“On Tuesday 14th, at 9:06pm the Toronto Police Service arrived at the Sunrise Shopping Plaza responding to a report of a possible robbery. Witnesses at the building said there was the sound of fighting and shouting. When the police arrived, they found two men unconscious at the scene in what appeared to be an attempted break-in. Security footage revealed that the two men fought against a third person. The third person appears as a strange spectre, and the chief of the police Abrams Niedermeyer speculates the strange figure is the same ‘ghost thing’ seen at the Royal Ontario Museum a week earlier.”
Dead Head tossed the newspaper down on his desk and growled. He slammed his hand on the cover. “This is the second time this liquid freak has interfered with our operation.”
He had called Shimmer in that morning, Shimmer looking prim and proper even that early in the morning. Pax was called in, too, but the fella couldn’t bask in the morning like Shimmer so Pax nursed a black coffee from Tim Hortons and tried his best to look awake.
Stepping up to the desk, he turned the paper his direction and looked at the photo on the front page. It was that water kid, alright; the very one Pax and his boys locked horns with at the convenience store last week.
“We must do something about him,” said Dead Head, sitting down on the chair and hanging his cloak over the back. He glanced at Pax, Pax unnoticing in his boss’ glare. “He’s made of water, correct?”
Pax looked up. “Eh?” He backed away from the paper and stood up attentively. “Yeah. We could land punches on him but he had no bones to break.”
Shimmer steered his sharpened eyes over at Pax. “I would assume that if the interloper’s body is alive like described, we could hardly say he was made of water.”
Pax scowled at Shimmer. “What? D’ya wanna do tests on this guy? Figure out his atomic properties?”
Dead Head sighed and rubbed his stubble. “I’m going to send someone after him, but someone with special skills.”
Pax heard the boss loud and clear. Someone with ‘special skills’; someone not Pax. A strange problem required a strange solution.
“Should I go through the roster and choose someone suitable?” asked Shimmer.
“Yes,” said Dead Head.
He lowered his gaze at the paper and turned it over his way so he could continue reading. The picture caught his eye, too. Two of his subordinates fighting against a person made of living water. Something would have to be done.
Kay woke up that Wednesday morning like every other: groggy. He measured his fortune, though. At least he didn’t feel like he was made out of sponge like the previous day-after he had a fight with a group of thugs. Kay got up and walked out into the living room where his family had a head start on their mornings. His ears were still clogged with dream clouds, so the living room chatter passed Kay by.
By the time he was done in the washroom, Kay’s eyes had opened most of the way. His mom was peering at the TV from the kitchen and Aubrey watched from the couch.
Urban, walking around with a bowl of oatmeal in hand, looked over at Kay. “Oh, Kay’s up.” He reached for the remote and cranked the volume up a few tics.
The volume took off and while Kay couldn’t make out what was on screen without his glasses, he could hear.
“We’re not sure what kind of technology the intruder utilized,” said the man being interviewed on screen, “but it’s evident he is employing a kind of hi-tech cloaking technology.”
Kay went to his room to get dressed. Something must have happened to to draw the attention of all his family members.
Kay could hear his family members through the wall. “To you think it’s real?” his mom said.
“I don’t know,” said Urban, his tone whimsical, “A lot of weird stuff in the world!”
Aubrey chuckled. “But a ghost superhero?”
Kay froze, staring out into the void of a T-shirt as he took it over his head. They couldn’t! he thought.
He got a grip and slipped on his shirt. He went to his door, opening it quietly to peek out into the living room and to get a sight on the news programme. An anchor talked to the camera but in the corner of the screen was a picture of a camera shot: Kay (in his water form) and the thugs he attacked last night.
Kay’s blood went cold.
He shut the door with an audible smack he couldn’t suppress. He was on the news!
“Are you sure he’s a superhero?” asked Urban.
And his family was talking about him!
Kay had to hold his face on with his hands. He walked over to his bed and sat down while he stared miles around his room.
Omigod omigod omigod, he thought.
“I’m not even sure he’s real!” said Mom. “I think it’s a hoax.”
It wasn’t only his family who knew but everyone around Toronto. Kay was on the morning news! How many people were seeing his watery face? He recognized the news room– it was CTV. It wasn’t just whispers in workplaces or the local tabloids that were taking that story, it was actual news stations!
But as he sat on his bed, a bit of pride arose into his throat, and a giggle wiggled out of him. He was on the news. A lot of people were going to know him as a hero.
Then the panic returned.
He got his things ready and went out into the living room, trying to look casual. His family was half-focused by the story, walking around the house and getting their days ready while still paying attention to the television. It seemed like the news program had moved on to another story.
Kay ignored it as best he could, going over to the sink to get a drink of water. Urban spotted the guy and grinned. “Oh. I guess you just missed it, Kay.”
Kay played dumb. “W... what?”
