“That’s the trouble with these open-source jungles,” said Dave, kicking at the sand under his feet and all around him. “No fucking tech support, and the docs suck.”

(Flash fiction: five minutes.)

The residents of Alamogordo felt the creature before they saw or heard it. It sent seismic waves rippling through the ground of the city, struggling and pounding as it did against its prison. For half an hour the creature hammered at the concrete ceiling until a crack formed; then it focused all of its power on the crack, widening it until with a sickening crunch the ceiling shattered, falling around the creature and exposing it to the light of the sun.

The creature looked around and gasped for breath, though it didn’t need the air. It stood for the first time, craned its neck and surveyed the land. Then it began stomping toward the nearby city.

Meanwhile, a task force had been assembled in Alamogordo; this included Major General Franklin Harper from Holloman Air Force Base, Mayor Roberto Colón of Alamogordo, and Honoka Sato, chairman of the Warner Bros. Corporation. Most of the task force was shouting at each other ineffectually, but these three stood at a window, side by side. “The 49th is at your disposal, gentlemen,” said General Harper, as the three leaders looked out over the Alamogordo desert. “If you think it poses a threat.”

Colón nodded. “We’ll take all the help we can get, General, and thank you for it.”

Sato, however, said, “No, General, Mayor… we will take care of it.”

“Warner Bros.? How?”

Sato smiled. “We have our ways.”

As the creature lumbered toward the city, an armored truck drove out to meet it. Atop the truck was a megaphone, and inside was Dan Sultzmann, one of Warner Bros.’ best publicists. The creature stopped as it saw the truck, and looked quizzically at it. “Phone… home?”

The megaphone blared. “You were home. You must go back.”

“No. Phone… home.”

“No. Go back. Home is there.”

The creature looked over its shoulder at the crumpled concrete. “Home?”

“Home.” Dan nodded as though the creature could hear him. “Go home.”

“Oh,” said the creature, and then, “No. Phone real home.” It reached down and swatted the truck aside with a hand made strong by plastic, metal, and alpha radiation.

In the tower, Sato blanched as she saw the creature brush the truck aside and continue. “Well, Chairman,” said the general, “I suppose perhaps we’ll be needing the 49th after all?”

Sato nodded silently.

(Five-minute flash fiction.)

An angry voice bellowed forth from the one-way window overhead: “YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG!” Sirene looked up and grimaced, then returned her attention to the ball in front of her. With quick, practiced movements, she flung it against the button on the far side of the room, dove out of the way as it rebounded to the button behind her, and completed her roll through the portal as the door scissored open and closed again in quick succession.

She could hear the ball bouncing to a stop in front of her as she picked up the stick from where it lay next to the door and used it to reach across the pit in front of her – not bottomless, but deep enough to stymie her if she fell in. The end of the stick pressed a third button and a ledge sprang from the far edge of the pit, reaching just to the near side and then beginning to retract back.

Sirene stepped onto the ledge and let it retract under her, moving along with its trailing edge until she heard the metallic thump and felt the jolt that indicated that the ledge had set into its position. Again the door in front of her swung open, and she leapt through it. The end of her stick was caught in the door and pulverized as it swung closed again behind her.

“You could have done it all with the ball,” said the angry voice. “The stick was unnecessary.”

Sirene just shrugged. Catching the ball again would have cost her valuable moments, and the stick was there after all.

The angry voice sighed. “Start again.” Sirene felt the familiar tingle as the matter displacer picked up her signal and replaced her at the beginning of the maze. “This time, put some effort into it.”

Phileas Fogg looked at his pocket-watch, then out the window of the hotel where he and Passepartout were staying. “How long is it?”

“Seventy-eight days. Only another two, sir,” said Passepartout, who was sitting on the bed and shining Fogg’s shoes for lack of anything better to do.

“I’ll hang the lot of them for this. ‘Precisely eighty days’ indeed.” Fogg kicked the wall, loosing a cloud of dust from the curtain.

“We could at least take in the landscape, sir.”

“Honestly, Passepartout – after India and the American West, is there really any charm in Surrey?”

Rob yawned and hit the snooze button on his alarm clock to shut it up. He sat up and blinked the sleep from his eyes, switching the clock’s alarm off and back on again before he swung his legs out of bed and jumped down from his upper-bunk mattress. His roommate Dylan muttered something incomprehensible and rolled over in the lower bunk. Rob looked at Dylan for a moment to make sure he was still asleep, and then pulled on his jeans, a hooded sweatshirt, and a pair of sneakers. A quick double-check of the clock – still just after five in the morning – and Rob picked up the duffel bag he’d set up last night and went out the door, closing it quietly to avoid waking his roommate fully.

Lockhart Hall was silent at this early hour – and appropriately so, given its quiet hours – and so Rob imagined that his every step, squeaking on the old linoleum, would draw attention that he didn’t want. Objectively, he knew that the slight sounds from his sneakers would almost certainly not wake anyone up, but he also knew that Mark’s experiment yesterday might have drawn attention that Rob didn’t want, and he wanted to make sure that his own experiments weren’t observed.

Once he got into the stairwell, Rob figured that a little more noise wouldn’t wake anyone from here, and so he sprinted up the stairs to the roof. He was surprised, when he arrived at the top floor, to find that he was barely out of breath; yesterday he and Mark had both been winded when they reached the top. The door to the roof was locked, just as it had been in Stendel Hall, but this time Rob grasped the knob with one hand and turned it, increasing the torque with each passing moment until the lock gave way and the bolt slid smoothly over. He made a mental note to make an anonymous donation to common billing, and then pushed the door out and stepped into the morning darkness.

