Wannabe Heroes

By Xoronewithnature ©

Chapter 1

I hate it when I’m right. Too many sirens were going off, too many police cars were racing through the streets. And I knew something like this would happen. I’d had a feeling all day. Maybe they should call me Cassandra.

I saw the gap, it looked about four lanes wide, and wondered if I should try and find another way across. But then again, I’d already fallen behind the cop cars. The sirens disappeared for a second and instead all I could see was the back of a billboard. I had about a second to decide whether or not to try and jump it.

Screw it.

I leapt right at the edge of the building. Perfect form on this one, a real superman look. I got to look down about nine stories, and wonder what anybody down there would be thinking if they looked up right now.

“Up in the sky! It’s a bird. It’s a plane. It’s…”

A wannabe hero. The thought brought a smile to my face, mostly because everyone down below was probably watching the police cars tear through the street, sirens blazing. Maybe in Metropolis people would look up, but not in the real world.

But, then again in the real world twenty year old girls don’t leap from building top to building top. Life’s funny that way.

I realized, somewhat to my own surprise, that I was going to make it. That was some good news at least. It was my new personal best. Not that the fall would kill me, but it would really, really hurt. I tucked my body in, let the force of my jump pull me over to land rolling on the other building. Dust sprayed up around me, and for a second I was lost. I looked up the street for the police cars and saw nothing. But I still heard them.

I turned around. I saw them just as they ducked under the highway. I guess I zigged when I should’ve zagged. They were heading south, and I was on the northeast corner of the intersection. The jump was still nice though, even if it put me on the wrong side of the street.

However, the jump also meant that I’d got an even longer jump – six lanes, plus an extra wide median. And the sirens were almost out of range. I resigned myself to doing it the hard way.

The first trick to teleportation is this: imagine the whole world moving around you. You’re not moving, the world is. The second trick to teleportation is to actually be able to do it.

I took a deep breath. I held it. I closed my eyes. There was the familiar lurch of motion, like being flung by a catapult. But there’s a certain stillness to it that’s hard to explain. It’s like you’re tightly bound from head to foot, and then flung by a catapult.

I opened my eyes. I was on the far building. I had quite a run ahead of me. I took a second to pull myself together. Jumping ninety feet is exhilarating. Teleporting is just draining.

I couldn’t afford to rest. So I took off with long strides over the rooftops. I ran through a rooftop garden, just as the owner was emerging from his door. I touched down in his garden for one step before I was over his head. Barely over his head. I looked back and he was cringing, his dropped watering can beside him. Oops.

I had to make one more teleportation to avoid a particularly tall building. This time just to the other side of the street, and I could tell I was near where the police cars had stopped. I still couldn’t shake the feeling that this was going to be bad.

My heart sank as I got nearer. It was a nice part of town, near Wall Street. It was a bank robbery, I was sure of it. Two more buildings, and I was at top speed, taking them in three or four strides each.

Even though, I was racing toward god-knows-what I couldn’t help but think of the guy back at the rooftop. He looked like Brian.

For a second I felt a knot in my stomach, afraid that he might have recognized me. Then I remembered that like any good hero, I wear a mask.

***

It was my grandmother’s. I don’t remember much about her, I was so young and she didn’t speak any English. I knew a little Japanese when I was younger, but even then it wasn’t much. My mom never showed any real interest in teaching me. She wanted to forget about anything before New York and my father. That’s why I got named Jessie. It sounded so American.

When my grandma died all we got was a UPS man at our door. There was a note in the box. In curt Japanese letters it read “Mother is dead.” There were no phone calls, no more visits. It seems my mother burned most of the bridges with her family. When grandma died, that was it. My Japanese roots were severed except for two things: my looks, and the contents of the UPS box.

It was a geisha mask. I still remember the look that my mother had when she took it out of the box. Or the look she had later, when it sat on the kitchen table. Her eyes were red from tears, but she couldn’t take them away from the mask. She eyed it as if it were something dangerous. Every inch of her looked like she was ready to throw it out the nearest window. But she didn’t. Instead she just stared at it, like she was afraid to look away.

I do think the only reason she didn’t throw it away was because it was mine. On the back my grandmother had, with great care, written my name. To a large extent everything I know about my grandmother comes from the way she wrote my name. It was crisp and clean – surprising considering how old she was. It was painted with the same brush my grandmother used for her elegant Japanese calligraphy. And it was misspelled – J-E-S-E. Grandmother never really got the hang of English.

My mother gave it to me that evening.

“Hide it,” she said “and don’t ever let me see it.”

We never spoke about grandmother or Japan again.

***

I remember I used to think how odd it looked. I was sixteen at the time, and knew what a geisha was supposed to be. This looked different. The lips were full and red and the skin was pale and white, but the eyes. They weren’t the kind of eyes you would expect to see on a geisha mask. They weren’t enticing or innocent – they were dangerous.

