The Idol, Part 1
Back too soon.
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.
Previously: Miranda saved one of the residents at a secret mountain refuge for super-powered people. Then she figured out who owns the place.
Part 1
The vessel was supposed to be in another universe. Not on this Earth. Not in the woods of a secret mountain resort. Not within a thousand yards of Miranda—not ever again.
Miranda watched as Sibyl boarded the compact, battered rocket ship, which looked like it had escaped a cartoon by the skin of its teeth. The hatch opened right up for the scientist, and that marked the full extent of the ship’s cooperation. Several computer consoles filled the cockpit; all remained dark. Sibyl inspected them anyway. Her gaze lingered on the shattered front window, swept over the piles of clothes and garbage littering the floor, and landed on the closet in the back. Inside it hung several duplicates of the costume Miranda now wore. Sibyl ran her fingers across a long emerald sleeve.
Miranda stood on the grass, crossing her arms in a stoic pose despite feeling anything but stoic.
Sibyl gripped a cape. “Looks like we found you some spares.”
The scientist knelt before a pile of discarded clothing, mostly men’s attire. From the bottom, though, she extracted a pencil skirt and summery blouse.
Miranda never expected to see that outfit again. She assumed it had gotten sucked out into space and was halfway to Mars by now.
“You can come in,” Sibyl told her. “It appears perfectly safe.”
It was, technically. Miranda already knew that. Someone she used to admire had trapped her in there and shunted her a million miles away from the world. Tuck Lewis had separated her from everyone and everything she had known—to keep her safe and out of the way while he tried to discredit the concept of superheroes.
Miranda stayed outside.
“This belonged to Dame Disaster, didn’t it?” Sibyl said. “Carey told me about this vessel. But he didn’t mention that you had any history with it.”
Miranda never mentioned it to him. She hadn’t mentioned it to Ken or Alyssa either, or even to her sister Bianca. All three of them had asked where her costume came from—the mask’s face-altering illusion kind of gave away the fact that she didn’t make it herself. She had admitted to acquiring an extra costume that Dame Disaster had left behind, but she never elaborated on the specific circumstances beyond that. She could never bring herself to.
Alyssa had probably learned the full story while telepathically snooping. If she were anywhere nearby, she’d certainly overhear it now without even trying.
“Since Dame Disaster died in Olympus,” Sibyl said, “it’s safe to assume she didn’t park the vessel here. So, who did?”
The tone suggested a rhetorical question. Thinking out loud. Miranda was doing plenty of her own silent thinking.
Sibyl disembarked and observed the superhero for a second too long.
“Are you feeling okay?”
This question, unfortunately, was not rhetorical.
Miranda nodded and immediately brought her breathing and poise under control.
Sibyl glanced back at the vessel with an unmistakable look of hunger. “The information stored in those computers can help us solve all sorts of problems. It may lead us to Fantastic Man and Dr. Luna. It may even help us restore Oliver Neal to human form. We need to borrow this. Whom do we ask?”
Someone Miranda used to admire and never wanted to see again.
*****
Tuck cast his line out as the johnboat drifted across the vast lake. He sat there alone, shorn of all evidence of his Hollywood past, just a guy out fishing on his private mountain resort property. No evidence of anything he’d done since disappearing from Hollywood either. No evidence of what he could do.
He leaned back, gazed straight up, and smiled. The beard was new. Between that and the rugged fisherman look, Miranda could almost have mistaken him for an entirely different person. But that was a mistake she wasn’t willing to make.
“I see you got my message,” Tuck shouted up at his visitor, who hovered at the height of a minor skyscraper.
Fists clenched, cape flapping in the breeze, Miranda dipped closer, just a few feet out of hundreds. Her skin wasn’t itching like last time, wasn’t crawling and rebelling as though infected with an unshakable virus. He had no hold on her so long as she kept her distance.
“Yeah, I’m actually fishing.” Tuck laughed at himself. “Me, fishing. You’re probably thinking, What’s even the point?”
Tuck pulled up his line. Nothing. And his boat held not a single catch.
“But that is the point,” he continued. “I could make this easy, but I’m not.”
He could indeed. All Tuck needed to do was lay eyes on any fish, seize control of its muscles, and force it to swim right to him—or anything else he wanted. He could do the same to any living creature, had done the same to Miranda when he steered her right onto that vessel and froze her in place while she vanished from the Earth.
“Thought I had one.” Tuck tossed the line back in, then shot a smile skyward. “It’s nice to see you again, Miranda.”
Miranda released and re-clenched her fists as she sucked in a sharp breath.
Tuck smirked. “And it’s not nice to see me. I know.” He melodramatically wagged his finger as he produced a poor imitation of her voice: “ ‘I better not see or hear about you anytime soon.’ But you never did specify a time frame, and it has been nearly two years.”
Tuck had taken Dame Disaster’s vessel to the villain’s native universe. At the time, he claimed he wanted to learn from the true superheroes who inhabited that Earth. Miranda wondered what it was like there. She almost asked.
“I really am sorry about … about last time,” Tuck said. A moment’s contrition gave way to a chuckle. “And you are too, apparently. I know your buddy Ken is on the property, but I can’t help but notice you didn’t bring him along for backup. You never told him where you were that day, did you?”
Miranda tightened her scowl.
“I’m glad you felt you didn’t need to bring him along.” He held up his fishing rod and dangled the empty hook. “I’m out here specifically to practice not using that ability, and I’m not going to use it on you.”
He had neglected to include again. He wasn’t going to use his power on Miranda again. Miranda wanted to reach down and pull the word out of his throat.
“I left the ship where you’d find it,” Tuck said, “but I wasn’t sure if—you know, it would be easier to talk if I didn’t have to shout.”
Miranda didn’t move. Tuck should have thanked her for not moving.
“Okay, fine,” Tuck called up. “But listen, please. This community here, you can consider it a home if you ever need it. So far, you’ve done a great job of not letting your power corrupt you, but someday it could. If you ever worry that you’re, you know, slipping, you are welcome to step away from everything and come here.”
Last time she saw Tuck, Miranda dangled him over a mile of empty air. She had wanted to punish him. She had craved it. And she might have. A text from Peyton had stopped her, a text in which her little sister expressed her desire to be just like Ultra Woman. Miranda needed to remember that text right now, needed to remember to be Ultra Woman herself.
“I regret trapping you in that ship,” Tuck said. “I regret hiring that girl to distract Ken. I regret springing Pinkney from jail. I regret trying to make you all look bad.” He raised a rigid pointer finger. “But I wasn’t entirely wrong. We’re not built to be superheroes. I respect you for trying, but …”
He shook his head and sighed.
“… we’re just not.”
Miranda descended to the far side of the lake and hovered inches above the water. Maintaining plenty of distance, she gazed straight across and studied Tuck’s face. She had spent considerable time studying that face in her youth, when Tuck Lewis was a young celebrity who represented everything she desired. The confident, cocky smile he had often sported back then was nowhere to be found now.
Miranda’s fists and jaw slackened. “What happened in that other universe?”