Star Harbor Nights

The vehicle--a big, boxy SUV with three kids in the back seat--had stalled out for the third time in a single morning, this time on the railroad tracks. The overworked and overwrought mother cursed very quietly as she fought to get the motor to turn over. They were running late as it was. Why was it so hard to get out the door on time?

"Mom..." the oldest child, and the older of two girls, said insistently, tugging on her mother's sleeve.

"Just a minute," the woman said.

"Mom, there's..."

"I said just a minute," the harried mother almost shouted, turning to look over her shoulder... and in the process, spotting the rapidly-approaching train through the passenger side windows. No longer hyper-focused on the recalcitrant motor, she now heard the locomotive's engine and the frantic bellowing of its horn.

She froze, paralyzed by the insidious interplay of the survival and maternal instincts. She registered that she had just enough time to throw open her own door and get clear of the tracks... but her children wouldn't react that fast... but she didn't have time to help them... but she couldn't leave them... but she'd only die with them... but...

And then the world wrenched itself violently away from her. There was a sensation of hurtling through the air. She screamed, thinking it was the end... and then the world settled into place around her as the large vehicle came down rather heavily but completely intact on the pavement on the other side of the tracks.

A smiling blond man in a white bodysuit with a yellow-gold cape and trim stood... no, floated... in front of them.

"Good morning, citizen," he said, pausing in view of the windshield just long enough for her to get a good look at her family's savior. It wasn't just pride. Champion had learned that this step was necessary to maintain the public trust... if he wanted to be seen as a protector and champion of the people rather than an inhuman force meddling in their affairs. The instant he saw recognition and joy on the face of the woman he'd saved, he was off like a rocket, hurtling skyward in search of the next disaster to avert.

Adonis had only been a few blocks away from the credit union when he heard the call go out over the police band. He didn't carry a radio, but then, he didn't need to... that was among the many perks of a computerized body.

There were three armed men inside the lobby. Two of them held hostages, a brunette woman in high heels and a sharp pantsuit and an auburn-haired woman wearing more sensible shoes, a scarlet turtleneck, and black slacks. The third had a pair of pistols... his and the security guard's... which he kept trained on the clerks behind the counter, until Adonis announced his presence in the entry way with an unusually loud throat-clearing.

"Who the hell are you supposed to be?" the man asked, spinning around to point both guns Adonis's way. "Charles Atlas?"

"Wrong myth," Adonis said.

"You don't wanna be here," the robber said.

"You don't wanna to piss me off," Adonis countered.

"Hey, fuck off, muscles," one of the other robbers said.

Adonis started to take a step forward, but he couldn't fail to notice the trigger fingers of the hostage holders tensing. He needed to do something to make himself the immediate threat, to focus the hostile attention on himself. His eyes lit up... literally, the irises glowing violet. The crooks' eyes went wide in response.

"It's a cape... shoot him!"

Instantly, the guns were off the hostages and firing at him. Adonis moved forward heedlessly, Nemealion blend skin taking the bullets with hardly a dimple to show where they'd struck. His synthetic flesh absorbed enough of the kinetic energy to avoid dangerous ricochets.

To the credit of the women, both reacted as soon as the guns swung away from them. The one in heels simply took off running. The auburn-haired one actually grabbed her former captor by the arm and threw him judo-style into the man with two guns, knocking them both down. Adonis had to adjust his course to take him to the last man standing, who he took out with a considerably less graceful sort of throw... across the room.

"That was pretty impressive," Adonis said after he'd secured the gunmen.

"Thanks."

"I'm Adonis, by the way."

"Annalise," she said. "Annalise Huffman."

"Uh, did you just say..."

"Anna... Lise," she repeated, putting a pause between the two parts of her name and pronouncing each distinctly.

"Oh," Adonis said. "'cause it kind of sounded like you said 'anal...'"

"I know what it 'kind of' sounds like," the woman snapped. "Just call me Red, okay?"

"Sorry," Adonis said. "So, uh... Red, would you wanna maybe..."

"No, I wouldn't."

"Okay."

"Did you get all that?" Pamela Entweiler--the woman crowned American Hero as Pummella--asked after the last of the group of seven local Islamic extremists had been taken down with an impressive flying tackle from thirty feet away. He'd actually broke and ran after seeing three of his comrades knocked over with a single lobbed tree trunk... so much for glorious martyrdom. "I hope you got all that... I don't think these jerks are going to be game for a second take."

She let the man up only when the FBI agents rushed in to handcuff him, and then she quickly moved away, brushing leaves and twigs off her patriotic fighting suit. The wooded hills around Star Harbor had provided safe havens for gangsters in past generations, but now sheltered home-grown terrorists. Her producer had made a big deal out of that, and something he called "zeitgeist", but she liked to think of her opponents in simple, abstract terms... bad guys to be stopped, not criminals to be prosecuted... not real people, with real lives who would face real consequences.

