Playing For Keeps Page 4

  “And what the hell is it, anyway?” Ian asked.

  Clever Jack smiled, his hair falling into his eyes. “I’ll tell you if you free me.”

  Ian snorted. “Dude, I’ve heard all sorts of stories about you and your power, you’re like a god in some of the small towns around here. Fuckin’ Robin Hood without the whole giving to the poor thing. But you’ve avoided the cops, the heroes and the Academy goons only to get caught by a woman thrown out of the Academy for being too weak!”

  Peter nodded slowly. “Yes, I don’t think you’re really in a position to bargain. Keepsie can keep you there until she decides it’s time for you to be free, no sooner. It might be best to tell her what you know.”

  Keepsie relaxed a little. Her friends’ brave words belied her nervousness. It wasn’t as if she could do anything to him except for keep him where he was.

  Clever Jack leaned back against the box, his immobile hand allowing him little wriggle room. “Sit,” he said, gesturing with his left hand. “I’ll tell you what I can.”

  Keepsie sat cross-legged. Her friends assembled themselves around her, Peter looking stiff and out of place on her kitchen floor.

  “Everyone knows where the First and Third Wavers came from. But no one ever talked about where the heroes came from, much less those of us who, well, aren’t terribly heroic,” Clever Jack said.

  “Well, we asked, they just didn’t answer,” Michelle said, but got quiet at Clever Jack’s look.

  “That’s because the government didn’t want people to know they were experimenting with Zupra,” Clever Jack said. “Your parents were born with powers, but too many babies were miscarried because of the drug, so the FDA banned it officially, but they bought up all the company’s stock under the table. Then they took poor pregnant women and promised them health care and a future for their babies if they would participate in these studies. They offered it as an alternative to abortion. Even got some small town churches to support their campaign.”

  Keepsie’s mouth dropped open. “That’s sick. But what does that have to do with this ball everyone is so uptight about?”

  “Getting to it,” Clever Jack said. “They didn’t make the experiments public. They knew it would take a couple of tries to make the babies they wanted. So Pallas was the first successful baby born. You all know the ones that came after. They let her start fighting crime when she was only fifteen.”

  “Engineered superheroes,” Keepsie said.

  Peter frowned. “So, providing the government got all the drugs, it started manufacturing heroes. What does this have to do with you?”

  “I was getting to that,” Clever Jack began, then cocked his head. “Did you hear something?”

  Ian jumped up. “Keepsie, did you lock the door?” he asked.

  “No, there’s no need—” she began.

  “Oh there’s need,” Ian said, peeking through the kitchen door. “Heroes.”

  “Patricia, that little shit,” Michelle whispered.

  Clever Jack leaned forward as far as he could. “Listen to me, Keepsie, I need this, and I need it now.”

  Keepsie had no time to consider. “You can’t take it. But go,” she said, and Clever Jack wrenched his hand free. He was up and running through the kitchen door and up the stairs to the alley before any of them could say anything further.

  Michelle ran to the box and grabbed a coat, pulling it over the small silver ball that lay where Clever Jack had left it. “What are we going to tell them?”

  Keepsie stood up slowly. “We’ll tell them that they’re trespassing.”

  * * * * *

  Timson pushed the door to the kitchen open a second later.

  Keepsie stumbled into Peter’s arms and glared at the intruders.

  “Wha’ d’you want?” she said.

  “We have reason to believe you had a known fugitive captured here. We came to apprehend him,” Dr. Timson said. White Lightning and The Crane flanked her. White Lightning looked ever the asshole, but Keepsie had always liked The Crane. He seemed awkward and un-hero-like until he took the air, where he was just as graceful and heroic as the others. But now his regal features contorted to show haughtiness and perfect righteous action. It was clear that Keepsie and her friends were, if not evildoers, definitely not on the side of Good in his eyes.

  “Do ya see an arch-villain here?” Keepsie asked, miming an attempt to stand. Peter gripped her tightly.

  White Lightning made a point to check the freezer and storage room for hiding villains. Keepsie watched him while her friends watched her.

