Superheroes Anonymous (9 page)

“Oh.” Kiki looked puzzled as we both sat down, her at the desk, me on the cot. “You weren't brought here by your own consent?”

“I was unconscious.” Like I would be soon if I didn't eat, I thought. “I woke up here.”

Kiki set a clipboard on the desk and clicked her pen—­silver, I noted. “Yes, I heard you had a run-­in with some energy blasts. Which would explain the unconscious part.”

I shrugged. “It's becoming a habit.”

“You've been blacking out?” she asked.

“Constantly.”

“Hmm. We'll come back to that. I need to get some basics out of the way so that we can get the evaluation done properly. Let's see if we've got the facts correct, first. Full name is Gail Olivia Godwin, age, twenty-­six . . . weight is . . .” She frowned down at her clipboard and back at me. “That can't be right.”

“How do you know all of that?” I said, going cold. I pushed myself to my feet. I hadn't been weighed. That was private information, so how the hell were they getting it?

“We scanned your fingerprints and pulled your DMV records. Your last listed weight is dramatically different from your weight now.” She frowned again. “And sit down.” There was a suggestion, a hint to her voice that made the hair on the back of my neck prickle.

“You're telepathic?” I asked, not sitting down.

“Very minor.” She waved her hand flippantly. “Nothing serious. You don't need to worry about it.”

“I'm not worried.” Though I was. I'd never met a psychic villain who wasn't an absolute psychopath. I'd yet to meet any of the psychic heroes. Blaze had mostly had a monopoly on rescuing me.

“Stoic. I like it.” Kiki nodded her approval and turned back to her clipboard. “Tell me,” she said without looking up, “why are your listed weight and your physical weight so different?”

“It has to do with that blacking-­out problem I've been having, I think. I'm not sure. I'm having a hard time concentrating. Is there any food? I'm kind of hungry.”

On cue, my stomach rumbled loudly enough that Kiki's pen stopped. She swiveled in her chair to look at me.

“Okay, I'm really hungry.” I sighed. “It's been a crazy month.”

“Want to tell me about it?”

I sighed again. The hell of it was, I did want to tell her. I wanted to unload on somebody, even if it was a complete stranger like Kiki. So I told her about running into Naomi and how I'd woken up strapped to a metal table. I detailed what I could remember about my time with Dr. Mobius—­the flashbacks, the hallucinations, all of it. How I'd mysteriously been able to do over five hundred push-­ups. How I was always hungry.

“He said I was radioactive,” I said, “and that in a ­couple of months, I'd start to crave more of this solution, whatever it was. I'm an addict. And then he pushed me out of the car and there's not anything about him in the newspaper and I don't know what to do.”

“That would explain the radiation level in the room when we scanned it,” Kiki said, mostly to herself. On my panicked look, she smiled a bit. “Don't worry, we damp it down. I'll take a sample of your blood, of course, to confirm your story. For the record, I believe you. Dr. Mobius was in Detmer for months. We're not sure how he escaped, honestly. He may have had help—­and wasn't aware that you and Blaze were no longer, um, a thing. So his kidnapping you doesn't surprise me. His turning you into at least a Class C does.”

“I don't think he meant to. He wanted something to hold over Blaze's head.”

“Hmm.” Kiki set the clipboard down. “And how does that explain the muscles? You're quite built.”

“They came in overnight.” I remembered the five hundred push-­ups (well, six hundred if we were being technical), and barely resisted shuddering. “I'm told I was awake for the injection, but I don't remember any of it, so I don't know when, you know, I got these.” I flexed and watched my own biceps in fascination. It still felt a bit like my body belonged to a stranger.

“I see. Here's what we're going to do. We've got the testing room prepped for you now, so I'm going to take you inside and draw some of your blood so that we can analyze it. Then we'll do the physical tests. It won't hurt, but you'll be tired later.”

“Um, okay,” I said. “But can you feed me first?”

On cue, my stomach rumbled again.

Kiki laughed. “We can do that. Come this way.”

