Superheroes by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: science fiction, fantasy, anthology, superhero
ISBN: 9781607013969
Publisher: Prime Books
Published: 2013-03-01T05:00:00+00:00

Superhero Girl

Jei D. Marcade

I wake to the sound of my name. The TV is still on, stuck on a ghost channel. Otherwise my room is dark, and it feels empty, but I know what I heard. I know who it sounded like.

“Ofelia?” I whisper harshly. At first there is no reply. I wait, listening hard.

Her voice comes tinny and faint between bursts of white noise: “I’m—here. Come—find me!”

There is a shadow on the screen, moving through lines of static. A small figure lost in an electric blizzard. It has faded by the time I draw closer. It could have been anything.

I swear it was her.

She’ll come back. She always does. All I have to do is let myself believe it.

Ofelia was a superhero. She told me so without reserve. “It’s safe for me to tell you,” she said. “I can sense you’re not a villain. Besides, it would be unfair to keep it from you. It won’t be easy, you know, being involved with a superhero girl.”

It did take some getting used to. She received her mission briefings in birdsong, in radio static, encoded in every third word backwards from a breaking news bulletin on the televisions in a specific store window. She saw battle plans drawn out for her in cloud patterns, coffee cup rings, the movement of players on a soccer field. During these moments she would stand frozen in mid-motion, her head cocked to the side, listening intently. Then she would drop—literally drop—whatever she was doing and dash away, calling apologies over her shoulder.

“I’ll just . . . wait for you here, then,” I said the first time it happened.

“No, no,” she shouted back. “This could take hours. I’ll call you!”

I scooped what I could of her ice cream cone off the sidewalk and dumped it in the trash.

Her friends told me that it was just another quirk of hers, that she said things like that when she needed to use the restroom, or go back to her apartment for something she’d forgotten, or attend a lecture. I had to admit that I didn’t know what her class schedule was like.

When I told Ofelia what they’d said, she laughed fondly. “They’re just trying to protect my secret. They don’t think you should know about me.”

And I kept her secret. I didn’t tell my friends that she helped keep the world safe for us. I didn’t tell my friends much of anything about her. Maybe I was trying to preserve the intimacy of our relationship. Maybe it was because of something else.

The first time we made love, I saw the faded red lines across the tops of her thighs, straight and thin, precisely drawn. There were a lot of them. I pretended not to notice, but she saw me looking and said in explanation, “Robot ninjas with laser-bladed throwing stars. I was lucky; if I hadn’t jumped back when I did, they would have taken my legs clean off. It was a tough mission; I almost didn’t make it.

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