I have had another revelation. I shall put up my amazingly cool/really bad story about superheroes in the Writers on here. But sh! No-one knows who we are! :D
Untitled – At the Moment!
I stand on the rooftop, my bright red cape fluttering behind me in the breeze. I am standing with my hands on my hips, ready for action at a moment’s notice.
My mobile phone is bright red and near my hand at all times; you never know when trouble will occur. I scratch at the fake bear’s ears on my head and fight the urge to sneeze; I do not want it all over my mask.
The night has been quiet so far. Perhaps too quiet.
The mobile rings. I answer.
“Fire Bear. Are you going to come off that roof anytime soon?” asks the well known voice at the other end. It is the voice of a great companion and trusted ally, Doctor Zaze. “There’s obviously going to be no trouble tonight, and you can’t fly off the roof, anyhow.”
“On the contrary, my dear Zaze. I should technically be able to produce a force large enough to enable me to lift off the ground. You said so yourself.”
“I know I did, but I didn’t expect you to start standing on the Union roof, now, did I? Come on down to the Gamezone. We’re playing pool.” She hangs up.
I glare at the city of bonny Glasgow, as if I can maybe stop anyone from causing trouble. I turn and walk to the door.
Beside the door, there is a massive light pointed to the sky. On the light is the best picture of a bear on fire that my friend Hazel could draw, blown up onto A5 and made into a metal fixture. With the low clouds which are usual in Glasgow, my symbol can be seen throughout the city. Recently it has been deterring various crimes. However, if the light is not visible, it means I am not there and the crime rate increases dramatically. It’s as if criminals are scared of me.
I take the stairs; a lift may get you there quicker, but it doesn’t fan my cape out behind me, which is what running down the stairs does.
I am not surprised to find the usual gang surrounding Doctor Zaze, resplendent in her white lab coat with her name stitched on the back. She wears a face mask as she always does, goggles obscuring her eyes. One of her inventions, number 69, is leaning against the wall.
Across the pool table from Zaze, chalking his pool cue is Floppy, presumably named for his hair. He wears a traditional superhero costume, with the pants over his tights, and an eye mask. They are all black, thus, making him appear to be Zorro. Slightly.
Also leaning against the wall is Floppy’s partner in crime (or should I say partner in prevention-of-crime), Spiky, also, presumably, named for his favourite hairstyle. He wears an identical costume to Floppy’s. They are obviously really sad.
Captain Formal is in deep intellectual conversation with Time Travelling Hero. Captain Formal wears a top hat, with a suit and a black bowtie. He also wears a rather posh eye mask that Shakespeare’s characters from Venice would approve of.
Time Travelling Hero is an unfortunate person, having travelled forward in time, watching how we all die and how the world ends. He won’t tell us, says it will destroy the space-time continuum. He wears a shiny, silver jumpsuit with a futuristic helmet. He always seems depressed.
As I watch, Floppy picks up the cue ball and utters his world famous line: “Cue ball of justice!” A white light appears in his hand, spreading to the cue ball, which glows as he places it on the table. He breaks.
With his superpower, Floppy is able to pot all the yellows, leaving the black and Zaze’s reds. “I thought I’d better give you a chance!” he grins.
Zaze harrumphs. She turns to her new contraption, placing it on the table. She winds it up as Floppy’s grin falters. Then, she presses a button. Out of the hole in the metal box, something which looks remarkably like a pool cue emerges. It lines up with the cue ball, pulls back before popping back out to hit it.
All the balls are now potted and Floppy is left standing, looking rather angry. Spiky laughs at his misfortune.
“So what’s that for?” I ask Doctor Zaze.
She looks at me as if I’m being slow on the uptake. Again. “This has been made for potting all the balls in a game of pool, thus winning said game of pool. I call it the Pool Game Winning Device.”
“How’s that supposed to help fight crime?”
“It’s not,” admits Zaze. “But you could do one thing with it to help you; you could-”
She is interrupted at this point by Floppy wailing. “That’s cheating! That’s not fair!”
“Life’s not fair,” I mutter before trying to abate his moaning. “Look, you used your ‘Justice Ball’, so it’s only fair that Zaze gets to use her newest contraption. By the way, Zaze, out of interest, what’s number 70 going to be?”
“I don’t know,” shrugs Doctor Zaze. “Probably something to do with alchemy.”
“She’s going to try to discover the elixir of life!” Spiky butts in at this point. “Or perhaps she’ll make gold!” His eyes sparkle.
I roll my eyes and wander over to see what Captain Formal and Time Travelling Hero (we couldn’t think of any other name) are talking about.
“… you go back to the future?” I arrive in time to hear Captain Formal ask this of Time Travelling Hero.
“Hi guys. What you up to?” I ask.
“I am trying to tell Time that it should, technically and undoubtedly be possible for him to travel in time, until he finds an era he will be happy to live in without the knowledge of impending doom bothering him,” replies Formal dismissively.
“And I’m trying to tell him, I don’t want to!” mutters Time.
I smile at him. “Good on you!” I am trying to raise his spirits, but he is still glum; he is always glum.
I turn back to the others. “I am pleased to report that there have been no disturbances tonight.”
Doctor Zaze rolls her eyes behind her goggles. “We figured that one out already. I mean, the population of Glasgow who are criminals are too afraid to come out at night whenever the Fire Bear is out. Some of them still think you’re some kind of bear that’s gone mad and will devour them. It’s peaceful, and always will be. So you don’t need to stand on the roof. I mean, what could possibly happen?”
At this moment the lights go out, the music stops playing and silence engulfs the Gamezone.
“You just had to say that, didn’t you?” comes Floppy’s voice from across the pool table before I decide to dutifully light a fire ball. With the fire ball cupped in my hands, I turn to the others. “It may be a power cut. Either that or a bulb has blown or something, causing the circuit to trip. So does anyone know where the circuit box actually is?”
Everyone looks at each other. “No,” says Doctor Zaze as the others shake their heads.
I sigh. “It’s down-” begins Time, obviously about to indulge us with a nugget of information from his past in the future. However, at this moment the lights begin to flicker.
Finally, the lights are able to stay on. The jukebox begins to play a song. We are all standing listening to it, trying to figure out what it is.
Suddenly the song changes; we all recognise this one. “Flash, by Queen,” says Zaze, unnecessarily. We look at each other; why has someone put this on?
“So…” says Floppy. We all turn to look at him. “Do you want a game, Spiky?” Floppy gestures to the pool table.
I turn from the table, shaking my head as Spiky agrees and begins to set up. As it is, I am the only one to notice three people standing watching us. Three people who happen to be our arch nemeses.
One of them, on my left, is a young woman. She is wearing a black corset with black boots (what is it with these people and black!). She is carrying a rather large whip. She is Curly Emma and she is handy with said whip.
The man in the middle is unshaven and is wearing what appears to be a trench coat. Bar the blood and shrapnel, he could have come straight from World War Two. He is McBain and he is psychic, which is unfortunate for us.
The third person could be a man or a woman. No-one knows. For the purposes of not doing my head in, I think of him as a man. He is wearing a cloak, which changes colour, though not very often. When he is angry or feeling particularly evil, his cloak becomes black. Mostly it is red. Bright red. No-one can see anything of him, bar his hands, as the cloak covers everything, the hood pulled low over his face. No-one has seen his face, and many, including some of my team, believe he has no face to see. I think he is just hiding his true identity as I am doing with this full facial mask (in the shape of a bear). He has several powers (the bastard), including being able to read people’s thoughts (damn! He heard me say he’s a bastard!) and telekinesis. His name is Overlord.
I clear my throat to announce their arrival. No-one notices. “Floppy!” I shout, as he is distracting everyone by his argument that he has to use the “cue ball of justice” because it’s his trademark.
They finally turn round.
“What the-?” cries Spiky.
“What are you doing here?” asks Floppy, angrily. “I thought we’d got rid of you the last 68 times!”
“You can never get rid of us!” cries Curly Emma, gleefully.
“So what is it?” asks Zaze, her eyes narrowed.
The three nemeses look puzzled. Or at least, two of them do; Overlord could be wearing his cloak back to front for all we know.
“What on Earth are you talking about?” asks McBain, bewildered.
“She means,” I sigh, “what is your evil, dastardly plan this time?”
The three of them look at each other, gleefully, evil grins on their faces. (Bar the Overlord, of course.) They’re going to do the evil laugh, I think. Any minute now-
“Mwahahaha-” they begin.
“Look,” I say, interrupting them. “As much as I love your evil laugh and everything, could you please stop after a minute or so, rather than the usual ten; I’m starting to need the toilet, so we don’t have all day. Or night, rather.”
Looking miffed, Curly Emma and McBain turn to the Overlord. He speaks slowly and deliberately, pronouncing each word carefully, as if he is trying to hide his voice. “Haven’t you noticed that three of your number are missing?” I could imagine him grinning.
“Three of them?” asks Time. “There’s four missing, doughball!”
“I would appreciate it if you did not insult me,” says the Overlord, slowly, sounding annoyed. “And I know what I am talking about; we have Miss Jen, Mojojojoe and Kitty held captive!”
“But how?” asks Captain Formal, taking off his hat and twirling it nervously in his hands. “Kitty had reflexes like a…”
“Like a cat?” asks the Overlord, finishing Formal’s sentence. “Well, she seems to be less agile at the moment. Perhaps it’s a girl thing!” He and McBain laugh while Curly Emma stands beside them, looking haughty.
“But how is kidnapping them meant to help you take over the world? As usual,” asks Floppy, looking extremely confused.
“Don’t you worry your little head,” says McBain.
“We don’t want you spoiling things for us. Again,” continues the Overlord.
“The plan is solid,” grins Curly Emma.
At this moment, I jump out of my skin as, behind me, Bob’s voice utters another famous phrase. “That’s what she said!”
I turn round quickly and my cloak flaps round a bit slower than me, tangling me in its folds. I glare at this new superhero.
