Firebird Freedom
Date
It was obviously a trap. A nice trap, but still a trap, gilded with the finest gold and baited with a delicious chunk of brie, and perhaps a glass or two of wine. Any respectable mouse would have turned her nose up at the invitation and scrounged around in the dumpster for dinner instead, but a restaurant this expensive probably sent their garbage out by invitation only in gold-leaf bags at a hundred bucks a pop.
For long minutes standing on the flat roof with occasional flakes of snow blowing by, Summer wrestled with the temptation, finally coming to the conclusion that if she raided the restaurant dumpster before her date she inevitably would foul her outfit and probably damage the cheap low-heeled flats she borrowed from her druggie roommates.
Wearing her boots would have been an obvious tell to her criminal past, because the colorful duracloth of her costume could be adjusted to approximate a fashionable grey blouse and slacks, but the hip-boots just screamed supervillain. That was why her communications visor and the boots were safely locked away in the footlocker at her shared fleabag apartment. Widget had made the locker for her, one of the few worldly possessions she retained after the lawsuits and prison. Nobody messed with Widget’s creations, villain or hero. Even the prison had quickly returned her costume upon her release, because the occasional Widgetwear creation went looking for their owner if kept apart too long.
“Wearing the full outfit and flying inside would go over so well,” she muttered to herself. “Gentleman Jim could probably get away with it, but me? This place would evacuate their clientele and send in the cops with orders not to get blood on the walls or leave bullet holes in the furnishings.”
She gritted her teeth while checking her phone again, the only good thing about being flat broke and on public assistance, or welfare as she could not help but keep thinking. There were still a few minutes before she was supposed to arrive, and standing on the rooftop with the scents of French cooking wafting up all around her was agonizing. Her empty belly fairly burned with the sharp pain of ketosis, a mixed blessing of her mutated physique.
Many middle-aged housewives would have killed to be able to eat as much as Summer did during a normal day without getting fatter. The last six months had thankfully burned off the last lard of a year's worth of jail, but without enough to eat, her weight would probably keep dropping until she was the same starving wreck that had been thrown into prison when the Consortium had been busted. Between restricting her flying activities, public assistance and a certain amount of legal hustling, she had managed to delay the inevitable, although when the food stamps kept running out before the end of the month, there was only one option left that she was willing to lower herself down to.
Dating.
The phone gave out a toneless bleat as her timer went off, and Summer stepped off the edge of the building before she could talk herself out of this impending disaster. She had regained enough control over her powers that casual flight no longer endangered her plastic footwear, although the comfortable warmth of her passage melted a few leftover flakes of snow when she landed at the front door of the restaurant, right on time.
Entering the place was the hardest thing she had ever done. She would rather have fought Mighty Mite with one leg in a cast and a bad case of the flu… No, that’s not quite true. Mite would have thrown such a fight, taken a dive rather than hit somebody suffering, and probably brought over some chicken soup afterward. Probably soup from this place, too. There were no lines, nobody standing around waiting for a table, just an impeccably dressed gentleman who held the door open in front of her path and a painfully thin gentleman with a painfully thin mustache who met her inside and promptly guided her in the direction of an ornate table in a fairly private area.
A young man dressed in an expensive tailored suit looked up, caught in the act of pouring red wine into two glasses. It was hard to get a solid grip on his role in this theatre production because he had a very guarded expression, much like somebody who faced lawyers and criminals in court every day. Still, he lit up with at least supposed enthusiasm at her approach and pulled out her chair with a smile.
“A lady with impeccable timing, I see. Right on the dot.” He tapped his watch, a slim silver timepiece with old-fashioned hands. “If you’ll forgive me, I poured the wine early so it could breathe while we talk.”
“That’s fine,” she said to him before snagging the sleeve of the waiter or whatever he was. “Breadsticks?”
“As you wish, ma’am. I’ll have our server see to it.”
There was an awkward period of silence with the young man just looking at her across the table, more curious than anything, until he said, “Sorry, m’lady. I should have thought of that.”
“You should have thought—” She squelched the snappish response, although she could not bring herself to smile like a good and proper lady would. Instead, she arranged her grey outfit and got more comfortable on the rigid chair, giving him a brief nod. “It’s only proper to introduce yourself to a date.”
“Oh, yes. My apologies. My social life is a little limited. I’m Richard, but you already knew that from our text exchange. And you’re Summer Lewis.”
She waited for a moment to squash the irritated flames of anger that threatened to erupt, made only more difficult by a razor-sharp pain in her gut as her empty stomach tried to overrule her cautious mind. Far worse, the young man did not look like one of the creepy people who had dominated her life over the last few years, from screeching supervillains to arrogant lawyers. In respect for the general welfare of the other restaurant clients, their insurance agencies, and all the others who would suffer for her loss of control, Summer bit back her first response and growled through gritted teeth, “What gives?”
“Pardon?” The young man had a roguish way of raising one thin eyebrow that made him more attractive, but Summer forced down the sympathetic reaction since a young lady dressed in a server’s outfit was approaching the table with a basket of assorted breadsticks. After a few moments and only once she had a piece of bread in each hand, Summer continued in a low and menacing tone.
“You obviously knew about me before our date. The staff knew to bring me right here without even asking my name.” She glanced upward. “Right under the sprinkler.”
“You have distinctive hair,” responded Richard with a brief swipe of his fingertips across his own immaculate coal-black hair. “Yellow and red. It’s not totally unique in this day and age, but enough so that I could pass that along to the maître d'hôtel so he could ease your passage. And I will admit,” he continued quickly, “enough that a simple internet search told me a great deal about you. Mostly wrong, I suspect.”
Summer finished the second breadstick with a low growl and reached for a third. “No, it’s not. Just spill it now. What did you find out?”
“So… Firebug?” Richard waited until she had polished off the breadstick, plus several more, then handed her a linen napkin at the same time her stomach growled for more.
“Firebird. That’s my name now. Firebug was the name they gave me after I dropped into this world and fell into their control.” She flicked a finger at the unlit candle on the table, leaving it neatly burning with a tidy short flame. “You knew that, and you still showed up here. Are you expecting to skip out and leave me with the bill or something?”
Richard opened his hands wide in front of him. “I already paid in advance, and Simon has my card just in case. I just wanted to talk, or I never would have even downloaded that app.”
Summer snorted around the last of the breadstick, then reached for several more as her stomach gave off a sharp stab of hunger. “I don’t believe you. There’s only three kinds of people who swipe up on that blasted dating app. There’s the criminals who think they can drag me into some sort of scheme that will wind up with me back in prison. There’s gung-ho law enforcement types who are looking to get a feather in their cap by putting me back in prison for just talking about committing a crime. Future or past, or even fictional, they don’t care. And then there’s the third type. That’s you. Weirdos.”
Richard rubbed his smooth chin. “Admittedly, you’re right. Then again, who in this world is exactly normal? Not either of us, that’s for certain. And this place does an amazing gateau au chocolat for dessert. That’s not normal either.”
“Weird with money.” Summer gestured at the candle with the last breadstick and picked up the wine glass with her other hand. “If you make one move on me, one dirty joke or gesture, I’m not going to burn you. I’ll just leave, no matter where we are in the menu. You want to talk? This little talk is going to cost you. A lot.”
“Agreed.” Richard nodded. “As I said, all I want to do is talk. No recordings, no fake book deal promises, no lies on my behalf at all. You’re a very interesting young lady. Um… I don’t think that wine has had time to breathe,” he added as she washed down the last of the bread with the whole wineglass.
“I’m not going to starve while waiting for it to start respiration.” She picked up the wine bottle and refilled her glass. “And I’m not going to get drunk on just one bottle so stop looking like that. Five would only get me tipsy for an hour or so.”
From Richard’s expression, he had obviously not thought about that particular aspect of her ‘modification’ at the hands of science, although he did raise his folded menu to get the attention of their waitress, who was lurking nearby.
“Are you prepared to order?” asked the polite waitress with her eyes darting back and forth between her two customers, but eventually settling on Richard.
“Yes, I’ll have what we discussed previously, and the young lady will have…?”
“I told you this would be expensive.” Summer took the folded menu out of his hands and opened it, placing her finger on the right column and moving down. It let some of the steam out of her demeanor to think about what was going to come next, since the menu was edged in gold leaf, and none of the menu items had prices next to them. “Start with whatever he’s having, then I’ll have one of everything down to here.”
“Start with the soups,” said Richard to the startled waitress. “Bring them one at a time instead of all at once, and make sure Chef Ramone uses generous portions for the young lady. Oh, and some more breadsticks, s’il vous plaît.” He watched the waitress as she left, then turned back to Summer, who was filling her third wineglass from the nearly depleted bottle. “I should have had her bring the wine list.”
Summer shook her head, feeling her short hair brush against the collar of her grey ‘blouse’ while missing the heavy flow of a thick mane reaching her waist. “No need. I’ll send the empty bottle back with the first entree. They can just bring the cheap stuff—if this place has any cheap stuff—and I’ll make do just fine. Unless—” She cast an inquisitive look in the direction their server had vanished. “Do you think they have apricot brandy?”
Memories of a time long gone swirled around Summer, spiked with the glorious taste of apricots which had gone to their reward in a particularly glorious fashion. In her student days, the bottle she had ‘borrowed’ from the Royal wine cellar had been doled out over several weeks in small dribs and drabs, self-awared rewards for her studies, a substitute for pats on the back and words of praise that she had rarely received for her efforts. That had been a better time, before she had become so obsessed with power that she flung herself through an unknown portal in hopes of… To be honest, she still had no idea what she was chasing. The only thing she knew for certain is that she had not caught it, and was further away from it now than when she started.
Or what she was running away from.
“If they don’t have apricot brandy, the wine sommelier will find some.” Richard watched her pouring the last of the wine into her glass and wordlessly placed his own untouched wineglass onto her side of the table. “I think I will need all of my wits this evening. So, did you want to talk about the supervillain group who made you this way?”
“Only if you can tell me where they are. Not that I’m going after them, of course. There are crazy people in capes for that.” Summer gestured with the half-eaten lemon slice that had been resting on the rim of her water, since it was the only thing left on the table to eat other than the linen napkins. “I’m not doing anything that could possibly get me thrown back in jail. I don’t even cross against the light or step on bugs.”
“That bad?” asked Richard.
