Off The Pages

Jennifer rocketed away from the Target parking lot, up into atmospheric elevations, and saw the scene. Three gunmen stood inside a place of business in Texas. The news had reported the initial standoff and she’d reacted as quickly as possible. The business catered to black people especially and had a mostly colored staff. Racism never failed to emerge in this modern world, she figured.

Descending, she investigated the building and saw a handful of explosives set across the layout of the seven-story building. Moving so fast, everything stood frozen around her, she crashed through one of the upstairs windows and snatched one of the bombs out from behind the desk, zooming it up high into the sky, where a burst of electricity exploded it harmlessly overhead. Four more met their end far away from where they could hurt anyone, and then she descended into the lobby. Before the attackers saw anything, their guns and all their equipment sat outside behind police lines. She left without anyone having been hurt.

She returned to the Target, and zoomed into the men’s restroom, locking the stall door. There, Manny reemerged, and he exited to his car, where he got behind the wheel and fired it up. Another successful run. Things had been going smoothly lately, with not many major incidents. The few incidents initially after the Lights had seen some people immediately use their newfound powers for hedonistic purposes, but most of them had been able to be taken down by ordinary bullets. Their hapless example seemed to have shut most of the would-be renegades down. It seemed people had more common sense than he would have otherwise imagined.

As he drove home, he thought of the lives saved. Sure, he’d saved about fifty or so people in the fires, and a dozen more in the storms in Kansas, and almost a thousand in China, but the fact that he hadn’t yet been drawn to an incident of millions showed him the resilience of society. He had never been one of those people to believe that society and its contract were frail and to be thrown away at the drop of a hat. He had seen that, in the absence of society, the first thing people seemed to do was recreate it in some fashion.

There was a strange car in his driveway.

He instinctively changed back into Jennifer. With her enhanced senses, she peered ahead to the car. The identification sat in the glove compartment. “Davis Wilson,” she read. “FBI.”

Her heart sped up. This had been the eventuality that her friends had warned her about. Options crossed her mind rapidly. Should she simply run? That didn’t make sense, she figured, as the first thing that would likely happen was a stronger response. Given her powers, one guy didn’t qualify as a response. Then again, the government likely figured that they could judge her reaction by one guy. If she retaliated, she couldn’t be trusted, they likely thought. So, she decided she would simply talk to him. If he arrested her, she didn’t have anything to worry about, at least it hadn’t seemed that way. Common sense and her enhanced intellect told her that, if they had superior firepower to threaten her with, they’d have brought that person along. And she didn’t sense anything odd about this man. Then again, she wasn’t going to take chances. If she had to take off, she would.

“Hi there,” Davis Wilson said, leaning up against his cruiser.

After parking the car, Jennifer exited the vehicle, a nervous rapid blink in her eyes. “Hi,” she flatly stated.

“I spent about an hour thinking about what might freak you out the most,” he explained, “and I have to tell you right off the bat, I don’t have powers. As far as I know, the government is trying to get people with powers, but they don’t have anyone near your level of power. I’m just here because…well, let’s face it, you’re the biggest player in the field right now.”

She looked around and saw most of her neighbors were either at work, or behind shut doors. “Davis Wilson,” she replied, “I have to say, I anticipated this, kinda. It still upsets me that I’m going to be arrested just for helping out.”

“I don’t know what you expected,” he replied, “or, for that matter, what I expected. But I think there’s a way out of this for you. I think if you make a great impression, there won’t be a problem.”

She laughed. “Hah! How can you say that when your superiors are paranoid government freaks?”

“Let me make you a promise,” Davis offered. “I can’t guarantee my superiors will treat you fairly, but I can assure you I’m not lying to you when I say I think you’re trying to do the right thing.” He took a ragged breath. “After all, you could have made it really difficult to track. Instead, you made it possible to figure out who you were.”

“It was a safety measure,” she said. “I was trying to have an ace in the hole in case this happened. I wasn’t wanting to actually have to use it.”

Davis shifted his leaning posture. “I actually think you’re great for the world,” he admitted. “I grew up with comics and I must say, I never expected someone to get powers on this scale and not immediately use them for purely selfish reasons. Please, help me get the government to see you the way I see you.”

She stared into his eyes and looked at his heartbeat. It hadn’t changed radically, and his sweat had remained consistent. “Alright,” she said, “but if anything looks even slightly fishy, I’m getting the hell out of there.”

“Hey,” Davis said, shrugging. “No one will be able to stop you.”

Fifteen minutes of driving later, they arrived at a federal complex in Saint Louis. The car parked by the curb, and the agent stepped out of the driver’s seat. He opened the rear passenger door, and out stepped Jennifer in her standard outfit. A team of agents exited the building, ready to meet their subject, and saw the amazon-esque figure, standing slightly taller than some of them, garbed in an orange t-shirt and yoga pants, with cheap rain boots. They stared as she walked beside the agent.

