With his disability in temporary remission, he was just a regular person doing regular things once more. That should have made him feel better, but looking over the counter at the cashier he wasn’t so sure.
“So, are you a vampire?" she asked. She tucked a stray lock of dark brown hair behind one ear, reminding him of Audrey.
"Sorry, am I a what?" he replied, caught off guard.
"A vampire. I only ever see you at night, twice a week at midnight like clockwork. I see food, but it must be for your rabbits because I don’t think a person can live on this stuff. Oatmeal, granola bars, brown sugar, and sometimes carrot sticks.” She held up the bag of brown sugar as an example before scanning it.
"I work an evening shift," he countered lamely.
"You’re also pale and you have the most intense stare I’ve ever seen, usually when looking at me. I’d be worried, but I’m also intrigued. Which should I be?" She leaned over the counter teasingly, locking her eyes with his.
Without his powers he couldn’t tell how to take her question. No heartbeat or rush of blood to inform him if she was having fun or flirting. It made him very uncomfortable. The name on her tag was Alice, but he knew her as Alicia Rodriguez. She happened to be number one on his mental list. She had scars on her back from the abuse heaped on her by an ex-boyfriend, and living not far from him in northwest Portland, it had been her cries he woke up to after his powers manifested.
She was the reason he became Afterimage. She was also the reason for his list. It had taken a week before he answered her pleas for help. The guilt had eaten at him ever since. Now she was the reason he shopped at this store, keeping tabs on her even when he wasn’t on the job. He also knew she was single, back in college getting her sociology degree and working hard to put her life back on track. So why was she talking to him?
He looked down at his feet shyly. “Trust me, I’m nothing but trouble.”
That made her laugh. “Ok, intrigued it is. I’m Alicia.” She held out her hand over the counter. The store was nearly empty, with the only other late-night employee unboxing ice cream in the freezer section. They were effectively alone.
“I’m Tom.” He shook her hand carefully like she was fragile, trying not to flinch at the contact. Reaching out like this must have been hard for her as well. He wondered if, deep down inside, she knew he was someone she could trust.
“It’s good to see you again, Tom. Talk again on Thursday?”
“Probably.” Picking up his bag of groceries, he smiled and waved goodbye as he headed out of the store.
Sitting in his van, he gripped the tape-wrapped steering wheel in a panic. The old vehicle had been in his family for more than a generation, but he always thought of it as his mother’s. Touching the wheel made him feel close to her again. He held onto it like Odysseus tied to the mast of his ship, doing his best to resist the call of the sirens and not lose himself to the turbulent sea.
He rested his forehead on the wheel. With his pounding heart trying to burst from his chest, he found it difficult to breathe. He gulped air in desperation. He had been shopping there for months. Of course she would come to see him as familiar. He wanted to make sure she was safe and never intended for anything else. Then twice in one day people reached out to him and he didn’t know what to do. He was well outside his comfort zone.
Trying to regain control, he worked to calm himself, releasing each breath slowly to settle his nerves. Then he headed home. He took advantage of his remission to take a long shower. Tom stood in the falling water hoping to wash his fears and anxiety down the drain.
Drying himself afterward, he caught sight of himself in the bathroom mirror and hated what he saw. Tired, dark ringed eyes looked back at him. Ribs showed prominently across his chest, his inability to find food he could stomach taking its toll. Even his damp hair showed neglect, having become long enough to scrape the back of his neck. Unfortunately, barbershops were rarely open when he could go, and his attempts at cutting his own hair were hack jobs at best. Thankfully it wasn’t a problem when using his powers or during the downtime after.
Resigned to his sad state, he put on a clean set of the tight-fitting clothing he wore for his condition. He didn’t need them now, but he had little else in the way of clean clothes he could wear. He did like the feel of them, how they hugged his body firmly without seams or loose material that would scratch or irritate him. They made him feel safe in his own skin.
In a mild act of rebellion, he made his way around a table and chair to go to a window. All the sharp edges of the furniture were padded with foam and duct tape in readiness for the bad times. In good times they were a reminder of how alone he was. He folded the shutters out of the way, dusted off the latch, and pushed open the window. He breathed in the fresh evening air and reveled in the lack of discomfort. Then he sat in the recliner chair in his living room and ate oatmeal laced with brown sugar from a bowl in his lap.