I would sit in my room and remember grandma, the little old Japanese lady. Her small eyes. Her grey hair, pulled back with a tight piece of fabric. Those strange Japanese robes. Her hands, surprisingly strong and confident. Her smile – the deceptively senile smile that she always wore, even when she and Mom argued.

I could never really get a feel for the gist of their arguments, just that the words “family” and “honor” came up way to much – a combination that made me feel guilty for being half American.

I knew the mask was special the first time I put it on. There was no way to attach it, no strings, no nothing. It was just a shaped and painted piece of wood. I slid it over my face. It fit too perfectly. It felt like it was wearing me. I let my hands slide away and the mask stayed put, as if it were my own face. I went to my mirror.

I had to admit it was beautiful. My unruly black hair, pulled into a high pony tail contrasted with the pale white of the mask. My hair that stuck out from its pony tail confinement at weird angles looked, for once, right. I couldn’t help but think how I looked like a model, my hair carefully styled into a disheveled mess.

It was the eyes, now my eyes, that caught me off guard. They looked stunningly beautiful. The thought, that the mask made me look, dare I say, gorgeous, made me smile.

And the mask smiled as well.

And I screamed.

By the time my mother burst in the mask was under my bed, back in the box I hid it in.

I didn’t put the mask again for a long while.

***

I finally came up to where the police cars were gathered – Chase Manhattan. A bank robbery. I hate it when I’m right.

The cops were having trouble getting close to the bank. The first reason was the most obvious. It looked like there had been a massive accident, cars were piled up outside of the bank. It would have looked like an accident, that is, if there weren’t two sets of cars each blocking off one side of the street. In between the two blockades was a large armored car, driven up on the curve at the bottom of the stairs that led up to the bank.

The second reason was that there were intense bursts of fully automatic fire being sprayed from the front of the building. The police knew they were outgunned and had the good sense to keep their heads down.

The news helicopters had already started to circle.

I recognized the robbers. Another knot in my stomach. They looked like robots, like something out of a cheesy sci-fi movie. But they weren’t. They were battle suits, the highest of high tech, evidently paid for through jobs such as these.

I remembered when I first started to have delusions of being a hero I fought a guy in a suit like this. Some small time thug had found himself in possession of the suit and had started using it to push himself up in the criminal underworld ranks.

He was clumsy and stupid. He didn’t know how to use the suit and still almost killed me. I got lucky, he must have hit the auto-eject. One minute he was hitting me with law rockets, the next he was in the air. The fall broke his neck. He never was able to tell anyone where he got the suit.

I thought about keeping it. One never knows when such a thing will become useful. Besides, I was studying mechanical engineering, and the suit looked like neat fodder for an undergraduate project. “Super strong materials and their uses in crime,” or something like that. A girl needs her toys.

However, I also didn’t want to make enemies with whoever made the suit. I wasn’t ready.

As it was, the suit had gone from the police lock-up later that week. I never did get the full story on that. However, it looked like that story was back to haunt me.

Only now it was more than one. And this time they looked trained and disciplined. But on the other hand, I was getting better at this crime fighting thing myself.

I tried not dwell on it.

The firing stopped. A voice came over a loud speaker.

“Clear the airspace or we start taking down helicopters.”

I looked up. At this point several helicopters had made the scene. Looked like people were already missing their regularly scheduled programming. Every news service in the city had a chopper hovering above the mayhem.

I could see, even from this height, the nervous wave that went through the police. At the far edge of the swarm of cop cars I made out a pale blue Oldsmobile with a siren on top. I closed my eyes, tried to imagine what the interior looked like. The stained leather interior. The chain link grill that separated the backseat from the front. The gruff and slightly overweight detective who was probably in the driver’s seat.

“Holy shit.”

I opened my eyes. I was in the back seat. He seemed to be a little shaken.

“Holy crap, you scared the shit out of me.” He wiped the sweat from his brow. His hands were still shaking. “You can’t do that to me. Soon, I won’t have any shit left.” He laughed nervously at his own joke. He didn’t turn to look at me, just watched me in the rear view mirror.

I just smiled, a small twitch at the edge of my lips. I was now in full role playing mode. I was the confident and mysterious superhero. He was my guy on the force. My commissioner Gordon. Well, my detective Gordon.

He was trying to light a cigarette. His hands were still shaking too much. I closed my eyes again. I was in the passenger’s seat. He jumped again, not as much this time, but did drop his cigarette lighter.

I picked it up and lit it. He just looked at it, unsure of what to do, both hands up as if I was pointing a gun at him. Finally, he brought his cigarette forward and lit it. I flipped his lighter closed and placed it on the dash. He took a long drag from his cigarette, watching me from the corners of his eyes.