“Worse, and you can’t feed me enough to tell you half of it.” She looked over her shoulder again with her stomach growling. “Thought she’d be back by now. Anyway, the Consortium didn’t realize my metabolism was jammed in high gear either, and they didn’t care as long as I did their dirty work. Mind-control implants. It’s a great way to keep your disruptive minions in line without complaints.”
“I read about that,” admitted Richard. “Didn’t it get you off at trial?”
“First trial. Second one was more complex, and my own damned fault. Ah, here she comes.”
The waitress slid a bowl of fresh onion soup in front of Summer, then one for Richard, but by the time she turned around, the first bowl was gone and a napkin was in order.
“Really good, ma’am. If I could get a second bowl, please. Oh, thank you, sir,” Summer added as Richard passed her his bowl. A few seconds later, it too was empty and added to the stack of empty dishes that the waitress was taking back to the kitchens, along with the empty wine bottle.
“Wasn’t that hot?” he asked. “Or is that more of the Consortium’s genetic tinkering?”
“A little of one, a little of the other,” admitted Summer. “I can drink boiling water if I need to. Threw me for a real loop first time I found out. In less than a month after my ‘treatment’ at the hands of the Consortium, I went from a temp insurance clerk straight out of high school to a lab experiment to a genetic freak flying above a bank watching for the police. Had no real idea what I could do and they didn’t either. Six months after that, Mighty Mite hit me in the face so hard she broke my nose and my jaw at the same time. Woke up in a hospital with a power damping collar and a splitting headache. A month later, I was recovering from neurosurgery, and a year after that, all the criminal charges against me were dropped.”
“But you went to prison anyway after a second conviction?”
“I had a habit to feed. Literally.” She scooped up a crumb from the table and made it disappear. “Most addicts pay their pushers. I paid the donut shop for their leftovers, and anything else I could find on the cheap. Then there were the pizza deliveryboys.”
From his skeptical expression, Richard did not believe her. Since the waitress had returned with two more bowls of potato soup and a basket of bread, both in stick and slice form, she was willing to wait to educate him. That only took until she was wiping the bottom of the bowl with a slice of bread while he was still dealing with his spoon and blowing on the surface.
“You’ve never been hungry in your life, have you, rich boy?”
“Not particularly.” Richard was far faster than Summer first thought. He managed the trick of taking the last piece of sliced bread out of the basket without losing a finger. “I’ve been in trouble more often than I can count, but never in that way. I understand how desperation can lead somebody to make horrible decisions,” he added quickly between spoons of soup and bites of bread. “Heroes, villains, and ordinary people go through that every day, sometimes for the dumbest reasons. Rich people aren’t immune by any stretch of the imagination. They just get more people injured or killed in the process instead of nicking a couple of pizzas.” He paused. “Sometimes, there are turtles involved.”
“I didn’t get arrested for petty theft the second time,” she admitted while smothering an onion-y burp. “I was arrested for trying to rob an armored car to pay off the loan shark that I took money from in order to pay off the pizza place and other places so they wouldn’t have me arrested. It looked so easy, just like my time with the Consortium, right until Mighty Mite showed up. Again.”
“So is she an official nemesis or—” Richard wobbled his empty spoon back and forth.
“She was cashing a check at the bank, probably in her secret identity,” said Summer through gritted teeth again. “There’s nothing between us. It was just coincidence. Bad luck on my part.”
“She really doesn’t have that much of a secret identity,” pointed out Richard after a few more spoons of his potato soup. “She represented you at the first trial, after all. I mean how many young sub-five-foot-tall female defense attorneys with purple hair are—”
“It’s a secret identity,” said Summer with as much emphasis as she could without setting something or someone on fire. “Ethical supervillains, as much as that sounds odd, don’t mess with family, and generally, the heroes do the same.” Since she had some time before Richard finished his soup and the next course would arrive, she continued, “In the clink, I heard about two guys. I’m not going to name names. Anyway, there was one hero and one villain, with both having teenagers in the same school and they met by accident at one of the basketball games.”
“Awk-ward,” said Richard.
“It gets better,” said Summer. “Or worse, depending on how you look at it. They never really became friends, although they wound up taking in a few baseball games together in the summer, co-sponsored some school events, things like that. Then their kids started dating.”
“Uh-oh.”
“Heavens only knows how it’s going to turn out, but everytime I open a newspaper now, I check for fights and wedding announcements.”
Richard winced and put his empty bowl to one side, which seemed to trigger their waitress appearing out of thin air to collect all the dishes. Summer likewise stood up and looked around, making her excuse for a quick bathroom stop between courses.
It was no gas station toilet like she had become used to, but not quite the gold-plated and obsequious plumbing paradise she had pictured. The spotless marble lady's room did have an attendant with towels, which set Summer back. It was not exactly the most intellectually challenging job in the world, but the young redhead looked as if she was far overqualified from the way she tucked an expensive tablet computer into her outfit pocket when Summer entered. It also was a job without many physical challenges, so it was a bit disconcerting to see how well the attendant filled out her expensive uniform like she had a secondary career as a very expensive and pretty bouncer.
Summer took care of her business and washed up while thinking, and dried her hands on the proffered towel before deciding that asking was better than ignorance.
“Do people… tip you?” she asked.
The attendant obviously resisted a small smile, but nodded with a bob of her shoulder-length red hair, which made Summer dig around in the pockets of her grey blouse.
“This outfit isn’t very convenient for storage. I was meaning to take it up adding some more pockets with Widget, but she was difficult enough to deal with in the first place, and you really don’t want to push her on things like that or you’ll wind up with a costume that self-destructs when—” She produced a dollar coin and quarter, placing them into the small bowl on the bathroom sink. “Is… that enough?”
“That’s fine, ma’am. Um… You’re Firebird, aren’t you?” At Summer’s reluctant nod, the young woman gave a weak grin. “Can I get your autograph? Make it out to Barbara?”
* * *
Summer barely managed to get seated at the table again before their waitress appeared with two plates, one substantially larger than the other. “Pasta with garlic prawns,” she said with a sniff. “You’re on a date, and you ordered garlic prawns?”
“I told you I just wanted to talk,” said Richard as he arranged his napkin. “At sufficient distance.”
“I was a villain, not a vampire,” grumbled Summer while picking up her fork. Some rapid stabbing and chewing of the pasta later, she snagged a piece of bread out of the basket and began to mop up the remaining sauce. “I didn’t used to be this stingy. I used to count calories, and worry about how I was going to fit into a bathing suit.”
“No sane man would touch that line with a ten-foot pole,” said Richard while dealing with a dripping prawn.
“This isn’t fat any more,” said Summer, slapping one hand against her duracloth-covered arm. “I prefer to wear long sleeves and baggy clothes in public now because… Well.” She located the adjustment tabs in the folds of cloth and twisted them back to their costume position, feeling the cloth tense up to its normal skin-tight settings making it look more like body armor while waves of orange and yellow flowed out across the duracloth. She flexed, taking some quiet satisfaction in the way Richard’s eyes opened wide and the waitress coming up to take the empty plate stopped in her tracks.
“Impressive,” he managed while she was readjusting the cloth tension on her outfit back to the concealing slack and dull grey it was before. “I’ve seen women with practically zero percent body fat and that kind of build before, but you’re nothing like the pictures of your trial would suggest.”
“One upside to what the Consortium did to me. I could probably bench press five times your mass and carry you flying for an hour or two with the right protective gear, but that comes with a price. I’m more efficient now with practice, but I used to burn over three times the calories in normal activity, ten times when flying. A hundred times or more when fighting. The blithering twits they had pulling my strings never realized it. By the time Neuro pulled the Consortium’s little mind-control gadget out of my brain, I was well on my way to dying from malnutrition. Ah, thank you,” she added as the waitress slid another plate in front of her, this one simply heaped with large roasted garlic prawns.
“I read that the Consortium’s freed—pardon the phrase—experimental subjects were kept in a resort in upstate New York, and… Um… You know you’re supposed to shell those first,” said Richard, pointing with his empty fork at the rapidly reducing roasted prawns on her plates.
“Takes too long.” Summer broke off another prawn head and dropped it on the table before making the rest of it vanish with a crunch, leaving only the very end of the tail to join the scraps. She wiped her hands on the napkin, then patted the loose duracloth fabric across her front. “They called us Dee-Dees, for Dimensionally Displaced. That also worked for bra sizes. Went down the alphabet from there as I starved. When Mite broke my jaw the first time and hauled me away from the Consortium, all I had was skin.”
Another prawn met its gruesome fate, and Summer waved the remains at Richard. “I’m not sure you should call it a resort, since we weren’t allowed to leave. I didn’t care because they fed us. By the time what the media called the Consortium Trial came up, I was just above the weight I am now, with enough fat to be healthy and photogenic. They must have taken a billion pictures.”
“And nine months later, you get caught robbing an armored car, looking half-starved,” said Richard.
“Criminal record,” said Summer between prawns. “Cops won’t hire you, fire department treats you like an arsonist, and every single company takes one look at civil liability and runs the other way. Couldn’t even go back to work at the insurance company as a clerk since I was still setting papers on fire whenever I got upset.” She glanced upwards at the sprinkler head above their table while chewing. “Better now. Anyway, couldn’t make bail. No bondsman would touch me. And since—” she flicked her thumb up and let a small blue flame dance on the end of it for a moment “—I was an obvious hazard awaiting trial, they dropped me in the state pen and stuffed me into a suppressor collar. Cranked up to ten.”
Richard winced. “Seems a little extreme.”
“Depends.” Summer put the empty plate holding the prawn tails and heads to one side and began wiping her fingers. “I have to watch my temper or you’d be worried about more than just setting off the sprinklers. The prison doctor worried too, so he had my food drugged. I about overdosed on tranquilizers. Oh, wait,” she added to the waitress who picked up the empty plate. “Some more soup would be nice to wash this down. What’s available other than the onions and potatoes?”
“Soupe aux truffel noires,” said the waitress. “That’s chicken soup with minced truffles. One bowl?”
“Please.” Summer gave the departing waitress a final glance before turning back to Richard, letting her polite smile fade. She picked up a breadstick and used it to point at him.
“The armored car was a stupid act of desperation. I thought one quick heist would fix everything, and I was hungry. I don’t think well on an empty stomach. I do stupid things. Like tonight, for example.”