Without his powers he felt blind, and curiosity was eating at him. He needed to know how the world viewed what had happened at the restaurant. He looked around for the TV remote. Digging it out from under a pile of outdated magazines, he pressed the power button. Surprisingly, after two years of disuse, the TV flickered on.
He sat down to watch while absently spooning food into his mouth. When his condition was in full force even oatmeal could taste overwhelming. At that moment, however, it was comfortingly bland. While he could eat anything when his condition was in remission, strong flavors were still disconcerting to him. He kept to the boringly familiar, wrapping them around himself like a security blanket.
“This is Hilary Conrad reporting live from the corner of 28th and East Burnside.” Behind the reporter Tom could see the restaurant where he and Pressure had saved the hostages. “A robbery and hostage situation was thwarted by the combined efforts of our local powered heroes, Portland’s longtime savior Afterimage and newcomer Pressure. While neither hero stayed for comments, we know that all hostages were rescued unharmed and both suspects apprehended. Eyewitnesses state, however, that one of the suspects showed superhuman abilities, nearly taking down Afterimage during the encounter. Pressure provided backup, ending the crisis.”
“One of the hostages reported that during the fight, Afterimage’s signature light went out, revealing the hero beneath to be a young man in his mid-twenties. That solves one mystery regarding Portland’s first hero, but now we’re left with another. Afterimage was seen leaving the scene with Pressure. Was this a onetime partnership or the beginning of the first known super team? Only time will tell. Back to you, Steve.”
“Well, there you have it,” said anchorman Steve Gimbel when the camera cut back to the studio. “It’s great to see our local heroes working together.”
“And speaking of Afterimage, in international news, the criminal Brecht Dermout, captured by Afterimage here in Portland over a month ago and extradited to Brussels for charges of illegal arms dealing and murder-for-hire, has escaped INTERPOL custody and is currently at large.”
“Dammit,” he muttered. Tom had seen enough. He turned off the television, throwing the room into darkness. In the quiet dimness he brooded. Nothing he did seemed enough. Could he have done something different with Dermout? Could he have changed what happened at the restaurant? And then there was Audrey Preston. He just couldn’t keep the feel of her out of his head. The sensation of his arms wrapped around her as they flew, buoyed by her powers, reminded him of his mother. He used to hold onto his mother like that whenever the sensations of the world had threatened to overwhelm him. Since her death, Audrey was the only other person he had touched that way. He fell asleep in the chair where he dreamed about flying with Audrey, dancing among the clouds.
Tom woke to sounds that pounded into his skull like jackhammers. It was a bird chirping outside his window, each warble and trill sending shockwaves through his ears. He jumped out of the chair where he had fallen asleep, chastising himself for having left the window open during the night. The glare of the sun shining through pierced his eyes, disorienting him, making the journey a painful gauntlet. Unable to walk in a straight line, he swerved his way through the room, running into the table and wooden chair along the way. Thankfully the padding did its job. Still, he collected a half dozen bruises traveling the ten feet to the window.
He carefully closed the window and folded the shutters back into place. The shutters, like much of his house, were backed by soundproof batting. The trilling of the birds outside disappeared.
Yet all was not well. The cool morning air scraped his skin like sandpaper, and the sounds of the settling house rattled his bones. Even the dim light felt like sharp stabs to his eyes. Though the sensations were no longer a stab to the chest, he was still being flayed by hundreds of paper cuts across his body.
He turned to his morning ritual to protect himself. Focusing on the abrasive feelings scouring his body, he used them to trigger his power. He purposely limited the depth of his perception, however, dipping his toes in rather than diving. Instead of glowing, streaks of amber light shimmered beneath the surface of his skin, making his senses only slightly better than that of a normal person. It took the edge off his disability so he could function.
He was relieved that his powers worked, glad that his encounter the night before had not robbed him of his powers forever. Yet he also felt loss. He thought briefly of Audrey’s touch but forced himself to focus elsewhere. He went through his usual routine, putting food in his fanny pack and walking outside past the van toward the greenhouse.
He could feel the plants inside the greenhouse from where he walked. Tonight he would need to attend to them. Their water was automated, but many were overdue for trimming and repotting. While gardening had never given him the same joy it had for his mother, he did find it a soothing respite from his daily activities. It brought him back to earth, reconnecting him to the land beneath his feet.