I tried to look calm. I sat with my legs crossed, hands in lap. I was just sitting in a car, like any other day. A shot cracked in the air over our heads.

“I thought you gave up smoking.” I wanted to kick myself. I was trying to act like a superhero, and here I was making small talk.

He looked at his cigarette, a little surprised. He smiled.

“Don’t you know, I’m just your stereotypical detective. I quit yesterday.” He pushed the butt into the ash tray.

There was a short pause as he rolled down his window and blew smoke outside. Over the burst of chatter from the police radio, I heard more gunfire.

“I bet you want to know who they are.” He wasn’t looking at me, he was looking out his window.

I just stayed silent. No more amateur small talk for me. Think superhero, Jessie, think superhero.

“The short answer is I don’t know. The longer answer is: I think that somebody does. The suit you gave me, the one you took off that small timer, well, it got requisitioned.” He exaggerated every syllable – “req-ui-si-tioned.”

“It was some sort of formal intra-agency bullshit I’d never heard of before. I never got the straight of it, but some Washington guy flashed his badge in the chief’s office and by the end of the day my evidence was gone.

“Not that we had many leads. I showed it to the techies in the basement, and they couldn’t figure the damn thing out. They said they’d never seen anything so tough.”

I remembered the impact of my fist on the metal. The impact of the metal on me.

“They wanted to try shooting at it on the range, but even I knew that was probably mishandling evidence. They were pretty damn sure the thing would come through undamaged though. I’ve told our officers to keep their heads down and try and not get shot. Hopefully they’re listening, because I don’t think they’re going to be hurting those suits with anything smaller than a small tactical nuke.

“I’ve heard they call themselves ‘The Soldiers.’ Guess that sounds better than ‘The Robbers’ or ‘The Thieves.’ Sounds almost romantic the way they say it.”

He turned to face me.

“I’m almost positive that I can’t talk you out of fighting, but you should be careful. You don’t have to…”

I was already back on the roof. The one thing I couldn’t stand hearing was his concern for me. It broke my heart to see him worried about me. He was supposed to be foul-mouthed, unshaven, and surly, yet he was soft when it came to me being in danger. It was the one thing I couldn’t stand about putting my life on the line – the thought that somebody would miss me. Even without Detective East’s concern I was scared. I guess that’s why I went out of my way to scare him. Thinking about the way he jumped made me smile. That cheered me enough that I was ready to fight.

It was a good thing I was ready.

I saw someone on the roof of the bank with a shoulder fired rocket. It was one of the soldiers. I looked up and saw a lone helicopter. It was circling high, but still hadn’t pulled off. It was a news chopper, and I had a sinking suspicion who it was. Every major city has its reporter who’s trying to make it big. New York has more than it’s fair share. After all, if you can make it here, well, yeah.

Then there was Luis Llaño, investigative reporter at large. He was kind of like Walter Cronkite and Geraldo Rivera in one package – informative and exploitive.

The soldier on the roof took aim at the helicopter. I tensed up, froze. A loud shot rang out. It sounded as if it came from the building beneath me. The man on the roof stumbled as if something had struck him. A police sniper must have seen him. The helicopter obviously hadn’t. There was another shot and the soldier stumbled again, but his armored suit was to strong, even for the sniper rifle. It was a losing battle. The soldier recovered too quickly, aimed and fired.

I didn’t even have time to think. Luckily my body had a plan. There was the familiar lurch and I was in the helicopter.

“As you can see, the scene on the ground is sheer pandemonium.” He pronounced each word precisely, articulately, with just a hint of his Latin accent.

“The police are… Who are you?” There was no panic in his voice, his rhythm didn’t even change, the same careful tone. You have to admire that kind of professionalism.

There were three others in the tiny helicopter, camera man, pilot and Luis. I grabbed the pilots jacket and the camera man’s collar. Then I looked at Luis. The rocket was on its way. Three men and two arms. I panicked. I kicked him. He was standing in front of the open door of the chopper, connected to the ceiling by a safety cord. The force of the blow sent him out the door and snapped the cable.

“I think I broke his rib…” I sheepishly admitted to the cameraman. I teleported. I took the cameraman and pilot with me. I was on the roof, the two men were on the ground beside me, confused. I looked back over my shoulder. The helicopter exploded.

Blink.

I was in open air. Luis was screaming, struggling. I tried not to look down. I tried to grab onto one of his flailing limbs, but fear made him uncooperative. He lashed out with his foot, hit me in the face. It caught me off guard. It didn’t hurt but did manage to send us spinning away from each other.

I tried to reorient myself, tried to stop spinning. He was still flailing. His coat and limbs were flapping wildly. And he was still moving away from me. I managed to slow my spin, and angle myself towards him. I floated closer towards him.