 

Chapter Nine

T
RU
E TO
K
IKI'S
word, they fed me. Kiki and Cooper sat down with me at a white table in the equally silver-­and-­white large testing room. Once I got over my nerves at Cooper being there—­he was just so gorgeous, but, I sensed after a while, completely taken. By Kiki—­I plowed through three turkey sandwiches and four bags of chips before Kiki went to get more.

“When did this change of metabolism start?” Cooper asked, as I reached for a dill pickle though I hated pickles.

“Since I woke up fully in Dr. Mobius's lair. I've been starving.” I bit into the pickle so emphatically that Cooper laughed.

After they'd fetched me enough food to tide me over, the tests began. They checked my heart rate and blood pressure, murmuring back and forth. I didn't bother to tell them I could hear them clearly.

When the usual tests had been completed (my leg kicked sky-­high during the reflexes test; Kiki had wisely stayed out of the way), Cooper crossed to the opposite wall and pressed a panel. A flat platform with a conveyor belt on it slid from the wall. Computer readings popped up on the wall in front of it, followed by a screen larger than my TV.

“We need to test your cardiovascular endurance,” Cooper said.

I looked from the treadmill to my boots. Hours ago, when I'd been about to explain to my coworkers why I hadn't been to work, they'd seemed like a good idea. If I'd known I would be fighting henchmen or running on a treadmill in an underground medical facility, I'd have picked something a little more comfortable. If preparedness was a virtue, I made for terrible Girl Scout material.

Kiki handed me a white sack embossed with the Davenport Industries logo in silver. “There's a changing room through there,” she said, pointing at the corner. “Just touch the wall panel: it'll open.”

When I emerged from the little box of the room, holding my own clothes and wearing the baggy Davenport T-­shirt and blue shorts, I felt like I was back in gym class. Even down to the whiteness of the sneakers on my feet.

“So what now?” I asked, eyeing the treadmill.

Cooper handed me a thin plastic strip with a cloth strap attached. “Go ahead and slip that under your shirt.”

“Just under your bra line,” Kiki added helpfully.

Shrugging, I gripped the hem of my shirt in my teeth while I followed instructions, trying not to flinch at the cool plastic (they'd wet it down).

When it was in place, Cooper gestured at the treadmill. “We'll start you off easy, and when I say go, I want you to press that button.” He gestured at a button on the panel in front of me.

I eyed it. “What's it do?”

“It makes you work harder. If you're anywhere near as masochistic as the rest of us, you'll learn to love it.”

Though I didn't think that was ever going to be the case—­I loathed running even more than I hated my job—­I nodded. And the test began. It started with an easy walk. The first push of the button changed that to a faster walk, then to a slow jog.

Cooper kept making me push the button until I was nearly sprinting to keep up with the treadmill. My breath scraped the insides of my lungs. The feeling of not being able to draw a deep enough breath always terrified me, which meant I'd never understood the runner's high. How could runners get past that numbing terror of what if the next breath wasn't going to be deep enough? What if the oxygen wasn't ever coming again?

I felt that terror and desperation pressing insistently against my chest and was about to call off the test, make it stop, make it stop. And something odd happened.

I took a deep breath.

I don't know if it was my lungs expanding or just the area in the back of my throat relaxing. But I took a breath, and another. My breathing began to match the pace. In through the nose, forceful exhalation out through the mouth. Repeat. Focused on that rhythm, I grew aware of other things about me.

The way my feet were hitting the treadmill, for instance. Stomping was more like it. Maybe I could vary my step, move more on the balls of my feet so that I didn't have to expend so much energy . . .

I felt my breath deepen even at that little change.

“Your heart rate has leveled,” I heard Cooper say, which put a hitch in my stride. I'd been so focused on my rhythm that I'd kind of forgotten he was there. “I figure you'll want some entertainment for this part.”

The screen in front of me lit up and seemed to expand and curl toward me. It surrounded me on three sides, like I was in a little running stall. When it activated, I raised my eyebrows. It really looked like I was running on the actual road.

“Neat,” I said.

“We'll be at this a while. Got any preferences?”

