Waiting for a Miracle - Chapter 11

A beautiful day is like a rose. The more you stomp on it, the uglier it gets. Today was a beautiful day, with the emphasis on was.

My plot had started off so well. Wallace was out patrolling the city as I’d asked him to, while Leona and I set up the bomb for a launch for the best effect. My idea had been that if I told Wallace only my intent instead of divulging every detail of my plan, it would lend a real element of danger to the plot.

Just how much Wallace could handle was a question that had been building up to this day.

After setting the bomb into the housing of a rocket, I flew high into the sky before sending a message to Leona by radio. “I’m in position now. Launch the rocket.”

“Rocket away,” Leona confirmed.

A moment later I watched the rocket whiz past me, and then I had to take my eyes off of it as I heard a plane approaching. I moved out of its flight path just as I saw a flash of light above me. A moment later I heard a muffled pop.

Two things happened at the same time. First, the power to my suit failed. The neural links detached and I began to free-fall. I’d planned for this, which was why I had gone to such a high altitude to avoid creating any personalized ‘abstract art’. I hadn’t figured out how to shield the power supply from an EMP pulse, so I just planned around what I had considered a minor inconvenience.

However, I was panicking at the second thing which happened as I fell. The plane I’d dodged fell with me, and through one of the windows just behind the wing, I saw a woman looking at me. She stared in an almost serene fashion while every other person was screaming their heads off, and yet her calm demeanor did not ease my growing sense of panic as I watched Miracle Man’s ex-girlfriend plummet toward the ground at what was quickly approaching terminal velocity.

I had seen her beautiful face with the exact same annoyingly calm expression in a dozen photos, paintings and posters hung throughout double M’s apartment. As I looked at her through that window, an idea for a plot began to form.

It was quickly stabbed to death with extreme prejudice when the neural links engaged without warning, driving two dozen catheters up my spine and into the base of my skull. The suit sensed that I was in imminent danger, so it powered on as soon as the power supply came back online.

I turned on my suit’s energy field, but I wasn’t ready to fly just yet. We still had a long way to fall, and this was supposed to be Wallace’s rescue.

During the time that I waited, I even imagined gloating to double M that my temporary hero had saved his girlfriend. Yet the ground loomed closer, and I still saw no sign of Wallace.

I decided to at least save this one plane, and so I took out my shrink ray gun, shooting the jet and moving to cup it gently in my palm. As soon as I had it in my grasp I put it into its own energy field to protect it from any possible impacts.

“Oof!” I grunted as I hit the ground, bouncing about twenty feet back into the sky.

I got myself into an upright position and beheld the fruits of my plot as what looked to me like hundreds of planes dropped from the sky. It later turned out to be considerably less, but with so many planes falling at once, the chaos of the moment made it all that much more horrific to me.

And still no Wallace.

Looking down at the tiny speck in my hand, I decided to put it on the ground and restore it to its proper size before I went to work on the other jets. I set it on the ground and flew up thirty feet before turning and firing my shrink ray gun at the miniscule target. My pride in my aim was short-lived, as my placement of the plane caused its left wing to grow into the side of a building.

The shearing metal must have sparked at that point, because the wing exploded, rocking the fuselage hard onto its right side. The force tore the right wing off, and the body rolled over it, crushing the fuel cell inside. When the right wing exploded, it sent the fuselage high into the air, nearly hitting me as it rose on a column of fire.

“Fuck me,” I groaned, flying up as fast as I could. I became immaterial to avoid creating a sonic boom, phasing into the plane just a few inches away from Miracle Man’s ex-girlfriend.

She was bloodied and unconscious, and my heart almost locked up in my chest. Realizing I had only seconds to act, I reached out to touch her with my hand, making her as immaterial as myself.

Then a funny thing happened. By that, I mean “hmm funny” as opposed to “ha-ha funny.”

The tail ripped off, and the rush of air made the interior of the plane burst into flames around us. The effect was like a gun, blasting everyone and everything through myself and Miracle Man’s ex.

People all around me screamed in agony as they went flying out the back. I should have been reveling in the glory of it all, but my brain was screaming, No! It’s not supposed to be like this!