“You don’t strike me as a particularly stupid young lady,” said Richard, who had managed to pilfer a breadstick of his own out from under her nose. “And the worst thing you should take home from this evening is indigestion.”
“Ha!” scoffed Summer. “Anyway, I don’t remember much out of the last year in prison because of the collar and the drugs, but I was still hungry all the time. My mutated metabolism was all damped down to parked, I wasn’t thinking straight, and had nothing else to do, so everything I ate went to fat. I could barely drag myself out of my cell, but boy I could eat, and the warden let the cafeteria know that I could have whatever food I wanted. My lawyer was clueless, and didn’t see my weight gain as a problem. He was some pro bono reject, and he only worked on the criminal portion of my new legal woes.”
Richard tapped the last stub of his breadstick against his chin. “I thought the Consortium trial put an end to any criminal actions against you?”
“Criminal yes, civil no. Second time in prison, and there was an opening for the legal sharks when they found a bankruptcy judge who had it out for any supers, probably because some cape dropped a building on his car. Lawsuits are civil, and you don’t get a free lawyer for them so I wound up trying to represent myself while my brain was all fuzzed out.
“By the time my second criminal trial opened, all the lawsuits from my time as a puppet to the Consortium were closed, and the judge awarded them everything they asked for and more. I could have won the lottery and been further underwater than before. Lawyers,” she added in a bitter snap at the whole blasted occupation.
“It doesn’t seem fair that you were penalized for actions taken while under the influence of a third party,” said Richard, who had stopped eating with one untouched prawn still on his plate.
“Since when is life fair?” she countered. “I did the damage. How can I look at some kid in burn bandages and say it’s not my fault? When the Consortium was treating me like a puppet, I tried to limit the damage as much as I could, but people still got hurt. I feel worse for the parents, mostly. Their lawyers probably filled their heads with dreams of a big payout from Junior’s injuries, and all they got was beans and a fat bill for representation. At least the lawsuits got me out of prison for a few hours at a time. I was so fat by then they had to push me around in a wheelchair. Ah, the soup.”
Summer caught the bowl before the waitress could put it on the table and took a long drink out of it, only to carefully place it down afterward. “That is good. Going to take my time with this one, ma’am. Take a break for a bit, and thanks.”
“Now you’ve got me curious,” said Richard, picking up his spoon. “Mind if I try or would I draw back a stub?”
“One spoon. That’s it.” Summer pushed the bowl closer to him. “My second criminal trial date finally came up after that. The prosecutor wanted me in jail for life and offered no plea deal. She was running for re-election and my fat scalp would look good on her wall. With my old skinny picture in the campaign ads she had been running for most of the year, of course. I thought I could sway at least a juror or two by waddling onto the stand and crying.”
“You’re out,” said Richard, pushing the bowl back reluctantly. “Something must have worked.”
Summer lingered over a spoon of soup, savoring the rich flavor as much as the memory. “Mighty Mite testified about the armored car robbery. Took about an hour. Prosecutor asked her to stay in case I caused any trouble. I think the bitch was hoping for it. Get me angry and make me fire up during questioning, then see me taken out of the courtroom on a stretcher with a broken jaw. Again. So when it was my turn to take the stand, they unlocked me from the wheelchair with both hands shackled behind my back, I take one step… And down I go like a four-hundred-pound bag of potatoes.”
“Ouch.”
“No kidding.” Summer took another spoon of soup and blew across it to warm it up. “Woke up in the hospital with Mite right there. Later, I heard she ripped my damper collar off with her bare hands and flew me to the emergency room. Said my heart stopped twice. Cracked several ribs doing CPR. Without the collar and the drugs, they healed up in two days. That upstate New York place is great. They’re not hiring, though. I asked. Begged, even.”
“So…” Richard paused while the waitress brought out two plates of pan-seared Scottish salmon, one with a regular-sized piece, and the second nearly reaching the edges of the plate with a heap of asparagus drowned under cheese and garlic sauce. “Chef Ramone seems to be rising to the challenge, I see,” he added once the waitress left with the empty dishes.
“Don’t diss the chef,” said Summer, waving a large fork full of salmon at him. “If he’s single, I’d marry him in a heartbeat. I’m terribly prone to catabolysis since my time with the Consortium, and if I start breaking down muscle mass for energy again…”
“It would be bad,” said Richard. “Unfortunately, Chef Ramone is married.”
“So is the chef at the recovery facility,” admitted Summer. “Anyway, when the trial resumed at half my weight, I had a new counsel. Short and competent.”
“Isn’t it unethical for a lawyer to represent a client in a crime that she stopped by breaking her jaw?” asked Richard. “Twice.”
“Oh, and a new judge,” added Summer without a pause. “Lost enough weight I could walk by then, provided I wasn’t wearing one of those blasted damping collars. I was told where to stand, what to say, how to look, and what to wear when I was walked out of the courthouse to the car and back to upstate New York to recover some more. Got to the point where I couldn’t look lettuce in the eye, and I used to like lettuce.”
Richard finished chewing and wiped his lips. “Sounds scripted.”
Since Summer was chewing, she did little more than grunt.
“Of course, if it was scripted in some way, you wouldn’t want to admit it for legal reasons, and I’m not going to pry,” he added. “You’re once again a free member of society, and I haven’t heard of any banks being robbed by flaming bacon-haired maidens, so all is safe in the city once more.”
“Safe. Right.” Summer dealt with the rest of the salmon like a bear in springtime, giving the plate a quick swipe with a piece of bread once she had finished off the cheese asparagus. She caught the sleeve of the waitress as she arrived to clean the table and said, “Just a moment. I believe you can skip the steak tartare. I wasn’t really thinking when I ordered, and I used to be a vegetarian before—” She made a vague gesture at herself.
“So did you want to cancel the filet mignon also, ma’am?”
“Heck no,” said Summer immediately. “Make sure it’s well done, though. Crunchy is better than drippy. With ketchup.”
After a brief snort of derision, Richard said, “A barbarian instead of a supervillian, I see.”
“The last place that served me an underdone burger…” Summer took a deep breath, really unwilling to elaborate except for the way that Richard’s eyes widened in realization.
“You didn’t.”
“Did.” Summer held her hands together, one on top of another. “Fried it up right at the counter. Messy, but effective. I can’t go back there anymore, though. Banned. Like every buffet and lunch counter in town.”
The waitress, who had been listening with obvious amusement, promptly spoke up. “Chef Ramone can make a number of extraordinary hamburgers. They’re not on the menu, but—”
“Yes,” said Summer. “Skip the filet and get me one of each type he can dream up, please. Well done, no pickles, por favor. And that bottle of apricot brandy to wash them down.”
Richard was doing a poor job of hiding a smile, at least until the waitress vanished back into the kitchen area. “Hamburgers with brandy,” he eventually managed.
“Better than Chinese food,” she admitted, grabbing a fresh breadstick and dunking it in marinara sauce. “All you can eat buffets aren’t. You go now!” she added in a sharp falsetto, slowing down as she chewed. “They’re all afraid of me. For good reason,” she added as Richard seemed to be about to contradict her. “Fire has to be controlled, and I’ve always had a temper. Got me in trouble more than once before I let the Consortium fiddle with my genes. I’ve always had this thing about being controlled. Not getting what I wanted.”
“The city’s full of people with powers who can’t get what they want,” said Richard. “So they take it. Armored cars, for example. I think you know that more than most. Was it the same where you came from?”
“I would have taken it.” She picked up another breadstick and bit it viciously. “I was stopped. I had never been stopped before. Never. You have this saying. Money is power. Well, it’s wrong. Power is power. That’s what I wanted. I tried to take the money in the armored car because I was frightened. I had the power. I just couldn’t use it to do something as trivial as feeding myself without breaking the law.”
She waved the half-eaten breadstick around. “There are probably a hundred criminals in this city who would buy me my own buffet, but they want to use me for their own goals, and I’m never going to be used again. Not after what the Consortium did to me. Never.”
Giving the stub of the breadstick a vengeful stab into what was left of the marinara sauce, she swirled it slowly. “Maybe they were right. I’ve always wanted more than I could handle. I couldn’t get that kind of power where I was from, so I… ran away. I was so consumed with anger it made me blind with pain. I deserved that power. Thought I was smarter than every—” she coughed “—body else in the world. It hurt too much for me to stay. Didn’t listen. Didn’t wait. Didn’t ask why. Didn’t even try a different approach. Just ran.”
The silence stretched on, painful and thin, broken only by the distant click and clatter of other restaurant patrons out of sight.
“Sometimes,” started Richard before coughing and wiping something from his eye. “Some pain is too strong to face when you first encounter it,” he eventually added. “You have to get stronger than the pain first. Some pain… Some people can’t run away from their pain. It either destroys them, or they become something far stronger by growing into it.”
“My pain almost destroyed me. Completely self-inflicted. Little Miss Perfect.” Summer put aside the breadstick, despite wanting to bite its head off. If it had a head.
“Will you ever go back where you came from and face what made you leave?” asked Richard. “Or can you?”
“I don’t know.” She finished off the breadstick anyway and grabbed another, adding after she had swallowed, “There are people in this world who could undoubtedly make me a magic portal back home. I met some while I was recuperating in the enclave upstate. I didn’t ask then. Not going to ask now.”
“Why?”
It was a very small word, but Summer would rather have faced a disappointed Mighty Mite. Chewing on the breadstick did not help her find words that didn’t hurt.
“I’m not done. Growing, that is. I thought all I wanted was power. And when I got it, I turned into…”
She flicked her fingers at the lit candle on the table, giving it a quick swirl before snuffing it out and pulling the fire into her hand where it danced across her palm in a torrent of tiny sparks.
“Power is power. It comes in all sizes and strengths. It sounds trite, but you have to control it before it controls you. Every day, every time I use it, I get a little more leverage on it. I use fewer calories to do the same things, or brand new things like this. But I have to keep it under control, or…”
She popped the rest of the breadstick into her mouth before pointing the flickering flame at the far wall and swinging around like she was releasing an imaginary inferno to ignite the whole room. “You know, one slip and I could burn this building to the ground regardless of the sprinkler system, and laugh in the blazing rubble. The Consortium knew it, which is why they planted a controller in my head. The prison knew it. The tranquilizers and the suppressor collar only damped my power, not the anger behind it. Now I’m free, and…”
“Vengeance?” asked Richard.
