"Hey, remember Baron Monsoon?"

Mike looked sideways at his best friend. "What about him?"

"Well," Larry drawled, "Everywhere he went, it rained. Indoors or out."

"Hence the nickname. So?"

Larry paused. "He musta hated it. Always wet or damp. Skin all wrinkly. But he was a superhero for a long time."

Mike sighed. "And what happened to him? Remember?"

"Oh, yeah," Larry said. "Suicide. But still, he had a gift, like you, and he didn't give up."

"Until he killed himself."

Subtlety was lost on Larry. "Right! So, no more talk like this. C'mon! No other superhero has the powers you do."

Mike snorted. "I can't run worth a damn."

"You can fly. Catch 'em that way."

"They duck into buildings."

"So just crash through the wall after them. It'll be messy, but after you do it a few times criminals will stop trying."

"You know, it hurts doing that."

Larry sighed. "It's not like you'll break something. It would take a surface to air missile to crack one of your ribs."

Mike winced. "Don't remind me."

"Come on. What's this really about?"

Mike pointed up at the billboard above the building across the open square from where they sat. It showed Mike's smiling face beside the logo they always showed for him. A round circle bisected by a lightning bolt with the initials 'BF' over it all. The words at the sign's edge read, Saving us all.

Larry shrugged. "It's nice. What about it?"

"That's not my name."

His friend's eyes rolled. "Can't you let go of that? People want to call you—"

"Hey, Bigfoot!" called a woman's voice from across the square. Mike looked up to see a group of women in their twenties waving at time. "Woo! Show us those feet, big guy!"

Mike sighed, then gave a practiced PR smile. He lifted one of his size 36 shoes and waved.

Larry shrugged again. "You know, they figure, big feet, big—"

"I know what they think! All any of them can see is a guy with big clown feet. A laughingstock."

Mike pushed away from the table and flew out of sight.

Larry grumbled, "Getting chicks should be a perk."

It was one of those perfect days. The sun was warm on his shoulders as he flew over the surface of the water.

"Ha!" he shouted. "Who needs water skis?"

His bare feet sprayed water everywhere as he skimmed the surface.

"Yes!"

Mike saw some of his friends around the next bend. He recognized Larry, Randy, as well as some of the girls from school. He hoped Mary Fulsom would be there. She was the hottest girl in town. Time seemed to stand still whenever he looked into her eyes.

The heart monitor quietly flashed its green light like it always did. Most of the lights were off, so it cast an eerie tint across the room. Mike flipped a lock of hair off the face on the pillow.

"Is that you?"

Mike replied, "You know it is. Do you always have to make it so dark in here?"

"What do I need lights for? I can't see. Now, What did you do today?"

Mike frowned. "I stopped an armored car heist and caught a train car full of people when they fell off the tracks. They would have died."

"Good." The voice was sharp, not friendly. "Now, help me roll on my side."

"Hey, Mike," Randy called. "Think you can do that water-ski thing faster than my dad's speedboat?"

"Hell, yes."

"Prove it," Mary said. "And I'm coming along."

"Come on, then." Randy jabbed a thumb toward the boat."

"No." Mary pointed her finger at Mike. "I'm riding with him."

Mike stood up and looked at her. "How are you going to do that?"

She stepped over to him, placed her feet on top of his, reached around his waist, and pulled herself tight against him. Her body pressed tight to his.

"Like this."

His jaw flopped open for a moment. Seeing the amused stared of his friends, he said, "You'll be safe with me."

Her eyes burned into his. "But will you be safe?"

Mike tumbled headlong into the lake, end over end. Water filled his eyes, his lungs. Sand from the bottom dug into his scalp as dug a long trench with his head.

Looking up, he saw the surface through the red haze. In the center of the cloud, the body floated.

He pushed himself up through the water. He cradled the body in his arms, lifting her as gently as he could. Her face was a bloody mess, smashed in. Her eyes… He winced at the sight of them.

She gurgled, spitting up water. "Mike? Is that you?"

"Y-Yes," he stammered, his heart in his throat. He brushed away some of the blood and felt his whole body go cold. Across her face were marks from each of his toes.

He had done this.

He didn't hold on tight enough. He didn't look where he was going. He didn't watch were his damn big feet went.

"M-Mike." She gasped. "Promise me you'll never stop saving people. Promise me—"

Her body slumped.

"No!"

Mike said, "It's time for me to go. Do you need anything?"

Her laugh was caustic. "Everything I need you took from me. Remember why you're here."

"Because I promised to take care of you."

She threw up her hands. "No, idiot. You're here because you hate this. You hate me. You hate using your powers because you might kill some innocent person. I know how much it hurts you to keep using them, and I'm glad it hurts. I won't release you from your promise to keep saving people. You owe that to the memory of my daughter until the day you die."

"Yes, Mrs. Fulsom."

"Now, get out."

On his way through the door, he heard sirens in the distance. A tear rolled down his cheek.

"For you, Mary."

They stood in a hidden cave, its walls black with the residue of a thousand torches, its floor carpeted with insect husks and the bones of small animals that rustled and crunched underfoot and dust that tickled the nostrils even and masked the sharp, musky scents of the forest. One was a man, young and strong, with dark hair and piercing blue eyes. The other was … something more.

I must warn you, once you accept this Gift — this burden — there is no turning back.

Frank Templar nodded. "I understand. 'With great power…'"

That is part of it, but — I am not permitted to say more.

"I understand! I've read the Annals of Ashtalon—"

The fragments that have survived, you mean. And even when they were written—

"There were things that could not be said. I get it. I'm ready."

The man with the ancient eyes reached out and laid one hand on top of Frank Templar's head.