A few hours remained before sunrise, so the only lights on campus were the walkway lamps and a few bright windows where students were already pulling all-nighters. Rob closed the door behind him and looked around to make sure that nobody had followed him, then pulled the “yardstick” he’d built last night out of the duffel bag. Rob had reinforced a tri-fold cardboard display along its width in the rear and marked it on the front in centimeters and meters. Now, on the roof, he oriented the display vertically, and propped it up on a book holder so that it would stay upright. He stood back, nodded at his handiwork, and pulled a digital camera out of the bag. After setting it up on the far side of the roof, pointed at the “yardstick”, he pocketed the infrared shutter remote and walked back over to the display. He took a deep breath, and lifted off, pushing himself as high as he could go.

When he couldn’t get any farther, Rob pushed the button on the shutter remote and listened for the click of the camera. He dropped to the ground, then repeated the process twice. Then he headed over to the camera and reviewed the photographs he’d taken. The camera established that Rob had been able to rise a little more than a meter all three times, although the exact height varied from 104 to 109 centimeters – and the height grew with each repetition. “Fascinating,” he said, double-checking the images to make sure that he wasn’t in error. He wrote down the heights in his pocket notebook, repositioned the camera so that it was once again aiming at the height scale, and walked back over to the measure.

This time, when he rose off the ground – making sure to take a photograph when he was at his apex – he closed his eyes and imagined that he was on the roof again, instead of floating more than a meter above it. He spent nearly five minutes establishing that he was just imagining the sensation of hovering, took another photograph, and then tried to hover again; when he could go no farther, he took another photograph, and then released himself. Gravity took hold and he landed on the roof with more force than he’d expected; his legs went out from under him and he landed on his backside. Rob got up and brushed himself off, then walked back to the camera. This time, the result was plain: he had reached 110 centimeters on his first ascent, stayed there for the entire five minutes, and then rose past the top of the meter. He decided that he’d probably be able to extend the meter in Photoshop to make an accurate assessment, but at a guess, the second ascent – when he’d convinced himself that he wasn’t flying – had put him at well over two meters, probably by another thirty centimeters.

“So it’s a psychological block,” said Rob, and headed back to the measure for a third try. This time, he kept his eyes on the measure and willed himself upward. He passed the one-meter mark easily, and only stopped when he’d moved past the top of the scale, establishing this by waving his foot over its top edge. He barely bit back a shout of exultation. “Incredible,” he finally said, and attempted to keep going, but he was still stuck at about two and a third meters, and no matter how he tried he couldn’t get any higher.

“Damn,” he said, and lowered himself to the ground gently. But the hypothesis had been confirmed: the three-foot mark wasn’t a hard limit for him, and he was probably preventing himself from flying any higher. “A fear of falling?” he wondered aloud, “or a conviction that humans shouldn’t be able to fly? Or something I haven’t thought of?”

“Probably,” said a voice from behind him, “a conviction that you’re nothing special, or that it’s your mind that makes you special.”

“Are there courses in sneaking up from behind that they offer somewhere around here?” Rob turned around, and found himself facing a young woman in form-fitting clothing, who was floating about a foot above the surface of the roof. The upper half of her face was covered with a mask of the same material as her clothes, but her hair flew free, and the lower half of her face was plainly visible. Around her drifted six objects whose countenance Rob couldn’t quite make out in the pre-dawn.

“It comes naturally after a while,” said the woman. “I saw you practicing and wanted to come investigate.”

“How did you see me? It’s not exactly mid-day.”

“The flash from your camera gave you away. I wanted to see who was taking pictures on a rooftop in the dark – I thought it might have been a stalker. And here I find you, practicing your flying.”

“Hovering,” Rob said. “I can’t fly.”

“If you can get yourself off the ground without having to come back down, that’s flying. Even if you don’t want to call it that.”

Rob shrugged. “Anyway. Are you going to take me hostage? I’ve already done that once today, but I guess I can fit another kidnapping in.”

“Oh my god! You’re Rob Sparks?” asked the woman. She dropped to the ground, her eyes widening. “I should have known Skyclad would pick you as a hostage.”

“Why’s that?”

“Well, with your powers and all -”

“Which nobody else knew I had until yesterday afternoon, after Skyclad traded me for a box of phlebotinum.”

“Oh. Really?”

Rob shrugged. “I was the only student who wasn’t locked down in the basements. Well, me and my friend Mark, and he was inside. I was just taking a walk, and Skyclad happened to find me and grab me from behind.”

“A lot of guys wouldn’t be objecting to that.”

“She handcuffed me!”

“They wouldn’t object to that either.”

Rob laughed. “So who are you, if you know Skyclad?”

The woman paused. “They call me Rosette.”

“Is that your name?”

“It is while I’m in costume. When I’m in mufti… well, we’ve only just met.”

“You know my name.”

“And that’s a good start.” Rosette looked off over Rob’s shoulder, and lifted off again. “I’m sorry to leave on such short terms, but now that I know you’re not a stalker, there are other things I need to tend to. Let me know if you need any help.”

“Hey – how do I get in touch with you? Do you have a Rosette-symbol or something?”

