It begins in Kansas,
as I suppose these stories always do. Donna and I played
in the back yard, while our parents sat in the living room
drinking lemonade and talking about wheat prices, and farm
equipment, and how best to keep the varmints out of the fields.
We didn’t care
about any of that. We were half a world away, rescuing our
planet from the latest incursion of evil villainy. The giant
robot had just clocked me a good one, on the chin, and I
lay prone, watching little stars and birdies circle my head
as the mechanical monster clanked relentlessly onward, an
impressive cluster of weapons spinning into firing position
as it prepared to finish me off.
“Don’t be afraid,
Titanic Man!” Donna shouted, swooping in from above. “I’ll
save you!”
I shook off the
glittering lightshow and struggled to my feet. “I don’t need
saving. Girls can’t save boys, anyhow.”
She launched herself
from the rope swing to a perfect two-point landing a few
feet away. “Why not? If I was a superhero, I’d save anybody
who needed it—especially you.”
I held the robot
monster at bay as he slobbered all over my face. “Especially
me? How come?”
“Because you’re
my friend, and that’s what friends do. They save each other.”
“Whatever. Robo
Dog of Doom is killing me here, if you haven’t noticed.”
Donna was always
there—at the farm, in school, at church, around town. She
was a part of my landscape, like the wind and sun and the
wheat fields that surrounded us like a golden ocean. But
when we turned thirteen, everything changed. The fever and
convulsions took her one day at school, and I watched, numb,
my stomach knotted, as they strapped her onto a gurney and
loaded her into a brown-mottled military ambulance.
She cried out
once, a thin, strangled sound. I thought she’d called my
name, and I struggled against the principal’s grasp on my
shoulders as the medics slammed the ambulance door shut and
drove away.
Donna was one
of the Empowered. One in five million. Their immune systems
ran wild, shuffling their DNA. Sometimes it killed them.
Sometimes it transformed them into a superhuman. It happened
to animals, too, but they usually mutated into huge, grotesque
varmints beyond the capabilities of conventional pest control,
one reason the Empowered were handy to have around.
They were heroes,
most of them. They rescued people and warded off disaster.
Sometimes, though, the thrill of power would corrupt one
of them, and we’d get a villain. The government scientists
weeded out most of those before they caused trouble. The
others they hunted down and sent to a special facility somewhere
in the Mojave Desert. What happened after that was anyone’s
guess. One of my friends said there were experiments, digging
around inside the villains’ bodies to figure out what had
made them Empowered, so heroes could be created at will.
For five years,
I waited and worried about Donna, wondering if she’d survived,
praying she hadn’t ended up a lab rat, dissected on some
mad scientist’s slab. Life plodded on, bland and lifeless
without her. Finally, at my high school graduation, Donna’s
parents took the stage, eyes brimming, voices choked with
relief and joy.
She was alive,
and she was coming home.
Donna returned
on a sun-drenched Fourth of July, fresh from post-transformation
training. She was the stuff of every teenage boy’s dreams.
She could fly, and she had enhanced senses and strength.
Her perfect curves were accentuated by shimmering carbon
nano-mesh armor that clung in all the right places and revealed
much more than necessary. Marketing was a big part of the
superhero gig, and the community wasn’t above providing a
little fan service for their audience.
I felt dizzy.
This was my buddy, the rowdy girl who helped me fight imaginary
monsters in my backyard, who rode bikes with me, who called
me after dinner to ask for help with her homework. I stared
at her with a mixture of joy, fascination, confusion, and
a couple of other emotions I didn’t want to think about as
she stood on a rickety platform in the town square, thanking
us for welcoming her home and explaining her new mission
in life.
Her colors were
red and white, and they called her Rockette. A little silver
missile was emblazoned below her décolletage, and pinstriped
flames adorned her thigh-high boots. A short cape, more decorative
than practical, covered her shoulders. She carried a tranquilizer
gun in a holster slung low on her right hip to, she said, “Rockette
my enemies to sleep.” It was more corn pone for the masses,
but she said the cartridges had enough punch to drop any
varmint, big or small.