“There was an attempted robbery,” said Mom, her tone dismissive. “I don’t believe it myself but a ‘ghost thing’ was seen at the crime.”
“A ghost thing?” asked Kay, faking curiosity.
“Yeah,” said Urban, “it looked like a ghost, I think.” He took his upward and chuckled. “I guess we don’t know what it is!”
“Oh,” said Kay. His tongue stalled. What could he say that wouldn’t arouse suspicion. Finally, something came to mind. Kay said, “They can fake those things. Like the famous Bigfoot picture.”
Aubrey joined in the conversation, speaking loudly from the other side of the room. “It’s not the first superhero in Toronto.” She smirked and took her eyes up dismissively. “At least, not the first alleged superhero.”
Mom went to the fridge to get out her lunch bag. She scoffed. “Oh, who’s the other one?” She dropped her eyes, trying to remember.
“Lady Beat,” said Urban, with a lot of spunk in his tone. “The one with the medieval armour.”
It was a year or two ago that the first pictures of Lady Beat had hit public. Medieval armour wasn’t the right descriptor, thought Kay. Lady Beat had more of a futuristic look, at least to Kay’s memory.
“Right,” said Mom. He checked her lunch and then snapped the bag shut. “I think that one’s a hoax, too!”
“Don’t insult this town’s greatest heroes!” said Urban.
Mom curled a smirk. “When did you get so defensive about superheroes? What if they are fake?”
“Real or fake,” said Urban, “they are famous figures of Toronto. They are our guys.” Urban gestured a shrug. “You gotta respect that!” He wobbled an arm at the TV. “Like that Devall guy!”
Mom fluttered her eyes and smiled. “Sure.”
Kay got his lunch ready, stuck it in his backpack, and got out of there before they could ask Kay any questions.
One pop through the front doors and Kay knew that everyone in school had heard about the ‘ghost thing’. Kay walked through the halls, listening in on people’s conversations. Many talked about video games or football practice but some talked about the mysterious sighting last night and Kay had never had so many people talk about him.
“What do you think he is?”
“I don’t believe in ghosts, but... what if?”
Kay had first period in chemistry. Even when class began, some people were whispering about it.
“What other countries have superheroes?”
“If ghosts are real, are demons?”
Even into second period and lunch Kay overheard chatter about it. The second half of the school day came and many weren’t tired of discussing the supernatural incident. The story had grounds. Toronto had knowledge of Kay that they were never going to lose.
There was no turning back from what happened last night.
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Kay had media studies out of lunch and today’s lesson was going through the process of how advertising worked and the assignment was on producing an advertisement as group. Kay partnered up with Huxley and Jia. They were occupied with their work but a side-mention from Jia about the local ghost news pivoted conversation accordingly.
“I don’t think it’s a ghost,” said Jia, “I don’t know what it is but I don’t believe in ghosts.”
“So what do you believe in?” asked Huxley, chuckling and smiling. “Aliens?”
“Aliens are more likely than ghosts,” said Jia.
“I’m not convinced it’s real,” said Kay, trying his best to sound like he was amused by the whole thing. “There have been hoaxes before.”
“Was Lady Beat ever proven to be a hoax?” asked Jia.
Lady Beat. Was she real? Kay the character that didn’t believe in the supernatural wouldn’t think so, but Kay the real person who was a superhero himself– he had to wonder. If a watery superhero was real, surely a lady in cool armour was also something that could exist!
“I haven’t heard about her in awhile,” said Huxley, “not that I was paying attention.”
They went back to the task at hand, filling out their work sheet by assigning everyone to a position in a hypothetical advertising pipeline. The work sheet implied that everyone was supposed to contribute based on their fantasy position but being that it was a group assignment, everyone contributed to everything. That was the case with Huxley, Jia, and Kay and it was the same thing with other groups nearby.
“If it’s not a ghost,” said Huxley, “what is it then?” He then stopped and leaned back. “It’s... something.”
Jia wiped some of the hair out of her face, scratching her chin. “I mean... we call it a ghost because it looks like a ghost. But it could be anything. It could be... a mutant.”
Huxley chuckled. “Yeah! But where does it come from? Do weird plasma creatures just appear one day?”
I wish I knew, thought Kay, reflecting on his uncertainties to where his powers came from.
In one of the groups nearby, there was Sitara. Her ears grabbed onto the conversation between Huxley and his neighbours so she turned her seat away from her group and towards the other.
She smiled, the ceiling light reflecting off of her large glasses. “So you too have heard about the ghost sighting?”
“We heard,” said Huxley.
There hadn’t been a single time between Kay, Huxley, or Jia where they had a nice interaction with Sitara. She had the reputation of being pretty humourless and cold.
Sitara tilted her head down, pushing up her glasses with a crop of fingers. “I’m a realist so I don’t going thinking that anything I read is true.” She looked off into the distance. “Still... I’m curious.”
