Super World Read online

  "It certainly acts like one – a virus that modifies our DNA in ways that heal us, even make us stronger."

  "Are you stronger?" Cal asked.

  "Yes," said Kevin. "I haven't attempted to quantify it yet, but I'd guess perhaps two to three times stronger. Perhaps more."

  "Great," Cal sighed. "And Jamie here just compressed a beer can to the size of a pea – until it was glowing."

  "You were able to compress it enough to generate radiant heat?" Kevin's jaw was half-agape – another expression Jamie had never seen him have.

  "We always thought you were hot, Mrs. Clarkson," said Terry, "but that's crazy."

  All three of them stared at him in disbelief. Terry grimaced.

  "Sorry, I didn't mean to say that out loud. I'm still learning how to handle my thoughts and what to say and not say. I seem to have a propensity for puns and humorous remarks."

  "Maybe that will be your superpower," Cal chuckled. "Pun Man."

  Jamie was smiling and hoping her face wasn't coloring too much. It had been a long time since anyone had referred to her as "hot," even jokingly.

  "Anyway," said Kevin, shooting a scowl at his friend, "I'm not sure of the pound-force required for that, but it would be magnitudes beyond what any human grip could achieve."

  "Not anymore," said Cal.

  They shuffled out of the shop, each lost in their own thoughts. Daylight was now a muted late-afternoon spring glow. A pale three-quarter moon hung in the blue sky above them.

  "Why don't you boys join us for barbecue?" said Cal. "We can talk about this some more."

  "My folks are expecting me back..." Terry cut himself off. "I'll tell them I'll be home later."

  "I'll tell my mom, too," said Kevin.

  Cal tossed some steaks on the grill.

  "Would you be willing to demonstrate that compression again, Mrs. Shepherd?" asked Terry.

  When Jamie frowned and offered no response, her father told them to hold on, and returned a minute later from the workshop – a favorite welding hangout for her husband - with a short solid steel bar. He set it on the table next to her.

  "One and a half-inch thick solid mild steel," he said with a smile. "That should give you something more substantial to work with than a beer can."

  Jamie gripped the bar, gave them all a grim smile, and squeezed. She felt little resistance – she might've been squeezing cookie dough – and both ends of the bar dropped to the ground. She opened her hand. A thin strand of white-hot metal shone on her palm.

  "Damn," her dad muttered. "Remind me not to shake your hand."

  Kevin and Terry laughed, gawking at each other.

  "That..." Kevin struggled for words. "The amount of force needed to achieve that must be beyond belief." He stared at the strand, which was gradually losing its glow. "Doesn't that burn?"

  "No." Jamie dropped the strand on the grass, staring at her palm in surprise. "It doesn't seem to have affected my skin."

  Her dad took her hand, turning it over in his. "Nothing."

  No one spoke for several moments. Cal got up and flipped the steaks.

  "Do you have any theories about the object, Kevin?" Terry asked.

  "I think it might be some form of rescue medical device. It's obviously designed for healing injuries and disease."

  "Even personalities?" Terry gave him a thin smile. "But why make people stronger than they were? Why not just restore them to their ideal condition?"

  "That's a very good question." Kevin cast a reflective frown at the workshop.

  "And it hasn't just made us stronger," said Cal. He nodded to his daughter. "Since we've gone this far, Jamie, you might as well show them."

  "Show us what?" asked Terry.

  The basketball lying under the hoop sprang out of the grass and into her hands like an eager puppy. The two young men fell back a startled step.

  "Telekinesis?" Kevin gulped.

  Jamie nodded modestly.

  "But the real question," laughed Cal, "is can she dunk?"

  "I'll try," said Kevin.

  The ball hopped out of Jamie's lap and hovered in front of her former student. He grabbed it but couldn't budge it from the air. Jamie released control and it dropped into his hands.

  "Have you tested how much telekinetic power you have?" Kevin asked. "Tried to move progressively heavier objects, or move them more forcefully?"

  Jamie shook her head. "Not yet."