I’m never sure what his superpower is. He just seems to appear whenever there’s an opportunity for a sexual innuendo. It annoys the hell out of whichever enemy we are facing at the time. It annoys the hell out of his comrades, as well.
He wears what I’m sure he thinks of as a sexy dark blue costume. His mask is one of whichever celebrity the public think of as hot on any particular day. Today it is, unfortunately, Zac Efron. It’s on days like this that I can only laugh at him.
“Oh, God!” I mutter, grinning before I turn back to the matter at hand.
Our three villains have moved closer.
“Don’t even think about it!” I growl as I light up a fire ball in my hand, ready to leap into action at a moments notice.
They don’t seem to notice. “I think it is time you should see our plan in motion,” says the Overlord, quietly and carefully. He clicks his fingers. Three people move forward from the shadows. One is wearing a cat mask and a black jumpsuit reminiscent of Catwoman. Another is wearing bright colours to stand out in a crowd, wearing a brightly coloured, rainbow mask to hide her eyes. The third is wearing normal clothes with an eye mask and a randomly picked hat; it happens to be a fez.
They are Kitty, Miss Jen and Mojojojoe. But what are they doing here? Surely they could just escape.
A horrible feeling creeps up me. The Overlord is clever, and his cleverness is heightened by the help of Curly Emma and McBain. He could very well create clones…
“Oh, God, no!” I cry. The buzz of conversation behind me ceases. “You couldn’t do that!”
“Well, quite obviously we can. Many. Times. Over.” The Overlord says this last sentence slowly to get his point across, but it was quite unnecessary.
“Oh, no!” I breathe as the exact same three people appear behind the first, and behind these another three came forward, until, after all the movement dies down, we are surrounded.
“What should we do? Our own guys could be out there?” whispers Dr. Zaze.
“I doubt it! But… You got a contraption?” I ask. “I have a rough idea of a plan, but you must have one of your contraptions!” I say this while trying not to think too much.
“Which one?” she asks. “I have a couple,” she elaborates the need for the question. “I have…” she reels off several numbers. I stare at her.
“That’s not a couple,” breathes Captain Formal behind us.
“Never mind! You have the one I need! Now, tip them out and I’ll pick it up.”
“I do so hope you’re not plotting the clones’ demise!?” The Overlord calls out to us, trying to distract us. “Your teammates could be in amongst them. “You are forgetting, Fire Bear, that I can control people via their minds!”
‘Damn!’ I think. ‘He’s reading my mind! Stop doing that, you bastard!’
‘No,’ says a voice I do not recognise. ‘My voice is different inside your head because I hear my voice differently. ‘ However, I do vaguely recognise the voice… ‘From where?’ The voice sounds interested and worried.
At this moment, Zaze shakes my arm. “Fire Bear?” she asks, and I stop thinking of where I have heard the voice. Which is lucky, really: I don’t want him to find out my secret identity.
I flip open the contraption I had been holding and frown at what is inside it. I really, really hate this stuff…
I try to stop myself from thinking about my plan, but fail.
“No!” cries the Overlord, as McBain looks frantically across at us.
“Oh, no! They’re going to…”
McBain doesn’t get much further as I stand up, brandishing the contraption. “Who wants a cigarette? Totally free! I’ll even light them for you!” I shout over the commotion.
All the clones, who seem to be linked, rush forward, the Mojojojoes grabbing at my hand and at the contraption. I give them all the cigarettes on a first come, first served basis. Then I tell them to line up in a very straight line as their masters jump up and down, trying to get them to listen to them. Curly Emma even tries to whip cigarettes from a few clones hands, but they deftly dodged and struck back. Anything to protect their precious cigarettes.
I hold out a finger. Fire rushes out of it, lighting all the cigarettes in one blow. All the Mojojojoes take a drag. They breathe out the smoke. They all begin to cough.
“Quick!” I cry. “None of them are our guys! Get ‘em!”
We all rush forward. I seem to be holding a flame thrower as my hands are held out in front of me and the flames rush out in front of them. I witness, out of the corner of my eye, Dr. Zaze making good contraption number 69 and showing us all just what it could be used for. I can hear Floppy giving a cry of ”Foot of Justice!”, smashing some of the clones’ faces in.
Soon, the clones are finished off. Now all that remains is for our three nemeses to face justice (and not Floppy style).
“Right!” I turn triumphantly towards the villains. Only the Overlord is there. “What the-?”
“You may have defeated our clones easily, but you’ll never defeat us!” he cries. “Besides, we have your friends locked up!” He grins at us before he turns and disappears; another one of his superpowers, teleportation.
“Damn it!” yells Floppy. “We’re going to have to follow them!” he begins to head towards the door, just as my alarm on my red mobile goes off.
“No can do Floppy, man,” I say, sadly. “We’ve run out of time. We’re going to have to free them tomorrow night.”
“What?” says Floppy in disbelief. “You’re just going to abandon-”
“I’m not abandoning them!” I snap. I calm down, slightly. “Look, we can’t let anyone, least of all that lot know our secret identity. But you never know where they can be, and if we’re not where we normally are tomorrow, people will ask questions. This lot will put two and two together and get the right answer. Comprende?”
Floppy nods sullenly, and we leave for home.
Tuesday, 24 March 2009
Zorro is here again
And I just had a revelation which is too little too late.
You see, for Lanimers I'm helping out the Kirkfieldbank community float which happens to have a Spanish theme. My mum, who is my back-and-forward with people I don't even know that well, told me I had a choice of Spanish-style dancer or Zorro..... who gets to have a sword. I chose Zorro.
And I just realised that instead of buying it, I could have borrowed it off of Dave or Rob.... Ah, well. C'est la vie.
The trains were disrupted this morning due to a power failing at a signal station. And when I say disrupted, I mean disrupted. They weren't moving at all. And one of the conductors/drivers/whatevers came on the train when we got stopped at Dalmarnock (a stop we shouldn't even have stopped at) and said it could take between five minutes and five hours to get it fixed.
I decided I couldn't be bothered waiting: I hadn't had any breakfast and I was going to be late for my lecture. So I wandered out of the station before realising I had absolutely no idea which direction to go for buses. I was being tempted to phone for a taxi even though, in my mind it would cost an arm and a leg and possibly my spleen, too, when I noticed a bus passing on an intersecting road.
I wandered, quickly, along and found a bus stop that told me there was a bus that would take me to Buchannan bus station. Incidentally, this bus arrived a few seconds later. It went past the Barras, which I haven't been to in ages and I got off at the Trongate.
I ended up not going to the Physics lecture and went and got food instead.
You see, for Lanimers I'm helping out the Kirkfieldbank community float which happens to have a Spanish theme. My mum, who is my back-and-forward with people I don't even know that well, told me I had a choice of Spanish-style dancer or Zorro..... who gets to have a sword. I chose Zorro.
And I just realised that instead of buying it, I could have borrowed it off of Dave or Rob.... Ah, well. C'est la vie.
The trains were disrupted this morning due to a power failing at a signal station. And when I say disrupted, I mean disrupted. They weren't moving at all. And one of the conductors/drivers/whatevers came on the train when we got stopped at Dalmarnock (a stop we shouldn't even have stopped at) and said it could take between five minutes and five hours to get it fixed.
I decided I couldn't be bothered waiting: I hadn't had any breakfast and I was going to be late for my lecture. So I wandered out of the station before realising I had absolutely no idea which direction to go for buses. I was being tempted to phone for a taxi even though, in my mind it would cost an arm and a leg and possibly my spleen, too, when I noticed a bus passing on an intersecting road.
I wandered, quickly, along and found a bus stop that told me there was a bus that would take me to Buchannan bus station. Incidentally, this bus arrived a few seconds later. It went past the Barras, which I haven't been to in ages and I got off at the Trongate.
I ended up not going to the Physics lecture and went and got food instead.
Sunday, 22 March 2009
Witty Titles Are Escaping Me At The Moment...
I was ill earlier this week. From Tuesday till Thursday. It was rather annoying.
I missed Writers. And it sounds like I missed fun. Such as Stewart and Pete singing a Queen song (which one, I can't remember at the moment). Right enough, I probably would have missed it anyway due to going home.
Oh, going back in time over my timeline (like the Doctor going over his personal timeline so much he doesn't know why everyone knows him!) my presentation didn't go so well on Monday. I hadn't practised due to people being too busy to listen to me (I think. I didn't actually check. I just presumed.) and not knowing what to say anyway. The lecturer who was listening asked me what encephalitis was, but for the life of me I couldn't remember as I had got the report in ages ago and, when I had looked through the presentation the previous night, I hadn't actually seen that word.
Going back forward, Friday night was immense! We went to see Lesbian Vampire Killers. It is the most hilarious, amazing, incredible, and other-words-that-mean-uber-cool movie ever!
This now means, cause I am a saddo, I am obsessed with James Corden and Matthew Horne. So I looked up their show on BBC iPlayer last night while people were partying at Tom's (I couldn't be bothered moving of my ass to get ready and go out again.). It was quite funny! At one point, while watching their first episode, I nearly had a "spraying juice all over the monitor" moment.
However, their second episode seemed awfully familiar, and the more I think about it, the more familiar it seems. It makes me think I've seen it before. Which is impossible, cause I don't have BBC3 (we only get four channels) and it's only just been finished getting made...
Then I decided to see what Gavin and Stacey is all about. I decided to look it up on said iPlayer, which I now realise was a grave mistake, since all they had was episode 6 and 7 of series 2 and there is now only one day to watch it before it is taken away for ever and I don't get sound on this laptop so I can't watch it at the moment and my wee sister is hogging the computer and I actually want to watch the rest of Futurama: The Wild Green Yonder. I'll have to look it up on YouTube...
I missed Writers. And it sounds like I missed fun. Such as Stewart and Pete singing a Queen song (which one, I can't remember at the moment). Right enough, I probably would have missed it anyway due to going home.
