The Inside-Out Man, Part 1

A disturbing disturbance.

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

No one was home when Miranda returned to the apartment. Normally, the absence of a telepathic roommate relieved her. Now, however, she wanted to tell Alyssa about her trip to their hometown—she didn’t want Alyssa to read her mind and automatically know all about it, but she would have welcomed an old-fashioned, out-loud conversation. Alyssa had taken her own trip home several weeks earlier, and they never did catch up afterward.

The refrigerator’s humming filled the meager square footage while a next-door neighbor added occasional soft percussion. Otherwise, silence. These days, silence was so unusual that it unnerved her. It wouldn’t last, though; couldn’t possibly. So, Miranda figured she might as well enjoy it.

She crashed on the couch, indulging in a brief rest after her cross-country direct flight. She wasn’t actually tired, but a few thousand miles of non-stop self-propelled flying should have worn her out.

The respite lasted an entire minute.

Sirens bled through the windows and lured Miranda off the couch. She opened one and poked her head out. Her street was business as usual, with scattered pedestrians and moderate vehicular traffic rolling along a single direction. The sirens softened, pointing the way to the disturbance.

Miranda permitted herself a final indulgence, one more deep breath. Then, faster than anyone could have seen, she switched into her Ultra Woman costume and dove out the window. Anyone who happened to glance up would have seen a momentary spot and mistaken it for blurry vision, easily corrected with a blink or two.

Wind rushing against her face, Miranda glided over the street and wove between buildings until she was soaring above a cluster of police cars, where a masked man was already soaring, gray cape flapping behind him. He was a friendly masked man, though.

“Welcome back,” Ken said as Miranda pulled up alongside him.

“Looks like quite a welcome.” She pointed at the flashing lights below. “What’s this all about?”

“No idea. If you want to go on ahead, I’ll catch up.”

No, Miranda did not want to rush on ahead into some unknown, dangerous situation. But she did. She hoped it was someone like Clodhopper Lummox, whom Ultra Woman and Mr. Amazing could dispatch with minimal fuss. Or perhaps Paper Cut—he tended to fold easily.

If only.

Miranda stopped short upon locating the incident. She would have cried out in horror if she wasn’t in costume.

The street was inside out. Half a city block, everything and everyone between the sidewalks—inside out.

Each car had unfolded and refolded around itself so that seats surrounded the hood and the engine’s innards hung out for all to see while the contents of the trunk did the same. Coolant fluid enveloped its container, the spare tire was reversed, and shopping bags exposed various purchases, each similarly inverted.

The people, however, were in far worse shape. They were a nightmare.