“Excuse me, ma’am,” one agent said, approaching, a stutter in his voice. “We didn’t want to do this outside, in case the press was watching, but…”

Jennifer rolled her eyes. “You want me to put some damn handcuffs on,” she guessed.

“I apologize,” he said. “It’s just that…”

“Protocol?”

He nodded. “Yes ma’am.”

She stuck out her hands. “Dammit,” she swore. “Fine.” He clinked the metal around her wrists, and they guided her to one of the free interrogation rooms.

As Davis took his spot in the room opposite her, with several agents watching behind the one-way glass, an important figure walked into the room. The agent looked up and did a double take. “Boss!” he said.

Sam Louis nodded. “As you were,” he ordered. He took a seat. “You’re a fascinating one, Miss Black.”

She gave a skeptical look. “So, you’re the big cheese?” she asked.

“I’ve been put in charge of the task force for investigating superpowered beings,” Sam explained. “And that means that you’re my priority one target right now, because no one else is demonstrating the kind of power that you are.”

“And that makes me a target.”

Sam laughed at her flippant statement. “You act as if we’re not supposed to freak out at the level of firepower you have!” He exclaimed, setting out pictures of her actions. “You’re a living weapon, you know that? You’ve got nuclear-level capability, or even higher, at your disposal, should you turn against this country. That’s not exactly something we can just ignore.”

“I know that,” she replied. “I just think it’s a bit much that I’m being arrested.”

“Don’t jump the gun,” Sam shot back. “That’s what we’re here to determine.”

“Well, how about removing these?” Jennifer replied. “I’d prefer not to accidentally break these and get charged for destruction of property.”

Sam nodded and Davis reached across the table and unfastened them. “Let’s get the big deal out of the way first,” the elder agent said. “You don’t exist. You don’t have paperwork. How were you going to solve that problem?”

A sheepish look crept onto her face. “I was hoping to be a hero,” she explained, “and worry about that later.”

Both agents looked skeptically. “You do know how hard the process is,” Davis cut in. “It isn’t easy, even for people who are applying properly from a home country. You’re effectively stateless.”

She sighed. “I know,” she admitted.

“You do realize you can’t do anything official as who you are now,” Sam pointed out. “If you’re counting on your other self, because that is the most likely option, given what we know, that might cause problems for people your other self considers close relations.”

“I know that,” she protested. “I’m actually really concerned about it because I want to spend most of my time as this self, my useful self. I’ve just been more worried about helping people than that.”

“I ain’t read many comics,” Sam stated. “But one thing I know is that the heroes fight crime. Why haven’t you?”

“I have,” she corrected. “Take their weapons away and leave. No one sees me.”

“Interesting,” Sam cut in, “but that’s not what I meant. Why not fight crime?”

“You mean,” she asked, “why don’t I help arrest criminals?” Sam nodded. “Because I’m not a cop. I’m not stupid. It’s not my job. My job is to save lives. I’m not law enforcement.”

Sam nodded. “Interesting,” he replied. “Eighty years of superhero stories and you decide not to do the one thing all the characters do.”

“When I first got these powers,” she said, “I went around saving lives, but also having fun. There’s no excitement like flying or exploring the bottom of the ocean. But for me, being able to do something directly instead of just being a passive observer was a godsend. I don’t need to be a cop. I’m more than happy doing what I’m doing. But I also need a life of my own.”

The elder agent had seen many a liar in his time. As a senior agent, he’d worked in the field busting many a hardened gangster and criminal. This woman had an honesty about her that he found to be a rare gem. Either that, or she was a fantastic actor, which he doubted very much. He’d seen those types too; she struck him as too naïve to be faking it.

“Tell me,” Davis interjected. A question came to him. His career had involved life and death enough times to know a great way to judge character. “What was it like the first time you stared down a gun?”

Jennifer clamped her lips tighter and released a nasal sigh.

Then she told the story.

A man named Jason Nehrmann had burst through the door of the nightclub. Gunshots and screams exploded over the sound of the music, and the DJ stopped playing almost immediately. The multicolored extravaganza overhead died, and all the normal lights went up, bathing the scene in white fluorescence. Bouncers leapt into action to take him out, and a burst from a shotgun opened his chest and then the assailant spun around and caught another in the face. People hit the deck and a few unlucky victims caught rounds to the back as they tried to flee. A woman who attempted to dial 911 on the phone behind the bar caught a slug from a waist-drawn pistol, clutched her neck, then collapsed. He replaced the pistol and returned both hands to his twelve gauge.

“Where THE FUCK IS NADINE?” he shouted. He stepped around a corpse and levied the gun at a waitress who had emerged from the kitchen to see the ruckus. “You! Where the fuck is Nadine?”