Even through his thick, gel-saturated hair, Frank felt a momentary pulse of stinging heat, then numbing cold, then —

"It is done," the man said. The suddenly old man.

I'm really immortal? Frank asked. He blinked as he realized that his voice had changed.

"Yes," the old man said. His voice, now stripped of its eerie resonance, sounded tired and weak. "And in your hands, you hold—"

The power of life and death.

"Yes," the old man said. "But when you tip the scales in one direction, they will be balanced."

Saving a life — kills someone else? Frank's face — the same face, but transformed in some indefinable way by the gift he had just accepted — twisted in dismay.

"Sometimes, yes," the old man said. "Lesser deeds have lesser consequences. Heal a minor wound at the cost of a minor illness or injury to another. Heal a grave illness — cause a grave illness. Raise the dead —"

Kill someone else… Can I control it somehow, spread the effects, or at least choose who suffers?

"You can try," the old man said. His voice seemed even weaker than before, thin and breathy as if he was no longer able to fill his lungs. "I tried. Sometimes I think I succeeded, other times —"

Other times what?

But the old man — the ancient man, papery skin and wispy hair and withered muscles having replaced the godlike figure of only minutes ago — said nothing more. His legs buckled and he sank to the floor of the cave like a tent whose center pole had been set in quicksand.

Ten years passed. Twenty. Thirty. Frank had almost used the power a hundred times — to heal an injured child, to cure the cancer of a beloved friend. But every time, he had hesitated, wondering how the scales would be balanced.

If I cure a child, who will suffer? If I harm or even kill an evil man, where will the life force I take go? For all I know, I'll transfer his strength to someone worse!

He'd had to change his name, move to a new town, and spend much of the wealth that his predecessor had bequeathed to him to buy all the electronic and paper traces to go with his new identity. A man who does not age, even in a world of ubiquitous cosmetic surgery, draws too much attention.

On this day, his twelve thousand, two hundred and twelfth with the power, Frank was walking slowly down the street toward the supermarket to pick up a box of frozen hamburgers. He never worried about cholesterol or sugar or salt. Hell, around Day Four Thousand, he'd been depressed and had tried drinking a jug of liquid drain cleaner. It hadn't even given him stomach pains (but the toilet had run a little better the next day).

The screech of brakes and crunch of shattering glass and metal made him stumble as he stepped up onto the sidewalk. The screams made him fall, his elbow scraping along the concrete, tearing his shirt, but leaving his flesh unmarked.

When he regained his feet, he almost fell again as he saw the reason for the noise. A young woman and her daughter had been struck by a speeding car and crushed against a bus shelter. The rapidly spreading pool of blood made it clear that they must be dying — or dead.

Thirty years. Maybe a thousand more to come, if he never found someone to take the power from him. The young-then-ancient man in the cave must have lived a very long time before he found Frank. Could Frank stand to live that long and not use the Gift?

If only I could control who will suffer if I bring those two back!

He had to try.

"Let me through," he said, consciously suppressing the strange resonance of his voice.

"Are you a doctor or something?"

"Yes," Frank lied. "Let me through! I think I can help them."

He pushed through the half-dozen people who had formed a worse-than-useless cordon around the stricken mother and child, wincing as the cloying, metallic odor of fresh blood filled his nostrils.

The power of life and death, he thought. I can cure or kill with a touch. He knelt beside the two battered and bloody forms, ignoring the still-warm blood and the glass shards that slid harmlessly over his skin. Carefully, he arranged the victims' hands so that his own right hand covered both at once.

Then he laid his left hand on his own chest.

Heat and cold and a draining feeling that weighed him down like a sodden blanket…

"Oh my God! I think the little girl moved!"

"Her mother, too!"

"Hey mister! What did you do?"

Frank fell forward, his face stinging as bits of glass tore the skin. He felt his heartbeat slowing — slowing —

There it was again! That touch of nausea, the slow swirling of the stomach, the odd feeling of uncertainty, the cramp under the, copious watering of the mouth, the knowledge that profuse voiding was about to happen…

I closed my eyes. "No. No. Settle down!"

Slowly, slowly, the trembling stopped. My breathing slowed to a normal pace and I was able to swallow. Did I dare open my eyes? The light bulb had to be changed!

Without opening my eyes I climbed back down the three steps of the ladder, I walked across to the telephone and called the handyman…

Ever since I could first fly at around 3 years old I had found every moment in the air to be filled with the most exquisite feelings of joy. It was just so wonderful to be able to swoop through the air, to be wherever I wanted to be, to be free, to be free!

I met Carla one evening in Harare. Yes, I know you are asking yourself "why on earth did he go to Harare?" Well, if I wore my goggles, it was only about three hours flight from Pretoria, and I had decided that I wanted to see for myself what was going on – and after all, I could fly, and a few billion dollars would feel good in the pocket –even if it wasn't really worth too much.

I was lonely at the hotel, it was already dark, so I flew into the centre of town and found a nightclub, I paid the stiff entry fee of Z$300 billion. As luck would have it, the guy sitting on the right of the doorway decided to stretch as I walked in, his foot shot out into the passageway between the tightly packed tables, I tripped, and in one of those odd side effects of being a flier, went slithering across the floor for about 15 yards before managing enough traction to come to a halt. Before me where the most exquisite pair of legs that I have ever set my eyes on!

She bent down and helped me up. I went weak at the knees! She thought I was about to pass out and she held on tight, supporting me – I almost did pass out!

That was three years ago. We are to be married next week. How will I ever be able to explain to her? How will I explain to my children? No – I will not fly again!

