Omega Superhero Box Set Read online

  My brain and my mouth needed to have a serious talk later about getting on the same page. Assuming there was a later.

  As I watched through the mirror, Donovan turned to me. He looked stunned. “What did you just say to me?” he demanded.

  I turned to face him. I had already put my big fat foot in my mouth. Might as well try to swallow the whole leg. “I said leave him alone. He’s not bothering you.” I said it more firmly than I felt. Inside, I was quaking. At least I had the good sense to not call Donovan an ass again. What in the world had come over me? Maybe my hands were hot because I had a fever and was delirious.

  Donovan strode over to me. He loomed over me like a mountain. He was trying to intimidate me. He was succeeding. “Why don’t you mind your own business?” he said. “Or maybe the retard is your business. Maybe he’s your boyfriend. I see you are wearing the same stupid shirt he is. You two are the retard twins. Is your retard twin also your boyfriend, faggot?”

  “No,” I said. Words flashed through my mind. I knew it was stupid to voice them. But, in for a penny, in for a pound. “Just because you walk around with your boyfriends all the time, that doesn’t mean everyone else does. How does your threesome work, anyway? Are you always the bottom, or do you guys alternate? Maybe you draw straws. Does the short straw get the,” I paused, moving my index finger back and forth suggestively, “long straw?” It felt good to talk back to a bully for once.

  That good feeling only lasted an instant. Donovan grabbed me by the front of my shirt. With a single arm, he pulled me up, almost off my feet. My tiptoes dangled on the linoleum. Donovan leaned down and put his face right into mine.

  “I don’t know who the fuck you think you’re talking to,” he snarled. His breath was hot against my face. “I’m going to punch your loser faggot ass into next month.” His free arm reared back. I pulled at his arm holding me up. It was like trying to uproot a tree. I turned my head away in fear. I was about to get my stupid head knocked off my stupid body. I did not want to watch the blow land. Feeling it land would be bad enough.

  Suddenly Bubba and Marcus were standing on either side of me.

  “Don’t hit him,” Bubba said, grabbing Donovan’s arm. I could have kissed him. “The coach said the next time you got into a fight, he’d have to bench you. We’ve got some big games coming up. We need you on the field.”

  From behind the Three Horsemen, I saw John creeping up. Though I did not know how much help he would be, it was good to see I was not in this pickle alone.

  John continued right past where the Three Horsemen were clustered around me. Moving as quickly as his legs would let him, he opened the door. John fled the bathroom without so much as a backward glance at me.

  Huh. I guess what they said was true—no good deed went unpunished. So much for the idea of all for one and one for all. Maybe that was only true in books.

  Nobody other than me seemed to notice John was gone. The Three Horsemen were too focused on me. Lucky me.

  “You’re right Bubba,” Donovan said after a long hesitation during which I anxiously visualized my head being knocked off my body like a golf ball driven off a tee. Donovan lowered his clenched fist reluctantly. He still held me up by my shirt. “I’m not going to risk getting benched over this loser. Can’t let him get away with talking to me like that, though. Tell you what, faggot,” he said to me, “since you’re so concerned about where I pee at, how about I pee on you?”

  “No thanks. I’ve been peed on twice today already. I’ve had my fill.” I was trying to joke my way out of this. No one laughed.

  “Hold him down,” Donovan said to Bubba and Marcus.

  Oh my God, he was serious! I started to kick and struggle. It was already too late. Bubba had me by my legs; Marcus had me by my arms. Donovan let go of my shirt. Grinning like kids on Christmas Day, Bubba and Marcus separated until I stretched out lengthwise between the two of them.

  Looking up at the tiled bathroom ceiling, I twisted and bucked, trying to free myself. If the viselike grips of the two loosened even slightly, it was not enough to notice. They put me down on the cold floor. Already much taller than I, Donovan now stood over me like a giant. I continued to struggle, succeeding only in banging the back of my head against the hard floor. I saw stars.

  “Get me go!” I shouted.