He stopped in the middle of the ruins of the old house. The smell of old smoke triggered memories of his mother. Not only had Afterimage been born here, but this was where she had died. To this day he did not know if the fire had killed her or if he had. So overwhelmed with the heat and crackling of flames, his power burst from him for the first time. He had flown away to escape, but his home had become a fiery inferno, devouring the structure and his mother with it.
Doing his best to squash these memories, he released his powers fully and flew away, back over the city to his place above the river. He went through his list again, skipping Alicia and moving quickly from person to person until he arrived back at Audrey Preston.
This time Audrey was at home with her family, curled up on the living room couch. “I had no idea what to say to him,” she told to her brother and sister-in-law. “I mean, what the hell do you say to your hero after you save his life?”
“Uhm, you’re welcome?” quipped Peter.
“Ok, dish. What’s he like?” asked Mary, leaning forward in her chair.
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“He just survived a beat down. I don’t think he was having the best of days.”
“No,” Mary shot back. “I mean, what does he look like? Young? Old? Fat? Gorgeous?”
Audrey shook her head. “What are you fishing for? You wondering if I thought he was cute? The guy took a beating from a powered criminal, and there were hostages. Lives were at stake. I had bigger things to think about. Don’t go trying to ship us.”
“Hey, the forums are already doing that. You should read what they say about you two.”
“Should I really be listening to this?” Peter grumbled, sticking his fingers in his ears.
“There are forums?” Audrey asked incredulously. “And you read them?”
Mary smiled like the Cheshire Cat. “Hell yes I read them! You’re famous. I want to know what the world is saying about you. Plus, there’s fanfic.”
“La la la,” chanted Peter, doing his best not to listen.
“Oh god no.” Audrey tried laying her head in her hands, but she winced with pain. “Crap.”
“So?” Mary prompted again.
Audrey sighed in defeat. “He’s about my age, give or take. Blue eyes. Blonde hair, on the longish side. Clean cut, but with a little stubble. He wore grey, tight-fitting shirt and pants, kinda like a bicyclist or full-body swimsuit you’d see in the Olympics. He was pretty thin, like he forgets to eat like I do.”
“In other words, he was cute,” Mary said smugly.
Audrey sighed. “Maybe. He did have great eyes. But why do you care?”
“Because,” Mary lectured, “you’ve been alone for as long as I’ve known you. I know your arthritis makes it hard for you to connect with people. And here you have someone you can connect with. So why not? You deserve to be happy.”
“Hey,” Audrey chastised, “my happiness is not contingent on being in a relationship. You should know better.”
“I know it doesn’t,” said Mary, “but being sick doesn’t mean you deserve to be alone.”
Embarrassed, Afterimage turned his attention away from Audrey and her family. Instead, he let his mind wander as he floated in space, basking in the sun shining down on him and the city below. He could not feel its heat, but it left a pleasant tingle deep within him. He lived for these moments when the world was nothing more than white noise washing over him. He allowed the feeling of peace to soak in.
The sound of a burglar alarm broke that peace, the shrieking alert drawing his attention to a house in the northeastern part of the city. He could hear someone inside rummaging and moving things about, their breathing labored and heart beating rapidly. Not the sounds of someone who was trying to find their car keys.
In moments he flew through the open door of the house to confront the intruder.
“Oh crap,” said the man. He looked like anybody walking down the street, with his nicely combed hair, jeans, and a button-down shirt. He put down the backpack he carried and put up both hands in defeat. “You’d think I’d know better, right?”
Yes, you should have, thought Afterimage. With a glowing man standing in the way the guy was never going to leave the premises, so Afterimage sped past the burglar to stand behind him. Nudging him forward, Afterimage marched the intruder out the front door.
Once outside, the man thought himself free. He ran for it.
Afterimage shook his head. The guy was fast on his feet, but Afterimage was faster. He hated what he was about to do, but it was the only way to deal with runners. In a burst of light, Afterimage flashed forward, overtook the fugitive, and enveloped the man in his arms.
That’s when the screaming started. Afterimage could not hear it, but he could feel it deep inside himself. Scaring people was never his intent, yet touching others with his power normally sent them into a panic. Wrapped in Afterimage’s sensory field, his unwilling passenger had been struck blind, deaf, and mute while being inundated by overwhelming and indecipherable physical sensations. Afterimage remembered what it was like his first time, not knowing up from down, thinking he was suffocating because he could not feel himself taking a breath, the ripples of an entire world shaking him from the inside out. What was now comforting for him, others found terrifying.