Oh, going back in time over my timeline (like the Doctor going over his personal timeline so much he doesn't know why everyone knows him!) my presentation didn't go so well on Monday. I hadn't practised due to people being too busy to listen to me (I think. I didn't actually check. I just presumed.) and not knowing what to say anyway. The lecturer who was listening asked me what encephalitis was, but for the life of me I couldn't remember as I had got the report in ages ago and, when I had looked through the presentation the previous night, I hadn't actually seen that word.
Going back forward, Friday night was immense! We went to see Lesbian Vampire Killers. It is the most hilarious, amazing, incredible, and other-words-that-mean-uber-cool movie ever!
This now means, cause I am a saddo, I am obsessed with James Corden and Matthew Horne. So I looked up their show on BBC iPlayer last night while people were partying at Tom's (I couldn't be bothered moving of my ass to get ready and go out again.). It was quite funny! At one point, while watching their first episode, I nearly had a "spraying juice all over the monitor" moment.
However, their second episode seemed awfully familiar, and the more I think about it, the more familiar it seems. It makes me think I've seen it before. Which is impossible, cause I don't have BBC3 (we only get four channels) and it's only just been finished getting made...
Then I decided to see what Gavin and Stacey is all about. I decided to look it up on said iPlayer, which I now realise was a grave mistake, since all they had was episode 6 and 7 of series 2 and there is now only one day to watch it before it is taken away for ever and I don't get sound on this laptop so I can't watch it at the moment and my wee sister is hogging the computer and I actually want to watch the rest of Futurama: The Wild Green Yonder. I'll have to look it up on YouTube...
Monday, 16 March 2009
Yawning.
So, I got up early on Saturday to go to Aye Wright.
I got stopped by a man who said "Blue!" to me. It was so out of the bluethat I stopped, he then asked me my name, which I dutifully answered. Then he asked me if I wanted to sign up to Amnesty International. Now, I don't know anything about what that is, so I told him, no. All he said was "OK" before he jumped on the next unsuspecting victim, saying "Flowers!" in an upbeat kinda way.
When I got to the Mitchell Library I found out that both things were fully booked. Of course, silly old me didn't think of asking about both of them at the same time and ended up staying in Glasgow for way longer than was necessary. I did get back home, encountering my sister on the way. I got ready before returning to Glasgow.
Jenna's party was OK. It was quite... strange. But I did have fun hanging about with the Writers that were there. We had intellectual conversation with other folk, mainly about psychology, sociology and the Gaiean theroem. This is basically where the Earth (Gaiea to the Greeks) is compared to the cell of a living organism.
Went away earlier than I should of, spending a couple of hours in Glasgow Central Low Level reading a book. I did not sleep on the train. Instead, I tried to finish the book. (Thud! by Terry Pratchett)
I went for a shower, then had to put the chicken in the slow cooker as my mum was ill and later, when my wee sister came back, also ill, I had to wash the dishes as well.
I now think I have what they had, as I was sick a few minutes ago. I feel better now, but...
I got stopped by a man who said "Blue!" to me. It was so out of the blue
When I got to the Mitchell Library I found out that both things were fully booked. Of course, silly old me didn't think of asking about both of them at the same time and ended up staying in Glasgow for way longer than was necessary. I did get back home, encountering my sister on the way. I got ready before returning to Glasgow.
Jenna's party was OK. It was quite... strange. But I did have fun hanging about with the Writers that were there. We had intellectual conversation with other folk, mainly about psychology, sociology and the Gaiean theroem. This is basically where the Earth (Gaiea to the Greeks) is compared to the cell of a living organism.
Went away earlier than I should of, spending a couple of hours in Glasgow Central Low Level reading a book. I did not sleep on the train. Instead, I tried to finish the book. (Thud! by Terry Pratchett)
I went for a shower, then had to put the chicken in the slow cooker as my mum was ill and later, when my wee sister came back, also ill, I had to wash the dishes as well.
I now think I have what they had, as I was sick a few minutes ago. I feel better now, but...
Tuesday, 10 March 2009
Exciting Life
I am such a copy cat, but after reading other people's blogs where they have put in short stories I am going to put up a story which was meant to be short, but turned into long! So I couldn't take it to Writers', so I put it on the website (via Dr. Zaze). But I won't see people's comments. :( So I'm putting it on here - if it'll fit!
“Life sucks.”
Angie nodded in agreement. “Yeah, life sucks. Perhaps death will be better.”
Kitty glanced at her as they wandered slowly up the high street. Her face was set in determination; framed by her red hair, she looked terrifyingly like Boudicca on the warpath. And she meant it, too.
Kitty sighed and rolled her eyes. Angie was a very religious Christian, very devoted to God and Jesus. She was so dedicated, she didn’t approve of books or films about supernatural or fantastical stories, like the one they had just been to see. Kitty knew what she was going to say next.
“The film was-” Angie began.
“I know, I know,” Kitty interrupted. “’Going against God and what he intended. Still,” she added, brightening up, “I wouldn’t mind if God granted me some superhero powers!”
A snort came from her other side. When Kitty turned towards him, Roger shook his head meaningfully.
While Angie was the religious type, and Kitty was the self-confessed fantasist, Roger was the cynic. He had taken all three sciences at the highest level this year and had been the Dux of the year in fifth year. He hated films which didn’t apply to the laws of the sciences or were unrealistic in terms of human action.
“Did you like the film, Roger?” Kitty asked, sweetly, ignoring Angie begin her speech about God and super powers.
“Yes, of course,” Roger replied, typing into the calculator he took everywhere with him.
Kitty looked at him with an expression that read, ‘yeah, right.’ When Roger glanced back up at her, he sighed and went on to explain his answer.
“You told me I had better like it.”
“What was wrong with it?” asked Kitty, flicking a strand of brown hair from in front of her eyes.
As Roger began to explain the likelihood of anyone achieving superpowers, and the impossibilities of said event happening, Kitty looked round for Rick for support.
She didn’t find any. She didn’t even find Rick.
Kitty stopped in her tracks. “Where’s Rick?” she asked. Angie and Roger both stopped trying to talk over one another and turned. They shrugged; neither of them had seen Rick disappear.
Kitty noted the mouth of the alley close to them. She beckoned the others to follow and they sidled towards. Once they had drawn near to it, a boy their own age with straw-blonde hair, and brown eyes jumped out at them.
“Boo!” he shouted, grabbing Kitty and pulling her towards the alley.
“Stop it, Rick!” cried Kitty, struggling against him. Rick let her go and sniggered. “I need your help; you need to help me argue why superpowers could be possible and why they would be so cool to have!”
Rick shook his head. “I can’t help you with the first one, but it would be really cool to have them!” he grinned.
Kitty sighed for the second time in five minutes. Sometimes she forgot how annoying her friends could be. They were all at odds with one another: the religious one and the scientist; the fantasist and the realist. She couldn’t quite remember why they had become friends. But she did know she wouldn’t swap them for any other friends.
Continuing her argument, Kitty said, “I wish they were real and we could have them; life is so boring. There’s no excitement in our lives.”
“Maybe for you, it’s not,” Rick commented, lighting up a cigarette. He may be a realist, but his realistic view on “trying everything once” and “doing whatever you want, when you want – if you have the money”, had led him to try smoking. He had liked it so much he had continued to do it, even when the age restriction of buying cigarettes rose.
Angie stared pointedly at the offending object, frowning in disapproval. Roger took several large steps away from him, scared for his health; he had seen what your lungs could look like from first and second-hand smoking. Kitty moved slightly till she was downwind of him, but didn’t move far from him; she didn’t like to upset him, but she hated the fact that her clothes and hair would smell of smoke after a meeting with him.
Rick moved off towards the train station, the others falling in his wake – at a respectful distance.
***
The door banged shut.
Kitty opened her eyes and rolled onto her back, groaning.
Her room was in darkness, save for her clock which was lit green, showing her the time was 04:31. It sounded like her mum and dad were back home.
She didn’t understand why they had to be so late. She had got in at the respectful time of 02:05, after celebrating her 18th for a second time with Angie, Roger and Rick. They had gone out clubbing. It had been fun, even with Angie complaining about the ungodliness of it, and Roger citing police statistics to tell them how dangerous drinking alcohol in a club could be.
There were some more bangs from downstairs. Kitty decided to see what was going on.
On arriving at the bottom of the stairs, she noticed that there were boxes lying in the hall. They were partly filled with plates from the kitchen, a frying pan, and various ornaments from the living room. It looked like they were being burgled!
Excitement at last, thought Kitty, as she quietly picked up the frying pan, her heart racing. She crept to the door of the kitchen, listening intently. Someone was moving around, opening cupboards and drawers. Kitty peeked round the door frame…
“Kitty!” came a cry from behind her. She jumped, fumbled with the frying pan, dropped it and twirled round, raising her fists to try to look menacing.
Instead, she cried, “Dad! What’s going on?”
“We have to move house,” he said, simply, placing some objects into a box. Her mother came out of the kitchen, gently, placing some other dishes in a box that, Kitty could now see, was marked KITCHEN. “Could you please go upstairs and pack up your stuff, Kitty Cat?”
“Why?” Kitty frowned, puzzled and tired.
“Because it will make this move much quicker,” her mother replied, dismissively.
“I meant, why are we moving?”
Her parents glanced at each other before they both turned to her. “We have something to tell you,” her father replied.
Kitty looked at their grave expressions; this was not going to be good news for her.
“When we were younger,” her father began, pulling his wife towards him, and putting his arm around her waist, “we wanted to have a large family. But we tried for two years without any results.”
Kitty cringed at the thought of her parents having sex, but tried not to show it as he continued.
“We went to the doctor, who sent us to the hospital to see a specialist. The specialist took some… samples. They tested these samples and came to the conclusion that we were a rarity in the population; we are both infertile. We were devastated; our hopes and dreams demolished in a couple of years.
“However, as we were coming away from the hospital, your mother sobbing, we were stopped by someone who was running a scheme where people who were unable to bear a child, could, by means of a new scientific method. We leapt at the chance.
“The procedure went fine, and you were conceived.