Then I looked down.

The street was sickeningly close.

I was close to Luis again. My arm darted out and tried to grab at him. I missed. I started to spin again. As I came around from the spin, I tried again. I felt something in my hand.

Blink.

I was on the rooftop. Luis was on his knees, I had his jacket sleeve in my hand. His face was white, and his mouth was a wide silent ‘O.’ He looked up and me and tried to say something, or at least his bottom lip moved. Quivered perhaps.

His expression changed to puzzlement. He looked me up and down. His eyes widened and he looked at me accusingly.

“You pushed me out of my helicopter.”

Then Luis Llaño passed out.

I looked up. The pilot and the cameraman were standing, watching me wearily, keeping a careful distance from me. I couldn’t help but notice the pilot’s headgear still on his head, plug dangling at his side.

“Help him down, would you.” I gestured to Luis. They nodded dumbly. I walked toward the edge of the building overlooking the front of the bank.

“Did our helicopter just explode?” It was the cameraman. I didn’t turn around. A smile crept over me face. Remember, think superhero, Jessie.

“Yes.”

There was a pause. I stood on the edge of the building.

“Are we dead?”

My smile grew.

“No.”

I leapt off the side of the building.

I couldn’t help but think, “At least I made my exit look good.”

I was aiming for the armored truck. Soldiers were throwing duffel bags into the back. Some were taking potshots at cop cars. All were on the far side of the car. I saw my spot. It was by the near side front wheel.

I concentrated, and I felt the ground under my feet.

I was crouched beside a large tire. The armored car looked bigger now that I was right beside it. My strategy was simple – take away their escape route. That meant destroying the car. It would at least be easier than dealing with any gun-wielding, armor-plated militants. Seeing the car up close I wasn’t so sure it was going to be as easy as I hoped. It was stronger than expected. Then again, so am I.

I carefully raised myself onto the step at the base of the driver’s side door. I looked into the side mirror and saw a driver. It looked like he was gesturing to somebody.

I took a deep breath and tried to clear my head. Strategy one: take out vehicle. Strategy two: take on these guys one at a time. Don’t let them gang up on me. I know I can take one. I remembered what the missiles felt like, the heat washing over me, the force driving me to the ground. I stopped thinking.

I stood up and punched both arms through the window. It shattered. The driver tried to pull away. I grabbed for a handhold where his helmet met broad metal shoulders. I got one. I pulled but the window was too small, only his head came through. Instead the whole door buckled at the impact and the car rocked violently. I yanked once more and the door ripped free with a metallic screech. I grabbed the edge of the door, and swung. He struggled but his head was still stuck through the tiny window opening. I threw him as hard as I could. He sailed toward the bank entrance, and hit one of the heavy columns that lined the front. It cracked, and he spun off it violently. I heard glass shattering as he went through the front windows.

The shooting stopped.

Well, Jessie, you have their attention.

The response was deafening. The car shook violently as bullets ricocheted off it. Another lull in the firing. I looked up. Some of the soldiers seemed to have run off, but others were approaching, large fully automatic rifles in their hands.

I looked around. I was on the curb, in front of me were a long line of parking meters. Behind me I heard soldiers starting to run toward the car. I grabbed the nearest parking meter. The cement cracked at the base, and then crumbled away as the meter pulled free. I stepped around the corner of the truck and swung it at the startled charging soldier. The impact jarred me and leveled the soldier. The meter burst into a fine mist of quarters. I dove back behind the truck as two soldiers opened fire.

It occurred to me then that destroying parking meters was probably a crime of some sort. Destruction of public property or something like that. Funny what you think about when fighting for your life.

Their shooting took out the tires. The whole truck tilted wildly as it sunk down to the rims. I was happy – they were doing my job for me. I saw the leg of the soldier I had hit with the parking meter. It looked as if he was beginning to get up. I needed to buy myself a little more time to disable the engine. I sneaked a look around the corner. I saw a soldier, his rifle trained on my position. He saw me too. A burst of automatic fire tore into the side of the car. The soldier on the ground was dazed, looking for his gun. I couldn’t see it, and didn’t feel like poking my head out to look. Instead I grabbed the soldier’s leg and dragged him behind the car with me. He struggled weakly. I now had myself a shield.

I pulled him to his feet and carried him out from behind the corner of the car. The soldier opened fire on me again. The impact against the armor plating nearly pushed me over. It felt like trying to hold back a train.

Click.

The shooting stopped. I snuck a peek over my shield’s shoulder. The soldier was reloading. My shield was starting to struggle a little too hard. The impact must have woken him up. I put my foot in the mid of his back and kicked forward.

My aim was better than I thought. He flew forward and caught the reloading soldier in the chest. The two landed hard on the front steps of Chase Manhattan.