  “Keepsie, do you want to sit down? I think you’ve had enough,” Peter said.

  “M’fine,” Keepsie said.

  White Lightning walked up to Keepsie and stared at her, towering over her in what he undoubtedly thought was an intimidating fashion. “Where did you put him?”

  Keepsie kept herself calm by realizing she could look straight into his nostrils. “‘Put’ him? Do you think if a villain came in here that I could ‘put’ him somewhere? You do know that I have a useless talent, right?” This was getting kind of fun.

  The Crane put his hand on White Lightning’s arm, pulling him back slightly. “Look, ma’am, we know he was here and we know you were ready to negotiate with him. All we need to know is when he left, if he took the device with him, and where he was going.”

  Keepsie almost felt kindly towards him until she realized he was playing the good cop. She remembered her assumed drunkenness and frowned at him. “I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about. I was drinking. That bitch Pat came by to sober me up, so I got drunk again. Anything else you think you know is pure concepture.”

  “‘Conjecture,’” Peter said.

  “Right. Concepture,” Keepsie said.

  Dr. Timson looked at Keepsie for a long time. “Keepsie. We’re not stupid. We have the best powers and the best minds working at the Academy. We know what kind of club you have going here. We know what happened today with Doodad. We know what happened here tonight. Do you really want to go against us?”

  Keepsie’s heartbeat quickened at the threat. Peter’s arms gripped her more tightly and she caught Michelle’s eyes—they were wide. What could Timson do to them?

  “I don’t know nothing,” Keepsie said.

  Timson pursed her lips and inhaled audibly through her nose. “And I suppose that the device is still...not available to us?”

  “Who’s to say it’s mine to give?” Keepsie asked.

  Timson nodded. Without another word, she turned and left, the heroes following her after another long pause.

  “Dude,” Ian began, but Michelle shushed him.

  “Wait,” she said.

  They waited until the heroes had climbed the stairs to the street. When it was clear the heroes had gone, they relaxed.

  Keepsie stood up and smiled at Peter. “Thanks for catching me.”

  “Of course,” he said, not meeting her eyes.

  “What the fuck? I mean, seriously?” Ian asked. Everyone stared at him. “First the dude puts an oversized BB in your pocket, then the heroes get their panties in a wad about it, then the villains get their panties in a wad—and tell us a pointless story in the middle—and then the heroes come back with more panty problems! It looks like one of our own tipped them off, and now they’re threatening us and that’s not cool!”

  Peter nodded. “This has gotten much bigger than we had anticipated, Keepsie. Maybe we should just give it to the Academy.”

  Michelle shook her head. “Huh-uh. No way. If they’d treated us with respect, maybe. As equals, I mean. But no, we’re no better than bugs in their eyes, and I don’t think we should help them.”

  “So do we help the villains instead?” Keepsie asked. No one answered. Keepsie had grown up hearing about the horrendous plots of Seismic Stan and later Clever Jack, Doodad and others. These were not nice people.

  Keepsie rubbed her face with both hands. “I need to sleep on this. Let’s talk in the morning. Meet at th
e diner for breakfast?”

  Peter checked his watch. “It is already morning, Keepsie, it’s around three o’clock. Let’s shoot for brunch, OK?”

  “All right then. Get some sleep, and I’ll see you guys at the diner around eleven tomorrow. And,” Keepsie added, “don’t tell anyone about this. It looks like we can’t trust, well, people.” She was loath to say “Patricia.”

  On their way out, Michelle put her hand on Keepsie’s arm. “What are we going to do about her?”

  Keepsie shook her head, staring at the ground. “I don’t know. Fire her, I guess. Let’s talk about it tomorrow, OK? My brain hurts.”

  Together they walked up the stairs to the main street level, Keepsie stopping to lock the door for the first time.

  5

  Keepsie slept fitfully that night, her body crashing from the multiple adrenaline rushes the day had given her. Whatever wisdom she’d hoped her subconscious would reveal during the night never came, and she awoke with more questions than she’d gone to bed with.