Rosette laughed. “Hardly. But I do have a card.” She tossed a business card to Rob, then rose swiftly over Rob’s head. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Sparks,” she called, before disappearing over the treetops.

Rob stuck the card in his pocket and noticed, for the first time, that his makeshift laboratory was lit in orange by the first rays of the rising sun. “Is it seven already?” he wondered aloud, and sighed at the camera and scale. “It’s a good start, anyway,” he said, and started packing his equipment up.

Back in his room, Rob uploaded the photos from the camera to his computer, then deleted them from the camera and stashed it back in the duffel bag. His haste was well-founded; the noise of shuffling the duffel bag finally came to be too much for Dylan, who sat up and blinked at Rob. “What are you doing up so early?” he asked. “You don’t have class until nine, do you?”

“Felt like getting some exercise.” Rob shrugged. “I tried not to wake you up.”

Dylan hung his fingers in the mesh of the overhead bunk and yawned. “Well, you failed.” He glanced at the clock. “I guess it’s a good thing. Our first exam is today and I need to study.” With the care of the consciously over-tired, Dylan got out of bed and made his way to his desk. “If I fall asleep again, wake me up at quarter of, okay?”

“Yeah, sure,” Rob said, and waited until Dylan was engrossed in his organic chemistry textbook before he turned back to his computer and started searching the Internet for Rosette. The woman had, it seemed, emerged fairly recently; since Rob didn’t really pay attention to the news, it was no surprise that he hadn’t heard of her. She appeared to be firmly on the “hero” side of the equation, and one article detailed a fight between her and Skyclad which had left Rosette stunned on the sidewalk – but at least she’d prevented Skyclad from getting away with several thousand dollars’ worth of diamonds. He noted with interest that Rosette’s outfit was a pale blue, and that the objects he’d seen orbiting her waist were a set of gems, although what they were or did was anyone’s guess.

He did notice that Rosette only turned up in Fountain City, and he guessed that she was a local, perhaps even a fellow student at Atlas University. Another search revealed the same information about Skyclad, although she had been around longer than Rosette and her range had been expanding over the last few months. “Strange,” he said, “that for all of the information-gathering power of the Internet, these two haven’t been identified.”

“What two?” asked Dylan absently.

“Skyclad and Rosette.”

“They’re probably pretty good at hiding their identities. And they do wear masks, don’t they?”

“That’s true. I’m not sure I’d recognize either of them.”

“Wait.” Dylan turned in his chair. “When did you meet Skyclad or Rosette?”

Rob grimaced, but cleared his face before turning to face Dylan. “I was the hostage yesterday, remember?” Dylan nodded, and Rob added, “And, uh… Rosette showed up just a few minutes too late, but I got to see her before she left.”

“So you’re the one. There have been rumors going around.” Dylan turned back to his computer. “Tell me the next time you get kidnapped by naked women, okay?”

“I was a hostage.”

“What’s the difference?”

“If she’d been kidnapping me – never mind.”

Dylan shrugged. “Whatever. What time is it?”

“Seven thirty.”

“You think I have to shower?”

“You’re going to be sitting two spaces away from everyone anyway.”

“True enough. And I can do it after lunch if I really need to.”

Rob nodded and returned to his own investigation. Wikipedia’s article on Rosette was brief, but it implied that her gems were the source of her power, and the discussion page was full of speculation – mostly from Fountain City IP addresses, although apparently the superhero had a dedicated fan base in Portland, Oregon – about who she was and how she’d acquired her powers. Likewise, Skyclad’s article had little actual information, and most of the discussion page was about whether or not the pictures of her in action should be censored, since she appeared nude except for her mask.

Finally, Dylan rose, stuck a pencil in his pocket, and walked out the door. “Good luck!” called Rob, and closed the web browser, where he’d been reading a Wikipedia article about Kordylewski clouds. He stood up and stretched, and pulled the cord to open the window shade. Outside, the sun had risen fully and was illuminating the campus well; there was no room for more practice, since he could easily be seen outside and his room was much too small, and it was too late for him to go back to sleep without missing his nine o’clock class. On the other hand, he couldn’t really think of anything else to do besides search the web for more photographs of Skyclad, and that seemed a little odd considering that she’d held him hostage less than a full day previous.

Faced with boredom and the lack of any real task to which he could set himself, Rob grabbed his backpack and headed to Stendel Hall to see if Mark was awake.

Short part, but it finishes the first chapter.

—

Rob’s instincts kicked in as he went over the edge, and he flung his arms over his face, closed his eyes, and willed the ground away from him. The fall felt like about forever, even though – his physics training insisted – it would be over in less than three seconds. But when he opened his eyes again – after what must have been a good ten seconds – he discovered that he was floating about a yard above the ground. Below him lay the damp leaves and dying grass of the ground outside Mark’s dormitory.

Rob floated for a moment, staring at the ground, and then turned in mid-air to look up at Mark, who was laughing at the top of the roof. Rob let himself go, and with a thump he landed on the ground. He picked himself up quickly and made for the stairs. When he reached the top of the building, Mark was still laughing. “I wish I’d seen the look on your face,” he said. “It must have been priceless.”

“You ass,” Rob said, and shoved Mark’s shoulder. “What the hell was that?”

“I wanted to see if you’d fly. Most of the comic-book superheroes who can fly figured that out by jumping off a building. Don’t you remember ‘Invincible’? It’s supposed to be an instinct.”

