Return to Hades, Part 1
Some light telepathic eavesdropping.
Welcome to Olympus City, where super-powers, physics-defying tech, and unearthly creatures are all possible now. Human nature, however, remains unchanged.
No one is born a perfect superhero, but a few strive to live up to the ideal anyway.
Part 1
Alyssa was trying not to pry into anyone’s thoughts. Really, she was.
She leaned back in her chair, one of several lined up near the front entrance of Olympian MMA. She felt a little conspicuous being the only spectator present, and her dental scrubs didn’t help. It was a full class. Adults of varying ages had spread across the mat, three to a punching bag, and they took turns executing the combination. The repeated smacking of the leather filled the dojo like strange, scattered rainfall, which poured heaviest near Ken.
Ken whipped his shin against the punching bag, then drove his boxing glove straight into the yielding leather. He hated the glove right now; Alyssa happened to overhear the shouted thought. The glove protected his hand, softened the blow. He wanted none of that; he craved the raw impact—his bare fist against a chosen target, the chance to see what that fist was capable of without any telekinetic assistance.
Alyssa withdrew from his head, reminding herself that she wasn’t here to telepathically eavesdrop. All she intended to do was stop in on her way home from work and watch her boyfriend in his element. Not Ken. Her boyfriend, Ford, the instructor.
Ford called time, told the class what an awesome job they were doing, then demonstrated the next combination of strikes: foot jab, cross, hook, rear kick.
Ken couldn’t wait to tear that bag apart. At Ford’s signal, he did precisely that.
“Nice work,” Ford told him, giving a firm thumbs-up. “I would not want to be that bag.”
“Thank you, sir,” Ken said between heavy breaths.
Ford assessed the technique as Ken punched and kicked the bag, but Alyssa perceived the anger that fueled the aggression. Something was bothering him. She could ask him after class.
I should ask, she thought. Ask like a person. Don’t invade his mind.
Two years, Ken thought, stomping his foot straight into the bag. They did nothing with their powers. His fists pummeled the leather. For two years! Pivoting on his lead foot, he swung his rear leg as though he might chop the bag down.
Alyssa needed to know who “they” were. Before she could stop herself, she discovered the answer. Was it her fault the names were right at the top of Ken’s mind?
Lance and Hailey. College friends who had, evidently, acquired super-powers around the same time that Ken and Miranda did. And Ken had only just learned about it, and he learned that they were encouraging others to waste away in seclusion … including one of Ken’s students.
The bag swayed as his shin sliced into it.
Alyssa pulled herself out before she tumbled further down the rabbit hole, and she resolved to talk to Ken after class and get him to open up the old-fashioned way. In the meantime, her phone could offer distractions that were more socially and ethically acceptable, if not much healthier. She tapped into a social media app, realizing she was quite possibly the first person ever to do so specifically to avoid other people’s random private thoughts.
… to Doctor Hades’s lair tonight and getting it.
Alyssa spun around toward the window. The thought came from somewhere outside, among all that rush-hour traffic. Plenty of daylight remained, but that wouldn’t help her.
She couldn’t find the thinker again. Too much noise to sift through, though she might succeed if she closed her eyes and listened for specific keywords. That strategy had proved effective before. But this was not the ideal environment for such concentration.
Besides, she knew exactly where Warner Pinkney’s old lair was. She had spent quality time at the shuttered self-storage facility when she was pretending to be the Silver Stranger. Miranda and Ken had been there more recently when they helped the police and FBI clear out Pinkney’s various machines, chemicals, and other hazards.
Alyssa doubted they had found everything. This guy apparently did as well. She was pretty sure it was a young man, and she guessed he was looking for something that might give him powers. He wouldn’t be the first. The strange nature of Olympus City encouraged unhealthy risks. Alyssa should know.
She scratched her bare wrist, wishing she still had her special watch. Then she could have teleported straight to the self-storage facility and investigated it herself. One thought, one twist of the crown, and she’d appear anywhere in Olympus she wanted, arriving within an eerie mist. Given the choice, she would have sacrificed her telepathy and kept the watch.
“Hope we’re not boring you,” Ford said, a grin spreading across his face.
Alyssa playfully tossed up a shrug. “Well, it’s no cavity filling.”
“You’ve got me there.” Ford turned back to his class. “Time! Crunches!”
Everyone dropped onto their backs and reached toward the ceiling, lifting their shoulder blades, feeling the effort in their abs. They all kept reaching toward some unattainable point above them. Ken restrained himself from actually floating up or pulling the ceiling down. He reached and held himself back, reached and held back.
“Punches! Go!”
They all hopped to their feet, resumed their positions around the bags, and fired off punch after punch, all at once. The scattered rainfall of before had escalated into a downpour. And Alyssa’s mind again drifted into her friend’s.
Ken focused on a small area of the bag and lashed out at it. Left, right, left, right, left, right, again and again. Sweat running down his face, he wanted to keep going, wanted to never hear the word “time” until he had punched a hole clean through that spot. He wanted to punch Lance in his smug face.
“Time!”
Ken exhaled several long, heavy breaths, his fists itching for more.
But the class was nearing its conclusion. Only a cooldown and stretches remained. Ford guided them through the routine, and Alyssa watched Ken’s memory of pulling his mask off in a last-ditch effort to reach out to his student. The effort failed.
Soon, the class ended, and everyone went to retrieve their bags while the instructor ambled over to his girlfriend. He had such a charming, easygoing smile, and she hated to flatten it even a little.
“Hope you’re hungry,” Ford said. “Tonight, I’m introducing you to my favorite restaurant.” He recognized the look on her face. The smile survived, but it indeed took a hit. “Or maybe I’m not.”
“I would love to,” Alyssa said, sincerely. “It’s just …” She leaned closer, conspiratorially. “Something’s bothering Ken. I can just tell. I think he could use a friend right now.”
Ford nodded, understanding. “Of course. Go check on your friend.”
And he truly did understand. Not the telepathy, not anything about Mr. Amazing. Alyssa had no intention of revealing any of that anytime soon. But Ford respected her concern for an old high school buddy, and he wasn’t the least bit threatened or suspicious. He had deemed Ken as no competition whatsoever. Alyssa was glad she was the only mind-reader present.
She caught Ken’s eye as he returned from the back, gym bag slung over his shoulder. A subtle tilt of her head indicated the door, and Ken got the message. He welcomed any message, anything to save him from his own thoughts.
“Nice punching,” Alyssa said as they walked toward the door.
“Your boyfriend taught me well.”
They stepped onto the sidewalk and strolled past Olympian MMA’s window, in the opposite direction of most everyone else.
“What have you heard?” Ken asked, keeping his voice low.
“Someone’s on his way to Warner Pinkney’s old hideout. Pretty sure he’s looking for something that’ll give him powers.”
“He shouldn’t find anything. We swept the place pretty thoroughly.”
“Pinkney was probably even more thorough.”
Ken clenched his teeth behind a closed mouth, recalling how Alyssa had worked with the supervillain for several weeks. He was trying not to think about that, trying not to compare her to Lance and Hailey. The effort reverberated within Alyssa’s mind.
“I’ll head over and check it out,” he said. “Thanks for the heads-up.”
Ken started walking away, thinking about where he might drop his bag as he switched to Mr. Amazing. The costume was folded up in a compartment at the bottom, under the boxing gloves, shin pads, and brown belt.
Alyssa scratched her bare wrist. Her fingers twisted around a crown that was no longer there. She thought about how much Ken needed a friend right now.
“Ken, wait!”
He stopped and turned back.
“I’m coming with you,” she said.