“No. Never.” Summer let out her breath, returned the candle flame to its home, and watched it dance for a time. “That would make me into what they say I am.”
“Then you’re running away?”
“Not again.” Summer drew in another breath and held it. “I’m finding out who I really am. For the longest time, I thought that was a terrible person. Destroy the world kind of terrible. Evil in all senses of the world, but the more I look at myself, my real self once all the impurities were burned away, I’m not afraid any more. Are you?”
“If I was afraid of you, I wouldn’t be here,” said Richard. “I’m just curious. It’s gotten me into trouble before, and probably will again. For example, why did you point at the candle with two fingers? Does it channel your powers better, or is it just for dramatics?”
“This?” Summer held up one bare hand and looked at the way she had her index and middle fingers pressed against each other. It helped take her mind off the past, and let her relax with the humorous memory. “Habit, mostly. First time I used my powers in costume, I pointed like this.” She held her hand with all of the fingers together and her thumb curled against her palm.
“Blew my glove off and nearly hit a policeman. We exchanged awkward looks, he handed my glove back, and I flew off without setting him on fire for staring at my chest. My controllers liked to wear my costume cut down to here,” she explained, pulling down on the loose duracloth of the blouse until it stopped just below her small breasts, showing barely enough bare flesh to be called cleavage. Richard had the good taste to look away for a moment while she rearranged herself, but he eventually managed a polite but snarky response.
“Using all of your assets in a fight, I suppose.”
“I had some influence over myself while being controlled,” said Summer, grabbing another breadstick for emphasis. “Had more than one controller twisting my mind through the implant. Never saw their faces and none of them have been caught yet. One was a real pervert. Could hear their voices, so if I ever find—”
She broke off and picked up a nearby empty plate. It took considerable concentration, but she lit her fingertip from the candle on the table, focused the fire down to a single point, and wrote on the china with a light touch. The needlepoint of plasma under her nail etched a fine line where she touched, and when done, she put the plate back down on the table and picked up a loose fork. It took a slightly more diffused touch to melt off the last inch of the silver alloy without setting the sprinkler off above her, but she had been practicing, and filled in the etched signature with a glittering silver trail from the ex-fork.
“You’ll mark him for future identification?” asked Richard.
“The young lady in the bathroom wanted my autograph,” said Summer. “She didn’t have any paper, so I’m improvising.”
“That’s not an answer,” pointed out Richard.
“You’re correct.” Summer put the plate to one side and began picking bits of metal out of her palm. “Ow. Happens every time.”
“With great power comes melty things sticking to you?”
“Laugh it up, Mister Money.” She pointed two fingers at him. “You’ve never had a pair of nylons melt to your legs, or worse, underwire bras.”
Richard pursed his lips and winced, only to close both eyes and hold a hand over his eyes when she continued, “And don’t get me started on sex.”
Unseen until that moment, the arriving waitress gave a little gasp by her elbow and nearly dropped the brandy bottle she was carrying. “I’m sorry,” she gasped in something between a snicker and abject embarrassment.
“Don’t be.” Summer picked up the silver-chased plate and passed it over after the waitress put the bottle on the table, along with two empty brandy snifters. “Take this to the young lady in the bathroom, please.”
Once the waitress left, Richard shook his head. “I’m sorry for embarrassing you like that. With… you know.”
“Sex.” Summer let out a breath she did not realize she had been holding. “I don’t want to talk about it, but I can’t afford a shrink. You say anything about this—”
“My lips are sealed,” said Richard, holding one finger against his chest. “Burned shut.”
Giving a short nod, Summer opened her hand and picked at the last bit of silver metal embedded into her palm. “Suffice it to say, the prison system has guards who are willing to take advantage of somebody who is defenseless. Even a lard-ass. Probably the best for them. If I had even a flicker of my power back then…” She bit down on her lower lip. “I lose control when my emotions get going. Inside and out.”
Thankfully, Richard kept his comments to himself. He uncorked the bottle of apricot brandy and poured himself a thin layer on the bottom of his glass, then passed it over for Summer. She only looked at it for a moment, then began to pour into her own snifter. And pour. And pour.
“Maybe it’s for the best in the long run. I’ve never seen any of them again, and I know better than to look. There are some temptations that should be avoided at all costs.” She shook the bottle to get the last few drops of brandy out, then placed it to one side while looking off into nowhere in particular.
Richard swirled some of the brandy around in the bottom of his snifter, then took a sip. “So if you could go back in time—”
“I wouldn’t.” Summer placed her full snifter of brandy in front of the empty space where the plate was going to go when the waitress returned. “I have regrets. Everybody does. But you can’t solve them by going backward. They say you can never go home again, but I never realized how accurate that was until I left home and became somebody else. Going backward is admitting failure, placing yourself in the same situation you fought so hard to escape. You have to build your new self out of the wreckage of your old. Even if I was foolish enough to go back where I started, it’s not the same place and I’m not the same person.”
“So if somebody—and this is strictly hypothetical because I can’t—were to find a way to reverse what the Consortium did to you—”
“No.” Summer played with the lip of her brandy snifter, running one finger around the edge. “The Consortium gave me everything I wanted, everything I had dreamed of since I was young. Power. Flight. A place where I belonged. I own that decision and its consequences. I could probably shave my head and wear a wig, try to blend into society. Go back and deal with actuarial tables and accountants. Attend a real college instead of taking mail courses. Even go back to where I started. That would be defeat, not victory.”
Taking a long swig of brandy, she stared at nothing in particular. “Do you know the frustration of having a role model so powerful that you can never measure up to them, no matter how hard you try?”
Richard stifled a snort. “More than you’ll ever know. I think you will find it is better to become your best self rather than try forever to become somebody else, no matter what kind of pedestal you put them on.”
She took another drink of her brandy and moved backward when the waitress placed a plate heaped with french fries in front of her, then followed it up with another plate containing a hefty hamburger oozing with swiss cheese and loose mushrooms, while strands of raw onion stuck out of all sides of the bun.
“I’m sorry if that’s a bit much, ma’am,” said the waitress hesitantly. “The chef is taking this as a challenge, and— Oh.”
Summer did not hear much other than the crunch of lettuce and onions beneath her teeth. When she surfaced after working her way halfway through the burger, the waitress was nowhere to be seen, probably because she was afraid of being eaten also.
“I could have saved a thousand bucks by taking you to a burger joint,” said Richard, who had managed to sneak several of the french fries off Summer’s other plate while she was distracted.
“Another example of how I’ve changed and can’t go back.” Summer gestured with half a burger. “Before the Consortium, I never would have eaten this.” She grabbed several fries and washed them down with a mouthful of apricot brandy.
“So, forward then.” Richard did that annoying thing where he tented his fingers in front of his face, much like a few supervillains that Summer had briefly known. “Where?”
Summer did not say anything, even after the waitress brought out the next hamburger. It took three trips because she was sent back for ketchup at first, then for another plate of fries.
“For now, here,” said Summer after several bites. She pulled a pickle out of the hamburger with her fingers and dropped it on the napkin, but continued through the rest of the burger without a pause. “For later, anywhere but prison, or anything that might lead to prison. Been there, done that, got the mental scars.” She washed down the last of the hamburger with a good swig of brandy, then placed the empty plate to one side just in time for the waitress to place another one down.
“Kimchi and fried egg,” she said as Summer dug in. “It’s a little hot, so you might—”
It really did not matter, because Summer was too busy enjoying the mix of blazing flavor to say anything in return, but she did make an encouraging grunt. Richard merely watched, trying to hold back a smile and doing a rather poor job of it. She was just getting to the end of the damp sandwich crust when he twitched and pulled out his phone to look at a text.
“Darn,” he said.
Summer gasped, and held one greasy hand over her mouth. “Such language! By the way, I normally melt a date’s phone if they try to take a picture,” she managed before starting work on the french fries, glittering under a light coat of duck grease and a sprinkle of what she suspected was an expensive salt from somewhere thousands of miles away.
“That would be nice.” Richard typed a short response and tucked the phone back into his jacket. “The boss wants me back, now. The jet’s waiting at the airport, and no, don’t think I’ll ask to have you fly me out there.”
“A place with thousands of gallons of jet fuel all over the place,” said Summer between bites. “Probably a bad idea, even if you had an asbestos suit. Mind if I finish up here?”
“I would never get between you and fine cuisine.” Somehow, the young man managed to capture Summer’s hand as he stood, and brushed his lips against the backs of her fingers despite the thin layer of duck grease and salt. “I’m actually booked for a week at the hotel on the boss’s credit card. It would be a shame to see that go to waste. Penthouse suite. Room service. They have a spa, with a steam room.”
He added a plastic room card to her hand as he turned it over, then closed her fingers over it. “Simon will call you a cab and bill it to my card. Think of it as an apology for not making it to the end of dinner with a fascinating young lady.”
“I really shouldn’t,” said Summer while trying to think of excuses. It was difficult while looking into his sparkling blue eyes, all packed with mischief. “Think of your reputation. And your boss. Particularly if it all goes wrong and I set something on fire.”
“My boss is sorta-kinda expected to have exotic young ladies over at odd hours,” said Richard smoothly. He reached into a pocket and produced a monogrammed money clip, which was wrapped around a good number of high-denomination bills. “Tip well. It’s expected,” he added while pressing the cash into her palm. His phone took that moment to buzz again, and he winced. “My ride’s here. Sorry for the interruption. I’ll call by the end of the week if we can find a job for you. A legitimate job,” he added quickly when Summer started to object. “Everybody who tries deserves a second chance. Sometimes three or four until you get it right.”
And with that, Summer was alone again. Well, except for the remaining fries. She convinced the waitress that she was done with burgers for now, skip the snails, and perhaps one bowl of the cheesy macaroni because she was fascinated with the way every restaurant fixed it in a different manner. Then she sat there for a time, swirling the leftover apricot brandy while thinking of a place far away, and what changes had most likely occurred after she crossed over into this world.
It would have been easy to peel the bills out under the stylized R of the money clip and slip away, good for another month or two before hunger drove her into another disaster date. Then again, the use of a penthouse suite for a week made for some very tasty cheese, if this was a trap. And she had always wanted to see how this world managed the luxury she had practically ignored in her own world. It certainly showed in their macaroni, because it was exquisite, and the magnificent gateau au chocolat, which she managed to stop eating after thirds. Well, fourths.