“For what?”

“Terrain. We've got sunrise in the desert, gritty urban scenes, cornfields, suburbs, beaches.” Cooper sounded amused.

“Uh, surprise me.”

Immediately, a sunrise began to paint the sky with streaks of pink and purple, to my left. I was running down a gloomily lit road in the middle of the desert, surrounded by miles and miles of gorgeous red sand. In the distance, there were shadows that I supposed were mesas though I'd never seen one in person before. The sun nudged its way up in the sky.

“Hydrate.” The bottle seemed to appear from nowhere. I grabbed it and took a long drink.

I noticed an immediate change. My body liked the water.

I don't know how much time passed, but I finally experienced my first runner's high, where I wanted to go faster and faster, and never stop. But the screen unfurled and moved back to the wall, and the treadmill began to slow. I blinked and slowed my stride to match.

“That's probably enough time to prove you've got endurance, Gail,” Cooper said, appearing at my side. “We'll bring you in sometime for a longer run and see how long you can go.”

“All right.” I shook my head to clear it. “What now? Three hours of weight lifting?”

“Not quite.” Cooper moved to where he could get a better look at the monitor, absently waving me off the treadmill. “Heart rate's good. You've adjusted to running better than any seasoned marathoner I've known. And you say you haven't run since . . . high school?”

“Since I had to get through the mile to pass gym,” I confirmed, swiping at my brow. “And even then, I barely earned that C.”

“Hmm.”

“Is there any food?”

Cooper turned, surprised. “Already?”

“I'm like a human furnace on high.” I said it sheepishly.

Over at the desk, Kiki nodded and began tapping away at the keyboard. Click, click, click. I scratched my ears at the noise. Had they always sounded that individual?

“This time,” Kiki said, “we'll go high on the protein. You'll need your strength, and plenty of energy.”

“Oh, goody. More running?”

“Not exactly. Food's on its way.”

Kiki rose and collected a black apron from its peg on the wall and helped Cooper into it. Though I wondered why he would possibly need an apron that looked like the lead covers dentists put on their patients during X-­rays, I didn't ask. I just wondered when the food was going to show. Standing still after my run was also proving to be a problem. I wanted to keep moving. I had liked the freedom.

“All right.” With the apron strapped around his impressive frame, Cooper moved to stand in front of me. Well away from Kiki and her desk, I noted. He spaced his feet hip-­distance apart, bracing himself. “Now,” he said, “this may freak you out a bit, but it's okay, I promise. I want you to hit me. Right here.”

He tapped a hand the size of a Christmas ham on his midsection.

“Um, I think that might break my hand.”

“My theory tells me that no, it won't break your hand.”

I looked hard at him. The apron he wore wasn't Kevlar. It looked like it was just heavy black cloth. But I was under no pretensions about the body beneath that polo shirt. “Dude, you're built like a rock.”

“Gail, you won't hurt yourself. Just go ahead and hit me, right here. As hard as you can. No pulling your punches.”

I thought fleetingly of the stunned look on Gary's face, his hand over his bleeding nose. A new fear began to nibble, not for my hand, but for Cooper.

So I looked up at him. “I hurt Chelsea's henchmen, and I wasn't even trying.”

“This is a little different.”

“It's okay, Gail,” Kiki said. “You can hit him.”

I swung my head to look at her. “I'm not going to hit your boyfriend, Kiki.”

Both of them froze. Puzzled, I listened to their heartbeats speed up, almost in sync. And wondered why I could hear heartbeats now.

Kiki jolted to her feet, and said, too quickly, “We're—­we're not dating! Where would you get that idea?”

I blinked back at both of them. It had seemed perfectly obvious to me. “You're not?”

“No, not at all,” Cooper said so fast that I figured the gentleman did protest a bit much.

Because they looked a bit like deer caught in the headlights, I raised my hands in a nonthreatening way. “Sorry. Guess I was wrong, then. My bad.”

“Girl,” and Kiki now sounded both a bit curious and strangled, “why did you think we were dating?”

