We Could Be Heroes by Mike Chen

Author:Mike Chen [Chen, Mike]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781488077111
Google: DT3eDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: MIRA
Published: 2021-01-26T00:00:00+00:00

21

THEY WERE THE MOST lovely dreams.

Not just hovering, but flying. Endless propulsion upward, forward, zooming down, and when Zoe did hover, the most effortless of hovers, a giant tiger-bird floated up to greet her. It nudged her with its cat nose while feathered wings beat at a soothing rhythm, then it looked up.

Of course it looked up. Because falling oh so gently from the sky were tacos. All sorts of tacos: crisp corn-shelled tacos with ground beef, soft tortillas with fried fish, tiny street tacos with carne asada. They floated down, slow enough to take a bite out of passing tacos, and she looked at the tiger-bird; it looked back and they hovered somewhere above the clouds, eating tacos together.

But when she looked down, she realized that her feet were now stone. Not just feet, but all the way up to her knees. Zoe ate more and more tacos, and every time she looked down, the farther the stone inched up. She should stop—she wanted to stop—but she couldn’t, as if her arms moved on autopilot, grabbing and shoving tacos into her mouth until her fingers stiffened and everything up to her neck was solid rock.

Then she started to fall, her powers gone. Frozen, arms outstretched, weight of her now-stone body caused her to circle continuously while she dropped, the tiger-birds laughing at her, tacos pelting her in the face all the while. Her shoulder slammed into the ground, splintering the stone shell and opening up a torrent of blood and the sharpest lightning strike of pain. Zoe’s eyes flew open, and rather than being surrounded by tacos, she found herself in a dingy room, fluorescent lighting overhead showcasing the sharp contrasting tones of, well, everything.

She blinked as details came into focus, or at least she thought so. Maybe. There weren’t that many details to grasp for this drab space: walls, a door, some cracks in the floor and a whole lot of olive green, or at least that’s how it appeared given the harsh lighting. Except for when the lamp flickered, a brief flash of blue coming through as Zoe’s visual focus returned.

Then it went again, everything becoming blurry as the pain in her shoulder hit her conscious mind. In fact, it hurt so much that it rippled up and down her body, causing her head to sting and her legs to ache. She craned her neck and saw a bandage, a small dot of red oozing into the middle of the white gauze.

Arms. They were tied up. She wiggled her fingers, all while telling herself to pull details of what transpired. She’d rushed back to San Delgado after leaving a facility.

A facility with grim walls and ugly lighting. Just like this one.

Shit.

And then she’d sprinted to Jamie’s apartment. They were talking. No, not just talking. They were finishing Lo-Bot: Samurai Cyborg. Goddamn it, they actually finished it and right now she couldn’t remember the way it ended. Jamie’s cat was there, though, and then something happened. Noises, lights went out.

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