It started just six months ago. It was Carla's birthday, I decided to fly down to Cape Town and buy her a bunch of Gladiola, Yes, of course you can buy "Glads" up here on the reef, but only the hybrids. Ever since our holiday in the Cape last winter she has loved the stark beauty of some of the winter growing Gladiola of the Cape, and most particularly the stunning Gladiolus liliaceous. So I dressed in my leathers to brave the cold winter night, put on the thermally protected backpack I used for flying, and packed my wallet. I planned to be at the market on the foreshore first thing Saturday morning when the flower sellers would have small stocks of local indigenous flora, and then fly straight back – in time to take Carla out to a romantic supper at Berties Place. She had moved to Randburg last summer and it felt like she was just around the corner.

It was about six in the morning, still dark. I was flying low, just a few metres above the Karoo bushes. I had been this way often before – there were no dangers – in fact there was pretty much nothing here. As I went over the edge of the escarpment the sudden void – the blackness the nothingness!

I never did quite know what happened but I was instantly aware of being in the air and susceptible to falling – an odd sensation, no, a gut wrenching, sickening sensation!

I vomited as I tumbled down and down, I had been flying at about 180 mph and now I was falling. I had never really fallen in my life, now this!

I did manage to control the fall enough to land without breaking anything, and there I lay at the foot of the escarpment bringing up every last bit of gall my body could manufacture!

When I got everything back in control. I could not fly – well I could… but I could not stomach being even a foot off of the ground. I packed away my goggles and jogged to a nearby road, where I thankfully managed to get a lift with a local farmer going into Cape Town with a bakkie full of vegetables. I did manage to get to the market and buy the flowers, and even managed a gut wrenching flight home on SAA, and yes, in time to take Carla to Berties Place.

I am still struggling with the depression of not flying. No, I have not told Carla – I want to marry the girl! How could I say "Sorry honey I don't want to fly anymore!"

"Fly, Fly! Since when could you fly in the first place?"

No, Carla is just too precious, perhaps it is better like this, now I never have to explain that I can fly, and since I have severe acrophobia, nobody would guess.

11 August 2011 the acrophobia is gone now, but hey, this way life is less complicated. It is Carla's birthday, we are in Cape Town - we drove down through Namaqualand leaving Robert, our 3 year old with my sister in Benoni for 10 days.

Carla's cellphone rings…

"Chris dear, its your sister Joan."

"She says Robert was sitting on the roof, she doesn't know how he got there, don't worry, they have got him down."

"She says he just smiles and says he is a bird. Really we must stop encouraging him to be so imaginative!"

"Hello, everyone. My name is SuperDuperExtraUltraMan, and I'm – I'm a superhero."

The room was drab, the light grey of the shadows produced by two rows of flourescent bulbs forming only a weak contrast to the white, tiles floor and light grey, plastic chairs. The costumes of the people seated in the chairs, however, contained every bit of vibrant colour that seemed to have been leached from the room; reds, yellows and blues dominated, but there was also a lot of green, orange and purple; almost everyone was masked, and no two costumes shared a single feature; indeed, most of the costumes clashed with each other, some more so than others, the overall result being a garish display which would give any clothing designer a headache.

"Hello, SuperDuperExtraUltraMan." replied the people (and occasional alien) seated on the other chairs, in a bored chorus.

The only person who seemed at all glad to be there was the facilitator, a man in a plain business suit with no powers who considered it his responsibility to chair the meeting.

"Welcome, welcome!" he said, enthusiastically. "And would you care to tell us your story, how you came to join our little support group?"

SuperDuperExtraUltraMan looked down at his feet. "I'm sure you've heard similar stories a million times." he muttered.

"No, no, not at all, every story is unique." The facilitator pointed towards an empty seat, over which the barest suggestion of a heat haze quivered. "Take Mr. Invisible over there, for example; he hasn't been visible in public for the last five years. Before he joined us, he hadn't been visible at all for four years. Or the Batman over there -" this chair was occupied by a grotesque half man/half bat monstrosity - "ever since his DNA got fused with that of a bat, he's hardly been able to get his own meals down. And besides which, it's important for you to be able to tell us in your own words. That's the first step to being able to heal the base issue."

SuperDuperExtraUltraMan looked around the room. "Well, it's – it was fun at first, you know. Swooping in, defeating the bad guy, saving everyone, hero of the hour, you know, the whole kaboodle. It was only when Linda died that I even realised I had a problem. I mean, there I was, looking at her dead body – she'd been run over by a truck while I was in Venezuela stopping Dr. ReallyMean again – and I suddenly realised, you know - I hadn't been with her for more than five continuous minutes in the previous fifteen months. And, I mean, she was supposed to be my girlfriend." SuperDuperExtraUltraMan sighed. "And not just her, either. My parents - I hadn't heard from them in the past three months, and I think the reason I stopped hearing from them was that they were still waiting for me to dash off a hurried reply to their last five messages. My boss – well, I was in the office so rarely, I later found out that he thought I'd quit and I hadn't been paid for eight months as a result."

"And how did this make you feel?" asked the facilitator.

"Well – empty, I suppose. As if – as if there wasn't even a real me, as if SuperDuperExtraUltraMan was all there was. As if my whole life was a thin facade, to be stripped away by the lightest touch, no more substantial than an image in a mirror."

"Um, excuse me?" A thin, bespectacled man in a robe and a pointed hat covered in stars waved a hand.

The facilitator sighed. "Yes?"

"Just a point of order here. I've summoned up mirror images before; they're quite real."

Batman leaned forwards, resting his wings on his knees. "That doesn't prove a thing, Mr. Magic. You've summoned up someone's worst nightmare before – and that was only a thought in his head until you gave it form."

"That's entirely different." sniffed Mr. Magic. "In that case, what I did was take a piece of psychosensitive aether from a parallel univer-"

"Gentlemen, please!" snapped the facilitator.