"We did," Morty, a seasoned combat photographer and her personal cameraman said. "It's just..."

"What?" she asked.

"You kept flinching," he said.

"They were shooting me!" she said. "With assault rifles. You'd flinch, too."

"I don't think it'll play well, is all," he said.

"Dirk?" Pamela asked, turning to the producer.

"We'll fix it in editing," he said. "We've got lots of nice long shots and footage from the helicopter. We'll just show the bad guys firing and then insert some nice close-ups of that all-American smile with the sound of gunfire playing over them."

"Isn't that a little... dishonest?" Pamela asked. She regretted it as soon as it was out of her mouth. It was only a little dishonest, after all.

"Hey, great, you're concerned with honesty," Dirk said. "Of course you are. You're the hero. You wouldn't be a hero if you didn't worry about what's right and what's wrong, right? But we've got to think about how things look... and how would it look if America's top hero is shown flinching from danger? What kind of message would that send? And how would it reflect on the bureau, which so kindly invited us along on this raid?"

"Well, I guess you're..."

"Right? Of course I'm right," Dirk said. "Anyway, when we get back to HQ, you get yourself out to the live fire range and tell the boys to shoot at you."

"What?"

"Just to get yourself acclimated," he said. "This isn't going to be the last time this comes up, you know."

"Yeah... I know."

"No, don't... please!" the desperate man screamed, on a rooftop in the financial district of downtown Star Harbor. Two big, burly men held him out over the edge, his feet scrambling for purchase on the ledge just out of their reach. "Vernon, you know me... we go way back... you know I'd never double-cross you."

"Oh, I wish I could believe that. I really do. I just hate to see it come to this," Vernon said. The sick smile on his face said otherwise.

"Let me down and we can talk about this!"

"I'm through talking."

"Please... I'll do anything!"

"Anything?" Vernon asked, raising an eyebrow. He glanced behind him and threw a wink at the two other men, ostensibly standing watch but mostly riveted by the drama of the dangling man.

"Anything!" the man said, a note of hope sounding in his voice. "Whatever you want!"

"Okay, then," Vernon said, and the two men pulled the victim in. "Why don't you... fly?"

He laughed as the two large men tossed the smaller one up and out into space... but the laugh died in his throat when the would-be victim froze in place, like a sticky toy bug hitting a glass window.

"Holy shit," one of the big thugs said as the floating man slowly turned around in the air.

"Looks like somebody found his happy thought," a woman said from behind the assemblage. They whirled around to see a woman dressed in a violet vinyl catsuit, with a head-wrapping cowl that left her face exposed... also floating aloft, like the man they'd just tossed. Pistols were leveled at her, only to be whipped out of their owners' hands by an invisible force.

"It's that chick from TV!" one of them shouted. "Mindfyre!"

The heroine rolled her eyes.

"Seven years I've been doing this, and you take me for some flavor-of-the-month out of California," she said. "The name's Ms. Teke, fellas... 'teke' as in 'T.K.'. I'll let you figure out why on your own."

She flexed her hand, and the five men rose up, their arms and legs spreading out to the sides.

"You boys get comfortable, now," she said. She started to turn away.

"Hey, what about me?" the nervous man shrieked, kicking his legs absurdly as if he were treading water.

"Oh, yeah," Ms. Teke said. She waved a hand, and he floated back towards the roof. His relief was palpable when a solid surface was beneath him, but it turned to confusion and anger when he realized he wasn't getting any lower.

"Hey, what's the big idea?"

"I figure a person in your... position... probably has a lot of interesting things to tell the police," the heroine said. "And probably a lot to gain by spilling it. You can thank me later. Ciao!"

She waved bye to the six floating figures, and then darted off over the skyline. She'd phone it in once she was out of sight... leave the men wondering if they'd literally been left hanging.

Her power, once called into operation, was not limited by distance or time but by conditions "programmed" by her will. She willed the men to be held in place until the police arrived, and knew that it would be so. She had no idea how exactly this worked... how the power knew what she wanted, and how it judged when the conditions had been fulfilled... but she'd also never felt the need to examine it too closely. She knew that most telekineticists couldn't do what she did, and she was satisfied simply with the knowledge that her power was special.

She made the call, and then floated up higher to find another situation requiring her attention. It probably wouldn't be anything as exciting as the scene on the rooftop... but there were always traffic accidents, purse snatchings, muggings, and even kittens in trees... that was one of her favorites, as there was just something extra adorable about a kitten floating gently through the air towards the arms of an awestruck child.

Any which way, something was sure to come up. It was just another day in the city of Star Harbor.