“That’s fucking insane, man.” Odie exclaimed.
“You’re not going to agree to it, are you?” John asked at the same time Odie spoke.
Gar didn’t say much of anything. He just gave me concerned looks. I sat down in my chair and felt a heavy weight fall upon my shoulders. Each of the guys stared at me with a mixture of excitement and disappointment in their eyes.
For the first time in the entire two weeks that I’d been gone, I started to feel ensnared once again. I began to miss my parents. My friends and family. My nice warm bed. I began to miss the misery I felt every morning knowing that I was trapped in a slow demise.
I missed waking up seeing the sadness behind my parents eyes. I missed talking to my friends and knowing that behind every laugh, behind every fun moment was a monumental amount of sadness.
This was a prison of life. The tradeoff of getting to live a full and happy life is that I’ll be chained to these monsters for the entirety of it. I’ll never get to see my parents again. I’ll never see my friends again. I’ll spend every waking hour trying to gain power for a family of inhuman monsters. I saw the feigned looks of distress on the faces of the people around me.
I saw the glimmers of excitement in their eyes as they realized they had their hooks in me. I felt the hooks caught beneath my skin, much like the needles of the suit. Just as the suit found itself bonded to my body, soon these freaks would find their ‘family’ bonded to my life. I could see the sun start to rise through the window at the back of the apartment. And I felt something within me stir.
“I already agreed to it. With one condition.” I said plainly, trying to gather my rushing thoughts.
“Seriously!?” Odie yelled, aghast.
“What was the condition?” John asked. Gar just shook his head, his expression unreadable. He crossed his arms and headed back to his room. I heard the door shut.
“Well, spit it out!” Odie slapped my knee.
“They have to help me get rid of this new supervillain, and get rid of Polybius permanently.” I replied. They both fell silent and stared at me. To my surprise it was John who replied first.
“You’ve made a mistake.” He said as he stood up and left the apartment.
…
Mar watched the boy with black hair walk through the crowd. Mar hadn’t had a good night’s rest for two weeks. At most she’d slept for three hours a night. It was horrible, fitful sleep. Full of nightmares about shape shifting monsters, cement monsters, and other assorted monsters. Her nights were full of thoughts about her friend Jacob. Where he had gone.
If he was okay. If he was even still alive. Despite the mask Jacob liked to show the world, he was as fragile as glass. A few days of stress away from shattering completely. And Mar knew deep inside that it was her job to help save him.
Mar had first met Jacob in fourth grade, and he pretended to hate her from the beginning. He would insult her, ignore her, or threaten her. He was a hateful, spiteful little boy. But Mar was stubborn and knew that deep down he had something other than spite in him. He warmed up to her a little as the years went by, but was only in sixth grade did she finally see beneath his mask of hate.
He was sitting in the corner of the playground underneath the shade of a tree. He had just gotten his second cancer diagnosis. He was just sitting there, staring into space, holding himself. He hadn’t even noticed her approach.
She sat down next to him and held his head on her shoulder. No one else on the playground had even seen him, or cared at all that he was off by himself. He started to shake as she held him. It was the only time she’d ever seen Jacob cry. The first four days after the bank event she had gotten only an hour of sleep.
Then on the fifth day she saw Jacob on the news. He was stealing military gear with those Platinum goons. He was way, way off the deep end. But at least he was still alive. Which meant that Danny was probably alive somewhere too. Polybius wasn’t holding them in some torture cell somewhere. Which was all Mar needed for a few nights of sleep.
But then she was right back to worrying. Worry, worry, worry. She pulled out hair and nearly had an aneurysm from stressing about her two friends. Emily was locked at home crying herself to sleep at night over it. Mar was completely and utterly alone. Mar decided to take matters into her own hands. She decided she needed to do something about all of this.
Or she’d go insane. For a week and a half, she’d spent most of her days and nights in the city looking for Jacob. Watching him from a distance. Following his every move. Waiting for him to be alone so she could convince him to come back. This was her moment. He was right here, away from those guys. He wasn’t wearing his goofy suit. He was just by himself walking through the crowd in broad daylight. All she had to do was grab him, force him to face reality. As she followed behind the boy with the long dark messy hair, guilt crept through Mar’s mind.
If only she had done this weeks ago. If she had let Jacob know from the beginning that she was here for him. Then maybe he would never have ran off in the first place. She was just too distracted by things that didn’t matter, too weak a person to see just how much her friend was suffering. She needed to be stronger for him.
Mar almost gasped from excitement as she finally caught up to him. She grabbed him by the shoulder and whirled him around. It took her a second to realize the mistake she’d made. It wasn’t Jacob. The hands grabbed her from behind and pulled her, screaming and thrashing, into the back of a van. No one in the crowd did or said a thing. Mar wasn’t strong enough.
…
I awoke the following morning. I went to the tiny bathroom of the apartment and began to brush my teeth. I looked at the dark circles under my eyes, my messy black hair, and my rabid looking toothpaste covered face. After spitting and gurgling and going through all of the motions, I continued to look at myself. And I gave my face in the mirror the nastiest, ugliest, most monstrous snarl I could muster.