Life was getting better. She had been deeply concerned that her date was going to be some psycho or supervillain like so many others before. Having him be just some eccentric rich guy working for a richer guy was… a nice change of pace.
Firebird Freedom
Rise
Summer Lewis burned.
Stretching up into the dawn sky with the risen sun engulfing her in light, she luxuriated in the blazing sensation. Wrapped in flame but not consumed, she balanced her control with the freedom of the air, scouring across her skin with solar plasma that left her untouched and unsinged.
It would have been easy to unleash her whole strength, burn with every fibre of her being until nothing but ash and smoke remained of her life in this strange world. The temptation had occurred more than once, from when she was a slave to the Consortium through her two criminal trials, but becoming entirely consumed in fire would have been a failure she was not ready to accept. Thus, her old self had burned away to nothing, leaving only Summer Lewis in her wake.
Instead of regretting her decision, she soaked in the sunlight, filling herself with the rising sun’s blessing, the welcome touch of home in the form of million-degree plasma, muted by distance but still filled with the dancing and swirling of its creation. It was as close as she could return to her mentor and the reason she fled to this strange world, a failure in progress that had not yet been resolved and she was unsure if it would ever reach a destination, good or bad.
She still maintained her concentration, much as when she had been a student so long ago. In this world, the first time she got too excited during flight the flames took all of her hair right down to the last root and it took a week before she looked even marginally combable.
Dawn had always been her favorite time of day. Back then, it was a few precious moments spent like diamonds, talking with her mentor once the sun was over the horizon. Dawn went well with breakfast, where they discussed the problems she had resolved last night and the teacher gave suggestions on where to apply her studies in the sunlit hours to come. For just a bare hour or two, she had the full and complete attention of an extraordinary individual, and the feeling of fresh sunlight no longer filled Summer with rage at being denied the knowledge withheld from the perfect student, or crushing regret over the life she had left behind.
That was then. This was now.
The old her wanted power above all else. For that, she had thrown away the only friend she ever had, betrayed her trust, and fled the whole world when discovered. Well, she had gotten power beyond anything she had dreamed of, but the price had been higher. It took this world’s short powerhouse punching her in the face to turn her life around, a friend of sorts providing a sharp change in her life’s direction. Her friend, eventually. Distantly. And other friends like Widget who had provided their assistance in one way or another.
After the trial, turning away from them had been habit. She could have asked Mite for anything… Well, other than a place to stay. There was barely enough room in Mighty Mite’s cramped apartment for one and her robot pet. Asking was anathema. Summer had to stand on her own, and had fallen so hard, over and over again, until she finally could rise.
With one last turn in the embrace of the risen sun, feeling the blessed warmth on all sides of her body, Summer drew her will away from the pleasure of flight and descended. In the battle between instinct and willpower, control was a positive mark in her unseen gradebook, balancing the desire to become a phoenix rising into the sky and burning until there was nothing left but ash against the knowledge that her mundane job began shortly, and it would be a good idea to take a shower with water so she did not smell like burnt hair all day.
So she damped her flame and swung wide of the apartment walkway, landing carefully so the cool concrete would not hurt her bare feet. Rather than grasp the doorknob right away and possibly melt something, Summer took a few deep breaths and looked around, trying not to notice the way the curtains in a nearby apartment abruptly closed, concealing the young man she had caught watching her several times in the last month.
Then she was through the door and speeding through her mundane morning routine, from showering off the smell of singed hair to brushing her teeth and getting the duracloth of her costume laid out from where she had stuffed it under the bed last night. She wore the boots, which still put out a lot of ‘supervillain’ vibe but she had not found a replacement for the WidgetWear creation so with a little talcum powder here and there she was ready to leave again.
To her job.
Such a small word that signified a large victory. There were very few positions of employment open for former supervillains with finances that had been ravaged by lawsuits and bankruptcy. The apartment was just as much low-bid government issue as her cellular phone, but her bank balance had been creeping upward as of late so a change of address would not be unwelcome. Not that the neighborhood was dangerous, per se. At least to a young woman who caught on fire and flew. And the other residents of the apartment complex—at least the law-abiding people—had become accustomed to having a guardian angel fly overhead at random times during the evening. Mostly because Summer was well-known to the city police department, and a patrol car could be dispatched to an incident much faster if the perpetrator was suitably unwilling to resist citizen’s arrest by a buxom young lady, on fire, and hovering close enough to singe their eyebrows.
She put on her headpiece, which she still wanted Widget to rebuild into something that looked less like a bike helmet, and flitted out the door skybound again. With luck, nobody important had noticed her morning expedition and—
A sharp buzz from the helmet and a blinking green icon floating down on her visor shot that hopeful thought out of her head like a death ray being turned onto her flight path.
“I’m a little late this morning, Control,” started Summer while turning more to the south and speeding up until she was in danger of letting loose sparks from her velocity. That would be far worse than being late to the job since the whole area inside Oregon was under a fire watch, and a forest fire was merrily burning away a mere twenty or thirty miles away for the last few days.
“Parolee,” snapped the voice on the other end of the communication link. “This is the third complaint we had called in on you this month. If there are any more, I’m afraid we are going to have to take action. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir,” she replied.
“Well, don’t let it happen again. Control out.” There was a brief pause on the cellular connection and Haerold returned, sounding far less ominous now that the recorder was probably turned off. “Good God, Summer. Put on a duracloth shirt or something when you take your early-morning flight. You’ve got a Karen in the apartment complex who thinks you’re corrupting the morals of her baby boy. Can’t you just shave your legs like a normal woman?”
“Can’t help it,” she practically chirped over the sound of the wind. “It’s Thursday.”
“And you’re headed up into the mountains to spend the extended weekend with your boyfriend.” Haerold sighed over the microphone however many miles away he was. “Be careful out there. The fire over by Jackpot Creek may turn west if the wind shifts, and the whole area around Twin Sisters is a powderkeg. One spark in there and the whole valley will go up like a volcano right through several small towns. We’ve got a crew cutting a firebreak, but it’s slow going. Try not to light anything up when you bring them lunch, okay?”
“I’ll keep my eyes open.” Summer could not resist a short barrel-roll. “Are you sure you don’t want me involved in the fire-fighting? I can at least spot for the crews even if I can’t put out a fire without endangering anybody in the vicinity.”
“Mentioned the possibility to the bosses in a meeting once,” said Haerold. “Thought they were going to have so many strokes and heart attacks I would have been the only one left in the room. I don’t know how they got unbent far enough to let you run groceries out to the lookout towers. Now that Weather Witch is out of the country for however long it takes her team to finish that outer space disaster they got sucked into, they’re worse. If it wasn’t for the lookout tower crews giving you perfect ratings and threatening to quit…”
“I understand,” said Summer, who had slowed down since the call was not about her traditional tardiness, but she picked up speed again when her stomach rumbled. “Any other news? I’m about to the pickup point.”
“Couple new heroes in town. The giant squid out in Portland’s harbor hasn’t been cut up and disposed of yet. Something about an environmental impact statement. Nothing that isn’t in the papers. Fly safe. Control out.”
“Firebug… that is Firebird out.”
It was a habit that Summer tried to break, but eventually gave up and just used the name whenever she wore the gear. A Not-Exactly-a-Secret-Identity was handy when she went out groundbound for certain things. There was a sort of etiquette to the business which went along with the costume. It favored the criminal, because they plotted and planned while a hero was frequently called on short notice, and no bank robbery was ever delayed because Captain Courageous needed a few minutes in the men’s room to zip up his fly.
She flared her landing into the QuickEats Groceries ‘n Gas parking lot on the other side of the gas pumps—because caution was important when dealing with explosive fumes—and walked in through the employees’ entrance.
“Summer!” Ada Chu was bigger on the inside than her diminutive outsides, and ran her restaurant slash gas station slash souvenir shop with the same vigor her Vietnamese ancestors fought the French and then the Americans. Thankfully, Summer was on her side, or at least the tiny lady viewed her appetite as a challenge worthy of her best efforts at the grill. Before Summer could say another word, she was tucked in behind a table with a heavy platter of scrambled eggs in front of her and a sizable spoon in her hand.
“Your orders are all packed up in the freezer, and the first one is loaded into your carrier.” Ada patted her on the shoulder. “You eat first. It’s Thursday. Keep your strength up for your young man.”
It irked Summer that her extended weekend plans were so transparent, but it was comforting also. She took off for her first delivery with a full belly and a smile on her face, swinging down a good portion of an hour later at a fire lookout station perched on the corner of a national forest. Pike was sitting out on the steps with his notebook and binoculars, taking a few moments to acknowledge her presence before returning to scanning the horizon for trails of smoke.
“The wind is blowing away from us,” she said, putting the heavy duracloth carrier on the ground. “As long as that holds out, the fire’s not coming this way. The water flights are doing a fair job of keeping it in control for now.”
“Good thing,” grunted Pike. He was an old military man who was cranky enough to enjoy time away from any other human beings, but he always had a crack in his facade for blazing young women descending from the sky with ice cream and fresh bread. He also had no problems expressing his opinions regardless of the way they clashed with his superiors, which was only reinforced by the way he continued, “If Weather Bitch stays away another year or two, maybe we’ll get enough of the undergrowth burned back so we won’t have the whole world going up in flames whenever anybody tosses a cigarette butt out of a window. She thinks the whole damned forest is her own garden.”
Summer chuckled to herself when Pike tried to do the macho move of picking up the transport case and could do little more than shift it a few feet. She hefted it instead and let him put away the water bottles while she packed the cold cuts and ice cream into his propane-powered freezer. That would have to be refueled by more conventional means. There was no way she was going to fly however many pounds of liquid propane through the sky, even as a condition of her parole.
Then again, once a student, always a student. By the time she left the fire lookout behind and set her course back for the restaurant and her second delivery, she was toying with just how the task could be accomplished without risk. Perhaps a long duracloth rope and considerable caution, like when she had helped ferry solar panels up to Luiz.
By her fourth morning delivery for the Forest Service, Summer had quantified the theory into a prospective macrame pattern to hold three propane cylinders trailing behind her during flight. It would affect her center of gravity, but as long as she avoided high speed and sharp turns while carrying no other load, it should be fairly safe. At least it would be safer than working on the handcrew below her, making a firebreak through the thick underbrush.
