moving closer. When I got close enough,
I reached out to her while trying to keep my balance on the
edge and my grip on the railing. People had gathered nearby
but they seemed scared to come any closer. From the looks on
their faces, I could tell they didn’t know what was going on,
whether I was chasing her or saving her.
Now that I was right next to her, I reached out and
placed my hand on the girl. She tried to wiggle away from it
but gave up. There wasn’t really any room to move anyway.
She stopped struggling and just pleaded. “Please, just let me
go.”
I shook my head. “I can’t.” Then I turned to the small
crowd of people forming nearby. “Please help us!” A man ran
forward. I held the girl close to the railing while he reached
over. Another man joined him and together they pulled the
girl back over the railing, her body limp like a life sized doll.
When she was safely back on the bridge, the men
turned their attention to me. As I reached out to the hands
offered to me and raised my right left to climb over, my left
food slipped. In one instant, I was on the side of the Brooklyn
Bridge after midnight. In the next instant, I was falling
through the air three hundred feet down into the East River.
In the moment I realized I was falling, a single thought
ricocheted through my brain.
Shit
,
I can’t swim.

I technically don’t know if I can die. I suppose I can.
Regenerating Supers that came before me have died. At the
time I fell off the Brooklyn Bridge, the common theory was
that if one of my vital organs were separated from my body, I
wouldn’t heal. Or maybe I’d die of old age when my body just
finally wore out from all the years of taking bumps, bruises,
and burns.

The first thought that I had when I opened my eyes was
Well, at least I know I can survive downing.
My second thought
was that I hurt so bad that I wish I had died. I lifted my head
and looked around. Behind me was what I assumed was the
East River. Ahead of me was the shore. I couldn’t tell if I was
on the Brooklyn side or the Manhattan side. But I felt like I’d
been hit by a truck.

“Finally.” I followed the direction the voice came from.
There was Miss Fine, sitting primly on a rock, scribbling on
her clipboard.

“What?” My brain couldn’t wrap around the fact that
she was there. How long had she been there? How had she
known this is where I’d be? Did she pull me out of the water?

She didn’t look up from her writing. “You need to
regenerate more quickly?”
I stood up. I was soaking wet and filthy. Water was
streaming down my face and down my head. I was probably
going to grow a second head from being exposed to the most
polluted waterway within twenty miles. But I couldn’t think
about that right now. I needed to understand what was going
on here. “I didn’t know I could control it, actually. I heal
when I heal.”
Miss Fine didn’t stop writing. She just shook her
forehead and continued taking notes.
“Hey, what’s your first name?”
That stopped her. She looked at me. “Excuse me?”
“What’s your first name? What do your friends and
family call you? It can’t be Miss Fine?”
“You should be more concerned with your dismal
showing up there, Audrey.”
“What do you mean?! I saved that girl. She didn’t
jump. I fell but I’m fine. I may have swallowed a used condom
floating in that river but I’m gonna live,” I added.
“No, you failed to deliver that girl disturbing the peace
up there. Instead, you fell and let her get away. And then you
took too long to regenerate.” She was talking with her hands
and her nostrils were flaring. It was the most animated I’d
ever seen her.
“So you’re saying that the right thing to do was to
make sure she got back on the bridge and then make sure
she got arrested? That was the objective? You’re crazy! You
have no idea what you’re talking about!” I was shouting now.
If someone could hear me from the path above us, I didn’t
even care. “You’ve probably never even been in the field. All
you know how to do is write notes and nitpick at the people
actually doing the work!”
By now Miss Fine was a bright red and she was shouting
as loud as I was. “I know that you aren’t Super material. You
botched this test tonight and you
still
haven’t paid your dues!
It’s been years since you were current, if ever.”
The Council dues had always been a challenge for me.
Between my personal expenses and my inability to keep a
job, I just never could catch up. But I had made some progress
earlier that year. “Hey, I paid off a big chuck this summer. I’m
more paid up than I’ve ever been.”
In the meantime, Miss Fine had regained her
composure. She smoothed her hair down, adjusted her
trench coat, and secured her pen to her clipboard. “None
of that matters. There are two options on the forms: Paid or
delinquent. And you’re delinquent. Good night, Audrey.” She
turned her back to me and started to make her way through
the rocky shore and up to the walkway.
I waited for her to disappear from sight. Only then did
I start to walk home, wet, tired, and defeated.

That night, I dreamed that I was chasing flying dollar
bills down the street with a net. For most of the dream, I
couldn’t catch up with them but I eventually caught a few.
But as soon as I did, a big black monster ran up behind me
and ripped them from my hands. When I screamed in terror,
the monster yelled back at me “DUUUUUUEEEESSSSS!!!”