And  where the hell was Wallace?

It was only after the other passengers were flying through us that I held in place. The plane dropped away from us, and I watched it plummet to the ground, unable to look away until it crashed on a condominium.

I knew even as I landed with Miracle Man’s ex that I had saved only one person in exchange for the thousands dying all around me. I could hear multiple explosions as planes hit the ground, or worse, buildings filled with innocent and unsuspecting civilians. Looking down at the single victim that I had saved from my most successful plot, I wondered if bringing back Miracle Man could ever make up for what I’d just done.

I knelt down, feeling relieved to find that the ex’s wounds were only superficial. I patted her face to revive her, and her eyelids fluttered open.

She looked at me for a few seconds before clearing her throat. “I know you,” she croaked hoarsely.

I took off my mask, trying as best as I could to smile even though my chest felt hollowed out. “I know you too,” I said in a low, disquieted voice.

She sat up and put a hand to the side of her face, as if to quell some dizziness. She looked at me and sighed. “I know what you’re thinking, and I’m not with that freak anymore.”

“Your name is Vicky, isn’t it?” I asked, hoping my memory was accurate.

“Yes, and I used to be Chet’s girlfriend,” she said, still sounding groggy.

“Chet?” I asked. I thought the name over before giving a shrug. I supposed he did look like a Chet. “Look Vicky, I know his habits may have seemed odd to you, but since you’ve left, this city has lost its best hero,” I said, hoping to reason with her.

“Now it has a new one. This Wallace guy took the job, so screw Chet and his freaky fetishes.”

“Fetish,” I corrected her. “And cross dressing isn’t all that freaky.”

“What are you doing?” Vicky asked me. “You’re the bad guy, and it sounds to me like you made this entire plot just to convince me to go back to my boyfriend.”

I shook my head. “I never thought I’d see you literally dropping by today. This was supposed to—look, Vicky, Wallace is acting as a temporary hero in the absence of the city’s real hero. You might not have noticed, but there is no Wallace saving the day today, and no Miracle Man either.”

“So what’s your point?” Vicky was almost screaming at me. “I’m not going back to that freak, and you can’t make me!”

I gave up, taking Vicky to the hospital before I flew home. Everywhere I looked, I found fires burning out of control. People screamed as they lay dying. Others cried for loved ones who were either dead or buried.

Perhaps if I had an opulent lair, I might have had something to take comfort in. Or perhaps my possessions might have made me feel just as bad. I looked around my den, and there was nothing. I went to my lab, and again; nothing.

Tools, yes. I had tools for my work, and the most basic furnishings needed to assure a comfortable life. But it was an empty life, one without purpose or meaning.

I was home only a few minutes before I could not bear to look at anything. I left, flying to Leona’s apartment. It was there that I found Wallace sobbing on Leona’s shoulder. After he had calmed down, we discovered the reason why he had been detained.

He had been on patrol when the Rocket made an appearance. He taunted Wallace into chasing him, leading our hero into a trap. Several criminals had banded together and bored a four hundred foot hole.

I had grossly misjudged the range of the pulse, and so it was my bomb that killed the power to Wallace’s collar. It was at just the right moment for the mob to tie him up and toss him down the hole. His power cell recharged, but before he could fly out, the criminals blasted the top of the hole with four pounds of C-4, sealing Wallace under several hundred feet of soil. By the time he’d dug his way out, the planes were all twisted wrecks, and many of City’s most prominent buildings burned like giant funeral pyres.

I sent Wallace home, promising him that any plots that we made in the future would be fake fights; that I would no longer try to test his abilities.

Strangely, Wallace seemed more concerned with making sure that I would still go camping with him. He clutched my hands, his wet, guilty eyes boring holes through me as he repeated again, “You know you need this, don’t you?”

“Yes, of course,” I repeated. I still had to repeat it another two times to send him home and let his wife console him.

I looked at Leona and found smoldering rage in her blue eyes. I knew what we had to do simply by looking at her.

Leona and I left to go downtown. It didn’t take us long to find the criminals celebrating their victory in a seedy bar. The bartender saw my expression and dove under the bar. This alerted the Rocket, who took one look at me and vanished.