Both Mr. Magic and Batman stopped their conversation.

"Thank you." continued the facilitator. "SuperDuperExtraUltraMan, you have the floor."

SuperDuperExtraUltraMan looked down at said floor. It was still white, and still subtly crisscrossed by faint grey shadows. "Um, I think I'm pretty much finished, actually. I heard about this group, and I decided I had to do something and this seemed like the right place to do so." He took a deep breath. "I'm addicted to the media coverage, to the glitz and glamour of being a superhero. And – and I want to kick that habit, I want to just live a normal life, but I'm not sure if I can do so on my own."

The facilitator nodded. "Well, SuperDuperExtraUltraMan, once again, welcome to our meeting. You'll be given a free copy of our informative pamphlet, 'How To Give Up Media Coverage In Twelve Easy Steps', on the way out. Please, sit down. Now, are there any more new superheroes who have joined us today?"

SuperDuperExtraUltraMan sat, grateful that he'd managed to get through at least the first part of his first meeting at Superheroes Anonymous. But a faint worry niggled inside him, a slight uneasiness in his stomach, the knowledge that he hadn't been fully honest, the reason why Linda's death had gained that strange extra poignancy that being preventable entailed? Should he have mentioned that, in order to push up his own media ratings, he'd donned a second costume, put on a second cloak – should he have mentioned that, aside from being SuperDuperExtraUltraMan, he was also Dr. ReallyMean?

I had always wanted to know everything. Until one day, I suddenly did.

I was born with a genetic disorder that left me mentally retarded. Before starting school, I was ignorant, unaware. My family treated me as a normal child; my two older sisters loved me the way I was and never mocked my stupidity. But they all neglected to tell me that actually, I was stupid, that there was something wrong with me. I arrived at school, shaking with excitement for my first day, and I still didn't know.

The first thing we had to do that day was get into pairs and introduce each other to the rest of the class. We had to say what our partner's name was and what they liked doing. When it got to us, my partner stood up.

"This is Sarah, and her favourite colour is purple. She likes to play in the sandpit."

Then it was my turn.

"This is Julie."

I couldn't remember anything else she had said. I sat down again and the whole class started laughing at me. Julie looked furious. I started crying. I was a reject from that moment onwards; nobody ever wanted to be paired with me in case I messed it up again. My junior school years were seven years of hell.

Eventually, I got through and high school seemed like a chance for a fresh start. I met a pretty girl called Sam and her friend, Jessica. They were the first people that ever treated me as a friend and I thought it was heaven. One day, Sam even shouted at someone for calling me a retard. Then, after a year and a half of the best life I had ever known, it ended again.

I woke up one morning and I knew everything. It seemed like a blessing - for the first hour. I was ecstatic. When my mom dropped me off at school, I soon found Sam and Jessica, giggling excitedly. Jessica jumped up and hugged me. "Guess what, Sarah, guess what, Peter asked me out!"

Sam jumped up as well. "Isn't it exciting, Sarah? He's so hot. I can't believe how lucky Jess is!"

They looked at me expectantly. Confusion filled my heart and lungs and entered the world in a rush of misplaced words. "You shouldn't date him, Jess."

"What? Why not? This is my dream guy! What are you talking about?"

I frowned. "You really shouldn't. He's a real player."

Sam and Jessica turned to each other with looks of outrage. "I don't believe it, Sarah," Sam spat out, angrily. "I just don't believe it. You're jealous! Well, you're not going to take this away from Jessica. C'mon, Jess."

They hooked arms and stalked off in the opposite direction. Desperately, I yelled after them, "I'm warning you! Playa-playa!"

Sam turned back, spite and disgust filling her expression as she screamed back "What do you know? Retard!"

Then I knew that I had not been blessed, I had been cursed. This terrible power, this knowledge had taken away the only friendship I had ever known. I wished that I could become stupid again, but I couldn't. I knew everything, and even when I tried to disguise it, it still showed. I finished school with the highest marks in the whole country. I went to university and got degree after degree in record time. But I never had friends again. This power of knowledge and truth that I had was made into a burden by the fact that I was still retarded when it came to relations with other people. I was desperate not to use my power, my curse, but the retarded part of me always made me blurt something out at the worst possible moment. Since it was always true, I was hated for it.

Just after my twenty-eighth birthday, astronomers announced a huge meteor that would narrowly miss Earth. The news bulletin announced that a "beautiful streak will be visible on September the twentieth, speeding past above the atmosphere."

But they were wrong, and I knew it. That meteor would hit.

I went to NASA and because I knew everything, I was able to lie my way in until I got to talk to someone intelligent enough to understand. "The meteor will hit us. Surely you know that?"

He looked confused. "What are you talking about? It will miss us easily!"

Here I made my mistake. "No, it will hit, there is an error in your calculations. Page five, line seventeen."

He was now outraged, certain I was a hacker or a spy, and called security with the silent alarm. But I knew that he did, because I knew everything.

"Wait! You can stop it; all you need is a nuclear cannon with enough power, attached to an orbiting space vehicle. Here, I have drawn up the exact plans you need!" I tossed the blueprints onto his desk. Moments later, security arrived.

"Arrest this woman!" the NASA official shouted. "She is trying to disturb the peace with untoward rumours. And trying to use this meteor as an excuse to build weapons of mass destruction! She clearly plans to take over the world!" He brandished the blueprints.