As she looked
across the crowd, our eyes met. She paused her speech, her
brow furrowed and head tilted slightly, then a glowing smile
spread across her face, and she said, “I see someone I’ve
wanted to talk with for a very long time. Please excuse us.”
Faster than I
could react, she leapt from the platform, grabbed me around
the waist, and vaulted into the air. We landed atop the school
gymnasium as gently as a soap bubble floating to earth, my
stomach lurching but my dignity intact. We talked for nearly
an hour.
Her face was mature
now, the familiar childish features perfected. Her skin was
radiant, clear and smooth, framed by glossy auburn hair bobbed
to her jawline. Her brilliant blue eyes were the ones I’d
always known, but they never met mine precisely—she seemed
preoccupied with some point on the horizon, just over my
shoulder, as if she was seeing her future in the distance
or scanning for a threat I couldn’t see or hear.
I wasn’t sure
what to say at first—how do you talk to a girl who’s been
gone for five years, then comes back a goddess? I tossed
a few half-baked jokes about old chorus line dancers, and
battle bikinis, and not forgetting about the little people.
It was lame and awkward. She took it all in stride, her laughter
a gentle, musical sound that set me at ease and brought all
the old memories rushing back.
Far too soon,
it was time for her to go. We strolled back to the square,
hand-in-hand, like two ordinary teenagers, and as we parted,
she gave me a platinum disc embossed with her rocket insignia,
a tiny button at the center. “If you ever need saving,” she
said, “just press the button, and I’ll be there, faster than
you can imagine.”
“Girls can’t save
boys, remember?”
She smiled, but
her eyes were moist. “I remember, but it’s even less true
now. Call me, and I will save you. I promise. That’s
what friends do for each other.”
Donna—Rockette—walked
away then, back to the plywood dais hung with patriotic bunting,
a gaggle of adolescent boys, plus a few dirty old men who
should have known better, drooling in her wake. As the crowd
cheered and the high school band struck up a fanfare, I whispered, “And
if you ever need me, I promise I’ll be there to save you.”
She might have
faltered in her stride, just for an instant. Maybe her Empowered
hearing was sharp enough to make out the words, but it was
probably my own wishful thinking. She climbed the stairs
to the platform, closed her eyes for a moment, then shot
heavenward, out of my life forever, a dwindling mote of brilliant
red against the blue Kansas sky.
As I toiled through
college, her fame grew. She joined the Devastators. They
were a prominent and successful super-team, but I didn’t
like them very much. There were three members besides Rockette.
Bulldozer was 350 pounds of idiot in construction-zone-yellow
tights and a bullet-shaped helmet. He broke things, and he
was an arrogant jerk, but people never looked deeper than
his chiseled physique. Blue Streak was a speedster, and a
narcissist. Rumors about his sexual preference kept the tabloids
buzzing, as if he could possibly love anyone, male or female,
more than himself. He was as slick as his glittering turquoise
unitard and never admitted anything, one way or the other.
Finally, there was Calculus. He was an anomaly among superheroes,
artificial intelligence housed in an android body, shining
green armor giving him the look of a huge, iridescent beetle.
Though the government was silent on the issue, most people
figured he was created as a sop to the A.I. lobby in the
World Congress—one more step toward their vision of equality
between human and machine. He was an expert tactician with
a supercomputer brain, and his calculating prowess bordered
on clairvoyance.
Nothing happened
that Calculus didn’t anticipate. It was the key to the Devastators’ success,
since Bulldozer was stupid, Blue Streak was self-absorbed,
and neither of them listened to anything Rockette had to
say. She sent me a few e-mails about their adventures, until
the government tightened the security protocols and blocked
her messages. She never complained—she was loyal, a real
team player. I wished for her sake she’d get fed up with
her teammates one day and stand up for herself.
