Tanner stood in front of the hangars. He had missed something. Where had the men

in black taken Givens? None of the hangars had planes in them.

He walked toward the runways behind the terminal. Maybe there was somebody on

the field who had seen what had happened to the van.

He wasn’t giving up. There had to be something he could do to find the van and its

users. What power did he have that could help him?

He did have a technological thing he could call on. He didn’t use it that often. It

might come in handy to hack the phone he had stolen. That might lead to someone

else in the chain.

Once he got Givens back, he could hand whatever he found over to the Feds and let

them go about their business. That was better than being a one man band chasing after

villains everywhere in the world.

He wasn’t the Mark. He loved his small corner of the world, and didn’t want to

protect anywhere else.

He spotted the van sitting by a runway at the other end of the field. He shook his

head. All the doors being open told him that he had missed them.

He looked up in the air. Planes roared away from the airport. The one he needed had

to be one of them. How did he find it?

He would have to hack the tower and ask the computer what it knew. That should be

easy enough to do if he could get next to one that knew what he wanted.

The first step of his plan required that he get up to the roof of the control tower.

He summoned his wings and flew up to the top of the tower. He took a position

beside some machinery. He didn’t know what it did, and his only interest was in how

much access the dishes and such could give him to the files he needed.

He tried not to think about how many federal laws he was about to break to find out

what he wanted to know.

When the wings went away, he dialed another combination. He heard a ton of

computer chatter as he leaned against the machinery. He didn’t need to interfere with

day to day operations to get what he wanted. He simply asked where was the plane

that had launched at roughly the same time as the van entering the lot. Three planes

kicked back to him from the system. Only one was a private jet. He checked the

location. It was headed for New York.

Tanner checked the heading with the equipment. As far as the radar knew, the plane

was on course for the northeastern section of the United States. All he had to do was

follow it and track it down once it landed.

That shouldn’t be too hard.

The man in the coat had given him a tough job to crack. And when he got home, he

would have to deal with his parents and the fact that he had skipped school. The

fireballs against the house across the street from the school would have to give him

some pretext to skip out for the day.

Maybe he could claim that there had been an emergency and he had been forced to

walk home. It wasn’t a perfect excuse, but it should give him some cover until he

thought of something better.

The bodies left after the attack might give him something else he could use to justify

skipping.

He decided to worry about that after he figured out a way to get to New York after

that plane.

Tanner checked for where the plane was due to land. He had a way to get to New

York as soon as this power set wore off. It was the fastest way to travel across

country. He should get to the airport before the plane landed.

What did he do after that? He should call the authorities and let them handle things

from now on.

He could still try to find the plane and get Givens back. That would be faster than

trying to convince someone that he knew where the plane was going.

He was a kid. No one would believe him.

He would have to check in at the airport to catch them when they land. Until then, he

could lead his normal life until it was time to meet the plane on the ground.

Then he would have to go on the offensive and do what he could to stop the group.

He programmed his phone to give him an alert when the plane was due in.

It wasn’t foolproof. The plane could land and put Givens off anywhere. If it did that,

he would have to get into the plane’s electronics and see what he could do about

finding out where the plane had stopped before its final landing.

The mechanical aptitude wore off as he tracked the plane in the air. It was still

heading northeast according to the radar. That was the best Tanner could do at the

moment.

He called up the slide. He frowned that there wasn’t a hole close to the top of the

tower. He had to get off the tower to start his slide home. He looked at the nearest

location hole. He threw himself off the tower. He hit the point and exited halfway

across town. He stepped through another hole and wound up at school.

He had to get his books out of his locker. Then he could head home until the plane

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

was closing in on a landing. Then he could use the slide to get across the country.

What were his next steps if he couldn’t stop them? How much effort would it take to

get Givens back? How did he deal with those ball shooters?

One thing at a time, he told himself. The first thing was to get his bag and get away

from there before the police asked him some questions he couldn’t answer.

He headed into the building and worked his way down to his locker. He freed his

gear. No one seemed to be looking at him.

Tanner made it outside. The police and fire departments were still busy across the

street from the school. He didn’t see any students or teachers loitering about. He

checked his timer. He slid across to somewhere in Miami and started making his way

back home.

He reached the end of his block after several slides and reloading the power from the

keyboard. He ran to his house. Both of his parents were gone from the looks of things.

He let himself in and headed for his bedroom.

He put the bag next to his desk as he thought about what he should do next. He

should probably call to say he wasn’t going to be at school. That way they wouldn’t

call to check on him.

He went downstairs and grabbed the landline receiver from its cradle. He didn’t want

to use his own phone in case they suspected he was ditching.

He definitely didn’t want the school to call his phone while he was away.

Tanner looked up the number for his school on his own phone, then called on the

family phone. He waited for someone to answer the ringing. He hoped no one had

seen him before he went into action as the Gold Man.

That would dampen his lie if someone reported seeing him on the street heading to

school.