“Yeah, well, my only instinct when you pushed me off was to hope the fall wouldn’t mash up my face too much for an open casket.” He kicked the edge of the building, and the mortar crumbled a little onto the toe of his sneaker. “Ass.”

“Hey, don’t you want to hear what did happen?”

“Like you were paying attention.”

“I was! I mean, it was funny, but I still wanted to see what happened. You fell like a stone for about fifty feet, and then slowed down until you reached the ground. It was really cool – like you had an inverse gravity or something. If you could only figure out how to get yourself farther up…”

Rob glared at his friend. “Screw that. I’m going home.”

Mark frowned, suddenly. “Don’t you want to experiment any more?”

“You pushed me off a building, Mark. What were you going to do if I hit the ground?”

“Call the police and tell them we were horsing around and you fell. Rob, you’re not even trying here. You’ve got these cool new powers and you don’t even want to see what they’re worth?” Mark sighed. “If I had them-”

“Yeah, why don’t you?”

“What do you mean? I’m not a superhero.”

“The only thing I can figure is that the explosion with the phlebotinum caused this to happen to me. You were there too. Why didn’t you get any powers?”

“Who the hell knows? Maybe my lead sheeting was a little better than yours. Maybe you’ve got the right genes for it. I have no idea. I just wish I could play with my own powers, and you’re not even trying to use yours.”

“Come on. I showed you the flying thing.”

“Yeah, but is that it? I mean, a superhero who can fly, and that’s it? Not really useful, man.”

“Well…” Rob paused. “I have been feeling a little stronger.”

“Stronger? Like how?”

Rob reached down and grabbed Mark’s leg, then hoisted Mark above his head. “Whoa!” said Mark. “This must be what you feel like, except without the vise on your leg.” He stopped wiggling and looked down. “Why isn’t my leg breaking?”

“No idea. It just works like that. I could do this with your pinky toe if I wanted, I think. The physics don’t really hold up, unless we assume that I’m lending some structural stability just by touching you.”

“Put me down. We can test that.” Rob lowered Mark to the ground, and Mark dug his wallet out of his pocket and pulled out a dollar bill. “Here. Hold one end of it, and concentrate on it. I’m going to try and tear it in half.”

Rob took the dollar and held it between his thumb and forefinger. Mark grabbed the other end in one hand, and pinched the center between his own fingers. “On three,” he said. “One, two – “ With that, he pulled with all his might on the dollar bill, nearly tearing it out of Rob’s grasp. No matter how hard he pulled, however, the dollar bill remained intact. “Wow,” he said. “Hang on to it…” Mark picked his feet up off the ground, holding himself up by the single, which held firm in Rob’s grasp.

After a moment of hanging, Mark set his feet down and grinned. “That’s really, really cool,” he said. Rob handed him the dollar bill back, and Mark tore about a quarter-inch notch in the middle, “just to be sure.” When he’d put it back in his pocket, he looked back at Rob. “I wonder if that extends to you, too.”

“What, the structural integrity? I have no idea.”

“Want to try it?”

“How, by shooting me and seeing if the bullets bounce off?”

Mark laughed. “No, but I do have a pencil in my pocket. Let’s see if we can break your skin.”

“Can we not?”

“It’s for science, Rob. We’re seeing how far these powers of yours extend.” Mark pulled out the pencil and grabbed Rob’s hand.

Rob winced but didn’t pull away. “Okay, but make it quick.” Mark jabbed the sharp pencil down, and it blunted on the skin of Rob’s arm. “…Very cool,” Mark said, and put the pencil back in his pocket.

“But, ow,” Rob said, rubbing his arm. “That felt like a bee sting.”

“Really? I wonder if you’ll get a bruise.”

“It’s probably just that the nerves still fire.”

“So if you did get shot, it would hurt a lot, but it wouldn’t actually injure you?”

“Maybe. Who knows? I think it’s just a side effect of the strength – I have to be able to pick things up without breaking them.”

“What if you want to break them?”

“I have no idea.”

“I have an old phone book in one of my boxes downstairs…”

Rob laughed. “You want me to tear it in half?”

“For science.”

With this, I’m caught up through Nov. 2. Only 8192 words to go until I’m all caught up!

—

One of the officers held up a steel box with rubber bumpers at the corners, and Rob took a step forward, only to be restrained by Skyclad’s hand on his shoulder. “Hey, that’s our – I mean, is that our phlebotinum?”

“You know about the phlebotinum?”

“Yeah – Dr. Zacharko had us working on it last semester, to see if we could use it as a power source.”

“Fascinating.” Skyclad’s grip tightened. “What did you find out about it?”

Rob paused. “I don’t know what I should say. Diego’s planning on publishing a paper about it.”

“All the more reason for you to tell me.” Rob shivered as he saw the violet fire dance over her fingers. Skyclad raised her voice and said, “Put the box on the roller and push it out here.”

There was some shuffling as the cop with the box brought it down out of sight, and then came back up with a megaphone. “If we do that, will you agree to release the hostage and leave the campus unharmed?”

“Yes, I promise!” Skyclad lowered her voice again. “You aren’t harmed, right?”

“He only asked if the campus would be harmed.”

“Oh, right.” There was a moment of silence, during which Rob chastised himself for being a moron. “Well, I guess it doesn’t really help me any to hurt you. So I’ll let you live for now.”

“Oh, thanks.”