He reappeared by the door, falling with a thump on his ass as Leona shoved him back hard. “Please—” he began to plead.

Leona’s voice took on a terrifying feral growl as she asked, “Where the hell do you think you’re going?”

The Rocket squealed, crawling backwards and bumping into my leg. He rolled over and saw the look in my eyes, screaming until I clamped my hand over his mouth.

Picking him up by his jaw, I phased my hand into his chest and closed my fingers around his heart. I tugged it free, pulling it from his chest through the hole my wrist had made.

The Rocket slumped instantly, and I let his body fall, wringing his heart out onto his lax face.

Dropping the crushed organ on the dead man’s throat, I asked, “Which one of you was stupid enough to think you could make a plot without me?”

A pale man with warts on his face, who I knew as Toady, stepped forward through the silent crowd. “Hey, Light Master. You, uh...you seemed to have your hands full with this new guy, Wallace. So we figured we’d take care of him for you.”

“You didn’t take care of him.” I spoke in an almost calm voice until I scowled and shouted, “You didn’t even wound him, you moron! You couldn’t kill him if you got all of the criminals together, and who do you think he’s blaming for this? I was almost killed because of your ‘plot!’ You almost ruined one of my plots because you didn’t tell me!”

“Hey, we did just fine without you!” Toady yelled as he gestured around at the other villains. “We’re all here, and Wallace ain’t!”

“Toady, your mouth has just become too big for your head.” I spoke in a more calm manner, which caused many of the gathered villains to flinch.

Toady was too stupid to know better, I guess. He was opening his mouth to say something else stupid when I stepped forward and punched my fist into the little man’s mouth.

I carried through with the punch, forcing my fist out the back of his head. I held up my arm to show the others his lifeless body dangling from my forearm. “This is why I’m the boss.” I turned in a slow circle. Toady’s dead feet slid across the dirty floor, making a dreadful loud hiss in the dead silent room.

Completing a turn, I used my free hand to gesture at the Rocket as I asked, “Would any of you like to join Toady and the Rocket on my bad side tonight?” Looking around, I saw no one willing to say a word.

Until then, I’d never really thought of my cohorts as cowards. But there it was. Who among these fools would face Miracle Man in a fight? I had, and Leona had stood her ground and attempted to seduce him.

But these cowards ran from him. He had to chase them down and tie them up like squealing, terrified pigs. Not one of them had the guts to face him, or to face me.

Feeling disgusted, I shook my arm so fast that Toady’s head exploded. His body hit the floor hard, and heads bowed to follow it.

No one would even look at me.

I tasted bile as I said, “I am the overlord of all crime in City. If you plot against Wallace and don’t involve me in your plans, I will kill you.” I peeled off the remains of Toady’s face and threw it at the floor. “Clean this mess, and stop fucking partying like you did something great. You all fucked up big time, assholes.”

I flew home and went to my bedroom, muttering furiously as I pulled off my bloody suit. I went to look for my robe, caught off guard when I found Leona’s arm dangling it out of my closet. It dawned on me that I had once again stripped in front of her, and I took my robe with a long sigh.

Suddenly, the moment seemed funny for reasons that no longer make sense to me. But then I kind of chuckled.

“Was it as good for you as it was for me?” I asked in a cheesy French accent.

Leona shrugged. “It wasn’t what I expected,” she mumbled with a tiny smirk.

I realized that she was pretending for my sake, and I could see that her eyes were filled with a haunted look of sadness. Taking a deep breath, I went to my couch and sat down, making no protest when Leona lay against me.

After several minutes, I heard her sniffle and realized that she was crying. I rubbed her back, but said nothing. There are some times when “sorry” just doesn’t cover it.

“How many do you think are dead?” she whispered.

“It’s going to take a while to get the full count, but I suspect it’s in the thousands.” I stared at the ceiling, afraid to close my eyes and risk seeing those screaming victims as they were hurled from the plane.

“We did it,” Leona said hollowly and shuddered.

“Yes, we did,” I agreed.

We fell asleep holding each other tight.