  Donovan reached into the fly of his pants. “As soon as my bladder is empty, we’ll let you go,” he said. He laughed a short sadistic bark that made me want to punch his lights out. He aimed. A stream of wetness hit my face. I turned my face away from it.

  “Let me go, let me go, let me go!” I screamed over and over. I tasted urine in my mouth. Some of it got into my eyes. I tried to blink it away. I snorted as some of the urine went up my nose. I bucked violently, still trying to free myself. Marcus and Bubba held me down as easily as holding down a child. I felt a combination of anger, impotence, and humiliation. Especially humiliation. I started to cry tears of frustration. Crying made me feel even worse about myself. I was nothing but a big baby who could not even defend himself. And, like a wet baby, I stank of urine. What if Mom was looking down at me and saw me like this? I was filled with shame at the thought.

  The sounds of the Three Horsemen’s laughter and the splashing of liquid against my face and neck filled my ears. I bucked even harder in Bubba’s and Marcus’ grasp. My heart pounded, harder and harder, until it seemed it would explode right out of my chest. My hands now felt even hotter than before, as if they had been thrust into the hot coals of a fireplace.

  I had the sudden mental image of being strong enough to pull Bubba and Marcus off of me and flinging them against the wall. Donovan I would shove backward into the stall behind us, stuffing him into the toilet. I saw it clearly in my mind’s eye like I was looking at a vivid photograph.

  “GET OFF OF ME!” I shouted yet again. The words felt like they came from the depths of my soul. The burning sensation of my hands, already intense, moved up to a whole new level of pain, as if they had been left in the hot coals long enough to catch fire themselves.

  Suddenly, all hell broke loose. Both Bubba’s and Marcus’ hands were pulled off of me. They both launched into the air, as if they had been picked up by an invisible giant and thrown. They cried out in surprise and confusion. They sailed through the air. They slammed into opposite walls of the bathroom with a loud crash. Bubba bounced off the wall a bit, landing face-first on the tile floor. The tile cracked where Bubba’s face slammed into it. He did not move. As for Marcus, he slid like a wet towel down the wall he had been thrown into. He slid until he landed hard on his butt, with his legs splayed out in front of him. His head lolled a little from side to side.

  Donovan was not immune from whatever was happening. He flew back into the partially closed door of the stall behind him like he was a cannonball shot out of a cannon. The stall door flew all the way open, crashing into the stall wall. The crash sounded like a shotgun blast. Donovan landed butt-first in the open toilet. He went down deep into the bowl, like a dunked basketball. His legs dangled from the toilet, with his feet barely touching the floor.

  There was dead silence for a moment, as if the entire world was stunned by what had just happened. The silence was then broken by the sound of the automatic toilet flushing. Water sprayed up, hitting Donovan in the face.

  I might have laughed at the sudden turnabout had I not been so astonished.

  I sat up. I turned my head repeatedly from side to side like a crazy person, frantically looking to see who had done whatever had just happened. I saw no one. Other than the groans of Marcus and Donovan, I heard no one. The Three Horsemen and I were still alone in the bathroom.

  I lifted my hands up. They still felt like they were on fire. They also looked different than they normally did. As I looked at them, twisting them from side to side, waves of energy radiated from them, like waves of heat coming off a hot highway. I tore my eyes off of them and looked down at my wet Avatar tee shirt.

  I could scarcely believe i
t, though it was as obvious as the big A that was on my chest and the stench of urine that filled my nostrils.

  I had superpowers. Like Avatar, I was a Metahuman.

  Holy crap!

  2

  I held my hands up in front of me as my father James drove our truck down the interstate. The faint waves of energy coming from my hands made the road look like it was rippled.

  “Are you sure you can’t see anything?” I asked Dad while I stared at my hands. Dad quickly glanced at my outstretched hands before returning his attention to the interstate.

  “For the thousandth time, no,” he said. He looked like me, only much bigger and stronger. “Your hands look the same to me as they always did.”