“What they failed to tell us was that you are not biologically our child. You were not conceived by us. They conceived you from donors’ eggs and sperm. Not only that, they had done something much, much worse.”
Here her father paused, unsure of how to go on. Kitty welcomed the break.
Her mouth had been open in shock. She closed it as her mind reeled at this strange information. The revelation that she was not their child, but was, was disconcerting. Before her tired brain could assemble some kind of rationality around these facts, her mother began to speak.
“They told us that all of the sperm and eggs had come from people who had strange powers. These people had not known how to control their powers, so had been locked up to protect themselves and others. They had wanted to know if they could control the powers of their children, but those poor, imprisoned people refused to… create any children. So they made them give samples.
“They told us that they had installed a chip so that you and all of the other children would not manifest straight away, or manifest when you were too young. They decided that eighteen was a suitable age…
“Now they want to take you away and test you to see what powers you have, if any, and if you can be made to control them.”
There was silence.
After a while it was broken by Kitty saying, “Oh, my God!” A tear ran down her cheek. There was another moment’s silence. Suddenly, Kitty began panicking.
“I have a chip inside me! Get it out! Get it out!” She ran towards her parents, hitting them until she didn’t have the energy or the will to carry on.
After some more silence, broken only by Kitty’s heavy breathing and sobbing, her mother said, “You brought it up when you were sick, the day you turned eighteen.”
“Come on,” said her father, “we need to get out of here.”
Kitty sat down on her bed when she got back upstairs. She felt like crying, but instead she took a deep breath and went about her task. She brought a duffel bag out from the bottom of her wardrobe and quickly stuffed some clothes and shoes into it. Then some books, CDs and DVDs were placed in it. Finally, she walked over to the dressing table.
On the table, there was some make-up, perfume, and precious jewellery. She gazed at her ruffled brown hair and her grey-blue eyes. She looked harassed, which was perfect because that was how she felt.
She bent over the table, pushing her make-up, her perfume and the box containing her jewellery into the remaining space in the bag. At the last minute, she remembered her hair and pulled open a drawer in the table to find her hairbrush. Hunched over the bag, she then struggled with the zip till it closed.
She straightened up. She glanced into the mirror.
Behind her, a man with an ugly look on his face was behind her, levelling a gun at her.
“Put your hands up and turn around, slowly!” he demanded. “And no funny business!”
Kitty turned as slowly as she dared, turning to face…
An empty room.
There was no-one in the room. Listening hard, Kitty could hear her parents, now in their bedroom, frantically packing their belongings into bags and boxes. Her room door had been left open, so she could hear them arguing with each other, though the words were inaudible.
Kitty walked slowly over to the door and closed it.
She turned back to the mirror. She gazed at it, trying to come up with a logical explanation. I must be tired, she decided. That man was just a hallucination.
However, she had a nagging feeling that man in the mirror had been real.
Ten minutes later, the door to Kitty’s room burst open.
The man that Kitty had seen in the mirror rushed in, levelling his gun in the general direction of the inside of the room.
“Put your hands up and turn around, slowly!” he demanded. “And no funny business!”
However, Kitty had been expecting him and had had time to prepare herself. She was not, in fact, in the room, but had gone out of her window, dropping onto the bush below her window.
Once she had had her vision, she had called her mother on her mobile phone to tell her about it. Her parents had then told her that they had found out the origins of Kitty and discovered that her mother had had a couple of powers: visions of the future and telekinesis. They had then told her to get out of the house “now” and get away from them.
So Kitty had taken their advice, hurrying, with her full duffel bag in tow, to the garden shed where she kept her bike. By the time the man from her vision had broken down her door (which she had locked), she was just reaching the door to the shed.
As fast as she could, she raised a flowerpot by the door, extracted the key from the door, and unlocked the stiff padlock. She wheeled her bike out from the dank, mustiness of the small shed. Turning to get on it, she encountered a problem.
The house was surrounded. There were men (and perhaps women) all over the lawn, suited up in black, with helmets, goggles and masks. One of them had stopped in their tracks when they had spotted her.
He looked unsure of what to do. Kitty welcomed this hesitation and swung her leg over the bike to mount it.
However, in that movement, she had relieved the guy of his indecision. Confident that he knew what he was doing, he raised his rather large gun, before pulling the trigger as Kitty properly mounted the bike.
The bullet zoomed towards her. She closed her eyes. Nothing happened. She opened her eyes again.
The bullet was quite near her, suspended in midair. She choked down a sob as her brain registered several facts at once.
She couldn’t control her powers. She had telekinesis as well as the ability to witness the future before it happened. The man may have been alarmed at the little effect the bullet was having. Several other assailants were speeding towards her.
She willed the bullet to drop, and it did. Then she sat on the saddle properly, pushed down on the pedal and took off. She swerved round the men, over the lawn, round the plants, willing bullets to stop, even the ones which had gone astray; she didn’t want anyone to get hurt on her account.
She swerved into the driveway to be met with a blockade of two cars.
It was a very ineffective blockade; the two cars had enough room for a bike, plus rider, to pass between.
As she frantically pedalled through the space towards relative safety, a movement with in the cars caught her eye. She glanced in and nearly fell off her bike.
Her mother and father had been handcuffed and, presumably, locked in the car. They were watching her and when she looked at them in horror they shouted to her.
“Run!” their muffled voices came through the glass.
Kitty put her foot down and cycled away as fast as she could. Behind her she could hear the chaos as the men tried to come to some sort of order to pursue her. The noise died down as she cut through the park, which still had its gates open.
She started to think of possible plans of action as she cycled the familiar route to Angie’s house.
***
Angie sat at the kitchen table with her head in her hands.
She was fed up with the headaches she had had ever since she was a child. She had never told anyone bar her mother, who had told her that God was punishing her for all the wicked things she had done in her life. This was why she was so religious and couldn’t have any fun. God was punishing her severely for something she had done when she was a kid and didn’t know any better. Now he was punishing her for being jealous of the others who could have fun and be “cool” without a second’s thought.
Her life was boring compared to everyone else’s.
At 04:47, according to her special edition Bible alarm clock, she had been awoken by her worst headache yet. She had come down to the kitchen for an aspirin and a glass of water.
Currently she was sitting, waiting for the aspirin to take hold, while sipping on the water still in the glass. As she contemplated cutting her head open herself to find the cause of her headaches, she gazed at the water. Her bright blue eyes and equally as bright red hair hovered around a face full of pain.
She reached out for the glass but, as she rubbed her eyes, she misjudged the difference, knocking the glass over. There was a crash as the glass smashed, the water and glass spreading over an infinitely larger area than should be possible.
Angie waited till the last tinkle of broken glass died away, before taking a breath. Her heart was beating faster than normal.
Sighing, she stood up to clean up the mess. Unfortunately for Angie, she stepped on a patch of floor soaked with water.
Angie felt her foot go from under her, her other foot not in adequate position for her to catch herself on it. Her hands were not fast enough to catch her, and she tumbled backwards, hitting her head on the corner of the table…
Angie came to, lying on the soaking floor, glass littering the floor around her. The back of her head hurt but, oddly, not the front of her head. She was used to the whole of her head in agony.
She sat up and gingerly felt the back of her head. It was wet. Dreading what she was about to see, she brought her hand in front of her eyes. There was nothing there. That was when she remembered the water.
Rising from her position on the floor, she felt her way across the floor to find the mop, bucket, brush and bin. After gathering these, she turned to find her mother, standing in the doorway, looking rather angry.
“Oh, Mum! I’m so sorry! Did I wake you?” Angie nervously inquired, while busying herself about her task.
“Yes!” her mother snapped, before adding, in a much more caring voice, “I’m afraid you did, honey. What happened this time?”
Angie was shocked. Her mother had never snapped at her before. She looked up.
“I- Well, I- I don’t know…” she replied, lamely.
She watched her mother closely. That was how she discovered it.
She heard her mother clearly say, “That little piece of shit knocked that down because she doesn’t look at what she’s doing. She really pisses me off!”
However, her mother’s lips did not move.
Her face betrayed no emotion bar that usually portrayed on her face: concern. Her messy brown hair framed a face that was angelic, and her eyes appeared, at first glance, to show only love for her child. However, as Angie looked closer, she realised her mother’s eyes showed an underlying hatred which she had been hiding for several years.
Her mother reached out for the brush. “Let me help you,” she smiled. Then Angie heard her thoughts – for that was the only explanation – and they were vicious and merciless.
‘She couldn’t wait another hour before getting up. They’re going to have problems getting her out of here. Oh, I can’t wait! Finally, I’ll be free of her. She ruined my marriage, caused John to commit suicide, and caused me to become bitter. If only they had put a more powerful chip into her brain to begin with…’
Angie gagged. She ran for the kitchen sink and bent over double. She threw up. However, instead of bringing up the pizza she had had after her night out, she brought up blood. She felt something dribbling from her nose and rubbed at it. When she looked at her hand, she saw that it was covered in blood.
Her mother rushed over to her, real concern etched on her face. “Oh my gosh! I need to call an ambulance!”
Before she turned, they both heard two clinks from the sink. They looked down. Amongst the blood, just visible, could be seen the unmistakable shape of two microchips.
Angie was horrified. She vomited more blood into the sink, washing the microchips away.
But her mother had seen them.
“You can hear my thoughts!” she cried, while Angie heard her think, ‘Oh my God! She can hear my thoughts. What’ll she do if she finds out…?’
“Find out about what?” Angie snapped. She was frightened and confused and didn’t understand why her religious mother had such evil thoughts.
‘That you’re an experiment against nature and God,’ Angie heard her mother think before she could stop herself. “Nothing!” her mother tried in vain to cover herself.
Angie stared in horror at the woman she had believed to be her mother; the woman she had believed to love God and to follow his teachings. Then she ran past her, running to the sanctuary of her room. Someone was coming for her and she couldn’t let them catch her.
“Angie!” her mother shouted after her. “Wait! Let me explain!”
Angie ran through her bedroom door and pushed her wooden chair under the handle at such an angle so that, hopefully, no-one would be able to open it. She rushed round, throwing things into a bag. She wasn’t going to stay here with someone who blamed her for everything.