“Um, vibes? I don't know.” I couldn't quite explain it. There'd been something subtle in the air that I couldn't have possibly explained. My gut had said they were dating, or at least were sexually involved, and I hadn't seen any reason to question it.

Cooper and Kiki shared a look that was significant to everybody in the room but me. “Pheromones?” he said.

“Sounds like. Oh, the geeks are going to have fun with her,” Kiki said.

“Standing right here,” I said.

“Right.” Cooper shot me a sunny grin. “You still need to hit me.”

“Sign a waiver first. I'm not kidding.”

“Gail. Just hit me.”

I sighed. At least, if I managed to do some serious damage, we weren't far from qualified medical professionals. I hoped. So I wound up with my right arm and swung it as hard as I could, right at his midsection. Midpunch, I felt my body adjust, driving power up from my legs and into my shoulder and arm. My wrist straightened out. And my fist drove right into black apron.

Thankfully, I did not punch through his stomach. Unfortunately, Cooper still went flying back. He landed with a resounding thud on the floor a few feet away.

I rushed over. “Are you okay? Damn it, you said I wouldn't hurt you!”

“Gail.” Kiki stepped up. “He's fine.”

And true to her word, Cooper sat up and dusted himself off. “That was fun,” was all he said, and popped up to his feet easily.

It didn't take a genius to put it together. “You're super-­powered!” I said, pointing an accusing finger at him.

“Guilty as charged.” Cooper looked amused. “Does that change anything?”

“No, I just wish I'd known that before I hit you!”

“Why? What would it change?”

I crossed my arms over my chest. “You could've spared me the trouble of worrying if I was going to punch my hand through you!”

Both he and Kiki roared with laughter. Eventually I joined in, as truth be told, it was a little funny. Cooper had looked genuinely surprised as he'd flown back. We were still laughing when the door beeped. My sense of smell, already sharpened, made my mouth water. And rendered Kiki's announcement of “That'll be the food, then,” absolutely pointless.

“We'll let you fuel up,” Cooper said, “before we run a ­couple of more tests, then let Psych take a crack at you. They should have fun breaking you down into little bitty pieces and building you back up.”

“Your pep talks kind of suck, just so you know,” I said, and dug into the steak like the starving woman I was.

M
UCH TO MY
surprise, Vicki Burroughs was waiting for me outside Psych once I'd been cleared though I had no idea exactly what that meant. They'd bundled me into a white polo shirt not unlike those the medical workers wore, and similar blue pants, and said my mentor would be waiting for me outside. To do what, I had no idea.

So I found Vicki, slouching comfortably against the wall opposite the door. She'd changed from the black catsuit to jeans and a baby-­doll tee. Her feet, surprisingly, were bare, her toenails painted a stunning gold color.

“Wow, they really put you through your paces,” she said, straightening. “You were in there forever.”

“Who's they?” I asked. “What are you doing here? And what is this place?”

“Wow, lots of questions. C'mon, we'll walk and talk. Since you rank at least Class C clearance, you netted yourself a suite.” Mercifully, Vicki slowed down her ground-­devouring strides so that my shorter legs could keep pace.

I still had to walk pretty fast, but I didn't mind. They'd fed me pretty continually, and even better, they'd finally explained the class system everybody had been buzzing about since I'd arrived at Davenport. No powers were Class D—­like I had been—­and from then on, each individual power (of which they'd catalogued over fifty) was rated on a scale from A to C. Powers were apparently averaged to give somebody an overall class. Most of the heavy hitters were Class A or B, and that included Blaze.

I hadn't dared ask about him. I wasn't sure I wanted to know, but Kiki had mentioned it in an offhand way.

“Congratulations,” Vicki said as we walked down the hall. “You've now become part of the superhero elite, as it goes. That's Davenport Industries. They're kind of an umbrella organization that protects us, give us a haven, whatever. A lot of us live here full-­time. Trust me, you wouldn't want to see what would happen if some of us tried to live in society. Not pretty.” She gave a dramatic shudder.

“I thought Davenport was into real estate and, like, everything,” I said.