The police had assembled a long pole and were using it to push the phlebotinum’s box out on what looked like a mechanic’s dolly. Once the box was far enough from the police cruisers, Skyclad abruptly leapt over Rob’s head and landed by the box. She was about as Rob had guessed – slender and not muscular at all, in her mid-twenties, and, as her name implied, wearing nothing but long red hair and a black domino mask. She crouched over the box and opened it, nodded, and picked the re-sealed box up by the handle on the top. “Thanks, fellas,” she said, and tensed to leap away again when one of the cops fired three rounds at her.

Rob winced as he heard the bullets impact Skyclad’s flesh, but she stood up again as if nothing had happened. “I thought we had a deal,” she said, and turned to face the assembled police. She gestured in their direction, and an energy blast knocked the officer who’d fired on her flat on his back; even though he’d been holding a riot shield, his arm and chest were smoking messes. “So much for ever trusting the fuzz again.” She crouched again and then jumped, her leap taking her to the top of MacArthur Hall. A second jump, this one with a running start, took her out of sight.

“Follow her!” shouted one of the older cops, and about half of the police returned to their cruisers and pulled out as quickly as they could; meanwhile, one of the ambulances on standby managed to get access to the downed officer and the paramedics inside started administering aid. A handful of cops headed over to Rob instead. “Are you okay, son?” one of them asked.

Rob nodded. “She didn’t hurt me – just handcuffed me.”

One of the cops went behind him and pulled out a safety knife; within moments, Rob’s hands were free. “Thank you, officers.”

“Why weren’t you in the basements with the rest of the students?”

“I was visiting a friend. I never got the message.”

“We phoned all the rooms.”

“I don’t -” Rob suddenly remembered that Mark’s phone had been unhooked from the wall, and he laughed. “My friend disconnected his phone so he wouldn’t have to talk to his mom.”

The cops looked at each other. “We were assured that this was how the school handled emergencies.”

“It probably is. Atlas is a big school, and I doubt they’d have the time or the people to knock on every door and make sure every student’s downstairs.” Rob shrugged. “Not that that’s an excuse. I’m just saying.”

“Yeah,” said one of the officers. “Listen, if you’re okay, we’d like you to come down to the station so we can take your statement.”

“Sure,” said Rob. “Can I take my own car so you guys don’t have to drive me back?”

“Do you know how to get there?”

Rob nodded. “And if I’m not there this afternoon – hang on…” He pulled a receipt out of his pocket. “One of you guys got a pen?” One of the cops handed a Bic over, and Rob scribbled down his full name, campus address, and phone number. “This way you guys can track me down if I don’t show up.” He handed the pen and the slip of paper over.

“We’d really prefer that you come now.”

“I’ve just been held hostage. I’d like some time to take stock of myself, you know?”

The cop nodded. “We’ll find you if you don’t find us.”

“Hey,” said Rob as the police started to disperse, “can I keep the handcuffs?”

“Sorry, kid, they’re evidence.” The cops walked away, leaving Rob standing on his own in the middle of the quad.

Rob’s head was buzzing. Skyclad was clearly more than the average thief; anyone who could withstand bullets and jump the way she did wasn’t normal. So why did she want the phlebotinum? Was she keeping it for herself or selling it off? And if the latter – to whom? He turned from MacArthur Hall as the last police cruiser pulled away, and headed back to Stendel Hall. He needed to talk to Mark.

The rest of the students were slowly filtering back to their rooms as Rob re-entered the dormitory, so he went upstairs the long way, limiting himself to two steps at a time. He was pleased to discover that he wasn’t even winded when he hit the fourth floor, but he forced that thought to the back of his mind as he went back to Mark’s door and knocked.

“What?” called Mark’s voice from inside.

“It’s Rob. I… listen, I need to talk to you.”

“Bite me.”

“No, seriously. Mark, I need your help.”

There was a long pause, and then Mark opened the door. “Fine. What do you want?”

“God, you can stay mad for the longest time.”

“It’s been, like, ten minutes.”

“Has it?” Rob realized abruptly that it felt like several hours had passed since he’d left. “I’m sorry. And – no, I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to be an asshole. I know how important it is for you to get by on your own merit. But when everybody else is taking every advantage they can get… it just seems weird.”

“I know.” Mark sighed and leaned back in his desk chair. “I flipped out and I’m sorry, too. You’ve heard it all before, you didn’t need another lecture from me.”

“I deserved what I got.” Rob sighed too, and sat down heavily in the other chair. “How’s your homework coming?”

“Oh, I started reading about the Revolution on Wikipedia and now I’m reading about the Chunnel train.”

“So – not that well, then.”

“Well, if I had to write a report on the Chunnel…”

Rob laughed. “Listen – if you want a break, I really do need to talk to you.”

“About what?”

“About the accident.”

Mark frowned. “There’s nothing to talk about. We survived, we paid the hospital bills, there are no lingering effects, and it was nobody’s fault.”

“There is something to talk about.” Rob leaned forward. “Mark, something’s been different since the accident.”

“Like what?” Mark’s eyes narrowed.

“I don’t really know how to say it.” Rob stood up again, and then pushed off, coming to a rest about six inches off the floor. “So I’ll show you.”

“Jesus, Rob, you can fly?”

“Not very high, or for very long.” He settled back onto the floor. “And I can’t really do anything else while I’m doing it – it takes a lot of concentration. But yes. And I think it was the accident that made me able to do it.”

“Did it give you any other powers?”