  Kevin stepped below the basket and without apparent effort leaped up to his armpits on the rim and shoved the ball through the hoop. Cal's sigh carried over the hiss of the steaks and the thumping basketball. He switched off the grill and covered the sizzling meat.

  Terry hobbled over and picked up the ball. He made a move to jump and then shook his head. "Figures."

  He tossed the ball over to Jamie. She'd never shared her dad's obsession with basketball, but she had played varsity volleyball in high school.

  "Do it girl," her father chuckled. "Might as well continue the humiliation."

  Jamie gathered herself in front of the basket. She bent a little, warming her muscles, and straightened up with a cautious air. Her body felt unnaturally light and her legs coiled with a strange, savage power.

  "You're standing there like an old lady," her dad called to her. "What are you afraid of?"

  "I don't know."

  "Go for it. Don't hold back on my account."

  Jamie bent low – lower than what normally would've been comfortable for her – but her legs might've been steel pistons and her body weightless considering the complete lack of strain. She decided to go for it, just as her dad commanded. Time to stop being a fraidy cat.

  Jamie powered upwards, reaching for the sky and the moon almost directly overhead.

  A few things happened then almost too fast to register. First, her clothes burned off her body in a shroud of flame. Second, the sky disappeared in a mist – only to reappear in an instant several times bluer and brighter than before. The moon appeared to have grown.

  Then she looked down. It was as though she was standing on a satellite image of the continent, like a weather person on a "green screen." And that image was shrinking alarmingly fast – North Dakota to a small square as the whole North American continent panned out into view. Cloud cover swam under her feet.

  Only in retrospect could she reconstruct the last several seconds: the initial resistance of the air, a sense of pushing through something solid like gravel, the force on her shoulders and head squeezing down on her.

  Now, the utter, insane, absurd impossibility of it all fought against her growing awareness of what must've happened. "Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth." She'd always liked that Sherlock Holmes quote. But surely it was impossible that she could be up here?

  As the retreat of the Earth slowed, Jamie's thoughts coalesced. Her jump, perhaps combined with her telekinetic – or other? – ability had propelled her into the upper atmosphere. The thermosphere, was her best guess. She clapped her hands and barely heard the sound. There was the faintest whisper of wind as she continued to ascend. Nearing the non-acoustic zone. Strangely, after teaching an astronomy class, she was struggling to remember details. The sun was incredibly intense, yet she felt little heat. But then she'd felt little heat when friction had vaporized her clothing.

  I'm naked, flying into space. Shock couldn't even begin to approach her emotions. What she was feeling was the next step beyond shock. Like the dog that was so ugly it was beautiful, what she was seeing was so unbelievable that she felt a weirdly calm acceptance of its truth.

  Did I achieve escape velocity?

  That thought brutalized her calm acceptance. What have I done? She could not possibly survive this, escape velocity or not.

  But wait a second. I just survived launching off the ground at many thousands of miles per hour! The g-force alone would've crushed any normal human being in an instant. Too soon to count her out.

  Could sh
e breathe? She expanded her lungs. Yes. But nothing came in. It was the strangest feeling, breathing nothingness. But she wasn't lightheaded or feeling any signs of oxygen-deprivation. Oddly, she thought she tasted something – a brackish, metallic flavor. The taste of space?

  What now? Could she do anything to control her flight? Her telekinesis might offer a possibility. She couldn't tell how fast she was going, but she sensed she was still rising. She focused on slowing down, reversing her direction. At first, nothing seemed to happen. But after a few seconds of concentrating, she no longer sensed any upward motion.

  Return, she commanded herself. She rotated her body, reaching for the earth. The cotton ball atmosphere rose to greet her. She was descending! A fall from this height wouldn't normally be inviting, but at this moment Jamie felt the earth was welcoming her back. She raced through the clouds and slowed her fall with a thought. She appeared to be in control. Not that I need to worry. Terminal velocity couldn’t even approach the destructive force of her lift-off.