She swung wide and made sure to only fly over the raw turned earth on her descent, giving a brief wave to the sweating crew using shovels and some weird ax/adze combo to clear out brush that the small huffing bulldozer was pushing to one side. A good stretch of trees all around made the little firebreak trail of turned dirt look small and insignificant, something that the forest fire she had seen miles away would step across like a giant would cross a stream if the wind shifted.
It was easy to remember when they first met, how several of the inmates had been giving her flack during a court appearance, and Cutter had interposed his body as a barrier to their taunts. Summer had not even managed a mumbled thanks of any sort during the hour or two he stood there, silent and impassive while protecting her in his large shadow, but it had been a rare blessed time of relative peace in her scrambled mind. Later when she had been talking to Mite, she mentioned their meeting in passing, only to have the memory come back when her second trial and his interview for the Conservation Camp Program had ‘coincidentally’ left them in adjoining holding cells for a few hours.
He had prayed for her.
She had tolerated the odd behavior, and during their correspondence afterward, grown to appreciate the faith that a former stranger had in such an unworthy vessel.
“Hey, Angel!” A familiar broad-shouldered black man wearing the orange vest and coveralls of a handcrew strode boldly in her direction, waving a broad hand caked with dirt and ashes. Summer had taken some adjustment to realize just how many former and current prisoners made up the Forest Service crews, and only slightly resentful that she could not participate in that fashion.
“Hey, Cutter,” she responded, sliding her load to the ground and starting to pull boxes out of it. “Got hot franks and beans for your crew, couple gallons of ice water, and a crate of frozen water bottles. You still up for your parole hearing next month?”
“Looking forward to seein’ my girls again. Keepin’ my nose clean until then, and after.” He rubbed said nose to get a flake of ash off it and took the roll of moist towelettes Summer handed him with a grunt of appreciation. “Looking good now, but if the wind changes, we need to be out here muy pronto. Once the fire gets a hold of that litter, this whole valley will go up like Hell on Earth. Ain’t burned well nigh unto three decades or so.”
“Weather Witch?” asked Summer as she stacked boxes.
“Yeah. Dis used to be her favorite garden. Had a little hut down there.” He waved one filthy hand downhill where a broad dry brown expanse replaced most of the thick greenery covering the rest of the national park. “Couple miles of dry pine. Bark beetles ripped it to hell when she left. Probably better if it gets burned flat and replanted, but don’t you go tellin’ her that.”
“I’m not on speaking terms with most heroes,” admitted Summer. “Punching terms, yes. And I still owe Mighty Mite a few thousand dollars.” She finished tucking her empty backpack into a traveling configuration for the next load and gave a good, long look at the smoke that covered the far end of the valley.
“Me too,” said Cutter. “She repped me for this spot, and represented a cousin of mine who went straight. He said if you can do it, he could. ‘Course he didn’t try robbing no armored car afterward. Suspect that’ll follow you around as much as his time in the joint.”
She winced, although Cutter patted her on the shoulder in sympathy, but only briefly because her costume was still fairly hot. “You fly straight, Angel.”
“You too,” she answered by reflex. “Try not to get toasted.”
“God puts us where the fire’s the hottest, Angel.” Cutter grinned, a brilliant line of bright white teeth and one gold crown in his dark and dirty face. “On account of that’s where we do the most good.”
She only cried a little once she reached the cool air of her flying altitude, and the tears were long gone by the time she landed to pick up her next load.
The glint of light from the metal roof of Fire Spotter Station #21 was a welcome sight to Summer after a long day of deliveries and her inadvertent delay. She curved her way down, getting a good look at all sides of the hilltop structure from the original stone construction some fifty years old to the shining metal shed put in by Luiz last spring. She had flown the solar panels on the roof in one at a time, and the burly Brazilian had wired up an electric car battery pack to provide power for his limited collection of electronics in the house. It was worth it if nothing else for the long evenings spent curled up in front of the television set, watching old American movies mixed with Japanese manga and learning Spanish. Among other things.
With the forest fire a short distance away, spending the weekend exploring satellite channels and marveling at the variety of bizarre human programming was probably right out. Despite the cluster of cameras on the roof of the old fire spotter shack making him redundant, Luiz would probably spend the night in the glass-lined top floor, using the antique Osborne Firefinder to track any visible flames and type in the coordinates on his laptop.
Technically, the Forest Service no longer needed a human at the site, but all Summer knew was Luiz had purchased either a lease or bought the place outright, and had been living the life of a hermit for over a year before Summer dropped in on her first delivery job. It was a win-win solution for the federal agency since having a real person on-site allowed for personal maintenance on the remote rooftop cameras when one jammed or popped due to lightning. Plus, they could not lower the cameras enough to see any activity directly next to the historic building, so there was little chance of Summer getting remotely ogled by a bored camera operator a hundred miles away. That meant it was one of the few places in public she could sunbathe comfortably.
“Mother Mary!” exclaimed Luiz before she touched ground. Putting the spatula back onto the grill shelf, he caught her helmet as she peeled it off and put it on the drying rack to one side of the house. “Summer, what happened?”
“There’s a new hero in town,” she muttered, easing the duracloth carrier to the ground and taking off her gloves. “He thought I was stealing your lunch. Hope he didn’t break the eggs.”
“Looks like he broke something more important.” Luiz’s thick-fingered hands were delicate on her cheek as he touched the pressure cut, tracing the way it extended back toward her ear. The fire she could feel tickling her nerves was only partially imaginary because she could see the reflection of tiny flames in his dark eyes, although Luiz had never winced or jerked away from burns, and his gentle touch on her face today was no exception.
“Just bruises. Couldn’t maneuver. If I hadn’t been carrying your groceries, I wouldn’t have even gotten touched. Punk kid.” Summer turned away from temptation and removed a dripping container of eggs from the bag, giving it a fierce frown. “More for the compost heap, I suppose. The brauts are fine, just marinated a bit.”
“Marinade?” Luiz stopped the entirely welcome touching he was doing in order to pick a half-gallon of milk out of the mess, check it for leaks, and set it to one side. “Looks like he did some tenderizing on your face. You turning into a hero in your spare time?”
Summer made a fist and grinned, ignoring the feeling of a loose tooth settling back down in its socket to heal. “Plasma punches need practice, and the tinpot twit needed to be taken down a notch. Didn’t even introduce himself before hitting me from behind. But I came out on top and dropped him off at the hospital. He’ll be fine.”
* * *
“Stop whining, you baby.” Summer swept down onto the emergency room entrance, placing her heavy duracloth carrier on the sidewalk before carrying the iron-clad errant hero inside and slamming him down on a gurney. “Hey, somebody come out here and pound the dents out of Tin Man!”
“Firebug?” One of the orderlies peeked out from behind the door, keeping the fire extinguisher pointed in her general direction. He seemed torn between being concerned for the flammability of the hospital, the well-being of the battered hero in broken power armor, and Summer’s battered face, although he did glance once a bit lower like all humans did when they saw her in the tight outfit. “We heard there was a fight, but…”
“Firebird, but yeah.” Summer began pulling her fingers out of the armor’s chestplate where she had been carrying the rich weirdo, splattering little bits of molten metal around with every tug. She was not in the best of moods since the ambush had happened while she was distracted by pleasant thoughts of her upcoming weekend, and her knuckles were bruised from punching his armored suit. Plus, she had probably broken a nail inside her gloves.
“The twit kidney-punched me while I was on a delivery. Some sort of power armor he probably bought out of a catalog, since he can’t fight as well as he can shout clever one-liners. I melted his boot jets out so he’s not going to fly away. Just get your can opener and pop the top on this moron so I can get back to work, please.”
“I’m not opening up my armor,” said the guy inside the armored suit. “I’ve got a secret identity to protect, and—”
Summer had a schedule. In a single violent motion, she had the idiot’s faceplate in one hand and was crumpling it into a ball, revealing a startled young man with a thin mustache and cut lip.
“Open up the rest of the armor so the doctors can take a look,” she snapped. “I punched you around the spleen a few times, and they need to make sure I didn’t break anything except a nail. So if you don’t peel that suit off from the inside, I’ll peel it off from the outside and I can’t guarantee some parts of you won’t come with it. You have until the count of ten.”
She made a smoldering fist and held it in front of his bare face “Seven. Eight…”
“Eject-eject-eject!” yelled the idiot, and bent pieces of his armor scattered around the emergency room like metal playing cards.
* * *
“Anyway, I’m fine. Or I will be in an hour or two,” said Summer, running her fingers through Luiz’s curly chest hair. It was one of the best things about him, or at least fairly high on the list. He reminded her of home, in a good way, from the way his house was perched on the side of a fairly tall hill in the area to the way he liked to be constantly busy with improvement projects like solar electric panels and the sun-warmed tank out back of the garage-shed they used to take showers in the summer.
“Uh…” Luiz gently took her hand in his and moved it away reluctantly. “We discussed this, Summer. You know how you get after… fighting. And besides, I told you I wanted to wait until I could introduce you to my mother.” Summer’s other hand was free, and she traced a line down his suntanned belly to the waistline of his duracloth shorts as he tried to continue. “And t-there’s a f-few things I should t-tell you about—”
His lips were cool against hers, and tasted of salt and ashes. It lasted far too short a time before Luiz took a breath and pushed her away, blinking rapidly. “Summer,” he said in a cautioning tone, but her frustration made a mess of things as always.
“Oh, skip it.” Summer turned on her heel and strode off to the back of the garage where Luiz had run a garden hose from the twenty-gallon plastic tank stuck up in the sunlight. By this time in the afternoon it would be nice and lukewarm, like their relationship had become. “Wouldn’t want to burn anything off.”
It was totally uncalled for, and Summer felt miserable the moment the words left her mouth. Wallowing in the shower for an extended time did not help, even though she used most of the shampoo and the last trickle of the water tank. She did take the time to flip the electrical switch on the tank so it would refill from the spring downhill, and really did not wish to continue her shower with the icy contents even if she probably should.
In her absence, Luiz had obviously taken the time to sort out the ruined groceries and put them into the compost bin since the rest of the picnic supplies were gathered near the grill. It was a modern red egg-shaped thing that had been deemed the sole property and possession of the griller, administered with great care and skill for her personal menu fulfillment. As a contrast, the old picnic table next to it dated back decades to the construction of the fire spotting station, and had provided them a place for many delightful meals together. Now it had a tablecloth thrown over it with plastic containers of potato salad and coleslaw ready for opening, and the inevitable condiments ready for application to packages of brats and pre-shaped burgers once they had been appropriately sacrificed to the ancient American ritual of grilling.