Rob nodded. “I’m a lot stronger than I used to be, and I have more stamina. I don’t know if I could lift a car, but I could definitely pick you up without any trouble.”

Mark shook his head. “Amazing. Incredible! And you think the phlebotinum did this?”

“Well, the phlebotinum and whatever we were doing to it.”

“Incredible,” Mark said again, more softly. “So what are you going to do with it?”

“I don’t know. I’m strong and I can hover. Not much of a superhero in the making there.”

“You told me it takes a lot of concentration to fly,” Mark said, frowning again. “Maybe it just takes practice. Maybe it’s like muscles you haven’t used.” Mark got up and put his coat on. “Come on,” he said, and headed to the door.

Rob turned. “Where are we going?”

“Shut up and come with me!” Mark said, gesturing impatiently.

Rob shrugged and followed his friend out the door. Mark led him to the stairwell, and started marching upward. “To the roof?” Rob asked.

Mark nodded. “Nobody will be able to see us up there, and you won’t have a ceiling to run into.”

“Ah, that makes sense.” A few minutes of climbing later, and they were at the top flight. The door, however, was unyielding. “It’s locked.”

“Good thing I brought these,” Mark said, and knelt down, withdrawing a set of lockpicks from his coat pocket. Within moments, he’d opened the door, and he and Rob stepped out into the fresh air. “The campus really is beautiful from above.”

Rob nodded and shivered. “And colder.”

“Yeah, I know. That’s why I brought my coat.” Mark pointed. “See, they’ve arranged the trees and buildings so that they trap heat down at the ground level, sort of like a miniature city.”

“So, how high do you want me to go?”

Mark shrugged. “As high as you can.”

Rob nodded and pushed off again, closing his eyes and concentrating on rising through the air. When he thought he could go no higher, he opened his eyes again and looked down at Mark.

“…Three feet, huh?” Mark nodded and poked Rob in the shins. “You can’t do any better than that?”

“Man, it took me everything I had to go this high.”

“Fine, fine. Come down.” Rob let his control go, and collapsed onto the roof. “This is so cool!”

“It is pretty cool, but it’s also limited to getting things from high shelves,” said Rob. “I wish I had more control over it.”

“It’ll just take practice. After all, if you got this from the accident, you’ve only been doing it for, what, a month or two?” Mark went over to the edge of the roof and looked down. “What are all the tire tracks on the quad for? Did some frat asshole do donuts while nobody was looking?”

Rob came over to the edge and shook his head. “Those are from police cruisers. A supervillain stole the phlebotinum sample that Dr. Zacharko had in his office.”

“Do you think she found out about the accident?”

“I have no idea. By the way, you should plug your phone back in.”

“I’m avoiding Mom.” Mark looked down over the edge. “Ten stories is a long way to fall.”

“What do you-” Rob’s last word was swallowed by his shock as Mark reached out and pushed him.

Rob walked down the hallway toward his friend Mark’s room, making sure that his feet landed on the floor when he put them down. He’d only passed one open door so far, but it never hurt to be cautious, especially on a college campus. Mark’s door still had the pumpkins and bats on it from Halloween, among other decorations, and Rob was hard-pressed to find a non-papered surface to knock on so that he wouldn’t be muffled. Finally he rapped one knuckle on the inch-square space between Mark’s construction-paper name tag and the orange pumpkin next to it, and waited patiently for an answer.

None came.

Rob knocked again, a little louder, and heard “dammit” from inside. A moment passed, and the door cracked open. “Oh,” said Mark when he saw Rob, and opened the door farther. “Come in.” Rob stepped inside the room, and Mark shut the door behind him. Rob’s friend was clad only in sweatpants and thermal socks, and Rob noticed that the sheets were askew – along with pretty much everything else in the tiny single. “I’ve barely seen you since we got back from break.”

“I know. I kind of feel like you’re avoiding me,” Rob said. “Also, what happened to being a neat freak?”

Mark shrugged and pushed a pile of laundry – and the disconnected telephone – off of his roommate’s desk chair. “It’s been a rough semester. Where have you been?”

Rob sat in the chair and Mark fell into his bed. “I’ve been the same places we usually are, Mark – class, the cafeteria, the lounge, my room. You’re sure you haven’t been avoiding me?”

“Hey, I said it’s been a rough semester.”

“It’s been two weeks. I’ve seen you in class, but we haven’t had a lab yet and you keep sitting on the other side of the room. Is this about the accident?”

“No, seriously, I’ve just been busy.”

“Mark, is there anything you want to tell me about?”

Mark shook his head. “Like what?”

“You’ve seemed really distant this year. I don’t want you to feel like you can’t talk to me, and I’m worried about you. What’s going on?”

“It’s nothing, I swear it. I’ve just been distracted. I’ll come visit this weekend.”

Rob sat up in the chair. “Mark, if there’s anything you need to talk about, please tell me. You’re my best friend. I want to help you.”

Mark sat up in the bed and looked into Rob’s eyes, then fell back again. “No, there’s nothing, really. I’ll come to you if I want to talk, okay?”

“Okay.” Rob sighed. “I should let you get back to sleep. I just wanted to make contact.”

“I wasn’t going to sleep much longer anyway,” Mark said. He scooted back, resting against the wall. “But I do have work to do.”

“What are you working on?”

“Schoolwork.” Mark rolled his eyes. “I have a presentation in my French class. I have to make a poster about the French Revolution.”

