2) Second Contact
I had gotten home after finishing the last of my errands for the day and finished off my afternoon chores. The trash from dinner had been tossed into the recycling bin to be broken down for easier sorting. The packages on my front porch had been delivered to the attic. And everyone had been fed and watered.
So I was just getting settled down in front of my desk to catch up on the latest chapters that had posted on my web novel site when I sensed a dead body nearby and a hint of wistfulness that wasn’t my own.
“What the hell?”
I tried to focus on where the feeling of a brand new dead person on my land was coming from, and who was the person whose feelings were inside my head. I somehow recognized that the person’s mind was Shimmer from that morning. I tried to speak with her like when I had been inside her body, but I only got a sense of confusion in return.
At least this time I was sitting in a nice, padded, and warmer than cement wheelie chair at home as I slipped out from my own body to ride in someone else’s.
The person was only recently dead. Still warm in fact. Opening its eye I could see the tiled ceiling above me as the roaring noise in its ears became sounds. Around me, people were whimpering and an angry voice was shouting. “I’ll do it. I swear if you try to use your powers on me I will end her!”
Then I heard Shimmer’s voice, trying to sound firm. “It’s just money. Let her go and you can leave with all of it. It's the cop's job to catch you, not mine. I’m here to save lives and I don’t do lies.”
I sat the corpse up to look around from behind the counter that between me and wherever the confrontation was happening. A few people nearby gasped when the body began to move but the shouting woman who was partially turned away from me didn't seem to notice. The corpse had been a security guard who was carrying a lot of extra weight on him. His gun was missing from his belt. Pulling it out during what looked to have been an attempted robbery of a check cashing place must have been what got him shot.
What had the guy been thinking? The city would have reimbursed the place and some low ranked super would have tracked the robber down.
Poor guy. It felt like he was a little too far gone for me to save him. My powers would still fix up the damage his body had taken, but there wasn't enough left of his presence in his head to get his heart going again.
Looking around the room I could see a rough looking skinny older woman who was dressed in a flannel shift as a jacket and some other worn out old clothing. She was standing with a cheap revolver up against the head of an Indian looking woman in a pink skirt and white blouse who was crying as the homeless looking robber held the woman up in front of her as a human shield as she faced off with Shimmer.
The super teen had a multicolored shield of force up between the two of them. Its surface constantly changing its colors in everchanging streaks as did all of her force effects. Thus her name. I felt her in my head as she noticed me and tried to use our connection somehow to communicate, but her face didn’t show a sign of her awareness as she tried to somehow give me instructions that just came across as a general feeling of bossiness and then frustration.
Then she shot me a sense of encouragement as she began to slowly step off to the side. “See, I’m giving you a clear path to the door. Just let her go and run before the cops get here. I give you my word that I won’t do anything to stop you.”
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With each step she took, the gunman... or would it be a gunwoman? Turned to face her until she stopped as the woman finally ended up with her back to me.
Oh. She wants me to do something. I widened my eyes at her since I wasn’t exactly trained for this sort of thing. But she gave a little frown at me while sending me a feeling of determination.
Huh. I hope if I screw this up, I can at least try to resurrect the hostage. She seems pretty young and healthy so she would at least have a chance.
I gave Shimmer a reluctant nod with the corpse’s head and removed a few items off the counter to keep them from falling and making a noise. Then it was just a matter of rolling the fat man's body over the counter to land on its feet, take two steps, and wrap its hand over the revolver with its thumb between the hammer and the rest of the gun.
Then before the robber could even pull the trigger, I twisted the gun out of her hand, without setting it off.
The woman turned around and went gray as she looked into the cold dead eyes of the man she killed.
I had it grin, wheezed at her in an attempt to say “Brains” in a longing tone, then I had it give her a solid head butt to middle of her face instead. The robber went down with a yelp, blood running out of her nose. Then I got two kicks into her ribs before Shimmer reached out to stop me.
She quickly pulled her hand back as I turned the dead man’s eyes to her. Then she asked “Mort? Is that you in there?”
I nodded and held up one finger as the lungs finished sealing up. "Yeah, any clue how I was able to sense a dead body near you from halfway across town?”
She looked confused and shook her head. “The man, were you able to…?”
The slow shake of my head made her glare down at the whimpering woman on the floor. “I’m still not going to do anything to stop you from running. But the person inside the man you killed may do something about it.”
The robber looked up at me fearfully. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry. But you shouldn't have pulled out a gun.”
I spit out a bloody wad of something that had come loose in the dead man's lungs. Got it right into her face too. She squealed and clawed at her face as she tried to get it out of her eyes. It was a nice shot, but I did feel a little bad as I felt Shimmer get grossed out a bit. “Speaking of which, did anyone see where this… the other gun went. I need to secure it.”
An older guy in work clothes pointed over to the corner where a bright yellow and black taser sat. “I… I can see through you…”
I glanced down. The guy had been shot at least three times. It would take quite a while to finish off healing this body and it wasn’t really needed since the coroner would just cut him open again. Heck, if healed it too much, a lawyer might even get the idiot now crying on the floor off of a murder charge. "Yeah, he got shot. You think you and a few other guys can sit on this jerk until the cops get here.” I hooked a thumb over my shoulder at the robber.
I glanced over to Simmer who was looking at the holes in the guy’s belly with a faintly horrified look. “Okay, so being in a dead body isn’t that pleasant. It’s all numb and cold which means I want to get out of here. Send me a contact email at mort one one eight eight at fakemail dot com, no capitals, and we’ll try to figure this out.”
Then I walked around the counter and lay back down when the guy had fallen when he died. Just in case it mattered to the cops.
Back in my own body I felt a need to take a hot shower to wash off the corpsey feeling but saw the chicken isekai novel had updated a new chapter while I was out. "Well, this night just got a lot better.”
That night I dreamed of the accident again.
It had been your classic hero villain fight, where the good guy wanted to be a hero so badly he was willing to have a super powered fight right in the middle of downtown Chicago during rush hour.
The good guy. Captain Gains, a former gym rat that had pushed himself into triggering as a Brute 4.
The bad gal. Sleek. A professional snatch and grab bandit who had used her Weird 3 slipperiness power to steal a courier's briefcase off his wrist, handcuff and all, as she drove past him on a motorcycle.
Gains was close enough to catch up to her, but it was a bad combination. A smarter man could have caught her even with only a Brutes power.
He was not a smart man, just a determined one.
Sleek slipped underneath my school bus, motorcycle, and all. Gains attempt to launch himself at her just before she dropped sideways to slide and so Gains ended up going into the side of my bus.
And then through it.
I got back up after a bit. My friends didn’t.
Sleek evaded arrest for years until Light Knight caught her while his wife Bravada dealt with the rest of the thief's crew when they came to Concentric City.
Gains did six months in jail before he vanished into some secret government program in return for a shorter sentence.
My family moved back to Montana to live closer to my Dad's parents. Concentric City had plenty of affordable housing and rules about heroes taking training before they went out and had Superpowered fights.
A regeneration power meant I didn’t have any scars from the fight, at least not physical ones, but some nights I didn’t get much sleep.