I changed quickly and made my way to the elevator, then down to where my lab was situated. Officially the bank labeled it as part of their R&D department, but in reality it was a way for me to fix up my suit, and test out any ideas I had. All of my money I gained from the missions he sends me on is spent on any materials I ask for.
In the past twelve days I’d already started on new suit designs, new smileys, and ideas for grappling hook guns for the guys. I’d even talked to Alistair about stealing the green slime so that I could replicate it.
I’d also been using the lab as storage for bits and pieces I took off of the supervillains I fought. I had some dust from Cement Suit I was trying to study, tiny bits of metal from the Matter Chameleon, slime left by Proxy, and the dead dinosaur I had collected. I entered the passcode for my lab, and the door slid open slowly. I frowned as I saw that Casper was directing three men on where to put various equipment.
The room was filled with boxes. My lab had been cut in half, and all of my equipment, notes, and materials had been slid over to the left side of the room. The right was filled with boxes and the desks and tables were being filled with Casper’s things.
The white board on the back wall split the room down the middle, and it had been freshly erased. The only thing that had been unmoved was my dead dinosaur, which was stiff in a plastic tub on Casper’s side of the room. Seemed she wanted to study it for herself.
“Honey I’m home?” I said as I knocked on the wall to get their attention. Casper eyes lit up. The three men seemed to ignore me for the most part.
I recognized them as the three Irish mercenaries from the bridge a few weeks ago. Dion must’ve taken them on as his entourage. I approached Casper with my face locked in a frown.
“Is this how it’s going to be from now on?” I asked the question more to myself than to her.
“Sorry, Alistair gave me the go ahead to start using the lab. I didn’t know no one informed you.” She apologized to me. She sounded genuine enough.
“Whatever. Good morning.” I sighed as I turned to my half of the lab.
“It’s two in the afternoon.” She replied, behind me.
“Yeah, morning.” I said. She walked over to where I was working. I sucked in a deep breath.
Now we begin.
“What did Alistair mean, when he was talking about you marrying me would bring power to the family?” I asked Casper.
“Well you remember my powers, right?” She asked.
“Inventing things?” I answered.
“Right, well every Daedalus is good with technology. But you’re not a Daedalus, or a Platinum at all, and you’re already amazing with technology.” She explained.
“So they think that our kids will be even more powerful than a normal Daedalus?” I made eye contact with her as I answered. Her orange eyes glowed.
“Exactly.” She replied with a slight smile. “They don’t tell you much about the family, do they?” She asked.
“Nope. I don’t even know Alistair or his sibling’s powers.” I said. She took the bait almost immediately.
“Well that’s easy. They’re part of the telekinetic branch, but they’re in the Midas family. Which means they can only move a specific material with their mind.” She replied gleefully. “Alistair’s material is iron and iron alloys such as steel. Serena’s is water, and Dion’s is wood.”
So they’re limited in the material they can move. But they can do a lot with those materials.
“So where are you from?” Casper asked me before I could ask my next question.
I’m the one who started the game of twenty questions, might as well humor her.
“I’m from a small town a couple miles away from the bridge.” I answered truthfully. Nothing too personal about me she can find out from just that.
“Do you have any siblings?” She asked next.
“No, I was an only child.” I said through gritted teeth.
“I’m sorry. That sounds incredibly lonely. I was one of thirteen kids.” She said with pity.
Horrifying, your kind shouldn’t be allowed to breed.
“So you have to earn your way into your own family?” I asked.
“Well, it kind of works like nobility. I was born out of wedlock, by a Platinum without powers, so I have to prove myself before they let me in. Serena had to do the same thing.” She explained.
“Yeah, because she’s only Alistair’s half sister? Was she also a bastard?” I asked. Casper nodded.
“I wouldn’t call her that to her face.” She said, deadly serious. “But yeah. Rumor is she was the product of incest, because some Platinums think it makes their kid’s powers stronger.” She continued.
“That’s awful.” I replied.
“Yeah, I’m not sure how accurate those rumors are though. She certainly doesn’t like talking about things like that.” She said.
“Have you taken a look at the dinosaur in the to-go box yet?” I changed the subject.
“Oh yeah. I’ve been analyzing it all morning. I think I’ve gotten a solid understanding of what it is.” She said with sudden professionalism.
“What is it?” I asked. The slight smile on her face grew into a sort of grin.
“Well to start: it isn’t a dinosaur. It’s a biologically modified construct created using synthetic DNA. I’ve made similar ones, but it took a long time and a lot of nutrients, and a surplus of biological material. This one is top notch work, and I’d love to meet whoever created it.” She explained.
It takes lots of nutrients and biological material to create. Which means he’s probably using the corpses of the people he kills to feed whatever he’s using to create these.
Which means next time around he’ll have more. Thank God it wasn’t a real dinosaur though. That’d just be weird.
Like this totally isn’t.
“Do you want to help me with a secret project? You can’t tell anyone else about it though.” I asked her.
“Sounds exciting.” She said with a big smile.
Suddenly I felt much better knowing there was someone around here capable of keeping up with me. I felt a little less alone.
