Adversary

Then I Realised That No One Cared

Life's a paper wall. Anyone could poke it, and watch the wall flop.

I really, really hated something. But I couldn't feel it yet. I did some things. I was on injections. I was on a street, and no one was around, so I decided to avenge my boredom. My foot came up, my foot came down, and soon enough, I was leaping over the lines between the stones in the pavement like I was back at the Orphanage doing it over chalk lines. Here's my dancing, I am dancing, I am dancing over graves and pebbles and an infuriatingly descriptive newspaper. Ahem.

"PLEASE READ THIS PAPER, YOU GOOD-FOR-NOTHING LOONY," is how it felt like, when I saw her face. "I HAVE NO POWERS, BUT I HAVE FULL BODY ARMOUR, AND I'M HERE TO PUNISH WRONGDOERS. ESPECIALLY ONES LIKE... YOUUUUUU!!!!!!"

It was Nebula.

The opposite of a paper wall, but I learnt it the nice way.

Then my mind was sucked into a fantasy that came from dirty, white pages. This wasn't a superhero.

She had a cape, for wrapping scumbags in after they were caught. The staple diet of heroic costume. It was black, like the night, but it would show up in bright colours if it was warm and if someone with heatvision was looking. There were small metal tubes that generated laser beams where the eyeholes of the helmet were, in a mimicry of Laserhead's laser eyes, which could blind people or melt walls. There was even a column complaining about how unimaginative it was, and assuming that the real thing would be better, which turned out to be cynical, because those beams were AI-guided and not done with eyeball muscles. I almost wondered at how the lasers could even fit in there, before I saw the rest of it. It was a full metal mechsuit. The whole thing was designed to mimic the most powerful superheroes of the present and past through the use of technology. It could tank extreme temperatures of near sun-melting power and work through absolute zero, it was bulletproof, it could dent a diamond, probably. It was X-tra Steel Core, a new type of metal that not only had all those attributes but could also change shape. Great for lockpicking, or getting new knives. The ultimate in policing people, no matter how many powers they had.

I felt so killable.

Shoot me dead with your laser beams, punch me with your reinforced fists of X-tra Special Metal, you amazing bitch, smash me to pieces, I can't take it any more, I need to come near your inches, whaa—.

I must have blacked out from the exhaustion of dancing for so long. There'd been a glimpse of her armour on the page, before I'd trampled it to smudges and torn pieces, as it should be.

I woke up on the side of a street staring at a couple in the shop window of a cafe, which was about to close. I was miles from home, and the curfew was soon. Too soon. I'd never make it in time! I had to do something.

I was pure roadkill out here.

I actually didn't want to "commit a crime" ever again in my life. If I'd been well behaved I could have walked free, or nearly free.

But I was on the watchlist. And it was late.

They, the police, would come after me if I didn't get back before curfew. And I'd be arrested. And I'd lose my rights to any sort of life. Just for returning home late. Best case scenario, they'd let me off and up my medication. Which would make me haze out... even more...

It was a runaway train to the scrap bin at a fishmonger's shop, and I was one of the fish. The law was the fishmonger.

I was sobbing, legitimately. My life had actually been going right for once. Another year of taking this shit, and I could even have landed a job. A real one. Aside from my repressed, or at the time non-existent, instinct to murder and cause damage, I was doing quite well. I got to eat. I painted on someone's fence as a one-off for illegal untaxed cash money. My policeyweisey watchers from the police didn't care, because my payment didn't go over the limit where taxation started. They might not actually have been watching the cameras all the time, I'd not broken curfew, which was the end-all for that. I was over 18. The legal age for Real Punishment ®, which was a drink they served at bars, but it was also something I could really get just for breaking curfew. Just once.