Having hastily packed her bag, she opened her bedroom window and listened carefully. On the edge of hearing, her mother was thinking, ‘Pick up! Pick up, God damn it! I need some help!’ She was obviously phoning the people who were about to come for Angie.
Angie swung onto the window ledge and looked down. There had always been the trellis below her window, but she had never even thought of using it to sneak out of the house: that would be lying to her mother and that would be breaking one of the Ten Commandments. Kitty had often told her she should use it when her mother told her she wasn’t allowed to go to certain gigs, but Angie had always feared God as He had given her the pain in her head. However, now Angie thought about it, the pain which had been there for as long as she could remember had vanished with the microchips.
It hadn’t been God punishing her; it had been scientists.
She swung herself down till her feet could take her weight on the trellis. Then she let go of the window ledge and proceeded to climb carefully down the trellis, reaching her bike chained to the pipe at the bottom. She unchained it and mounted it, cycling off with grim determination.
She was going to go see Kitty and tell her what she thought of superpowers.
***
Roger couldn’t get to sleep.
He was brooding over how Rick and Kitty could have fun and he couldn’t. He couldn’t let himself go, continuously telling himself and others that dancing like that made them look stupid. He couldn’t use his imagination; he hadn’t used it since he was a child and naïve to the way of the world. It had been acceptable.
And he couldn’t get his head round girls either; they didn’t seem to be interested in Einstein’s Laws of Relativity. Or not the girls he talked to, at any rate.
His life sucked.
And now, ever since Kitty had argued her view on the case of acquiring superpowers a week ago, he had been calculating the odds against it happening to prove a point. But instead of what he expected to find when inputting all of their data into the endless equations, he found that the odds against were extremely low, almost non-existent. He was worried that he had got it wrong somehow, despite checking it and re-checking it. He got the same answer every time.
He decided to check the figures again, so rolled out of his bed, glancing at his bedside clock as he did so. It was 04:47.
He walked over to his special wardrobe, wherein there was all sorts of scientific instruments and workbooks. He opened the door and stepped forward…
Into the living room, where his parents were watching a late night movie.
“Whu-?” he began.
His parents turned to face him. “Oh, hello, Roger!” said his father in surprise. “I thought you had gone to bed.”
“I did,” replied Roger, slowly. “I just got up to go over some scientific calculations and statistics, when… I… Suddenly, I was… It’s not possible!”
“What isn’t?” asked his mother, confused.
“I opened the door to my wardrobe, but when I stepped in, I was suddenly here!”
“Perhaps you were sleep-walking, dear,” said his mother, smiling at him.
Roger shook his head. “I’ve never slept-walked in my life; I shouldn’t just suddenly start without some sort of outward stimuli!”
His parents glanced at each other, looking worried. “It’s been a long day, Roger,” said his father, carefully. “You should really get some sleep.”
Roger nodded slowly, his head spinning. He caught sight of his reflection in the mirror opposite. With his black hair and green eyes, he had often been said to look like a cat about to pounce. However, his usual alert expression had been replaced by one of confusion and that comparison was no longer valid.
He turned carefully and walked through the door into the dark hall…
The hall was suddenly bright.
Roger shielded his eyes with his arm and turned back to the living room and took a step in.
“Mum, Dad-” he began, before his eyes took in the scene in the room.
Several men in black outfits that could have been some kind of armour, with what looked like guns slung over their shoulders, filled the room. Two of them were holding onto his parents, who looked distressed to see him. On the mantelpiece above their heads, the clock showed it was 05:03.
“What the-?” he began.
His mother suddenly screamed at him. “You have to get out of here! Go back in time! You can bend time and space! Your powers have just mani-”
One of the men hit her in the face so she fell to the ground from the force of the blow. He turned to Roger. However, Roger ignored him and stared in horror at his mother, who raised her head. Blood trickled down the side of her mouth and she seemed shaken, yet resolute. She nodded her head towards the door behind Roger.
Roger turned to the well-lit hall. He could see now it was lit by cars from outside. He stepped over the threshold of the living room…
… into the dark hall.
He turned back into the living room and rushed in.
The clock said it was 04:49. His parents were still watching the late night movie in their bright, welcoming living room.
His parents seemed alarmed by his excitement and his panic; he had never been unable to articulate anything. Eventually, he managed to calm down enough to relay what he had seen. His parents glanced at each other, worriedly. For a moment, Roger thought they would tell him to get some sleep and that they would take him to see a doctor in the morning. Then, his father rose from where he had been sitting.
“Quickly! You need to pack a few things and get out of here! Go to Kitty’s house; go to Rick’s house, or Angie’s but just get away from here! We’ll explain everything at a later date!”
His father ushered him out of the room and up the stairs, where he threw some clothes and some cheap and small scientific instruments into a bag. He rushed back downstairs, where his mother gave him a hug, pressed his skateboard into his arms and rushed him out of the door.
“Don’t you worry about us!” were her parting words. “We’ll be just fine!”
Roger carried his skateboard till he got past the back gate. Then, he was on the road which ran past the back of his house. He stepped onto his skateboard and pushed away, scared and feeling vulnerable. He trundled along, wishing his life hadn’t changed in those few minutes.
A couple of black cars passed him. He noticed the two men in the front car staring at him. They gave him the creeps.
He hoped Kitty could help him.
***
Rick sat on his balcony, smoking a hidden cigarette, reflecting on his life.
His life sucked. It was as simple as that.
He may look cool, he may have a “bad boy” persona, but he hated his life. His mother had left him and his father to fend for their selves after he had been born. He was addicted to smoking and booze. He had never wanted to be dependant on them, but he was now. All the girls slept with him just so they could say, “You’ll never guess who I slept with last night! Rick Girvaise!” The bitches never went for substance.
He took a long draw before sighing, breathing the smoke out slowly.
He checked the clock he kept on his balcony for these kind of nights. It was 04:47. He sighed, stood up and stretched, before stubbing out his cigarette on the “You’re so cool!” ashtray.
It happened in that instance.
As he stubbed it out, his hand glowed white momentarily, before it spread to the cigarette, putting it out. It then moved to the ashtray which cracked.
Gingerly, shocked, Rick held out his hand and touched the now broken ashtray. It was ice cold. The extremely low temperature had caused the pressure to decrease alarmingly, which meant that the ashtray had broken. Or something like that. Rick tried not to study too hard.
Awesome! thought Rick. I must tell Kitty about this!
He grinned and rushed through his room, grabbing his coat and essentials such as his ID, his wallet and his keys.
He breezed down the stairs. His father was standing at the bottom of them. He was white and looked worried.
“Where are you going?” he asked his son.
“Round to Kitty’s. I’ve got something I want to show her!” grinned Rick.
“Wait!” cried his father, as Rick headed for the door without stopping. Rick turned to see his father pick up an envelope from the table in the hall. “Take this. Don’t open it till it is absolutely necessary.”
“Okay…” Rick frowned as he took it. He stuffed it in his coat, turned to the door and, regaining some of his confidence, cheerfully called over his shoulder, “Be back in a while!”
At the last moment, Rick grabbed his skateboard and jumped on it as he went out the door.
As he rolled along the road, he wondered if Kitty would be impressed with his superpower; she never usually seemed impressed by anything he did and he found that quite strange. Everyone else he had met thought whatever he did was pretty cool. And then there was Angie…
Wait till the girls see this, he thought.
***
They met in the park, though nearly crashing may be a more accurate term.
Kitty and Roger told their stories, panicking. Over the top of one another.
Once Rick and Angie had got them to calm down, they all told each other their stories one by one.
By the end, Rick was jealous: nothing exciting ever happened to him! He may act cool and act as though he’d seen it all, but they all seemed to have had a fun-filled night, whereas all that happened to him was that he had discovered his power. He zoned back into the conversation to hear something out of the ordinary.
“There is no way you can travel through space and time!” Kitty was exclaiming.
“Well I can!” protested Roger, not bothering to add any scientific mumbo jumbo.
“Look, if it was possible, scientists would have figured out how to do it ages ago! I mean, I know if you go fast enough you could, but it is scientifically impossible to travel faster than the speed of light!”
Before they could argue any further, Angie piped up. “What’s the point in arguing?”
Everyone turned expecting some holy view on the matter.
“We have these powers now, so we may as well use them to get out of here. We can’t go to Kitty or Roger’s houses as there’s some fucked up thing going on there, and I’m not going back home to face that bitch. We could, of course, go to Rick’s, but I suspect that that letter he was given has some shit in it about all this weird shit. We may discover that his dad will be kidnapped as well!”
There was silence which lasted a couple of minutes.
Finally, Rick blurted, “Angie!” She turned to face him and gave him a look, her face frowning, but her eyes prompting him to continue. “Holy shit, dude!”
All four of them laughed, relieving the tension somewhat.
“Come on,” said Rick. “Let’s go to my place.”
They cycled and skated in silence for a while, each thinking of their own experiences and thinking their own thoughts. Kitty was worrying over her family and what her new powers would entail. Angie was torn between her upbringing on God and the rebellious streak which had so suddenly risen in her. Roger was also worried about his family but was worrying that the science he had known, the science that he loved, all those laws he had memorised were being broken by him. He was also worrying that he could end up destroying the space-time continuum, something he had scoffed at, and the people who studied it, before now. Rick was worrying that he had got a lame power and that the girls were not impressed.
Suddenly, Rick stopped dead, the others nearly crashing into him. When they looked to see what was wrong, the friends could see that they were across from Rick’s house. There were black cars at the front of the house. Men in black suits and smug expressions were guiding Rick’s harassed-looking father to one of the cars, which were purring waiting to pounce.
“Dad!” shouted Rick in surprise.
“No! hissed Kitty, but it was too late, Rick began to push his skateboard faster.
“Leave my dad alone!” Rick yelled.