“What about it?”

“I don’t know yet. I have to do the research first.”

“You could just glue on a picture of a guillotine and then a bunch of disembodied heads.”

Mark got out of bed and sat down at his computer. “That’s horrible.”

“It’s probably about as accurate as anything anybody else is going to do. Do you even care about the class? You said last semester you were just getting your language requirement out of the way.”

Mark sighed. “Even so, I actually want to get a good grade on this.”

“Mark, you don’t have to overcompensate. You got in-”

Mark turned and glared. “And I don’t want anybody – professors, classmates, anybody – thinking that it was a sham. None of them know about the admissions process, about my high school transcripts. All they see is the Native American kid, and if I do poorly they’ll think, ‘Oh, he just got in to make a quota’. I’m going to earn my damn way here, Rob.”

“Calm down, Mark,” Rob said, leaning back in the chair – as close as he could get to backing off without actually getting up. “I know you got in with your grades. I know you petitioned for a race-blind admissions process. I know it, the administration knows it, and you know it. What do you care what other people think?”

“Quoting Feynman at me now? This is important to me. Don’t blow it off.”

“God. I’m not – listen, whatever. It was a joke.”

“Not that funny, Rob.” Mark turned back to the computer. “Don’t forget, our first lab is this week.”

“Mark, I-”

“I’ve got work to do, Rob.”

Rob stood and sighed. “Yeah, okay.” He opened the door and walked out, closed it quietly behind him. The corridor suddenly felt empty and confining, and the pumpkins on the doors seemed to be smiling mockingly at him. Rob shifted in his jacket, trying to loosen it where it was binding up, and walked to the stairwell. He waited for the door to swing closed behind him, listened for a moment to make sure that nobody else was on the stairs, and then climbed over the railing and let himself fall.

His feet hit the floor sooner than he expected, but Rob still landed easily, in a crouch with both hands on the ground, still consciously making sure that nobody was around. He looked up as he stood. The four stories he’d fallen seemed to stretch out above him, and he shook his head and started walking up the stairs to the ground floor. There was still nobody around as he made his way to the front door of the dormitory, which struck him as odd; he didn’t have a class this hour, but he was surprised that there was nobody else out wandering around.

He stepped outside and realized that even the campus was strangely quiet; although the weather was nice, there was nobody playing catch or frisbee, nobody reading and tanning, nobody running to a class they’d forgotten about. It was, Rob thought, as if everyone but him had been kidnapped or abducted by aliens. He wondered idly if Mark had disappeared as soon as he’d closed the door, but it struck him as the kind of coincidence that only happened in The Twilight Zone or horror movies. Still – he looked back up at the dormitory. There was no activity in the windows, either, although there were lights on. He couldn’t see Mark’s room from where he was standing, so he pulled out his cell phone and called Mark’s dorm phone, but received no answer.

Rob had just turned to go back to his friend’s room and check up when he heard the sound of feet landing lightly behind him and felt a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t move and don’t talk,” said a quiet, alto voice from behind him. “Unless I tell you to.”

“Who are you?” Rob said, but he didn’t move.

“You can call me Skyclad. Why aren’t you barricaded in like the rest of the students?”

“Barricaded in?”

“You’re not very good at the not-talking thing.” Skyclad took her hand off his shoulder long enough to grab his wrists and bind them together with something that felt like plastic.

“In my defense, you’ve put me in a strange situation and I would like to know what’s going on.”

“Fair enough.” She pushed him toward the quad, still keeping his back to her. “But that doesn’t mean I have to answer. And I have no problem duct-taping your mouth shut if you keep asking questions.”

Rob shrugged. “I’m an only child and a latchkey kid. I’ve done things to myself that hurt worse than pulling tape off of stubble. So what’s going on here? Am I a hostage, or are you kidnapping me?”

“What’s the difference?” she asked. “Either way, you’re handcuffed.”

“Well, if you’re kidnapping me, then it’s me specifically that you’re kidnapping. If I’m a hostage, then it doesn’t matter who I am – you’d have cuffed anyone you came across.”

“Then you’re a hostage, because I don’t have any idea who you are.”

“Rob Sparks. I’m a sophomore.”

“Nice to meet you, Rob.” She pushed his hands into his back. “Keep walking.”

They reached the quad, where, Rob realized, there was a police blockade set up; all of the cruisers were back in the parking lots and driveways, but the cops on the quad had riot shields and what looked like machine guns. “What the hell is going on here?”

“Watch,” she said, and laid her arm over his shoulder. Her bare hand began to glow with a violet light, and a moment later a burst of energy erupted from her outstretched fingers and struck one of the riot shields. The cop behind it shouted and jumped back, and another one leveled his gun and fired at Rob and Skyclad; the rounds impacted on the ground beside them. “See, this is what’s going on. I have you hostage, they have something I want, and I’ll exchange you for the box.”

“What’s in the box?” Rob asked, still keeping an eye on the hand by his cheek.

“Does it matter to you?”

“It might.”

“Then you’ll have to learn to live with disappointment.” The hand disappeared behind his back again, and Skyclad shouted out, “Do you have it?”

For some reason, I’m really enthusiastic about the interaction of these two characters. Sadly, I’m several days too early for this to be the start of my NaNo…

—-

I nodded, and “Rachel” sat down on the bed. “So. What’s your name?” she asked, leaning back and folding her hands beneath her head.