She threw up her hands and started blubbering. “I…I don’t…” she stammered.

“ANSWER ME!” he shouted.

“She’s…” the woman struggled for words. “off today!”

“Bullshit!” he cried, stepping closer, gun levied.

Jennifer had seen and heard all of this as she had left the scene of a meth lab explosion in a small town in south Florida. She crashed through the window and stood between the gunman and the waitress.

Jason cocked his head. “Who are…” Realization dawned on him. “I know you. You’re in those pictures!”

“You’re not going to win this!” Jennifer shouted.

“I’m not leaving without Nadine!” he screamed, bringing the gun back up to chest level.

Her heart pounded. As sweat began to bead on her forehead, and her irrational mind shouted so loud it overwhelmed her focus, she tried to fight back. I’ve survived deadlier things, she thought, trying to reason her way out. The image of the shotgun and the pistols at his hips caused her more primitive fight-or-flight response to work overtime. She swallowed. This was insane. How could she clam up like this?

“Fine then!” Jason shouted. “Fuck you too!”

He pulled the trigger.

Thoughts muddied together. Time slowed down as she instinctively kicked one speed power on. She could see the pellets as they escaped the barrel in their tight cluster. This…this was the real thing. People died from stuff like this. With her arms beading with sweat and palms jittery, she stuck out a hand and scooped the pellets in her grasp and crushed them. A breath caught in her throat as she expected burning and shooting pain.

It never came.

She let out a deep breath, both physically and mentally.

He gasped and pulled the trigger again. The woman’s arm blurred for an instant and nothing appeared different. “WHAT IS HAPPENING?” he screeched. He pulled the trigger once more, just as she disappeared from where she stood and appeared with hand over the barrel. A muzzle flash shot out against her skin and pellets fell harmlessly to the floor. A hand reached for the hip, only to find air. His pistols sat halfway across the floor. He made a mad dash for it, only to be tackled by a crowd of people outside the club.

She collapsed onto a barstool and blinked wide eyes. Her lungs took in huge gasps of air as she placed hands on the bar and held herself there. She lowered her head and closed her eyes a moment. This hadn’t been a hallucination; she’d stared down a gun. She had taken actual bullets to her skin. She stared at her hand. Soot formed a strange spread pattern where she’d palmed the shotgun barrel. A wet napkin under a drink later, and her skin looked unblemished.

“Thank you!” a woman yelled, sitting next to her.

“Ah!” Jennifer yelped and jerked back, closing her eyes, and forcing her racing heart to slow down. “Oh, geez, I’m sorry. You startled me.”

The woman wiped her eyes. “You saved us!”

“I did…” Jennifer realized. Her heartrate returned to normal. “Sorry. It’s just…guns. You know.” Her vision blurred and she wiped her eyes clear. “I’ll be alright. I’m just…new to the whole ‘guns’ thing.”

Davis and his boss sat listening to the story. She got to the last thing she said and then Sam got up. “Be right back,” he told his subordinate. “I have something to deal with. You and she can have a conversation.”

After he shut the door, Davis looked at her. “Well, yeah,” he said. “You never forget the first time you stare down a gun.”

She laughed. “Yeah,” she agreed, “it’s kind of funny, thinking about it. I’d already dealt with incredible heat from wildfires and sharp objects. And yet, I’m suddenly scared shitless of guns.” She shrugged. “Even though she’s seen deflecting bullets countless times.”

“Proves you’re still human,” he said. “Honestly.”

“So,” she said, “what do you think he’s going to do?”

“I don’t know,” Davis answered. “But really, I don’t think he’s the scary government guy you make him out to be. I’ve worked under him for over a decade now, and he’s the most reasonable boss I’ve ever had.” He let out a sigh. “If a bit of a pain in the ass sometimes.”

“You get why I’m worried, though,” she replied.

“Hey,” he said, smiling. “I get it. We’re the big, scary government. We can make your life a living hell.”

“There is that,” she agreed.

“Did you know,” he asked, “that the year Columbine happened, it was a record low in school shootings?”

She blinked. “I…” she replied. Where the hell had that come from? “I hadn’t heard that, but it kinda makes sense.”

“You know why?”

“Yeah,” she replied. “I guess it’s because most of the school shootings used to take place in inner city schools.”

“Right,” Davis explained. “Columbine was such a big deal because it was everything a school shooting wasn’t. Before, school shootings happened all the time, it’s just none of them got national news because, well, racism.” He gestured. “As you may figure. Columbine, by contrast, was,” he began counting on his hands, “an upper-middle class white community, with a low crime rate, and to a white majority affluent area.” He leaned forward. “And what really might blow your mind, the boys weren’t bullied loners. They were known for being bullies.”

“I didn’t know that last part,” she admitted.