Because I knew everything, I knew that everyone else would believe him, not me. And so it was. I sat in my jail cell on September the twentieth, wishing that I had never gained this power, and even more fervently, that my retardation had never forced me to use it. Everybody thought I was depressed because I awaited a lifetime in prison. But I was depressed because I awaited my execution, and that of the entire human race, in two hours, thirteen minutes and eight seconds. I was depressed because I knew, along with everything else I knew, that if I had not been perceived by the world as a retard, I would have succeeded.

I was depressed because I could save the world, and they didn't want me to.

He entered into our temporal realm a mute, born into a world that despised virtue; he emerged from the darkness of his mother's womb into an even greater darkness of a base society, twenty years past this December.

He had a pale visage with almost translucent skin, intermingled with an epidermis of fluorescent green. His eyes were black as soot, giving the impression that there were no eyes, just sockets where the eyes should be.

It appears I was destined to be the transcriber of these events as I am the key witness to the history of these proceedings. I am Dr. Dimitri Gennadiya, lead scientist at the Leningrad Neurosurgical Institute. It began as I was working late one night when I received a call from a doctor at a nearby medical facility, who asked me to look in on a newborn, who's appearance was unlike any he had ever seen.

When I arrived at the hospital, the attending physician informed me that the mother had died during childbirth within the dreary walls of one of Russia's degraded penitentiaries. The father was believed to have been a prison guard, who was discharged months earlier and whose whereabouts were presently unknown.

In time, the child grew and was placed under my care at the Leningrad Psychiatric Medical Facility for study and evaluation. Our preeminent Russian scientists could not understand the reasons for this child's abnormal appearance or why he would not speak. It was ultimately concluded that he possessed low-level intelligence and could not comprehend basic language.

He was a child without a name, having only a patient number that was given to him by the state. He would sit on his cot in his darkened room of stone, eyes directed forward, expressionless without ever showing any sign of emotion, although, he evoked it in me and the other scientists at the Institute.

One evening, after routinely examining him, I stepped into the hall and sat at a desk about ten feet from his room. A radio on the desk was broadcasting weather reports until abruptly interrupted by static. I began to adjust the dial when all of a sudden; I heard an eerie, strange voice coming from the radio, joined by a fluctuating metallic sound that could be heard in the background.

Without warning, the table began to vibrate. Light began to pierce through the ceiling, passing through solid objects like they were not even there. The metallic sound was now surrounding me as every object, including my very bones were vibrating.

Suddenly, I saw transparent beings descending through the light and enter into the hall as if they were looking for something or someone. The aliens assembled themselves outside the mute's door and simply passed through it. Seconds later, the door opened and the beings once again entered the hallway this time accompanied by the mute.

I clutched my chest in fear as they glided across the floor toward me. I began shaking as I looked into his empty, black eyes feeling his thoughts inside my mind. His was the same voice I had heard on the radio only moments earlier.

He began to calm my fears as he told me through my conscious mind that he had been communicating with these beings through brain waves for many years even though this telepathic activity inflicted great pain upon his body. The electrical impulses within his brain were affecting his physical body with low-levels of electric shocks, which he sustained during his telesthesia with the beings of light who he called the Vox. He told me they saw him as a god, and referred to him as Meaglia.

I knew from examining patients with varying levels of telepathic ability that if nerve cells in the brain were fully interconnected, the amount of brain wave voltage would be exceedingly great. If this were done, it would extend the range of one's brain waves over immeasurable distances. I believe this was the answer to the question I had been seeking, why the mute was unwilling to talk when he was fully capable of doing so. He was a telepath and chose to communicate in that way and since there was no one on earth that shared his telepathic range and power, he chose to communicate with these aliens of another species.

The muted telepath had convinced the Vox, a race of powerful empathic beings to use him as a conduit to interconnect the minds of the earth's population, telepathically attaching the nerve cells within each human's brain and linking their minds together in order to bring stability to the human race.

He had been sensing people's minds throughout the earth for many years and knew of decisions by world leaders to unleash nuclear weapons that would destroy much of humanity. He decided to link their minds, joining them to the primary purpose of establishing peace throughout the earth. He would do this, even if he had to drag the human race through the process, because he knew they would not change on their own. However, the operation was at great cost to him, causing him immense and indescribable agony.

Suddenly, he began to vibrate, first slightly then moments later, violently as his molecular structure began to break down and merge with the beings of light. He looked at me once more and slowly began to smile; the only time I had ever witnessed emotion from him. Soon, he was disembodied, his molecules dispersed and absorbed by the beings of light.

Throughout the next few hours, all of humanity became linked together and a harmonious, communal spirit began to take hold upon the earth. He had done what no one else could do; he had become the superhero as told in fictional stories, doing what all-great heroes do, he gave himself for the rest of us.

In my dreams, I see colors for which I have no name. There are smells, too. Odors that seem so close, so real; and yet drift away from my reality like so much fog the moment I awake. These are the odors of food that are actually pleasing. Of merely damp soil, and of dry particles of dirt that float around in dry air. I try to describe these things to my adopted Family, but it's no use. They just can't understand. But when I'm grieving at their gravemud, I know I will try again to tell the next generation about the colors, the odors, the memory of a large, soft face looking at me with love. A face that is much like mine.

"Immortal" It's the velvety touch/thought of Meerkin, the current head of the Family. But it's not his normal, gentle waking touch. I sense fear, urgency. "Our birthing-crèche is being taken by the deepmud. We cannot pull it back. I understand that you want us to do without you but this is too much. Please help us."

This is serious, and though I have been less willing to help, of late, I jump from my oversized firmmud berth with barely a touch/thought of acknowledgment. The echoes of the dreams vanish as I leap away. In two bounds I am at the crèche.