I wound up in
the construction business, or, more precisely, the re-construction
business. When superheroes fought either varmint monsters
or supervillains, it made a super mess. Somebody had
to clean things up and reassemble the broken pieces of civilization,
and I became pretty good at it. I didn’t just repair broken
buildings, I sculpted them with nanotechnology and resurrected
them as works of art. I streamlined the whole process and
hired the best work crews and civil engineers. There was
good money in city restoration, and the job kept me as close
to Rockette as any Normal could get. I set up my home office
in New York City, a few blocks from the Devastators’ headquarters.
I even made it
into a news feature once. They called me “Doctor Disaster,” like
I was some kind of superhero myself. I laughed it off, but
in my heart, I wished it was true. I wished I could live
in her world, that I could match her blinding speed and dance
with her among the clouds. Sometimes I’d glimpse her darting
across the sky like a jet-powered ballerina in scarlet—curving,
spinning, and pirouetting in maneuvers that would make a
falcon dizzy.
I loved her.
Everybody loved
her—even the press, who began to suggest the wrong hero might
be leading the Devastators. She brought in the lion’s share
of her team’s income from product endorsements, action figures,
and public speaking engagements. They were lucky to have
her. Bulldozer could barely put two words together, Blue
Streak only wanted to talk about himself, and nobody could
understand anything Calculus said. There was gossip
of a secret romance between Bulldozer and Rockette, but I
never believed it. She had far too much common sense to hook
up with a knucklehead like that.
At least, I hoped
she did.
I was supervising
the final touches on World Trade Center Four when it happened.
The Devastators were fighting Baron Tempest, a pesky weather-controller
who should have been well within their capabilities. He
was giving them a run for their money that day—he’d added
directed lightning to his repertoire, and brilliant arcs
of electricity crisscrossed the stormy sky over New York
Harbor. Rain pelted my office window as I watched the live
news broadcast, sipped my coffee, and tallied up the damage.
Blue Streak
dashed hither and yon, dodging thunderbolts as Bulldozer
tossed automobile parts and building materials in the general
direction of the Baron’s cloud platform. After ten years
or so of practice, I mused, he should have been a better
shot. Calculus stood safely in the lee of a mothballed
Navy cruiser, chattering orders into his communicator.
Maybe it was all part of the plan, though it didn’t look
like a very good plan at that moment.
He stopped talking
and looked up. Rockette blasted out of a cloudbank and arrowed
in on Tempest from behind, tranq gun at the ready. I smiled
as she flashed across the vid screen. I thought it was all
over.
At the last second,
the Baron whipped around and flung a thunderbolt at Rockette,
transfixing her in a crackling auriole of ionized air. She
plummeted from the sky, like Phaeton struck down from the
chariot of the gods, a smoldering ember quenched in the roiling
black waters of the harbor below. A moment later, Bulldozer
connected with a concrete block, plucking Baron Tempest from
his cloud and flattening him against the Chrysler Building.
Emergency crews converged on the urban battlefield, and the
broadcast went black. My stomach clenched. Voice shaking,
I ordered my salvage team to begin the cleanup.
Rockette survived,
but invulnerability wasn’t one of the prizes she’d won from
her spin of the mutagenic wheel. She healed incompletely.
Scar tissue marred the left side of her flawless face, and
she walked with a limp. Only in the sky was she as graceful
as before, but she flew with none of the joyful abandon that
was her trademark.
Her trademark.
In the end, it was all about her trademark. Perfection was
the essence of a superhero’s allure, and demand for Rockette’s
image in any form dropped to zero. She tried adopting a rakish
mask that concealed most of the scarring, but everyone knew
what lay beneath. To the marketing wizards, she was damaged
goods, and they dropped her from the team. Calculus issued
a convoluted press release. Trimmed to its essentials, it
thanked her for her service and declared it time for the
Devastators to move on.
They signed a
fresh new teenager named Sirene. She was a sonic screamer,
and pretty. She couldn’t fly, but Calculus bought himself
a jetpack and began directing battles from the air. Sirene
also wasn’t much of a public speaker. Calculus assumed that
role, adjusting his speech subroutines to make his orations
more audience-friendly. He was almost charming, in a shiny,
green, insectoid sort of way. His numbers rose in the polls,
and the ad agencies plastered his picture on billboards and
cereal boxes.
