You’re reading Terrific, my original superhero prose series. Looking for commentary instead? Check out the navigation page. Otherwise …
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: Benevos has thrown Miranda into space and dropped Ken onto a car. Now he’s targeting Alyssa, who may have just learned his secret.
Part 3
Adrenaline and desperation amplified Alyssa’s mental blast. She flooded toxic psionic energy into Benevos’s brain, frying it. She hoped she was frying it.
As he dipped out of view, Alyssa dashed toward the roof access.
And Benevos was suddenly blocking the door.
“What did you hear?” he asked, dispensing with the smile altogether.
She responded with another mental blast. All three of his arms flailed. One grazed her, knocking her flat on her back. Alyssa scrambled to her feet while Benevos shook off the headache and charged his antennae. She dove out of the way as the heat baked the rooftop, singeing the hem of her trench coat.
Racing toward the fire escape, Alyssa shot off a psionic bolt, dealing Benevos a moment’s disorientation. She grabbed the ladder and started hustling down.
Benevos’s mind blared from directly above. He grabbed the top of the ladder and pushed, ripping it right off the building. Alyssa hopped onto the first platform, then slid down the next flight of stairs.
The platform and ladder came crashing around her. The railing caught the edge of the platform, preventing it from crushing her outright, but she was trapped beneath the metal grating. Benevos stomped onto it, bending the metal against her legs, just enough to be agonizing.
Alyssa couldn’t move. She could hardly focus. Benevos gazed down, his sunny eyes acquiring a predatory quality.
He’ll kill me. I’m dead if I don’t—
“Tell me what you know,” Benevos demanded.
Her legs screamed. She could still feel her legs. No real damage yet. Nothing permanent.
“Why do you think I know anything?” Alyssa shouted. “Why don’t you tell me about this alien race of yours—when are they coming?”
He studied her, skeptical. “Please know that I don’t want to kill you, but anyone who opposes me also opposes the future of humanity. I can’t allow that.”
Alyssa summoned her focus, managing enough for one more mental blast. It sent her foe tottering back, redistributing the weight. She slipped free and crawled down to the next level.
The temperature soared as hot liquified metal dripped around her. She kept moving.
*****
Ken’s back ached, ears rang, and head throbbed. Telekinesis had slowed his fall, but not enough. As he peeled himself off the cracked windshield, he heard a familiar, feminine voice rushing closer.
“Ken! Are you—are you hurt?”
It was Charlotte. She looked as beautiful as ever, so beautiful that she embarrassed him. She had witnessed his pitiful display against the alien, and now he was bleeding right in front of her like a miserable failure. Superheroes weren’t supposed to bleed. They weren’t supposed to have scars either; Charlotte had never seen his facial scar.
As his head cleared, the triviality of those feelings shamed him all the more.
“I’ll be fine. But are you okay? What are you doing here?”
“I was in the area—with Miranda. She left to call you. I haven’t seen her since.”
Ken wished he could assure her that Miranda was fine, but for all he knew, she was drifting through the void of space, running out of air.
“I’ll keep an eye out for her. Get to safety.”
“He could have killed you,” Charlotte said, her voice trembling.
She was correct. Benevos could have snapped his neck, just like he had said.
“Would it be so bad,” she continued, “to negotiate with his people? Maybe you could find a compromise.”
Ken eyed the melted vehicles and recalled the iron arms threatening to squeeze the life out of him, their grip tightening, no way to stop the pressure. He understood exactly why Charlotte was so afraid. She didn’t think the superheroes were up to this one. Ken wasn’t sure either. But he did know one thing.
“They’re not interested in compromise.”
Something crashed nearby. Ken leapt into the air.
“I need to go. Find some cover.”
The crash was Benevos, who was now melting a fire escape—right above Alyssa. Ken accelerated and telekinetically bent the loose grate around the alien, halting his attack for the moment.
Swooping underneath, Ken grabbed Alyssa in his arms and kept flying at full speed.
“You hurt?” he asked.
“A little. I’ll be fine. Listen—this guy, he’s not an alien.”
*****
The sun flipped into view as Miranda tumbled through space. Its gravity pulled on her, inviting her into its distant warmth. She needed the heat, any heat. Everything was so cold. Her eyes again drifted shut as a sea of blue rose. An actual sea, way down there, drifting farther away.
Miranda snapped awake and panicked. Hardly any air in her lungs. She was outside all air. She gazed down at the Earth, and most of a hemisphere filled her vision.
Oh, God, space, I’m in space, can’t be in space …
She rebelled against her momentum, willing herself to change course and fly back toward the atmosphere. Terror fueled the rebellion, but it was short-lived. Her chest burned. Her grasp on consciousness was tenuous at best. Outer space had nearly killed her twice before, and it was killing her now.
Stay awake … stay … awake …
The alien said she hadn’t done enough for the world, that Ultra Woman should have been doing so much more. He rubbed the memorial in her face. As if she didn’t know.
She could have done more. She could have buried herself entirely in the costume, served as Ultra Woman nonstop, cast Miranda Thomas into the abyss and never looked back.
But that wasn’t the more Benevos had meant. Not more time. More force. More control. More coercion. Which he called “imagination.”
She thought about the smiles at her sister’s wedding and the laughter at the reception, some of which Miranda herself generated. She had helped spread that joy, and she relished the memory. Ultra Woman would have been useless there.
The Earth seemed so far away. But she had once returned from even farther than this. It ranked among the worst experiences of her life. Even as her list of worst experiences continued to expand, that one maintained a respectable ranking, instilling a sense of chilly dread whenever she stepped a single toe outside the atmosphere.
But she had gotten herself back that time. And because she had, she was able to see her older sister get married and her little sister grow up. She got to make people laugh.
She could do it again. She needed to do it again because someone needed to deal that alien a dose of basic humility, show him and his whole superior species that humans weren’t going to just roll over and do whatever a bunch of extraterrestrials thought was best for them.
Miranda stuck her fists forward and soothed her burning chest with thoughts of how that self-righteous jerk was about to experience the worst day of his life.
Click here to continue reading!
By the way, now’s an especially good time to check out The Silver Stranger and The Faceless Man, because the ebooks will be going up to $3.99 later this month. (I’ll keep the ebook of the first novel, The Flying Woman, at $2.99.) Thank you to everyone who’s already read them!
They are, of course, also in paperback. If you’re in the vicinity of Richmond, Virginia, you can buy them from me in person at two upcoming events: the Hanover Book Expo on November 8 and VA Comicon on November 22. Hope to see you at either event, but if you’re not local, click the button below!
Called it!
See you Saturday!