Jackson Humes is Not a Superhero

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

"Right," Officer Velasquez was not amused. She pulled the handcuffs off of her belt. "I'm going to take you to the hospital and have you checked out."

The panic I felt right then should have been enough to make me airborne, but it wasn't. That's when an idea popped into my head. It was an incredibly stupid one, but it was probably the only way that I was going to convince her that I was telling the truth.

Officer Velasquez realized I was staring at the Taser gun on her belt right before I lunged at her. She dropped the handcuffs and reached for it within the span of a few of my pounding heartbeats. Her movements were fluid and certain. If this didn't work I was going to be in some serious pain and a whole lot of trouble. She pointed the Taser directly at my chest and pulled the trigger. My body immediately shot straight up into the air, and I flew right over her head. The wires missed me by a few centimeters. It was the type of close call you only ever saw in action movies.

I flew to the other side of the room, not being able to stop myself, and slammed into the wall. It was a good thing I had my arms in front of me. Now I knew why superheroes always flew with their arms held out in front of them: Insurance. I pushed off the wall and did a very ungraceful about face. I had a silly triumphant grin on my face that all but vanished when I saw her expression.

"Your brother was right," she said angrily, "you seriously are out of your mind."

"I needed an incentive," I said, trying to explain myself. "I couldn't think of a better way of flying into the air than the possibility of getting shot."

"And what if it hadn't worked?" she fired back. My little stunt had really put her in a bad mood. I guess pretending to go for an officer's weapon was a much touchier subject than I had previously thought.

I shrugged my shoulders, but it didn't have the same impact while in the Superman position that it did while being vertical. "It was a risk I was willing to take. I'm sorry," I added, trying to reduce the tension in the room.

She shook her head and jettisoned the cartridge out of the Taser before she holstered it back to her belt. She came over to where I was hovering and walked in a complete circle below me. Every once in a while she moved her hand through the air. I wasn't sure what she was checking for, but it seemed to make sense to her. She finally stopped and crossed her arms, lost in thought.

"I know you said you weren't going to freak out, but you're rather calm considering the situation," I joked.

"I can't really say that I'm thrilled to find out you were telling the truth," she said. Her expression was inscrutable. "But now that you're up there..." She walked back to the supply cabinet and came back holding a long fluorescent light. "Can you replace that light over there? It's been out for a while and I've never gotten around to changing it."

It was an incredibly odd request. Here I was, floating in the air and her initial reaction was to have me replace a light. What was next? Was she going to ask me to give the ceiling a fresh coat of paint?

She waved the light in her hand. "I'm not going to try anything, I really want you to change the light."

Changing the light was tricky business. There was a cover to remove, precise slots to slide into, and twisting involved. I was definitely not mechanically inclined and struggled with the simple task. After I had changed it out and replaced the cover, I flew around for a bit just to prove to her, and myself, that I could. Turns were awkward at first, but I quickly got the hang of it. Pretty soon I was doing laps around the room. It was thrilling to finally be really flying. 

Her eyes steadily followed me around and around until she got bored of watching me and went back to the computer. I couldn't help but feel a little offended by her lack of enthusiasm. I flew over to where she was sitting and hovered over her left shoulder. She clicked the window closed, but I managed to catch a glimpse of her email screen. I was close enough to smell the fruity shampoo she used to wash her hair. "So now what?"

"Now we wait for my brother to respond. He'll know what to do." She shifted a paperweight just slightly to the left before clicking her short fingernails on the desk. The thrumming was very distinct and precise. I got the feeling Officer Velasquez had a touch of OCD.

Her answer was vague and unsatisfying. "How did he know something like this was going to happen in the first place?"

Officer Velasquez didn't give me an answer. Instead she did that irritating thing adults do when they answer a question with another question. "Do you know why this is happening to you?"

"Yeah, my parents used to work at some secret location under Kane Hospital. There were a bunch of scientists working on some kind of superhuman serum using kids as test subjects."

She gasped and whipped around in her swirly chair so fast we almost knocked heads. "How do you know that? No one is supposed to know."

I was about to respond when I stopped myself. After all that she had put me through, I deserved a little more of an explanation than what she'd given me thus far. "I'll explain everything I know, but first you have to tell me how your brother knew this was going to happen."

For a second I thought she wasn't going to give me any explanations, but then she let out a big sigh. She pulled her hair out of the tight bun she wore and shook her dark brown hair out with both hands. With her hair down, she looked younger than ever. It was then I realized she was probably in her twenties and not her thirties as I had originally assumed. She sighed again, but I think this time it was more out of relief.

This time when she looked at me I didn't see the neutral cop expression I had become accustomed to, her hazel eyes were filled with emotion. She stood up and walked over to a small fridge I hadn't noticed and pulled out two sodas. She held one up for me to take before she sat down on one of the couches.

"You know you can come down now," she said amused. "I believe you."

Hovering over her was getting a little awkward, so I flew over to the couch she wasn't sitting on and let myself drop down on top of it. When I opened up the can of soda it exploded all over me. She shook her head and went back to the metal cabinet. She handed me a roll of paper towels and waited until I had cleaned myself up before telling me her story.

"My brother went missing when he was thirteen. My parents spent years searching for him, but it's as if he had vanished into thin air. He's the reason why I became a police officer. I wanted to prevent what happened to our family from ever happening to anyone else's." The pain on her face was heartbreaking. She paused to collect herself for a moment. "After a few years my parents finally had to come to terms with the horrible realization that he was probably dead and buried somewhere where we would never find his body. All I can remember from that period of time is that I felt numb, we all did, but I never gave up the search. A couple of years ago, my brother showed up at my doorstep out of the blue. Even though it had been years since I had last seen him, I immediately knew who he was."

I tried to imagine the feelings such a reunion must have caused, but I had no point of reference for such an extraordinary event. "Why didn't he let you know sooner that he was okay? Did he have amnesia or something?"

"No," she shook her head sadly, "he didn't. He stayed away to keep our family safe, but I'd been using the police database to search for him, which is why he finally came to see me. He told me we were all in terrible danger as long as he was still alive."

"But how did he know you were looking for him? Is he a police officer too?"

"He's a government agent. He explained to me about the experiments he was put through, and told me that he believed the man who had done this to him was dangerous and still out there. It took a lot of pleading on my part, but I finally convinced him to stay in contact with me. My brother has become a very paranoid person, not that I can blame him. He set up this place up for us to meet on the condition that I would not tell our parents he's alive.

"Wow. That's heavy."

"You think." She took a swig of her soda. I suspected she wanted something stronger to drink. "The weird thing is that this is all unfolding right now."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"He sent me a message a few days ago letting me know he was coming into town. He never comes here unless he believes he has a lead on the scientist he's been looking for all of these years. He should've been here by now. I've sent him several messages, but I haven't heard back from him, which is not like him at all."