When the men ignored him, Rick decided to do something drastic. He stopped his skateboard, put his hand on the ground and willed ice to cover the whole road. His hand glowed white and ice appeared under it. It began to spread in every direction. He heard cries from behind him; the others had fallen victim to the ice. He didn’t care; his father had been through enough. He didn’t need to be kidnapped as well.
However, Rick hadn’t taken into account the guns.
One of the men raised one of the assault rifles, took aim and fired. The bullet arced through the air towards Rick.
Time seemed to slow down, as it often does in these types of situations. Rick could hear Roger behind him, calling on him to stop as Kitty was unconscious after hitting her head of the ice. Which meant no help would be coming from that direction.
The bullet was coming straight for Rick. His only hope lay with Roger, but he didn’t seem to be aware of anything but Kitty.
He must fancy her, thought Rick.
It was his last thought before the bullet hit him in the chest…
“Life sucks.”
Angie nodded in agreement. “Yeah, life sucks. Perhaps death will be better.”
Kitty glanced at her as they wandered slowly up the high street. Her face was set in determination; framed by her red hair, she looked terrifyingly like Boudicca on the warpath. And she meant it, too.
Kitty sighed and rolled her eyes. Angie was a very religious Christian, very devoted to God and Jesus. She was so dedicated, she didn’t approve of books or films about supernatural or fantastical stories, like the one they had just been to see. Kitty knew what she was going to say next.
“The film was-” Angie began.
“I know, I know,” Kitty interrupted. “’Going against God and what he intended. Still,” she added, brightening up, “I wouldn’t mind if God granted me some superhero powers!”
A snort came from her other side. When Kitty turned towards him, Roger shook his head meaningfully.
While Angie was the religious type, and Kitty was the self-confessed fantasist, Roger was the cynic. He had taken all three sciences at the highest level this year and had been the Dux of the year in fifth year. He hated films which didn’t apply to the laws of the sciences or were unrealistic in terms of human action.
“Did you like the film, Roger?” Kitty asked, sweetly, ignoring Angie begin her speech about God and super powers.
“Yes, of course,” Roger replied, typing into the calculator he took everywhere with him.
Kitty looked at him with an expression that read, ‘yeah, right.’ When Roger glanced back up at her, he sighed and went on to explain his answer.
“You told me I had better like it.”
“What was wrong with it?” asked Kitty, flicking a strand of brown hair from in front of her eyes.
As Roger began to explain the likelihood of anyone achieving superpowers, and the impossibilities of said event happening, Kitty looked round for Rick for support.
She didn’t find any. She didn’t even find Rick.
Kitty stopped in her tracks. “Where’s Rick?” she asked. Angie and Roger both stopped trying to talk over one another and turned. They shrugged; neither of them had seen Rick disappear.
Kitty noted the mouth of the alley close to them. She beckoned the others to follow and they sidled towards. Once they had drawn near to it, a boy their own age with straw-blonde hair, and brown eyes jumped out at them.
“Boo!” he shouted, grabbing Kitty and pulling her towards the alley.
“Stop it, Rick!” cried Kitty, struggling against him. Rick let her go and sniggered. “I need your help; you need to help me argue why superpowers could be possible and why they would be so cool to have!”
Rick shook his head. “I can’t help you with the first one, but it would be really cool to have them!” he grinned.
Kitty sighed for the second time in five minutes. Sometimes she forgot how annoying her friends could be. They were all at odds with one another: the religious one and the scientist; the fantasist and the realist. She couldn’t quite remember why they had become friends. But she did know she wouldn’t swap them for any other friends.
Continuing her argument, Kitty said, “I wish they were real and we could have them; life is so boring. There’s no excitement in our lives.”
“Maybe for you, it’s not,” Rick commented, lighting up a cigarette. He may be a realist, but his realistic view on “trying everything once” and “doing whatever you want, when you want – if you have the money”, had led him to try smoking. He had liked it so much he had continued to do it, even when the age restriction of buying cigarettes rose.
Angie stared pointedly at the offending object, frowning in disapproval. Roger took several large steps away from him, scared for his health; he had seen what your lungs could look like from first and second-hand smoking. Kitty moved slightly till she was downwind of him, but didn’t move far from him; she didn’t like to upset him, but she hated the fact that her clothes and hair would smell of smoke after a meeting with him.
Rick moved off towards the train station, the others falling in his wake – at a respectful distance.
***
The door banged shut.
Kitty opened her eyes and rolled onto her back, groaning.
Her room was in darkness, save for her clock which was lit green, showing her the time was 04:31. It sounded like her mum and dad were back home.
She didn’t understand why they had to be so late. She had got in at the respectful time of 02:05, after celebrating her 18th for a second time with Angie, Roger and Rick. They had gone out clubbing. It had been fun, even with Angie complaining about the ungodliness of it, and Roger citing police statistics to tell them how dangerous drinking alcohol in a club could be.
There were some more bangs from downstairs. Kitty decided to see what was going on.
On arriving at the bottom of the stairs, she noticed that there were boxes lying in the hall. They were partly filled with plates from the kitchen, a frying pan, and various ornaments from the living room. It looked like they were being burgled!
Excitement at last, thought Kitty, as she quietly picked up the frying pan, her heart racing. She crept to the door of the kitchen, listening intently. Someone was moving around, opening cupboards and drawers. Kitty peeked round the door frame…
“Kitty!” came a cry from behind her. She jumped, fumbled with the frying pan, dropped it and twirled round, raising her fists to try to look menacing.
Instead, she cried, “Dad! What’s going on?”
“We have to move house,” he said, simply, placing some objects into a box. Her mother came out of the kitchen, gently, placing some other dishes in a box that, Kitty could now see, was marked KITCHEN. “Could you please go upstairs and pack up your stuff, Kitty Cat?”
“Why?” Kitty frowned, puzzled and tired.
“Because it will make this move much quicker,” her mother replied, dismissively.
“I meant, why are we moving?”
Her parents glanced at each other before they both turned to her. “We have something to tell you,” her father replied.
Kitty looked at their grave expressions; this was not going to be good news for her.
“When we were younger,” her father began, pulling his wife towards him, and putting his arm around her waist, “we wanted to have a large family. But we tried for two years without any results.”
Kitty cringed at the thought of her parents having sex, but tried not to show it as he continued.
“We went to the doctor, who sent us to the hospital to see a specialist. The specialist took some… samples. They tested these samples and came to the conclusion that we were a rarity in the population; we are both infertile. We were devastated; our hopes and dreams demolished in a couple of years.
“However, as we were coming away from the hospital, your mother sobbing, we were stopped by someone who was running a scheme where people who were unable to bear a child, could, by means of a new scientific method. We leapt at the chance.
“The procedure went fine, and you were conceived.
“What they failed to tell us was that you are not biologically our child. You were not conceived by us. They conceived you from donors’ eggs and sperm. Not only that, they had done something much, much worse.”
Here her father paused, unsure of how to go on. Kitty welcomed the break.
Her mouth had been open in shock. She closed it as her mind reeled at this strange information. The revelation that she was not their child, but was, was disconcerting. Before her tired brain could assemble some kind of rationality around these facts, her mother began to speak.
“They told us that all of the sperm and eggs had come from people who had strange powers. These people had not known how to control their powers, so had been locked up to protect themselves and others. They had wanted to know if they could control the powers of their children, but those poor, imprisoned people refused to… create any children. So they made them give samples.
“They told us that they had installed a chip so that you and all of the other children would not manifest straight away, or manifest when you were too young. They decided that eighteen was a suitable age…
“Now they want to take you away and test you to see what powers you have, if any, and if you can be made to control them.”
There was silence.
After a while it was broken by Kitty saying, “Oh, my God!” A tear ran down her cheek. There was another moment’s silence. Suddenly, Kitty began panicking.
“I have a chip inside me! Get it out! Get it out!” She ran towards her parents, hitting them until she didn’t have the energy or the will to carry on.
After some more silence, broken only by Kitty’s heavy breathing and sobbing, her mother said, “You brought it up when you were sick, the day you turned eighteen.”
“Come on,” said her father, “we need to get out of here.”
Kitty sat down on her bed when she got back upstairs. She felt like crying, but instead she took a deep breath and went about her task. She brought a duffel bag out from the bottom of her wardrobe and quickly stuffed some clothes and shoes into it. Then some books, CDs and DVDs were placed in it. Finally, she walked over to the dressing table.
On the table, there was some make-up, perfume, and precious jewellery. She gazed at her ruffled brown hair and her grey-blue eyes. She looked harassed, which was perfect because that was how she felt.
She bent over the table, pushing her make-up, her perfume and the box containing her jewellery into the remaining space in the bag. At the last minute, she remembered her hair and pulled open a drawer in the table to find her hairbrush. Hunched over the bag, she then struggled with the zip till it closed.
She straightened up. She glanced into the mirror.
Behind her, a man with an ugly look on his face was behind her, levelling a gun at her.
“Put your hands up and turn around, slowly!” he demanded. “And no funny business!”
Kitty turned as slowly as she dared, turning to face…
An empty room.
There was no-one in the room. Listening hard, Kitty could hear her parents, now in their bedroom, frantically packing their belongings into bags and boxes. Her room door had been left open, so she could hear them arguing with each other, though the words were inaudible.
Kitty walked slowly over to the door and closed it.
She turned back to the mirror. She gazed at it, trying to come up with a logical explanation. I must be tired, she decided. That man was just a hallucination.
However, she had a nagging feeling that man in the mirror had been real.
Ten minutes later, the door to Kitty’s room burst open.
The man that Kitty had seen in the mirror rushed in, levelling his gun in the general direction of the inside of the room.
“Put your hands up and turn around, slowly!” he demanded. “And no funny business!”
However, Kitty had been expecting him and had had time to prepare herself. She was not, in fact, in the room, but had gone out of her window, dropping onto the bush below her window.
Once she had had her vision, she had called her mother on her mobile phone to tell her about it. Her parents had then told her that they had found out the origins of Kitty and discovered that her mother had had a couple of powers: visions of the future and telekinesis. They had then told her to get out of the house “now” and get away from them.