  That destructive force loomed larger in Jamie's mind as she fell, making occasional small adjustments to her trajectory until she was roughly on target for the northeastern portion of her home state. Newton's Third Law would require a terrible price in the opposite direction of her takeoff. She imagined concrete and dirt blowing downward with her launch, just as if a one hundred and thirty pound object had struck her driveway at thousands of miles per hour.

  And dialing in her descent – first to the general area, then Grand Forks, the rural countryside, and finally her ten not-so-green acres – she saw what she'd feared: a crater of fractured concrete bounded by dirt and powdery cement. The basketball hoop lay at its bottom. No sign of her father and the two boys. She released a deep breath – one of the few she'd taken during the last fifteen minutes. They hadn't been killed by her launch. At least not all of them. Someone would've needed to drag the bodies away. Her relieved smile assumed a more grim shape.

  Jamie landed as softly as if she'd had a parachute on the edge of the crater, which now contained most of her driveway and was maybe twenty feet deep, ringed by rubble that blocked the garage and spilled out on the lawn. Jamie levitated over the crater as naturally as walking – sparing a moment of wonder for that before entering the house.

  Relief coursed through her at the sight of the three men seated in the living room. The rapt gazes of the three men – the way their eyes traveled from her head to toes - made her remember that she was naked. The soot covering her body offered some protection, but everything she had was still on display.

  "Jamie!..." Cal jumped to his feet – and then halted, holding his side and wincing.

  "Are you okay?" Jamie stepped toward him, but was repelled by their ogling eyes.

  "Yeah. Just got the wind knocked out of me."

  "It was worse than that," said Kevin. "He was unconscious and bleeding from his side. Some rib bones were protruding."

  "What...?" Fear burst through her.

  "But Terry healed him. Or made him better."

  "Or the device did it," said Terry.

  "But nothing happened until you put your hands on him."

  "I don't know," said Cal with a shrug. "The lights went out when you jumped, J. Next thing I know the guys are shaking me awake."

  "But you're okay – not severely injured?"

  Cal patted his sides and shrugged. "Seem to be. I'll take Kevin and Terry's word on the broken ribs."

  Self-consciousness kicked in for Jamie as the men's gazes returned to her body. Time to shower and put on some clothes.

  And then it would be time for some discussion.

  Chapter 6

  THOMAS MAYES WOKE UP feeling he was destined to great things.

  It was a feeling he'd had often as a youth and young adult that had gone missing in recent years. At best, these days, he had visions of going out in a flame of fire for his cause. What was left for someone living in a society which vilified not only African-American men but Islam – a society that could not be defeated in battle within the foreseeable future? To do less, to accept one's slavery as so many did, was to live an ignoble life. What his parents – his father – saw as mere anger and pointless rebellion, he saw as righteousness. Yet it was a righteousness without reward. Unless you counted prison, lack of sex, and death as rewards.

  Thomas could see enduring such suffering if in the end he could win. He was "in it to win it" as the saying went, and wasn't particularly keen on waiting to be united with Allah – assuming that ever happened - for that. Sacrificing himself for a holy cause held little appeal unless the sacrifice led to victory. Something he'd despaired of until the last few days.

  But now his world had changed, and it appeared – unless it was an illusion, some strange test – that he had the means to win. The night after his family's visit, it had begun with a sniffle and a headache and ended the next morning with the sense of being reborn: no soreness in any joint or muscle, a lightness of being that made even the hard contours of his bunk bed as soft and accommodating as the finest feather bed. He woke up with a big smile on his face and didn't even know why.

  Not until he went to the outdoor weight stack for his post-breakfast workout. The way the barbell exploded off his chest, he wondered if someone was playing a joke on him. Maybe they'd substituted rubber plates for the real ones? They felt so artificially light in his hands. At first he shrugged it off as one of those good days, but it was way past that. He pushed past his personal bests in every lift and soon was lifting crazy weight, enough to draw a crowd of cons urging him on. When their cheering turned to apprehensive silence and fearful stares, Thomas called it a day. Better not to show all his cards, especially when he wasn't sure what they were.

