The Pestilential Prison, Part 2
An unfortunate power.
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 stopped by Hephaestus Enterprises and learned about Carey and Sibyl’s plans for a Golden Gladiator Corps. She visited Ken next, shortly before he received a message from his old friends who are running a community for super-powered people. One of their residents is spiraling out of control.
Part 2
Miranda hesitated before entering the portal. Having once plunged into an upside-down monkey dimension had left her a little gun-shy about such matters.
But a friend of a friend had created this portal. And people needed her. So, she took a breath and stepped directly from Ken’s apartment to a private resort in the mountains. Which mountains, she didn’t know, and neither did Ken.
They had both switched to their superhero identities. A sunny sky greeted them as they appeared on a gravel path near an old hotel and a grass field. A tall young woman extinguished the portal with a gesture while a bearded young guy stood by her side; both could have blended in at Woodstock without too much effort.
“Hey, Ken. Thanks for coming,” Lance said.
Ken’s hidden eyes scanned the area. “Um …”
“Oh, don’t worry. We’ve evacuated everyone to the hotel. No one can hear your name.”
Hailey smiled at Miranda. “So nice to meet you … do I call you Ultra Woman, or …?”
“That’s fine.” Identifying as Ultra Woman always felt a little pretentious. But she didn’t know these people, and even Ken hadn’t seen much of them since college. “What’s the situation?”
“Are the kids okay?” Ken asked.
“Yes, kids are fine,” Lance said. “And Webster will also be fine. He puffed himself up just in time to pull away.”
Before either visitor could ask what he pulled away from, Hailey pointed at a cabin, one among a line of nearly identical units. But unlike the others, death surrounded this cabin. Decaying plants and grass ringed it, and the trees in its backyard were denuded and blackened.
“We’re not certain whether she’s lost control of her power or is doing this intentionally,” Hailey said. “We can’t even get close enough to talk to her. Webster just happened to be walking by the cabin. Anyone gets near there, they get sick and …” She grasped for the right description. “… their life just … drains away.”
“What about your speed?” Ken asked Lance. “Can you get to her before it affects you?”
Lance shook his head. “Tried that. It works faster on me, must be synching with my metabolism. Can’t get any closer than anyone else.”
“Similar issue with my portals,” Hailey said. “If I open one in there, the effect will radiate out here.”
Miranda studied the cabin and the surrounding decay, tried to imagine being cursed with death as a super-power. It would require total isolation. She could never see her family again, could never trust herself around any people.
Warner Pinkney would have slain this woman without a second thought. Too dangerous to live, he would have decided on behalf of everyone.
“What’s her name?” Miranda asked.
“Della,” Hailey said. “She’s never caused any trouble before, always just kept to herself.”
Miranda and Ken turned to each other for a quick deliberation.
“I could grab her from a distance,” Ken said. “We could move her if we needed to, but that wouldn’t solve the problem.”
“You’re right. It wouldn’t,” Miranda said. “Someone needs to talk to her. I might be okay in there.” The wilted plants gave her some doubts about that, which Ken echoed.
“You might.”
“Gotta try.”
Miranda floated along the gravel path, careful not to move too quickly. She touched down on dead grass in front of Della’s porch. Nausea struck, nothing debilitating … until she climbed the first step.
A fever soared and lit her brain on fire. Panicked thoughts spun nonsensically. She just knew she needed to get away—right now.
Miranda flung herself backward and crashed onto the gravel. Her head cooled and heart rate settled as she gazed up at the sky, thinking about the moon somewhere beyond all that blue.
Sitting up, Miranda noticed a skinny, sour-faced woman standing in the cabin window. She appeared not exactly old but worn down by the years. A scowl broke through that haggard face, though something about the expression seemed off.
Ken rushed to Miranda’s side and helped her up.
“I’m fine,” Miranda said quickly. “Don’t get any closer.”
Ken had already received that message. Stumbling backward, he peeled his mask up over his nose and tried not to retch.
Lance grabbed both visitors and yanked them through a pool of light. They found themselves back down the path, near Hailey.
“Have a good chat?” Lance asked.
“C’mon, man,” Ken said. “She had to try.”
“I get it,” he said. “But now we know that even Ultra Woman can’t get close enough to reach her, so we’ll need to explore other options.”
Hailey touched Ken’s arm, her eyes exuding something like compassion. “Ken, we may need you to reach her.”
“We’ve been over this. Moving her won’t address the underlying issue.”
It wasn’t compassion, Miranda noticed. It was a mockery of compassion.
“I’m not talking about moving her,” Hailey said.
“You could do it humanely,” Lance said. “Make it real quick so she doesn’t feel a thing.”
The words echoed in Miranda’s head. Do it. Make it quick. He couldn’t even say the actual words. A pronoun standing in for an atrocity.
“No,” Ken said, recoiling and pulling his mask back down. “I won’t kill her.”
Miranda thought of the super-powered cat she was forced to kill on the moon. No, not forced. She failed to find a better solution.
“We need to keep our residents safe.” Hailey seemed to be telling herself this as much as Ken. “That’s our top priority. We thought about getting a gun, but no one here is a good shot. She’d suffer. You can spare her that.”
“That lady is one of your residents,” Ken said. “If her power is out of control, she needs our help.”
“What if she’s in control?” Lance said. “I saw the look on her face. She was—”
“Acting,” Miranda said. “She’s playing the part so we get scared enough to do exactly what you’re talking about.”
“That would mean she agrees with us.” Hailey let out a weary sigh and shook her head. “All we can do is isolate her further, and what kind of life would that be?”
Miranda had taken the cat in her hands, snapped its neck, and beaten it against the rocks. She had spilled blood on the moon. Ken would not spill blood here. He especially would not take a human life.
“No, it means she can’t think of another solution either,” Miranda said. “It doesn’t mean she’d refuse a better option if we found one.”
There was one man who could have subdued the cat without harming it.
“We need some tech support,” Miranda said. “And one more thing, the most important detail that we can’t forget in all of this. She’s not just some problem to solve. She’s a person—a person named Della.”