Kenny and Todd Nguyen sat together, on a bench, in the middle of Colchis Park. The summer heat was made bearable by the morning’s strong breeze. The statue of the old war hero on top of the water fountain had the drapery on the tip of his sword waving in heavy winds.
It was such a serene day—the sound of bird chirps and traffic jams in the air—you could hardly believe a bomb that maimed dozens of people went off here. Even the apartment that got blown up was reconstructed as if nothing had happened. Of course, this was thanks to everyone’s new favorite hero: GalvanGal. Her presence, online and off, was so electrifying that most of the attention to the terrorist attack was absorbed by her catchphrase: “This trouble’s already over”.
She started off as Garrick’s sidekick, but since her debut struck like a thunderbolt, she has had a supercharged rise to being the new most popular hero. With her in the sky, there was nothing to worry about. Since there was nothing to worry about, the citizens of Colchis could enjoy a day at the park to their heart’s content.
Todd saw a kid skip in line at the popsicle stand. Faint artifacting around the popsicle melted the ice off in the kid’s mouth and the smoldering wood scalded their tongue when they chomped on the stick. Kenny spotted a girl with a big butt who happened to be walking just ahead of some fat guy. Kenny got up, slapped the girl’s butt, and made it back to the bench in time to enjoy the fireworks of her screaming at the bald guy.
When the show was over, Todd’s eyes glazed over to the pond where a mother duck and her ducklings were swimming. Some ducks pooped on Todd’s car a week ago. Todd heated the water to boiling. The mother lept out but her children panicked in the water as she was helpless to save them. Kenny smacked Todd’s hand which stopped the heat and allowed the ducklings to crawl onto land to their mother.
“What was that?” asked Todd.
“What was that?” Kenny pointed to the ducks, “What was that!? You almost made Vit Quay out of those ducks!”
“That sounds good right about now—anyways, I thought we were playing pranks?”
“Harmless pranks,”
“It’s just some ducks, who cares?”
“It doesn’t matter what they are, you almost killed them,” said Kenny. Todd rolled his eyes. One of the Pantheon’s B-listers—branded by those ugly tracking devices they call badges—came down the pathway to pick up trash so they had to stop regardless. The official story was that those not licensed to use their powers could still be heroes by serving the community. Todd knew the true reason was for them to have eyes on the ground to cover anywhere that Garrick’s drones and cameras couldn’t already see. The rest serve as slave labor for his companies and the government.
“Welp I guess we’re done here and I’m hungry,” Todd stood up from the bench and stretched.
Todd would buy food from the hot dog vendor, while Kenny preferred to wait until they got home to cook for himself. While Todd went to buy food, Kenny went to the ducks but an old woman and a young man were already helping them. The guy had the badge of the Pantheon on him. This meant that he was a registered mutant that resided in Olympus but was not allowed to use his powers or roam freely like Garrick or GalvanGal. Instead, he either worked for Garrick or did community service which must have been why he was in the park.
He looked like he knew what he was doing which led Kenny to the fact that he didn’t know how to help if he did go to the ducks. What would have happened to them if Kenny or the young man wasn’t there? He had never seen Todd do something like that before.
Or maybe he didn’t want to see.
----------------------------------------
Todd went to the same hotdog stand that’s been hustling in this park since he was a kid.
“Hey there young blood! Chili and cheese today too?”
“You know it.”
“Coming right up. Hey, you see that new mutie they’ve been pushing? I didn’t mind ‘em when they kept to themselves but first that show of there’s started shoving mutants down our throats and now this one is flaunting around dressed like a whore for kids to see. It ain’t right.”
“Yeah, Kenny really looks up to her. Truly inspirational. She has two pairs of big bouncy character traits that make her a great role model.”
“My son’s the same way. I wouldn’t want any of my kids getting with a mutant, though. It just ain’t right. They need to be kept where they belong.”
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.
“You know, I completely agree,” said Todd.
----------------------------------------
After enjoying a calm day at the park, Todd would drop Kenny home while he went to work. They had to leave earlier than usual nowadays because the police had set up checkpoints around the city which drove up traffic like crazy. Officially, it was because of the terrorist attack. Todd made a route to avoid these checkpoints.