  Now he was getting a better idea. What was holding back from a bold move was the "why." After hearing about his younger brother's miraculous recovery – "Praise God!" his mother had cried over the phone – he thought maybe Terry might have some answers.

  "Dad said you wanted to talk to me," Terry said when he called home that day.

  "I wanted to congratulate you on your remission – if that's what is, little brother."

  His little brother was significantly silent in response.

  "Or was it just a remission?"

  The silence stretched.

  "I've had some pretty fucking miraculous things happen to me, too." Thomas shielded his mouth with one hand to fend off the line of nosy inmates behind him.

  "You have?" Excitement and wariness mixed in Terry's voice. "What kinds of things?"

  "A hella lot stronger for one. For two, I can make people do shit – shit they don't want to do – just by asking."

  "I can do stuff, too," Terry whispered.

  "No shit. Since when?"

  "Just yesterday. I was experimenting. There may be other things I – we – can do. I think it may take time to discover them."

  "Cool. But I need you to tell me now what's causing this." He glanced at the people behind him. The nearest ones were looking around innocently and pretending not to listen, but he knew they were straining their ears with everything they had. What else was there to do in here?

  "I don't got no time for bullshit, boy," Thomas snarled into the phone. "Spill it and spill it fucking now."

  "Something is causing this," said Terry. "But I can't explain it over the phone in a few seconds."

  "You better tell me something."

  "Time's up, Thomas," said the guard, stepping up, caution in his eyes as Thomas glared at him.

  "Okay, baby brother," he said into the phone. "We'll talk more about this soon. Looks like I might be getting an early parole."

  D-DAY HAD arrived.

  Jamie and her dad were packing the last of their most precious stuff into a thirty-four foot enclosed trailer when Cal growled: "What the fuck are we doing? Seriously?"

  "We're getting ready for the sheriff to come seize the property," said Jamie. "What do you mean?"

  "You know what I mean."
r />   Using Jensen's tractor – telling him they needed it to lift a section of the workshop for foundation repair – Cal had moved the cylinder just beyond the edge of their property into a wooded marsh on Jensen's land that no one ever visited, including Jensen. Not that they thought it would stop the spread of whatever the device was spreading; it was just about buying time. Time they were out of on the property itself.

  "In three days," said Cal, "I could have a big check sitting in the bank, but they wouldn't buy it."

  "Wouldn't buy you making it in the NBA?" Jamie shot him a smile. "Why would they be skeptical about that?"

  "Yeah." Cal's smile flat-lined. "But why not at least check my story out instead of assuming I'm a nutcase? They refused to even consider the possibility."

  "Well, the property's already sold. The bank wouldn't have the option of extending the redemption period even if they did believe you."

  "We'd have to bribe the new owner. Maybe you could squeeze some coal and make diamonds or something."

  They emerged from the cargo van, Cal wiping his face with a sleeve. Whatever was making him sweat, Jamie thought, wasn't the hard work. She'd moved most of their stuff with telekinesis, and had even filled in the crater in the driveway by pushing in the surrounding mounds of dirt and shattered concrete and leveling it out. It looked a bit unusual but not enough to raise any eyebrows, Jamie thought. All that remained was the stress of leaving and the ninety-eight degree temperature in the shade.

  On the road leading past their property a county sheriff's SUV was approaching, shimmering in the heat waves rising from the asphalt.

  "You could just turn off his engine or blow out his tires," said Cal. "Stop his car in its tracks."

  "What good would that do? Besides, I don't have that kind of control. I could just as easily blow the car and the sheriff into oblivion."

  The idea of having superpowers was still alien to Jamie, especially the ones she wasn't sure about. Since her unplanned flight into the thermosphere, she'd noted a few other abilities besides her flight, telekinesis, and extraordinary physical toughness: something that might or might not be teleportation – she had moved a few things from A to B without seeing them actually move there – along with spontaneously causing electrical items to turn on when they were unplugged. It was far too much to process. Great responsibility might come with great power, but she would've preferred a learning manual.