The Normals

Chapter Five: Nicole Encounters Difficulties

“Well, speak of the devil,” said Marianne when she opened the door.

“Ha, ha,” said James. “That’s hilarious.”

“What happened? Did Nicole get sent on a mission without you again?”

James sighed. “Yeah.”

“Come on in.” Marianne stepped back from the door and beckoned. “You’re right on time. I was just about to change three babies’ diapers. Now you can be a Super and do all the messy stuff and save my day. “

“Awesome,” said James, and kicked off his high-heeled boots before following her inside. 

He muttered a generic hello to a giant lump in the living room that was probably Marianne’s mother covered with napping toddlers. The lump waved back. Marianne’s mother approved of having Supers inside the house, because it generally meant Marianne wasn’t going to be rushing out of the house so she could pretend to be one.

“I think this baby is trying to eat my leg,” said James when he finally caught up to Marianne. It was a novel experience for James to have to catch up to anybody, but he couldn’t walk across this floor without two babies latching on to each of his feet. How Marianne managed to avoid them, he had no idea.

“That’s Mrs Plebeit’s baby,” she said. “I think she likes you. You should work in a day care when you retire from Superdom. You’re a natural. Get over here and hold this diaper. Careful not to drop it. It’s full, and if it gets lost under all these baby toys, we’re not gonna find it again ‘till next week.”

“Ew.”

There was a window over the diaper changing table, and through it James could see something shooting across the sky like a white and gold comet.

Marianne followed his gaze. “There goes Nicole.”

“Yeah,” said James sadly.

“I wonder what that’s like,” Marianne whispered, more to herself than anything else. “Flying. I wonder how it feels.”

It felt fantastic, but the Soaring Angel had grown so used to it over the years that she never thought about it any more. Flying was her job, the same way crunching numbers or changing diapers might be the job of someone else.

She checked her wrist; the mini holo-map was difficult to read in the sunlight, but it looked like she was getting close. She could see the cloud she was heading for, a giant massive thing. It was completely white.

A sudden wave of air slammed into her from behind, and a roar deafened her ears. Nicole toppled a couple of feet before she caught herself and spun around to face the helicopter. At first she thought it might be one of the Fantastic City Supers’ fleet, but then she saw it wasn’t: the body was a buffed-up reconstruction of an older model, and it was painted far paler than the Supers’ showy crafts. It didn’t have any logo on its sides. It was probably not allowed to be in this airspace.

Nicole swung around the helicopter and flew up to the underside. There was a pocket of nice, calm air under there, and she hovered inside it, following the aircraft. It was heading toward the giant cloud, just as she had suspected.

But she never could have suspected what was inside that cloud when they flew in.

It’s a city was the first thing that she thought. There were buildings all over the place, squat and low but enormous. They were all plated in something  as shiny and as hi-tech looking as the Fantastic City Supers’ Headquarters. There were roads down there, with small carts trundling along them, and landing pads like the one the helicopter was heading to now. And everywhere, there were crowds and crowds of people, standing in long lines winding all around those buildings.