“Yeah,” he said. “My point is, I got to where I’m at in the agency by being good at nuance.”

Earlier, she’d been jittery. Hands shackled couldn’t stop touching each other. With handcuffs removed, she rubbed her wrists. Her left hand scratched the back of her head. She adjusted her shoulders at least three times. Blinking had reached excessive levels. Each sign pointed to her fear and desire to take off as soon as possible. Now, he saw her breathing relaxed, even if just slightly, and her body language had become more passive. This was what he wanted. He wanted her trust, or if not that, her feeling at ease.

“I just don’t want to end up a soldier or an attack dog of the U.S. military,” she admitted.

“A noble ambition,” he agreed. “You just want to save lives without having the feds breathing down your neck.”

“I won’t kill anyone for the government,” she flatly stated.

“I don’t want you to be reduced to that, either,” he said. “The thing is, there are men above us that we’re going to have to massage their ego because they speak imperialistic language and don’t blink.”

“Hah,” she said, letting out a laugh. “That’s not something I expect a government agent to say.”

“What can I say?” he said. “I’m not a gung-ho type. I just figure stuff out for a living.”

“When do I get to go home?” she asked. “I just want to save lives and enjoy having superpowers.”

“Gimme a minute,” he said, getting up.

He exited the room and headed towards the break room. There, Sam had just hung up his cell phone and sipped on some reheated coffee. “So,” he said, leaning against the counter. “What does our princess want?”

“She wants to be able to save lives,” Davis explained, “which is obvious, but she doesn’t want to be a part of the government and doesn’t want to be an extension of the military.”

“Oh, is that all?” Sam scoffed. “You mind telling me how I’m supposed to tell the brass that? These people are going to know that our answer to the American people is, ‘hey, we think we can trust her, just trust us?’ Is that going to work?”

“Look at it this way,” Davis said, “you can tell them that she could have taken anything she wanted and the first thing she did was save lives.” He folded his arms. “Plus, you can point out to them that if they think they can stop her, that’s something we don’t want any part of. I think that’ll get the point across. We did our job and got them the intel they wanted.” He thought about it. “Also, you can tell them she’ll save them a fortune in emergency funding.”

Sam sipped his coffee. Davis was his most trusted subordinate. The man never broke protocol and he had a real knack for seeing the details. “What’s your take on this?” he asked. “I’m only trusting her if you trust her.”

“Sir,” Davis replied, “I’ve seen all kinds of people. She looks like she’s really into this whole being a hero thing. I know what it looks like when seeing violence up close makes someone a ticking time bomb. She saw people drown that she couldn’t save, and based on what I’m seeing, she’s experiencing a real human reaction, but is also coping exceptionally well. It bothers her, so she’s not a sociopath, but she’s also not constantly broken up by it.”

“She’s a rare one, then,” Sam noted, based on the analysis.

“Very rare,” Davis added. “We’re really lucky. I say we shouldn’t screw this up.”

Sam hashed it out. “Ah, screw it,” he finally said. “You go tell her she’s free to go and take her home.” He pointed. “But if this goes haywire, it’s your ass.”

“What excuse should I use?”

Sam waved it off. “She asked for a lawyer and we didn’t charge her with anything because we couldn’t,” he explained. “Or not. If you can come up with something, you fill the paperwork out.”

Davis pushed the door open. “C’mon,” he said. “You asked for a lawyer, and we released you. I’m taking you home.”

As they got in the car and left the complex, Jennifer smiled. “Thank you for believing in me,” she said.

“It’s not just that,” Davis admitted. “I really am glad to have someone like you around. Especially since, we both know the villains are going to show up at some point.”

A dour expression appeared on her face. “Uh, yeah,” she admitted. “I was worrying about that too.”

“Have to take the good with the bad,” he said. “Also, they might still make the connection, but I tried to obfuscate the fact that you’re Manfred Voren.”

“Thank you very much,” she said.

“You want to be safe, so you want to stay in your powered female form,” he noted, “and you want to have paperwork to do that. I get it. However, for now, you might want to go out every so often and be seen doing something as Manny just to make things seem normal. Buy groceries with a debit card or something.”

“Gotcha,” she agreed.

As the car arrived at the driveway in Alton, he paused to gather his words. “One last thing,” he said. “If you are met by Jericho Torvalds, please let us know.”

She cocked her head. “You mean the billionaire Fox Business guy?”

“That’s the one,” he agreed. “He’s collecting powers and offering money, and we need to keep track of it.”

She blinked. “That’s…mildly terrifying,” she said. “Well, I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Thanks,” Davis said.

“Bye,” she said, stepping out and shutting the door.

“We’ll meet again,” he said, shutting the door and driving away. She sped into the house to limit sight of her and shut the door.

What a strange ride it’s been, she thought.