Summer stopped peeking and came the rest of the way around the corner of the garage, wrapped in a towel with her soggy costume thrown over one shoulder. Luiz was only slightly more dressed than her, in his rugged duracloth shorts and sandals with a ‘Kiss the Cook’ apron than normally hung next to the grill. It had taken him weeks to get used to her idea of ‘comfort’ out here in the mountains where other people would not stare, and he always struck a comfortable balance between respected observance and looking too much. It was another step in her progress to becoming less of a villain and just possibly worthy of… something else. It was time to stop running for a change. If she could stop.
“I’m sorry,” she started before Luiz could say a word.
He pretended not to hear, hunched over the red egg-shaped grill with a bottle of charcoal starter.
“I never used to say that when I did something wrong,” she added. “Back when I… wasn’t a human.”
“Just because the Consortium gave you powers—”
“Before that,” said Summer before he could get the wrong idea. She forced the words out that she had been holding back for far too long. “I’m dimensionally displaced.”
He looked up at that, giving her an appreciative observation before returning to the grilling ritual while she continued.
“I didn’t want to admit that so I’ve been lying to you about where I was from. I come from… a place that is far different from here, but my hard head was just as hard, even if it was shaped differently. And the Consortium didn’t pull me from the other dimension,” she continued as quick as she could get the words out. “I came here of my own free will. And stupidity.”
“You told me you ran away from your teacher,” said Luiz, absently squirting more fluid on the charcoal. “I imagined it was some European tiny little kingdom on the side of a mountain like Liechtenstein since you kept referring to royalty.”
“Oh, if only.” Summer let out a brief chuckle which quickly died out. “This isn’t my original body by any measure.”
“I like your body just the way it is,” said Luiz, who was still engrossed in getting a smooth, even coat of charcoal starter put over the future fire. “And your mind.”
“Yours too,” said Summer. “Obviously. I just… don’t want to tell you the whole truth quite yet. Not without a few bottles of wine and enough time to let it soak in.”
The silence stretched long before Luiz said, “I haven’t been totally honest with you either.”
He did not explain any more, but kept putting starter on the charcoal. It was one of his more annoying traits, letting silence speak for himself, but Summer had learned to slow down and give thought to their discussions during these pauses.
Thoughts that were abruptly thrown into chaos as Luiz clicked the lighter and flames promptly leapt from the soaked charcoal to his apron, engulfing him in fire in the blink of an eye.
“Hold your breath!” managed Summer. Still scrambling for sanity, she pulled the fire spreading across his body, yanking hard until not a single spark endangered the petroleum-soaked Brazilian. The resulting flames danced across her bare skin, making her drift backwards so she did not ignite him again while she shouted, “Baka! What do you think you were doing? You could have been killed! Or hurt,” she added as she gave him another look and didn’t see any serious burns.
“I can explain,” started Luiz, but Summer was bubbling over with anger and in no mood to be explained-to.
“Just… give me a few minutes,” she managed before shooting almost straight up into the smokey mountain air.
* * *
It took longer than a few minutes for Summer to calm down. The sharp scent of burnt pine stuck with her no matter how high she climbed, looking for a breath of fresh air and only finding more wisps of smoke and gritty ashes. Even the distant fires were blotted out by scudding collections of smoke, leaving her trapped in a bubble of dirty air and bad memories. Still, she could not stay in the air forever no matter how much she wanted, even though she did not feel hungry at the moment.
Well, not that hungry.
Then again, landing would be a good idea before one of the firefighting aircraft collided with her in the haze, since she did not have the transponder in her helmet to warn off other fliers. And there was the food, which would just be wasted if she flew away.
Descending to the mountain firespotting station was difficult, since after landing she was going to need to say something. So she tempered her descent, giving one of the fire station’s rooftop cameras a shaken finger as it panned to look at the interesting flaming naked woman, then turned to examine a more work-related distant wooded ridge.
The warm gravel under her bare feet was welcome, but not as welcome as Luiz and his open expression that showed no anger at her sudden departure, only pleasure that she had returned.
He just stood there in his shorts, still damp and dripping from his obvious shower, holding Summer’s ‘Guardians!’ beach towel which she noticed had several fresh crispy holes. “I washed off the charcoal starter,” he said almost before she had both feet on the ground. “You’re going to need a new towel.”
“It’s just a little singed.” She picked up the damp towel, ignoring the holes she had burned in it while saving him from immolation, and deliberately spread it on the section of rounded gravel ‘lawn’ that she had been using to sunbathe. It helped to keep her bare posterior pointed in his direction, and if she still had a tail, she would have swished it viciously.
There was more silence, broken only by the crackling of the charcoal in the grill and Luiz’s experienced manipulation of the grilling tools. It only made her think about how much she did not want to think, and she compensated by calling over her shoulder, “See anything you like?”
“I see everything I like,” said Luiz. “It’s just… Before you arrived, I got word that my parents are in the country. The cartel… I think it would be far easier to explain for each of us after I introduce you. No more lies.”
“Oh.” Sunset imagined the swishing of an imaginary tail on her sun-warmed rear end. “Spoiled your announcement, didn’t I?”
“Not… totally.” She could hear the sound of burgers and brats being rearranged on the grill, and her stomach ruined the moment by giving out a dramatic growl.
“Sorry about that,” said Summer, putting her head down on the towel and feeling the sun-warmed pebbles underneath. “It’s a habit. Running, that is. Like after I pulled the fire off you. I… It would be so easy to run away again. The biggest mistake in my life involved running, so I’m a little touchy about hurting people. I’ve hurt so many. Even ran away from the only friends I made here.”
“Mighty Mite.” Luiz arranged some more items on the grill. “You can’t stop talking about her. I’m starting to think you liked it when she punched you.”
“I’m a closet masochist. Without a closet.”
“You’re feeling guilty.” Luiz tended the grill silently for a time until adding, “It’s not just about what you did in our world, is it? You said you fled your dimension. Were you banished or just running away again?”
It was Summer’s time to remain silent while thinking. “You’re too smart.”
“Gotta keep on my toes around you.” Summer could hear the quiet crunch of gravel as Luiz drew closer, and she cracked her eyes open a fraction so she could see his physical toes, all broad and hairy like the hobbits she had seen in that movie. It was another odd thing about this world, but she had learned to appreciate it. Among other things.
She rolled over and accepted the plate of brats and burgers, along with a kiss for the cook, tasting like warm ashes and salt. Then it was time to eat, and Summer did not pay any attention to much more than the delicious crunch and taste of Luiz’s cooking. Thankfully, her mutated physiology treated capsaicin in a similar fashion as real fire, because Luiz loved his peppers. The south side of the cabin was overcrowded with pots to collect the warm mountain sunshine, and several of the varieties he grew could probably burst into flames with a brisk nudge or two.
She ignored his snickering as he got his own plate and walked back beside her, but it piqued her curiosity and she had to ask, “What?”
“You look like an otter,” he snickered. “Curled up around a clam. Nom, nom, nom.”
Summer waited until she finished chewing to respond. “Maybe it’s not a good day for too much honesty.”
“Maybe.” Luiz settled down beside her after spreading the fire-damaged apron to one side. “If I get too honest, I’d have to ask when you’ve gotten your weight back up to where you want to keep it, and adjust my grocery bill to match.”
She spared the condemned man a long look from over the top of her hamburger bun. “Are you saying I’m getting fat?”
He matched her gaze. “Are you saying you want me to quit cooking for you?”
“I’d say…” She hesitated, drawing out the tension and relishing the heat of the sun across her body as well as Luiz’s warm presence. “Perhaps it is best to just take the days as they dawn. Or afternoons.
* * *
It was a very pleasant afternoon of nothing in particular, spent in the mutual company of two people who could not trust each other enough to reveal their inner secrets. But they were young, the sun was warm, and there was time.
Until there wasn’t.
As the sun began to near the horizon, her visor on the drying rack took that moment to chime with three sharp tones, signifying an emergency that superseded whatever kissing they had been doing to that point.
“Puckernuts,” she said instead of an appropriate profanity. It took several quick steps to grab her visor and slap it on her head, but she did not have a chance to say anything useful as the caller started talking first.
“Cupcakes,” she managed. “Can you… I know… Yes, he’s handsome… No, we haven’t… The wind is still…”
The constant breeze that had been bringing cool mountain air to their picnic spot shifted abruptly, and Summer could smell the acrid scent of the nearby forest fire grow. She was not the only one to notice. Luiz looked upwind and snapped out a short curse in Spanish that he had not taught her yet.
“Gotta go,” said Summer with her thumb over the disconnect, which was the only way to get out of a conversation with Cupcakes. “Say hi to Mite for me and I promise to write soon bye!”
By the time Summer looked around, Luiz had pulled a flip phone out of his shorts pocket and was talking into it rapidly enough that she could not pick out a single word. It gave her enough time to finish off the last of her plate and go looking on the table for something quick to grab. If nothing else, she needed to visit Cutter and his crew. Since the wind shifted positions this quickly and Cupcake could feel it on the other end of the country…
“I need to go,” said Luiz abruptly. “The fire above Piney Canyon bit into that chunk of dry pine and it’s building strength, fast. If it gets into the canyon, it will turn into an unstoppable firestorm and wipe out dozens of homes downwind, and several towns.”
“That’s what I was afraid of.” Summer hopped up and down on one foot while trying to get the other into her costume. “I better fly over and check on Cutter. They were trying to cut a firebreak around there. I know I’m not supposed to, but—”
“No time.” Luiz kicked off his sandals and started winding up a loop of duracloth rope. “I need you to give me a boost up to the southern edge of Piney Canyon.”
“What?” Summer shrugged into the upper half of the costume and zipped up the front. “What in heck are you going to—”
“Trust me, Summer.” Luiz tied a knot in the rope and tucked it under his arms. “Time’s wasting and the wind is getting stronger. Drop me off where I point and do that fire-eating thing you do on the downwind side or this is going to be wasted effort. Come on, let’s go! I’ll explain later!”
“Later, always later!” Summer stuck a foot into her last boot and wriggled her toes, something she always found interesting about this world. “I’ll drop you off. That’s it. Come on.”