So Kitty had taken their advice, hurrying, with her full duffel bag in tow, to the garden shed where she kept her bike. By the time the man from her vision had broken down her door (which she had locked), she was just reaching the door to the shed.
As fast as she could, she raised a flowerpot by the door, extracted the key from the door, and unlocked the stiff padlock. She wheeled her bike out from the dank, mustiness of the small shed. Turning to get on it, she encountered a problem.
The house was surrounded. There were men (and perhaps women) all over the lawn, suited up in black, with helmets, goggles and masks. One of them had stopped in their tracks when they had spotted her.
He looked unsure of what to do. Kitty welcomed this hesitation and swung her leg over the bike to mount it.
However, in that movement, she had relieved the guy of his indecision. Confident that he knew what he was doing, he raised his rather large gun, before pulling the trigger as Kitty properly mounted the bike.
The bullet zoomed towards her. She closed her eyes. Nothing happened. She opened her eyes again.
The bullet was quite near her, suspended in midair. She choked down a sob as her brain registered several facts at once.
She couldn’t control her powers. She had telekinesis as well as the ability to witness the future before it happened. The man may have been alarmed at the little effect the bullet was having. Several other assailants were speeding towards her.
She willed the bullet to drop, and it did. Then she sat on the saddle properly, pushed down on the pedal and took off. She swerved round the men, over the lawn, round the plants, willing bullets to stop, even the ones which had gone astray; she didn’t want anyone to get hurt on her account.
She swerved into the driveway to be met with a blockade of two cars.
It was a very ineffective blockade; the two cars had enough room for a bike, plus rider, to pass between.
As she frantically pedalled through the space towards relative safety, a movement with in the cars caught her eye. She glanced in and nearly fell off her bike.
Her mother and father had been handcuffed and, presumably, locked in the car. They were watching her and when she looked at them in horror they shouted to her.
“Run!” their muffled voices came through the glass.
Kitty put her foot down and cycled away as fast as she could. Behind her she could hear the chaos as the men tried to come to some sort of order to pursue her. The noise died down as she cut through the park, which still had its gates open.
She started to think of possible plans of action as she cycled the familiar route to Angie’s house.
***
Angie sat at the kitchen table with her head in her hands.
She was fed up with the headaches she had had ever since she was a child. She had never told anyone bar her mother, who had told her that God was punishing her for all the wicked things she had done in her life. This was why she was so religious and couldn’t have any fun. God was punishing her severely for something she had done when she was a kid and didn’t know any better. Now he was punishing her for being jealous of the others who could have fun and be “cool” without a second’s thought.
Her life was boring compared to everyone else’s.
At 04:47, according to her special edition Bible alarm clock, she had been awoken by her worst headache yet. She had come down to the kitchen for an aspirin and a glass of water.
Currently she was sitting, waiting for the aspirin to take hold, while sipping on the water still in the glass. As she contemplated cutting her head open herself to find the cause of her headaches, she gazed at the water. Her bright blue eyes and equally as bright red hair hovered around a face full of pain.
She reached out for the glass but, as she rubbed her eyes, she misjudged the difference, knocking the glass over. There was a crash as the glass smashed, the water and glass spreading over an infinitely larger area than should be possible.
Angie waited till the last tinkle of broken glass died away, before taking a breath. Her heart was beating faster than normal.
Sighing, she stood up to clean up the mess. Unfortunately for Angie, she stepped on a patch of floor soaked with water.
Angie felt her foot go from under her, her other foot not in adequate position for her to catch herself on it. Her hands were not fast enough to catch her, and she tumbled backwards, hitting her head on the corner of the table…
Angie came to, lying on the soaking floor, glass littering the floor around her. The back of her head hurt but, oddly, not the front of her head. She was used to the whole of her head in agony.
She sat up and gingerly felt the back of her head. It was wet. Dreading what she was about to see, she brought her hand in front of her eyes. There was nothing there. That was when she remembered the water.
Rising from her position on the floor, she felt her way across the floor to find the mop, bucket, brush and bin. After gathering these, she turned to find her mother, standing in the doorway, looking rather angry.
“Oh, Mum! I’m so sorry! Did I wake you?” Angie nervously inquired, while busying herself about her task.
“Yes!” her mother snapped, before adding, in a much more caring voice, “I’m afraid you did, honey. What happened this time?”
Angie was shocked. Her mother had never snapped at her before. She looked up.
“I- Well, I- I don’t know…” she replied, lamely.
She watched her mother closely. That was how she discovered it.
She heard her mother clearly say, “That little piece of shit knocked that down because she doesn’t look at what she’s doing. She really pisses me off!”
However, her mother’s lips did not move.
Her face betrayed no emotion bar that usually portrayed on her face: concern. Her messy brown hair framed a face that was angelic, and her eyes appeared, at first glance, to show only love for her child. However, as Angie looked closer, she realised her mother’s eyes showed an underlying hatred which she had been hiding for several years.
Her mother reached out for the brush. “Let me help you,” she smiled. Then Angie heard her thoughts – for that was the only explanation – and they were vicious and merciless.
‘She couldn’t wait another hour before getting up. They’re going to have problems getting her out of here. Oh, I can’t wait! Finally, I’ll be free of her. She ruined my marriage, caused John to commit suicide, and caused me to become bitter. If only they had put a more powerful chip into her brain to begin with…’
Angie gagged. She ran for the kitchen sink and bent over double. She threw up. However, instead of bringing up the pizza she had had after her night out, she brought up blood. She felt something dribbling from her nose and rubbed at it. When she looked at her hand, she saw that it was covered in blood.
Her mother rushed over to her, real concern etched on her face. “Oh my gosh! I need to call an ambulance!”
Before she turned, they both heard two clinks from the sink. They looked down. Amongst the blood, just visible, could be seen the unmistakable shape of two microchips.
Angie was horrified. She vomited more blood into the sink, washing the microchips away.
But her mother had seen them.
“You can hear my thoughts!” she cried, while Angie heard her think, ‘Oh my God! She can hear my thoughts. What’ll she do if she finds out…?’
“Find out about what?” Angie snapped. She was frightened and confused and didn’t understand why her religious mother had such evil thoughts.
‘That you’re an experiment against nature and God,’ Angie heard her mother think before she could stop herself. “Nothing!” her mother tried in vain to cover herself.
Angie stared in horror at the woman she had believed to be her mother; the woman she had believed to love God and to follow his teachings. Then she ran past her, running to the sanctuary of her room. Someone was coming for her and she couldn’t let them catch her.
“Angie!” her mother shouted after her. “Wait! Let me explain!”
Angie ran through her bedroom door and pushed her wooden chair under the handle at such an angle so that, hopefully, no-one would be able to open it. She rushed round, throwing things into a bag. She wasn’t going to stay here with someone who blamed her for everything.
Having hastily packed her bag, she opened her bedroom window and listened carefully. On the edge of hearing, her mother was thinking, ‘Pick up! Pick up, God damn it! I need some help!’ She was obviously phoning the people who were about to come for Angie.
Angie swung onto the window ledge and looked down. There had always been the trellis below her window, but she had never even thought of using it to sneak out of the house: that would be lying to her mother and that would be breaking one of the Ten Commandments. Kitty had often told her she should use it when her mother told her she wasn’t allowed to go to certain gigs, but Angie had always feared God as He had given her the pain in her head. However, now Angie thought about it, the pain which had been there for as long as she could remember had vanished with the microchips.
It hadn’t been God punishing her; it had been scientists.
She swung herself down till her feet could take her weight on the trellis. Then she let go of the window ledge and proceeded to climb carefully down the trellis, reaching her bike chained to the pipe at the bottom. She unchained it and mounted it, cycling off with grim determination.
She was going to go see Kitty and tell her what she thought of superpowers.
***
Roger couldn’t get to sleep.
He was brooding over how Rick and Kitty could have fun and he couldn’t. He couldn’t let himself go, continuously telling himself and others that dancing like that made them look stupid. He couldn’t use his imagination; he hadn’t used it since he was a child and naïve to the way of the world. It had been acceptable.
And he couldn’t get his head round girls either; they didn’t seem to be interested in Einstein’s Laws of Relativity. Or not the girls he talked to, at any rate.
His life sucked.
And now, ever since Kitty had argued her view on the case of acquiring superpowers a week ago, he had been calculating the odds against it happening to prove a point. But instead of what he expected to find when inputting all of their data into the endless equations, he found that the odds against were extremely low, almost non-existent. He was worried that he had got it wrong somehow, despite checking it and re-checking it. He got the same answer every time.
He decided to check the figures again, so rolled out of his bed, glancing at his bedside clock as he did so. It was 04:47.
He walked over to his special wardrobe, wherein there was all sorts of scientific instruments and workbooks. He opened the door and stepped forward…
Into the living room, where his parents were watching a late night movie.
“Whu-?” he began.
His parents turned to face him. “Oh, hello, Roger!” said his father in surprise. “I thought you had gone to bed.”
“I did,” replied Roger, slowly. “I just got up to go over some scientific calculations and statistics, when… I… Suddenly, I was… It’s not possible!”
“What isn’t?” asked his mother, confused.
“I opened the door to my wardrobe, but when I stepped in, I was suddenly here!”
“Perhaps you were sleep-walking, dear,” said his mother, smiling at him.
Roger shook his head. “I’ve never slept-walked in my life; I shouldn’t just suddenly start without some sort of outward stimuli!”
His parents glanced at each other, looking worried. “It’s been a long day, Roger,” said his father, carefully. “You should really get some sleep.”
Roger nodded slowly, his head spinning. He caught sight of his reflection in the mirror opposite. With his black hair and green eyes, he had often been said to look like a cat about to pounce. However, his usual alert expression had been replaced by one of confusion and that comparison was no longer valid.
He turned carefully and walked through the door into the dark hall…
The hall was suddenly bright.
Roger shielded his eyes with his arm and turned back to the living room and took a step in.
“Mum, Dad-” he began, before his eyes took in the scene in the room.