I was by the huge back doors of the truck. Black duffel bags were piled up inside, and one lay torn on the sidewalk. The wind carried away the front page of the New York Times. I looked but didn’t really believe it. The duffels were filled with newspaper.

I couldn’t dwell on it. One of the soldiers must have gone around the far side of the truck in order to ambush me. It worked.

The bullets caught me in the chest and barreled me backward to my knees. I was on all fours and tried to stand when the next burst hit. I was on the ground. It was getting harder to breathe.

He underestimated me. He gave me a second's reprieve. The world shifted and I was behind him. He didn’t hesitate. It was if he knew I was there. His elbow caught me in the stomach, knocked the wind out of me. I was gasping for breath when the butt of his rifle caught me in the chin. My head snapped back. I saw sky. He threw down the rifle. The force had sheared it in half. I didn’t see the next punch. I just saw his weight shift, a blurring at the edge of my vision. The impact. The ground.

I tried to shift away, teleport to safety. A kick to the stomach kept me where I was. Then I heard the strangest thing. Somebody was booing. Lots of people were booing. The cops.

I almost felt like laughing.

I coughed up blood.

I’m a superhero. Lets give them something to cheer about.

I rolled with the next kick, used it to get to my knees.

My vision was a narrow tunnel. All I could see was the shift of his weight. The blurring at the edge of my vision. I snapped my head back, the punch missed, I brought my hands up in a double fist where I hoped his chin would be.

The impact hurt. It hurt a lot. I just hoped it hurt him more.

He staggered backward a step. I pivoted, used the force to power my kick. He hit the truck. Then he went through it. The back left door spun off its hinges, and duffel bags spilled out. Newspaper flew across the street. That’s when I saw the bomb.

I didn’t recognize it at first. It was a mess of wires and steel drums. I guess it clicked when the soldier skittered to his feet and ran toward the bank. This was a decoy. They were getting out another way. The thought “I am going to die” kept getting in the way of my reasoning.

I needed to disable the bomb. I wasn’t thinking, but I knew. It was not only going to kill me, it was going to kill everyone in the area. That’s what it was supposed to do. I tried to force open the other door, but it ripped away in my hand. I was not thinking clearly.

The barrels. I knew I needed to get rid of them. I climbed into the back past the duffels. The bomb was silent and menacing.

I would have preferred a red L.C.D. timer.

Four barrels were wired to a clear Plexiglas box. Inside were circuitry and white clay. A little red light glowed on top. It’s booby trapped. Somewhere my conscious mind was screaming at me.

I remembered the jump. How it felt. The new record. Exhilarating. Soaring, like Superman.

Screw it.

I grabbed the Plexiglas box and jumped as far as I could. The wires snapped almost instantly. Heat. I thought about the first time I fought the soldier suits. The missiles. I remembered it was like being at the center of the sun.

Like now.

I had wondered why none of the soldiers had fired any at me near the truck. It was almost funny now. They weren’t fighting me very hard because they were just planning on blowing the whole thing up.

It was getting very dark. Black was swirling all around me.

It occurred to me that perhaps this explosion was meant for me. It did seem like a little bit of overkill to deal with New York’s finest. Well if it was meant for me, I’d humored them.

The darkness overcame me, swallowed me.

And all I could think about was rooftop gardens.

***

“I brought you some water.”

I opened my eyes. Between Brian and me sat a glass of water. He was standing as far away as the cramped little garden allowed him to. He still looked uncomfortable being that close.

I pulled myself up. The world did a lazy spin. I decided I might want to sit back down.

He just watched as I took the glass.

“You were on the news.” There was a strange flatness to his voice.

“I figured.” I tried not to feel to giddy. It was easier than I thought. I hurt too much. “They haven’t done anything bigger than page three before this.” I wanted to kick myself. I was sounding a little to eager.

“Following your own rise to stardom? Sounds a little narcissistic.” His smile looked forced.

I didn’t have a good superhero response. He seemed uncomfortable with the silence. I was just trying not to say anything else stupid.

“People on the news were trying to figure out whether you were alive or not. They had a bomb squad guy saying that the police on the scene were only alive because the bomb malfunctioned. When they asked about you he just did the ‘no comment’ thing everybody else has been doing.”

“Malfunctioned?” I guess there wasn’t anyway they could know.

“He didn’t get too specific. Luis Llaño was calling you a reckless vigilante. He said you almost killed everyone on the scene with your little stunt.”

“Little stunt?” I had been reduced to repeating him with a dazed expression on my face.

“I don’t know what he thinks would have happened anyways. It’s not like that wasn’t going to go off or something.”

I didn’t mean to cry. I didn’t mean to be here. I didn’t even know Brian. He was just a face at school. I didn’t know his last name.