Meerkin is right. A truly huge bubble of gas has surfaced just beneath one corner of the woven-vine building. What was stable hardmud is now a gaping hole coated with the slick, slimy, near-liquid deepmud. The structure would have already plummeted to the bottom but for the twenty-something villagers with foretendrils wrapped around the far corner. There are the crècheworkers, of course, but also every adult that was close enough to lend a tendril is here.

Furiously backpedaling with every cilium that can dig mud, they are being inexorably drawn into the pit as the weight of the building—and its precious occupants—pulled harder down the shallow slope. The thick, stagnant air fills with the pain-laden grunts of those holding on. There is the smell of fear, agony and pure determination as tendrils strain to the breaking point. And yet none have released their grasp, even as the front cilia of those at the very edge find no purchase except for air.

"And they call me a superhero!" I touch/think to myself.

My crèchepeople must be from a world of superheroes because I am stronger than the whole village, combined. My lower appendages also allow me to walk upright, and to do something that I have tried to explain to them for as long as I can remember. Jump.

I jump. High.

To those struggling with the crèche, it must seem that I fly in from the sky. They can only see things a few bodylengths away.

I needed to jump high because the mini-tendrils at the end of my lower appendages have to dig deeply into the side of the hole. As I had hoped, the slick, slimy deepmud merely coated the sides. Beneath is pliant hardmud. I have a solid anchor to push from. The crèche is many times larger than I am, and for the first time in generations, I'm not sure I am powerful enough by myself.

Pushing off from the lowest corner, I wriggle my mini-tendrils deeper into their new little dens. I am out of tendril shot of those pulling, so I can't warn them that I am about to push much harder. My own hummmmph! of strain joins those up top as I reverse the direction of the crèche and slide it quickly back up the slope. But as I push with all I have, I feel the hardmud beginning to give way. The little dens are fast becoming long gouges and I can tell that I am about to slip.

Inspiration strikes. I place my head in an irregularity in the vines and let go with my upper appendages. These I dig into the hardmud like I did with the lower. By pushing my rigid mini-tendrils into the mud, I can walk up the hardmud slope using both my upper and lower appendages. The woven building cuts through the tiny dead tendrils that cover my head, and I taste my own blood as it runs around my face, but I keep pushing and wall-walking.

When the weight disappears, I flop forward and taste deepmud. I do not move, I just lay there, my air exchanger pumping. A dozen tendrils entwine me, all touch/thinking at once as they haul me the rest of the way to the top.

Through myriad voices, all of whom I have known since they emerged from their own birthing-crèche, the message is one.

"Gratitude, Immortal. Our children are safe. We humbly accept your sacrifice of injury and pain"

Their thanks are done. Sometimes, I want them to praise me for the things I do for them. I wonder if my crèchepeople appreciate their heroes differently. I don't remember. I was nearly as small as them when I wandered into the village. The Family has touch/memories of smoke and heat and a crash that shook the very hardmud just before I arrived. They know that I am not one of them, but one of the aliens that come to enslave whole villages to use as translators between creatures from different worlds. But they cared for me and I feel responsible for them.

I tell them they must do for themselves because I plan to leave this place. To go where the aliens can be found and maybe they will take me with them. I do not touch/tell my Family how much I hate the smell, the heat, the gelid sludge they call food. I can't touch/tell them that the sight of their tapered, grey, slimy bodies makes me want to squash them like the slugs they are. And most importantly, I absolutely have to get away from all this rotten stinking mud!

"Does it hurt?" my son questioned.

"Does what hurt?" I asked.

"Your hooks."

"Only when the crocodile tick-tocks along."

"Dad!" My daughter disapproved.

I hooked the steering wheel about with my prosthetics and pulled up to my children's house, once my home. My metallic 'claws' turned off the ignition key.

"Mommy," the kids yelled as they ran for the front door. My ex-wife stood there. A curly brown aureole of hair circled her head. She wore a white knit blouse.

"Oh, I need some equipment from my old workshop," I said, after my children slipped through the door.

"Sure," she said.

"Thank you for letting me keep the workshop even though you got the house in the divorce. I know your lawyer was against it."

"She thought it was your way to worm your way back in. I knew it was your way away from me."

"I didn't…" I started.

"You couldn't help it," she interrupted. "Ever since the accident. You were once so confident, so ambitious. Ready to design the next cutting edge thing. You were going to work at NASA. After you just holed up in that wood shack working on things no one wanted for stingy grant stipends.

"God! That makes me sound so shallow," she said.

"Don't worry; you're not. It was a way away from you. I'm sorry."

She silently closed the screen door. I went behind my – my former house toward a wooden work shed. It had what appeared to be a simple padlock. I slipped a sliver of metal from my prosthetic into it. A small smart chip released the lock. Let just anyone try to pick that!

The doors of the shed swung open to reveal the lair of a superhero. Most of the space was made up of CNC controlled machinist grinders, band-saws, dies, a networked series of laptops, but one small area of the room was my 'danger corner'. It was a electromagnetic field generator for weight resistance training, levitating uneven bars for twirling swings, a floating balance beam for gymnastics with no bobbles, and a rail-gun target range. My equipment was specially coated to be nonmagnetic.

The summer before the explosion, I was an intern working on sensor bearings for a small manufacturer. The HR recruiter told me that he liked to hire engineers who had grown up on family farms. He felt they were more ingenious, using what they had in the barn to solve problems. If he could look at the equipment laid out before me, what would he think of my ingenuity?

Every superhero needs powers – be they from a radioactive spider or a blast from gamma or cosmic rays. My powers came from the mechanical devices before me – from my ability to design and build them. I'm the only one who can wear them, the only who can use them, the only one who could be their singular brand of superhero. I am Talon.

I picked up and examined the nozzle for the flame retardant for use against Firefly, and checked the electrical shunt I needed for Madam Lightning Bug. I also had my sabre extension just because I liked the blade. I stuffed the devices into a gym bag.