“Hey-” started Kenny.
“No.”
“What?”
“You were gonna ask about joining the clubhouse. You can go get bombs put in your blood if you want, I won’t,” said Todd.
“That’s just a rumor. Besides, they’re gonna be looking into the family of a mutant even if I go alone.”
“Oh, yeah. So you can’t go. And don’t say mutant: that’s their word.”
“Look, we gotta be realistic. We can’t hide forever. You’re taking this long ass drive through sketchy alleyways because they’re cracking down right. I think, if we take it to them on our own terms, we could get a better deal out of it.”
“Oh he wants to look at it realistically he says,” Todd slammed the brakes in the middle of a wide alleyway and lit up his fist over the transmission, “realistically, someone with fire doesn’t get to be a ‘hero’. They get sent straight to Tartarus.” He turned the flame off.
“GalvanGal’s way more dangerous and she got accepted… because she showed that she can be a hero…” Kenny mumbled.
“Oh, come on. You really believe all that? ‘Heroes’ are just people who prop up the status quo. They planned it: the girls, the bomb, everything. Listen, they don’t take guys like me not because they are worried about what the people think, no, they are worried about what the other countries are gonna think. So they trained the girl in secret and set up the bombing story to make it look like they had no choice but to take her in. I mean, she just happened to be with one of the few approved ‘mutants’ and they just happened to be a street away from the attack? It's so obvious. Why would you want to join up with them anyways?”
“Because… there’s gotta be more we could do than this…” Todd rolled his eyes at that and continued driving, “ok well, what’s your plan? If you know they're after us anyways, what are you gonna do when they do come.”
“I’m gonna fight ‘em.”
“Really?”
“That’s what this training is for.”
Since this conversation was going nowhere slow, Kenny went on his phone. Hannah Vandimion(@GalvanGal) posted a selfie of her latest look on Bouldr: a purple spandex suit with white lightning bolts on her shoulders and a white split cape at her sides.
She had gone through many different costumes that all centered around the white loose fabric part of the design—a sash, a palla, a shawl, a chlamys, a pareo, a fraise collar, even leg warmers—but in Kenny’s opinion flying heroes are meant to wear a cape. Anything else was blasphemy. The leg warmers could have stayed, though. It would break up all the purple.
Garrick Iolcus(@Fatman) was unveiling his new body armor and drone designs: Knights adorned with sleek silver plate armor over padded grey gambesons and equipped with never before seen cryogenic “less-than-lethal” armaments; the Stiletto drones were of similar design, being much smaller and quieter than their clumsy Saber counterparts.
This departure from the industrial heft and heavy ordinance the FatMan was known for was an indicator of what to expect from the long-awaited LittleBoy exoskeleton. Garrick was the only one who could use his brand of advanced exoskeleton because of his control over technology but one day that might change. Maybe. Probably.
Aaliyah, who was currently out of state to participate in some medical research, was planning to hold a vigil for those affected by the attack with the support of the rest of the Oracle church. WhiteOut is also out of state for some Broadway play. Kenny was outside of their target demographic but he tried to keep up with anything hero related.
Trending in other news, an inmate developed his mutation and attempted escape from a supermax prison until Garrick caught him. The inmate was moved there after a string of murders across other prisons though it did not say what his original sentence was.
The story was light on details—most likely because they did not want to reveal what mutation he had—but he had almost got away with it if not for Garrick installing new security devices to detect mutants. Garrick had acted without clearance so officials are reluctant to incorporate those devices and admit their effectiveness.
Most people can’t control their mutation when it develops, especially when they are older, which is how they get caught easily. For a patient killer to have one, and have time to practice without anyone noticing, is incredibly dangerous: there could have been a real supervillain on the loose. There are plenty of places, whole countries, where Garrick can’t be at all times so who knows how many villains could be out there.
A smile crept up on Kenny at the thought.
Todd parked on the curb in front of their (parent’s) house and went on his phone; mom had been blowing it up all day and was definitely going to blow up his ears when she sees him. Kenny got out, opened the front door, and saw GalvanGal and Zariah at the dinner table in the living room having a conference with his parents.