Soon afterward,
Rockette disappeared, leaving the world to wonder about her
fate. There were whispers of a lady in red who flashed from
the dark crevices between buildings to catch suicide jumpers
and steelworkers who missed their footing. I believed the
rumors. Perhaps it was wishful thinking, but it is exactly
what she would do, because for Rockette, it was never
about the cheers, or the honors, or the money. She saved
people because they needed saving.
I found a note
on my desk one morning. Old school—a plain white paper envelope
with a little card inside. Handwriting full of loops and
curlicues in bright red ink.
I have to
go away. None of the other teams want me, and the Empowerment
Monitoring Agency plans to bring me in for re-evaluation.
It’s what they do with villains, and nobody ever comes
back from that. I thought you should know. Guess my luck’s
run out—the first time Calculus ever makes a mistake, and
it’s with me. Tell the folks back home goodbye, and I’m
sorry.
Your
friend,
Donna
P.S.
If you still have the coin, I still remember my promise.
Finally, it hit
me. Nothing escaped Calculus’ computations. He anticipated
every scenario and planned every countermove. I went to my
computer and pulled up the video file of the battle with
Baron Tempest. I watched it over and over again, from every
camera angle, not sure what I was looking for, certain only
that something was there that would reveal the truth.
On the twentieth
replay, I found it. As the Baron spun around to attack Rockette,
I saw a tiny flash at his wrist. I zoomed in and cranked
up the magnification. The edge of his gauntlet had flipped
over in the wind, revealing a silver bracelet with a cluster
of LEDs.
A Devastators
wristcomm. Custom electronics from the government labs. Every
team member had one, and only the team leader had the authority
to make another.
The Baron hadn’t
sensed Rockette’s approach in the air currents, he’d been
listening to Calculus’ orders from the beginning. He knew
she was coming.
The video played
on. As Rockette tumbled earthward, I forced my attention
to Calculus, who looked on in icy cybernetic detachment as
she dropped from the sky like a shotgunned swan, his eyes
tracing her trajectory all the way into the greasy black
water, showing no sign of alarm, making no effort to help.
Every action he’d
taken since that moment served to boost his public image.
It seemed so obvious now. Calculus wasn’t content to lead
the Devastators. He wanted the acclaim, the glory, and perhaps
even the love that flowed past him to his charismatic teammate.
So he set her up.
Somehow, I should
have seen it coming. Somehow, I should have saved her, like
I promised. I switched off the computer and stared out the
window for a long time, watching clouds gather over the city,
and remembering.
That evening,
I planted a vial of construction nanobots, with a very particular
taste in building materials, inside the ventilation conduits
of Devastators HQ, timed to release during Calculus’ recharge
cycle. Let him try to compute that.
His teammates
discovered an attractive abstract sculpture in his command
chair the next morning, iridescent green chromalloy contorted
into an intricate knot. I left his brain untouched. Calculus
understood jealousy and treachery. Perhaps, fused inside
that twisted metal prison, he’d learn about pain, and regret,
and loneliness, like Rockette. Like me.
The world collectively
shrugged, writing off the incident as some supervillain’s
revenge, and the Devastators began shopping for a new leader.
They’re still looking. Maybe this time, they’ll find someone
with both a brain and a heart.
It ends in New
York, as I suppose these stories always do. Atop the rebuilt
Trade Center, polished onyx surfaces shine with mirrored
moonlight, testament to my small, mundane power to mend what
has been broken. It is glistening and perfect, as she once
was, as she still is within.
I have wealth
enough to hide her, and people of influence owe me favors—people
with the skill and leverage to exonerate her. This time,
I have the power to act, and I won’t miss my chance again.
The wind howls,
and the platinum disk is ice between my fingers as I reach
skyward and press the button again and again, calling to
Rockette, to Donna, my Donna, praying that she’ll
hear and answer, because without her, I’m lost, and my world
is no world at all. We’ll save each other, like we promised.
That’s what friends
do.