Alter-ego and superhero is a facade, like when Lin Miaoke lip-synced to Yang Peiyi's voice at the 2008 Olympics. One face to the public, one voice driving you on.

I released my grappling hook and retrieved its micro-fiber rope into my "hand". My cowl radio picked up a police officer calling in a 10-100. A bathroom break. I swung open a small window in an office building twenty stories from the hard pavement below.

In my heroic career, I've defeated Ms Spitfire and teamed-up with Captain Nine*Star, but I was about to meet who should best be called Arch-Rival. One hundred dollar bills were piled upon his desk. I recognized Franklin's smug visage.

"It was easier before you knew where the money was coming from? Am I correct?" Beneath my cowl, I must have flushed scarlet. After college I'd gotten money orders for thousands of dollars – always below the Federal reporting limits. The checks were to fund my research. It was research that lead me to Talon. To myself, my new self.

"I don't owe you!"

"Not for the money, no. But for your creation. You would be just a paraplegic, if lucky in some charity job making light bulbs, or if not then watching Jerry Springer in a nursing home. Because of me, you are Talon.

"I helped you murder my predecessor." He smirked.

"I hadn't meant to kill."

"Of course, you did. He caused your accident."

"He murdered my father."

"No, he placed a bomb in the car of a district attorney and took off the hands of an engineering grad student. One who I, still a lowly accountant then, could fund and later finance the constructing of prosthetic devices to be utilized against that crime lord."

He threw a folding file on the desk. "I have some 411 on my competitors' operations and the opportune times for Talon to strike."

"Do these times help your own operations?"

"That is none of your concern!" he shouted. "My competitors have super-powered associates. So do I. Only mine wants to fight crime."

"I do."

"You could have stopped. Perhaps should have. Stopped working with me, stopped slipping off your 'gloves' for super-powered gadgets. But you can't, even if it means my help or losing your family. Or is that what's left of your family. You've chosen this, you've traded your life for Talon's. Since the explosion, it has been true."

I started being Talon for grief and revenge. But I used Arch-Rival's blood money to do it. Talon won't be done till I repent that mistake.

One day I will move against him. One day I will complete Talon's mission. One day I will bring him to justice. One day!

Kenneth Marko stared past the scrawled note to the wrinkles on his hand… the wrinkles and the age spots. His grandma had age spots. He felt the walls of his life closing in around him and there was no place to go, no options left; he just had to run.

He looked around the apartment for his suit. Just one more time, he owed Vidhatri that much. Vidhatri was responsible for everything, but ultimately, she was Ken's only hope. Finally he spotted it in the corner behind a box of comics. He had missed it in the shadows, and he realized his eyes were getting bad. As he slipped his leg into the skin-tight suit, he wondered, ‘would this be the last time?'

"I don't understand." He looked at Vidhatri.

"It appears to be cellular degeneration. Every time you do this… this thing… it accelerates your aging." Vidhatri Verma looked perplexed. She thought she had seen the last of Kenneth. Their relationship had fallen apart under the guilt: it was her recklessness that had cursed him. Now he showed up with this horrible problem.

"Is this normal?" Ken was trying to follow this new idea to its natural conclusion.

"Nothing about this is ‘normal'," said Vidhatri. Sadness clouded her face. "If you continue like this, it will kill you." She looked deeply into his eyes and saw the fear, the immature wish that this could all be magically undone. She realized now that this is what drove them apart. It had all been adolescent wish fulfillment to him. He didn't realize, until this point, that there were real consequences, and in the face of those consequences, he was merely a scared boy.

There was a crack that lit the air on fire. It matched the pain that shot through Ken's chest and threatened to take his breath away. In half a second he had thrust two of the thugs against opposing walls, probably killing them. Then he slowed himself down enough to pin the leader by the throat without decapitating him. He would have to make this really convincing.

"Where is she?" Ken snarled.

"She's already dead," the thug spit back, "you being here signed her death warrant."

Ken smiled. "And you just signed yours. Ever wonder what it's like to feel your eyeballs pulped in your skull?" This was a bluff and he felt his arm start to quiver as the last of his normal strength started to wane. "Look at your friends. I don't have time to waste. If you don't tell me, I'll find someone who will, and your eyes will be running down your face like raw eggs." Ken used just a little speed to vibrate his arm back and forth, just enough to shake the guy up, but good. The guy started screaming and it sounded like he was yelling into a fan. Ken pulled up short. But it was too late; the guy was already unconscious. Still, Ken had made out what he said. Ken knew where they were keeping Vidhatri.

He heard the sirens just blocks away. If the police knew what was going down, the mob would too. Suddenly he realized that Vidhatri would be dead before he got across town. He would have to use the speed to get there. He paused for a moment removing his glove. His hand was covered with wrinkles. The skin had grown thin and looked sunken. His knuckles were becoming deformed and ached with arthritis. He wondered what his hair looked like… thin, grey? Was he balding like his grandpa?

He forced himself to stop thinking about it. If he didn't, the fear of death would paralyze him. Vidhatri was the only one that might be able to reverse this, to save him. So to save himself, he had to first save her. He looked down the street, tensed his muscles, and was gone. A sonic boom split the air.

"Hey Boss," a man with an earpiece leaned in close to the city's kingpin of crime, "Fast Forward hit the crew on Broadway." The whisper was barely audible. But none of the Boss' guests so much as blinked

Boss Groat's cheeks reddened with excitement. It made his henchman very nervous. Groat turned his head to the side and coughed a phlegmy cough. He meticulously wiped the spaghetti sauce from the corners of his mouth with a white napkin, leaving stains of red that would probably never come out. Thus composed, he looked up at his man, "Radio the warehouse and tell them to clean up when they're done."