  I shook my head in wonder. Apparently, no one but I could see the energy that rippled from my hands like ocean waves. If it had not been for the incident with the Three Horsemen four days before, I would have thought the waves were just my imagination. Frankly, I wished they were. Being a Metahuman was proving to be a huge pain in the butt. At least the pain that had first accompanied the waves coming from my hands had gone away. That was cold comfort in light of everything else that had happened and was happening.

  Dad was driving us to Columbia so I could register with the government as a Meta. I had an eleven a.m. appointment at the U.S. Metahuman Registration Center. Under the Hero Act of 1945, anyone who manifested Metahuman abilities was required to register them with the federal government. The closest registration center to where Dad and I lived on our farm in Aiken County was in Columbia. Columbia was South Carolina’s capital city and located in the middle of the state. It was a little under an hour from our farm. Dad and I were over halfway there, traveling northeast on Interstate 20.

  I would have been thrilled if we just turned around and went home. I had no interest in registering. As far as I was concerned, the government could mind its own business and I would mind mine. Besides, I had zero interest in using my powers in the future. My unintentional use of them on the Three Horsemen had not worked out so well for me. But unfortunately, if I did not want to register, I never should have let Dad know what had happened in the bathroom. As he had said to me so often I could have mouthed the words along with him, “A man—if he is any kind of a man—works hard, plays by the rules, and obeys the law.” I had hoped he would make an exception to being so law-abiding this one time. I really should have known better. Once he learned I was a Metahuman, Dad had insisted I call the Columbia Registration Center and make an appointment.

  Then again, I really did not have much of a choice about telling Dad what had happened with the Three Horsemen. Even if I had not told him, the college would have. I was still technically a minor, and both Donovan and Bubba had broken bones thanks to their run-in with me. Donovan would probably have to miss this year’s football season. He was going around school telling everyone he would sue me. Since I was a minor and had no assets, really who he would be suing would be my Dad. I felt guilty about that. Dad was a struggling small-scale farmer. He could ill afford a lawsuit.

  “I can’t believe USCA suspended me for two weeks,” I said. I was still both pissed off and indignant. “They acted like I was the one who started the trouble.”

  “Well, it is your word against that of the other boys. They all say you were the one who started the fight.”

  “Oh sure, I was the one who went out of his way to start something with three gorillas who look like they popped steroids instead of Flintstone vitamins when they were kids,” I said sarcastically. “Maybe because I wanted to commit suicide. Death by football player. I must have figured finding a noose or a gun was too much trouble.”

  Dad smiled grimly.

  “You don’t have to convince me, Theo. I believe you. It’s not like you to go around picking fights for no reason. Honestly, I’m proud of you for standing up for that John kid.”

  “And how does John thank me? By telling the school that the Three Horsemen were telling the truth about me having started the fight.” I shook my head, still in disbelief about John’s lie.

  “Try to look at it from his perspective,” Dad said. “John’s probably afraid of what those three guys would do to him if he did not agree with their version of the story.”

  I frowned. Dad was way too nice of a guy sometimes. He was a devout Catholic. Unlike a lot of other so-called religious people I had seen, Dad actually practiced what he preached. Dad always tried to see things from the other guy’s perspective. “Before you judge a man, walk a mile in his shoes,” he often said. That was a quote from the James Conley book of clichés I had heard far too often. I secretly called Dad’s clichés Jamesisms. “If someone slaps you on one cheek, offer the other cheek also.” Another Jamesism, that one cribbed from the Bible’s New Testament. Thanks to me going to church so much with Dad, I knew the Old Testament said “You must show no pity for the guilty. Your rule should be life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.” The lies John and the Three Horsemen had told about me made me want to forget about turning the other cheek and instead be an exclusively Old Testament Christian.

  I folded my arms across my chest in frustration and annoyance. I should have been in class right now, not on my way to share all my personal business with the government.

  “It’s not fair,” I said stubbornly.

  “Life rarely is. You might as well get used to it,” Dad said. I just knew he would say that. I had heard that line from him before too. The fact I suspected he was right did not mean I had to like it.