Everyone except Audrey Preston. She had touched him once and hadn’t seemed bothered at all. She was the exception, though, not the rule. The man he held was scared to death, soiling himself in his arms.
Scanning around, Afterimage could feel the police nearby, coming in answer to the house alarm. Zipping down the block which his cargo, Afterimage appeared in the street ahead of the police car. It stopped short with a screech of tires. He deposited his frightened package on their hood. The man was babbling his list of crimes the moment he was released, promising to never rob another house if he could avoid another capture by Afterimage.
This was how it was for the rest of the day. He went from crime to crime, victim to victim, and tried to fix what he had not been able to fix for himself. It was a compulsion that he gladly fed. If it meant one less person mourning the loss of a loved one or saved from another moment of pain and anguish, it was worth it.
Late in the afternoon Pressure made her appearance. This time he was well aware of her even before she took off from the park near her home. He was ready for her when she flew up to him and waved in greeting.
In return he flew a loop about her. Her smile left him warm inside.
“I see you’re feeling better!” she called out, raising her voice to be heard over the wind above the river. He laughed to himself. He should let her know that at this range he would have understood her even if she had just silently mouthed the words to herself.
He couldn’t respond, but after a moment she continued anyway, a nervous tremor entering her voice. “I was thinking we could fly together for a time, if you don’t mind. It seemed like a good thing yesterday. How does that sound?”
She paused, but then she shook her head and laughed. “You can’t answer when you’re powered, can you? I’m sorry. Feel free to fly away if that’s not ok. I would understand.”
For one moment Afterimage did think about leaving her behind. It would have been easier for him. But he didn’t want to. Thinking about his list, his mind would return to her eventually, wondering where she was and how she was doing. Having her near meant one less thing to worry about.
He stayed in quiet acceptance of her presence, and she stayed beside him, companions in silence. When he heard an alarm, a scream, or a gunshot, he would loop around her before dashing off to let her know she was included. She would follow, and together they faced the day.
There was the house fire, the lower level of the three-story home engulfed in flame. Neither hero had powers that could suppress fire, but rescues were another matter. Afterimage flew through an upper window to retrieve a child while Pressure walked through the front door, her power pushing back the flames. She escorted the family out while reassuring the mother her child would be fine. Holding the little girl in his arms as he flew out, he could feel her screams in his bones, but the fear was quickly replaced with relief when she was reunited with her parents on the sidewalk outside.
There was the mugging in the mall parking lot. Pressure dropped between the perpetrator and his intended victim. Startled, the man pulled the trigger of his gun, but the bullet fell uselessly to the ground before her, unable to penetrate her shield. Angry, Afterimage enveloped him with his powers and whisked him away to the nearest police station.
“That’s a nifty trick,” Pressure remarked when she met him outside the station. “Carrying others takes a lot of effort for me.” Afterimage thought she was selling herself short. Unfortunately, he couldn’t tell her.
Late in the day was a bank robbery. Pressure mocked the teenager who held a toy gun in the pocket of his coat. “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” she told him as they faced off at the bank entrance. Afterimage knew it wasn’t a real gun. He could smell the plastic of the water pistol. She didn’t know that, not that it mattered to her.
Faced with two powered heroes, the boy left the toy in his pocket and raised his arms into the air. “I don’t want no trouble. I give up.” The security guard took him into custody, leaving the heroes free to go their own way.
At the end of the day as people left their workplaces and cars poured into the streets, Pressure suggested they take a break as well. Leading the way, Afterimage took off for the hills on the west side of Portland. They landed at a park located at the highest point above the city. With no one else about that he could sense, Afterimage relaxed his glow, letting Pressure see the outlines of a person instead of a ball of light.
“Thank you,” she said, relieved. “I was starting to run low.” He had been pushing his limits too and thought about dropping his glow entirely. His powers had already drained away the worst of his condition by now. Yet he found himself reluctant. If he lost the glow, he would feel obligated to talk, and he had no idea what to say.
She took a deep breath and looked out at the city. “Nice view,” she said in appreciation. “It’s been a long time since I’ve been up here. Too much trouble. Well, it was before all this.” She motioned to her suit in explanation.