Sweat ran down the sides of Vidhatri's face. She was tied to a chair and gagged. A limpid light dangling from the steel structure high above created a large circle around her. From above, she thought, it must look like a bull's-eye. She also knew that snipers were strapped to that structure above and waiting.

She should have stopped Kenneth when this all started, prevented him from playing the hero. But now it was too late. The wheels were already in motion. The clock was already ticking. Tears ran down Vidhatri's face and mixed with the sweat.

Then there was a crack of thunder that blasted the side of the building away. For a moment Vidhatri thought she saw Kenneth in front of her, but his face was gaunt, and wrinkled, hardly recognizable. She heard a rain of gun fire, but it was distant and then she realized she was in the night air and her bonds were gone. For a moment in the dark she felt Kenneth hugging her to his body with all his might as he ran. And then there was a jerk and she felt her body skid across the pavement like a ragdoll. She fought to stay conscious, ferociously. And when she had rolled to a stop, she forced herself to lift her head and look back… look back at the moldering corpse of her hero.

Screams.

It always begins with screams.

For me, that first day had been no exception.

The year is 2008. I am finishing a short break in the restroom when I hear them. Women first, of course, but the men dutifully echo. As does the sharp retort of a gunshot.

My first thought is of Evelyn.

I rush from the room, rivulets of water chasing slow-motion paths to the floor from my hands.

I stare at the room beyond. Two breaths fill and empty my lungs before anything but her name makes sense. Languidly, my brain puts the scene together.

I'm standing in the lobby of the bank where we both work. Men, women and children lie prone against blue-speckled carpet. Behind the counter are two women. One is middle-aged, Hispanic. Julia. Her head rests against the back counter, almost as if she'd simply sat down for an afternoon siesta. The illusion ends where her crimson chest begins.

The other girl is my Evelyn. Her hands are raised, open palms pleading. So young. Wide blue eyes set within porcelain skin. I will forever remember how fragile her features appeared in those stolen moments before I made my choice.

There is also a man. He is shrouded in black leather to the knees. He might be wearing jeans beneath the jacket; his lines are fuzzy in my mind. He never really mattered. In his hand is a shotgun. Even from where I stand the scent of gunpowder burns my lungs.

I want to move, but my feet are frozen to that hideous carpet. I know I can stop what will follow. Even as the silent movie drags forward, as the shotgun rises, pointing its angry finger at the girl I will make my wife, I cannot will myself to do what must be done. To be the hero.

You see, history is written in the blood of good intentions.

I have seen heroes. And I have seen them fall.

The year is 1988. This time there are no screams.

He is eight years old. His fingers are hidden within his father's strong, callused ones. The two have come to Seoul to attend the games of the XXIV Olympiad. For the boy, this is a dream come true, forged by those same hands that enclose his own. An eight year old smile mirrors the summer sun. The man is more than his father: He is his hero.

For the man, this is an ambassadorial directive. He has come to shake hands. He has come to calm fears. The South Korean nation has somehow been honored by selection for the games despite President Chun Doo-Hwan's hopes that international exposure will legitimize his authoritarian regime.

The boy knows nothing of these things. He simply waits for Carl Lewis and Ben Johnson to line up for their historic 100 meter dash.

Before the athletes can take the field, the boy's attention is distracted. His father is no longer at his side. For but a moment, his heart quickens its beat, heavy against his throat; then he sees his father's familiar off-white suit moving through the crowd. Curious now, the boy splits his attention, glancing in turn at the events on the track below as well as the purposeful stroll into which his father has fallen.

The man in the pale suit steps away from the crowd, pressing close to a tall figure with a face etched from stone, a five o'clock shadow clinging like thin moss.

Both Lewis and Johnson finish stretching, their feet firmly pressed against the blocks.

His father's hand slips into the pocket of the suit, withdrawing a black object which he then slides into the other man's palm.

A chime sounds, the runners snapping up, sweat glistening off their calves.

Surprise melts from the tall man's face as the boy's father whispers in his ear. His features soften. His eyes fade to a gray contentment. His fingers close around the object and, as it begins to rise toward the field, the pale suit is already returning to the boy's side.

The gunshot pierces the arena and the runners take their first steps toward the finish line. It isn't until Johnson has narrowly defeated Lewis that the spectators realize what has happened. This is when the screams begin. President Chun Doo-Hwan lies bleeding on the stands next to his wife.

The boy is not watching the horror below. He sees only the strong hand wrapped around his own, which now shudders involuntarily.

South Korea will become a democratic nation under Chun's successor, the assassination the catalyst for political stability. Carl Lewis will be given the gold medal after it is discovered Johnson abused illegal steroids. Good ends drawn from evil means drawn from good intentions.

In that moment, a legacy is born while a hero dies.

At the time, I had not understood my father's full role in those dark days, only that he had helped kill a man. I would discover his legacy later in my childhood; the power which I had earned blood to blood. I had abhorred its existence, ignored its potential. Fearful of its call. That is, until that day at the bank.

Watching Evelyn, I made my decision. Time slowed to a viscous liquid as I strode forward. I heard nothing, felt nothing but the press of my body against the gunman's. A whisper in his ear. That's all it took. I told him to put his gun on the counter and leave. He did, his jaw slack. His eyes dead.

Evelyn did not die that day, though she would in less than five years time. Not at this man's hand but, rather, my own.

I remember a television in the corner of the bank whereupon Michael Phelps was winning his 12th Olympic gold. That day had been his last step in becoming what others would come to call a hero.

But I know that day had been my first step in becoming my father.