Summer hooked the rope over her shoulders and lifted into the sky, holding her speed down until she got up to altitude. Hours they had spent bent over the Osborne Firefinder in the old spotter shed let her know just where Piny Canyon was, as well as the hundreds of other clever or eccentric human names for rocks and hills and dozens of failed mining camps in the area.
Luiz was a fairly heavy weight at the end of the rope as she flew, but not as awkward and clumsy as when she was carrying the solar panels months earlier. Why he wanted to watch the fire from the rocky ridge was baffling, but they had an ‘agreement’ of sorts that they were not going to question each other’s idiosyncrasies, from Summer’s preference to drowning oatmeal in brown sugar before eating it face-first right out of the bowl, to Luiz’s preference for coffee that needed a certain amount of chewing.
“More to the left,” he called out, pointing at the protrusion of rock that Summer had been aiming for anyway.
“This fire owes me,” she shouted back down at him. “All wound up and noplace to go.”
“I’m sorry,” came the response from her passenger far below. “I’ll make it up to you, I promise.”
She slowed and descended, trying to match her velocity so Luiz would be able to step onto the rocky peak shown on the map ironically as Sunrise Ridge, and was eyeing the rising column of smoke upwind where the raging fire was feeding on dry pines when it happened.
“Remember, smother the downwind embers!” Then Luiz shrugged out of his loop of duracloth rope and dropped, still dressed in nothing but his shorts.
It caught her by complete surprise. She had just barely begun to reach down in a frantic rescue grasp, making the impulsive decision that inflicting first-degree burns would be a better deal than seeing her… friend slide down a hundred feet of loose rock and smash into the bottom.
Then he reached the rough stone slope and instead of sliding down the rocks, there was a splash, and he vanished.
While she was still trying to make sense of the situation, a chunk of rock the size of a semi-truck heaved its way out of the ground and flung itself upwind. Then another, and another in rapid sequence, a rain of half-molten rock and steaming dirt that moved at a rapid pace across the top end of the valley, traveling almost as fast through the forest as a car out on the highway, and leaving a smoldering, glowing trail of cooling lava with bright lights of tinder-dry pine needles beginning to ignite and spread both slowly upwind and rapidly—
“Embers!” Summer yanked herself out of her dazed realization and swooped down on the ignited downwind pine needles before they could blow themselves into a proper fire. She reached out and pulled on the flames, drawing them into herself and sweeping down the line of glowing rocks that signified the direction Luiz had traveled like some incredibly destructive dolphin swimming through the rock and dirt.
She could not think very well while concentrating, and the speed she had to make did not help. He was moving in a giant spray of displaced rocks and tossed-aside trees that mostly landed on the upwind side of his path, leaving a firebreak far wider than the little thing Cutter and his crew was cutting somewhere a few miles from here. Summer could barely keep up, doubling back several times when a missed spark was kindling in her backpath, and calling into her visor to update Control on her status. She was hoping for a fire retardant airdrop to help, but despite it being a good idea, all the flights were booked solid, leaving only one ex-con to put out the small fires that her superpowered boyfriend was causing.
It took so much concentration to keep pulling and dragging the errant sparks into her aura, not stopping a minute in a pell-mell dash across the irregular terrain, that it took a few minutes to realize the firebreak was complete. She took a few moments to observe the backfire creeping up the valley while hovering by the other end of the firebreak where Luiz was resting on a slab of shale, panting for breath. She wanted to yell at him, but there was so much fire wrapped around her body that she might have breathed it out like a dragon.
“Tried… to tell you,” gasped Luiz between sucking in breaths.
“By setting yourself on fire?” Summer gritted her teeth with the realization that her sexy human boyfriend was an idiot, but before she could manage an appropriate profanity, her visor chimed three rapid notes of the emergency notification.
“Firebird,” snapped Control. “There’s a Forest Service crew upwind of you that is going to be overrun by the fire. Their vehicle broke down so they’re hunkering in place, but I don’t know if—”
“Cutter!” Summer was barely able to keep her fire inside as she blazed into the sky, following the blinking dot that Control had projected onto her visor map display. Luiz would wait. She was so mad at him and relieved at the same time that it was going to take some time to figure out a response. Cutter and his crew needed her help now, and the sheer wall of raging flames headed in their direction terrified her.
Since getting her powers, Summer had grown to like fire, to appreciate the role it had in the world, and to cautiously embrace its power rather than fear the destruction it could cause. This fire was beyond her comprehension. It towered over the entire forest, a raging uncontrolled force of nature that could consume everything in its way and only grow stronger, more vicious, destructive as…
The monster she could have been.
She wanted to flee, to run away again like she had before. She had the power now. There was no need to confront the undefeatable. But she had to fly forward, pull her own overwhelming fire close to her skin and blaze through the sky as fast as she could. Running was failure. If she was going to fail, it was going to be only after giving everything she had, and more.
If she had been given this power before and not fled through the dimensions, she never would have been able to use it in the way it was supposed to be used. She knew that. Power like this was to protect, not destroy. After many missteps, Summer knew that also, and no longer felt the dagger of rage in her heart that had forced her to flee into the unknown rather than face her mentor in defeat.
She had friends now. Only a few. Some much less noble than others. But she was not about to lose even one of them to this monster looming up above the forest and roaring in her direction.
Landing was awkward, since Summer was still struggling to hold onto all of the fire she had absorbed from Luiz’s huge firebreak. She staggered, melting two shallow holes in the ground as she landed instead of breaking an ankle.
“Starsthathurt!” Summer hopped once and returned to hovering, deeply thankful for her flamboyant hip-boots and taking back all the mean things she had said about Widget’s designs over the last few months. This close to the oncoming inferno she could barely hear her own voice, but she could clearly hear Cutter’s resonant tenor as he came bolting through the burnt grass the fire crew had set on fire as a weak attempt at a backfire.
“Bitch, you crazy!” The fluttering remnants of an aluminum foil shelter was wrapped around his shoulders and gave a good indication that the dozen shining lumps she had seen on the approach showed where the rest of his crew was hunkered down. Cutter had never looked panicked in all the time she had known him, but he was looking frazzled to say the least as he blasted on. “I’ve got two guys with injuries, but you can fly them out—”
“I’m not flying anywhere, Cutter.” Summer faced the oncoming onslaught and braced herself. “Get under cover.”
“There ain’t nothing to cover under that’ll stop that!” He jabbed one dirty dark finger at the towering flames headed in their direction, his reddening hand streaked with soot and ashes. The roar of the oncoming blaze had grown in just the last few moments, and she could feel the heat playing across her face even with her modified resistance to fire. The tang of smoke filled her dry mouth with a sour tang, like the world’s biggest Bar-B-Que with her unlikely friend as the target.
“I said get under cover!” she snapped. “I’ll try to fight it.”
“Good God!” Cutter hesitated for a moment, then darted back in the direction of the aluminum lumps in the ground showing where the rest of his crew had hunkered down. She could not see what he was doing back there, since her full and complete attention was focused on the roaring inferno sweeping her direction.
This was it. All the fire she had trapped inside was nothing but a spark against the wall of flames roaring down on her. There was no way she could affect it, but she was going to try it anyway, even if it killed her.
Her visor chirped again, which she tried to ignore except there was a text message floating in the notification section.
Mite: Cupcakes says to tell you there is no try. There is only do.
It broke her internal wall of regret with a smile. The idea that friends could help her in times of trouble had been completely alien to her old self, and now that she was an alien, she could not avoid that assistance even if she wanted.
Anger drained away, fear of failure, concern over hurting herself by focusing so much power. They all seemed so trivial now, and Summer brought her concentration to a focus, allowing all of the barriers she had constructed to fade away.
And the power rose to her polite request.
There was nothing but the light, pouring out of somewhere unseen and filling her body to overflowing, and then some, and then some more. There was no pain, no thought, no regrets in that flow of unmeasured power, only the knowledge that a dozen lives depended on her, and nothing else mattered.
Nothing compared to this, no experience she had ever lived through or learned from books, although the one time she had stuck a finger in a light socket had vague similarities. There was the temptation to allow herself to be consumed in the power much like during bad days lately, but memories of her friends surrounded her, from the worried presence of Cutter using her for cover much like she had tried to hide behind him when they first met, to Widget’s colorful costume surrounding and protecting her. She had originally thought the only important thing in the world was her own power, but this… togetherness overwhelmed her like a drop of water in an ocean, or a single spark thrown against the sun.
The feeling lasted forever, but not long enough. Eventually, realization returned in small pieces, as if it did not want to flood in too quickly. She was still flying a mere handspan above the ground, but the surface in front of her bubbled slightly, turning into the glossy sheen of molten glass after a few paces and remaining that way through the shimmer of heat into the distance…
She looked up instead, marveling at the towering cumulonimbus cloud that had been created by her heat-induced updraft and the darkening around the bottom as it grew. Flammagenitus clouds had been an abstract bit of information in her academic career, but the brief gust of relatively cooler air that tasted of ozone drifting down from above was a concrete example she never thought she would experience in person. There were already wisps of rain forming around the edges and no sign that it would spawn any lightning, so it was a good thing instead of what she had feared, turning a bad situation into something worse.
“Sheet,” came a stunned voice behind her. “I prayed for an angel and I sure got one. Holy angel of vengeance. If I wasn’t married…”
She rotated while still hovering, taking in the crumpled hip-boot beneath her and the other boot blown off almost casually to one side, then Cutter standing a mere few feet away in a patch of singed grass that was quite a contrast from the molten glass behind her.
“I saw your wife once,” said Summer. “There’s no way I’d get between you two. Besides…” She started peeling out of her colorful costume, feeling the welcome kiss of open air across her sweaty body and blinking in the bright light as the visor came off. “I found out something today. Something very important.”
She finished taking off the last leg of her costume and stretched, still hovering.
“My gloves are somewhere out there. Can I trust you to bring my stuff up to the fire spotter station tomorrow? Oh, and tell Control I’m on leave in case he calls.”
“Sure, Angel.” Cutter turned to look away from her and at least pretended to look out into the smoking remains of what had once been a raging fire headed in his direction, and now looked more like a huge glass ashtray. “But why tomorrow?”
Summer tossed the costume down in front of him. “My boyfriend is fireproof.”
The flight back to Luiz was very short.
And worthwhile.