“Are you okay?” The flatness was gone. He sounded like he was talking to a human being.

I pulled my knees to my eyes. I was thinking too much. All the not-thinking had caught up to me. I was thinking about school. About faceless metal soldiers. I was thinking petty thoughts. About Luis Llaño, about the nameless man from the bomb squad.

I felt a timid hand on my knee.

My body tensed at his touch.

“I’m sorry I called you narcissistic.”

A little laugh despite my tears. His apology just sounded so earnest. I didn’t know how else to react.

“I just tend to believe the worst about famous people. I think its resentment, or jealousy, or something. I want to believe that at least I’m a better person.”

I looked at him over my knees, and for the first time, I really looked at Brian’s face. He was worried, I could see that in his eyes, at the corners. There was something very serious at the point between his brows, and right at the corners of his lips. He wiped a tear from my mask. I don’t think I moved, I don’t think I even breathed. He didn’t seem to even notice it was a mask, he seemed too focused on me.

I stood up.

He did too, surprised.

I turned and jumped to the next building. I didn’t mean to look back. I didn’t mean to look at Brian’s face. He just watched me go. He didn’t say anything. He just looked betrayed.

Chapter 2

The interior of J.R.'s was bright and gaudy, an ill-conceived attempt to mix a Manhattan bar with a Dallas rerun.

"I was hoping you would come." Lana was holding a nearly empty beer bottle. It didn't look like her first. She seemed overly chipper, her speech a little faster than normal.

"This is Jessie, everyone." She turned toward the table that she was standing in front of. There were six people, people I barely knew. I thought I knew one or two names.

"She goes to school with me; we're sharing an apartment. She's going to be an engineer, very smart. She's always studying; I hardly see her at night. So everyone this is a rare treat to see Jessie without her nose in a book."

She had put her arm around my back and was steering me towards an empty chair. As she did, she whispered, or tried to whisper in my ear.

"Did you bring school stuff, here?" She sounded scandalized, pointing at the small black duffel that I was holding. I nodded. That sounded more reasonable than superhero stuff. She made a dismissive gesture with her hand.

"Well, at least you look good." I hadn't even had a chance to dress up. My hair was still tied up from jumping around the city, and I had slipped on some dark green bulky cargo pants over my costume. All I had done was change into a dark tank top. I looked into a nearby mirror. It was lucky I had a forgiving physique.

Lana had once said I could have been a swimsuit model if only I had a pair of double D's. Other than that, the superhero game kept me in pretty good shape. The image in the mirror had the surprisingly wide shoulders and shapely arms of an athlete, as well as the nice stomach. I actually cut a pretty imposing figure. I stood a few inches shy of six feet, despite my Japanese ancestry. In that department I took after my father, or so I was told.

Lana sat me down and went off to order another round. The conversation had stopped and Lana's friends were looking at me.

"Hi." It was the only thing I could think to say.

"So you're Lana's roommate?" I recognized him; his name was Sam. He was leaning back in his chair, dressed in a sharp black suit.

"Yes."

He seemed to be waiting for me to say something more. When it became clear that I couldn't think of what else to say he tried again.

"So you're an engineer?"

"Yes."

My brain was struggling to make the transition between monosyllabic superhero banter to normal conversation. Sam was still waiting.

"Mechanical." Sam just stared at me blankly.

"I'm studying to be a mechanical engineer." It was a minor victory.

“That’s great.” His response was dry, patronizing. He turned quickly back to the rest of the table. I felt out of my social depth, which at the moment appeared to be second grade.

Lana returned breathless, waiter in tow. She seemed to stumble into the edge of the table, her tipsy rapidly approaching drunk. It was three in the afternoon.

“Have you seen the news? They’ve got more footage of the bridge thing.”

I winced. “The bridge thing” had not gone well. All in all, it had been a crappy morning.

The waiter put his tray on the table and turned up the volume of a nearby set.

It was footage from a helicopter circling over the pandemonium. It was the same M.O. as before, cars pushed aside and formed into a crude barrier. Blue and red lights rimmed the aerial shot, police cars and boats. However, the camera was focused on the school bus in the center. This time they had taken hostages.

“This kidnapping, we’ve learned, was in retaliation for the reckless vigilantism displayed at the Chase Manhattan bombing”

I didn’t have to hear the slight South American accent to know who it was. Just wait until the next time you need saving Llaño. The television showed a still of me “attacking” Luis Llaño’s cameraman in his helicopter. It was, needless to say, unflattering.

“Is he implying the kidnapping or the bombing was her fault?” The waiter was passing out the drinks.

“I think both.” I was too stunned to say more.

“Why don’t you just give us our drinks,” Sam’s smile was not pleasant.

“Sam!” Lana laughed a little too loudly “It’s alright he goes to school with us. Don’t you, Brian?”