From his vantage point, the city was a living thing, the streets like arteries flowing with red and white blood cells as cars turned on their lights with the onset of night. The rumble of vehicles combined inside him with the sensations of smog, human sweat, and food carts, feeling as close to him as an old man grumbling about politics following a curry dinner, a cup of coffee, and a smoke. It was not as appealing a view as hers, but he could understand what she meant. Unable to express his admiration, however, he just stood beside her, trying his best to look at the city instead of her.
“So,” she started, still looking out at the city. “What makes you… you? I mean, what do you have? I have arthritis. Pain, swelling, that kind of thing. Sometimes I just feel like I want to explode. I guess that’s why my power comes out like it does. The pressure just builds up in me and I have to let it out.” She spoke quickly, the words spilling out of her.
For all his power, Afterimage was not a mind reader. He could hear the flutter of her heart, the stutter in her breath, and the grinding of her joints when she moved, but he could not tell why she wanted to know more about him. Was it because of the conversation she had with her family earlier in the day? Was she just trying to understand her own powers? Was it because she wanted to connect with someone like herself?
Ultimately, did it matter? Afterimage had been Portland’s sole powered hero for two years, and before that he had been a grown man living alone with his mother because he was unable to function by himself in the real world. To be anything other than alone was a foreign concept. Yet even when his powers provided the opportunity to be with others, he was hiding behind them as if nothing had changed.
Making a decision, he dropped his powers entirely. The light around and within him winked out. Without it, the two of them were cast into hazy darkness.
Feeling blind, he stood stock still as if he was surrounded by barbed wire ready to cut him should he move. He forced himself not to cringe as the wind wafting up the hill roughly brushed his face. Despite having used his powers, his symptoms still grated on him.
“It’s called SPD. Sensory Processing Disorder,” he said uncomfortably, braced for the sound of his own voice.
Though he could still see her outline in the dim light, without his power she didn’t seem real. For all he knew, she had run away into the night, leaving behind a cardboard cutout. Distrusting his senses, he continued. “My body misinterprets sensory information, causing disorientation and pain. I’m a severe case. My power protects me by translating those sensations into energy. Including the sound of my own voice. That is why I can’t talk, and the light.”
Her silhouette moved, letting him know she was in fact a real person. “How are you right now?” she asked. Even without his power he could hear the tremor in her voice.
“Not great, but it could be worse. I’ve been using my powers a lot today.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“For what?” he asked defensively, not wanting to be pitied.
“For asking the question. For obligating you to drop your powers to talk to me.”
So it was not pity he heard, but regret for causing him pain. That was something he could understand. “You didn’t know. And you didn’t make me do anything I didn’t want to do. I should have told you sooner.”
“Well, thank you for telling me now.”
That reminded him. “By the way, with my powers I can hear you if you whisper from a mile away. No need to shout, even when you’re flying.”
She looked at him curiously. “How far across the city can you hear?”
“All of it,” he stated matter-of-factly. That wasn’t strictly true, but true enough.
“Oh,” she whispered into the darkness.
He looked back out at the city and watched the building lights wink on with the coming evening. Those pinpoints were disorienting, making his stomach churn uncomfortably, so he turned back to Pressure. Her glasses, however, glistened with reflections, making nowhere safe to look. “I’m sorry, but I need to turn my powers back on.”
“Of course,” she said softly.
Before he could, those pinpoints of light started disappearing again. Confused, he looked around. Darkness began to flow up the hill below them and then spread to either side. In moments the entire hillside was left in shadow.
“Something is wrong,” he said, turning on his power. The world blinked out again, letting him take in the scene using his preternatural abilities.
“Whoa,” said Pressure. It did not take special abilities to see what was happening.
Down the hill from the park was the Oregon Health and Sciences University. Every building of the teaching hospital and associated campus was dark, as were the houses surrounding it. It was the center of a massive blackout, extending out in every direction.
Behind them the sun finished its descent on the other side of the hill, taking away the remaining light and plunging the area in gloom. It made it easier to see the tongues of blue flame licking up the sides of the central hospital and spreading out to the surrounding buildings. Normally he would see a haze of energy radiating out from a myriad of sources, even in the dark of night. Now, the flames were absorbing even ambient power, making it difficult for him to see anything at all. Even sound was dampened to a low hush.
“It’s the blue fire guy from last night,” said Pressure, recognizing the flames from the previous evening.
Swallowing his trepidation, Afterimage took off, flying toward the source of the flames below. Pressure followed closely behind, his glow lighting the way like a torch.