There was an awkwardness shared between Huxley and his two classmates. Nobody in his group was expecting a random girl to jump into their conversation with the assertiveness that Sitara was selling.
“What do you think it is?” asked Jia.
“What it is?” said Sitara, her tone scholarly and a little insulted by the presumption. “I don’t know what it is. I wonder what it could be.”
“What do you think then?” asked Jia.
Sitara straightened her chin and held her nose up. “I don’t care to speculate too much. What I care about is how to capture it. If someone could get her hands on the thing, why– they would be world famous!” Once again the ceiling light beamed onto her glasses.
Kay sat there, keeping quiet. Adding his thoughts (or made-up thoughts) into the conversation would have made him seem more normal, but he worried he would have given himself away in some small bit. His caution didn’t seem inappropriate considering that the girl in front of him seemed tickled at the idea of capturing the “ghost” for her own fame.
Class dismissed with those worries weighing in Kay’s head. He walked through the hallways, hands on the straps of his backpack, and pondered.
Were people going to try to capture him? He was something to be hunted. That was something Kay hadn’t truly realized since he became a shapeshifter– of course people would want to see and nab a supernatural being. It was everyone’s dream to see or meet an alien, wasn’t it? And now that Kay was semi-public, there would be people wanting that opportunity.
The worry banged around his head like the clapper inside a bell. Thinking about his history as a liquid creature spurred a memory awake: before he got his powers, he had fantasies about getting magical abilities or meeting aliens. When he was younger, he would wonder what he would do with powers or with aliens as friends.
Now he was the guy with powers– or the alien.
A dusting on nostalgia came over him. It wasn’t more than a few years ago he would have had those thoughts, but it felt like a lifetime had passed. Was that young teenager a complete alien now?
Kay found himself getting melancholy in the walk to his next class. Melancholy and worry, two emotions not meant for the intermissions between school work. He tried to shake off his distractions as he entered his last class for the day.
After school, Kay raced home, dropped off his backpack, and then beelined it to Philly’s place. As he took to the rooftops to race downtown, Kay had discovered a newfound worry of being spotted. Going fast and not taken extra care increased the likelihood that a pair of stray eyes would catch him, but he wanted to talk with Philly as soon as he could. He raced down to Philly’s place behind the office building.
There was no guarantee that Philly would have been home. If the fox wasn’t around, what could have Kay done but wait?
First was to see if the fox was around. Kay hopped off the roofs down into the alleyways behind the office building. He took a look all over the place and then transformed back into a human. He did another quick check to make sure no one saw that and he didn’t know what he would have done if someone had!
Kay went up to the duct coming off the wall and tapped it, rumbling out an echoing thud.
“Philly?” Kay whispered. “Are you home?”
“Kid?” asked Philly.
Apparently, the fox was.
There was the scratching of paw claws on metal and then out from the duct came Philly, fluffy coat and all.
He looked up at Kay. “Didja hear? You’re in the papers.”
Kay darted his eyes around. He kept his voice quiet. “I know. That’s why I came over.” Kay hung his arms out. “What do we do about that?”
“Uhhhh...” Philly cocked his brow. “I don’t know. Nothing? What can you do? Don’t you want people talking about you?”
Kay dropped his arms and gave the fox a defeated look. “No...! It makes it harder to keep on the down-low.”
“What do you expect?” asked Philly. “You try to stay hidden as best you can but people are going to see you. If you go out and fight crime, people’ll notice.”
“But what if people come after me?” asked Kay.
“You’re a slippery customer.” Philly was proud enough of that joke to smirk. “You can just get away.”
Kay craned his head up and sighed. “Yeah. I guess.” He dragged a hand down his face. “So you read the paper?”
“I’m literate, you know,” said Philly, smiling and cocking a brow at the boy. “This morning, I eavesdropped a conversation or two about a ‘ghost thing’ and nabbed a paper to read up on my favourite human!” Philly leaned up on Kay’s leg, paws on the boy’s waist and the fox’s tail a-wagging.
Kay couldn’t share Philly’s merriment. The idea of people knowing about him– knowing about his ghost side– was another layer of stress upon his fledgling superhero career.
“This is going to be a whole thing, isn’t it?” asked Kay.
“It won’t be so bad!” said Philly, “Come on: did you want to do some patrolling?”
Kay folded his cheek. He took a few steps away so Philly dropped himself onto the alleyway floor. Kay said, “Naw... I want to lay low. At least for today.”
“Alright,” said Philly, shrugging his shoulders. “I’ll see you around...” A smile creased across Philly’s snout. “...Ghost Thing.”
Kay groaned and rolled his eyes. Philly snickered and then hopped back up into the duct. Yep, Kay would need a day off to just relax at home. He took another glance around the area to confirm no one was around, then he transformed into his liquid body.
With a single hop, he was up on the roofs and out of sight.