Several men in black outfits that could have been some kind of armour, with what looked like guns slung over their shoulders, filled the room. Two of them were holding onto his parents, who looked distressed to see him. On the mantelpiece above their heads, the clock showed it was 05:03.
“What the-?” he began.
His mother suddenly screamed at him. “You have to get out of here! Go back in time! You can bend time and space! Your powers have just mani-”
One of the men hit her in the face so she fell to the ground from the force of the blow. He turned to Roger. However, Roger ignored him and stared in horror at his mother, who raised her head. Blood trickled down the side of her mouth and she seemed shaken, yet resolute. She nodded her head towards the door behind Roger.
Roger turned to the well-lit hall. He could see now it was lit by cars from outside. He stepped over the threshold of the living room…
… into the dark hall.
He turned back into the living room and rushed in.
The clock said it was 04:49. His parents were still watching the late night movie in their bright, welcoming living room.
His parents seemed alarmed by his excitement and his panic; he had never been unable to articulate anything. Eventually, he managed to calm down enough to relay what he had seen. His parents glanced at each other, worriedly. For a moment, Roger thought they would tell him to get some sleep and that they would take him to see a doctor in the morning. Then, his father rose from where he had been sitting.
“Quickly! You need to pack a few things and get out of here! Go to Kitty’s house; go to Rick’s house, or Angie’s but just get away from here! We’ll explain everything at a later date!”
His father ushered him out of the room and up the stairs, where he threw some clothes and some cheap and small scientific instruments into a bag. He rushed back downstairs, where his mother gave him a hug, pressed his skateboard into his arms and rushed him out of the door.
“Don’t you worry about us!” were her parting words. “We’ll be just fine!”
Roger carried his skateboard till he got past the back gate. Then, he was on the road which ran past the back of his house. He stepped onto his skateboard and pushed away, scared and feeling vulnerable. He trundled along, wishing his life hadn’t changed in those few minutes.
A couple of black cars passed him. He noticed the two men in the front car staring at him. They gave him the creeps.
He hoped Kitty could help him.
***
Rick sat on his balcony, smoking a hidden cigarette, reflecting on his life.
His life sucked. It was as simple as that.
He may look cool, he may have a “bad boy” persona, but he hated his life. His mother had left him and his father to fend for their selves after he had been born. He was addicted to smoking and booze. He had never wanted to be dependant on them, but he was now. All the girls slept with him just so they could say, “You’ll never guess who I slept with last night! Rick Girvaise!” The bitches never went for substance.
He took a long draw before sighing, breathing the smoke out slowly.
He checked the clock he kept on his balcony for these kind of nights. It was 04:47. He sighed, stood up and stretched, before stubbing out his cigarette on the “You’re so cool!” ashtray.
It happened in that instance.
As he stubbed it out, his hand glowed white momentarily, before it spread to the cigarette, putting it out. It then moved to the ashtray which cracked.
Gingerly, shocked, Rick held out his hand and touched the now broken ashtray. It was ice cold. The extremely low temperature had caused the pressure to decrease alarmingly, which meant that the ashtray had broken. Or something like that. Rick tried not to study too hard.
Awesome! thought Rick. I must tell Kitty about this!
He grinned and rushed through his room, grabbing his coat and essentials such as his ID, his wallet and his keys.
He breezed down the stairs. His father was standing at the bottom of them. He was white and looked worried.
“Where are you going?” he asked his son.
“Round to Kitty’s. I’ve got something I want to show her!” grinned Rick.
“Wait!” cried his father, as Rick headed for the door without stopping. Rick turned to see his father pick up an envelope from the table in the hall. “Take this. Don’t open it till it is absolutely necessary.”
“Okay…” Rick frowned as he took it. He stuffed it in his coat, turned to the door and, regaining some of his confidence, cheerfully called over his shoulder, “Be back in a while!”
At the last moment, Rick grabbed his skateboard and jumped on it as he went out the door.
As he rolled along the road, he wondered if Kitty would be impressed with his superpower; she never usually seemed impressed by anything he did and he found that quite strange. Everyone else he had met thought whatever he did was pretty cool. And then there was Angie…
Wait till the girls see this, he thought.
***
They met in the park, though nearly crashing may be a more accurate term.
Kitty and Roger told their stories, panicking. Over the top of one another.
Once Rick and Angie had got them to calm down, they all told each other their stories one by one.
By the end, Rick was jealous: nothing exciting ever happened to him! He may act cool and act as though he’d seen it all, but they all seemed to have had a fun-filled night, whereas all that happened to him was that he had discovered his power. He zoned back into the conversation to hear something out of the ordinary.
“There is no way you can travel through space and time!” Kitty was exclaiming.
“Well I can!” protested Roger, not bothering to add any scientific mumbo jumbo.
“Look, if it was possible, scientists would have figured out how to do it ages ago! I mean, I know if you go fast enough you could, but it is scientifically impossible to travel faster than the speed of light!”
Before they could argue any further, Angie piped up. “What’s the point in arguing?”
Everyone turned expecting some holy view on the matter.
“We have these powers now, so we may as well use them to get out of here. We can’t go to Kitty or Roger’s houses as there’s some fucked up thing going on there, and I’m not going back home to face that bitch. We could, of course, go to Rick’s, but I suspect that that letter he was given has some shit in it about all this weird shit. We may discover that his dad will be kidnapped as well!”
There was silence which lasted a couple of minutes.
Finally, Rick blurted, “Angie!” She turned to face him and gave him a look, her face frowning, but her eyes prompting him to continue. “Holy shit, dude!”
All four of them laughed, relieving the tension somewhat.
“Come on,” said Rick. “Let’s go to my place.”
They cycled and skated in silence for a while, each thinking of their own experiences and thinking their own thoughts. Kitty was worrying over her family and what her new powers would entail. Angie was torn between her upbringing on God and the rebellious streak which had so suddenly risen in her. Roger was also worried about his family but was worrying that the science he had known, the science that he loved, all those laws he had memorised were being broken by him. He was also worrying that he could end up destroying the space-time continuum, something he had scoffed at, and the people who studied it, before now. Rick was worrying that he had got a lame power and that the girls were not impressed.
Suddenly, Rick stopped dead, the others nearly crashing into him. When they looked to see what was wrong, the friends could see that they were across from Rick’s house. There were black cars at the front of the house. Men in black suits and smug expressions were guiding Rick’s harassed-looking father to one of the cars, which were purring waiting to pounce.
“Dad!” shouted Rick in surprise.
“No! hissed Kitty, but it was too late, Rick began to push his skateboard faster.
“Leave my dad alone!” Rick yelled.
When the men ignored him, Rick decided to do something drastic. He stopped his skateboard, put his hand on the ground and willed ice to cover the whole road. His hand glowed white and ice appeared under it. It began to spread in every direction. He heard cries from behind him; the others had fallen victim to the ice. He didn’t care; his father had been through enough. He didn’t need to be kidnapped as well.
However, Rick hadn’t taken into account the guns.
One of the men raised one of the assault rifles, took aim and fired. The bullet arced through the air towards Rick.
Time seemed to slow down, as it often does in these types of situations. Rick could hear Roger behind him, calling on him to stop as Kitty was unconscious after hitting her head of the ice. Which meant no help would be coming from that direction.
The bullet was coming straight for Rick. His only hope lay with Roger, but he didn’t seem to be aware of anything but Kitty.
He must fancy her, thought Rick.
It was his last thought before the bullet hit him in the chest…
Monday, 9 March 2009
Well, Ain't That Dandy
I've realised that I don't get many comments. Actually, I don't get any. In fact, I don't have any followers, either.
I think this may be because I am not witty enough, or my life isn't interesting enough to other people or I don't put up brilliant short stories, or whatever. It sucks.
Today, I found out that I now have Wednesdays off from uni, cause I don't have a chemistry lecture anymore. It's just a tutorial. I consider the pool me and Hazel played to be celebration enough. I beat her 2-1!
You know what's really pissing me off, though: people coming on MSN and totally ignoring me. If they don't want to talk to me, they could at least appear offline.
Anyway, I shall now try to think of something witty to say.
Failing that, I'll just publish this.
I think this may be because I am not witty enough, or my life isn't interesting enough to other people or I don't put up brilliant short stories, or whatever. It sucks.
Today, I found out that I now have Wednesdays off from uni, cause I don't have a chemistry lecture anymore. It's just a tutorial. I consider the pool me and Hazel played to be celebration enough. I beat her 2-1!
You know what's really pissing me off, though: people coming on MSN and totally ignoring me. If they don't want to talk to me, they could at least appear offline.
Anyway, I shall now try to think of something witty to say.
Failing that, I'll just publish this.
Sunday, 8 March 2009
Been a while...
Yeah, I haven't really got round to posting anything on this recently. To be honest, no-one really seems to be interested to what I have to say.
Got a bit depressed from Wednesday to Friday. I think I may just have been stressed out, but it didn't help that I got annoyed that the Terry Pratchett club got cancelled. And it did not help that Tom told me to write a script for Fusion! I barely fit everything else in, and that's without doing anything for Beavers/Cubs!
Anyway, Tom also told me to fix my problems, so I'll try. Otherwise, I'll just ignore them! :D
I should stop complaining, though! I had masses amount of fun at Hazel's Movie Day! Loved the films, and the banter we shall take away from it was hilarious!
That's about it, cause I have stuff to do! :( So much stuff, so little time!
Got a bit depressed from Wednesday to Friday. I think I may just have been stressed out, but it didn't help that I got annoyed that the Terry Pratchett club got cancelled. And it did not help that Tom told me to write a script for Fusion! I barely fit everything else in, and that's without doing anything for Beavers/Cubs!
Anyway, Tom also told me to fix my problems, so I'll try. Otherwise, I'll just ignore them! :D
I should stop complaining, though! I had masses amount of fun at Hazel's Movie Day! Loved the films, and the banter we shall take away from it was hilarious!
That's about it, cause I have stuff to do! :( So much stuff, so little time!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)