I didn’t need to pay a psychiatrist two hundred dollars
an hour to tell me what that was all about.
I woke up with dry mouth, wild hair, and feeling like I
had been hit by a truck. It was two thirty before I tumbled out
of bed and remembered the disaster of last night. I fed Crash
and remembered that I didn’t have any food for me to eat.
And I needed to talk to my dad.
When I was a kid, my parents were still doing Super
work. Their assignments gave them mostly office hours but I
remember that they worked a lot. Mom was assigned to the
New York Public Library, which suited her and her knowit-allness just fine. And Dad was embedded as a firefighter.
When I realized that I had inherited my power from him,
I thought maybe I would follow in his footsteps. That was
before I realized how much running he had to do.
They retired around the same time and Mom started
doing volunteer work and committee stuff, which kept her
just as busy as when she was working. Dad, on the other
hand, treated retirement completely different. He spent most
of his time hanging out with old buddies, watching TV, and
just doing whatever he wanted.
As usual, Mom was out and about and Dad was
watching some show on the History Channel about weapons.
“Dad,” I heard myself say. “Do you ever think it’s weird that
we do all of this work as Supers and spend our whole lives
in service to the Council and we don’t even get paid for it?”
“No.”
I glanced at him from the side of my eye. “Just no?”
“No, because it’s not about money. And we’re not
doing it for the Council. We’re doing it for all the people who
can’t do it.”
He was repeating things that I had heard all my life.
Justice. Order. All of that. But I wasn’t in the mood to hear it.
“But civilians don’t even care that we do it. They don’t even
know about it.”
Dad sighed. “It doesn’t matter. It’s not about those
things. If it were, it would be a job. But it’s more than that. It’s
a calling. You do what you can. You win some and you lose
some. And then when it’s your time, you move on. It’s not
that complicated, Audrey.”
Easy for you to say, I thought.
He stood up and stretched. “You want a sandwich?”
Maybe he could hear my stomach growling. I followed him
into the kitchen and watched him put the food together.
“How much money do you need?”
I frowned. Sure, I was there to borrow money. But I
wasn’t ready to admit that yet. “What do you mean?
Dad rolled his eyes as he added an extra piece of
cheese to my sandwich. “Come on. I’ve known you a long
time, Audrey. I used to wipe your butt. I know what you look
like when you need something.” He pointed to the food. “I’m
already feeding you. You don’t need to move back in because
you get your apartment with your job.” He paused. “Wait.
Did you get fired again?”
“No!” It was a fair question. I’d been fired a lot over
the years. But I was still offended. “It’s probably the best job
I’ve ever had.”
Dad handed me the sandwich. “So why do you need
money?”
I took a bite and chewed slowly to prolong what I had
to say as long as possible. Finally, I swallowed. “I need money
to pay my Council dues.”
“Again?”
My parents had given me money earlier that year for
my dues. When I got evicted from my last apartment, I’d finally
confessed to them what a mess I was in with everything. I’d
been losing jobs consistently because I was having a hard time
balancing them with being a Super, which put me behind on
my bills—rent, car insurance, dues, etc. Being behind on my
car insurance meant that when my car disappeared, it was
just gone. Behind on my rent meant I had to move back in
with my parents for the summer. And being behind on my
dues was part of the reason I got audited.
“I used that money for some of the past dues and I gave
some to my old landlord so he wouldn’t sue me for eviction.”
“What about the money you made this summer
working at Cranky’s? We let you stay here rent so you
could put money aside and you didn’t need it for your new
apartment.”
“I did use that to pay the rest of the money to my old
landlord. And since I got the new super job, I’ve been doing
a lot better. I got caught up on my bills,” I said, starting to list
all of them. “I paid my fines for getting arrested last year. I
paid off all of my old parking tickets. I paid by back balance
to Bank of America and they let me open another account. I
actually have a bank account now, Dad.” Even I could hear
how high my voice was getting.
He raised his hand up in a stop motion. “OK, OK, OK.
How much money do you need?”
I repeated the number that Miss Fine had given me.
Dad took another bite of his sandwich and walked out of the
room. He came back with his checkbook and a pen. “This is a
loan, Audrey. You have three months to pay me back for this.
And if you don’t, I’ll tell your mother it was you who broke
that porcelain figurine she had on the mantel.”
It took me a half of second to realize that he was talking
about something I’d broken as a kid while I was throwing a
ball in the house I’d been specifically told not to throw in the
house. Mom had been livid and Dad had taken the fall for
me. “That was twenty years ago!”
“And if you think
that
matters to your mother, this must
be your first day in the family,” he shrugged. “I’m going to
make this out to the Council because I want this to go directly
to the Council, Audrey. Not paying your dues can get you in
big trouble.” He ripped the check off of the book and handed
it to me. “You don’t want to end up audited or in jail do you?”
I stuffed the check into my pocket and said with what I
hoped was a straight face. “No, I wouldn’t want that.”
“I know I don’t have any appointment but I know how
important it is to get this paid.”
I was standing in the doorway of Miss Fine’s office. I’d
gone there straight from my parents’ place, taking a chance
that she’d be in the office on a Saturday. She seemed like the
type of person who would work on Saturdays.
I could have mailed the check. I could have gone to
the accounting office, which was two floors down from the
auditing department, and made the payment. It would have
been credited to my account within hours.
But for some reason, I wanted to put that check in her
hands. I wanted to see her face when she saw that I had taken
care of the back Super dues. I wanted to see how she looked
when I got an unequivocal win from her.
Miss Fine didn’t offer me a seat. In fact, she didn’t
say anything. Her face didn’t register any emotion at all. She
just took the check from my outstretched hand and looked
at it silently. Then she turned it over and inspected the back.
Finally, she looked me right in the eye, and ripped the check
into as many pieces as she could.
“What the fuck are you doing?!”
Miss Fine calmly swept the pieces of the check into
the trash can under her desk. “Audrey, your Council dues are
not for your parents to pay. They are for you to pay. These
payments are your contribution to the cause.”
“But it’s not against the rules for my parents to help me
with them. It doesn’t matter where the money comes from,”
I pointed out.
“True,” she agreed. “But it should be. Your lack of
responsibility with these dues is just one symptom of the
overall disease. You don’t care about your oath. You don’t care
about the community enough to help shoulder the burden of
financing it. You don’t care about anything but yourself.”
Miss Fine stood up and took a step toward me. “You’ve
slid through life without any consequences, Audrey. I don’t
know how but I know it’s going to end here. Consider your
audit over. I’ll see you at your hearing.”