  Michelle woke her at ten o’clock. “Hey, I just found out some pretty interesting stuff.”

  “Did you sleep at all?” Keepsie asked, trying to buy time to clear the cobwebs from her head.

  “Not a whole lot. I just kept thinking about everything Clever Jack told us. The media really haven’t covered the origins of the heroes, although it feels like they do a human interest story on one of us every time a talent makes itself known.”

  “I just turn off the news when they start talking about heroes,” Keepsie said. “Pallas is, what, forty-five?”

  “Something like that, yeah. There was a web site that launched a couple of years ago with conspiracy theories regarding the heroes. It got shut down, but not before it was mirrored at a couple of places. They’re not highly traveled sites, and it seems as if they do all they can to avoid the search engines to keep the heroes off their back, but the conspiracies are pretty intense.

  “According to this, the heroes were manufactured by the Academy,” Michelle said breathlessly.

  Keepsie held her hand up. “Wait. So the Academy wasn’t created to train with the heroes, it actually created them?”

  “Apparently.”

  “Does that mean the Academy made the villains as someone the heroes needed to fight?”

  “I don’t know. It doesn’t go into that. But here, it says that Seismic Stan and Pallas made their public debuts around the same time in 2005, and they were around the same age: 15. They both appeared in Seventh City. The Academy was founded— officially—the same year,” Michelle said, her voice muffled like she’d taken a bite from something.

  Keepsie realized she was hungry. “Listen, I’m starved. Let me get a shower and I’ll meet you at the diner. Print out whatever you can and bring it along. I’ll see you in an hour.”

  “Sure thing, see you in a bit,” said Michelle, and hung up.

  Keepsie put the phone down slowly. This was beyond her capabilities. When she had been a child, she’d watched her mother’s talents—the ability to grow plants in impossible ground—and knew her mother was very useful. She’d spent a good deal of time in the Peace Corps before having Keepsie, and Keepsie was proud of her accomplishments, but secretly she had hoped her own powers would be more suited to allowing her to fight crime and defeat the bad guy. Her mother had told her, Mr. Rogers-style, that she could do anything she wanted, even after her passive power revealed itself during an uncomfortable post-prom encounter with a football player.

  Her hopes of making a difference had changed when the Academy lobbied for the Vigilante Bill of 2012, stating that only licensed heroes were allowed to use their power to stop criminals. It didn’t stop people from using their powers in their everyday life; that would have been difficult for people like Michelle, whose job depended on her power, and Keepsie, who simply couldn’t stop using hers. However, if the First and Third Wavers had decided they wanted to pursue a criminal with their paltry powers, they would need to join the Academy or be subject to law enforcement. And the Academy didn’t accept many First and Third Wave citizens.

  Would Timson try to throw Keepsie in jail for the obstruction of justice or possession of stolen property? Why hadn’t she just arrested her? Of course, if she’d done that, Keepsie would have become even less likely to hand over the device. Her power was in effect for all of her possessions; if she were in jail then Timson still wouldn’t have been able to get her hands on the device unless Keepsie allowed her.

  If only the heroes weren’t so damned smug. They always reminded Keepsie of the quarterbacks and cheerleaders from high school. Talented, beautiful, popular, and hated by Keepsie and her friends. Bullies who were loved—and therefore ignored at all the right times—by adults.

  Some Third Wave powers manifested at birth, others at puberty, like Keepsie’s. She’s been starry-eyed in love with a football player, but he’d gotten a little grabby after the prom. She’d protested, and when he tried to forcibly remove her top, he froze.

  At first Keepsie thought her shock had slowed things down. Later, as she and some willing subjects tested her power, she realized it was actually her that slowed things. As the jock’s hand closed on her lapel, it slowed as if it were moving through water and then stopped.

  Fear scrawled across the jock’s face. It would have been funny if Keepsie hadn’t been so upset. “What did you do? Let me go!” he said. His hand looked shellacked into place, but the rest of his body moved, straining to pull his hand back. Keepsie wrenched herself free and he stayed put, looking comical and frightened.

