CHAPTER 6
Aaron stood beside Michelle on the roof of her apartment building, looking out over the city lights, breathing in the smells, listening to the night sounds of passing cars and people living normallives. To his enhanced vision the night sky-line and rooftops glowed with illumination. He could see everything, almost as if it were daylight. His night vision was superb.
Standing there looking down on the world, he felt divorced from the human race, an outsider peeking in windows but never truly entering within. He’d felt this way before, especially after his father’s death, but now it was real. He was truly disconnected from all of humanity.
The tangs of city life in all their ripe flavor drifted on the air; remnants of meals cooked, unwashed sweaty bodies, sewer vents and auto exhaust. He took it all in, identifying each scent with the understanding that he would never again be mired in such things, human things. It was exciting, but equally intimidating. He had no one in the world but this strange woman he called Master. His father had been gone for years, and his mother bailed on him shortly thereafter. Relations with Kyle and Delia and all those other people who were once a significant part of his life couldn’t continue. He was detached from the world and all its problems, and it felt kinda … good. He felt free, like a great weight had lifted from his shoulders, all expectations gone. There was no one to answer to, no one to buy beer for, no one except Michelle. She reminded him of this new weight of expectation as she squeezed his hand demanding attention.
She’d brought them to the roof but hadn’t bothered to explain why. She turned to him, “Is a good time to learn how your new body moves. Is purely instinctual. Don’t think too much. Watch me, I go first, then is your turn.”
With that, she did the craziest thing he’d ever seen. She stepped right off the roof of her twenty story apartment building and landed gracefully on the fire escape catwalk two stories below. No ceremony, no warning. She did it like it was the thing to do when standing at the edge of a building. Like the chicken that crossed the road to get to the other side. She touched down as if nothing. Virtually no impact from her landing.
Michelle continued doing the impossible by leaping across the alleyway, flying fifty feet through the air, and gradually descending in a graceful arc until she landed on the wall of the neighboring concrete building. As she hit, she crouched down into the impact and vaulted off the wall back out into the alley for another graceful arc of descent. She glided down at an angle into a textbook perfect landing precisely at the fire escape catwalk outside her apartment window. With each of these artfully executed maneuvers she descended lower and lower as though traveling down a switch-back trail from a mountain top.
After all that, she had the audacity to lean out over the catwalk railing and look up at him with an innocent smile. “Now is your turn.”
He was stunned into silence. He stood there with a dumb expression, his mouth open in awe. She was a friggin’ Jedi master, a super hero (heroine). Spider Woman, Cat Woman, and the Black Widow all rolled into one. And just how the hell was he supposed to keep up? How could she expect him to do that shit?
When he regained the ability to speak he protested loudly, “No. Fucking. Way!”
She had that I’m-not-playing-with-you-Imbécile look.
He tried to reason with her, “Maybe this is another one of those situations I’m not quite ready for yet. I honestly don’t see how I can do that.”
“You can do this, no problème. Your body knows how to move. Is like breathing. Don’t think about it!” She smiled again. Wonder Woman hadn’t even broken a sweat. She stood there with an expectant look.