“Ray,” I said absently. I was trying to be nonchalant as I settled my weight back against my dresser, and I ended up knocking my spare keys and an ashtray off the top with my elbow. “Crap!” I bent over to pick them up without taking my eyes off Skyclad.

She shook her head, which looked decidedly odd from this angle. “Ray,” she said. “I’m not going to blast you. You can look away – otherwise you’re going to grind all that ash into the carpet.” She rose onto her elbows and cocked an eyebrow. “Or is it just that it’s been that long since you’ve seen a naked woman in person?”

I laughed despite myself and managed to wrench my eyes off her. “Give me a break,” I said, replacing the keys and ashtray on the dresser. “A naked supervillain falls out of the sky next to me while I’m throwing out my trash, shoots lasers at me, and takes me hostage while she borrows my clothes, and I’m not allowed to be suspicious?”

“I didn’t shoot them at you, and they’re not lasers. They’re energy blasts.” She fell back onto the bed. “Besides, if I were going to kill you out of hand, don’t you think I’d have done it back in the alley?”

“You never know. You could just as easily be a shapeshifter who wanted to assume my identity.”

“You had your keys on you. I could have just taken them off your smoking corpse and walked in.”

“You wouldn’t have known which apartment it was, and it would have looked suspicious to try the key in every lock.”

“Nah – I would have just looked for the one with ‘irritating pedant’ on the door.” She stuck her tongue out, and I laughed. “Besides, I still could have killed you as soon as we were inside.”

“I suppose that’s true.” I sighed. “Why aren’t you killing me, anyway?”

Skyclad rolled her eyes. “Because not every supervillain is a casual killer. I can do it. I’ve done it before. But I prefer not to. I’m not just a garden-variety psychopath, like Trampler or the Longbowman.”

“I wouldn’t exactly call Trampler or the Longbowman garden-variety either.”

“I’m upgrading you to ‘obnoxious pedant’,” she said. “You know what I mean. I don’t just kill to kill, and they do. They don’t care about the money or the fame, they just get some kind of thrill out of it, or feel like it’s their moral duty. I kill people when I absolutely have to, but I avoid it when I can.”

“Okay, so you’re not going to fire laser blasts at me -”

“Energy blasts.”

“Whatever – you’re not going to fire them at me -”

“No, wait. Not whatever.” She sat up, looked me straight in the eye. “It’s important. Energy blasts. Energy blasts, impervious skin, super-strength. Those are my powers. I don’t shoot lasers, I’m not invincible, I don’t have super-speed. My powers don’t define me, Ray, but they’re a very important part of who I am. It’s like if I described you with brown hair and eyes. They’re legitimate colors for eyes and hair, but they’re not yours, and you’d probably get upset if people kept talking about you like they were.” She folded her arms, never letting her gaze falter. “Energy blasts, impervious skin, super-strength.”

“Energy blasts, impervious skin, super-strength. Got it.” She leaned back on her elbows. “My point was, even if you’re not going to blast me, you’re still dangerous. And you’re still wearing my clothes.”

“I can take them off again if you want.”

“Trying to distract me, huh?”

“Nah, it’d just be a shame if they got destroyed.” She winked.

“What are you going to be doing in them?”

“Oh, you never know – a dashing young superhero might come along…”

“Now you’re pushing it. I like my apartment.” I paused. “And my clothes.”

“All the more reason for me to take them off.” She started unbuttoning the shirt.

“You just like having me stare at you.”

She stopped and smiled. “That too.”

I was dumping my trash in the bin out back when a naked woman landed next to me and glared at me. “Don’t say a word,” she said, raising her finger to her lips. “That your door?”

I nodded, and she gestured toward it. “Go on in. I’ll be right behind you.”

“Why the hell should -” I got out, before violet fire erupted from her fingertips and melted one of the buckets sitting along the edge of the alley. “Right, a super, got it.”

I led the way inside and up to my apartment. Luckily for both of us, nobody else was out in the hall, but I still glanced around nervously as I opened the door. “So what are we doing here?” I asked.

“Didn’t I tell you to shut up?” she snarled, and looked around at the apartment. It was a two-bedroom although it only had one occupant, since I hadn’t managed to find another roommate after Charlie left. I kept the place pretty neat – the dishes were all done, and the clutter was mostly confined to the spare bedroom. “Where the hell’s your closet?”

“Down the hall. What happened to your costume?”

“This is my costume,” she said, loping down toward my bedroom. “They call me Skyclad.”

The name clicked. “Oh! I’ve heard about you on the news – the Bare Blackguard, isn’t it?” I headed down the hall myself.

“That’s the one,” she said as she rummaged in my closet, finally pulling out a pair of sweatpants and a button-up shirt. Since she didn’t seem self-conscious about her nudity, I watched her change into my clothes.

“So what’s the deal? Why go naked? Why not have some costume, at least?”

She turned to look at me, still buttoning the shirt. “Because my skin is impervious, but my clothes aren’t, and I’m tired of replacing custom spandex. Because like it or not, seeing a naked woman distracts people, and distracted people don’t dodge energy blasts as well. And because I enjoy the wind against my skin.”

“Fair enough. So why are you getting dressed now?”

“Because the police are looking for Skyclad.” She took her domino mask off and slipped it into the pocket of the sweatpants. “And right now, I’m just Rachel, your girlfriend.” Her voice lowered and she focused her eyes on mine. “Got it?”