  “I’m not holding you!” she cried, and just like that he was free. He stumbled backwards and landed hard against the car door.

  He scrabbled past her to open the car door, shouting, “Get the hell out of here, Third Wave freak!” He shoved her out and drove off.

  Then it dawned on Keepsie: that was her power. She had been wondering when it would manifest and when it finally had, she had been too startled to realize it. Sobbing, she got her phone out of her purse and called her mother.

  Mom was comforting, and called the football player’s parents. She emerged from the conversation with a grim look on her face, saying it was Keepsie’s word against the boy’s, and she wasn’t hurt, which was important. She also reminded Keepsie of the prejudice the general public had against much of the First and Third Wave and hugged her.

  The next day, she had told Keepsie to forget about the incident and focus on her power. They went on a shopping trip to celebrate. It was much more fun than the fuss her mother had tried to raise when she’d gotten her first period.

  Through careful testing, they tried to identify her powers. They discovered that the best way to go about it was to take Keepsie by surprise, so her mom would try to take her jacket or her backpack when she wasn’t prepared. Keepsie felt a frightening rush of power when she realized that her mom would remain immobilized until she let her go, either verbally or mentally.

  It was disappointing to the teenaged Keepsie that, although her power seemed to be a strong one, she had no control over it. She felt no different, she couldn’t do anything exciting, but her stuff seemed to be protected for a good long while.

  Her grandmother was the happiest of them all when she heard the news. Having taken the drug Zupra fifty-five years earlier when pregnant with twins, she lost one to miscarriage and delivered Keepsie’s mother, a healthy First Wave baby complete with a very minor power. A prosecuting attorney, she wasted no time in suing the makers of Zupra, Haldor Limited Drug. She took their settlement and invested it. Her family lived well off the money, and when Keepsie’s powers manifested, her grandmother lost no time in giving her the money already marked off for inheritance.

  She enrolled Keepsie in money management classes, and Keepsie sat with people three times her age and learned as much as she could about how to manage her newfound wealth. She’d have been really bored, but the constant knowledge of her money coupled with her grandmother’s promised wrath
if she squandered it made her pay attention.

  Keepsie realized she had been letting the water run over her shoulders for far too long. She had no idea what time it was. She wondered whether she’d rinsed the shampoo out of her hair and then wondered if she’d already conditioned it. She decided to take the chance that she was done and got out of the shower.

  Dressing was a quick affair, pausing only to run a comb through her hair and realizing she had not, in fact, used conditioner. Swearing, she shoved a ball cap on her head and left her apartment.

  Outside her door, she paused for a moment. She hadn’t locked a door since her powers had manifested, but last night proved that there are more reasons for someone to break in than to steal things. She pulled out her key ring and fumbled around, looking for the right one. Her apartment key was shiny and unused.

  Keepsie scanned the sky as she walked. This was her habit, looking intently like a teenager searching for zits to stress about. Today was different, though, as she scanned the sky in slight fear that she would be followed, chased, captured or attacked.

  The apartment buildings in Seventh City stretched four and five stories high, blotting out much of the sky. Keepsie was used to seeing the occasional hero on patrol, or even the occasional villain fleeing a heroic pursuit. These things happened every day.

  She sidestepped kids playing on the street and people returning from the corner grocery store. Some called a greeting to her, but she only managed to return a tight smile and a wave. She was not in the mood to chat. The sky was gray with clouds that threatened nothing but casting a dour mood on the day. Keepsie scowled at them.

  Although the diner was only a three-block walk through residential neighborhoods, Keepsie’s hands shook by the end of the walk. She gripped the door tightly, feeling the metal knob slide under her sweaty grip. Pausing to collect herself, she pushed the door open.

  Her friends waited for her at a corner booth. The restaurant was crowded with Saturday morning customers lounging with coffee and their papers. The booths flanking her friends’ each contained a solitary man immersed in his newspaper.