  We completed the rest of the ride to Columbia in silence. Soon the tall buildings of downtown Columbia came into sight. I had been here several times before, mainly to go to the big farmer’s market here with Dad to sell stuff we had raised on the farm. Columbia was not a big city in the grand scheme of things. It had less than a quarter of a million people. A place like New York City, by contrast, had over eight million people. I only knew that from reading, not because I had been there. I had not been much of anywhere. I was born about ten minutes from where Dad and I now lived, and I had lived my whole life in Aiken County. I had told Dad I wanted to go to college in Aiken because I did not want to leave him in the lurch and force him to run the farm by himself. Deep down in my heart, I knew that was not entirely true. The truth of the matter was I was afraid to leave Aiken. Places bigger than Aiken confused and scared me. Even a small city like Columbia felt overwhelming. I was glad Dad was driving instead of me.

  The Columbia Metahuman Registration Center was near the center of the city, in a glass building that was taller by far than any building we had in Aiken. Dad parked the truck in the building’s underground parking garage. We got into the elevator, pushing the button for the ninth floor.

  While we rode up, I looked at the two of us in the polished brass interior of the elevator car. I was struck anew by how much Dad looked like me. Well, I looked like him, I guess. He had gotten to the planet before me, after all. The problem was he was about three inches taller and far heavier than I. Heavier as in more muscular, not fatter. Dad’s parents had been farmers too, so Dad had been doing heavy manual labor all his life. He had the well-developed muscles to show for it. What in the world had happened to me? Had I not been fed enough as a child? I looked like a deflated tire next to Dad, like I was him with the air let out. If I was going to have another growth spurt, my body was taking its own sweet time about it.

  We got off on ninth floor, and then walked down the hall to the registration center’s suite number. There was no sign nor any other indication that the suite contained the Metahuman Registration Center. We opened the door and walked inside.

  Honestly, I thought we were in the wrong place. I did not know what I had expected. Something out of a science fiction movie, maybe. I certainly was not expecting this. We were inside a small waiting room containing maybe half a dozen empty chairs. The walls were beige and undecorated. Old magazines were fanned out on a beat-up coffee table. A small receptionist’s window
was cut into the far wall, with a closed wooden door on the same wall. The place reminded me of the waiting room for a not particularly successful dentist or doctor, not where you went to register your Metahuman powers with the government.

  We saw a woman’s head in the receptionist’s window. Dad and I walked up to her.

  “Is this the Metahuman Registration Center?” Dad asked. His tone was doubtful. He must have been as dubious as I was.

  “Yes sir, it sure is,” the woman said. She had a very pronounced Southern accent. I had been told by the handful of people I knew who did not grow up in the South that I had a heavy accent too, but I did not hear it when I spoke. As far as I was concerned, I just spoke normally. “You gentleman have an appointment?”

  “Yes, at 11 a.m. I’m James Conley. This is my son Theodore.” The woman’s eyes flicked over to me. She smiled at me. She was young, probably not too terribly much older than I was. Early twenties, maybe. And, she was cute. Long brown hair, big dark brown eyes, long eyelashes, even white teeth, and full pouty lips painted red. I found myself wondering what it would feel like to kiss her.

  I opened my mouth to say hello, but nothing came out. I was suddenly struck dumb by shyness. I lifted my hand instead, intending to give her a cool guy wave. Instead I flashed her something that was half a finger point, and half a gang sign. Well, what I imagined a gang sign looked like. I had aimed for cool, but had hit doofus instead.

  I felt my face getting red with embarrassment. I could not even greet a cute girl without getting flustered. It was no wonder I was a virgin. Some Metahuman I was turning out to be. Maybe I should go by the alias Kid Klutz, the Sexless Wonder.

  The woman’s smile faltered slightly, as if she did not know what to make of me and my twitching hand. Join the club sister, I thought. She looked down at the appointment book in front of her, and then back up.

  “Oh yes, Theodore Conley. And right on time I see. I’m Jackie. I’ll be getting you all started with the registration process.” The woman was as cheerful as a dog being let out to play. I bet she had been a cheerleader when she was in school. “Just come right through the door over there.”