I tried to disappear. I hadn’t even recognized him.

“Oh, another NYU student, well we’re sure to be fast friends.” Sam’s disingenuous smile bore into Brian. Brian shut up, and collected his tray. He left quickly.

The others were watching the TV.

“Why does she dress like that, all black with those ribbons hanging off her, it looks so… so… goth.” It was a girl I met before, Casey. I had been going for ninja chic. Like she could do better with some black workout clothes, athletic tape, and some red and white fabric? It’s not like I know how to make a costume.

Sam chuckled and put his arm around Casey's shoulders.

“It looks pretty good to me.” Lana said, “What do you think Brian?”

Brian had just come back to the table to give Lana her tab.

“Um…” he glanced at the TV. “Um… I think she—”

“Yes, Brian, please grace us with your opinions.” Sam was still smiling. The girl that he was holding laughed.

Brian just stared at him for a second, sullen, and turned to leave.

“No, really what do you think?” I think I was the most surprised when I said it.

His gaze snapped toward me, probing for insincerity. I’m not sure what he saw instead, I didn’t even know what I was feeling, but his face softened.

“I thought she looked good, um… like a superhero.”

“A superhero!” Sam laughed like it was the funniest thing he’d ever heard. Lana laughed too, though I’m not sure, in her state, what she was laughing at. Brian just stood there, eyes blazing at Sam.

“To be fair, the whole ‘bridge thing’ is pretty amazing.” It was one of Lana’s other friends, a broad shouldered guy with short curly hair, and the beginnings of a beer gut. I thought his name was Tim, or was it Jim? “I could really see you splice ‘Boff’ or ‘Wam’ into it.”

Sam looked appalled. “Superheroes! This is the real world! I mean, even fake superheroes don’t live in New York, they live in Gotham or Metropolis, they live in fake New Yorks!”

“Daredevil protects Hell Kitchen.” I couldn’t help myself.

“And Spider-Man’s a New Yorker.” It was another of Lana’s friends.

Sam looked annoyed. I guess he thought the absurdity of his argument would end it.

“She punched out a bus.” I think his name was Tim.

“She dove out of the way.” Sam sounded exasperated that this conversation was even occurring.

I wanted to chime in, but I had said too much already. I was annoyed that they were getting it wrong, that the news reports hadn’t had better footage. It was clear that I dove out of the way and then ripped the front tire off the bus as I rolled by.

Lana gesticulated excitedly, “Oh, I love this part! It’s like something out of a Clint Eastwood movie.”

The TV camera panned from the bus to the edge of the cars. It zoomed in to the point where the steady cam could no longer cope. The little figure in black, white and red looked so tiny on the shaky shot. She stood motionless and then began to make the long walk toward the bus.

One soldier waited in the middle of the bridge.

Lana turned excitedly toward the table, “I wonder what they said?” It was the same question a TV ‘expert’ was discussing. I didn’t have to wonder.

***

He loomed over me in his powered armor.

The early morning wind whipped passed me, made the long red cord I wore around my neck snap and pull in the wind. I took all the courage I could muster to break the silence.

“I’m here now, let the children go.” It was the most heroic thing I could think to say.

His voice was hollow and metallic, with only a deeply buried hint of humanity.

“So the little Geisha talks.”

I’d hated that nickname from the first moment their demands made the airwaves.

“It took me a long time to understand how you could,” he stopped seeming to search for the proper term “travel like you did.”

“What?”

He ignored my interruption. “But now that I know its possible it should only be a matter of time before I can harness your unique gift.”

“What does my teleportation have to do with those kids?”

“Everything.”

I didn’t understand how he got the jump on me, I was usually more careful. I didn’t even see that he was armed. I tried to grab the gun he raised. He fired into my stomach. An arc of electricity deposited me onto sticky melted asphalt a good thirty feet away. My body was locked into a rigid fetal position. My vision swam as he approached me. He knelt his cold metal mask inches from my face. I could feel a discharge of hot air from the grill on the front of his mask, like a car's radiator.

***

“Why does the screen go all fuzzy like that?” Lana brought me back to the present. “One minute they're face to face and the next she’s on the ground.” The picture on the TV screen showed what Lana had described. Two figures tiny in the camera’s eye, then a picture that looked like unpaid pay-per-view. When the picture reappeared it was green, then purple and finally snapped back to grainy color. One figure on the ground, a soldier above her.

“Because he knocks her to the ground.” Maybe it was Jim, and not Tim.

“I’m not asking why she’s on the ground; I’m asking why the camera goes all strange.” Lana snapped.

“It did that in the other TV footage too.” Sam mused almost inaudibly.

“I use to do some A/V stuff in high school; equipment goes on the fritz all the time.” He didn’t seem to hear Sam, and his name I decided was definitely Jim.