“Robert Wilson High School,” said the familiar voice of Mrs. Treadle. “How can I

help you today?”

“This is Tanner Lerner, Mrs. Treadle,” said Tanner. He put one hand over the

mouthpiece and coughed. “I’m staying home today. I don’t feel that well.”

“You’ll have to bring a note to be excused, Tanner,” said Mrs. Treadle. “I’ll let your

teachers know you’ll be absent.”

“Thanks,” said Tanner. “I’ll bring the note in tomorrow.”

“I hope you feel better,” said Mrs. Treadle.

Tanner put the phone down on its cradle. He waited on the couch. A few minutes

later, the phone rang. He scooped up the handset with a coughing hello.

“Mr. Lerner,” said the vice principal of the school. “This is Mr. Banks. How are you

doing?”

“Just got a bug,” said Tanner. “I’ll be fine when I get some sleep.”

“Don’t forget to bring in your excuse,” said Mr. Banks. “The office will need it to

explain your absence.”

“I’ll bring it in as soon as I see a doctor,” said Tanner. “It should be okay.”

“Take care of yourself, Mr. Lerner,” said the vice principal. “I will see you

tomorrow.”

Tanner breathed a sigh of relief as he put the phone down. They might call again, but

he could say he wasn’t awake to answer the phone. Unless they came by, they

couldn’t prove he wasn’t sleeping.

Now that he had an excuse for not being in class, he had to get ready to move. Once

in New York, he would have to locate the airport, and then get to the plane before the

kidnapers could vanish into the city.

He also had to be ready to take the guys on. If they had more of those fireball

shooters, he would have to take them out before they could start shooting at him.

He had some movement powers that he rarely used, and some energy control. He

would have to fall back on those to do what he had to do.

He just liked the Gold Man for its elasticity.

Tanner decided to raid the refrigerator before he left the house. He had plenty of time

according to his phone. Who knew when he would get his next meal?

He made three sandwiches of bologna and cheese he toasted in the microwave. He

wolfed them down while sipping on a bottle of Coke from the pantry. He grabbed

another can of Coke when he was done with the first. He pressed the three keys he

wanted to use on his arm and stepped outside. He opened the can and sipped at it

before sliding to Boston. He used various links from there to get to somewhere in

New York City. He recognized part of the skyline in the distance, but only had a

rough idea of where he was in relation to where he wanted to be.

Tanner pulled out his phone. He walked down to the next corner. He looked around

for a street sign, and a building address. He typed those in to see where he was. He

typed in La Guardia to check where he had to go from where he was. He nodded at

the arrow on the airport. He checked his timer. He still had hours before the plane

came down.

Tanner put his phone away and checked the vanishing circle on his forearm. The slide

was going away. When it did, he would select the wings, or a speed power low to the

ground.

Once he was at the airport, he would have to turn on his mechanical power and check

on the plane to see if it was still heading to the city. He could track it to the exact

runway he needed to be at to intercept and then stop the gang, or whatever they were.

Everything about this was strange and he wasn’t sure what he was dealing with at the

moment. If he could get Givens back, he might be able to use him as bait to find the

chief executive behind the scheme. Then he could use the keyboard to straighten

everything out.

He imagined a fortress in the heart of the city surrounded by men in black, and robot

gargoyles. He put that thought away as he considered that the villains probably had

space in some converted warehouse, or storage area.

He should build a secret base for himself one day. Maybe get a mask and costume.

He smiled at himself. That would be the line that stopped him dreaming of doing

anything but vigilantism. He would rather get a job and use the keyboard for that than

build himself some kind of lair under the town.

He wasn’t cut out to be a full time hero when he could help out without being seen

most of the time.

Tanner pressed the keys to call on the speed component he wanted. That should let

him run to the airport in plenty of time to get set up to meet the plane.

He cruised through town, skating along the ground with every push of his feet. He

reached the outer perimeter of the airport as his timer wound down to zero. He was

going to have to fly to the terminal while watching for security who wouldn’t like his

invasion.

They wouldn’t see him as friendly. He would be considered a villain that needed to

be defended against to protect passengers on the planes, and in the terminal.

He pulled on his wings and took to the air. He flew low and fast over the field and

landed on top of the tower. He waited until his power went away, watching the field

for any reaction to his presence.

How many man-sized targets did the tower track in a day? Hopefully they thought he

was the Mark, or one of the Mark Girls, and dismissed the radar contact as one of

them being really slow and then going really fast to vanish off the radar so quickly.

He switched powers as soon as he could. He extended his mechanical expertise into

the building and watched everything. Operations were running smooth and his plane

hadn’t made radar contact yet. He settled in to wait, letting the machinery run without

interference.

He reset his power a few times until the plane he was looking for showed up on the

edge of the radar. It headed straight in to La Guardia from what he could tell. A

controller gave a vector to a runway away from the passenger planes taking off. He

asked for the location of the runway from the machinery before disconnecting.

He had to get off the terminal and meet that plane when it landed.