Sam seemed too deep in thought to reply.

***

Other soldiers were gathering around. I felt myself being hauled up from behind. The only thing I could hear was the sound like static between radio stations. The world was full of colored blobs that refused to come into focus. It was as if my brain were in the long process of rebooting. It took me a moment to realize that the commander was still talking.

"...can't be created or destroyed, but moved..."

I blinked but the world still looked small, distorted and distant. It was like I was staring through a fish eye lens.

"...like a wave, energy passing through the neighborhood of matter..."

We were walking towards a bus that looked toy-sized, and maybe ten miles away. The commander's metallic mask filled my vision.

"...all those atoms keep changing, but you remain a little geisha. Have you ever wondered about that? Why don't you end up a radioactive cloud of carbon?"

I couldn't really concentrate on what he was saying, so I didn't answer. Instead I just head butted him. Suddenly, I was face down on the concrete, the weight of two armored suits on top of me. A big metal fist impacted my back, just above my kidneys. I closed my eyes, tried to ignore the pain. I envisioned the spot high up on the bridges support towers from which I'd been watching. I tried to imagine what it would be like to be there, feel the bricks under my feet, and the cold morning wind in my hair. I tried to teleport.

Nothing.

I was hauled up again. A thin crack split the middle of the commander's opaque visor. He threw his head back, but all I heard was distorted laughter, drained of any mirth. He turned and started toward the bus again. I was prodded to follow by my escort's gun. At least the lecturing had stopped.

I could see a soldier wedged into the driver’s seat. The weight of his suit had caused the seat to come unbolted from the floor. Balanced on its remaining two bolts the chair tenuously supported him, but leaned backward dangerously, threatening to dump him back into the seats behind him. The "driver" pulled on a lever and the door swung open. The commander turned sideways so his suit's wide shoulders could fit through the doorway. I was shoved in next.

Their faces were pathetically small. They looked over the backs of their seats, and down the aisle. They disappeared as the commander squeezed down the center aisle. He kept going to the emergency exit at the back where he could see the cops behind the makeshift barricade.

The whole bus shook as the two other soldiers followed me in. One grabbed my wrists and pulled them behind my back. I tried to struggle, but little children were everywhere and I couldn't turn around in the narrow confines of the central aisle. It felt like weights were being strapped to my arms. It only took a second and then I was released. My hands seem to be encased in a solid hunk of iron behind me.

"Now we talk some more, and you don't interrupt," the commander said, still looking away from me out the back of the bus.

"Are we really talking if all I can do is listen?" Unable to push it back up, I blew a strand of hair away from my face.

His shoulders shook gently, as if we were laughing under the suit. No sound escaped. "A fine rhetorical distinction." He turned to face me with his featureless mask. "Alright, I talk, you listen."

The children were elementary age. All look terrified and uncertain, but the one closest to me, a little boy in a red sweater was staring at me wide eyed.

"When you want to move from here to there what do you do in your mind?"

His circumlocution was confusing. I tried to remember where I'd heard someone speak like that. "What do I think?"

"Yes, what do you do in your mind?"

It came to me suddenly. It was the way someone who is still learning English speaks. "I think about where I want to go, what it would feel like to be there, and then..."

"And then you go," He seemed to be nodding along. Despite the distortion that the heavy mask caused in his voice I seemed to hear a hint of smug satisfaction. "And no nothing else?"

I just stared into the flat featureless panel that covered his face, and at the thin crack that ran vertically along it. "And no nothing else," I said finally.

The red sweater boy looked up. I saw him out of the corner of my eye. He noticed my sidelong glance.

"Are you here to save us?" He whispered it a little too loudly.

"Yes." The commander and I stared at each other, each of us having spoken in unison. I tried to see past the leaded glass.

The commander started again. "Normally, the little Geisha fights for this." He whipped something from one of the hidden compartments in his suit. There was no way to shy away from it in the cramped corners. It slapped against my face and fell to the floor. It was a thick roll of hundreds.

"She fights to protect the life of her good friend Benjamin, to make sure that no harm comes to him." He turned to the little boy got down on one knee so their faces were about at the same level. "Do you know what a Geisha is?"

The boy had scooted back and now his back was pressed up against the window, as far away as he could get from the metal monster. His face was white, drained of blood. His head shook. It was hard to tell if it was fear or a 'no.'

The commander took it to mean the second.

"Do you know what a prostitute is?" The little boy didn't know how to react. The faceless metal mask never turned away from him. Finally he nodded his head ever so slightly.

"What is it?"

The little boy’s voice trembled with fear.

"A woman who sells herself for money," he said hesitantly, as if he were quoting something from memory.

The commander still didn't move, just kept his terrible featureless face turned toward the boy.